Difficulty slider is needed to appease the different views the community has on this game

[Xepthrichros]

I like the game as is. But I think a difficult slider is needed to appease the community's very different  views on what they want this game to be for them.

We have a bunch that want the game to be more difficult.

We have people who want nerfs on all the press 4s.

Some want rivens gone.

Some hate power creep.

Some want skill based play.

Some want Warframe to satisfy the urge Dark Souls created within them years ago.

Then some want the game to remain easy.

They want all thing viable in all situations, fashion frame is the most important.

Some enjoy the power fantasy of decimating whole groups of enemies with pure power.

Some don't like the idea of meta.

Some like meta and understand different frames have different roles. Some frames for spy, some for ESO, some for Eidolon hunts etc.

Some ask for enemies and possibly challenging content (e.g. Orb Mother, Arbitration) to be made easier.

Some play warframe solo and are concerned how certain short-sighted nerfs affect single player play

Some understand warframe has Action RPG elements like leveling up so we have weak level enemies, high level enemies, and warframes and guns that cater to respective power levels, and bringing strong gear to a low level area would result in a steam roll. (one can kill all bosses in Dark Souls in one hit too, with sufficient leveling up, btw... warframe equivalent of leveling = mods)

Developers have difficult time catering to one group without upsetting another group. Make hard content and people ask the boss or enemy to get nerfed. Nerf a bunch of frames and get a whole lot of salty rage posts asking for undoing the nerf, making reworks, etc.

 

And now that the long "preamble" is out of the way

---------------- ACTUAL SUGGESTION STARTS HERE -------------------

 

We need a difficulty slider for all missions and content types. Note: all numbers here are just placeholders. Definitely would need tweaking based on how players perform in the modes.

I suggest: Easy, Normal, Difficult, Hell. 

You can only matchmake with people who are playing on the same difficulty setting.

Normal Mode: Basically, the game as it is right now, across the board. No changes or tweaks.

Easy Mode: Enemies nerfed, Players buffed. Orb mothers changed from being immune to abilities, to being able to get CC-ed for 20% of the actual full duration, and take 20% of ability damage, likewise for the Eidolon sentient shielding. Players get extra lives. Disruption demolisher units are more vulnerable to abilities, and move slower. Nullifier bubbles are smaller and have less HP. Less nullfiiers and energy leech eximus spawn. Even in arbitration, you are given 2 lives. Arbitration drones no longer grant immunity to abilities but reduce ability damage. Slightly increase shield and energy regen for players. More energy orbs. More time to hack in consoles. Tripping a sensor in spy vaults may not cause "data destruction imminent". BUT loot drop table will be adjusted. Rare, coveted items such as Ephemeras, and good arcanes, certain gold mods, have their CHANCE to drop halved, and the chance for the average loot is increased. You still have a chance to get the rare item as it is still in the drop table. But since it is now going to be easier for you to kill these enemies/bosses due to the easy mode, the chance is reduced. Applies to the loot obtained as rotational rewards, and also the drops from enemies e.g. Acceltra blueprint drop rate will be lowered if you play the disruption in easy mode.
Difficulty can even affect animal conservation and fishing and skateboarding. Fish move slower. Animals spook less easily. But rate of rare fish or animals appearing is reduced. Skateboard racing time longer, but points and affinity earned is less.

Difficult Mode: Enemies buffed. They get slightly higher fire rate. More armor or shields. And take innate 20% less damage from nuking abilities, and 10% less CC duration from CC effects. Enemies will always survive an initial ability cast. I.e. if fodder Hydron unit is hit by Saryn's spores, their health drops to 1, and to be finished off, has to be hit by a second ability cast such as Miasma or another player's ability, maybe, Pull from Mag, or just a bullet or slash from a zaw. Animals in conservation are more sensitive and alert, they detect you more easily. Fish swim faster. Skateboard race time duration lower.  More nullies spawn. More energy leech eximus spawn. Arc trap radius on grineer tilesets increased.  Enemy vision detection range increased. Hacking time stricter. I can see certain forum mains using Difficult Mode on Hydron just from all the times I read people complaining of 4-to-win in fodder farming tilesets.  For the trouble of playing in difficult mode... Chance of good loot increased, including better drop chances for the relics of the current Prime Access, or relics containing items from the Vault unsealed. Increased chance for Ephemeras and other rare things by 1 or 2% from their current chance.

Hell mode: Enemies buffed further. Grineers get shields in addition to their usual armor. Corpus get armor in addition to usual shields. They take 50% less damage from nukes, and CC last 20% shorter. Expect more Bursa, Corpus Techs, Heavy Gunners, Arsons, Bombards, Noxes, Ancient Healers, Leech Eximus, Nullifiers. Nullifier bubbles bigger. Leech auras reach further. Enemy guns have partial damage reduction bypass, so yes, even your Iron Skin, armor, will not utterly trivialize threat or grant effective immortality. Even stricter hacking time. Disruption demolishers run faster. Arbitration drones HP doubled. Animals detect you from even further away. Skateboarding requires perfection and mastery of the route. Fish are constantly panicking the moment they see your silhouette over the water. Orb mother health doubled. Sentient shielding doubled. Triple the number of Vomvalyst spawning and they heal the Eidolon often. Enemies will definitely NOT fall for any kind of camping tactics in survival and instead stay far away from your desired walkway. Player max energy reduced by 20%. Player energy regen from orbs reduced by 20%. Player movement reduced by 20%. Extra lives reduced by 1, regardless of Arcanes  equipped or not. Operator to Warframe has built in cooldown and cannot spam 5 repeatedly. Chance of good loot further increased and quantity also increased, including even better drop chances for the relics of the current Prime Access, or relics containing items from the Vault unsealed, with occasionally 2x relic dropping at one rotation. The mission will take longer, be more stressful and more risk of failure, but the reward will hopefully compensate. 

Affinity earned  could also probably be tweaked to reflect the difficulty of the modes, though I won't recommend anyone using Hell Mode to farm affinity.

Sorties must all be completed at the same difficulty setting. Completing the set on Easy, get higher chance of bronze rewards. Sorties on Difficult or Hell have higher chance of gold rewards.

I may perhaps have gone overboard with some of the buffs and nerfs, or maybe my nerfs weren't enough (lol) and wasn't comprehensive in how the loot chances should altered, as I was just spitballing possibilities, not carefully calculating anything, but overall I hope people get the idea of this suggestion. 

 

What this hopes to accomplish

Players should be able to experience most of the game has to offer, even if they are unskilled or have bad reaction times. They can experience the most difficult bosses and content at the easier difficulty setting. Still have a chance to get the same loot, albeit odds lowered. Those who seek challenge have more options to do so. And they can even make their Hydron experience feel tough again if they so desire, and also get better odds of getting the loot for their effort.  

Edit: Furthermore, this suggestion allows you to switch settings at any time also. So you want to play on easy most of the time, but today think you might be up for some challenge, or you feel RNG hasn't been kind to you and want to buff your chances up a bit, you choose Normal or Difficult. It's not something where if you log in on day one, chose easy, and stuck on easy forever.

 

2nd Edit: How does the Suggestion fit the preamble?

Annoyed that new enemies like Orb mothers and Eidolons are all immune to abilities? Turn on Easy Mode. They now take some ability damage there.

Hate press 4 to win? Try Difficult mode. 

Feel that immortality and damage reduction trivializes the game, AND hate 4 to win? Try going to Hell.

Want fashion frame and everything viable? Go Easy mode.

Hate all the changes and want things to remain as they are? Play Normal mode

Want difficult enemies but don't want to wait 1 hour in survival or wait till  above wave 20 on defense to see them? Try Difficult or Hell

Think Orb Mother is too easy even as she is now? Try Difficult or Hell

Annoyed with catching fish and just want to get it over with ezpz? Try Easy

DE releases new tileset and you are exploring the new spy map and fear screwing up a vault? Try Easy

Feel that players can spam abilities too easily and that energy economy needs adjustment? Try Difficult or Hell

Feel that you can't shoot enough things cos 4 to win is so-called hording the kills? Try Difficult or Hell

Want your press 4 to win team mate to be unable to spam 4 anymore cos energy economy is nerfed? Try Difficult or Hell

Want to attempt a new boss fight and just get a feel of it before going all out? Try Easy then proceed to Normal later.

Want to farm the common loot instead of the rare drop (e.g Ephemera) cos you already own the rare drop and just want resources from the common drops? Go Easy. 

Feel that RNG is treating you bad and can't get that rare drop you are coveting? Try upping to Difficult mode.

-----------

 

More difficulty options across the board, more ways to play, catering to more audiences. 

 

Edit 3: Addressing popular objections

Just play solo or go recruiting or use certain game modes if you don't want certain types of players or warframes in your team.
Response: That's exactly what I tell people who hate on Limbo, Saryn, etc. But the complaints persist anyway and come up every other day/week. It seems that we need a way BUILT INTO the game to hold some people's hands and lead them to the mission types and modes they desire where they will not see these things

Enemy levels are the built-in difficulty indicators, so are the different modes. Just go to the particular level or modes for the difficulty you want
Response: Agreed. But some people don't. Some people want to play Hydron only but dislike nukers in their game. They want nukers nerfed so they get something to shoot. My difficulty slider will hope to appease some of these people

Ability immunity is a terrible mechanic and we should not have parts of our arsenal just excluded from use. Nox is a great enemy. Arbitration drones and nullifiers are not.
Response: Agreed. I wish all the immune enemies were NOT immune, but instead variations of tankiness like Nox. But the ship has sailed and we already went the way of nullifiers and sentient shielding. What to do? I created an Easy mode in my suggestion to accommodate my wish in this regard.

 

Difficulty slider is a thing of a bygone era and people have moved away from it. Organic difficulty, built into the mechanics of the game is better.  E.g.You can stay one hour in a mission for enemy levels to rise to find difficulty
Response: Irrelevant and also untrue. I bought games released THIS year with difficulty options. AA games, not some indie obscure titles. And from the complaints against nuking frames that I read on the forums, people do not seem to get organic difficulty, or grasp how to go to the right mode or level range to find the right challenge. They act like it is incredulous a level 100-slaying build slays level 5 enemies in one shot, and even suggest that enemies should auto-scale to the team composition. They fail to see how this renders all the modding and endo investing irrelevant.  People have also complained precisely about having to stay one hour in Mot to find difficulty, and they want difficulty at the first minute into the mission. My difficulty slider provides these options for such people

Warframe is a grinding game and people will not use high difficulties to get things if it slows down their pace
And if you read what I suggested, I did offer boosted drop rates for rare items, in terms of CHANCE to drop and perhaps even quantity of item dropped, to give a reason to play on modes other than Easy or Normal. 

Stopping nuking abilities from nuking in one hit, and requiring things to be two-shotted is a counter-intuitive notion, and Banshee can still spam 4 anyway.
Some people seem to hate press 4 to win so this thing comes up to appease those bunch. And the mode where I suggest this tweak also includes energy economy changes so yeah, maybe a Banshee can spam 4 a couple of times, but she will definitely run out of energy faster and spend more time waiting for energy orbs to drop, or Zenurik to refill, or will definitely need a team mate like Trinity or Harrow or Limbo or Nezha with augment, or Hildryn' 4,  to help her regen energy, or use consumables to restore energy

Why do you suggest nerfs to damage reduction and tanking skills by giving enemies a way to shoot through damage reduction?
Cos apparently, if you have seen the Warframe feedback section of these forums, this comes up time to time as an issue. I placed the nerfs into the most difficult game mode to appease the most hardcore group of people. 

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Xepthrichros

[FireSegment]

you don't realize how bad an idea of difficulty slider is and why almost every games moved away from it right?

some link on that very topic here:

 

[Xepthrichros]

^ great coherent counter argument. /s

Yes, I played Dark Souls 2. It's just a difficulty slider for localized areas, that's locked behind a grind wall and requires using an in-game item to change that slider up. There's also the covenant you can access in Majula to raise the global difficulty by a bit. It's not genius.

My suggestion is a difficulty slider that doesn't require a grind wall and loot (DS2 required bonfire ascetics) and obtuse in-game descriptions of what the item does. Dark Souls 2 just tells a player... "Attracts difficult enemies" "what's done cannot be undone", "difficult and arduous path". All of these are more or less the in-game dialogue boxes that appear in Dark Souls 2 that offer hints at difficulty without explaining how you are changing the difficulty. Stronger - by how much? More HP? More damage? Does it say any of that? No. You just guess. So, it's not much better than those games that let you pick your difficulty before the games begin. Also, video says most games moved away from difficulty settings? Oh really? KH3 released this year begins with choosing your difficulty setting. Civilization, Stellaris and many other games all have difficulty settings as you set up your game.

My suggestion allows you to switch settings at any time also. So you want to play on easy all day, but today think you might be up for some challenge, or just tired of the low drop chances and want to buff your chances up a bit, you choose Normal or Difficult. It's not something where if you log in on day one, chose easy, and stuck on easy forever. I will probably edit this into my original post.

 

[DariusMcSwag]

A while back I made a similar suggestion, and I agree that a difficulty slider could be used well in this game. Here's the link:

 

[Marine027]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Xepthrichros:

^ great coherent counter argument. /s

Yes, I played Dark Souls 2. It's just a difficulty slider for localized areas, that's locked behind a grind wall and requires using an in-game item to change that slider up. There's also the covenant you can access in Majula to raise the global difficulty by a bit. It's not genius.

My suggestion is a difficulty slider that doesn't require a grind wall and loot (DS2 required bonfire ascetics) and obtuse in-game descriptions of what the item does. Dark Souls 2 just tells a player... "Attracts difficult enemies" "what's done cannot be undone", "difficult and arduous path". All of these are more or less the in-game dialogue boxes that appear in Dark Souls 2 that offer hints at difficulty without explaining how you are changing the difficulty. Stronger - by how much? More HP? More damage? Does it say any of that? No. You just guess. So, it's not much better than those games that let you pick your difficulty before the games begin. Also, video says most games moved away from difficulty settings? Oh really? KH3 released this year begins with choosing your difficulty setting. Civilization, Stellaris and many other games all have difficulty settings as you set up your game.

My suggestion allows you to switch settings at any time also. So you want to play on easy all day, but today think you might be up for some challenge, or just tired of the low drop chances and want to buff your chances up a bit, you choose Normal or Difficult. It's not something where if you log in on day one, chose easy, and stuck on easy forever. I will probably edit this into my original post.

 

I do agree on such but then yu have to consdier this is an MMO still Coop etc. It is like asking WoW to add a sldier for the levelign areas as example.

Then you need to consider the settings on Pugs, does the settign not count then? Will it use the one from the host?

If the host has it what will it mean for others teamed up with him/her, ragequit because he used a hger settign as they used to? Others leaving because to easy?

The things is not every game needs such or can work with such, It is again addign something to something unfitting, adding a difficulty to Mario? Enemies need tw jumps instead of one? Does this makea game more difficult?

Because this is what difficulty comes down to by now, more HP and more damage as you said. No smarter AI or more tacticts or strategies you need or can use. Because is difficulty in my eyes, beeing smart, not boring bullet sponges you have to avoid longer and more careful like any Dark Souls like game.

Dark Souls i like the game but the difficulty is a poor designed gimmick and a more learn all blindly instead of learning by reacting. Instead it is learning a pattern, which is why i not like most raids in MMO's also, you just repeat each phase in every raid or dungeon and it gets boring since the phases never change and you never change much in what you do, position like you are glued on on the floor and not one bit of dynamic.

Why i like gaems like Guild Wars 2, yes it lacks content but activly avoid damage and move around and not jsut farm my rotation down. Why Dark Souls is good in this also, activly blocking and rolling around, that i give that games.

[Xepthrichros]

1 minute ago, Marine027 said:

 

Then you need to consider the settings on Pugs, does the settign not count then? Will it use the one from the host?

If the host has it what will it mean for others teamed up with him/her, ragequit because he used a hger settign as they used to? Others leaving because to easy?

 

Already answered in original post. Players match make with others who opted the same difficulty. 

[Marine027]

vor 37 Minuten schrieb Xepthrichros:

Already answered in original post. Players match make with others who opted the same difficulty. 

Overreaded that then, my bad.

Nice idea overall but then would also limit pugs on certain missions and certain missions are already never played ever again after done once, while other missions are overplayed, on top of the rewards it you suggest, locking them out of certain difficults might log out players from it, the things is simply, as much people not like things beeing optained "to easy", it is mandatory, the game lifes of new players like every game does that is a MMO, veterans should not be forgoten of course and need something to do but then also no one forces you to play and you can basically come back whenever you want.

The thing is no one will use higher difficulty if they can use easier ways anyway, like cheesing even if it is harder, this game is made around grind and farming and people will use the cheap fast tactics for it to get trough it, i not see any fun in that even if you fight level 200 enemies or so, it not changes that, in my and other ones opinion that the game itself can be dull, it sure is fun to kill trough hordes of enemies yes, but then you repeat it so often without any real goal and IF you then farm anything you will repeat it with chees till you have it, look at Eidolons and Chroma.

The game needs to change at its core, mechanics, tactics, enemy behavior, etc.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Marine027
Typo

[Drachnyn]

I heavily disagree with making a game more difficult by just shifting around numbers or adding a nullifier bubble to everything. A main thing that makes warframe what it is are the abilities. If you just yeet them out more or less then there is a whole lot missing from the game, which is exactly my issue with arby drones. The way I see it is you'd make some frames just unplayable at your "hell" mode. Rhino just wont function without iron skin immunity because he is built around that.

Most missions would just take longer. At the end of the day warframe is an arsenal game: you either face roll the mission or you get your **** kicked in because dodging and enemy attacks is not nearly precise enough to engage in meaningful 1v1 combat. On top of that warframe is currently a horde game which doesnt help that either.

The thing that makes a game like dark souls difficult is learning attack patterns and dodging at the right time. So while you would technically make the game more difficult and people would play it because of better loot, I dont think it would be a very enjoyable difficulty. To have that you'd need to design new boss/miniboss enemies that arent just numbers but have learnable attack patterns and all that. I dont include fodder enemies in that because they should just stay that: fodder enemies.

IMO the reason Saryn is seen as oppressive is because basically every enemy in this game is a fodder enemy. DE tried to work against that with arby drones and pretty much every boss by making them ability immune. But that just lead to the rise of chroma because if the only ability that works are self buff, the one with the highest numbers will become the go to way. This made Chroma a very useful frame but arguably a very boring frame because all he is in the end is just a better serration.

An enemy that is in my opinion actually well designed for the game that warframe is the nox because it isnt ability immune. You have the choice of punching through his main body with your ability or melee weapon of choice or you take your time to aim. So abilities still affect him but most of the time it's better to aim for the head with your gun. Arby drones fail at that because they lock you out of abilities completely but not only on them but in their vicinity aswell, thus making enemies that should be fodder enemies suddenly invincible. IMO they themselves can be ability immune but they shouldnt make everything else entirely immune. Kinda like ancient disrupters. 

[WhiteMarker]

40 minutes ago, Xepthrichros said:

Already answered in original post. Players match make with others who opted the same difficulty. 

Did you ever try to run a not so popular mission pug?
It's already bad as it is. Now imagine your slider. People will never find a team.

DE wants people to interact and work together. They don't want to split up the community even more.
So your slider is unlikely to happen.

[NeuroKiruse]

TL;DR: I agree the game needs to change, but this is not that change. The changes the game needs stretch far and require a lot of development. Melee 3.0 is just the first change in an entire series that would help towards this end. The game needs finer mechanics, not shifting numbers.

The first game that comes to my mind when thinking about difficulty sliders is Age of Empires 1. The game is so old, chances are it's actually older than a solid part of the player base. The largest problem is that at some point the game isn't difficult, it is straight up unfair. AoE1 had the issue that the AI simply got more resources, literally conjured resources out of thin air, spent 50% less and produced twice as fast. Sounds familiar? It should. At some point "difficulty" turns into "humanly impossible", or in this case: bullet sponging.

Now the problem with that is that "difficulty" doesn't necessarily equate to fun. Some people certainly derive fun of unfairness, but most players don't. The fun they derive there is from determination to beat the game, despite their inevitable rage. This is why rage games only live for such a short time span, or within dedicated communities. As you pointed out yourself, many players seek a challenge. Difficulty in numbers is not the only thing that provides challenge. Complexity and the necessity of skill does as well. This is one of the main reasons why Mobas do so well. It's not an overwhelmingly powerful enemy that provides you with the challenge, it's the fact that your enemy builds up their own skill which requires you to react and respond appropriately - by changing up your own build and/or playstyle/tactics. The Baron and Dragon would be examples of numbers-based difficulty, but both of these are mere pawns in the greater strategy. This is something that almost completely lacks in WF.

vor einer Stunde schrieb Xepthrichros:

Expect more Bursa, Corpus Techs, Heavy Gunners, Arsons, Bombards, Noxes, Ancient Healers, Leech Eximus, Nullifiers.

Now THIS is more like it, although not the whole deal. Heavy Gunners, Arsons and Bombards for the most part do exactly what you describe: they crank a difficulty slider to the max by increasing numbers. Boring. Corpus Tech & Heavy Gunners furthermore add difficulty by adding high damaging rapid fire. This is yet another boring number. For this to become fun, a "suppressive fire" mechanic would be necessary which in other games applies a debuff of some sort (mechanics, visuals, audio, etc.) to you. This mechanic should work both ways: You can also suppress enemies, causing them to seek shelter and not just run out into a hallway of lurking death. Arsons add a lasting small AoE, which restricts your movement. So that's kinda nice. Bombards have, imho, always been bullsh*t. Their excessive armor at higher levels paired with the increasing health makes them mere bullet sponges, their heavily homing rockets makes them lethal. Again, a suppressive fire mechanic (including taking cover) and dodging (side steps) would help to add skill to the game as now suddenly you can face them head-on and avoid their missiles intuitively. Noxes, Ancient Healers, Leeches, Nullies are great enemies because they naturally become high-value targets for various reasons, but all require you to strategize. Bursas are also high-value targets, but also incentivize flanking them.

vor einer Stunde schrieb Xepthrichros:

Enemies will always survive an initial ability cast.

This is... unintuitive. And it barely does anything in terms of difficulty. So what if the Saryn needs to press 4 now in addition to 1? Most Saryns I see do that anyway. So what if now I need to slice my Memerrax through Frost-frozen enemies? With the amount of bullets flying across everywhere, that would hardly change a thing. Nuke-Banshee literally doesn't even change, because they spam 4 anyway, which counts as 2 different casts and can still kill your enemies. Trinity doesn't even suffer from this due to the lack of offensive abilities to begin with. And what about debuffs like Nova's 4?

Ultimately, the game is designed to be basically a Hack'n'Slash&Looter-Shooter. We require these hordes in order to viably grind for certain drops. Worse yet, the game is rather heavily Peer-to-Peer, meaning the AI must be able to run on lower-end computers as well. A difficulty slider isn't the answer we need. The answer we need is finer control and the need for finer control. As Drachnyn pointed out: 

vor 21 Minuten schrieb Drachnyn:

DE tried to work against that with arby drones and pretty much every boss by making them ability immune. But that just lead to the rise of chroma because if the only ability that works are self buff, the one with the highest numbers will become the go to way.

This is what makes Orb Fights either you destroy the Orb, or it destroys you. Many a times I join a random Profit-Taker and the enemies are already Lvl 70+, then my cell gets steamrolled due to excessive Slash damage. Other times the fight is over in 10-15 minutes and enemies just reached Lvl 70. The fight starts out easy and becomes more difficult the longer you take. At the same time, there's no mechanics that make it possible beyond that mark. There's no cover, nothing to affect the Orb Mom besides raw damage, discouraging the use of a vast variety of frames. Most frames that run around in these boss fights are the same 3 or 4. This isn't difficult. This is just a scripted play. Increasing the numbers won't change a thing. In fact, it would bore, even annoy me.

The best Assassination Mission so far imho is Tyl Regor, but he still isn't challenging. The thing that makes him better than others is the "phases". He employs a certain strategy against you. Everybody else just uses brute force. Boring. It doesn't change that we can easily nuke him. As it stands, he's a nuisance because all he does is postpone his own death. Same thing for the Ambulas boss fight. There's nothing interesting about that, just run in, deal massive damage, deal more massive damage as you defend the ambulas, then rinse and repeat.

You see what I'm getting at? The reason why FireSegment showed you that video is because the industry has, in fact, learned that a simple difficulty slider is not the answer. All you'd do with that slider of yours is make things a lot more tedious. We already have the option to increase the numbers by just staying longer in the missions. Yet nobody does that. Why? Because the game is centered around grinding and there is no incentive to do so - for most missions. This is by design, as DE stated at some point (don't ask me where...).

[Uhkretor]

4 hours ago, Xepthrichros said:

I suggest: Easy, Normal, Difficult, Hell.

I better get an Ultra-Nightmare difficulty or anything else ends up being easy af

4 hours ago, Xepthrichros said:

allows you to switch settings at any time also.

Leave "Bethesda Difficulty Mode" alone where it is, since it only fits on their hands.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Uhkretor

[Xepthrichros]

4 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

Did you ever try to run a not so popular mission pug?
It's already bad as it is. Now imagine your slider. People will never find a team.

DE wants people to interact and work together. They don't want to split up the community even more.
So your slider is unlikely to happen.

Yeah. And we can continue the perpetual endless arguments on the forums on whose playstyle is better. 

We have these endless rounds of "X,Y,Z player power OP pls nerf" and "X,Y,Z enemy or game mode too difficult pls nerf" precisely cos of this logic of "we want to cater to everyone", but in a half-hearted way that actually makes everyone annoyed with people whose playstyles don't gel with theirs. You cannot cater to everyone by forcing everyone together. Stop that endless conflict, and just create more modes so everyone actually can play the way they want to have it.

 

To address the not so popular mission pug thing - hmm, I do wonder where one would experience this. Cos really the only unpopular thing I don't find another player for - is Conclave. Even the most random Sabotage, Mobile Defense, etc. tileset... and even ARCHWING missions, I will get one or two random folks with me. Maybe it's bad internet connection on whoever is searching for players than it is the unpopularity or lack of players.

 

That said, if supposing the Hell mode is lacking players. Maybe then get the hint - all of those who want nerfs and challenges... Hey, the community disagrees, they want it easy. Maybe you ought to reconsider where to make your home and stop complaining and pack up and go somewhere else. Oh wait, do I sound too exclusive? Lol. Jk.

Actually with more difficulty modes, I predict MORE players will join warframe. And while the people who like easy stuff will continue to stay in Easy and Normal Mode. Those who hate 4 to win, or desire challenges will congregate to Difficult and Hell mode. Word will spread about Warframe's new modes, and new wave of players will hear that Warframe difficulty is actually something now, and come check it out, and then a new crowd will form that play Difficult and Hell mode only. 

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Xepthrichros

[Xepthrichros]

4 hours ago, Celiste said:

You see what I'm getting at? The reason why FireSegment showed you that video is because the industry has, in fact, learned that a simple difficulty slider is not the answer. All you'd do with that slider of yours is make things a lot more tedious. We already have the option to increase the numbers by just staying longer in the missions. Yet nobody does that. Why? Because the game is centered around grinding and there is no incentive to do so - for most missions. This is by design, as DE stated at some point (don't ask me where...).

How is it tedious if the Difficulty slider button is as accessible as say, the matchmaking button at the top left corner of navigation screen? It's literally one click away. Unless you make the UI unnecessary obtuse, difficult settings are NOT tedious at all.

And the developer reasoning  you mentioned is why people are complaining about the lack of challenge. And people are quitting the game cos of boredom and lack of things to feel stimulated by, or call for nerfs on player power just to find stimulation (which, if DE listens to, annoys those that hates nerfs). Staying in the survival mode for 1 hour just to reach a challenge point is something people have pointed out and gotten annoyed by as well. My suggestion hopefully brings the challenge to you just by a flick of a switch, so you no longer need to stay in the mission for 1 hour before seeing an enemy worthy of your attention. 

 

My original post already covered possible rewards to give incentive to playing on Difficult and Hell mode.

 

EDIT: About the other stuff regarding how DS2 design is relevant, and all that organic difficulty. WELL UNFORTUNATELY. Some people don't get it and I suspect they never will. I get it. I expect to steam roll when I bring Saryn to Mars. I expect to have trouble if I bring her to fight an Eidolon. Some people DO NOT understand this. As highlighted by my preamble and they want nerfs here and there and step on everyone's toes as a result. My suggestion is to expand and make more modes to cater to everyone rather than blanket buffs and nerfs here and there and pissing various subgroups of the community off. With a difficulty slider, if you can't handle Hell, just go do Difficult. Can't do Difficult? Just do Normal. Nobody is forcing you to play Hell mode all the time. But there are some folks that want to play Hell, from what I can see on these forums when they ask for nerfs on just about everything. Basically more options to cater to more people. 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Xepthrichros

[FireSegment]

4 hours ago, Xepthrichros said:

^ great coherent counter argument. /s

Yes, I played Dark Souls 2. It's just a difficulty slider for localized areas, that's locked behind a grind wall and requires using an in-game item to change that slider up. There's also the covenant you can access in Majula to raise the global difficulty by a bit. It's not genius.

My suggestion is a difficulty slider that doesn't require a grind wall and loot (DS2 required bonfire ascetics) and obtuse in-game descriptions of what the item does. Dark Souls 2 just tells a player... "Attracts difficult enemies" "what's done cannot be undone", "difficult and arduous path". All of these are more or less the in-game dialogue boxes that appear in Dark Souls 2 that offer hints at difficulty without explaining how you are changing the difficulty. Stronger - by how much? More HP? More damage? Does it say any of that? No. You just guess. So, it's not much better than those games that let you pick your difficulty before the games begin. Also, video says most games moved away from difficulty settings? Oh really? KH3 released this year begins with choosing your difficulty setting. Civilization, Stellaris and many other games all have difficulty settings as you set up your game.

My suggestion allows you to switch settings at any time also. So you want to play on easy all day, but today think you might be up for some challenge, or just tired of the low drop chances and want to buff your chances up a bit, you choose Normal or Difficult. It's not something where if you log in on day one, chose easy, and stuck on easy forever. I will probably edit this into my original post.

 

ok, i should have elaborated a bit further.

i did not play Dark Soul 2, and i don't think that game nailed the difficulty in meaningful way base on what i know about it. That video i linked was just the first thing i think of when i read your post (or see the "difficulty slider" in general) because they address the problem of the slider much more clearly than i could, and they just happen to cite DS2 as an example.

For the difficulty setting that other games are using, i would argue that all those games already have a player base that know exactly what to expect from each mode, thus making it the selling point for them (or it's just an after thought and they simply gonna have the same problem the vid mention, again)

 

Consider it like this - DE already tried this "difficulty setting" idea at least 4 time in contained scenario over the years now, and the relic of those attempts are still in the game - Nightmare mode, Kuva Siphon/Floods, SO/ESO, Void Fissure, ... heck even corrupted key is a form of it. i'm not in any position to say if any of those attempts worked, and to what degree, but what make you think another difficult setting right now, on top of all of that, with no idea one year later what new game mode are added, would make any different? Warframe is a grinding fest and players would always pick whatever the "mode" that give them the loot they seek (case in point - Khora in SO/ESO ) even with exploits sometime.

Honestly, I been trying to figure out what i actually wanted to tell u for awhile, but for now let just go with this: I understand you want to suggest some changes in waframe, some of it actually look kinda good in right context, But when you propose it, don't frame it as a hard-difficulty setting. It wouldn't do what you want it to do while creating a batch of monstrous problems and hinder what the devs can add in the future. It is far from a silver bullet that suddenly satisfy all the different need of the player types you mention in the preamble.

 

[WhiteMarker]

2 hours ago, Xepthrichros said:

Yeah. And we can continue the perpetual endless arguments on the forums on whose playstyle is better. 

Sure, argue as much as you want. I don't care. I didn't say anything about playstyles.

If you want to run endless missions, use the recruit chat. If you want to casually run a mission, you should never have to use recruit chat. But your change would enforce that. Therefore your idea is bad.

[George_PPS]

That’s why there are enemies of various levels. If you want it easy, do easier missions on the Star Chart. If you want it hard, you do long missions where enemies can scale to level thousands. If you want some creative plays and hate meta everything, equip just 7 Mods in every loadout and every weapon. If you don’t like Rivens, just don’t use them sell them as soon as they are given to you. 

[NoSpax]

While we are at it: Hardcore.

You die, that frame is gone and everything he had on him. Weapons, Sentinels, you know the drift.

Should be separate from "Softcore".. because reasons.

Edited September 22, 2019 by NoSpax

[Xepthrichros]

7 hours ago, George_PPS said:

That’s why there are enemies of various levels. If you want it easy, do easier missions on the Star Chart. If you want it hard, you do long missions where enemies can scale to level thousands. If you want some creative plays and hate meta everything, equip just 7 Mods in every loadout and every weapon. If you don’t like Rivens, just don’t use them sell them as soon as they are given to you. 

Kindly tell this to every single person complaining that Press 4 to win is trivializing the star chart. They don't get it.

We need to give them clear difficulty settings so they stop asking or blanket nerfs on all the max leveled gear or even rivens to be removed.

[NeuroKiruse]

vor 16 Stunden schrieb Xepthrichros:

How is it tedious if the Difficulty slider button is as accessible as say, the matchmaking button at the top left corner of navigation screen? It's literally one click away. Unless you make the UI unnecessary obtuse, difficult settings are NOT tedious at all.

You haven't even read and/or understood what I told you, or you choose to single one argument out of the entire batch to falsely invalidate it. Never once did I say it would be tedious due to unnecessarily hard to access. It would be tedious due to the enemies literally just becoming even more bullet-spongey at just earlier levels. As you even said yourself:

vor 16 Stunden schrieb Xepthrichros:

My suggestion hopefully brings the challenge to you just by a flick of a switch, so you no longer need to stay in the mission for 1 hour before seeing an enemy worthy of your attention. 

Yes, your difficulty slider would allow us to enter fights with lvl 70+ enemies (with various additions) "by a flick of a switch", but all that does is bring the tediousness closer to you. Do you find lvl 70 enemies very difficult? Do you do anything else in your strategy to fight them? I, in fact, for most high level runs, see only a select few frames being used, some even with rather specific, almost meta-like builds. There's nothing challenging and/or innovative about that. Playing Nekros, there's no "skill" component that factors into how long my cell can stay in a Kuva Survival. Most missions just boil down to whether your mod configuration can take down hordes of enemies at an arbitrary level. Now I will admit that it would at least allow me to make better use of my lvl 120+ builds (I can't test in the Simulacrum beyond that), but that hardly makes a difference to me. I use the same weapons regardless. Plus, once the enemies leave the maximum efficiency range of my weapons, as ESO shows, I just run into a brick wall over and over until I either give up or run out of revives. There's nothing particularly fun about that. Now if the game allowed me to employ guerilla tactics, and was more lenient about "efficiency", I'd even consider bringing any other frame but Saryn. Adding Ultra difficulty won't change that the only really viable frame is an ESO Saryn. Other frames simply don't have the capacity to maintain efficiency, and on that difficulty especially won't reach that capacity.

What I really mean with "tedious" is exactly this above. All your difficulty switch does is bring lvl 100 down to, say, lvl 50. While it does increase "difficulty", all it really does is push some numbers around a bit. People will adapt accordingly, and suddenly you find yourself contributing even more to specific metas that "trivialize the game." This is not the point of difficulty. This is not a challenge. Again, there's more than one way to create difficulty, and pushing around numbers like this is the lazy one.

 

vor 16 Stunden schrieb Xepthrichros:

EDIT: About the other stuff regarding how DS2 design is relevant, and all that organic difficulty. WELL UNFORTUNATELY. Some people don't get it and I suspect they never will. I get it. I expect to steam roll when I bring Saryn to Mars. I expect to have trouble if I bring her to fight an Eidolon. Some people DO NOT understand this.

I'm afraid you missed the entire point of what I was saying. I wasn't suggesting that people "get it". I was suggesting, again, that there is little to no skill involved. Spy Missions demonstrate this point the most: lotsa people hate it; I find it trivial. I can take any frame to a spy mission, because there's no enticing gameplay required. I can go stealth, or I can apply the same rule I'm already used to in other missions: excessive force. The only incentive to do it stealthily is to avoid having to kill several enemies at the end. This should NOT be the case.

 

vor 16 Stunden schrieb Xepthrichros:

And the developer reasoning  you mentioned is why people are complaining about the lack of challenge. And people are quitting the game cos of boredom and lack of things to feel stimulated by, or call for nerfs on player power just to find stimulation (which, if DE listens to, annoys those that hates nerfs).

And finally, nobody is forced to keep playing this game forever. Anybody I talk to outside of WF who played WF said things like "One does not simply stop playing WF." People keep coming back to enjoy all the new content they missed out on in the meantime. That's a good thing. A change of tapestry is a good thing. Only an insignificantly small portion of the player base, most notably partnered streamers, are able to dedicate years to the game without ever stopping. But that's not due to content, it's due to their communities and subliminal obligation. The one thing players don't realize is just how much work it is to develop and maintain a game. That's something DE has to live with, and has been living with. You simply can't satisfy the needs of every single player. Not even your difficulty slider can. It certainly wouldn't satisfy my needs, and many others seem to agree with me. It's almost like democracy, except it's technically a dictatorship.

 

All this being said, I'm done with this discussion.