Lack of Calculated Content Pacing

[Voltage]

2019 ended on a rocky launch for both The Old Blood and Empyrean, with the most impactful issue being content and reward pacing.

Content pacing is the designed time investment for given content, how rewards are earned, and the overall speed at which you work your way to the "best gear" or "completion". Content and reward pacing is one of the largest parts of gameplay for a game like Warframe. As a looter shooter, the speed at which we craft items, gain resources, acquire gear, and progress our account is where most of the core gameplay stems from.

Warframe's development for over a whole year has neglected the importance of content pacing, as well as launching content with the unintended pacing (usually too grindy, time heavy, good loot too rare, etc.) which is later changed (lowered, made easier, drop chances buffed, etc.).

This problem has occurred in almost every major update in 2019 with little exception:

Update 24.3 - February 27th, 2019 - Nightwave
Nightwave was one of the largest changes to a previous system during the year. Alerts were removed in favor of a battle pass type system. We saw daily and weekly challenges, more linear progression for new and old cosmetics, alert items, Nitain, etc. The first season, the Wolf of Saturn Six was the most critical in terms of feedback. The most notable criticisms included challenges taking too long, and the pressure of pushing yourself to login to finish the season and gain the rewards. The progression and time required for Nightwave would not only be severely reduced on June 12th, but season one items would repeat in Intermission II as well. The most famous changes to Nightwave that exemplifies the lack of thought on pacing was the addition of "catch-up" for weeklies and increased standing avenues such as Emissary Derelict nodes and challenge bonuses. While these changes are not bad by any means, they are the first example of many where content pacing is not launched to it's intentional spot and instead shipped like most updates with this key element being neglected.

Note: between February 27th and June 12th is 106 days.

Update 24.4 - March 8th, 2019 - Operation: Buried Debts (Deck 12 added March 14th, 2019)
Operation: Buried Debts was the first "Operation" of 2019. Much like Plague Star in terms of a community event, this operation featured Amalgam Mods, Opticor Vandal, Hildryn, Freezing Step Ephemera, Shocking Step Ephemera, and of course the Exploiter Orb fight itself. This update was well received, but the aquisition of resources from the Vallis Bonus Weekend booster combined with Affinity, Credit, and Resource booster weekends alerted DE to tone this down. Players were simply getting way too many Credits from Profit-Taker, too many resources from the Exploiter Orb, and finishing daily standing too fast in Fortuna. Likewise, the Ephemeras were launched with a 6.00% drop chance split between 2 different Ephemeras. At 3.00% per Ephemera, this is where Ephemeras from the Exploiter Orb remained until May 22nd, 2019 with the Jovian Concord. Again, this is content and reward pacing being implemented without calculations on how this affects players. This results in shipping a large update with unintentional pacing amounts that are later changed which negatively affects those who ground previously.

Note: between March 14th (the day the Exploiter Orb was available to farm) and May 22nd is 70 days.

Update 24.6 - April 4th, 2019 - Plains of Eidolon Remaster
The Plains of Eidolon Remaster. The update that single-handily trivialized the progression of Plains of Eidolon. This update completely removed the need for fishing and mining with the edition of Tusk Thumpers, as well as severely reducing the need to collect Cetus Wisps and Breath of the Eidolon.

Previously, Arcanes required resources to craft. The notable requirements for every Arcane set (two sets for Operator and one set for Zaws and Amps) is as follows:

• 600 Breath of the Eidolon
• 800 Cetus Wisps
• 1200 Fish Scales
• 390 Radian Sentirum
• 650 Heart Nyth

Source: My completion spreadsheet

With the remaster, you need none of these items, just the standing for your Arcane Enhancements. Remember when I said this updated removed the need for fishing and mining? Tusk Thumpers have a 400% (Tusk Thumper), 600% (Tusk Thumper Bull), and 800% (Tusk Thumper Doma) resource drop chance. A Tusk Thumper Doma can be killed outside of the gate reliably in less than a minute to 3 minutes. This will gaurentee eight resource drops before Nekros' Desecrate or boosters/Smeeta Charm. These resources are then over-stockpiled as the Arcanes which would use these resources are now free.

Tens of hours of mission time farming Plains of Eidolon was wiped off the grid in one patch. One of the largest examples of pacing being neglected far too long in the development cycle. Again, the remaster was healthy for the game. However, this was altered way too late.

Note: Plains of Eidolon was introduced October 12th, 2017 in Update 22.0. The time between this release and the remaster was a staggering 540 days.

Update 25.0 - May 22nd, 2019 - The Jovian Concord
This update in of itself did not add any new content pacing issues, however this was the update the Exploiter Orb Ephemera drop chances were buffed from 6.00% to 10.00% (3.00% each to 5.00% each).

Update 25.7 - August 29th, 2019 - Saint of Altra
Like Update: The Jovian Concord, this update did not add new pacing issues. However, Aura Forma was added to the market as well as changes to Arbitrations which granted more Vitus Essence and essentially established a good Arbitration as one of the most optimal Kuva farming methods to date.

Update 26.0 - October 31st, 2019 - The Old Blood
Oh Kuva Liches....

First and foremost, Ephemeras launched with a 5.00% drop chance. Remember when I said the Exploiter Orb was buffed in May from 6.00% to 10.00%? And to no surprise, the Ephemera percentage was raised from 5.00% to 10.00%. Another example of pacing issues is the entire Murmur meter. Murmur progression was severely cut, then affected by squad mates (bug), and still left in a very peculiar spot. The pace of a Lich has not gotten worse, but it still remains in quite a bad state. We are still waiting since November for more Lich changes to make farming them more streamlined.

Recall the number of days between pacing changes that I had highlighted? Good, this shows you why Liches are still not in a good place. It's been multiple months which will be right on queue for proper pacing adjustments according to the current development cycle (which is unfortunate).

Update 27.0 - December 13th, 2019 - Empyrean (and beyond into 2020)
Two words: Vidar Reactor. You all know the astounding RNG hoops of this item, and the fact it is essentially an Orokin Reactor with a randomized capacity bonus with a 2% drop chance from Veil Proxima.

Also, the Sentient Anomaly. Absolutely horrendous pacing and bad game design that forces players to abort spam the Veil Proxima node to make the best use of their time. Digital Extremes: People left Acolyte missions over and over in 2016 when they didn't get Maiming Strike or Argon Scope. This is why we have "unidentified item" tags on some drops. It was no mystery this is how people would farm a time limited mission with a small window for farming that includes drops such as Umbral Forma and Shedu (Mastery).

Lastly, the changes to the resource economy at the end of last year clearly shows that time investment calculations between farming and crafting Railjack components was never done.

We may not know when Empyrean's pacing will be left at an intentional spot. It could be next week considering how much DE poured into this update, but it could be months if not years like case of Plains of Eidolon.

Conclusion:

Content and reward pacing is an essential portion of gameplay that needs to be considered more. This issue affects systems well outside of 2019. Riven Mods (rolling and Kuva farming), Arbitrations, (Elite) Sanctuary Onslaught (Blazing Step Ephemera is still unchanged from 1.01% on rotation C), Melee range, Catchmoon, Arca Plasmor, Riven Disposition, Archwing (Blink changes, soon to be Amesha changes, etc.), and more are still things in Warframe which are dramatically affected by the lack of importance placed on pacing between not only players, but rewards as well. I have noticed this trend go on for years, and I wish my (and others') time be respected in future updates. With that said, I will continue holding off on playing the game like I have since Christmas until DE fixes the mess that is Empyrean and the Old Blood.

My overall message: Digital Extremes, please place a higher importance on content and reward pacing so updates launch with much better time investment requirements and near-perfect intentional pacing. It's getting ridiculous that the best way to ensure your time is well spent as a player in a new update is to wait weeks if not months for you (DE) to address these issues that should not even launch as such to begin with.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Voltage

[Skaleek]

As someone who has done all these farms on release, I feel your pain Voltage.

Don't think DE is gonna change. It doesn't seem to register to them that their "wait and see" mentality has ramifications on the players that they are treating as guinea pigs.

Much like you, my brother no longer plays DE's content on release for the exact same reason. WF used to be the game we played together, now it is rare to get a mission with him in a day. It's not a good trend...

Edited January 7, 2020 by Skaleek

[(PSN)Onder6099]

DE only fault is that they are listen to the players too much. 

[Voltage]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Onder6099 said:

DE only fault is that they are listen to the players too much. 

But they don't. If they did, Ephemeras from Liches wouldn't ship at 5.00% drop chance, Vidar Reactors wouldn't be so insulting to farm, and most of the complaints about updates wouldn't be repeated so often. The complaints about the nature of the Vidar Reactor are exactly the same as complaints on Riven Mods when The War Within launched: in 2016. Like come on....

Edited January 7, 2020 by Voltage

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

If they did, Ephemeras from Liches wouldn't ship at 5.00% drop chance, Vidar Reactors wouldn't be so insulting to farm,

Ahem. Didn't you just say:

9 hours ago, Voltage said:

Content pacing is the designed time investment for given content, how rewards are earned, and the overall speed at which you work your way to the "best gear" or "completion".

 

See this community is constantly howling about content drought, and there being nothing to do. 

It looks like DE listened, and created a pair systems that would go hand in glove, taking several months to complete. The first being intrinsics, the second being collecting the rare drops. Together they combine to give a player very powerful tools in order to do the Railjack content. You would have managed to get the "best gear" and would be at "completion". Seems like they expected this to take a couple of months? 

Now here you are, complaining because you have not just been handed everything you want. In fact you claim that you are insulted by having to farm for something intended to be very rare. 

 

How are you able to perform those mental gymnastics and not give yourself a serious injury? 

Edited January 7, 2020 by (PS4)guzmantt1977

[Lers]

32 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Ahem. Didn't you just say:

 

See this community is constantly howling about content drought, and there being nothing to do. 

It looks like DE listened, and created a pair systems that would go hand in glove, taking several months to complete. The first being intrinsics, the second being collecting the rare drops. Together they combine to give a player very powerful tools in order to do the Railjack content. You would have managed to get the "best gear" and would be at "completion". Seems like they expected this to take a couple of months? 

Now here you are, complaining because you have not just been handed everything you want. In fact you claim that you are insulted by having to farm for something intended to be very rare. 

 

How are you able to perform those mental gymnastics and not give yourself a serious injury? 

Or you know, you can just roll well, and "complete" the content in a week. RNG is a S#&$ty solution when it comes to game systems. It can be used to spice things up, but ultimately never should be used as a main component in progression. Warframe (despite popular misconceptions) always had boat-loads of RNG, but rarely was it this egregiously bad.

[Voltage]

2 hours ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Ahem. Didn't you just say:

 

See this community is constantly howling about content drought, and there being nothing to do. 

It looks like DE listened, and created a pair systems that would go hand in glove, taking several months to complete. The first being intrinsics, the second being collecting the rare drops. Together they combine to give a player very powerful tools in order to do the Railjack content. You would have managed to get the "best gear" and would be at "completion". Seems like they expected this to take a couple of months? 

Now here you are, complaining because you have not just been handed everything you want. In fact you claim that you are insulted by having to farm for something intended to be very rare. 

 

How are you able to perform those mental gymnastics and not give yourself a serious injury? 

I am always the minority who prefers grind. I don't have a problem with RNG, I have a problem with RNG never being concrete. I'm getting damn tired of spending hours on an update only for it to be undermined and take less time later.

Ephemeras shipping with a drop chance that would be inevitably buffed is a poor situation for everyone involved. You either end up being the guy who can't get it at first because the chance is abysmal, or you end up being the one who does get it early on, but someone else gets it easier because they waited a week or two.

I am not complaining I am not handed something, I'm complaining about a terrible design system that's been portrayed for well over a year that disrespects peoples time from the start. Releasing the Vidar Reactor the way it is only for DE on Twitter to say they will likely be increasing the drop chance is poor and you know it. If the Vidar Reactor, a Lich Ephemera or the resource grind of Empyrean was properly calculated and had little need for much change, the system would launch with an intentional time investment that players can go through. There's a large difference between a mistake like the drop chance of the Exploiter Orb Ephemeras and pure neglect like Liches and Empyrean. DE doesn't seem to see any importance with content pacing, and it's arguably the most impactful part of the game itself.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Voltage

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

41 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Releasing the Vidar Reactor the way it is only for DE on Twitter to say they will likely be increasing the drop chance is poor and you know it.

Oh yes, listening to feedback is a terrible, terrible thing. They should be ashamed of doing it. /s

Get real. 

41 minutes ago, Voltage said:

If the Vidar Reactor, a Lich Ephemera or the resource grind of Empyrean was properly calculated and had little need for much change, the system would launch with an intentional time investment that players can go through.

Yes, they need to upgrade their calculator to include the attachment for a crystal ball. How ridiculous that they are unable to accurately predict the future and include the results in their calculations. /s (again)

 

Again it looks like the plan was for this to last us several months. But people have rushed it, hard. And the overly developed need for immediate gratification is strong in that group. They claim that because they haven't been given the rare rewards at the very beginning, that they are "insulted" and make ridiculous claims including the phrase "slapped in the face". 

 

Remember, just because you don’t like the content pacing doesn't mean that it wasn't actually carefully planned. 

[Voltage]

28 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Remember, just because you don’t like the content pacing doesn't mean that it wasn't actually carefully planned. 

If you bothered to read the OP you would have noticed that in almost every major update in 2019, the content pacing was in fact not properly tuned on release AND had repeated mistakes. I like consistent pacing, whether it's hard or easy isn't relevant to me. DE undermining their own content pacing is what I dislike, not the actual pace imposed. 

Are you trying to tell me that DE "carefully planned" the Sentient Anomaly with mechanics that they in fact already proved were horrible with Fortuna cycles being much faster than Plains of Eidolon and drop dynamics which were proven abusive via aborting missions with the launch of the Acolytes? Are you also saying DE "carefully planned" the Vengeful Ephemera drop chances to be 5.00% despite just a few months prior showing that a drop chance of 6.00% is too low and raising it to 10.00%? I'm sorry, but the evidence is clear throughout 2019 and beyond that they really aren't spending much time tuning time investment before launch and just release half-baked rewards and progression while waiting for the players to point in their face the countless repeated mistakes they continuously make throughout the pacing of updates.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Voltage

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

1 minute ago, Voltage said:

If you bothered to read the OP you would have noticed that in almost every major update in 2019, the content pacing was in fact not properly tuned on release AND had repeated mistakes.

You mean like Dog Days? Because as a filthy casual I was enjoying it, and made serious inroads into getting the rewards I wanted, before they made the changes. 

I am sure that, as a person who is fine with the grind, you did as well with no complaints. They could have left it like that and people would have had a reason to keep working towards the other rewards the next time the event rolled around. But people exploited it, despite it not being hard (and as for tedious, we can be honest and admit that it's more tedious just starting a match, finding a spot to camp and afking for 5 minutes at a time, over and over, and over). 

So again that was content that was paced in a sensible way that had to be broken because people whined about "b-but mah instunt gratificationz". 

12 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Are you trying to tell me that DE "carefully planned" the Sentient Anomaly with mechanics that they in fact already proved was bad with the way Fortuna cycles are way faster than Plains of Eidolon and drop dynamics which were proven bad with the Acolytes?

Fortuna cycles are bad? What? 

The main thing wrong with sentient anomaly is that the rewards are being shown, so people bail, forsaking lesser rewards, for the hope of rushing several instances to get the rewards they hope for. That ends up screwing over the people who aren't rushing. If you couldn't see what dropped, you'd be much more likely to finish the mission. 

 

 

So here's where I ask a couple of questions to see if you've been playing in a normal way or exploiting the mechanics to rush your way through. 

What's your intrinsics profile? 

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

Honestly, and from my observation, I get the strange feeling that DE launches updates with the following mindset:

• "We'll set everything to the worst it could be (rng, grind, time investment, etc), and measure how well we did and what needs to change from there. Better to buff the new content slowly and in a very controlled fashion than to give players more than we truly need to and then nerf these systems and have players complain hard."

I apologize for the speculation, but it truly is how I feel about it even if I have no reliable information on it. In fact it could be as true as it could be false, since it's not so far-fetched a thought from a cold business standpoint, and since I don't work at DE in order to know what goes on when they discuss development strategy.

One thing I am dead sure of - players are happier accepting some bread crumbs in a bad content release, than to give up some overpowered elements via nerf in a good release.

Edited January 7, 2020 by (PS4)Hikuro-93

[Skaleek]

18 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

So here's where I ask a couple of questions to see if you've been playing in a normal way or exploiting the mechanics to rush your way through. 

I think you're missing the entire point of his post. Also my intrinsics are 10/9/9/9 and I haven't "exploited" railjack in any way. Although I did exploit the xp booster i got from login to get double intrinsics for the week after railjack launched. *cough*

He doesn't care how long the content takes, whether its a day or 20 years. He cares that it's inconsistent and changed down the road, invalidating anything he's done previously. At least that's how I interpret the OP.

The only thing consistent about DE is that they repeat their mistakes. Over and over for the passed 7 years. They just don't learn.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Skaleek

[Voltage]

20 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

You mean like Dog Days? Because as a filthy casual I was enjoying it, and made serious inroads into getting the rewards I wanted, before they made the changes. 

I am sure that, as a person who is fine with the grind, you did as well with no complaints. They could have left it like that and people would have had a reason to keep working towards the other rewards the next time the event rolled around. But people exploited it, despite it not being hard (and as for tedious, we can be honest and admit that it's more tedious just starting a match, finding a spot to camp and afking for 5 minutes at a time, over and over, and over). 

So again that was content that was paced in a sensible way that had to be broken because people whined about "b-but mah instunt gratificationz". 

Fortuna cycles are bad? What? 

The main thing wrong with sentient anomaly is that the rewards are being shown, so people bail, forsaking lesser rewards, for the hope of rushing several instances to get the rewards they hope for. That ends up screwing over the people who aren't rushing. If you couldn't see what dropped, you'd be much more likely to finish the mission. 

So here's where I ask a couple of questions to see if you've been playing in a normal way or exploiting the mechanics to rush your way through. 

What's your intrinsics profile? 

DE should know better than to release a Tactical Alert that has nothing to do with effort. Points for Dog Days not scaling off group performance is not the players fault.

Plains of Eidolon cycles are bearable, Fortuna cycles are quite good, but somehow DE thought a cycle worse than Plains of Eidolon was a good idea. One step forward and two steps back. People have been complaining about cycles since The Silver Grove and farming plants for Titania in 2016. DE realized this with Fortuna and made a good choice on making them forgiving. However in Empyrean, they somehow managed to make the worst design choice I've ever seen and they shouldn't be shocked at all that people are farming Rare Containers and Shedu the way they are.

My Intrinsics are all below 9 with only one at 8. I haven't even tried to stealth level, and I stopped playing the game on December 23rd aside from 2 logins. I am not going to waste my precious free time to gain Affinity for an Empyrean Focus system. Look at Focus. Look at how many times it's been made easier to the point where you can now easily be well into the tens of millions of excess Focus Points.

I'm tired of playing new updates for a game who's developers don't put much importance on properly tuning time requirements for progression before launch. Gameplay pacing is immensely important as I pointed out in previous comments and the OP. I love Warframe a lot, and I have put well over 6,000 hours into the game, but the repeated development cycle with a huge glaring flaw is getting old.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Voltage

[844448]

3 hours ago, Lers said:

Or you know, you can just roll well, and "complete" the content in a week. RNG is a S#&$ty solution when it comes to game systems. It can be used to spice things up, but ultimately never should be used as a main component in progression. Warframe (despite popular misconceptions) always had boat-loads of RNG, but rarely was it this egregiously bad.

And what about other games that have that decades ago and they're praised as a great sustainable content? Funny thing is RNG is the way to pad time and make "sustainable" content and the double standard is too visible where they praise it when it's on other games and suddenly bash the same thing they praise when it's in warframe

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

DE's chances at casual/new (majority) players staying on longer is better if something is easier to get. The casual players feel rewarded and more inclined to play to stay on and play longer if they are rewarded quicker. Really Warframe I feel has been becoming more aimed at casuals in some parts, and maybe eventually all parts. The majority of players I feel won't waste their time if they don't really feel invested in the game, and the most invested people are usually the veterans, but the veterans are a minority now, and vet's since in minority aren't really as influential as the majority who is the casual "buy this item or PA from the market" and then forget about the game a month later. 

[Skaleek]

29 minutes ago, (XB1)AMONGTHEWEAK said:

but the veterans are a minority now, and vet's since in minority aren't really as influential as the majority

So would you say the vets are currently "Among the weak"? tee hee 😏

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

32 minutes ago, Voltage said:

DE should know better than to release a Tactical Alert that has nothing to do with effort. Points for Dog Days not scaling off group performance is not the players fault.

☝️ The person who wrote the latter seemed to think that the grind was totally acceptable, at the time.

 

The person who wrote the former is singing a different tune. 

41 minutes ago, Voltage said:

My Intrinsics are all below 9 with only one at 8. I haven't even tried to stealth level, and I stopped playing the game on December 23rd aside from 2 logins. 

Darn... You were pushing it pretty hard huh? You haven't played for 2 weeks. If you had.... 

Is this playing a part in why you are complaining about the game mode? Did you burn yourself out? 

 

35 minutes ago, 844448 said:

And what about other games that have that decades ago and they're praised as a great sustainable content? Funny thing is RNG is the way to pad time and make "sustainable" content and the double standard is too visible where they praise it when it's on other games and suddenly bash the same thing they praise when it's in warframe

And a 2% drop (which is often used as the rallying cry) isn't anywhere near the lowest drop rate in the game. 

There's an enormous amount of demand for instant gratification in this game, but demanding that AND appropriate content pacing to avoid content droughts... That's a new one on me. 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

5 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

So would you say the vets are currently "Among the weak"? tee hee 😏

I see what you did there. 😅

[Voltage]

24 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Darn... You were pushing it pretty hard huh? You haven't played for 2 weeks. If you had.... 

Is this playing a part in why you are complaining about the game mode? Did you burn yourself out? 

Why I am not 10/10/10/10 with 1023 spare Intrinsics is an issue you wouldn't understand and completely unrelated to the pace of the update. I know this sounds like a poor excuse, but it's really not related.

EDIT: Regarding Dog Days, I was stating why it was abused, nothing to do if I agree or disagree on the grind of it.

24 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

And a 2% drop (which is often used as the rallying cry) isn't anywhere near the lowest drop rate in the game. 

There's an enormous amount of demand for instant gratification in this game, but demanding that AND appropriate content pacing to avoid content droughts... That's a new one on me. 

Of course it's not. I farmed ESO for Blazing Step at 1.01%, I've been around when Vermillion Storm was added, I've been shown the math behind how rare a specific Riven roll is, and I'm most certainly aware 2.00% isn't as low as DE can go.

There is a large amount of instant gratification, but I'm afraid you're looking at the wrong player. This topic has absolutely nothing to do with content drought. As I stated in the OP which you seemed to miss, I said that the changes DE made for various points I made were in fact healthy for the game. The questionable decisions from my perspective are why we need to wait weeks, months, and for PoE, years to see pacing in the intended place. If DE always intended progression for Empyrean to take a long time, they wouldn't have taken the resource economy to completely trivial.

All I'm looking for is consistency.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Voltage

[(PSN)Onder6099]

6 hours ago, Voltage said:

But they don't. If they did, Ephemeras from Liches wouldn't ship at 5.00% drop chance, Vidar Reactors wouldn't be so insulting to farm, and most of the complaints about updates wouldn't be repeated so often. The complaints about the nature of the Vidar Reactor are exactly the same as complaints on Riven Mods when The War Within launched: in 2016. Like come on....

If they don’t this game will be already dead. This is F2P game and not something like: 50k players bought Empyrean as DLC for 50 bucks and another 20k PA so we now have 3-4 months to focus on New War release only. It’s permanent checking of Data mines and Feedbacks to immediately react to keep game alive. You can’t plan too far to the future because you never know how players will react on Updates, unfortunately in WF, where the players complain everytime, everywhere on everything, it’s the same old story: Release and after wave of complaints raised and Datamines started showing that players are leaving, softening the Content. If there be no complaints DE will left Updates untouched.  

[Skaleek]

12 minutes ago, (PS4)Onder6099 said:

it’s the same old story: Release and after wave of complaints raised and Datamines started showing that players are leaving, softening the Content

So basically wait and see until your population breaks, and then fix it and hope that the rest of the players have no hard feelings? Sounds like a winning stratagem to me.

[Lers]

2 hours ago, 844448 said:

And what about other games that have that decades ago and they're praised as a great sustainable content? Funny thing is RNG is the way to pad time and make "sustainable" content and the double standard is too visible where they praise it when it's on other games and suddenly bash the same thing they praise when it's in warframe

I would kindly ask you to provide examples, because I'm drawing a blank here. Successful and praised examples that mainly relied on RNG to progress in a vital part of a games power system (generators) with such a low chance of success (2% and whatever chance we have at a decent 80+ roll on the power stat). The current drop rate of Vidar reactors, combined with the random stat rolls is horrid. I got lucky and got a decent 84 rolled on my 6th drop, but before that I got reactors all in the sub 40 range.

This might sound harsh, but the percentages actually remind me of the enchanting system of korean MMOs. Upside being I don't lose my reactor if I fail getting a new, better one. I dont like banging my head against spiked RNG walls, just to not progress anywhere towards the goals set. I prefer longer, constant grinds, low amounts of RNG, and progress made after time invested.

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Lers

[(PSN)Onder6099]

24 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

So basically wait and see until your population breaks, and then fix it and hope that the rest of the players have no hard feelings? Sounds like a winning stratagem to me.

Devs aren’t wait, they are working on new Content. Softening present Content also means less time for work on new Content, faster “Content drought”. Players are, with their complaints, pushing Devs under pressure and then they are surprised that the new Content is unfinished.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

Why I am not 10/10/10/10 with 1023 spare Intrinsics is an issue you wouldn't understand and completely unrelated to the pace of the update. I know this sounds like a poor excuse, but it's really not related.

Your reasons, whatever they are, are not a poor excuse. You don't have to have a reason for not getting there before everyone else. But what you are saying is the same as what I said. 

You would probably be there by now if it weren't for the break you took. And DE was factoring for people who aren't grinding anywhere near as hard as you did. 

That's something that leads to burnout. 

 

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

EDIT: Regarding Dog Days, I was stating why it was abused, nothing to do if I agree or disagree on the grind of it.

You might want to read what you said. 

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

There is a large amount of instant gratification, but I'm afraid you're looking at the wrong player. This topic has absolutely nothing to do with content drought.

But it has everything to do with content drought. Let me show you what you wrote:

15 hours ago, Voltage said:

Content pacing is the designed time investment for given content, how rewards are earned, and the overall speed at which you work your way to the "best gear" or "completion". Content and reward pacing is one of the largest parts of gameplay for a game like Warframe. As a looter shooter, the speed at which we craft items, gain resources, acquire gear, and progress our account is where most of the core gameplay stems from.

Warframe's development for over a whole year has neglected the importance of content pacing, as well as launching content with the unintended pacing (usually too grindy, time heavy, good loot too rare, etc.) which is later changed (lowered, made easier, drop chances buffed, etc.).

Developers literally can't create content as fast as you're demanding. So they have to make it so that we can't just race through it. 

You say that the rewards aren't coming as fast as they should, but when people get all the rewards, and that is their primary motivation, then, once attained.... The content is done. 

So racing through it, going as quickly as humanly possible, or possibly using tactics that exploit a greater reward rate than intended, is exactly what leads to the complaints of content drought. 

 

Heck I can quote you saying that artificially increasing drop rates will lead to cries of content drought. The only difference is that you are now asking for "value X" to be inflated from the start which will inevitably produce the same result, won't it? 

[Fellas92]

DE always released half-assed content, but for some reason it was bearable. However, they seem to have a new trend of releasing literally broken content, which not only has an insane increase in grindiness, but a reduction of rewards. On top of that, the rewards are sh*t.

For example, I tried to farm the vidar reactor for a week or so. Got 2 drops, but the rolls I got were horrendous. +37 and +39 avionics... In the meantime the Dojo one gives you 50. Good job DE, thanks for giving me an amazing reward which I literally spend hours to get. 

What's even worse, it feels like DE doesn't even care what players have to say anymore. Players ask for things to be fixed, but DE just goes on a nerf strike. 

Edited January 7, 2020 by Fellas92