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Devstream 49 Overview
Sharkwing, Conclave and the Void!
Posted On 2015-03-31 20:28:33
Devstream 49 Overview

With our Conclave overhaul live and the Trials of Vay Hek challenging Tenno all over the world, it's time to once again look ahead into what the future of Warframe will have to offer. This week's Devstream addressed our latest change to Excalibur, took a glimpse at the future of Parkour, highlighted what's next for Cephalon Capture and said 'Update 17' for the first time ever!

Anyone looking to catch all the action of our last recorded Devstream can do so here. Otherwise, here's a rundown of the big points we covered:

Excalibur and Line of Sight Adjustments

• Awareness changes made to Excalibur are in line with our initial vision for the ability -- an AoE attack that hits enemies that can be seen.
• Previous changes were made so that javelins spawn close to the enemies, but the registry system for that using line of sight to Excalibur didn't work as intended. This system performs checks depending on when they have seen and were seen by Excalibur, and works much better.
• In the flow of combat players can still get enemies that have seen Excalibur and hidden, but players cannot just hide in the corner and kill everything.
• Other Warframe powers may be subject to this LoS change in the future. If it makes sense and suits the power we'll be making a change. We will make it our goal to properly communicate these changes as well.

Kubrow Cosmetics

• We're working on it!
• The goal is to have armor that fits every size and shape of Kubrow, and we've made quite a few sizes and shapes to work with!

Post U16

Now that Warframe: Sanctuary has released, our focus has turned back to polishing the existing features we have in-game, including Conclave and Trials.

• Trials are designed for 4 players, minimum, and will not be seeing any reduction in difficulty to accommodate solo-minded players.
• Update 16.5 may get a preview of the upcoming tileset, the Grineer Underwater Labs!
• Underwater tileset has started to get some in-game assets, including the start of Tyl Regor's laboratory.
• We have plans for an underwater Conclave map, as well.
• Sharkwing, and our major underwater update are tentatively slated for U17.

Warframe and Balance

It's our goal to have all Warframes balanced for all levels of content, but doing so is a slow and methodical task. With a cast of 22 Warframes that continues to grow with every major Update, our job is never done -- but we are continuing to support and balance each Warframe regardless of when it released, whether that means a PBR visual update or something closer to Valkyr's melee overhaul in the wake of Melee 2.0.

Void trader rotation

• After the first four rotations we noticed players were burning themselves out for Ducats in an attempt to get every single Mod available. This was not our intended goal, so after a few weeks of this trend we decided to slow down the release of 100% new Void trader content.
• Every single rotation there will be something new, but we're recycling older items to make sure players don't burn out.

Parkour 2.0

• We're already starting to look at existing movements, polishing them to be tweaked for a Parkour overhaul.
• We've begun to implement directionality on wall running to allow for better steering in our test environment.
• Braking on walls is going to come into play, giving players an option of where they would like to jump to.
• There will be major changes to stamina as well; a better name for this content update may be Movement 2.0 since so much of Parkour is tied into simple actions like jumping, vaulting and sliding.
• We want players to control the slide jump better, such as having quick jumps for small distances and charge jumps for further leaps.
• Players will be able to brake on ziplines and pick a direction to jump off.
• There will be a lot of work done in level design to incorporate these changes.
• We currently do not have an ETA on when this updated mechanic will arrive, but we're already hard at work getting the process started.

Charge attacks

• Charge attacks are also getting an update, and we've begun to play with some animations for them!
• We would like to work it into combo flow so that players can start a charge attack on any point in the combo. This has a few complications, but if we can get it working it means more custom combos for everyone!

Riot Moa / Juggernaut

• Riot Moa may come sooner than you expect
• Exact date is not sure.
• May be hackable to add a friendly Riot Moa to your squad.

Cephalon Capture and Conclave 2.0

• We still have a few bugs we need to fix, and our Conclave team is entirely focused on getting them resolved before moving on to new things.
• Some weapons still need to be balanced a bit better and we'll be monitoring all weapons closely.
• We want each melee weapon to have its own unique melee ability, similar to how the Dex Dakra has a unique slam.
• The strength of Warframe PvP is the powers and mobility and players can expect to see Conclave conserve that.
• Coptering is staying, but stamina cost and fling range may be adjusted.
• All new Warframes and weapons will be auto-balanced for Conclave.
• 16.5 will be Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch.
• 16.5 will have at least 3 more maps added to Conclave.
• Existing Conclave maps are being retrofitted for the new Conclave.

PBR Skin Textures

• Over time every frame will have its own unique textures, but that will take some time.
• We've very happy with the work done so far.

Emotes

• We're currently prototyping emotes that players can use at the end of Conclave matches. We want the winning team to do some emotes during the victory screen
• Two-player emotes are also on the agenda. We would like the community to be able to interact and show their camaraderie.
• Our current concept is a generic Tenno greeting that connects to another greeting.
• Being part of the same Syndicate will show a custom Syndicate greeting.

"Destroying the Void"

We just wanted to clarify something from our Tennolive Devstream that's caused a little bit of confusion. There we referenced the destruction of the Void in a sense that there are changes coming to the lore of Warframe that will radically alter the way players interact with that space. The Void will still be there, and players will still be able to enter the tileset and experience the 'Void' as a place.

Rewards and drop tables however, may experience some alterations.

Thanks for catching up with us on this edition of Devstream Overview. Our next Devstream airs April 10 and we'll take another behind-the-scenes look at Warframe's past, present and future. See you then, Tenno!

-DE_Adam