well.. i just played destiny 2..

[(NSW)Greybones]

55 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Plus the railjack. Sure, no decorations, but you can still customise the colours (which is the bare minimum of such things I've seen). And unlike most player houses, you can take it into battle!

Just finished my Railjack and put the broken Cy in as a command cephalon, and am looking forward to fighting with it while crewed by myself and my wife (and maybe brother in law). It looks really cool on the inside and I’m getting Star Citizen vibes 👍

On 2020-03-21 at 3:09 PM, Teljaxx said:

...They make parts of the game less fun to play, so that you want to pay to skip them...  

...They have intentionally made the grinding in this game unbearable, because they don't actually want you to spend all that time grinding, they would much rather you pay to skip it...

I would love to unpack all of the things you’ve said, @Teljaxx. Your posts have been some great insight into how you think.

In lieu of cluttering up someone else's topic more than we already have been, I want to cut to the chase; the bit I’ve quoted represents a thread I’ve been noticing across all of your posts between then and now.

Within some of your posts you talked about game design, and within others you talked about rewards. And within all of them, without fail, you talked about how the search for money affects the gameplay itself. Multiple times in the same post, like when you answered my questions.

It was so important, you referenced how other games sought money and how (in your opinion) it’s ruined their games, and you actually said the same exact thing twice within a single post to two different people in the case of this quoted piece.

I’m led to ask; Does your biggest problem with Warframe lie in how DE balances their game around their need for money?

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[(PSN)Silverback73]

On 2020-03-19 at 8:27 PM, Lion said:

Not to really counter any of your points, I think most are fair observations. However I'm not sure that the comparison of Destiny to Warframe is really a fair one. People seem to forget that Warframe was and remains to be an independent game that had no major game publishers backing it up. You really need to look at the logistics of everything when comparing the two.

 

Destiny as a series on the other hand, in the same span of years as Warframe, has had over 500 million invested in it by major publisher Activision, on top of having 2 full priced games that sold ridiculously well. Not to mention they have name brand recognition in the name of Bungie and Activision. Warframe is backed by a small studio (and admittedly a chinese chicken company which has nowhere near the financial power of the aforementioned companies), in short, Warframe's small team (roughly 300 employees versus Bungie's 600+) coupled with the revenue (reportedly less than half of what Destiny 2 made in 2019) just can't compete with that, and it shows.

 

tl;dr

Warframe compared to Bungie has:

-half the team

-half the money

-half the name brand

It can only be expected that it falls short compared to another studio that started off much better than DE did.

And yet as a game the main characters have a powers and movement system that leaves Destiny 2 feeling like pedestrians with powers vs legit demigods.

I’ll take that 6 days a week and twice on Sundays over a whole lot more wasted advertising dollars and constant boot polishing.

Warframe has always been a beautiful mess of a game...and by that I mean BEAUTIFUL mess and not beautiful MESS.

I’ll take a unique fusion restaurant that takes risks and fails with new dishes over the same old fast food restaurant upselling me the same old formulaic burger and fries with some minor added ingredient and fancy packaging to act like it’s something profound and new.

And for the record, I’ll admit my bias but my criticisms of DE’s decisions, when I feel warranted, are voiced, sometimes bluntly, and I’ve never seen blowback from them, even when it’s come from a proverbial Jat Kitty ground slam vs say the loving, healing touch of mama Trin.

Fin

[Teljaxx]

  

1 hour ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

I would love to unpack all of the things you’ve said, @Teljaxx. Your posts have been some great insight into how you think.

In lieu of cluttering up someone else's topic more than we already have been, I want to cut to the chase; the bit I’ve quoted represents a thread I’ve been noticing across all of your posts between then and now.

Within some of your posts you talked about game design, and within others you talked about rewards. And within all of them, without fail, you talked about how the search for money affects the gameplay itself. Multiple times in the same post, like when you answered my questions.

It was so important, you referenced how other games sought money and how (in your opinion) it’s ruined their games, and you actually said the same exact thing twice within a single post to two different people in the case of this quoted piece.

I’m led to ask; Does your biggest problem with Warframe lie in how DE balances their game around their need for money?

Of course that's the main issue here. When you get right down to it, all games are created to make money. And Whether the Devs focus more on making a good game, or making tons of money is important.

To be clear, I have nothing against people making money from their hard work. I don't mind paying for games, and never pirate them. What I am against is when someone makes way more profit than they really need. Especially if it comes at the expense of others, or if the quality of their product suffers because of it.

The entire reason F2P games became so popular is because of how insanely profitable they can be. But, that profitability comes at the expense of the quality of the game. They will intentionally make the game inconvenient just so that they can sell that convenience back to you. Warframe does this with long grinds, super rare drop chances, and forced wait times. Most of which you can pay Platinum to skip, of course. So you pay with your time or your money, but neither is much fun.

On the other hand, games like Dusk that use the older method of paying up front aren't nearly as profitable, but actually benefit from being as enjoyable as possible. They rely on word of mouth to spread their good reputation to get sales.

So yeah, I do think that a lot of Warframe's flaws come from DE's need to make money. Though, honestly, I actually think that more of Warframe's problems come from DE's incompetence than anything as sinister as all this. Because from what I have seen, they do honestly want Warframe to be super fun, they just don't seem to know how. All the inherent flaws in the F2P model certainly don't help, though.

  

[(NSW)Greybones]

On 2020-03-23 at 3:52 AM, Teljaxx said:

...What I am against is when someone makes way more profit than they really need. Especially if it comes at the expense of others, or if the quality of their product suffers because of it... 

...Though, honestly, I actually think that more of Warframe's problems come from DE's incompetence than anything as sinister as all this...

I see. I had a hunch.

I think this is where I duck out then, as you’re treading into territory that I consider speculation on behalf of DE, both with how highly they value money over their artistic integrity and how.... (ugh) “incompetent” they are. I have no ability to speak on their behalf with the choices they make and I do not know what motivation drives them. I do not know what I do not know. And as such I’m not keen to keep filling this topic with posts about The Obvious Thing About Game Development.

Was fun while it lasted though! See you around.

Edited March 24, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[844448]

23 minutes ago, Teljaxx said:

They will intentionally make the game inconvenient just so that they can sell that convenience back to you. Warframe does this with long grinds, super rare drop chances, and forced wait times

Honestly Warframe has considerably shorter grind where you have this gear made and you will never need to grind for the same gear but with higher star, rarity, stats and such and even they can be considered as spoiling us with resource canisters where you can get the resource you need from exploring the map looting their storages instead of doing genocides with extra loot drop over and over again unless you prefer to do genocide over exploring

For super rare drop chances, there are several but most of the time generous where a rare drop has 10% chance and I haven't seen other game with that high % for a rare drop

Forced wait times are hardly deterring unless you want it instantly served to you and I find the wait time is a small price to pay for zero rng on my gear (warframes and weapons)

[SneakyErvin]

22 minutes ago, Teljaxx said:

All the inherent flaws in the F2P model certainly don't help, though.

What exact flaws would those be that shine through and actually stain the releases in WF and have a negative impact? I'm really curious because I have a fairly hard time finding them and that is as someone that has played several F2P and B2F2P titles out there. I cant pinpoint any issue with content releases in WF that would be tied to the F2P model while I can pinpoint several in games such as Black Desert (that is B2P to start with), STO and NWO.

I know you mentioned long grinds, but the grinds in WF are no more abnormal than those is most B2P looter shooters, hack n' slash arpgs or rpgs for that matter. And in WF we can even shorten that grind by making a shorter and guaranteed grind for premium currency and buy the thing straight up without spending a dime. Primes are slightly more restricted since we need to buy them from players if we chose to skip the relic grind for the specific prime, but that is still something you can do passively while grinding for that prime, so if you are lucky you get it as you grind the currency or you buy/trade for the pieces missing in the end from someone else.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

10 minutes ago, 844448 said:

Honestly Warframe has considerably shorter grind where you have this gear made and you will never need to grind for the same gear but with higher star, rarity, stats and such and even they can be considered as spoiling us with resource canisters where you can get the resource you need from exploring the map looting their storages instead of doing genocides with extra loot drop over and over again unless you prefer to do genocide over exploring

For super rare drop chances, there are several but most of the time generous where a rare drop has 10% chance and I haven't seen other game with that high % for a rare drop

Forced wait times are hardly deterring unless you want it instantly served to you and I find the wait time is a small price to pay for zero rng on my gear (warframes and weapons)

This^

Warframe’s genius has always been to make the gameplay and player-dev-art-customization-lore connection good enough that players voluntarily (volunteering!  Not to be taken lightly!) reward a positive experience, even if skewing the motivation to buy in this way by a “mere” 1-2%.

The honest, proven truth is that people may complain about it, but they will more readily part with money to avoid a negative than reward a positive experience.

When you realize this is also F2P, it’s incredible how they have succeeded (dedication and believing in themselves!) and you begin to understand how adopting a subscription-based annuity-type revenue model via PA was a great decision.

 

[(PSN)FastestKnight]

As someone who also plays both a lot, let me tell you something:

 

Once you reach the endgame, you'll start to notice how little the weekly updates really mean. One weapon fix here, one new bug fix there. Oh and Iron Banner! Don't forget Iron Banner. Iron Banner is like the gouls here. A waste of time.

 

Every few months, an old seasonal event comes back and every three months, new season to grind with the same old mechanics.

 

NO NEW CONTENT.

 

The problem, like someone already said, is Luke Smith. 90% of Bungie's time is spent in Destiny 3 and some other IP they are working on. The other 5% is wasted on refreshing the Eververse. And the other 5% is wasted on releasing a new battle pass every 3 months with unnecessary changes that make old players really mad.

 

The new change they are working on this year is removing some legendary weapons from the game and rotating which ones come back every few months. Because they have to mantain the "new content" illusion while working on Destiny 3. Could you imagine if Warframe did something similar?

 

Every single cool looking armor or emote is locked behind a paywall in the Eververse. Every single one. It's been years (Forsaken) since the in-game vendors (Shaxx and so on) were refreshed with new armor and weapons. Destiny monetisation isn't fair. 

 

Is it a bad game? Hell no! But just don't get your hopes too high.    

Edited March 22, 2020 by (PS4)FastestKnight

[Teljaxx]

12 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

*why did you bold my question...? i could have done that. really weird and mildly annoying decision for you to do that without an explanation. if you thought the question was that important you could have said as much*

I see. I had a hunch.

I think this is where I duck out then, because you’re treading into territory that I consider speculation on behalf of DE, both with how highly they value money over their artistic integrity and how.... (ugh) “incompetent” they are. I have no ability to speak on their behalf with the choices they make and I do not know what motivation drives them. I do not know what I do not know. And as such I’m not keen to keep filling this topic with posts about The Obvious Thing About Game Development.

Was fun while it lasted though. See you around.

I was originally gong to say something else, and wanted to make sure you knew exactly what I was responding to. I just forgot to un-bold it before I posted. So yeah, it didn't make much sense. Oops...

It has been nice having a nice civil discussion with you. That has been quite rare on these forums lately. Most of the time I just get assaulted for daring to say anything negative about the game.

And really, Incompetence was a bit of a strong word for what I really mean. The problem I have with how DE has developed Waframe is that they have clearly never had any long terms plans for this game. They just think up crazy ideas and toss them in without really considering the full impact they will have on everything else. That's why we have gone through 1.0-2.0-3.0 versions of so many things. Its also why the had to spend several months re-balancing all the guns in the game to actually fit into proper MR tiers. If they had ever bothered to plan that out from the beginning, it wouldn't have been a problem. But they didn't, and it cost them several months of time that they could have been using on something else.

Its also why this game has such a rampant powercreep problem. They never planned for any kind of "endgame" level or anything, so they just keep making the players more and more powerful. At least Destiny has a proper balancing system that actually allows for properly challenging high level content.

Basically, they only ever built a foundation fit for a house. But now they have built a skyscraper on top of it. And because they can't just tear it all down and start over, they just keep piling more stuff on and hope it won't collapse.

12 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

What exact flaws would those be that shine through and actually stain the releases in WF and have a negative impact? I'm really curious because I have a fairly hard time finding them and that is as someone that has played several F2P and B2F2P titles out there. I cant pinpoint any issue with content releases in WF that would be tied to the F2P model while I can pinpoint several in games such as Black Desert (that is B2P to start with), STO and NWO.

I know you mentioned long grinds, but the grinds in WF are no more abnormal than those is most B2P looter shooters, hack n' slash arpgs or rpgs for that matter. And in WF we can even shorten that grind by making a shorter and guaranteed grind for premium currency and buy the thing straight up without spending a dime. Primes are slightly more restricted since we need to buy them from players if we chose to skip the relic grind for the specific prime, but that is still something you can do passively while grinding for that prime, so if you are lucky you get it as you grind the currency or you buy/trade for the pieces missing in the end from someone else.

Having to grind/farm for anything at all. Being able to pay to skip it. Having a premium currency. Having to spend money to look cool. Having to buy inventory slots. Limited time events. A Battlepass system. Etc. None of this is there because it makes the game more fun. Its there to keep people logged in and spending money.

And it doesn't matter how it compares to other games, the fact that there is grinding at all is the issue. Grinding is bad game design, period. Its just an artificial way to extend how long people play your game. Instead of making 50 hours of actual content, why not make 10 and pad it out with 40 hours of grinding? That's really the main point of long grinds in most games, to keep people playing for as long as possible. The fact that it is easy to monetize is just a bonus.

 

Primes are one of the main points of egregious monetization in Warframe. Sure, you can trade for the parts. But its pretty clear that DE wants people to buy the Prime Access instead. Otherwise they wouldn't offer it. And they wouldn't make the "proper" way of farming relics so inefficient.

Prime access is also a perfect example of one of the other main problems I have with these supposedly free games. Just how EXPENSIVE they really are. The "standard" price for a game is $60, right? So why does it cost $140 for a single microscopic piece of this game? Imagine if one company let you buy an entire box of cereal for $5, but another offered the box itself for free, and then charged $1 for each individual piece of cereal. Which would you buy?

[SneakyErvin]

5 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

Having to grind/farm for anything at all. Being able to pay to skip it. Having a premium currency. Having to spend money to look cool. Having to buy inventory slots. Limited time events. A Battlepass system. Etc. None of this is there because it makes the game more fun. Its there to keep people logged in and spending money.

And it doesn't matter how it compares to other games, the fact that there is grinding at all is the issue. Grinding is bad game design, period. Its just an artificial way to extend how long people play your game. Instead of making 50 hours of actual content, why not make 10 and pad it out with 40 hours of grinding? That's really the main point of long grinds in most games, to keep people playing for as long as possible. The fact that it is easy to monetize is just a bonus.

 

Primes are one of the main points of egregious monetization in Warframe. Sure, you can trade for the parts. But its pretty clear that DE wants people to buy the Prime Access instead. Otherwise they wouldn't offer it. And they wouldn't make the "proper" way of farming relics so inefficient.

Prime access is also a perfect example of one of the other main problems I have with these supposedly free games. Just how EXPENSIVE they really are. The "standard" price for a game is $60, right? So why does it cost $140 for a single microscopic piece of this game? Imagine if one company let you buy an entire box of cereal for $5, but another offered the box itself for free, and then charged $1 for each individual piece of cereal. Which would you buy?

So all arpgs are now suffering from the F2P system even when they arent F2P nor have cash shops, because that is kinda what you are saying since WF's system is more generous than even the most western standardized B2P games. Heck, WF is less grindy than even D3. Also how does the "battlepass" system get anyone to spend money? It is 100% free, no buy in cost, just bonus rewards for completing specific parts of the game. And limited events isnt something tied to F2P, it has been there since the dawn of online games, no matter which monetization model they pick. Either coming back yearly or at more frequent rates. Inventory slots are also not content, which is what you said the F2P had negative impact on. Slots are free if you grind for them, just as you do in a game like D3, the difference is, in D3 you dont need to trade with others, you kill mobs to get ingame currency to buy slots. 

Grinding is part of the genre, maybe this genre just isnt for you. It has absolutely zero to do with the F2P model, which is what you claim has the negative impact on the content of the game.

Primes are a source of income while having little grind tied to them if you wanna get them for free. It is much like the hero unlocks in Marvel Heroes that you could either buy straight up for premium G's or farm Eternity Splinters and get from the vendor in the game. When I sit down to farm a prime I tend to get it done within a day or within a few hours spent over a few days. That isnt exactly a big grind. I miss out on some exclusive cosmetics, which are optional eitherway.

The cost is there because it is a live service that needs updates and the PA isnt a mandatory purchase. The price is higher because not everyone will buy it. The analogy is also off because it implies that you can get the WF experience from another game where you pay once and here you pay to get it in small bits. That just isnt the case. If you were to compare WF to cereal it would be more like the $5 pack was a specific brand, the free box would have generic cerial of unlimited supply and the $1 cereal would be a mixed premium brand where most of it can be obtained for free aswell.

[(PSN)Akuma_Asura_]

On 2020-03-20 at 3:00 AM, (PS4)CrazyBeaTzu said:

Imagine telling your girlfriend: "Well, I tried another woman. Everyone kept saying how awesome she was so I jumped on the bandwagon and I'm here to tell you that you guys have some similarities, but the new gal is kinda better. Whaddya think?"

Like dude....people play Warframe because they want to. No one is forcing us. 

Warframe is not my girlfriend. People can play more than one game. That’s the problem with gaming today, oh you play cod so you mustn’t play battlefield, oh you play Warframe so you can’t possibly play destiny. People need to grow up 

[Aesthier]

On 2020-03-19 at 5:12 PM, Agnostus said:

well.. i just played destiny 2..

 

Congratulations.

Did they give sell you a T-shirt?

It is after all the only thing of value Destiny 2 has to offer.

[Loza03]

39 minutes ago, Aesthier said:

 

Congratulations.

Did they give sell you a T-shirt?

It is after all the only thing of value Destiny 2 has to offer.

Hey, there's also the lore.

 

Admittedly, like, every source but Destiny tends to deliver it better nine times out of ten, but hey.

[SneakyErvin]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Akuma_Asura_ said:

Warframe is not my girlfriend. People can play more than one game. That’s the problem with gaming today, oh you play cod so you mustn’t play battlefield, oh you play Warframe so you can’t possibly play destiny. People need to grow up 

Well these days it is like picking between plague or famine, or getting a combo of both. Previously any self respecting BF player would avoid CoD since CoD wasnt more than a watered down version of BF, just as the first CoD was nothing but a watered down version of Medal of Honor Allied Assault.

[Loza03]

4 hours ago, (PS4)Akuma_Asura_ said:

Warframe is not my girlfriend. People can play more than one game. That’s the problem with gaming today, oh you play cod so you mustn’t play battlefield, oh you play Warframe so you can’t possibly play destiny. People need to grow up 

'Nowadays'

You ever heard of the Nintendo vs Sega console wars? This kind of thing's been going on for as long as there's been competing games.

[ant99999]

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Hey, there's also the lore.

 

Admittedly, like, every source but Destiny tends to deliver it better nine times out of ten, but hey.

By the way, where do I find decent lore in Destiny 2 (unironically)? Because I honestly thinking of giving this universe a second chance. Maybe it's just campaigns that are terrible. I found some amount of those like miniature stories from hidden objects, but those I read are some fanfiction level stories that give you more cringe than satisfaction.

Maybe there are some more sources of lore I just don't know about?

[Loza03]

10 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

By the way, where do I find decent lore in Destiny 2 (unironically)? Because I honestly thinking of giving this universe a second chance. Maybe it's just campaigns that are terrible. I found some amount of those like miniature stories from hidden objects, but those I read are some fanfiction level stories that give you more cringe than satisfaction.

Maybe there are some more sources of lore I just don't know about?

In Destiny? Not sure, haven't actually played in a while.

I personally just follow MynameisByf: https://www.youtube.com/user/ReachForgeNetwork on youtube, and a couple of his fellows. No muss, no fuss. Of course, the stories themselves are going to be down to taste but as a source of telling those stories and analyses/theories of them, they're usually pretty good. Byf especially just has one of those voices, y'know?

[Teljaxx]

5 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

So all arpgs are now suffering from the F2P system even when they arent F2P nor have cash shops, because that is kinda what you are saying since WF's system is more generous than even the most western standardized B2P games. Heck, WF is less grindy than even D3. Also how does the "battlepass" system get anyone to spend money? It is 100% free, no buy in cost, just bonus rewards for completing specific parts of the game. And limited events isnt something tied to F2P, it has been there since the dawn of online games, no matter which monetization model they pick. Either coming back yearly or at more frequent rates. Inventory slots are also not content, which is what you said the F2P had negative impact on. Slots are free if you grind for them, just as you do in a game like D3, the difference is, in D3 you dont need to trade with others, you kill mobs to get ingame currency to buy slots. 

Grinding is part of the genre, maybe this genre just isnt for you. It has absolutely zero to do with the F2P model, which is what you claim has the negative impact on the content of the game.

Primes are a source of income while having little grind tied to them if you wanna get them for free. It is much like the hero unlocks in Marvel Heroes that you could either buy straight up for premium G's or farm Eternity Splinters and get from the vendor in the game. When I sit down to farm a prime I tend to get it done within a day or within a few hours spent over a few days. That isnt exactly a big grind. I miss out on some exclusive cosmetics, which are optional eitherway.

The cost is there because it is a live service that needs updates and the PA isnt a mandatory purchase. The price is higher because not everyone will buy it. The analogy is also off because it implies that you can get the WF experience from another game where you pay once and here you pay to get it in small bits. That just isnt the case. If you were to compare WF to cereal it would be more like the $5 pack was a specific brand, the free box would have generic cerial of unlimited supply and the $1 cereal would be a mixed premium brand where most of it can be obtained for free aswell.

First off, don't try to dismiss me by telling me what game kind of game "isn't for me". I wouldn't have played this game for almost 7 years if that were true. But, it also doesn't change the fact that this game is far from perfect. I play a lot of games with grinding. Not because I enjoy the grinding, but because the rest of the game is fun enough to make putting up with it worth it. I can't think of any games that would have been better with more grinding, but I can think of plenty that would be better with less.

And trying to dismiss the problem as "part of the genre" doesn't make it better, either. Just because you are willing to ignore it, doesn't mean it isn't a problem. And ignoring it certainly won't fix it.

Grinding can be acceptable in small doses. But there is a difference between spending a little time working towards a reward every once in a while, and spending weeks doing the same tedious thing over and over and over just so you can get one thing. Warframe has way too much of the latter. Sure it may not take that long to get a single prime part you want, but what about the whole set? What about every set?

 

You asked what flaws there were in Warframe that come from it being a F2P game, That's what I listed, not ways that they monetize the game. Though all of those things are related to monetization, even if not directly. Many of them are ways that they try to get their players to keep playing for longer. Because hopefully, the more they play, the more they pay.

You also helped prove my point about F2P games being inferior because of their monetization. They need to make money to survive, sure, but they need to make quite a bit more than most other types of games. A game like Dusk can cost a mere $20 because it doesn't need to support a 300 person Dev team, or maintain servers capable of handling thousands of concurrent players. Warframe does. And so it also needs to do all the shady things that F2P games do to make all that money. And since its pretty much impossible for any of us players to know exactly how much all that costs, its really easy for them to charge way more than they really need to, and pocket the remainder. Remember: Bigger and more expensive does NOT guarantee its going to be better.

Really, they only reason DE can be a bit more generous than most F2P Devs is because they don't have any ravenous investors breathing down their necks demanding their returns. But, that also means that DE has a much bigger opportunity to pocket even more of the profit.

[Teljaxx]

5 hours ago, (PS4)Akuma_Asura_ said:

Warframe is not my girlfriend. People can play more than one game. That’s the problem with gaming today, oh you play cod so you mustn’t play battlefield, oh you play Warframe so you can’t possibly play destiny. People need to grow up 

With games like Warframe and Destiny, that really is true, though. Since they are both designed to last forever and take up all your free time, you really can't play both at the same time. There just isn't enough time in the day for the average person to play them both and make any kind of decent progress.

This is a big problem with how many games these days are going for the "live service" model. When every game demands all your time, how can you play any of them? The market is choking itself to death, because no one ever considers the time investment all these games require.

[(PSN)JohnnyPersia]

1 hour ago, Teljaxx said:

With games like Warframe and Destiny, that really is true, though. Since they are both designed to last forever and take up all your free time, you really can't play both at the same time. There just isn't enough time in the day for the average person to play them both and make any kind of decent progress.

This is a big problem with how many games these days are going for the "live service" model. When every game demands all your time, how can you play any of them? The market is choking itself to death, because no one ever considers the time investment all these games require.

I both agree and disagree. 

I agree that these live service games are designed to keep you always playing, and they are very time consuming. 

But I disagree that that means you can't play other games. It just means your "progress" will be considerably slower, but since these games don't really have an end, that doesn't matter much. 

I usually get to play video games about 2 hours a night. Sometimes I don't have a chance to play at all. I'm currently playing 4 games: Warframe, The Division 2, Monster Hunter World, and I just started the Spiderman dlc. I make progress in all of them, but my progress is super slow. As an example, it just took me 2.5 months to beat and platinum Days Gone. Usually I try to keep it to two games, but since I'm enjoying these  I play them all. 

Sometimes I wish I had more time to play so I could make more progress though. 

[SneakyErvin]

2 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

First off, don't try to dismiss me by telling me what game kind of game "isn't for me". I wouldn't have played this game for almost 7 years if that were true. But, it also doesn't change the fact that this game is far from perfect. I play a lot of games with grinding. Not because I enjoy the grinding, but because the rest of the game is fun enough to make putting up with it worth it. I can't think of any games that would have been better with more grinding, but I can think of plenty that would be better with less.

And trying to dismiss the problem as "part of the genre" doesn't make it better, either. Just because you are willing to ignore it, doesn't mean it isn't a problem. And ignoring it certainly won't fix it.

Grinding can be acceptable in small doses. But there is a difference between spending a little time working towards a reward every once in a while, and spending weeks doing the same tedious thing over and over and over just so you can get one thing. Warframe has way too much of the latter. Sure it may not take that long to get a single prime part you want, but what about the whole set? What about every set?

 

You asked what flaws there were in Warframe that come from it being a F2P game, That's what I listed, not ways that they monetize the game. Though all of those things are related to monetization, even if not directly. Many of them are ways that they try to get their players to keep playing for longer. Because hopefully, the more they play, the more they pay.

You also helped prove my point about F2P games being inferior because of their monetization. They need to make money to survive, sure, but they need to make quite a bit more than most other types of games. A game like Dusk can cost a mere $20 because it doesn't need to support a 300 person Dev team, or maintain servers capable of handling thousands of concurrent players. Warframe does. And so it also needs to do all the shady things that F2P games do to make all that money. And since its pretty much impossible for any of us players to know exactly how much all that costs, its really easy for them to charge way more than they really need to, and pocket the remainder. Remember: Bigger and more expensive does NOT guarantee its going to be better.

Really, they only reason DE can be a bit more generous than most F2P Devs is because they don't have any ravenous investors breathing down their necks demanding their returns. But, that also means that DE has a much bigger opportunity to pocket even more of the profit.

But you are complaining about the essence and the root of the genre. These games are made for the killing and the looting and the looting and the killing and ultimately the grind. It isnt like we have massive doses of grinding here, it is all pretty normal for the genre. I still have to spend weeks over and over to get something I want. The longest grind I've had in WF was the full gearing of my RJ, which took me two weeks to get every single piece I wanted for it. That is like fully gearing a character in any other game, which to me is far from a long grind.

I asked what flaws there were in the releases that were tied to F2P, I should have specified that to content releases, as in things we actually play and not things we collect (like frames). Since the frames are just like unlocking a new character in another game really. Taking a few days to unlock a frames isnt exactly a massive grind that would keep someone around in order to spend. If that was the aim the grind for a new prime or regular frame would be severely longer, like it is in Star Trek Online where a new ship takes 100 days or so to get enough currency to buy for free. I think I've had longer periods of grinding in D3 in order to get a weapon I need for a specific build than I've had farming for a new prime or frame in WF. So the grind isnt really tainted by the F2P model. What is tainted is our customization options. But those have zero impact on actual gameplay.

Dusk isnt even the same type of game as WF, it isnt an online service to begin with, that is where they part, not that one is a B2P game and the other F2P. So the flaws come more in that it is an ever growing online game than it being F2P. Though that is a flaw only if you want everything for free. No matter what monetization model an online service game or MMO will always need money fromt he players one way or another. WF is probably the most fair on the market atm followed by Path of Exile, up till the end of 2017 Marvel Heroes was the one with the fairest monetization model, a bit too fair actually since it wasnt profitable enough which led to several issues and hasty decisions among other things.

DE does have investors though, a big Hong Kong company named Leyou.

[Zammara]

5 hours ago, Loza03 said:

'Nowadays'

You ever heard of the Nintendo vs Sega console wars? This kind of thing's been going on for as long as there's been competing games.

Indeed! And I still remember when I was a very young teen everybody who played WoW would never touch CS and vice-versa 🤣! Even the musical tastes were fairly different between these 2 groups.

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

Destiny 2 is all flash and no substance. Once you've done the campaign and tried all the other stuff there is nothing to do. There is no trading, no player driven economy, only a few classes, fashion is boring, social elements are a joke, it has nothing like dojos and stuff. Yes it has PvP but we are comparing the PvE games here. I quit D2 after like 30 hours. Warframe is a much better game.

Edited March 24, 2020 by xXx_mtv_xXx

[SirWolfen]

Both games lack in very important parts and both games I've been in since the start. Each is going in bad directions and unless you've put in at least 4 months into each I see no reason to bash or compare the two. They both also cater to two completely different crowds with the core difference being perspective (FPS v TPS). This is also why you can't compare The Division 2 and Destiny or Warframe because that core engagement and interest draw different people. ~~That game is also heading into terrible directions~~

Edited March 24, 2020 by SirWolfen

[Teljaxx]

7 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

But you are complaining about the essence and the root of the genre. These games are made for the killing and the looting and the looting and the killing and ultimately the grind. It isnt like we have massive doses of grinding here, it is all pretty normal for the genre. I still have to spend weeks over and over to get something I want. The longest grind I've had in WF was the full gearing of my RJ, which took me two weeks to get every single piece I wanted for it. That is like fully gearing a character in any other game, which to me is far from a long grind.

I asked what flaws there were in the releases that were tied to F2P, I should have specified that to content releases, as in things we actually play and not things we collect (like frames). Since the frames are just like unlocking a new character in another game really. Taking a few days to unlock a frames isnt exactly a massive grind that would keep someone around in order to spend. If that was the aim the grind for a new prime or regular frame would be severely longer, like it is in Star Trek Online where a new ship takes 100 days or so to get enough currency to buy for free. I think I've had longer periods of grinding in D3 in order to get a weapon I need for a specific build than I've had farming for a new prime or frame in WF. So the grind isnt really tainted by the F2P model. What is tainted is our customization options. But those have zero impact on actual gameplay.

Dusk isnt even the same type of game as WF, it isnt an online service to begin with, that is where they part, not that one is a B2P game and the other F2P. So the flaws come more in that it is an ever growing online game than it being F2P. Though that is a flaw only if you want everything for free. No matter what monetization model an online service game or MMO will always need money fromt he players one way or another. WF is probably the most fair on the market atm followed by Path of Exile, up till the end of 2017 Marvel Heroes was the one with the fairest monetization model, a bit too fair actually since it wasnt profitable enough which led to several issues and hasty decisions among other things.

DE does have investors though, a big Hong Kong company named Leyou.

You have it backwards. Games like Warframe are not just about grinding. They are about whatever else you do in the game. In this case being a super badass space ninja. I have never once seen anyone praise Warframe for how super fun all the grinding is. I have seen plenty of people complain about it being way too grindy, though. And that's because, as I said, no one ever plays a game specifically because of its grind. They play it because they enjoy the core gameplay loop, and the grind is just something they deal with.

Once you get to the point that you are only playing a game to get that next shiny toy, you have to ask yourself, why are you even playing anymore? Is it worth spending days doing something you probably don't enjoy, just to get something you can only use within that thing you don't enjoy? And if you do truly enjoy the game for its gameplay, why do you need a forced grind to bribe you into playing it? Are you really so pathetic that you can't even be bothered to have fun if someone isn't paying you to do so?

Because that's really all the grinding is in these games. Its a way to get people to keep playing regardless of whether or not they are having fun. And it does so by offering some extra payment that you totally have to have. Its a skinner box that conditions you to only enjoy the game when you are grinding towards something. Its also why so many things like seasonal content and Warframe's constant limited time events are so effective at making people feel like they are forced to play. They leverage FOMO by telling you that if you don't play RIGHT NOW, you'll miss something super cool.

The only time that grinding is actually enjoyable is when you actually enjoy whatever else you are doing in the game to grind. That's why getting into specifics like you keep doing doesn't really matter. Everyone likes different things, and therefore everyone is okay with different grinds in different games. For example: I find Warframe's endless missions super boring, but they are usually the best place to farm resources. So I really don't enjoy that grind. This is why there are still several things that I don't have in this game. I play this game for fun, not just to grind. So when a grind isn't fun, I just don't do it. And that sucks.

I'll never know if I enjoy playing as Grendel, because I am not going to play 75 super boring rounds of Arbitrations just to try him out. And no, I am not going to buy him either, because that isn't any better. Paying to not play a game is idiotic. You know what else I could do? Just not play at all, because that's free. When a game gives you the option to pay to not play, its telling you that its so horrible that there is monetary value in not playing it.

Making a super grindy game is the cheap and lazy way out, which is why it has become so common. It is entirely possible to make a game that's worth playing for a long time without making it super grindy. But that takes work, and talent. And why bother, when taking the easy way has much larger profit margins? Just look at the Dog Days event in Warframe. A temporary game mode that was really only fun for a couple hours at best, but DE wanted people to play it for ten days. So instead of actually making it complex and interesting enough to not get boring before then, they just slapped a ten day grind on top of it and called it good.

This is why I was calling them incompetent before. If they can't figure out how to actually make their game as fun as they want, then what are we paying them for?