From 0 To 6 In 33 Days

[Megakoresh]

Following up on this thread(why is there no rich editor option for links?), is my impressions after hitting the next milestone - rank 6. In an effort to help developers balance progression and content for fun 'n stuff, I will continue to write these until I loose interest in the game. If I do I will try to make sure you know why. Dunno if this matters, but that is what my habit is when I playing a game that is being changed and iterated on (I refrain from using the phrase "In beta", because at this point it is more negative than positive).

 

Let's divide this into some sections. I will describe these:

• Mods
• Combat
• Vertical progression
• Horizontal progression
• Business model
• (why is there no rich editor for lists either?)

Mods

(Why is there no rich editor for size and colour?)

 

First thing about mods is that they are a very good idea. I am surprised other games didn't do this, but the variety of tweaks to stats they allow allows users and developers to balance the game on separate levels. Feel the gun is too powerful? Put some hilarious mods on it. Feel it's not powerful enough? Put a very powerful mod combo on it. I found the system provides a form of non-destructive balance to the game unlike any I have seen before, and if not for the few major issues I will discuss later, I'd say it can make almost any weapon and warframe viable, even if it's underpowered at base.

 

There's a difficulty with mod selection. Due to their enormous quanitity and a very small window where you can choose them, it is a giant chore to find the mod with the effect that you currently want. The UI is missing many elements supporting such huge quantities. For example I'd like to create my own filter groups. For example I make a new group, call it "Elemental damage" and add all elemental mods into it. Then on selection screen I could choose to only show my "Elemental damage" group to have an easier time at making elemental builds.

 

Furthermore the mod preview is missing a table view. When I have 500 mods in the inventory, I do not want to look at hundreds of poorly scaled down thumbnails. I want to have a table with "Name", "Compatible with", "Effect", "Cost", "Polarity" and "Conclave" as coloumns, and I want to have the ability to order mods by each of the table's coloumn's titles. You know, how Windows has been doing it. It has been pretty effective so far. A search input would also help, if it would accept words from the mod effect description as well.

 

There is a big problem with mods however. Same big problem as with a lot of systems in the game: RNG. When i go to region chat to complain about how Afuris eats ammo faster than fusing eats credits, I see people say "Use pistol ammo mutation". Yeah right. Feel free to give one to me if you have a spare, but I only have a Bow arrow mutation. Handy indeed, considering bows are among the most ammo-efficient weapons.

 

The true self-balancing power of the system only opens up at the very endgame when you have enough mods to cover most of the possible difficulties with the game's balance (and there are a lot, they're muffled by the mod system, another reason why it's such a good design decision). Until then you are left using what you have to make stuff better. Not working on really improving the item's strong sides or compensating for it's weaknesses. I just ranked up to 6 mastery and I do not feel like I am making a "build" for some purpose. No, I feel like I am just trying to get by with what I have. This is half due to absence of mods and half due to another problem with the system - the whole potato problem.

 

The game is unfortunately balanced such that there's barely any freedom of choice beyond something like Saturn level of content, when it comes to modding your items using default configuration. 30 mod points is barely enough to fit essentials for higher level play, and is for many guns not even enough. Using FORMAs is very difficult due to their acquisition difficulty and the time it takes to level the gun or worse: the frame, up again. It takes (measured) on average 7-8 hours of IN-GAME (as in gameplay) time to fully level a complete loadout (Frame, primary, secondary and melee) from rank 0 to 30 excluding sentinels using primarily ODD, Void T1/2 and Pluto Dark Sectors. By comparison it takes 1-2 hours to level a character in Mass Effect 3 Coop.

 

And really Formas, unless you polarize all slots, do not give you as much freedom as you might think. They reduce the number of mods you can efficiently use and in order to change the polarity of an already polarized slot, you have to re-level the item all over again. It is incredibly dull and boring and is the polar oppose to fun and freedom of choice.

 

Then there are these potatoes, which are really what give the freedom with mods. And they are extremely rare unless you buy them with platinum. Only being dropped by login rewards and alert missions, these items are ridiculously difficult to aquire, and while you might only truly need 16 reactors at all times and not more, we do have some 100+ weapons in this game, many of which are not all that bad and that I would really like to use on high level missions. But I can't. The game is not balanced for it.

 

If I wanna use Hek effectively on high level missions, I have to put a potato on it. If I wanna use Boltor on high level missions, I still need to put a potato on it. I am not even talking about the awful and underpowered sniper rifles. Any gun falls under this rule, due in no small part to this other major issue I will talk about later. And as far as self-balance goes, you can't do that effectively anymore when you are required to either spend most of your days grinding for potatoes, just like working in a friggin farm, or spend real money. Another "perk" of F2P. I am starting to hate this model.

 

I could rant about the balance of mods and how grind prevents their effectiveness for 80% of the playerbase for quite some time. Instead let me just describe how I would have created the system, had I been doing it:

 

In short: I'd just let players craft mods.

 

I would drop parts such as "Magnetic field stabilizer" or whatever and have that create a shield capacity mod when put on "Warframe plating mod imprint", a Mag's "Pull" ability when put on "Small Warframe energy focuser", Mag's ultimate when put on "Large Warframe energy focuser", Sentinel shield booster when put on "Sentinel plating mod imprint", etc. You get the idea. Have less parts. Create variety through combination, with minimal inventory clutter.

 

I would leave some of the more rare and unique mods like Berserk or Rage to be dropped like they are now, but mods with more standard effects (even if they are rare now), such as damage, punch through, abilities, attack speed, various Damage 2.0 buffs and all that, I would make craftable.

 

I would leave fusion to fusion cores, no duplicates.

 

I would replace selling mods into dismantling them. Upon dismantling a player would get randomly from 1 to all the parts used to craft a mod. The unique pre-made mods I would also allow to be dismantled and would guarantee a unique 1-time use Imprint to make that specific mod, but allow players to also mix in some other effect from the parts they already have.

 

That systems reduces the RNG dependency and gives players more control. It also reduces inventory clutter. I realize that with how far you are in with the mods, this type of suggestion is not much use to you from a practicality standpoint, but I think it's easier to explain my point this way.

Combat

Now for me this is THE reason to keep playing. I care mostly about 2 things in the game: their world and their gameplay. It takes a special kind of game for me to care about it's other aspects like characters or progression or art style, etc. In addition I am studying game design and I have chosen to go down the route of gameplay design. I look at combat very critically and often something that might seem irrelevant can really hurt my experience a lot. Please keep this in mind if you think I am talking out of my arse here.

 

So first things first, the TL;DR: Combat is not very good. It feels floaty, many weapons barely have interesting recoil patterns, movement is not factored in in any enjoyable way and biggest of all: it is almost ENTIRELY skill-less.

 

Now the long version:

 

Why does it feel floaty?

 

When I hit the enemy with a primarily electric damage I expect to hear impact sounds from every bullet/beam that give me a satisfying ZZZZZZAP treat. When i hit someone in the head with a Lex or a sniper or hell, even a Boltor, I expect to both HEAR a satisfying sound (regardless if the enemy dies from headshot or not) 

 and SEE a satisfying burst of particles from the impact point. Instead i see particles everywhere spamming my screen, except for the places where they would actually improve the feeling of satisfaction from the hit.

 

What the combat feels like is like rubbing dust off my desk (S#&$, I really need to do it...). The uniform, monotonous action of pressing a trigger or mashing E when after a certain TIME the enemy dies. This is not good guys. I should be feeling my progression through hit sounds, effects, enemy reactions, model states, ANYTHING but "time since starting to shoot" and the little UI bar on top.

 

What's with the weapon recoil?

 

This is not as big of a complaint as the others. It's just that weapons do not have good recoil-damage ratios. Typically you would use recoil as a way to non-destructively balance a weapon. For example if a weapon is very powerful you increase it's recoil, making it more difficult to use, without having to nerf it, and therefore it turns out that the weapon is more rewarding to use now, instead of mindless spamfest, you need to apply effort to really utilize that power. It's a nice system, but I have seen the inverse of that in this game so far.

 

Burston has recoil. Yeah right, if you learn to compensate you can land pretty accurate shots. So what? It's a terrible weapon. Vor's pistol has some crazy recoil. So what? It's a really poor weapon. On the other hand my Afuris has terrible accuracy (making it annoying in 2 areas now), yet basically zero recoil, while having a huge DPS. I woul rather have more accuracy and have to compensate for recoil, so I have control with my SKILL as to when and how I want to exert it's high DPS. But it is just a very high damage bullet hose that requires a certain number of meters to the target to be effective.

 

You should use recoil patters to make powerful weapons stay powerful without being OP. It's not a mindless "stat" you can just slap on guns to make them different. That difference must be supported through gameplay. And it isn't. For example Lex has quite a bit of recoil, but it has such a low Rate of fire that compensating this recoil is not a relevant skill. Boltor has some good headshot capability, but what good is my aim if the weapon's spread is too large to score reliable headshots and on the other hand it's recoil is barely there despite the fact that it shoots friggin 10 cm long impaling javelins.

 

I have a mod that reduces recoil. I don't wanna use it. I want a weapon where recoil is actually adding to satisfaction of it's usage. A weapon that is friggin stompy as hell, but will require some real skill to execute it's stompyness. I have yet to find one.

 

And I also want a mod that reduces spread and I want my Afuris and Boltor to have reduces spread and more recoil. But I guess we can all keep dreaming.

 

What about the movement?

 

First of all the movement in the game is really quite frustrating and awkward. This is probably why it can't be factored into the combat atm. Here is an example: I did a mission yesterday. Died 3 times. EVERY single one of those times was because for some bizarre reason my toggle of sprint turned off and I was not able to dive jump to escape fire. I could not distinguish when I am sprinting and when I am not, and since sprinting is required to perform that move, I was basically stuck crouching like an idiot in the middle of enemies. Hands up who feel a dejavu right now. 

 

I remember countless times running up the wall when i was clearly aiming to run across it and vice versa. Countless times when I ran up the wall to grab a ledge and ended up just falling down or intuitively releasing space to slide down a little and try running up again, only to jump back like a drunk money and into the abyss. So many times have I auto-rolled when i didn't want to, canceling a critical reload or rolling into an abyss. The wall melee attack is terrible as well. It propels you across the whole room and doesn't even have autotargeting.

 

Running and performing acrobatics seems not to affect the enemies perception in the slightest. They still easily aim and track you regardless of the fact that you dancing around them and from their perspective should be like the ninja you are: blinking around the place here and there, they don't seem to give a F***. I mean my dodging around statistically reduces a damage by a certain RNG-controlled %.

 

It is not a reliable way to avoid damage. You know every game should have such a way. In most it is cover. But in this game enemies can swarm from all directions and due to another big problem of the game (coming later), it is not possible to reliably control them. So movement is your only options. And it's not only awkward as hell but also as it turns out about as reliable as RNG can be. FFS...

 

Finally what about skill?

 

This is the big issue. There is a lot here that contributes to it. The recoil mentioned above is just a small part and the movement also just being a part of it. The biggest absolutely massive 2 contributing factors however are energy pool and design and balance of enemies.

 

I will start with the energy pool because it's a very easy problem to explain and is also a very easy fix.

 

It is based on item drops. What are item drops? That's right, RNG. What is RNG? That's right, luck. What is luck? That's right, NOT @(*()$ SKILL. Seriously I can understand drops being RNG in a F2P game. In some cases it's a necessary evil (though not to the scale this game does it). But basing combat difficulty on RNG? Are you kidding me? This is just ridiculous. Especially if you solo. My god this must have been one of the most ridiculous design decisions I have seen in a very long time.

 

So let's say we have a team with Nekros and everyone uses Spare parts on their drones. Great. Everyone can run around without a care in the world about managing energy, or when to use abilities or how and in which order. Why? When the floor is literally covered in blue orbs? Alternatively say I am duoing with a friend and using a heavily ability-focused warframe. We do a Mobile Defense and a horde spawns and BAM. No energy drops. Can't do S#&$, ladies and gentlemen. Because my prowess with the build and all my efforts into modding it well have all just gone to hell because the RNG gods did not drop enough orbs for me.

 

Great so I all i can do is either risk death trying to get the orbs by killing enemies and probably not getting any anyway (like it usually happens to me), or wait till our Auras recharge the pool. At 1.2 frigging NRG per second.

 

It is absolutely insane. If the developers have any interest in increasing the importance of skill in this game they will at LEAST add a mod(with a LOW drain) that recharges the energy starting at 7 NRG/s and capping at 14 NRG/s that will either disable or decrease effectiveness of energy orbs. Preferably decrease the effectiveness further the more it increases recharge.

 

I still can't wrap my head around why DE have not done such a mod by now. I guess the Diablo-lovers who seem to be the primary target demographic here, don't care about this sort of thing. But still, even if you are a Diablo-lover why should you just take it when the game takes a dump on your skill with design decisions like that? You love the RNG in the loot, not in your damn gameplay. Don't play at a mercy of RNG gods. Wake up! It's time for the tyranny of RNG to end! At least as far as gameplay is concerned!

 

Now moving on to design and balance of enemies.

 

First off enemies are very similar. None of them, save for bosses (and even those not always, hello Salad V), actually change the pacing and the flow of gameplay in any meaningful way.

 

Look at how games like Killing Floor, Left 4 Dead, the all loved and revered (or is it just me?) Mass Effect 3 Coop handle enemy design and spawning. When you see a Fleshpound you KNOW this will be a tough and a very different fight to a bunch of banshees (or whatever the screaming *@##$es are called). In ME3 You see a dragoon and you KNOW it's a completely different situation to fighting a Phantom or a Guardian. Completely different tactics. Completely different gameplay.

 

I am not even gonna mention the special infected from L4D or the different factions of Mass Effect 3 Coop. It's like jumping from one game into a different one. There're are a LOT of stats on enemies and weapons in those games, but unlike Warframe all those stats reflect in gameplay execution as oppose to just the metagame and that damn "time it takes to kill".

 

In Warframe there are TWO of these types of scenarios that require a slightly different tactics. Just two. And one funny thing? They both require kind the same alternate "tactic". One is Ancient Disrupter vs ability build. You want to eaither pick him off from a distance or you wanna aerial slam to disable his drain ability. Another is Riot Shield Grineer. Again. You either wanna use punch through to kill him at a distance or aerial slam to finish him off on the ground.

 

Most of the game is just going through continuous monotonous and uniform stream of enemies piling through them using whatever your build is focused on, be that abilities or weapons or just speed, in which case you can rush past and not give a toss. Occasionally it's gonna throw a Napalm at you which has a completely unfair and in no way indicated high-damage AoE and ridiculous armour. So you have to compensate. With skill? Hell no. With Fire resistance +60%. With shields +280%. With Soma and Puncture Damage+30%. With Radiation damage 300. Oh come the hell on!

 

Let's say he shoots one of his unfair weird plasma... things. I wanna shoot it as it flies out of his barrel! I want it exploded into his @(*()$ face and 100% proc him with fire damage. I want him locked in place when he reloads. I want him to be just stuck like the sluggish S#&$ he is in that very spot reloading his ridiculous OP gun. Then I wanna rush in and Aerial slam him with a guaranteed ragdoll chance and a 40% chance to disarm him Loki-style. So i do it a couple of times and he is sure to loose his gun that way.

 

I wanna go to Pluto in an Unranked Frame, with a Lex and a Hek at Rank 30 without a potato, with a helluva lot of skill and I wanna beat that @(*()$ level without bullS#&$ or luck. And I can't do it. It's infuriating.

 

And even when the differences between mobs COULD help gameplay, they are in no way supported by spawn rules. Like for example the Grinner hellions have a very good open field control, with a good telegraph. So you know when to get into cover and all that, to avoid his rockets. But what does it matter when hordes of melee mobs or shotgunners or whatever the hell else swarms you from every direction? Not to mention that Hellions often spawn inside tight rooms, which kinda defeats the whole point of the exercise!

 

Nothing. You can't do S#&$. So what do you rely on? Yep. More mods. More RNG knockdown resistance stats. More mindless jumping around the place hoping the RNG gods of dodging protect your sorry &#!. In the grim randomness of the far future Ninjas are Soldiers of Fortune™.

 

If the Hellions were supported by Gunners and Snipers let's say, making the open field a very hazardous place, but making cover play very important and easy way to avoid damage... Shift the combat. Thats what this is all about. Every one of the encounters should strive to make a situation that is very dangerous but in a very NICHE way. Where players need know what to DO, not which mods to equip before the mission.

 

Mods should HELP. RNG should HELP. Not be detrimental to your success.

 

I tried to come up with an enemy design to demonstrate my point on this matter. If you are curious check it here.

 

I am not even going to talk about stealth. Seems like at least there people know what the problems are. If you want to see my stand on it, here it is.

 

Scaling of enemies doesn't help either. Instead of changing behavior, being more aggressive, gaining new abilities like grenade or rolls, getting more weapon variety, all they get is more HP and DPS. Absolutely doesn't help to make higher-end content more engaging.

 

Melee 2.0

 

Nice idea. Awkward controls. Also no combos (I do not count different animations and DPS/Hit arcs with the same execution sequences as different combos). When i equip reaping spiral, I have this long-range attack where I throw my scythe. But to get to it I gotta mash E like 6 times. Completely pointless. Combos should be based on states (air, crouch, moving, from block), and DIFFERENT attack types. Not just E E E E E. If you want a full opinion, here it is.

 

Not using this system until the controls are usable.

Vertical progression

Unhealthy. Just unhealthy. Combined with the problems of combat above, particularly with how little skill matters in the game, the extend to which players are allowed to go with fully maxed out mods and some weapons is insane. +200% Damage are you kidding me? +440% HP? Shields? Crazyness.

 

I can get behind +250% shields AND combined with some resistance mods, you get protection from certain enemies that your weapons aren't equipped to quickly dispatch. I get that. But with maxed out mods players are able to become gods MMORPG-style, which is absolutely not acceptable in a shooter game. It's why Borderlands is not a shooter, but a Diablo-style game with first person perspective. If Warframe has any ambition to become a better shooter, it should dial back the vertical progression of some of the maxed out mods, combined with fixing the issues listed above, to emphasize the power of good mod COMBOS. Not just good maxed out mods.

 

If I was doing it, I'd make all mod's vertical progression like 50% maximum of their base stats (with exception of tradeoff mods). And emphasize combining mods to achieve true NICHE (again) power in some areas, compensating with other equipment and SKILL in others. I'd allow more mods to be slotted in (not just slots, but capacity too) and dial back the importance of maxing out. Especially given how RNG-driven it is.

 

As mentioned above I feel re-leveling items is takes WAY too long a time, even on endgame missions. In my opinion once you apply a FORMA to an item, leveling up back up to full should happen at 2-3 times the initial speed.

 

More customization power. Less grind. Goddamn Free 2 Play...

Horizontal progression

With how difficult it is due to problems described above to polarize items and to obtain potatoes, it makes it a very difficult decision to dispose of an item once it has been polarized or potatoed, since you don't get neither the FORMA nor the Potato back, not to mention the time you spent leveling the bloody thing (and let me tell you: leveling an item with no mods up until like rank 17 is NOT fun in any way).

 

This prevents variety. You want players to experience the content your team has spent time creating. Don't lie to me, of course you do. You want people to take this gun and say "OMG whoever made this is a @(*()$ genius". But unless players are at endgame or have HEAPS of money in their pockets they won't be doing that any time soon because of much the horizontal progression is locked behind grind.

 

I said it in the first thread and it persisted until now: it always better to make Horizontal progression, content, variety (all essentially same things) easy to aquire and focus the majority of player progression on vertical aspect. That does NOT include re-leveling guns after FORMA. That is ALSO variety.

 

In addition to the mentioned suggestion of re-leveling items after FORMA being 2-3 times faster than leveling the first time around, I'd also make it so that after selling a warframe you would have a 100% chance to get the potato back and after selling a gun, you would have a chance to get a potato back based on how many FORMAs are applied to it. For example 0 FORMAs-30% chance, 1 - 40% chance, 2 - 50% chance and so on. 6/8 slots FORMAd up should guarantee to return the potato, as obviously the person spent an awful lot of time on the item.

 

Do NOT make it so painful to dispose of old equipment if you want players to see and appreciate your efforts in full. I appreciate your new gun less if I have to dispose of 50 hours of work I spent on the old one. Not to mention that the very fact that I have to use the word "work" here is ridiculous in of itself.

 

I get it, you want to sell slots (Curse the Free 2 Play!!!), but striking a balance in this situation is very important. Especially if you want players to play a faction who's very existence seems to be based around bringing balance. How do you expect them to do it when your game is so unbalanced in favor of grind over fun? Potatoes should be returned in my opinion. At least partially. And re-leveling should take MUCH less time.

Business model

I am not gonna lie, I got hooked in. It was not due to the game, so much as it was due to awesome players I have met while playing it and the fact that my clan got into the game as well. But when it comes to paying? I will not pay unless I get a 50 or 75% discount tokens from login rewards. And I will not buy anything other than 10€ Platinum pack unless I get 75% discount token.

 

Why? Because the game is ridiculously expensive and because it is my strategy in all F2P games to pay as if it was a priced release. Typically I consider a F2P game good investment if I can pay a certain amount between 30-50€ and do not bother with ANY content unlocks. That means ANY. AT-ALL. Any further updates I should be able to aquire by playing with what I bought for those 50€ before I got bored of the content that I payed the 50€ for. That is my strategy because of the longest time priced releases have been offering me this kind of experience and I do not see any advantages of Free 2 Play games that would justify paying more.

 

Yes I understand that continued development is a factor here, and more often than not, if the game allows me to follow my philosophy I would still buy some cosmetics and stuff later down the line, as I would pay for DLC for a priced game too.

 

But it's not just about purchasing decisions and whatnot. It's also about the way this game is done. DE are exploiting the hell out of the fact that it's PvE, selling power left and right, which would takes forever to unlock via free means. It's a system I call Buy or Die. It's not a good system. It means the game is deliberately designed to feel not fun and to feel like work unless you pay to unlock content.

 

And to top it all off, the game is, as I mentioned, ridiculously expensive. For the 50€ I'd pay I would expect to be able to buy 16 Warframes with a potato for each (and slots of course). I would expect to be able to buy around 40-50 weapons and have a potato for each of them. I would expect to have slots for every single weapon in the game and then some to go for at least a few months before I need new weapons lots. I would expect to get 10-20 rare mods of my own choosing.

 

I would expect the level of content I can expect from a full-priced game offering a similar experience. And ONLY the 300€ pack offers something close to that. And NO game, old or new, future or present, legendary or ANY is worth that much. No matter your income. It's unreasonable to say the least. I can buy new graphics card with that money and have it play all the other games I have with better performance. Or I can spend this money on Steam sale and get THOUSANDS of games with it.

I know it feels like I am ranting a lot, but I try to make it as constructive a rant as possible. I feel like the game almost has systems and content in place for real skill-based and satisfying shooter, but it's not really being focused on that. And yeah I only say mostly negative things. Why? Because that's what feedback is for. If it ain't broke don't fix it. If i think something works well, I won't mention it, because devs don't need to touch it anymore.

 

And really, I joined a little over a month ago and have like 70 hours in it already (not all of it in gameplay, you know how it goes, but still). And with all of the above problems I am still having fun so far. Isn't that praise enough? It should be. Games are work of passion. They are art of the future. It should be the THE praise. Not fanboi "OMG THIS GAEM SO CEWL" screaming or 10/10 reviews.

Players having fun.

That's what should matter.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Megakoresh

[AveryJ]

i sincerely hope the devs read this.

[Xhos]

*claps vigorously*

[Flatline22]

Nice to read some constructive criticism and suggestions for a change. Writing a single sentence does not do the amount of work and thought you've put in here and will continue to put in here enough justice

[RadiantProxy]

Very informative, I'll never be able to reach such level of feedback-mastery. Hat off!

[gnat6]

I agree with you about the vertical progression its absurd that damage mods give you anywhere from a 300% to a 1000% damage increase and warframe mods are almost as extreme thus making proper balance impossible to achieve due to enemys being ether immortal or a complete joke depending on the mods you have equipped.

 

I have mixed feelings about adding more recoil to the weapons for example with the burston and the latron the recoil really adds to the feel of the gun but with the grakata its just annoying this is personal opinion obviously other people may disagree.

 

I don't really have anything to add to the rest of the original post.

Edited May 15, 2014 by gnat6

[Megakoresh]

I agree with you about the vertical progression its absurd that damage mods give you anywhere from a 300% to a 1000% damage increase and warframe mods are almost as extreme thus making proper balance impossible to achieve due to enemys being ether immortal or a complete joke depending on the mods you have equipped.

 

I have mixed feelings about adding more recoil to the weapons for example with the burston and the latron the recoil really adds to the feel of the gun but with the grakata its just annoying this is personal opinion obviously other people may disagree.

 

I don't really have anything to add to the rest of the original post.

Yeah well, I wasn't really saying add or remove recoil. I was saying the recoil-damage ratio was bad. As in if a Burston has a fair bit of recoil, it's damage should reflect that, and it doesnt (in short: it's damage needs a buff). If some weapon feels awkward with recoil, maybe it also needs a damage buff or a recoil nerf. It's all on a case by case basis. I have not played with grakata so I don't know.

 

Also it seems like the drop tables are messed up (again) recently for the T3 Survival missions. I did 3 survival missions recently (as in this morning and yesterday evening), all until minute 20 or more and it doesn't seem to drop anything except for Boar Prime BP and Fang prime blade. They need to fix that.

[Kyria]

A familiar name from the Firefall forums! ;-) Welcome to WF!

 

+1 for an excellent post!

[Paradoxbomb]

This pretty much hits the nail on the head, Warframe is good mindless fun and I still love it even after investing hundreds of hours in it, but DE seriously needs to start putting a focus on improving the mod system and making combat and progression actually feel meaningful (and of course, more skill over RNG and number increases) or else the "mindless" part of mindless fun is the most it could ever hope to aspire to.

 

The Mod System above all else is the most in need of an overhaul IMO, as it stands it's a RNG drop system that's practically lending itself to dropping "diverse" mods (ie. Berserker) that promote varied playstyles, but instead it randomly drops core mods that are necessary for remedial progression. To go somewhat along the lines of what you said, the core mechanics should be an integral system that upgrades through some from XP/progression system and should be somewhat limited (certainly much less than a +440% health/shield boost) and then mods come in to provide more substantial buffs depending on how you choose to play.

 

Of course all of these issues addressed are important, but I feel that since the Mod System is pretty much the heart of progression, leveling up, build diversity, etc. in Warframe that it's THE feature that needs to have structure beyond RNG in order to allow for balanced progression and difficulty scaling to become feasible.

 

So +1 to you, if DE hasn't seen this yet, I really hope they do soon.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Paradoxbomb

[Unibot]

Horizontal progression ? Thats the most stupid thing I ever heard of... Go back to GW 2 with your horizontal "progression"

[Janzer]

"It means the game is deliberately designed to feel not fun and to feel like work unless you pay to unlock content." - This right here is all you really need to know.

 

Disagree? Try running the game without catalysts or reactors. And PLEASE say that you can get those in ODD or whatever. To that I'll say, go back to a level/rank 0 frame/account with absolute starter weapons. Never join any missions that you can not reach yourself. You can take any missions you are able to on alert, but you must do them SOLO, none of that leeching on a mission to get a free reward.

 

Go do that, but imagine if you will that you had no knowledge of how the game functions. Then come back and say that this game is fun for new players, or anyone for that matter.

 

When I started playing this game and found it ridiculously difficult on my own. Thankfully for DE I'm quite a masochist when it comes to gameplay, so I stuck in there and figured out a lot solo. But I've also said "F*** it" and have bought plat for catalysts because some weapons are just total trash without decent modding. Just utter torture to use.

 

Please go try using the Sicarus to kill things. See how long that takes you. See how much fun that gun is. Having gone through bad weapons isn't a badge of honor, it's a mark of stupidity.

[Megakoresh]

"It means the game is deliberately designed to feel not fun and to feel like work unless you pay to unlock content." - This right here is all you really need to know.

 

Disagree? Try running the game without catalysts or reactors. And PLEASE say that you can get those in ODD or whatever. To that I'll say, go back to a level/rank 0 frame/account with absolute starter weapons. Never join any missions that you can not reach yourself. You can take any missions you are able to on alert, but you must do them SOLO, none of that leeching on a mission to get a free reward.

 

Go do that, but imagine if you will that you had no knowledge of how the game functions. Then come back and say that this game is fun for new players, or anyone for that matter.

 

When I started playing this game and found it ridiculously difficult on my own. Thankfully for DE I'm quite a masochist when it comes to gameplay, so I stuck in there and figured out a lot solo. But I've also said "F*** it" and have bought plat for catalysts because some weapons are just total trash without decent modding. Just utter torture to use.

 

Please go try using the Sicarus to kill things. See how long that takes you. See how much fun that gun is. Having gone through bad weapons isn't a badge of honor, it's a mark of stupidity.

Is sicarus even worse than MK-1 Braton? Oh my...

 

And about the blue potatoes also I forgot to mention that while frames have Auras to slightly improve the situation when you don't have a potato installed, weapons have none of that and the same average costs of mods. So the situation is then that you basically are required to have a potato on a weapon in order to equip it for a certain type of encounter. Without the potato you will only just fit the most powerful mods that you can fit and that's it. There's no room for choice. No "build" is possible.

 

It would probably be less of an issue if they really did make re-leveling items after applying FORMA 2-3 times faster, but somehow I doubt they even will read this thread, let alone implement some of the suggestions.

 

Why the hell did they even have to go with the F2P in the first place... It's not like coop shooters is an awfully competitive market.

 

Horizontal progression ? Thats the most stupid thing I ever heard of... Go back to GW 2 with your horizontal "progression"

That was mildly amusing :P

Edited May 16, 2014 by Megakoresh

[Megakoresh]

Update to my post about recoil:

 

with the grakata its just annoying this is personal opinion obviously other people may disagree.

 

So I have played with Grakata. I love it, but you were right: it's the same as with Burston, damage feels too weak for the level of recoil the weapon has. Especially compared to Soma. It is natural, I think, that some weapons are better for run and gun style with little recoil and higher spread, but low movement penalty and high DPS, like Boar Prime, and some are better for tactical play. Hiding behind cover, aiming down sights. Unleashing huge sustained damage and pinning down enemies at the right moment. It's good. It varies up gameplay.

 

Grakata should be one of those tactical weapons. It should get a buff I think. Just like Soma should get a recoil increase (and a proper recoil pattern, it just goes randomly left and right, no real option to consistently compensate right now). 

 

So I agree, the ratio is off. The damage per clip doesn't feel strong enough to justify that recoil. It also kinda kicks up too much at first shot and doesn't kick as much later on, which doesn't feel right with it's LMG nature. It's the kind of behaviour I would expect from a shotgun. But main thing is the damage is weak for how strong is the recoil. I like the feel of the gun, but it doesn't seem all that useful right now without FORMAs and potatoes.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Megakoresh

[Archistopheles]

Hello, my name is Rich Editor.

 

I saw you asking for me in your post?

[Megakoresh]

Hello, my name is Rich Editor.

 

I saw you asking for me in your post

Your name reads Archistopgeles, not Rich Editor. From what I can tell Mr. Rich Editor doesn't have an account on these forums. Hence the complaints in the OP :P

[Tazmanyak]

Interesting readings. A bit too long, but interesting :)
Globally, a good review of the difficulties a beginner may encounter, the damn RNG, the stupid IA, the cluttered and consolesque UI, the EndGame ...

I dont agree with you everywhere, especially in the "business model" chapter, but i wont debate here. points are valid, i suppose, as are mine (in my opinion). But, exept the overpriced frames and weapons, the business model is one of the "bests" i could find in f2p games ...

No optionnal monthly fee you fianlly have to pay to play the full game, all gameplay items available ingame. Only thing needed and you have to pay for are the slots.

And there is trading! You can always gain enough plats in small time to buy any number of slots you could need.

[Megakoresh]

Interesting readings. A bit too long, but interesting :)

Globally, a good review of the difficulties a beginner may encounter, the damn RNG, the stupid IA, the cluttered and consolesque UI, the EndGame ...

I dont agree with you everywhere, especially in the "business model" chapter, but i wont debate here. points are valid, i suppose, as are mine (in my opinion). But, exept the overpriced frames and weapons, the business model is one of the "bests" i could find in f2p games ...

No optionnal monthly fee you fianlly have to pay to play the full game, all gameplay items available ingame. Only thing needed and you have to pay for are the slots.

And there is trading! You can always gain enough plats in small time to buy any number of slots you could need.

Here's the thing:

 

• Mod capacity is designed to effectively eliminate all choice and build possibilities unless a potato is used. This is true especially on shooting weapons, where there are no stances or auras to increase capacity.

• Potatoes are insanely difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities, again, especially for weapons, where you need a lot of them.

• Another way to get more room for maneuvers are FORMAs. Applying one resets the item. Leveling items take LUDICROUS amounts of time. Just ludicrous. Like I mentioned it is 8 hours of gameplay time on average. It's ok when i level the item the first time around. But FORMA application is virtually unlimited. For it to be used as a way to try different builds, it needs to be applied all the time. There will be no time to play with a Formaed item since you will be constantly re-leveling it.

• Furthermore FORMAs are difficult to get. They are RNG-dependent just like most things in the game.

• Both FORMAs and Potatoes are lost if the item is discarded and are not re-installed on it automagically if you buy and construct that item again.

These things make up the bulk of "Buy Or Die" model in this game. They are enormous time sinks limiting player's choice. A very fast and player-friendly way to improve this would be to make re-leveling items after you are through with them the first time 2-3 times as fast. Another way to improve this is to return the potatoes and formas applied to items. All like I mention in the thread.

 

If you want to see a truly great F2P model, look at Loadout. That game strikes a perfect balance between making leveling boosts desirable, yet without making normal leveling a giant and boring grind. It also does not put leveling in the way of fun and choice. All parts are interchangeable and due to their count you will get variety anyway. If you wish to go for a very specific build you will have to unlock items specifically, but by the time you will know what build you actually want, you will have enough Blutes to unlock most of your way to that item.

 

On top of that the prices in that game are about the same as in Warframe, however the count of what you can buy outside of cosmetics is about 100 times lower.

 

Warframe doesn't have that balance. It's got a giant chore of a progression in the way of player choice, the only way to bypass which is to pay. And that is not very good. And on top of that it also has ridiculous prices for everything considering just how much there's to buy. I am not saying it's "unfair". I am saying it's significantly hammering the fun factor.

 

Also i did hear those myths about Platinum trading. Not sure what they are all about. I have yet to find anyone who'd spend platinum in the trading channel. Exchanging items, sure, but as far as Platinum goes, everyone seems to trade for it, but never buy. I never managed to sell anything for platinum. And believe me, I have really tried.

 

Also yeah my thread is long because like in every videogame systems tie into each other. It's difficult to compress this without compromising the cohesion of suggestions or the clarity of explanations.

[Tazmanyak]

As there is no real endgame content, no storyline to follow, the only way for DE to "keep players busy" is to create timesinks.

RNG is a timesink by itself; Farming primes, farming and leveling more and more crap weapons, releveling formated frames and weapons, this is all timesinks.

The whole game is only about timesinks.

 

The real issue in my opinion, is that veterans as much as beginers are confronted to the same issues. As this could be "somewhat good" for veterans, it's totally awfull for beginers ... i created an alt account 2 months ago, to "restart from scratch" and see how is progression. i played 10 hours. I had no good mods, no interest in playing as a noob.

If the newbie has chance to find a community to level up with, then he will face the second hit wall: potatoes, slots, then mods fusion.

it's a dead end there. As many will quit before they manage to figure "how to earn plats".

 

I was really hoping DE would, one day, offer proper rewards for ranks increase. Here, potatoes and slots would be awesome. Give 1 frame slot every 3-4 ranks; 1 weapon slot every 2. And offer 10-20 plats on every other. Until rank 6-8 is reached.

This would help make sure more players will stay in game, because they werent blocked by the impossibility to be powerfull, because they cant try more weapons, ...

Then, there is the trade. A few months ago, we recruited in my clan a real beginer. That couldnt invest money in WF. He was fast enough able (thanks to our help) able to pick 2 HL frames, a hand of good weapons, so he could follow us in our universe extermination. he collected huge amounts of mods, prime stuff, auras and so on. He slowly started to try to sell them. i days, he had enough plats to buy 4 frames slots, 8 weapons slots, a hand of potatoes; and now he can afford color palettes and syandanas!

Gaining plats in trading is not a myth. It's a game by itself; time consuming - but it's worth it!

 

That doesnt excuse DE from selling frames up to 350 or 400 plats in the market, or weapons 250 ... this part of the market IS really overpriced :)

 

Formas, they are not an issue. Really. Exept, again, For beginers. Void will be very rewarding with formas. I drop more forma blueprints i can craft.

But, yes, when you begin it's another awfull grind wall ...

 

 

Last thing, tou said "Mod capacity is designed to effectively eliminate all choice and build possibilities unless a potato is used. This is true especially on shooting weapons, where there are no stances or auras to increase capacity."

Well, fact is a potato wont assure you are able to build any frame and weapon correctly. Potato + multiple formas seem to be the basis now :/

[Megakoresh]

Formas can be applied and reapplied indefinitely and there's enough variety of mods in the game to warrant this kind of reapplication. The reason you have more formas than you can use is exactly what I described: the enormous time required to re-level an item once a forma has been applied to it. That "time sink" serves only to deter from the game and not to attract. There's literally no excuse to it other than to sell XP boosts. And the time it takes to re-level coupled with how many times you'd want to re-level for various builds, means it is SO huge that I wouldn't even buy an XP boost for it: it would still take too long.

 

So yeah. I too have more FORMAs than I use. Not because I don't need to. Because I don't want to. I would not classify this problem as "beginner only", especially given what you just said about having a stockpile of them.

 

In addition I think you should know that I play almost exclusively Void missions and Dark Sectors, with Orokin Derelict for leveling. Almost all the good mods I needed I got from other players. Prime parts too. More than half of it for free, because I had nothing to give them that they'd need. If they haven't given those to me, I would have left the game already due to burning out on variety faster than I can obtain it.

 

Far as plat trading and prime farming goes, yeah, I can just take your word for it. I will never see any of it, I am extremely unlucky, in any game and warframe among them. I had the same problem in Mass Effect 3 and really any game with RNG elements, there's hardly anyone I have ever met with that extent of bad luck. It's annoying when the game gives no way to battle that bad luck, but I got used to it over the years.

 

But the whole Forma and mod capacity problem is not going to stop being a problem because of anyone's luck.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Megakoresh

[drMightyPotato]

You, good sir, have summed up all my recent frustrations with Warfame these past few months(i have about 550h ingame play time) into one short thread. Ive read it and agree vigorously with every word you said.

If anyone tells you ''but you still didnt get to ''endgame'' do ignore them. Warframe has no endgame and probably wont have it for another 3-4 months and im being highly optimistic.

As far as combat is concerned im glad you weren't here several months ago it would of been a shock of your life if you saw the difference  (and not in a bad way imo).

Horizontal progression ? Thats the most stupid thing I ever heard of... Go back to GW 2 with your horizontal "progression"

The caveman speaks. As harsh as that sounded it still doesn't do justice to the lacking of any of your communication skills.

[Megakoresh]

As far as combat is concerned im glad you weren't here several months ago it would of been a shock of your life if you saw the difference  (and not in a bad way imo).

That bit wasn't very clear: do you mean the combat was better or worse before? I imagined it may have improved with the Damage 2.0 model, though given it's pretty much non-existent impact on gameplay (it's just metagame stats), I doubt it would add any skill or variety to the actual execution of the gameplay itself.

 

Mass Effect 3 does the whole elemental damage thing very well with the combos. If a weapon procs a target you or your teammate can use certain powers to detonate them. But I haven't seen any gameplay synergy of the Damage 2.0 model in Warframe so far.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Megakoresh

[drMightyPotato]

That bit wasn't very clear: do you mean the combat was better or worse before? I imagined it may have improved with the Damage 2.0 model, though given it's pretty much non-existent impact on gameplay (it's just metagame stats), I doubt it would add any skill or variety to the actual execution of the gameplay itself.

 

Mass Effect 3 does the whole elemental damage thing very well with the combos. If a weapon procs a target you or your teammate can use certain powers to detonate them. But I haven't seen any gameplay synergy of the Damage 2.0 model in Warframe so far.

See for yourself:

Also this:

I would go as far as say that something about the old way of playing to be better and more responsive to the current way.

[Megakoresh]

See for yourself:

Also this:

I would go as far as say that something about the old way of playing to be better and more responsive to the current way.

Well...

It sure looks and feels much more satisfying and responsive than currently. The weapons and guns feel and sound like they have real impact, particularly melee felt a lot better than current floaty and spammy model. No overspam of particles and when they do appear, they are exactly where they need to be when the player shoots too, as oppose to spamming them all over the place: exactly the complaint I leveled in the OP. What in the actual f***?!

 

I of course can't judge the gameplay's depth from the video alone, but just the feel and look of it, from the videos seems a lot weightier, responsive and satisfying. Why the hell would they "spamify" it if they had it working right? From the videos it just seems they have added a ton more visual and audio clutter without direction (as in not in the right places) and nerfed the damage per shot/swing in favour of faster swings/fire rate (it seems just fine in the video).

 

Also it seems they DID have heavy/light strikes before. And they removed them? That's a direct simplification of gameplay... Why??

 

Might be a good idea to go back and look at where they went wrong, if they are reading this. That game in the videos feels a lot more responsive and satisfying than what I am playing. Gameplay depth does take priority though and I doubt that it was better before (although if they were adding to vertical progression over time it might have mattered more), but having the combat actually feel satisfying is a very important thing to both attract new players and make farming less boring for the old ones.

 

Also why did they remove the xray on teammates?

 

(I wish haven't seen those videos D..:)

Edited May 31, 2014 by Megakoresh

[Chupacabra]

+100000000000000000000000

 

Great post! Hits all my frustrations with the game right on the money, your other threads didn't get as much love but this one just might catch on.

[sixmille]

I've played my fair share of F2P games and this one has one of the most generous models. I didn't even felt the need to pay to get anything (even if I did drop some money). I've just used trade a lot.

 

Also, skill doesn't matter during combat? lol that must be a joke. Now start doing a T3 survival and let me know how well you're doing after 35-40 minutes.

 

Some of your suggestions are also pretty insane. Increasing energy regen is the best way to break the game. IMO energy should be more scarce than it is now, because I can always smash 4 to win. Not sure about what you're not doing right not to be able to do it, I couldn't read it all. This combined with "combat is too hard" and "the game is too expensive" just makes me think you want easy mode and free loots handed out on a silver plate. Won't happen. It's F2P.

 

So well OP you're not credible at all. The game is a bit grindy but definitely less than most F2Ps. You'll likely get a new warframe running 10 times the same 5-10 minutes mission. We're looking at 1h-1h30 to get a new class for free. So grindy. You don't even need prime gear, the best weapons BPs are in the market, sold for credits... Prime gear is only good for mastery if you're into it (rank 6 is enough), or for idiots (or: customers) on the trade channel. You're saying combat is too hard although people keep saying it's boring and easy. You're talking about randomness during combat, I'm just seeing a lack of experience on how each tileset works. There's no random factor when you know what you're doing. More experience, and thus more confidence in your gaming skills should come around rank 10 or so.

Edited June 1, 2014 by sixmille