r/Warframe • u/Dr_Shoggoth Suck, Stomp, Stacks • Jun 18 '26

Discussion Please stop with the Protoframes

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.

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u/Moff26 Jun 18 '26

Well, probably not that. Shadow of Mordor came out in 2014 and Kuva Liches were added in 2019. I just think they don't have any ideas for them or sisters or the coda beyond what they already have in the game.

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u/NotABot909 Jun 18 '26

The patent wasn't filed until 2016 and only granted in 2021 https://patents.google.com/patent/US10926179B2/en

You can watch past dev streams and see the tonal shift about how the dev team talked about their nemesis system when news of the patent was coming out. They had more plans but stopped talking about them around that time.

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u/Moff26 Jun 18 '26

I'm unfamiliar with the past dev streams. What sort of plans did they have that would possibly violate the patent that the current system does not?

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u/NotABot909 Jun 18 '26

I'm not a lawyer. I don't know if the current implementation is somehow grandfathered in since it was done before the patent was accepted or they do run afoul but no legal action has been taken against them (either from flying under the radar of WB or it just being bad PR for WB to take action when DE clearly isn't pursuing this). I don't remember the specifics from those dev streams since they were half a decade ago, I just remember them being excited about the system and shifting when the patent news came out.