The process of gilding kitguns is is horribly, objectively flawed.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

1 hour ago, tzadquiel said:

great thanks, but I struggle to derive the falloff/retention rate from this. what would be the benchmark achievement here? ranking up a weapon to lvl30? if so, fine - we get percentage of playerbase which did this. but what do I compare this against? total user number? if yes, where do I find this? because all I can see is that right now there is 50k people playing, but this does not relate to the retention. 

thanks for the patience. 

Compare progressively greater achievements. A nice example would be Payday > Nestegg > Where credit is due > Money is power. 

A million credits isn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but it does represent a substantial time investment as a newer player to get to that point.

So the achiments show the difference between people who played for a short while, and those who stuck with the game. That's your metric for player retention. 

 

[tzadquiel]

42 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Compare progressively greater achievements. A nice example would be Payday > Nestegg > Where credit is due > Money is power. 

A million credits isn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but it does represent a substantial time investment as a newer player to get to that point.

So the achiments show the difference between people who played for a short while, and those who stuck with the game. That's your metric for player retention. 

i see what you mean. is this what everyone is basing their claims on, then?

because this is taken as measurement from all people who installed the game and played for a little, ever. it does not show when the game was installed, i.e. new player experience was very different 3 years ago and now, and retention numbers that this resulted in few years ago are still very much on the records.

does it also show that the older, lets call them dormant accounts, could have returned under different names? lost passwords irreversibly, changed computers, upgraded, damaged, or simply decided it's better to invest in something else at start of the warframe adventure, and just reset? because you see a lot of returning player chats around, which seems to be a pretty common and normal thing to occur, especially in a f2p game.

does it show that some players could have migrated the platforms? pretty reasonable thing to do, i would say, no? I am considering buying a switch when cross-save happens, and if I like it, I might stop playing on PC altogether. would it be irrational, that someone could have done this already?

also, does that account for mule accounts that people have created, be it in attempt to cheat the plat out, or for any other reason? 

because neither the Steam stats really show this. so I would be rather careful with taking assumptions only out of this method, and 'we have no other way of comparing' is not enough to validate those 'poor retention' claims, for me at least. 

Edited February 19, 2020 by tzadquiel
typos fixed

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

8 hours ago, (PS4)Ashmane84 said:

I didn't choose to ignore any signs; those signs didn't show up. They weren't there. At all. Until literally weeks into the process. And I can and have accepted that these are late game items I am not supposed to have yet. All I am saying, and what you're choosing to ignore, is that there needs to be better guidance for these things. Warframe has piss poor signposting for this sort of stuff, and it needs better. Figuring it out later and moving on isn't a solution; it's overlooking the problem. Just because you and so many others have decided to overlook the problem and just deal with the symptoms doesn't mean the problem somehow magically stops existing. Maybe I'm old fashioned, or just not a brain addled fanboy, but I think problems should be fixed.

Nope. Old fashioned players never had the hand-holding that you seem to need. We played games and figured stuff out as we went. We used the information the game gave, and our powers of observation and deduction to chart a path. 

As another poster said, if you were knocking around in the starter zone and suddenly found that the enemies were obliterating you, and you were hardly scratching them, that was a pretty big hint that you were NOT in the starter zone anymore and should turn around. 

 

Also let me show you how weak your power of observation is:

18 hours ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

As far as 'it would be nice to have a better tutorial system' goes, we all agree. The cynical side of me says that we're still going to get a lot of people who bypassed it because they 'know' all of that already, only to ask questions about what they just chose to ignore.

Emphasis added to the part you seem to have missed during your ranting. 

 

 

Regarding your choices of weapons, again, in order to progress you're going to need to build and rank up as many as you can. The market in your orbiter is probably the best option, and buying blueprints is probably the best way to go about things. If you haven't done all of the mk1 weapons, you should definitely do those first.

The dojo weapons tend to require stuff like forma, fieldron and detonite which, for you, may be in short supply for now. Building those and finding out you don't like them can be a double whammy, so caveat emptor. 

And again, one of the very worst things that could possibly happen to you at this point is for you to find the perfect loadouts. When that happens you tend to stick to it, and that means you won't be earning mastery points. I strongly suggest that you just keep building and levelling up as many weapons as you can, and keep the ones you are enjoy the feel of. 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

31 minutes ago, tzadquiel said:

i see what you mean. is this what everyone is basing their claims on, then?

because this is taken as measurement from all people who installed the game and played for a little, ever. it does not show when the game was installed, i.e. new player experience was very different 3 years ago and now, and retention numbers that this resulted in few years ago are still very much on the records.

does it also show that the older, lets call them dormant accounts, could have returned under different names? lost passwords irreversibly, changed computers, upgraded and decided it's better to invest in something else at start? because you see a lot of returning player chats around, which seems to be a pretty common and normal thing to occur, especially in a f2p game.

because the Steam stats don't really show this. so I would be rather careful with taking assumptions only out of this method, and 'we have no other way of comparing' is not enough to validate those 'poor retention' claims, for me at least. 

Again, look at the comparable stats. The first shows how many installed but dropped it before putting in the least level of invested time. It also provides the benchmark for rest. 

A million credits represents the people who have stuck around for a while. They're about a quarter of the ones who made it to the first level. 

If you want to compare all people who played in the past and the ones who are currently playing, you would need to look at the update specific achievements. 

Regarding returning players, I'd say that "alt accounts" are the bigger concern. If an account has substantial progress and resources, users will probably make every effort to recover their old account. If it was a newb account with hardly any effort expended then yeah they might just shrug and start over. 

[tzadquiel]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

If you want to compare all people who played in the past and the ones who are currently playing, you would need to look at the update specific achievements.  

that is my point - I don't want to, this is about retention. but if we look at steam as the only database, we are comparing all players who played in the past, and are playing now. which renders the results untrue and outdated. update specific achievements don't matter either. I have 4 liches killed, and didnt even build my own railjack. not accurate.

2 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Regarding returning players, I'd say that "alt accounts" are the bigger concern. If an account has substantial progress and resources, users will probably make every effort to recover their old account. If it was a newb account with hardly any effort expended then yeah they might just shrug and start over. 

ultimately, you would say, I would say, we both can say things. we don't know. we can just 'probably' and 'might'. not enough to validate the repeated over and over circle of 'new players are leaving the game at high rate'. oh and I would have no problem scratching my 140h account for the sake of new one. you can farm some ok numbers in 150h, easy. I am at +1750h now, so story is different - but not everyone is. 

 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

16 minutes ago, tzadquiel said:

that is my point - I don't want to, this is about retention. but if we look at steam as the only database, we are comparing all players who played in the past, and are playing now. which renders the results untrue and outdated. update specific achievements don't matter either. I have 4 liches killed, and didnt even build my own railjack. not accurate.

Totally untrue. Retention means keeping players. A casual glance at the people on this forum will show active people who played in the closed beta. 

That's retention. And sorry but update specific achievements are a good measure, you've done one from earlier updates but not yet started the most recent that's exactly the pattern you expect for "new" players who are being retained. When you do it, you'll be counted just like any other player who is new to the mode. The only way that you don't get counted is if you flat out refuse to do the content, at which point counting you as a retained player is a bit of a questionable thing to do. 

[tzadquiel]

17 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Totally untrue. Retention means keeping players. A casual glance at the people on this forum will show active people who played in the closed beta. 

That's retention. And sorry but update specific achievements are a good measure, you've done one from earlier updates but not yet started the most recent that's exactly the pattern you expect for "new" players who are being retained. When you do it, you'll be counted just like any other player who is new to the mode. The only way that you don't get counted is if you flat out refuse to do the content, at which point counting you as a retained player is a bit of a questionable thing to do. 

what exactly is untrue?

this forum is not a sample for anything, it unites people who play game and like to talk, or just like to talk without playing the game (talk=whine, mostly). there is a huge percentage of active players who dont give a flying sh**t about forums, and I see their point more often than not. be mindful of the bubble we're in. 

new update achievements are also not a sample. there is a big group of players who are afk for the last months, or dont do the new content before it gets patched to a satisfying level (me). we still play the game though? is there not enough threads for you of surprised vets, who got a lich all of sudden and had no idea what the f? 

 

bottomline - until we get time curves on the steam stats, until we get unique numbers, until we get those for cross-platform for the reasons I have already listed, nobody is in the position to talk about increasing or decreasing retention. all you see is the TOTAL retention from all time. not taking into account dips and spikes of late. would that mean, there is none? do you know how much would it take, for 0.01% to change? because we don't even know what the full 100% amount is. 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

32 minutes ago, tzadquiel said:

what exactly is untrue?

this forum is not a sample for anything, it unites people who play game and like to talk, or just like to talk without playing the game (talk=whine, mostly). there is a huge percentage of active players who dont give a flying sh**t about forums, and I see their point more often than not. be mindful of the bubble we're in. 

new update achievements are also not a sample. there is a big group of players who are afk for the last months, or dont do the new content before it gets patched to a satisfying level (me). we still play the game though? is there not enough threads for you of surprised vets, who got a lich all of sudden and had no idea what the f? 

 

bottomline - until we get time curves on the steam stats, until we get unique numbers, until we get those for cross-platform for the reasons I have already listed, nobody is in the position to talk about increasing or decreasing retention. all you see is the TOTAL retention from all time. not taking into account dips and spikes of late. would that mean, there is none? do you know how much would it take, for 0.01% to change? because we don't even know what the full 100% amount is. 

Yeah no. You want absolute stats, but choose to ignore the general stats that we have. Yes, the TOTAL retention across time is a useful tool, whether you are willing to accept it or not. 

The issues you raise would affect ALL metric systems. Alts will always show up as unretained players. People who have gone afk for prolonged periods of time will always show up as unretained players. People who have migrated to accounts on other platforms will always show up as unretained players. 

Sorry Tenno but the lack of absolute numbers that meet your specific criteria for inclusion is not the same as claiming that we're unable to take the data that we do have and build a general picture that shows definite trends, which do appear to be in accord across the platforms. 

Hope you have a good one otherwise. 

[tzadquiel]

13 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Yeah no. You want absolute stats, but choose to ignore the general stats that we have. Yes, the TOTAL retention across time is a useful tool, whether you are willing to accept it or not. 

The issues you raise would affect ALL metric systems. Alts will always show up as unretained players. People who have gone afk for prolonged periods of time will always show up as unretained players. People who have migrated to accounts on other platforms will always show up as unretained players. 

Sorry Tenno but the lack of absolute numbers that meet your specific criteria for inclusion is not the same as claiming that we're unable to take the data that we do have and build a general picture that shows definite trends, which do appear to be in accord across the platforms. 

Hope you have a good one otherwise. 

correct. I take a general issue with total stats, because of their general and thus abstract nature. 

to show you why your 'general picture' thinking is flawed, here is allegory for you -  

company lost 3 millions usd in 2014,
lost 2 millions in 2015,
gained 1 million in 2016,
gained 3 millions in 2017.

total P&L is 1 million in red - i.e. here, our Warframe Steam retention stats - but if the loss does not occur anymore, i.e. is it still a problem?

bc I dont think it should be. 

 

but I am literally repeating same thing over and over. you're right, time to finish this. 

[Redfeather75]

Advanced bonds and familial bonds are all easier to get than medical bonds. Has been complained about since 2018.

The fact that you need to quit a bounty after stage 1 and repeat over and over to get medical bonds is really poor design.

I doubt anyone at DE even has a clue what we are talking about here.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Redfeather75

[mikakor]

31 minutes ago, Redfeather75 said:

The fact that you need to quit a bounty after stage 1 and repeat over and over to get medical bonds is really poor design.

what the hell? you don't need to quit any bounty at stage one to farm them?

[Teljaxx]

10 hours ago, _Urakaze_ said:

At this point I feel like if the game progression is a road, then the fortuna kitgun/resource grind is a high concrete wall, but only blocks that little trail that leads to the 'high-end content' road and OP is banging his head against the wall, even when there's clearly another path to go.

Games like star wars jedi fallen order also has areas that you can't explore until you learn some new abilities later on, yet I don't see anyone complaining.

There's actually incentives for progressing the starchart too, it just requires you to hover over the junction nodes to see, not screaming at you every time you open the starchart. Of course there can be better incentives like weapons slots for every junction but it's there. In addition the quest system should be a very good guide for your progression. Heck you can even get an end game sword by simply completing the second dream quest, which is just MR5 and halfway into all the quest only.

Why should there be a wall in the road in the first place? If you're going to put walls in the middle of a well traveled road, you shouldn't be surprised when people get pissed that they keep crashing headlong into them.

Plus, most games, like Fallen Order, make it perfectly clear right away when you are out of your depth. When you're level 5, and you see a level 30 enemy that takes 90% of your HP in one hit, its instantly clear you're in the wrong place. But Warframe has things like Kitguns, that try to lure you in with cheap initial costs and low rank requirements, only to block you from getting their true potential with much higher costs later. But by then you've committed so much to them that throwing them away and waiting is even more of a waste.

Personally, I think that one of the worst things that a game can do is to tell you what you can't have. A lot of games try to hint at powerful things to come to motivate you to keep playing, but there is a fine line between telling you what you can't ever have, and what you can't have yet. And pretty much all F2P games cross that line. Warframe is definitely no exception.

[Redfeather75]

2 hours ago, mikakor said:

what the hell? you don't need to quit any bounty at stage one to farm them?

And this is why it will never get fixed. There is a problem and then someone says 'no there is isn't!' and that's it.

[Krenlik]

On 2020-02-17 at 6:04 PM, (PS4)Ashmane84 said:

I have a 20% chance for two from bounties that are literally impossible to finish as a solo player. And not just because they are hard, but because they are mechanically HARDER without a squad. 

They are literally possible to finish solo.  I've never run a single Fortuna instance in group mode and have a couple of gilded kitguns, 3 gilded moas, Garuda, and more.  Most stuff came from bounties, canisters, etc.  Bought very few debt bonds.

Maybe you need a different frame, maybe you need different strategies, but it's entirely possible to do solo.  I'd recommend something tough, and ideally with some healing.

 

Quote

Without checking the Wiki, what is there to tell you that Kitguns are endgame weapons? Their high gilded stats? I guess. But the fact that they are so cheap and easy to build, and they show up on the second lowest level planet in the game says they should be early game weapons. So what are they? The game gives conflicting information, so its really not surprising that people have trouble figuring it out. 

 

They are early game weapons that can be turned into late game weapons later after you have the ability to gild them.

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Krenlik

[(PSN)Ashmane84]

22 minutes ago, Krenlik said:

They are early game weapons that can be turned into late game weapons later after you have the ability to gild them.

 

If that is the case then they need to have their mastery experience lock reversed. What point is there in a weapon that doesn't build mastery exp until you don't need it? What point is there in a weapon that's mere existence prevents you from gaming it when you need it most? Literally every weapon in the game, save modular ones, build mastery experience the FIRST time you take them to thirty. Then they reset after you install a reactor or forma, and from then re-ranking them builds power, but not experience. Why are modular weapons reversed? Why is the first rank power but not experience, contrary to everything else in the game? It's little design contradictions like this that make me think Digital Extremes doesn't actually know what they are doing.

Edited February 19, 2020 by (PS4)Ashmane84

[(PSN)Ashmane84]

11 hours ago, _Urakaze_ said:

I can also probably guess your frustration. You thought Penta, a grenade launcher, should do a lot of damage.

Actually no; my issue was it's info was poorly worded leading me to believe it functioned in a way it didn't. It says it's grenades explode on contact with an enemy, so I was thinking they would bound around, sit on the floor, and explode like a mine when something stepped on it. Not the case. Unless I score a direct hit I have to detonate them manually. Not only is this annoying, it means the weapon would be useless in the hands of a specter (I am assuming their AI isn't good enough to do that), and one of the things I wanted to do, as a solo player about half the time, was build up a "squad" of NPC versions of my own warframes with set builds and weapons to back me up when I go into a tough fight solo. But I am coming to realize that the specters aren't able to pull off anything close to that.

[mikakor]

1 hour ago, Redfeather75 said:

And this is why it will never get fixed. There is a problem and then someone says 'no there is isn't!' and that's it.

well, explain? the hell do you mean? in a bounty, the rewards you can get, you get them on EVERY bounty stage. not only the first.

[(PSN)CrazyBeaTzu]

On 2020-02-18 at 9:00 AM, Teljaxx said:

You're still missing the point, as always.

A properly designed game shouldn't require outside information to understand basic systems. Whether its from a wiki, or fellow players. But Warframe does. I remember spending the first several months of playing this game with the wiki open, and constantly having to tab over to it to learn basic things. It was super annoying, but I put up with it because, at the time, the gameplay was worth it. Plus, the game was still early in development, and they were still regularly making huge changes to basic things, like damage types and melee. But, after six plus years, you'd think they would have all that nailed down by now and their game would start making sense. But nah. If anything, its even more confusing than ever. And the only reason they have been able to get away with it is because they are lucky enough to have a dedicated and helpful player base to create their documentation for them. Now, the community isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it provides an all too convenient crutch that DE really needs to stop leaning on.

Sure, there are plenty of other games that benefit from having a wiki. But, most of the time, you only really need to go there to learn about the more esoteric parts of the game. Specific drop rates, hidden stats, super secret items, etc. These games still have enough built-in instructions, and make enough sense, that you can learn the basics without external assistance. Besides, as I said before, just because the majority does something, doesn't mean its a good thing.

You also still haven't explained why its okay for top-tier endgame weapons to be available to newbies on the second lowest level planet in the game.

The top tier weapons arent available to them. They can look at them, yes. But they'll  see what is required to build them and say "ok I have some work to do, as I need these items to build these parts". 

At least that what I did. I kept going because I had other things to do in the meantime.

[(PSN)Ashmane84]

8 minutes ago, (PS4)CrazyBeaTzu said:

The top tier weapons arent available to them. They can look at them, yes. But they'll  see what is required to build them and say "ok I have some work to do, as I need these items to build these parts". 

At least that what I did. I kept going because I had other things to do in the meantime.

Apparently things have changed since your day, Boomer, because that's not how things work now. Kitguns aren't in any way hard to make, and the build requirements are ridiculously low. Seriously I didn't even use the wiki for guidance and I had my first Gaze in my hand, lasering grineer, in a day. ONE DAY. I went from not knowing kitguns existed, to using one, in ONE DAY. This is no work required to make these. No effort. Barely any time. In fact since mostly what you do is mine ore and fish making a kitgun is actually pretty zen. I went in at mastery rank four I think, and didn't have the slightest bit of trouble at all. Sailed right through making FIVE of them, had no issue ranking Fortuna up a few times, nothing at all led me to believe this was content above my level because I was able to easily do it at my level without assistance or guidance.

It wasn't until trying to get to rank three and gild them that all of this difficulty and grind that you seem to think I went through got dumped on me all at once, out of nowhere, apparently to make up for lost time. Again this is not an issue of obtaining a high level item, it is an issue of signposting. I'm not complaining that the roadblock exists, I'm complaining that it didn't show up sooner.

Edited February 19, 2020 by (PS4)Ashmane84

[(XBOX)Dee Dubbalyoo]

So I'm a fairly new player and I really want to give a slightly different perspective on the new players experience. First off, there is no denying that the game does a terrible job of guiding new players and it didn't take long for me to feel a little lost. The thing is, although it was frustrating for a little while, it wasn't a bad thing. It encouraged me to do some research and, more importantly, engage with the community and my experience thus far has been all the richer for it.

As for the kit gun, un-gilded, it's not a bad secondary for early game. I realised pretty quickly that upgrading it was something I'd have to come back to but it's still one of the better secondary guns I've tried so far. I never felt like the game conned me into building it because I never felt like it was useless until it was gilded. It was a good purchase for where I was and it'll still be worth having when I get round to gilding it so win win in my opinion. 

One of the best pieces of advice I was given as a new player was focus on clearing the star chart first. Clear the nodes, do the quest lines and by the time you're done you'll have the gear, mods and MR to be able to tackle a good chunk of the content. That's when you start focusing on the long term goals.

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

31 minutes ago, (XB1)Dee Dubbalyoo said:

I realised pretty quickly that upgrading it was something I'd have to come back to but it's still one of the better secondary guns I've tried so far.

What! That's impossible! Newbs are unable to figure such things out! Newbs lack agency and sit in one place drooling, pooping themselves and bashing their head on the wall, because they are fundamentally incapable of logical thought. How dare you break the cardinal rules? /s

Well done, Tenno. You adapted to the situation. You did not rant and demand that everything change just for you. 

 

[(PSN)N7_Dredgen]

Gilding as a concept is horribly and objectively flawed.  It shouldn't even be a thing.  

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

8 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

Why should there be a wall in the road in the first place?

You mean that the rather obvious answer of "to keep people from going places where they shouldn't" didn't immediately spring to mind? 

You ever seen parents of small children barring off the kitchen? It's because they know that the children generally aren't prepared to deal with what's on the other side. Older people are able to just stroll through those barriers, because they know how to, and by that stage should be able to take care of themselves in that environment. 

 

The OP is MR6, thinks that they know how to mod, but obviously they don't, thinks that they know what specific items do, but obviously they are mistaken. He doesn't have anything resembling a full suite of mods, hasn't finished the star chart, has vanilla gear at "max rank" but probably hasn't dumped the sort of forma that we both know makes a world of difference in this game. 

And they're unable to handle the enemies in fortuna at all. Not just "has a hard time" but flat out can't make it yet where a more experienced player, even with the same gear, would be likely to be able to find a way. 

Those walls are not there to block the OP from progressing. They're there to steer them towards other, more suitable content. 

[Oreades]

Gilding is objectively flawed for one simple reason 

It only exists to force the players to grind out the weapons to lvl30 >>>twice<<< just to get their MR and that's gildings contribution to the game..... 

 

Still waiting for an actual modular weapon system btw

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Oreades

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

3 minutes ago, Oreades said:

Gilding is objectively flawed for one simple reason 

It only exists to force the players to grind out the weapons to lvl30 >>>twice<<< just to get their MR and that's gildings contribution to the game..... 

 

Still waiting for an actual modular weapon system btw

 

You only grind them to thirty twice? What about all the weapons and warframes with all of the forma you dump into them? 

Takes quite a few more times to get something that you really want to keep, doesn't it? So.....