Can true difficulty exist in a game like Warframe?

[KennBone]

Restrictions just ruin the game.. why you want the best of the best equip if you cant use on hardher lvls? it makes no sense really, also ofc we need more enemies like Nox just DE pls ignore people who cry bcs Wolf " is hard " .

[Chipputer]

To create true difficulty you first have to define what you mean by, "difficulty."
No, this isn't some cheesy philosophical BS, this is legit. You have to first define what type of difficulty you want to create. Do you want the enemies to be mechanically difficult, in the sense that their AI creates synergies that cause them to work together to defeat the player? Or do you want to create difficulty in navigation of the environment so that your far simpler enemy AI can whittle the player down while they try to get to their objective? Do you want to create difficulty that relies on the player having knowledge of what they're going to be up against and force them to make choices that may have consequences further down the line?

Warframe actually has each of these types of difficulty, to some extent. The issue is that power creep has overridden nearly everything and mechanical knowledge has taught us that anything susceptible to status can be destroyed, in seconds, with armor-and-shield-ignoring slash procs. Oh, also that weapon has high crit and crit multiplier just in case the enemy can't be hit with status because those damage sources also further enhance said status procs.
As cliche as it is, if you remove yourself from the META and use weapons that you find feel good, even if they're still quite powerful, you'll start to notice that Warframe isn't actually just a cheese-fest. There's a lot that goes into being actually good at what you're doing in this game but it's impossible to experience that in a party of four players where one of them is turning off the enemy AI and another one is effectively making you invincible to enemies that can't even fight back, anyway.

Hot take: The corpus are actually the perfect example of difficulty. They die quickly but their heavies can survive a few hits. Most every enemy has a unique mechanic but only a few have such a devastating mechanic that you have to focus on them, specifically (SEE: Nullifiers, Comba, Scrambus, Bursa). They have a decent mix of armored/unarmored units with both flesh and mechanical types meaning that certain enemies are actually vulnerable to different elemental combinations.
You won't see many people agree with this because, "muh power fantasy," and something about how Warframe is actually about spamming powers, apparently, but if you look beyond any preconceived notions and view them entirely objectively you'll soon find yourself agreeing.

[ThumpumGood]

AGAIN! Push on a NPC starting level so you can select a higher NPC starting point. You still have the same lot drops, chances, rotations...you just start at a higher level.  The wait on something like that is figuring out the PuG matchups so you dont pair an  MR7 with a group that's starting at NPC lv 200. Or you relegate Matchups for higher start level to the group BEFORE starting and everyone has to check go.

[DiabolusUrsus]

On 2019-05-02 at 8:40 AM, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

Do people want true difficulty?

Now that I'm home and off my tiny phone screen, I can dig into this properly.

I agree that not everybody wants difficulty, and I certainly agree that Warframe is big enough to offer both. However, I don't think that it is necessary to segregate easy and challenging content into entirely separate areas of the game. I think the best option would be a small set of difficulty options (normal/hard) and special mutators (think Halo's Skulls) without any additional rewards for using them. This type of "difficulty" should be available but reserved for players who enjoy it for its own sake, not players who just want an excuse for built-in boosters. That isn't to say that harder content shouldn't offer better rewards, but that should only exist within the normal scaling curve of the game as it progresses from "early game" to "end-game." This is the same reason why I do not support things like "scaling rewards" when it comes to endless modes.

If you aren't doing it because you want to, you're doing it wrong.

On 2019-05-02 at 8:40 AM, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

Beyond that: Why should it be added?

Because without it, the game can't engage players and it gets boring. As another Halo example, look at Reach's firefight mode.

Yes, it's certainly cathartic to set enemy damage to 25%, player damage to 400%, switch on bottomless clip, and equip players with Fuel Rod Guns/Rocket Launchers, but that feeling lasts for all of 10-20 minutes before it becomes monotonous. This is 90% of the reason players start to burn out on leveling grinds - it's not so much playing the game as going through the motions to delete however many enemies the game says you need to. The other 10% of that is the leveling grind taking too long while playing "normally," but that can be addressed separately from difficulty.

On 2019-05-02 at 8:40 AM, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

I think people want to use the full range of their powers, and still not be guaranteed victory. (not being "arbitrarily" limited to reduce their power to add challenge.) This is where Sanctuary Onslaught falls short with penalties for spamming abilities. This is where Arbitrations fall short with the drones negating powers.

It is worth pointing out that on a recent dev stream, that they DO want to balance the game somewhat, and that those balance changes were delayed by Melee 3.0 and the release of competition (they didn't want people to see a year of nerfs while Anthem was being released at the same time.) So balance changes are coming.

Assuming DE wants Warframe to be a game with difficulty (they've said some things and implemented contrary to what they said, recently, to make this an assumption despite what they've said):

Really balancing this game is going to have to happen to really have a lasting impact on its difficulty (to keep both groups happy and not just be a fake difficulty that relies on gimmicks that just make failure more common, like the efficiency meter, ability restrictions, and one-hit kill scaling power levels.) Wiping out hordes effortlessly should/would still be possible to keep the power fantasy (along with the cinematic 'heroic moments' in the new boss battles) and farming efficiency, but there would have to be, in certain content, enemies that survive long enough to engage players and make them employ tactics to defeat (as simple as dodging/defending against damage (or CC'ing them) while dealing enough damage to kill them.) This was likely the original role of the Eximus and special heavy units (Bursa, Scrambus, Bombard, Napalm, Heavy Gunner, Manics, Ancients - Bursas were the bane of my existence for the longest time, until I got a frame capable of CC'ing them so I could get behind them when playing solo, and melee on top of that...).

Agreed with most of this.

It should not be "certain" content that gets this treatment, it should be all content. Warframe needs a universal balancing scheme. Half of our current problem comes from the game trying to juggle far too many things at once - catering somewhat to all types of audiences without offering anything particularly high-quality to any of them. Warframe needs to pick what type of game it wants to be (arcadey horde action a la Dynasty Warriors, or more of a tacti-cool team-focused game) and STICK to that balance vision from beginning to end. Anything outside of the chosen "norm" should be handled through fully optional novelty modifiers.

Enemies which can be slaughtered by the dozen should be mixed in with enemies that can't, and they should each serve discrete functions on the battlefield. Trash enemies should be there to help players combat attrition and fuel their powers. More powerful foes should be there to engage the player's attention, offer opportunities for co-operative efforts, and provide a drip-feed of challenge.

On 2019-05-02 at 8:40 AM, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

They've thrown the idea around of a "difficulty" selector for mission nodes (apparently, this was part of the original design, that was since removed), and they currently have "infinite scaling" for enemies in endless missions. The infinite scaling thing is just silly to me. It's like, they wanted to create a soft-cap on how far players could go, but players still manage to keep going by (ab)using certain mechanics present in the game that let players kill even infinitely scaled enemies. I don't see the fun in this, nor the skill, and only difficulty for difficulty's sake. If all the enemies are capable of one-shotting you, I wouldn't find that fun... maybe difficult, but certainly not fun - it's like the opposite of power fantasy... more like run around like a chicken with its head cut off. (that's the realm of spaceship-shooters) In other words, it stops feeling like Warframe at that point, IMO.

I don't know how the difficulty selector will work out yet. It all depends on the scaling they employ (and current scaling is not good). This will likely partially satisfy people who want to start endless nodes at a higher enemy level, "for the challenge" (but also expecting better rewards that they likely won't get...)

All that really needs to come out of this would be the option to bump low-level content up to relevance for end-game players. There are many times where players need to go back to early game areas (GOTL alerts, new content released there, etc.) and all they really need is something that requires a bit more chewing. Mopping up level 5 foes with 3-4 Forma R30 gear just isn't particularly fun.

I definitely agree that infinitely-scaled content is not "fun," because in reality it's not really about fighting enemies. It's about completely stopping enemies from fighting. This equates to beating up inert loot-pinatas rather than "fighting" them, and the threat of instant death if you undo their shackles for a moment does nothing to alleviate that impression.

On 2019-05-02 at 8:40 AM, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

One way to add survivability to enemies in an encounter is to give the enemy "stages", that could work like the Infested Boilers that spawn pods that become new enemies (the splitting on-death mechanic seen in several RPGs and goes back as far as the Hydra who would regrow two heads for each cut off). Bosses often employ this tactic, even changing arenas between stages.

This would need to be used very sparingly, because having multi-staged enemies can get very repetitive and very annoying very quickly in a horde setting. Boilers are already an annoyance, IMO. It doesn't add much in the way of challenge or engagement, and really just turns those types of foes into goshdarned bats.

On 2019-05-02 at 8:40 AM, (PS4)AyinDygra said:

*snip*

My workday was a bit too long and I am a bit too tired to finish responding to the rest of this in detail, but in general I agree with the thrust of your statements. Just a few things:

• I think CC-capable enemies are fine, but they should be limited to rare mini-boss type encounters, always telegraphed, and always counterable. Most of the frustration from fighting these enemies comes from there being too many of them at once to effectively avoid without blanket CC/nukes (Ancients, Scorpions, etc.) or their powers having no tangible or fair counter-play (Conculysts, Wolf, Tyl Regor, etc.). It's just "they can CC you, too bad."
• Fixed mod values (I assume you mean flat bonuses like +100 damage rather than +165% damage) carry their own problems. They disproportionately benefit weapons with lower stats, meaning that modding simply changes from playing to a weapon's strengths to mitigating its weaknesses. I'm not saying that the current situation is good, but I don't think the new one would be much better. A better solution, IMO, would be overall lower bonuses and diminishing returns for stacked stats. For example, Serration might confer something like +50% at max and stacking it with Heavy Caliber or a Riven might only push it to +70%. Definitely more than you had before, but perhaps not worth an entire slot (numbers as examples only). I also believe that all mods should have Corrupted-style tradeoffs (though not as extreme), which would make mods more about specializing into a playstyle rather than buffing into viability.
• I disagree with leveling weapons to reach max stats. It will only make the leveling grind more onerous and exacerbate the issues we already see with "XP/Loot Caves" like Hydron. I think weapons should be given adequate base stats to function for their progression bracket (MR) with players having the option of grinding further to bump weapons up to top-tier. This could also be based on the player's overall profile level (e.g., max weapon MR rating is 15, and players can "upgrade" weapons to their current profile MR/2. In other words, an MR30 player could upgrade any weapon in the game to perform like a top-tier MR15 weapon). This would, IMO, confer a sizable degree of progression without really shifting the scope of game balance all that much.

[Lutesque]

On 2019-05-02 at 10:10 PM, Jarriaga said:

Difficulty can be created in a new game mode in which heavy mod restrictions are applied, and your loadout does not include mods that alter WF ability stats and some broken mods like Maiming Strike and Rivens, forcing you to focus around survivability viceability and base weapon damage since your WF abilities will deal little damage and not last long.

Its a Start.... but something needs to be done about Enemy Design aswell.

[(PSN)Zero_029]

Can it? Yes.
Does it? Yes.

The cold hard truth is that when something hard is added to Warframe, and there is no Meta to build around or aka: Cheese for it.
The very players who cry daily for Challenge change their pitch from "complain" to "Cry foul".

Profit Taker is the shining example of this.
The fight required CC or Add Control, reflexes, strong gear across the board, as well as quick & critical thinking.
Players did NOTHING but complain about how difficult it was.

Players were then too prideful to admit it was challenging claimed that it was simply "annoying" instead of challenging.
You know what many Dark Souls players say after being killed by the same enemy for the 23rd time? They say that enemy is annoying & in turn dread encountering them.
But they also admit that it is still indeed "challenging".
So the current folks who crave Warframe Souls need to come to terms with that fact when Warframe does choose to present them with a challenge.

Additionally, many things added to Warframe have been in response to players seeking challenge.
Arbitration Drones being a big one.
Players SPECIFICALLY asked for a mechanic that couldn't be ignored by using Warframe powers, that would require player skill, reflexes, and would make encounters more challenging, deadly, and if ignored could result in death.
The drone meets ALL of that criteria. But player "hate" the drone because it's *facepalms* hard to hit.
Wait! I'm sorry...correction: "The drone forces players into specific loadouts." (Just like the Wolf...) Even if these loadouts are created because..."its hard to hit".

Nullifiers...
Players wanted to stop being able to wipe a room in the blink of an eye & etc.

Comba & Scambus
Enemies that force players to think quickly, cancel & block player abilities.
Because players wanted enemies that force them to react, disrupt "cheap tactics" like "press 4 to win" & would draw player attention.
Like Ancients...how many times have these been nerfed due to player resentment?

Every enemy that is "hated" has been in response to player requests.
The problem is that players ask for things that they don't want in truth.

Arbitrations as a whole is really proof of that.
I won't go into detail. But DE literally let players create the rules for it.
Now players hate the rules they themselves asked for... =/

[Lutesque]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

Profit Taker is the shining example of this.
The fight required CC or Add Control, reflexes, strong gear across the board, as well as quick & critical thinking.
Players did NOTHING but complain about how difficult it was.

What ? 

Uhm no.... The profit Taker requires a S#&$ tonne of Damage and a S#&$ tonne of Damage Mitigation... Its a giant spider.... doesn't require much aiming or reflexes at all.... I've played Lego games that demanded more Mechanical Skill than Warframe....

3 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

Players were then too prideful to admit it was challenging claimed that it was simply "annoying" instead of challenging.

But it was... it was just a Stagger and Knockdown Cluster #*!%. It still is a Knock Down Cluster #*!%er.

3 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

You know what many Dark Souls players say after being killed by the same enemy for the 23rd time? They say that enemy is annoying & in turn dread encountering them.

They are right... Dark Souls isn't a difficult game....  call me crazy bu if a game is so desperate to be difficult thats willing to erase my progress just because I fell off a ledge then yeah sorry.... not Challenging.... Dark Souls is all about the cheap kills that you never see coming.....

3 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

Additionally, many things added to Warframe have been in response to players seeking challenge.
Arbitration Drones being a big one.
Players SPECIFICALLY asked for a mechanic that couldn't be ignored by using Warframe powers, that would require player skill, reflexes, and would make encounters more challenging, deadly, and if ignored could result in death.
The drone meets ALL of that criteria. But player "hate" the drone because it's *facepalms* hard to hit.
Wait! I'm sorry...correction: "The drone forces players into specific loadouts." (Just like the Wolf...) Even if these loadouts are created because..."its hard to hit".

Nullifiers...
Players wanted to stop being able to wipe a room in the blink of an eye & etc.

Comba & Scambus
Enemies that force players to think quickly, cancel & block player abilities.
Because players wanted enemies that force them to react, disrupt "cheap tactics" like "press 4 to win" & would draw player attention.
Like Ancients...how many times have these been nerfed due to player resentment?

Every enemy that is "hated" has been in response to player requests.
The problem is that players ask for things that they don't want in truth.

Arbitrations as a whole is really proof of that.
I won't go into detail. But DE literally let players create the rules for it.
Now players hate the rules they themselves asked for... =/

Okay im just going to lump all this together I see what the problem is now....

NEVER TAKE ANYTHING PLAYERS SAY AT FACE VALUE.... 

Now this isn't directed specifically at you because only developers need to know this. Whenever a player describes in issues they had experience in a game they usually do so in away thats well... rather simple and easy to misunderstand... now im not saying that Devs should ignore player Feedback but they definitely should not just give them exactly what they asked for....this is exactly why Warframe is chockful of so many Band aid solutions... its because they keep addressing symptoms to a much larger problem abd thats just never going to work...

You know those players that hate Tutorials and they're all like "Just let me play and figure it out on my own"... THIS IS BULL S#&$.... Never give this player exactly what they want... instead learn to hide your tutorials and hints so that these players don't realise they were being baited into the Solution. 

Theres numerous instances of Nintendo doing this going back as far Super Mario Brothers and as Recent as Super Mario Galaxy.... However the game thats most iconic for doing this is Super Metroid and The Legend of Zelda...

 

 

[FlusteredFerret]

On 2019-05-01 at 1:07 AM, KingBBQChicken said:

Honestly this topic is unavoidable for anyone joining the warframe community. It seems like people have been begging for difficulty for several years, but every time major content is released, people haven't found it fun/challenging. Im sorry if this post derails from a reasonable discussion to a rant, but im genuinely curious.

I started playing this game on xbox around march of last year. I eventually got myself a pc and had to restart it from the beginning and let me just say, this game was actually very challenging. Believe it or not, going into either of the open worlds with your krakarak and your mk1 lato is challenging and quite enjoyable. I didnt have my comfort mods like healing return and i couldnt press 5 every time a Sanguine-Ancient-Bombard-bursa-prime-crewman-Eximus-Prime decided to join the mix. No arcane guardian, no health pizzas, no energy pizzas, nothing. So if I liked this so much then why not grab an unmodded lex and jump into a tridolon? Thats some fun and challenging difficulty right?

You all already know how this game works but let me explain to you from my perspective. Warframe takes a sort of rock paper scissors approach to damage. This isnt new and many other games have a similar system. You have Magic resist? I have Magic pen. You have armor? I have a .50 cal. You have rock? I have paper. The list goes on. Whats special about warframe's (and a small portion of other game's) damage system is a bit like this: you have Scissors? Oh but I have rock... and corrosive projection... and Arcanes... and the scissors are slash based.... and radiation... and vex armo- ok you get the point. What happens now is DE must implement things such as the wolf's absurd armor or the eidolon's untargetability just so they can have some inkling of challenge. When they dont, the entire community laughs at it as it eats 60 corrosive procs in 0.1 seconds.

Next ... is this games unique balance philosophy. Warframe was my first and only looter shooter so I cant compare it to any other games of its genre. Anyways, the balance philosophy in most other non pvp shooters is simple: you can be powerful, you just cant be TOO powerful. Warframe completely throws this out the window. And as much as we meme about it, its kinda true. Hey, grineer lancer #4534692 over there bothering you? Press a button to kill him. Ya know what , just wipe the entire map while your at it. Im not against this at all, Its actually one of my favorite playstyles in this game but.. it can prove to be problematic when new content comes out. 

• Arbitration, a game mode that was supposed to be elite just turned into catchmoon simulator 2019
• Exploiter might as well have been an energy drain sortie because bringing any ability dependent frame was utterly pointless
• The Wolf Shows up in your hydron and ingests enough lead to build the entirety of new York on the moon
• Wasn't around for raids so I wont even attempt to bash them
• I hope you dont like using your eyes because the guantalyst and hydrolysts make flahsbangs look like some kind of weak joke

And finally, this is a grind-based game. The other day I finally got Wise Razor while doing thermia fractures. I was using an Octavia who notably, dosent have much to offer in terms of survivability. I had already died 3 times and my team wanted to attempt one last fracture before extracting. I went to grab another coolant raknoid and CONVENIENTLY my stealth ends. Exploiter proceeds to one shot me before I can grab my archwing and escape. Thats the thing about warframe. When a challenge is present, It puts your potential rewards at risk and ... well you've seen all the threads complaining about host migrations in 1 hour kuva survivals. 

And so this brings me to the title. Can we actually have true difficulty in a game like warframe? And when I say true difficulty, I dont mean borderline invulnerability. It seems to me like every time it's been implemented its just doomed to join the rest as "meh, easily cheesable".

While I don't think Warframe can have a true endgame (until such time as the devs actually create the final content and say "thats it - we're done"), I think they could introduce content that is genuinely challenging.

DE screwed up by enabling players to become far too powerful...and since players won't give that up, its down to the devs to figure out a solution (if they can).

They have talked about "difficulty scaling" in the last 2 dev streams...which I guess equates to enemy stats & abilities increasing proportionally, according to either player strength, or some kind of difficulty selector in the game settings. If the latter, I can only see this being a temporary solution. The former might be too complex, since the game would have to be able to recognise each player's current loadout, then adjust each enemy's stats accordingly...which would be a massive computational requirement, when you consider how many people can be playing the game at any given time, as well as the number of enemies in any given mission.

What I think the devs need to do is come up with some new game mechanics and new abilities for bosses...although that does risk taking the game outside the current accepted boundaries and lore. They might have to come up with some entirely new lore / back story to justify having such bosses and abilities in the game.

 

So I would say it is possible...but definitely not easy to achieve...

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Facadedestroyer said:

Blade and soul

Is a typical Korean RPG where stats matter and is not a power fantasy but a gear chase grind. Much like TERA, WOW or Elder Scrolls Online.

3 minutes ago, Facadedestroyer said:

Dark souls/Nioh

Is also not a power fantasy but rather a game with artificial difficulty via mechanics catered to a group of players.

This would be on the opposite end of the spectrum from power fantasy ... where things like The Witcher and Nier Automata sit closer to the middle in.

4 minutes ago, Facadedestroyer said:

the difficulty is big part of the course.

No, no, this is BS, a power fantasy is all about destroying weak trash that come in large amounts, actually. The closest analogue would be Dynasty Warriors.

DmC/Bayonetta may or may not count depending on who's argument you are listening to.

[Veridian]

Difficulty exists, you just have to look for it.

E.G. 40 min into arbitration excavation with 3 excavators up and no Frost, Limbo or Gara.

 

[Jarriaga]

5 hours ago, Lutesque said:

Its a Start.... but something needs to be done about Enemy Design aswell.

Indeed. It's a combination of things.

[ryvrdrgn14]

Difficulty can exist in any game if the devs want it to.

 

Difficulty usually entails creating content (spending manpower and resources) for only the top 1-10% of your player base. Now whether a company wants to do that or not is entirely up to them. The developers of Path of Exile have stated that they do consider the top players and create content that is only for them and it also lets the normal players watch something on stream that they normally don't experience in their regular gameplay.

 

[(PSN)Zero_029]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

Uhm no.... The profit Taker requires a S#&$ tonne of Damage and a S#&$ tonne of Damage Mitigation... Its a giant spider.... doesn't require much aiming or reflexes at all.... I've played Lego games that demanded more Mechanical Skill than Warframe....

It does take a lot of dps. Which is granted by having strong gear across the board.
Damage mitigation is indeed helpful, but if players actually did what the encounter asked...which is CC or control/clear the adds instead of just trying to plant their feet into the ground & power through it then the encounter wouldn't be nearly as "annoying".
It is a giant spider, but it's an aggressive as hell spider, armed to the teeth, that can easily kill the player who chooses not to dodge (reflexes) its attacks.
(If you knew how many Exploiter Orb runs I've down where folks just toss canisters & only kill her coolant spiders when they need a cell. You'd facepalm into next week. Seriously, folks just try to power through it & ignore the adds cooling her down. I'll never forget my first public Exploiter. So much fun fighting her in the middle of the ROAD!)

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

But it was... it was just a Stagger and Knockdown Cluster #*!%. It still is a Knock Down Cluster #*!%er.

It can be when the adds get out of control. And when players just stand there.
If I got 100plat for everytime I see players join up for the bounty & then just STAND STILL & shoot mindless at the shields. I'd at least have 4k plat by now.
Look, I solo the mofo. It's a pain when I try & ignore or avoid the adds. I never get downed until I try & take shortcuts. I try & keep them low in number and do my best to dodge the Terra Manker's attacks until I need to kill him.
Whenever I try it in a group. I just see folks going as Chroma, standing around eating everything the enemies throw at them while trying to burst the boss down; proceeding to then call the fight cheap/bugged/broken when they get downed. I mean...I don't know but I try not to get shot. I get that Chroma needs it to buff his dps but at somepoint ou have to stop eating dmg & save enough health to live long enough to actually shoot the spider.

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

They are right... Dark Souls isn't a difficult game....  call me crazy bu if a game is so desperate to be difficult thats willing to erase my progress just because I fell off a ledge then yeah sorry.... not Challenging.... Dark Souls is all about the cheap kills that you never see coming.....

I never said it wasn't difficult. My comparison was made because as you've probably seen, way too many players want the "endgame" to be similar to the Dark Souls experience for...some reason. When all that will come from it is rage, tears, and Diamonds forged from extremely compressed Salt.

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

Okay im just going to lump all this together I see what the problem is now....

NEVER TAKE ANYTHING PLAYERS SAY AT FACE VALUE.... 

Now this isn't directed specifically at you because only developers need to know this. Whenever a player describes in issues they had experience in a game they usually do so in away thats well... rather simple and easy to misunderstand... now im not saying that Devs should ignore player Feedback but they definitely should not just give them exactly what they asked for....this is exactly why Warframe is chockful of so many Band aid solutions... its because they keep addressing symptoms to a much larger problem abd thats just never going to work...

You know those players that hate Tutorials and they're all like "Just let me play and figure it out on my own"... THIS IS BULL S#&$.... Never give this player exactly what they want... instead learn to hide your tutorials and hints so that these players don't realise they were being baited into the Solution. 

Theres numerous instances of Nintendo doing this going back as far Super Mario Brothers and as Recent as Super Mario Galaxy.... However the game thats most iconic for doing this is Super Metroid and The Legend of Zelda...

Agreed. There is a fine line between making changes based upon feedback & straight up implementing the feedback.
I like to lump it all into the age ole tried & true quote: "Be careful what you ask for. Because you just might get it."
Partially why I shake my head at some of the desires/wishes folks have for "endgame". Too many aren't looking ahead from an outside perspective & thinking: "How will this do in the long run?" (Arbitrations). "Will this lead to future issues?"(Optional Difficulty changes to 100 & whatever)

[Loza03]

Going to weigh back in - I've already left my thoughts on whether true difficulty and challenge can exist in Warframe. (just as a reminder: enemies would need more ability interactions that weaken player abilities so no frame is universally effective) 

But why would players want a challenging experience?

Because a truly challenging experience, even when it ceases to be difficult, becomes its own reward. There is a reason why people have thousands of hours on Devil May Cry games and are satisfied with them despite it demonstrably having less content than a game like Warframe. It feels good to overcome a challenge. It feels great when you dominate it.

Should Warframe ever be DMC? Of course not, but the principle stands. A true challenge would invariably make the game more engaging and let the content we have go further.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Facadedestroyer said:

i did a research on your ''power fantasy'' definition and all i could find is people talking about escapism and that this power fantasy can be any fantasy game out there even a novel and here is my sources:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-power-fantasy

 

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Objectification

not correct.

warframe pretty sure is not dynasty warrior like you claim nor does it allow you to do whatever you want the easily, i mean why the nerfs and the gear limitation if that was the case ? why do we have nulls and energy pools lol ?

and you still chase gear in warframe to be powerful, you're not powerful from the get go. 

This is actually splitting hairs. It is commonly accepted by the majority that Dark Souls/Nioh/Bloodborne is NOT a power fantasy because the whole point of such games is the weak player triumphing despite their limitations. Feeling you have achieved something doesn't make the game a power fantasy. A power fantasy can be loosely seen as something where you feel powerful/overpowered, not something where you feel you done something great. 

The same can be said of B&S - it is a grind game which has gear tiers that are tied to areas where enemies have X scaling, so you keep up. A Gear Spiral Chase is rarely, if ever called a power fantasy, unless you wanna take your endgame gear to the starting zone to kill level 1 mooks, which is kinda defeating the purpose of even grinding the gear out in that case. Every time gear reaches Y tier, enemies of Y tier will be added which requires Z tier gear. There is no stage where you are too powerful for the appropriate level - you are always just right for it once you are done and over with content.

Skyrim, being one of my favorite games of all times, I can tell you, is a terrible example for your argument, because the truth is that once you grind out the necessary things and put the perk points where they really matter (with legendary skills this is out of the window and you can spec everything), this thing gets even easier than Dynasty Warriors given how sparse the enemies are. Everything literally dies to one shot and you can't die unless you are being dumb. Even Warframe does not have this kind of insane scaling where you can be perma invis with a 100000 damage sword of lifeleech killing everything with one hit (no, Loki with a Riven Sword falls FAR SHORT) since Skyrim's level caps are much lower than WF and their scaling formula is more linear.

Warframe, on the other hand, is actually balanced around level 100 as the end all. Yet gear and builds can push further on endless. Hence, the overall feeling is one of power that the enemies do not have. The impression is that most enemies are helpless (at least the basic grunts) and meant to be killed.

Of course Warframe is not Dynasty Warriors - we don't have 100s of enemies to cleave through because of the way the engine is built and the current demand of the graphics. It is an IP on its own.

A lot of nerfs are because DE decided to listen to a certain vocal minority about things. Basically, a bunch of people dissatisfied that their favorite gear is not capable of competing and thus they got salty. People who care too much about the epeen and the end mission stats over actually getting the mission done. Basically, once stuff gets overnerfed, the community will find another way or even complain. Which is why we get the modern day Saryn. Then you have things like Ember which nobody really plays anymore, because she just doesn't do anything thanks to nerfs. As much as a certain category of people tries to defend the nerfs, there is such thing as being too heavy handed.

Energy pools are perfectly fine (especially if the energy gain is constant, not spike like as we have now), it is that people have found a way to get large amounts of energy in a short amount of time to allow them to use the powers more than the devs think is appropriate. Most Dynasty Warriors like games use Cooldowns (Fate Extella 2 for example has cooldowns), but since DE backed themselves into a corner with their "no cooldowns" promise, they can't get rid of the energy bar and balance around cooldowns no matter how they want to do it.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Facadedestroyer said:

this is a big fat lie lol, to this day we don't even have a planet that start on level 100 and above.

Sortie, Kuva Flood etc. It doesn't have to be a planet. Such missions exist and are part of the game. This IS warframe's balance point, whether you like it or not. Level 100 enemies are the practical maximum - endless endurance is a niche thing for niche people.

7 minutes ago, Facadedestroyer said:

its giant ball of ideas that always get put on ice with make more gaping holes that the devs don't have the balls or the time to fix, one of with is archwing and the scaling.

That's how you see it.

7 minutes ago, Facadedestroyer said:

This is borderline bullS#&$, who asked for melee wall hack nerf ? Who asked for ember nerf ? and how are you a dev allow yourself to listen to his people unless if you don't have any principles ? they don't even run with your ''power fantasy'' definition , not because we threatened them not to, but because this game have no direction at all.

The melee wallhack nerf is asked for by the Anti Spin to Win club, which is a well known fact already. The Ember nerf was low level players whining about Ember being too good. Nerfs in WF never actually happen unless some group of people start whining like no tomorrow. Which is probably why Saryn is not nerfed - the pushback post nerf for Ember was too big to ignore.

Actually Warframe does run with power fantasy - after you grind and you use the right frame for the right job, you can cheese your way through all sorts of content. It's just a different kind of power fantasy - rather than the individual warframe trivializing everything, the player has all the tools needed to trivialize content ... as long as they choose the correct tool.

7 minutes ago, Facadedestroyer said:

oh please, blaming the community like they're all on the same heart of single player is just plain bs, in fact its a lie, because we have the most fanboys who eat anything the devs throw at them without saying jack, the devs know that very well and yet they still pull sht like ember and trinity link nerf, and why did they nerf wokung then ? theres a big list of nerfs that was only made by DE and nobody even asked for them at all.

Actually, as mentioned earlier, all these nerfs were because of that actual small group of whiners who complained about having nothing to kill when they are getting the exp for free.

I do not agree with all those nerfs, there is no point complaining since what is done is done.

That being said, before you talk about fixing the game, maybe you should consider fixing your grammar. I heard it makes you easier to understand.

Edited May 10, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

Just now, Facadedestroyer said:

niche people ? you mean the people who who is running ash or valkry or any finisher opener that allow you to one shot any level in this whole game ? yeah right.

sortie max level is 80, kuva flood the same freaking thing and its not even permanent or intended, we dont want endless to be the only place where you can test your builds, we want a planet that have the highest level cap, if they dont give us then its proof that this i game is poorly designed gear progression and scaling wise, no amount of ''power fantasy'' gonna save that.

what do you mean by that ? do you want to say that i am only seeing things and its not like this from your view point ?

this lie man, total lie, we have ton of people cursing them for the melee nerf, and they even made they're own excuse for that holy sht you're making stuff up.

the devs only hide behind the ''nerf callers'' when it suit them, they have no principles when it come to your power fantasy unless it involve leveling up so fast or getting more loot painlessly.

you claim that you hate and against ''nerf clubs'' yet you call the tools that the devs gave me a cheese tactics ? its my fault dude, especially when the devs does not know how we're suppose to play they're game, they nerf and buff as they please, no direction or clear principles involved.

lie ! nobody asked for plefering swarm to be ''fixed'' wayback when it was effected by power strength, and nobody asked them to destroy mag polarize and even her augment that does no damage by allow you to collect loot easily for your and your team, blaming all of the problems on whiners will not save you.

if you want to see a power fantasy that actually works then check borderlands series, they do it right, more right than this abomination that does not know what it want to be, is it ninja play free with rules and checks and balances or dynasty warriors ?

I can't even be bothered to argue. This is clearly stepping into the "I see what I want to see" territory.

Actually I played Borderlands and find it completely wrong, so yes, this is a PoV thing.

Maybe just accept Warframe is not the game for you and don't play it. Simple fix!

[Guest]

Just now, Facadedestroyer said:

haha not trying to replay point by point now do we ? didnt you say that the nerfs only comes because the whiners wanted it and totally not the devs fault ? how can you allow this ''small group of whiners'' to control you and force you to stray from your ''power fantasy'' ? unless ofc you have no principles or direction.

Whether the devs have principles or direction is nothing to do with me, really. That's not my problem. The fact is that the group of whiners succeeded, whether you like it or not. This is clear enough to see.

When you trot out the same argument repeatedly, there is no necessity for me to readdress them. It's the same salty words repackaged.

[Lutesque]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

It does take a lot of dps. Which is granted by having strong gear across the board.
Damage mitigation is indeed helpful, but if players actually did what the encounter asked...which is CC or control/clear the adds instead of just trying to plant their feet into the ground & power through it then the encounter wouldn't be nearly as "annoying".

If the enemies you killed weren't immediately replaced then you would have a point.... as it is rigjt now everybody just ignores them.... some of us only stop to destroy The Beacon.

5 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

It is a giant spider, but it's an aggressive as hell spider, armed to the teeth, that can easily kill the player who chooses not to dodge (reflexes) its attacks

It kills The players who dodge too so do whatever you like.... theres more than enough damage for everytype of player.

5 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

(If you knew how many Exploiter Orb runs I've down where folks just toss canisters & only kill her coolant spiders when they need a cell. You'd facepalm into next week. Seriously, folks just try to power through it & ignore the adds cooling her down. I'll never forget my first public Exploiter. So much fun fighting her in the middle of the ROAD!)

Thats exactly how you're suppose to do it... The Adds are far too many and Random... I just kill the ones I can and horde 30 Cannisters.... then toss them all one after tge other ...heating her up faster then she can be cooled.... 

5 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

It can be when the adds get out of control. And when players just stand there.

They are always out of control...

5 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

If I got 100plat for everytime I see players join up for the bounty & then just STAND STILL & shoot mindless at the shields. I'd at least have 4k plat by now.

You would have way more than that... Moving around doesn't make much of a difference. I only move to stop getting blinded by the Special Effects. For avoiding actual damage its pointless. Yes there is a difference but most Warframes don't have enough Health for that difference to matter.

5 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

Look, I solo the mofo

So do I.... Not only that.... I've been carrying some players through it for nightwave...

5 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

. It's a pain when I try & ignore or avoid the adds. I never get downed until I try & take shortcuts. I try & keep them low in number and do my best to dodge the Terra Manker's attacks until I need to kill him.

Yeah I tried this With Nova.... and it worked.... until I lost one Particle.... then I just kept getting one shotted by enemies I slowed down by 75%... sorry.... I have given Warframe multiple chances for Parkour to work.... it doesn't.... you just get hit while you're moving.... 

5 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

Whenever I try it in a group. I just see folks going as Chroma, standing around eating everything the enemies throw at them while trying to burst the boss down; proceeding to then call the fight cheap/bugged/broken when they get downed. 

So you just join a group and then just sit there doing nothing but watch them ? 

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Going to weigh back in - I've already left my thoughts on whether true difficulty and challenge can exist in Warframe. (just as a reminder: enemies would need more ability interactions that weaken player abilities so no frame is universally effective) 

But why would players want a challenging experience?

Because a truly challenging experience, even when it ceases to be difficult, becomes its own reward. There is a reason why people have thousands of hours on Devil May Cry games and are satisfied with them despite it demonstrably having less content than a game like Warframe. It feels good to overcome a challenge. It feels great when you dominate it.

Should Warframe ever be DMC? Of course not, but the principle stands. A true challenge would invariably make the game more engaging and let the content we have go further.

Basically Warframe needs more Depth... not more Content.

[Chipputer]

25 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

I have given Warframe multiple chances for Parkour to work.... it doesn't.... you just get hit while you're moving...

It's a direct percentage chance to not get hit. It objectively increases your survival chances against hitscan enemies and even further against enemies that shoot projectiles. I'm sorry you remember the negative experiences more than the positive but your perception doesn't change the facts.

26 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

So you just join a group and then just sit there doing nothing but watch them ? 

Actual question, not trying to be rude or throw shade or anything-- Why would you read what they said and interpret it as them just standing around? Are you unable to pay attention to what your allies are doing while you're playing the game, or something? It's not hard to see, "oh boy I've loaded into a group with 3 other Chroma players and their health bars are constantly tanking while I'm not noticing them moving around much."

[Lutesque]

16 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

It's a direct percentage chance to not get hit. It objectively increases your survival chances against hitscan enemies and even further against enemies that shoot projectiles. I'm sorry you remember the negative experiences more than the positive but your perception doesn't change the facts.

And its all pointless if it only takes one shot to kill you.... And yeah I remember all the times I got hit with Volt while moving at full speed or with Nova while soaring through the Air...either way the S#&$ doesn't work. And this is before we even factor in the tile sets that are so Cramped where you just have to stay still and survive by killing enemies before they can kill you.

21 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

Actual question, not trying to be rude or throw shade or anything-- Why would you read what they said and interpret it as them just standing around? 

Because unless he was watching them the entire time then he can't say with absolutely certainty that they were standing still face tanking damage....perhaps  some of them were furiously mashing the hotkey for their Archgun only for the game to ignore them.... yes you need to stop moving other wise the game could bug out and not work... 

In extreme lag you might also see players standing still not shooting at all.... in my case this happens when I press 5 and it takes 15 seconds for the game to figure out what I was doing.... mind you it won't let me move while this happens and im still vulnerable to damage... 

So yeah unless he was doing nothing but watching those players the entire time I can't buy the fact that they were standing still in which case he isn't any better than them now is he ? 

 

[(PSN)Zero_029]

2 hours ago, Lutesque said:

So you just join a group and then just sit there doing nothing but watch them ? 

Seems I misjudged your intelligence. If this is how you read that statement then your intellegence profile is right down there with the Grineer.

When I join a group & see that I'm killing everything, fighting the boss, I start to keep a  loser eyes on my allies. Especially once they become hindrances.

When I notice that the rest of my team is dead or constantly dieing over & over. I slow down to see wtf is going on. Are the adds too much? Are they ill equipped? Do we need to swap roles?

But no. I see them just trying to power through the encounter.

As for the rest of your drivel...

The adds are constant but can be cut down enough. The fight is active & aggressive on both sides. It's not meant to be a walk in the park. I'm sorry that the pressure the adds & boss put on the player makes it frustrating but players have been begging for challenge.

As for Exploiter. Ignoring the adds just cools her off & makes the fight longer which leads to players complaining & growing frustrated.

I mean...these forums are FULL of players wanting fights with mechanics and low & behold...everyone wants to just IGNORE mechanics. Even the bare bones simple MMO starting mechanics of "kill adds so they don't buff/heal the boss or swarm (profit taker) us."

I have carried folks through Hydrolysts, Profit Taker, & etc. When folks contribute & don't just stand there & ignore crap. The fight gets easier & done faster.

But go on keep making excuses for it.

[Lutesque]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

Seems I misjudged your intelligence. If this is how you read that statement then your intellegence profile is right down there with the Grineer.

Oh joy... Insults. 

[Oreades]

Can true difficulty exist in in a game like Warframe? yes and it does right now. 

If only people would take as much time as they spend complaining that there is no challenge and show a bit of restraint with their builds instead of min/maxing everything and complaining about it. Warframe gives you the tools to choose how challenging your experience is and most of the people complaining about a lack of challenge have openly opted for no challenge. 

[luanle21]

At the end of the day, if people want a challenge, or DE can do this as well (people will still complain no matter what is done); simply play a lv 40+ mission of whichever, no mods used on any warframe and/or weapons.  Granted everything will legit feel like a wolf sponge, but that the closest your going to get to a challenge, without them essentially having to revamp EVERYTHING (Enemies AI/Logic, Enemies Scaling, Enemies weakness/weakspot, Warframe/Weapon Mod system, Rivens, Pets, etc)

With that in mind, a "true difficulty" is never going to be a thing, even in a game like the souls series, once anyone willing to put the effort into learning said game and mechanic, everything then will become a cake walk so to speak.