Devstream: Empyrean, Feed Back. Are you Listening DE?

[CuChulainnWD]

The Problems and Suggested Fixes:

When the Lich update was dropped, I as many others recognised the great potential it could/can have. Finally we might have had some repeatable content. Something that was fun, perhaps a bit of a challenge and come back to. Many promises were made about how the Lich system would work, and many promises have been broken too.

The amount of RNG to play the Lich system is through the roof. I would suggest it is a straw that would break a camels back. For all of that those I have played with in groups were having fun, especially when DE enacted a hotfix that granted Thralls dropping Kuva and Req mods, and helping your fellow Tenno take down their Lich granted x10 murmur traces. That was Bioware Anthem levels of entertainment, until DE decided that no like Bioware, that kind of fun and progress is not intended. So they promptly took that away.  3 Weeks later they grant a small amount of Kuva for a Lich assist.

DE then created a massive divide in our community by their mechanics for Lich take downs. This one took a little while to raise its head, but seemed to take steam when the change was made for murmur sharing. Many people were promised a LICH counter Bounty Hunt, not be the Lich themselves. All Kudos to the animation department that made the Bane Back Breaking take downs aside, it is NOT what DE promised when the Lich were first introduced. Is a Lich not supposed to DIE and then come back stronger? The problem was further exacerbated by those that wished to continue their Lich hunt and have it spawn whether taking the death and moving on, over those that don't. DE was pretty quick to sweep that whole discussion under the rug.

If DE really wants this game to have legs, to show some polish and be entertaining,if DE really is LISTENING to their COMMUNITY, then maybe taking some of our fantastic, clever, to the point and GAME FIXING Feed Back to heart would actually bear them some fruit. Instead DE seems to have taken on the short term thinking of a quick buck and wondering why their community is not satisfied.

Duplicates: Another major issue within the system that could quickly redress the issues of sustainable content,player satisfaction and enjoyment. DE had a GREAT idea in the Valence system, but again HALF ASSED it, when we can only upgrade our weapons with a superior one. Many suggestions have been made as to how to fix the Valence system. One was give us a 5% increase for each lesser weapon we Valence into the new.

Let us be able to change/pick the Element we want until it reaches the max 60% where it will finally be locked in. That way we have a reason to continue to hunt for different Kuva weapons and endure the slog of duplicates.  Instead DE decided to change things up from getting an Ogris ad nauseam to getting a Seer, Ogris ad nauseam.

Further more as to be fair DE does need to make money, as a further insensitive for people to invest Forma into the weapons and spend plat, allow a % of elemental status on the weapon be increased up to the maximum 60% when the weapon finally hits MR 40. Wow Compromise and a reason for people to consider both options. Some people can feel satisfied with forward progression with their infinite duplicates, while also feeling justified in spending plat on forma to upgrade to the R40 rank on these weapons. Win Win?

Trade. I don't know about my fellow Tenno, but I thought the Tenno were at least honourable. Yes they are child soldiers. I have had many discussions with fellow Tenno that would claim them to be Genocidal Maniacs, or Terrorists. I would strenuously argue against that notion. What I can't abide is the Slave Safari trade that DE has created accidentally or not. It comes down to simple game mechanics that could easily be fixed, and would remedy the lore cannon of the Tenno too. It has been mentioned on several Content Creator channels too. Put simply WARFRAME! Slaver's play for Free.

DE promised we would be bounty hunters, fighting back against a Lich that was hunting us. If we did not feel like taking on that counter bounty, then we could trade that bounty tag onto a fellow Tenno to take out. The Lich were supposed to be personal after all. Instead DE decided to create a Slave Safari market for trophy hunters. We get our Lich unawares (in game lore wise) it has a hate on for us, when we finally decide its fate we can either Vanquish or Corrupt it. Choosing to corrupt your Lich has it believing that it is now your friend. All well and good. I think DE should allow our Lich to hang out in Iron Wake as a reason for the I.W to exist and be another reason to visit there just to hear their witty repartee. NAH DE is not listening. Instead they chose to allow us to corrupt our Lich to instead trade our "friends" as trophies to be hunted and killed. Yeah it sounds rather nasty does it not? Simple game mechanics do change the feel and gravitas of how the game plays. It is one of the many reasons my desire to hunt Lich's sharply declined after that little update. That and the Update Notice DEBear put out back in November. It told me that DE is NOT listening, but just looking to make the quick buck.

The Slave trade aside, that adds insult to injury, it is the fact that DE was so eager to put out a trade system so quickly after having at that time 2 weeks of feed back and all we got is radio silence, and have a month later YET to address any of the major concerns we have with the Lich system that holds it back from being the polished and system complete mode it could be that its community could finally say, well done DE, we enjoy this content, and it has replay value. Instead it says we made a lousy game mode, here instead of making it great, just catch a slave and skip some of your grind.

 

Spoiler

The Hyberbole Section:

I don't know about the rest of you Tenno, but I can say with certainty I am NOT looking forward, or excited about the future Empyrean update if given the current DE track record is to go by. Maybe the Devstream will change my mind, we shall see.

Some of you may call what I am about to say "Hyperbole" fair enough. It comes from a good place. A passion for this game that I have been playing since  2015 and saw me through some rough times as many others have expressed. I would not call myself a a Sir Gallahad (White Knight) nor a Chicken Little ( The Sky is falling) but more of a moderate voice of reason, seeing that this great game has issues that NEED addressing, but is not going over a precipice.

All of that said, since the Lich update and the Radio Silence on DE's part, for a guy of my attitude to start having doubts about DE, the direction they are going, the opaque attitude they are taking when it comes to communication. I see their community good will eroding. That bothers me immensely because as I said, I've been a voice of reason and moderation, and yet those that have clamoured extraneously the short comings of Warframe and DE's actions.

Let's be honest, there has been a massive content drought over the last few years since DE has started taking on projects far bigger than they can chew. They are announced far too in advance of being completed, and when they are released they are always a bug filled game breaking mess. We now have occasions where we fall through the map on an endless loop for no reason, until either the game crashes or we eventually return at some point on the map. There are countless other bugs since the latest Lich Old Blood release that I am sure my fellow Tenno can address. The point is, DE you've not been very forth coming in addressing many of these issues, and what can we expect when Empyrean is dropped?

 

CONCLUSION TLDR:

So my fellow Tenno are you really looking forward to Empyrean, Duvari Paradox and the New War?  DE is happy to let us slog through a content drought, then give us what really is a half assed Lich system that only needs a few tweeks to make it great, yet now a month later DE has been Radio silent. Is Reb going to give us yet more Lip service regarding the Lich system as they want our focus on Empyrean. I was really hoping we would have seen some real updates regarding the Lich system and the Vauban Ember Reworks back in November. Instead we got Bear's lip service. My worry is this will be more of the same. Empyrean is going to be just as wonderful and full of potential to start, DE will ask for our feed back, and we will give it to them, and they will not listen, but rather mess it up some more. DE are you Listening?

[Godzelda123]

Man it's almost like they have a lot on their plate and can't fix every single problem all at once. 

[CuChulainnWD]

8 minutes ago, Godzelda123 said:

Man it's almost like they have a lot on their plate and can't fix every single problem all at once. 

Man, it's like they thought they knew what they were doing, and yet magically they don't. There are no excuses left for them to fall back on. These problems they are all of their making. Follow the 7 P's and maybe they could fix some of them. Prior Preparation and Planning, Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

12 minutes ago, Godzelda123 said:

Man it's almost like they have a lot on their plate and can't fix every single problem all at once. 

Okay, well which problems are they solving one at a time?

[Steel_Rook]

2 hours ago, Godzelda123 said:

Man it's almost like they have a lot on their plate and can't fix every single problem all at once. 

And whose fault is that, exactly? Digital Extremes are the ones who set their own schedule, who pick their own release dates and who decide which projects to work on and which to shelve. They don't have a Publisher to hide behind, though I don't know what their parent company / public trading status is. Point being, DE themselves chose to invest in massive, difficult, slow projects seemingly at the expense of most everything else. They're not a small company, they're not new to this business, we as customers should not be making excuses for the failure of their management. They have consistently missed deadlines, delayed releases and eventually delivered unfinished content anyway for at least as long as I've been following the game, and that's the fault of THEIR choices.

Worse, DE have been dabbling in some frankly dishonest game design of late. Either by choice or circumstance, they've delivered less and less content wrapped in more and more grind. I'm with the OP - The Old Blood was my own personal breaking point. Kuva Liches and the Kingpin/Nemesis system in general has been talked about since before my time and a lot of boastful promises were made. What we ended up getting after all this time was a glorified version of the already terrible Wolf of Saturn Six, except buried under so many levels of RNG and repetition that I've taken to calling it "fractal grind." You grind for the ability to grind for the ability to grind, all the way down. They promised us content, they gave us a Skinner box. Another one, and probably the worst yet, at least from what I've seen. It's certainly the most ambitious in its exploitation. For me and others, this has had a similar effect to "pride and accomplishment" did for Battlefront 2 - a wake-up call to reevaluate if we really want to be give our time and money to a development studio that doesn't seem to be developing in good faith.

I'm still playing for the time being, sure, but I can never go back to the starry-eyed enthusiasm I started out with. I can never again see DE's stumbles as the good-natured attempts of an indie darling to deliver a genuinely fun experience. After the naked cynicism of The Old Blood, I can only see it as the calculated manipulation of a studio gaslighting their own playerbase and trying to inch closer and closer to openly predatory monetisation by degrees. Nightwave was pushing it, but people defended that. The Old Blood was I think a bridge too far - too big of a step too quickly, to the point where many were pushed into introspective thoughts.

People have the sense of a "content drought" because DE have consistently delayed, deferred and eventually underdelivered on content while consistently excelling and over-delivering on grind and monetisation. That's not the description of an indie darling, it's the description of a Chinese knockoff mobile game. That's the common thread running throughout all of these threads.

[MirageKnight]

On 2019-12-05 at 12:06 AM, Godzelda123 said:

Man it's almost like they have a lot on their plate and can't fix every single problem all at once. 

That's completely on them for over-promising to all the fans and trying to deliver on that.

[CuChulainnWD]

4 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

And whose fault is that, exactly? Digital Extremes are the ones who set their own schedule, who pick their own release dates and who decide which projects to work on and which to shelve. They don't have a Publisher to hide behind, though I don't know what their parent company / public trading status is. Point being, DE themselves chose to invest in massive, difficult, slow projects seemingly at the expense of most everything else. They're not a small company, they're not new to this business, we as customers should not be making excuses for the failure of their management. They have consistently missed deadlines, delayed releases and eventually delivered unfinished content anyway for at least as long as I've been following the game, and that's the fault of THEIR choices.

Worse, DE have been dabbling in some frankly dishonest game design of late. Either by choice or circumstance, they've delivered less and less content wrapped in more and more grind. I'm with the OP - The Old Blood was my own personal breaking point. Kuva Liches and the Kingpin/Nemesis system in general has been talked about since before my time and a lot of boastful promises were made. What we ended up getting after all this time was a glorified version of the already terrible Wolf of Saturn Six, except buried under so many levels of RNG and repetition that I've taken to calling it "fractal grind." You grind for the ability to grind for the ability to grind, all the way down. They promised us content, they gave us a Skinner box. Another one, and probably the worst yet, at least from what I've seen. It's certainly the most ambitious in its exploitation. For me and others, this has had a similar effect to "pride and accomplishment" did for Battlefront 2 - a wake-up call to reevaluate if we really want to be give our time and money to a development studio that doesn't seem to be developing in good faith.

I'm still playing for the time being, sure, but I can never go back to the starry-eyed enthusiasm I started out with. I can never again see DE's stumbles as the good-natured attempts of an indie darling to deliver a genuinely fun experience. After the naked cynicism of The Old Blood, I can only see it as the calculated manipulation of a studio gaslighting their own playerbase and trying to inch closer and closer to openly predatory monetisation by degrees. Nightwave was pushing it, but people defended that. The Old Blood was I think a bridge too far - too big of a step too quickly, to the point where many were pushed into introspective thoughts.

People have the sense of a "content drought" because DE have consistently delayed, deferred and eventually underdelivered on content while consistently excelling and over-delivering on grind and monetisation. That's not the description of an indie darling, it's the description of a Chinese knockoff mobile game. That's the common thread running throughout all of these threads.

Yep. Remember when DE earned our good will. When they were transparent,  that they did what they would say they would do. Their actions tended to meet their words. As of the last couple of months, that has changed. Someone somewhere in the company wants to be the Wukong that puts said wrench in the works. If DE looked at the long term gain instead of the quick buck they would have the good faith of their player base and I would wager make more money long term than the shortsighted goals with money they are practicing now.

Who ever that Wukong is, needs to be taken by the short and curlies, and told to piss off back to the cave they crawled out of. Enough is enough. They are damaging DE's rep and the good will of its community, and there is no need for any of it. As of right now since DE has invested more in advertising, their new found notoriety is giving them the ole "American Woman" effect. Coloured Lights can hypnotist, sparkle someone elses eyes. They are behaving like a larger Tripple A company, but failing to keep up with what was once Tripple A standards of practice. DE was a model for companies to follow, but now seem to be going down the path of the bad ole Trip A methodology. They can reverse course, and I do hope they do so soon, but lately? Meh, it breaks me heart and pisses me off to see the rubbish we are being told to swallow, because you know... DE is listening... Whuah Whah wha whah waa wha wha *Peanuts adult speech*

Edited December 5, 2019 by CuChulainnWD

[Grahark]

The entire Warframe experience is all free. Walk away if you wish. 

[CuChulainnWD]

On 2019-12-05 at 6:52 AM, Grahark said:

The entire Warframe experience is all free. Walk away if you wish. 

Who said walk away? Especially when I  have financially supported DE for a substantial amount of time (Every Prime Access since Trinity). Your comment is as easily dismissed as your solution. If YOU don't like the game you can walk away.

[earthdoesgaming2]

7 hours ago, CuChulainnWD said:

The amount of RNG to play the Lich system is through the roof. I would suggest it is a straw that would break a camels back.

the last straw for me and many others was the game breaking saints of altra update that clearly wasn't play tested once or else they would have instantly noticed the broken metalics that turned to plastic

[CuChulainnWD]

1 minute ago, earthdoesgaming2 said:

the last straw for me and many others was the game breaking saints of altra update that clearly wasn't play tested once or else they would have instantly noticed the broken metalics that turned to plastic

At this point, it is par for the course. Welcome to Bugframe. If you were excited for the Lich System, hold onto your hats for the coming Empyrean, cause I bet pound to a penny we are in for much more game breaking bugs than ever before. 

Thankyou for your comment.

[DarthIronclad]

This is starting to be like no man's sky at launch to be honest... 

[CuChulainnWD]

Just now, DarthIronclad said:

This is starting to be like no man's sky at launch to be honest... 

Please explain as I have not played that game.

[DarthIronclad]

I also don't really play the game, as much as I like to, but I do follow it actively since it's launch...bascially they also overhyped stuff, claiming there is muitiplayer and some other stuff, but that did not make it on release, and people were obv pissed...but they did learn their lesson and never overhyped updates way too early...but they did still eventually add in the stuff they promised, and the game is fairly OK now. Actually I might finally give it a shot soon when the game goes on sale hopefully during the winter sale. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man's_Sky

You can read from the wiki if you want more info

 

 

[CuChulainnWD]

1 minute ago, DarthIronclad said:

I also don't really play the game, as much as I like to, but I do follow it actively since it's launch...bascially they also overhyped stuff, claiming there is muitiplayer and some other stuff, but that did not make it on release, and people were obv pissed...but they did learn their lesson and never overhyped updates way too early...but they did still eventually add in the stuff they promised, and the game is fairly OK now. Actually I might finally give it a shot soon when the game goes on sale hopefully during the winter sale. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man's_Sky

You can read from the wiki if you want more info

 

 

Thanks. I see your point. I can not overly disagree. DE used to learn from their lessons, now they are learning new "old" dirty tricks, and it is a habit of theirs they picked up over the past couple of months. I hope they break that habit soon, because it will cost them in the long run. (More Hyperbole of course) Just calling it as I see it.

[DarthIronclad]

This could happen if de continues what they are doing now...the worse thing a dev can do is to betray the trust of their customers...and trust is something that once lost, it is gonna be hard or downright impossible to earn back... 

[CuChulainnWD]

Just now, DarthIronclad said:

This could happen if de continues what they are doing now...the worse thing a dev can do is to betray the trust of their customers...and trust is something that once lost, it is gonna be hard or downright impossible to earn back... 

Again I agree. But you must remember, some will cal what we are saying as Hyperbole at best, and Traitors at worst. That or Heretics fit for Exterminatus. 😉 The game has vast potential, but over the last couple months in particular it just seems like DE is flushing their good name and community good will down the proverbial toilet bowl as fast as the kavat can spool it off the toilet roll.

[-Kittens-]

On 2019-12-04 at 4:42 PM, CuChulainnWD said:

Let's be honest, there has been a massive content drought over the last few years since DE has started taking on projects far bigger than they can chew.

The amount of employees they have is more than enough to put out FULL content at AAA level. The more salient context is are those people actually working on WF or something else.

DE is, as most (frankly all) canadian AAA companies have turned into, an insulated work environment, both internally and externally. Insulation never benefits anyone, at least not that I've ever seen in 15 years as a game designer. It may shield you from a barrage of meaningless crap and general malaise ala trolls, but it also inevitably corrodes both your work environment and your ability to accurately gauge reception and thus gain proper feedback.

Fan goodwill is a finite thing, and the main problem there is once you run out of it, it's very very hard to get it back. So you probably don't want to run out of it.

Thing here is, new consoles are on the way, and that's probably going to be huge boon to WF, because the model of grind and avarice WF employs is the new hotness as far as triple A gaming is concerned. Those new consoles are going to hit about the time WF would be tanking hard based on current trends, and since WF costs no money to install, you can see where this is going. DE will learn no lessons or get proper context regarding the "general dissatisfaction" for their current model. What they will get is a shiny new crop of new customers and plenty omg new car smell evangelists, which will probably be enough to carry them for another chunk of years, in addition to being praised as the grandaddies of the current de facto business model for "AAA renewal based subscription interactive entertainment services" or whatever other bullS#&$ name marketing decides to use as the euphemism du jour for "you give money or time now, no refunds".

DE is way past being able to turn the money train around, other than by degrees, which they don't really seem interested in doing.

As for Duviri, it's simply Orokin Tower Open World (weeth a tweest!), and I could care less about it. The New War looks interesting, and I'm simply going to have to trade for that sweet 55% heat drakgoon and Shildeg, cause there's no way in hell I'm going to waste weeks on RNG.

Edited December 6, 2019 by -Kittens-

[Squick]

In this thread: People who have never made a game in their life, nor known anyone who works in the industry, nor even bothered to read up much on the industry.

 

Lich system is pretty bad, I will say that. But let's not forget they've been actively tweaking things on it on a daily or weekly basis during the holiday season when many other game devs wouldn't patch something for months or years in the name of "gathering data".

[(PSN)Spider_Enigma]

3 minutes ago, Squick said:

In this thread: People who have never made a game in their life, nor known anyone who works in the industry, nor even bothered to read up much on the industry.

 

Lich system is pretty bad, I will say that. But let's not forget they've been actively tweaking things on it on a daily or weekly basis during the holiday season when many other game devs wouldn't patch something for months or years in the name of "gathering data".

the issue is they were working on it for 2 years, and was meant to be a clan focus, for the year of clan updates, and we got nothing but dojo decorations, and a trade post, the dojo weapons could have easly been in  the market

[CuChulainnWD]

18 minutes ago, -Kittens- said:

The amount of employees they have is more than enough to put out FULL content at AAA level. The more salient context is are those people actually working on WF or something else.

DE is, as most (frankly all) canadian AAA companies have turned into, an insulated work environment, both internally and externally. Insulation never benefits anyone, at least not that I've ever seen in 15 years as a game designer. It may shield you from a barrage of meaningless crap and general malaise ala trolls, but it also inevitably corrodes both your work environment and your ability to accurately gauge reception and thus gain proper feedback.

Fan goodwill is a finite thing, and the main problem there is once you run out of it, it's very very hard to get it back. So you probably don't want to run out of it.

Thing here is, new consoles are on the way, and that's probably going to be huge boon to WF, because the model of grind and avarice WF employs is the new hotness as far as triple A gaming is concerned. Those new consoles are going to hit about the time WF would be tanking hard based on current trends, and since WF costs no money to install, you can see where this is going. DE will learn no lessons or get proper context regarding the "general dissatisfaction" for their current model. What they will get is a shiny new crop of new customers and plenty omg new car smell evangelists, which will probably be enough to carry them for another chunk of years, in addition to being praised as the grandaddies of the current de facto business model for "AAA renewal based subscription interactive entertainment services" or whatever other bullS#&$ name marketing decides to use as the euphemism du jour for "you give money or time now, no refunds".

DE is way past being able to turn the money train around, other by degrees, which they don't really seem interested in doing.

As for Duviri, it's simply Orokin Tower Open World (weeth a tweest!), and I could care less about it. The New War looks interesting, and I'm simply going to have to trade for that sweet 55% heat drakgoon and Shildeg, cause there's no way in hell I'm going to waste weeks on RNG.

Ouch mate that is pretty doom and gloom, but may well be true. We shall have to wait and see.

[Xzorn]

It's pretty easy to compare the outcome of what companies do and compare them with both time and staff numbers.

Anyone with coding experience knows something that feels like a 5 min fix going in can easily turn into hours. That's not really the problem though.

There are 5 year old reported bugs in this game. What's the excuse behind something like that?
It's also not hard to see the pattern flaw in DE's development. Make something, accidentally cause something else to not work well anymore, rework said thing. Make it too good, Nerf said thing or make another thing to combat that which causes something else to not work well and the circle keeps going. DE is constantly back tracking and wasting development time. Worst yet it's usually their own fault for either not doing it right the first time or neglecting a critical flaw that got out of hand.

It certainly doesn't help they over hype and over package very simplistic updates which isn't fooling most. It's the same thing over and over. Dark Sectors, Archwing, Solar Rails, Lunaro...  Liches are just the most recent addition in a long history of half baked ideas and often result in removal / failure. There only real difference as of recent is the impact is more drastic because there's no longer things like The Void or Raids to entertain players while the droughts get bigger.

The core game has gone from minimal sustain to absolute 0 sustain when it comes to play value and content.

[ciTiger]

The developer clearly doesn't care about the community feedback at this point (Regarding Liches) seems clear only empyrean matters, seems like a risky gamble.

Edited December 5, 2019 by ciTiger

[DoomFruit]

5 hours ago, Grahark said:

The entire Warframe experience is all free. Walk away if you wish. 

Which is exactly what's going to happen. People get disillusioned, have precisely zero desire to "experience" fractal grind and bullS#&$ mechanics and just walk away. And when someone else asks them "have you heard of this warframe game", they respond with "yeah, it's pretty crap, you're better off playing something else". That's how DE goes bankrupt and collapses.

[Xzorn]

21 minutes ago, DoomFruit said:

Which is exactly what's going to happen. People get disillusioned, have precisely zero desire to "experience" fractal grind and bullS#&$ mechanics and just walk away. And when someone else asks them "have you heard of this warframe game", they respond with "yeah, it's pretty crap, you're better off playing something else". That's how DE goes bankrupt and collapses.

 

Perhaps it's fitting since the game started and grew with word of mouth.