Open Letter To Digital Extremes, Your Problem Solving

[OblivionNecroninja]

The Vauban Nerf was kind of necessary.

I WISH DE had solved that problem by giving each faction an enemy type that was immune to CCs, but that would just have been a sideways way of nerfing Vauban.

That said, I don't think further nerfs are necessary: Bastille was flawed on a structural level, and no other warframe abilities have that same problem.

[Xylia]

Instead of editing my last post, I'm going to add this afterthought here:

 

DE, I still love you guys, but dang... it is more like a brother/sister type thing, where I hate to sit here and say that you guys keep messing up on the same things, because then I feel guilty because I know you guys are trying, and you apologize for things regularly.

 

I know you guys don't do this sort of stuff because you don't care, I know it isn't because you're being vindictive towards the players.... the main problem is we don't know "Why" and that's leaving us scratching our heads. So yes, some kind of insight into these design decisions might help us provide more ideas in a more positive direction. If we knew that you wanted us to slow down and fight more stuff for example, we'd give you reasons why we don't, and things that might convince us to do so... rather than nerfing our movement and making the thing feel clunky and awkward, for example.

 

But please try to remember that most of us still love you guys. We're just worried/sad at some of the mistakes that keep getting made and some of us act out/speak up because of that.

[Silver_Fox75]

I can give a +1 to this post a hundred times over because I agree with everything said. Particularly about the newbie experience, I recently made a secondary/backup account to see if starting out was as bad as I remember and it definitely was, even being able to buy new weapon blueprints is pointless because the materials needed for most are exceedingly difficult to get for a beginning player w/o the use of platinum.

Btw my main account I have around 75h played so no where near some of you lol

[LittleReshiram]

TL;DR: DE: Tell us why you want us to move slower. Tell us why you think we need atrocious grind. We players will come up with TONS of ideas of how to accomplish whatever it is you want to see done, in a different, more fun way.

 

The team have SICKFUCK MIND when it comes to "fun."

Their view of "fun," right now, is when we spend every single second for this game.

Precious time that we can fill with other, more better things such as work, school, or hobby, for example.

 

That is why they want us to STOP MOVING, and AWED at their new contents..in which we won't be able to enjoy because we're busy DYING BECAUSE OF CONSTANT HEAVY FIRE.

That is why they want us to grind our way to Hell, because, clearly, there's NOTHING more fun than killing yourself, sitting on your chair for hours just for A PART of a blueprint. Sarcasm intended. This is how COOL DE is right now.

 

Well I won't mind spending my free time for Warframe, because this game IS still new, and looking forward what DE will spawn from its infested womb is kinda..fun. Irritatingly fun.

 

But then again, what about those who can't?

DE kinda messed up with that. That is why we see this..RIDICULOUSLY IDIOTIC GRINDFEST that SHOULDN'T happened in the first place, IF they want to ask first about what they should "prioritize" to the community.

[LittleReshiram]

It's..saddening. Really.

 

Seeing how the team is..#*($%%@ up by their own act like this, and yet they're STILL trying to toughen up and keep on going, disregarding the community in HOPE they will finally pleases us with their "surprises." In which it ends up horribly.

If so, guys. If that's what you've been doing all this time. I beg you.

STOP, AND LET US KNOW WHAT IS WRONG.

 

Just, tell us. Tell us what is wrong. We can help. We will try to.

 

That's why we made threads, asking about "why, what, how" and then some more "why."

That's why we made threads, suggesting changes that, even though there's no polling or such, have its point clear and then chosen by the community (percentage of the community), albeit in de jure...

 

Sure, some threads aren't even "readable" or "civil," but it's, well..because we're humans.

We're angry. We're troubled. But even then, we meant good.

 

You guys also meant well regarding Ember changes, right? RIGHT?

..Tell me I'm right.. Tell me you did have good intention for it..

 

Tell me you guys are not just jocks @(*()$ all of us for FUN.. Please.

 

Because I know you guys don't want to mess things up like this yourself.

[krisp]

Whatever happened to taking up all frames to the same level instead of nerfing the powerful ones?

There's a limit to that. Making every frame nigh-invulnerable because one of them has it is silly to say the least.

[Lumireaver]

Tell us why you think we need atrocious grind. We players will come up with TONS of ideas of how to accomplish whatever it is you want to see done, in a different, more fun way.

 

This. We need a cap on our collected resources so you don't have to price things according to how high our stockpiles are.

 

Once that's done, DE also needs to give us a place to dump surplus resources in a productive way. 

Edited September 18, 2013 by Lumireaver

[Wellwisher]

Pretty much agree with everything said here. DE's communication is beyond shoddy, to the point were I'd be hardpressed to even call it that.

Rebecca's responses here are just watered down PR statements, which bear no informative value whatsoever. Their patchnotes seem to be written down by someone from memory 5 minutes before they are posted, and many changes/bugs are so unnecessary and easy to spot that I wonder if anyone even spends so much as 10 minutes testing their releases. Not to mention that they deploy updates on Friday which is by far the worst weekday for any major update to software that people use in their freetime.

On top of that DE outright lied to us on a couple of things (eventhough people are still hesitant to call it that, but that will change is this behaviour persists).

All in all I am amazed that people still have this much faith left considering DE is either run by delusional people or they are out on a serious slash and burn moneygrub. At this point I very much doubt that anything will change in either the near and far future. Sure Warframe will continue to exist, but it wont be played by the same people who have been with it from the beginning which in my opinion is a quite tragic development for such an initially promising game.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Wellwisher

[MeteorKing]

Yes, let's continue to bash DE.

Because all of you know how to run a goddamn gaming company.

[Wellwisher]

Yes, let's continue to bash DE.

Because all of you know how to run a goddamn gaming company.

Yes we all know that promising one thing while constantly doing another is no the way to run any company. Your point?

[MeteorKing]

When did they promise us to reduce grind and make all their content easily available for any player, regardless of how long they've been playing?  I don't remember that.  I'm not saying I agree with their decisions, but that doesn't mean I'm all up in arms and making them out to be some evil corporation of bad people falsley leading their consumers into a path of self destruction.

 

DE, as a company makes decisions.  Some of those decisions are good, and some of them are bad.  ALL Y'ALL GOT WAAAAY TOO UP IN THEIR BUISNESS about some bad decisions.  Why does this have to resort to the use of strong language, lots of bold and capital letters?  I think it's like, oh, I dunno, one out of a hundred posts that is actually constructive, concise, and noncombattive in nature.  

 

You guys seem to have it in your minds that DE is strategically planning to piss everyone off, which is just not good buisness practice, and therefore, on money alone would say that it's incorrect.  That's not to bring into account their real and actual care for their playerbase.  While you may not like the changes, that doesn't mean they're not made with specific intent for a reason we're either unaware of, or the dev team is overly focused on. 

 

Even Ember changes probably had some grand scheme that was just totally mismanaged and the end result was a worse version of the frame.  It'll get hammered out regardless of HOWMANYBIGLETTERSYOUUSE so long as you make your point, give reason, and be reasonable.

 

Bottom line is: You can be in disagreement without being combattive, and as a community, we have failed in that regard.

[Mainabi]

good text the space between the lines make it harder to read, nonetheless I agree to most points, I don't know what DE's thinking I actually think they've totally misinterpret the easy to learn hard to master concept

 

I have 750h on warframe (did a reset)

and I can only see how some stuff is going downhill, biggest example probably the super hard stamina nerf, the game calls itself fastpaced but with that stamina nerf they've clearly didn't make the game more fast paced, they made it slower, only through shouts and cries in the forum they've buffed stamina a little bit.

 

atm warframe is all fancy looking but the gameplay gets worse and worse, no transparency why doesn't DE make the droptable public? why do dataminers have to do that? Also there are so many questions unanswered, a livestream can't answer them all, questions about the armor system, balancing, content, gameplay feel, melee system so many questions stay unanswered, yet you answer the same questions over again (most of the time) I don't know pre u7 it was pretty awesome there was so much hope and it looked like the devs knew what they're going to do, right now we know nothing, just balance here and there, but without reasons you don't even let us know why you guys think, the stuff you do is good.

[shinydunsparce]

Yes, let's continue to bash DE.

Because all of you know how to run a goddamn gaming company.

 and the DEfender shows his face

[MeteorKing]

 and the DEfender shows his face

[Azure_Kytia]

I don't think a great deal of people here have been saying DE is evil, man. You may wish to read again. Like anybody, DE is also capable of making mistakes, just as well as we are capable of pointing them out in hopes DE will listen. As any other body though, DE is capable of ignoring advice and feedback, and forging ahead on their own way, it's just a case where players don't want to be in a position that's essentially "I told you so."

 

You may interpret these posts as blind rage, or you could interpret them as the fact that these are all posts from fans of a game we all care about, and want to succeed. At this point, people are pretty much putting what they are feeling about these past few releases into this thread, and that's okay too. DE needs to know the general atmosphere of their player base.

 

Whilst the Forums may not be the best place for that, neither is it the worst, and the forums provide a relevant means of doing so.

[Wellwisher]

and the DEfender shows his face

Its not one, but many decisions that DE made since ~U7. Also I'm not needy i owned everything that was farmable pre U10 and have easily enough credits mastery and resources to immeadiatly build everything released this update (like most complaining in this thread btw).

Just because you choose to overlook almost every bad decision that DE has made does not mean that everyone else. There is also no reason for dumb memes to get your point across (the hypocricy of this and your previous post is almost tangible).

Edited September 18, 2013 by Wellwisher

[BrokenDown]

I remember playing U7 and thinking this game has potential, hope even. Then I played U10 and see the same mistakes you promised not to repeat and time and time again you fall into the same pit over and over. I have faith in you guys, really I do, but you guys really need to just communicate with us again. Please DE look at some of the posts here they raise excellent points.

[Magenta_Iris]

Coming from something shy of 1000 hours, rank 11 (twice, did the reset), I tend to agree, OP.

 

Ember has been nerfed and left in the dust. There is no fix for her in the last "balance pass". She lost all validity. Meanwhile, Nova is still unreigned. Vauban got out with a black eye, but still works. The grind got worse, slower, and the cost for gear got higher. The market is still overpriced and hinders impulse purchases. The RNG and the lack of transparency in the keys & mission rewards business is only mitigated by dataminers and poor souls writing excel sheets which are passed around like prison shanks.

 

It is saddening that the positive energy of pre-U7 seems to have changed so much. The Derelict tileset looks amazing, the sounds are great, the art assets are good. No use if the game using these elements is an unforgiving grind with bugs plastered all over and frames gutted to the point of being no longer a valid choice. Mag may have gotten out of her low tier, but tossing Ember down there was not necessary. The clantech weapons are preposterously expensive.

 

It's disappointing.

 

My thanks go to the concepting, mapping, sound and art asset team. Thanks a lot. You guys outdid yourselves. Sadly, that is the only appreciation I can find.

 

Well, Apart from the fact nova is now useless because mag can just cast pull twice and completely Decimate any opposing groups.

 

Mag's pull was fine a knock over group ability, Because it had a lot of uses, Including pulling downed players OUT of toxic acid.

 

But sadly, the thinking people got shafted in an update because the "OMG NO DMG ON ABILITY? PLZ BUF" type of people decided to complain en-masse.

[MeteorKing]

Its not one, but many decisions that DE made since ~U7. Also I'm not needy i owned everything that was farmable pre U10 and have easily enough credits mastery and resources to immeadiatly build everything released this update (like most complaining in this thread btw).

Just because you choose to overlook almost every bad decision that DE has made does not mean that everyone else. 

     I don't see many of what the community sees as bad decisions.  Much of what DE does has a reason and I try to see what they do from their point of view.  I wasn't saying YOU specifically are needy, but more of the general atmosphere of online gaming as of late.  Anything that's slightly challenging is berated as overtuned and far too much to ask of a player, and anything too easy is seen as laughable and childish.  There has grown an increasingly fine line between the two.  These temperments are not unique to difficulty.  

     As a company when you set out into a market where every decision you make is scruitinized by literally hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people, your dev team of 40-200 just isn't going to catch everything.  Additionally, companies and their dev teams need to keep in mind things that we, as players, do not.  Many of those issues are withheld because they are either uninteresting, under NDA, or otherwise not our right to know.

     Again, I'm not saying I agree with everything that DE has done, but I also don't lump everything I don't like into the trash pile and write it off as poor decisions made due to ineptitude.  DE is treading new water here, things are all over the place, and I just don't see how the reaction of the forums on Friday was appropriate.  The devs worked all week to put thier patch together, they release it, as per the growing demand of the community, and what did the players do? Immeditaly S#&$ all over it.  Within 2 minutes of the patch there were a dozen threads on the forums about how DE just flat out dropped the ball and Warframe is in an unrecoverable state of disarray.  All this with VERY little feedback other than TOO MUCH GRIND, NOT ENOUGH STAMINA!  People didn't even bother giving it a try, they just disliked it and disregarded it.

    That being said, I have my own qualms with U10, but I don't even feel the need to address them due to the overwheling amount of negative feedback DE has already gotten.  I don't intend to be the DEfender, as you so lovingly put it, but I also feel that DE deserves at least a few people on the forums not actively trying to rile up a crowd.

 

There is also no reason for dumb memes to get your point across (the hypocricy of this and your previous post is almost tangible).

That was kind of the point, taken to the extreme.

[JEFFY40HANDS]

1. This is not DE's game. Its Our Game, its their pockets. Without us, they wouldn't be paid. WE are their source of Revenue.

2. Change is fine, but when that change is going against not only the community, but what they have said themselves.

3. DE has said on numerous occasions that we should feel totally free to complain about anything. They read these forums, this is the best place to find out, directly from players, what they have done that we like or dislike.

4. With very few exceptions, Nothing on this post has been "biased, misinformed, or hostile". If you would care to point out to me exactly what has been any of these things, I'll gladly explain.

5. Calling us Petulant Children is more hostile than anything we have said so far. That is NOT a good way to start a post, especially one about how others are acting.

 

Actually, it is DE's game, that is why they are the ones we send our money to when we purchase platinum. Calling it "our game" because we spend money on it does not diminish or remove the fact that without DE, the game wouldn't exist, change, or grow. What we are doing is investing in intellectual property, not actually "owning" the game. DE has all rights and control over their creation, so literally and figuratively it is THEIR GAME, not ours. If that was too complicated here is a simpler version: Buying a copy of GTA 5 makes the physical game ours, but because I spent 60 dollars on their product, does not mean that I now own the rights to GTA 5, that belongs to Rockstar.

 

If every game developer listened to everything their community said, games would cease to exist. Rather, quality games would cease to exist. DE does not have to bend to our every complaint, and in fact once again it is well within their rights to change whatever they want when they want. Their job is to create a game that people will play, that means sometimes they have to go against the communities wants/needs for their own in order to do so.

 

Most players believe a complaint is something like this "Awe now Ember sucks WTF DE", when it really should be more along the lines of "I feel Ember has been nerfed very hard, her loss of Overheat's durability feels too harsh considering her damage output is considerably weaker than other similar frames. As well the loss of the damage reduction has made her capabilities in endgame situations less reliable. She needs to be close for World on Fire to really work, but it seems now Ember can't take that kind of heat". A complaint is often a well articulated comment as to something that someone feels is substandard. Some people achieve that, others don't.

 

As for calling people "petullant children" that may have been a bit much. I'm sorry if that upset anyone, in honesty now after re-reading the previous posts I may have been hasty in my reply.

 

Overall I was trying to go for the fact that people seem hellbent on picking over every change without giving some forthought to the idea that, DE can always revert/modify their descisions. Nothing is essentially set in stone, so when people post their thoughts as though it seems set in stone I take issue with it. Once again I apologize for anything I may have said that offened people.

[JustDont]

Most players believe a complaint is something like this "Awe now Ember sucks WTF DE", when it really should be more along the lines of "I feel Ember has been nerfed very hard, her loss of Overheat's durability feels too harsh considering her damage output is considerably weaker than other similar frames. As well the loss of the damage reduction has made her capabilities in endgame situations less reliable. She needs to be close for World on Fire to really work, but it seems now Ember can't take that kind of heat". A complaint is often a well articulated comment as to something that someone feels is substandard. Some people achieve that, others don't.

The feedback forums are literally overflowing with all kinds of feedback, nicely worded and no.

The problem? It goes and goes and goes and nothing changes inside the game, and there's even no indication that those megabytes of feedback were processed in any way by DE.

 

So it's very obvious why more and more people stop wasting their time with polite and well-though long feedback posts.

[Wellwisher]

-Snip-

Looking at these decisions from their point of view would make sense as an argument if DE hadn't specifically said that player burnout Is a concern for them and that they dont want the endgame to be grinding. Almost everything this patch introduced in some form adds more grind without substance to the game. Please tell me how structuring an update this way in light of what the community wanted was not a poor decision.

DE has practically admitted that some of these things were mistakes (in particular Stamina and derelict resource costs). Either that or they completely lack any backbone whatsoever.

There was not a whole lot that you could "give a try" for more than 2 minutes. Weather or not you liked the new stamina was obvious to you within the first couple of rooms you ran through an the grindwall they put up was obvious from the onset. There was no testing required to see that. Furthermore most posts in this thread are co structive and point out exactly what they dislike and what should be changed.

Lastly, I did not call you a DEfender, not voicing your concerns with this update does not help anybody and engaging in hyperbole for the sake of argument does not strengthen your position.

[JEFFY40HANDS]

 I really do not understand how assuming such a position of arbitrary grandeur comes into being. Do you think these people here are crying? That they are whining because their are entitled brats? I am certainly appalled. Of course DE can do whatever they want - many companies do. Customers react, though. And there are some players who would like this game to be enjoyable, and not a randomized grindfest. I am truly sorry if you cannot see the difference between people of varyiing veterancy agreeing to the currently terrible state of the game and pointless whining.

 

These customers care about the game and provide their feedback, as asked for by DE.

 

Biased? Misinformed? Hostile?

 

The clantech weapon Dual Ichor takes almost a week to craft and costs 150,000 credits, 15,000 Salvage and 100 Mutagen Masses. There is no bias and misinformation there, quite the opposite. Those numbers are preposterous. It is also not bias, misinformation or hostility that the new content is gated behind keys you need to grind, build for hours, grind again and then run. It is also none of the things you mentioned that the new clantech ammopacks cost more than some weapons.

 

I would like to take your accusation and return them to sender, not much worse for wear. You may think you assumed a tough position here, standing up for DE, but rest assured: You are a damaging influence. Dangerous is not he who speaks out, but he who stays quiet. And your silence to the ongoings is either a sign of bias/misinformation or plain oblivion. Please inform yourself before you judge a cadre of players with a considerable amount of experience.

 

Actually my silence was due to the fact that I had things to do in real life (as most people often do). In fact I didn't even think my post was going to merit much more than a glance, but it seems to have stirred fire in the bellies of those a top their mountains. 

 

As a general opinion, my thoughts are thus: Finding a balance between grinding/rewarding players is an issue yet to be solved by a multitude of games. Sometimes the rewards flow like water making each step forward feel less and less important. Sometimes rewards are barred behind a multitude of challanges which make earning them feel more like a job than a goal. The new Ichors might have their bar set high at the moment, with that said they may be changed, and probably will be, but when will it stop? This goes back to my earlier point, finding a balance between offering meaningful rewards and grinding for them is difficult, if every new weapon could be achieved in a few short hours (at least acquiring the mats for them) and then built in 12 hours, do they feel any more special than crafting something like the Aklatos?

 

As to your initial point, you may be right and I more glanced at previous posts rather than fully thought about them thus rendering a poorly illustrated post. That said, I'm not against people providing feedback, infact a lot of the posts that I re-read made some very valid points. For that I retract (again) the more negative comments.

 

EDIT:

 

I have a mere ~200 hours in game and I'm master 7 (half way to 8). If anyone was wondering (though I doubt it).

Edited September 18, 2013 by JEFFY40HANDS

[Leeorz]

The feedback forums are literally overflowing with all kinds of feedback, nicely worded and no.

The problem? It goes and goes and goes and nothing changes inside the game, and there's even no indication that those megabytes of feedback were processed in any way by DE.

 

So it's very obvious why more and more people stop wasting their time with polite and well-though long feedback posts.

Hello, Sir. I agree on the aspect of politeness.

While I'm not really an experienced player, so I can't comment on the warframe topic, I'm going to talk about the Devs' problem solving, as noted in the title, I apologize if I'm missing the specificness of the topic if it's . . . more specific?

 

Anyway, I started playing about a week ago, and casually, so I don't have much of a say.. But I'd like to think that 3 hours of net gameplay is enough to form an acceptable impression on the.. (elementary, unmissable) state of gameplay.

 

I like this game a lot. It's hack and slash, gunplay, parkour action that's done -extremely- smooth. I can suddenly feel like a powerstorm without getting bored because I'm unkillable.. even on high difficulties (I'm talking about you, Just Cause 2!)  I can be more powerful than 10 foot soldiers and still be vulnerable enough to die if I march in stupid.. (you still can march in like a madman and survive well if you do it good, and thats another thing I like..)

 

The thing is, of course, the revive system. the 4 times then Platinum system is kind of annoying, since if there's a low playerbase you can't play that planet if you're out of revives.. and solo's just impossible to (try to get me, please..) play with a fast, agressive mood, because if you get shot more than a few seconds and don't hide, you've out of shield, and then they flank you and you die. it WILL happen, 100% probability, if you try to go out of cover in solo. Also, I'm talking as a Fresh-out-the-oven (hatethisword) 'noob', so I assume that if you got all the hot weapons and a dungload of frame mods you can do it as easily as walking the family amoeba..        ( wait, that's hard!! :O )

 

TL;DR: 

I would be very happy If there was something the likes of a premium kind module, Where instead of having 4 revives per day, you have a limited number of revives PER MISSION (2 revives - as in 3 lives total would be nice),

and if you use them all and die you failed and you get placed in the main menu as always, needing to start the mission again (revives replentished on per mission basis, a la regular games.)

END TL;DR

 

The problem is that, yes, I know that making noncasual games are not profitable, even less so with indie in the top of the hill today, but I am very very truthful when I say that If I was offered such a model, I would be willing to pay the price of a full game today, (45-50-60 bucks depending if it's Garbage EA stuff or not, please correct me if the price estimate is wrong . . ) to acquire said module. I would also tell my friends that there's actually another option than being in a never-ending rage race of the acquisition of platinum and using it as bribe to please the Grim Reaper (that still actually funds the future of the game). I'd be real happy.

 

Also, onanonrelatedtopic, An option to only join games that are starting and not in the middle would be Super.

 

Thanks to the devs for the awesome game, for the time and effort, and to the people who actually read this heap of ramble that I just wrote.

 

Yours, Leeorz.

 

(P.S. Excuse my grammar-flaws. I am not a native englishman.)

[Aigloblam]

Yes, let's continue to bash DE.

Because all of you know how to run a goddamn gaming company.

Take a look at how many hours some of us have put into this game. And this is just ONE game. You realize how much experience that gives us in End User Content? We may not know what numbers have to be put in what code, but you can't say that we don't know gaming.

 

WARNING: INCOMING POTENTIALLY STUPID ANALOGY

 

If DE made Ice Cream, we may not know how to work the machines or how to get the purest ingredients, but we are more than qualified to report to them that Cotton Candy and Asphalt do NOT mix.