Is The Game Difficult Enough Yet?

[Genesix6]

36 minutes ago, Velaethia said:

Easy solution. Don't use them. Seriously people... Just cuz you can cheeze doesn't mean you should. Let me guess when you play single player game you set it to the lowest difficulty then complain about it being easy? The game is as difficult as you make it. 

Well that's mean handicaping, I mean the point of the game is to utilize frame, weapon and mods to its fullest, and handicap yourself is not really much of solution when considering most of the enemies we fought in the game is usually around 50ish, which is still not hard at all.

[Velaethia]

4 minutes ago, Genesix6 said:

I mean the point of the game is to utilize frame, weapon and mods to its fullest

Hmm... don't think that's the point of the game but okay. If you min/max on virtually any game it's gonna become a cakewalk. That's the unfortunate aspect of scaling. Unless the game has no gear and a static difficulty. Even then the more you play the easier it gets because you get better at it. 

[Falconer777]

10 часов назад, Loza03 сказал:

DMC is still perfectly enjoyable at the height of its gameplay as it is when you're a complete noob just starting out. Warframe isn't. That's an issue that should be addressed.

I completely agree. I recently bought a PS 4, and decided to try, as Warframe is played on the console, started a new account there. It plays great on the console), but besides the technical side, it again became interesting for me to play. Seriously. Sometimes they kill me, I don’t kill enemies with one button, yesterday I thought about the strategy of killing Lech Krill in a solo - and kill him far from the first time)  In the same way, I was very interested in the firsts months of playing on the PC when I started to play.
But to return now, before the release of New War and Railjack, to my account on the PC, where I have the 19th rank, I have no desire. Since last fall I haven’t logged into this account at all. I kill everything there with one button, the "sorties", which seem to be the endgame, are carried by the team as fast as if everyone is competing "who can reach the evacuation point faster"). All I wanted to buy or get, I have it there. Unfortunately, there is no normal endgame, no a normal PvP, no normal trade system. This is what still holds my interest in other games, for example in GW 2 (I play from 2013). 

And I am pleased with the fact that the DE are beginning to develop this direction now - and the complexity of the game, and the variants of one or another endgame. It inspires hope)

[Cubewano]

1 hour ago, Velaethia said:

Easy solution. Don't use them. Seriously people... Just cuz you can cheeze doesn't mean you should. Let me guess when you play single player game you set it to the lowest difficulty then complain about it being easy? The game is as difficult as you make it. 

Not everyone finds self inflicted limitations an enjoyable feat, and while yes it is a way to make the game challenging, when you have to actively handicap yourself to do it for some players it loses a level of satisfaction. The solution also only works in a controlled setting, where you have full control of who you are playing with and are able to ensure they are playing handicapped as well, otherwise you'll just run into other players using cheese instead, and since ones power can scale so immensely high in the game right now it only takes one of those players to shift the entire experience. One would have to pretty much relegate themselves largely to solo play for this idea to work, and be entirely cut out of a fairly significant aspect of Warframe which is its co-op/social features. 

[--END--Rikutatis]

Having to gimp yourself to find a challenge is not a solution (remove your mods, use frames without nukes or CC, etc). That's just bad game design as someone else here said. This is a looter shooter. The entire game loop consists of grinding for better gear and power progression. By gimping yourself and throwing all that gear in the garbage bin to find a challenge you are basically breaking the game loop. What's the point in farming new gear as DE releases them in new updates if you know you won't be able to use them or else the game will be braindead easy?

In other similar games you do all this grinding to do raids, pvp and other endgame activities at the end of the loop. In WF you do all this grinding and have absolutely nothing to do with it afterwards, you just make everything trivial. 

[FlusteredFerret]

5 hours ago, Genesix6 said:

Well that's mean handicaping, I mean the point of the game is to utilize frame, weapon and mods to its fullest, and handicap yourself is not really much of solution when considering most of the enemies we fought in the game is usually around 50ish, which is still not hard at all.

And just think how long it can take to acquire the knowledge and the gear to make that possible...

DE can't make a lot of content inaccessible to newer players, just because they don't happen to have specific frames, or mods...or the reflexes / thought processes to play at higher levels.

Personally, in the 15 months I've been playing, I've nearly cleared the star chart but still struggle in the arena missions on Sedna, which are "only" around Level 50-60. I've also attempted a couple of sortie missions but didn't fare to well in those either. I also only do regular Sanctuary Onslaught, rather than Elite.

So many vets forget this...the player base consists of players of ALL abilities, from complete newbies, to people who think nothing of facing Level 100 enemies and beyond.

 

If Warframe was your average FPS game, the solution would be to simply select "Easy / Normal / Hard" in the in-game settings. However, its a lot more complicated than that. DE know vets aren't finding the game challenging enough and are looking at ways of making it harder, without messing things up for everyone else...but as is often the way, it will likely take some time to implement.

The devs even said in the last stream that the spreadsheet warriors who deliberately work out the quickest / most efficient ways of completing any content, really don't help in their efforts to provide challenging content. So the player base are at least partially to blame themselves, in deliberately seeking to trivialise content.

 

Edited February 15, 2019 by FlusteredFerret

[--END--Rikutatis]

28 minutes ago, FlusteredFerret said:

....

If Warframe was your average FPS game, the solution would be to simply select "Easy / Normal / Hard" in the in-game settings. However, its a lot more complicated than that. DE know vets aren't finding the game challenging enough and are looking at ways of making it harder, without messing things up for everyone else...but as is often the way, it will likely take some time to implement.

The devs even said in the last stream that the spreadsheet warriors who deliberately work out the quickest / most efficient ways of completing any content, really don't help in their efforts to provide challenging content. So the player base are at least partially to blame themselves, in deliberately seeking to trivialise content.

 

It's not the player base, it's the game systems and the way the game was designed. Steve admitted as much in relation to attributes stacking, exponential armor scaling, etc. I agree DE shouldn't raise the difficulty level in the normal Starchart progression, but the issue is that _every single_ piece of content DE releases, they want to make it accessible for everyone. Newer players already have hundreds if not thousands of hours worth of content to play through, when DE releases new game modes or content that are supposedly aimed at veterans (looking at you ESO and Arbitrations) there's absolutely no reason why this content has to be accessible to newer players as well. But DE continues to compromise, to nerf enemies, to lower the starting level, etc. Even in these game modes that are explicitly described as "veteran" content. I can understand why they want the open world content to be accessible to newer players (PoE, Fortuna), those are huge updates that draw in a lot of newer players wanting to check them out. But that's where difficulty levels come into play. 

The Division and Anthem both have difficulty modes (easy, normal, hard as you put it, just with different names). Several other looter games have those as well, like Borderlands just to cite one. Heck, I'd say the vast majority of them have difficulty modes. DE made the right move to make Sanctuary Onslaught with two difficulty modes, but they made the wrong move to put different rewards in each one, that way they feel forced to make all difficulty levels accessible to everyone. Anthem got it right, the rewards are available to all, it's just the drop % becomes better the higher you crank up the difficulty. 

It's not like things are simply not improving either, things are actually getting worse. Lately DE has been putting level cap on enemies even in endless modes. ESO has a level cap of 260 if I'm not mistaken, Fortuna alert 4 has a level cap of 125, Arbitrations is also broken in terms of level scaling, 3 hours in enemies are still below level 300 (in a normal Starchart endless mission, at that same time, enemies would have been already lvl 1.500). They removed void keys and removed trials. The profit taker is considerably easier than the eidolons. Power creep continues to increase and DE continues to decrease the game's difficulty. 👏

Edited February 15, 2019 by --END--Rikutatis

[DreisterDino]

vor 43 Minuten schrieb --END--Rikutatis:

It's not the player base, it's the game systems and the way the game was designed. Steve admitted as much in relation to attributes stacking, exponential armor scaling, etc. I agree DE shouldn't raise the difficulty level in the normal Starchart progression, but the issue is that _every single_ piece of content DE releases, they want to make it accessible for everyone. Newer players already have hundreds if not thousands of hours worth of content to play through, when DE releases new game modes or content that are supposedly aimed at veterans (looking at you ESO and Arbitrations) there's absolutely no reason why this content has to be accessible to newer players as well. But DE continues to compromise, to nerf enemies, to lower the starting level, etc. Even in these game modes that are explicitly described as "veteran" content. I can understand why they want the open world content to be accessible to newer players (PoE, Fortuna), those are huge updates that draw in a lot of newer players wanting to check them out. But that's where difficulty levels come into play.

I completly agree with this. And i would add one thing:

The game is already so overwhelming for a new player because of the endless things you can chose to do,

so much that i think most would agree that you cannot play it without the help of the wiki or other players at first (ofc you could, but lets see how well that goes).

 

So it would actually be good if there would be some things that new players simply cant access until they reach a certain point in the progession.

It would help them to focus on the things that matter (and which are fun for a new player) while also having longterm goals.

 

But some people here in the forum will tell you that as soon as something is restricted in any way, it will kill the game,

and that a new player will stop playing because he is "not allowed" to do something whenever he wants to (which i highly doubt).

 

Edit: Just to add, i am also not talking about OpenWorlds here, like Rikutatis said, its understandable they want that content to be accessable.

But adding a Bounty with starting lvl 100 wouldnt make any new player leave the game either.

Edited February 15, 2019 by DreisterDino

[Methanoid]

difficult?  probably not, with enough forma/mod ranks your good to steamroll nearly anything, esp paired with a frame that can ease cheesing whatever you aim for, personally i wouldnt care as long as all that action was fun and rewarding in some way, we seem to be forgetting good playability in favor of extending time-gating content and adding niche non-warframe like features.

[Loza03]

27 minutes ago, DreisterDino said:

I completly agree with this. And i would add one thing:

The game is already so overwhelming for a new player because of the endless things you can chose to do,

so much that i think most would agree that you cannot play it without the help of the wiki or other players at first (ofc you could, but lets see how well that goes).

 

So it would actually be good if there would be some things that new players simply cant access until they reach a certain point in the progession.

It would help them to focus on the things that matter (and which are fun for a new player) while also having longterm goals.

 

But some people here in the forum will tell you that as soon as something is restricted in any way, it will kill the game,

and that a new player will stop playing because he is "not allowed" to do something whenever he wants to (which i highly doubt).

 

Edit: Just to add, i am also not talking about OpenWorlds here, like Rikutatis said, its understandable they want that content to be accessable.

But adding a Bounty with starting lvl 100 wouldnt make any new player leave the game either.

There's a concept like this - it's called 'aspirational play'. It's the idea that the top line of the game is so interesting that players coming in keep playing to try to reach it. That's the idea being presented here, and I agree with it.

However, I don't believe that jacking up the levels will achieve it since that's neither fundamentally more complex, nor does the level scaling make existing enemies more engaging to fight. Alterations to existing enemy scaling, changes to how the enemies behave to enable genuine counterplay against their abilities - and from there enable enemies to have more abilities and be able to actually fight back against our own. Perhaps some more mini-bosses that hard-counter styles like AoE nuking or hard CC spam? 

[(XBOX)Hyperion Rexx]

I dunno, maybe it's just me but I like setting up my warframe to be an unkillable god of death that can slaughter hordes of enemies and laugh maniacally while doing so.

I find that fun.  

[Softballbryan]

Give us very tough enemies with loadout restrictions that make us work together and think... easy ...and a lot of people would fail and be frustrated. They would also get more skilled if they really wanted. They can make changes with current systems that make the game fun for developed players. Arbitrations are a step in the right direction. I see a lot of fail in those missions, as well as the Ambulas sortie... make it tough... make if often.. make us fail unless we have our act together. 

 

Level 100, multi faction, mobile defense- 10 minute per location, 4 locations, no pizzas, no invisibility, limited ultimates, limited frames/weapons, etc  

Dont make them lightly restricting... make em tough

 

you get the idea. 

[IntheCoconut]

2 hours ago, FlusteredFerret said:

The devs even said in the last stream that the spreadsheet warriors who deliberately work out the quickest / most efficient ways of completing any content, really don't help in their efforts to provide challenging content. So the player base are at least partially to blame themselves, in deliberately seeking to trivialise content.

I don't whip out my calculator and spreadsheet to figure out the best way to min/max my experience, but I am one of those players that call for more "challenging" content. I play Oberon and Garuda primarily, and yes, I've used 1 potato but 0 forma for both. I reached a point in the game's content where I couldn't complete it effectively. I didn't hit a "challenge" road block, I hit a power-level road block. It wasn't that I needed to get better at dodging, timing my abilities, or get better at aiming, it was that I'd die in only a few hits, meanwhile my abilities would only tickle enemies. And the solution the game presents me with is Orokin Catalyst/Reactors to increase my mod capacity, and as a result increase my stats. This isn't a satisfying solution, in my opinion, but without using it, enemies remain bullet sponges and my Warframes remain like wet tissue paper.

Honestly, I don't think DE can design truly satisfying and challenging content because they have too many weapons and too many Warframes to take into consideration. Not to mention, bullet jumping and traversal trivialize most missions anyway. So for me, all I want when I say "challenging" content, is more end-game, max level content. All I want is for something to do on my level 30 frame. Right now, all I have that utilizes my max frames are Sorties- which I can only do once per day- and Arbitrations - which inhibit Warframe's abilities and only occur once per hour. We also have Eidolons, which also are limited by the day-night cycle.

On the subject of Eidolons. Despite me not being someone that min/maxes I can understand the logic behind those that do. I love Eidolon fights. But you know what I don't love? Punishing rewards. You need capture and kill all 3 just for a 5% chance for some of the better Arcanes. Because Cetus has a 100-minute day and only a 50-minute night cycle, for many people that means they only have time to do 1 Eidolon fight a real-life day during the week because of work. The first time I successfully killed/captured all 3 Eidolons, we were rewarded the Arachne Arcane which gives a 15% chance to do more damage on your next shot while wall latched. I was a little disappointed, because I knew I'd literally never use that Arcane, but I was too happy about winning to let it sour my experience. I got on the next day and guess what shiny new arcane I got? Another Arachne. I continued hunting Eidolons for a few more nights, but the trend of receiving unsatisfying rewards continued. So I can fully understand why people would find a meta and min/max so that they can squeeze in 2 or even 3 of these fights in one night cycle.

But as for me, I decided it just wasn't worth the effort and time all together. I didn't want to continue fighting the Eidolons 60 more times, when I had already lost interest after the first 10. Kudos to the people that can power through it, but its not for me. But that is why meta and min/maxing exists, and its a result of how rewards are doled out. I'm not saying DE should just give us rare loot for nothing, but the process of acquiring them shouldn't feel punishing either.

TL;DR: all I want is more content aimed at max-level frames/weapons, and better access to rewards that don't require you to trivialize the content (Eidolons) in order to get them.

Edited February 15, 2019 by IntheCoconut

[IIDMOII]

Nope. Still the same face roll. 

I'd like to see enemy density increased by 10x though. Getting tired of looking for something to shoot at.

Or start a survival at wave 10. Skip all the boring nonsense before it ramps up.

Custom mission editor would be awesome. Let us make our own missions and adjust the rules to our needs.

Anything would be nice.

Edited February 15, 2019 by IIDMOII

[xXIcyBladeXx]

*inserts DE gives us tru endgame content"

[FlyingDice]

No. There has been essentially no content with any sort of difficulty to it since towers, raids, and solar rail conflicts* have all been removed. ESO and tridolon caps are piss-poor substitutes. You have to actively gimp yourself to have much trouble with basically anything in the game right now.

 

 

*Please note that I'm not saying solar rail conflicts were good in any sense from the meta impact on dark sectors to the actual gameplay, just that they were more challenging to do well in than most ordinary content, given how cheesy it tended to be.

[ebrl]

Seeing how often some people would fail to finish their missions all over the star chart and beyond without 4 free revives and a full party to carry them, I'd say DE might have good reason to not the make game anything remotely "hard". Yes, tougher content at the upper end would be welcome... but players at the upper end don't need to be won over anymore. We'll come here and complain year after year, but lets admit, a new and impressionable player with many, many hours (and purchases) ahead of him is much more valuable to DE, and they might be right in not risking putting him off.

[Gamma745]

On 2019-02-15 at 10:09 PM, IntheCoconut said:

Honestly, I don't think DE can design truly satisfying and challenging content because they have too many weapons and too many Warframes to take into consideration. Not to mention, bullet jumping and traversal trivialize most missions anyway.

I fully agree. With how many Warframe abilities we have, each varying in many things, it's almost impossible for DE to account everything. Someone will eventually find an obscure combination that will trivialize any content imaginable.

 

On 2019-02-15 at 10:09 PM, IntheCoconut said:

I'm not saying DE should just give us rare loot for nothing, but the process of acquiring them shouldn't feel punishing either.

I agree that the amount of grind for some of the rewards does seem to encourage some people to trivialize it. Even the most fun and interesting fight would get tedious if you have to repeat it the 100^th time.

But the funny thing is, some people actually like that amount of grind. I do notice that those people are usually the ones who hardly complain about the lack of difficult content.

[Fishyflakes]

On 2019-02-14 at 12:32 AM, Checht said:

Me and my friends have stopped playing Warframe since July 2018 due to the game being too easy.

cheese mechanics in Warframe.

increase the difficulty

cheese

difficult

???

[Ikyr0]

1 hour ago, Fishyflakes said:

???

honestly it's not that difficult to understand. those who seek to be challenged by their PVE will most often min-max, by nature. having too many abusable mechanics/items/frames is just bad design for those players. it's not up to these players to spend time gimping their builds on purpose so they can enjoy their game. this is the devs' job. DE is too concerned with aspects of the game that bring financial gains, which is reasonable, but short-sighted. WF keeps bleeding players from the top (veterans), and new players will eventually run out. DE isn't stupid, and they've realized the competition is heating up in 2019 for the coop looter shooter genre. WF will have to start retaining its veterans sooner or later.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Ikyr0

[breakdafunk]

On 2019-02-15 at 4:09 PM, IntheCoconut said:

 

On the subject of Eidolons. Despite me not being someone that min/maxes I can understand the logic behind those that do. I love Eidolon fights. But you know what I don't love? Punishing rewards. You need capture and kill all 3 just for a 5% chance for some of the better Arcanes. Because Cetus has a 100-minute day and only a 50-minute night cycle, for many people that means they only have time to do 1 Eidolon fight a real-life day during the week because of work. The first time I successfully killed/captured all 3 Eidolons, we were rewarded the Arachne Arcane which gives a 15% chance to do more damage on your next shot while wall latched. I was a little disappointed, because I knew I'd literally never use that Arcane, but I was too happy about winning to let it sour my experience. I got on the next day and guess what shiny new arcane I got? Another Arachne. I continued hunting Eidolons for a few more nights, but the trend of receiving unsatisfying rewards continued. So I can fully understand why people would find a meta and min/max so that they can squeeze in 2 or even 3 of these fights in one night cycle.

This is a very good point, and I think that DE is fully aware that their new content will be trivialized after a very short period of time. That's why they are stingy about giving out rewards at a more reasonable pace. Also, some of the rewards are there just to dilute the reward pools i.e. the mentioned Arachne Arcane.

Edited February 18, 2019 by breakdafunk

[Kontrollo]

Just fyi and mildly off-topic now, but Arachne got buffed @IntheCoconut.

[Neuerwinter]

On 2019-02-15 at 7:56 AM, Velaethia said:

Easy solution. Don't use them. Seriously people... Just cuz you can cheeze doesn't mean you should. Let me guess when you play single player game you set it to the lowest difficulty then complain about it being easy? The game is as difficult as you make it. 

This is the silliest response i ever read. Based on your reasoning it's acceptable in the same way to say that DE should give an option for endless resources and it should be up to the player whether use it or not

Edited February 19, 2019 by Neuerwinter

[Entity--]

Well difficulty is where d2 can sometimes win.

[Gamma745]

On 2019-02-18 at 3:07 PM, Ikyr0 said:

honestly it's not that difficult to understand. those who seek to be challenged by their PVE will most often min-max, by nature. having too many abusable mechanics/items/frames is just bad design for those players.

So, are you saying that DE should remove or nerf those min-max setup?