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

[SneakyErvin]

10 hours ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

So the basis for this being fine is that the spot they usually come from is a worse grind, filled with RNG loot tables full of useless trash arcanes?  Oh, and it's time-gated so that only people who have time to sit on the game all day (and actually want to drop everything to go run tricaps during the limited time they're available) or people that get lucky and have their schedule sync up with the night rotation can even access it.  It's slightly better than that, so it must be fine.

"This turd sandwhich is fine because the bread is usually moldy."

They were always ment to be rare thing, ever since they were part of raids.

And "slightly better" is a massive understatement. Around 30 minutes for a guaranteed endgame item is extremely good. During this even that means that everyone with the slightest interest in these items will have a chance to get all the good ones with just a few hours of casual play per day throughout the event. And that is by taking the least optimal route in every single way with no credit bonuses and so on.

Sounds more like you want things handed to you for zero work at all, since the work for arcanes cant really get any lower than it is in this event.

[Marine027]

Gerade eben schrieb SneakyErvin:

all the good ones

Isn't that kinda the main problem, they are so unbalanced that you have ot be picky, while afterwards if you go back to eidolon all random drops are crap basically making them instantly trash despite having the same dorp rate and chances to get them. This only shows how desperate they are, considering they do this right after increasing arcane ranks to make you farm longer already becasue they couldn't think of better rewards for this event? Alternatives to farm are always nice but not for a time limited event, i do hope it at least returns like fractues and ghouls, on the other hand why is this not permanent simply?

We farm bosses over and over aswell without them truely dying so why can't this be a repeatable mission you can choose whenever you want? Instead i am forced to play, regardless if it lasts 28 days or not, afterwards its gone for eather to long to bother with it at all anymore, or people lost interesst because they goten all arcanes already from eidolon in between.

Fun should come first with gameplay, rewards second i say, but this is a joke, broken mess which is ok because we are in beta and have to accept we wasted time on broken stuff like this, but it's ok because we could play early right? I guess it is also ok to drive a broken car and get in a crash aslong i signed it still, not like it goes against laws or moralitys in general.

[SneakyErvin]

2 minutes ago, Marine027 said:

Isn't that kinda the main problem, they are so unbalanced that you have ot be picky, while afterwards if you go back to eidolon all random drops are crap basically making them instantly trash despite having the same dorp rate and chances to get them. This only shows how desperate they are, considering they do this right after increasing arcane ranks to make you farm longer already becasue they couldn't think of better rewards for this event? Alternatives to farm are always nice but not for a time limited event, i do hope it at least returns like fractues and ghouls, on the other hand why is this not permanent simply?

We farm bosses over and over aswell without them truely dying so why can't this be a repeatable mission you can choose whenever you want? Instead i am forced to play, regardless if it lasts 28 days or not, afterwards its gone for eather to long to bother with it at all anymore, or people lost interesst because they goten all arcanes already from eidolon in between.

Fun should come first with gameplay, rewards second i say, but this is a joke, broken mess which is ok because we are in beta and have to accept we wasted time on broken stuff like this, but it's ok because we could play early right? I guess it is also ok to drive a broken car and get in a crash aslong i signed it still, not like it goes against laws or moralitys in general.

We are picky with everything. I dont think anyone is every hunting eidolons to get the pointless arcanes, so I dont see why they would go back afterwards to grind eidolons to get those arcanes. I'm probably going to finish up 8 or so arcanes during the even, then the rest I wont bother with since I'm not interested in any of them because I will never use them anyways.

I wouldnt be surprised if LD and he store stays throughout New War and keeps loot from previous events/operations/modes.

I'm actually having fun. I do enjoy the ground mode, it is like a decent mix of mobile defense and assassination, plus it is a good solo mode and rewarding enough when it comes to getting arcanes. I've only ran into a few reward bugs, the same as everyone else at the end of a murex wave is completed, getting the wrong credit reward for my rank and so on. I've gotten R1 reward properly then two R3 rewards where one was equal to R1 and the other to R2. Will see how it is today which the latest changes based on personal score only.

The biggest issue with SS is the lack of rewards for those that already have arcanes. Stance Forma is not someting that is really worth grinding for and the weapons and other things are one-offs.

[Jarriaga]

I wholeheartedly agree with OP. Some weeks ago, when they showed the credits store for SS in a dev stream, I posted this:

On 2020-03-13 at 8:58 PM, Jarriaga said:

Dog Days reward pricing PTSD intensifies.

I can not properly put into words just how disappointing it is that DE either didn't get the memo, or are willingly choosing to ignore it despite the backlash to DD's reward pricing structure. Here we are again with the same problem. They have been souring my opinion of them with regards to their choices on fair time grind balance ever since Dog Days came out. Then they introduced the Lich grind after DD. Then this now, in a time-limited event that further amplifies the issue. 

I should not have been able to predict the absolute worst-case scenario (Dog Days pricing) and get it right. There's absolutely something broken with DE's decision-making process when balancing time investment. Is it investor/shareholder pressure to artificially boost "engagement" metrics? Is it stubbornness? Is it a misguided expectation of the number of rewards they expect you to "choose" while leaving out the rest?

And sure, they can patch it out, but that doesn't change the fact that this was their first and primary choice of pricing structure, and they thought it was fine. They need to hire someone in charge of or consult externally with regards to the optics of their thought process.

16 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

This should be the title of a pinned thread in the feedback forum.

I created the topic. Here's the link:

I also tagged OP on it.

[ikkabotz]

Thank you, it's no shocker where things are, as you said warning signs were there. Many which were broadcasted by players not for months but years. Resisting the urge as I am sure many others are wanting to say 'told you so'. Even now there are people resenting the type of feedback simply trying to be honest to say 'I dont enjoy playing this'.

Edited March 26, 2020 by ikkabotz

[THE_ZEEK]

The problem here is DE NOT focussing on harder content..

Let the easy missions be the easy missions, but only design for harder content with each update you make..

Starting players will eventually come to a point where they will be able to play the harder missions and veterans will stay in game..

 

The base philosophy of trying to please everyone is a lose lose situation for everybody.

 

[ikkabotz]

3 hours ago, THE_ZEEK said:

The problem here is DE NOT focussing on harder content..

Let the easy missions be the easy missions, but only design for harder content with each update you make..

Starting players will eventually come to a point where they will be able to play the harder missions and veterans will stay in game..

 

The base philosophy of trying to please everyone is a lose lose situation for everybody.

 

The issue is they are developing content with a experience not evolving to the point of attracting a core set of players while also adding a thicker grind wall. They were innovative with the foundation of this game, a lot of the development moving forward just hasn't hit what players don't know they really want but exactly what they need and with the ever growing hostility in forums from all sides involved being the "player perception" or hype giving eyes to the community scene it doesn't help. DE should take the lead on this, if it's in their potential to do so. I don't mean that negatively. 

Edited March 26, 2020 by ikkabotz

[THE_ZEEK]

2 minutes ago, ikkabotz said:

a lot of the development moving forward just hasn't hit what players don't know they really want but exactly what they need. 

I understand what you are trying to relay here, but i just dont agree..

What the problem is that having to serve both starting players and advanced players you get a gap in between that is always going to rub.. Its either too easy or too hard..

You place yourself in a difficult situation like that. Usually with a compromise is that both parties dont get what they want.

 

If you are focusing on harder content, people can progress in the game and feel that what they put into the game is rewarding for further progress in the game.

Focussing on progress and further development (harder content and possibly rewards that come with that harder effort) make it in the long run a much more durable game. where to progress through.. WHen you are ready for harder content its available.. but currently.. there is not and problematicly solved with a grindwall which is upsetting many people in the community. hence losing peoples interest in the game.

[Sitchrea]

21 hours 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.  

An XCOM modder could do that in a weekend.

Edited March 26, 2020 by Sitchrea

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

  

17 hours ago, Anthraxicus said:

That is the dumbest part ever. The better arcanes are awaiting for a stress test, but the ending of the event is set on stone. Just amazing thinking.

I don't believe they're waiting to "stress test" anything.  If they found out people were using genuine exploits they could ban them or reverse the credits/purchases.  What they mean by "exploit" is "we're letting you balance this for us for free before we put the things you want in the shop to make sure you don't have a completely legitimate way to plow through this efficiently."  Efficiency isn't an exploit.  High speed metas are what make Warframe, Warframe, and the devs can't stand it.  They think they made a tactical shooter where every engagement and move matters.  They are mistaken.

They're also probably withholding "the good stuff" until the last half of the event to increase FOMO and make sure that engagement is sustained throughout, rather than falling off after everyone gets the things they want, says "I'm tired of running the exact same mission over and over" and ditches the event.  My guess is they wait another couple of days at least before releasing the rest of the arcanes to the shop, extend the event by maybe a week to make up for how screwy it is right now, and even though all the bugs and exploits should be ironed out by the time it hits console, console will still have the same period of not having all arcanes available.  If they do that, it's because I was right, and they're using them to extend engagement.  They'll say it's for "fairness."

 

7 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

They were always ment to be rare thing, ever since they were part of raids.

And "slightly better" is a massive understatement. Around 30 minutes for a guaranteed endgame item is extremely good. During this even that means that everyone with the slightest interest in these items will have a chance to get all the good ones with just a few hours of casual play per day throughout the event. And that is by taking the least optimal route in every single way with no credit bonuses and so on.

Sounds more like you want things handed to you for zero work at all, since the work for arcanes cant really get any lower than it is in this event.

Bugs completely aside, there are tons of reports of people having issues getting points simply due to how the system works, and how it requires coordination on the part of the entire flotilla.  If literally everything worked exactly as intended, and all the mechanics were explained in-game so that everyone knew exactly what to do, it's still hours of the same mission on repeat to get the arcanes you want.  Complaining about that is not "wanting things handed to me for zero work."  I spent 60 goddamn hours on Ophelia to get my first Condition Overload drop because I wanted the drop to be mine and not purchased because you should not have to purchase a mod that is all but a requirement for status builds.  I know about putting in the work and grind and time.  This is a game, not a job.  This idea that everything should be this mountain of work is where the entire premise of "grind is content" comes from.  If you have literally 2 missions for your whole event, things should not cost what they do, because what you're asking people to do is run the same 2 exact missions on repeat for more hours than some part-time jobs take just to get some items without dealing with time-gates and RNG.
 

1 hour ago, THE_ZEEK said:

I understand what you are trying to relay here, but i just dont agree..

What the problem is that having to serve both starting players and advanced players you get a gap in between that is always going to rub.. Its either too easy or too hard..

You place yourself in a difficult situation like that. Usually with a compromise is that both parties dont get what they want.

 

If you are focusing on harder content, people can progress in the game and feel that what they put into the game is rewarding for further progress in the game.

Focussing on progress and further development (harder content and possibly rewards that come with that harder effort) make it in the long run a much more durable game. where to progress through.. WHen you are ready for harder content its available.. but currently.. there is not and problematicly solved with a grindwall which is upsetting many people in the community. hence losing peoples interest in the game.

And this is it, right here.  The grind wall that separates newbies from high MR players.  I have watched countless newbies quit the game because there is no steady progression.  You're on the starchart, moving through un-populated nodes, almost totally solo and that's "new player content."  Nearly everything outside of the regular missions is geared for more experienced players but allows access to newbies (which is what causes the balance issues in the first place).  Arbi's, ESO, Eidolon hunts, The Orb heists, Liches, Railjack, Sortie, etc, nearly all of those things assume that you have the mods and equipment to have at least one loadout that can handle higher level enemies and deal with taking a ton of damage.  The wall between star chart missions and higher level play isn't a smooth progression of getting mods as you go along, working your way through more and more advanced content getting stronger as you move up.  It's a straight grind wall.  There's low tier stuff, and advanced stuff and the thing separating them is grinding out gear in the trenches.  Newbies access the harder stuff, ask "Why can't I do this?  How do I get to where you are?"  and you tell them they have to do a lot of farming and grinding and then they quit.  Instead of grinding on A to get to B and grinding B to get to C and so on, this game has you grinding on A for eternity to get straight to Z.  And they keep adding grind to pad things out and vets get fed up and quit.  So they double down on the grind to increase engagement times and it turns even more people off.  You basically have to no-life the game to get past the grind in any sort of reasonable time, and all the no-lifers will act like you're insane if you remind them it's a game and it shouldn't take dozens of hours of the same grind on repeat to get one thing done.   That or you can just go play something else.  It's obviously what most of the developers are doing at this point.

[SneakyErvin]

2 hours ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

  Bugs completely aside, there are tons of reports of people having issues getting points simply due to how the system works, and how it requires coordination on the part of the entire flotilla.  If literally everything worked exactly as intended, and all the mechanics were explained in-game so that everyone knew exactly what to do, it's still hours of the same mission on repeat to get the arcanes you want.  Complaining about that is not "wanting things handed to me for zero work."  I spent 60 goddamn hours on Ophelia to get my first Condition Overload drop because I wanted the drop to be mine and not purchased because you should not have to purchase a mod that is all but a requirement for status builds.  I know about putting in the work and grind and time.  This is a game, not a job.  This idea that everything should be this mountain of work is where the entire premise of "grind is content" comes from.  If you have literally 2 missions for your whole event, things should not cost what they do, because what you're asking people to do is run the same 2 exact missions on repeat for more hours than some part-time jobs take just to get some items without dealing with time-gates and RNG.

You obviously havent played it yet and I guess those people with those issues havent played it much either. The first day was kinda slow on the whole 100/100 completion, that simply isnt a case anymore. And since you will get the event on consoles with the reward fixes implemented you wont experience the bugs we've had, which has kinda been the only downside to the event. There is no mountain of work with this event, we get the rewards very easily now that the bugs are fixed. This event is really no different from Plague Star and forma/zaw grinding, heck SS is actually more rewarding for those that have never enjoyed eidolons. I've played 10-12 hours now in the event and I've bought 57 arcanes so far and have now started to save up for the next batch that will have energize, barrier, grace and so on. It will be much quicker now with the health nerfs to the condrix since each run will be quicker by quite a bit.

The SS event lacks proper rewards for those that have done eidolons on end already, that is really the only drawback of it.

I also dont understand your hate towards rare drops in a game about chasing loot. Specific good items will always be hard to obtain in these types of games. No matter if it is a specific weapon in some game or a mod in another.

Plus the ground mission is a perfect slack mission to do solo and it is decently fun aswell.

[chggr]

this same ole thing  grind   get stuff,,but this time,,,stuff is  almost  unattainable

 

an not doing it,,,so jus let sentients have it

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by chggr

[Morthal]

On 2020-03-25 at 3:24 PM, Zimzala said:

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...

No.
This is literally the industry we're dealing with right now.
Take it or leave it, PC gaming has devolved into a mix of coin-op scams and mobile game business models.
Gamers never wanted false promises, marketing deceptions and outright lies about a game's sustainability, or to grow over time as a "Live Service". That's all corporate BS soaked in investor greed which has infected the once passionate, creative minded developers. 

Have you watched a Devstream lately? The guilt is palpable. 

Edited March 27, 2020 by Morthal

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

2 hours ago, Morthal said:

No.
This is literally the industry we're dealing with right now.
Take it or leave it, PC gaming has devolved into a mix of coin-op scams and mobile game business models.
Gamers never wanted false promises, marketing deceptions and outright lies about a game's sustainability, or to grow over time as a "Live Service". That's all corporate BS soaked in investor greed which has infected the once passionate, creative minded developers. 

Have you watched a Devstream lately? The guilt is palpable. 

It's not going anywhere either, as long as we have people obsessed with the idea that a game as a second job is totally fine and shoddy releases aren't a problem so long as they get fixed eventually.  I weld pressure vessels for a living.  Someone come tell the x-rayers that it's all good as long as I get around to fixing it.

[(NSW)Greybones]

9 hours ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

High speed metas are what make Warframe, Warframe, and the devs can't stand it. 

I’ve seen this sentiment before, that “x and y are what make Warframe, Warframe”, and it’s piqued my curiosity as to where it comes from.

Am I correct in understanding your personal interpretation of Warframe as “It now has a life of its own, and DE doesn’t like where it’s going”? It’s.... different, so I may well be misunderstanding and would love clarification.

I read the rest of your post.

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[buffalobuffalogaming]

You guys still better than me, my warframe launcher is broken and I can't play it anymore 😞 
_{Broken Warframe...}

[(XBOX)Baski7786]

Ya this game sucks. Last time I actually enjoyed an update was when they introduced Wisp. They've messed up alot recently and they're paying the price

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

On 2020-03-27 at 2:30 AM, (NSW)Greybones said:

I’ve seen this sentiment before, that “x and y are what make Warframe, Warframe”, and it’s piqued my curiosity as to where it comes from.

Am I correct in understanding your personal interpretation of Warframe as “It now has a life of its own, and DE doesn’t like where it’s going”? It’s.... different, so I may well be misunderstanding and would love clarification.

I read the rest of your post.

 

Warframe is Clicker Heroes with a really solid movement system, interesting abilities and standard shooting.  The lore is scattered, only half available because most of it was locked behind time-limited events, and quite frankly, all over the place.  There is no endgame.  Because they refuse to implement the actual good ideas that they and their players have had regarding fun, repeatable content that is actual content outside of gear progression, grind and progression remain one of the large pillars of the game, which is a complaint myself and many others have.  "Do something else with this great art, sound and core mechanics, other than make us grind."  Until they do that though, there's the grind.  Grinding for a rare drop, or a drop you need thousands of but only pick up 1 at a time can get very old, very fast.  Because of this, META is implemented.  the Most Efficient Tools Available are what many people choose to run with because they don't give a flying #*!% about tactically taking down every single enemy between them and the objective.  They want to map wipe, slam the objective and race to extraction and it's that way for pretty much only 2 reasons:

1. People like going fast.  Anywhere, any time.  Game, real life, doesn't matter.  Gotta go fast.

2. People want the grind to take as little time as possible.  The majority of people do not want to run the exact same mission 500 times in a row to get a thing they want.  They will, but they don't want to.  If they're going to, despite not liking it, they're gonna do it as quickly as they can.  That's every game with grinding and farming, all the time.  It's not this game, or this type of game, that's just in our nature.  Game devs everywhere bet on the fact that people hate grind to get them to spend money.  Don't want to run Ophelia for literally 60 hours in-mission to get Condition Overload to drop?  You can always buy some plat and get it from another player!

The game they have built, whether they like it or not, and whether they intended it or not, outright facilitates and encourages speed.  There is no bonus or reward for killing everything on the way to the objective and then on the way to extraction, save a pittance of resources, affinity and credits.  There is zero reason to do anything but slam through a mission as fast as possible, grab your loot and find the next spot to do the same thing.  There is nothing dynamic or even interesting about most of our mission types.  Go to location, kill everything, press interact, leave.  That's the star chart.  People are going to blast through that as fast as they can because there's nothing to care about there.  There's nothing compelling, other than the reward waiting for you in the little green circle.  Click some stuff, get paid.  Click a little faster, get paid a little faster.  Run the meta AUTO-CLICKER-MAP-WIPE 9000 with optional sun roof and bam, you get paid even faster.

People complain about grind, and we get told "That's Warframe."  Maybe so.  But if Warframe is just grind, and people historically will always trudge through grind as fast as they can, then the fastest possible meta to get through the grind is ALSO Warframe.

EDIT:  I failed to address the "Devs hate it" part.  If the constant player nerfs aren't enough to convince you, they've literally said on the devstream, when talking about how quickly we move through missions, the phrase "Much to our chagrin."  They have literally outright stated that they hate how quickly we play.  Someone at DE really believes that players are going to utilize the stealth system they keep breaking, that barely even functions, and run through every single one of the thousands of missions players need to run like they're an actual space ninja.  That we're going to NEED to think about what we're doing and make strategic decisions and blah blah blah.  They truly seem to think that is the game they made, simply because it's the game they intended to make.  Look at the Proton mod set.  It's a complete joke, until you realize someone at DE really thinks they made a tactical shooter.  Look at the "balance" nerfs they make.  Look at how often they implement something, and then months or years later they say "Wait, the players can do what with it?  That wasn't what I intended!  Fix it!"  They don't have a goddamn clue what game they actually made and are still making and yet they keep balancing the game based on what they intended to make and they don't have a single idea why people are mad about it.

Edited March 28, 2020 by (XB1)TehChubbyDugan

[(NSW)Greybones]

24 minutes ago, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

Warframe is Clicker Heroes with a really solid movement system, interesting abilities and standard shooting.

Cool, thanks for this hefty look (of which this quoted bit is a small fragment, for anyone else who reads this post) into how you view Warframe. I’ll take a bit and read this a few times to parse and understand where you’re coming from. Looks like it’ll be a good read!

Edited March 28, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[(NSW)Greybones]

Hmm.

You make a lot of good points. Fairly eloquently explained, even as it took some effort to separate the emotion and judgement from the important observations.

I do wonder if I’m seeing something different than you are, which means we’re not on the same page.

I’m not someone who rushes through the game. I use the stealth, see what the enemies do (MOA, with its ceaseless fire and lack of cover-taking, is an enemy that pressures the player, as an example), can distinguish the different mission types, and need to think of how I approach fights or I will (and have) die and fail the mission, which gives an excuse to look over what I’ve chosen and wonder about my equipment options. Ultimately these fights are part of why I play Warframe; I fish the Plains of Eidolon at night, grind the rails of Orb Valis by day, decorate my orbiter, pet my Kubrow just because I like animals. I need to stop myself or this post would be way too long.

I see posts made by others who rush through that say they find Warframe lacking for them as well, and to me, your post feels like it conveys their sentiment.

We’re approaching the same game from two vastly different subjective perspectives, and one of us is saying that DE have failed and are incompetent while the other thinks that they’ve succeeded and believes they (DE) know what they’re doing. 

How do we get on the same page so that, when you claim “DE don’t know what they’re doing!”, I can agree with you? Or vice-versa, if that’s an option.

Edited March 28, 2020 by (NSW)Greybones

[844448]

On 2020-03-26 at 7:19 PM, Marine027 said:

Fun should come first with gameplay

And define what is the meaning of fun to you. What is it?