#and sure in the Hex quest you are using vanilla/watered-down weapons and frames

[noncredible-naramon]

AND ANOTHER THING about 1999 -- I love these worlds that let us come into contact with "normal" people. I feel like we've been getting more of that over the last few arcs of story from DE, and it's in my opinion a very good choice.

Every workday for a tenno is a nine-hour breakneck sprint through hostile territory while everyone in the squad is doing Unlimited Blade Works simultaneously. We do shit like wipe out the crews of entire galleons with a bow and arrow because it's more fun than using a rifle. We convert the entire world into particle physics and melee our way through by interpreting the three intelligible pixels like some kind of divination.

We've been trapped in a torture nexus for eternity. We've trained with every weapon imaginable over thousands of years. We regularly hang out with talking fish and entities from other star systems, to say nothing of the incomprehensible eldritch horror who sometimes hangs out on our porch to jumpscare us when we're coming inside. We haven't just been to the Void, we regularly go there to pick up groceries for our friends, who are ghosts.

As a result, this can make one a little jaded about the whole Tenno experience. You can forget what you are actually doing. You can lose track of the stakes.

And then you meet someone like the Hex, or the Ostrons, or the Solaris, and they say "hey can you uh. blow up this tank? I know it's a lot to ask but we could really use the help" and suddenly you realize. "Oh. You people are out here risking your lives, and I could wrap this up in five minutes and be home with pizza. Yes I will explode the tank. Should we get pepperoni or just straight cheese?"

It gives an immediate, satisfying story outlet for all this power, and lets us feel the amount of progression you've had to get this far, plus I personally think it's a lot of fun.