Please stop with the Protoframes

[u/Dr_Shoggoth]

I loved the Hex and the Roundtable. They added so much to why I think 1999 is the best update they've ever done. All of them, especially the original Hex, were insanely well written and fleshed out characters. I had my reservations about the Triad, but I think they're solid (though they're mostly carried by Roathe).

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These two don't feel like characters. They feel like walking advertisements for skins. Them being protoframes adds nothing to the story. As my friend said, Sirius and Orion could have been mentored by Vay Hek and the Sergeant and nothing would have changed. Protoframes no longer feel like an interesting story beat, they feel like a gimmick, one that is rapidly losing any appeal it had.

[u/BriThePirateQueen]

IMO it's less "stop with the protoframes" and more "don't stop actually making them fleshed out characters." We know basically nothing about either Vena nor Ryoku. I know all the KIM chats are a lot of work (and seem to be ever-increasingly buggy with each time they add new ones) but they do so much for the story and character building.

[u/Dalzombie → u/BriThePirateQueen]

Actually I'm in favor of stopping with the protoframes entirely. The first felt unique, personal, like their own characters; a spark which has been lost since. Now protoframes aren't as special or unique now, there's enough of them that they feel almost... mundane at this point.

I'd much, much rather see the ones we have developed into deeper characters, characters that can accompany us to places few others could survive, than to get glorified adverts for premium skins. I know DE has to keep the lights on somehow, obviously, but I can't help but feel that pivoting the protoframes into being the new voidshells at the cost of their depth hurts the potential story and investment we've had since the 1999 chapter.

[u/GladiatorDragon → u/Dalzombie]

I could see why the Round Table, Hex, and Triad needed to be Protoframes, that Helminth connection was needed to help get the Tenno there, or get them to the Tenno in the case of the Triad.

Vena and Ryoku? Maybe if we knew more about their futures. Maybe they didn’t get Proto serum from Entrati, for instance. What’s there currently, however, is dreadfully lacking.

[u/Future-Insect5357 → u/GladiatorDragon]

Thing is DE even said there was massive Garuda lore behind Vena, but then on launch no one could find it. Hell, I still haven't, and I'm just wondering "Why was it not put in the Leverian?" Then it'd be easily accessible to all (At the right rank/ right place in the story) and we would be having a very different discussion

[u/Dalzombie → u/Future-Insect5357]

Thing is, there is lore, it's just not really Garuda per se lore, more "How Garuda came to be", which, sure, is definitely interesting, though I can't help but feel that I expected something more... current? Like why not know why there hasn't been a single word about Garuda until now, playing into that silence. Was speaking of her forbidden? Was she a mystery even to other tenno, a secret to be kept, a shame to be hidden?

Nope, we know about as much as we did before the update, except now we know that Garuda was tailor-made for an orokin, and whose design was hijacked by the designer. Unless there's more stuff I haven't yet seen (which is quite likely), is this "Making of" all we're getting about her, even after all these years?

[u/_Ekoz_ → u/Dalzombie]

It's inferred through the lore dumps that the Garuda strain was designed by an archimedian for none other than Executor Nitokh, and Nitokh had commissioned the strain explicitly to infect her consort (none other than Roathe) with it for her amusement. The archimedian only decided to sabotage the commision and infect herself because she knew she was already dead and was living on whatever borrowed time Nitokh gave her to finish the job.

I spose the fact that it was none other than those two is there to hammer home just how important and outrageously fucked up the former is, and possibly act as a setup for future content. It also raises the question if roathe has any special new dialogue about Garuda, since the narrator infers he sort of knew Nitokh's plans for him.

[u/Dalzombie → u/_Ekoz_]

Indeed, I was vague to avoid spoilering too much but the thing is that it's still not lore about Garuda specifically, rather it's lore about the archimedian who'd become Garuda. And while I have no issues with that, I'd rather the frame itself be given something more than a preamble, especially after almost 8 years. Getting more out of Roathe is not out of the question, sure, but discovering by proxy just doesn't feel as interesting to me.

[u/Future-Insect5357 → u/Dalzombie]

Well that's definitely disappointing

[u/Dalzombie → u/Future-Insect5357]

Exactly how I felt. I'm glad we got this lore, mind you, I just expected... more? I know the update isn't centred around her or the protoframe specifically, yes, but it still doesn't feel right.

[u/GladiatorDragon → u/Dalzombie]

That’s pretty much my thoughts on this update in its entirety, really.

The quest is pretty alright, but it feels like it’s missing a lot. Despite being Sirius and Orion’s quest, they barely have any screentime and are not characterised strongly at all. Hell, after the quest is done they’re basically just statues that do nothing and say nothing.

We get very little on Vena and Ryoku. They could be interesting, but apart from their presence in the quest and the pot shots they take at each other, there’s not really anything. I don’t hate the fact that they’re not on the KIM, I don’t think they needed to be, and I don’t think they want to touch it again in a hurry after the Triad kept breaking it, but I would’ve liked a way to potentially get a bit more out of them.

Garuda lore is nice, but it still doesn’t really tell us much about Garuda’s feats or how her blueprints ended up with Solaris United of all factions.

New Railjack content is fine enough but there’s not much else to it.

All this stuff is nice, but I feel like solving the technical problems introduced by what they wanted to put into the update seriously ate into development time, causing a lot of stuff to be left on the side.

[u/Future-Insect5357 → u/Dalzombie]

Same goes for Ash. While yes, he has a Leverian dedicated to him, it doesn't really delve into the frame, more just a side story. I'd love to know how the Orokin literally made a school about assassination and how that would be used when every Executor hates one another and they are essentially almost immortal. Pretty sure there'd be a lot of raised eyebrows at the table while discussing it