A View From The Other Side (Long Read)

[Dunkelheit]

The many, many threads about RNG and problems with the game made me open this one. 

 

At first, so that you see where I am coming from:

I am a grandmaster with close to 300 hours/played on this game. I own nearly every gun/warframe in this game and I am close to rank 10 (iirc).

 

When I first started to play, I became a master founder, because I don't go out, I don't smoke or drink alcohol, so from time to time, I invest in gaming. I bought no weapons at all, but I bought all warframes, since I get bored fast and I wanted to try out the other skills.

 

This nearly killed the game for me. When I had everything that I wanted, I saw that the game in general really lacks. There is no endgame, no real difficulty or reasons to play higher level missions. And even when you play those missions, they are easy most of the time. So I was stuck playing endless defense and stopped playing after a short time.

 

In U9 I came back and was delighted to see so many new things in the game, new warframes. But this time, I realized that there need to be items that I don't own and want to have. So I did not buy anything this time, at least no weapons and no warframes. I restricted myself to buy only potatoes, since I really dislike having weapons without. Soon my plat ran out and I became a grandmaster founder. And I bought cosmetic stuff like colour palettes and sentinels, no weapons, no warframes.

 

Because in the end, this game is fun because you have stuff that you want to have and that you are looking forward to use. When you have everything, the game becomes very boring very fast.

In conclusion to this, DE has to make some stuff hard to get. The RNG may be bad for you (I know, I have run Raptor 50 times to get Nova), but in the end, this is good for the game and for you. You have to accept that you cannot get all new content on day 1. Take your time, relax, it will all come towards you.

 

And to be quite honest, if you know where to look, you will find your stuff. If you don't, don't worry, the game is so easy that you are not forced to have the best equipment or the one frame.

 

Take one example:

I tried to get Frost Prime for a long time now, basically since I came back to the game. The Frost Prime blueprint did not want to drop for me. I could make armies of Frost Primes from the other stuff, just the blue print missing. I have to admit, I never look for things frantically, because this would have a lot of potential to frustrate me, but from time to time, I have tried to get it.

Yesterday I decided that it is time to get it. So I looked up where it dropped. Well, T1 extermination only? To get this key, you have to do a low level defense mission and quit at wave 5, because after wave 5, you will get T2. To be frank, I was disgusted by this. It is very boring to farm stuff that is way below your capabilities. Waiting time (and I count the time the mobs need to run towards you as waiting time, too) between waves is high if you can basically kill the whole wave in 1 second. The percentage to win a T1 ext key is low (~10%), so expect to do this some time. And on top of this, the Frost Prime BP is supposed to drop at 25%, so if the RNG is against you, you can expect to spend a very long time doing low level defense missions.

 

Well, here is what I did and how it turned out:

I went to recruitment, asked everyone who was LF T1 ext to come with me and farm the key (you would be surprised how many leechers lurk there... one guy even wrote back "I don't want to do the farming, but send me a tell for the runs later" ... yeah sure buddy, I am so going to do this.)

I found 3 cool blokes, we went to a low level Corpus defense and after 8 runs, the key dropped. So we had 4 tries to find the BP. And we did not even just find the BP, we found the dakra prime BP, too.

Which seemed to be a tedious task turned out to be a fun event.

 

Same with Mag Prime Systems:

This time it took a bit longer and 4 groups and the farming of 4 keys, but in the end we succeeded.

 

Now Mag Prime and Frost Prime are cooking.

 

 

The only thing I can really criticise is that there is no information from DE where to get the parts. And I could mildly criticise that parts are hidden in missions, which are not fun to play.

 

But I cannot understand the criticism regarding RNG or that some parts need a bit longer till you have them in your arsenal. If I really am in a bad luck streak, I do something else for a while. The game offers no content other than weapons and warframes that you might want to add to your arsenal. So just be patient and accept that not everyone is spoonfed on day 1. If everything would be easily available, you would drop the game faster than a hot stone.

 

This is not about the other glaring issues of the game, like the drop rate of necessary mods and other stuff, this is on a whole other level.

 

This game has issues, a lot of them, but RNG is rarely one of them.

[EganMC]

It is true that in the late game Warframe keeps bringing you back to when you started, to something god awful like Kiliken to force you to farm for Void keys.

 

Warframe brings you to where you don't want to be on occasion, so whenever it does...

I make a game of it

Unequip ALL the mods! Run out there with nothing but unmodded unranked Dual Zoren, and let's GO!

 

It's fun to challenge yourself, especially when it's too easy.

 

I understand that even with these challenges, the game can be tedious.

Getting through low level missions is frustrating because there's little to no point.

You wanted to have fun in the grind.

All of it only becomes fun when you think of the reward.

When I first discovered Void missions, I was excited.

The chance of a great reward, or an extremely slim chance, of the best.

It was enchanting.

Now, all the drop tables are Datamined. For defense, survival, void, it's all recorded and set up for everyone to see.

I thank them for this, how else am I to know where to look?

It takes away the air of mystery slightly, but it doesn't at all remove the tension.

Who knows if I'll get what I'm looking for?

 

Just like you, I adore this game.

It's fun beyond belief.

And while it does fall short in many areas, especially with farming...

It's all about the reward.

[Tartanu]

How about making the gameplay interesting instead of putting up artificial RNG walls to pad out paper-thin content?

[RNG_God]

Glad to find someone who doesn't blame me for their problems.

[Shion963]

How about making the gameplay interesting instead of putting up artificial RNG walls to pad out paper-thin content?

 

Make every mission cool, different, and unique, and just award players with full 'frames and weapons at the end of the 'quest'?

[CheeseHasLeafs]

So you're saying the whole reason the game is fun is because we're always going to be farming for something that we want, and the fun happens along the way? Therefore, DE has to make some content extremely difficult to access in order to prolong our interest in this game, and in essence, keep it fun?

 

Honestly, this does not sound good. If this were true, then Warfarm, as people have been calling it, would be the most appropriate name for this. 
I really do not want to believe that farming is all there is to Warframe.

For a while now, I have thought that DE's eventual vision for this game was episodic stories released in 'chapters'. For example, 'Vor's Prize'. 

 

But maybe, it seems, you are right. All DE is releasing now is more weapons, more warframes, and making things harder to find. 

If the next big update comes and goes with no sign of Vor's Prize, I think I will give up. 

[Arlayn]

It is true that in the late game Warframe keeps bringing you back to when you started, to something god awful like Kiliken to force you to farm for Void keys.

 

Warframe brings you to where you don't want to be on occasion, so whenever it does...

I make a game of it

Unequip ALL the mods! Run out there with nothing but unmodded unranked Dual Zoren, and let's GO!

 

It's fun to challenge yourself, especially when it's too easy.

 

I understand that even with these challenges, the game can be tedious.

Getting through low level missions is frustrating because there's little to no point.

You wanted to have fun in the grind.

All of it only becomes fun when you think of the reward.

When I first discovered Void missions, I was excited.

The chance of a great reward, or an extremely slim chance, of the best.

It was enchanting.

Now, all the drop tables are Datamined. For defense, survival, void, it's all recorded and set up for everyone to see.

I thank them for this, how else am I to know where to look?

It takes away the air of mystery slightly, but it doesn't at all remove the tension.

Who knows if I'll get what I'm looking for?

 

Just like you, I adore this game.

It's fun beyond belief.

And while it does fall short in many areas, especially with farming...

It's all about the reward.

where you don't want to be... what? I go to hyperon, and Augustus... exactly where I want to be sometimes even Drunlo... gotta get me some Plastids, Salvage, and Rubedo... lots of it in order to make my Dojo beautiful... I love decorating my dojo its the most fun thing to do in the entire game... if your in a clan just quit it, and make your own... I guarantee you will have a blast decorating it... plus all your Forma will get some fun use in designing a beautiful dojo... My end game=Dojo... I might have clan members to help me, but for the most part I am the one donating, and designing with all the hallways going here and there, elevators going up, elevators going down here, there, all around... its kinda fun...

[Dunkelheit]

So you're saying the whole reason the game is fun is because we're always going to be farming for something that we want, and the fun happens along the way? Therefore, DE has to make some content extremely difficult to access in order to prolong our interest in this game, and in essence, keep it fun?

 

Honestly, this does not sound good. If this were true, then Warfarm, as people have been calling it, would be the most appropriate name for this. 

I really do not want to believe that farming is all there is to Warframe.

For a while now, I have thought that DE's eventual vision for this game was episodic stories released in 'chapters'. For example, 'Vor's Prize'. 

 

But maybe, it seems, you are right. All DE is releasing now is more weapons, more warframes, and making things harder to find. 

If the next big update comes and goes with no sign of Vor's Prize, I think I will give up. 

 

I think you might have misunderstood me. Many, many games are about a little thing that makes fun. Look at Tetris e.g. Seeing blocks falling for hours and still you challenge yourself, go on and go on. Warframe has a lot to offer. It is not about the content or the farm, it is in the end about fun.

 

And Warframe IS fun, we all know that.

Tetris is fun, becaues you challenge yourself all the time, you want to see yourself get better, with imaginary levels.

In Warframe, you become better by numbers and better weapons. If you take this away, you get bored. If you see in Tetris, that you cannot become much better, you become bored.

 

So it is important, that there is always content. Let us thank for every weapon that is hidden behind RNG, because it makes the game more fun for a longer time.

[.xTB_Kenshin]

Grinding ist not fun for everyone. Especially when you have to grind in order to grind in order to grind (You need to farm Nav Coords to farm Golem Coords and then you can finally farm Nekros, welcome to Warframe). And then this apology with the 1337 Void drop buff. Cool. I want to experience awesome gameplay with awesome mods passing by. Still no Retribution mod dropped, and they took it out of platinum packs. Amazing. Shall I transmute now to get lucky and earn me my Retribution mod? Oh, we forgot to tell you that we nerfed credits and everything costs credits now. Run one T3 Void so you can transmute mods. Oh and you want to get maxed Redirection? Go farm even more credits in order to fuse mods, and don't forget to farm cores.

 

This grinding for grinding stuff is making this game boring for me.

[CrazyCatLad]

Glad to find someone who doesn't blame me for their problems.

I shall slay thee!