Dead horse of the day: Power Creep

[SkullHavoc]

WARNING: RANT AHEAD

I'm gonna bring up a bit of a topic I know gets beat down a lot. But I really want to throw in my two cents and see what the rest of the community thinks as well. Power Creep. A phrase I barely even knew before I started playing this game. A phrase I didn't care much about back when void keys were assigned to specific missions and their tiers. I dabbled a bit in warframe way back when the whole HUD was far more basic than it is now, but I really started playing for real back around Operation: Gate Crash. I remember the bygone era of Boltor and Soma, when Frost and Vauban were required for half the star chart and Trinity could speed run bosses faster than most other frames due to the Well of Life/Energy Vampire exploit. Times where when you sat to play some missions you were in for some time. Grinding frames from bosses (Ember.. Sargas Ruk... bane of my existence) took time and dedication. This is what Warframe was. Now, mind that power creep was a thing even then but nowhere near the point it is now.

If I asked what your favorite boss fight in warframe was, then AND now, what would you say? Personally back then it was the Hyena Pack for me back then. They were varied had a bunch of different abilities, and required some finesse to overcome. Death and danger were a real threat with them. Nowadays? Sargas Ruk, because he's about the only fight that I still have to aim at to kill. I still have to wait for a moment of opportunity to damage him. And I used to goddamn hate the dude.

If I asked what your favorite mission type was then and now, what would you say? Survival back then, Rathuum for me now. Survival was a sort of stress relief, Rathuum is one of the few challenges I face nowadays, even though I have nothing to farm from it anymore.

This may seem like boring exposition that is off topic and completely unrelated, but it isn't. Warframe then and now are two completely different games. And not totally in a bad way, but definitely not in a great way either. Parkour 2.0 was a great change, I love the new movement (tho I do miss wall running on some tiles) and coptering was horrible. Ish. It was funny on some instances, or when you first learned how to do it. Rivens were a great idea, but hasn't brought many of the older weapons up to speed by themselves. No one's running around with a Karak, or a Braton. Even if the Rivens make less popular weapons better, the fact that DE is coming out with MORE weapons with MORE damage and nothing else makes them a moot point entirely. Yes, I get it. Warframe is a power fantasy, you want BIGGER numbers and BIGGER damage and you want to kill everything faster and faster and faster. But that speed is killing content replayability. It makes new content either forced to be a grinding chore, (Fortuna requiring max rank to gain access to the spiders), or just short lived. We suffer content droughts left and right because DE has allowed the creep to reach a point where we completing content within days of it coming out. Who still has trouble fighting Kuva Liches? Who doesn't just blow them away in one to two shots? These dudes were supposed to be big bads. Stalker was supposed to be a big bad. G3 used to be damn terrifying for me! Now they're all about as threatening as Steel Meridian's roller assassins. Less so, some of them.

Also, to steal a bit from another post I saw about the matter. "DPS checks" in Demolysts. I truly never thought about it until I saw that. But it's an undeniable truth. The game has become an arms race against itself. DE coming out with stronger guns, but then trying to still challenge players with stronger faster enemies. They're not harder, they just have numbers up or a mechanic that punishes you for not having end all be all weapon. Weapons that used to be renowned for having high base damage or high crit are thrown to the wayside because every weapon now has high base damage AND high crit. "Some weapons have to be trash, new weapons should be stronger!" Complete and utter rubbish. Numbers are destroying this game. You wanna make new weapons? Give them interesting functions. Harpak, Mutalist Quanta, and the Quanta are just a few weapons with interesting mechanics to them. But their damage is complete garbage compared to point and click guns like the Catchmoon, Arca Plasmor, Tiberon Prime, and on and on. Content creators I used to watch for interesting build ideas are basically all null and void now. Slap Serration, Split Chamber, Toxin, Electric, Crit chance, Crit damage(if it has a high multiplier and is slow fire rate), and either 60/60 mods for high status chance with corrosive or nowadays Heat and it's 60/60 cause that S#&$ is busted as hell. Personally I think the Heat change is good, just a bit overtuned on the armor bit.

Warframe has huge diverse selection of weapons and frames to pick from, but this issue with power creep is nullifying the choice and subtly forcing players to pick the same things over and over. It's all an illusion, and it's because of the speed at which the game is played now. Power Creep has sped up the game to the point that it's hardly even fun anymore. Gone are the days of planning out your squad's frames and equipment before a mission. Bring whatever, doesn't matter as long as it clears rooms faster than the enemies can spawn. Gone are the days of gameplay style and choice. CC frames are practically dead. It's damage all the way. Defense frames? Just grab a Saryn, they can't shoot if they've succumbed to the Spanish Flu. 

My point is this, Warframe has grown in many ways, but DE has focused too much on making numbers big and making the game faster. The new melee changes are a huge sign of this. 12x damage on melee weapons, blood rush has become utter god, and I feel real bad for fellow gun wielders who play with randos. This isn't everything I think about when it comes to the power creep issue, but I think many of you already have thought about those things. And this is getting long. And my hands are a bit crampy.

 

 

 

On a side note, here's some S#&$ ya'll are sleepin real hard on. Mutalist Quanta's alt fire adds 100% crit to ANY projectile that can pass through. Ember fireballs can crit. Not super useful but it's funny. But anything with high damage gets easily doubled if you work as a team with a M.Quanta. Nyx's Mind Control can be buffed to absolute ridiculous numbers. Grab Arca Titron, build up 10 stacks of capacitor charges, mind control an enemy and Block while standing still and attack. You should do a bit of dramatic looking slam. Instant 4200+% bonus damage for whatever you just nabbed. Mind I also did this with a 328% P.Str with Mind Freak augment. Have fun, don't be afraid to revisit out of meta frames and guns to find interesting interactions. It's far more fun (IMO) than just loading up the latest flavor of the month with corrosive and mindlessly grinding through the game. Use weapons with obvious strengths and weaknesses and make a build designed to either specialize in that or even things out. The game is more fun when you aren't nuking rooms with impunity.

 

 

On a side side note, fix my damn orvius. That was my favorite weapon.

[(PSN)TONI__RIBEIRO]

First 

[Voltage]

The game is a power fantasy. This "arms race" has been a thing for years. Large numbers are always fun, and some people find chasing them even more fun. This is why people invest in Riven Mods. Rubico Prime on release could one-shot most enemies, but what if that one-shot had a bigger number? The game has always been appealing to chase the biggest number on the screen, and Disruption highlighted that well during the Operation.

The way to make Warframe challenging is adding mechanics that are not always oriented towards damage. I use this example often, but look at the Profit Taker. Your damage per hit is relevant, but not as relevant as cleverly equipping as many damage types as possible without sacrificing your DPS. This fight makes the Battacor interesting over a similar weapon or Exodia Contagion over a weapon like Redeemer Prime. 

Adding enemies like the Wolf of Saturn Six or Kuva Liches does not really make the game harder. It instead just pushes you to use more brute force damage. This isn't hard to achieve in the game, and they become just another generic enemy to blast through.

To me, I would personally like to see more things like Trials. It's a highly unpopular opinion, but missions that incentivize speed and focus on an objective outside of damage are fun. Huge damage numbers are fun, but your choices are more limited compared to objectives that have many different strategies and avenues.

[Seph-Aldaire]

I do sorta agree, although I am a new player the power fantasy does get old and I look more towards teamwork nowadays. I am just hoping perhaps we can see changes come after railjack but I doubt they'll suddenly start balancing at this point.

[kapn655321]

37 minutes ago, SkullHavoc said:

bygone era of Boltor and Soma

 

38 minutes ago, SkullHavoc said:

Warframe is a power fantasy, you want BIGGER numbers and BIGGER damage

The reason people used Soma is the reason people don't use Soma.
It dealt the most damage.

 

41 minutes ago, SkullHavoc said:

You wanna make new weapons? Give them interesting functions. Harpak, Mutalist Quanta,

They did. Like those ones.
They lost time and money in development, as even the novelty users didn't bring them...
Reason being: Their numbers were too low.

DE isn't sabotaging their game, it's trying to cater to the players, while doing so on budget.

Then once that's paid off and some extra money comes in to afford a rebalance,
it gets some side-grades.

Opticor Vandal is new. That was a side grade.
Ember didn't get OP, she side-graded.

The new stuff has to be poppin' or people don't buy it.
Then they get bored of it the second a new shiny thing is out, buy that, and the other gets mothballed.
After a while those projects tend to pay for themselves, and sometimes they allow for future reworks.

I suspect.

Speaking of which, new mods came out to pull more utility out of random low and mid tier weapons.
Nightwave mods for example.

As far as budget can permit, they're doing what you want them to do already, and have been the whole time.
When it permits, they revise in those directions, as that is their compass.

Look at Melee. They bled the worst cases of power creep to boost the worst weapons to functional.
They juiced the power creep to give to the foundation.
That's a fine and exemplary case of exactly the solution to the problem you identify, already happening.
 

[PookieNumnums]

Favorites: 

Bosses: then probably raptor. now probably exploiter orb. 

Missions: then probably deception. now probably arbitration survival, or disruption. God how i want conduit key ship decorations or sheild skins. 

Ive always been a fan of power creep, however over the last year or two i am more interested in weapons that feel unique. Of course i want them to hit hard but individuality is important. In a game where there are so many enemies to kill at any given time, i tend to go with what kills well over what is fun to use just based on its character traits. 

I have to agree wif @Voltage though. 

Unique enemy mechanics are what i enjoy, which is probably why i like exploiter orb as much as i do. Tossin thermia to overheat and unlock damage reception. Trying to manage the raknoids. Ive always, always, said player triggered vulnerability is the key to improved engagement. Ever since wayyy back. I was really hoping we would get the eximus weak points but that never happened. Juggernaut isnt a bad example only that its based on timing instead of actively triggered. Profit taker is almost there but the knockdown shield and enemy abundance makes the whole damage type rotation aspect a little annoying. Eidolons are good at it but so many hard hitting weapons feel so weak against them. I like the amp use to lower shields. I just wish there was more than a few meta tactics though, as weapon and amp variety are so restricted to a few good choices. 

Also, @SkullHavoc i have to ask. Have you tested mutalist quanta crit buff on amp shots? Id like to know if that works. Could make using volt and harrow less of a requirement, since amesha 3 and k drive can bypass mag procs and the crit buff could void needing volt shields. Or be stacked with. 

[(PSN)BlitzKeir]

What @Voltage said. Especially about trials. Getting the gang together for trials is one of the two things I miss most about WF; the other being the utter chaos of Dark Sectors, because clans mattered and players could change the game environment.

But to add my own thoughts... Power creep is virtually unavoidable when developing persistent online games. But you can prevent power creep from causing mechanics to fall apart if you keep one thing in mind: ideally, "balance" isn't about what you can't do; it merely defines difficulty and pacing. How perilous an enemy or objective is. Devs sometimes get distracted by numbers, and start balancing things toward some abstract notion of how strong you're supposed to be, rather than with the intent of setting a difficulty level. DE is not immune to this mindtrap.

If everything you fight dies in one hit, there are two obvious ways to add difficulty. 1) You also die very easily. Example: high-level survival. 2) Getting that hit takes some work. Example: Liches. Personally, I think Tenno have become too powerful for these philosophies to work without being incredibly frustrating. I believe that's why DE is shifting WF's reward structure from punishing failure to rewarding finesse.

As with any assessment of a game's mechanics, you need to know the preferences of the interpreter. I am a Deulist. I'm partial to so-called "bullet sponge" enemies who live long enough to pressure you, force you to stay on the move, and encourage refined footwork. I also prefer reward structures where success not certain, but greatly rewarded (Destiny does this pretty well). WF doesn't have much to truly satisfy my tastes. High-level Nox go a ways to scratching my itch, but it's hard to duel when there's 30 shotguns and snipers trained on you. Endurance modes also disappear once an event ends, which is a real shame.

They've talked for a couple years about adding selectable difficulty. This would please people like myself who don't want to sit around in survival for an hour waiting for things to get fun. But it also further fragments the star chart, isolating newer players. DE is clever when it comes to problems like this. I'm confident they can find a solution that benefits everyone... Soon^TM.

Edited December 7, 2019 by (PS4)BlitzKeir

[Cubewano]

38 minutes ago, Voltage said:

The game is a power fantasy. This "arms race" has been a thing for years. Large numbers are always fun, and some people find chasing them even more fun. This is why people invest in Riven Mods. Rubico Prime on release could one-shot most enemies, but what if that one-shot had a bigger number? The game has always been appealing to chase the biggest number on the screen, and Disruption highlighted that well during the Operation.

The way to make Warframe challenging is adding mechanics that are not always oriented towards damage. I use this example often, but look at the Profit Taker. Your damage per hit is relevant, but not as relevant as cleverly equipping as many damage types as possible without sacrificing your DPS. This fight makes the Battacor interesting over a similar weapon or Exodia Contagion over a weapon like Redeemer Prime. 

Adding enemies like the Wolf of Saturn Six or Kuva Liches does not really make the game harder. It instead just pushes you to use more brute force damage. This isn't hard to achieve in the game, and they become just another generic enemy to blast through.

To me, I would personally like to see more things like Trials. It's a highly unpopular opinion, but missions that incentivize speed and focus on an objective outside of damage are fun. Huge damage numbers are fun, but your choices are more limited compared to objectives that have many different strategies and avenues.

So why not just create a random number generator that always gives higher numbers and play that? Higher numbers aren't inherently good or bad or fun or boring because they're just numbers, they're meaningless without being assigned to something to give value to. We prize high numbers to some extent in Warframe because yes it shows how powerful we are, but even that power is only in relation to how it addresses gameplay, Ash prime was a powerful frame by any numeric metric, he could scale his damage to effectively infinity one shotting anything with a covert build, that's effectively infinite numbers, but that didn't make him innately more fun or desirable for the game. Octavia scales infinitely, so that's big numbers too, but is she super popular or enjoyable as well? Usage says no. Numerics are just a tool, a gameplay modifier, to help craft an experience, but the core experience is still what drives the value of the rest of those factors. We could deal the largest numbers in the world and that wouldn't make the game more fun unless it lends itself to something to create an experience. That said, the ops focus seems more on that later experience rather than just express numbers, since again those mean nothing without application. Dealing 1 damage to an enemy with 10 hp or 1000 damage to a enemy with 10000 is null difference gameplay wise, it's not just bigger numbers that are the perceived problem, but how they interact with other values to impact the overall experience, which you can agree with or not, but best to address it on that stage rather than some sideways arbitrary factor to the core grievance, which to be clear I agree with. 

In regards to just facilitating engagements needs through a different style of game design that forgoes the broken combat structure, that definitely is an option to consider, but then you have to question how wide that application needs to go to function and if its worth those extra loops to jump through just to preserve well...whatever is you want to preserve over it, I assume room clearing. Yes experiences like the Profit Taker and Eidolons don't suffer from the same kind of egregious power creep than game has seeped into the rest of its content, but it's foolish to say it hasn't been impacted given it's a design directly resulting from a need to counter it, and comes with its own trade offs in kind, namely this very different approach to combat and style of play as a result of having to bar a bunch of original combat aspects or heavily alter them to maintain difficulty, which may not be inherently desirable. There are plenty of people who have bones to pick with the prevalence of ability immunity in certain stages of content to create difficulty, or the application of iframes, the selectiveness of the tool roster for them, and the like, all as the cost of making balance very mechanical, and in select areas only. So while that solution might seem ideal for you, to people who like the core style of combat from outside what is typically boss content, that might not be how they want that engagement to happen, through a forced shift outside the standard combat style. I certainly am of those who would prefer all abilities be more blanket application and flexible at the expense of not being so overpowered, rather than have them selectively valuable if the application allows for it, or otherwise be made entirely inert. 

Likewise with trials. 

Curious as I am, do you truly feel certain states of power affairs, such as frames being able to empty rooms in an instant including things you aren't even remotely aware of, is truly the best possible experience for the game to you? That any other way could only possibly hinder your enjoyment and there is no other room for betterment? That it is the best combat design/cycle? Or given your leaning to more non-combat oriented gameplay to make for more engaging play, do you perhaps not have a strong fondest of combat experiences to begin with? That could explain your leaning to damage numbers as a strong signifier of a good combat experience. 

 

 

[SkullHavoc]

1 hour ago, PookieNumnums said:

Also, @SkullHavoc i have to ask. Have you tested mutalist quanta crit buff on amp shots? Id like to know if that works. Could make using volt and harrow less of a requirement, since amesha 3 and k drive can bypass mag procs and the crit buff could void needing volt shields. Or be stacked with. 

I don't all the amps, but Raplak, Rahn, Pencha, and Phahd all stop upon contact with the orb. I really wanted to see if it could combo with the Volt shield 2x crit damage as well.

 

1 hour ago, kapn655321 said:

The reason people used Soma is the reason people don't use Soma.
It dealt the most damage.
 

Yes it did, and I used to say the same stuff back then that I am now about it. But in hindsight and something I didn't appreciate is that the Soma very much had a weakness back then. It's ammo economy was absolutely abysmal. Sure you could pump out huge DPS, but it came a cost that in an endless situation you would eventually run out of ammo. Ammo restores helped, but they only gave some ammo back, thus delaying the inevitable. This is no longer a concern on most new meta weapons that outclass the Soma in damage. I'm not saying DE should stop making stronger guns. Only make it harder to use them forever. Like the Lenz was supposed to. Except you totally get more ammo than you use on that thing. High numbers with nothing stopping you makes the game rather one dimensional IMO.

 

55 minutes ago, (PS4)BlitzKeir said:

I am a Deulist. I'm partial to so-called "bullet sponge" enemies who live long enough to pressure you, force you to stay on the move, and encourage refined footwork

I am right there with you on that. I grew up playing Unreal Tournament where, with the exception of a few weapons, if you got shot you could turn around and still have enough time and hp to give the guy shooting you a run for his money. Weapons had inherent strengths and weaknesses, and you frequently cycled between them. I know UT doesn't really have anything in common with Warframe, but I wish we could see more weapons that gave the same sort of feel of trying to balance your build between ranges, or enemy types and such. Rapid fire weapons with lower base damage for nullifiers, burst damage on the nox, AoE for the infested, with that high damage pistol for those healers. But it feels too much like you just need to outpace everything in damage rather than consider your options. I dunno.

 

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

 

To me, I would personally like to see more things like Trials. It's a highly unpopular opinion, but missions that incentivize speed and focus on an objective outside of damage are fun. Huge damage numbers are fun, but your choices are more limited compared to objectives that have many different strategies and avenues.

The Vay Hek trial was an absolute blast IMO. I never got to the other one, as I'm a fan of ArchWing at the moment (add more mods pls....). I can't wait for them to rerelease them, but I'm afraid they might take out some of the harder time based mechanics and instead just line up hallways with enemies to blast through.

 

The whole selectable difficulty I don't think would change much honestly. That sounds like more like "What level do you want the enemies to be"? I want smarter, actually stronger enemies to be in the game to deal with the power creep. Let's have enemies with abilities and weaknesses like in Rathuum and Index. Something where even the casual Lancer can keep you on your toes. They started with a strong idea by adding the Bulwark shields for some grineer, but they hardly use the cover effectively. I just want some smarter AI with gear and abilities to make me try to decide which enemy should I kill first in a room, as opposed to "I'm just gonna press 4 wipe out the grineer race".

1 hour ago, kapn655321 said:

Look at Melee. They bled the worst cases of power creep to boost the worst weapons to functional.
They juiced the power creep to give to the foundation.
That's a fine and exemplary case of exactly the solution to the problem you identify, already happening.

Yes they did in fact make melee weapons as a whole quite good. I don't disagree. I think they made ALL melee weapons a little too good though. Consider the man behind you in a public match. You whip out your melee weapon of choice and go to absolute town in killing everything in the mission. Dude behind is spending more time bullet jumping to keep up than he shooting at anything in the mission. Why? It's already dead. You killed it. There's no point. Melee is faster, easier, and far more rewarding than aiming a gun. So dude behind you feels cheated, he worked so hard on his gun, why should some guy with knife be able to just murder every effortlessly? He has two choices. 1. Pick a frame that can outpace the melee guy to try and rush his way to kills or 2. Switch to Solo. How is this a good thing in this game? There is a point in which players are made far too powerful. There is a point in which the game can no longer keep up. We've long since passed it. And it only keeps getting worse. It's too the point now that there are public only guys who are absolutely terrible at the mechanics of the game, because all they've learned in playing it is "Go fast, kill everything around me.". Defense points go undefended, randos in survival pulling all the enemies far away from everybody else, multiple drills in extraction with no batteries, the list goes on. And we sit there going "Is this guy an idiot?", maybe, but maybe it's how he learned to play the game from watching everybody else.

 

And back to the boss thing. Ropalaleluleilo or what ever it's called. It was a really cool boss at first, I thought it kinda neat. But the second time and third time on and on, I realized something. This boss is boring. There is little interaction in the way of actually fighting the boss. It's effectively a cutscene battle with some extra steps sprinkled in. And I fear that might be how more bosses will be presented.

 

I truly enjoy everything you all have brought up, it's definitely given me more food for thought.

[bad4youLT]

Yes yes we know and get remind of it everyday .

So what to we do ? Absolutely nothing because people dont like their power taken away .

[Hellmaker2004]

2 hours ago, SkullHavoc said:

Personally I think the Heat change is good, just a bit overtuned on the armor bit.

How is it overtuned?

You are aware how Heat procs work right, you do not get instantly up to 50% Armor strip it takes time, this is why corrosive still have a huge place. Not only does Heat take some time to build up the armor strip, but unless you refresh it the reduction will decay, making it worse towards endurance targets.

[SkullHavoc]

Just now, bad4youLT said:

Yes yes we know and get remind of it everyday .

So what to we do ? Absolutely nothing because people dont like their power taken away .

What do we do? We bring it up time and time again, never let the community forget and hope that whenever damage 3.0 happens, if it ever happens, the balance will be restored. Or reset, as it will probably slowly happen again and again. I know you can never truly stop Power Creep, just slow it down. Reset the numbers, bring everything back to a baseline, rework the weapons we have and the damage effects (magnetize and gas could really use some love) and release as a major update. Yes there will people would would hate it, but you can't please everybody. Even the folks like me who dislike the current power creep. But silence will never solve anything for anybody.

 

1 minute ago, Hellmaker2004 said:

You are aware how Heat procs work right, you do not get instantly up to 50% Armor strip it takes time, this is why corrosive still have a huge place. Not only does Heat take some time to build up the armor strip, but unless you refresh it the reduction will decay, making it worse towards endurance targets.

Really? I was certainly under the impression that the armor strip was in fact instant. If that's true, then I admit my mistake. I've just noticed recently a huge damage increase to all my weapons that had Heat damage and made the assumption that it was instant. Kinda hard to tell for certain when you can't see how much armor an enemy has aside from Yellow "Has Armor" and Red "Is Naked".

[kapn655321]

20 minutes ago, SkullHavoc said:

Defense points go undefended

Amen. They do, more than ever!

Maybe we taught them wrong.
..maybe we had it so under control that they never noticed they can Lose that mission.
That certainly would speak to your points.

There's an issue with the enemy scaling as well..
Either all the levels feel too samey, or some weapons have to be crap to feel right to lesser units.
And it's all kind of a mess in the context of being able to chose anything.

If melee is too powerful, then may be a new change meant to happen soon to enemy life systems,
(Like the new factions planned..) As well as Primary Kitguns launching After major content,
might afford them the chance to revise the gun damage as they had melee.x

[(PSN)BlitzKeir]

11 minutes ago, SkullHavoc said:

And back to the boss thing. Ropalaleluleilo or what ever it's called. It was a really cool boss at first, I thought it kinda neat. But the second time and third time on and on, I realized something. This boss is boring. There is little interaction in the way of actually fighting the boss. It's effectively a cutscene battle with some extra steps sprinkled in. And I fear that might be how more bosses will be presented.

I believe it's pronounced rope-a-loli. I could be wrong. I'm not a word scientist.

17 minutes ago, bad4youLT said:

Yes yes we know and get remind of it everyday .

So what to we do ? Absolutely nothing because people dont like their power taken away .

Doesn't mean you can't have interesting conversations about it, or refine your own perspective through debate.

[Seph-Aldaire]

58 minutes ago, (PS4)BlitzKeir said:

I believe it's pronounced rope-a-loli. I could be wrong. I'm not a word scientist.

 

Rope-ah-lawl-ist

The lotus pronounces it for us in her transmission monologue.

EDIT: and the spelling is Ropalolyst.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Oakjaw

[Chaemyerelis]

More like dead horse of the last couple of years 

[(NSW)Smashbrolink]

I'm not really that great at understanding the deeper points of this discussion, so I'll just add my light personal opinion...

In this game, whenever power becomes a negative form of discussion, I can't help but feel one thing for certain:

We, the players, are our own worst enemy.

At least in terms of making new content last long enough to be considered fun or worthwhile, especially if we're talking end game stuff.

If our first and foremost objective, when new stuff comes out, is to find the most optimal way to build/use/clear it, then there will never be a way for DE to make end-game content that doesn't either exclude or disappoint some portion of the player-base.

It would either have to be filled with foes so ludicrously stat-bloated that only the top 3% of players could participate [which would just be proven wrong and blown through by top players in the end anyways, imo], or made so everyone could do it, at the expense of players with OP/fully-optimised gear/frames who could blow through it easily not feeling catered to, then coming here to tell DE how bad they are for not having a method of out-doing OP builds.

Maybe player-creep is the bigger issue.😂

[SkullHavoc]

1 minute ago, (NSW)Smashbrolink said:

Maybe player-creep is the bigger issue.😂

You know, you make an extremely valid point. Like the fella above stated, players don't want their power taken away from them. even if it were to make the game better and contribute to overall longevity of the game, I think you hit it right on the head. Players want more power, DE keeps giving it. And it just keeps getting worse.

[844448]

4 hours ago, SkullHavoc said:

I just want some smarter AI with gear and abilities to make me try to decide which enemy should I kill first in a room, as opposed to "I'm just gonna press 4 wipe out the grineer race"

Smarter AI won't do a thing if you press 4 to wipe out the enemies. If you let them move you can see they're actually utilise the cover

You want to remove that "press 4 to wipe out"? Make the 4 unable to wipe out enemies in one press and you will see the AI

[taiiat]

rant indeed, i'm having a hard time finding the subject(s) that are being talked about. i think i found it about 3/4 of the way through, in two 

i don't think i really agree all that much that inflated numbers is forcing Players to pick a small portion of the Equipment that exists. but rather, that the game makes Enemies or w/e that are immmune to Game Mechanics, and so any Equipment that makes use of those Game Mechanics, is told that it is not allowed to be used.
so Players use what is allowed to be used, as ultimately the game dictates what Players are allowed to use, we don't have a say in it. if choices are limited and Game Mechanics are prevented from being used, that's all the fault of the game.

 

which kinda always comes back to the "if you spend 20hrs a day making the game, you can't be spending 20hrs a day playing/understanding the game" thing. much like elsewhere in the world... "let the experts do their job" should be applied to Game Development.
the top 10% of Players in a game are unquestionably the people that have the best idea of what can make a game be the fairest, allowing as many Game Mechanics to be useful without destabilizing things to lean hard in any one direction. nobody else is in a position to be able to handle such a task, because being an expert on something, is not a simple task, just like with being an expert on a subject matter that some Company pays you to be an expert on, it isn't easy to become an expert on what you're being employed to be an expert on, and it's not a one time thing, you have to continue learning forever.

so, the same thing then applies to this sort of situation, doesn't it. i would never tell a (good) Civil Engineer how to do their job. i might ask questions to try and understand and have them sanity check my method of thinking, but i would always defer to such a person if i was looking to build a Bridge or something. why? i'm literally paying them to be an expert, so clearly they are more qualified than i am.
Players in a game aren't being paid, but much of the same thing applies here, by virtue of these people investing so much time in understanding minute details of a game, they are again, unquestionably the most qualified people for knowledge on such a subject. as long as we're talking about that top 10%, that is.

tl;dr, if you want a game that is simultaneously fun, gives short and long term goals, makes all Equipment choices useful, and is both easy to pick up as a new Player but has a lot to master.... those Players that sit in that 'expert' position, are the people with the background knowledge on that particular game, in order to be able to create such a situation.
they have the knowledge of what is or isn't good, what could or could not be good, Et Cetera. and not just misinformation circlejerking like the stuff people copy paste from buzzword Twitch/Youtube content, but what is actually good or isn't. that's an important distinction(which refers to how popularity doesn't necessarily equal good).

7 hours ago, SkullHavoc said:

The new melee changes are a huge sign of this. 12x damage on melee weapons, blood rush has become utter god

note that... 12x only applies to Heavies.
i wouldn't call Blood Rush 'god', Blood Rush was a mainstay part of Melee before U26 already. previously 7.5% was sufficient for Blood Rush to be a solid addition. now after U26 that's more like 20%, but base Stats did go up on average.

 

 

28 minutes ago, 844448 said:

Smarter AI won't do a thing if you press 4 to wipe out the enemies. If you let them move you can see they're actually utilise the cover
You want to remove that "press 4 to wipe out"? Make the 4 unable to wipe out enemies in one press and you will see the AI

Venus Landscape Enemies shows that this method of thinking is simply unfounded. even without covering everything in Nullifiers, those Enemies are able to produce varied situations without having to make Enemies immune to Game Mechanics.
why? a large part of that is because Venus Landscape Enemies aren't 90-95% Trash Units that just exist to die.
you can't make Enemies feel interesting when they literally aren't interesting in the first place. if 90-95% of all the Enemies you see in a Mission are basically just Lancers with slightly different Weapons, we could remove all Mods from the game and these Enemies would still be just as generic as they were before. because they ARE just that generic to begin with.

Edited December 8, 2019 by taiiat

[Aldain]

30 minutes ago, 844448 said:

If you let them move you can see they're actually utilise the cover

Sometimes at least, other times they will run in circles or jump up and down ledges for whatever reason.

But that is more the Pathfinding than the A.I proper, which could stand to be looked over if they have time next year.

[SkullHavoc]

3 minutes ago, taiiat said:

Venus Landscape Enemies shows that this method of thinking is simply unfounded. even without covering everything in Nullifiers, those Enemies are able to produce varied situations without having to make Enemies immune to Game Mechanics.
why? a large part of that is because Venus Landscape Enemies aren't 90-95% Trash Units that just exist to die.

This is true, and hopefully a sign of enemies to come.

 

4 minutes ago, taiiat said:

rant indeed, i'm having a hard time finding the subject(s) that are being talked about. i think i found it about 3/4 of the way through, in two 

Yeah I'm a bit scatterbrained when it comes to typing things out, I'm usually a bit more focused in an actual conversation. It's hard talking to both nobody and everybody at the same time for me. Apologies for that, I know it's a mess.

 

5 minutes ago, taiiat said:

he top 10% of Players in a game are unquestionably the people that have the best idea of what can make a game be the fairest, allowing as many Game Mechanics to be useful without destabilizing things to lean hard in any one direction. nobody else is in a position to be able to handle such a task, because being an expert on something, is not a simple task, just like with being an expert on a subject matter that some Company pays you to be an expert on, it isn't easy to become an expert on what you're being employed to be an expert on, and it's not a one time thing, you have to continue learning forever.

This is hard to wholly agree on. Yes for the most part I agree, but this also comes down to playstyles and the health of the game as a whole. The top 10% can't sustain the game by themselves, and they might enjoy the power creep as it is now. I can't say for sure, because I don't know the top 10%. Warframe doesn't exactly have a professional level gaming, unless you talk about streamers who may or may not be in the top 10%. The top 10% may also not have new players/incompetent players or just the average day casual once a week player in mind with their suggestions. This isn't a skyscraper, it's a community. And the ideas of the few may not be best for everyone's experience. That said, I'd love to know what they do think about the state and potential future of the game. I agree that the elite will have more understanding of the game as a whole, but to discount those that have other perspectives would be more harmful than helpful.

 

To be a bit blunt and potentially rude, how do I know that the elite even care? What seperates the guy who has used everything as mastery fodder and done all the content from the guy who just plays Ash? Sure, they've taken the time to just grind through the game, but there comes a point where the meta and the way the game is played at a higher level becomes the expectation that the game should be. People tend to forget what it was like when they first started. The struggles of learning to fight early game bosses, the sweet victories of pain staking hours of putting together your first fully viable build. I don't mean to discredit the folks that have poured hours and hours into the game, but grinding out Draco or whatever it's equivalent si nowadays for all the mastery ranking doesn't give you the insight to decide what is best for the game.

 

But then again, what is the top 10% for you? Because I admit it may be a bit unfair and presumptuous, but I assumed you meant those with fully maxed mastery ranking. Something I could've done long ago, and many others. My passion for the game is in theory crafting builds and learning interactions between weapons, not grinding. And I'm sure there's plenty more like myself out there. Some of which may have lower mastery ranks than myself, but an even greater understanding. Would you say those folks are the top 10%? I don't want to come of as sounding like I should be regarded as better than I am, and rereading that somewhat sounds like that so please don't misunderstand. My point is only: I have no desire to discredit the opinions of even the newest of players, as fresh perspectives can drastically change things for the better. Sometimes folks who have been involved with something too long become blind to things that are obvious to those who are just seeing for the first time.

 

 

Aaaand that's another damn rant, ya'll are wearing me out. Hopefully this one is a bit better to comprehend this time around.

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, SkullHavoc said:

This is true, and hopefully a sign of enemies to come.

i'm hopeful. the amount of worse-than-staggers that Venus Landscape Enemies perform is a bit much(not a Stagger, not a Knockdown, but just pushing you a couple Millimeters into the air which is somehow even worse), but that's actually pretty much the only complaint i have for those Enemies overall.
the Enemies put on a show, and push back against you pushing them. works nicely.

1 hour ago, SkullHavoc said:

This is hard to wholly agree on. Yes for the most part I agree, but this also comes down to playstyles and the health of the game as a whole. The top 10% can't sustain the game by themselves, and they might enjoy the power creep as it is now. I can't say for sure, because I don't know the top 10%. Warframe doesn't exactly have a professional level gaming, unless you talk about streamers who may or may not be in the top 10%.

The top 10% may also not have new players/incompetent players or just the average day casual once a week player in mind with their suggestions. This isn't a skyscraper, it's a community. And the ideas of the few may not be best for everyone's experience. That said, I'd love to know what they do think about the state and potential future of the game. I agree that the elite will have more understanding of the game as a whole, but to discount those that have other perspectives would be more harmful than helpful.

To be a bit blunt and potentially rude, how do I know that the elite even care?

 

Sure, they've taken the time to just grind through the game, but there comes a point where the meta and the way the game is played at a higher level becomes the expectation that the game should be.
But then again, what is the top 10% for you? Because I admit it may be a bit unfair and presumptuous, but I assumed you meant those with fully maxed mastery ranking.

i can fairly confidently say that, contrary to what the 90% may make it seem like, the top 10%... we just want stuff to do in the game. our demands are pretty tame most of the time. inversely that's the sort of Player that would have the highest ambition for Ability designs or a 'rework', however.
this line in essence, is what that 'top 10%' is most qualified to do.

Quote

the people that have the best idea of what can make a game be the fairest, allowing as many Game Mechanics to be useful without destabilizing things to lean hard in any one direction

making Gameplay that is fair, but still challenges the Player. allows wide creativity and power, but still keeping everything in check. creating... Abilities that are distinct from one another and unique, but sharing enough basic traits that they can still compliment each other. Et Cetera.

in short you know that the elite care because, they are the most knowledgeable to begin with. how can one expect to say..... balance a game, if they don't fully understand the layers to it? you can't, really. which isn't something wrong with the rest, as i said becoming an expert on any subject is a lot of investment, and we all invest into different things.
i'm not looking to discredit the bottom 90%, but you can form a pattern when "nerf something i'm not using" or "i tried this once for 5 seconds and i didn't like it, so it sucks" and Et Cetera are.... :/ the majority of what that bottom 90% has to give. it is.... frustrating when that is the case, doubly so in scenarios that the exact things that such Players say they want out of the game but doesn't offer or w/e may... already be there, but they demand that it be removed from the game, in a supposed attempt to add it.
but i digress, anyways.

 

ah - the 'top 10%' in my eyes are the Players that are an expert on the game. there is no strict definition that is possible there - Mastery Rank, number of Forma used, time played, Et Cetera is essentially all irrelevant for the most part - what matters is the understanding of the Games' Mechanics, what Mods do what in what situation and in what order, and the same for Warframes/Weapons.
similarly then, there is nobody standing at some metaphorical gate to say whether or not you are allowed in some dumb club or something. one either fits the bill or they do not, and if they do fit the bill, then they would know that they do.
the sort of person that if one was to ask a question about "what do you like/dislike about A vs B", that the answer would include all sorts of notes about say, where/when some minor detail about A is useful, and the same for different minor details about B. the sort of person that when someone asks for some help on making Equipment decisions, offers options and explains the process of thought and when/where different strategies might be desired - rather than a one sentence or less answer plus a Video/Image that sums up to "just put these Mods on, because i said so".
you get the idea, probably.

mind you that, one could be an expert on (in context of Warframe) say, one Warframe or some of the Weapons, but not others. that still fits the "let the experts do their job" method of thinking.

1 hour ago, SkullHavoc said:

Yeah I'm a bit scatterbrained when it comes to typing things out, I'm usually a bit more focused in an actual conversation.

it's fine, some of the older rules for the written form help a lot, like writing the intended subject as the first thing or very, very near the start, Et Cetera.

[DatDarkOne]

7 minutes ago, taiiat said:

in short you know that the elite care because, they are the most knowledgeable to begin with. how can one expect to say..... balance a game, if they don't fully understand the layers to it? you can't, really. which isn't something wrong with the rest, as i said becoming an expert on any subject is a lot of investment, and we all invest into different things.
i'm not looking to discredit the bottom 90%, but you can form a pattern when "nerf something i'm not using" or "i tried this once for 5 seconds and i didn't like it, so it sucks" and Et Cetera are.... 😕 the majority of what that bottom 90% has to give. it is.... frustrating when that is the case, doubly so in scenarios that the exact things that such Players say they want out of the game but doesn't offer or w/e may... already be there, but they demand that it be removed from the game, in a supposed attempt to add it.
but i digress, anyways.

Thank you for saying this.  It's something that has been needed to be stated on the forums a while now.  

7 minutes ago, taiiat said:

mind you that, one could be an expert on (in context of Warframe) say, one Warframe or some of the Weapons, but not others. that still fits the "let the experts do their job" method of thinking

Hence my comments on the forums in regards to Ivara, Solo aspect, Bows, and Stealth mechanics.  😄  Although I know you realized this a long time ago. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by DatDarkOne

[PookieNumnums]

So, as you can see here

Http://www.tinyurl.com/mutalistamp1

Http://www.tinyurl.com/mutalistamp2

You can see here that with klamora propa shwaak and shraksun they are definitely buffed by mutalist quanta alt fire. But, unfortunately, they dont seem to buff shots against the eidolon. Sadoru sadoru. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by PookieNumnums