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[Endgame] Why we had it and why we lost it


Wawus
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Riven mods aren't needed at all in this game, they just made them to change it up a bit and keep some people interested despite how awful the riven system is (spend 1 million kuva on a single riven, still don't have the roll you want.  Farming 1 million kuva takes weeks of playtime + a booster.  Pretty unreasonable.)  

We had raids at one point.  Oh and tactical alerts that were hard as piss.    Now we just have stuff that's all trivial to anyone who knows how to mod properly.  It isn't just corrupted mods that cause warframe problems because you get 300+ power strength and such, it's also arcanes like energize that give frames so much power.  I can take my frost into hydron and full wipe anything within range with his 4.  When you go as a team and build a squad based on frame synergies, it gets even more trivial when you're using rhino roar with 330ish strength in combination with any frame that deals damage with abilities + good CC that is also likely boosting your damage like molecular prime.  

What's going to be done about any of this?  Likely nothing, as it requires a massive overhaul to fix the powercreep problem that would take months to years of work.  

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5 hours ago, Wawus said:

Thanks for coming by.

I keep seeing these rants about no real endgame, which is true, but at the same people complaining about "inaccessibility" of content at certain times. Whether it's Nightwave's challenge to Kill Profit-Taker, or first version of Sanctuary Onslaught Elite, or even great first impression of difficult, no-revives Arbitrations. We had it all. We had difficult challenges, we had quite difficult first Nightwave.

 

So what happened? People started to complain, that balance of effort vs reward isn't all that great. Or that these items are beyond player's gear or understanding of the game. Or that I want rewards NOW.

 

It is concerning, that DE did bend to begging of these, who wanted to lower the challenge. If that habit stays true, I can already see uprising group ready to blow up a Kingpin system. 

The only way to make any type of content "Endgame" is if you really give us ridiculous challenge, something that will test our years of collecting and upgrading mods, our passion to maximize or specialise. Two different types of enemies requiring equipping specific mods? Elemental damage buff rotation, so you have to bring two different weapons with different elements if you want to stay alive? Special requirements limiting gear, weapon types, maybe random nullification of one of the abilities? Make it a little harder for us. And yes, divide. Let us feel that we have earned getting past wave 5.

If I have to maximize Serration or Primed mods to be able to beat challenges (but barely) then yes, I'm all in!

 

I'm also more into locking items behind progression and skill rather than time, it just gives sense of growth and direction.

Do you agree? 

i disagree in the NW part because of one thing, well two but they sprout from the same seed, NW challenges aren't endgame,they are just grind.

i have no problem with them i am just saying they lack all the characteristics of what is traditionally intended as endgame and they consist in the same content that you'd normally play regardless of the weeklys 

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9 hours ago, Wawus said:

or even great first impression of difficult, no-revives Arbitrations

There was nothing hard about Arbitrations that wasn't already in the base missions. No revives mode is just annoying

This leads into my broader problem with your thesis: Warframe rewards preparation, not skill. We will have no endgame unless and until DE decides to test for skill as well

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Some of you guys should wake up and realize that DE is aiming for a target group that probably never would reach any existing endgame. We don't know the numbers but I wouldn't be surprised if the average MR rank in this game is inbetween 2 and 4.

I recently watched an interview with Rebecca where she stated that this game needs veterans as it needs new players. Vets would guide new players and make this game more accessible. I thought: C'mon you need vets to drain plat. That's the main reason. 

The other point is forum posts. Every game has its let's say 10 to 100 guys who are continuously active. If I were a marketing guy I wouldn't be worried about someone with 5k posts who claims to play this game since closed beta when he says: this or that feature is bad.

I would be worried if a guy - who plays this game for about a month - creats a forum account just to express that he's unhappy with this game because Nightwave is triggering his PTSD or what shirt ever.

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Endgame in a game crippled with powercreep meta won't be easy to implement. Because "hard" depends on how you're geared, and once people get their shiny stuff they don't want DE to nerf it.

Good "content" :

  • pick-up a Prime Mag and solo mot (without adaptation). between 15min and 20min is the sweet spot : you have to care about the damage NPC deal (they almost 1-shot you), you do huge damage output,  the reward is OK (Void high tier relics). Before 15min it's kinda easy, after 20min start the nullifier spam that make it tedious.

"Bad" content :

  • the Profit taker, the heavy weapon mini-game is meh, the damage cycling is meh, and the overall meta for it is just tankiness and DPS (akka bring Chroma, and maybe Inaros)
  • Eidolon. It's time gated. The easy one is... easy. The rest almost impossibru to do it with PUG not because it require a good team but because the meta is too narrow and the focus school pre-requisite are too high : shards are the almost only way to have a correct operator build, but to have them you have to do tridolon but you can't because you don't have shards...

--> And both of them are eye cancer, huge NPC AoE spam, knockdown and "magic" energy drain

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None of you even came close to having a coherent idea of what this "endgame" should be. You just ask for it without even knowing what you want. This will fail no matter what. Make it doable  with PUG? Players will solo it and then cry that its to easy. Make it pre-made only? Nobody will play it like raids. There is so many different ways to play the game that no matter what you think of somebody will cheese it or it wont be played at all.

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nah, we never had endgame. we never had a gameplay loop with challenging/scaling content and appropriately scaling rewards for that effort. maybe years ago with endurance runs, but i wasnt there for that. the most challenging content is still endurance runs, which gives garbo rewards now. and Eidolons, which aren't difficult but at least they have a type of "gear check", are satisfying, and give very good rewards. Orbs fights were a miss for me, as they weren't in any way difficult, and gave crap rewards.

WF simply needs tougher content that gives bigger rewards for those who enjoy this type of trade off, but this requires balancing of frames and mods so that people can't cheese the highest gains. which DE won't do, instead sweeping problems under the carpet for years.

i actually really like the Nightwave system, because it allows everyone to progress and get the same rewards. But those who want can do it a bit faster by completing the tougher challenges.

Syndicates, if they were expanded upon, could provide an additional endgame loop. imagine if every Syndicate had their own type of "endgame" game mode, like AoH have Arbies.

Anyway, I'm pretty optimistic Railjack will give us the endgame loop that we've been asking for, with these raid-like scenarios. but again, they need to properly balance difficulty and rewards...for which they need to balance the game.

Edited by Ikyr0
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33 minutes ago, kuciol said:

None of you even came close to having a coherent idea of what this "endgame" should be. You just ask for it without even knowing what you want. This will fail no matter what. Make it doable  with PUG? Players will solo it and then cry that its to easy. Make it pre-made only? Nobody will play it like raids. There is so many different ways to play the game that no matter what you think of somebody will cheese it or it wont be played at all.

plenty of us know what we want.

I want raids/dungeons and similar content where I'm not one-shotting the boss for some garbo reward. over and over again. I want more content like Eidolons, with the scaling of Arbitrations, but without cheese mechanics, which requires balancing for some frames and mods. I want builds and loadouts to actually matter. I want there to be a need for different types of frames and weapons. Eidolons were fantastic, but Orbs sucked. No one does Orbs, unless they have to. I hope Railjack brings more content like Eidolons. I don't mind if casuals get content, but there has to be an endgame loop for the large number of us (a lot inactive atm) who want this kind of gameplay.

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Rivens, Conclave, ESO, Kuva are endgame i thought?

I played some challenging games in my time and they all had very short life span because the mechanics always boil down to easiest route. Even seasonal esports are all about easiest route 1 to completion.

So before i rant too much more.. Please define for us your idea of what is challenge? Bullet sponges? No energy? Insane 1 hit k/o's? No ammo? The game of Chess? Monopoly perhaps? A combination of all of them when doing headstands?

DE attempted to produce "the most challenging content" they could think of in the past in the form of raids. A single digit % of the active player base even bothered and as DE said. The resources they had to commit to produce it was wasteful considering the end result. They even tried to give people a boost by running alerts gifting the most desirable corrupted mods because of how few unpopular raids were. You know because DE thought maybe people were too undergeared for it.

The beauty about Warframe to me is the sandbox nature lets me define my own terms when i go into a mission. I dont need a special type of mission parameters to find difficulty in this game. I can go in with a rank1 weapon unmodded or i can choose to go into missions without any reliance on energy efficiency or survival mods.

The moment you try and squeeze people into difficult they'll just all center around the easiest route and very quickly get bored because thats all they know. Or they'll just leave the game and any investment they want to make on investing in cosmetics because their best looking character sucks for particular "challenge".

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@Wawus

Thank you for sharing your thought on this. It's a good one. Let me share mine.

End game is actually a relative term. It means different things for different players. Here is what I think what end game is. 

For me, the end game includes activities that I can continuously improve or items that I can continuously collect. The end game is also min-maxing each and all of my favorite frames and weapons in my arsenal for different mission types. I even have 2 or 3 instances of the same frame min-maxed for different missions. I also have 3, 4, or even 7 pieces of the same weapon for different builds and Mods because ABC for one is not enough. The end game also includes doing fashion frames perfectly to my own preference and taste. All frames and all weapons must look great. The end game also includes excelling in  each and all mission types, including the hardest ones for most new and mid-tier players. Some of these missions include Eidolon hunt, ESO, and super long survival missions. The end game also includes collect everything, every frame, every weapon, and every Mod that's available to me. The end game also means to have a good connection of the best/top/knowledgeable/experienced players as my friends in game. The end game includes maxing all Focus Schools. The end game also includes getting certain Rivens to optimize my favorite weapons. 

It's endless.

Have you excelled any of these extremely well? How many Eidolon sets have you captured? 10? 100? 500? or 1000? Many of my friends are top hunters and have done thousands of sets, a lot more than me, but I think I have done quite well as a Eidolon hunter, better than 95%+ players. Same for ESO. Same for long survival. I have also collected 99% Mods, except Conclave ones. 

Your endgame is what you define it is out of the current mission types that are available to you. DE still releases new contends and new game modes regularly and that doing new missions, new Quests, getting new items is also an end game that gets updated continuously by DE. 

Finally, if you have achieved the level to ask and demand more end game contends, it's good thing. It also means you are staying at the cutting edge of Warframe, doesn't need to play catch up games to do whatever new contends released by DE. Just relax and enjoy. always do what you like the most in game, and help new players. For them, almost everything is new and everything is end game.

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46 minutes ago, MonsterOfMyOwn said:

Endgame in a game crippled with powercreep meta won't be easy to implement. Because "hard" depends on how you're geared, and once people get their shiny stuff they don't want DE to nerf it.

Good "content" :

  • pick-up a Prime Mag and solo mot (without adaptation). between 15min and 20min is the sweet spot : you have to care about the damage NPC deal (they almost 1-shot you), you do huge damage output,  the reward is OK (Void high tier relics). Before 15min it's kinda easy, after 20min start the nullifier spam that make it tedious.

"Bad" content :

  • Eidolon. It's time gated. The easy one is... easy. The rest almost impossibru to do it with PUG not because it require a good team but because the meta is too narrow and the focus school pre-requisite are too high : shards are the almost only way to have a correct operator build, but to have them you have to do tridolon but you can't because you don't have shards...

So control power creep better. They made a mistake with Kitguns, but imo they've done a fine job with the recent frames. And there are other mistakes from the past, like Mesa and Saryn, which they can't fix now because it would piss off to many people.

Agreed that Mag is a fun, balanced frame that rewards skilled gameplay and punishes bad mistakes. More content like this is always good.

Agreed that Orbs are garbage because they're too easy, and mostly because they give complete trash rewards.

Disagree that Eidolons are bad content. They have a "gear check", require a comp, and give excellent rewards. So basically the only "raid" WF has. time-gating is a non-issue because brand new players shouldn't have access to endgame raids. they never did in any game for good reason -  need something to build toward, i.e. a reason for all the power creep. WF is otherwise devoid of content on which you can use your "power creeped" equipment on, and this in turn creates a huge sense of meaninglessness once you've unlocked everything that you want. mind you, this doesn't happen until at least 1k hours, but that's where a lot of us are at.

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6 minutes ago, CarrotSalad said:

The beauty about Warframe to me is the sandbox nature lets me define my own terms when i go into a mission. I dont need a special type of mission parameters to find difficulty in this game. I can go in with a rank1 weapon unmodded or i can choose to go into missions without any reliance on energy efficiency or survival mods.

@CarrotSalad Well said. Totally agree. End game is what a player defines what it is in the game. There are so many things, objectives, goals in the game that can be end game.

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10 hours ago, (XB1)TJC569 said:

The sad part is I like the idea of riven mods as they have gotten me to use weapons I might not otherwise have gotten other than for MR farming. 

This is not sad. Rivens are great system. because Rivens have gotten you, me and many players to use weapons we might not otherwise have gotten other than for MR farming. 

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12 hours ago, Wawus said:

The only way to make any type of content "Endgame" is if you really give us ridiculous challenge, something that will test our years of collecting and upgrading mods, our passion to maximize or specialise. Two different types of enemies requiring equipping specific mods? Elemental damage buff rotation, so you have to bring two different weapons with different elements if you want to stay alive? Special requirements limiting gear, weapon types, maybe random nullification of one of the abilities? Make it a little harder for us. And yes, divide. Let us feel that we have earned getting past wave 5.

This is not challenging at all.... if the mission requires modding for two different weapons to kill enemies with two different weaknesses then thats what players are going to do.... as if weapon switching is hard. 

If you scale enemies up beyond your ability to kill them with the mods that exist then.... whats the point ? While you're at it try licking your Own Forehead....

12 hours ago, Wawus said:

I'm also more into locking items behind progression and skill rather than time, it just gives sense of growth and direction.

Do you agree? 

This I actually agree with....

 

Also I coudn't help but notice that no where did you ever mention anything about fun or varied gameplay and mechanics..... which is pattern I've noticed whenever one of these "Endgame" threads comes up..... in case you haven't noticed.... this is how we wound up with crap like Arbitrations, Eidolons and The Profit Taker. your suggestions are just going to bring more if the same with all the same complaints. 

How can Warframe have End Game when it can't even get Regular Game right ? 

Fun First... and if theres any leftovers then focus on End Game. 

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45 minutes ago, CarrotSalad said:

1. Rivens, Conclave, ESO, Kuva are endgame i thought?

2. I played some challenging games in my time and they all had very short life span because the mechanics always boil down to easiest route. Even seasonal esports are all about easiest route 1 to completion.

3. So before i rant too much more.. Please define for us your idea of what is challenge? Bullet sponges? No energy? Insane 1 hit k/o's? No ammo? The game of Chess? Monopoly perhaps? A combination of all of them when doing headstands?

4. DE attempted to produce "the most challenging content" they could think of in the past in the form of raids. A single digit % of the active player base even bothered and as DE said. The resources they had to commit to produce it was wasteful considering the end result. They even tried to give people a boost by running alerts gifting the most desirable corrupted mods because of how few unpopular raids were. You know because DE thought maybe people were too undergeared for it.

5. The beauty about Warframe to me is the sandbox nature lets me define my own terms when i go into a mission. I dont need a special type of mission parameters to find difficulty in this game. I can go in with a rank1 weapon unmodded or i can choose to go into missions without any reliance on energy efficiency or survival mods.

6. The moment you try and squeeze people into difficult they'll just all center around the easiest route and very quickly get bored because thats all they know. Or they'll just leave the game and any investment they want to make on investing in cosmetics because their best looking character sucks for particular "challenge".

ok, i'll bite.

1. Rivens: not an endgame. it's equipment. now give me something to use my Riven on. other than doing 1mill overdamage on an Eidolon limb ffs. Conclave: what? ESO: not an endgame, just an easy gameplay loop for affinity; maybe it was endgame on release, but now with everyone maxed out on all the schools, it has little purpose beyond Hydron 2.0. ESO badly needs to be updated. Kuva: if we had more content like Kuva Floods, maybe. But just kuva isn't an endgame - kuva is a resource. what kuva and rivens are is gambling, and some of us don't want this as the main endgame activity. thankfully, it's completely unnecessary and I avoid it. but that's no excuse to not provide another endgame activity.

2. this is just not true. The first Division game and PoE are examples of games with excellent endgame loops that can be done in many different ways. and you've obviously also never played Dota 2. There are many games with good endgame activities that you can complete with various builds/classes, even without following some meta.

3. Challenge: let's start with content that has some minimal skill check. for example, if you don't move, you die. very basic right? well, Warframe doesn't have that in most of its content. My Nezha, for example, can stand still in some level 15, 20, 30, 60, or even lvl 90 mission, and never die while completing the objective and getting a reward. Any stealth frame can complete a level 5000 mission while standing still. you get my drift? Start by adding enemies that can actually harm a fully maxed out frame.

4. DE failed to produce content that was both fun and challenging. Raids didn't fail because they were too challenging, but because they weren't fun. You're quite wrong on this one. imo, Eidolons and Arbitrations have a decent balance between reward and challenge. Nightwave too, but it's not real content, it's basically just achievements. However, its reward system is great.

5. This isn't a bad point, kind of like why I would take my Mag into an Arbitration instead of Nidus - it's fun to complete higher level content with a squishier frame. There is a built-in skill check. But here's why almost no one does it, and I do it only rarely: there's no additional reward for working harder. This is very simple psychology. Based on your idea (to self-sabotage), I should at least then get a higher reward for completing a 1hr Arbie with Mag instead of Nidus. Because if I don't, then I will almost always just use the "more efficient/less stressful" frame.

Also, WF throws too much power-creeped stuff at players that it is difficult to not use something that makes the game so easy. Difficulty needs to be built into the sandbox. You shouldn't be able to completely opt out of difficult content, even in a sandbox. This is just my opinion though, and this is where the player base diverges. For example, if everyone is using the Catchmoon, and if DE doesn't want to nerf it, then there needs to be some enemy variant that can easily survive its energy blasts so the player is forced to at least switch weapons. Or just give me a higher mission reward for self-sabotage. Maybe then I'll use a Rattlegut instead.

So you obviously find this game difficult enough, right? There is a significant subset of players who don't. It's not fair for you to ask them to put in additional work to self-sabotage so they can have fun. This mentality I will never understand. These players need their own type of content. You don't have to do it, so it won't bother you.

6. DE should continue making inclusive, accessible content. For example, Nightwave is great because elite challenges are fun for some of us, but a casual player can get the same rewards doing the easier challenges. A casual player can also choose to leave after 10 minutes in an Arbitration. So why not continue making content for both camps? why does all content have to be for a casual player's "power fantasy sandbox with fashion and mandatory self-sabotage"?

Edited by Ikyr0
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12 hours ago, Wawus said:

Elemental damage buff rotation, so you have to bring two different weapons with different elements if you want to stay alive? Special requirements limiting gear, weapon types, maybe random nullification of one of the abilities?

Ironically, you pretty much described profit taker, but any requirement for some skill or knowledge is labeled "unfun", "pointless", "too much effort for too little reward" or any of the other excuses people say on the forums instead of admitting to themselves they suck.

 

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14 hours ago, Wawus said:

Thanks for coming by.

I keep seeing these rants about no real endgame, which is true, but at the same people complaining about "inaccessibility" of content at certain times. Whether it's Nightwave's challenge to Kill Profit-Taker, or first version of Sanctuary Onslaught Elite, or even great first impression of difficult, no-revives Arbitrations. We had it all. We had difficult challenges, we had quite difficult first Nightwave.

 

So what happened? People started to complain, that balance of effort vs reward isn't all that great. Or that these items are beyond player's gear or understanding of the game. Or that I want rewards NOW.

 

It is concerning, that DE did bend to begging of these, who wanted to lower the challenge. If that habit stays true, I can already see uprising group ready to blow up a Kingpin system. 

The only way to make any type of content "Endgame" is if you really give us ridiculous challenge, something that will test our years of collecting and upgrading mods, our passion to maximize or specialise. Two different types of enemies requiring equipping specific mods? Elemental damage buff rotation, so you have to bring two different weapons with different elements if you want to stay alive? Special requirements limiting gear, weapon types, maybe random nullification of one of the abilities? Make it a little harder for us. And yes, divide. Let us feel that we have earned getting past wave 5.

If I have to maximize Serration or Primed mods to be able to beat challenges (but barely) then yes, I'm all in!

 

I'm also more into locking items behind progression and skill rather than time, it just gives sense of growth and direction.

Do you agree? 

I certainly agree with the last part...but then people who can't do these progression tasks will just whine and claim its unfair. Just look at some of the complaints regarding the MR tests.

Not so sure about the rest. I've never done Arbitrations (still haven't got round to clearing the star chart), so I can't attest to its difficulty.

As to the rest, most of the complaints I've seen are that stuff like ESO is just repetitive and boring and that the rewards aren't worth it.

 

Complaints about Nightwave & Profit Taker again mostly that they're boring, repetitive & not worth the rewards.

In the case of Profit Taker, I've seen complaints about the fact it involves needing to do stuff other than just shooting or spamming abilities and that enemies are annoying because they either ignore abilities or are actually challenging to deal with.

 

Given the way DE are developing the game, the only realistic way to have an "endgame" is some sort of competitive PvP mode, such as Conclave...but most players didn't like it.

Warframe is a story-driven PvE game with a slow development process and we will only reach an actual endgame when the devs decide there is no more they can do with it.

But yeah, its both hilarious and exasperating to see people complaining that there is no challenge...then the moment DE create something that is vaguely difficult to do, players scream that its stupid, annoying and not fun / not worth the rewards.

Even more so that all the complaining is done in General Feedback...where the devs won't see it. :facepalm:

 

For my part I will agree the game can be a bit monotonous at times. A bit more variation in mission types and enemies would be nice...and the new Jupiter missions were a good step in that direction. From what I've seen in the dev streams there is more to come...it will just take a while.

I don't mind waiting, as I'm very much a casual player and will take a long time to complete all the content. Again, I think I'm the type of gamer Warframe is aimed at...not the hardcore grinders who think 2 hour survival missions are fun.

 

Edited by FlusteredFerret
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Endgame is an illusion. We keep getting new (stronger and extensively powercreeping) weapons by every update and with the introduction of riven any content that isn't based on pure game mechanics (which means selection of weapons makes no different) will be trivialized in less than 1 week.

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13 minutes ago, Marvelous_A said:

Endgame is an illusion. We keep getting new (stronger and extensively powercreeping) weapons by every update and with the introduction of riven any content that isn't based on pure game mechanics (which means selection of weapons makes no different) will be trivialized in less than 1 week.

boom: endgame

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7 hours ago, Ikyr0 said:

plenty of us know what we want.

I want raids/dungeons and similar content where I'm not one-shotting the boss for some garbo reward. over and over again. I want more content like Eidolons, with the scaling of Arbitrations, but without cheese mechanics, which requires balancing for some frames and mods. I want builds and loadouts to actually matter. I want there to be a need for different types of frames and weapons. Eidolons were fantastic, but Orbs sucked. No one does Orbs, unless they have to. I hope Railjack brings more content like Eidolons. I don't mind if casuals get content, but there has to be an endgame loop for the large number of us (a lot inactive atm) who want this kind of gameplay.

And by that Railjack already failed because you have "expectations". What you dont understand is that no matter what they will introduce we will either cheese it making it trivial or we it wont be played, at all. Gameplay loop is a myth, once you get the fancy stuff out of it you wont come back. You try to convince yourself that its games fault but the problem is simpler, you just got bored and no matter what they add you wont be satisfied. Tell me what should they do : make content for 90% of players that will be to easy for you or make content for 1% that nobody else will play (like raid were)? The answer is obvious.

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