Veterans misunderstand why they don't enjoy playing the game anymore

[(PSN)InkCN]

First I'd like to state that this isn't a rant towards DE or an attack against specific people of the community. This veterans are rightfully frustrated about Waframe but are, in my opinion, wrong on the reasons of it.

For more than a year now, veterans players became more and more vocal about their frustration towards Warframe (underwhelming updates, content droughts etc..) and mostly blame the game and DE for it, where I believe the issue in their case isn't necessarily the game but themselves. But to understand where I'm going with this statement, we first have to understand what made them stick to Warframe in the first place.

Warframe is a repetitive rpg looter shooter. That's it, and games like that go out everyday on the market. Only to survive in this industry you need an audience, people to play your game, something that others don't have.

Phase 1: Turn the "rpg/shooter" into something unique

What personally instantly hooked me into Warframe is the gameplay and the modding section (and I believe I'm not the only one). In no other game can you jump around, run on walls, shoot enemies or slice them down in such a  perfectly smooth and swift epic powerful way. But this feeling rapidly fade away if there's no purpose of doin' it.

Phase 2: Bring purpose to the "looter"

The entire looting aspect of Warframe follow this one rule: Everything you do or collect will turn out useful in your progression sooner or later. Nothing is actually useless in the game, and it helps giving the player a sense of accomplishment even tho he might not even know what he is grinding towards at the moment. You end up doing and collecting everything because you have the certainty you're not waisting your time whatever you're doing or will wanna achieve later. Except grinding has an inevitable limitation which is itself, you cannot farm more than what there is to be farm.

Phase 3: Draw attention away from the grind to break the "repetitive" loop

In Warframe it consist of the quests, the lore, the fashion-frame, decorations, mini-games, events etc etc.. The only goal of these things (except the narrative for the quests) is to make you forget how boring and repetitive this 500th extermination mission of yours will be, bringing only more longevity and not a solution to the grind.

Phase 4: The veteran dilemma

At some point the magic trick of phase 3 will stop working on you because there's literally nothing left for you to grind. Which only leaves you having to feed yourself upon the faded satisfaction of the core gameplay of Waframe, what made you like the game in the first place. The more you try to enjoy the game, the more painful it become. To the point, if you keep trying again and again, you'll find yourself hating the game.

Phase 5: The solution

STOP !! Stop playing Warframe (at least for some amount of time). Playing a game countless of hours every day isn't sustainable unless unlimited amount of content (spoiler: it's impossible). And by how DE are extremely ambitious, you can only expect the updates to be bigger and bigger but also more and more scarce in time. Updates will never be more than a temporary bandage to your problem.

Therefore either learn how to manage yourself or go discover another game and get your gaming dose there.

It's perfectly normal to lose interest in something you liked, but don't blame the game for it (or yourself for that matter). No one is in the wrong here.

Peace & Love

NB: Feel free to share your thoughts on this topic

[IceColdHawk]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Phase 2: Bring purpose to the "looter"

The entire looting aspect of Warframe follow this one rule: Everything you do or collect will turn out useful in your progression sooner or later. Nothing is actually useless in the game,

There are tons of mods being completely useless either due to outdated mechanics, too low stats or just general bad effects.

10 minutes ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Phase 5: The solution

STOP !! Stop playing Warframe (at least for some amount of time).

But that isn't a solution. When we're discussing on why updates are half-baked or what kinda (endgame?) content we're missing or just how the game can be improved, stopping to play the game is NO solution. Evasion is the proper word.

[Bloop]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Phase 1: Turn the "rpg/shooter" into something unique

This point isn't exactly relevant to argue anything, especially given the topic title. We all liked it, we all LIKE it.

16 minutes ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Phase 2: Bring purpose to the "looter"

Everything you do or collect will turn out useful in your progression sooner or later. Nothing is actually useless in the game.

Tell that to the ammo drums, Sure Shots, and so on, useless mods that haven't been buffed after years, which even new players begin to understand how useless they actually are mechanically.

Or the millions of resources that have no use, especially when you own a clan and all research is done, because there is not much content that helps keep clans alive either.

18 minutes ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Phase 3: Draw attention away from the grind to break the "repetitive" loop

Trying this only gets you so far, and yet, I'm still trying to see what your point exactly is.

 

18 minutes ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Phase 4: The veteran dilemma

You call it hating as if we hated the game. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, we don't. We don't hate the game, being critic with a game doesn't by any means imply there's hate, some of us just don't like how things are being handled, and that's pretty much it.

 

20 minutes ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Phase 5: The solution

This gives nothing new either, that's the first thing a lot of people resort to.

Frankly, the points given here are just assumptions with a very obvious answer, and then you finish it with a "nobody is in the wrong", which is not realistic.

Check the game activity from "big" updates, then check the three months afterwards, you'll see what's going on, it's certainly not just us, it's certainly not hating the game, it's the fact that people don't stick around for long enough because you can breeze through content like it's nothing.

And no, it doesn't take countless of hours every day to do this. Most nightwave acts can be done in less than 2 hours. Leveling a warframe, with your buddy: 3 minutes easily. Leveling and formaing a weapon? Less than 30 minutes. Then what's left? Nothing, no incentive to play at all until we get new content (that sadly, we'll breeze through in less than a month), and content, as you said, is taking longer and longer times, which is making even content creators either take a break or straight up leave.

A game should avoid living off activity spikes.

[Goodwill]

8 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

There are tons of mods being completely useless either due to outdated mechanics, too low stats or just general bad effects.

But that isn't a solution. When we're discussing on why updates are half-baked or what kinda (endgame?) content we're missing or just how the game can be improved, stopping to play the game is NO solution. Evasion is the proper word.

If DE took the time to flesh out content, playerbase cries content drought. If they focused on quantity, then players cry meaningless content.

 

Be damned if you do, damned if you don't. DE will have haters no matter what.

Semantically though, you aren't wrong.

[IceColdHawk]

1 minute ago, Goodwill said:

If DE took the time to flesh out content, playerbase cries content drought. If they focused on quantity, then players cry meaningless content.

Players wouldn't cry content drought if we had content that can last longer than just a few gaming sessions.

[(PSN)Dishinshoryuken]

Interesting take on boiling down players of this day and age. I am from the Atari 2600/Arcades days where playing a game did not need to give a reason to play. Playing was the reason in itself. We lined up quarters to play street fights and did final fights over and over to get to the point of using one quarter.

The game studios were the ones that would update to parts 2 and forth with the claim of balance and adding new characters it story elements, but it was mainly to get more quarters out of the masses. And it was good for some time. Then home systems started having the same graphics and abilities as the arcades and to keep the drive going to the quarter machines, tournaments started being held. And now look at tourneys nowadays. Prizes in the hundreds to millions.

What I, as a long time player, enjoy about Warframe is not the challenge seeking or the plat highs....but the game is basically giving what I wanted from all those other games- it keeps growing and giving more each year. It's what many wish would happen with Call of Duty or Street Fighter. Not another $60 dishout for the latest model and make all that you have done before disappear just to have a remake 10 years later of the same thing for another money grab from the new player base. It grows and you feel as if you are part of that growth. It's the young ones that do not recall playing before the Video Game recession that are getting bored quickly as they are used to jumping from one game to another to give the money to the company.

I have been interested in Warframe since it came on XB1 and as I found out more about the company, the battle to make the game, and where it can go...I have not tired of it. Hek, it's the main reason I went from the XB 360 to the One (plus winning a free system helped).

There is no real path or number chart to say what reason any player is tired of Warframe. Most don't even know what they want in a mate much less a game that has lasted this long being F2P. If you can boil it down, congratz....might make some players look at themselves in a differing light. But no matter what DE or Warframe does, players will complain and players will play it. It's a part of video game life nowadays.

Cheers

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Remove the megathread tag, you’re not DE.

[Goodwill]

Just now, IceColdHawk said:

Players wouldn't cry content drought if we had content that can last longer than just a few gaming sessions.

We do though. If we didn't, I doubt there'd be people with over a thousand hours of gameplay clocked.

[xXDeadsinxX]

3 minutes ago, Goodwill said:

We do though. If we didn't, I doubt there'd be people with over a thousand hours of gameplay clocked.

We really don’t though. If we did, there would be sustainable content, where as of right now, there really isn’t much to do in the game at the moment even if you have clocked in thousands of hours.

[Magicfingers]

ok...i'm a veteran...been playing the game since early closed beta days and you have the audacity to tell me i'm misunderstanding and frustrated why i don't enjoy the game anymore??? but i DO enjoy the game. how long have you been playing the game? and what gives you the right to tell me how i feel about playing the game? what gives you the right to tell ANYONE how they feel about the game?

[IceColdHawk]

Just now, Goodwill said:

We do though. If we didn't, I doubt there'd be people with over a thousand hours of gameplay clocked.

Sitting in a relay chatting with people gets you hours. Keeping up with the game for every big update for years stacks hours too. Granted, and that is also implying that you're trying to reach for the maximum mastery by leveling every item, it's gonna take a while to get it done. But once you're done and have the gear to rule the world starchart, what's there to do? I've known lots of people friends as well as strangers that have asked themself this question.

I can just pull something like scaling kuva rewards outta my head and i'd know that a good bunch of friends and me would find a reason to keep playing. I'd finally find an incentive to roll all those rivens with (still) bad stats and i'd also finally have a reason and enjoy long runs.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

Spot on OP!

There is no remedy for years of consistent, dedicated playing of the same game except for a break. As a vet, I definitely want to see challenges and new modes because the mechanics and gameplay is not comparable, not even close. That said, I also understand the core model, that everyone was drawn to and love, is also the problem: IT, BY DEFINITION, CANNOT CHANGE. Your favorite food is great until you've had it everyday for years. It's just human nature.

The larger issue is in the content drought lie. What should've been said was "I only like x style of gameplay, not y and z". The endgame obsession is a perfect example. DE attempted it several times but it wasn't a "refreshing reset", giving the vets a totally new and exciting experience. Disruption addressed endgame quite well but, even offering completely different reward combinations, because it was still in the model, it wasn't different enough. 

Thus, the vets who are bored SHOULD step away, allow the new generation to begin their journey and wait until thegame has evolved enough to give you a fresh new feeling. Personally, I'm 5 years in and still haven't completed everything so I have nothing but respect for ANY form of entertainment that has kept me engaged this long. I can offer constructive criticism but never a complaint. DE's product is too good for that. 

[(XBOX)OneNastyNupe]

this is the only game in which I see suggestions to "play another game instead"...as a viable solution.   The problem is, too many people are taking this option and not coming back.  At least from personal experience.   

[Chicken-Biryani]

6 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

I can just pull something like scaling kuva rewards outta my head and i'd know that a good bunch of friends and me would find a reason to keep playing. I'd finally find an incentive to roll all those rivens with (still) bad stats and i'd also finally have a reason and enjoy long runs.

Yeah, just start giving even measly amounts of kuva like 50-100 on C rotation of high tier endless stuff. Make them repeat. And plug in a few boss like enemies in between waves or specific time intervals that need some synergy to take them down. Something to keep player who has everything (relics, endo etc) busy. This way they wouldn't be making as much kuva as in kuva survival, but other mission nodes will be fun too. Plus bosses will keep squads guessing and it may be fun. No need to make new disruption nodes. Cuz it ain't fun getting the 500th relic from it. 

Who knows! Ideas are so many. If only somebody implements it. 

Edited August 23, 2019 by --C--Nehra

[Clats01]

Thank you for telling me, someone who has played since 2013 why I dont enjoy the game. Never mind the fact i have a few thousand hours in the game, and still play a few times a week, but apparently I dont enjoy playing.

One thing you didnt add was the dumbing down of content, looks at nightwave, its challenges had promise of being a challenge, then all the casual players let out a massive "but why is it so hard" when it wasnt it just took a little bit of dedication and time to do.

[xXDeadsinxX]

8 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

Sitting in a relay chatting with people gets you hours. Keeping up with the game for every big update for years stacks hours too. Granted, and that is also implying that you're trying to reach for the maximum mastery by leveling every item, it's gonna take a while to get it done. But once you're done and have the gear to rule the world starchart, what's there to do? I've known lots of people friends as well as strangers that have asked themself this question.

I can just pull something like scaling kuva rewards outta my head and i'd know that a good bunch of friends and me would find a reason to keep playing. I'd finally find an incentive to roll all those rivens with (still) bad stats and i'd also finally have a reason and enjoy long runs.

Spot on.

Scaling Kuva rewards would be nice and for the rest of the game as well. I would finally have an incentive to go far into a mission instead of leaving early.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

21 minutes ago, Bloop said:

This point isn't exactly relevant to argue anything, especially given the topic title. We all liked it, we all LIKE it.

Tell that to the ammo drums, Sure Shots, and so on, useless mods that haven't been buffed after years, which even new players begin to understand how useless they actually are mechanically.

Or the millions of resources that have no use, especially when you own a clan and all research is done, because there is not much content that helps keep clans alive either.

Trying this only gets you so far, and yet, I'm still trying to see what your point exactly is.

 

You call it hating as if we hated the game. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, we don't. We don't hate the game, being critic with a game doesn't by any means imply there's hate, some of us just don't like how things are being handled, and that's pretty much it.

 

This gives nothing new either, that's the first thing a lot of people resort to.

Frankly, the points given here are just assumptions with a very obvious answer, and then you finish it with a "nobody is in the wrong", which is not realistic.

Check the game activity from "big" updates, then check the three months afterwards, you'll see what's going on, it's certainly not just us, it's certainly not hating the game, it's the fact that people don't stick around for long enough because you can breeze through content like it's nothing.

And no, it doesn't take countless of hours every day to do this. Most nightwave acts can be done in less than 2 hours. Leveling a warframe, with your buddy: 3 minutes easily. Leveling and formaing a weapon? Less than 30 minutes. Then what's left? Nothing, no incentive to play at all until we get new content (that sadly, we'll breeze through in less than a month), and content, as you said, is taking longer and longer times, which is making even content creators either take a break or straight up leave.

A game should avoid living off activity spikes.

You literally just proved Op's point! Every point you responded to is not a new player's experience, only the vet. Of course you NOW KNOW how to level fast, kill quickly, breeze through and not die. New players die constantly. They don't have enough restores yet so, yes, they see use in ammo drums. Higher leveled enemies are an issue because they don't have your mods and arsenal. Can you imagine them playing WITHOUT content creators holding their hands and showing them Hydron? 

To you, it's "been there done that". To new player's, it's exactly what you felt when you fell in love with the game. That's what OP is simply saying. Nothing wrong with that.

[Voltage]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)GEN-Son_17 said:

Spot on OP!

There is no remedy for years of consistent, dedicated playing of the same game except for a break. As a vet, I definitely want to see challenges and new modes because the mechanics and gameplay is not comparable, not even close. That said, I also understand the core model, that everyone was drawn to and love, is also the problem: IT, BY DEFINITION, CANNOT CHANGE. Your favorite food is great until you've had it everyday for years. It's just human nature.

The core experience of Waframe involves grind. This grind is what closed the gap between our Tenno Reinforcements and the occasional Warframe releases in the past. Large ambitions and reduced grind creates the feeling of nothing to accomplish/do, and it leaves geared players with not much to work with. Update: Lunaro, Specters of the Rail, The Silver Grove, and the War Within being diced up over months greatly amplified this problem. You can be a nut and set personal achievements to keep yourself playing, but 2019 Warframe is really not as engaging for a geared player as 2015 or 2016 Warframe.

9 minutes ago, (PS4)GEN-Son_17 said:

Disruption addressed endgame quite well

Disruption is a great gamemode, but it's not rewarding at this time. DE realized this and is trying something new with the mainline update. I am waiting to see what is in store, and it sounds awesome, but Disruption is about as endgame (in it's current state) as Infested Salvage or dare I say ... Defection.

[Bloop]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)GEN-Son_17 said:

To you, it's "been there done that". To new player's, it's exactly what you felt when you fell in love with the game. That's what OP is simply saying. Nothing wrong with that.

Then it turns out OP isn't saying anything relevant.

When you need to resort to telling your veterans to "stop playing the game", you're just avoiding the problem, not trying to actively fix it. 

A game is not just about getting new players in, it's about bringing them, and keeping your current. At the end of the day, new players may get tired after a week, cause not everyone enjoys looters, but your veterans would stay, unless you give them nothing relevant to do.

As posts above have mentioned, there are ways to keep both sides of the playerbase engaged, but nothing seems to be done about it.

 

And proved what? That I can bring a new friend into the game and teach them how to play and farm efficiently so they don't waste their time? Is that what I proved?

[Goodwill]

3 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

Sitting in a relay chatting with people gets you hours. Keeping up with the game for every big update for years stacks hours too. Granted, and that is also implying that you're trying to reach for the maximum mastery by leveling every item, it's gonna take a while to get it done. But once you're done and have the gear to rule the world starchart, what's there to do? I've known lots of people friends as well as strangers that have asked themself this question.

I can just pull something like scaling kuva rewards outta my head and i'd know that a good bunch of friends and me would find a reason to keep playing. I'd finally find an incentive to roll all those rivens with (still) bad stats and i'd also finally have a reason and enjoy long runs.

I do appreciate that you gave an actual suggestion instead of simply "sustainable" content.

For me, sustainable content would simply be if they gave the option (keyword is option) for a player to revert to the old parkour system. Stamina bar and all. I can play a game longer if it feels I can still improve as a player. But Warframe, the skill ceiling is reached very fast. 

I just personally think "sustainable" is not an accurate description of good content. There are plenty of games with "sustainable" content; grind and RNG walls. Other examples of sustainable content in games are subjective and depends on the individual player's gaming preferences.

There are some games not sustainable that are still good - great games. So overall, when people say DE should make sustainable content, it's not particularly helpful and that can mean any number of things.

 

[xXDeadsinxX]

Just now, Goodwill said:

I do appreciate that you gave an actual suggestion instead of simply "sustainable" content.

For me, sustainable content would simply be if they gave the option (keyword is option) for a player to revert to the old parkour system. Stamina bar and all. I can play a game longer if it feels I can still improve as a player. But Warframe, the skill ceiling is reached very fast. 

I just personally think "sustainable" is not an accurate description of good content. There are plenty of games with "sustainable" content; grind and RNG walls. Other examples of sustainable content in games are subjective and depends on the individual player's gaming preferences.

There are some games not sustainable that are still good - great games. So overall, when people say DE should make sustainable content, it's not particularly helpful and that can mean any number of things.

 

Sustainable content could work in Warframe, it would just need to be executed well enough by DE. A big factor for it work is that it would need to have replay value so players aren’t able to be burnt out on it insanely fast as the rest of the game. 

Meaning that it has to have good enough rewards for players to actually have an incentive to do said content and would also have to be unique so players aren’t bored out of their minds of the same thing over and over.

[Lutesque]

Wait.... isn't that exactly why veterans say they are leaving warframe ? Seems like they gave the same reasons you did

[sinnae]

1 hour ago, (PS4)InkCN said:

Nothing is actually useless in the game

my javlok capacitors and antiserum injectors say heyyyyyy

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

39 minutes ago, Bloop said:

Then it turns out OP isn't saying anything relevant.

When you need to resort to telling your veterans to "stop playing the game", you're just avoiding the problem, not trying to actively fix it. 

A game is not just about getting new players in, it's about bringing them, and keeping your current. At the end of the day, new players may get tired after a week, cause not everyone enjoys looters, but your veterans would stay, unless you give them nothing relevant to do.

As posts above have mentioned, there are ways to keep both sides of the playerbase engaged, but nothing seems to be done about it.

 

And proved what? That I can bring a new friend into the game and teach them how to play and farm efficiently so they don't waste their time? Is that what I proved?

Your chart is the point. A year of relative consistency despite the rise in the "salty vet" error.

[(PSN)Elvenbane]

34 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Disruption is a great gamemode, but it's not rewarding at this time. DE realized this and is trying something new with the mainline update. I am waiting to see what is in store, and it sounds awesome, but Disruption is about as endgame (in it's current state) as Infested Salvage or dare I say ... Defection.

So far I've only heard about a 24 hour umbrafying reward for frames; I do hope there's something less operator focused too. I'm happy there will be new disruption locations since it's a fun mode, but my operator is strictly a battery and healer...