May 17Th Hot Topic: Constructive Feedback Vs Hyperbole

[[DE]Rebecca]

The Time is 4:48 PM, I review the Update Notes, wondering how the changes to Banshee and Rhino will be received. The reaction to the changes to the Hek and Gorgon just a few weeks ago are still fresh in my mind, but I remember that we did receive quality feedback. This feedback allowed us to tweak the balance changes. I hope everyone else remembers this rollercoaster as well as I do.

But, back to today:

4:49 PM hits and the Patch Notes Post and Update 7.11.0 went live.

4:54 PM hits, the first “HOLY RHINO NERF” appears. I think, it’s only been 5 minutes, there is no way they could have loaded the game, played several levels, and produced feedback.

4:55 PM hits, another post (this time 6 minutes after original post) saying how we ruined Rhino!

4:56 PM hits and BAM another post! Now I am quite certain that it is all initial reactions at this point. I think to myself and sadly there is nothing I can take from these posts to a designer to make changes with. I go off into a daydream, picturing myself walking into Scott’s office and saying:

“Our Community is really reacting strongly to this Rhino change”– Me

“Oh! We just wanted to invite challenge into his play style, I think 100% invincibility was a little strong, what does the community suggest?” Scott

“Suggest? Hold on, let me check… oh. Nothing, actually, they just wanted to let us know that we ruined him and are doomed.”

For hours this continues, few posts emerge that provide constructive ideas, I savour those. More emerge on how this is the beginning of the end. Doom is nigh.

Then, after about 4 hours, we start getting somewhere. I assume this is because people have actually put the new changes to the test instead of just reacting to the notes. I start being able to grasp at underlying issues to bring up with the team.

So, I present to you Tenno a current list of what I’ll be taking to the Design Table:

-People wonder if the reaction is this strong to one OP ability, maybe the other abilities could use a buff! Let’s review!

- Holy S&@* where is his knockback immunity? (This is a bug, it SHOULD be there.)

- People want to know why the Nerf? Why not make stuff harder? What is being prioritized?

- Trinity is now “a better tank.” What does this mean for the overall balance of the frames?

- As Thor, a community mod, has summarized: "In essence, people seem concerned that what's happening is things are getting balanced towards an even, but weak, playing field". What are your thoughts on that?

- Not on the topic of Rhino, but Banshee not being invulnerable during Soundquake, can we talk about that?

This list is not final, and it doesn’t guarantee changes, but it will serve a purpose.

TL;DR? No - Please read it. Really. I really think if you’ve made a post about Rhino you NEED TO READ THIS. IF you don’t care about Rhino, carry on.

P.S: Scotty you’ll probably read this before I bring it to your office, so be prepared!

EDIT: May 19th @ 10:00 AM:

Thank you everyone for contributing to this thread so far, appreciate all the posts! Between the detailed suggestions, reminders that there is room to improve the update notes overall, and general helpfulness, I think we can say with confidence that there will be a thorough review of Rhino that will result in changes!

[Bleak_Advent]

The trend of non-constructive feedback just keeps me scratching my head.

[crow-k]

Thanks for caring, sorry for "them".

 

 

Edited for note. Them = angry people who react before considering, not Rhino players. I myself play rhino, I feel the pain of change but not the pain of doom. Sorry if someoen thought that I meant anything but this. 

Edited May 18, 2013 by crow-k

[KvotheTheArcane1]

-snip-

-People wonder if the reaction is this strong to one OP ability, maybe the other abilities could use a buff! Let’s review!

- Holy S&@* where is his knockback immunity? (This is a bug, it SHOULD be there.) ok cool, what about disruptor energy/shield drain?

- People want to know why the Nerf? Why not make stuff harder? What is being prioritized?

- Trinity is now “a better tank.” What does this mean for the overall balance of the frames? She still has her invul, that what people are mad about (plus energy vampire)

- As Thor, a community mod, has summarized: "In essence, people seem concerned that what's happening is things are getting balanced towards an even, but weak, playing field". What are your thoughts on that? We've seen big nerfs, but small buffs, so everything ends up weaker and weaker (or atleast that's what I've gathered over the last few weeks)

- Not on the topic of Rhino, but Banshee not being invulnerable during Soundquake, can we talk about that?

This list is not final, and it doesn’t guarantee changes, but it will serve a purpose.

TL;DR? No - Please read it. Really. I really think if you’ve made a post about Rhino you NEED TO READ THIS. IF you don’t care about Rhino, carry on.

P.S: Scotty you’ll probably read this before I bring it to your office, so be prepared!

my stuff in bold

my suggestion is either invul back, at a reduced time and/or higher energy cost OR buff the DR to like ~90% and give it disruptor immunity and, poison resist or immunity. Or change it to his 4 ability, and a taunt and keep it the way it was. (also, maybe a buff for his other skills? pretty please?)

 

Also, market prices are WAAAAAY too high. alloy plate is REALLY hard to farm, and takes quite awhile to get a good bit of, so when weapons cost 300+ alloy plates thats probably a few hours of farming right there. IMO if you keep prices the way they are, make a weapons range to let us test out weapons before we buy them. heck do this even if you change the prices! I would have loved to test out the latron without spending 50k to do it, or the gorgon, or the snipetron, just to see if they fit my plastyle and then joining a group and feeling semi useless. Another thing about the market is that all the new blueprints are prohibitive to new players who start up warframe. They have no idea how a weapon preforms, and then they have to wait quite a few hours for their new gun, it really slows down the play. I will admit there is still some weapon variety that you can buy with credits, but 75k for the strun is REALLY expensive for new players. And even with the variety they don't really have a sniper to try, the closest to that is the lex.

edit: more thoughts

Edited May 18, 2013 by KvotheTheArcane1

[Namacyst]

Out of my other Rhino Iron Skin Thread:

 

Iron Skin right now

 

20% flat Damage reduction per level (20%/40%/60%/80%)

 

Knockdown & Stagger immunity.

 

Iron Skin that fits

 

20% flat Damage reduction per level (20%/40%/60%/80%)

 

Knockdown & Stagger immunity.

 

Taunts 2 Enemys per level within 5 Metre Radius for the duration (2/4/6/8).

 

Regenerates 10% of ALL Damage taken to Shields and/or Health as Life for 3 seconds after Iron Skin ended (making it unnusable for that 3 seconds) by absorbing the leftover Iron Skin into the Warframe (and Tenno) to heal Flesh and mend Bones.

 

Explanation

 

Rhino is supposed to be the Tank but he has no aggro skills, only CC. Now that he lost most of his survivability the only logical choice would be to give him a build in Taunt with Iron Skin so he can actually Tank and the ability to replenish his life if he survives the tanking.

 

Rhino can die easy when he messes up his Iron skin while taunt puts 8 Enemys onto him but if he survives he should get something back for his effort. The more he tanked, the more health he gets back but tanking more means getting more damage and probably die a fast death. It goes more the "High risk, high reward" way of gameplay.

 

Rhino loses more and more viability against other warframes and through the latest nerf to Iron Skin. He is already slow, his Rhino Charge is not as good as Slash Dash, Rhino Blast is nice but has too high energy costs to be a comparable Damage-AE and Rhino Stomp is even more costly and for a CC ok but not great.

 

Keep up the good work, Rebecca!

Edited May 18, 2013 by Namacyst

[Katakuna]

Should be standard fare to disregard initial feedback (read: untested) until constructive feedback starts cropping up (read: actually tested).

[Bleak_Advent]

Should be standard fare to disregard initial feedback (read: untested) until constructive feedback starts cropping up (read: actually tested).

Initial feedback can still be constructive, it's more a matter of identifying the useful feedback out of the heaping pile of rage threads.

[StyoFosho]

*Slow Clap* Well said Rebecca, I can imagine how annoying it must be as a Dev getting nothing but nonconstructive feedback of people saying stuff like "HURR you nerfed this to s***, you buffed that and made it op DURR!!!!". Come on people help warframe grow by giving the Devs suggestions on what you would like to see change in the game! Don't just rage at them like an angsty teen, provide some contrustive feedback! :)

[MetalGerbil]

forums being forums.

 

it usually takes a few days to work out the the issues actually are. i hope they dont take the difficulty issue the wrong way. people get over it in time. so long as individual moments are fun. 

 

there isnt a time in all of human history where nerfs were taken well.

[Yanga]

Instead of allowing it to give him full invincibility, give him something close to it but not 100%. Like a 75%-80% max for the Iron skin and don't have it stack over multiple uses of it... pretty much if used a second/third time, have it refresh the skill instead of stacking. That should keep it strong, but not impossible to die with it.

Concerning Banshee's ability... it's not a 100% safe zone close range, but at a distance... she can be quite vulnerable. If a glitch was to arise in the middle of her skill and death happened, what would be the outcome? Her 4th skill being used still even after a loss that would drag on until the map is done or something in that close relation probably. Maybe allow some damage resistance in mid use but not full out invincibility like Rhino's un-nerfed skill. Since it's a skill that keeps her stationary and do close damage, only weapons farther away (mainly accurate long range weapons) can possibly hurt her without the person getting hurt him/herself. 85% max resistance might work but that's my guess.

[ELREYULTIMO]

I think my concern is the fact that Rhino doesn't really have anything that he does better than anyone else. At least iron skin was somewhat unique before, but now Ember (ideally a mage class, if I understand correctly) can reach a higher damage reduction than our true tank. This strikes me as sad, considering it implies more nerfs in the future to balance it out.

I have faith that DE can work this out satisfactorily soon enough. It's just that some of these changes feel like a sucker punch at the moment.

The Rhino ideas that make the most sense to me all include bringing invulnerability back, but with any of the following restrictions:

1)reduce duration (the least preferable in my opinion)

2)increase cost (could switch iron skin with stomp)

3)forced cooldown after each use

4)Limited invulnerability (i.e. you get a shell that completely protects you up to a certain damage threshold.)

Edit: Added some ideas from later pages because my initial post didn't offer much useful feedback and to save folks some flame war reading time. Seriously, it gets pretty gnarly after a couple pages.

Edited May 18, 2013 by ELREYULTIMO

[MrGrae]

People just don't seem to realise quite what is meant by "BETA" they seem to think, partially thanks to other companies using open betas as soft-launches for practically finished products or demos of same, that anything in open beta should be finished and just have little bits of content added.

 

This is clearly not the case with DE, Warframe is NOT finished, and, hopefully, won't be for quite a while so DE can continue to adjust and add to it and make it truly awesome. The underlying point though: WARFRAME IS UNFINISHED, NOT FEATURE-COMPLETE, STILL IN DEVELOPEMENT. There WILL be changes, there WILL be over-powered features that WILL be nerfed, your signed the EULA, it's not DE's fault if you didn't read it, stop complaining. It's free. No one forced you to buy ANYTHING. You chose to donate your time to TESTING a BETA.

[LordofTibera]

Thanks for caring, sorry for "them".

Seriously? Youre going to just lump all the Rhino players in one group?

I hate feeling like because other people are raging that i have to be treated a a villain here. I played it--Rhino cannot tank. He. Cant. Tank. Not at maxed stats with maxed mods, anyway. I just dont think its too much to ask to give this nerf another review because this doesnt work for Rhino, and he cant do his job if his one good power does little for him...

[Zogg]

I'm not having either Frame, Rhino or Vauban, but it seems the 'Bastille' is doing the same job as Rhino Stomp, but without being in the need of running/being in a crowd of ennemies and even holding ennemies after the cast (without the damage of Rhino Stomp which I heard is not that great - at least at higher levels).
I know it's not really constructiv, giving no real feedback and/or solutions but just wanted to point it out, as soon as I have constructive ideas I'll add them

Edit:Typo

Edited May 18, 2013 by Zogg

[crow-k]

 

Also, market prices are WAAAAAY too high. alloy plate is REALLY hard to farm, and takes quite awhile to get a good bit of, so when weapons cost 300+ alloy plates thats probably a few hours of farming right there.

I think the weapons we have on hand have been tested quite extensively. One reason they were so "cheap" in materials before. They may be testing the waters now to find an appropriate level of materials vs each item, so that it takes what DE will consider an acceptable amount of time and stil lwithin reach or most players. As it is, most weapons take longer to be made then it takes to farm the mats(Yes, most, I feel the pain in alloy plate too) but take a moment to look at it from a developer stance. There is usually a good reason for the actions they take.

 

 

 

 

 

PS if you want to feel great about DE and the team, take a few minutes and head over to d3 forums for their latest fiasco, and praise whatever you like that you are here, safe, with us. 

 

Fight with HONOR tennos!

[crow-k]

Seriously? Youre going to just lump all the Rhino players in one group?

I hate feeling like because other people are raging that i have to be treated a a villain here. I played it--Rhino cannot tank. He. Cant. Tank. Not at maxed stats with maxed mods, anyway. I just dont think its too much to ask to give this nerf another review because this doesnt work for Rhino, and he cant do his job if his one good power does little for him...

No not rhino users, the doom sayers. THOSE people.

"What do you mean "those" people?

..... you know,,, them... 

No I dont know say it.

 

THE Naggers. the whinners the angry ones, There i said it!

[3XT3RM1NATUS]

Here is a constructive feedback for Rhino:

 

Iron Skin was overnerfed. 80% damage reduction feels fine, But taking full damage from Toxics and being energy drain'd by Distruptors? No, thanks, I will play Nyx from now on, since she can do the same. but, like 10 times better.

 

Make him immune to toxins and energy drain and Iron Skin would be fine IMO.

 

Optional: allow him to slowly regenerate shields under fire.

Edited May 18, 2013 by 3XT3RM1NATUS

[crow-k]

Here is a constructive feedback for Rhino:

 

Iron Skin was overnerfed. 80% damage reduction feels fine, But taking full damage from Toxics and being energy drain'd by Distruptors? No, thanks, I will play Nyx from now on, since she can do the same. but, like 10 times better.

 

Make him immune to toxins and energy drain and Iron Skin would be fine IMO.

 

Optional: allow him to regenerate shields under fire.

I am hoping this is what is going to happen or somethign close to this. I think most rational people could agree this a good spot for it to be in. 

[PositronicSpleen]

Iron Skin was the number one reason by far for using Rhino, and a big part of that was because of ignoring knockdown and other effects (i.e. ancients). With the knockback immunity restored I don't think Rhino is "ruined", but he will be a lot weaker simply because he can't restore his shields, for better or worse. I'm not aware if it still makes him immune to ancients, but if not, that is also a really big weakness he just gained. Iron Skin will remain the main reason for using him, but weakened, it means Rhino is also less appealing because all his other powers are mediocre at best. This is actually a problem with a lot of warframes, which I suppose brings me to my next point.

 

Lately there have been a lot of high-profile nerfs to things that haven't exactly ruined the game. To be perfectly honest, a lot of the big nerfs seemed a bit reactionary. For example, even at its worst, Hek didn't make the game unfun, and I still saw weapon variety, yet it was hit really hard. Granted, it deserved a change (I'm still a little sour about how it was solved, but I digress), but there really haven't been any high-profile buffs lately. You can see how there are numerous threads discussing how things could be buffed, but basically nothing has been done and the community seems to be questioning if they're even being listened to.

 

I admit there are quite a number of bad ideas, but there are also some good ideas. Perhaps the problem is that it is difficult to sort the good from the bad? There are problems that just never seem to be addressed, and nobody knows if the developers are even aware, which affects the perception of the cooperative dialogue between the community and developers that the forum seems designed to nurture.

 

So what I'm saying is, recent updates seem to address problems that the community at large doesn't seem to recognize as problems, then solves them in ways it disagrees with, then doesn't address problems that the community sees. It would be really helpful if the developers had a better way of communicating what they see as problems and solutions, and ways for the community to know they are being listened to, that something is going to be done or not, and how the community feels about it in advance of it happening. I realize that might not always be practical if there's a lot of backlash towards a change that seems necessary, but with the whole give-and-take it kind of goes with the territory. Discussions here feel completely divorced from the actual changes being made, other than bringing the topics up in the first place.

 

 

 

Edit: I guess I would also say that Sound Quake should probably get the invincibility back, both because it would be consistent with other warframes' skills, but also because the player cannot defend themselves while using an attack that attracts the attention of everything nearby and can't be cancelled. The stun was an interesting effect that separated it from all the other boring "100 power area-effect with <element>" abilities, but I believe that the stun is gone now? There's really nothing special about the ability at all now.

 

Trinity has been dying for a rework for a long time coming, but making her unable to tank before said overhaul is done would mean something similar to her as this update did to Rhino. I honestly feel like we need one big update to refine ability balance, knowing now how things are and are not useful.

Edited May 18, 2013 by PositronicSpleen

[Kotoso]

To be fair Trinity is all kinds of broken. And patch after patch you never nerf her. I'm fine with that though, she's my favorite frame.

[Voqics]

About the Banshee thing, that nerf hit me hard, as i fist played my brand new Banshee this morning and got used to being unkillable, then halfway through the day I'm dying every time I use the skill.  For me, the ability feels like i should run into the biggest crowd I can find and weaken them for my team; and my Shade is really helpful for that (though both sentinels' main abilities could use a minor buff) but its nearly impossible to do this without dying to the enemies before the stun kicks in. So my suggestion is some sort of damage reduction (like the new Iron Skin, which I like better than the old) while using the Soundquake ability, or making the stun take effect sooner.

 

And for Rhino, my thought was to instantly refill half of Rhino's max shields at the start of the ability, to give Rhino back his tanky feel without giving him a "god-mode" button.

 

Just my two cents on the huge ragefest, I'm happy DE is trying to improve the game and I do like the difficulty these nerfs add, even if it is slightly too much, in my opinion.

[pdxdubin]

The Time is 4:48 PM, I review the Update Notes, wondering how the changes to Banshee and Rhino will be received. The reaction to the changes to the Hek and Gorgon just a few weeks ago are still fresh in my mind, but I remember that we did receive quality feedback. This feedback allowed us to tweak the balance changes. I hope everyone else remembers this rollercoaster as well as I do.

But, back to today:

4:49 PM hits and the Patch Notes Post and Update 7.11.0 went live.

4:54 PM hits, the first “HOLY RHINO NERF” appears. I think, it’s only been 5 minutes, there is no way they could have loaded the game, played several levels, and produced feedback.

4:55 PM hits, another post (this time 6 minutes after original post) saying how we ruined Rhino!

4:56 PM hits and BAM another post! Now I am quite certain that it is all initial reactions at this point. I think to myself and sadly there is nothing I can take from these posts to a designer to make changes with. I go off into a daydream, picturing myself walking into Scott’s office and saying:

“Our Community is really reacting strongly to this Rhino change”– Me

“Oh! We just wanted to invite challenge into his play style, I think 100% invincibility was a little strong, what does the community suggest?” Scott

“Suggest? Hold on, let me check… oh. Nothing, actually, they just wanted to let us know that we ruined him and are doomed.”

For hours this continues, few posts emerge that provide constructive ideas, I savour those. More emerge on how this is the beginning of the end. Doom is nigh.

Then, after about 4 hours, we start getting somewhere. I assume this is because people have actually put the new changes to the test instead of just reacting to the notes. I start being able to grasp at underlying issues to bring up with the team.

So, I present to you Tenno a current list of what I’ll be taking to the Design Table:

-People wonder if the reaction is this strong to one OP ability, maybe the other abilities could use a buff! Let’s review!

- Holy S&@* where is his knockback immunity? (This is a bug, it SHOULD be there.)

- People want to know why the Nerf? Why not make stuff harder? What is being prioritized?

- Trinity is now “a better tank.” What does this mean for the overall balance of the frames?

- As Thor, a community mod, has summarized: "In essence, people seem concerned that what's happening is things are getting balanced towards an even, but weak, playing field". What are your thoughts on that?

- Not on the topic of Rhino, but Banshee not being invulnerable during Soundquake, can we talk about that?

This list is not final, and it doesn’t guarantee changes, but it will serve a purpose.

TL;DR? No - Please read it. Really. I really think if you’ve made a post about Rhino you NEED TO READ THIS. IF you don’t care about Rhino, carry on.

P.S: Scotty you’ll probably read this before I bring it to your office, so be prepared!

 

I read this for sure

 

Thanks for being such an awesome person Rebecca =D

[Alcoran]

I don't use a rhino, but I want to add some constructive feedback and scope of how I see the abilities in Warframe.

 

I think every Warframe should bring something strong and unique to the table. Some have only one powerful ability: Invincible Skin was Rhino's gimmick, but it made him unique and extremely powerful; Frost's is snow globe which is hilariously strong in Defense. However, for each of these warframes, their other three abilities are, kind of average or below average. Others, such as Volt, Banshee, etc. have a strong set of moves but none super powerful or "iconic".

 

I'm not sure which direction DE wants the Warframes to go in; one strong/iconic/gimmick ability and a below-average other 3, or all-round average/above average kit. I think both are possible, and certainly can be more interesting if/when unique passives arrive.

 

Keeping this in mind, then, I see two paths for Rhino. [Note: Knockback immunity stays regardless, as you mentioned - its a bug].

 

1. Let the ranks of Iron Skin give 80/85/90/95% damage reduction as you level it up. 95% is a lot and close to invincible, especially with high enough shields and/or armor.

 

2. Keep Iron Skin's 80%, but improve the other three abilities to compensate, to make Rhino a better all-rounder.

 

Edit: Others have mentioned Iron Skin blocking effects like Ancient Toxin/Disruption; I think both (1) and (2) should include resistance to these "status effects" or "special attacks", if you will.

Edited May 18, 2013 by Alcoran

[Xylia]

Here is a constructive feedback for Rhino:

 

Iron Skin was overnerfed. 80% damage reduction feels fine, But taking full damage from Toxics and being energy drain'd by Distruptors? No, thanks, I will play Nyx from now on, since she can do the same. but, like 10 times better.

 

Make him immune to toxins and energy drain and Iron Skin would be fine IMO.

 

Optional: allow him to regenerate shields under fire.

 

Better Idea: Nerf the stupid Disruptor Drain.

 

100% Shields AND 100% Energy? Far, far, far too OP. BAM and suddenly you can't fight back, and you will die seconds later. There's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

 

The Infested are already THE most hated faction in the game for the ridiculousness of everything in Infestation missions. The number of mobs, how hard these things hit, how fast they can kill you. I know, I know, you're going to say "durrr bring more people durrrrrrr". Uh... yeah. The problem with that, is that it only takes a little lag or a few missed shots, or ONE disruptor to go unnoticed and then next thing you know 1-2 people are on the ground and the other 1-2 people are probably going to either get killed trying to get them back up, OR, they have to kill the stupid disruptor first and the two who fell are going to expire anyways.

 

And you NERFED the one and only Warframe that could actually counter these ridiculous enemies?

 

Disruptors, and (to a lesser extent) Toxins need a nerf if you're going to keep nerfing Warframes.

 

Keep nerfing Warframes and pretty soon we might as well not even bother with high-level missions. As it is, low-level infested are pretty much impossible to do solo/small group without some ridiculously good weaponry and/or over-leveled equipment/mods.

 

Infested are already 10x as hard as Grineer and Corpus COMBINED.

 

I think the very last thing we needed, was to lose the one and only defense we actually had against this overpowered stuff.

[Strudelhouse]

-snip-

I love reading your posts. :3