De's Development Model

[ePilgrim]

*DISCLAIMER
This thread is NOT me suggesting *anything*. This is FEEDBACK and I'm attempting to have a conversation with reasonable people. I have no tolerance for thread hijacking and will be informing moderators immediately if anyone breaches the community guidelines.



This is the recruiting channel on a FRIDAY NIGHT inside Warframe OCE. 

In my opinion... This is WHY constant streams of content is NOT A VIABLE METHOD OF BUSINESS. Digital Entertainment is absolutely murdering this game. The population inside that recruiting channel includes everyone from PS4, xBox and PC. 

Already the keyboard warriors are typing mid-impulse.. trying to defend DE because deep down they believe the Digital Extremes couldn't maintain confidence within their work unless angry people angrily defend them on forums. The truth is they're awesomely creative and have the skills above and beyond what is needed to solve issues like this one. They don't need offensive people to shoot down critical voices.

- - -

So I've confronted this many times before on this forum but I wanted to narrow in on this particular topic...

Would you rather for the update AFTER Archwing (update 16):

(a) Digital Extremes to maintain their current business model; relying on a constant stream of new creative content (expansion-like events/updates [like Kubrows..]) to maintain their fan base

or

(b) Digital Extremes to return to their grass roots; remodelling the currently established systems (match making, mods & weapon systems, enemy AI, lore, etc)

- - -

So what's my theory on why OCE dies about once per month? While DE is extremely creative and excellent at their work... their main business model in this period of time is most likely based on pumping out as much NEW content as possible in an attempt to maintain their fan bases attention while simultaneously appealing to their new audiences on consoles. Keep in mind, they've only just branched out into a new(ish) market (console gamers). While their are similarities, there are obvious differences between casual console d00ds and hard-out PC gamers, especially when it comes down to "impulse buys". This clearly has shaped their model.

And for all of those people who want to burn me on a stake for daring to deduce motives, I have a back ground in business and been invited to see a couple of friends of mine develop a game inside their company building; they even allowed me to look at their business model and share my critical opinions. This isn't just meaningless speculation.

The OCE community is predominately Australian. The gamers of Australia are going through some seriously annoying phase of being completely obsessed with League of Legends... only returning to Warframe to check out the new events. As far as my personal experience has gone over this past year... the community fills up and sparks alive the DAY of an update but only after a day or two, almost EVERYONE is gone. As far as gaming communities go, this has been totally shocking and unexpected to me. I love Warframe and I've over played it to the point where their content is dry and the game is empty. But I also understand why they rather not *stay*. They all return to their 'second life' because Warframe offers little to nothing as far as replayability goes. Whether you're from OCE or not, this effects your Warframe experience. Imagine if these THOUSANDS of players spent their impulse buys on Warframe rather then this other game. Like come on, how awesome would it be just to know it's going to DE rather then someone else.

So I believe DE is working their ASSES off for a very, very small amount of "returns". They have been working on Archwing for god knows how long... Maybe 2 months? And they're all hands on deck trying their VERY BEST to make us all happy and amazed. However, the fundamentals (the "supports" that hold it all up) of the game simply cannot bear the shear weight of DE's creative ability and as a result their 2 ~ 4 months worth of creative effort is often reduced to, a maximum, of 3 days of content and tbh I'm stretching that quite a lot. For me, the only good thing to come from the Kubrow update was the quests and lore. That's it. Kubrows lasted 6 hours for me and I was *done*. Back to sentinels permanently. I don't say this because I harbour hatred for DE (although the time I grinded for literally 112 hours straight [sleeping in between of course] JUST for a single piece of a Boltor Prime component made me want to burn their facilities to the ground). I'm saying this because I'm a Veteran player with "end game gear". This game offers NOTHING to me any more. The same as all those other people. The only reason someone like me even comes back is because I've spent hundreds of $$$ on platinum, some times impulsively just to show support and also because my Warframes look insanely, incredibly cool.

Ultimately I sincerely believe it's because the last time they attempted to return to their "grass roots" was with the melee system and in all honesty, that was kind of a failure. While it was definitely a noticeable improvement... melee weapons still aren't viable against anything stronger then "moderate difficulty". Personally I think this is also because of foundational problems that support the melee system (enemy AI, maps, mission types and player efficiency). I'm very excited to see reasonable counter arguments. I've been zoning out on Warframe for the last hour worrying that after Archwing (which will probably be the equivalent to a minigame on a hazard map) their next "creative solution" will be something like... A player hub... Just more meaningless content / expansion stuff that really gives their players nothing in return except some nice window dressing or distractions. So, hopefully you're all able to conjure up that mythical heavy feeling called "empathy" and understand why I have chosen this belief system over the popular/more standard views.

- - -  REPLYING TO ANYTHING BEYOND HERE WILL BE IGNORED - - -

 
I know their is a large majority of you who are clicked "quote" before you even read anything of what I said and you're procedurally knocking out all my opinions one by one in your clever list of dunkenings. But I don't care. If you're here to validate your cleverness, I'm not going to stroke your ego.

I'd really appreciate a genuine conversation on this, rather then angry people shouting me down for daring to voice my opinions and evidences.

Thread hijacking will NOT be tolerated and I will immediately inform an forum moderator if it occurs. This is my 9 attempt at trying to create a conversation, all 8 other times my threads were hijacked by fake outrage or those "list people" who comment as an attempt to shoot someone down and &!$$ off, never to return or participate in the discussion.

- - -

[Letter13]

I think your chat might be broken (it's been having some issues now and again, specifically with connectivity).

 

Either that or everyone's set their region to a more populated one. Like NA West or NA East for the sake of recruiting/trading/chatting.

 

As for DE's development model, I'm pretty sure that the game still hasn't achieved the grand vision of what the development leads would like it to be. The game is far from being complete, and going "grass-roots" doesn't really work in some respects:

 

 - matchmaking

is something that 'could' work but this is more of a coding/backend thing, only a handful of the staff would be involved with this, the rest would have nothing to do

 

 - mods & weapon systems

another thing that 'could' work, but this would only occupy another handful of staff--the majority would have nothing to do

 

 - enemy AI

there are pros/cons to more advanced enemy AI; one of the reasons why the game can run with so many enemies on screen at once is because they have fairly simple "swarm" mechanic AI; more advanced AI = more processor threads per enemy = huge performance hit for lots of enemies no matter what

 

 - lore

The only way for DE to significantly implement lore in a pleasing fashion--such as playable lore, missions, NPC interactions, et cetera is to follow their current development model of releasing expansions. Unless you'd rather have all lore only be released codex-style.

 

Really the best way, in my opinion, to tackle the "grass roots" things you mention is to tackle them side by side with major content releases and in between weekly content updates. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the staff is split up into task groups. We don't know how DE's staff are compartmentalized, but from what I've seen they do put out a very steady stream of fixes for a whole range of issues with each patch.

 

tl;dr I say DE should stay the course because they are going over a lot of the core mechanics almost constantly (contrary to popular belief they do in fact peruse the feedback and bugs sections frequently), and you should maybe switch your region to NA East/West for recruiting/chatting because that's sort of where all the English speaking players seem to congregate.

[xethier]

Well, I'm sorry that the community / regional attitude exhibits such disdain for warframe beyond a few days after a content patch. I'll say that in the eastern US, that isn't the case, I don't really notice a drop-off on players regardless of content cycles.

 

I agree that many of the fundamentals of warframe could seriously use some going-over. The mod system (not it's appearance, but it's mechanics) the map generation (needs multiple paths through the zone / ways to engage players more) the enemy AI (needs to be much smarter -- there are so many threads that detail that though that i won't go into detail)

 

I agree with you on the archwing. It doesn't really appeal to me as a core game mechanic and I expect it will be something that I'm not overly interested in, but i'll definitely give it the benefit of a chance if nothing else.

 

Overall I think you've echoed many of the concerns of long-term players here, but other than offering a bit of understand of both your frustration and situation, there isn't much else that can be said. DE has been given hundreds of threads with very constructive ideas on how to resolve many of the underlying issues revolving around the current game mechanics... It's up to them to make use of them.

[ePilgrim]

I think your chat might be broken (it's been having some issues now and again, specifically with connectivity).

 

Either that or everyone's set their region to a more populated one. Like NA West or NA East for the sake of recruiting/trading/chatting.

 

As for DE's development model, I'm pretty sure that the game still hasn't achieved the grand vision of what the development leads would like it to be. The game is far from being complete, and going "grass-roots" doesn't really work in some respects:

 

 - matchmaking

is something that 'could' work but this is more of a coding/backend thing, only a handful of the staff would be involved with this, the rest would have nothing to do

 

 - mods & weapon systems

another thing that 'could' work, but this would only occupy another handful of staff--the majority would have nothing to do

 

 - enemy AI

there are pros/cons to more advanced enemy AI; one of the reasons why the game can run with so many enemies on screen at once is because they have fairly simple "swarm" mechanic AI; more advanced AI = more processor threads per enemy = huge performance hit for lots of enemies no matter what

 

 - lore

The only way for DE to significantly implement lore in a pleasing fashion--such as playable lore, missions, NPC interactions, et cetera is to follow their current development model of releasing expansions. Unless you'd rather have all lore only be released codex-style.

 

Really the best way, in my opinion, to tackle the "grass roots" things you mention is to tackle them side by side with major content releases and in between weekly content updates. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the staff is split up into task groups. We don't know how DE's staff are compartmentalized, but from what I've seen they do put out a very steady stream of fixes for a whole range of issues with each patch.

 

tl;dr I say DE should stay the course because they are going over a lot of the core mechanics almost constantly (contrary to popular belief they do in fact peruse the feedback and bugs sections frequently), and you should maybe switch your region to NA East/West for recruiting/chatting because that's sort of where all the English speaking players seem to congregate.

I really, really appreciate the clarity. This information brings me an enormous amount of closure. I was surprised how simple the problem with AI really was and you've opened me up to the idea of more content as opposed to having them do a 'modern rework'. The biggest thing, I suspect, that prevented me from even leaning towards that side is the idea that the more content that's in the game... the more those 'pillars' hold, meaning a lot more work and bugs in the future IF they decide to flesh out Warframe.

That's really awesome. As for joining an NA server... I don't think I'd enjoy that. The connection issues are pretty bad at the moment and I'm still getting randomly disconnected time to time as well as getting weird lag constantly. My service provider has also been extremely dodgy lately and my internet has slowed down significantly. All that together and I just think it might frustrate me. I hate wasting time, it eats away at me for the rest of the day, sometimes longer. Getting DC'd right as I'm about to finish makes you want to just softly rest your head on your desk. With force.

-

Well, I'm sorry that the community / regional attitude exhibits such disdain for warframe beyond a few days after a content patch. I'll say that in the eastern US, that isn't the case, I don't really notice a drop-off on players regardless of content cycles.

 

I agree that many of the fundamentals of warframe could seriously use some going-over. The mod system (not it's appearance, but it's mechanics) the map generation (needs multiple paths through the zone / ways to engage players more) the enemy AI (needs to be much smarter -- there are so many threads that detail that though that i won't go into detail)

 

I agree with you on the archwing. It doesn't really appeal to me as a core game mechanic and I expect it will be something that I'm not overly interested in, but i'll definitely give it the benefit of a chance if nothing else.

 

Overall I think you've echoed many of the concerns of long-term players here, but other than offering a bit of understand of both your frustration and situation, there isn't much else that can be said. DE has been given hundreds of threads with very constructive ideas on how to resolve many of the underlying issues revolving around the current game mechanics... It's up to them to make use of them.

 

 

I'm not exactly sure why you're apologising mate. The only reason this bugged me today was because of the event that's currently on and also because of the topical issue I brought up. I've been thinking about it since I saw Archwing so while everyone else is boarding the hypetrain I'm stuck in Broodville wondering if this is what it's going to be like for the next year or so, on a game that feels sooo great. Archwing probably isn't something that will amuse me beyond the first couple of goes. It really depends on how "player efficient" it is. Is it worth it, how long does it take, will it effect more combat-ability against strong enemies, blah blah. 

 

Honestly I feel like such a bad &#! going lone Tenno. I've got a lot of stories because of it. So I don't even mind the dead servers too much. The universe feels *just* as open with no people. At least to me. Honestly just sitting on my ship admiring the void puts me at peace but that's a deeply personal thing based on my personal ideaology of our universe.

Yes, it is up to them to utilize feedback. It is our job to make a conversation out of that fact. Thanks for joining the discussion man. If you haven't already, you should have a good read of what Letter said, it brings to light some good information.

 

[xethier]

Yeah, Letter13 makes some good points. Most of his responses are dead-on. The AI aspect though... we already see situations where improved AI is used to excellent effect. The current sisters boss encounter during the event for instance. -- This is why I mentioned multiple threads on AI. One of the better concepts that i read was advocating the use of a "leader" or "boss" with a pack of mobs operating as a more intelligent unit as long as he existed. Once dead, they revert to their typical disorganized "swarm" AI. 

 

As for distributed use of resources @ DE... this is how it should be. I'm certain you've got separate teams working on their own projects / features for the aspect that falls under their purview. You don't really want a modeler working on netcode.

 

The reason I was apologizing was more as a way of offering sympathy for being stuck all solo during an event. I'm a pretty good player, and I really wouldn't want to face those sisters past mission 13 or so while solo. :P (regardless of frame)

 

I think the major disconnect here is a combination of community expectations and development cycle speed. DE seems to be very focused on aggregate updates. Little stuff here or there, with a quarterly "major" alteration / addition. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But overall, the additions / changes are fairly minor week-to-week. Lore, is doled out very slowly and in very small pieces. Teasers, broken transmissions from the lotus during special missions. (thinking of the mirage quest here)

 

I'd love to see a major push into the lore of the game. I've been here a year now and for the most part, nothing really major has happened. Sure, there have been minor additions, gradivus, alad V gettin' all infested, vor coming back from the dead. But nothing of "Revelation!" type weight. 

 

Warframe (to me) still seems like it's in it's infancy. That the core mechanics are still being adjusted and implemented. Like playing sim city before you start wrecking it with natural disasters. (which would be the holy-crap moments that i expect to come further down the line -- once WF is more-or-less considered "ready" by the dev teams)

[[DE]Danielle]

Changed title to "DE's Development Model" for clarity. 

[Sumarbrandr]

Melee would be viable if the goddamn combo didn't vanish after only FOUR SECONDS. 

 

In a game with a majority of gun-using mobs.

[Monolake]

Let it go mate. You beat the game, nothing else to see/do and If you cant enjoy it any more - time to move on and have fun elsewhere. Come back when they add archwing or w/e (if you still feel like it).  

[xethier]

Let it go mate. You beat the game, nothing else to see/do and If you cant enjoy it any more - time to move on and have fun elsewhere. Come back when they add archwing or w/e (if you still feel like it).  

 

that's a pretty negative viewpoint.

 

players that want to give feedback / discuss the issues that they see are exactly what these forums are for. please don't advocate that someone "give up" on what they enjoy.

[Wurdyburd]

The simple, sad fact is, it's WAY easier for a game studio to develop a pipeline streamlining concept, modelling, programming, finalizing and then selling a weapon or cosmetic than it is to go back and rework the entire system. It's part of why the melee rework was such a failure; because balance isn't just happening across the melee weapons, you need to consider balance across all the guns too. It was easy way back because DE just tossed out melee weapons that could be compared with each other, but they suffered as a whole compared to the guns, that were more closely examined for balance. Now DE is struggling to maintain a sort of global balance between all the weapon types, and can't keep up. There's just too much that needs to happen.

 

Regarding the AI; I may be wrong, but Warframe back in the closed beta era felt more solid, especially with enemy difficulty, and use of powers. Now that I know the reason behind the 'swarm' AI is because of too many enemies, it makes sense; closed-beta enemies were decently tough but there was hardly any of them. It's why sniper rifles were so useful; there was enough enemies you had to watch the pod in defence, but you could still control the field.

As a secondary note, frame powers have gotten out of hand as well. The recently released Loki Prime has a max power pool of 450. That means he can cast his ultimate four times in a row, provided he hasn't modded for max efficiency. That's absurd. Closed-beta ultimates were much more... valuable, let's say. Having fewer enemies meant that you didn't have to spam your ultimate just to get them all, but since many frames only HAD about 100-150 energy, you made sure that when you did use it, that it counted. Nowadays you have rushers ROFLstomping legions of enemies who are too stupid to avoid walking straight into it or clumping together to make your job that much easier.

 

Warframe NEEDS to take lessons from it's past. The immediate gratification or mutilating hundreds of enemies over the course of minutes might be good for a temporary power trip, but it limits the deeper development of what you can do with the game. Otherwise, it just turns into a Dynasty Warriors thing, which many people find visually engaging, but get bored with quickly.

[Arlayn]

 

 

 - enemy AI

there are pros/cons to more advanced enemy AI; one of the reasons why the game can run with so many enemies on screen at once is because they have fairly simple "swarm" mechanic AI; more advanced AI = more processor threads per enemy = huge performance hit for lots of enemies no matter what

 

 

I could've sworn the reason Enemy AI doesn't do more than swarm mechanic was due in fact to RNG. Because there are a bunch of tiles that line up differently for every randomly generated tileset the player enters. Meaning its almost impossible to set up tactical attacks with randomly moving tilesets. I mean there could be a way if you sat down and meticulously scripted paths for every possible fashion the tileset could line up, but wow that would be a mind numbing experience on its own. Would be cool though. I just don't see the enemy AI doing anything TOO fantastic at this point, or anytime soon.

 

Mostly the reason why I don't see alot of the big things happening though such as the highly needed fixes that the OP mentioned is because well... The game is unfinished. I think it would be best to get most of DE's ideal version into the game what needs to be in there, and THEN, and ONLY THEN balance EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!! Till it runs like the game mouse trap. Not bashing or anything just saying early balancing I think is kind of pointless without a far more massive system to attach everything to for a more advanced balancing that most people find beautiful in other games, and so complex, so... entertaining... Then again simply the Tutorial mode in Predator Concrete jungle entertained me longer than any game (including its own story mode) I have ever played except Warframe. So some of the player base don't mind too much lol.

[Wurdyburd]

I think it would be best to get most of DE's ideal version into the game what needs to be in there, and THEN, and ONLY THEN balance EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I can't even begin to describe the fallacy of this.

To summarize in the form of a question: what are you gonna do if the amount of content DE's 'ideal' game requires takes years? Just gonna sit there with your unbalanced everything and smile knowing that someday this game might not have problems?

[Nitresco]

I'm currently satiated with the current model of progress. Updates contain a nice mix of content, adjustments, and bugfixes; a little something for everyone.

 

Also, the "thread hijacking" you mentioned happens everywhere. Just ignore it. Those who see the actual point of the discussion will do the same.

[vaugahn]

I can't even begin to describe the fallacy of this.

To summarize in the form of a question: what are you gonna do if the amount of content DE's 'ideal' game requires takes years? Just gonna sit there with your unbalanced everything and smile knowing that someday this game might not have problems?

 

Yes. 

 

It's almost not possible to balance if we don't know what we're balancing to. Until we have at least all the gameplay features in place (endgame, all modes, etc.) balance is basically a guessing game. There's no fallacy there.

Edited September 20, 2014 by vaugahn

[ern696]

*DISCLAIMER

This thread is NOT me suggesting *anything*. This is FEEDBACK and I'm attempting to have a conversation with reasonable people. I have no tolerance for thread hijacking and will be informing moderators immediately if anyone breaches the community guidelines.

This is the recruiting channel on a FRIDAY NIGHT inside Warframe OCE. 

In my opinion... This is WHY constant streams of content is NOT A VIABLE METHOD OF BUSINESS. Digital Entertainment is absolutely murdering this game. The population inside that recruiting channel includes everyone from PS4, xBox and PC. 

Already the keyboard warriors are typing mid-impulse.. trying to defend DE because deep down they believe the Digital Extremes couldn't maintain confidence within their work unless angry people angrily defend them on forums. The truth is they're awesomely creative and have the skills above and beyond what is needed to solve issues like this one. They don't need offensive people to shoot down critical voices.

- - -

So I've confronted this many times before on this forum but I wanted to narrow in on this particular topic...

Would you rather for the update AFTER Archwing (update 16):

(a) Digital Extremes to maintain their current business model; relying on a constant stream of new creative content (expansion-like events/updates [like Kubrows..]) to maintain their fan base

or

(b) Digital Extremes to return to their grass roots; remodelling the currently established systems (match making, mods & weapon systems, enemy AI, lore, etc)

- - -

So what's my theory on why OCE dies about once per month? While DE is extremely creative and excellent at their work... their main business model in this period of time is most likely based on pumping out as much NEW content as possible in an attempt to maintain their fan bases attention while simultaneously appealing to their new audiences on consoles. Keep in mind, they've only just branched out into a new(ish) market (console gamers). While their are similarities, there are obvious differences between casual console d00ds and hard-out PC gamers, especially when it comes down to "impulse buys". This clearly has shaped their model.

And for all of those people who want to burn me on a stake for daring to deduce motives, I have a back ground in business and been invited to see a couple of friends of mine develop a game inside their company building; they even allowed me to look at their business model and share my critical opinions. This isn't just meaningless speculation.

The OCE community is predominately Australian. The gamers of Australia are going through some seriously annoying phase of being completely obsessed with League of Legends... only returning to Warframe to check out the new events. As far as my personal experience has gone over this past year... the community fills up and sparks alive the DAY of an update but only after a day or two, almost EVERYONE is gone. As far as gaming communities go, this has been totally shocking and unexpected to me. I love Warframe and I've over played it to the point where their content is dry and the game is empty. But I also understand why they rather not *stay*. They all return to their 'second life' because Warframe offers little to nothing as far as replayability goes. Whether you're from OCE or not, this effects your Warframe experience. Imagine if these THOUSANDS of players spent their impulse buys on Warframe rather then this other game. Like come on, how awesome would it be just to know it's going to DE rather then someone else.

So I believe DE is working their ASSES off for a very, very small amount of "returns". They have been working on Archwing for god knows how long... Maybe 2 months? And they're all hands on deck trying their VERY BEST to make us all happy and amazed. However, the fundamentals (the "supports" that hold it all up) of the game simply cannot bear the shear weight of DE's creative ability and as a result their 2 ~ 4 months worth of creative effort is often reduced to, a maximum, of 3 days of content and tbh I'm stretching that quite a lot. For me, the only good thing to come from the Kubrow update was the quests and lore. That's it. Kubrows lasted 6 hours for me and I was *done*. Back to sentinels permanently. I don't say this because I harbour hatred for DE (although the time I grinded for literally 112 hours straight [sleeping in between of course] JUST for a single piece of a Boltor Prime component made me want to burn their facilities to the ground). I'm saying this because I'm a Veteran player with "end game gear". This game offers NOTHING to me any more. The same as all those other people. The only reason someone like me even comes back is because I've spent hundreds of $$$ on platinum, some times impulsively just to show support and also because my Warframes look insanely, incredibly cool.

Ultimately I sincerely believe it's because the last time they attempted to return to their "grass roots" was with the melee system and in all honesty, that was kind of a failure. While it was definitely a noticeable improvement... melee weapons still aren't viable against anything stronger then "moderate difficulty". Personally I think this is also because of foundational problems that support the melee system (enemy AI, maps, mission types and player efficiency). I'm very excited to see reasonable counter arguments. I've been zoning out on Warframe for the last hour worrying that after Archwing (which will probably be the equivalent to a minigame on a hazard map) their next "creative solution" will be something like... A player hub... Just more meaningless content / expansion stuff that really gives their players nothing in return except some nice window dressing or distractions. So, hopefully you're all able to conjure up that mythical heavy feeling called "empathy" and understand why I have chosen this belief system over the popular/more standard views.

- - -  REPLYING TO ANYTHING BEYOND HERE WILL BE IGNORED - - -

 

I know their is a large majority of you who are clicked "quote" before you even read anything of what I said and you're procedurally knocking out all my opinions one by one in your clever list of dunkenings. But I don't care. If you're here to validate your cleverness, I'm not going to stroke your ego.

I'd really appreciate a genuine conversation on this, rather then angry people shouting me down for daring to voice my opinions and evidences.

Thread hijacking will NOT be tolerated and I will immediately inform an forum moderator if it occurs. This is my 9 attempt at trying to create a conversation, all 8 other times my threads were hijacked by fake outrage or those "list people" who comment as an attempt to shoot someone down and &!$$ off, never to return or participate in the discussion.

- - -

 

you're right. I am  a veteran player too and I feel the same as you.

[Archistopheles]

what are you gonna do if the amount of content DE's 'ideal' game requires takes years? Just gonna sit there with your unbalanced everything and smile knowing that someday this game might not have problems?

Smile all the time? No. We give feedback and help them design that ideal game. Welcome to the future of video gaming where customers help shape the game they play.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

Unless you'd rather have all lore only be released codex-style.

 

 

While I don't want *all* lore presented via the codex, I do think the codex is terribly underutilized and could do a tremendous amount to flesh out the universe if DE would just hire a writer to fill it in.

 

I mean, there's *hundreds* of weapons and more than twenty warframes alone, plus the enemies. It'd be nice if DE gave us a reason to scan stuff, like they planned on back when they told us about the codex.

[_Fracture8]

This is an amazing thread, I'm glad that someone looking out for the Warframe community is finally standing up to the mindless droning that occurs in this place. Kudos

 

As Letter13 said, it was probably a chat bug for your region. Might I ask what that region is? Because the Oceania one has been seemingly dead for a long time now and I can't tell if its connectivity, region migration or legitimately people leaving the game.

Edited September 20, 2014 by KilelrDrone492

[NoggDog117]

Ah, finally a nice read on the Warframe forums that doesn't involve logical fallacy.

 

Anyways, I agree with everything that you said. Warframe is, and has been, the game I have played for... WOW, it's already been almost a year and a half! But I must get back on topic. Let me begin by saying that your points are ones I agree with for the most part, the only exception being the need for smarter AI. If anything, the AI needs to be dumber. Last I checked, Grineer are degenerate clones. How are they able to respond to EVERYTHING? Corpus are merchants, so why are they so heavily combat trained? Infested... Nope, they're stupid enough, I just wish they'd group around the Ancients, given that they have aura buffs now.

 

Thankfully, DE is intelligent, unlike most F2P dev crews that just copy-paste things from other games. The most we can do right now is sit and watch as DE unfolds their master plan.

 

Also, Archwing. While I do enjoy space combat in games, my only problem is that this has the potential to be Star Wars: Battlefront 2-level space awesomeness, or complete bullocks. However, after the Kubrow hype train derailed, I'd much rather just wait and see, than hopping on board the hype train. It is much better to not expect much and be pleasantly surprised than to expect too much and be unpleasantly disappointed.

[Wurdyburd]

Yes. 

 

It's almost not possible to balance if we don't know what we're balancing to. Until we have at least all the gameplay features in place (endgame, all modes, etc.) balance is basically a guessing game. There's no fallacy there.

I'm not saying that the completed game [if there ever is one] shouldn't get a final pass to correct all the balancing at the end, but DE can't really afford to simply focus on stuffing this game with everything they want before they do balancing passes and fixes to the core systems themselves. Building a system on top of another system which is already broken will never reward you with a system that works well, and in the end, that's just more work you're going to have to backtrack through to get everything straightened. the Mod Card system, for example. DE once admitted that they realize that the system was a mistake; the problem is that they've introduced so much content based on that system that it's nearly impossible to go back and fix it without a MAJOR overhaul. Damage 2.0 and Melee 2.0 both depend on that system, and now that they've been included, any change to the mod card system will demand a domino effect of changes to be made to the entire rest of the game.

 

Smile all the time? No. We give feedback and help them design that ideal game. Welcome to the future of video gaming where customers help shape the game they play.

I think you misinterpreted my semi-sarcastic response to Arlayn's post, suggesting DE concentrate on adding content rather than fixing the game, simply on the premise that the game is "incomplete". Stuffing the game with content and ignoring the more glaring issues is what DE's been doing all along, regardless of what feedback we've been giving. The game needs to be fixed before additional systems are implemented.

 

Additional example: what about the Archwing game mode? DE's already stated that Archwings will be equippable with various powers and weapons, so it's safe to assume mod cards and elements are going to play a part in that. Under the assumption that the mod card system is flawed, will DE change the entire game, Archwings included, should they decide to "go back and fix" the mod card system? Likely not. Therefore, any system using the mod card system as a foundation, will never really see it's true potential, Archwings included.

[vaugahn]

I'm not saying that the completed game [if there ever is one] shouldn't get a final pass to correct all the balancing at the end, but DE can't really afford to simply focus on stuffing this game with everything they want before they do balancing passes and fixes to the core systems themselves. Building a system on top of another system which is already broken will never reward you with a system that works well, and in the end, that's just more work you're going to have to backtrack through to get everything straightened. the Mod Card system, for example. DE once admitted that they realize that the system was a mistake; the problem is that they've introduced so much content based on that system that it's nearly impossible to go back and fix it without a MAJOR overhaul. Damage 2.0 and Melee 2.0 both depend on that system, and now that they've been included, any change to the mod card system will demand a domino effect of changes to be made to the entire rest of the game.

Just to address that last part, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the mod card system, only in the powers allotted to the cards.

When I'm referring to balance I'm referring to "why is X warframe/weapon too weak/powerful", not any core instability in the game. I personally think the core of the game is currently solid, and what needs adjusting are values and what not.

The problem then is that we have no effective way of judging if something is too weak or too powerful. There are obvious standouts, like heavy melee and pre-nerf blessing, that clearly are waaaaay too far to one end of that spectrum. But for everything else, without a completed game we don't have the proper framework to create that balance.

Edit: I'm not saying they should stop all balancing, they should obviously balance as much as they can...I'm just acknowledging that most, if not all, of the fine tuning (and really tuning in general) may not currently be possible in today's Warframe.

Edited September 20, 2014 by vaugahn

[Wurdyburd]

Just to address that last part, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the mod card system, only in the powers allotted to the cards.

When I'm referring to balance I'm referring to "why is X warframe/weapon too weak/powerful", not any core instability in the game. I personally think the core of the game is currently solid, and what needs adjusting are values and what not.

The problem then is that we have no effective way of judging if something is too weak or too powerful. There are obvious standouts, like heavy melee and pre-nerf blessing, that clearly are waaaaay too far to one end of that spectrum. But for everything else, without a completed game we don't have the proper framework to create that balance.

Edit: I'm not saying they should stop all balancing, they should obviously balance as much as they can...I'm just acknowledging that most, if not all, of the fine tuning (and really tuning in general) may not currently be possible in today's Warframe.

 

While, truth, there's not much fundamentally wrong with the mod card system itself, there are many, far better ways that upgrading weaponry could have been done in this game, especially considering the [also semi-broken] drop table system, that demands that in order for a weapon to become successful, we need to have the luck that the mod we need drops from a particular enemy. No other game has that, and for good reason, because it limits the worth of your arsenal based on something as ridiculous as random numbers. While it's true that other mmos feature legendary equipment only obtainable from dropping off certain boss monsters, by chance, that system rewards dedication to extra content, not a dependence on random numbers for your entire experience's success. THAT'S the kind of problems the mod card system has.

 

Your clarification on balance definition is appreciated; but the initial argument suggested that DE focus on adding content, rather than fixing it.

I maintain that DE needs to focus on creating a stable game now, rather than keeping it in a perpetual state of flux. The game is very different from what it was when it exited closed beta, and even then was very different from when it began closed beta, but at no point during it's entire development history could Warframe be partitioned off and declared "this is a working game, that although it has one or two issues, can have every one of it's features explored, because they all work."

Part of the reason why Warframe is experiencing so many of these problems so often is because DE refuses to sit down and fix it. Other games, mmos in particular, feature events and expansions every few months, and though there is some minor bug fixing and tweaking of numbers involved, the content works with the already existing game systems. In it's state of flux, it's nearly impossible for Warframe to keep up with itself without hosting a collection of problems that won't be addressed for months, if they get fixed at all.

 

TL;DR: Numerical stat balancing is important and needs to be addressed, along with all the other problems this game has, before DE should consider adding new systems and content that will only enhance the problem. Fine-tuning can come later of course, but that will never happen until DE gets serious and fixes their game as it exists right now.

[vaugahn]

TL;DR: Numerical stat balancing is important and needs to be addressed, along with all the other problems this game has, before DE should consider adding new systems and content that will only enhance the problem. Fine-tuning can come later of course, but that will never happen until DE gets serious and fixes their game as it exists right now.

 

That's where we're going to have to disagree.

 

Based off what we know, it's clear DE has some sort of long term plan as to what they want this game to contain. I think this game needs to be feature-complete before any serious attempts at stat balancing can be made.

 

To clarify, because I am tired and probably not making a lot of sense: Infinite content expansion is a bad idea. We can't keep adding new features forever. I just don't feel like this game has all the features a finished version of Warframe should, and those features should be put in place before we get into the nitty-gritty of weapon and frame balancing.

Edited September 20, 2014 by vaugahn

[MechaTails]

Can someone post a TLDR version? All I see in the first post is a picture of empty Recruit chat, which happens every time when you first go to Recruit tab until someone posts, and then OP flying off the handle with caps and underlining rofl

Edited September 20, 2014 by DarkTails

[Pbrandon1]

Just to address that last part, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the mod card system, only in the powers allotted to the cards.

When I'm referring to balance I'm referring to "why is X warframe/weapon too weak/powerful", not any core instability in the game. I personally think the core of the game is currently solid, and what needs adjusting are values and what not.

The problem then is that we have no effective way of judging if something is too weak or too powerful. There are obvious standouts, like heavy melee and pre-nerf blessing, that clearly are waaaaay too far to one end of that spectrum. But for everything else, without a completed game we don't have the proper framework to create that balance.

Edit: I'm not saying they should stop all balancing, they should obviously balance as much as they can...I'm just acknowledging that most, if not all, of the fine tuning (and really tuning in general) may not currently be possible in today's Warframe.

We have enough mechanics to be able to sit down and balance most of the game without having to create more content. 

 

Weapons, throwing more into the game is not gonna help you realize what is right and what is wrong, you have to sit down, balance all the weapons, and then work of that system for the rest of the weapons and then you can balance weapons around it. So, conversations on balance could go, "Ok, this would counter this so, just change that value and there you go." Instead, DE has to go, "Ok, this counters this..while that also does that too, but its underpowered..*brain explosion*." Not all of the weapons are balanced so creating more weapons will not help you realize that base. This also applies to Warframes.

 

Enemies, same thing, throwing more enemies into the game is not gonna help you realize your base, you need to sit down and understand mechanics for each faction and understand what is balanced and what is not and work with that system. Problem is, is that need to consider weapons in the situation and also mods too, which applies to the same problem.

 

The thing is, it is like creating a building. You need to understand the concept of what you are doing before you start are else everything is gonna be all over the place and will require you to come back, fix it, and extend the time until the building is complete or the building when opened will have many problems that the builders need to go back and fix and will cause nobody to want to invest in it, due to it's problems...and it will be left vacant for a good time until either it is completed or the company gives up because they are just pouring money into redesigning something that people probably don't want to buy or won't even consider even more since the first opening of it had caused many people to be scared off or is taking way too long and taking too much money.

 

But, realizing it now, yes, you could kinda...but it would lead to just way more work and it seems Scott already seems overworked by having multiple people telling him to balance this and say alright, now balance this. We need to help realize to these Devs that they are gonna dig themselves into something that may probably discourage them to work on the game because the list of balance changes just keep piling, and could cause tons of stress and really drain a developer....

Edited September 20, 2014 by Pbrandon1