"This is high level, we are starting at 35" ....ehm, what? :D

[OmgItsHongxD]

There's 10 pages here, so not sure if it's been posted (not going to comb through this) but there's three things I need to point out.

 

1. Enemies could be additionally difficult like that of the open world enemies. If anyone's played Tier 5 bounties in the Orb Valis, you know you can't compare that to level 50-60 corpus enemies on the star chart. It's simply not the same difficulty and their stats are different.

 

2. There will be new enemies to fight. We don't fully know how their mechanics will change the fights. They may present a new challenge. They were definitely more tanky than the standard enemies in the stream.

 

3. Each "defense point" was only a couple minutes. It looks like it will be similar to excavations in relation to fissures/arbitrations. Where enemies and rewards scale faster than normal because rotations are cycled faster.

[Ziser]

5 minutes ago, moostar95 said:

Ty, some fool thinks that is a highlight of someone's skill but doesn't take into consideration that people can be power carried by friends. 

This has been adressed before, when recruiting you go for higher MRs because theres a lot more experienced players in the higher MR brackets regardless if you like it or not.

The inexperienced players in lower MRs FAR outnumbers the ones in high MRs and thus still making MR a valid point for reqruiting more experienced and skilled players.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Ziser
typo

[IntheCoconut]

3 minutes ago, Ziser said:

Yea, i recrafted loads of weapons i removed during the years too, you start out with 2 warframe slots and 10 (no idea if its 10 or more) weaponslots which is WAY too low. The daily standing caps are there to make sure experienced players dont steamroll through the content within the first hours, sadly they punish newer players and those that do not spent a lot of hours a day to play the game, imo the daily standing caps are a flawed system.

You can enter players profile and check their equipment stats, usage time and kills done on weapons aswell as exp made is a good indicator showing if they actually used gear or just AFK farmed their mr.

 

Oh that's pretty nifty, I didn't know you could get that much detailed information from the profile. I think it might even be pretty fun if instead of experience with weapons, you had to get so many kills with a weapon to level it up. It would probably make things too competitive though, considering we already have Saryn who wipes out entire maps without lifting a finger which would effectively deny other players weapon kills. So that idea is probably too flawed, but still, I just wish there was a more active, merit-based system even if it was new and completely seperate from MR.

I really had no indication from the game that I was playing the game "wrong" until I unlocked Sorties. The star chart was so easy, it didn't require any thought or effort so I just focused on leveling weapons to climb the MR because why not? Then I did my first sortie and I went from one-shotting enemies to being one-shot myself. And they took a full clip just to kill one enemy. I admit I was frustrated and confused as to what I was doing wrong because its like someone just flipped a switch. I had to do a lot of back tracking and relearn how to play the game. 

I do have some hope that DE will make a better entry and middle point in the game as they redo the new-player experience. It might be a bit too optimistic of me to think that they'll fix all the issues I had to overcome but we'll see.

[Ziser]

1 minute ago, IntheCoconut said:

Oh that's pretty nifty, I didn't know you could get that much detailed information from the profile. I think it might even be pretty fun if instead of experience with weapons, you had to get so many kills with a weapon to level it up. It would probably make things too competitive though, considering we already have Saryn who wipes out entire maps without lifting a finger which would effectively deny other players weapon kills. So that idea is probably too flawed, but still, I just wish there was a more active, merit-based system even if it was new and completely seperate from MR.

I really had no indication from the game that I was playing the game "wrong" until I unlocked Sorties. The star chart was so easy, it didn't require any thought or effort so I just focused on leveling weapons to climb the MR because why not? Then I did my first sortie and I went from one-shotting enemies to being one-shot myself. And they took a full clip just to kill one enemy. I admit I was frustrated and confused as to what I was doing wrong because its like someone just flipped a switch. I had to do a lot of back tracking and relearn how to play the game. 

I do have some hope that DE will make a better entry and middle point in the game as they redo the new-player experience. It might be a bit too optimistic of me to think that they'll fix all the issues I had to overcome but we'll see.

I would love if they added a mastery system for weapons that can be displayed on weapons in the profile page showing how much you mastered the weapon, its a way to show how much you used it too.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

1 hour ago, stormy505 said:

it kinda makes sense why they would listen to casual players more than vets. just because of the sheer number difference. if we use achievement completion data then we can see that only a little over 2% of the player base has killed Terry, realistically speaking, the % of people who have done a tridolon is probably somewhere in the .006~% of the playerbase. and even less then that are those who can stomach endurance runs. realistically speaking. I doubt the number of people who have gone over 3 hours in an endless mission even breaks four digits. and if you think about it that way, newer and casual players bring in a much larger portion of the income and should be aimed at for future content from a business perspective.

EDIT: just found out something about the data above. you could increase all of the numbers above because I'm pretty sure steam only takes into account achievement completion data from people who use the steam launcher, (not 100% sure.) but this would explain why the achievement "agent: solve a cipher." only has 63.6% completion rate.

The edit doesn't make sense. Steam records it as a percentage and by and large they're fairly similar to the numbers on PS4 the last time I looked. 

That suggests that the numbers are probably pretty close to valid. 

The "not everyone has done a cipher", makes sense because some people would bail on the game for one reason or another after installing and initiating it the first time. Most of the people on the forums are probably in the very top tiers of all players percentage wise. 

[Chipputer]

18 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

The "not everyone has done a cipher", makes sense because some people would bail on the game for one reason or another after installing and initiating it the first time. Most of the people on the forums are probably in the very top tiers of all players percentage wise. 

And this is exactly why using achievements and such to figure out who or what to listen to is silly.

DE's direct data has shown that getting into the double digits of MR is already something relatively rare, when you look at the player base as a whole, so the data is already hard skewn in one direction regardless of how many people eventually reach the highest MR and do everything the game has to offer.

As I've said a few times before, this week, data requires context in order to be useful.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

32 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

And this is exactly why using achievements and such to figure out who or what to listen to is silly.

DE's direct data has shown that getting into the double digits of MR is already something relatively rare, when you look at the player base as a whole, so the data is already hard skewn in one direction regardless of how many people eventually reach the highest MR and do everything the game has to offer.

As I've said a few times before, this week, data requires context in order to be useful.

The same argument must also hold true in the opposite direction for just about anything that we see a lot of on the forums. It is a valid explanation for why DE should not automatically act on things that are being said by the tiny sample size that we have here (and that's before we get to the point where we admit that almost nothing is unanimously supported on the forum). 

[Ziser]

Just now, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

The same argument must also hold true in the opposite direction for just about anything that we see a lot of on the forums. It is a valid explanation for why DE should not automatically act on things that are being said by the tiny sample size that we have here (and that's before we get to the point where we admit that almost nothing is unanimously supported on the forum). 

Because listening to the players that actually take time and effort to discuss their ideas and give feedback here from people who actually invested time in the game is a bad thing compared to little Bill on his ps4 spending 4 hours on warframe every month while using his moms cred card to buy platinum and then gets upset because he cant do this mission because he dosnt have any experience so they have to lower the diff in general. His opinion is worth more for the games healthy growth rate right?

You start listening to casuals to evolve your game and you end up like the devs held and run by EA, we all know how their games hold a very high "Quality" in reacent years right? Reason to why Warframe holds and held quality throughout the years is because they listen to their community, reacently it feels like they listen to the wrong side of it though.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

2 minutes ago, Ziser said:

Because listening to the players that actually take time and effort to discuss their ideas and give feedback here from people who actually invested time in the game is a bad thing compared to little Bill on his ps4 spending 4 hours on warframe every month while using his moms cred card to buy platinum and then gets upset because he cant do this mission because he dosnt have any experience so they have to lower the diff in general. His opinion is worth more for the games healthy growth rate right?

You start listening to casuals to evolve your game and you end up like the devs held and run by EA, we all know how their games hold a very high "Quality" in reacent years right? Reason to why Warframe holds and held quality throughout the years is because they listen to their community, reacently it feels like they listen to the wrong side of it though.

Well seeing as how DE sort of depends on folks like little Billy and his mum's credit card to help keep the lights on, I'm glad you brought him up. 

Unless you plan on writing them blank cheques that will total in excess of what the casuals pay over the course of the year, it's kind of, maybe, just a little bit, probably a bad idea to just write them off as filthy casuals who shouldn't be listened to. 

Heck I have no problem admitting that I'm a casual who plays the game because I enjoy it as it currently exists. I don't particularly want to do multi-hour runs most of the time. I don't particularly see the allure of super high level enemies that we'll probably all end up cheesing in the exact same ways anyway. 

Worst of all, people don't seem to realise that the meaningless catchphrase they use so often "endgame", can be anything. In my time here I've seen multiple "endgame" requests, and multiple deliveries for new endgame content. But to no great surprise, the same people start complaining about the new content and some even try to get a head start, declaring the as yet unreleased content 'rubbish'. 

Like it or not, the majority of the players aren't sitting here on the forums. The highly vocal minority does certainly deserve to be heard, but they have absolutely no rights to demand that DE do what they're saying, especially since they seldom manage to get the rest of the minority to actually agree on anything. 

[Ziser]

3 hours ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Well seeing as how DE sort of depends on folks like little Billy and his mum's credit card to help keep the lights on, I'm glad you brought him up. 

Unless you plan on writing them blank cheques that will total in excess of what the casuals pay over the course of the year, it's kind of, maybe, just a little bit, probably a bad idea to just write them off as filthy casuals who shouldn't be listened to. 

Heck I have no problem admitting that I'm a casual who plays the game because I enjoy it as it currently exists. I don't particularly want to do multi-hour runs most of the time. I don't particularly see the allure of super high level enemies that we'll probably all end up cheesing in the exact same ways anyway. 

Worst of all, people don't seem to realise that the meaningless catchphrase they use so often "endgame", can be anything. In my time here I've seen multiple "endgame" requests, and multiple deliveries for new endgame content. But to no great surprise, the same people start complaining about the new content and some even try to get a head start, declaring the as yet unreleased content 'rubbish'. 

Like it or not, the majority of the players aren't sitting here on the forums. The highly vocal minority does certainly deserve to be heard, but they have absolutely no rights to demand that DE do what they're saying, especially since they seldom manage to get the rest of the minority to actually agree on anything. 

S#&$ man, you got me, im way to tired to keep arguing about this. I dont like people catering to greed and i seen what happened to EA because they developed their games around the casual gamers instead and we both seen how that went. I understand that they need to pay the bills too but im more than willing to spend if they give me a reason too, i already proved that.

The term "Casual" has split meanings today and i admitt i used it wrong, what i mean is lazy player that really dont have any real interest in the game and all its content nor any will to improve themself or even try at that. From what i seen you say about the eidolon adventures you had i cant really say youre a casual player so dont call yourself that, to me it seams like you just dont have the same motivation or interest to push your own limits to the hardcore level of some other players. The players i am talking about wouldent even take up the challange to do the eidolons at all.

 Its suprisingly hard to find definition of what "Endgame" stands for in the gaming word since all i get is Avengers Endgame material en masse. I had a heated discussion with some lads about what meta stands for and it cares nothing of what your opinion of what meta is, so does endgame. I already said it and i say it again, somone who havent reached endgame or have any intention to reach it or even want to reach it less put effort in reaching it has no right to bring opinions on it.

Youre right, the majority of players arent here on the forums, not all of them have the patience or interest to discuss, they just want to play. My forum profile was made in may 2013 and i have not used the forum almost at all yet here i am now. I see lots of great ideas, bad ideas and discussion. I see myself as a rather sound and logic dude with good common sense (clanmates would want to disagree lmao) so i make myself heard. I am no fan of doing things half assed or being lazy neither taking the voices of those that fit that description seriously either. Theres people that have real interest in the deep parts of the game and invest time and money in the game to experience it to its fullest, those are the people whos opinions and voices matter the most out of a logical point with common sense.

When i who read something about cars online and changed tires on it comes with opinions to the car mechanic thats about to fix my car then i dont see why he should take my uneducated opinions on how his work should be done or how the car should work. To do that i first need to make sure i have enough knowledge and experience to make sound arguments and have proper discussions with him, same thing works here.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2019 by Ziser
Typos will end me, THERES MORE, *DYING*

[Letter13]

Did some spring cleaning of the thread.

Please try to stay on topic folks, insulting one another (or the developers) does not make for constructive discussion. Arguing and disagreeing is fine, and if you can't agree on something, don't resort to using personal attacks as a way to discredit who you're arguing with. Such a tactic is a violation of the rules, and does not actually increase your own credibility or sway in a debate.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Letter13

[Chipputer]

7 hours ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

The same argument must also hold true in the opposite direction for just about anything that we see a lot of on the forums. It is a valid explanation for why DE should not automatically act on things that are being said by the tiny sample size that we have here (and that's before we get to the point where we admit that almost nothing is unanimously supported on the forum). 

Oh, absolutely. Not only are the people who get to maximum MR a minority but the amount of those that post on the forums are a minority within a minority. The difference is that we're not expecting them to act, immediately, upon what we're saying. That's why we have discussion. It's just important to keep in mind that numbers are often deceiving.

[ikkabotz]

On 2019-05-04 at 1:27 PM, Jaysus41 said:

I'm pretty sure she means high level in relation to the average player. Lets not forget Super-Duper-No-Lifers that can 1 shot anything under level 1337 are an extreme minority.

Regardless, I dont see why they don't have a sliding scale to customize starting at desired levels of difficulty to accommodate that window of game to play in. What's there to lose? They have something already in place like simulacrum to do it and seems like an easy development arch with existing code

[Corvid]

3 hours ago, ikkabotz said:

Regardless, I dont see why they don't have a sliding scale to customize starting at desired levels of difficulty to accommodate that window of game to play in. What's there to lose? They have something already in place like simulacrum to do it and seems like an easy development arch with existing code

I would guess the issue is public matchmaking. Most nodes don't have enough open squads to support being split between different levels. Only way I could see it working without screwing over new players would be to let the matchmaking algorithm search for squads at your desired level or less. Even that would have its issues.

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

41 minutes ago, Corvid said:

I would guess the issue is public matchmaking. Most nodes don't have enough open squads to support being split between different levels. Only way I could see it working without screwing over new players would be to let the matchmaking algorithm search for squads at your desired level or less. Even that would have its issues.

Bingo.

Basically, watch that "100 Day of Warframe" animation on YouTube (it's awesome, and pretty accurate), but then take out the instance of the high-level player showing up.  Now, what would happen to that newbie thereafter?  Hmm...

It's not that DE isn't aware of issues, but many of these so-called "simple fixes" people purport take longer and are more complicated to implement, logistically, than players give them credit for.

Edited May 7, 2019 by (PS4)Taishin_Ishu

[(PSN)psycofang]

On 2019-05-04 at 3:35 PM, (NSW)Sniperfox47 said:

Level 35 is the level that enemies at Sedna spawn, the very last planet on the star chart (other than the special void missions). It's the most difficult starchart mission level, so as far as casuals like me are concerned that's pretty high level.

See i cant understand this logic because so long as you say build and mod a hek for corrisive or blast youll 1 shot those level 35 enemies. Doesnt even need a forma n its just 3 mods not even leveled proper.

Everyone has access to weapons like hek or better by sedna

 

Most people can't even die because the usual nooby build is shields, hp, intensify, streamline and whatever else bumps up their hp more.

Edited May 7, 2019 by (PS4)psycofang

[Corvid]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

It's not that DE isn't aware of issues, but many of these so-called "simple fixes" people purport take longer and are more complicated to implement, logistically, than players give them credit for.

To say nothing of the fact that a lot of these "solutions" may end up creating worse problems in the long run.

[Chipputer]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

Bingo.

Basically, watch that "100 Day of Warframe" animation on YouTube (it's awesome, and pretty accurate), but then take out the instance of the high-level player showing up.  Now, what would happen to that newbie thereafter?  Hmm...

It's not that DE isn't aware of issues, but many of these so-called "simple fixes" people purport take longer and are more complicated to implement, logistically, than players give them credit for.

So your solution is to do nothing and allow things to perpetually stagnate because you have a negative bias to players who call themselves veterans.

Right. Gotcha. 

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

55 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

So your solution is to do nothing and allow things to perpetually stagnate because you have a negative bias to players who call themselves veterans.

Right. Gotcha. 

Who said "Do nothing"?  Don't put words in my mouth...

I simply said not to approach the issue as "DE doesn't care. DE is stupid. DE doesn't know their game." etc.  That's a HUGE assumption, and isn't based on anything factual.

Rather, trust the devs that have successfully kept this FREE game alive and thriving for over 6 years now...that hey, they might know a thing or two about how to develop the game 😛

Regardless, all I suggested is that a simple slider has its own issues, but anytime someone tries to bring up FLAWS with your suggestions, y'all just start calling us names.

I'm sorry, I thought this was a DISCUSSION, not a one-way s#!+-talking of DE.  

Dividing PUB instances and matchmaking up further has many issues...and to have a -slider- is even worse.  

The current new player experience RELIES on chance encounters with more experienced players.  It's why we have things like NightWave that encourage us to REVISIT low-level nodes.  It's why we have Clans.  It's why things like PoE have content that is both low AND high level.

If you split up the audience such that high and low level players seldom interact, it's going to take a chunk out of the new player retention, and thus a chunk out of revenue and growth of Warframe.  DE has already stated they're aware of new player issues, and they're working on it....but it isn't just a problem you can snap your fingers and  fix.

Oversimplifying the issue and presenting DE as some band of fools is not helping -anyone-

Most of all. ..if y'all got "helpful feedback"...it should be in Feedback.

[Ziser]

49 minutes ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

Dividing PUB instances and matchmaking up further has many issues...and to have a -slider- is even worse.  

The current new player experience RELIES on chance encounters with more experienced players.  It's why we have things like NightWave that encourage us to REVISIT low-level nodes.  It's why we have Clans.  It's why things like PoE have content that is both low AND high level.

If you split up the audience such that high and low level players seldom interact, it's going to take a chunk out of the new player retention, and thus a chunk out of revenue and growth of Warframe.  DE has already stated they're aware of new player issues, and they're working on it....but it isn't just a problem you can snap your fingers and  fix.

Ay this is the best argument against adding a diffculty slider or options to play missions with higher starting levels that i seen so far. Shames me i havent thought about it myself. It pains me to having to agree with it since i would really love starting missions with higher levels on enemies but i also like helping others and that inculdes carrying players in pubs, i only ever do pubs when i dont do full premades, even sortie spies.

Untill DE really cleans up earlygame for new players to give them the help they need without having to rely on more experienced players and veterans then adding a diffculty slider wont be a too good idea.

Im still 100% for it though 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

13 hours ago, Chipputer said:

Oh, absolutely. Not only are the people who get to maximum MR a minority but the amount of those that post on the forums are a minority within a minority. The difference is that we're not expecting them to act, immediately, upon what we're saying. That's why we have discussion. It's just important to keep in mind that numbers are often deceiving.

I'd replace "immediately", as it implies that the expectation is that they should act at all. I've seen a lot of suggestions that I believe are totally wrong headed. Others I support the principles in general, but strongly disagree with the proposed way to produce the changes. A very small number are ones where I see merit in the idea and the suggested details of how implementing it could be done. 

 

The worst ones are usually where people say they want vague things like "endgame" and "challenge" without saying what they mean by that. Lots of people jump on the bandwagon, but as soon as they all start to flesh out the details, all hell breaks loose, because everyone thinks that their version is the only acceptable version. 

[--END--Rikutatis]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

...

Dividing PUB instances and matchmaking up further has many issues...and to have a -slider- is even worse.  

The current new player experience RELIES on chance encounters with more experienced players.  It's why we have things like NightWave that encourage us to REVISIT low-level nodes.  It's why we have Clans.  It's why things like PoE have content that is both low AND high level.

If you split up the audience such that high and low level players seldom interact, it's going to take a chunk out of the new player retention, and thus a chunk out of revenue and growth of Warframe.  DE has already stated they're aware of new player issues, and they're working on it....but it isn't just a problem you can snap your fingers and  fix.
 

While I understand what you're saying here, I genuinely feel like this is one of those issues where the pros far outweigh the cons in the long run. Yea, with everyone stuck in the same Starchart, there's a higher chance newbies will find veterans in public match making. But then what kind of experience will that be? Usually if a veteran is in a low lvl node, he's probably speedrunning the mission to farm something specific with a loadout that is wiping the entire map and triviliazing the content. I hardly feel like that's a stellar gameplay experience for the newbie getting carried (or dragged) across the mission. So unless it's a newbie that specifically wants to get carried through a mission he can't complete by himself, it's not like he's missing any kind of quality social experience. And honestly, I personally don't adhere to the mindset of veterans carrying new players. New players should instead be learning the game and growing. Plus clans are always there for people that want to play with others (yea, we need better in game tools for browsing and finding clans). 

Then the cons are what we have here: vets forced to play missions that were designed to entertain brand new players (sometimes as low as single digit enemy levels). So basically the content feels trivial and lacks challenge, the progression is entirely skewed and feels rather pointless when you're farming to become more powerful but you continue to play in the same mission levels you were playing before you had all that power. That's just broken design for a progression based game, there's no other way to put it. No other looter shooter that I know of does this. Warframe has been slowly improving in that regard, with stuff like sorties, ESO and Arbitrations added into the game, but it's honestly at such a glacial pace while we still need to farm resources, mods, blueprints, prime items and everything else in the low level missions. 

[Chipputer]

24 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

The worst ones are usually where people say they want vague things like "endgame" and "challenge" without saying what they mean by that. Lots of people jump on the bandwagon, but as soon as they all start to flesh out the details, all hell breaks loose, because everyone thinks that their version is the only acceptable version. 

Which is why I default to supporting, "just give me some higher level nodes or the option to raise the starting level of the current nodes," as it's the only neutral way to add anything vaguely, "endgame," to the game.

The main issue is that Warframe isn't a difficult game. The mechanics aren't exactly... ground breaking and learning what works together and what doesn't is actually fairly simple as long as you're actually using the items that you level for mastery and experimenting here and there.
EX: Unairu is considered off-META because the bonuses it offers are only really useful during an Eidolon hunt, however due to the mechanics of Oberon's Smite, Unairu's bullet attractor allows you to create a mini-nuke on one priority target.

I support people who want easier access to higher level enemies. I also support the vague notion of, "improved enemy AI," but I've yet to see, or think of, a detailed solution for it that I can get behind.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Chipputer
added a few words

[IntheCoconut]

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

While I understand what you're saying here, I genuinely feel like this is one of those issues where the pros far outweigh the cons in the long run. Yea, with everyone stuck in the same Starchart, there's a higher chance newbies will find veterans in public match making. But then what kind of experience will that be? Usually if a veteran is in a low lvl node, he's probably speedrunning the mission to farm something specific with a loadout that is wiping the entire map and triviliazing the content. I hardly feel like that's a stellar gameplay experience for the newbie getting carried (or dragged) across the mission. So unless it's a newbie that specifically wants to get carried through a mission he can't complete by himself, it's not like he's missing any kind of quality social experience. And honestly, I personally don't adhere to the mindset of veterans carrying new players. New players should instead be learning the game and growing. Plus clans are always there for people that want to play with others (yea, we need better in game tools for browsing and finding clans). 

Then the cons are what we have here: vets forced to play missions that were designed to entertain brand new players (sometimes as low as single digit enemy levels). So basically the content feels trivial and lacks challenge, the progression is entirely skewed and feels rather pointless when you're farming to become more powerful but you continue to play in the same mission levels you were playing before you had all that power. That's just broken design for a progression based game, there's no other way to put it. No other looter shooter that I know of does this. Warframe has been slowly improving in that regard, with stuff like sorties, ESO and Arbitrations added into the game, but it's honestly at such a glacial pace while we still need to farm resources, mods, blueprints, prime items and everything else in the low level missions. 

I understand what you are saying and while I agree that having veterans carry new players through missions only trivializes an already easy-to-play game, it is all about marketing and the new player perception of the game. Having a fragmented playerbase means you will meet other players less frequently. It means you often times will do a mission solo or with an incomplete squad, which to a new player, creates the perception of a dead, unpopular game. So if a new player thinks a game is dead, why would they want to continue playing? Long-term players know the game isn't dead, there are just a lot of activities to do and little reason to revisit old content. We also have tools available to us (dojo/clan, recruit chat, etc) to help form parties, but many new players wont know about these tools or just wont feel invested enough yet to put in the effort. New players are testing the game to see what it offers and determine if they want to stick around.

A while back, Activision came under scrutiny for submitting a patent involving a controversial matchmaking system. The algorithm would find and identify new players, and intentionally match them with or against higher level players. The theory behind it is that new players will be impressed by the skilled players, and its a double win for Activision if that veteran player happens to be loaded out with cash-shop cosmetics and gear. It entices the new player to stay and spend money so that they can "emulate" what that cool skilled veteran was doing. Fairness and honesty in matchmaking can be d*mned, because its more important to Activision that their new players be exposed to the cash shop as frequently as possible, even if its just to see another player wearing them and dominating the scoreboard.

Now, I'm not proposing that DE is this nefarious. Activision's matchmaking patent is a bit more egregious because it involves player-vs-player games whereas Warframe is a PvE game first and foremost, so its impact is a lot less harmful to its players than say in a game like Overwatch. But it certainly is in their benefit to create an early perception for new players that the game is popular and has an active playerbase. I'm also not saying it is a perfect or even favorable system because it has its flaws. As you mentioned, it can trivialize content for new players, and it can also aggravate some veterans because they are being forced to participate in old content to get new rewards (Nightwave). But it seems the pros outway the cons in DE's perspective, because keeping new players engaged and interested early on is important to them and that is why they continue to add rewards to old content so that Veterans are enticed to revisit old content. I'm not a game designer and so I don't know what a good solution would be where it both gives veterans what they want, and gives the same current outcome of new player retention.

Edited May 7, 2019 by IntheCoconut

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

45 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

Which is why I default to supporting, "just give me some higher level nodes or the option to raise the starting level of the current nodes," as it's the only neutral way to add anything vaguely, "endgame," to the game.

The main issue is that Warframe isn't a difficult game. The mechanics aren't exactly... ground breaking and learning what works together and what doesn't is actually fairly simple as long as you're actually using the items that you level for mastery and experimenting here and there.
EX: Unairu is considered off-META because the bonuses it offers are only really useful during an Eidolon hunt, however due to the mechanics of Oberon's Smite, Unairu's bullet attractor allows you to create a mini-nuke on one priority target.

I support people who want easier access to higher level enemies. I also support the vague notion of, "improved enemy AI," but I've yet to see, or think of, a detailed solution for it that I can get behind.

Unfortunately as people are showing, being able to adjust difficulty of the nodes is going to lock you into nodes of your own unless you preform groups. 

On the other hand I've never seen a single convincing argument that explains why not taking fully ranked or fully modded gear would not be an acceptable alternative. 

Given the complaints we regularly see about the wolf/Stalker/g3 spawning during gear levelling I have reason to believe that it is a viable option to tailor challenge to the individuals personal taste.