Here is the initial column I wrote about the most recent Warframe patch in its totality: On Tuesday, I did not have Secondary Merciless on my Regulators. On Wednesday, I do, and Mesa has gone from hitting like a truck with a rocket strapped to it to hitting like a private jet in a crash dive. Also maybe there are other features in the patch; I don’t care, I’ll just shoot them.
I thought that perfectly summarized everything, but apparently even years of writing columns that far exceed the normal word count does not allow me to get away with writing a column that was fewer than 70 words long, which I think is just unfair. Brevity is important! But all joking aside, I do have thoughts about the Techrot Encore patch that hit on Wednesday, and they are more substantial than my thoughts about enjoying my new exalted weapon arcane slot. I haven’t had enough time to really play with Temple to form a firm opinion, but when it comes to everything else? Here’s what I think.
Backstreet’s back, all right
It’s morbidly funny to me how back in the ’90s there was a very real haha-only-serious thing about people wanting to kill various boy bands for the crime of… appealing to young women, basically. (The stated reasons were usually about inauthenticity and being built by marketing, but… come on, guys. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, and Dave Matthews Band were making bank and were equally inauthentic. Own your real hangups.) Now that we’ve generally turned the corner on realizing that this music is actually catchy and the Warframe team gave us a great fake boy band in On-Lyne, we now actually get to kill their infested clones. Kinda hilarious.
What I’d cite as the one downside of this particular content is one I kinda saw coming: The very, very limited number of Hollvania missions do kinda hurt this because it means that you are constantly seeing the same tileset during this whole nemesis hunt. That is the one way in which this is kinda inferior to Sisters and Liches. Everything else is just… like… chef’s-kiss perfect. I love it so much.
For one thing, the fact that you get the antivirus programs from a bounty instead of opening relics? Perfect. Massive improvement. It makes the whole thing feel like a reward and dovetails with already useful bits of content. Getting started is easier. Even getting your duet bosses to spawn and try out your antivirus is nice and straightforward, which I greatly appreciate.
I also like that in addition to all of the other stuff with this update, Eleanor selling elemental vices makes it less annoying to get the elemental weapon you want. Sure, I get that this doesn’t change the fundamental problem of trying to, say, get the ideal Kuva Kohm or whatever. But it makes it easier to get a functional one, and you can do that while doing all of the other new stuff in the patch. Just great all around.
If I do have a complaint, it’s that the duet bosses are kinda pushovers even on Steel Path. Sure, I know Hollvania is not exactly the hardest content even on Steel Path as it stands, but I still find that a sister gives more challenge when she shows up. Then again, considering that the duet bosses are faced a fair bit more often, I guess it balances out. So it’s a good nemesis swap.
A Flare for the dramatic
The new additions to the Hex are fun, but Flare gets to have much more of a central role, and they really do get well-developed. As many jokes as I’ve made about how clearly Digital Extremes is pulling from Stardust-era Bowie, the actual in-game persona for Flare is a lot more nuanced, and I really like that. Plus, the part of me that loves ’80s anime is just tickled at having your resistance outfit include a jaded rocker in the crew, however little sense it might make.
The down side, I suppose, is that Flare’s new defense mission is kind of a letdown.
Don’t get me wrong; it isn’t bad. It’s the only Defense we have on Hollvania, and it does have some elements that are clearly meant to play with new ideas. A special Scaldra enemy spawns in, the break between the start and the second round is cool, and it benefits from the new three-wave structure by making it seem less as if the mission is just running in place. I also like the sonic knockback from the speakers that can also catch you off-guard. It’s more that it’s just… a Defense mission like so many others.
Most of our various new frames have come from their own stand-alone missions in recent years, and honestly I think that’s a good thing on balance, but in this particular case it rings just a touch hollow because Temple’s acquisition mission just feels like a very standard defense mission. It’s not like farming for Jade or Citrine or even Dante, where you are actually engaging in a different style of mission, nor is it something you pick up organically via bounties.
I also low-key hate a couple of map elements here specifically, like how there is a really inconvenient lip at certain places of the map that’s hard to get up if you’re locked to the ground (all right, that is sort of a Mesa-specific complaint, I’m not sorry). Overall, I think it’s a fun Defense mission; it just feels pretty standard compared to a lot of other signature missions.
Life has lots of quality
Auto-disbanding randos is so good and I love it so much.
People who know me know that I am neither an unpleasant person to be matched with in mission nor unkind to random party members. I love making jokes and being silly and friendly. It’s not that I don’t like these people or something; it’s that we are all trying to do different things on different schedules, and being able to just not have to forcibly disband the party is convenient. It’s even more convenient when I’m in a party and filled it out with a couple of random players. You don’t have to wait on me; I don’t have to wait on you. Everyone is happier!
In all honesty, I feel a lot of the quality-of-life changes just work in a way that makes me happy. You can argue this patch could have more content than it does, and that’s not an indefensible stance, but the quality changes really do make the experience much smoother. For a game that already has so many little bits of friction as you get up to speed, it’s nice to just let people mass-select certain mods without a whole lot of slow clicking. I appreciate it, all of it.
And all of this is without talking about the patch’s new weapons or its new Warframe… which is what I’m going to get into next week. It’s going to be a busy time for me, but I’ll get there. Until then, I am going to headbang to the new single. It’s pretty dope.
Pick a ‘Frame, any ‘Frame! The Warframe galaxy is in danger, Tenno, and Space Mom needs help to combat it. Are you in the right Warframe of Mind to join in? The MOP writers have enlisted, suiting up in their favorite ‘Frames to fight the good fight, blasting the Grineer and Infected into smithereens.
