GGG gets it and DE should learn from them.

[Souchira]

So I play another little free to play game you might have heard of called Path of Exile and I was reading its Reddit page and came across this post from its CEO Chris Wilson.

I honestly think DE can learn a lot from GGG when it comes to community management as well as project/game development. GGG gets that if they slow down, if they are not pro-active they will lose their place as the top arpg. Warframe has been really lucky that it hasn't had much competition and I think they really lucked out with Anthem failing so spectacularly. I just hope it was a wake-up call that another game could come in and potentially take a lot of the Warframe playerbase overnight if they are not careful.

Quote

An Update from Chris

It doesn't take much reading of the official forums or subreddit to realise that a group of Path of Exile players are angry about a number of topics and feel that we haven't given solid answers about how we're going to address these issues. We will explain as many of these topics as we can in the Q&A that is currently scheduled for later this week. However, one thing that the Q&A doesn't address is how we got here. I wanted to personally post an explanation of what has been going on behind the scenes at Grinding Gear Games that led to this state.

 

Synthesis was more work than we expected. It was developed over the Christmas holiday, and its gameplay prototype came in very late. We didn't have a lot of time to iterate on it before release or to make drastic changes that it potentially needed. While our improvements after its launch have helped a lot and many players are enjoying it, we fully acknowledge that it is not our best league and is not up to the quality standards that Path of Exile players should expect from us. It will not be merged into the core game in 3.7.0. Maybe we can do something with it in the future, but we have no current plans.

 

When we reveal 3.7.0 in three weeks, you'll see that its league has a focus on repeatable fun, and the combat revamp has a lot of focus on improving the fundamentals of Path of Exile's gameplay. In order to do this, we have had our heads down, focusing on getting 3.7.0 to be ready as early as we can within its development cycle.

 

But that's not all we need to work on. There are a large number of critical projects going on at the same time. For a start, our 4.0.0 mega-expansion is taking a huge amount of the company's time. We see this upgrade as critical because the next generation of Action RPGs is coming and we have to be ready. Not proactively keeping up with competitors is how companies die. We don't see the huge time investment in 4.0.0 as optional at all.

 

In addition to 4.0.0, we've also committed to running the ExileCon convention later this year. You may think that this is a fun optional side project for us, but we see it as critical because we need a stage (literally) to announce 4.0.0 to the world. Talking to other developers has shown us that conventions are by far the best way to market a new product of this size.

 

Then there's the Korean launch. South Korea is a large market and we feel we are years late to release there. Due to that, we committed with our publisher to release in Korea alongside 3.7.0 and we will meet this commitment, but it's yet another project to handle concurrently.

 

Then there's various issues with Path of Exile on the console platforms which feel bad about because we have made promises that we haven't yet fulfilled. After the Xbox launch, all of our console resources went into preparing the PS4 release which meant we didn't spend enough time supporting the feature requests from the Xbox community. Now that the PS4 version has launched, we need to make headway on console features.

 

All of these areas, from 3.7.0 through to the eventual release of 4.0.0, are going to make massive and lasting fundamental improvements to Path of Exile. We have been making great headway and are incredibly excited to show this work when it's ready. However, this has all come at a cost.

 

While we have released many patches during the 3.6.x cycle to address community concerns, the significant internal development focus on the long term of Path of Exile has meant that we have chosen not to prioritise things like completely overhauling Synthesis or creating an entirely new type of one-month race.

 

Every week, there are feedback threads about many different topics. The community generally do a great job of constructively presenting reasons for wanting various changes, and we appreciate that.

 

When given this feedback, we have two options:

• Assemble the team of seven key people who are needed to solve the issue, discuss it for half a day, and then lock in the solution, so that we can at least tell the community what our plan is, even if it's a little while before we get to it. An example of this is the when we made large functional and balance changes to Delve based on community feedback. The drawback with doing this is that it derails up to seven important projects that we're working on in order to solve the problem. We have to be selective about which problems we apply this approach to.

• The second option is to read and consider the feedback, and specifically decide to deal with it later. This doesn't mean it isn't going to be done, it just means we are prioritising the existing release we're currently working on. An example is the Map Stash Tabs in Standard situation where we waited a whole league before we solved it. If we had put the time into this solution a league earlier, Synthesis would have been even worse.

 

Simply put, we can't fix every problem every league. There are going to problems that we don't address quickly. We'll get to them as soon as we can.

 

A big topic in the gaming industry recently is development crunch. Some studios make their teams work 14 hour days to pack every patch full of the most fixes and improvements possible. Sometimes when we read our own Patch Notes threads and community feedback, we feel that we are being asked to do the same. I will not run this company that way. While there's inevitably a bit of optional paid overtime near league releases, the vast majority of a Path of Exile development cycle has great work/life balance. This is necessary to keep our developers happy and healthy for the long-term, but it does mean that some game improvements will take a while to be made.

 

We try as hard as we can to communicate with our community about our development priorities. We post daily news and aim for some kind of substantial development update every week. Bex and her team are all over the community posts, passing information back to the developers and seeking answers to questions. However, as I explained earlier, in order to be able to share our firm plans about topics, we have to assemble the right developers, derail their current work and make some time-consuming decisions.

 

Due to the sheer amount of stuff we've been working on, certain topics have not been addressed to the satisfaction of the community.

 

I am very sorry about this. One of our key values is our relationship with our community. We feel that our internal emphasis on longer term improvements to Path of Exile has caused some damage to that relationship in the short term. We will make sure that we find a good balance between addressing immediate concerns and making the long-term improvements the game needs.

 

Later this week, we'll post our first set of answers to the questions from the Q&A. I will make sure that it includes all the hot topics such as Synthesis, trade, console improvements, races, etc.

 

We can't wait to announce 3.7.0 in three weeks. Its name is on the list.

I would also highly recommend this video to the DE staff where Chris talks about the development of PoE and how they figured out their production pipeline and the many other aspects to make their game grow.

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by Souchira

[Gabbynaru]

Hey, the daily Warframe is Doomed thread is here. Nice!

Let me just say this. With "Live Services" still being a thing, Warframe can just keep on doing what it's doing, and they'll be just fine. The only ones that can cause Warframe's downfall is DE themselves (and let me tell you, if they keep on releasing terrible updates like Nightwave, they're heading straight towards that), the game industry as a whole is so incompetent at the moment, it will be a miracle if another game appears that could remotely threaten Warframe.

And let's be real here, only delusional people thought Anthem would be a success. Anthem's downfall was spelled out long before it was released. When EA spent half an hour showing people Anthem artwork on the E3 stage, it was pretty clear that game was effed hard.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Gabbynaru

[Souchira]

4 minutes ago, Gabbynaru said:

Hey, the daily Warframe is Doomed thread is here. Nice!

Let me just say this. With "Live Services" still being a thing, Warframe can just keep on doing what it's doing, and they'll be just fine. The only ones that can cause Warframe's downfall is DE themselves (and let me tell you, if they keep on releasing terrible updates like updates, they're heading straight towards that), the game industry as a whole is so incompetent at the moment, it will be a miracle if another game appears that could remotely threaten Warframe.

And let's be real here, only delusional people thought Anthem would be a success. Anthem's downfall was spelled out long before it was released. When EA spent half an hour showing people Anthem artwork on the E3 stage, it was pretty clear that game was effed hard.

Then lets be real: DE has become complacent and lazy with the lack of competition. Even DE themselves have said they have been procrastinating and since we don't have any actually competition it's up to us, its players, to demand more than a C grade performance. DE is one 100% capable of A+ there is just not enough competition and demand from the community to make this happen.

Path of Exile is in a very similar position where it has no real competition at the moment but they know that if they are not pre-active, working with the community and pushing themselves there is going to be a moment that another game will take their place. I think this is very relevant to Warframe, sure Anthem was a dud from the get go but the next game, one that might be in development right now may not be. Thinking that Warframe is untouchable is exactly how you lose in a competitive market.

[SneakyErvin]

What exactly should they learn from GGG?

That update from Wilson is late late late to say the least. He talks about how synthesis didnt really get released in a solid state and then goes on to blame the christmas holidays. Well what was the excuse for the terrible (even worse than synthesis) Betrayal league prior to that, or the complete deaf-ears approach to people asking to skip most bad "experimental" league mechanics and focus on the good ones? People still want to see more regular options for delve and breaches but GGG completely ignores that and goes full head on with gimmick leagues and sticking to the now beaten (over and over) dead horse that is the Atlas.

edit: And there was no luck involved regarding Anthem, anyone with the slightest experience with EA and BW along with one working braincell knew it was a fail when they saw the first gameplay trailer for it.

Edited May 2, 2019 by SneakyErvin

[Souchira]

5 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

What exactly should they learn from GGG?

That update from Wilson is late late late to say the least. He talks about how synthesis didnt really get released in a solid state and then goes on to blame the christmas holidays. Well what was the excuse for the terrible (even worse than synthesis) Betrayal league prior to that, or the complete deaf-ears approach to people asking to skip most bad "experimental" league mechanics and focus on the good ones? People still want to see more regular options for delve and breaches but GGG completely ignores that and goes full head on with gimmick leagues and sticking to the now beaten (over and over) dead horse that is the Atlas.

edit: And there was no luck involved regarding Anthem, anyone with the slightest experience with EA and BW along with one working braincell knew it was a fail when they saw the first gameplay trailer for it.

The most important thing they can learn from GGG is their work ethic. You may or may not like the specific leagues they have released but at least they are releasing new content and mechanics regularly.

I mean Nightwave is neat but otherwise there is still no real content for... I dunno a year now? That is aside from the huge pile of problems the core game has had for forever with S#&$ty AI, bad drop rates/rewards, lack of raids and end-game, the same events being repeated over and over, archwing still being S#&$. The list goes on and on.

Don't get me wrong I'm complaining because I KNOW Warframe and DE can do better than this. We just need to stop treating them like they are some fragile vase that might shatter if you breath on them to hard and instead actually push them to do better.

P.s. You can be damn sure that other companies looked at Anthem and how much interest people had in that game before it actually came out and was S#&$. I'd be shocked if there where not at a few dev studios working on something similar. That is the part I mean DE got lucky, if Anthem was made by a competent studio and the game was actually good Warframe would be short a lot of its playerbase right now. Warframe might not be so lucky next time.

[Ced23Ric]

9 hours ago, Souchira said:

The most important thing they can learn from GGG is their work ethic. You may or may not like the specific leagues they have released but at least they are releasing new content and mechanics regularly. I mean Nightwave is neat but otherwise there is still no real content for... I dunno a year now?

November 2018, Fortuna releases.
December 2018, Profit-Taker releases.
January 2019, Melee 2.9999999~ releases.
Feburary 2019, Nightwave releases.
March 2019, Exploiter releases.
April 2019, PoE Remaster releases.

All these come with new areas, new missions, loads and loads of voice acting, cutscenes, story, lore, new gear, multiple new frames, a new movement system, combat changes, new rivens, new arcanes. And that's just half a year. Is this some measure of bittervet goggles making you blind to the constant output?

[Souchira]

53 minutes ago, Ced23Ric said:

November 2018, Fortuna releases.
December 2018, Profit-Taker releases.
January 2019, Melee 2.9999999~ releases.
Feburary 2019, Nightwave releases.
March 2019, Exploiter releases.
April 2019, PoE Remaster releases.

All these come with new areas, new missions, loads and loads of voice acting, cutscenes, story, lore, new gear, multiple new frames, a new movement system, combat changes, new rivens, new arcanes. And that's just half a year. Is this some measure of bittervet goggles making you blind to the constant output?

So:

2 Area's
2 Bosses
1 Minor rework for alerts
1 Few changes to melee
+ new frames and some items.

I might be the weird one here but I think that isn't a whole lot in a 6 month timeframe.

If anything I'd like to see DE commit to a 3 month release schedule.  Every 3 months at least one 1 boss, one old system overhaul at least until all the old stuff is fixed, remastered/new/alternative tileset. Then maybe every 6 months major story update with 5 to 10 hours of story content that pushes the Warframe's story line forward. I'm confident that DE can do this, they just need the motivation, maybe they will need to hire some more people but that's fine DE makes plenty of money with Warframe. We the players just need to push them since it's obvious that its not going to come from other games providing competition.

Seriously, stop babying DE. This community can really be way to kind and overprotective to the developers which is an insult to their talent.
 

[Ced23Ric]

1 minute ago, Souchira said:

2 Area's
2 Bosses
1 Minor rework for alerts
1 Few changes to melee
+ new frames and some items.

I might be the weird one here but I think that isn't a whole lot in a 6 month timeframe.

Seriously, stop babying DE. This community can really be way to kind and overprotective to the developers which is an insult to their talent.
 

Two areas and two bosses which are ridiculously large, and use unique textures and elements, with day/night cycles, custom shaders, layered script systems, multiple hotspots of sub-missions, races, conservation game mode, mining, fishing, music, and a new meta for operator gear, while dropping loads and loads of voice actor work, story, exposition, showcasing the life of a Corpus colony theretofore only alluded to in events like the Gravidus Dilemma.

A week-spanning radio show with multiple voice actor lines, cutscenes, backstory that connects the now to the next release of Gas City, introduced the amalgam enemies, continues the story of Salad Five, and showcases the Grineer empire's prison system and how Grineer and Corpus interact despite their hostilities, while offering things never available to plat-less players before, and making items that were reserved for dedicated Eidolon hunters available to everyone, plus a new forma type, and cosmetics.

A pivotal change in fluidity, movement and air-control for all frames, entirely throwing the melee system on it's head, making combat much more enjoyable while also allowing us to traverse areas with more precision and have more control over where we end up, with the preparations to overhaul channeling and weapon-swapping as we knew it until now.

You are the weird one if you dismiss all of that as nothing. It's disrespectful of all the hours poured into it, all the testing and reiterations that lead to this. It's a policy of bitter negativity and unfair refusal to acknowledge efforts I cannot subscribe to. You are insulting their talents just the same.

[Souchira]

1 minute ago, Ced23Ric said:

Two areas and two bosses which are ridiculously large, and use unique textures and elements, with day/night cycles, custom shaders, layered script systems, multiple hotspots of sub-missions, races, conservation game mode, mining, fishing, music, and a new meta for operator gear, while dropping loads and loads of voice actor work, story, exposition, showcasing the life of a Corpus colony theretofore only alluded to in events like the Gravidus Dilemma.

A week-spanning radio show with multiple voice actor lines, cutscenes, backstory that connects the now to the next release of Gas City, introduced the amalgam enemies, continues the story of Salad Five, and showcases the Grineer empire's prison system and how Grineer and Corpus interact despite their hostilities, while offering things never available to plat-less players before, and making items that were reserved for dedicated Eidolon hunters available to everyone, plus a new forma type, and cosmetics.

A pivotal change in fluidity, movement and air-control for all frames, entirely throwing the melee system on it's head, making combat much more enjoyable while also allowing us to traverse areas with more precision and have more control over where we end up, with the preparations to overhaul channeling and weapon-swapping as we knew it until now.

You are the weird one if you dismiss all of that as nothing. It's disrespectful of all the hours poured into it, all the testing and reiterations that lead to this. It's a policy of bitter negativity and unfair refusal to acknowledge efforts I cannot subscribe to. You are insulting their talents just the same.

I'm not dismissing anything and I'm happy there's finally some content coming out now after a year of literally nothing. But just because we finally get something after such a long time of nothing doesn't mean we should just settle and worship DE for anything and everything we get. We need to push DE, hell even DE themselves have stated that they are procrastinating so its up to us the community to make sure that fire under their ass stays lit.

I mean you saw what happened just before Anthem launched DE suddenly went in high-alert mode but now that game flopped DE is going back to low activity mode and we have to stop that from happening.

 

[Ced23Ric]

1 minute ago, Souchira said:

I mean you saw what happened just before Anthem launched DE suddenly went in high-alert mode but now that game flopped DE is going back to low activity mode and we have to stop that from happening.

But... didn't you just say the Warframe hasn't gotten content in a year (while it has), then dismissed the content that came out rapid-fire as nothing? We gotta stay honest here, or we're gonna keep having a discussion where you make a generalizing statement that is then refuted by observable facts, only to jump to the next statement.

Even your future outlook is already challenged by the Gas City tileset revamp around the corner, Nightwave Episode 2 starting in a few weeks, the rest of Melee 3.0 coming, Wisp releasing soon and Archgun rivens being added along with the Ephemeras, the Arby's rework (however flawed that may be...) and more. Vauban's complete kit rework is on the table, too.

I get being angry, I get being distraught, I get feeling like no one's listening to you. Have a look. I've been there, and I've been there a lot closer than you, i.e., on Rebecca's lap with daily Skype calls with Ms. Ford. But this way, this deconstructive antiestablishmentaristic generalization and sweeping dismissal of efforts is not how you get your wishes heard or your opinion valued. If you cannot admit things in their whole, recognize efforts made, admit granularity to progress, and acknowledge things with differentiated feedback, how do you expect anyone to take your words as valueable? If you cannot provide feedback that manages to reign in your personal predisposition, and look with emotional calm and analytic distance at the provided content that appreciates the parts that are good and points out the parts that are not, how do you think anyone would assume you are able to provide commentary that has the level of clarity and informed fairness required to turn discontentment over X into constructive feedback about X?

[Souchira]

10 minutes ago, Ced23Ric said:

But... didn't you just say the Warframe hasn't gotten content in a year (while it has), then dismissed the content that came out rapid-fire as nothing? We gotta stay honest here, or we're gonna keep having a discussion where you make a generalizing statement that is then refuted by observable facts, only to jump to the next statement.

Even your future outlook is already challenged by the Gas City tileset revamp around the corner, Nightwave Episode 2 starting in a few weeks, the rest of Melee 3.0 coming, Wisp releasing soon and Archgun rivens being added along with the Ephemeras, the Arby's rework (however flawed that may be...) and more. Vauban's complete kit rework is on the table, too.

I get being angry, I get being distraught, I get feeling like no one's listening to you. Have a look. I've been there, and I've been there a lot closer than you, i.e., on Rebecca's lap with daily Skype calls with Ms. Ford. But this way, this deconstructive antiestablishmentaristic generalization and sweeping dismissal of efforts is not how you get your wishes heard or your opinion valued. If you cannot admit things in their whole, recognize efforts made, admit granularity to progress, and acknowledge things with differentiated feedback, how do you expect anyone to take your words as valueable? If you cannot provide feedback that manages to reign in your personal predisposition, and look with emotional calm and analytic distance at the provided content that appreciates the parts that are good and points out the parts that are not, how do you think anyone would assume you are able to provide commentary that has the level of clarity and informed fairness required to turn discontentment over X into constructive feedback about X?

The Gas City rework is not new content as it doesn't add new stuff to do, it's a visual update. Which are nice and we do need those as well but after its released and we all seen it will there be any reason to actually go there? I mean the current gas city tileset is max level 30 and it'll be nice for people that enjoy doing IO for xp or something but otherwise what is it going to add for actual content?

Nightwave is the same and yeah I think Nightwave is a lot better than the old alert system but its not really new content, sure we got some new items we can get but those also don't actually add new stuff to do other than doing the same old missions so we get the rewards. Better rewards is important not content.

Cosmetics are not playable content.
Rivens are not new content since they don't add any new mechanics, they just make us more OP for the content that is already too easy.
Vauban's kit should have been reworked years ago.

Yes, all of the above is necessary but non of it ads *new* stuff to do.
Where are the new quests and can they be longer than 10 minutes this time?
Where is Railjack?

Then there is stuff we have been asking for literal years to the point people gave up on it.
Where is better enemy AI and spawning?
Where is the difficulty rework? The game is either way to easy or everything oneshots you on most frames.
Where is the reward/drop table overhaul? 90%+ of the areas not being played because the rewards for them are horrible.
Where is the ESO rework? They just dropped it and moved on, hell how long did we have to wait to get anything changed to Arbritrations (even if they where bad).
Where is the Archwing rework?
Where are the new events?
 

We need all of that far more than tileset overhauls or better yet we need both and if Warframe can't do both at the same time with its current team composition they need to expand. They make plenty of money so there is no excuse there.

Look at how Warframe is failing on Twitch (758 viewers in the entire directory right now), look at the content Warframe Youtubers are putting out, they got nothing. Fortuna brought in a lot of non-warframe content creators but most if not all of them played for a few weeks maybe a month and left because there wasn't enough stuff to keep them interested.

Yes what DE is releasing now is good and I am happy they are but its not enough. They need to release more content, fix more old systems in a more consistent manner. So why are you so against this? Why are you holding Warframe and DE back? Because I know they can do this. 

 

[Ced23Ric]

1 minute ago, Souchira said:

The Gas City rework is not new content as it doesn't add new stuff to do, it's a visual update. Which are nice and we do need those as well but after its released and we all seen it will there be any reason to actually go there? I mean the current gas city tileset is max level 30 and it'll be nice for people that enjoy doing IO for xp or something but otherwise what is it going to add for actual content?

Yes what DE is releasing now is good and I am happy they are but its not enough. They need to release more content, fix more old systems in a more consistent manner. So why are you so against this? Why are you holding Warframe and DE back? Because I know they can do this. 

Gas City rework will also add new tiles not seen before, the Amalgam enemies and laboratories, a new game mode is going to be revealed tonight, and is a direct connection to the end of Nightwave Episode 1. What we'll get for higher levels or endless missions, we'll see. Right now, I agree that Gas City only serves as a place to farm Oxium. I have hopes that it'll be more after this.

I am not against Warframe improving or DE showing their chops, far from it. I am just against people saying that their work is meaningless or a joke when it's not. After several posts back and forth between the two of us, you've come around and have now posted a much more balanced summary - you pointed out what was good, what was good as a signal if the result still is flawed, and you pointed out where else things are burning or in need of amendment. That is a much more suitable manner of providing feedback and leading a discussion, and something I can wholeheartedly support.

And I know they can do this, too. They've shown in other projects and questlines that they can string a narrative, produce agency and work with both overt and subtle elements of story. My guess would be that Railjack comes out at TennoCon. Nightwave 2 might just lead up to it, too. We'll see what happens there. One thing that needs to be remembered is that any interaction with a developer, being it GGG or DE, is tempering demands with the realization that no developer can create content as fast as players can gobble it up. The overall health of the game and cohesive landscape matters. Fixing PoEs economy and reward structure, overhauling the area to bring it up to current levels of quality is a huge nod to old content that came rather unexpected, but it was welcome nonetheless.

I want them to continue doing that. Add something new, fix something old, add something small, work on something big, steady as she goes. Rebecca's recent post about powercreep, Scott admitting to the current meta's inherent flaws, Steve talking about making the game more visually appealing, the raising of minimum specs to pave the way for further improvement are all milestones on that path. But it won't happen overnight. And until then, the raging, angry bashing of DE and the bitter dismissal of the good they do only leads to an atmosphere of ungrateful nastiness that cannot breed differentiated, accurate, parseable feedback.

I'm not 100% black or 100% white. I like to aim for a leveraged, moderate grey that subscribes to no camp.

[Souchira]

49 minutes ago, Ced23Ric said:

I am not against Warframe improving or DE showing their chops, far from it. I am just against people saying that their work is meaningless or a joke when it's not. After several posts back and forth between the two of us, you've come around and have now posted a much more balanced summary - you pointed out what was good, what was good as a signal if the result still is flawed, and you pointed out where else things are burning or in need of amendment. That is a much more suitable manner of providing feedback and leading a discussion, and something I can wholeheartedly support.

Yeah.. that is bit of a bad habit of mine I tend to come over a bit extreme and over the top and I do that to push people into replying, to actually start a conversation. Since that is the only way I'll get them closer to my side 🙂

Lets be clear though I never said that their work was meaningless or a joke I just think that DE is currently operating at maybe 50% of what they are capable of and I want to see that pushed closer to a 100%.

But we'll see, I am curious about the new game mode and Nightwave season 2.

[AndyBeans]

20 minutes ago, Ced23Ric said:

...it won't happen overnight. And until then, the raging, angry bashing of DE and the bitter dismissal of the good they do only leads to an atmosphere of ungrateful nastiness that cannot breed differentiated, accurate, parseable feedback.

THIS. I rarely see constructive, well considered feedback on the forums.

[Souchira]

5 minutes ago, AndyBeans said:

THIS. I rarely see constructive, well considered feedback on the forums.

This is part of the problem as well because constructive feedback is given but in nearly all cases it feels ignored.

ESO was released, tons of feedback came after it some more constructive than others yet DE just seemed to ignore it and move on the next thing. This is a bad habit of DE and it makes people feel as if their constructive feedback was pointless. We've been asking, constructively, for better AI, spawning, difficulty scaling, drop table rework, archwing improvements for literally years and yet DE ignores it and instead makes something like PoE and Fortuna which is nice and all but no-one asked for this and imho should have come AFTER they actually fix the many issues the community has brought up over the years. Instead we had to put up with a 10+ month content drought while we waited for Fortuna.

Now we see the same thing happening again.. tileset revamps are nice but can we fix the stuff that has been a problem for 5+ years first please?

It's common sense that you first build a strong foundation before you expand on it but DE has left Warframes foundation to sit and age while they keep building their tower. At some point it's going to catch up and the whole thing will come tumbling down. I don't want that to happen, I really like Warframe and DE that is why I'm complaining, even though it probably won't be heard.

 

[SneakyErvin]

14 hours ago, Souchira said:

The most important thing they can learn from GGG is their work ethic. You may or may not like the specific leagues they have released but at least they are releasing new content and mechanics regularly.

I mean Nightwave is neat but otherwise there is still no real content for... I dunno a year now? That is aside from the huge pile of problems the core game has had for forever with S#&$ty AI, bad drop rates/rewards, lack of raids and end-game, the same events being repeated over and over, archwing still being S#&$. The list goes on and on.

Don't get me wrong I'm complaining because I KNOW Warframe and DE can do better than this. We just need to stop treating them like they are some fragile vase that might shatter if you breath on them to hard and instead actually push them to do better.

P.s. You can be damn sure that other companies looked at Anthem and how much interest people had in that game before it actually came out and was S#&$. I'd be shocked if there where not at a few dev studios working on something similar. That is the part I mean DE got lucky, if Anthem was made by a competent studio and the game was actually good Warframe would be short a lot of its playerbase right now. Warframe might not be so lucky next time.

As other have pointed out, there has been alot of content over the last year. It is quite regular to say the least.

We waited a bit longer for Fortuna than expected, but we still got plenty of content and system changes throughout 2018 up to this date.

And GGG's "work ethic" is bad. Everything they do is very hit and miss and when they do those hits and misses all other content more or less gets removed or into an unreliable part of the grind. Nothing in WF is taken away aside from events, that still come back from time to time, so even if there is a miss in content there is still alot to do. DE doesnt tell the players "go do this now", they are more "here you go, something more to get your hands on when you like".

I can play WF and enjoy it on a regular basis. With PoE it all depends on the league. A miss there results in atleast a few months of not playing at all, two misses in a row results in two thirds of a year not playing at all. I'm not saying DE cant do better, I'm saying GGG is not a company to use as a model for what is done correctly regarding development. GGG is on the Blizzard end of the stick when it comes to arpgs because both their games really only have 1 content type to do at end-game, in GGG's case 2 if the league is OK. Nrifts+grifts get boring quickly, maps get boring even faster due to the drudgery of map management. Betrayal was a S#&$ pile, an abomonination of bad design stacked on bad. I did it until I got 1 specific enchantment and one try at the mastermind then I found the nearest laboratory and left it untouched for no more syndicate spawns.

And DE were not lucky because even if Anthem would have been well made it would have still been a game massively different to WF. The people comparing them really only look at the similarities between javs and frames. That is kinda where the similarities end. Combat, itemization and most other things are just so very different. So sure if you were to play Anthem simply for the looks of the main "characters" then yeah they are similar, but Anthem has in reality more similarities to The Division, Destiny and Firefall than it does to WF.

As a side note, I dont agree about lack of raids. This game doesnt need raids because this game like many others isnt a trinity game. Let the raids stay in those types of games because they will never be interesting or challenging enough without proper tanks, heals and dps. GW2 managed to introduce them, but it also required them to pretty much rework certain classes into tanks and heals, which kinda also means GW2 didnt really manage to introduce it without a trinity system.

[HugintheCrow]

15 hours ago, Gabbynaru said:

And let's be real here, only delusional people thought Anthem would be a success. Anthem's downfall was spelled out long before it was released. When EA spent half an hour showing people Anthem artwork on the E3 stage, it was pretty clear that game was effed hard.

I'm still looking back at angry comments from people telling me how "I'm wrong and anthem is going to wreck warframe and destiny and everything!" with a smile.

It is also kinda sad though, I'd love for DE to taste actual competition.

[--END--Rikutatis]

16 hours ago, Gabbynaru said:

Let me just say this. With "Live Services" still being a thing, Warframe can just keep on doing what it's doing, and they'll be just fine. The only ones that can cause Warframe's downfall is DE themselves (and let me tell you, if they keep on releasing terrible updates like Nightwave, they're heading straight towards that), the game industry as a whole is so incompetent at the moment, it will be a miracle if another game appears that could remotely threaten Warframe.

Honestly that hasn't been so true this year. Yea, Anthem failed. And Anthem was the most hyped game, the one all the Warframe youtubers were talking about, the apparent threat to WF even DE appeared to be a bit worried about. 

But Division 2 was actually a big critical success (and I think commercial too), it was probably one of the best and most complete looter shooter releases ever, outside of old Borderlands games, it has by far the best open world experience of any looter shooter game, the most comprehensive endgame content, etc. Perhaps the only reason we don't hear much about it inside the WF community is that the target demographic may be slightly different, since WF is a fantasy/scifi power fantasy and Division 2 is a more realistic tactical shooter. But it shows the competition within the looter shooter genre can be quite competent. In fact I'd go as far as saying Division 2 currently makes WF look bad in many departments, like challenge, enemy AI, endgame and open worlds. 

And now Borderlands 3 is on the verge of being released. Borderlands 2 was probably one of the best and most iconic games of this decade, the Borderlands franchise pretty much invented the looter shooter genre, their games are insanely fun and addictive. And the Borderlands 3 international reveal happened just a couple days ago, and I have to say it looked absolutely incredible, everything we have been waiting for. I had some doubts, but they were all dispelled by the reveal. And that game is also on the fantasy/scifi power fantasy niche. Although it probably doesn't have a "10 year plan" like all these live service looters. If the previous games are any indication, they'll probably support it for a couple years then move on to the next game. 

Edited May 3, 2019 by --END--Rikutatis

[Gabbynaru]

26 minutes ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

Honestly that hasn't been so true this year. Yea, Anthem failed. And Anthem was the most hyped game, the one all the Warframe youtubers were talking about, the apparent threat to WF even DE appeared to be a bit worried about. 

But Division 2 was actually a big critical success (and I think commercial too), it was probably one of the best and most complete looter shooter releases ever, outside of old Borderlands games, it has by far the best open world experience of any looter shooter game, the most comprehensive endgame content, etc. Perhaps the only reason we don't hear much about it inside the WF community is that the target demographic may be slightly different, since WF is a fantasy/scifi power fantasy and Division 2 is a more realistic tactical shooter. But it shows the competition within the looter shooter genre can be quite competent. In fact I'd go as far as saying Division 2 currently makes WF look bad in many departments, like challenge, enemy AI, endgame and open worlds. 

And now Borderlands 3 is on the verge of being released. Borderlands 2 was probably one of the best and most iconic games of this decade, the Borderlands franchise pretty much invented the looter shooter genre, their games are insanely fun and addictive. And the Borderlands 3 international reveal happened just a couple days ago, and I have to say it looked absolutely incredible, everything we have been waiting for. I had some doubts, but they were all dispelled by the reveal. And that game is also on the fantasy/scifi power fantasy niche. Although it probably doesn't have a "10 year plan" like all these live service looters. If the previous games are any indication, they'll probably support it for a couple years then move on to the next game. 

That's kind of the thing though, neither Division 2 nor Borderlands 3 are proper competition to Warframe. As you said, Division 2 is going for a totally different demographic, and while there will always be crossover, it's highly unlikely Warframe will lose a lot of players to Division 2, thanks to their many differences.

As for Borderlands, yeah, while it does fall under the same category as Warframe (sci-fi looter shooter), it still has one major difference that will ensure it won't be proper competition to Warframe. It is, essentially, a single-player game. Therefore, it has limited potential in player retention. It will have DLCs and expansions, sure, but if what Randy Pitchfork says it's true, and the game stays true to the Borderlands formula, then there will be little incentive for the great majority of players to stick with it for a long time.

Warframe is safe from both these games because neither of them are actively trying to stomp in Warframe's territory. There needs to be another Anthem, or another Destiny, a sci-fi, looter shooter live service game in order for Warframe to truly have competition. Because the competition from Borderlands is temporary, and Division is minding it's own business in the boring, brown military shooter corner of the room, nowhere near Warframe's turf. Until that happens, sadly, Warframe can just coast, and with peak levels of incompetence in the games industry as is, it would take someone like Ubisoft to make a sci-fi looter shooter live service before Warframe would feel any heat.

E3 is around the corner, maybe that will shed some light on this, but, on top of my head, I can't really think of any major sci-fi looter shooter live services coming in the near future, so, as I said, Warframe is safe for the time being. (Unless someone pulls an Apex Legends and just releases a game immediately after announcing it, that is)

[Ced23Ric]

39 minutes ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

Division 2

Borderlands 3

TCTD2 is currently in a state of disarray and suspended limbo after a launch state that is largely unbalanced. Major kudos to Massive to instantly launch a PTS, and working really amazingly closely with the community to address this, though. Yet, the TCTD2 endgame is severely unrefined (and not even fully released yet), and even the looting aspect is in jumbles, just like the skill system, crafting, enemy armor and eHP scaling, and more elements. Let's not paint it all green without being honest here, either. I've been with TCTD2 since the Technical Alpha, and played ~200h in the release version, too. Enemy AI is hilariously bad with enemies simply walking over you due to lacking of behavior checks, random spawns right on top of you, performance issues cause microstutters, memory leaks affect prolonged sessions, and glitches get people stuck in the progression quite often. Additionally, plans for upcoming gearsets are entirely wonky and whacky, abandoning the notion of down to earth tactical combat. The one thing Massive has over DE is their touch upon the community pulse, though. They're much closer than DE is in that regard.

BL3 is a skip for me, due to EPG memes, due to Randy Pitchfork trying to fool people into "working with Epic to get BL3 onto Steam", and to Gearbox management deciding to go with EPG due to money, despite what the actual development team wanted - and due to Gearbox grinding those guys to a fine dust, just like Epic is doing with their employees. Even if it wasn't a skip, it'd be a short-lived distractions, as Borderlands is a single player experience with optional coop, and additionally, has been bad since BL2, gone worse in 1.5, with only Borderlands 1 being truly unique and fresh - and honestly funny. It went downhill from there, and BL3 is going further down that path.

[--END--Rikutatis]

6 minutes ago, Ced23Ric said:

TCTD2 is currently in a state of disarray and suspended limbo after a launch state that is largely unbalanced. Major kudos to Massive to instantly launch a PTS, and working really amazingly closely with the community to address this, though. Yet, the TCTD2 endgame is severely unrefined (and not even fully released yet), and even the looting aspect is in jumbles, just like the skill system, crafting, enemy armor and eHP scaling, and more elements. Let's not paint it all green without being honest here, either. I've been with TCTD2 since the Technical Alpha, and played ~200h in the release version, too. Enemy AI is hilariously bad with enemies simply walking over you due to lacking of behavior checks, random spawns right on top of you, performance issues cause microstutters, memory leaks affect prolonged sessions, and glitches get people stuck in the progression quite often. Additionally, plans for upcoming gearsets are entirely wonky and whacky, abandoning the notion of down to earth tactical combat. The one thing Massive has over DE is their touch upon the community pulse, though. They're much closer than DE is in that regard.

BL3 is a skip for me, due to EPG memes, due to Randy Pitchfork trying to fool people into "working with Epic to get BL3 onto Steam", and to Gearbox management deciding to go with EPG due to money, despite what the actual development team wanted - and due to Gearbox grinding those guys to a fine dust, just like Epic is doing with their employees. Even if it wasn't a skip, it'd be a short-lived distractions, as Borderlands is a single player experience with optional coop, and additionally, has been bad since BL2, gone worse in 1.5, with only Borderlands 1 being truly unique and fresh - and honestly funny. It went downhill from there, and BL3 is going further down that path.

Gotta say I disagree with most of the things you said there, both about Division 2 and Borderlands. I mean, I know TD2 obviously has issues, no game is perfect, there's current balance issues with talents and whatnot that are being addressed, particularly in the PVP side of things (which is what interests me the most in Division 2). But enemy AI, scaling, etc., while having some issues here an there, is leagues ahead of what WF is atm. Or the looter genre as a whole tbh. It's not perfect, but it's just so much better than anything else out there (in the looter shooter genre, mind you). Endgame is lacking raids (with the first one coming soon), but other than that it's very robust with tons of stuff to do in open world, dark zone pvp, world tier 5 and whatnot. I honestly wasn't expecting them to fix the lackluster release dark zone pvp, but this PTR proved me wrong. It's still not quite there yet, but the fact the devs are listening so close and willing to compromise and go back to that original dark zone feel is very exciting. 

As for Borderlands, GB won't support the game forever, it's true, but saying it's a single player game is a stretch. BL has always been more fun in coop, BL 2 had so much coop endgame content, like 7+ raid bosses, tons of legendary loot to grind for, the digistruct 1h game mode, UVHM, etc. And you're pretty much alone in saying that everything after Borderlands 1 was a downhill descent. I mean, I'm trying not to LOL here. BL1 was alright, but BL2 was brilliant, an insane game. There's still thousands of people playing the game hourly on Steam (even before the remaster), with content creators pumping out content for a game that hasn't been supported in several years even today. It's widdely considered one of the best games in the shooter genre, and it's a huge step up from BL1. Also has the best story in any looter shooter, bar none. Presequel was admittedly inferior, but that's because it was done by 2k Australia, not Gearbox. And it's just a side game. 

[Ced23Ric]

4 minutes ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

Gotta say I disagree with most of the things you said there, both about Division 2 and Borderlands. I mean, I know TD2 obviously has issues, no game is perfect, there's current balance issues with talents and whatnot that are being addressed, particularly in the PVP side of things (which is what interests me the most in Division 2). But enemy AI, scaling, etc., while having some issues here an there, is leagues ahead of what WF is atm. Or the looter genre as a whole tbh. It's not perfect, but it's just so much better than anything else out there (in the looter shooter genre, mind you). Endgame is lacking raids (with the first one coming soon), but other than that it's very robust with tons of stuff to do in open world, dark zone pvp, world tier 5 and whatnot.

Perception always shifts with focus, I suppose. If you don't care about PvP, if your focus is with PvE, you hit the end of it rather fast. But, at this point, I don't think we're going to do this conversation any favors by derailing it further, not discussing the nitty gritty of an entirely different game in here. As for BL; I got almost 400 hours in BL1, barely 80 in BL2. Those are the things I can look at. Friends of mine ended up the same, and the writing of BL2 ended up ruining Anthony Burch (along his other escapades). Burch leaving Gearbox actually was a boon to any future Borderlands, on that note.

Hey, maybe BL3 will be great. I wish them all the best, really. They could use it.

[--END--Rikutatis]

50 minutes ago, Gabbynaru said:

Warframe is safe from both these games because neither of them are actively trying to stomp in Warframe's territory. There needs to be another Anthem, or another Destiny, a sci-fi, looter shooter live service game in order for Warframe to truly have competition. Because the competition from Borderlands is temporary, and Division is minding it's own business in the boring, brown military shooter corner of the room

I do agree with you in that regard. I don't think either of those games is the long term competition Warframe deserves (although I predict BL3 will pull me away from WF for several months at least 😂)

Destiny 2 has been getting better since Forsaken was released (with ups and downs, sure), and there's rumors of Destiny 3 on the internet, maybe now that Bungie is free of Activision, the next game might be good for a change. 

7 minutes ago, Ced23Ric said:

 the writing of BL2 ended up ruining Anthony Burch (along his other escapades). Burch leaving Gearbox actually was a boon to any future Borderlands, on that note.

LOL funny, I know there's a few ppl that didn't like his writing (although I think they're a minority), but for me I was actually very worried that BL3's writing and story wouldn't be up to par with him gone 😂

What I saw in the gameplay and stream reveals looked very good and funny though, dispelled my fears. 

Edited May 3, 2019 by --END--Rikutatis

[Sloan441]

Who? 

Ah, Path of Exile. 

No, couldn't care less. That game just seemed bland. No attraction. 

I do play a lot of ARPGs. The only one I'm playing at the moment is WF. That about says it all. 

BL3 is on the radar, but the Epic deal sinks it on PC for me and Randy is busy sinking any thought of it on console as he continually shows his ass on assorted social media. The man needs to learn and live the old aphorism about fools and talking. 

I'm sure something else will come up, but presently the only games I'm seriously looking forward to this year are the DOOM sequel and Cyberpunk 2077. 

Edited May 3, 2019 by Sloan441

[--END--Rikutatis]

24 minutes ago, Sloan441 said:

BL3 is on the radar, but the Epic deal sinks it on PC for me and Randy is busy sinking any thought of it on console as he continually shows his ass on assorted social media. The man needs to learn and live the old aphorism about fools and talking. 

I agree Randy is an A******, but it won't keep me from playing the game if it's good. And honestly I couldn't care less about Steam or Epic, the store front doesn't concern me too much (although I agree it'd be nice if Epic made their store more user friendly). I don't even play Warframe on Steam tbh (yea I know, I'm missing out on all the Tennogen). Valve has done some pretty S#&$ty things in the past as well, people just forgot.