Warframe 1999 Launch Introduces Swathe of New Content and New Cinematic Quest

[Cpt.Jank]

On the morning of the launch of Warframe 1999, the ambitious 90s-themed update and story expansion for sci-fi-fantasy looter-shooter Warframe, Digital Extremes published the update notes for Warframe 1999, which launched in the morning of December 13. Warframe 1999 introduces a new tile-set, called Höllvania, alongside its companion cinematic quest, which will send players back in time to discover the Protoframes and help find the Protoframe creator, Albrecht Entrati. Players will form part of an underground resistance team alongside the Protoframes, although players will not play as the Protoframes or even their own Warframes in 1999. Instead, players will travel to Höllvania and complete the new Hex quest as Drifter. Höllvania has its own seasons, and players will enter the new area in winter.

The update also adds new quests and mission types in the new map, which see players hunt down and stop the Techrot and Scaldra in a number of classic Warframe game modes, including assassination, exterminate, and Warframe's first PvPvE mode. Along with the new game modes, there is also a new Warframe—appropriately called Cyte-09, sticking with the 90s theme—who looks to be something of an all-rounder, thanks to his abilities. Cyte-09 also drops with his own signature rifle, the Reconifex, which applies a heat effect and reload speed buff on timed reloads, and the Vesper77 secondary, which appears to be a critical-based sidearm that highlights weak points when aiming down the sights. There are also a number of changes coming to Warframe's core gameplay, including the introduction of the Atomicycle motorcycle, which will be available for all open maps, and the long-awaited Nyx and Trinity reworks. Find out more about the more minor changes in the full Warframe 1999 patch notes.

Cyte-09's Abilities:

Passive
Each Weak Point Kill permanently increases Cye-09's Weak Point Critical Chance by 1% up to 300%.

Ability 1: Seek
Plant an antenna that projects a forward wave scan. Detected enemies take increased Weak Point Damage, and become visible through walls. Weapons gain Punchthrough.

Ability 2: Resupply
Throw two Elemental Ammo Packs that instantly refill the active weapon's magazine, while granting the weapon an additional instance of the selected Elemental Damage and Status Effect. Reload clears the effect. Sniper Rifles gain extra damage.
Hold the ability to select the Elemental Damage type.
Resupply is Cyte-09's Railjack Tactical ability.

Ability 3: Evade
Jump backwards and become invisible for a short duration. Killing enemies extends the duration and heals Cyte-09.
Evada is Cyte-09's subsummable Helminth ability. It is altered to have a capped maximum duration of 25 seconds.

Ability 4: Neutralize
Summon the Neutralizer, Cyte-09's exalted Sniper Rifle. Bullets ricochet off Weak Points to seek out other nearby Weak Points. Alt fire lobs a Cold grenade that completely freezes enemies.

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[Space Lynx]

i really want to get into warframe, but every time i try it just feels overwhelming so i give up within a couple hours

imo it needs a more linear beginning to get new players acclimated

 

[Onasi]

The artstyle/character design, for some reason, immediately made me think of Daikatana. Which triggered an intense bout if PTSD all by itself.

 

[Vario]

The woman in the red suit looks clearly inspired by 1980's Blade Runner's Rachael. Maybe they confused the decade.

 

[Cpt.Jank]

i really want to get into warframe, but every time i try it just feels overwhelming so i give up within a couple hours

imo it needs a more linear beginning to get new players acclimated

Check out Soulframe when that eventually launches. It uses a lot of the same secret sauce but in a fantasy setting. I played Warframe for something like 1000 hours, then I took a break to have kids for like a year, and now I can't properly get back into it, either. It's a very demanding game.

 

[Vayra86]

Same feels about Warframe, but its also just that after you hit a certain level of weapons and upgrades, a lot of what gets released is really just a downgrade, or busy work achieving the same result in a different way. Warframe was fun to me for as long as its controls, its gameplay actually was fun to play and discover. I mean, there's a LOT of ways to build, a lot of stuff to collect and craft... and its fun playing around with your toys.

When they overhauled the combat massively (and tried to nudge back the old 'powerful' items) I was slowly moving out of the game, reinstalled it a few times, but never got back up to speed again. That's also when they overhauled the whole system map... apparently to simplify things for newer players... but my god, what a mess it was, and what a mess it has become. Those kinds of sneaky resets don't sit well with me, and its apparently the key to keeping online service games 'fresh' if the initially planned concept has been played out. Warframe is so big now and its farms are so numerous that you need to pick what you're building and then you've got something that was already overruled by new content more often than not.

 

[Verpal]

They actually fixed Yareli, my favorite fish frame, I can now surf in peace without having to use anti knockdown mod, or getting annoyed by some random status effect that somehow still smack me on Merulina.

 

[FrozenPie1]

The artstyle of the characters reminds me pretty strong of "Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance".

 

[Totally]

Same feels about Warframe, but its also just that after you hit a certain level of weapons and upgrades, a lot of what gets released is really just a downgrade, or busy work achieving the same result in a different way. Warframe was fun to me for as long as its controls, its gameplay actually was fun to play and discover. I mean, there's a LOT of ways to build, a lot of stuff to collect and craft... and its fun playing around with your toys.

When they overhauled the combat massively (and tried to nudge back the old 'powerful' items) I was slowly moving out of the game, reinstalled it a few times, but never got back up to speed again. That's also when they overhauled the whole system map... apparently to simplify things for newer players... but my god, what a mess it was, and what a mess it has become. Those kinds of sneaky resets don't sit well with me, and its apparently the key to keeping online service games 'fresh' if the initially planned concept has been played out. Warframe is so big now and its farms are so numerous that you need to pick what you're building and then you've got something that was already overruled by new content more often than not.

Same, I bowed out about about 10years ago when DE was hell bent on nerfing the fun out of the game. Having fun with a certain weap/frame/powerup combo? Nerfed next patch. Nothing to nerf in particular but you are still having fun? Grineer needs more armor. Just decided to leave and comeback when they eventually figured out what they were doing but it's never generated enough interested for to try it again. Even this latest rollout seems boring as hell and unimaginitive.

 

[Vayra86]

Same, I bowed out about about 10years ago when DE was hell bent on nerfing the fun out of the game. Having fun with a certain weap/frame/powerup combo? Nerfed next patch. Nothing to nerf in particular but you are still having fun? Grineer needs more armor. Just decided to leave and comeback when they eventually figured out what they were doing but it's never generated enough interested for to try it again. Even this latest rollout seems boring as hell and unimaginitive.

You / we were never supposed to 'break' the game in endless runs like that. That's why everything got armor. Also, armor was their way to blanket-fix anything that would get excessive amounts of damage up and running... except it mostly just made people run armor reduction debuffs, Saryn... and if you had a red-critting Katana build none of it mattered much at all until level 120+

But yeah. That was fun as hell. I was able to zoom through everything like that for a good while after they released the Sorties, which is neat endgame content, but then we got the 'open' world maps and it all went spiralling downwards, so many weapons just not fun anymore because they had to push their new farm with weapon parts, lost the name

 

[auxy]

The artstyle/character design, for some reason, immediately made me think of Daikatana. Which triggered an intense bout if PTSD all by itself.

LMAO. I had to sign in to post this reply because I hadn't made that connection before but now that you've said it I can't unsee it and it's making me laugh very hard.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

i really want to get into warframe, but every time i try it just feels overwhelming so i give up within a couple hours

imo it needs a more linear beginning to get new players acclimated

Same, I bowed out about about 10years ago when DE was hell bent on nerfing the fun out of the game. Having fun with a certain weap/frame/powerup combo? Nerfed next patch. Nothing to nerf in particular but you are still having fun? Grineer needs more armor. Just decided to leave and comeback when they eventually figured out what they were doing but it's never generated enough interested for to try it again. Even this latest rollout seems boring as hell and unimaginitive.

You / we were never supposed to 'break' the game in endless runs like that. That's why everything got armor. Also, armor was their way to blanket-fix anything that would get excessive amounts of damage up and running... except it mostly just made people run armor reduction debuffs, Saryn... and if you had a red-critting Katana build none of it mattered much at all until level 120+

But yeah. That was fun as hell. I was able to zoom through everything like that for a good while after they released the Sorties, which is neat endgame content, but then we got the 'open' world maps and it all went spiralling downwards, so many weapons just not fun anymore because they had to push their new farm with weapon parts, lost the name

Believe it or not, the game is both better and worse for players now. The opening quest was entirely retooled...and it's a lot less janky. The progression is still borked...because after the bare minimum you're dropped into the game with almost no rails. 99% of the useful information is hidden in menus two or three items deep, so calling things "present" is technically correct but functionally not true. On top of that the systems are now five or six levels deep...so you cannot really understand how things work without a lot of trial and error. That is, if you can stomache 12+72 hour waits for content.


Let me suggest that as a player you need to learn that each frame takes a slot (they recently increased the default to 4 of the 59 frames and primes), then you need to learn how modding works with polarities and capacity...not to mention auras. You then look at a bunch of arcane slots...which you won't touch for 20-30 hours...and an exilus slot. What in Hades is that? Well, the guns have to be better, right? Well, no. Would you like the Burston, Braton, or Gorgon? Well, the numbers are all Greek to me...because I've got 3 physical damage types, 4 base elements, 6 combined elements, critical, status, and some weapons even seem to have a radial damage. What do I do with that? It wouldn't be so bad if I knew what these were like...but the three previous guns are all classified as assault rifles. They have similar damage numbers...but they are burst fire, automatic, and spool-up. More interestingly the Gorgon spools, but basically can't fire any less than 2 shots. Tack on accuracy, and these three very similar guns play differently in ways that you would not consider from the names alone.
Now...I'll hit you with a dozen items. Vesper, Kuva, Ferrite, Argon, Neurodes, etc... My point is that the game drowns you in resources that are often only available from one source and only function to make whatever was released with that content patch. Nothing like grinding for hours....and after a point literally having nothing reasonable to spend those resources on. But there is the Helminth...a power swapping device. The monkey's paw wish on that is you have to have it subsume (destroy) a built frame to access one of its 4 powers, then pay resources to apply that power over another frame's power that sucks. This is meant to fix frames with bad powers, and serve as a sink for resources for people with lots of them...instead of reworks.

Add on to this some truly worsening monetization (what was at one point 2 for 1 on prime packs with old frames is now 0.8 for 1), a deepening focus on cosmetics, and that latest update being more focused on high school level pseudo-real IMs and relationship building and you've got a game that has no idea what it wants to be. Allowing for one last observation, let's compare an ancient to a modern release. Archwing introduced Descent like 3d navigation into the game, three Archwings, a smattering of new guns, and a few melee weapons. Almost nothing cosmetic, and about 2-3 missions per planet. 9 planets, 2 missions, so a total of about 18-24. Memory is a little fuzzy. This new game mode introduced a similar item, the atomicycle. It released with no game modes, 1 setup, and you can purchased a bunch of skins for the thing day one for a few hundred credits (about $10). Duviri, last year's release, introduced a horse called a Kaithe...and a year later it's the exact same. Released as a single variant with a wealth of cosmetics. I...am starting to feel as though the game lost itself, and the purchase by Tencent came at just the wrong time to force new management to course correct hard into higher profitability. That starts a spiral where the focus on cosmetics and enormous debt of technical knowledge required to engage with the game combines to be a self fueled death spiral.

The bigger problem is DE has failed to release anything for years...and Soul Frame looks to be where they shuffled the creative talent that could not manage a project. Warframe at this point has people who will spend thousands of dollars a year...and not even consider it unreasonable that the quarterly cost of a AAA release is now what they are asking for "free to play." The problem is that when their idea of gameplay is a 20 minute grind for a 5.41% chance at a reward it gets really hard to respect them. Harder when you consider that you need 20 minutes for 3 different things, and then another sub-5% drop on the missions that constantly rotate to get the final thing. For instance, the new pistol has 3 component blue prints, 1 weapon blue print, and once you get all of that you still need to wait 12+24 hours for the things to build. That is, assuming you don't spent an eye watering 4 days of standing (for a high mastery rank player) to just buy the blue prints and wait...and when I say 4 days I mean 4 days because the cash-in of standing is capped, and thus everything is time gated to high heaven...just so people don't blaze through the literal couple of hours to casually grind everything to maximum MR. The thing is, most people who do get it early will be banking on the influencers (who get it for free from DE) portraying each frame as the best thing since sliced bread...because DE knows where and how to butter the toast. Sigh...I just wished they didn't represent the best this industry has to offer.

 

[Vayra86]

Believe it or not, the game is both better and worse for players now. The opening quest was entirely retooled...and it's a lot less janky. The progression is still borked...because after the bare minimum you're dropped into the game with almost no rails. 99% of the useful information is hidden in menus two or three items deep, so calling things "present" is technically correct but functionally not true. On top of that the systems are now five or six levels deep...so you cannot really understand how things work without a lot of trial and error. That is, if you can stomache 12+72 hour waits for content.


Let me suggest that as a player you need to learn that each frame takes a slot (they recently increased the default to 4 of the 59 frames and primes), then you need to learn how modding works with polarities and capacity...not to mention auras. You then look at a bunch of arcane slots...which you won't touch for 20-30 hours...and an exilus slot. What in Hades is that? Well, the guns have to be better, right? Well, no. Would you like the Burston, Braton, or Gorgon? Well, the numbers are all Greek to me...because I've got 3 physical damage types, 4 base elements, 6 combined elements, critical, status, and some weapons even seem to have a radial damage. What do I do with that? It wouldn't be so bad if I knew what these were like...but the three previous guns are all classified as assault rifles. They have similar damage numbers...but they are burst fire, automatic, and spool-up. More interestingly the Gorgon spools, but basically can't fire any less than 2 shots. Tack on accuracy, and these three very similar guns play differently in ways that you would not consider from the names alone.
Now...I'll hit you with a dozen items. Vesper, Kuva, Ferrite, Argon, Neurodes, etc... My point is that the game drowns you in resources that are often only available from one source and only function to make whatever was released with that content patch. Nothing like grinding for hours....and after a point literally having nothing reasonable to spend those resources on. But there is the Helminth...a power swapping device. The monkey's paw wish on that is you have to have it subsume (destroy) a built frame to access one of its 4 powers, then pay resources to apply that power over another frame's power that sucks. This is meant to fix frames with bad powers, and serve as a sink for resources for people with lots of them...instead of reworks.

Add on to this some truly worsening monetization (what was at one point 2 for 1 on prime packs with old frames is now 0.8 for 1), a deepening focus on cosmetics, and that latest update being more focused on high school level pseudo-real IMs and relationship building and you've got a game that has no idea what it wants to be. Allowing for one last observation, let's compare an ancient to a modern release. Archwing introduced Descent like 3d navigation into the game, three Archwings, a smattering of new guns, and a few melee weapons. Almost nothing cosmetic, and about 2-3 missions per planet. 9 planets, 2 missions, so a total of about 18-24. Memory is a little fuzzy. This new game mode introduced a similar item, the atomicycle. It released with no game modes, 1 setup, and you can purchased a bunch of skins for the thing day one for a few hundred credits (about $10). Duviri, last year's release, introduced a horse called a Kaithe...and a year later it's the exact same. Released as a single variant with a wealth of cosmetics. I...am starting to feel as though the game lost itself, and the purchase by Tencent came at just the wrong time to force new management to course correct hard into higher profitability. That starts a spiral where the focus on cosmetics and enormous debt of technical knowledge required to engage with the game combines to be a self fueled death spiral.

The bigger problem is DE has failed to release anything for years...and Soul Frame looks to be where they shuffled the creative talent that could not manage a project. Warframe at this point has people who will spend thousands of dollars a year...and not even consider it unreasonable that the quarterly cost of a AAA release is now what they are asking for "free to play." The problem is that when their idea of gameplay is a 20 minute grind for a 5.41% chance at a reward it gets really hard to respect them. Harder when you consider that you need 20 minutes for 3 different things, and then another sub-5% drop on the missions that constantly rotate to get the final thing. For instance, the new pistol has 3 component blue prints, 1 weapon blue print, and once you get all of that you still need to wait 12+24 hours for the things to build. That is, assuming you don't spent an eye watering 4 days of standing (for a high mastery rank player) to just buy the blue prints and wait...and when I say 4 days I mean 4 days because the cash-in of standing is capped, and thus everything is time gated to high heaven...just so people don't blaze through the literal couple of hours to casually grind everything to maximum MR. The thing is, most people who do get it early will be banking on the influencers (who get it for free from DE) portraying each frame as the best thing since sliced bread...because DE knows where and how to butter the toast. Sigh...I just wished they didn't represent the best this industry has to offer.

You know what took me out of the game? I was actually fine with all of those time gated nonsense steps you mention; they were always there. At the end of it was the promise of having an overpowered build and Warframe's excellent controls/gameplay. Its fun being OP in this game, and feels like you're playing the way it should be played.

But today, that is no longer the case. You simply get the promise of a nerf. And once you figure that out all by yourself, you're never really going back to this style of gaming. Even in single player often times I know where the real grind is at, and I just cheat past it to actually enjoy the game for what it is. If the grind feels pointless, or just there to make you clock the required/predicted amount of hours in a game... I'm not doing it anymore. That doesn't mean I don't grind for things anymore. That's the stupidity of it: I like grinding for something, its like postponing the climax. But there has to be a balance, and there has to be this feeling that you're investing in getting more out of a game system/mechanics eventually. That doesn't work if the stuff keeps changing, sooner or later you feel like the donkey chasing the carrot. Its also such a fcking nuisance to keep re-learning the same game. Like, I can do it maybe once, and even that is pushing it. It also tells you implicitly that shit wasn't thought through proper - and why would it be designed better now? Every 'overhaul' is really a big change putting the product back in beta, only to likely arrive at a similar destination.

Then again, Warframe is and desires to be 'forever in beta'...