Tenno Clock, Discussions Of The Community [Youtube] (Ep 89)

[Xenogelion]

Warframe Discussions from the Community Forum

 

 

About:
Tenno Clock discusses topics found on the Warframe Community Forum. We find topics of best interest and try to shed some light on the communities reaction to these topics. Some of these topics include (but not limited to) the re-work of Stalker, the open letter to DE, Damage 2.0, The quick revert back from the changed Stamina system and many more. Additionally we also like to shed light on work done by the community; like Yuikami's Warframe comics or DOXOlove's Excalibur Statue. Lastly, if you feel that you would like us to touch base on some topics please don't hesitate to link the topic in a reply.
 

For the full webpage for TennoClock please visit here.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Xenogelion

[yuikami]

All of my love to this channel!!

[Xenogelion]

All of my love to this channel!!

 

Thankies Yui

[-Trinity]

[Calayne]

It's really entertaining just hearing you and your buddy speak. (What's his name, by the way?)

 

Seems the both of you are quite active in the forums despite your post count, no offence meant with that! You and your friend have identified many core topics that the community has been hurting about, and addressed it quite casually but with good effect. Pretty fascinating that you were keeping track of the market, as well. That topic about Prime trading was spot on, as well as the Legendary cores: Keeping it was exactly what I was thinking, as well.

 

Also, I think I tend to agree with your friend more often. His opinion and mine coincide quite often. Would you consider taking a look at the difficulty-balancing of Warframe, though? ( https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/181670-de-why-i-give-up-on-warframes-balance/ )

 

Do you mind if I comment regarding the Prime trading and Legendary cores?

 

Edit: In fact, may I comment on the game being in Beta? Your topics are just way too absorbing. 

Edited February 24, 2014 by Calayne

[Morec0]

... Is your clan's emblem.... Catbug with a headcrab on him?

[Xenogelion]

*Snip*

Thanks ^_^

 

It's really entertaining just hearing you and your buddy speak. (What's his name, by the way?)

 

Seems the both of you are quite active in the forums despite your post count, no offence meant with that! You and your friend have identified many core topics that the community has been hurting about, and addressed it quite casually but with good effect. Pretty fascinating that you were keeping track of the market, as well. That topic about Prime trading was spot on, as well as the Legendary cores: Keeping it was exactly what I was thinking, as well.

 

Also, I think I tend to agree with your friend more often. His opinion and mine coincide quite often. Would you consider taking a look at the difficulty-balancing of Warframe, though? ( https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/181670-de-why-i-give-up-on-warframes-balance/ )

 

Do you mind if I comment regarding the Prime trading and Legendary cores?

 

Edit: In fact, may I comment on the game being in Beta? Your topics are just way too absorbing. 

I don't often post on the forum as a find my voice gets drowned out very quickly, I feel doing it via the weekly Tenno Clock videos will hopefully bring more to the community. Too often does myself of Loz (being my co-host) will discuss things on the forum and they get shot down very badly when there are other posts where someone will frequently request something like a frying pan be put into the game.

 

You're more than welcome to talk on here about your own opinions just take into account that even though we may not agree with you we do fully acknowledge that you're welcome to share your opinion.

 

... Is your clan's emblem.... Catbug with a headcrab on him?

 

His name is CrabBug and yes. His origin can be found here.

[Calayne]

Haha, well, having your voice drowned out in the forum is nothing new, though unfortunate: I've started a couple of threads that never took off, and pretty much faded into obscurity. It's pretty rare to have a "Hits" thread, but those are certainly things which contribute to Warframe significantly in concept building. Fortunately, your Tenno Clock is a funny sounding name, and I was immediately drawn to it the first time I saw it!

 

I certainly have no objections to people disagreeing with me, so since I'm allowed, I'll just mention what I think of the Prime Trading first:

 

I think it's a good move. That is, pending other lasting changes. If this is one way to reduce grind, it certainly has done it. However, like Loz points out, it seems to trivialize the effort others have put into the game, and makes it seem "Pay to win", which I would wave off as inane; It is, as your companion points out, utterly pointless to rage about it in a PvE game.

 

Still, I feel that their concern is quite real, and plat is indeed the preferred currency of the game: Newbies play more and more, get rare items and prime gear, try to sell it to rich folk, and they get some plat. Trading, in this sense, truly allows this game to be Free to Play in the most absolute sense for some players. Granted, Platinum is a perishable good: It is consumed when you buy something from DE, but remains if you trade between players. But the whole point of Platinum is to use it, so only the hardcore traders will perpetually have a good stock of platinum to buy low and sell high. 

 

This does encourage the sales of plat, and I'd support DE with this move, considering they need to earn money somehow without hiding anything behind a pay wall. Not to mention, even if someone were to buy everything, in a move considered the ultimate insult to grinders, it won't mean much. They have to grind for materials still, and level up the weapons they make, even if they buy all their mods, maxed and all. If anything, DE gets richer and richer.

 

I suspect the reason they may not favour the token approach is because it may hurt their revenue. Honestly, even without the token system, people can still trade Prime parts they don't want for ones they need, rare though such occurrences are, compared to the plat trade. In a sense, the RNG is DE's best friend: The sheer amount of luck involved in obtaining a part and the preciousness of platinum serve to create a need to actually buy plat to keep up with the demand of plat in trade for the exchange of goods.

 

As for the Legendary Cores...

 

I think they wanted to err on the side of safety this time, as Drew pointed out. The Glaive fiasco was one such thing where some change was not announced beforehand, and appearing in the alert sent everyone stark, raving mad. They've come to be more careful about the response about the community, and this is what I applaud. 

 

But i do want to say that allowing players the chance to exploit their good intentions was a rather silly thing to do. Granted, Legendary Cores are a new thing, and will eventually enter the game. But I'm guessing the number of Legendary Cores we can get will be far overwhelmed by the influx of new players and perhaps more resource-exhaustive mods. My guess is, it'll only get more precious as time goes on, depending on the type of mods released. But the price, I think, will likely fluctuate between two points: Slightly less expensive than the rarest maxed mods, but more expensive than maxed mods of one rarity lower. So assuming nothing changes (Legendary mods, huh?), perhaps Legendary cores will be stuck at the range of 200-300 plat?

 

In the end, though, I think the Legendary Cores are a small speck among the bigger problems Warframe faces; The very same reason why I consider Warframe a Beta, and not a finished product, no matter how fancy it looks.

 

Game balancing is horrendous, at the moment. RNG dominates player growth, which is frustrating and unpredictable. As many people more persuasive than I have pointed out, without some measure of predictability, the growth of players will likely always fluctuate between "Too bad, sucker" and "The Gods have blessed me". Seeing that we can't even assume what power level players are supposed to be on, designing content for the later stages becomes incredibly tricky. A horrible juggling act made worse by exponentially-increasing damage mods which stack one upon the other, making your weapons hundreds, if not thousands, of times better than they first started out.

 

End-game, I believe, will thus remain an elusive dream until we manage to control or predict player growth, so that you can actually design enemies to combat these people. 

 

And you also pointed it out before: Warframe is a Beta, and it's got so much room for improvement. It's not really just the guns, it's the whole mechanism of the game. I think DE knows it. I'm just kind of surprised they treat us like customers much more than simply beta-testers. We certainly seem to be in that sort of purgatory-limbo that Britney Spears might call "Not a Beta, not yet a full-release". 

 

Honestly, for all the mistakes they make, I think that they try to put their hearts in the right place, though it seems hard to believe sometimes; Communication has always been a little tricky, after all, the more people are involved. If they see the potential we see, if not more, than perhaps it's worth waiting three, even four years more, before they call it a full-release? Perhaps by the end of that period, they'll have solved most, if not all, of the problems we put out, and may be better than we all imagined.

 

That's kind of what I'm waiting for. 

 

Edit: Sorry, guy! It's a horrible wall of text!

Edited February 24, 2014 by Calayne

[MDRLOz]

Finally a thread of our own!

 

Thanks for the words Calayne. I declare this thread shall not fear walls of text, in fact it shall be home to them. With no enforced TL;DR. We are here to discuss and discuss at great lengths we shall. I just realised if you took everything we say in one episode it would make a mighty wall of text.

 

Regarding legendary cores I have come around to the possibility that it was DE wanting to release those to test what happens with them. CONSPIRACY! whoowoowooo

 

Though I did say going for positive topics next week we really will have to look at balance as a whole at some point. Will have to read through all that thread you listed and find some others.

 

If anyone else has any other interesting threads they think we should discuss put them up here and we shall. Also if you think we are fools or idiots (me especially) for X, Y or Z comment please say and I would love to discuss with you.

 

EDIT:

FUDGE! We have music intro... since when?

Edited February 25, 2014 by MDRLOz

[Xenogelion]

FUDGE! We have music intro... since when?

 

We've always had a music intro... since episode #1

Edited February 25, 2014 by Xenogelion

[YeeTsun]

FUDGE! We have music intro... since when?

 

*Pats MDRLOz on the head* ...It'd either that or you get *Slow Golf clap*  :P

Edited February 25, 2014 by YeeTsun

[Mephisto73]

I found this awesome logo on a guy called Trioo, I wonder what clan he is. 

 

[Calayne]

Finally a thread of our own!

 

Thanks for the words Calayne. I declare this thread shall not fear walls of text, in fact it shall be home to them. With no enforced TL;DR. We are here to discuss and discuss at great lengths we shall. I just realised if you took everything we say in one episode it would make a mighty wall of text.

 

Regarding legendary cores I have come around to the possibility that it was DE wanting to release those to test what happens with them. CONSPIRACY! whoowoowooo

 

Though I did say going for positive topics next week we really will have to look at balance as a whole at some point. Will have to read through all that thread you listed and find some others.

 

If anyone else has any other interesting threads they think we should discuss put them up here and we shall. Also if you think we are fools or idiots (me especially) for X, Y or Z comment please say and I would love to discuss with you.

 

EDIT:

FUDGE! We have music intro... since when?

 

Hell yeah. TL;DR is for the illiterate.

 

I think a lot of things were released as tests: Probably the Stalker was a test for RNG enemies, the Status Chance on weapons with Damage 2.0, Frost's nerf, so on, so forth. The only thing that probably wasn't done as a test were the events, but we gave them a whole lotta sh*t for the first one. The amount of negative feedback from the community was shocking, and the quality of it as well. Most of them were bordering on sheer barbarism. 

 

It's actually good that they test this with us. Heck, I wish they test with us more often and just shoot forth updates like there's no tomorrow: Let us test this stuff, bit by bit, rather than make it seem like an official release update. Let us stick our arms into the whole business of this, and we shall help them while we are bicep-deep into their Warframe. They really should engage players' suggestions more frequently, especially the most promising ones that are hailed by the community: TheGreatZamboni's "Complete Rework" is a classic, as well as notionphil's "Cells", and many other good suggestions. The fact most of them go without an official response is understandable, but disheartening. 

 

I think true player interaction with the developers have been rather limited at best, and remote at worst. The "Latest Staff Replies" thing was a good touch, but is a couple Giga-pascals of a touch too light. We need real discussions and real responses to these ideas. Even if we are limited in sending representatives, let us have that Discussion Forum that truly looks like one from Rome: The most intelligent, insightful and creative minds, grouped together to discuss a possible solution.

 

This will certainly allow us to learn more about their limitations, and would allow us to cater to their problems more without making assumptions about their intent and ability. Too many times have I heard the cynical "Oh, but DE doesn't want balance", "DE doesn't want Warframe to be good" nonsense. I'm quite frankly sick of such talk. I think they should let us help them help us... help them. The amount of assumptions we make in feedback is absolutely staggering. We don't even know what they're capable of. 

 

Not to mention, Volt Kruezer is a fellow with exceptional number-crunching skills, and I'm certain there are many people here who have a day job that involves a lot more complex mathematics. They should let these ladies and gents suggest a method of resolving their issues, not set them aside. There are people who can REALLY contribute to this game, and as Beta Testers, we should be provided with some ability to do just that.

 

But anyways, that's a whole different rant on its own.

 

Regarding using us as guinea pigs, yeah, I think that's what we are. :P

 

And I don't think you'll find much questioning to your intelligence here! Most of your analysis are sound, even if there are some disagreements here and there. Nothing anyone can really say much about, since all views are equally valid on things that have no confirmation yet.

[Xenogelion]

So 3 things:

 

Episode 20 has now been released and can be found on the first post. We've got 2 new Clan Emblems and some how we both chose the exact same emblem:

 

 Drew's Find

 

 Loz's Find

 

 

Legitimately we have no idea how on Earth we both managed to pick the same Clan emblem. We still don't have any idea who the emblems from episode 19 are but they're now in a separate section and each week there is a new batch of emblems we'll put the old ones in there.

 

 

I found this awesome logo on a guy called Trioo, I wonder what clan he is. 

 

*snip*

 

Wow, I've never seen this clan emblem before and it looks amazing!

 

*snip*

 

So I don't know how much you've watched of Tenno Clock but you'll often find I'm very much on the fence about a lot of topics, some times I feel that the community asks too much of DE and at the same time DE should be able to implement some of these suggestions really simply. Brushing upon your topics quoted:

 

I believe events themselves serve as tests, like how the survival event used to be so much more manic before they implemented survival in the game normally. I remember we literally had to find the person with the best internet connection so when we had that many infested the game didn't lag out.

 

When people suggest "let the community test the game every step of the way!" I feel this is a case of let the players see the sausage factory. I've heard stories, which I dare not repeat, where some of the bugs within warframe are out right ridiculous to a point of it's not playable till it's fixed. Having hundreds upon thousands of players all play the same bugged experience I feel would be terrible, however I do feel that DE should have maybe a dev client that is literally available to a select few who know how to write bug reports and things. (<= straddling the fence). As a developer myself I loath inaccurate bug reports and just wish I never had person X involved in the bug finding process and from a gamer's point of view I know that playing a broken game can be so disappointing I will put it down and flat out refuse to pick it up again (Orion: Dino Beat Down). Finally talking about good ideas, there are loads of good ideas like notionphil's cells idea you mentioned, but for every amazing idea there must be an ocean of bad ideas/complaints. In ep 18, Loz's post about Trinity being broken got overlooked for posts like "There should be a frying pan in Warframe".

 

The last thing I want to say is more often than not Design isn't the problem, Implementation is. As we can see from the end game stuff that DE has a solid set of heads on their shoulders and they know how to come up with some solid content, even though some times it can be a bit wishy washy when first getting introduced into the game. Having loads of people say I've got an amazing idea! Like the stealth thread, it can be so saddening to a developer when they have to say "I'm sorry, but we just don't have the time to implement that". I see this every day in my job where I've got stuff to develop and I have a deadline, when someone comes up to me and says "I want this in" I literally have to spend about 3-4 hours explaining why we don't have the time to do that.

 

Ideally I question whether or not DE/Warframe would do better from more development transparency than anything. The concept of Transparency is that if there is a list of bugs then DE makes that list public, then people can see how they're being updated in real time and players can appreciate more how they really didn't want to play a version of the game that had 'that' bug in it. You think the napalm explosions were badly broken, you've not heard the half of it and luckily neither have I.

 

~Xeno

[Traeyze]

LONG TIME FAN FIRST TIME CALLER.

 

I found this episode pretty interesting.

- General balance issues do come from a lack of challenging enemies but it has also apparently become a faux pas to suggest that the Soma is not 'broken' because past level 30 it stops being as devastating or that the Rhino is not OP because for the star chart he is pretty much untouchable. Many topics seem to devolve into screaming matches over what is 'obviously' broken or not broken while no one really seems to know what standard they should be judging by to begin with.

 

I feel that half the tension that exists in the community over what deems something as being too powerful comes from the mixed messages we get from DE.

 

On the one hand we have the promise of end game content and obvious and very straightforward ways we could increase the challenge in general [as noted in the video just amp the levels on harder star maps and improve reward/desirability to go to them]. The fact that enemies in the Void and Pluto are in levels that more or less require multiforma equipment at least suggests the idea any one weapon is 'broken' despite still having limitations is a bit absurd. 

 

On the other we have arguments that they don't necessarily consider infinite scalability an important factor in frame design, and that is commonly sited as to why objections to nerfs are wrong. It seems worrying that frames can be designed to not go further than the star chart, yet it is also something that a lot of people who play higher levels fear is happening and there doesn't seem to be much that denies that from official feeds.

Obviously patience is the only thing that can really solve this impasse as we see what gets released, but damn it we can't buy that with Platinum.

- Dynamic roving boss fights I am sort of in the same boat with in that I don't tend to hunt them directly so I don't have as much of an opinion. I like mark stacking as an idea though and personally hope they have more of it... I know a lot of people hate PUGs but I think that is half the charm of these sorts of squad games.

- As I noted on twitter I am not big on generic mods. Personally I think that each frame should have a distinct moveset that has a specific function, something that I feel generic mods specifically moves away from.

 

As it stands there are a lot of junk abilities in the game. The idea of replacing them with generic abilities like a dash and dash or gimped invisible strikes me as just condoning that they need work. Instead of having half hearted generic abilities why not have more viable movesets. Heck, as it is guns already bland out a lot of the cast.

Second, we already find it hard enough to keep all 4 abilities in a viable build as it is. I think it is sad we have to choose to sacrifice moves, and in my eyes this would only add to this problem by either replacing existing moves or more likely being ignored in the same way. I feel it is more likely than not that eventually ability mods will not require mod slots or be linked to frame level, or at least hope that is where they go with it. Again, generic mods would seem to take away from that.

There are already mods that increase slide distance and things like that. I feel that making them more appealing, either by having more mod slots [as opposed to forma which just increases points] or whatever. That said I really like the balancing act of Corrupt mods currently, so it is not to say I am criticising that, more that I don't want to impede on that/can't see generic mods being enticing enough unless broken.


Anyway, I liked a lot of what was said and look forward to the next video.
 

[Xenogelion]

Heya man. Nice to see you on the forum. I'm just going to reply to the mods part of your post as that's what we were talking about on twitter. I'm going to let Loz reply to the rest because he needs more motivation to talk to happy people ^_^.

 

Reflecting on what you're saying, I do agree with you a lot about how the too many abilities are really pointless, for example Null Star. I know Null Star has it's uses but I honestly feel that it becomes relatively useless relatively quickly and I think part of the problem is the way in which you a) can't refresh the ability and b) those little orbs are really F'ing hard to see. A lot of abilities do need rewrites like maybe have it so with Null Star there is a 2D HUD element that moves around with the Null Star orbs (Like a way point marker) just to make it more obvious that they're there. Additionally I feel that nuke frames need a more utilitarian approach with their utility powers. I mean Nova's Wormhole is great but at the same time when do you ever need to use it? What if the worm hole could work in conjunction with Vauban's Vortex? By throwing a wormhole at a vortex it reverses the wormhole so the mouth is the furthest part away and the exit feeds straight into the vortex? Warframe Abilities do need some work as too often people are just mashing 4 and people are too inclined to create a frame for just one ability.

 

Tangent: I know when Loz, Myself and other clannies do Survival I have a build of Nekros that only uses 3 and Loz has a build of Trinity that only uses 4. It's too simplistic some times.

 

With regards to General Abilities though, I feel that hopefully with the aid of General Abilities players will be able to create nice and diverse frames; however as I said in Ep 20, I do agree that maybe making stealth mods (and other mods like Dash) can start stepping on the toes of warframes and sentinels alike. I do acknowledge that Loz has a strong point, that some attributes of the game need to be seriously looked at, but I do feel that we can't just say make an Ability like Shade's Ghost Ability as a general mod. 

 

Tangent: Just thinking about it, it would be nice to have a stealth ability that was you were stealth while not moving (still have to activate) and mobs can see you if they get too close.

 

I'd like to see what DE do with these General Abilities and I do hope they're something diverse but something has to be done about the over abundance of Warframe Mods out there. Maybe DE want a system where some mods are flat out better versions than others, but if DE want people to seriously consider Intensify (old Focus) over Blind Rage then DE need to seriously sit down and consider either re-balancing the mods for Frames or maybe come up with a re-work where you have Ability Mod Slots separate from a mod pool and with that pool you're not capped by quantity but only capacity.

 

Conclusion: I'm very interested to see what DE do but I don't think General Abilities will step on the toes of existing Frame Abilities but they will bring a nice set of diversity to different players.

 

~Xeno

[MDRLOz]

*CHOP CHOP CHOP*

 

General Balance is so hard to discuss because players rarely give and balance their feedback.  Some one starts discussing Nova is OP in Defence missions lvl 40+ and should be nerfed next person who just plays normal missions Lvl 1-20 doesn't see why it should change. Someone Says X weapon is to OP after formaing it 5-6 times and compares against other 5-6 formaed weapons, then someone who has formaed it once and has not many weapons says that its fine and should not be changed. I feel bad for DE with the mixed messages we send. 

 

We really are going to have to wait and see on the three endgame plans. I do hope we start seeing at least one role out soon. 

 

As for abilities I don't feel that abilities are junk. Its just we never get a chance to use them. Levels always boil down to just the ability to kill. We never get levels that involve movement challenge. E.g. To escape from a reactor exploding in a sabotage mission you have to travel through the pipes of the coolant system OR on Jupiter you have to travel up and down through exhaust vents to each an objective. This would make more use of the movement frames.

For damage utility abilities there could be more use. How about enemies which can only/ mostly be damage by war-frame abilities not bullets? Or they are covered in armour that ability damage slowly chips at (causes a stacking debuff). Then something like Null star would be useful as a cheap ability to multi hit a target. 

 

Some abilities would be useful if DE would just make some Minor changes. Trinity is a perfect example of this. (As I have said many times...) Why does blessing heal as well as cause invincibility? It makes well of life redundant. By removing JUST the HP heal of blessing you make well of life (and other frames healing) useful and causes good ability synergy.

 

Once again all we can really do is wait and see. 

Edited March 4, 2014 by MDRLOz

[Traeyze]

Gosh, if I am a happy person I do not have much hope for humanity.

 

@ Xeno It just get's too tricky. That stealth idea you had is Shade, I think Loz noted that in your original discussion as well. I feel like a lot of abilities due to necessarily being general/generic would just be fighting for real estate that doesn't exist in mod setups or taking away from the point of such a diverse cast: you don't necessarily want a single frame to have a huge amount of functional diversity, you would hope instead that people switch to another frame depending on the mission.

 

As an aside I feel that is a major criticism people have of Rhino: not that he is too powerful per se, just that he is too generalised and can sort of do everything okay, thus people focus too much on him rather than switching around or more importantly aren't given any reason to bother switching around. Good or bad thing... ehhhh, hard to say I suppose. I am well and truly guilty of falling back on him due to jack of all trade status but have been forcing myself to play other frames and enjoying it.

 

@ Loz Yeah, well, I suspect that is part of why they are so hesitant to change a lot of stuff lately. The fact they buffed so much stuff is perhaps promising, we now have a slew of weapons that can boast DPS ranges that make the Soma seem a lot less untouchable and use similar builds, denoting that DE must have seen it coming and deemed it worth the push.

 

Well... that's what I tell myself as I clutch my Paris Prime and cry myself to sleep.

 

Re Weak Abilities in the Roster

 

I think just as big a part of it is that pure/raw damage abilities just do not scale. Now that wouldn't be such a problem if a lot of powers had the ability [once modded] to at least be viable through Pluto , but I seriously question how many damage abilities can claim to do that currently [especially the ones frequently brought up as weak ones, like the confetti throwing attacks Nyx and Nova have]. 

 

My opinion is that having a utility element to lower tier moves is a good way to keep them viable. I personally love that Mag has Pull and Polarise as the centre of most of her builds despite having a generic nuke ulti. Banshee's shockwave is another example of a move that has pretty much no damage but is one I would insist 'endgame' builds include. Saryn's exploding Molt was a great step in the right direction for her.

 

Obviously frames that have melee based buff moves we will have to wait and see on. I am not convinced melee 2.0 will be the gamechanger we all hope it will be but I still have hope that Valkyr will have her moment in the sun.

 

I think that an exciting shift in the way both weapons and powers have worked recently is the increase in status/proc effects. Volt's Shock procs pretty much guaranteed and puts all the enemies in the chain status, buying you a couple of seconds. Ember's hadouken fireball thing procs the fire DoT, Frost freezes, etc.

 

Imagine if Ash's moves proc slash [pretty sure it is bleed for slash]. A level 35 heavy could be proc bled out with shuriken while you hide in the shadows, etc. Well, obviously Ash would need a bit more than that but you could get some interesting effects with him.

 

Mods that allowed you to mess with the elemental strengths/proc chances/proc damage would be an interesting step but yeah, we would definitely need more mod slots for that.

 

Actually, I am just a fan of proc in general. I find it an interesting mechanic that I hope is continued to be made more viable to end the dominance of 'crit king' weapons.

 

As for the moves that are good being toned down... I happen to agree. Not so much because of 'OP OP OP' since in reality I am someone who likes everyone being strong. More that some moves just do too much to make sense. I run a Nova, I am really fond of Antimatter [i like big numbers popping up] and MP just does too much. Slows down, double damages, explodes. Like, if all it did was two of the three it would still be a 'broken' ability, it just wouldn't be so damn crazy. Surely the, say, slowdown could be given to Mag or something. Etc etc.

 

Woops, I really rambled on. It is stupidly late here.

[MDRLOz]

You say people should bring the Frame for the abilities but that is very restricting especially if DE were to try and open up Stealth as a real mechanic or game mode. If "good" stealth abilities were limited to Loki and Ash (no banshee does not count :P) then it would really restrict peoples abilites to do those missons till they had those frames.

Adding in a 3-7 Seconds Invis that gave no damage buff would be perfectly balanced, it could even make you travel at 90% speed as well to rub in the difference. However it would give people another tool to use on a stealth based mission on other frames. This could be combined with Valkyr to allow valkyr to stealthy sneak in the rafters or banshee to close the gap to make silence work.

You and Drew mention shade. This is a very bad reference/comparison as Shades ability is very very hard to utilize stealthily. It requires close proximity to enemies; this is useful when grabbing a couple of seconds safety if surrounded, but it does not help you easily sneak across a room undetected. In-fact a common pool stealth mod would synergize well with shade. You use the stealth ability to break cover and close in on a mob... you can then sneak around with that mob using shades stealth. Then when you have traveled enough use the common pool stealth again to reach some cover without being spotted.

Edited March 5, 2014 by MDRLOz

[Traeyze]

That's true, though I also note that the idea of Stealth2.0 really does contradict a lot of the run and gun mentality the game seems to promote. Considering how many moves and guns revolve around SPLOSIONS and LOUD NOISES I always found the constant allusion to 'yeah we want stealth because ninjas' as a pretty weak pretense and not one that could truly be followed up.

 

But besides, that logic doesn't work anyway. Ash is rubbish at Def/Mobdef missions, so should we give him a CC move? Why does he need to be good at those if he can handle the stealth missions?

 

To me stealth could only ever hope to be 'one option for progress' if it were to be implemented into stage structure. There would always be the need for the blazing dynamo approach because at the end of the day walking nukes are gonna walking nuke. If the coolness of the idea of sneaking up on someone undermines the ability to just go HAAM then not only does the genre of the game suffer so does my ability to dedicate my life to dropping supercharged antimatter drops on Ospreys [i got it into the millions, day well spent].

 

As it currently stands using stealth kills does help significantly reduce the odds an alarm will be set off and will save you a S#&amp;&#036;load of time, I am not sure what more could be added than that and what more need be added considering the effort is well and truly rewarded. If a level were totally dedicated to stealth concepts, like penalising those who were seen, then people would use Loki like they did for that Mastery test because he will be broken for those levels, no matter how many stealth gimmicks were added otherwise.

 

To me it says more about how crap Shade currently is. His invis is just not worth the effort in the face of the usefulness of the vacuum cleaner chicken nugget. Heck, it really screams what is wrong with the Sentinals in general: they strike me as being the 'generic abilities' that could have been, they just aren't utilised by DE all that well. All of the generic abilities could be justified as being sentinal moves that don't dig away at your main mod slots. Heck, we already have revive shield, would a revive teleport like you guys mentioned be a big jump from that? I personally think the Sentinals need a 'do' button, or like some other games with NPC idiot AIs following you around an 'urge to do something but very likely the button isn't attached to anything and you will just shout hey over and over' button.

 

To me a system that gives you a thousand tools to choose from should lead to the mentality of having a tool for every job and being willing to switch around. While I appreciate that offering more flexibility within a frame is 'nice', I think that should revolve more around the nature of how their unique moveset is utilised [something that already occurs]. But as for making them more prone to jack of all tradeism, it is well within DEs interest to instead make you build a new frame and purchase a new slot and a new potato and whatever and have a frame that runs stealth, a frame that runs infested, a frame that runs def, etc etc, and it just strikes me as odd that they would take steps away from that.

[Calayne]

 

So I don't know how much you've watched of Tenno Clock but you'll often find I'm very much on the fence about a lot of topics, some times I feel that the community asks too much of DE and at the same time DE should be able to implement some of these suggestions really simply. Brushing upon your topics quoted:

 

I believe events themselves serve as tests, like how the survival event used to be so much more manic before they implemented survival in the game normally. I remember we literally had to find the person with the best internet connection so when we had that many infested the game didn't lag out.

 

When people suggest "let the community test the game every step of the way!" I feel this is a case of let the players see the sausage factory. I've heard stories, which I dare not repeat, where some of the bugs within warframe are out right ridiculous to a point of it's not playable till it's fixed. Having hundreds upon thousands of players all play the same bugged experience I feel would be terrible, however I do feel that DE should have maybe a dev client that is literally available to a select few who know how to write bug reports and things. (<= straddling the fence). As a developer myself I loath inaccurate bug reports and just wish I never had person X involved in the bug finding process and from a gamer's point of view I know that playing a broken game can be so disappointing I will put it down and flat out refuse to pick it up again (Orion: Dino Beat Down). Finally talking about good ideas, there are loads of good ideas like notionphil's cells idea you mentioned, but for every amazing idea there must be an ocean of bad ideas/complaints. In ep 18, Loz's post about Trinity being broken got overlooked for posts like "There should be a frying pan in Warframe".

 

The last thing I want to say is more often than not Design isn't the problem, Implementation is. As we can see from the end game stuff that DE has a solid set of heads on their shoulders and they know how to come up with some solid content, even though some times it can be a bit wishy washy when first getting introduced into the game. Having loads of people say I've got an amazing idea! Like the stealth thread, it can be so saddening to a developer when they have to say "I'm sorry, but we just don't have the time to implement that". I see this every day in my job where I've got stuff to develop and I have a deadline, when someone comes up to me and says "I want this in" I literally have to spend about 3-4 hours explaining why we don't have the time to do that.

 

Ideally I question whether or not DE/Warframe would do better from more development transparency than anything. The concept of Transparency is that if there is a list of bugs then DE makes that list public, then people can see how they're being updated in real time and players can appreciate more how they really didn't want to play a version of the game that had 'that' bug in it. You think the napalm explosions were badly broken, you've not heard the half of it and luckily neither have I.

 

~Xeno  

 

I try to watch as many as I can, but truthfully speaking, that's only amounted to two. Not for a disinterest of the video itself, mind you, but simply because it's an hour long, and university is a pain in the derrière. 

 

Interesting you should mention the over-abundance of testers for pre-released patches, though! Have you ever read of notionphil's "Representatives" suggestion? It surely echoes my own idea that they should have a group of forum-goers who have proven time and again that they can see the issue behind a problem and not just respond at an emotional level. Their posts are all intellectual, forward-looking and the posters themselves tend to be very patient.

 

These people, who stay in the feedback section with all their golden posts, should be the people DE looks out for. These are the people who can help with minimum backlash and maximum gain. At 300-400 hours of gameplay, there's almost nothing else to look forward to, anyways. I myself would be glad to help track bugs even if I never get anything out of it except to help DE's development.

 

But it's true what you say: Time and implementation has always been a problem for game design. I myself adopt the view that everything I see now is hopefully an object that can be reworked in the future, given enough time. I certainly don't feel Warframe should be launched until it does get the reworks people desire. A minimal amount of feedback, to the point where it's all repetitions of a few very minor issues, would be a good time to declare release. As it stands now, I think the feedback section actually may have a better idea than what exists currently, and what DE has announced about it (Which, most times, is nothing at all).

 

"DE believes in Warframe. I believe in DE", quoted from a player somewhere in the forums. I really think the transparency thing is something they'd like to do, judging by the amount of activity from developers, but something seems to be holding them back. Perhaps red-tape is far more common in game-development than I thought?

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

Also, to clarify on Volt's topic: Actually, he didn't suggest to remove damage scaling. It was more on the unpredictability of the mods and the overall strength of it which exponentially increased. He actually mentioned, in the skill tree diagram, that in the "Rifle" category of the skill, each Proficiency rank up (Per two rifles of any sort) would allow you to level Serration up one more level. A sort of cap for levelling serration (And multi-shot at some point). And the first time you rank it up, which is Rank 30 two weapons or something of the sort, the system gives you a Serration for free. Same goes for the other weapons and tree categories. The charts were not exactly very well thought out of, they were more or less used as tools to explain it to dissenters along the way. xD  Most of the content was explained via posts, which are... very... very, long.

 

Ironically, I was the one who suggested that weapons should grow with level, and damage mods should be severely nerfed: Serration perhaps 30% at max level, and Heavy Calibre at 30% for -55% accuracy. Elemental mods replace the damage they need, rather than simply add more damage to it. It would make the drawbacks more pronounced, but still provide a hefty benefit for those who would choose to use it. I was more towards decreasing the damage gap between weapons even at Rank 30, and to allow you to focus more on weapon mods which change the way you play the weapon: Stability, Eagle Eye, Status Proc, bullet mutators like metal auger and so on. There's quite a bit to read, so the whole picture was somewhat harder to see, understandably.

 

The core idea of these two suggestions, though, would be that damage would be predictable, at least, to design level-appropriate content around. You still have progression in damage, but it's no longer so insane that you could get a maxed-level Serration right off the bat.

 

Of course, this is all conceptual. In practice, it may not be so simple. But I think the general idea is right in that we have to control the player growth some way to make it predictable, so that end-game becomes a predictable power-level, while giving Mastery progression meaning. Damage scaling very much is still part of the equation, just no longer as prominently skewed.

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

Regarding the difficulty: I think the reason why they're hesitant in making level 100 planets at the moment is simply because they want every star-chart completable by a minimum level. Orokin Towers and the void missions were supposed to be the hardest missions, and we seem to see them capped at 30-ish levels. Quite disappointing, but it makes me wonder if that was their desired level in the first place?

 

I always did want higher levelled planets, though. Ceres and Pluto isn't hard enough after a certain point. Your idea of reward tiering in the harder missions based on Fusion is an interesting one, though. The system already exists now, from Mercury to Venus, I think, giving sub-par fusion cores than the rest of the system. Wouldn't hurt to take it one more step.

 

 

 

 

Edit: Also, forgot to mention: That was a really, really funny episode. Particularly at the end, you guys just totally went nuts. Especially with that Sargas Ruk thing, and the casino and all. Who came up with that?!

Edited March 5, 2014 by Calayne

[Xenogelion]

*snip*

Adding in a 3-7 Seconds Invis that gave no damage buff would be perfectly balanced, it could even make you travel at 90% speed as well to rub in the difference. However it would give people another tool to use on a stealth based mission on other frames. This could be combined with Valkyr to allow valkyr to stealthy sneak in the rafters or banshee to close the gap to make silence work.

*snip*

 

You and I have a very different idea on stealth gameplay. When I think stealth I think Batman Arkham Asylum where you wait for the bad guys to get in the best position. From the part I've quoted, it sounds like you're thinking more of a Crysis "I can invis but then stop and blast the @?!# out of everyone". I'd say the ultimate stealth gameplay experience Warframe could hope for is every enemy you kill is done with a stealth take down unless you botch it up (this is assuming there is already an incentive to do it). 

 

*snip*

 

To me a system that gives you a thousand tools to choose from should lead to the mentality of having a tool for every job and being willing to switch around. While I appreciate that offering more flexibility within a frame is 'nice', I think that should revolve more around the nature of how their unique moveset is utilised [something that already occurs]. But as for making them more prone to jack of all tradeism, it is well within DEs interest to instead make you build a new frame and purchase a new slot and a new potato and whatever and have a frame that runs stealth, a frame that runs infested, a frame that runs def, etc etc, and it just strikes me as odd that they would take steps away from that.

 

This (and the rest of your post but especially this) has swung me around to your way of thinking. Say DE were to only create general abilities that didn't already existing as warframe abilities, that would seriously shackle the hands of DE in creating any new frames. I feel further investigation on DE's part needs to be done and maybe suggest only 1 general ability can be employed to any frame.

 

 

*snip*

 

 

Yeah, I think it would be nice that DE would do an opt in program where you could choose to opt into beta testing the real client but people seriously need to know how to fill in bug reports, I think that's the potential risk.

 

I still don't agree with the idea of gating the weapons, personally I feel the weapons are fine but the problems lies in the places people use them. Like it's been said... everywhere, all too often people complain about the Soma being too powerful and should be nerfed. Honestly I feel this is because people are using it in missions that are seriously too low for the weapon. Try doing a 60 minute survival on Outer Terminus (Pluto), come about 25 minutes the Soma ain't so useful on it's own anymore. However this being said you are still entitled to your opinion and thank you for forwarding the post to us ^_^.

 

I feel that the badlands end game content is going to be the very hard stuff but regardless they should release something sooner rather than later that makes it more challenging. BRING ON TOWER IV!!!

[MDRLOz]

Whoa we have sort of two conversations running in this thread now. I am going to stick with Xeno and Trayeze stealth/ability for now. Though I do want yo get back to the other. 

 

Overall the game is lacking any mission environment to reward stealth at present. How about an "Optional" (nightmare style) game mode for most nodes (non endless missions) where if you get detected its game over. Same mission mechanics. At first Loki and Ash would be best but we could come up with Invisible detecting shields and laser grids to balance a little. But Vauban/Frost are two Kings of defence... so why cant stealth frames have a mission type to be king of?

 

 

You and I have a very different idea on stealth gameplay. When I think stealth I think Batman Arkham Asylum where you wait for the bad guys to get in the best position. From the part I've quoted, it sounds like you're thinking more of a Crysis "I can invis but then stop and blast the @?!# out of everyone". I'd say the ultimate stealth gameplay experience Warframe could hope for is every enemy you kill is done with a stealth take down unless you botch it up (this is assuming there is already an incentive to do it). 

DE discussed this when they made the stealth mastery test. Your idea of stealth game play and referencing a game like Arkham is completely different to how DE plan stuff. The stealth mastery test had the pre-set paths that allows you to get the enemies just right. DE said it is a lot of effort to set this stuff up. My Idea of stealth is not like that crysis example. My idea of stealth is where you do the whole level without being detected and with as few kills as possible. Not one where you " blast the @?!# out of everyone" When did I mention killing? The idea of Stealth I am trying to put forward, if you want a comparison, is a MGS Game on the highest difficulty where being detected once is Game Over. You are tying to imagine Stealth gameplay and shooting/killing everything still. I am trying to suggest an ability that would benefit from a Zero detection/minimal killing game. As an optional and separate game type this would be possible.

 

That's true, though I also note that the idea of Stealth2.0 really does contradict a lot of the run and gun mentality the game seems to promote

 

But besides, that logic doesn't work anyway. Ash is rubbish at Def/Mobdef missions, so should we give him a CC move? Why does he need to be good at those if he can handle the stealth missions?

 

As it currently stands using stealth kills does help significantly reduce the odds an alarm will be set off and will save you a S#&$load of time, I am not sure what more could be added than that and what more need be added considering the effort is well and truly rewarded. If a level were totally dedicated to stealth concepts, like penalising those who were seen, then people would use Loki like they did for that Mastery test because he will be broken for those levels, no matter how many stealth gimmicks were added otherwise.

 

To me a system that gives you a thousand tools to choose from should lead to the mentality of having a tool for every job and being willing to switch around. While I appreciate that offering more flexibility within a frame is 'nice', I think that should revolve more around the nature of how their unique moveset is utilised [something that already occurs]. 

Game only promotes one environment to play in.

Ash/loki should get a misson type where they are good just like Frost/vauban or Trinity/Nekros get one they work well in.

 

Stealth runs do not save time. You can watch peoples videos as they sneak around behind boxes very slowly.

 

You say improve the utilization of the move set? Do you mean add more varied mission types and environments to allow for abilities to be used in new ways? Like say... a optional Stealth mission type?  Also DE have just started a feedback survey about mission types: 

 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ZEGk94c5HIoytnZjS-KfdaFADLFi8AvJgudcAo1CNpk/viewform

 

 

 

[MDRLOz]

Normally would not double post but Wanted my reply to Calayne to be separate

Also, to clarify on Volt's topic: Actually, he didn't suggest to remove damage scaling. 

 

Are you sure? I did read the google Doc and multiple of his linked thread and replies. I do like to read suggestions when people put effort into feedback as he has done. I however seem to have come away with different info from you.  

 

The following are just quoted from the Volts main post in the thread you linked:

 

"Because I came to a simple realization: to ultimately fix balance would require fixing the fundamentals and the most basic of those is obliterating the scaling of damage"

"which can only happen without scaling damage"

"which can't happen until you stop damage scaling"

"You can't fix difficulty without making TTK static by eliminating scaling damage"

"You can't have build diversification until after damage scaling is killed"

"The fact is, damage scaling is the primary thing holding every single one of those things in that non-exhaustive list back"

"The fact is, nuking scaling damage from orbit is the prerequisite for balance in this game."

" Scaling damage must die"

"As long as scaling damage remains, anything beyond the coarsest of balance (which is mere common sense) is outside the range of possibility"

" The canker, the ulcer that is damage scaling must be removed. "

 

Source:

OP in thread: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/181670-de-why-i-give-up-on-balancing-warframes-components/

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2014 by MDRLOz

[Calayne]

Here's a piece of art from your rantings later on:

 

 

Don't mind if I put this here, on Xeno's request!