It's not about difficulty. Warframe doesn't have a flagship content..

[AperoBeltaTwo]

4 hours ago, YazMatazO said:

I suspect that meaningful content in WF will come about more easily if some of the core systems are reworked. 

PS: I see a lot of threads on these forums about WF gameplay and content, btw. The insane powercreep of this game must be getting to people. 

Reworking core systems will not magically generate flagship content. DE been reworking and reworking core systems for years and still couldn't figure anything out. 

Flagship content doesn't have to be anything overly complicated. Back in the day Void Tower missions used to be the flagship content for Warframe. It wasn't particularly great, but it checked most of the boxes I mentioned in the original post. Void 2.0 destroyed that of course. But the fact that a game mode like that existed before means it's not really that difficult to create something like that in principle. 

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

29 minutes ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

This^...and that.

To be honest, gameplay and story need to enhance one another.

Gameplay and content pay the bills.  

Creating stories to enhance immersion CREATES bills initially, but can help enhance gameplay and content.

DE is a victim of their own outstanding success with the artistry and gameplay of Warframe combat.

It’s the standard.  

And trying to get Railjack and Archwing, as now alternative but NECESSARY/obligatory gameplay, to both pull us away from it and seemlessly integrate it...

It won’t ever truly work unless it matches said standard for the majority of players. It’s a tall order.

I will say, though, without the human element of story...I’d have stopped playing.

Exactly, stories get me to care. Care about the characters, the setting, my role in the universe within the game I engage in. 

Let's talk about The Sacrifice: 
I love the story. Going through it has been my favorite moment in the entire game, and how it ended...brilliantly. That ending had kept me going for a while. I eagerly awaited what DE had planned to continue the story....Heck, I still get pumped up thinking about it if I'm playing a song that reminds me of the story. 

Unfortunately, DE's handling of the main story since The Sacrifice has dampened my eagerness to see it. I don't have much hope for it, and no idea what DE will do given their insistence in tying in Railjack and given how Scarlet Spear was...I just sit back and wait to see how it pans out. 

To use another example - Destiny 2:

I tried it out since it is free to play now and boy did I enjoy my time with the game. I only tried the free stuff, so not even PvP since no PSPlus account (and none of the paid expansions, just the free stuff). I liked the characters, I liked the gameplay. I was surprised at how much i really enjoyed the gun play. I had loads of fun playing with my Void Warlock, and Arc Hunter. But the reason I kept going with the game was the stories. There was a proper campaign for me to engage with, and I had a great time, especially with Cayde-6. I had an even better time with the Curse of Osiris story, and I really enjoyed the Warmind story as well. The gameplay itself I really enjoyed, but the story gave me a reason to engage further and continue onward. 
 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

4 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

We can agree to disagree on that. My operator heals my WF, provides CC, invisibility, invincibility  and a few other useful passives. There are other ways to do those same things, but I appreciate the Swiss army knife that my operator provides. 

They don't need to exist. It's a combat platform that ultimately has the same tools as warframes and competes with them for mission time and player's attention. They're not "swiss army knives", they're on-demand invincibility button. They turn every warframe into pre-rework Wukong.

[supernils]

@AperoBeltaTwo

this is kind of true. Even for me, who's the type of player who mostly levels for leveling sake, I sometimes feel like it's all I do. I'd like to have a purpose for my gear. I max out so many weapons just to expand my arsenal, then don't touch them ever again.

Sorties are a bit too easy for maxed out gear (x forma, primed + riven mods) although they force you to use a lvl30 warframe.

Even highest level content available (Kuva flood, Lich territory) I still use to level gear. Endurance runs I don't do, there is no incentive not to rinse and repeat after 30 minutes. Maybe a change of rotation would make sense here, but afaik they conciously decided against it. A misstake imo.

I would also love to have all content have a Steel Path variant, not just the regular star chart missions.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

5 minutes ago, (PS4)DoctorWho_90250 said:

To use another example - Destiny 2:

But the reason I kept going with the game was the stories. There was a proper campaign for me to engage with, and I had a great time, especially with Cayde-6.

And when you played through all the quests you dropped the game and never looked back, amaright? 

It's alright to have some quests in the game, but they cannot be the primary focus. This is not a story-driven game. It's good that quests make you feel something. But for a game like Warframe quests can never be anything more than a side dish. It's a different kind of game.

 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

6 minutes ago, supernils said:

Maybe a change of rotation would make sense here, but afaik they conciously decided against it. A misstake imo.

I would also love to have all content have a Steel Path variant, not just the regular star chart missions.

Dynamic drop tables are much needed in this game. Maybe they'll figure something out with Steel Path eventually. but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Hayrack]

I really like tomb fight stages in Sands of Inaros quest, Rell manifestation hunts during chains of harrow, Derelict Emissary assasinate, First stages of Glast Gambit where you have to seal off the infested behind the doors, Lua Halls of Ascension, Jupiter Gas City parkour, Jackal rework, War within earth stages - we need more missions of this type.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

30 minutes ago, Hayrack said:

I really like tomb fight stages in Sands of Inaros quest, Rell manifestation hunts during chains of harrow, Derelict Emissary assasinate, First stages of Glast Gambit where you have to seal off the infested behind the doors, Lua Halls of Ascension, Jupiter Gas City parkour, Jackal rework, War within earth stages - we need more missions of this type.

Not a flagship.

[SneakyErvin]

I dont think "flagship" content is much more specific than "difficult" content in all honesty. Same as when most people throw out "endgame" as something that is needed. It is all vague. What is it that you really want with "flagship" content?

[(PSN)Yggranya]

2 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Idk why people bother asking questions that have nothing to do with the topic of the conversation. I mean, you do you. Moving on.

 

15 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

I think, is for the game to validate the hundreds and thousands of hours of grind people spent on collecting all this gear that in reality has no purpose for the most part.

 

15 hours ago, (PS4)Yggranya said:

What validation do you need from a game?

 

So, are you going to answer my question?

[Hypernaut1]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Elvenbane said:

Operators are indeed super useful...too useful, mine also provides unlimited energy. The game would be better off without transference...but that ship has sailed and now it's too late to turn it around.

I agree. It took me a while to wrap my mind around the idea that they were invincible with barely any drawbacks or penalties. 

I do miss the skill it took to revive teammates before void mode. It became a game in itself to clear area and hold off enemies long enough to revive someone. 

I honestly preferred the first version of operators where they were just an "avatar state" mode that you had to bust out when things got tough. It made more sense to me lore wise too. It was the operator using all of their might to materialize themselves. 

[Magus_Tahir]

4 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

I dont think "flagship" content is much more specific than "difficult" content in all honesty. Same as when most people throw out "endgame" as something that is needed. It is all vague. What is it that you really want with "flagship" content?

Flagship in the general sense basically boils down to what your most advanced leading endeavor is mechanically that players will come back for. For the longest time that was Raids in WoW and still is to a degree but that I find in the current year to be very subjective in WoW's case. For FFXIV it is the Main Story of the game which is by far without equal in my opinion, and then we look at BDO, and GW2 to see the PvP centric styles of their flagship so to speak, and a game like Elder Scrolls Online which is in its current state an amalgamated social experience with story, dungeon, and pvp flavors. 

When we consider it in that light it becomes easier to break it down for Warframe in that regard, and if I had to make single choice on what DE was going to have their Flagship be at this point, it would be Story Driven in my interpretation of it. The games modes while designed to make us spend time doing them, also have significant story significance when you sit down and start connecting the dots. However my interpretation of this falls apart under scrutiny since if that was the case we would by all accounts clearly have gotten more story than we have already, and the same scrutiny goes for each interpretation of the game. It's not PvP since Conclave is in its state, it's not Clan Warfare since the armistice is in place, and it's not Trials (Raids) since those are dead and buried. 

That leaves us what comes out the most currently and that's well, as much as I hate and love to say it Fashion. Heavens know I can't go out to cause mass annihilation without looking drop dead gorgeous first. So mechanically at this time my personal opinions aside I would conclude is Warframes Flagship is Fashion Frame. This of course can change, and there really is only one way to that at this point.

If my conclusion is correct we have two things that need to happen. A series of the "best" cosmetics that people would want, and an item in the caliber of Umbra Forma would have to be locked behind a type of content that would require the gear, skill, and game knowledge that players would not be able to just bypass with a straight up Platinum purchase. It would encourage a very large percentage of players from all camps in the game to move towards that content very quickly. 

Honestly if we had a Raid comprised of two Railjack teams fighting a Hunhow sized Sentient with two players in each Railjack and four players having to work their way up the arms of the Sentient while fighting the pieces of them to expose parts that need Railjack Artillery in sequence in Space while in orbit over a planet we could just have the kind of Raid environment that WoW or FFXIV can create. But this is all idle musing at this point and I have tons of ideas of what Raids could be in WF.

Right now there is no real flagship in the traditional sense, DE can build one but not everyone is going to like the design.  

[AperoBeltaTwo]

39 minutes ago, (PS4)Yggranya said:

So, are you going to answer my question?

No. Read the original post until you understand what is said in it. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

54 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

I dont think "flagship" content is much more specific than "difficult" content in all honesty. Same as when most people throw out "endgame" as something that is needed. It is all vague. What is it that you really want with "flagship" content?

Imagine league of legends without the summoner's rift, if you ever played that game or other moba titles like it. By flagship content I mean literally the core gameplay which is capable of validating and justifying the existence of all the items and mechanics present in the game, while also incentivising and rewarding the time spent collecting all that gear. Warframe doesn't have that right now.

It's not about difficulty. It's about progression. Collecting gear is the only manner of progression available to Warframe players. But without a flagship gameplay collecting minmaxed gear and subsequently progressing through the game is largely pointless in the context of the game itself. Relying exclusively on the players' personal desire to build up their accounts, or even perhaps on tricking them into believing that there's gonna be "something" worthwhile after all this grind, when there isn't anything. 

[SneakyErvin]

23 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Imagine league of legends without the summoner's rift, if you ever played that game or other moba titles like it. By flagship content I mean literally the core gameplay which is capable of validating and justifying the existence of all the items and mechanics present in the game, while also incentivising and rewarding the time spent collecting all that gear. Warframe doesn't have that right now.

It's not about difficulty. It's about progression. Collecting gear is the only manner of progression available to Warframe players. But without a flagship gameplay collecting minmaxed gear and subsequently progressing through the game is largely pointless in the context of the game itself. Relying exclusively on the players' personal desire to build up their accounts, or even perhaps on tricking them into believing that there's gonna be "something" worthwhile after all this grind, when there isn't anything. 

Never played LoL. But since it is a PvP game, validating and justifying the exsistance of all items and mechanics comes from fighting the players. Whatever may work in a PvP game wont transition well to PvE. So in something like WF, difficulty is very much needed since there is nothing else to progress towards, as opposed to PvP games where there is always the other player to progress towards. Hence why many PvP games dont even need progression since it is enough progress to blow the enemy's head off as much as it is a reward seeing it go *pop!*.

So here difficulty in some for would be what validates our grind since it can be put to the test. The if that takes place in the core gameplay loop by improving difficulty and balance or it takes place in a completely seperate "endgame" mode doesnt matter.

[SneakyErvin]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Magus_Tahir said:

Flagship in the general sense basically boils down to what your most advanced leading endeavor is mechanically that players will come back for. For the longest time that was Raids in WoW and still is to a degree but that I find in the current year to be very subjective in WoW's case. For FFXIV it is the Main Story of the game which is by far without equal in my opinion, and then we look at BDO, and GW2 to see the PvP centric styles of their flagship so to speak, and a game like Elder Scrolls Online which is in its current state an amalgamated social experience with story, dungeon, and pvp flavors. 

When we consider it in that light it becomes easier to break it down for Warframe in that regard, and if I had to make single choice on what DE was going to have their Flagship be at this point, it would be Story Driven in my interpretation of it. The games modes while designed to make us spend time doing them, also have significant story significance when you sit down and start connecting the dots. However my interpretation of this falls apart under scrutiny since if that was the case we would by all accounts clearly have gotten more story than we have already, and the same scrutiny goes for each interpretation of the game. It's not PvP since Conclave is in its state, it's not Clan Warfare since the armistice is in place, and it's not Trials (Raids) since those are dead and buried. 

That leaves us what comes out the most currently and that's well, as much as I hate and love to say it Fashion. Heavens know I can't go out to cause mass annihilation without looking drop dead gorgeous first. So mechanically at this time my personal opinions aside I would conclude is Warframes Flagship is Fashion Frame. This of course can change, and there really is only one way to that at this point.

If my conclusion is correct we have two things that need to happen. A series of the "best" cosmetics that people would want, and an item in the caliber of Umbra Forma would have to be locked behind a type of content that would require the gear, skill, and game knowledge that players would not be able to just bypass with a straight up Platinum purchase. It would encourage a very large percentage of players from all camps in the game to move towards that content very quickly. 

Honestly if we had a Raid comprised of two Railjack teams fighting a Hunhow sized Sentient with two players in each Railjack and four players having to work their way up the arms of the Sentient while fighting the pieces of them to expose parts that need Railjack Artillery in sequence in Space while in orbit over a planet we could just have the kind of Raid environment that WoW or FFXIV can create. But this is all idle musing at this point and I have tons of ideas of what Raids could be in WF.

Right now there is no real flagship in the traditional sense, DE can build one but not everyone is going to like the design.  

Yeah, that is why it is so odd that the OP didnt provide a new flagship example for WF, since we do have it and it is certainly not a place where we have our gear validated or justified, heck most of that flagship has sailed on long before we are near having the best gear. Or if we take fashion frame as an example, it is also something that is completely seperate from our gearing since we can fashion all we like without needing specific gear.

We can just look at D3, PoE and Borderlands. In D3 and PoE, specific modes are the flagships, rifts in D3 and I'd assume the atlas in PoE. They are big selling points of the game and they actually give a reason to advance and progress. Labs could be added to it in PoE, though I'm one to run it alot, I prefer doing the run through for the class specializations only. Delves are also flagship worthy, if they were more easily accessible in off-leagues. And I think DE needs to figure something similar out for WF. A place/mode that they can just add on endlessly to further let us validate our progression, while also letting it bring new and better rewards to let us push further in our progress in order to be validates once more.

edit: Forgot to mention BL. In BL everything is more or less a flagship, since each new difficulty step tests our progression through upscaled content. And each piece of content is as valueble and useful as the next (mostly).

[Wearbe]

16 hours ago, Aldain said:

... as a result things often need to be individual dead-end slogs that stop progression in all other content.

This is a double edge. I stopped playing for a month or so after I finished collecting all the PRIME stuff (having been doing a lot of trading and playing a lot of relic missions and typical daily fare from the star-chart mission menu... kind of what I refer to as "vanilla" Warframe).

I came back to start doing Plains of Eidolon progression... to get get the amps and Warframes that rely on the PoE loot. I'm still doing that. It is pretty much a completely different game than what I played for the first 200 days. Even my need and use of Credits and Platinum is significantly different.

Someday I'll finish that collection of gear and will start on Orb Vallis stuff.

Maybe I'll do the Kuva & Lich stuff someday.

Anyway, my point being that the collection part is what keeps me playing and I feel like I'm "finished" when I clean up all the loot that one section has to offer. Coming back for another section takes a new mindset, gets new goals, and really IS unrelated to other sections (with the exception that I get to continue using Frames, weapons and mods that I gather along the way.)

 

[(PSN)Yggranya]

 

2 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

No. Read the original post until you understand what is said in it. 

*sigh* I'll just quote myself.

5 hours ago, (PS4)Yggranya said:

Pfft, as expected. Why do i even bother asking?

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

I think some people have a hard time deciding "what to do" in warframe. 

Usually games hold your hand and when you reach certain milestones, you're led to a specific sandbox to play with others like you.

I like the game because I can jump from sandbox to sandbox and perform well in either of them.

I like warframes wide open world where I can decide if I want to do a few Profit taker runs, and/or do a survival for 2 hours, or eidolons, or trade, or farm kuva, or just help newer players that need it. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

10 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Yeah, that is why it is so odd that the OP didnt provide a new flagship example for WF, since we do have it and it is certainly not a place where we have our gear validated or justified, heck most of that flagship has sailed on long before we are near having the best gear.

Not a flagship.

This whole thread turned into me trying to explain what flagship content even means in the context of WF and people not understanding it. There are commenters who understood it instantly. But some people either cannot, or refuse to, or pretend not to understand. Or probably didn't bother to read the original post.

"Flagship content" of a toothbrush is its ability to brush teeth, and the rest of the toothbrush is designed around performing that task. Right now Warframe is a Swiss Army toothbrush abomination without the actual brush. I don't know how else to simplify it, and what kind of analogy to invoke. It's not about pvp or pve or whatever. It's about a toothbrush that's no good at brushing your teeth with. And instead is trying to mutate into a fairy or something.

[Hypernaut1]

47 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Not a flagship.

This whole thread turned into me trying to explain what flagship content even means in the context of WF and people not understanding it. There are commenters who understood it instantly. But some people either cannot, or refuse to, or pretend not to understand. Or probably didn't bother to read the original post.

"Flagship content" of a toothbrush is its ability to brush teeth, and the rest of the toothbrush is designed around performing that task. Right now Warframe is a Swiss Army toothbrush abomination without the actual brush. I don't know how else to simplify it, and what kind of analogy to invoke. It's not about pvp or pve or whatever. It's about a toothbrush that's no good at brushing your teeth with. And instead is trying to mutate into a fairy or something.

It' just another nebulous term that can mean anything to suit your argument. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

44 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

It' just another nebulous term that can mean anything to suit your argument. 

*facetable* Alright.

[Felsagger]

Can you imagine this game with all the content island related and resolved? How good this game could be? 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

8 minutes ago, Felsagger said:

Can you imagine this game with all the content island related and resolved? How good this game could be? 

This is a trap that keeps a lot of people believing and playing Warframe in hopes that "some day" a better future will come. It's like communism, or life after death in paradise. A religion.

[S3EK3R]

On 2020-07-27 at 5:08 AM, OniDax said:

The Second Dream: For some reason, Stalker, who is supposed to be deeply loyal to the Orokin to the point that he's hunting the Tenno for assassinating them, is now an ally of the Sentients with no explanation whatsoever. Teshin, who is supposed to have returned from exile for the express purpose of preparing the Tenno for the Sentients, is nowhere to be seen.

The War Within: Teshin, who is supposed to be all concerned about the Sentients, shows up in a quest connected with the Grineer. I get his loyalty to the Orokin, but you'd think they wouldn't have Teshin talking to the Tenno and training them through a stupid sport (Lunaro) to prepare them for the Sentients. It's almost like another person loyal to the Orokin, and who punishes us for killing Grineer and Corpus bosses, should be the one working for the Queens...

The Sacrifice/Apostasy: Ballas and Umbra appear out of nowhere. Where has Ballas been for millennia? Why is he just now going after Umbra? Where has Umbra been for millennia? Why is he just now randomly on Earth? Now, all of a sudden, the Orokin are blue (making Hunhow completely colorblind and stupid when calling Alad V "Orokin"). Oh, all of sudden, an actual Orokin is back and neither Teshin nor Stalker, the two characters who were written as being pro-Orokin, are anywhere to be seen. All of a sudden, an Orokin is back, and yet the Tenno aren't even the least bit shocked by Ballas's return. Oh, the Lotus is Natah and not Margulis trapped within Lotus (as Apostasy suggests).

Chimera Prologue: Wait, wasn't Natah going back to her mother at the end of The Sacrifice? Doesn't her mother call to her in some trailer DE showed off at Tennocon? Now, the Lotus deceived Ballas and is calling the shots, the clear mastermind behind the upcoming New War. Also, I guess Hunhow really did die in Octavia's Anthem.

Erra Prologue: Wait, I thought Lotus was the mastermind? Even Jovian Concord has Lotus leading the Sentients. Now, Natah's brother-we-never-heard-about, Erra, is the one running the show, and Natah is a amnesiac sheep of a character who is just being manipulated by her brother? Now Natah needs help recognizing who and what Ballas is? And now the mother is just randomly gone?

Stalker hates the Tenno, the Orokin are dead. He allied with the Sentients to kill us because his revenge is all that matters now.

Teshin is under the control of the Grineer Queens. Of course he's going to appear, especially in the final confrontation as it's his duty to protect them. Doesn't mean he can't go behind their backs and support as against the Sentients. This is explained.

Did it occur to anyone that perhaps the Sentients consider every human an Orokin and want to kill them all? Or maybe that only the highest echelon of Orokin resembled Ballas and the others were more humanlike?

Lotus/Natah was never the mastermind. She's a high ranking Sentient in charge of certain operations, but it was never said that she's in charge. And it's not that surprising that Erra takes over once he arrives. Tbh, I don't remember Natah's mother being mentioned, only Hunhow.

"Natah is a amnesiac sheep of a character who is just being manipulated by her brother? Now Natah needs help recognizing who and what Ballas is?"

In the Second Dream, Hunhow states that Natah will return to them one way or another. It's a theory among a small number of players that Hunhow either brainwashed or memory-wiped Natah. I support this theory.

 

Just my two cents.