Is the warframe community afraid of the grind?

[Stygie]

Just as the title says. I am just wondering this because I have seen so many people complain about grind and yet I cannot understand their point. Long gone are the days of mandatory survival and defenses because you wanted a Prime frame or weapon. Today, endless farms are very much simplified down to either a usefully but not necessary item or cosmetics. So I ask again. Is the warframe community afraid of farming? It seems whenever DE releases anything, there is some sorta backlash if one cannot purchase it with plat. People want instant gratification, but I wonder how those people got so far in warframe. This game is all about working for a pay off. So what is the difference in hoe long the grind is? Maybe it is different for me. Maybe I am just desensitized to the grind. Maybe it is because i play with friends. I cannot say for sure. But what i can say, it is rather worrisome to see players of a free to play game complaining about grind. This not to say EE doesnt muck up the grind(ex. Plian of Eidolon grind THANK LOTUS they changed that) but there is a partition thye have to make. Tbh if you aren't prepared to grind hard, then why play warframe at all?

[EinheriarJudith]

9 minutes ago, Lucian_Adrion said:

Just as the title says. I am just wondering this because I have seen so many people complain about grind and yet I cannot understand their point. Long gone are the days of mandatory survival and defenses because you wanted a Prime frame or weapon. Today, endless farms are very much simplified down to either a usefully but not necessary item or cosmetics. So I ask again. Is the warframe community afraid of farming? It seems whenever DE releases anything, there is some sorta backlash if one cannot purchase it with plat. People want instant gratification, but I wonder how those people got so far in warframe. This game is all about working for a pay off. So what is the difference in hoe long the grind is? Maybe it is different for me. Maybe I am just desensitized to the grind. Maybe it is because i play with friends. I cannot say for sure. But what i can say, it is rather worrisome to see players of a free to play game complaining about grind. This not to say EE doesnt muck up the grind(ex. Plian of Eidolon grind THANK LOTUS they changed that) but there is a partition thye have to make. Tbh if you aren't prepared to grind hard, then why play warframe at all?

this is a dumb question. anyone who is afraid of grinding will just not play. i have 5.5k hours in this game, and i recognize that you can have things that can both be bought with plat and farmed and still be able to enjoy the game in its entirety.

if it can be bought with plat how does that affect you? it doesn't. DE themselves have stated that they wanted to reduce the grind, yet they keep increasing it.

A game can be grindy, and that grind can be enjoyable, but here arbitration is boring, ESO is boring, all these modes have a shelf life and at this point in the games life most of them have far exceeded it.

again when people say things shouldnt be buyable then how will DE make money on their F2P game. they do not charge any kind of entrance fee, almost everything in the game can also be bought/skipped through grinding. what i mean by this is i can grind mods, prime equipment or currency to skip grinding something down the road.

Edited April 27, 2019 by EinheriarJudith

[Gabbynaru]

Afraid? No, but the standards have changed. If they want us to grind, they'd better make it fun. It's a time investment, and in today's society we're all constantly reminded of how limited our time really is, so if we can't spend that time in a way that we enjoy, we're gonna spend that time on something we do. We humans will always find the path of least resistance to go on, and if that means skipping the grind and just buying the items with plat, then so be it. Thing is, for some of us (myself included) plat farming is more fun than endurance runs.

[supernils]

2 hours ago, Gabbynaru said:

Afraid?

Notice the choice of words from OP. They need grinding for their ego. Now that's really low.

Not arguing for the shortcut, platinum. Simply for content that isn't dull, repetitive. It's not an accomplishment to grind and neither is it fun. It's a cheap way out for developers to add  time sink. I know in a free to play game we can be thankful for every content, and I'm also not complaining about the state of grind in the game. But please don't argue that we need more grinding.

[Birdframe_Prime]

1 hour ago, Lucian_Adrion said:

Tbh if you aren't prepared to grind hard, then why play warframe at all?

As DE themselves pointed out; it's not that grind isn't hard, it's not that grind isn't the main point of their balance on attaining things. It's that over time, the game's own statistics have proved that players themselves do not have the time to spend on the game.

The reason the Relic system was implemented in the first place was simply because more players in the player base could not spend hours in Survivals or Defenses in order to get the rewards, they literally could not spend that time in game.

So players are not against Grind. Players are against spending three hours in a single game and having that be the only way to guarantee they get any results. Players would far rather grind by playing shorter, sharper, more varied game modes that, while they have the same chances at the same rewards over time, meaning they can be played and stopped when needed.

Grind takes just as long as it ever did, but we, as players, can break it up over the course of shorter bursts, and tailor it a little to what we're looking for.

The more recent comments, though, are to do with things like the new drops in Arbitrations, where DE have seemed to forget about this whole concept and instead of making the game more difficult for the same amount of time (ie Challenging content), they've made the game the same but with invulnerability functions on the enemies, double the time needed and with even less guarantee of the rewards.

When grinding for Prime parts in the T4 Survival era, there was never a prime part in the list with 2.5% drop chance, so even if you needed to wait 20 minutes between drops, you still had around 10-15% chance of getting a prime part you needed. Under the Relic system they've balanced it so you bring your own custom drop table with you, meaning for as long as you have Relics of the same type, every round, every 5 waves, every 2 Excavators then has the same drop table and you always have your 10-15% chance of getting the part you want. And you can even use grind to modify that a little on top, and bias more into getting the rare and less into getting the common. The Relic system is easier, but it's also more compartmentalised and requires more investment of acquired resources.

In Arbitrations now we have to wait for two regular rounds, and our chance is at first 1.5%, then 2% and then 2.5% after 30 minutes, or 30 waves. 2.5% after 30 minutes?

That's what DE have done here, they've returned us to the Key system (the times when you had no more revives left after the day's play, but had to use that frame anyway), but then doubled the time investment, and slashed the drop chance of a rare item to a quarter or less of what the old drop tables were.

DE set out to create a game mode that was challenging. All they've succeeded in doing is making a game mode that's got a single unique enemy type and halved the capacity to get rewards.

Were it me, in my infinite game knowledge (/sarcasm), looking at trying to make a game mode challenging to play? I would have done the exact opposite. Rewards at 5 minutes, rewards at equal chances of getting the rare/uncommon/common as every other mode, (although you could keep the Vitus Essence to every second round if you wanted to balance the purchases,) but double the scaling of the enemy, probably give them Sortie-like bonuses, like increased Shields/Armour/Health or different damage types, or up the spawn rate of Eximus units. Instead of Invulnerability, have the drones provide something like health regen constantly and tank Status like an Ancient Healer, a percentage amount of healing that means if you don't kill the drones then your enemies quickly negate any damage that you actually deal, but you can still kill an enemy or two if the Drone is around a corner, and Status then is a source of DPS to Drones the same way that you can kill an Ancient Healer with Bleed despite never shooting it.

You get the higher-level, tankier, more aggressive enemies, which is then the actual balance for the better rewards you get at the same intervals as usual play, and then to encourage players to play for longer, you can have the Vitus Essence only drop on every second wave the same way that you do now.

tl;dr

Grind is not the issue here.

It's the fact that DE over years went for a method of making sure that we could pace our grind around how much time we have, made the way we get our rewards far more accessible, and with more emphasis on investing in the materials rather than in the time.

And now they have created a mode where you're forced to invest the time again, but for less reliable rewards, despite those rewards being particularly desirable.

[000l000]

There's no grind if one isn't doing the same thing again and again. For example you can get your Korrudo BP only by killing a few thumpers here and there each time you're playing in PoE. Sure it'll need time but not everyone is a 12 yrs old child on a Christmas frenzy - There's something quite rare that one calls patience.

I don't even understand why you're talking about fear - Let's do think about it the opposite way: Do you think that spending an entire day doing the same stupid stuff until you get something useful is the true definition of courage ? Or just the true definition of not having fun and making your own brain going into hibernation.

At this point one could also argue that you could spend the same amount of time stocking boxes at Amazon's, at least you'd get money for that since you seem to think that "a pay off in exchange of a work" is the pinnacle of fun and the true definition of a game.

Seriously this whole "grind" era of players is exactly showing why people are so frustrated in games nowadays, no one cares anymore about what he has to do as long as he gets a stupid loot he's looking for. And some are still wondering why there are more and more toxic people in games. Define grind and you'll get the answer.

Edited April 27, 2019 by 000l000

[SordidDreams]

Sick of, more like.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

7 hours ago, Lucian_Adrion said:

Just as the title says

 

7 hours ago, EinheriarJudith said:

this is a dumb question

As you can see OP, the community has become quite toxic. 

I believe DE has catered to fostering this new generation of players who just want everything easy and now for years now with their New Player Experience initiatives. 

Instead of allowing players to adapt to challenges DE has become quick to backpeddle and nerf things based on whining rather than actual necessity. 

In return, we have the Warframe forums we have today, a cesspool of complaints from the vocal entitled casual gamer and the oh so common threads from the old veterans too stubborn to move on from a game that has clearly abandoned them.

[Pizzarugi]

To be honest, I kind of miss the days of farming endless missions for things, specifically running void keys for that elusive piece of S#&$ Loki Prime chassis. It's the only time I really hunkered down and stayed in survival for longer than 20-40 minutes, and instead went for 2 entire hours before having to stop.

Now there's no real reason to run most endless missions for any length of time greater than the first C rotation before ducking out. I'd kill for a "tesseract relic", a relic within a relic, that can only be used in endless missions, but also locks you on it until you leave. The relic has only one use, but can be used repeatedly throughout the endless mission and then vanishes once you extract. Perhaps it can be rare, so players have a desire to want to stay in endless missions for as long as possible to get the items they want.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Pizzarugi

[Stygie]

7 hours ago, supernils said:

Notice the choice of words from OP. They need grinding for their ego. Now that's really low.

Not arguing for the shortcut, platinum. Simply for content that isn't dull, repetitive. It's not an accomplishment to grind and neither is it fun. It's a cheap way out for developers to add  time sink. I know in a free to play game we can be thankful for every content, and I'm also not complaining about the state of grind in the game. But please don't argue that we need more grinding.

Actually I don't. How brash of you to assume that grinding some how makes me feel better about myself. Otherwise, I did not ask for more grind, I asked why you can't do the grind. Stop your whining and do the hour survival. I just most of the community to be entitled brats who just want instant gratification. Sure the grind is ridiculous, like I mentioned, but DE notices that and changes if even if it takes a little while.

7 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

As DE themselves pointed out; it's not that grind isn't hard, it's not that grind isn't the main point of their balance on attaining things. It's that over time, the game's own statistics have proved that players themselves do not have the time to spend on the game.

The reason the Relic system was implemented in the first place was simply because more players in the player base could not spend hours in Survivals or Defenses in order to get the rewards, they literally could not spend that time in game.

So players are not against Grind. Players are against spending three hours in a single game and having that be the only way to guarantee they get any results. Players would far rather grind by playing shorter, sharper, more varied game modes that, while they have the same chances at the same rewards over time, meaning they can be played and stopped when needed.

Grind takes just as long as it ever did, but we, as players, can break it up over the course of shorter bursts, and tailor it a little to what we're looking for.

The more recent comments, though, are to do with things like the new drops in Arbitrations, where DE have seemed to forget about this whole concept and instead of making the game more difficult for the same amount of time (ie Challenging content), they've made the game the same but with invulnerability functions on the enemies, double the time needed and with even less guarantee of the rewards.

When grinding for Prime parts in the T4 Survival era, there was never a prime part in the list with 2.5% drop chance, so even if you needed to wait 20 minutes between drops, you still had around 10-15% chance of getting a prime part you needed. Under the Relic system they've balanced it so you bring your own custom drop table with you, meaning for as long as you have Relics of the same type, every round, every 5 waves, every 2 Excavators then has the same drop table and you always have your 10-15% chance of getting the part you want. And you can even use grind to modify that a little on top, and bias more into getting the rare and less into getting the common. The Relic system is easier, but it's also more compartmentalised and requires more investment of acquired resources.

In Arbitrations now we have to wait for two regular rounds, and our chance is at first 1.5%, then 2% and then 2.5% after 30 minutes, or 30 waves. 2.5% after 30 minutes?

That's what DE have done here, they've returned us to the Key system (the times when you had no more revives left after the day's play, but had to use that frame anyway), but then doubled the time investment, and slashed the drop chance of a rare item to a quarter or less of what the old drop tables were.

DE set out to create a game mode that was challenging. All they've succeeded in doing is making a game mode that's got a single unique enemy type and halved the capacity to get rewards.

Were it me, in my infinite game knowledge (/sarcasm), looking at trying to make a game mode challenging to play? I would have done the exact opposite. Rewards at 5 minutes, rewards at equal chances of getting the rare/uncommon/common as every other mode, (although you could keep the Vitus Essence to every second round if you wanted to balance the purchases,) but double the scaling of the enemy, probably give them Sortie-like bonuses, like increased Shields/Armour/Health or different damage types, or up the spawn rate of Eximus units. Instead of Invulnerability, have the drones provide something like health regen constantly and tank Status like an Ancient Healer, a percentage amount of healing that means if you don't kill the drones then your enemies quickly negate any damage that you actually deal, but you can still kill an enemy or two if the Drone is around a corner, and Status then is a source of DPS to Drones the same way that you can kill an Ancient Healer with Bleed despite never shooting it.

You get the higher-level, tankier, more aggressive enemies, which is then the actual balance for the better rewards you get at the same intervals as usual play, and then to encourage players to play for longer, you can have the Vitus Essence only drop on every second wave the same way that you do now.

tl;dr

Grind is not the issue here.

It's the fact that DE over years went for a method of making sure that we could pace our grind around how much time we have, made the way we get our rewards far more accessible, and with more emphasis on investing in the materials rather than in the time.

And now they have created a mode where you're forced to invest the time again, but for less reliable rewards, despite those rewards being particularly desirable.

I see where you are comimg from. But to me that is a matter of perspective. I like arbitrations the way they used to be, without revives, because there were real stakcs if you died, you lost your chance at better rewards. Furthermore, the drones granting immortality is better in my mind  because it forces players to focus on the gameplay not just brainlessly shooting. I can agree though, waiting 10 rounds or wave for a drop is quite tiresome at times that can be changed for all I care. Also you idea of scale is already in arbitrations. They scale harder in terms of level and much quicklym you will be fighting level 200 near wave 40.

2 hours ago, (XB1)Cubic Clem said:

First of all, why is this in warframes feedback?

And second, there's a difference between fun grind, and insulting braindead button mashing grind.

Because it is feedback? I wanted to foster a dicussion to be used as a form of feedback. Please tell me where in the Ballas you are button mashing and brain deading the grind? It is sure as Lotus not ESO or arbitrations. 

[(PSN)Ashagin]

Misery loves company.  So they play it and grind away anyways.  Then they come to the forums and complain about it.  That is the true endgame.  And vocal minority is very much a real thing in warframe and they all pat each others backs.  It is what it is.

[(PSN)Ashagin]

2 hours ago, (XB1)Cubic Clem said:

First of all, why is this in warframes feedback?

And second, there's a difference between fun grind, and insulting braindead button mashing grind.

If everything was fun then you wouldn't be encouraged to open that wallet and spend real money to circumvent that grind when applicable, now would you?

[YazMatazO]

Depends how you define grind?...

I 'grind' Tridolons, but I enjoy it to a fairly good degree because it isn't just any ol' 'grind'... I don't much enjoy grinding other things in this game, and that's why I don't have all the weapons and frames. 

If the only metric by which we define grind/farm is time spent, then I don't want to be part of that. I really want something to involve myself in. 

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

I have many thousands of hours and think of it this way - there are several types of grind in Warframe:

Resource grind - you need x credits/y resources etc.  I've never minded this - resources/credits are easy to get, there are a variety of ways to get them, and in the long haul, its just stuff you get doing whatever missions you want.  I REALLY dislike when DE chooses to nerf this.  Not even so much that they do nerf it, but when they do.  I.E. the PoE/Fortuna/Focus Points etc - things people complained about for a long time and DE did nothing but introduce more of the same.  Then, and only then, once committed players have battled through it, they cut the resources in half, drop tons from Thumpers, Spiders, eliminate building requirements, etc.  Feels like a slap in the face to those of us that actually suffered through and completed it - when they could have addressed it much sooner.  Note I am NOT saying they shouldn't have lowered it at all - I'm saying they should have either lowered it MUCH sooner, or left it well enough alone like the Hema.  With a high grind cost, weapons, arcanes whatever were signs of achievement.  You could see who put in the effort.  If you wait months until 25% (insert random quantity here) of the people actually do it, then hand it out for basically free to everyone else it feels wrong.

Next up is parts grind: Prime parts/warframe parts. This too is reasonable. The drop chances are decent, with prime stuff you have some control over the loot tables etc.

Lastly is utter garbage grind: 1% drop chance only at the 20 or 30 minute mark in a single mission type.  This is BS and most insulting is that it is for items that SHOULD be for achievements like getting to wave 16, defeating a boss X number of times not some RNG based time sink.  This is very different from the Resource grind.  Resource grind you can actually track your progress - you know what you have to do, how much you have left.  This on the other hand is just standing in the rain with a metal rod hoping to get struck by lightning - only the metal rod you hold is as small as a pin and you're surrounded by skyscrapers with radio antennas.

 

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by (XB1)Tucker D Dawg

[SneakyErvin]

2 hours ago, Lucian_Adrion said:

Actually I don't. How brash of you to assume that grinding some how makes me feel better about myself. Otherwise, I did not ask for more grind, I asked why you can't do the grind. Stop your whining and do the hour survival. I just most of the community to be entitled brats who just want instant gratification. Sure the grind is ridiculous, like I mentioned, but DE notices that and changes if even if it takes a little while.

Using the word afraid makes it look that way though. It is an extremely poor choice of a word in this context, I mean really poor.

Better choice of words to not make you look like a complete d-wad would be things like "put off by", "unappriciative", "not into" etc. Your choice of afraid makes it look like you pound your chest and boast of your glorious fearlessness towards the beast that is the grind. How you smote it without a second thought or an ounce of fear in your bold, stern eyes.

The grind in the game has gone from good to plain boring as of late. Arbitrations being the real downer with 99% lackluster loot hidden behind twice the rotation time. It is supposed to be rewarding end-game, all of it is really just unrewarding endo-game.

Edited April 27, 2019 by SneakyErvin

[J1ha7]

well last 2 years i stop grinding i just play few hours a week 😄
still got all of it slowly even not ranked up its in my inventory
just remember craft your forma ! you will need allot of them

[Ham_Grenabe]

Afraid? No. Exhausted? Perhaps. 

[(PSN)N7_Dredgen]

12 hours ago, Lucian_Adrion said:

Just as the title says. I am just wondering this because I have seen so many people complain about grind and yet I cannot understand their point.

I don't have a problem with a grind myself - but I think some people do when over the years substantially more content and things to grind have been added, while grind rates were never adjusted around that.  That basically means the overall grind of the game has exponentially increased over time.  Again, not a problem for me - but I can see how it's offputting for a new player to start the game and realize there's ~1500 hours of grind to get where the older players are - and we had years to do it, and it was grinded at a much slower pace - when newbies start the game it is like a brick wall in front of them to get anything done.  

Edited April 27, 2019 by (PS4)Zuzu_with_a_Z

[Alaeacus]

No, the community is afraid of criticism.  

[Yamazuki]

I don't mind grind, even if fairly long. However, RNG isn't a necessary component to grind, it's just a low effort method to extending grind. If you can't buy an item off someone else, and it has a very low drop chance, then it means you can go a full year of never seeing it.

 

The game being free to play is also irrelevant, other grinding games that aren't free to play rely on excessive RNG too, and DE are not volunteers either, they get paid for their work, if Warframe wasn't profitable it wouldn't exist.

[Renegade343]

I wouldn't mind grind if the grind's fun. Say, for example, Spy 2.0 for Ivara and the +Elemental/+Status mods. it's fun to stealth in the vault, and then extend that fun by stealthing the whole level, then extend it even more by stealthing the whole level with anything.

[FlyingDice]

Yep, game's full of people now who don't want to spend more than ten minutes to get whatever thing they happen to want.

 

Doesn't help that pretty much all of the interesting/challenging endgame content was removed.

[Toppien]

im not afraid of grind, im tired.

[Lost_Cartographer]

8 hours ago, (XB1)Cubic Clem said:

First of all, why is this in warframes feedback?

And second, there's a difference between fun grind, and insulting braindead button mashing grind.

Counter-point:

Players will META the fun out of any and every grind in an effort to achieve peak grind efficiency.  "Fun" grind is a catch-22 as long as people are more driven to play for the rewards rather than, y'know... shooting things in a third-person shooter.

Edited April 28, 2019 by Lost_Cartographer

[Leyers_of_facade]

5 hours ago, (XB1)Tucker D Dawg said:

I have many thousands of hours and think of it this way - there are several types of grind in Warframe:

Resource grind - you need x credits/y resources etc.  I've never minded this - resources/credits are easy to get, there are a variety of ways to get them, and in the long haul, its just stuff you get doing whatever missions you want.  I REALLY dislike when DE chooses to nerf this.  Not even so much that they do nerf it, but when they do.  I.E. the PoE/Fortuna/Focus Points etc - things people complained about for a long time and DE did nothing but introduce more of the same.  Then, and only then, once committed players have battled through it, they cut the resources in half, drop tons from Thumpers, Spiders, eliminate building requirements, etc.  Feels like a slap in the face to those of us that actually suffered through and completed it - when they could have addressed it much sooner.  Note I am NOT saying they shouldn't have lowered it at all - I'm saying they should have either lowered it MUCH sooner, or left it well enough alone like the Hema.  With a high grind cost, weapons, arcanes whatever were signs of achievement.  You could see who put in the effort.  If you wait months until 25% (insert random quantity here) of the people actually do it, then hand it out for basically free to everyone else it feels wrong.

Next up is parts grind: Prime parts/warframe parts. This too is reasonable. The drop chances are decent, with prime stuff you have some control over the loot tables etc.

Lastly is utter garbage grind: 1% drop chance only at the 20 or 30 minute mark in a single mission type.  This is BS and most insulting is that it is for items that SHOULD be for achievements like getting to wave 16, defeating a boss X number of times not some RNG based time sink.  This is very different from the Resource grind.  Resource grind you can actually track your progress - you know what you have to do, how much you have left.  This on the other hand is just standing in the rain with a metal rod hoping to get struck by lightning - only the metal rod you hold is as small as a pin and you're surrounded by skyscrapers with radio antennas.

 

 

Agreed in general to what you said, but you missed out something...

"Restart all over grind" -> I am specifically talking about current relic system.

With each prime's release, you effectively have to regrind relics as they will only be present in the new relics. Older relics that you slowly accumulate due to playing the game becomes obsolete as time passes as people focus more on the newer primes. This is specifically the case for those that are trying to farm vaulted primes as finding a squad for them often takes an awful lot of time, to the point that the waiting process (for at least someone to squad up for a rad for example) might actually easily be longer than all the other components of the grind.

While Equinox prime and her 2 weapons only took me a few hours total to grind, knowing that the 1700 (or even more) relics in my inventory isn't going to help with newer primes as well as the fact that finding a radshare for a majority of them will involve wasting a lot of time sitting in recruit is rather sad.