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Scarlet Spear is a reflection on the state of the game.


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The DEv's have fallen into a bit of a hole recently where they're trying to please as many players as possible at quickly as possible. so they've begun reaching further out instead of deeper in.

Since The Sacrifice, and perhaps even before; DE has tried to make efforts to both appeal to newer players while also pleasing veterans with each content update. While they could make it easier on themselves in the short and long terms by alternating such content releases and giving each one the dedicated attention it needs, they've grown accustomed too much to trying everything at once and their ambition is starting to bite back.

They haven't gotten the balance right, trying to find the right amount of time and effort needed for new players to still get cool things while also providing enough of a challenge for players that are already at the top of the game and won't be leaving anytime soon.

I'm not sad to say that I've avoided new content for the first few days or even weeks for the last while as I wait for things to get patched. But to know that this has become the norm really should be worrisome.

 

It's become most apparent since Railjack content was introduced, as a new game mode that was intended to be available in one sense or another to everyone, where before it was always intended for the more dedicated and experienced players. And while I personally see nothing wrong with trying to get more people into the game, it seemed to me like it was always the extant playerbase that helped bring in and keep new arrivals to Warframe. Trying to take the community's hand off that particular wheel and steer it themselves, I feel like DE has taken something away from themselves more than anything else, and that is a certain security in the knowledge that the players they have now intend to stay...
It just seems as though someone somewhere has decided to make a decision for themselves alone instead of in the best interest of the game and it's players and DEv's.

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i fully agree with the initial post, it is just sad that after all those years we still get grindy buggy boring events.

but well, over the years the grind increased dramatically, just look at the lich system.

Edited by RAZORLIGHT
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4 minutes ago, FLSH_BNG said:

The DEv's have fallen into a bit of a hole recently where they're trying to please as many players as possible at quickly as possible. so they've begun reaching further out instead of deeper in.

Since The Sacrifice, and perhaps even before; DE has tried to make efforts to both appeal to newer players while also pleasing veterans with each content update. While they could make it easier on themselves in the short and long terms by alternating such content releases and giving each one the dedicated attention it needs, they've grown accustomed too much to trying everything at once and their ambition is starting to bite back.

They haven't gotten the balance right, trying to find the right amount of time and effort needed for new players to still get cool things while also providing enough of a challenge for players that are already at the top of the game and won't be leaving anytime soon.

I'm not sad to say that I've avoided new content for the first few days or even weeks for the last while as I wait for things to get patched. But to know that this has become the norm really should be worrisome.

 

It's become most apparent since Railjack content was introduced, as a new game mode that was intended to be available in one sense or another to everyone, where before it was always intended for the more dedicated and experienced players. And while I personally see nothing wrong with trying to get more people into the game, it seemed to me like it was always the extant playerbase that helped bring in and keep new arrivals to Warframe. Trying to take the community's hand off that particular wheel and steer it themselves, I feel like DE has taken something away from themselves more than anything else, and that is a certain security in the knowledge that the players they have now intend to stay...
It just seems as though someone somewhere has decided to make a decision for themselves alone instead of in the best interest of the game and it's players and DEv's.

Yawnnnnnnnnn! How can you come up with those sentences around "recently", "make efforts", "providing enough of a challenge"

When -> "Everything is just some basic iteration of starchart missions,"

 

"It's become most apparent since" ever. Desuption expansion and before it.

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So the current state of the game is ... a reflection of ... the current state of the game ... did I get that right?

How is that a suprise?

In fact, after a couple hundred hours of play and playing games in general online, how is anything realy a suprise?

Do you think this proclamation is some grand missive that will change the course of history or something?

It's a game about the power fantasy of killing lots of pixels.

Why do so many people seem to think a game can keep them endlessly occupied?

You play it, you master it, you move on to another game ... it's just life ... sometimes the game itself shifts into something you don't like ... it's just life ...

If you really feel so very strongly the company is so very much on the wrong path, go buy stock and change it, become a leader in the company or industry and show the world your ideas ... or just move on to a game you like and come back to this one if it becomes something you like again ...

Why is this so hard for people to understand? At some point, you outgrow a game...

The game is based around killing pixels to kill more pixels until you can kill all the pixels at which point you mastered the game...why do people expect a game about killing pixels to fill a life long void in their lives and be fun forever? It makes no sense.

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16 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

But when they continually try to "balance" the PVE with constant player nerfs, as if they've made some deep, tactical shooter,

I would prefer it to be a bit more tactical, to be honest.

You could equip the Castanas/Talons, go on an Interception mission and place your ''C4 charges'' on points A and B while heading of to capture D; so that you can have one shot at stopping enemies from taking A or B/both from anywhere on the map without line of sight... Or you can just bring your usual ''NUKE THE ENTIRE MAP!'' build on your preffered nuke frame.
You could spend time amassing a specter army and tinkering with your warframe specter loadouts... Or you know, just launch more nukes.

I wouldn't mind having a 3 page update thread, full of nothing but nerfs; I just want the nerfs to be in the right places... they are not usually in the right places...

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vor 6 Stunden schrieb FLSH_BNG:

DE has tried to make efforts to both appeal to newer players while also pleasing veterans with each content update

As a veteran i in some way playing over 5-6 years by now or longer, i couldn't care less for end content and rather have content i can come back to and do at my own pace like quests, story and lore updates, but instead we getting long grinds to keep people playing because all the money givers care for is numbers of players logging in and playing long, if it is fun not counts at all, i hate this today, people wanting "content" to keep play, this is not what games for, they are a fun little adventure you go trough with a nice story and it is nice having online games keep updating, yet all it comes down to is not the fun, gameplay or story but rather how long you can grind till you trow the controller on the wall.

Rewards are of course nice nearby but it should NEVER be the main focus of ANY game, look at alot of games today, mindless archivments and grind to get things to show of, i hate humanity for this, same reason i hate facebook and simliar, people go for likes over everything, even endanger others or themself, numbers is all that counts for such people, may it be "social" people like twitter and facebook or developers and publishers only seeing the numbers, may it be for the money or just the "fame".

Edited by Marine027
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Just now, Zimzala said:

So the current state of the game is ... a reflection of ... the current state of the game ... did I get that right?

You didn't.  The event that they just released, which is not the entirety of the game, is representative of the state of the development and philosophy behind the entirety of the game.  Reading comprehension.
 

Just now, Zimzala said:

In fact, after a couple hundred hours of play and playing games in general online, how is anything realy a suprise?

Being able to accurately predict all the pitfalls that will be present, like insane grind that is increased from the place holder costs, and the lack of in-game explanation of how the event works is not a good thing.  You should not be able to be pessimistic about what the devs are going to do and absolutely nail the prediction.

Just now, Zimzala said:

Why do so many people seem to think a game can keep them endlessly occupied?

Why do the devs try so hard to make it that way?  Time-limited content is done purposefully to generate a fear of missing out on things, like lore and gear, so that people perpetually play your game and keep engagement numbers up.

1 minute ago, Zimzala said:

If you really feel so very strongly the company is so very much on the wrong path, go buy stock and change it, become a leader in the company or industry and show the world your ideas ... or just move on to a game you like and come back to this one if it becomes something you like again ...

Genuinely laughable.

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Just now, AlphaPHENIX said:

I would prefer it to be a bit more tactical, to be honest.

You could equip the Castanas/Talons, go on an Interception mission and place your ''C4 charges'' on points A and B while heading of to capture D; so that you can have one shot at stopping enemies from taking A or B/both from anywhere on the map without line of sight... Or you can just bring your usual ''NUKE THE ENTIRE MAP!'' build on your preffered nuke frame.
You could spend time amassing a specter army and tinkering with your warframe specter loadouts... Or you know, just launch more nukes.

I wouldn't mind having a 3 page update thread, full of nothing but nerfs; I just want the nerfs to be in the right places... they are not usually in the right places...

Even a really talented, solid developer would have trouble truly balancing like 40 warframes and hundreds of weapons for either a hoard shooter or a tactical shooter.  DE is trying to balance all those things to fit both and they flat out do not have the chops to do it.  They need to pick one.  

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12 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Even a really talented, solid developer would have trouble truly balancing like 40 warframes and hundreds of weapons for either a hoard shooter or a tactical shooter.  DE is trying to balance all those things to fit both and they flat out do not have the chops to do it.  They need to pick one.  

Uh thats not actually hard at all. It would take me maybe 4 days total to do that. If you have easily adjustable ini files like Xcom 2 then it would take me 2 days.

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For me, the key part to this is the repetition: if this were DE's first foray into an extremely buggy, repetitive event that expected the player to put in far too much time relative to the rewards at hand, perhaps one could forgive the devs for making an honest mistake, even though they should still have done some proper playtesting beforehand. However, as the OP's quote suggests, not only is this by no means DE's first time, this has in fact become the standard. Dog Days, Thermia Fractures, as well as release day Fortuna and the Plains of Eidolon all had absurd amounts of grind that a simple calculation could've shown to be ridiculous. While it might be okay for a big update like Fortuna or PoE to be buggy, Scarlet Spear is not all that much new content: the tilesets and maps aren't new, we only have a handful of new enemies, and the OpLink is ultimately just a very bare-bones tracker. The two missions we're expected to run however many times are not all that different from the content we have now, which raises the question of how the event's release could've been so chaotic. What despairs me here isn't so much that DE messed up, because that can always be salvaged, but that they don't seem to learn from their mistakes: I'm almost certain that the next event we'll get is going to be similarly buggy, samey, and above all far too grindy, and that's just going to keep burning out more players. The irony is that the excessive grind is almost certainly designed for player retention in the short term, but is precisely what is causing the long-term player count losses that are pushing DE into implementing that grind in the first place. The devs need to realize that their only way of durably retaining players is going to be to avoid burning them out in the first place, and look for a different content model that encourages players to play for fun, rather than to force themselves through content they eventually grow to hate just for the sake of an overcosted item.

Edited by Teridax68
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21 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Even a really talented, solid developer would have trouble truly balancing like 40 warframes and hundreds of weapons for either a hoard shooter or a tactical shooter.  DE is trying to balance all those things to fit both and they flat out do not have the chops to do it.  They need to pick one.  

I said a bit, not ''turn it into Tom Clancy's Ghostframe 6... Featuring Trigger from Ace Combat 7''.

I understand it's hard to balance everything (refuses to update to newest meta builds), trust me I do.

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Just now, Teridax68 said:

The devs need to realize that their only way of durably retaining players is going to be to avoid burning them out in the first place, and look for a different content model that encourages players to play for fun, rather than to force themselves through content they eventually grow to hate just for the sake of an overcosted item.

At a certain point, just before Liches, I had nearly everything that I could have except Hema research for my dojo and arcanes (which I refused to grind because #*!% time-gated content.) and I still had some of those just from purchasing them from other players.  Having everything, not having miserable grind left to do (other than Hema.), just literally able to do whatever I wanted without thinking "I need to get on that.", was the time that I played the most.  I would pop some of the thousands of relics I have to farm things for plat, run vaulted relics in pub missions just for kicks, lurk recruit chat for people that were stuck and needed help, or decorate my dojo.  I didn't go "screw it, I have everything, and since there's no heinous grind I'm going to stop playing."  I played more.  The times I've taken breaks from this game where when they introduced more horrible grind or nerfed everything I like playing with and I just got fed up with it.  The core gameplay is fun, especially when you're mixing it up and just screwing around with alliance members.  Doing the exact same mission over and over because it's the only way to get the new thing is not fun after the 100th time, even if the core mechanics are still enjoyable, because you're trying to move to a goal and it is taking forever and the scenery never changes.

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As someone who hadn't played since around Fortuna came out and came back a month or so before the event just to get a Railjack up and running ... This event was truly, truly disappointing. I'm not sure if it's Limbo that's making the event boring or just the event in general. Even if Limbo wasn't a factor, you could still run with Gara/Frost/Vauban/etc and it would still be just as easy.

  • Space side -- The most disappointing part? The railjack is a glorified tugboat. Plop the satellite and park inside the Murex. Go in and do Mobile Defense. Ignore the railjack entirely. An un-upgraded railjack is just as effective as a fully-upgraded railjack. So, what's the point of including the railjack at all?
  • Ground side -- Mega boring. AND less rewarding compared to space side to boot. No wonder no one wants to run ground side. One shotting the condrix aside, its just mind numbingly boring. 

Also, there's literally no connection between the two. It's not real time as advertised. The points go in a collective "box" until someone needs said point. You can even give yourself points should you find an empty floatilla. Furthermore, there's no "endless" or "endurance" mode offering more rewards for more challenging gameplay. 17 for ground and 5 (!!!) for space is just silly. The ratio of ground-to-space teams needed is also silly, given how much better/faster space is than ground.

I'm not even talking about bugs, either. Don't get me started on those.

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1 minute ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

At a certain point, just before Liches, I had nearly everything that I could have except Hema research for my dojo and arcanes (which I refused to grind because #*!% time-gated content.) and I still had some of those just from purchasing them from other players.  Having everything, not having miserable grind left to do (other than Hema.), just literally able to do whatever I wanted without thinking "I need to get on that.", was the time that I played the most.  I would pop some of the thousands of relics I have to farm things for plat, run vaulted relics in pub missions just for kicks, lurk recruit chat for people that were stuck and needed help, or decorate my dojo.  I didn't go "screw it, I have everything, and since there's no heinous grind I'm going to stop playing."  I played more.  The times I've taken breaks from this game where when they introduced more horrible grind or nerfed everything I like playing with and I just got fed up with it.  The core gameplay is fun, especially when you're mixing it up and just screwing around with alliance members.  Doing the exact same mission over and over because it's the only way to get the new thing is not fun after the 100th time, even if the core mechanics are still enjoyable, because you're trying to move to a goal and it is taking forever and the scenery never changes.

This is why I play games for fun and simply let the progression happen, rather than chasing any of the shinies and after I get the shinies, I keep right on playing if I got that far, because the gameplay if fun, not because I got the shinies.

If ones only outlook is how long they have to do a thing over and over to get a reward, then IMO the player is working, not playing a game.

That's why I am so adamant about finding another game if this one is not your thing.

Playing games is meant to be fun, if you are not having fun, why look to place blame, just find a game you like to play and get on with life.

The moment WF is not entertaining, I move on to something else and I will return or I won't.

This sunk-cost-fallacy so many players are on about is just beyond me - there is no investment - you played the game, you got entertained, you got the things - the expectation that suddenly the game would change this loop is simply player wanting a game to endless entertain and that is wishful thinking, IMO...

Chasing the shinies IME just leads to frustration, like watching water boil when hungry.

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All I can say from the point of personal experience is that the grind for arcanes is in a good spot.

I've spent around 5-6 hours on the event in total doing the least profitable part which is solo ground missions and I've already gotten 19 arcane guardian (the amount I needed for a R5) and a bit of left over credits towards the next arcane I'm going to max. That to me is more than reasonable if you take into account where those arcanes usually come from in the game. A place where 5-6 hours wouldnt even get you a R3.

SS is a place where we get a guaranteed arcane of our choice in about 30 minutes if we dont add in bonus credits and everything else, which shortens the time of obtainment significantly.

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36 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Having everything, not having miserable grind left to do (other than Hema.), just literally able to do whatever I wanted without thinking "I need to get on that.", was the time that I played the most.  I would pop some of the thousands of relics I have to farm things for plat, run vaulted relics in pub missions just for kicks, lurk recruit chat for people that were stuck and needed help, or decorate my dojo.  I didn't go "screw it, I have everything, and since there's no heinous grind I'm going to stop playing."  I played more.  The times I've taken breaks from this game where when they introduced more horrible grind or nerfed everything I like playing with and I just got fed up with it.

I agree completely with your reply, and can relate especially to this. Whenever the game makes me go through some excessive amount of grind, I go through a series of phases: during phase 1, I gear up and go through the grind in the absolute most efficient way possible, which is usually not very fun (so it's bad for me), but also minimizes the time I could be spending playing the content I'm grinding (which is bad for DE's statistics). After I've gotten the stuff I was grinding for, I go into phase 2, where I abandon the game almost completely save for Sorties for a few weeks (which is even worse for player statistics), and medicate my burnout through another game. After that, I go into phase 3, where I gradually ease back into the game and start playing more regularly. When I don't have that kind of grind to actively pursue, I hang around, play with friends, take the time to help people out (because at that point I'm not dedicating all of my playtime towards another, ultimately selfish objective), and just do lots of different content for fun.

That's the other large part of the fear I'm having with this new update, because not only is DE repeating the same unsuccessful strategy, that strategy is in fact harming the game and worsening the problem it is trying to solve. On top of that, DE seems to be intensifying the grind with each new attempt, and that intensification is felt keenly by an increasingly exasperated playerbase, to the point where the devs have lost a ton of the goodwill they had accumulated over a long period of time. To take a slightly obscure analogy, there's this one episode in Star Trek TNG, Hero Worship, where the protagonists' spaceship is being hit by a series of damaging waves: the crew's instinctive response is to increase their shield defenses, which only causes the waves to increase in intensity. As a final, cataclysmic wave is about to hit, they drop their shields... and it passes through them harmlessly. Similarly, in response to naturally declining player counts, DE seems to have fallen back on grind as their prime method of bringing players back in... which has only accelerated the decrease, to the point where Warframe is no longer among the top 10 most played on Steam, a position the game held for years. The devs need to finally realize that exploitative grind is not the way to go, and that one cannot simply elongate the pursuit of extrinsic rewards infinitely, much less expect extrinsic incentives alone to make players keep playing. While the game is still overall in good shape, its current player retention strategy is what has sent many other games into death spirals, where their own dev teams' last clawing attempts at retaining players through increasingly abusive ploys sealed their products' fate. DE need to put effort into regaining the player goodwill they've lost over time, and that's going to require calibrating their game's rewards proportionately to our time and effort spent playing.

Edited by Teridax68
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vor 1 Stunde schrieb (XB1)TehChubbyDugan:

That isn't an "I told you so."  That's just proof that all of this is easy to predict.  That's the problem here, that they've become predictable, and what can be relied upon is that things will not go well.

I rarely play new Warframe content within the first 10 days because DE works as they have always worked. 10 days is the time they need to make most new stuff playable and load-test it within the PC community. They lift that new content from alpha to beta within that time span. It is also predictable that we get a bunch of or sometimes up 100 new exclusive resources (PoE, Fortuna) to make new players even more confused. 

You are right the state of the game is new grind behind strange and unexplained mission rules that also tend to change within the 10 day fixing period. It used to be more lore hints, more collectibles and story quests. That is no longer the case.

But there is still hope for DE. I mean we have a Doom with more story than Warframe, a No Man's Sky with better space fight and a CS:GO that skyrockets with game mechanics and maps that are 3 times as old as Warframe. 

 

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1 hour ago, Zimzala said:

Why do so many people seem to think a game can keep them endlessly occupied?

You play it, you master it, you move on to another game ... it's just life ... sometimes the game itself shifts into something you don't like ... it's just life ...

This comment is this forum in a nutshell.
Why complaining to make things better when you can just give up, right?
Warframe owes its success to the bond it had with its playerbase, it was a game that used to listen - and complaints and suggestions were its strenght.
People like you are the reasons we lost this. Thanks.

Edited by SeRialPiXel
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I've played for about 3 hours. I got somewhere around 7k credits, from 2 land and 2 space missions. And since my flotilla got completely cleared, I assume there's extra credit reward in it later - i got a letter with 2k credits for something in the process.. For a month-long event, that's not what I would call an "unreasonable grind".

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