Devstream 29

The stream started on May 23, 2014, @ 2pm EST.
Who: Geoff, Glen, Steve, Rebecca
File:Devstream 29 - So much reveal! Plus Q&A
==Summary==
PS4 MIGRATION
Wynn Q: What about PC to PS4 Migration?
Rebecca: We actually have good news! It’s in the final approval stage and we expect to have it live after U14, more information will follow as we determine the finer details.
EMOTES
Many Ask, including NinjaXthreeX2: When will we add emotes?
Geoff: The animations are ready to go content-wise, but our team is pretty bogged down in terms of UI work.
Steve: We definitely know we're going to be using them in the relay station hubs, which places more priority on socialization. It's a UI issue, but it can be going in pretty soon.
Geoff: We have about 8 animations... We showed them awhile ago. Included go there, come here, etc.
SILVA-AEGIS
Polymelodic asks: How far is Silva-Aegis in its development? Possible release date?
Geoff: It's pretty far along. We're aiming for U14, but all I can really say is soon. We have something to show involving this, actually.
Geoff: This was a fun experiment. SilverBones actually submitted the design. It should have some fire damage intrinsically.
FAN MADE WEAPONS
Weird_stealth asks: Will there be new fan made weapon contests like the melee and enemy of tenno contests?
Geoff: Definitely.
Steve: What we want to try is releasing the raw meshes for three weapons, so that other people can make their own content directly. Our community is incredibly talented, so we're going to see if this interests people. We'll have a contest where people can vote, and the winners will be put into the game. What I'm also hoping is that once they begin selling, the creator gets a share of the platinum. We would probably just ask for skin submissions at first, but eventually we could open it up more to allow for more creativity. Baby steps.
FAN DIORAMAS
Geoff: They're very close to being done. It was pretty bad timing because the login dioramas were removed right after.
WARFRAME REWORKS
LazarusDark asks: How is Valkyr's animation rework coming along? Do you have any other Warframes on your plate after the ones you're doing now?
Scott: Oberon is probably the next up. I'm also continuing to work on Nova. Valkyr will be worked on when we get to her.
HYSTERIA ANIMATIONS
Geoff: I don't think the power lived up to the expectations of Melee 2.0, so we're redressing it to match. It's such a big undertaking, that it'll probably be included in U14. We can show stuff for this as well.
Geoff: When you activate the skill, it will behave like a stance, which includes combos. We're also doing all new finishers as well.
Question: Will the combos have better payoff, as opposed to just spamming melee?
Glen: Somewhat depends on the context. For places like Apollodorus it doesn't matter, but for Terminus you might want to use it to knock down a heavy.
Steve: We also have to look at the time needed to invest for the payoff. The first stances we made take so long, they're almost not worth it.
LOOT PROGRESSION
Nekromancer: One particular reason that playing higher level isn't a rewarding experience is the fact that loot we got from higher level is the same one that we can get from lower level. This is a strange structure which doesn't encourage players to play in starchart's and void's higher level except for defense/survival reward. Any plan to deal with this issue?
Glen: I think it already is changing. Like you said, Defense and Survival is already well structured with better rewards, and I could see that extending to other game types. One of Sheldon's plans was to make item drops more spread out region-wise, instead of having them drop on random enemies. Things like that will offer more incentive for users to come back to previously completed areas.
Steve: The nightmare mods were a little bit of that. I think Scott was working on an event that offered more difficulty.
Glen: I think the intention was to revisit each game mode, and balance them with difficulty and loot drops that are appropriate.
Steve: Defense needs stacking rewards.
Glen: I disagree. I think it's a good risk/reward choice to make.
Rebecca: Maybe if the loot drops were a little bit smarter, but it's really up to the RNG. Knowing what loot you might get could motivate players further.
Glen: One idea was that higher rounds can increase size of loot drops, getting more copies of each item.
SABOTAGE MISSIONS
Boatsniper asks: Whatever happened to the new Sabotage mission type you were talking about?
Rebecca: I felt like Rescue mode needed a redo before Sabotage. Those objective-based missions could use some love.
Steve: I know Hazel is doing Rescue mission reworks, But I don't know if she's working on Sabotage.
SOLAR RAILS
Scott: We do have a new mission type for the Solar Rails, which we can show off.
Steve: We have a small team working on a new mission mode to go with the Dark Sectors. This answers the question of what it would be like to actually defend our Solar Rails, and battle the clans that are attacking? So it will be a new asymmetrical attack and defense based mode, where one team of Tenno attacks accompanied by creeps, specters and more, attacking a smaller defending team with fewer AI. It's a ticket-based system, defending the Solar Rail generator until the attackers run out of respawns. We're putting together a Tenno-style environment, kind of like the Dojo. Players can place turrets, generators, and design the battlefield as it goes along. Also, we have a new mechanic where your abilities are de-energized when you enter the battle, so you basically go in unranked. The energy comes back over time, which brings mods back online in the order that they were equipped.
Glen: That would work in PvE as well. I would love to play that as a defense map.
Steve: Maybe it could be a Nightmare mode of the mission. The Dark Sectors will still be there, but it will be played when the sector is in a conflict phase. We have some video to show.
Steve: As you can see, the mods show up on the right as they come online. What we want to do is have a Dojo room that can be built, and during conflicts it takes that as a template, affecting layout and where the items are placed on your Rail.
PVE vs. PVP
Glen: I think this will appeal greatly to high-level players, but you may not ever have to go near this mode. It's totally up to you.
Steve: For instance, the specters were originally introduced for Solar Rails, but they're also useful for solo play.
Glen: It's a clan effort. If you don't want to fight, you can always help with resource collection.
Steve: We were aiming to release this for U14, if possible.
Steve: Right now, trying to contest a Rail basically comes down to a ping race, where you're trying to click it first. We're adding in a feature that allows clans who did damage to the Rail earlier to attack much sooner.
PS4 STUFF
Question: When are we getting the weapons that PC has?
Rebecca: I believe they're bundling it right now. It has not been sent to certification yet, though.
Glen: I know load times are a real issue. The reason is that we now have twice the content, which is fragmented, meaning the game has to load by jumping place to place within the system's hard drive. With help from Sony, we're hoping to put everything all in one place; we tried it out last night as an experiment, and it improved load times by three times.
PC FRAMERATE
Glen: We received some stats about hardware usage... 1 in 6 users are running Intel HD graphics on laptops, and only 1 in 4 are on 64-bit systems, while the rest are 32-bit. We have a team of people who work solely on performance in art and coding, and it's improving all the time. We have some things that are optimized for 64-bit, but the survey made me refocus.
THE REVOLUTION
Glen: When we started we had 4 Warframes, but now we have 16, so our content has quadrupled at least. So we made some decisions early on that are not as effective now. Right now we load everything on launch, so what we're working on for U14 is asking the client to load half the content. This should improve stability and graphics greatly on low-end systems.
T4 KEYS
PS4karpomusick: Question 2: DE: is there any news on T4 Keys? to help spread the new and previous prime parts?
Steve: I know the idea of T4 keys are circulating a lot, but I don't know when that's coming. It's all but a certainty.
Glen: Speaking as a player, I want to see T1 to T3 keys include more mission types, like Void or Derelict Interception and Rescue missions. Right now, you hit a wall at level 30, and another level of difficulty would just exclude lower-leveled players.
EXIMUS LEADER SCANNING
Glen: That was patched, but probably won't go out until U14.
CODEX ENTRIES
StallordD asks: Are there any plans for codex lore entries for all enemies/ items in game?
Steve: We're not doing that as fast as we should. We divert a lot towards events, so the lore is growing pretty slowly. We did a big one for Mag Prime that talks about the Tenno/Orokin war with the Sentients, the other solar system, hints of things to come... And we need more of that.
ARMOR STATS
WarHeroman: With the new Warframe Armour attachments can they include stats like (examples of boosts to combat, etc.?)
Steve: I think it's a conversation we need to have because there's no one consensus. I've gotten a lot of questions about armor stats. We already have helmets which have stats. whether we're paying for cosmetics or crafting them limits what we can do with them power-wise.
Glen: If you're only interested in making your frame look cool, use the Arcane. If you want to spec it out, you can do some trading off. So I think it's an interesting gameplay dynamic.
Steve: We're always thinking of min/maxing. I wish we had put more thought into tradeoffs, like we did with the channeling, making you have to choose between mods instead of piling on all of the best ones.
PARKOUR
Question: Exploration and parkour seem to be getting neglected and are only done if the exit was in that way, are you planning on adding any form of gain or bonus (and also adding new areas to parkour to) from parkouring around a room or introducing new "hiding places"?
Steve: We've talked about polishing it from a flow and animation perspective
Geoff: I think there are places where we can add some new moves, but It's hard because we have so many pre-existing level sets. New moves may not be compatible to existing level pieces.
Glen: There are some empty rooms that don't reward you, so maybe we could fill in that.
SLIDING/COPTERING
AlphaPsycongaroo: This is a touchy subject, but will butt sliding and coptering stay as a legitimate method of travel? or will it be changed? There seems to be just as many people against it as there are people that want this to stay.
Glen: I think we committed with Melee 2.0. It's just a skill some people can do now.
Steve: I think it's a part of the game's identity. We always look to remove silliness from the visuals, but it is what it is. It arose from a happy accident, like rocket jumping.
Glen: I think without it, it wouldn't be the same game.
FOCUS
Steve: The system is being worked on, but we're not showing anything, because we went back to the drawing board on a few things. After you max an item to level 30, the XP will be spendable in a Tenno clan customization. It'll also come with a bunch of lore, such as the original Tenno. It's just around the corner.
SNIPERS
Scott: They will be getting a buff.
ENEMY DESIGNS
Yaer asks: - Was the enemy design project a beginning for a constant improvement of the variety of the enemies? Many players are bored with the multiplication of the stats being the main criterion for the "difficulty". They dream about enemies like the Prosecutors, who can resist/ignore some abilities, damage-types, who are vulnerable only a short period of time, or only after a certain action from the player, who require to be attacked from a certain angle, etc. They call for a difficulty based on different kind of units which require tactical approaches. The more the mission progresses, the more different units spawn. They also wish that their attacks were different, not necessarily damage-centered.
Steve: That's why we did the polls! The well was filled up with amazing ideas in those forum threads.
SE05239 asks: With the Design Project on the way, there has been a lot of good concepts submitted. However, are you really only gonna pick the winners and scrap the rest?
Steve: No. A lot of the designs were put into our enemy designer's queue, and he loved them. You'll probably see it influence our thinking in upcoming designs. Hopefully we'll see enemy diversity helping to engage players who are uninterested in PVP.
Nixynixynix asks: Would the new player experience be looked at? It's very difficult to introduce new players to the game as the current new player experience is quite frankly... Horrible. The tutorials are lacking, especially in the Mods system.
Steve: Great question. Part of the trap we get caught in is listening to the community, who is already deeply involved in the game and it's intricacies. We kind of forget about bringing new players to the game... If you're intrinsically motivated, Warframe is great because there's a lot of content; if not, Warframe does not hold your hand. I'm not saying we'll dumb down the entire game, but maybe provide more specific challenges for experienced players.
PLAYER SHIP PREVIEW
Steve: When you log back in, the screen will include the planet you last played a mission on in the background. Every ship is going to have a sort of “police scanner”, seeing what people are saying about the Tenno, etc. As a side note, head movement following the cursor will be implemented soon. When you first get your ship, it's going to be old and run down, and you have to collect ship modules to improve it. You're going to be able to change colours, include decorations and more. We also have an arsenal and foundry built in, giving it a sense of space. Even the pause menu has the same effect. You won't have to navigate the ship to upgrade things, but you can instead warp around at will. The level select is also a lot quicker, letting you jump into a game very quickly. Modules will let your ship add on and grow, adding new things like the genetic foundry. I used it to make this Kubrow! I have to come back every day to keep him friendly to me, and make sure he is effective in combat.
Glen: We're also adding some player choice as far as fur colour, so it really is your Kubrow. You won't even be able to take him into missions until he's level 1 or 2, so you need to put in some bonding time
Steve: All of this will be ready in a couple weeks. We want to make sure it's as stable as possible.
==Gallery==
devlogin.png|Login Screen
devwalk.png|Ship View
devquick.png|Quick Menu
devplanetincomplete.png|Planet View With Access To Only Some Planets
devplanetfull.png|Full Planet Selection
devmarket.png|Market
devfoundry.png|Foundry
devearth.png|Closup Planet View
devvoid.png|Void Example
devdomesticatedkubrow.png|Tamed Kubrow Pet In Player Ship
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