On Sustainability Of Play

[Archade]

Ive gotten 3 99% multishots from xini, a few really nice mods for my main frame (50% power efficiency+ loot radar, 25% sprint speed+75 health) Lots of lesser multishots. Of course all my basic mods (charge speed or damage, shield stuff, power duration, etc) are pretty much maxed singles, I have no idea how many times ive ran xini

my main complaint about xini is that this games hard to keep going because for some reason people like to quit between runs, and while i can solo xini it requires a total shift in gameplay and its slower. Luckily update 7 seems to have longer duration defense missions planned, which im looking forward to.

As ive said elsewhere fun is a short term thing, you cant do long term on fun, fun makes the process more enjoyable, but with out a purpose for doing that process there's no reason. Fun doesn't support long term goals, it just keeps you from complaining about it while working towards them. Since this game does have an enjoyable combat system its one of the reasons i recommend a grind for it, most people are used to terrible games with grinds and so become averse to grinds. Theres no way that fun will sustain someone through the physical discomfort of a long term grind though.

Grinding is like a marathon, it rewards efficient expenditure of energy and conditioning, its about consistency and long term strategy. Thats why i like it. This is the reason as an above post said likened people grinding to 'zombies'. The reason is simple, your body starts to shut down systems it does not need to conserve energy. Things like talking or even hearing are not required, you don't need to move anything but your hands and arms. This is how people are able to grind for long durations with out passing out. Its marvelous. When i see someone better at it than me i admire their ability and it makes me want to try and improve. When i see people complain about grinding i know they have never experienced real grinding before. The repetition allows for the development of highly refined execution. Grinding leads to a search for optimal efficiency, no wasted action. Its beautiful.

[Zinn]

Grinding is terrible and should be eliminated at all costs. Grinding is by definition doing something not enjoyable to obtain something you want and I hope most people are enjoying the game and obtaining their stuff. Also, I am extremely surprised to come this far in a topic like this and not a single person has suggested Diablo as the perfect game for the topic at hand (not Diablo 3, though, they ruined the concept with the AH).

Diablo has no real end game either. Sure, you can technically complete it by smashing the title character's face in on Normal and never bother with it again, but the entire game is based around getting gear from random drops in random maps from random monsters - With added challenge and better drops on higher difficulties. Warframe is similar in that you're obtaining random mods from random levels but I don't see why you couldn't add other stuff to that eventually. Why not have a small chance of color patterns for frames, a single color from the palette, unique boss drops that scale and vary in power depending on how you obtained it (solo vs 4 man group) or something else that you could customize your character with and have it drop in-game? People often hit the "wall" when they feel like they've accomplished everything they want to or currently can and these things could help it a bit. DE still needs to do something about obtaining potatoes, though, since a fully upgraded level 30 frame is essential if you ever want to solo anything on the end-game planets but stealing a little bit from Diablo doesn't seem out of place IMO.

Of course, Diablo will always go the extra mile that WF doesn't because everything in that game must be obtained randomly while still having some liniar progression (eg. you can always buy a standard or magical weapon that can handle the local area, even if sub-par) but with a greater mod range and use, among some other things like the ones I've mentioned, people could suddenly have more to play for here.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Zinn

[Archade]

Grinding is terrible and should be eliminated at all costs. Grinding is by definition doing something not enjoyable to obtain something you want and I hope most people are enjoying the game and obtaining their stuff. Also, I am extremely surprised to come this far in a topic like this and not a single person has suggested Diablo as the perfect game for the topic at hand (not Diablo 3, though, they ruined the concept with the AH).

Diablo has no real end game either.

Yes it does. Grinding. D1 had laz runs, d2 had baal runs (and mf runs).

And reaching the level cap in both games (while not really necessary) took a very long time.

So the endgame of d1 and d2 was grinding exp and farming items by doing repetitive tasks. It had a fast pace combat system where you slaughtered lots of things and made enjoyable corpses litter the landscape.

So here we have an example of a game that was very addicting and fun, whos endgame was doing repetitive tasks forever to make numbers increase very slowly. Yet you condemn grinding in your same post.

Look at d3. Level cap is easy to obtain, everyone hates it.

[neKroMancer]

I don't think Warframe shouldn't use grinding as an endgame content.

Diablo2's bossrun/runerun is bot endgame by itself but a mean to stay competitive in PvP gameplay. Without PvP, there would be no use for bossrun since PvE aspect of the game couldn't offer any more content to satisfy players. There're still groups of player who manage their own servers in my country to this day due to PvP.

However, Warframe could benefit more from creating a more dynamic environment. PvE, Content, Lore, and Progression should be tied together to create such environment.

- Between each update, multiple community goals are set and the result of these goals determine which content will be released.

- Grineer, Corpus, and Infest should have their own rules. When players ignore playing one faction, they multiply and takeover planets/asteroid. Spawn more enemies or upgrade their weapon damage.

- Alert mission serves as a mean to balance these factions. Destroy research facility reduce weapon damage, Assassinate their officers to demorailze the faction and make them retreat to their original planets/areas.

- Unique alert which runs for 24 hours, result of the alert determines content update. Win/Loss ratio means either the content will be on player's side or the enemies'.

This is doable with DE's matric and regular update which is what they have been already doing consistenly. It will create a forever war dynamic which require players to participate in the game with goals that are bigger than themselves.

[Archade]

D1 had no real pvp and it stayed popular right up untill d2 was released. Plenty of people played d2 and didn't bother with pvp, d2 pvp was never very balanced and it was only any good in situations where you had agreed upon rules. Some of the best pvp was low level pvp which people didnt need to baal run for.

The game was addicting because it allowed for vast repetition with out running out of purpose. When a game runs out of purpose then its finished, regardless of how much fun it was to play it to that point.

[neKroMancer]

D1 had no real pvp and it stayed popular right up untill d2 was released. Plenty of people played d2 and didn't bother with pvp, d2 pvp was never very balanced and it was only any good in situations where you had agreed upon rules. Some of the best pvp was low level pvp which people didnt need to baal run for.

The game was addicting because it allowed for vast repetition with out running out of purpose. When a game runs out of purpose then its finished, regardless of how much fun it was to play it to that point.

Look like your experience collides with mine. My country is the exact opposite - Without PvP, D2 would have died years ago. With PvP the game is addicting.

'Vast repetiton without runnung out of purpose' - there's no purpose in PvE if you can consistently run Hell Baal. Only PvP remains.

It all depend on playerbase' taste, I guess.

[Archade]

Look like your experience collides with mine. My country is the exact opposite - Without PvP, D2 would have died years ago. With PvP the game is addicting.

'Vast repetiton without runnung out of purpose' - there's no purpose in PvE if you can consistently run Hell Baal. Only PvP remains.

It all depend on playerbase' taste, I guess.

The purpose is making numbers go up.

You seem to be missing my entire point. When a game gives you lots of things that you are increasing with your actions, it smooths out the actions, you always feel like you are benefiting something when you play, this helps you justify playing. With out it things will feel purposeless. My argument is that these increases need not be particularly notable or useful, but just there so you can justify all the time you spend playing.

By adding numbers that you can make increase, those increases act as encouragement.

[Nokturnel]

A lot of heavy winded words here that solve nothing.

Yea, there's no endgame.

Content can't fix that? Well it can add to it

Know what also can't fix that? Horizontal progression. It's god awful, who wants to repaly the same content over and over and over and over again just with a different class? Yea there's alt-a-holics in MMOs but even those people have their limits.

You can't beat the game in any MMO cause that would end it. Or would it? So far I've yet to see an MMO where there's an extremely challenging goal of defeating the actual nemesis of the game. He usually just respawns once ya kill him and it feels empty. What no MMO has tried to do so far is have a server wide objective of actually beating the boss for good. Once that is done... game over? Nope, you get your couple days of peace and bam a new nemesis could show up. Maybe in the form of a former ally? This system could be designed in advanced with tons upon tons of new nemesis showing up as the player base is able to actually defeat each one which would unlock new enemies to fight.

A game where however good the playerbase is at actually tackling the content, the faster they get new content? zomg! Concepts. You can still have new weapons/mods/frames etc, but without an achievable universal goal for the playerbase every MMO feels empty cause you could log off and the game couldn't care less, but to have your actions actually mean something? Now that's something.

But i don't think Warframe is the MMO to do this. Because let's face it, there's nothing that challenging about this game at all due to how easy it is to exploit even the hardest bosses into being jokes.

[neKroMancer]

The purpose is making numbers go up.

You seem to be missing my entire point. When a game gives you lots of things that you are increasing with your actions, it smooths out the actions, you always feel like you are benefiting something when you play, this helps you justify playing. With out it things will feel purposeless. My argument is that these increases need not be particularly notable or useful, but just there so you can justify all the time you spend playing.

By adding numbers that you can make increase, those increases act as encouragement.

You love farming. I got that.

However, playerbase don't made entirely out of farmers. For some players, numbers aren't enough to attract them to play the game. It's a apart of the game but it isn't the game. Grinding as endgame = No endgame.

MMO needs to be unending to keep playerbase intact. The game must be engaging, giving playerbase objectives to accomplish. Players do leave the game when there's no more acitivities for them to do - in the case of warframe, it's getting all frames in the game. Multiple 'declaration of absence' threads are the evidence that grinding for content without actual community goal or global task to accomplish isn't enough.

Edited February 23, 2013 by neKroMancer

[Zeneroth]

I think Archade is right about the players motivation to keep progressing forever will drive them to play more. But I think you are mistaking about a lot of people loving to do just that.

The current king of MMO is Wow, with latest Activision annual report stating around 9 millions subscribers. You cannot compare the number with EVE or any other MMO you brought up before. So arguably I don't think those endless progression games are more successful than Wow. What I think Wow did right is that it is catered to a lot of different players archetypes. Hardcores got their heroics raids, sub-hardcore got their normal raids and casuals got raid finders matchmaker. And all those are quite a grind in it owns as well. Also in this case seeing other players showing their shiny gears encourage the others to play more an collect those for themselves. What retains those players to the game would be how the loots are handed out with Skinner's box method which I think is a cheap trick to create longetivity.

Well for Warframe with randomly generated levels, it already create a lot of dynamics already and I think the concept you want to point out the most is creating a "long term goal" for players. This goal need to be obvious and rewarding since it should be the goal that most of the players set their sight upon. Maybe something like the current mastery rank which update 7 will expands with new stuffs.

Short term goals are important as well since it will be what players set when they log in each day. Something like "today I will get at least 1 level for my ash frame" or "i will do 2 alert missions today". These short term goals should be something that contribute to the long term one. Wow and Guildwars 2 did this short term goals quite niceky with their dailies and ever changing daily achiements. I think the alert system can be expand to be just that.

Horizontal expansions is what Also count as catering to more people with different playstyles and customizations. This is what Warframe is trying to do by adding more frames and weapons. Which is suited to the type of game this is.

All in all I agree that "Endgame" is important but it doesn't have to be the same with previous games. Maybe creating one that suit to Warframe is a better option.

[Archade]

The current king of MMO is Wow, with latest Activision annual report stating around 9 millions subscribers. You cannot compare the number with EVE or any other MMO you brought up before.

But i can. In fact WoWs population trends prove my point. Firstly understand that there are a limited number of players in the pool that can be distributed between all games, this is important. Given that, look at the trend of all newly released wow-like games over the last 5 years. They all get a huge surge initially, then fall off after a few months.

The explanation for this is simple, WoW players are sick of WoW, so every time something new comes out they go and they try it, find out they don't like it, and then go back to WoW, not because they like WoW any more, but because that's where all their progression is built up in. The periodic expansions WoW releases provide enough content so that these wandering players can feel motivated to come back after their latest failed attempt to find something different. WoW is popular because its the safe place for most of the modern mmo playerbase, probably being their first mmo, and one they are very familiar with. Its the greener grass they see any time they are in another field. Its popularity has nothing to do with its actual mechanics.

So arguably I don't think those endless progression games are more successful than Wow.

Players of these games dont tend to jump ship every time a new mmo is released and then come back. They just stick with their game. Also, if you look at a game like EVE, its population has steadily grown since its release, even WoW peaked a couple years ago and is now on the decline.

What I think Wow did right is that it is catered to a lot of different players archetypes.

What WoW did right was introduce a large amount of first-time mmo players from blizzards b.net fanbase. Your first mmo is always addicting regardless of how good it is because at that point the very concept of an mmo is addicting to you. What they then did right was take the money they made initially and smartly launched the largest advertising campaign in mmo history to attract new players. After a while WoW became like facebook, your friends are doing it, so why arent you?

Hardcores got their heroics raids, sub-hardcore got their normal raids and casuals got raid finders matchmaker.

This wasn't how it was at all when WoW initially became popular. If anything these were moves made once interest started waning to try and bribe people to stay.

Well for Warframe with randomly generated levels, it already create a lot of dynamics already and I think the concept you want to point out the most is creating a "long term goal" for players. This goal need to be obvious and rewarding since it should be the goal that most of the players set their sight upon. Maybe something like the current mastery rank which update 7 will expands with new stuffs.

Making mastery rank do something and adding other ways to increase it that do not force you to level up your mk1 braton is a suggestion ive already made regarding how you can add a meaningful grind to the game. Making it just increase with exp even after weapons/frames are capped would be perfect.

Short term goals are important as well since it will be what players set when they log in each day. Something like "today I will get at least 1 level for my ash frame" or "i will do 2 alert missions today". These short term goals should be something that contribute to the long term one. Wow and Guildwars 2 did this short term goals quite niceky with their dailies and ever changing daily achiements. I think the alert system can be expand to be just that.

The problem with alert based goals is that you can not chain alerts, you have to wait for them. This disrupts gameplay because what do you do between alerts? You can do regular missions - for what purpose? Or you can do nothing at all, and wait. Waiting games tend to make for some good jokes and a dwindling population.

Horizontal expansions is what Also count as catering to more people with different playstyles and customizations. This is what Warframe is trying to do by adding more frames and weapons. Which is suited to the type of game this is.

I agree that content that makes the game broader rather than deeper is best, but for this to work you need that self-perpetuation endless depth that a good grind brings. Then all your content can be alternative ways to play the game, rather than more consumable things to do.

All in all I agree that "Endgame" is important but it doesn't have to be the same with previous games. Maybe creating one that suit to Warframe is a better option.

The kind of endgame games have been trying in the last 5 years have all been terrible, since most people only know that kind of endgame then yes, 'endgame' doesnt have to be like that. There are proven alternatives, which i have provided here. A completely new thing could also work, but i think before we try to get too out there we must first expose the stunted gaming community to the notion that alternatives even exist, and using something thats already been shown to work is a better bet than something entirely new.

The critical thing is to have a system where any action at all taken in game is giving you some kind of progress. Everything should make something go up.

-------------------------

You love farming. I got that.

However, playerbase don't made entirely out of farmers. For some players, numbers aren't enough to attract them to play the game. It's a apart of the game but it isn't the game. Grinding as endgame = No endgame.

The farming doesnt attract people, the gameplay does, the farming just gives them encouragement to keep up. Every time they play, they make something increase, they never get discouraged, this is part of the formula for addiction.

MMO needs to be unending to keep playerbase intact. The game must be engaging, giving playerbase objectives to accomplish. Players do leave the game when there's no more acitivities for them to do - in the case of warframe, it's getting all frames in the game. Multiple 'declaration of absence' threads are the evidence that grinding for content without actual community goal or global task to accomplish isn't enough.

That people are perfectly happy playing the game untill the existing grind dies out and they have nothing to do is evidence that grinding makes this game fun.

[neKroMancer]

Our discussion is running in circle. It's good to share opinion with fellow gamers but I think it's come to an end since I've nothing more to persuade you.

Thank you for your time and patience.

[xenapan]

Grinding can be both fun or not fun. It depends on the player... look at all the crappy as hell entirely worthless facebook games like farmville. Each person simply has a different threshold as to how much and at what level of "difficulty" they consider entertaining or worthwhile.

For instance I release a flash game that lets you compete with your friends. The goal is to rack up as many clicks as possible on a target. What would you consider fun?

1) one static target thats the size of the screen. Essentially anywhere you click you will hit it.

2) A single target covers half the screen moving slowly.

3) Multiple small targets that move slowly

4) Multiple TINY targets that fade in and out

5) Multiple varying size targets that move quickly.

6) Multiple varying size targets that move quickly and fire back at you.

....

X)A badly designed FPS

Y)A well designed FPS.

Really at some point enough systems, detail, story etc are put in where its considered "interesting", then eventually "fun". Eventually when those things no longer interest us we consider it grinding. For example. What if there were no frame abilities? What if there was only 1 gun and no melee? How much sooner would we consider the game grindy? What if every level was the same? What if there was only one enemy race? What if bosses didn't exist? Everyone will draw the line at some points and not others. I think the better question is to ask WHY some design decisions are made. What do the players think about it, and what do the devs think about it? E.g. platinum only slots. Why 3 crafts -> 1 more craft to get a warframe? Why have incomplete initial trees for frames and weapons and unlock? Why was there initially no grineer asteroid base? Why do they keep adding weapons?

To some/all of those questions ... some of the answers are the game is in beta. It has limited content because they had limited budget to fufill their vision of how the game should look like. For example do you think the mastery system is finished? Or do you think they have more planned for ranking up? Maybe a separate from your warframe tree? Perks? traits? More skills? I mean as of this point ranking up does practically nothing. It unlocks a couple weapons (which technically you could live without).

So lets not be so hasty and talk about endgame. We don't KNOW their endgame. This baby is still in beta and judging by the stuff they added in the last few patches (more weapons, more levels, more interactive DEPTH from wall running to climbing) do you REALLY think the "endgame" is going to be left as is? I don't think you are giving the devs enough credit. Sure they seem to be pushing new frames and new skins out alot lately but the reason for that is PROBABLY because more stuff to sell means they have a budget to last a little longer to continue to work on stuff they want to add to the game. While a new weapon or frame will take them a fraction of the time since the majority of the "work" is just artistic. Past that its mostly just tweaking the numbers. On the other hand, doing stuff like releasing wall running (and all the bugs from camera/ui issues that come with that) takes them a SIGNIFICANTLY longer time. So if you are getting "bored" of the current material. Dare I say.. take a break from farming level 30 mods and max ranking every weapon/frame in the game.. and give them more time to work on new content. They've done a great job so far. Don't sell them short.

[Archade]

What if there were no frame abilities? What if there was only 1 gun and no melee?

Then this game would have even less of a grind than it currently does, and people would get bored even faster.

How much sooner would we consider the game grindy? What if every level was the same? What if there was only one enemy race? What if bosses didn't exist?

Most people just farm xini all day, its already exactly as you describe.

So lets not be so hasty and talk about endgame. We don't KNOW their endgame. This baby is still in beta and judging by the stuff they added in the last few patches (more weapons, more levels, more interactive DEPTH from wall running to climbing) do you REALLY think the "endgame" is going to be left as is?

Those things they added have nothing to do with an endgame however, those are breadth additions, not depth.

Again, the definition of a grind is time results in payoff. It comes from mills, grinding flour. That people are inherently associating the term grind in a negative sense rather than just a system of time consumption, shows how conditioned people have become by all the hype and advertising telling people grinds are bad (because mainstream games are now engineered for you to stop playing them after you pay your money).

Ive addressed the 'its beta' thing before. I have never once seen any serious flaw in game design get corrected after the forums have responded with 'its beta' to people complaining about it.

Well have to see what their new mod system ends up being. It looks grindy to me - but i should say right now that i have always maintained that chance based grinds are tedious and horrible. So if this becomes a terrible system where you can play all day and see no benefit at all, thats not anything like what im advocating.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Archade

[Zeneroth]

The farming doesnt attract people, the gameplay does, the farming just gives them encouragement to keep up. Every time they play, they make something increase, they never get discouraged, this is part of the formula for addiction.

That people are perfectly happy playing the game untill the existing grind dies out and they have nothing to do is evidence that grinding makes this game fun.

I agree with this point here. People tends to play for benefit/rewards and it is a good incentive/excuse to play more. The hard part is the pacing and balancing for the rewards that will encourage more play than just crush people hopes in getting them. For example D3 auction house, you see how much your upgrade will cost you and the price is soul crushing you won't be able to buy it unless you farm for a month. That was a bad grind. The problem is with how the good grind should be? I'm the type of player who don't usually grind that much, when I played Wow I only do raids once a week with friends and just ditch dailies. I also tends to despite how much time it takes to grind stuffs in many games thus why I usually just play offline games. It seems you had more experience with grinding compare to me so can you give some examples of what kind of grind in the game that you think is good?

[Archade]

Two points.

1. This is not a pvp game, so there is nothing wrong with dramatic power differences developing between players over long periods of time.

2. My past experience has shown me that progression does not have to yield vast rewards for people to still do it. Remember the grind isnt the reason people want to play, its just what they use to justify the time spent. There needs to be some measure they can use to say "im not wasting my time by playing", a grind provides that.

As far as this game goes, much of player progress is locked into 30 levels of a frame and a weapon. We can work with this. First of all, i dont like the idea of making what we currently have harder to obtain. Much of the fun of this game really starts to develop when you have a maxed out frame and weapon with good mods, in fact i would argue that the game is frustrating and not very well balanced at the lower stages of player development. Many things that are very frustrating to newer players (certain ancient combinations, certain enemy types in general) are not that bad once you are properly equipped to handle them.

We see with update 7 them wanting to develop mastery rank further. We see them wanting to allow the combination and upgrade of mods. Both of these, depending on how they are handled, could be part of the solutions.

The key thing is that you must never let players 'max out' the system. There must always be room for further progress else people will run out of advancement and start looking for other things to do. How many people have 'temporarily' left a game, intending to come back, only to get caught up in something else and never bothered to return? I know i have, on several occasions.

I would say that if the mastery system rewards are changed to be minor universal enhancements, if the mastery system no longer requires you to play frames and weapons you may not want to just for the sake of leveling up mastery rank, if the new mod system allows for steady increase in mod effectiveness with out depending on luck(kind of worried about this by the way), then those things alone would be a very good foundation.

There really should be something tied in to pure exp gain. There could be systems developed to deal with all of the low tier crafting materials (that could be incorporated into mod improvement for example), since its pretty consistent to get materials like that in a mission, and solves the issue of people with tens of thousands of these mats. However this game rewards some exp for each kill you make, that exp should not be wasted if you are using level 30 equipment, that sense of 'waste' is alone enough to make some players feel like maybe they should be playing a different game that wont punish them.

One possibility would be using exp to help 'grow' your mod advancements, another would be to just add more than 30 levels of mastery rank, and ensure that its tied to straight exp gain and not weapon/equipment levels. You could have exp saved up as a currency to spend on mods or things... There are lots of possibilities and its hard to suggest things when i don't know what they will be changing in update 7 to base any suggestions off of. The important things are that there is nothing wrong with infinite progression, and progression can be very slow provided its front loaded such that gameplay quickly reaches its peak and additional progression is just there to make you feel good and make your character sheet more impressive, even if it has little in game effect for most purposes.

One of the games ive mentioned in this thread is an example of this. in baram there is a level cap, you get there fairly quickly. Once at the level cap you have almost all the abilities you ever will have. However you can continue to gain exp, and spend that exp into stats. These stats effect your abilities. The more you raise your stats, the harder the things you fight in an effective way can become. The game we currently have pits you against level 1 grineer.. and level 5 grineer, and level 20 grineer, etc. Its all more or less the same, just the levels go up. In the same way baram had you fighting harder versions of the same things, with a few differences thrown in (slightly different abilities or ai, or bosses that behaved in different ways). - So you see here, the essence of gameplay should not be held back, you shouldn't have to wait to get into the full experience of the game, but there is no reason you can not just keep spiraling into greater and greater strength, just fight harder and harder enemies. The very fact that you are progressing, that you can watch what you are currently fighting become easier, and then finally move on to the next challenge, is part of what helps make a game addicting; The experience of gaining experience.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Archade

[Zeneroth]

I agree that the current way to rank up mastery is kind of a roundabout way. Instead of just use the same exp we gain from killing, mastery instead progresses from equipment level. Looking at it another way it might want to encourage people using different playstyles but it should be "encouraging" not "forced" as it is right now. We will see how update 7 goes about this.

Also the new defense mission that is now endlessly spawning waves with stronger enemy will help in the evergrowing power in the game if the infinite progression comes in. Talk about scaling of enemy, Guildwars 2 also do the similar thing. They scale highlv players down to the zone level and also scale enemies to match the number of players participating in the event. Which helps a lot for sustainability by making low level zones being rewarding to players and still challenging as well compare to low level zones in other games like Wow, those zone become obsolete as soon as people out level them. Maybe warframe can do something like scaling alert missions to match the host player level?

[R33F3R]

Lack of motivation simply can't be remedied with more contents, this I wholeheartedly agree with. Adding more contents simply prolonged the inevitable without tacking the real problem - How to make players feel content with the current amount of content as long as possible? Alert system is not the answer since the current function is to alleviate the complaints about platinum-based content.

There's no sense emergncy. No sense of Tenno's impendng extinction.. No sense of war.

The game need a purpose that's bigger than each individual.

I disagree with this, lack of content is directly influencing my motivation to play.

-We need maps on planet surfaces!

-We need moons of jupiter and saturn maps!

-We need outsides of space ship maps!

If you just play mass effect 2-3 you will know exactly what this game needs to be succussful. Warframe is what mass effect 3 should have been and its sad that all those pretty assets went to such a crappy game.

[neKroMancer]

I disagree with this, lack of content is directly influencing my motivation to play.

-We need maps on planet surfaces!

-We need moons of jupiter and saturn maps!

-We need outsides of space ship maps!

If you just play mass effect 2-3 you will know exactly what this game needs to be succussful. Warframe is what mass effect 3 should have been and its sad that all those pretty assets went to such a crappy game.

I played the entire trilogy + ME3MP for 10 months (500 hours well spent), they're amazing. However, I'm not saying that DE shouldn't add more tileset (god forbid, I love their artwork). Adding these maps and then...What?

Adding more content is players' dream but developer's nightmare. Prolonging the lifespan of the existing content is a part of design which doesn't properly made real in Warframe, yet.

[Thelonious]

Didn't read the whole topic, i'm just gonna give my opinion someone may have said it already

Game lacks depth. Killing mobs in random-generated dungeons with a large choice of weapons and playstyles is fun, but not really immersive.

Leveling stuff and gaining xp/power is just pointless after you finish your weapons/frame of choice. And repetitively boring.

There's no challenge, Xini with 4 random decent players is a breeze, and yet its one of the most difficult missions available.

Some people enjoy soloing for more difficulty, which contradicts the principle of a co-op oriented game.

Bosses are...punching bags/shooting bags, or an excuse to sell ammo boxes.

They just randomly One-Shot someone from time to time. Which is not a challenge, just an excuse to consume player's revives.

I still can't see jackal's grenade barrage half of the time: watching for tiny blue pixels on the floor while the screen is shaking cause of mines, that's just a bad script oO.

Same thing for hyena, haven't been able to dodge its rockets yet. I tried rolling, jumping, hidding behind boxes...nope, you're dead.

And the co-op part...Where's the synergy? roles in a party are barely defined by your frame, since there's no real need for a "tank", or a "healer".

Which negates the incentive to play frames like Rhino and Trinity. You're fine with or without them. Just spam your keys.

I myself had the more pleasure playing Xini with only one other player. One would clear the trash while the other would focus on ancients. Or one would control while the other would kill.

There are frames that work very well with each other in the correct setup.

Roles. Interdependant. Synergy. Co-Op in short.

But unless you're outnumbered (meaning you're not in a 4 player squad), it doesn't really matter at the moment. Pity.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Thelonious