Warframe isn't pay to win, but...

[continue]

Warframe is not pay to win. I enjoy this game a hell of a lot, and I (mostly) don't feel like it's forcing me to spend money to have fun. I think that having an economy where people trade real money currency for RNG drops and vice versa is, overall, better than the alternative of having RNG drops and real money items totally separate.

But I also think that the community seems to resemble that of a pay to win game just a little bit more with each passing year. People are quicker to assume other people are trying to scam them in trades, especially in high value trades for RNG items, such as Rivens and Liches. People are a bit more cynical about DE's intentions, e.g. making things grindy to sell Resource Boosters and Rush Repair Drones (myself included, at least until they added 1k/750 materials to mission rewards). And let's not forget that whole Riven mafia fiasco from a while back.

On the whole, I feel that the general atmosphere of the community is growing less trustful of each other and of DE. Most of the time, this honestly doesn't really matter; Warframe is mostly a casual PvE game, and cooperating with other players is usually rewarded. I still, however, play solo in content like Thermia Fractures, Radiation Hazard Sorties, Eidolons, Orb Mothers, and Railjack because there is a real possibility of other people ruining the mission or taking their frustration out on others, not to mention the forums. In the long run, if this really is a trend, I don't think it's a healthy one.

Anyways, what have your observations been with the overall climate of the community over time? Feel free to share your own experiences, especially those that contradict my own. Just don't be a $&*^ about it because you'll literally just be proving my point, and to be honest, "The community is getting worse," isn't a point that I want to be proven right on.

tl;dr just read the bolded lines, I'm outta here

[844448]

The community deserves a real-life exterminatus

[Voltage]

It is what it is. The game's becoming something that DE wants and whether they understand what they do or not, they are making those changes anyways.

[General-Pacman]

32 minutes ago, continue said:

But I also think that the community seems to resemble that of a pay to win game just a little bit more with each passing year.

Anyways, what have your observations been with the overall climate of the community over time? Feel free to share your own experiences, especially those that contradict my own. Just don't be a $&*^ about it because you'll literally just be proving my point, and to be honest, "The community is getting worse," isn't a point that I want to be proven right on.

If you ask me, the problem is not the community itself, but the vocal minority who actively uses the forums. In my opinion, most of said group consists of people who has been playing warframe long enough to be considered veterans, and they tend to confuse a personal burnout with negative changes in the game, specially with this pay-to-win drama that has been a hot topic this last few months.

[(PSN)CrazyBeaTzu]

Newsflash: we're cattle for business magnates lol. This isn't the 90s anymore where you bought a game for 50 bucks and that's it.

Just get used to getting milked one way or another, whether it's time or money you're giving up one or both of them.

I could have waited for a lot in game, but I just happen to have a decent job so I bought plat once a month until I had most of the stuff I needed to get by in game.

[MollAgdeduba]

I think the community just follow the path of the game.

When i start to play this game, over 7 years ago, things were complete different. The first real giantic change was the introduction of the market; something never seen before (for me) in any online game i've ever played. Finally a game that allow you to exchange your item for the real money currency. Tat was awesome and open each player to infinite possibilities. 

But... and ther's a "but".. i think at certain point, DE moved from the path of "player friendly" to the opposite part, and now, little and little, is becoming like any other disgusting online game companies; totally uninterested of his community but only to make the best monetization and no matter if the update is ok or no.

As i say, this is not an event that occurred at certain point, but is long process, still in progress, that step by step is ruining the community of the game. 

I think it started at first with the Tennogen. The first tennogen skin, were on market for platinum, then from the second wave, for the first time in the history of this game it was only available for real money. Excluding the founder program, that was a complete different thing, this was the first time, that they put something big that you couldn't take in-game. 

After that they continued with a lot of update, but, people that play this game from a long time, could have notice how update after update you were requested each time more platinum for "have everything". But this was never a problem... trading could give you all the platinum you need; if the next update request more platinum, just farm a littlem ore and you could get more platinum from market....This was not a problem and the game was still player friendly, and you could, with your effort, arrive to 100%, arrive to endgame, since...

Since... the introduction of "stat RNG". Not to much time ago we had the first innovation woth something complete RNG: The riven mod. Everything in this game is RNG, but riven are made of another type of RNG... After you get a riven you could find every weapon and every stat, with every number inside. Nobody complaint about rivens, cause they were an interesting idea, and totally useful, but fpr the first time, the old player, the one that would be at 100% stop to exist. Doesn't matter how lucky you are, someone in the game will still have a riven better than yours, and limited to that weapon you could be better than average, but never the best.

I think Riven mod was a test mechanic. Test for RNG. But at least they are not so expensive... 20 plat a slot (60x3) and infinite ammount of plat for buy a decent rolled riven for top tier weapons, well infinite ammount for buy but also for sell, so in this case the market will still be "balanced".

But this balance was easy destroyed in the lst big update. Old Blood was the worst idea of DE, the new mechanic of Kuva Lich was disliked more or less by the 99% of the community. The RNG wes pumped to a level never seen in warframe and the time spent for a single lich was immense considering it is also the most unrewarding mode it exist. The RNG was just a part of what make the community start to untrust DE. The other big complaint on DE are from Feedback. Kuva Lich was unrewarding, not funny and useless, but DE could have taken some feedback from this forum, some ideas. In the Weeks before reiljack update, the forum had houndred of different page consisting of small changes, good ideas, interesting opinion, that could make the lich sistem something good. But nothing has been done. The ONLY CHANGE they made on kuva liche was: Fixing the Thrall dropped the mod instead of the keys. This only useful things was fixend in a time of more or less half an hour, all the vomiting mechanics is sitll the same of the first day.

And now? Well now we have railjack... i just say that for me is realy a nice update. I love it and i love how is made. It is a breath of fresh air after the supermegagigaultraiperuberinfinitedisgusting kuva lich update but is too grindy. I bought a resoure booster for farm the resources i need, and is still difficult to create the mk3 and the RNG stat usually make your object obsolete before is finish to construct, leading to an infinite ammount of time and resources spent for nothing. Also of course the best and useful part are never dropped, hiddend beind the 2% of a 20 minute mission. Farm for a part has the same chance of the ESO ephemera (i never dropped it also after maxing all focus school and over and over 200 try), and when u drop the part u need maybe has a useless stat, so strt to grind again, and again. The community for another time started to give feedback, opinion and ideas for change this sytem, but de just follow his path again. No change since now, and totaly silence.
   

So... retourning to the starting point. The community of course follow the path of the game, and if DE don't care about community, the member of community don't care to the other. They just want all and immediatly and for themselves. The recent problem with shedu drop, and quellor /pennant is an example of this. People rushing ignoring squadmates.

I don't know where this path, of pure monetization and disrespect will lead the DE, but at this point it think thy will do like any other, so i'll not be surprised if in the future they will drop out some platinum only content or some real money only weapons or something similar.

[(XBOX)The Neko Otaku]

Click bait titles aren't a lazy way to get people to read your thread but.....

[peterc3]

2 hours ago, 844448 said:

The community deserves a real-life exterminatus

Spoiler

 

[Rakosta_Kai]

3 hours ago, continue said:

Anyways, what have your observations been with the overall climate of the community over time?

Generally? It's devolved. I haven't a clue how much as I stopped putting myself into scenarios where I have to play with others a long time ago now

The game seemed to attract more of the mmo audience at first, but seems to appeal to a more shooter oriented group now.

Where the community used to feel like that of a co-op pve game, it now feels more like a competitive pve game.

As it regards trading specifically? Most of my interactions have been pretty nice but the stuff I buy or sell is never high dollar.

Too many instances of hearing about players being scammed with no recourse has me keeping all transactions inside the balance of my in-game wallet.

[HolySeraphin]

I think some of the angry players are acting like so because one or more reasons, but some of them are not exactly DE's fault, which they often assume. I believe the main reasons are:

Warframe is a weird game, the gameplay is vastly different when compared to its competitors, but it also has elements of more regular games, mainly grind and time-gating. It can mislead some people that are expecting something and get another. A Metal Gear Rising player may love the melee combat, but will probably hate the grind, while MMO players won't mind the grind as much, but might have a hard time with combat.  

Another thing that players often forget, and it is usually brought up by many, is that Warframe is not the only game in the market, which means that Warframe shouldn't be the only thing you're playing, even DE is kinda okay if you go play other games, as long as you come back for the updates. Veterans with over 2K-4K hours in their belt have experienced pretty much everything in the game, and grinded everything. Then a new update comes out and they play ONLY that update, which has average grind for its genre (People complain about Railjack RNG stats while in Borderlands it is a chance to get a weapon and this weapon has random stats). But overal Warframe still has many activities and mission types. I still have to farm Ivara Prime, so I'm playing Railjack and then farming the primes, sometimes doing Nightwave to get Kuva and Orokin Catalysts, but these veterans are playing ONLY Railjack, and like anything in this world doing something for over 50 hours or 30 times will make it boring, which leads to frustration.

Some players also speculate that a part of the angry players are simply weary of the game, and I think it is true. You will often see comments like "I have over 2,000/4,000 hours and I loved the game two years ago, but now I hate it because...". See that? 2K hours. This is not even an MMO, and you spent 2K+ hours in it? Also, people sometimes say that they miss the Void key system, but that is dumb, because it was way grindier than the current relic system. There's certainly emotion involved here, and you have to wonder how much it affects their opinion.

And this makes me wonder, they say that DE overhypes their release updates, which they do (like every company), but then you have to wonder if the players themselves don't overhype it either. It is clear that the Kuva Lich system is vastly different from its original design, and even Steve states it would originally takes weeks to defeat a single lich, but they changed it. Could it be better? Sure, but I think that [DE]Steve also lost hype when he realized that it wouldn't be as fun as he thought. It also doesn't help that a Nemesis will end up like General Grievous, either being too OP like in the 2003 Clone Wars series, or easilly beaten by players like in the Revenge of the Sith, there's no middle ground here.People can be very avid dreamers when they see potential, and it can be no different from greedy stockholders. 

This leads to the next problem: suggestions. It is true that the community provide feedback, and many of these suggestions are possible and good for the game, but filtering 200 pages of feedback into main ideas, and THEN discuss these while still development the game is not as easy as some people think. I took part in some brainstorm reunions in my life, and the varied points of view often lead to long discussions, and usually it takes a lot of effort to reach a final decision. Imagine having over 10 different player opinions and then having to decide if they're possible, enjoyable and if they don't conflict with your intentions.

Some players want Warframe to be "MY Warframe, MY game" and this may conflict with [DE] Steve vision, which is the case of the Kuva liches. We know that his vision is not complete because liches were supposed to be part of Railjack, and while it can be argued that Steve's vision is not the ideal one, players will either need to accept it or Steve will have to change his mind, which is a struggle in the development. 

People are also obsessed with min-max. They will grind the same mission for a relic, even though there were other mission types that have similar chance-time ratio. They're willing to sacrifice fun for efficiency, always bringing the looter frames and doing the most efficient mission, which leads to frustration. DE can't get rid of the farming skills either, as we saw with the whole loot frames fiasco that coincided with the mod booster. People will also exploit glitches and bugs to their highest potential, even if they don't need all these resources at the moment (like how a guy farmed 200 orokin cells in 30 minutes using the Razorback exploit). They also get angry when said exploit is fixed, even though it was clearly not meant to be that way (over 10x more efficient is not normal), often saying "It is the only way to surpass the grind" or something like it.

Speaking of grind, apparently DE planned Veil Proxima to be reached only after weeks of playtime, but people got there in 2-3 days. Of course, when you play so much each day it is easy to reach the end. But playing 3-8+ hours a day is not normal, and should never be used as base when creating content OR making arguments that it is easy/quick. I finished all the nodes in Earth Proxima in 5 days, playing around 3-6 hours a day because I was in vacation and using resource booster(started last week), but it is clear that it would take about 2 weeks for an average person to complete Earth proxima.

Edited December 24, 2019 by HolySeraphin

[Yamazuki]

1 hour ago, ChaosSabre said:

Warframe has always been Pay 2 Skip. It still is. It's just that railjack whole design and upgrade system was designed bout pushing players towards doing that.

What EA was doing when people were outraged over pay to win was also "pay to skip". You can call paying to entirely skip grind and get ahead of everyone what ever you want, it doesn't change the fact it's always been considered a form of pay to win. People have tolerance for pay to win mechanics, having them present doesn't inherently ruin the game. It only does when it either involves paying for loot boxes as a method to skip absurd grind, or the grind is so absurd compared to paying to skip it. This is why Asian games don't sell well in countries like the US that are more sensitive to pay to win systems, they often have both loot boxes, and playing the game is absolutely unrewarding to the point people feel forced into spending money, and this is why EA was getting a lot of hate, as they were doing the same to multiple games.

Just look at mobile games and how so many people who play on PC and Console hate them for being pay to win, most of them are just purely paying to skip everything.

DE gets away with some items being absolutely grindy to the point it's not worth getting them normally and instead using Plat because Plat is Warframe's equivalent to Gold used in RPGs rather than it being a premium currency exclusive to spending money. There would definitely be more complaints than there are about how imbalanced some things are if there were no way to earn Plat by playing.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Yamazuki

[HintOfMalice]

On 2019-12-23 at 7:22 PM, MollAgdeduba said:

Tennogen

That's because they give royalties to the artist. Some people are struggling to get by and selling art is the only thing that keeps them afloat. Unfortunately, your platinum doesn't do them any good.

 

That aside, these are only cosmetics. They do not affect gameplay at all.

 

I do agree that Kuva Liches are currently too time consuming for how unrewarding they are, and the RNG in it runs the risk of literally making all your time on them pointless, but it is an opt-in system. You have the power to never encounter a Kuva Lich ever again.

 

I think the addition of Rivens was a much bigger mistake than the Kuva Liches. I would rather Railjack items didn't have RNG - I think that doesn't make sense and was a pointless addition - but it's not big enough to me to warrant a complaint. It's just one of those things. It's fun.

 

Probably going to grind out Kuva Liches until I get the Mastery from all the different weapons then never touch them again, I don't want anything to do with Rivens and I'm probably going to be playing Railjack until I drop dead. Or... until I get burned out 2 weeks from now.

[PopGligor]

People are just bored - it's been almost 7 years that we're fighting the exact same enemies. Warframe has always been pay2win, but that's fine - if someone pays to win, that makes your squad stronger, and there is no real competition in the game, so who cares...

There just isn't any... content. Yes, there's 69 million weapons to farm but once you get the one that you like, and Hunter Munitions, and you obliterate everything... why would you farm the other ones? Once you have your favorite warframe, that feels just right, dishes out massive damage and is unkillable, what is your incentive to farm all the other frames? The only one is... mastery rank. Mastery rank is also the only limitation to the game's pay2win elements. But what if you don't have to care about mastery rank, what is then your incentive to play the game?

For me it doesn't exist. And that's why I lurk around and keep to myself instead of crapping on other people's parades. But this is why the community is becoming more nagging and negative - there is simply no content. You have PoE and Fortuna - look gorgeous, but it is braindead content, not challenging at all. You go there to just gather your resources to get the weapons you don't need because you already oneshot everything. Both are balanced to be accessible to new players, so they cannot be balanced to be challenging to old players. And this is why Warframe is stagnating - nobody feels like they need any of the new "content", because they already delete the entire map when they press left click. The reason to farm a new weapon is its ASMR qualities, not its actual power.

My point is, there is too much player power, and zero content that can challenge it. The problem isn't the power, the problem is that DE focused too much on giving players new tools and new power, and not enough on making content where that power will be needed. The minimum level of Fortuna enemies should've been 100 for the easy bounties. New content should be made to be challenging to the people who have beaten everything that preceded, not the people who started playing last week and still have 6 years of game to get through. But it will not happen. Warframe right now is amazingly fun on an empty account. There is challenge, there is the possibility of failure, there is progress. Since the Ignis Wraith was added 2 years ago, I haven't felt like I need to get any new weapon - the ignis destroys everything still. And this is a problem. More than 2 years, no feeling like I've progressed, at all.

[Sibernetika]

so I just skimmed though the post but..

 

when people say warframe is pay2win I'm like woah? yes I have spent more than I should have on this game.. even more than I spent on dota 2 and I have spent a lot on that game... but I have spent to look fabulous and not in the mood to farm forma people that says Warframe is p2w is just confusing actual monetization to keep the company going and growing to already paid $60 dollars for the game but here is more stuff you need to pay for that should have been included in the $60 price but we got greedy. 

 

Honestly people that knows how to play warframe prefers to play solo on account for there is people that finish the tutorial and then come to region and ask what they should do.. people that actually paid attention during the tutorial didn't have these problems and don't say its because the tutorial doesn't help much because when I joined the tutorial was non existent, mercury was the starting planet, grineer scorpions and Corpus was real threats and the game had dynamic difficulty where the better you do the harder enemies or greater selection of enemies you got. and the starting missions that passed for a tutorial back then was enough for someone that actually paid attention.  so yes we solo because there is people running around with MR22 and still don't have a clue on what is going on that needs hand holding and a silver spoon.

 

People that are complaining that Kuva Litches and the farm for new resources is too grindy is forgetting that these aren't events or speed run content that requires immediate rewards and must be finished in 2.0 seconds flat so I can go back to complaining that there is no content, these are new long term content meant as things to earn over time instead of burning out on it as fast as possible, if that is your mind set of things then that is your fault not DE's

 

Open worlds like Plains and Vallis is set on starting planets so you can't expect them to be places where someone has to run through the whole star map just to come back to the starting planets to be able to reasonably function on those areas.. yes the content is harder than the rest of the missions on said planet but it was shown that with starting account that the content was still possible. it is only reasonable to assume that content on later stage planets that will get open worlds that the open worlds will be much harder to start with.. DE wants to do things right this time around with content this is why we have a new damage system in railjack since DE regrets making Damage 2.0 with how it turned out in the end, be patient content for the vets will come DE tries to drop content for vets and then the forums complain its too difficult or you need a co-originated squad to do the content.. AKA when Fortuna dropped and the current Grendal missions.. Fortuna got nerfed to make the vocal groups happy (long term and new players) but the Grendal missions should be left alone.. true vets will remember the tactics we used way back when, on wave 40 of a defense on what we had to do to continue when our weapon damage fall off and enemies was neigh unkillable on wave 60.

 

[Volinus7]

On 2019-12-24 at 1:06 AM, continue said:

trustful

 

On 2019-12-24 at 1:06 AM, continue said:

cynical about DE's intentions

DE is a company that seemed to proudly present a dramatic article about getting rejected by publishers but they made their total sold out deal two years earlier with a holding company of PW. 

 

[Sibernetika]

DE was rejected at all turns until they decided just to do Warframe independently 2 years ago would be 2017 that would mean DE was doing warframe for 4 years before they sold shares to a honkong company so they could launch warframe in china.

[Volinus7]

48 minutes ago, Sibernetika said:

DE was rejected at all turns until they decided just to do Warframe independently 2 years ago would be 2017 that would mean DE was doing warframe for 4 years before they sold shares to a honkong company so they could launch warframe in china.

DE's acquisition deal was made in 2014 and it had many phases. 

[Soulden]

Title change suggestion:
Warframe is pay to develop.
Read all the development updates on wiki or here (https://forums.warframe.com/forum/2-pc-announcements/page/17/), understand that DE had long realize that in order to deliver, they gotta milk us good.
Working as intended.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Souldend78

[Sibernetika]

40 minutes ago, Volinus7 said:

DE's acquisition deal was made in 2014 and it had many phases. 

that then still makes it 2 years of of indie development, still making their story of being rejected by everyone valid.

[SneakyErvin]

On 2019-12-23 at 7:06 PM, continue said:

People are quicker to assume other people are trying to scam them in trades, especially in high value trades for RNG items, such as Rivens and Liches.

Honestly I cant see the bad in that. Better to assume that than end up with bad plat and an account in negative balance. People are A******s in general and more so when it comes to sales and grofit, you can only expect it to be much worse on the internet. I'd call those people who assume others are trying to scam them sane people, because what they assume is what we should all expect in this day and age, more so on the net than anywhere else.

[SneakyErvin]

58 minutes ago, Volinus7 said:

DE's acquisition deal was made in 2014 and it had many phases. 

It is still an indie company though. The holding company (that isnt connected to PW for that matter, though PW owns a very tiny minimal part of DE) is just an investor, something all indie companies have. DE still publishes and develops their game at an indipendent level i.e no publishers or outside studios to do their things. If your idea is that as soon as you get investors involved one way or another, you are no longer an indie company, then there are no indie companies at all, because all of them are involved with one investor or another.

[Itsmez]

6 hours ago, ChaosSabre said:

Warframe has always been Pay 2 Skip. It still is. It's just that railjack whole design and upgrade system was designed bout pushing players towards doing that.

You can obtain platinum by trading, you dont have to pay for the skip if you dont want to

[Gravitus123]

On 2019-12-23 at 10:43 AM, General-Pacman said:

If you ask me, the problem is not the community itself, but the vocal minority who actively uses the forums. In my opinion, most of said group consists of people who has been playing warframe long enough to be considered veterans, and they tend to confuse a personal burnout with negative changes in the game, specially with this pay-to-win drama that has been a hot topic this last few months.

Thank you there has been a lot of negativity going around and not all of it is justified.While the p2w definition in Warframe doesnt quite mean the same since its f2p and pve focused i do wish there was a level of content that just couldnt be bought with platinum or from other players.

Primes obviously can be traded,mods,now kuva liches can be traded even though you have to still kill the lich to get the weapon and railjack avionics will soon be tradeable it just feels like theres nothing exclusive to chase that you cant just throw money to get.

Well I guess the nightwave cosmetics are exclusively technically but theyre so easy to get since you only need to do like 60% of nightwave challenges

[bad4youLT]

Warframe isint P2W but DE choice in monitization in past few months is questionable

[Volinus7]

5 hours ago, Sibernetika said:

that then still makes it 2 years of of indie development, still making their story of being rejected by everyone valid.

The joke was that the article was in July 2016 after over 90% of DE was sold. 

Warframe first 4 years is obviously its prime which ended in late u17. 

 

5 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

It is still an indie company though. The holding company (that isnt connected to PW for that matter, though PW owns a very tiny minimal part of DE) is just an investor, something all indie companies have. DE still publishes and develops their game at an indipendent level i.e no publishers or outside studios to do their things. If your idea is that as soon as you get investors involved one way or another, you are no longer an indie company, then there are no indie companies at all, because all of them are involved with one investor or another.

https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/02/gamesbeat-boss-interview-chinas-leyou-moves-from-chicken-meat-to-triple-a-game-publishing/

He clearly said "keep the possibility of Perfect World doing a buyback in the future" whether you believe it or not. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-06/tencent-backed-idreamsky-said-in-talks-to-buy-gaming-firm-leyou

And someone wants to buy Leyou... 

Edited December 25, 2019 by Volinus7