Warframe - Update 14: The Mad Cephalon (PC)

I returned to Warframe upon the news of Update 14 - and boy was it glorious.
Note: All the pictures of this post are rather large, so click on it to see it in its full awesomeness!

It doesn't matter if this is your first time with Warframe or not - you get to choose your path, and keep your progress. Pretty graphics by the way!

The new tutorials

I already did the tutorials. A long time ago, too - but since the UI changed, I think it would be nice to get a fresh look at everything. And it was wickedly cool.

You get to choose between 3 starting Warframe - the blademaster Excalibur, the magnetic, well, Mag, and interestingly, the Volt. In the old tutorial, you get Loki instead, but this time they replaced Loki with Volt. Having never used Volt before, I jumped in and donned the electrifying suit of armour.

You don't get a reprieve. Unlike the boring tutorials of old, you get thrown in the battlefield quickly. Having used to the heavily-shielded Rhino, the Volt seemed frail to my over-zealous combat.

The old tutorial was slow, with 2 or 3 enemies to swing at. The new tutorial is fast-paced, beautifully crafted with cutscenes and choices...and of course some exciting combat. I delved into the middle of the firefight, expecting a tutorial-level enemy - what I get was beginner-grade enemies with less of a tendency to stand still. The old tutorial had illusions for me to swing at. This one has moving, shooting, yelling aliens. Easy to see which one is cooler.

Having the Volt shooting chain-lightning is already way better than the usual slow-paced tutorial, but the choices are also wonderful. Instead of being given a single weapon, you get choices for every weapon type:
For the melee, you can choose between knuckles, the bo staff or the classic sword, the Skana. 
For the secondary weapon, you can choose the pistol, the burst pistol, or the ninja Kunai. 
For the primary weapon, as you can see below - either a shotgun, an automatic rifle, or an epic bow.

The Mk1 Paris. Probably a weaker variant of the excellent piercing-type bow, the Paris, the Mk1 Paris is still immensely powerful for its class, dealing a solid 150 damage with a single body shot and twice that if you aim at the head.

Unlike the old tutorial, this time around the Lotus is no longer the only help you've got. Instructions hover on walls and the scenery, and you can never get lost or stuck not knowing what to do. Which is great, with this whole New Age space ninja thing being chaotic and all.

No more feeling stupid for not paying attention to the Lotus, now that everything is in your face.

The game's graphic is improved, but most impressively is the way it works now. I have no GPU aside from the integrated GPU of the i7-3630QM on my laptop, yet this time around, my laptop held the fast-paced action with much better health. The scenery is much more beautiful, and the field-of-vision blur no longer overheat my laptop.

In short - the graphics is improved, yet is less taxing on the computer. Good work there Warframe dev team, good work.

The graphics man, the graphics! This is on lowest settings! Smooth as silk!

This tutorial teaches you things that in the olden days you have to figure out by yourself in the field - by putting you in the field! I won't spoil anymore than these pictures, but the way they weave the story with the tutorial is impressive.

It's hacking time.

Keeping the frame rate difference less than 5 FPS between scenes is impressive. While 30 FPS and 60 FPS are all good, the dip and rise of frame rates can make the gameplay experience a nauseating one. Another good job, dev team. By Jove look at the Volt with the weapons!

While effiecient users might miss the old interface, the new one - integrated into your ship - is more intuitive. And yes having your own shipe is amazing. Remember the ship that always picks you up and drops you down? That's the one.

Your own ship. And yes, the graphics is amazing now. No more floating low-polies.

The shady interiors

The new interface

You no longer has a single, one block of buttons to choose from. Instead, you have to walk about a bit (not much, 4 steps at most) to pick the modules you want to use. This actually makes it more simple to start with. To be honest, the Warframe interface of old seems convoluted, at least for the beginners. It might take a bit of time to readjust, but big hovering buttons and a helpful (and slightly rude) AI makes the transition smooth and easy.

You have this station platform thing to stand on and choose your things

The only thing I don't like is the direct inclusion of the Platinum purchases from the Market. I don't know how accidental clicks will work, but it will surely incite more impulse purchases from the masses. Well whatever floats your boat I guess (or your ship).

..and here are your things. While it makes it easy to choose and compare, the weak-willed might be compelled to buy weapons right off the bat. Is this what you had in mind, dev team? Cunning.

The carousel-style planet choices no longer teach you about the Solar System's order. However, it does make it easy to choose. Earth is unlocked early with the beginners' quests, probably to help with resource farming. Not bad.

It's easier to choose missions now, but the tabs decrease the feeling of conquest. I unlocked a lot of nodes already, so I'm not sure how ascension will work in this version. But it seems simple enough.

The quests

I have to stress again - the game's performance is much better. The mission loads faster, despite my slower Internet, and it shows the flying ship, as well as the ship de-orbiting while you wait the short 5 seconds. Awesome. You do have to play the missions to get the parts back to your ship to unlock the interfaces, but it's short enough and cool enough to do.

Mission 1:

The epic waiting scree. I missed the zooming ship, but that means it'll be even more exciting for you guys.

The story is in-canon, explains more about the Tenno, and admittedly interesting. I like the hovering ghost head. Vor's kinda cute. Like old-man alien-clone cute.

Despite being Earth, the enemies here are as weak as a beginning level should be. I was expecting more resistance, but they are all level 1 Grineers. My Wyrm's rifle made short work of them before I can even shoot.

If you pay some attention, you can tell that this is more than the usual defence mission - it's a new game mode. By having you cap a position, this is the famous Capture the Flag mode. I'm really excited for more to come.

I enjoy the subtlety of the new game mode inclusion. This "decoupling" mode is, as you can tell, a version of CtF (Capture the Flag). Would this be one the 4v4 game modes to be released? One can only hope.

Getting to extraction. The nice glowing flare with particle effect is a small, but good-looking update.

Ending the mission. So far the "mission complete" is the best part of the interface update - everything is clear, compartmentalised, and easy to comprehend and navigate.

Mission 2:

Storyline, storyline. You have to go pick up parts to upgrade your ship though.

Rain effect! Also, I got zapped by lightning. You lose a bit of shield and have a few electricity stack. Neat.

I wonder if you die if you jump in this acid vat? Newsflash: yer do.

Oh my god the lowest settings is so awesome for some reason! And my computer didn't even heat up! You're saving Darvo in here - the new mode explains EVERYTHING. Thanks dev team.

Vor hacked your shield and you lose half of it - this gets you used to the ice level when you have to fight with half-shield. The thing is, my Ash frame is a tanky beast when I needed it to be. Half shield doesn't mean squat.

I like the big buttons - very clear. But why do you have to block off half of the left side?

No complains about the Foundry module. You do have to do an extra question, but everything is tiled, and tabs have tags on them. You can even see your machine being built! (bottom left)

The verdict (for now)

I love Update 14. It still have some kinks to work out but overall I agree with the Devstream - it is one of the biggest Updates they've had so far. I  have to fix my invite friend post, but that's about it - all the other things about Hamachi won't be affected!

Stay strong and space ninja, friends.

Click these links for my other Warframe posts:
* Warframe - Failed to Join Session (PC fix): (part 1) (part 2) (part 3)

* Warframe - How to Invite Friends (Update 14)

*Warframe - How to get a Kubrow (step-by-step with pictures)

*Warframe - How to get a Mirage Warframe (step-by-step with pictures)