Why we cant have endgame content

[Vespilan]

Vague title, right? Been fiddling with it for a while.

For those of you who have been too busy picking their nose; The newest update to railjack has made the one endgame mode that we had, the one and only mode that posed a respectable challenge to player skill rather than just to weaponary, a whole lot easier. Again. Enemy fighter HP and armor have been halved and foot units have received nerfs as well. My question is; Why? Why does Warframe always have to appeal to a "casual" audience, to put it politely? Why does everything always have to be easy? Railjack was perfectly balanced and the trend to always appeal to bad, sorry but thats just how it is, players is why we cant have any endgame content.

I have heard that railjack veil proxima missions can now be solo'd in under five minutes thanks to seeker volley. DE; This is how stuff goes from content to grind, it gets boring because its just so ridicolously easy, just as on-foot missions. And with all this keep in mind, there is still the commander intrinsics tree coming up!

We cant have endgame content because a handfull of players keep crying about how hard any new gamemode is because they haven't adapted to it yet, DE gives in and creates another grindzone. 

[(PSN)CrazyBeaTzu]

Because casuals will complain they're locked out of content because they're paying customers. 

If people would try to be better players we could have endgame content.

[SpicyDinosaur]

I have to agree with this even though I'm not fond of seeing "casuals" used as a pejorative. 

[Drachnyn]

But I already solo'd veil missions without any problems before the update with the only thing slowing me down compared to now being the slow spawn rates. Railjack was never difficult, just tedious. This update made it so things besides void hole + munitions vortex/tycho seeker are viable in veil missions. An enemy having more EHP alone doesnt make them more threatening. Railjack guns are worth using now and seeker volley is actually an ability worth considering now. Keep in mind that it asks for the same amount of energy as void hole does and the same slot, so it's inherently competing with it.

It's great that you go by the things you heard, that tells me you havent tried it yourself. Bullet sponges is not an interesting endgame.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Drachnyn

[bad4youLT]

What skill ?

Enemys were bullet spunges , archguns were hot garbage and ground enemys with redicuosly high armour .

Nothing about railjack was endgame apart from beeing very last content peace for a player to gain acces to , its content island with out worthwhile rewards and the only good thing wich we had start the umbra forma bp got removed because of exploit , anomalys were behind time gate and lets not forget the dreaded drop rate for a very specific emphemera .

Everything about it was just plain terrible this patch was first spet in the right dirrection .

[kapn655321]

1 minute ago, (PS4)CrazyBeaTzu said:

Because casuals will complain they're locked out of content because they're paying customers. 

If people would try to be better players we could have endgame content.

If being better is defined by arbitrarily taking stronger weapons, you'd be right.
 

3 minutes ago, Vespilan said:

Why does everything always have to be easy?

People like myself are trying to use combinations within the game that appeal to their playstyle. This does not mean easier, and in fact is usually based in trying to find just the right amount of challenge. There are combinations that are drastically more powerful by leaps and bounds, and setting the game's difficulty to only work for those doesn't mean anything is harder, just more restrictive in the options you can approach it with. Are players better at the game for using a Kuva Bramma? Certainly not... that takes less aim if nothing else. Casuals use OP weapons, too.. but they can just as easily cheese through high level missions, because they take the pre-determined build that is sure to do the job.

If you want difficulty in the game, try using something that isn't sure to win... and in seeing how poorly it performs, you may understand why just making things harder doesn't suit the game as a whole.. but only a restrictive tier of designated weapons/frames/combinations. They're not harder to use, they don't take more skill, they're just higher damage for the sake of higher damage. Setting the bar for them wastes hundreds of potential options, and thousands of potential permutations, restricting any build diversity or playstyles beyond paint-by-number metas.

[Tesla_Reloaded]

Ah... yet another topic about wet dreams of "endgame".

 

Never gonna happen, guys. Stop making fools out of yourselves. This game is a service. It will die the same moment it receives an endgame content.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Tesla_Reloaded

[kapn655321]

If people want end game to be harder, why do we resist nerfs that set a reasonable if not standardized expectation for damage? When everyone can be prepared with nearly everything, there is no excuse but skill.. but we fight that. Why? Why, if the game is too easy, is there push back on nerfs? This whole debate is silly. You've always had the ability to have a harder time by straying from the meta, but people still take the few weapons/combinations that are, "little brother mode," powerful.

Why don't players use magnetic and blast damage if they want bullet sponges? Why don't players take frames that can't tank, nuke, DPS, or CC at top tier? That's the experience they're looking for, right? One that falls short, in order to challenge themselves? We don't see that. We don't see players who refuse Adaptation, or meta. What we do see, is players doubling down into the meta that breaks everything, saying, "Why is everything so easy to kill?" ...Well, for starters, probably because they took the combination that is certain to kill and win every time. Is it any wonder the game feels easy?

Meanwhile, I'm trying like hell (and failing) to beat a Rotation A Demolyst from Jupiter with a Magnetic/Toxin build on a Dera Vandal, and wondering how in the world anyone wants the game to be Harder. Too many combinations cannot work at all, too many work entirely too well, and DE can't achieve any parity between those because of people being opposed to nerfs, or having weapons they don't and won't ever use getting, "stats that make them too samey."

More importantly, they can't program any skilled combat interactions with the pace we expect. If you want a more challenging game, our players need to welcome that, by not demanding cheese strats, only taking nukes, paying through the nose for OP rivens on already OP weapons, or actually making an effort to engage with any mechanics beyond face tanking, god tier DPS, and movement speed. ..Since hardly anybody is doing that, and reducing that dependency bring backlash, is pretty apparent the community is speaking from both sides of it's mouth when it says it wants the game to be harder.
 

[Loza03]

No, it isn't. Whilst the halving of Railjack fighters is something I'm disappointed about, I'm not disappointed about the on-foot enemies.

 

We can't have endgame content, at the moment, because of lack of balance. This becomes harder to correct the longer it lasts, because the more stuff is made under this unbalanced content, the more stuff is affected by the poor design and would continue to be poorly designed after the if something else is balanced. For example On foot enemies. I complained about them because they had far more health than anything else. This negatively affected gunplay - only 'pick' style weapons (y'know, snipers and shotguns, high single-target burst damage weapons) which forced out other weapon classes. Whilst those weapons could be used, they couldn't in the role they're intended to play in the overall weapon 'sandbox'. AoE weapons are meant to be fodder clearers. Pick weapons are supposed to be able to 'pick out' important targets and deal with them well. And Assault Rifles or other full-autos are supposed to run in between. For this to work, some enemies need to be more durable, and some are meant to not be. When you have an entire sub-faction that has squishy fodder enemies sport health bars you see on tanks in the rest of the game, and has the tanks literally have more health than an Eidolon then the balance of 'roles' is skewed. 

In other words, the hugely padded health bars on Empyrean enemies were bad for the same reason why enemies as a whole being too squishy in the rest of the game is bad. In the rest of the game snipers are borderline useless because sure they kill one guy fast - two if you're lucky - but there's half a dozen breathing down your neck, and literally any kind of AoE weapon could have killed that one guy a bit faster, with less effort, and part of the half dozen.

 

And, whilst everyone's exact definition of endgame will differ, most will probably have something along the lines of it being repeatable, maybe encouraging different playstyles, cooperation, difficulty. Doing most of those well - especially cooperation since good co-op requires multiple roles otherwise there's no reason to, y'know, cooperate with each other. Consider that TEAM Fortress 2 and all the class-based shooters that it inspired are all pretty much based on working together do so by having different characters be good at different things.

Now look at Warframe, where on paper this exists: Limbo is good at crowd control, Mesa's good at AoE DPS whilst Ash is a good pick and Trinity can heal, all that fun stuff. In reality, Mesa is deleting the entire map because her damage laughably outclasses their EHP despite doing it over a wide area, Ash is sneaking in dozens of kills when Mesa's distracted getting energy back with Zenurik and Arcane energise, the Trinity is bored because these gods among men are so utterly overpowered that they need no support, and the Limbo knows that even if Hunhow himself ascended from his tomb to delete the two DPS's, he could easily win the mission solo because a permanently stunned enemy is no better than a dead one.

And in the same respect, if we were to consider 'different playstyles', on paper these are all the same, but there is only so much when they all have the exact same upside (nothing can even think about fighting you, ever) and the exact same downside (Error 404) then are they really distinct playstyles?

[xXDeadsinxX]

Warframe is a power fantasy game. With that comes content that is not challenging towards the player because of how powerful we can become. Railjack likely isn’t going to be any different whatsoever.

Why do they go towards the more casual side of the player base? Who knows, I’m not DE by any means so I have no idea but it could be a multitude of reasons though. It could be because of the amount of money it makes them so they just keep going the casual route, or it could also be so it doesn’t cause an uproar from the community and so they just stick to it. The more likely one out of all of them though is that they might just like Warframe being a power fantasy game since it’s incredibly convenient for them since that’s what they’re always used to design wise. Who honestly knows though.

[DreisterDino]

vor 29 Minuten schrieb Vespilan:

Enemy fighter HP and armor have been halved and foot units have received nerfs as well.

Its the same for the ground units.

And i really dont get it (although this is the Standard DE-way of "balancing" something, its usually the same with frames and weapons oftentimes).

 

I mean, yeah at least the ground units have been a bit spongy, i liked them being tougher but ok i get it if many people complained about them being too tough.

But why go in and reduce their HP by 50%??? What the Hell?

 

Why not try to balance it step by step? They could have lowered the HP by 10%, 15% or even 20% which would have an impact and still could be called reasonable.

I still need to try it, but i guess everything went from being somewhat of a threat to being complete fodder units now.

 

vor 36 Minuten schrieb (PS4)CrazyBeaTzu:

Because casuals will complain they're locked out of content because they're paying customers. 

If people would try to be better players we could have endgame content.

 

Kinda agree with the second line while "better" meaning something like "reasonable".

Its partially DE's fault cause of how they are marketing stuff, but i really dont get why every new Update of the past 2 years (besides Arbitrations) has to be accessible for someone who is still new to the game. And like you say, complaining about not being able to access something at will is simply stupid.

 

Not being able to do something in a game until you reached a certain point is just simple progression.

There a basically 2 scenarios:

1. a game is linear in its progression, and its a given that you have to get through one mission in order to get to the next one. Story-Driven Singleplayer games are a good example for this, and i doubt anyone ever complained about having to do certain missions until he is able to get to a Bossfight he has seen in a Trailer for example.
2. a game is not linear and very open in its design, it maybe even lets you go everywhere you want the moment you start the game. Modern OpenWorld Games are a good example on this. There are designated "Noob-Areas" and the game tells you that this is where you belong. But in theory, you can go and look at the "Endgame-Areas" and even try to do something there - but you will fail because you are underleveled, undergeared and unexperienced. Did anyone ever complain about this? Of course not. Because everyone understands that this is just part of the natural progression of the game.

 

The 2nd scenario is where Warframe fits in better, and regarding Railjack for example - people should simply accept the fact that they are allowed to take a look at that part of the game - but in case they are still relatively new to the game they might just fail because they neither have the gear or the experience. And this should be a motivating factor to progress - not a reason to go to the forums/reddit or whatever place you choose to complain about something being too hard.

[STUVash]

il y a 56 minutes, Vespilan a dit :

 Why? Why does Warframe always have to appeal to a "casual" audience, to put it politely? Why does everything always have to be easy?

I got you fam. You don't "have" to set your railjack to be beefy. You can customize it to fit the difficulty you wish to play at.
If you're hosting, players joining you are forced to play with this setup. That way it doesn't have to be "Easy".

[Felsagger]

For better or worse casual, sporadics and newbies are the target for service games in general. Warframe is no exception. Any game that is devised as a service will end if there is end game and fixed meta. Veterans generate less money than the set of new players. As other people said before the casual, sporadics and newbies plays more the game because they want to get good hence more revenue for the company. Veterans rarely stays in the game regularly. 

For end game, yes, of course there are other challenging experiences like Dark Soul Series and Bloodborne. This is not a game suited for endgame. If that happens DE runs out of business. Search challenges elsewhere. I did that long time ago. 

[(PSN)CrazyBeaTzu]

5 minutes ago, DreisterDino said:

Its the same for the ground units.

And i really dont get it (although this is the Standard DE-way of "balancing" something, its usually the same with frames and weapons oftentimes).

 

I mean, yeah at least the ground units have been a bit spongy, i liked them being tougher but ok i get it if many people complained about them being too tough.

But why go in and reduce their HP by 50%??? What the Hell?

 

Why not try to balance it step by step? They could have lowered the HP by 10%, 15% or even 20% which would have an impact and still could be called reasonable.

I still need to try it, but i guess everything went from being somewhat of a threat to being complete fodder units now.

 

 

Kinda agree with the second line while "better" meaning something like "reasonable".

Its partially DE's fault cause of how they are marketing stuff, but i really dont get why every new Update of the past 2 years (besides Arbitrations) has to be accessible for someone who is still new to the game. And like you say, complaining about not being able to access something at will is simply stupid.

 

Not being able to do something in a game until you reached a certain point is just simple progression.

There a basically 2 scenarios:

1. a game is linear in its progression, and its a given that you have to get through one mission in order to get to the next one. Story-Driven Singleplayer games are a good example for this, and i doubt anyone ever complained about having to do certain missions until he is able to get to a Bossfight he has seen in a Trailer for example.
2. a game is not linear and very open in its design, it maybe even lets you go everywhere you want the moment you start the game. Modern OpenWorld Games are a good example on this. There are designated "Noob-Areas" and the game tells you that this is where you belong. But in theory, you can go and look at the "Endgame-Areas" and even try to do something there - but you will fail because you are underleveled, undergeared and unexperienced. Did anyone ever complain about this? Of course not. Because everyone understands that this is just part of the natural progression of the game.

 

The 2nd scenario is where Warframe fits in better, and regarding Railjack for example - people should simply accept the fact that they are allowed to take a look at that part of the game - but in case they are still relatively new to the game they might just fail because they neither have the gear or the experience. And this should be a motivating factor to progress - not a reason to go to the forums/reddit or whatever place you choose to complain about something being too hard.

Yes that's a very good explanation. I have to put some work in for me to be decent at railjack, for example, instead of jumping in with a bare railjack and complaining I cant solo the content, like some have been doing.

[DreisterDino]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb Felsagger:

For better or worse casual, sporadics and newbies are the target for service games in general. Warframe is no exception. Any game that is devised as a service will end if there is end game and fixed meta. Veterans generate less money than the set of new players. As other people said before the casual, sporadics and newbies plays more the game because they want to get good hence more revenue for the company. Veterans rarely stays in the game regularly.

Ive seen this so many times now, but i have yet to see some evidence or proof for this.

Tbh, i dont even think this is correct.

 

Yes new players probably buy some plat when they start out,

but who are the whales in this game? Veterans.

 

I know so many vets from my clan who have literally spent hundreds or thousands of euros in this game buying all PA's and so on, while there are also tons of F2P-Casuals who never spent anything and even say that they are not planning on spending anything. Ignoring those Vets is simply a big mistake, because they generate income aswell.

 

I personally am in the middle, i spent an amount i think is reasonable for this game - and i would spend more if this game convinces me that it is worth to spend more. In order to do that, they have to actually provide some engaging Endgame-Content that is worthwhile and keeps me playing for other reasons than it being time-limited or grindy casual content. (and please dont answer with something like "Endgame" means the "end of the game" - i have read this many times aswell but in which world and which game does Endgame Content equals players stopping to play the game? Endgame is something to do for players who did everything else - Endgame keeps Veterans in the game instead of pushing them away).

 

 

 

So, if anyone actually has a proof that casuals are the main source of income, please share it because my observations are different.

[Vlada91]

Its simple every game with end game every player stop playing game after he's finished 10-50 times of playing that end game. So why would you come back if you already finished end game many times...And In this logic you are willing to play and farm more just because there is no end game and this farming its only way to continue playing amd get better gear... Maybe don't make any sense and maybe it does. In the end only difference is that we already have mini versions for end games, but its not all combined in 1.... What we need is more cinematic qusts, lore and more about story. 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Vlada91

[Felsagger]

2 minutes ago, DreisterDino said:

Ive seen this so many times now, but i have yet to see some evidence or proof for this.

Tbh, i dont even think this is correct.

 

Yes new players probably buy some plat when they start out,

but who are the whales in this game? Veterans.

 

I know so many vets from my clan who have literally spent hundreds or thousands of euros in this game buying all PA's and so on, while there are also tons of F2P-Casuals who never spent anything and even say that they are not planning on spending anything. Ignoring those Vets is simply a big mistake, because they generate income aswell.

 

I personally am in the middle, i spent an amount i think is reasonable for this game - and i would spend more if this game convinces me that it is worth to spend more. In order to do that, they have to actually provide some engaging Endgame-Content that is worthwhile and keeps me playing for other reasons than it being time-limited or grindy casual content. (and please dont answer with something like "Endgame" means the "end of the game" - i have read this many times aswell but in which world and which game does Endgame Content equals players stopping to play the game? Endgame is something to do for players who did everything else - Endgame keeps Veterans in the game instead of pushing them away).

 

 

 

So, if anyone actually has a proof that casuals are the main source of income, please share it because my observations are different.

ROFL, do you think that veterans spend a lot of money in this game? They farm and sell for platinum gains without spending a dime in the game. I'm an MR 28 veteran who played this game for seven years. 

[(PSN)Quantaminum]

25 minutes ago, DreisterDino said:

-snip-

I don't know a lot of veterans that still spend real money on the game. Most players I see asking for purchase advice are newbies.

I used to buy every PA, but I stopped about a year ago (been playing for almost 3 years).

Even if some veterans are still making purchases, I'm pretty sure that just the sheer amount of newbies constantly trying to get into this game would generate a lot more revenue than veterans (mostly because newbies are more susceptible to fall for new player traps/uniformed purchases).

[3rdpig]

Here's an idea. Go go business school with an eye to games. Or, just ask someone who has.

But until then I'll do my best to help out. It's not a "small handful" of casuals against a huge number of vets who have min/maxed every frame and weapon in the game, it's the latter who are the small minority and the casuals, and noobs that are constantly flooding into the game who are in the majority...and who bring the money.

Why do you think professional sports teams are constantly pandering/catering to younger fans and casuals? Because without a constant influx of new fans and the occasional "casual" fan (including spouses and significant others who really aren't that interested), the game dies.

Mathematics strikes again.

[Vespilan]

1 hour ago, Drachnyn said:

It's great that you go by the things you heard, that tells me you havent tried it yourself. Bullet sponges is not an interesting endgame.

I have played it before the update and it was in a good spot, bugs aside. Now it has been made easier, I do not need to play it to conclude from info A) Enemies' HP and armor have been nerfed and info B) friend telling me seeker volley lets you finish missions in no time that the nerf was unnecessary.

1 hour ago, SpicyDinosaur said:

I have to agree with this even though I'm not fond of seeing "casuals" used as a pejorative

Casual for lack of a better word, hence the quotation marks.

1 hour ago, bad4youLT said:

Enemys were bullet spunges , archguns were hot garbage and ground enemys with redicuosly high armour .

This sounds like something someone would say who took an MK 1 Apoc into Veil Proxima. In the very beginning it was imbalanced, yes, but that is not what we were talking about. After the first few adjustments, railjack was in a good spot. You could oneshot most small units the cryophon which really meant something given the small enemy count you are usually faced against.

49 minutes ago, STUVash said:

I got you fam. You don't "have" to set your railjack to be beefy. You can customize it to fit the difficulty you wish to play at.

1 hour ago, kapn655321 said:

If you want difficulty in the game, try using something that isn't sure to win

So you're saying I should make myself artificially weaker because the game doesn't manage to supply enough of a challenge in a gamemode that was meant to be the peak of current """endgame""" (NOTE THE QUOTATION MARKS)? Yeah, no, that is plain stupid.

Warframe does this thing where it will always let you shred millions of enemies in a single mission but will rarely put you up against something challanging. By challenging I don't mean challenging to gear but challenging to player skill. Railjack is challanging to player skill; There are so many things to manage and look out for, theres always action going on both outside and inside the ship. Nerfing enemies, making them fodder, leads to reducing action, by consequence stress, engagement and challenge. It is a stupid notion that makes potentially engaging gameplay just another braindead grind isle.

16 minutes ago, Felsagger said:

ROFL, do you think that veterans spend a lot of money in this game? They farm and sell for platinum gains without spending a dime in the game. I'm an MR 28 veteran who played this game for seven years. 

This. You're a veteran when you don't need plat that urgently that you need to spend money on it.

[Felsagger]

4 minutes ago, 3rdpig said:

Here's an idea. Go go business school with an eye to games. Or, just ask someone who has.

But until then I'll do my best to help out. It's not a "small handful" of casuals against a huge number of vets who have min/maxed every frame and weapon in the game, it's the latter who are the small minority and the casuals, and noobs that are constantly flooding into the game who are in the majority...and who bring the money.

Why do you think professional sports teams are constantly pandering/catering to younger fans and casuals? Because without a constant influx of new fans and the occasional "casual" fan (including spouses and significant others who really aren't that interested), the game dies.

Mathematics strikes again.

Common sense. Completely agree. 

Besides do you think that companies in general are going to disclose in detail how much money they do only on micro transactions? Such proof exists but no one here has access to that stream of data. No company display such number in public. No one. To be honest a smaller studio like DE is going to do it? Really? Are they going to expose the whole distribution of players and how they make money through these micro transactions?

 

 

[kapn655321]

6 minutes ago, Vespilan said:

So you're saying I should make myself artificially weaker

Are you saying the game should be arbitrarily bottlenecking builds for end game to only exist for the top 1% of Hundreds of weapons, dozens of frames, mods, methods?

Why not let your weapons be nerfed? If enemies aren't surviving long enough, then your weapons aren't working right for Warframe. You could OPT to have the experience you want, but it's, "artificial." So to make it real, they need to take enough damage out of those combinations to where you stop shooting yourself in the foot.

[Aldain]

Here we go, another Casual vs Hardcore argument where everyone tries to make the casual player look like a knuckle dragging neanderthal with hyperbolic "All nerfs are bad" arguments while claiming that bullet sponges are good game design.

[Krankbert]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Vespilan:

I have heard that railjack veil proxima missions can now be solo'd in under five minutes thanks to seeker volley. DE; This is how stuff goes from content to grind, it gets boring because its just so ridicolously easy, just as on-foot missions. And with all this keep in mind, there is still the commander intrinsics tree coming up!

We cant have endgame content because a handfull of players keep crying about how hard any new gamemode is because they haven't adapted to it yet, DE gives in and creates another grindzone. 

How often have you failed a Veil Proxima mission before the latest changes?

[SpicyDinosaur]

1 hour ago, Felsagger said:

For better or worse casual, sporadics and newbies are the target for service games in general. Warframe is no exception. Any game that is devised as a service will end if there is end game and fixed meta. Veterans generate less money than the set of new players. As other people said before the casual, sporadics and newbies plays more the game because they want to get good hence more revenue for the company. Veterans rarely stays in the game regularly. 

For end game, yes, of course there are other challenging experiences like Dark Soul Series and Bloodborne. This is not a game suited for endgame. If that happens DE runs out of business. Search challenges elsewhere. I did that long time ago. 

Umm most MMOs have endgame content. What are you talking about??

 

I'm curious about solid details on spending habits either way.