Warframe in the Playground 2.0

[Vhaidara]

Finally got around to working on Silver Grove. Just ran Narcissus, and there wasn't a single frostleaf plant. Checked the wiki, and yes, Narcissus is the right tileset, and Pluto is one of the planets where it's supposed to spawn "in large batches". Is it a bug, or did my typical luck strike again? Would a different mission be better? (I prefer exterminate, since I can clear and then go foraging at my leisure.)

They're easy to miss, but once you find one, there's usually like 10+ in the area.

[mangosta71]

I went through the map 3 times (once as I cleared, then I went all the way back to the beginning and slowly made my way to extraction again). I had my scanner out the entire time I was backtracking so it would ping at me. I spent nearly an hour scouring the map after I finished clearing. I have no idea how I could have missed it; I know what it looks like, because I've found it before.

[Brother Oni]

Frostleaves tend to be found near the edges of ice chasms, so try focusing your efforts on those tiles alone.

That said I went through 2 missions where they didn't spawn, so it's RNG at work again.

[Wraith]

There definitely is a bug that causes the plants not to spawn - it happened to me the first time I was looking around on Luna. It's not even a "other players can see them and you can't" sort of bug; they just completely fail to load properly. So hopefully you won't be disheartened, because it's not just you that it happens to

[IFenrys]

I had the "plants not spawning" bug with Frostleaf in particular. I fixed it by going into the Codex, halting progress on the quest, then restarting the game and selecting to continue the quest in the Codex again. New Loka lady immediately piped up with a hint about where to find the stuff, and I was all set.

[mangosta71]

Will have to try that tonight, since it happened to me again on that map. I suppose I could try somewhere else, but stealth killing level 30+ enemies is leveling my Ivara so fast...

Update: It worked; got the rest of the frostleaf I needed. Of course, after I cleared M Prime and went back to the start to scour the map for vestan moss, it started a failure timer. And since I was at the entrance, I lost the 9 I had collected.

[IFenrys]

Will have to try that tonight, since it happened to me again on that map. I suppose I could try somewhere else, but stealth killing level 30+ enemies is leveling my Ivara so fast...

Update: It worked; got the rest of the frostleaf I needed. Of course, after I cleared M Prime and went back to the start to scour the map for vestan moss, it started a failure timer. And since I was at the entrance, I lost the 9 I had collected.

Always do Capture missions on Mercury if you need to gather moss. You can slaughter any enemy who so much as looks at you funny with a basic undrawn melee attack (or your Sentinel will do it for you), making it easy to poke around the whole time with a Scanner out. 6-8 moss a run, discounting doubles from the Synthesis double-scan widget, and you're golden after about 3-4 runs.

[mangosta71]

The thing is, I didn't know that failure timers existed in the game because I'd never seen one before. And I do solo stealth runs almost exclusively; basically, if I'm not working on unlocking nodes or working on an alert/fissure, I'm sneaking around in the shadows alone somewhere. I may be on a mission for 30 minutes or an hour because I'm waiting for clean shots on a lot of enemies. And yes, I know it's not the most efficient way of doing things, but it's how I like to play.

[Brother Oni]

The thing is, I didn't know that failure timers existed in the game because I'd never seen one before. And I do solo stealth runs almost exclusively; basically, if I'm not working on unlocking nodes or working on an alert/fissure, I'm sneaking around in the shadows alone somewhere. I may be on a mission for 30 minutes or an hour because I'm waiting for clean shots on a lot of enemies. And yes, I know it's not the most efficient way of doing things, but it's how I like to play.

I know they exist on ship based Sabotage missions - once you're blown up the reactor, you usually have X minutes to extract before the ship goes kablooey. That said, if you went down the 'kill everything with fire' route, most frames can't hang around that long anyway (depending on how many heat procs you get).

The problem I have is with hidden failure timers - one of the Inaros quests has you fighting lots of wild kavats, which I promptly started scanning before killing. Somewhere around 12 DNAs and 30 kavats, the mission failure screen popped up with no warning.

I then went back with a Vauban with a Heliocor and did it more efficiently - in best 'RNGesus hates you' style, I completed the mission but only got 6 DNAs.

[Eldariel]

I've had the game fission mail me during an extended Sortie boss battle where I forgot to bring a decent weapon. There was no timer, just a random fission mail maybe 5-10 mins in.

Perhaps there's some set of criteria that, if fulfilled, fails the mission. Something like all tenno being marked afk or no tenno killing an enemy in X minutes and moving little or something. I can only form conjenctures but I do know that it happened without me dying or any such.

[mangosta71]

I know they exist on ship based Sabotage missions - once you're blown up the reactor, you usually have X minutes to extract before the ship goes kablooey. That said, if you went down the 'kill everything with fire' route, most frames can't hang around that long anyway (depending on how many heat procs you get).

Well, yeah, it makes sense in that kind of mission; the ship explodes and you die if you're still on it. But I was doing an exterminate mission, I had already killed all of the enemies, and I hadn't been there nearly as long as I spent on Narcissus either of those two times frostleaf failed to spawn.

I was moving around to search for moss, so shouldn't have been flagged as afk (and I actually went afk during one of the excursions to Narcissus because I needed an emergency bio break without it starting a fail timer). It's just frustrating.

[Astral Avenger]

Well, yeah, it makes sense in that kind of mission; the ship explodes and you die if you're still on it. But I was doing an exterminate mission, I had already killed all of the enemies, and I hadn't been there nearly as long as I spent on Narcissus either of those two times frostleaf failed to spawn.

I was moving around to search for moss, so shouldn't have been flagged as afk (and I actually went afk during one of the excursions to Narcissus because I needed an emergency bio break without it starting a fail timer). It's just frustrating.

I remember reading the update notes sometime in the last year that exterminate missions fail if you don't kill an enemy for 10 minutes. thats probably what triggered it. Not sure about the sortie one tho.

[Siosilvar]

I remember reading the update notes sometime in the last year that exterminate missions fail if you don't kill an enemy for 10 minutes. thats probably what triggered it. Not sure about the sortie one tho.

That's... unfortunate, because sometimes it takes ten minutes for enemies you missed to despawn and respawn near the extraction point.

[Eldariel]

That's... unfortunate, because sometimes it takes ten minutes for enemies you missed to despawn and respawn near the extraction point.

Enemies no longer despawn.

[Siosilvar]

Oh, that's even worse.

[Brother Oni]

Oh, that's even worse.

I may have missed something, but isn't there a constant red marker towards a bad guy on the minimap on Exterminate missions? It's often not the closest bad guy, especially if you're deviating from the 'approved route', but a bad guy nonetheless.

[Wraith]

More than once I've been in a glitched mission where some parts of the map are cut off from others, making it physically impossible to find all the targets. It seems that there's no provision for that any more, you just have to quit and try again.

In fact, I once started a mission and there was no exit from the initial chamber - all four players had accidentally spawned in a "back stage" section that was little more than a box holding aesthetic wall panels that could be seen through a barrier from the actual map area, but otherwise not deliberately accessed.

And then there's that one time I joined a mission that was already underway, and spawn in what can only be described as a sealed air-duct. Fortunately my companions finished the mission and I was able to let the timer run down, but on the off chance that they had died or left the game I'd have been stuck there with no way to progress.

[Siosilvar]

Tabbing out and doing something else while waiting for the enemies to despawn was a far better use of my time than backtracking. Exterminate is already one of the least engaging mission types, beaten out only by Hijack because nothing spawns on the last half of the track.

[Brother Oni]

And then there's that one time I joined a mission that was already underway, and spawn in what can only be described as a sealed air-duct. Fortunately my companions finished the mission and I was able to let the timer run down, but on the off chance that they had died or left the game I'd have been stuck there with no way to progress.

I haven't had unreachable bad guys on Exterminate since I started playing again, but I'm more than happy to concede it's possible.

Usually /unstuck gets me out of most places, but there was one time on a Corpus tileset where I about a second behind some ******** who activated a party lift without waiting for me; I ended up bullet jumping into the lift shaft as the doors closed where I was trapped underneath the platform and the lift doors wouldn't open. /unstuck put me back into my last valid location - bottom of the lift shaft.

Tabbing out and doing something else while waiting for the enemies to despawn was a far better use of my time than backtracking. Exterminate is already one of the least engaging mission types, beaten out only by Hijack because nothing spawns on the last half of the track.

So potentially nothing wrong with the game or having problems finding the bad guys, you're just unwilling to go back and kill them? I find it difficult to believe that backtracking takes that long with Parkour 2.0, especially with slide/bullet jumping/double jump combo travelling; I'm surprised that you're still apparently playing Warframe, given that you've stated you're willing to alt-tab out and do something else for 10 minutes for the enemies to despawn and respawn, rather than back track.

I'll agree that Grineer hijack is empty, but Corpus hijack seems to be a mixed bag - some times I've had no bad guys, other times, it's a constant battle of dealing with ambushes in front and chasing moas from behind.

[Siosilvar]

I haven't played in a month or two, but that's because I'm on a strategy game kick at the moment. Even so, I don't see why it's confusing that I like playing Warframe-the-shooter but find Warframe-the-explorer boring. I've seen all the tiles hundreds of times, and constantly overshooting my bullet jumps and getting stuck on the terrain is not engaging gameplay. I suppose I could practice moving around, but that's exactly the kind of meaningless, menial optimization work that I dislike.

Shooting stuff is fun. Shooting stuff while jumping around the map is fun. Jumping around the map alone isn't, especially when the game tries to fight me doing it with weird map geometry and three-button inputs.

edit: Technically, it's four different keys to sprint-slide-bulletjump.

[Brother Oni]

Even so, I don't see why it's confusing that I like playing Warframe-the-shooter but find Warframe-the-explorer boring.

That's fair enough. I actually find Warframe-the-explorer a relaxing change of pace when coupled with particular tiles and missions, primarily Lua and the Void due to the puzzle rooms (which I haven't quite all solved yet) and syndicate/cache missions (I like medallion and shiny hunting).

The weird map geometry is mostly due to the maps not really being updated for Parkour 2.0, particularly with the bloody lintels on top of every door or overhangs on ledges getting you stuck above or underneath things.

Exterminate missions I found very useful earlier on as they allowed me to take my slightly underleveled frames, weapons and mods against bad guys who were an actual threat without being cheesy, but still have a chance of completing the mission without being overwhelmed by endless hordes. I particularly found Warframe became more of a cover based shooter against Grineer (bombards, heavy gunners and emplacements makes being caught out in the open a very bad place to be) versus the more typical Dynasty Warframe, where you mow down mooks in their hundreds, if not thousands.

[IFenrys]

Working on getting all the new Syndicate melees, thought I'd post my thoughts here.

Spoiler: My thoughts on the new toys (at least what I've seen of them)

Show

Vaykor Sydon: Second one I got. Is fun. Haven't gotten much mileage out of its passive (takes way too many blocked shots to charge up a Blind in my experience, I usually don't stop swinging long enough for it to work out), but it controls just fine, and it's crit-viable (so I finally have a Berserker polearm).

Telos Boltace: This thing is going to be silly. That radial spin looks to be quite the joy to use. I think I'll finally have my Maiming Strike melee soon :D

Synoid Heliocor: By all reports, underwhelming. Apparently, the specter-maker passive only makes one at a time, it only lasts for 30 seconds, and it doesn't draw aggro. Also, they "balanced" the weapon's passive by then making the actual weapon part significantly worse than the base Heliocor (crit rate more than halved and nearly a quarter of its base damage lopped off, in exchange for an admittedly significant speed buff and a marginal channeling damage buff, as well as a status buff that's kinda useless for taking out enemies with the actual hammer and thus activating the kinda "meh" passive). Disappointing overall.
EDIT: Now my third Syndicate melee; traded a Rakta Dark Dagger for it. It is definitely somewhat underwhelming, but rather fun in spite of that. They need to either raise the cap on clones, or match the stats to the base version (I don't even need it to exceed the base's stats, just MATCH it at least). Or both. I'd be cool with both. Would also be nice if there wasn't a 30 second time limit on them, considering they're kinda weak even when you get a good one, like a Heavy Gunner or Drahk Master. It's not like they're powerful enough to require a time limit.

Secura Lecta: Certainly not the best passive on the table, not by a long shot, but it sounds goofy and entertaining. I'll run with it. I needed a new whip anyways.

Rakta Dark Dagger: First one I got. Was fearing another Vaykor Hek situation here, but since they didn't give these melees the syndicate bursts, they apparently saw no problem with just letting us use Gleaming Blight on the Rakta Dark Dagger. Works for me, and the overshields on stealth kill have already made it my go-to CL weapon when I'm not Viral-proccing everything in the vicinity. 3 for 3, Red Veil. I'm as surprised as anyone, considering where we started here, but good job, guys.
EDIT: The overshields appear to be on attacks on Rad-procced enemies, if the reddit is anything to go by. Still my CL weapon of choice.

Sancti Magistar: Considering I almost never run Life Strike on my melee weapons, I'm happy to see something here with some innate heals (even if they only come in through charge attacks). Status resistance while drawn sounds nice too, though it apparently has a similar problem to the Electric resistance Arcane in that Arc Traps can now stunlock you. Definitely a bug, and now that it will come up more often, DE should probably fix that :/

EDIT: Made a mistake on the Rakta Dark Dagger, fixed text.

EDIT 2: Obtained Synoid Heliocor, edited in evaluation.

[Wraith]

I have the Telos Boltace. It makes me happy in lots of tiny little ways, and I haven't even used the proc effect properly yet. It's a good, solid weapon with a very comfortable animation/area of effect and I can see it becoming my go-to weapon very easily.

I also had the Heliocor and the Sydon, but given the crazy prices people were asking for in the hour after launch I knocked 10% off what I saw in the chat window and sold them immediately for a huge Platinum profit. I'm not sorry.

[Toastkart]

So I've only been playing for a short while, and I've kind of hit a wall. I've never, in 20ish years of gaming, experienced motion sickness or nausea in games, until getting an arch-wing. In open space it's not that bad, but I just got to Uranus. Those underwater tunnels are just so disorienting that I haven't been able to complete a single mission. And the map is no help, considering it doesn't show differences in elevation or layers, and it friggin spins around every time I change orientation. And let's not talk about the arch-wing rush mission on phobos. The best I've been able to get is halfway before running out of time. Any advice that might help me out?

Also, it appears my arch-wing is seriously underleveled for Uranus. Any tips for leveling it up besides grinding missions I don't particularly enjoy?

[Recaiden]

You can toggle to a fixed map with a spinning player icon. That might help you?
Strafe. You can move up/down/left/right without changing orientation, or changing only slowly.
Mobile Defense missions (low level freespace or high-level corpus ship) are the best places to level up that I know of.

Archwing Rush is terrible; no one can help you there.

[Toastkart]

You can toggle to a fixed map with a spinning player icon. That might help you?
Strafe. You can move up/down/left/right without changing orientation, or changing only slowly.
Mobile Defense missions (low level freespace or high-level corpus ship) are the best places to level up that I know of.

Archwing Rush is terrible; no one can help you there.

Thanks, that's helped some. Why is that not a default option?

At least there is some good news. I got two parts (and duplicates of them) for Oberon relatively early on, and after six weeks of getting absolutely nothing, I got the third part last night. I also got a dread on the same mission, which I understand is stupidly common but it's only my second stalker kill.

[Eldariel]

Also, it appears my arch-wing is seriously underleveled for Uranus. Any tips for leveling it up besides grinding missions I don't particularly enjoy?

If you have some plat or a clan, you could just trade for the key mods and buy pieces for one of the good Archwing weapons. This allows you to bypass the painful initial grind; with survivability mods and a decent weapon, you can already run Caelus or Salacia. You'll do fine even without a heavily modded gun (though I recommend potatoing at least one).

For guns, I recommend one of Cyngas (burst), Velocitus (charge), Grattler (explosive short range auto) or Fluctus (AOE semi-auto). Fluctus has the best AOE though Grattler comes close, Velocitus has the best damage though Grattler and Cyngas come close, and Cyngas is the only accurate high damage hitscan weapon (though with practice, Velocitus's pinpoint accuracy, punchthrough and massive damage make it good at long ranges too). If you want melee, Centaur is the best bar none.

[mangosta71]

Thanks, that's helped some. Why is that not a default option?

At least there is some good news. I got two parts (and duplicates of them) for Oberon relatively early on, and after six weeks of getting absolutely nothing, I got the third part last night. I also got a dread on the same mission, which I understand is stupidly common but it's only my second stalker kill.

Apparently a lot of people prefer to have the map spin around. Like you, I find it disorienting.

Dread is fantastic. Definitely my favorite bow, and I'd be hard pressed to name a primary that suits my overall playstyle better. Ivara + Dread is looking more and more like my default go-to combo for most mission types, though Valkyr is likely to remain my frame of choice for defense. Titania is building, I finally started the quest for Inaros, and I guess I should work on the quests for Limbo and Atlas at some point, but from what I've seen I don't think any of them will replace my two favorites.

[Brother Oni]

Dread is fantastic. Definitely my favorite bow, and I'd be hard pressed to name a primary that suits my overall playstyle better. Ivara + Dread is looking more and more like my default go-to combo for most mission types, though Valkyr is likely to remain my frame of choice for defense.

While I really like bows, I find they simply don't put enough fire down range when things get really hectic, even with Metal Auger for ridiculous punch through (plus I'm a really bad shot).
I much prefer another weapon with Hush or Suppress (if you're stealthing, you can afford to give up a bit of DPS in the form of reload time, as long as your burst is unaffected) since you can take out 2+ bad guys in a room quickly and quietly - Lex (Prime) and (Vaykor) Marelok are my go-to secondaries for stealth (although you have to watch out for the very unstealthy syndicate proc off the Vay Mare).

I haven't gotten round to trying it out yet, but a big shotgun on Banshee would be highly entertaining if it works.

I've tried Valkyr out and was distinctly underwhelmed - I may need to stick a potato on her and how she feels then. Inaros is rapidly becoming one of my favourite frames, on par with Rhino - I just need that Red Veil mod for the Dark Dagger to take full advantage of the finisher kills off his 1 (and figure out his 4 works as the first time I tried it, I killed myself).

[Eldariel]

While I really like bows, I find they simply don't put enough fire down range when things get really hectic, even with Metal Auger for ridiculous punch through (plus I'm a really bad shot).

Bows have reliable crits which are further doubled on headshots so one of the best things about bow is to aim for the headshots and reliably kill anything in one shot. I would recommend against Metal Auger: it has more punchthrough than you'll basically ever need anyways (just fire fully charged shots) so you generally get more out of extra damage.

I've tried Valkyr out and was distinctly underwhelmed - I may need to stick a potato on her and how she feels then. Inaros is rapidly becoming one of my favourite frames, on par with Rhino - I just need that Red Veil mod for the Dark Dagger to take full advantage of the finisher kills off his 1 (and figure out his 4 works as the first time I tried it, I killed myself).

Inaros's 4 drains your health to create a shield that, when full, doubles your armor. Then you can click it once to send a scarab swarm that CCs enemies and creates an AOE health drain/healing effect. This costs you 25% of the armor. It's very cheap energy-wise but it has huge health costs. Once you get it on and fill out your health once though, you're generally fine as keeping it topped out is a far lesser health investment. The whole shield is refunded in health if you walk into a Nulli bubble or something but you don't get "overhealth" so most of the refunded health is generally wasted.