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

[EdDiesel]

Would be interesting to see invasions come to clan dojos as well. Players would have to defend there dojos from enemy attacks from time to time.

[Felsagger]

29 minutes ago, EdDiesel said:

Would be interesting to see invasions come to clan dojos as well. Players would have to defend there dojos from enemy attacks from time to time.

This is a fresh good idea. 

Somehow DE would solve a lot, a whole lot if Dojos starts to be more integrated with the game instead of being fashion show/trade places. 

[Gabbynaru]

9 hours ago, Vox_Preliator said:

That is an exceedingly ignorant and shortsighted stance to take that has been debunked dozens of times.

And the fact that this has more votes than the OP is a big reason I left this forum, it ain't worth arguing with children.  I don't think I'll be coming back again, if this is any indication of how emotionally and mentally mature the atmosphere is.

Or, you know, people have different tastes and actually enjoy things you don't. Whoop de freakin' doo. You call people children, but apparently you are the one who needs to grow up to understand that people having different opinions to you doesn't make them wrong.

[SneakyErvin]

17 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

2) His personal experience, because Reb herself said otherwise and the Steam stats indicate that concurrent player growth is extremely low for the number of new player accounts. This indicates a high level of attrition.

We have no indication that those new player accounts are all Steam accounts though. And have you analyzed the numbers enough to know if the increase in the playerbase it statistically the same compared to previous years in order to draw the conclussion that the concurrent growth is lower compared to previous years aswell?

You surely must have some numbers to back up the statements.

[(PSN)sweatshawp]

1 minute ago, SneakyErvin said:

We have no indication that those new player accounts are all Steam accounts though. And have you analyzed the numbers enough to know if the increase in the playerbase it statistically the same compared to previous years in order to draw the conclussion that the concurrent growth is lower compared to previous years aswell?

You surely must have some numbers to back up the statements.

While the steam chart isn’t end all be all it can provide a reasonable gauge as to how the rest of the player base is doing on average. We can’t get exact numbers. But it’s not like console warframe is doing significantly better or worse in terms of retention. It’s a sample size of the community that can be used to give a rough estimate of the rest of the communities concurrent numbers 

[Loza03]

12 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

We have no indication that those new player accounts are all Steam accounts though. And have you analyzed the numbers enough to know if the increase in the playerbase it statistically the same compared to previous years in order to draw the conclussion that the concurrent growth is lower compared to previous years aswell?

You surely must have some numbers to back up the statements.

Steam Charts aren't a perfect measure, of course, but it's not unreasonable to assume that trends seen on one platform are going to be mostly mirrored on another. Since the only real difference is a time delay (since Console gets updates later), I can't see any reason to not use Steam Charts as a trend marker.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Loza03

[Felsagger]

9 minutes ago, (PS4)sweatshawp said:

While the steam chart isn’t end all be all it can provide a reasonable gauge as to how the rest of the player base is doing on average. We can’t get exact numbers. But it’s not like console warframe is doing significantly better or worse in terms of retention. It’s a sample size of the community that can be used to give a rough estimate of the rest of the communities concurrent numbers 

True. 

I can't drive conclusions out of the PC behavior. I know about the PS4 community. I can't make suppositions using steam data for the PS4 community behavior. However the steam charts gives us an idea what is going on. If it is the truth, we don't know how to prove it. Steam charts will always become a controversial point. I understand the reticence of players when some discussions includes them. 

[SneakyErvin]

1 minute ago, (PS4)sweatshawp said:

While the steam chart isn’t end all be all it can provide a reasonable gauge as to how the rest of the player base is doing on average. We can’t get exact numbers. But it’s not like console warframe is doing significantly better or worse in terms of retention. It’s a sample size of the community that can be used to give a rough estimate of the rest of the communities concurrent numbers 

Indeed it can provide a reasonable gauge. I'm just pointing out that the "extremely low for the number of new player accounts" has zero meaning when out of context in comparison to the previous year and these months. How big is the percentual total player growth right now versus last year and how big is the percentual growth in concurrent players out of the total growth compared to last year.

And expecting concurrents to just grow and grow just because the total number does isnt reasonable. Older people leave just as newer people join. Just look at steam charts and compare the concurrents to the same months of 2018 and 2019. The differences are small. The changes are more or less based on when content releases happened.

[Sean]

Doing an overall nerf to WF would not really work well. The game does well as a "power-fantasy" and gutting that core would probably end up to be too much of a change for most people. Challenge though can come in the form of mechanics of the level and potentially requiring certain kinds of gear with a varying set of frames in the mix... basically a better version of Trials.

[Felsagger]

18 hours ago, Sean said:

Doing an overall nerf to WF would not really work well. The game does well as a "power-fantasy" and gutting that core would probably end up to be too much of a change for most people. Challenge though can come in the form of mechanics of the level and potentially requiring certain kinds of gear with a varying set of frames in the mix... basically a better version of Trials.

 

But a game with no challenge runs dry fast. DE wants to be politically correct on all fronts. However if they do that some aspects of the game will end up on the gutter. Sometimes developers need to spanks the player's butt few times so he learn and earn some dexterity with the game. Every game has difficulty settings accommodating players according to their abilities. There is no no exclusion, no favoritism or delicate hands. People select their challenge. 

Power fantasy is an easy win. No one remember those. A win by a whim is a tasty victory because it was well fought to the end. Not everybody must exercise their chess game, not everybody should be invited to the Bloodborne challenge but at least seasoned players wants a bit of more engaging skills than tile cleaners and outliers. Some games forgive, this one forgives too much. I come from the old school where challenge is the norm.

[Crystles]

Right so, I read the first 3 pages, and the last 2... On the off chance this thread isnt just completely derailed I'd like to say that as some one who's played warframe for some time, left and come back multiple times out of boredom (in both directions), I'd actually be incredibly happy and satisfied if I could tick a box that made all the starchart maps start at a significantly higher difficulty. Like, lvl 80+ at baseline for linear missions and endless starting at wave 30 equivalent. 

I'm completely fine with frames being frankly over powered. That's just Warframe things really... In fact, I really enjoyed working on my stuff to get them to that level, I just want something to do with them that justifies having a frame that can do that once it's there and more fully utilizes our frames abilities. 

I dont even care if the rewards dont change... I just want something exciting with out having to spend an hour+ in an endless because for me (and I suspect many others who also desire more challenging content), things arnt just easy, they're completely brain dead. 

Besides, if Warframe is to be a power fantasy game, shouldnt part of that be crushing many powerful foes? I dont know about the rest of you, but stepping on ants for 30-45 minutes before things even start to get interesting just isnt fun. So why not just let us start there?

This would likely be incredibly easy to do, and Warframe would lose nothing for it. I think many would find it refreshing to take on the old nodes again at a much higher level and mob densities. 

[Felsagger]

17 minutes ago, Crystles said:

Right so, I read the first 3 pages, and the last 2... On the off chance this thread isnt just completely derailed I'd like to say that as some one who's played warframe for some time, left and come back multiple times out of boredom (in both directions), I'd actually be incredibly happy and satisfied if I could tick a box that made all the starchart maps start at a significantly higher difficulty. Like, lvl 80+ at baseline for linear missions and endless starting at wave 30 equivalent. 

I'm completely fine with frames being frankly over powered. That's just Warframe things really... In fact, I really enjoyed working on my stuff to get them to that level, I just want something to do with them that justifies having a frame that can do that once it's there and more fully utilizes our frames abilities. 

I dont even care if the rewards dont change... I just want something exciting with out having to spend an hour+ in an endless because for me (and I suspect many others who also desire more challenging content), things arnt just easy, they're completely brain dead. 

Besides, if Warframe is to be a power fantasy game, shouldnt part of that be crushing many powerful foes? I dont know about the rest of you, but stepping on ants for 30-45 minutes before things even start to get interesting just isnt fun. So why not just let us start there?

This would likely be incredibly easy to do, and Warframe would lose nothing for it. I think many would find it refreshing to take on the old nodes again at a much higher level and mob densities. 

 I agree completely with this. It is a simple general solution that can be improved over time. 

[wtrmlnjuc]

I still think better AI should be implemented because no matter the difficulty, less jank and more interesting AI in turn makes the gameplay far more interesting, and thus the game gets better. Factions can become more distinct, fighting gets more depth, builds become more meaningful, and the atmosphere becomes more immersive. As they are right now, the AI fights the same way with only weapon, sound, and armour changes. And that A"I" includes a lot of flickering enemies, no use of ladders, getting stuck on walls, impossibly high jumps for some units, etc. It needs to be better polished no matter the difficulty, at least to a level rivaling Destiny 2's.

If Warframe enemies were flavours of ice cream, I'd rather have several interesting flavours over the few different-sprinkles-on-vanilla we have right now.

Edited June 5, 2020 by wtrmlnjuc

[Jarriaga]

16 hours ago, Crystles said:

Right so, I read the first 3 pages, and the last 2... On the off chance this thread isnt just completely derailed I'd like to say that as some one who's played warframe for some time, left and come back multiple times out of boredom (in both directions), I'd actually be incredibly happy and satisfied if I could tick a box that made all the starchart maps start at a significantly higher difficulty. Like, lvl 80+ at baseline for linear missions and endless starting at wave 30 equivalent. 

That's actually coming. +50 to base enemy level in hard mode and +100 in ultra hard mode according to DE. 

[Felsagger]

3 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

That's actually coming. +50 to base enemy level in hard mode and +100 in ultra hard mode according to DE. 

 

At least is something. A cheap shot but something to have fun with. 

[(PSN)UltraKardas]

11 hours ago, Felsagger said:

At least is something. A cheap shot but something to have fun with. 

Honestly,

If DE wants to make hard modes successful, they would make those mods the most efficient method of farming. (Having resources drop in larger amounts from the enemy that kills them, higher/better mod drop rates, and so on.

Warframe is so casual now because you are punished for doing harder content. Why would you fight level 140 enemies? You can kill low level enemies faster, get resources from them faster.

Elite Sanctuary Onslaught is about the highest level content people do, and that's just for the fast exp farms. You don't get any resources from that, other then the round rewards from Simaris.

I find myself low on only a single resource. So most of the game I just go around forma-ing new weapons, making it uber powerful. Getting bored, finding something else to max. Then people complain that my 8 forma-ed weapons, are overpowered compared to their 0 forma-ed weapons.

Having hard content that actually rewards players, especially with things everyone needs like great amounts of endo, rewards and such would pull people away from level 30 content. The uber powerful weapons and gear people have would actually serve a purpose now, rather then making a mission 30% faster.

[Felsagger]

On 2020-06-05 at 5:16 PM, wtrmlnjuc said:

I still think better AI should be implemented because no matter the difficulty, less jank and more interesting AI in turn makes the gameplay far more interesting, and thus the game gets better.

 

That's one of the things that I'm asking. Better A.I. gives newer results despite the capacity of the frames. The engagement becomes far better interesting instead of being a brain dead frame camping and spamming abilities. At least the enemy does something against the player. Adding new A.I. behavior the player feels immersible instead of walking all day and night on Sesame street. 

On 2020-06-05 at 5:16 PM, wtrmlnjuc said:

Factions can become more distinct, fighting gets more depth, builds become more meaningful, and the atmosphere becomes more immersive.

Exactly. Enemies with two or three weapons. Enemies with particular load outs and the ability to switch weapons. Enemies with grenades, sticky grenades, smoke bombs, smoke electric diffuse clouds, grav attractors and so on. Their equipment needs modernization.  

On 2020-06-05 at 5:16 PM, wtrmlnjuc said:

As they are right now, the AI fights the same way with only weapon, sound, and armour changes. And that A"I" includes a lot of flickering enemies, no use of ladders, getting stuck on walls, impossibly high jumps for some units, etc. It needs to be better polished no matter the difficulty, at least to a level rivaling Destiny 2's.

True the enemy is not fully aware of the level features. They simply cull themselves through their line paths programmed in every level. 

On 2020-06-05 at 5:16 PM, wtrmlnjuc said:

If Warframe enemies were flavours of ice cream, I'd rather have several interesting flavours over the few different-sprinkles-on-vanilla we have right now.

Precisely. I agree completely with what you are thinking. At least the game gets more depth and places becomes more distinguishable.  

[EdDiesel]

I believe enemy difficulty or engagement can be achieved by allowing enemy spawns or waves depending on mission type have a chance of spawning a group of enemies that share and spread within a range damage resistance. Not invulnerability but resistance. If there is an elite solider on the field he (depending on mission level) can be as tough as a level 5 lich spreading his random resistance buff to surrounding enemies. You can choose to take down the elite mob first or weaken him by first addressing his adds that allow him to be beefy. As they are taken out he reduced slightly in toughness.