The After-Mission Railjack Farm
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about Railjack and Empyrean missions, aside from the fact that it’s basically the same isolated mission over and over, it’s that everyone hates flying around gathering loot. Aside from maybe the first few missions I did with clan mates back when Empyrean came out and resource costs were impossibly high compared to the resources you received, no one ever stuck around after a mission. Most of the time, we fly out and catch any glowing gold or orange things that we can obviously see at the end of the mission while the timer ticks down, but then we immediately move on to the next mission.
This is most notable when doing the Veil Proxima missions, especially when the Sentient Anomaly is around, but most public squads I have been in (at least not ones where the team has instantly failed as soon as I’ve loaded in) have immediately moved on to the next mission as soon as the objective has been completed. There’s no time to pause or anything like that, we just zoom on to the next mission.
In fact, people seem to hate the post-mission time so much that there have been constant cries of increasing loot-vacuum range not just further but to the point where it encompasses a huge area around the ship, just so people don’t have to go and pick up loot. People seem to absolutely despise the fact that we need to go and pick up resources. Even the smaller changes to Empyrean, like mods being highlighted with unique symbols and everyone’s loot being shared equally despite what any one player picks up haven’t sated the masses at all. People HATE the after-mission looting.
Enter my sister: She loves the after-mission looting. Turns out, the things my sister loves about Warframe are the laid back things like Archwing, K-Drives and fishing. Flying around breaking asteroids and picking up loot are also things that she enjoys. It’s a more relaxed pace, rather than the constant rush to extraction that most players are used to and is a little more reminiscent of more traditional MMOs. You don’t need to be as efficient as possible, just need to have fun.
But while I am normally the sort of player who will do things as efficiently as possible (especially if it involves farming for things like Condition Overload or Ash Systems Blueprints), I feel like my sister’s more relaxed “chilling and breaking asteroids” view on things is probably the right way to be. I also find myself enjoying flying around and breaking things for loot after a stressful mission. In fact, I’ll solo the first low level mission on Earth Proxima occasionally just to be able to farm at my leisure. The issue is that the “wandering around farming for resources” view completely contradicts the traditional themes of Warframe, which involve doing everything as fast as possible, and never stopping moving so you don’t die. There are other places which have the same issue, like fishing and mining in the Orb Vallis and Plains of Eidolon and they had similar community reactions.
The issue isn’t that either of these things are better than the other. The issue is that they can’t really occupy the same space. It’s a very sudden stopgap between fighting for your life and calmly shooting debris to pick up loot. These two things should really be separated the way the Orb Vallis and Plains of Eidolon are – you can pick a bounty and fight enemies or you can wander around as you please and farm for things. Sure, risking your life should always guarantee more and better rewards, but the option to shoot every rock in sight and suck up all that titanium should also be an option if you choose it. Especially when some resources, like Asterite, only really drop by destroying floating debris.
The best way to fix this? Have your normal Skirmish missions (with a larger vacuum radius), but also have more free fly areas on each Proxima which only have small patrols of enemies and allow you to farm up things like Titanium and Asterite in peace. That way everyone gets what they want, and people can take the time to farm up resources they are missing at their own pace.
It also means I can take my sister into higher level Railjack missions, because her Odonata is not going to protect her for long…