Let's Talk: Content Drought - What DE can learn from this

[(PSN)Sgt_Buttscratch]

6 minutes ago, OrlockCedar said:

What seems to be the definition of content a majority of folks here is content that keeps people interested in the game (like improving game modes, etc), not to give them a reason to spend money on the game. Trust me, there's plenty of motivation for that already. I have dumped so much money on cosmetics and rushing stuff. Yes I will agree that the weapon tweaks is a step in the right direction, but I doubt that real weapon and Warframe balancing is ever going to be a thing in this game when you are more or less supposed to be a god among men. Someone else said here that Pablo worked some magic on Nezha, which (I wholeheartedly agree with) is also a step in the right direction, but there is still so much that DE needs to improve to make the early game stuff even worth it to come back to after you have what you wanted.

EDIT: Which is why I believe there is reason for the content drought, because once you have grinded / farmed for what you wanted, there is little to no motivation to go back to certain game modes.  

Thats a fight that can never be won, once you have everything you have everything, to try to keep early game activities relevant for someone endgame is an endless battle. Whatever they do we will beat them. We will farm whatever they add before they can add more. Pretty much that simple.

[CupcakesMoo]

The only thing to learn here is that entitled player bases don't know what they want or if its enough if they finally get it. "Content drought" I never thought I'd find another forum as goofy as the terraria forums but here we are. 

[--END--Rikutatis]

I think this discussion of content drought is missing the big picture, something that others have already brought up in this thread, and that is Warframe losing and/or not having more competitive aspects in its gameplay and not focusing more on clan/alliance social aspects and encouraging that. Releasing biweekly MR fodder gear for us to level our MR is not going to do anything to alleviate matters in the long run. We actually did have a bunch of new stuff this year:

1) Shrine of the eidolons: a mode where mid to high rank players spend a lot of their playing time farming arcanes (=plat) and focus in a modderately challenging activity (specially if trying to speedrun), and can also be a good clan activity as well.

2) Kuva survival: another place that is very popular for mid to high level players to go and farm kuva to roll their rivens. It's a fun game mode and only suffered from the lack of a high level version of it that could give veterans extra challenge for extra rewards

3) ESO: Despite my dislike for ESO and the silly efficiency drains, it's actually quite popular as well, just not the reasons DE wanted it to be. It's basically an affinity farm at this point, where people go to farm focus or level weapons. But still sees a lot of traffic and has pretty decent rewards (radiant relics are quite useful). 

4) Complete weapon rework (primary/secondary/beams): It made the game better, there's no denying that. Took their time away from other stuff, but so far all the reworks have been great and made weapon viability and variety so much better than it was before.

5) Story related quests: Sacrifice, Revenant, Pyrus Project: All short and didn't add much in the way of new mechanics, just sweet and to the point quest like additions to the game. Sacrifice had a very good story, Revenant had interesting lore tidbits and Pyrus Project was a nice little diversion as well. But those were all very short, wouldn't take more than one to a few days. 

*) Not even going to count new frames and prime gear, that's a given. 

I see that as a good chunk of stuff added to the game, the major problem for veterans, is that all of those things, if you already have all the prime gear, maxed all focus, collected all arcanes, has tons of plat and the rivens you need, there's no drive to engage in those game modes anymore. Old tactical alerts that happened every now and then like the Ambulas had a competitive side to it, that kept clans and alliances engaged to try to get the scores for what they needed to accomplish or for bragging rights. I'm not denying exploiting and similar stuff wasn't an issue and probably the reason DE shut those down, but just saying, this competitive goal can keep a clan engaged for weeks nonstop. That's also the same role that competitive endgame pvp has for games like Destiny or The Division, those games only release a couple DLCs per year and a few minor updates, that's it. A pve/pvp hybrid game mode similar to the Gambit like others have suggested could be a great addition to the game. 

For people that already have all the gear and resources and have no need for farming (which is what every single game mode in WF offers, farming), some sort of challenge with a competitive edge to it is realistically the only thing to keep them engaged in the game and playing on a daily basis as opposed to a couple days after each big update. But DE has been shying away from challenge and competition lately it seems. 

Edited October 4, 2018 by --END--Rikutatis

[(PSN)Four_The_Gamer]

On 2018-10-03 at 7:49 AM, Ragingwasabi said:

i think the content drought is somewhat fine because theyre releasing updates as big and jaw dropping as fortuna and railjack . i mean holy S#&$ railjack is insane
 

POE, fortuna and railjack are the big updates that really put DE and warframe on the radar of games media and gamers. i dont think people would talk half as much about warframe if DE stuck with releasing little tactical alerts every month or so and never released the big open world stuff

How can you say railjack is insane when you haven't even tried it yet

[Orblit]

Past events made re-playable for those who missed them during a break, or just didn't see the glory of Warframe yet?
(Like helping Darvo and getting the stalker away from him)..etc

This is something that could be done when people are just looking for something different to do.

[TheErebus.]

5 minutes ago, (PS4)Four_The_Gamer said:

How can you say railjack is insane when you haven't even tried it yet

I'm willing to bet my plat that it'll be the next Archwing. They'll support it for a little bit after release and then forget about it.

[UrielColtan]

On 2018-10-03 at 8:45 AM, arii1986 said:

I think DE should take some lessons from recent free to play successes. Hate to say this - but something like Fortnite. They have regular seasons of content, introduce new game modes and also have regular cosmetics that are constantly in the public eye. I know the sizes of the companies are different but hear me out.

DE's big problem is putting their eggs in one basket with one giant piece of content as OP has rightly pointed out.

On Twitter, I am regularly seeing updates on what's happening to Fortnite. It's always in the news and it's always in front of peoples faces. 

When Fortuna was announced - sure, loads of coverage. But now what? There's nothing. And that's a problem.

These open worlds should be canned after Fortuna.

Nah, i like the concept of the opening up of the Warframe world with open world structures. I think DE went about it a bit incorrectly though in

 

 

1.Trying to include near every big update with the open world updates.

The likes of the melee rework does not exactly need to be included with the Fortuna update, it is one of the sacrifices that players can live with in the face of udates like big new locales and attached events. Melee 3.0 clearly needs to be worked on more given what we have seen and no workshop yet. People can accept postponing that to next year if need be.

 

2. Seemingly stalling updates so as to not have to protect the consoles from "spoilers" for too long, by allowing for their console builds to catch up in release more and more shortly after the PC builds. I know Steve has even wanted to match up Tennogen releases, I would not be surprised if this desire has extended toward content releases in general. If so, then i think that is a mistake, even in regard to mere Tennogen. I don't think any console companies should be artificially holding any of our content hostage. 

 

3. Not taking real advantage of the space and locals they introduce.  They need to start taking some more interactive and personality cues from the likes of the Yakuza games(Or more recently the Fist of the Northstar game done in the same vakn by the same team.) which emphasize content and character over mere size of their open world. Bigger worlds can be fine, but flesh out the things in the world at least to the levels of even the most modest sized Yakuza worlds first.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2018 by UrielColtan

[MartianGHunter]

2 hours ago, (PS4)covan2306 said:

These people are not willing to admit anything as content or fixes during the past 5 months. Flawed logical but they're sticking to it!!

 

 

2 hours ago, Corvid said:

What do you think the multiple frame reworks we've had are?

What about the massive weapon balance pass we got early in the year?

First here I don't think anyone here refuses that this content issue is. You re-balance all weapons you balance Nezha get I have used weapons forma'ed ones I liked I enjoy running Nezha now. But oh wait where do I play Nezha?? where do I use these new weapons?? 

These QoL updates are great I applaud them for doing so but the bigger picture is Archwing is still they added a Archwing mission that had so much potential(Pursuit) and they abandoned it immediately. This is an example of my problem with DE's current work -  RELEASE and NEGLECT. Its absolutely horribly. I should be allowed to air out my concerns because I WANT THE GAME TO BE BETTER! that's all I have invested 5 years of my life playing Warframe and I will gladly give 5 more years I love this game, I love this community but you seem to have a problem with people offering criticism and honestly criticism is what DE need right now. You can't fix something if no one tells you its broken.

Another example of that Nezha was trash universally agreed but Nezha "mains" when anyone brings any criticism no his fine don't touch him his perfect <- is how things don't improve.

So if you choose not offer criticism and feel the game is perfectly fine for you. That's amazing I envy for that I on the other hand will give my feedback on what I hope to see changed and improved because that is only way Warframe and DE will grow as a game and a company.

 

Edited October 4, 2018 by MartianGHunter
Grammar

[MartianGHunter]

44 minutes ago, UrielColtan said:

1.Trying to include near every big update with the open world updates.

The likes of the melee rework does not exactly need to be included with the Fortuna update, it is one of the sacrifices that players can live with in the face of udates like big new locales and attached events. Melee 3.0 clearly needs to be worked on more given what we have seen and no workshop yet. People can accept postponing that to next year if need be.

 

I 100% agree with some updates don't need to be incorporated in the open world and could be released separately.

[UrielColtan]

On 2018-10-03 at 11:19 PM, OrlockCedar said:

I think that would fit Warframe more than Lunaro does, personally. Lunaro, while an interesting concept, still has a lot of issues, along with Conclave in general. It would be nice to have that mix of PvE and PvP. Little something for everyone.

The problem with something like Lunaro, is the problem with other things like fishing or mining. Nice concepts and all but the way we engage in them is overly mundane. Our distinct powers hardly come into play in regard to these activities, to the point that we might as well be doing Lunaro or fishing as a plain NPC, for how much our Warframe has any real relevance or distinction, making most engagements with either activity, blend together into one same plain experience. It would be better if they went the more oldschool Midway or Mario sports sim arcadey route and let you use powers and hit each other in the sport. 

By that same token, I as a Nezha could spear fish in the lake with my 4 to then pick off with your fishing spear, or they can be grabbed with the likes of Mag, Loki could create a decoy fish or radial disrm fins to stop fish from swimming away temporarily, they will just drift aimlessly, though it would also hinder their swimming toward bait. Stuff like that. Spears can either be used with your powers if they complement use of said spear, or transmuted into a skill badge for how effective your powers are on the fish. Make the fish tougher, to compensate of course(Which they should be anyway, swimming in highly magnetic sentient water.) . Hell, if need be, have  the fish even attack you by trying to spit magnetic water at you or emit some kind of fishy poison or sharp carapace portrustion at you, if you agitate them.

The ability to use our distinct powers for things like fishing would lend more relevance to the water also draining our energy at night.

By extension this samey problem is partly what has been wrong with archwing.  Your Warframe really has no relevance and it isn't seamlessly implemeneted into the main gameplay. The latter issue seems to be some of what is motivating them to revisit tilesets like Jupiter and make them wider, but that is just my optimistic assumption. We will see.

Edited October 18, 2018 by UrielColtan

[Corvid]

2 hours ago, TheErebus. said:

I'm willing to bet my plat that it'll be the next Archwing. They'll support it for a little bit after release and then forget about it.

Wager noted.

[TheErebus.]

3 hours ago, UrielColtan said:

3. Not taking real advantage of the space and locals they introduce.  They need to start taking some more interactive and personality cues from the likes of the Yakuza games(Or more recently the Fist of the Northstar game done in the same vein by the aame team.) which emphasize content and character over mere size of their open world. Bigger worlds can be fine, but flesh out the things in the world at least to the levels of even the most modest sized Yauza worlds first.

>Yakuza/Fist of the Northstar

>That kinda stuff in Warframe

A man can only dream of such glorious beauty 

[HeartPurity]

and this week we got no update again! how about the update on every Wednesday as promised by DE? 😒

[Goodwill]

13 hours ago, MartianGHunter said:

No my post is to open up discussion and air out thoughts the community has. 

These are my thoughts and honestly i am not saying they perfect after all its my opinion at the end of the day. 

And you saying I haven't offered up solutions please look at my other posts before this discussion I am constantly offering up solutions for new content and improving content. Even in my post i suggested more tactical alerts giving more variation to the existing alerts. Improving PvP to be more warframe friendly these are all suggestions i don't what more i can do or say as a single voice hence reason this exists. 

That's why I prefixed solutions with the words "reasonable" and "feasible". It's easy to come up with solutions. But coming up with solutions that doesn't conflict with any established interests when you are a 3rd party is not easy.

Also I'm just playing Devil's advocate here to keep some semblance of humility.

[MartianGHunter]

13 minutes ago, Goodwill said:

Also I'm just playing Devil's advocate here to keep some semblance of humility.

I fully get that and I see what you mean. 

Just to further clarify not saying these ideas are all feasible reasonable or possible but its there its options for them to consider like all things. 

And that's okay I guess we all need humbling to keep us in line as well. 😂

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

On 2018-10-03 at 8:04 AM, GinKenshin said:

Imo this is DE’s number 1 issue. The game keep getting bigger every year, but the staff is hardly getting bigger...sure, the equipment and tech is, but that can only do so much 

 

  They are sorta aware of it, like when telltale company disbanded, they offered jobs (though it seemed more of a curtesy and standing by them than focusing on getting more people). They’re working on it but it’s obviously isn’t important for them, they need to dedicate staff to it 

 

   Iirc Steve said the team is a family, and I know it’s hard to welcome new members in, but they need to do a reality check here and look at the big picture. If they really love the game, then they should drop the ‘we can handle it’ attitude and make the right call, by the game and the players 

Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most successful companies in the world, only has a team of less than 20 people.  Dev teams don't need to be HUGE, provided they have the necessary tech to complete their goals.  DE has been doing that, and on a tight budget.  YES, I knoooow, they have been making headlines and all, but that doesn't mean their budget grows.   They STILL operate on a very tight business model, namely one that relies on what essentially amounts to donations to stay open.  They don't have any product that they charge upfront for in order to gate access to the game...fun for the consumer, sure, but makes month-to-month budgets pretty iffy because what if you had a whole month where noone bought any Prime Access at all?  How are you going to pay the 250+ employees? You still need to pay people for hours worked, even if your game makes $0 that month, and that's expensive as hell, not considering also the other business expenses.

All that is to say, it's not just as simple as pushing a button and "hiring another body".   Also, yes, they have a very specific image they need to maintain in the game, so they're not just going to bring on any ol' dev.  I mean, if you were DaVinci, would you bring in just "more art students" to finish your paintings faster?  Of course not!  You'd be -very- picky with whom you let near your canvas.  This is very much the same, and for good reason.


ALL THAT BEING SAID, I think this whole "content drought" complaining is bs.   There's no "drought".  We had new content, now they're working on MORE new content.  I mean....that's like complaining that you're starving and on a Food Drought just because you finished breakfast and lunch isn't here yet.  It's just overdramatic bs.   Anything Steve said was likely just to address all the complaints and try and settle down the rioting.  

[(PSN)Sgt_Buttscratch]

9 hours ago, MartianGHunter said:

 

First here I don't think anyone here refuses that this content issue is. You re-balance all weapons you balance Nezha get I have used weapons forma'ed ones I liked I enjoy running Nezha now. But oh wait where do I play Nezha?? where do I use these new weapons?? 

These QoL updates are great I applaud them for doing so but the bigger picture is Archwing is still they added a Archwing mission that had so much potential(Pursuit) and they abandoned it immediately. This is an example of my problem with DE's current work -  RELEASE and NEGLECT. Its absolutely horribly. I should be allowed to air out my concerns because I WANT THE GAME TO BE BETTER! that's all I have invested 5 years of my life playing Warframe and I will gladly give 5 more years I love this game, I love this community but you seem to have a problem with people offering criticism and honestly criticism is what DE need right now. You can't fix something if no one tells you its broken.

Another example of that Nezha was trash universally agreed but Nezha "mains" when anyone brings any criticism no his fine don't touch him his perfect <- is how things don't improve.

So if you choose not offer criticism and feel the game is perfectly fine for you. That's amazing I envy for that I on the other hand will give my feedback on what I hope to see changed and improved because that is only way Warframe and DE will grow as a game and a company.

 

So the fact I don't agree with YOUR opinion means I have a problem with all criticism?
This is how discussion works kiddo, I know this world we are in promotes jumping to conclusions and emotions, rather than accepting not all agree, I am simply stating my opinion..nothing more. My side of the discussion, criticism of the criticism

This comment:

"These people are not willing to admit anything as content or fixes during the past 5 months. Flawed logical but they're sticking to it!!

was aimed at this kinda comment:

"You re-balance all weapons you balance Nezha get I have used weapons forma'ed ones I liked I enjoy running Nezha now. But oh wait where do I play Nezha?? where do I use these new weapons?? "

Understand? You're comment is preceded by faux understanding, then instantly a complaint, dismissive complaint about the content or fix. 

The situation we are in DE can't fix, whatever they could have added, we would have completed fast and would be back here asking for more or "something".

Chill, good stuff is soooooooo close. New npc's on the relays got me excited as duck tonight. Patiently waiting here. 

I also never said the game was perfectly fine

Edited October 5, 2018 by (PS4)covan2306

[MartianGHunter]

5 hours ago, (PS4)covan2306 said:

So the fact I don't agree with YOUR opinion means I have a problem with all criticism?
This is how discussion works kiddo, I know this world we are in promotes jumping to conclusions and emotions, rather than accepting not all agree, I am simply stating my opinion..nothing more. My side of the discussion, criticism of the criticism

This comment:

"These people are not willing to admit anything as content or fixes during the past 5 months. Flawed logical but they're sticking to it!!

was aimed at this kinda comment:

"You re-balance all weapons you balance Nezha get I have used weapons forma'ed ones I liked I enjoy running Nezha now. But oh wait where do I play Nezha?? where do I use these new weapons?? "

Understand? You're comment is preceded by faux understanding, then instantly a complaint, dismissive complaint about the content or fix. 

The situation we are in DE can't fix, whatever they could have added, we would have completed fast and would be back here asking for more or "something".

Chill, good stuff is soooooooo close. New npc's on the relays got me excited as duck tonight. Patiently waiting here. 

I also never said the game was perfectly fine

First, I love the fact we have differing opinions not dismissing it, if anything I welcome it that's the point of debate and discussion to get a feel for the opposing sides view.

And you basically took my comment out of context or you didn't understand the point I was trying to  make so will clarify.

I did not dispute the fact that the rework was content my point was we get a rework GREAT, I play said rework for max a week in existing state of the game then I have to wait another what 3 months for another rework?? Because what I was trying to say is that its great getting fixes but if there is no tangible game-play to back the rework there is no point we end up in same spot we started at.

And the chill point I have chilled I have been quiet and that's what got us here in the first place keeping quiet. So what I was hoping to do was to express my concerns now so that we don't through a content drought this severe and so that the devs can hear our concerns and better spread their workload and release schedule for the FUTURE..

And like I said at beginning if you don't see a problem that's fine you don't see a problem and happy with state of game I personally am not.and would like to see improvements.

[(PSN)KnowLedge]

Just give me a real raid and I'm good...

[(PSN)G-Dubsupreme]

A PvEvP mode like similar to Gambit in Destiny would solve all the problems of lack of content. Add clan and Alliance leader boards to it and exclusive rewards like sigils sayandanas and glyphs. And instead of invading the opposing team with your own Warframe a player can do it with the Stalker. 

[(PSN)Napalm13b]

What does anyone benefit from making excuses for DE? Do those ppl not want the game to be better? If all my customers just made excuses for my business' short comings, we would go downhill very fast and so will they. I think we should always push for the DE to make the game a far better experience. Keep in mind they are a business and we control the money they receive so why not ask for things to get better?

In short; I would like to know why you (if you are one of the people who do it) make excuses for them while not actually knowing the reasoning behind the problems with update delivery or other issues with the game.

[Jestonhomme]

Farming rep isn't easy

[German]

I'm pretty sure those people also want things to improve but it doesn't help only seeing things from one side.

[Phatose]

Partly because many of the complaints are off-base and unfair.

Partly because many of the complaints are actually play style preferences which treat a personal preferred game style as an improvement over all other styles.

Partly because complaints instead of voting with your wallet is pointless enough to aggravate me.

and Partly because this is a forum, where we talk.  Not everyone is going to agree with anything anybody says.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Phatose

[HorridaMessor]

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Internet White Knight - thats why