You Know, De... We Seriously Need To Talk....

[Xylia]

...and actually be forthwith and serious this time.

 

This update has really shaken my faith and opinion of you guys. A long time ago, long long time ago it feels now, I used to think the world of you guys. You did Devstreams, you communicated on the messageboards, you did all of this stuff no other game developer I've known has ever done with their online game.

 

You had this game, that was just fun and awesome.

 

Let's talk about what has happened since Update 8 when I joined (and forgive me if minor details are slightly out of sync, you still get the idea of what I mean):

 

Then, around the time of Update 9 when you re-did the Star Chart, you started killing the game for Newbies; Update 9 made sure that Newbies can't gather materials they need to make weapons very well without passing two Grineer planets, you jacked up the difficulty of several of what used to be lowbie worlds that were intended to allow newbies to have a wide range of materials to gather so that they could make weapons of their choice.

 

Update 10 then came along, and you made Defense/Mobile Defense nearly impossible for the solo player because now all enemies zerg rush the objective. Solo wasn't hard enough, apparently or something.

 

Mod Drop 2.0 came out somewhere around here, and now a lot of essential mods were locked behind certain enemies that were either rare, or didn't come out until later worlds, making it even harder for that newbie to get their serration or worse yet, Hornet Strike (which STILL isn't fixed). Newbies to this day are begging veterans for Hornet Strike because they have no hope of ever acquiring one on their own, as it requires Infested and there are no low level ones 'cept for the rare occasion Earth gets plagued.

 

Sometime during Update 11-12, Earth was Junglefied. Earth, the 3rd Planet, was made even harder for Newbies because of Karak-wielding lancers (apparently the grakatas weren't good enough or something...), Hellions (which previously were only found on Phobos), and Eviscerators which were later removed, but did quite the damage literally and figuratively -- many newbies tried the game during the time of Eviscerators and Eurasia Interception and frankly quit the game because it was simply impossible without being carried.

 

Now we're on Update 13. After bending the newbies over, now you decided that it is time for us veterans to feel the same punishment. Vay Hek's implementation was just asinine; "Go RNG out 4 different materials, one of which almost never drops, make a key for ONE attempt at Vay Hek!" ... cute, who knows how many keys it will take to get the 3 unique parts for Hydroid. Oh, and Vay Hek has several attacks that can permanently knock you out of the match (which has been reported many times and is still not fixed last I saw).

 

After that mess, you guys do a Devstream in which you guys outright say that Tower 4 keys are not really the way you wanna do things, because there's this "Wall" that you hit near the end of T3 Defense where enemy scaling makes them not fun to fight for most people, where it is 90% Nyx's Chaos and Orokin Lasers doing all the work.

 

One Week Later, we get..........Tower 4 Keys.

 

What kind of impression does that give us players? That you guys are talking out of "you-know-what" on Livestreams now? When two of the MAIN devs "grumble" at the idea of adding Tower 4 and the third outright says he doesn't think that's the right idea, and you do it anyways, what kind of message does that send us? That you guys aren't really all that high up in the chain of command or something? Just who IS in charge here?

 

And I know there'll probably be some kind of "we sowwy" statement released, but how many of those do you expect us to take seriously, when you keep doing stuff like this?

 

And then there's the potential that you guys passed up: You added 5 new missions to Void: Capture, Exterminate, Defense, Mobile Defense, and Survival. Well, crap, if you had expanded Horizontally like Glen said, then you could have added many more:

 

Spy 1/2/3

Deception 1/2/3

Hijack 1/2/3 (maybe the Tenno are sent in to hijack an orokin reactor core or something)

Assassinate 1/2/3 (see that boss mob, Captain Vor you guys stuck in there? Give him his own mission!)

 

That's 12 new Void Missions. More than double the ones you added.

 

And Captain Vor.... okay, did you somehow NOT hear the Feedback that we have expressed, our annoyance over the fact Harvester and G3 almost never spawn whatsoever? What would possess you to add another mob just like them in? What purpose does that serve? Instead of giving us an Orokin Assassinate (something we've been asking for since Update 8), you make him a random assassin-type mob instead. Wut? Seriously, that doesn't even make sense whatsoever.

 

And more problems that have plagued the game since Update 10+, are STILL here:

 

1). Non-Defense/Survival/Interception missions STILL reward almost nothing.

2). Still too much RNG in Void. (RNG to get the key you need, RNG to get the drop you need once you do Void)

3). Newbie Player Experience is still horrible.

 

And Newbie Player Experience.... uh, guys, I know you promised Player Ships are coming soon... but let's look at the facts with those:

 

1). Player Ships will not suddenly make players actually do damage with their mod-less underpowered weapons.

2). You still absolutely need a Potato to be functional in anything past Lv15. Potatoes come up, if one is lucky, one every other week. Maybe. Depends on what the GotL is. That's IF the newbie can actually get to where it is.

3). Mods are still overpowered (which you guys have been noticeably silent about), which means newbies get to "enjoy" being in the <5% total damage done range, feeling useless after each and every mission.

4). You still have to get past Earth to make anything beyond an Orthos or a Cronus.

 

Player Ships will not solve any of this. At All. Unless you guys start handing out Serrations, Multishot mods, Potatoes, etc.

 

So basically... both Newbies and Veterans alike are being bent over these days. Veterans are having a really tough time getting anything out of Void whatsoever (beyond the 30-50 copies of junk they've had completed ages ago), and Newbies can't get a foothold in the game without being carried.

 

We've expressed this feedback time and time again, and in Livestreams you seem to touch on the subjects, but when Updates come out, a lot of times it seems like the Livestreams were all for show.

 

So who IS in charge, anyways, and why are they going against stuff that was said on Devstream? Do you guys seriously have that little power and say over what actually gets done? If so... then what purpose do the Devstreams actually have, then, when you guys say one thing and do the complete opposite?

 

Help us understand this, and actually listen to what we have to say, because this update is seriously making some of us think you're not really doing that all that much.

[Dalu__Ka]

interesting points

Edited June 12, 2014 by Tenn00b

[Xylia]

If you want to talk to DE, forums are not the way to go.

 

How else do you talk to DE?

 

Asking Questions on Devstream? I've had -1- question actually answered on a Devstream, and given how they're wont to completely disregard what was said on Devstream anyways, well.... I'm sure you see my point.

 

How many Devstreams now? 30? I've had -1- Question of mine actually answered. One. It was about Newbie Player Experience, and it was back during Update 10, and IIRC, the response was "Scott tried the New Player Experience, said it was terrible, and he says he'll fix". Well, 13.7 and it hasn't been fixed, so.............

 

No, they're too busy answering "Soon" questions that are freaking OBVIOUS. Half of the time, I'm facepalming at the questions Rebecca decides to take, when other way better questions were asked instead. I'm like "really? of all of the good questions, you decided to take a 'when is ____ going to come' question instead?"

Edited June 12, 2014 by Xylia

[KvotheTheArcane1]

+1, DE is the king of saying one thing and doing another.

Remember when you too believed DE wanted to reduce grinding? Yeah, me too.

Edit: What I'm trying to say is I want de to be honest and communicate with us on their plans, not simply give us sound blurbs that we want to hear, then do the exact opposite.

Edited June 12, 2014 by KvotheTheArcane1

[Venarge]

Its all an ongoing process. Things change as fast as they have been implemented.
 

[0Pinger]

ditto Op.  I would also chime in on strictnat, its yet to be fixed.  Client side network code badly needs a 2.0 overhaul

[Xylia]

Its all an ongoing process. Things change as fast as they have been implemented.

 

 

Yeah, complete 180s are "an on-going process".

 

Right, sure. Okay. If you say so.......

[noveltyhero]

If you want to talk to DE, forums are not the way to go.

You do know forums get read by lots of DE staff even if they do not reply. I am sure this post will be read by somebody and brought to attention to the rest of the office :/

[Xylia]

You do know forums get read by lots of DE staff even if they do not reply. I am sure this post will be read by somebody and brought to attention to the rest of the office :/

 

For what good that will actually do, I have no idea....

 

But I have to Try, at least.

 

But if this doesn't actually set anything in motion, or at least get some sort of mention or reply, or Anything, then it might be my last try, because it seems to me that they simply aren't getting it and are burying their head in the sands to ignore the things they don't wanna hear and they keep marching to the tune of their own drums.

 

I really don't want to hate/dislike the staff at DE as they've been amazing, at least they were around Update 8-10, but after 10... my opinion of them keeps slowly falling. And I hate that -- I used to love these guys. I wanna love these guys again, I wanna love this game again...

 

But with how things are going, I find that incredibly hard to do lately.

 

You're talking about a player who has spent $400 and 615 hours in Warframe, who used to play 10-20 hours per week back then... who plays <5 hours a week nowadays because I can't stand some of the stuff that was done. I haven't spent any Real Money since the Ember Prime pack, and I probably won't unless they Really fix things.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Xylia

[Kipp-vas-Xerinae]

+1, DE is the king of saying one thing and doing another.

Remember when you too believed DE wanted to reduce grinding? Yeah, me too.

 

Hah, same here.

 

Completely agree with you OP +1

 

I think that DE are simply burnt out and now their only objective is to making money without putting much needed effort/love.

 

And yeah i'm also curious who is in charge, because we hear a lot about "communications problems", either DE needs to take a break or dismiss people who are responsible for ongoing issues.

 

But in all honesty i think we will be see more and more problems, because adding more things without fixing old problems is not healthy for the game, so either DE do something right now even if that will be completely unexpected and even painful such as complete revamp/reset or this game will fall into dark pit.

[RoninJed]

Well DE claims that Warframe is in beta so they should be reading this and do something about it ;)

[sekushiiandee]

gotta comment and say i completely agree with op. it makes me sad the direction this game is going. in all honesty i am starting to regret my founders purchase. i am getting to the point where i wish i could get a refund but i know that wont happen. i can safely say i will not put another cent into this game if it keeps slipping.

Edited June 12, 2014 by sekushiiandee

[Marthrym]

Right there with you OP... *sigh*

Layer after layer of RNG... Yup, still there, stronger than ever!

New player experience... More like nightmare...

Challenging enemies... Oh right, let's give them MOAR damage. Because THAT's challenge... *facepalm*

 

Every game needs some form of "grinding". After all, instant gratification is THE WORST human trait. "Me wantz shiny new stuff NAOW!"

But it's just too much, too random. It's too much "out of our hands". Pure luck. AND you put all the stuff no one cares about in the new T4 missions... Where is the logic?^^'

 

Solo and new player experience has never been worse in Warframe. Too many dumb mechanics that just kill it. I know it's a co-op oriented game, but sometimes it's just more fun to play solo (no rushers going down repeatedly, we can actually ENJOY the experience, look out the ships windows to enjoy the view, etc).

 

Now, for the "challenge" everyone keeps begging for... MOAR MORONIC ENEMY SCALING?! REALLY? THAT's you answer? What the frack??? This is NOT challenge, it's just plain boring. It doesn't add ANYTHING to the experience, othan than MOAR frustration because "veteran" players spend half the missions reviving rushers and inexperienced players. Seriously. And enemies are NOT more challenging just because they do more damage... THEY ARE NOT. How many times do we have to repeat that? I swear it's like pissing in the wind...

 

This game could be so much more. And yet, it's more and more of the same dumb stuff that virtually no one likes. Why?^^'

It's obvious that you guys do work hard. But it seems like you're hellbent on putting all your efforts in doing the exact opposite of what the players ask... I know that some of the things we ask are dumb too, don't get me wrong, but this update... Is the FIRST that made me think I should go look somewhere else. At least for a time.

[Davoodoo]

That amount of rng actually makes me think that warframe is more cashgrab than mobile games and no matter how it sounds its great achievement, no one else managed to do that.

[Scherhardt]

Game is dying = fact.

DE needs to stop adding stuff for awhile and fix things as first priority.

+1OP

[DAFIRE]

if DE removes ALL the duplicates from the drop table,we will all be fine.

[Davoodoo]

if DE removes ALL the duplicates from the drop table,we will all be fine.

You cant honestly believe that it would fix the problem.

[Squig]

You cant honestly believe that it would fix the problem.

To be fair, it would be a start and a long shot more than they have done to date.

[xethier]

if DE removes ALL the duplicates from the drop table,we will all be fine.

 

this would resolve my biggest gripe right now.

 

second biggest gripe? -- reduce the RNG grind for keys.

the idea to put all t4 behind interception... bad. very very bad.

taking the least played game-mode and forcing players to run it to get access to the new content.

sounds like vey hek all over again.

"the beatings will continue until morale improves"

 

this is absurd. i like interception as an occasional side-bar.

i don't like having to constantly play it for access to t4.

 

and most of the reason why t4 was requested (as well as requesting additional game modes be introduced to void and OD) was to reduce dilution. that is not what happened. instead dilution was INCREASED. difficulty wasn't ever my reasoning for requesting t4. 

 

*facepalm*

[Marthrym]

There should be only ONE RNG based thing : the keys themselves. That would be more than enough.

 

THEN the rest should be based on a token system. Be it tokens or points that we get every mission we complete. THAT would be fair, and not too frustrating. That way EVERY mission played would actually get us closer to our goal.

 

All DE would have to focus on is the requirements for every reward. How many tokens/points per item. Months players have been asking BEGGING for it. Still, MOAR RNG. EVERY UPDATE. There is a point where this become idiotic (and we're looking at idiotic in the rearview mirror...).

Edited June 12, 2014 by Marthrym

[xethier]

There should be only ONE RNG based thing : the keys themselves. That would be more than enough.

 

THEN the rest should be based on a token system. Be it tokens or points that we get every mission we complete. THAT would be fair, and not too frustrating. That way EVERY mission played would actually get us closer to our goal.

 

All DE would have to focus on is the requirements for every reward. How many tokens/points per item. Months players have been asking BEGGING for it. Still, MOAR RNG. EVERY UPDATE. There is a point where this become idiotic (and we're looking at idiotic in the rearview mirror...).

 

personally i hate the idea of a token system. i loathe the entire concept of it as it just says: "grind, constantly" plus it removes the economic gain of running void missions. (trading spare parts)

 

trading tokens wouldn't be reasonable. doesn't matter of it's different tokens for different tiers of parts or not, it isn't at all what i want.

 

the current system, at it's core, isn't bad at all. but it's the pathetic dilution and low percentage drop rates for specific items that causes this headache. and that's REALLY EASY to fix. why they continue to do this is beyond me. the only reason i can fathom is that it's a good way to force prime access purchases. which goes down the road to P2W and really pisses off your player base.

 

f2p games, all of them, hang on the edge of that precipice. once your player base decides that your game is unfair or p2w, you've hit that edge.

once vets start leaving in droves. (which appears to be happening since ~u12) the influx of new players will drop off as those leaving tell their friends "don't bother"

 

which means that ultimately, there will be very few old vets from the pc days left and xbox and ps4 will be the primary drivers. well, that's fine, if they want to make this game into a pay-to-win free-to-play title like everything else out there. then they will be competing with everything else out there with nothing to distinguish themselves from the pack. and a very unrewarding system ultimately. this will result in lackluster returns. and they'll be deserving of it.

[DeMeritus]

OP has a lot of valid points.

 

That RNG wall is uncomfortably thick, and seems to be slated to get several layers thicker, and the desired rewards in the void are diluted more than ever now.

 

Come on, DE.  You're more creative and clever than this.  :/

 

That token based system is looking mighty sweet now.

Edited June 12, 2014 by DeMeritus

[Keltik0ne]

They have come up with an alarming high number of bad decisions recently: what sort of specialist would honestly think that adding prime trading would really fix the mess of underlying problems the loot system has ?

 

I have no idea if they have any capable managers or QA guys at DE, but if they do, they should be added to the Warfarm team ASAP.

[Essix]

I'm seeing a lot of complaining in this thread, and while there are valid points it's kind of disheartening to see.

 

The RNG issue is complicated, even if you don't consider the fact that it's compounded every single time they add something new to the drop tables. They can't make it too easy to get the things you want, not solely because they want you to keep playing, but also because they don't want people to get all of the new shiny things they want too easily, because then people will reach their goals too quickly, have nothing to do, and get bored. I don't think any of us truly know how difficult it is to keep that balance between keeping players in the game and rewarding them for doing so, without making it feel grindy and pointless.

 

Mind you, I do think there are problems with the loot system. I wouldn't advocate removing duplicates entirely, but it would be nice to see diminishing returns on duplicates (think X drops at 5 minutes, at 10 minutes there's a lower chance to get X and a higher chance to get Y or Z) in Defense and Survival missions. As for missions with fixed rewards (Exterminate, Capture etc) they could perhaps offer multiple rewards if some conditions are met (timers, optional triggers to spawn more/harder enemies, etc).

 

Instead of tearing your hair, gnashing your teeth and accusing DE of being P2W scumbags trying to annoy you into giving them money, offer solutions and explain what's wrong with their implementations without resorting to name-calling and petulant whining. They're not going to be spurred into changing things if all the feedback makes them feel incompetent and sad. They're human beings for god's sake, you could at least try to be reasonable about this.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Essix

[xethier]

I'm seeing a lot of complaining in this thread, and while there are valid points it's kind of disheartening to see.

 

Instead of tearing your hair, gnashing your teeth and accusing DE of being P2W scumbags trying to annoy you into giving them money, offer solutions and explain what's wrong with their implementations without resorting to name-calling and petulant whining. They're not going to be spurred into changing things if all the feedback makes them feel incompetent and sad. They're human beings for god's sake, you could at least try to be reasonable about this.

 

so are we, and they could as well. the current system isn't reasonable.

 

remove a ton of duplicates. (not all) -- even out the drop rates between items. what is currently 2-5% chance to drop, increase to 15-20%

stop putting your new content behind mountains of RNG grind-wall. if it's good content, why try to hide it?

 

i don't play this game simply to get the new shiny bits, i play the game because i enjoy it.

if they truly believe that the only reason people play is to get the "shiny bits" then they have no real confidence in their game to begin with and it's all pay-to-win BS anyway, and calling them out on it is warranted.

Edited June 12, 2014 by xethier