Is DE starting to wake up?

[OvisCaedo]

The biggest obstacle to "end game" isn't enemy design or levels, it's that warframe's entire gameplay foundation was broken from the start, and has only been bizarrely power creeped since. Uh... It's tangential, but I'll copy something I wrote a few days ago into a spoiler here, I guess.

Spoiler

Everything's just completely broken from the core foundation up; weapon modding was just about born out of control, as were even the simplest "stun everything in X meters" powers that have been on frames since the early years. A lot of it has certainly gotten worse as years have gone on, in terms of power creep and just... general gameplay spiraling out of control so hard that there frequently stops being gameplay.

Even in the early years, though, before people claimed power creep became a problem, things like Trinity existed and meant that everything else in the squad could have virtually infinite energy for their full room lockdown powers. Corrupted mods have existed since 2013, coming out within mere months of the game leaving closed beta, and those were probably the biggest jump of potential system breaking that ability modding ever had. Power design itself has gotten more convoluted since then, though, which is kind of impressive. You'd think there'd be limits on how long a chain of one-upping "alright you lock down or kill everything around" could go on for.

On the weapon modding side, it was also pretty much broken from near the start. Having like 5 or 6 different multiplicative stats for damage that you're almost always going to take ALL of meant that numerical scaling was never going to be possible to control. Though I think elemental mods and status worked differently WAY back, so at least one of the steps might not have been from the start? Melee modding is probably the only aspect that's ACTUALLY gotten absurd amounts of mechanical power creep compared to the core stats that were always there since the start.

Of course, on top of that, enemy design certainly IS lacking! There are a lot of different major aspects that DE would need to tackle pretty much simultaneously to end up at any kind of balance-able result to make an endgame or challenge out of. OR just trying to design content and boss fights that regularly remove large amounts of gameplay options and systems from us either in brief phases or as their whole foundation. Like how Eidolons seem to be designed almost entirely as an 'operator' boss fight that tries to make frames as irrelevant as possible. (though they both failed horribly at making operator options/gameplay balanced either, and also the attempt at making frames as irrelevant as possible mostly instead had the result of leaving a small number as the only ones which do anything and are hence treated as near-mandatory), or how Exploiter's second phase is almost entirely just throwing capsules at an opponent that does nothing to engage with you in any way.

Weapons that scale exponentially off of like six stats that have no match up at all to how enemy scaling works means that the EHP on enemies can never be balanced; MMO gear treadmills are dull but the design works because gear progression and enemy levels are deliberately designed against each other with expectations for what you'll have at what point, and that you'll mostly be moving upwards instead of being expected to repeatedly grind the same missions the low level players are. Plus, exponential mod-based scaling means gaps between different weapons' performance become massive. Warframe power design and broken energy economy mean that AI improvements or enemy design can never really provide a challenge unless they also are immune to those powers to begin with, which then just means many abilities are useless. Warframe EHPs differing from each other by factors of, what, 100x or more mean that enemy damage output can never be balanced to something that threatens a 'tanky' frame without it being instant death for any of the frames who aren't, and it's also not a game where MMO style aggro mechanics really exist at all to make the survivability gap a deliberate aspect of teamplay. (plus the game's generally not expected to be played in coordinated squads to begin with, it's primarily based on random blind matchmaking)

but much of the playerbase is also deeply in love with the power fantasy provided by all of this, so. Whatcha gonna do? You can't really just sidestep this stuff exclusively for a hard end game while leaving the casual experience untouched, because most of the problems are from the foundation.

Edited June 29, 2020 by OvisCaedo

[Nezha_Rose]

Im geared to deal with this challenge without cheesing, so Im not gonna waste time complaining about "difficulty". What I am gonna complain about is that this feels like a one and done deal. Aside from Affinity, I just dont see myself running this mode *often* other than help clan members with their starchart. 

The added resource boost doesnt seem efficient considering it takes a bit more time to kill more enemies. 
The added mod boost doesnt seem efficient considering it takes more time to kill more enemies.

Im glad DE is making steps in order to make a fun and tense experience, but again they seem to hold back on rewards, like disruption once was, Liches once was, Railjack once was, etc etc etc.

[Thrymm]

Nah, just as they stated, I don't think this is an "end game" concept.  But that doesn't mean I don't agree with the overall sentiment.

I DO think this is a step in the right direction, and I do think that it is a "waking up" for DE.  It's a realization that far too much of the current content is completely trivial, and it is a step toward offering something that'll actually take more than 1/100th of a hit from your average weapon without folding onto the ground, with enemies capable of doing damage that can't be overcome with a single rejuvenation aura while you're afk and watching youtube videos.

While the missions themselves, and the higher levels themselves, have little to nothing to do with any kind of end game concept, it does open the door toward building possibilities for actual content, and most notably it's a building block toward appropriate enemies without leaning on invulnerabilities, blanket damage reductions, and other modifiers that detract from the game.  I'm looking forward to where it can go from here, though I think this thing, in and of itself, is a very small step.

[TastyTaro]

*sigh*

alright, i watched some videos about this "hard mode". it's basically a starchart in new game+. I wonder how long it took to develop such concept? 2 mins during a coffee break i assume. Basically this piece of content will be played once for mastery, for decoration, whatever, and then forgotten. But hey it's not something new right?

[Koga.]

On 2020-06-28 at 1:55 PM, VenomousValentine said:

So the steel path interests me, but what interests me MORE is the fact that they have said this is a step towards end game and not to be conflated with endgame itself, which reads to me as "we know the steel path is artificial difficulty for now, but enjoy this while we make actual end game content."

 

You really still have hope for DE?

[Avienas]

59 minutes ago, Kel_Silonius said:

*sigh*

alright, i watched some videos about this "hard mode". it's basically a starchart in new game+. I wonder how long it took to develop such concept? 2 mins during a coffee break i assume. Basically this piece of content will be played once for mastery, for decoration, whatever, and then forgotten. But hey it's not something new right?

Way less time then them making alternate game modes like Defection (which likely uses the same function as capture, except your guarding the `targets` and they are made to go towards certain points before given the go ahead pings) and disruption, which just uses a bunch of checks to spawn X enemy for both conduit key spawners and demolyst spawners once a key is put in, which could also technically be using the same code as capture in my opinion, except you have to kill the target before it reaches its `target`.

Ultimately, when you take a fine metallic comb thru most new content, it can easily give off the impression they just tweaked existing game modes by some slightest actions and tossed some polish on and called it a new game mode. But ultimately this is me being cynical i guess towards the same feelings that makes me ditch some games, content repeating the same thing way too often with the reason to even do such is basically non-existent or effectively dead on arrival, ruining any chance for one to get attached to the game mode in its broken state, so they give little care to give it a second chance, months later after its semi-fixes.

Sure, a game mode can have infinite replay value, when done right, such as having 2 or 3 solid reasons why you want to keep doing said content.

• This is pretty much where something like Advance quest on PSO2 is a fine example of a replay value content, since they give much more exp then normal compared to enemies, you can boost the gain value with threat level, it becomes easier to trigger what is known as a PSE Burst, where enemies will spawn like crazy as the in-quest boosters stack up like crazy. Shame Warframe does not really use game modes where enemy spawn amounts are much less or additional enemies will not spawn as you kill them. Plus it even has after-end value by being able to exchange a currency that drops so often in advance quest, you could exchange it for various goodies like high rarity weapons for grind/affix fodder, amongst other things.

But overall, most of warframe`s reason to play X game mode over another has pretty much been made pointless in more ways then just simply X better game mode showing up. Such as a stagnation of use of resources, besides so-called fashion statements to your orbiter/dojo, which at that point is more vain satisfactions to show off to yourself or friends, where your making the `content` at that point, where D.E. is just tossing some sand-box like tools to you. In addition to how to tackle certain content either require a tedious level of prep work or feels basically the same regardless of the planet, unless ridiculous modifiers like sortie level stuff is shoved into place.

Speaking of which, do people even remember content like Invasion & Nightmare missions? Besides the few mc`guffins people need for some must-have goods, i feel like they are just as non-existent of worth-whileness as is `darvo`s deals` & resource extracting drones.

[TastyTaro]

1 час назад, Avienas сказал:

Plus it even has after-end value by being able to exchange a currency that drops so often in advance quest, you could exchange it for various goodies like high rarity weapons for grind/affix fodder, amongst other things.

yeah-yeah. i was hoping it would be some additional currency which players can trade for certain goods, but nope it's just... what we see.

 

1 час назад, Avienas сказал:

called it a new game mode

Sanctuary Onslaught is an exterminate mission with nightmare timer mission modifier. re-use of assets, a good one.

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anyway this game is a horde shooter after all and i'm fine with this, it's just shame that a developer only managed to make a single one encounter in the game which actually fun (subjective), but this startchart+ is just... cheap. and it's cheap on many aspects.