Open Letter To Digital Extremes, Your Problem Solving

[NIL0S]

Coming to you from your average regular (335 hours played)...


Whatever happened to taking up all frames to the same level instead of nerfing the powerful ones?

The changes you apply to the game sometimes are very contradictory to what you say on the livestream.

You're not going to make fans by incapacitating effective playstiles, offer valid alternatives to them, instead.

Whatever happened to encouraging mutual positive reinforcement in the community?

The new Conclave score plastered all over PVE lobbies is not really helping with bringing players together.

Right now the matchmaking system works like herding, give players more control over their experience.

Whatever happened to easing the burnout from grinding among the player base?

Instead of being creative with the moment to moment gameplay you're slapping more barriers in front of content.

If you envision WF to be more of a hobby, adjust RNG so it doesn't require 200000 runs* to get all BPs for a frame.

Why do you constantly try to reinvent the wheel?

Betterment through iteration is good, but you're spending more energy on remaking stuff than fixing it, or new stuff.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Expand and work upon the existing content, don't continually tear it down to build it back up.


Digital Extremes, what you have here is great, don't botch it before it even takes off.

Sincerely yours, a paying customer


*Hyperbole

[_Absolom_]

+1 From a somewhat less experienced player (-200 hours, Mastery 7)

[Xylia]

They did a lot of great things with Update 10, but now that it has been out for awhile, now I'm seeing the things that are not-so-great....

 

1). The new Clan Research is just insulting. DE has said that they don't want Warframe to be about farming, but yet they put all the new clan research items in behind two farming gates: a), Have to farm Derelict Keys to b). Farm Mutagen Samples because they removed them from Jupiter and Eris. And with you need 100 of them for a melee weapon (Dual Ichor), and it is "LOL, wuuuut?" kinda response. Not to mention the Credit vacuum, which leads me to...

 

2). DE MASSIVELY nerfed credit rewards from Void. The veteran players might finally sink some of their credits, but now Newbies face this ridiculous impassible credit vacuum wall that they're never going to overcome on a piddly 10-15k credits per mission when you need 500,000+ for a single clan melee weapon. Instead of giving us a credit dump that actually worked (hello, Transmutation is still not fixed? Seriously?), they decided to massively nerf credit income and put ridiculous cost on all the new items.

 

3). DE apparently did not learn from past lessons, and again tried to nerf player movement. The outcry was large enough to yet again cause them to repeal some of the nerf. DE, when will you learn that players do not want to move slower? This game greatly encourages fast play. That's the way you made it. Parkour is meant for SPEED. You cannot have Parkour in a game and expect people to go slow. You cannot introduce mind-numbing grinds and expect people to not want to go fast. You can't do it. Anytime you try, people WILL get angry.

 

4). Still no new newbie fixes, even though Scott himself said he tried the Newbie Experience and said it "needs attention"? Hopefully this is like the armor rebalance, and that it is "shortly after u10". I did notice you reduced the level of the first couple Saturn levels. That's a start. Now, where's our Napalm fixes (last I checked, they still hit you through solid walls for example)?

 

etc etc etc etc.

 

EDIT: ~350 hours, Rank9 (well I would be Rank9 if the new Rank9 test wasn't so asininely ridiculous)

Edited September 17, 2013 by Xylia

[Lumireaver]

Why do you constantly try to reinvent the wheel?

Betterment through iteration is good, but you're spending more energy on remaking stuff than fixing it, or new stuff.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Expand and work upon the existing content, don't continually tear it down to build it back up.

 

Disagree a bit with this point. We need some serious re-wheeling, especially with respect to damage calculation and weapon balance. (Tiers run contrary to the Mastery Rank mechanic, so I hope they've already internally debunked that plan.)

 

There are other areas which also deserve serious reflection.

 

Also too many

 

line breaks.

[Ced23Ric]

Coming from something shy of 1000 hours, rank 11 (twice, did the reset), I tend to agree, OP.

 

Ember has been nerfed and left in the dust. There is no fix for her in the last "balance pass". She lost all validity. Meanwhile, Nova is still unreigned. Vauban got out with a black eye, but still works. The grind got worse, slower, and the cost for gear got higher. The market is still overpriced and hinders impulse purchases. The RNG and the lack of transparency in the keys & mission rewards business is only mitigated by dataminers and poor souls writing excel sheets which are passed around like prison shanks.

 

It is saddening that the positive energy of pre-U7 seems to have changed so much. The Derelict tileset looks amazing, the sounds are great, the art assets are good. No use if the game using these elements is an unforgiving grind with bugs plastered all over and frames gutted to the point of being no longer a valid choice. Mag may have gotten out of her low tier, but tossing Ember down there was not necessary. The clantech weapons are preposterously expensive.

 

It's disappointing.

 

My thanks go to the concepting, mapping, sound and art asset team. Thanks a lot. You guys outdid yourselves. Sadly, that is the only appreciation I can find.

[Lumireaver]

Also I don't want to make a topic on this, since there's so much U10 Feedback going on that I feel it'd be redundant, but inventing a new J-Golem just because you didn't want to put the new J-3 on Jupiter was so... uncool. Lotus even refers to the J-3 in the audio.

What made you make that decision? Please for the sake of your artistic integrity, revise it.

(I really hate to sound all melodramatic over it, but seriously... isn't this the kind of blind, publisher-esque change you guys went indie to avoid?)

Edited September 17, 2013 by Lumireaver

[Xylia]

^^^

Good Point about Ember, too.

 

I seriously want to hear from Sheldon if he SERIOUSLY thinks that Ember is better than she was before, after the update going live and actually using her against anything Level 80+.

 

Seriously, now. Sheldon is the guy who claims Ember is his "Favorite Frame".... I want to see videos of him using her in high-level content and actually coming out of it with >5% of the damage done without exploiting overpowered mods on certain weapons.

[Phoenix86]

Coming from something shy of 1000 hours, rank 11 (twice, did the reset), I tend to agree, OP.

 

Ember has been nerfed and left in the dust. There is no fix for her in the last "balance pass". She lost all validity. Meanwhile, Nova is still unreigned. Vauban got out with a black eye, but still works. The grind got worse, slower, and the cost for gear got higher. The market is still overpriced and hinders impulse purchases. The RNG and the lack of transparency in the keys & mission rewards business is only mitigated by dataminers and poor souls writing excel sheets which are passed around like prison shanks.

 

It is saddening that the positive energy of pre-U7 seems to have changed so much. The Derelict tileset looks amazing, the sounds are great, the art assets are good. No use if the game using these elements is an unforgiving grind with bugs plastered all over and frames gutted to the point of being no longer a valid choice. Mag may have gotten out of her low tier, but tossing Ember down there was not necessary. The clantech weapons are preposterously expensive.

 

It's disappointing.

 

My thanks go to the concepting, mapping, sound and art asset team. Thanks a lot. You guys outdid yourselves. Sadly, that is the only appreciation I can find.

 

Great post, exactly what i think.

 

/signed, around 300 hrs played, almost rank 9.

 

PS: 1000+ hrs, 2 times rank 11?! oh my gawd ._.

[LittleReshiram]

Why do you constantly try to reinvent the wheel?

Betterment through iteration is good, but you're spending more energy on remaking stuff than fixing it, or new stuff.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Expand and work upon the existing content, don't continually tear it down to build it back up.

 

Finally..finally..@(*()$ FINALLY SOMEONE WITH THE SAME MIND AS I!

FINALLY someone SANE to actually realize why DE, regarding major gameplay change, will ALWAYS SUCKS without community's feedbacks.

No really, Ember's is one case. Her "fix" is everything but "fixing" her. In the end, no one cares too much anymore and let it slide.

Yeah..that's why Ember feedback thread's fire running out. We know how DE just sucks at "fixing", and let this one slide.

 

 

Whatever happened to taking up all frames to the same level instead of nerfing the powerful ones?

The changes you apply to the game sometimes are very contradictory to what you say on the livestream.

You're not going to make fans by incapacitating effective playstiles, offer valid alternatives to them, instead.

This one won me.

DE's sense of "balance" maybe a bit "twisted," especially with the Conclave addition.

I don't want to "accuse" DE here..but..please. Don't go to that DoTA tier of "patches", please? With constant nerf and "balance" just for the sake of killing other players. In which I don't care, because I'm a casual player regarding those "competitive games", in which Warframe SHOULDN'T be..

Warframe is PvE, Steve..Scott, everyone in team. I thought that Steve said that PvP won't be the focus of the whole game, anyway. But with these "nerfs" on some frames that I, personally, despise when on a Duel (Ember IS a beast, I must say), I think I can foresee where's DE's direction.

TL;DR, DE. If you think a frame is too strong for PvP, just leave it be.

Majority of the game is fighting hundreds and more enemies at once anyway.. Why limiting our ways to kill those mindless drones?

 

PS: Sorry for the wall of texts regarding the frame..

PSS: Sorry for the profanity.. I just..uh..hyped. Sorry.

 

Edited September 17, 2013 by LittleReshiram

[Aigloblam]

^^^

Good Point about Ember, too.

 

I seriously want to hear from Sheldon if he SERIOUSLY thinks that Ember is better than she was before, after the update going live and actually using her against anything Level 80+.

 

Seriously, now. Sheldon is the guy who claims Ember is his "Favorite Frame".... I want to see videos of him using her in high-level content and actually coming out of it with >5% of the damage done without exploiting overpowered mods on certain weapons.

I use her against 120+ stuff all the time. Shes still effective, but nothing like she was. All this Nerf did to her is make you have to play her like an Unranked frame that happens to have powers. You have to be MUCH more careful about how fast you go, how open you are to attacks, and how agile you have to be with several enemies in one room. While she is still a good frame, this new playstyle with her is infuriating. She was infinitely better before. Im with you on this one, I really want to see him play her at high levels...Ive got over 30 mil XP with her, and i've been playing almost 900 hours.....And even I have pretty serious difficulty at 100+ enemies.

[Aigloblam]

And Lets look at it this way. We have Ced23Ric, Lumireaver, and Xylia on One post, all agreeing. This is pretty important.

I may not have the Mastery Rank of a lot of people (Rank 8.5, about 900 hours played), but i've been here long enough to know that these changes are not good for Warframe as a whole. So many people have moaned and groaned for PvP, and initially we were assured that this isnt the direction Warframe is going. Suddenly there is PvP in the Dojo....Well i was ok with that, Its not invasive to the game, and it was only for fun, not real competition. Now, however, With this whole Conclave idea, Its a big step toward making Warframe Openly PvP, which i think would be the end of the game in general. With PvP comes a very high likelyhood of a nasty, vicious, and uncontrollable community full of Bullys, Trash Talkers, and Rampant Cheating.

 

As for the Balancing...I have to totally agree with OP. We were told that instead of Nerfing, they would be taking the frames to the same level as Vauban and Nova. So then they nerf Ember hardcore, slap Vauban's most important skill with a nerf, and refuse to even touch Nova? I honestly don't think Nova needs a nerf, i think shes fine the way she is. However, after seeing what has happened to the rest, She really needs one, just to make everything anywhere close to "Balanced". Since DE obviously isn't going through with the spree of buffing that they strongly hinted at, They should at least Nerf across the board.  I truly think that they aren't Nerfing Nova, simply because there has been so much outcry to do so. It feels like they are doing it just to remind us that its THEIR game, not ours. Not happy about that either.

 

The Farming levels on this game have just reached disgusting levels. Making Nekros this hard to farm is simply sneaking in a Paywall again, and im not seeing it stopping there.

[NIL0S]

Sorry for the line breaks. Intention was to not create a wall of text but instead make easy to digest one-liner statements :)

[TheHeraldXII]

Yup, this about sums it up. Making the game more and more grindy, increasing the costs of items in order to deal with people who have played for too long isn't going to help the game. The game should be designed with a player starting the game in mind first and foremost. Not to say that creating a proper endgame (one that encourages achievement beyond and seperate from loot and leaderboards) shouldn't be on the priority list, just that all changes should be considered from the perspective of new players.

However I believe that bringing all frames up to the ranks of the best is a bad move that leads only to power creep and would hurt the game in the long run. Reducing the deviation from the strongest to the weakest would be better and in the process things are going to get overnerfed or overbuffed and fixed in time. The issue with the Ember change is more about the fact that they nerfed her because DE thought we were having the "wrong" type of fun with Ember, which is a bad attitude to have.

I also haven't seen anyone ever so much as mention Conclave score online, although I can see it becoming a problem in the future.

[LittleReshiram]

Now, however, With this whole Conclave idea, Its a big step toward making Warframe Openly PvP, which i think would be the end of the game in general. With PvP comes a very high likelyhood of a nasty, vicious, and uncontrollable community full of Bullys, Trash Talkers, and Rampant Cheating.

Indeed it is.

I saw the signal since the first time Duel room is on, and everyone in my clan starts dueling like crazy.

I know human-kind have this tendency to show their might on everyone else to preserve their "social state", showing who's the best around, but..

This game is co-op game. Simply put.

This game DID have this "hardcore" co-op trait plastered on it.

Everyone need to get down, knee-deep to the mud, helping others to reach the reward that, before, was so much rewarding that the pain while reaching it won't matter.

With Conclave, people will start waving their $&*^s in the air.

DE seems to disregard this, however.

Such a shameful display..

[Aigloblam]

Yup, this about sums it up. Making the game more and more grindy, increasing the costs of items in order to deal with people who have played for too long isn't going to help the game. The game should be designed with a player starting the game in mind first and foremost. Not to say that creating a proper endgame (one that encourages achievement beyond and seperate from loot and leaderboards) shouldn't be on the priority list, just that all changes should be considered from the perspective of new players.

However I believe that bringing all frames up to the ranks of the best is a bad move that leads only to power creep and would hurt the game in the long run. Reducing the deviation from the strongest to the weakest would be better and in the process things are going to get overnerfed or overbuffed and fixed in time. The issue with the Ember change is more about the fact that they nerfed her because DE thought we were having the "wrong" type of fun with Ember, which is a bad attitude to have.

I also haven't seen anyone ever so much as mention Conclave score online, although I can see it becoming a problem in the future.

I've already been told i was a stupid noob for having a Conclave score of 390 or so. I've also been asked repeatedly how i managed to get a 1407 score...and i had to answer that i really didn't know. You're right that it could easily become a problem, especially with PvP gaining more and more hold on the PvE world. I really hope it stops here...Because if it doesnt, it will eventually become possible for Players to invade other Dojos, and other such nonsense. It could get pretty bad...

[litlit]

I'm at >600 hours played since U7. Most of what I wanted to say has already been said by others.

 

Update 10 was a huge disappointment. For me, it was because of the stamina changes -- not by itself, but what it means in a greater context.

 

Why did DE take the single best thing about their game, the thing that sets Warframe apart from all the other shooters and f2p games out there -- the movement mechanics -- and (for lack of a better term) F*** it up? Why put up a bunch of barriers (which are particularly newbie-unfriendly, I'll add) that make their wonderful movement system more difficult to explore and enjoy fully? I'm at a complete loss here, I can't think of a single reason why DE would think doing this was a good idea. But I can sure think of a million exceedingly obvious reasons why it's a bad one, such as the reaction from the playerbase at movement was nerfed again, and the fact that this change makes the game even less enjoyable for new players.

 

Honestly, I've come to think of exciting new content marred by bugs so prolific and silly that it seems like it was never playtested, along with new "content" that only adds more grind to the game as the norm. I expected more grinding and the continued ignoring of frames such as Volt from U10.

 

But I just didn't expect DE to not even understand why so many players love their game. The fast-paced action, the parkour, the ability to freely mix ninja-moves into your combat at a whim... why take that and put it behind a grind wall? Why?

Edited September 17, 2013 by litlit

[Aigloblam]

This game DID have this "hardcore" co-op trait plastered on it.

Everyone need to get down, knee-deep to the mud, helping others to reach the reward that, before, was so much rewarding that the pain while reaching it won't matter.

 

Extremely well said. This is actually my favorite part of the game now. I love going to low level missions looking for noobs that don't understand the intricacies of the game, and showing/explaining how to really dive deep into the game, setting them up for greatness. Thats pretty much what my entire Clan does, so much so that even though we are only in the top 70 on all the leaderboards, I feel like we are always #1. Helping other players i feel is the best way to improve the future of Warframe in the one way that DE cant. By improving the feelings of Unity in the whole playerbase.

[syle]

I agree as well

the game has huge potential - its possibly next lol when it comes to size

however you can see bad design and bad management creeping into it with every patch

 

and they are terrified too - you can see some milking until it dies off mechanics as well

 

instead of all the reduction for credits all they had to do was put a forma in market that dsnt require you to relevel you items for 20 plat and add forma bp that requires you to relevel for like 1 mil credits - simple as that - 5 mil credits to up a new weapon - sounds reasonable

 

adding catalysts for 5 mil a pop wouldn't be bad either

 

they are powercreeping on research prices - that's obvious - next patch the prices will go double again more less

it does not look good

[LittleReshiram]

Extremely well said. This is actually my favorite part of the game now. I love going to low level missions looking for noobs that don't understand the intricacies of the game, and showing/explaining how to really dive deep into the game, setting them up for greatness. Thats pretty much what my entire Clan does, so much so that even though we are only in the top 70 on all the leaderboards, I feel like we are always #1. Helping other players i feel is the best way to improve the future of Warframe in the one way that DE cant. By improving the feelings of Unity in the whole playerbase.

 

Sadly, the player base, sooner or later, will unite. NOT in harmony to "help" the devs, but in anarchy and riot to rout them down.

Really, DE's being a bast'rd and it's like a spit to the face for most of us. This already sparked A LOT of heat (Rhino, Volt, Ember).

Few more months of DE's douchebaggery, it won't be another "oh u DE" moments. But more like "You know we're tired of your S#&$, DE."

 

I won't surprised to see the founders asking for refunds, or thousands or hundreds of death-threat spews on the forum IF DE's keep being a one-sided B- (sorry for using this term), and lost their guidance like they are now.

 

DE need to stop and think for a while. Remembering what's the BEST part of this game. The thing that helps this game reached its "million registered user" status.

They forgot about this. Saddening, but it's true.

I've seen games killed itself this way. The team starts to have God-Complex, disregarding everything, and slides down hundreds of "changes" and "additions," without letting the community to voiced their concern.

I just hope DE won't ram Warframe straight to the iceberg, hoping to loose the real helps the game actually needed, and ended up like those games.

Edited September 17, 2013 by LittleReshiram

[blackraver]

Well nekros is actually easy to farm, if you guys actually tried. Bum the recruitment channel and profit. Many ppl are getting him in just a few runs. The clan tech weapons are massively expensive and I don't think they will perform to justify their cost. The conclave is not making the game pvp oriented, but we should NOT focus on balancing it, though I do find it very enjoyable. the new UI is amazing and kudos to DE for making it so pretty.

In regards to vaubans Nerf...well come on guys his skill single handedly trivialized a whole factions defense missions. That's not right.

Embers Nerf...it would be okay to take away her defensive ability if they gave her something to compensate like a much faster sprint speed, or just a movement buff when using overheat, but they just took away the damage reduction without giving anything in return, and that's where they goofed. Now she is unjustifiably squishy. A glass cannon without the cannon

[litlit]

Well nekros is actually easy to farm, if you guys actually tried. Bum the recruitment channel and profit. Many ppl are getting him in just a few runs. The clan tech weapons are massively expensive and I don't think they will perform to justify their cost. The conclave is not making the game pvp oriented, but we should NOT focus on balancing it, though I do find it very enjoyable. the new UI is amazing and kudos to DE for making it so pretty.

 

Uh... kudos for the new UI? You mean the new UI that requires more mouse clicks to access submenus, and doesn't show your equipment's XP bars? The in-game HUD doesn't even show your melee XP, so there is literally no way to look at your melee XP bar.

 

Yeah, the new UI is definitely much prettier. But it suffers from the same classic DE problem: it looks shiny and cool, but its implementation is rushed and shoddy.

Edited September 17, 2013 by litlit

[LittleReshiram]

Well nekros is actually easy to farm, if you guys actually tried. Bum the recruitment channel and profit. Many ppl are getting him in just a few runs. The clan tech weapons are massively expensive and I don't think they will perform to justify their cost. The conclave is not making the game pvp oriented, but we should NOT focus on balancing it, though I do find it very enjoyable. the new UI is amazing and kudos to DE for making it so pretty.

In regards to vaubans Nerf...well come on guys his skill single handedly trivialized a whole factions defense missions. That's not right.

Embers Nerf...it would be okay to take away her defensive ability if they gave her something to compensate like a much faster sprint speed, or just a movement buff when using overheat, but they just took away the damage reduction without giving anything in return, and that's where they goofed. Now she is unjustifiably squishy. A glass cannon without the cannon

 

I've tried, and yes. Fairly easy.

For people who is old to this game, Nekros is also "just another farming runs."

 

For the noobs? Well.. Nekro lives up to his name. DEADframe.

 

Everyone new to the game will see Nekro as nothing but a dream that won't get realized.

It's DEAD on their eyes.

(I have the fondness of calling him DEADFRAME, I don't know why..)

 

New players don't know how to reach Mars, even. Then suddenly Nekro came out.

They want to try him, but sadly DE's being a goof and place a massive wall to scale, rigged with C4s.

For us, old players, that wall is fairly easy to climb, just tedious.

 

For those new players? Well.. That's heartbreaking for them.

Edited September 17, 2013 by LittleReshiram

[Tyrian3k]

They did a lot of great things with Update 10, but now that it has been out for awhile, now I'm seeing the things that are not-so-great....

 

1). The new Clan Research is just insulting. DE has said that they don't want Warframe to be about farming, but yet they put all the new clan research items in behind two farming gates: a), Have to farm Derelict Keys to b). Farm Mutagen Samples because they removed them from Jupiter and Eris. And with you need 100 of them for a melee weapon (Dual Ichor), and it is "LOL, wuuuut?" kinda response. Not to mention the Credit vacuum, which leads me to...

 

2). DE MASSIVELY nerfed credit rewards from Void. The veteran players might finally sink some of their credits, but now Newbies face this ridiculous impassible credit vacuum wall that they're never going to overcome on a piddly 10-15k credits per mission when you need 500,000+ for a single clan melee weapon. Instead of giving us a credit dump that actually worked (hello, Transmutation is still not fixed? Seriously?), they decided to massively nerf credit income and put ridiculous cost on all the new items.

 

3). DE apparently did not learn from past lessons, and again tried to nerf player movement. The outcry was large enough to yet again cause them to repeal some of the nerf. DE, when will you learn that players do not want to move slower? This game greatly encourages fast play. That's the way you made it. Parkour is meant for SPEED. You cannot have Parkour in a game and expect people to go slow. You cannot introduce mind-numbing grinds and expect people to not want to go fast. You can't do it. Anytime you try, people WILL get angry.

 

4). Still no new newbie fixes, even though Scott himself said he tried the Newbie Experience and said it "needs attention"? Hopefully this is like the armor rebalance, and that it is "shortly after u10". I did notice you reduced the level of the first couple Saturn levels. That's a start. Now, where's our Napalm fixes (last I checked, they still hit you through solid walls for example)?

 

etc etc etc etc.

 

EDIT: ~350 hours, Rank9 (well I would be Rank9 if the new Rank9 test wasn't so asininely ridiculous)

 

That summarizes what I'm feeling right now.

 

The first point shows the only real reason to actually do derelict missions apart from getting Nekros.

Did they just make the materials only drop in those missions to give them at least some purpose?

 

 

Regarding Credits, I've been baffled how people even got too many of them. Did those rich players just sell all their mods instead of using them as fusion fodder and play nothing but T3 voids?

I've played over 600 hours (the one in warframe itself, not steam), but never ran out of options to spend my credits since U7, especially since they increased the amount of fusion cores dropped.

 

 

Movement is a very important part of this game. When they changed to a stamina recharge delay, the game instantly felt far less dynamic.

As a matter of fact it may have been better to keep the delay and reserve stamina for blocking and wallrunning only, making sprint always available.

 

 

The armor fix is what I'm waiting for most. Screw balancing weapons for the moment. The change to armor will completely shift the weapon and warframe balance anyways, so it's better to do that afterwards. Can't say much about newbies... been a long time since I was one.

[Zakalwe]

Coming from something shy of 1000 hours, rank 11 (twice, did the reset), I tend to agree, OP.

 

Ember has been nerfed and left in the dust. There is no fix for her in the last "balance pass". She lost all validity. Meanwhile, Nova is still unreigned. Vauban got out with a black eye, but still works. The grind got worse, slower, and the cost for gear got higher. The market is still overpriced and hinders impulse purchases. The RNG and the lack of transparency in the keys & mission rewards business is only mitigated by dataminers and poor souls writing excel sheets which are passed around like prison shanks.

 

It is saddening that the positive energy of pre-U7 seems to have changed so much. The Derelict tileset looks amazing, the sounds are great, the art assets are good. No use if the game using these elements is an unforgiving grind with bugs plastered all over and frames gutted to the point of being no longer a valid choice. Mag may have gotten out of her low tier, but tossing Ember down there was not necessary. The clantech weapons are preposterously expensive.

 

It's disappointing.

 

My thanks go to the concepting, mapping, sound and art asset team. Thanks a lot. You guys outdid yourselves. Sadly, that is the only appreciation I can find.

+1

-

I don't think everything should be Nova level, though. Nova just makes almost all the content too easy. I like to work for my kills. 

 

We're already slaughtering hundreds of enemies per level, so those saying "we're supposed to be super-powered" are kind of missing the point.

Even the lowest tier frame is more powerful, we shouldn't be "press one button to empty the room" gods, we need to be engaged.

I think the Vauban balance is in the right ballpark.

[Quamobrem]

Whatever happened to taking up all frames to the same level instead of nerfing the powerful ones?

 

It would be really nice if people would quit saying this. Power creep is an issue that tons of games suffer from. Always moving up to the strongest option rather than sometimes cutting the stronger options down a bit will only result in us all playing Super Saiyan Level 48's and fighting Super Mega Ultra Buu. The best Dragon Ball series was the original, because it retained some sense of scale and perspective, rather than always moving everything up to the level of the strongest character.

While I don't think Ember needed any nerfing, I applaud Digital Extremes for not caving to pressure from people who don't know how to design games, and instead taking a more realistic approach to balancing.