A slow Bern, the current year of Wf in review.

[SquireAngel]

So, looking back on 2018 for Wf has shown a pretty slow year. We started off the new year with update 22.8.2, a patch including a new round of tennogen and some updates to Ash. Nothing super amazing, but we weren't really expecting too much, as nothing was promised, and we were all kinda hyped for Sacrifice from the apostasy prologue. Fast forward to the shrine of the eidolons, the first patch introducing truly new content, and a massive shift to primaries as a whole. This was late januaryish, and gave us an extension of the eidolons to tridolons. From then, we would see another new content update until 22.18, introducing Khora and Sanctuary Onslaught, although both are meant with a luke warm response. also of note is the dojo remaster in patch 22.15. Thus we have hit April, a decent chunk of the year gone. A good start, and with a few new activities to grind away at. 

So we enter the summer of 2018 with the highly anticipated Sacrifice quest. The quest answers some quests, gives a new frame to play with and then....ends, with a cliffhanger. While Sacrifice is well received the general opinion comes across as simply short? No real new systems are implemented, no real new content in terms of mission types or anything like that. It's not bad by any means, just...simple. Exalted weapons have their own modding to be done, a good improvement as well. July rolls by with a new set of tennogen. August sees Frame fighter, along with a set if new and pieces, and the introduction of Revenant. And quite a small introduction. Something of a side quest to give him very vague lore (personally didn't hate this, while most frames have been getting quests, the majority dont have them, and they work just fine with codex entries). Finally as of today, we have the Ne Zha rework and premium skin. 

So far, this year has been pretty scarce for content. We have had 2 new frames, both of which have had to have fairly moderately sized tweaks to tune, although rev definitely was closer to what he originally was, and his tweaks only took a few weeks. While I understand that Khora was radically changed, seeing as she was originally the spearhead for the now scrapped dmg 3.0, she still took a while to find her identity, and even today, still feels....off. Much better than launch, but still, ult feels weird. As Fortuna, Railjack, and melee 3.0, while all looking wonderous, we haven't really had much of anything to tide ourselves over with this year, it feels like. Usually a new gun or sword, maybe a new stance here and there invites a period of experimentation, and gets older players to at least look at the game again. 2018 hasn't seen many if any interesting weapons outside of major releases, such as Rev's beam bomb shotgun. With Khora's release, we had the same thing with hysterix and the Veldt. Both were new items to experiment with. 

 

As September continues on, and the 'lightly suggested' date for Fortuna drags by, we now have no frame to hype for, no new weapons to toy with, and little reason to invest time outside of playing with the ne zha updates (which look pretty good, not trying to downplay the rework at all). It feels like DE has over invested in these major updates again (coughcoughTheWarWithincoughcough), with few things to even moderately appeal to our interest in the game. While I dont want to say that this year has been disappointing, because Khora and Rev, while not faves, are still decent frames (haven't played with new updates in 23.8 yet), they're basically the only new toys we've gotten all year, minus a reward like the zylok here and there. I think DE jas kinda forgotten the importance of small snacks of content to keep us content while they fiddle with massive updates. Tennogen and Tenno reinforcements with things other than noggles are pretty important just to keep things from growing stale, and we've gotten far too few of them this year. 

How have you guys felt about 2018 so far?  

[Xaxma]

It's defintely been a slog for content. I think something as simple as the elite alerts would have breathed new life into the game in such a simple way. I don't know why they teased it so long ago and haven't said much on it since. 

 

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

It’s been slow, but the quality of everything has improved. The Saryn and Nezha reworks have made them significantly better, Fortuna looks extremely promising. The only thing that has suffered this year is new Warframes.

[ShortCat]

I have to agree, that in terms of entirely new content 2018 is sparse so far. A big chunck of changes in 2018 is dedicated to reworks & revisits of old weapons and Frames. And you know what? In recent time, I find myself playing more, because there is more incentive to switch gear and try out new set ups. Attention to neglected parts of the game worked for me. Warframe at its core has more than enough content and replay value, it just needs refinement.

Edited September 13, 2018 by ShortCat

[DrBorris]

I would argue that the weapon/Warframe reworks are basically new content. Bringing up the beam weapons meant for, many people, that they had something new to play with and forma. Same for the Warframe reworks we have gotten.

Think about it, if you rework something so that people use it when they never did before, it is basically new content for those people.

Another way to put it...

1. People want content
2. DE adds content
3. People play with 'new' content

-or-

1. People want content
2. DE makes unused content usable
3. People play with 'new' content

 

So if DE added two other new Warframes and 10 new weapons, in theory people would have just as much to play with than reworking two less popular Warframes and buffing 10 weapons.

[(PSN)NachoZissou]

When you see everything listed like that I'd say it's been a damn good effort so far. I particularly appreciated all the weapon rebalances which I think were spot on. 

[(PSN)NachoZissou]

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Edited September 13, 2018 by (PS4)NachoZissou

[000l000]

I don't care much, my whole life isn't dedicated to Warframe only, nor any kind of free-to-play game.