Pablo acknowledges why better AI alone will not be enough for good difficulty in WF: We need to be nerfed first

[Loza03]

1 minute ago, PatternistSlave said:

Arbitrations, Corrupted and Corpus are a nightmare and he took a hard nerf to sentients.  Only being useful in select missions is a pretty big drawback.  The Limbo hate has been overblown due to his history as a troll frame imo.

I main Limbo, and have for a long time. Know that any criticism I have of him comes from a place of love - and take my word that there really is not very much that he's not at least somewhat useful for. Sometimes for skillful reasons... others not so much.

4 minutes ago, PatternistSlave said:

See, like I don't.  I want all to fall before me as I prance around like a god.  Can we really not both exist in the same game?

Not without compromise. Not without respecting that regardless of our own preferences, that other's preferences, opinions and playstyles need to be respected.

This applies to  @Felsagger as well, as I said in my own reply.

[Hokibukisa]

Pablo needs to build a new game, this is warframe.

This game is built from the ground up with rationality or balance not even as an afterthought.

They do blanket nerfs to arcanes, add bubble shields not giving an F about slow firing weapons, and ridiculous armor values without even thinking about it.

Pablo needs to not touch anything if the first thing that comes to mind is nerfing CC, because there are frames that do nothing but CC, and they are already worthless.

 

Just.. don't touch it. Warframe will never be balanced. Its impossible, all you'll do is make a bunch of stuff utter garbage.

[PatternistSlave]

12 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Not without compromise. Not without respecting that regardless of our own preferences, that other's preferences, opinions and playstyles need to be respected.

Yeah I mean that's kindof what I don't get.  Can't we just nerf ourselves any time we like?  What if there was just more of an incentive to do so?

[Aldain]

21 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Not without compromise.

Ah yes, the dreaded and reviled "c" word.

The current compromise for difficulty is quite literally playing a co-op game solo 90% of the time.

Don't want to have somebody else play the game for you? That's your fault for wanting to play the game with other people, in fact wishing that you could contribute more than extra spawns to nuke is considered "selfish" by some people.

[Loza03]

Just now, PatternistSlave said:

Yeah I mean that's kindof what I don't get.  Can't we just nerf ourselves any time we like?  What if there was just more of an incentive to do so?

Nerfing ourselves doesn't work. The main conceit of this thread is that Pablo, one of the lead Warframe designers, has put forward the idea that DE can't make more interesting AI, encounters, whatever, with the current Warframe design. Voluntary nerfing doesn't apply, because we can undo that whenever we want as well, and that means DE have to assume that we're going into any encounter with full power. I.e., that we can turn off said encounter with no downsides. When I say that we need to respect each others playstyles, I mean in terms of what we suggest. This thread is full of people arguing about their own extreme end of the spectrum - about making Warframe into a far more hardcore action game vs keeping it the borderline cookie clicker it is now. The few voices speaking up that, no, that's not necessary tend to get buried ,or others actively fan the flames against them. 

Warframe cannot prosper on the path it is now - the path of just being a game where you fiddle whilst the world burns. That's the path its on and it is flagging. Not dying, not yet, but steam charts show a undeniable decline - one we can assume is matched on most platforms. Whilst its fortunes may have turned, that uptick has only happened during the lockdown - there's no guarantee it won't go right back to haemorrhaging players again, and indeed, it's likely to. 

Likewise, Warframe cannot survive as a hardcore action game. Abnegation - playing the game to relax, unwind and de-stress without thinking will always be a part of it, and should always - just grinding out a new weapon, a couple nightwave levels or even just screwing around in captura dressing up your frames is as much a core of the game as the combat is.

Warframe cannot survive on mindless content alone. But it cannot survive without it either. Both address psychological needs that humans have - the drive to succeed, and the need to relax. The goal is to create a game where both kinds of content can co-exist. This is not the game we have now - Warframe, as it is now, is a game where they are clashing. Mindless gameplay styles outperform hardcore gameplay styles, making the 'hardcore' content play mindlessly. And even some of the hardcore content is muscling in on abnegation gameplay - there's a reason things like 1-hour endurance in nightwave got pushback.

[(PSN)MoRockaPDX]

The problem I have with the argument of not improving AI-because nuke frames-is, not everyone plays to the strongest meta all the time. I play the meta when it serves, but normally I just do what I enjoy. And I would enjoy improved enemy AI. Enemies attacking/blocking our objectives, sure this is a good thing too. 

I was also thinking, an interesting approach to nerfering WF power level could be tied to the Rage/Spartan/Limit Breaker mode that has been teased. Something like pushing half our power stats behind the limited mode that has to be unlocked with active gameplay. Build the limit breaker and unlock your potential. This in theory could push the power level back, while players earn their god tier power. Dropping Nova bombs in Destiny is fun because they come rarely but are often clutch. I don't take it for granted because I don't spam them, to the point that enemies have to scale to the point of making the power irrelevant.

Either way, I would like to see more interesting AI in the game. 

 

Examples of how to build the limit breaker. Head Shot, Sliding Kills, Killing Raised Enemies, Aim Glide Kills, etc. 

Just imagining how this mechanic would work. If your frames pre limit break are set to a maximum of 100% power level, then powers are inherently balance for normal start chart difficulty in theory. Hit your limit breaker and your power modding goes into full effect. For the duration of the limit breaker you have your fulling modded power level to bring use against the enemy. Plus the gimmick power/abilities that come with these Rage mode features. Perhaps this could be its own adjustable system, or certain WF express this mode differently. 

Also, envisioning the limit breaker working like this: Limit Break occurs when it build to a score of say 1000. By default it will build at 1 point a second. So, it would break on its own in 16.67 minutes. However maintain actions like Head Shots, Sliding Kills, Killing Raised Enemies, Aim Glide Kills, and a per melee combo tier, all increase the rate this score increases. Lets say this could be build up to and maintained for a x5 increase or 5 points per second. That would make the Limit Break every 3.33 minutes. If the LM Rage mode last say 30 seconds of unbridles Tenno power, then you could introduce methods to increase this default, to possibly x2.

Edited May 23, 2020 by (PS4)MoRockaPDX

[Aldain]

1 minute ago, (PS4)MoRockaPDX said:

Build the limit breaker and unlock your potential.

That's actually most of the problem with the ease of nuke power these days, it is insanely on-demand and due to the current energy economy it has no drawbacks.

Weapons also have the same problem, a dumbfired Kuva Bramma bolt will always outperform even the most precise of shots because it hits more, damage drop-off or no it can still kill more than a sniper round unless you have mounds of punch through and are shooting down a hallway.

The issue with things is that there's no (sane) drawbacks, AoE weapons used to have the drawback of self-damage, but it was so much that it was passed over for Warframe abilities most of the time because it was insane to use them.

If it took longer to build things up it wouldn't matter how much damage it would do because there would then be an actual need for something in-between each nuke, the playstyle would become slower but more efficient in the long haul instead.

[(PSN)MoRockaPDX]

8 minutes ago, Aldain said:

That's actually most of the problem with the ease of nuke power these days, it is insanely on-demand and due to the current energy economy it has no drawbacks.

Weapons also have the same problem, a dumbfired Kuva Bramma bolt will always outperform even the most precise of shots because it hits more, damage drop-off or no it can still kill more than a sniper round unless you have mounds of punch through and are shooting down a hallway.

The issue with things is that there's no (sane) drawbacks, AoE weapons used to have the drawback of self-damage, but it was so much that it was passed over for Warframe abilities most of the time because it was insane to use them.

If it took longer to build things up it wouldn't matter how much damage it would do because there would then be an actual need for something in-between each nuke, the playstyle would become slower but more efficient in the long haul instead.

Thank you, for your thoughts.

I certainly agree it is a complex problem. I just don't want to accept that doing nothing is because so many players default to the min/max meta, and the simplest and least engaging tactics. Don't get me wrong, I am impressed what it take to discover these metas, but, I don't personally find them engaging for the long term enjoyment of the game. I do agree something would have to be done to mitigate weapons like the Kuva Bramm or the Synoid Simulor, etc, as They will just step in until the Limit Breaker... breaks. Kinda, why I think the challenges to built the LB should lean toward gameplay that doesn't benefit from spamming explosives and AOE weapons. Sure, there will always be some exploit or blindside, but I feel it would still be an improvement for the general state of the game.

Edited May 23, 2020 by (PS4)MoRockaPDX

[Aldain]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)MoRockaPDX said:

Thank you, for your thoughts.

No problem, also a few pages back I had a discussion with an Equinox fan (Tokens210 iirc), it was concerning the concept of a per-hit damage cap to slow the build of Maim without putting a cap on the max damage she can do.

Things like that could move away from one-button nuking, increase the value of CC frames and allow for more variety without needing to nerf the nuke frames total overall power.

The concept of a Limit Break also intrigues me, after all, many people compare this to Dynasty Warriors, it has a similar system that pushes the power higher for short bursts.

...Come to think of it they did a similar thing to Grineer Armor recently, it still scales, but it spikes slower, perhaps that would be a good route to go on our end too.

[(PSN)N7_Dredgen]

I've always been against any real increase in difficulty because the reality is DE will never nerf the grind to match it.  I don't want to spend 10x longer on things that are already dragged out with intentionally grindy design.  

If I knew we lived in an ideal world, and that DE would cut the grind time to match the increase in mission time that would be inevitable from a difficulty increase, then I would be more on board.

Forget any other factors.  I value my time.  I'd rather the game stay a brainless horde shooter than become a full time job. 

[PatternistSlave]

4 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

The main conceit of this thread is that Pablo, one of the lead Warframe designers, has put forward the idea that DE can't make more interesting AI, encounters, whatever, with the current Warframe design.

He only said perfecting AI was rather pointless so long as CC existed, not really the rest of that.  Went on to talk about how impossible it would be to balance the level of variety in warframe.  Said he thought challenge would be more likely achieved through mechanics as opposed to numbers.

19 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Voluntary nerfing doesn't apply, because we can undo that whenever we want as well, and that means DE have to assume that we're going into any encounter with full power. I.e., that we can turn off said encounter with no downsides.

An incentive would mean a downside to not.  Say a mod that gave triple drops, but cost all your capacity.  The downside to not using it being drops at a slower rate.

[Faerwald]

Le 17/05/2020 à 23:35, Aldain a dit :

Anyone ever play Killing Floor on the higher difficulties? THAT ACTUALLY NEEDS TEAMWORK MOST OF THE TIME.

I agree that it'd be nice for coordination to be necessary in order to succeed some mission, but wouldn't the hardcore solo players riot? 

And unfortunately, if you can solo everything in the game, that also means team coordination isn't that necessary, unless they were to include special mechanics or enemies that only apply to multiplayer, but I'm not sure what. 

[Aldain]

Just now, (NSW)Faerwald said:

I agree that it'd be nice for coordination to be necessary in order to succeed some mission, but wouldn't the hardcore solo players riot? 

Technically you can solo in Killing Floor too, the game scales itself in addition to having multiple difficulties, the co-op enriches things but is also very well scaled to smaller parties.

Warframe has similar systems in place, though Survival life support drops are a problem, so is the huge KPS needed for ESO, however in modes like Defense the waves scale well for solo to smaller parties as well as it does for max size. So it isn't a non-viable option, hek, people solo Railjack which encourages teams, and that doesn't scale at all for smaller parties.

I say this as a fairly common solo player myself, the only mode that particularly discourages soloing aside from spawn and KPS issues is Interception, and that is still manageable with planning. Currently party cohesion isn't even really optional, it is barely possible if one person does the work of 4 with less effort than 2 people.

[Faerwald]

And to respond to the title of the topic, personally I think the game game needs better AI, but it was never about difficulty as far as I'm concerned, but more for immersion sake. 

I mean I'm fighting this powerful military force. They should feel like an army, fighting together, relying on each other. Grineer squads should behave like units. It doesn't matter that they still would get vaporized in seconds, they would still FEEL smarter. 

Like, imagine if the shield guy had a bigger shield the lancers would hide behind and shoot you from. Or if they had a melee specialist that could actually block some of your melee attacks. I suppose maybe those are more on the side of mechanics rather than AI, and maybe that's what Pablo meant, but as it stands I was kinda disappointed by his answer. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by (NSW)Faerwald

[Felsagger]

3 hours ago, Loza03 said:

I respect that. But, let's not forget - this game isn't only designed for you. Warframe, by nature, has to appeal to a great many people to survive and thrive. I cannot imagine a triple-A action RPG MMO is cheap to make. And at the end of the day, it is an Action RPG - although the RPG has to make concession to the action game, the action game has to make concessions to the RPG as well. The best we can hope for is that the hybridisation produces something greater than the sum of its parts - something neither alone can produce.

I'm sure that such game is not designed for me. I found a play style in it. That's why I had seven years playing the game. The design of the game is one of the best feature in it. Many game play styles are accommodated in the game. There are many War Frames that defines those styles and approaches. I was a PC, PS4 player that joined the game. The game provided me the taste of my interests. After that I moved towards Dark Souls, Over Watch and many other games including War Frame. 

Casting and synergy RPG mechanics was new for me. To be honest I don't repent myself of getting that part of the game. Now I play many other games because of it. My traditions are the old school of skills and load outs. War Frame carried that spirit quite well among many other experiences. Yes the peculiarity of the product was DE's winning card and their success, no one denies that. However the way I see the game is from the perspective of the FPS player who values the behavior, nature, type and engagement of the enemy. Other features in it like the mods, casting, tenno schools are a plus. My focus is on the parkour and the best rendition of primaries and secondaries. Melee is seen as a close countermeasure. 

No game should be designed for my likes. Such game doesn't exist. I find experiences in games that calls my interest. No game has them all. That's why more than one game. 

[(PSN)UltraKardas]

On 2020-05-17 at 3:36 PM, Jarriaga said:

It's not that easy.

Is it though? People keep buying games like Dynasty Warrior. You are aware that warframe has been a power fantasy game and to this day its STILL in the top 10 games in steam. 


It's been that way for years. YEARS. The people who complain about challenge need to have better suggestions, and embrace things like raids, raid bosses, and other content instead of wanting everything nerfed all the time. 

Yet despite all the people's complaints, warframe has its problems. But people rather complain in order of their feelings then make the game better.

[Felsagger]

2 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Nerfing ourselves doesn't work. The main conceit of this thread is that Pablo, one of the lead Warframe designers, has put forward the idea that DE can't make more interesting AI, encounters, whatever, with the current Warframe design. Voluntary nerfing doesn't apply, because we can undo that whenever we want as well, and that means DE have to assume that we're going into any encounter with full power. I.e., that we can turn off said encounter with no downsides. When I say that we need to respect each others playstyles, I mean in terms of what we suggest. This thread is full of people arguing about their own extreme end of the spectrum - about making Warframe into a far more hardcore action game vs keeping it the borderline cookie clicker it is now. The few voices speaking up that, no, that's not necessary tend to get buried ,or others actively fan the flames against them. 

Warframe cannot prosper on the path it is now - the path of just being a game where you fiddle whilst the world burns. That's the path its on and it is flagging. Not dying, not yet, but steam charts show a undeniable decline - one we can assume is matched on most platforms. Whilst its fortunes may have turned, that uptick has only happened during the lockdown - there's no guarantee it won't go right back to haemorrhaging players again, and indeed, it's likely to. 

Likewise, Warframe cannot survive as a hardcore action game. Abnegation - playing the game to relax, unwind and de-stress without thinking will always be a part of it, and should always - just grinding out a new weapon, a couple nightwave levels or even just screwing around in captura dressing up your frames is as much a core of the game as the combat is.

Warframe cannot survive on mindless content alone. But it cannot survive without it either. Both address psychological needs that humans have - the drive to succeed, and the need to relax. The goal is to create a game where both kinds of content can co-exist. This is not the game we have now - Warframe, as it is now, is a game where they are clashing. Mindless gameplay styles outperform hardcore gameplay styles, making the 'hardcore' content play mindlessly. And even some of the hardcore content is muscling in on abnegation gameplay - there's a reason things like 1-hour endurance in nightwave got pushback.

 

 

Precise. 

 

War Frame is a strange creature that is rarely conceived. It requires different approaches and combined effort on balancing, content and accessories. This GAAS F2P game is a service. It requires maintenance and constant client survey and contact. That's why we have the dev streams and prime times. Too much difficulty the product gets hurt, too much apparel the product gets hurt, non challenging content the product get hurt. DE is dealing with emphasis and interest on three fronts at the same time while they work with the machinery of War Frame code that is characterized by CACE nature of it. 

At this point I don't have any positive or negative expectation. I roll with the new games while my old War Frame game gets better updates and advances throughout DE's and the community brainstorming. It certainly will get better with age. It will NOT be the game we want but a game that certainly will enjoy. Everyone of us perceives it in a particular way. It's inevitable. I will not expect much out of it. I'll enjoy whatever the game throws at us while we point out the bugs and the minor details. 

 

 

[Kappa83]

(Skipped reading 44 pages of topic, but I think I grasped the issues. Hopefully)

 

Now let's just hope that DE doesn't go the other way around: so instead nerfing frame's abilities, they give them to grineers!

(That's actually a joke, but I truly fear someone at DE would see this foolish idea as a way to increase difficulty without nerfing stuff. DE, don't. It's a recipe for frustration)

[medomai]

I'm okay with us players getting nerfed. Combat is quite frankly boring when enemies pose no risk or challenge. 

[Felsagger]

37 minutes ago, medomai said:

Combat is quite frankly boring when enemies pose no risk or challenge. 

 

Can't disagree with such fact. That's many of us are gathered here talking about various perspectives and solutions on the current problem. 

[(XBOX)ShonOfDawn]

3 hours ago, Kappa83 said:

Now let's just hope that DE doesn't go the other way around: so instead nerfing frame's abilities, they give them to grineers!

 

Imagine having to face a Grineer Mesa or Saryn. That is stuff of nightmares

 

Edit: Now that I think about it, they already did. Liches are exactly that. And it works only to an extent. The base concept is great: some abilities actually need your attention (I've mainly faced radiation, fire and electricity liches, so I don't know about the others), like the oberon-like carpet, fireblast, and the knock-back laser beam of death (well most of this stuff can be ignored with some of the tank frames, but I digress). The issue is that they are badly conveyed. Most of the time the casting is near-instant, so you either have enough EHP to survive, just get plain lucky, or die. Once again, the player has little control, and the only thing that matters is your load out. While being buggy as hell, the melee grab is, unpopular opinion, probably the best mechanic a lich has. It's very dangerous, almost insta-killing every squishy frame. However, it is telegraphed and avoidable with a well timed roll or bullet jump. It adds a risk/reward loop to melee: being (often enough) our highest damaging tool, the risk of being killed adds an incentive to use guns and go in for melee just when the opportunity arises, and that's great. Single-handedly, that mechanic gives meaning to most of our equipment instead of allowing us to zero-in on the single best tool. If the telegraphed nature were to be added to their other abilities, maybe with a subsequent danger increase, it could promote higher variety in frame usage because suddenly a lack of tankiness could be compensated with skill and speed. Wow that was a long tangent, I'm sorry.

Edited May 23, 2020 by (XB1)ShonFr0st

[ZiIIion]

More challenging AI is still a whole lot better than stupid AI, no matter which way ya slice it.

[(PSN)sweatshawp]

8 minutes ago, R.O.G.U.E. said:

More challenging AI is still a whole lot better than stupid AI, no matter which way ya slice it.

They all die before they can actually be ai so how would it work 

[Felsagger]

4 hours ago, (PS4)sweatshawp said:

They all die before they can actually be ai so how would it work 

Certain enemy unites are immune to War Frame abilities. 

[CoefficientOfCool]

again. I dont think it's an AI difficulty issue, it's an issue of how to make rewarding* and challenging content that can keep nolifers and then the more casual players entertained with gameplay loops, reward tie-ins and proper incentive with no fomo tied in. build a gameplay loop people like and I promise they'll figure out how to balance it. why? it's hard to ignore something if people like it and its profitable? boom.