The core problem with Warframe

[(PSN)sister-hawk]

I personally believe that the core problem with Warframe, specifically with regard to the concepts of "difficulty" and "challenge," is the staggering disparity between starter level content and what is considered "end-game," and the fact that the players' power level relative to that of enemies is contained entirely within our gear. It's the reason why content like The Steel Path is annoyingly difficult for some, and still boringly easy for others.

Warframe's gameplay is set up to have very little skill factor. The game is at its heart a horde shooter. It is designed to allow the player to, with little effort, slice or blast their way through enemies in droves. Your effectiveness is not about how personally skillful you are (ex. your aim, your mastery of movement, your ability to out-think enemies). You can play the game that way, and sometimes I do, but because that is clearly not the expectation, doing so can dramatically increase the difficulty and makes the omni-present grind horrendously tedious. And then you turn around and see someone flying around at super-sonic speeds pulling a nuke out of their pocket every 5 seconds.

This is a situation that is impossible to balance. People who don't wish to play with the most optimized set-ups, and just want to play with what's fun for them are often (depending on what equipment in particular they are using) going to find higher level content to be frustrating and overly challenging. While players that do play with the most optimized set-ups, whether they find it fun or not, often feel the game is too boring and not challenging enough. It's the reason why anyone unironically saying "get gud" in regard to Warframe should be laughed right out of town, because in this game "get gud" actually means "change your load-out so you are even more over-powered than before."

Until this problem is solved, no one will ever be able to have a meaningful discussion about difficulty in Warframe. Different players will always have different tolerance levels for difficulty, and that's ok, but it does present a significant challenge to the developer when they are making a multiplayer shooter where everyone is on the same difficulty tier at all times. But on top of that, DE also has to contend with the fact that two players can be playing a dramatically different game based entirely on what weapons or Warframes they brought to the mission with them.

Contrast with classic Destiny. That was a game in which pretty much any strategy you used was viable. The various classes, subclasses, and weapon types varied not by power (barring some relatively minor balance issues), but by playstyle. And yet no matter what equipment you chose to use, the game was still fun, engaging, challenging, and intrinsically rewarding, because every playstyle basically existed at the same power level. Your ability to participate in and complete end-game content was determined by your character level (or light level later on), not by the weapon you equipped and which perks it rolled with. And yet, there was still room to min-max if you wanted to, but doing so didn't dramatically change the way the game was played. While end-game equipment did offer advantages, there was no way to load-out to basically lol your way through the entire game, all the while complaining that it's too easy.

In my opinion, all of the balance issues with Warframe stem from the fact that there is such an egregiously large gap between the power level that players start with in Warframe, and what they are capable of achieving if they really want to, because there are too many points in between where players can land just based on what numbers they had on their arsenal screen.

So first I think we have to decide what kind of game we want Warframe to be. It is a horde shooter after all. You cannot have a slow-paced tactical experience where you must outsmart your opponents when you are being shot by 50 enemies at a time who are continuously respawning on all sides of you. And at the same time, you cannot have a meaningfully challenging and rewarding experience when you are so heavily encouraged to spam massive AoE damage just to get through the mission as quick as possible because you've got to run it 150 more times because the drop rate on the reward you want is so stupidly low.

Secondly, the growing disparity in the power level of, not just particular weapons, but entire playstyles needs to be majorly decreased. I know DE has recently taken some steps to address this problem (changes to armor scaling, shield gating, enemy accuracy). But frankly what they've done so far is a drop in the bucket. Walking into a room and exploding instantly because one enemy put a slash proc on you because you didn't come in mindlessly flailing your infested zaw at mach 3 does not make for a fun experience. I just want people to remember, difficulty and challenge are not the same thing. There is already plenty of challenge in Warframe if you want it, but we as players have been trained by the game itself to avoid as much challenge as possible. And simply increasing the difficulty accomplishes nothing but increasing gear exclusivity, because players have shown that no matter what level you crank the enemies to, someone will find a way to make it as easy as possible.

So in short, yes, the maximum potential power of players needs a big nerf, but enemies absolutely need just as much of a nerf. The extremes need to be brought back much closer to the baseline, so that any semblance of balance can be achieved. I don't mean perfect dps balance between every weapon in the game, which is obviously unrealistic. A Lato will never compete with a Kuva Bramma, and that's fine. What I'm talking about is taking away the ways in which players have found to basically break the game to bypass all challenge, which then takes away the need for enemies that are designed to break our experience. It will upset some in the short term, sure, but they'll eventually realize that they can still have fun and fulfill a power fantasy and be challenged at the same time, once the game is better balanced. But until this occurs, you will always have a game that is adequately challenging for some, but oppressively difficult for others, or a game that is fun for some, but mind-numbingly boring for others. And there will never be a perfect point that will completely satisfy everyone. But if the range of power is narrower, it'll be much easier to decide where the sweet spot is.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Or people are just so used to playing games with 10,000 rules that they can't handle freedom for once in their lives. 

And yes, I read the entire post. 

Theres 1800 things that can be nerfed in this game....Why did they even rework Wukong to do what he can do? 

I think some people just cant handle the fact that nukes exist, we're coming up on a time in gaming with way more freedom of choice and option, more than usual, and of course people wont embrace it because they've been taught their whole lives to "never fly to close to the sun".

More people need to learn to manage their own playstyles.

For example, I know theres whiners in this game, so I try not to use Saryn in public matches. I curtail my own fun for the sake of others when I dont have to.

I could be a edit: annoying and nuke all over the place but I don't. I observe other players and let them have some kills. 

When I want to go all out, I go solo. I can freely switch between different playstyles depending on the situation.

You're never gonna nerf Warframe into the ground, theres too many things to nerf. 

[Lutesque]

14 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

I personally believe that the core problem with Warframe, specifically with regard to the concepts of "difficulty" and "challenge," is the staggering disparity between starter level content and what is considered "end-game," and the fact that the players' power level relative to that of enemies is contained entirely within our gear. It's the reason why content like The Steel Path is annoyingly difficult for some, and still boringly easy for others.

Nope.

Steel Path isnt difficult for anybody.

Sure some people will kill quickly and others will run out of Ammo and Rage Quite. But Bullet Sponges are not difficult regardless of where players are in terms of Progression.

17 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

This is a situation that is impossible to balance.

I mean...

I would say its impossible to get a challgenge out of it.

But I wouldnt say its impossible to balance.

21 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

In my opinion, all of the balance issues with Warframe stem from the fact that there is such an egregiously large gap between the power level that players start with in Warframe, and what they are capable of achieving if they really want to, because there are too many points in between where players can land just based on what numbers they had on their arsenal screen.

I mean sure... you can Balance the game but thats not necessarily going to make it more challenging.

You can tweak the Numbers so that Nukes cant kill and CC doesnt remove a whole room of enemies from the equation....

But that won't stop one button Warframes from being one button Warframes...

24 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

So first I think we have to decide what kind of game we want Warframe to be.

Now we're getting somewhere !!! 🙂

25 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

You cannot have a slow-paced tactical experience where you must outsmart your opponents when you are being shot by 50 enemies at a time who are continuously respawning on all sides of you.

PREACH !!!

25 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

And at the same time, you cannot have a meaningfully challenging and rewarding experience when you are so heavily encouraged to spam massive AoE damage just to get through the mission as quick as possible because you've got to run it 150 more times because the drop rate on the reward you want is so stupidly low.

AMEN !!!

26 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

Walking into a room and exploding instantly because one enemy put a slash proc on you because you didn't come in mindlessly flailing your infested zaw at mach 3 does not make for a fun experience

I mean... Who Am I to tell people what is or isnt fun... but yeah this sort of "You wont take damage if everything is dead" mentallity definitely doesnt appeal to the DMC player inside me who could avoid damage despite enemies not being dead.

29 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

I just want people to remember, difficulty and challenge are not the same thing

Whats the difference ? 😮

30 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

There is already plenty of challenge in Warframe

Are you sure ? 😕

30 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

There is already plenty of challenge in Warframe if you want it, but we as players have been trained by the game itself to avoid as much challenge as possible.

True... however I am still skeptical about the first part.

33 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

So in short, yes, the maximum potential power of players needs a big nerf, but enemies absolutely need just as much of a nerf. The extremes need to be brought back much closer to the baseline, so that any semblance of balance can be achieved. I don't mean perfect dps balance between every weapon in the game, which is obviously unrealistic. A Lato will never compete with a Kuva Bramma, and that's fine. What I'm talking about is taking away the ways in which players have found to basically break the game to bypass all challenge, which then takes away the need for enemies that are designed to break our experience. It will upset some in the short term, sure, but they'll eventually realize that they can still have fun and fulfill a power fantasy and be challenged at the same time, once the game is better balanced. But until this occurs, you will always have a game that is adequately challenging for some, but oppressively difficult for others, or a game that is fun for some, but mind-numbingly boring for others. And there will never be a perfect point that will completely satisfy everyone. But if the range of power is narrower, it'll be much easier to decide where the sweet spot is.

I agree... but I dont think just taking those things away is going to leave anything even mildly sustainable afterwards... just look at the types of missions we have. Their objectives are overly simplistic bordering on just plain stupid. And enemy designs and variety are sorely lacking on a mechanical  level.

Those things need to be completely  overhauled so that it doesnt feel like we are Space Farmers.

[AltairFerenc]

42 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

The Steel Path is annoyingly difficult for some, and still boringly easy for others.

ir borignly difficult for me regular starcharts gets boring because everything dies too fast steel path gets boring because things refuse to die. I hate mostly all meta weapons and use the things I actually like so steel path for me is that I cannot die and takes too long to kill them. Also essence farm is horrible they are uneffected by any loot midifier and have 2% chance from eximuses, like sure DE said we don't have to wait an hour now to things get "difficult" but we still have to stay for an hour so eximuses can spawn at an acceptable rate.

haven't read anthing more sorry

[Tyreaus]

 

59 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

In my opinion, all of the balance issues with Warframe stem from the fact that there is such an egregiously large gap between the power level that players start with in Warframe, and what they are capable of achieving if they really want to, because there are too many points in between where players can land just based on what numbers they had on their arsenal screen.

I feel like the major problem is the speed at which players can reach that maximum power. To get fully modded equipment is easily done within the course of the regular Starchart. Riven additions may take longer (when they're even worth it, given their stated purpose is to bring weaker weapons up to par, not take stronger weapons further beyond). But you're pretty much at max power by the time you're done the Starchart, long before completing Sorties or Arbitrations or Steel Path.

I also agree with the implied notion that it comes down too much to the build screen. IMO, building should make regular gameplay easier, but not be necessary in and of itself. For example, if headshots instantly killed enemies, you could do the entire starchart with no mods in your weapons. But if you were to mod up your weapons with more damage, status, fire rate, and so on, you could A: clear missions faster and B: clear missions without needing to rely on skill. Makes it easier, but the game doesn't come down to that 100%.

(That's an extreme example, instant-killing on headshots, but y'get what I mean)

59 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

So first I think we have to decide what kind of game we want Warframe to be. It is a horde shooter after all. You cannot have a slow-paced tactical experience where you must outsmart your opponents when you are being shot by 50 enemies at a time who are continuously respawning on all sides of you. And at the same time, you cannot have a meaningfully challenging and rewarding experience when you are so heavily encouraged to spam massive AoE damage just to get through the mission as quick as possible because you've got to run it 150 more times because the drop rate on the reward you want is so stupidly low.

Part of this issue is the fact that everything moves up the difficulty ladder in tandem. Eximus and heavy units, which should be stronger than fodder counterparts, aren't notably stronger until everything is notably stronger - at which point the massive numbers and being shot at by 50 legitimately threatening enemies becomes a problem. There aren't, for example, single nodes of challenge strewn among a group of fodder enemies that, independent of level, are going to fall to pieces at the mere sight of your bright pink Rhino. Rather, everything becomes challenge, or almost nothing is.

Just look at Left 4 Dead. Most enemies in the horde are fodder that'll fall to pieces against just about any artillery. It's the Tanks and the Boomers that, while rarer, are the points of challenge and complexity.

I have always seen this lack of imbalance as a core problem to Warframe's philosophy: they want challenge and they want a power fantasy. There seems to be an idea that you can't have both. But you can: you can have challenging, rare enemies among armies that are easy to kill and fuel the power fantasy. You just can't have a single enemy doing both, and that's what plain level scaling tries to do.

The high maximum power potential only becomes an issue when it's taking care of heavy units as easily as the fodder ones. Conversely, enemy scaling only becomes an issue when fodder enemies are close to as durable as heavy ones. You can nerf one or both of those number sets - weakening players or restraining scaling - but you can also fix the issue by fussing with the difference between fodder and heavy enemies. Personally, that's what I'd aim for: barely scale fodder enemies, enhance the crud out of the heavy units with things like DPS caps.

[o0Despair0o]

I'd say the probem with warframe is that the developers have no frickin idea what they want to do and end up doing all sorts of crap nobody asked for.

[Lutesque]

8 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Just look at Left 4 Dead. Most enemies in the horde are fodder that'll fall to pieces against just about any artillery. 

Ive always disliked this aspect of Left For Dead 😕

10 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

 

I have always seen this lack of imbalance as a core problem to Warframe's philosophy: they want challenge and they want a power fantasy. There seems to be an idea that you can't have both. But you can: you can have challenging, rare enemies among armies that are easy to kill and fuel the power fantasy.

Im not convinced thats possible. 😕

wouldnt the Power Fantasy players be upset by the units that dont ger nuked be dissapointes ? And wouldnt the players who want challenged be annoyed with all the ads and filler brain dead enemies that provide no challenge at all ?

9 minutes ago, o0Despair0o said:

I'd say the probem with warframe is that the developers have no frickin idea what they want to do and end up doing all sorts of crap nobody asked for.

Like Archwing, and Railjack... and Fishing... and K-Drives... and Frame Fighter. 

[Dauggie]

man i was enjoying my time killing enemies in orb vallis steel path, get 4 star enemy elert and you'll have fun killing enemies, i was playing as inaros since i don't have to worry about nullifier bubbles and Sh*t, give it a try, Also sry i didn't read entire stuff, because lets be honest it wont change anything. The skill part kinda hurts, have you seen players doing eidolon hunts? when they first launched 3x3 was like an incredible thing, for a normie like me that was impossible and now i do 5x3. why? because there are actually skillful players who bring such meta, meta isn't born right away. It's this skillful players that bring out the best methods and we just follow on them. now this goes for every game, even fighting games will have people call good players as "skillful" but all they all they do is copy tactics the pro tournament players use. so don't just say warframe doesn't require skills.

[(PSN)sister-hawk]

5 hours ago, Lutesque said:

Nope.

Steel Path isnt difficult for anybody.

It definitely is. Listen I understand you don’t think it’s difficult, but not everyone plays the game the same way as you. I find it difficult with the way that I like to play the game. I went into the Interception on Earth solo with Khora and a Kuva Quartakk, thinking I could rely on my aim and whip a few enemies when they cluster up. Nope. I could kill, I could stay alive, but there was no way I could keep up with the enemy spawns. Then I went in with Nova and it was like watching paint dry.

That’s my point in all of this. Difficulty is relative to whatever equipment you have and what playstyle you wanna use. And as long as that’s the case, you can’t ever balance the difficulty of the game.

5 hours ago, Lutesque said:

Whats the difference ? 😮

Difficulty means just making the game harder. Like when you are playing a single player game and you raise the difficulty level, and all that happens is enemies get more health and do more damage.

Challenging players doesn’t necessarily make the game harder. In the context of Warframe, challenging players means forcing them to actually engage with enemies rather than spamming AoE everywhere. It means making them think about how to use the tools they are given to create an interesting experience that amounts to something more than pressing one button and watching everything die. It does not mean letting them play the same way they already do but with a higher failure rate.

And as a side note, some people will say that in my above example, having to switch to Nova to deal with the crazy spawn rate of enemies was an example of me being challenged to play the game differently, and while that may technically be true, I do not believe that creating gear exclusivity is a healthy way of accomplishing challenge.

[Dauggie]

10 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

 

Like Archwing, and Railjack... and Fishing... and K-Drives... and Frame Fighter. 

frame fighter was never a gameplay addition of any sort, it was just a fun project of ONE GUY! rewatch that devstream if you missed it

[(PSN)sister-hawk]

3 minutes ago, Dauggie said:

so don't just say warframe doesn't require skills.

That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is Warframe is designed to allow players to bypass any requirement for skill. If you can go into a steel path Interception solo and do nothing but land headshots with a Sybaris Prime and successfully complete the mission? Holy crap that would be an impressive display of skill. But let’s be real, no one is going to do that, because it would be stupidly hard. Everyone is just going to bring their nuke/cc frames and some AoE and cruise through the mission.

And I understand what you are saying about the Eidolon hunters. I appreciate people who can look at any situation in a game and figure out how to make the impossible possible. But simply doing what they do isn’t skill. When I was still a baby tenno I celebrated being able to break a single Teralyst limb with a radiation modded Lex Prime, which probably took around 20 or 30 minutes. Then I got a Lanka and broke then limb in 5 seconds. I didn’t get better at the game, I didn’t gain any skill. I got better equipment, that’s it.

[Lutesque]

Just now, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

It definitely is. Listen I understand you don’t think it’s difficult, but not everyone plays the game the same way as you. I find it difficult with the way that I like to play the game. I went into the Interception on Earth solo with Khora and a Kuva Quartakk, thinking I could rely on my aim and whip a few enemies when they cluster up. Nope. I could kill, I could stay alive, but there was no way I could keep up with the enemy spawns. Then I went in with Nova and it was like watching paint dry.

Thats Exactly why I say it isnt difficult. Its more dependent on what you bring rather than what you as a player can do...

2 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

That’s my point in all of this. Difficulty is relative to whatever equipment you have and what playstyle you wanna use. And as long as that’s the case, you can’t ever balance the difficulty of the game.

If it really was difficulty then would have succeeded with Khora only it would have required alot more skill to do so...

As it currently stands it seems like Khora just cant cover enough areas at once regardless of how hard you try.

BTW i did most interceptions with Booben... it turns out Enemies rag dolled by Vortex dont count as occupying space so you can capture towers without removing the enemies guarding them.... youl also notice that if you rag doll an enemy that is currrntly keeping a door open... That door just shuts.

Inb4 some try hard comes and claims Their Khora did it with no Mods.

5 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

Difficulty means just making the game harder. Like when you are playing a single player game and you raise the difficulty level, and all that happens is enemies get more health and do more damage.

Where are you getting this definition from ?  😮

9 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

Challenging players doesn’t necessarily make the game harder. In the context of Warframe, challenging players means forcing them to actually engage with enemies rather than spamming AoE everywhere. It means making them think about how to use the tools they are given to create an intestine experience that amounts to something more than pressing one button and watching everything die. It does not mean letting them play the same way they already do but with a higher failure rate.

Sounds like Difficulty to me.

10 minutes ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

And as a side note, some people will say that in my above example, having to switch to Nova to deal with the crazy spawn rate of enemies was an example of me being challenged to play the game differently, and while that may technically be true, I do not believe that creating gear exclusivity is a healthy way of accomplishing challenge.

Thats Something I totally agree with 🙂

[Lutesque]

9 minutes ago, Dauggie said:

frame fighter was never a gameplay addition of any sort, it was just a fun project of ONE GUY! rewatch that devstream if you missed it

No way... I havent watched a single dev stream and I aint about to start now. 😛

 

[Tyreaus]

24 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

wouldnt the Power Fantasy players be upset by the units that dont ger nuked be dissapointes ? And wouldnt the players who want challenged be annoyed with all the ads and filler brain dead enemies that provide no challenge at all ?

First, the difference is, largely, in proportion. The power fantasy players would not run into those anti-nuke enemies with a terribly high frequency. Likewise, the players who want challenge would be presented with challenges that, while rarer, would last a decent amount of time and, in that sense, take the fore-front.

What we have right now, with plain scaling, is all-of-one or all-of-the-other. Either every enemy in the entire map falls to pieces from a nuke, or almost nothing does. Likewise, either every enemy is a pushover, or every enemy is a challenge. There is a diminishingly small, coincidental, impossible-to-maintain middle ground between the two where both sides might be happy. Maybe.

Second, anything is going to have that problem to some degree. The power fantasy players and the challenge-hungry players are diametric opposites. A game cannot, fundamentally, be built that keeps the entirety of both groups happy. But you can, I argue, build a game that keeps most of both groups happy - especially when you're talking about a multiplayer game where you can not only mix a nuker and a challenge-seeker, but make that the best team combination.

Besides, the point was about the philosophy of "you can't have challenge and a power fantasy", where the truth is: you can. You just can't have it at the exact same gameplay moment, or with the exact same enemy. There's a certain rhythm and certain boundaries that have to be created.

[_Kiro]

This is that one topic about the game being hard or not, what needs to be nerfed or not, this topic already popped up numerous times in these past years.

I have no doubts the OP is correct on some things but it won't matter because warframe is a cesspool that can never be balanced at this point.

We have hundreds of weapons (in which 90% in the grand scheme of things don't matter), 70 warframes (prime and non prime included) give or take 1 cuz I don't care about the number anymore and to top if off DE cannot for their life make proper difficulty because everything can be 2-3 shot aside from bosses who have HP locks on their health bar and even so, that segment is usually one shot.

To top it all off, this topic is on General when it should be on feedback as it's been said a lot of times that DE doesn't read this section basically and honestly, after the number of threads like this that are never read, I kinda believe it.

All in all this is a useless topic that will never be looked at so I'll just leave you all a video of a screaming sheep which is meant to represent our frustration at seeing the game turning into what it is and not being able to change it (at least so far).

 

[(PSN)Silverback73]

1 hour ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

Secondly, the growing disparity in the power level of, not just particular weapons, but entire playstyles needs to be majorly decreased. I know DE has recently taken some steps to address this problem (changes to armor scaling, shield gating, enemy accuracy). But frankly what they've done so far is a drop in the bucket. Walking into a room and exploding instantly because one enemy put a slash proc on you because you didn't come in mindlessly flailing your infested zaw at mach 3 does not make for a fun experience. I just want people to remember, difficulty and challenge are not the same thing. There is already plenty of challenge in Warframe if you want it, but we as players have been trained by the game itself to avoid as much challenge as possible. And simply increasing the difficulty accomplishes nothing but increasing gear exclusivity, because players have shown that no matter what level you crank the enemies too, someone will find a way to make it as easy as possible.

 

The game is about investing time ...tenure, with entertaining combat.

And looking cooler and doing it a bit faster if you want to reward DE with money for their efforts to bring you an entertaining experience.

A futurist Canterbury Tales.  It’s just that simple.

Help new players in the very beginning and then send them off on their journey or give them a clan invite and foster growth.

[Hypernaut1]

If Warframe can't be difficult, why are enemies constantly nerfed? They have been nerfed in more ways than just lowering their EHP too. 

Remember when corpus drones were a problem? What do they even do now? They are literally just flying targets that do practically nothing in today's game. One upon a time you needed to kill them as soon as they showed up because they woul be litter the floor with mines. To me, that was challenging. I needed to find high ground, destroy the mines, while also fending off a horde and killing any more drones that showed up. This was engaging gameplay to me. It was more than just a gear check. 

Steel Path should've been a mode with pre-nerfed enemies. 

[Lutesque]

2 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

. The power fantasy players would not run into those anti-nuke enemies with a terribly high frequency.

But they would eventually run into them... i cant imagine they will be happy about it when they do. Especially if:

3 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Likewise, the players who want challenge would be presented with challenges that, while rarer, would last a decent amount of time and, in that sense, take the fore-front.

But they would still have to slog through the Brain Dead Trash Mobs wouldnt they ?

Therefore:

4 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

First, the difference is, largely, in proportion.

All this does is adjust who gets dissapointed more. Its a tedium Slider.

7 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Likewise, either every enemy is a pushover, or every enemy is a challenge. There is a diminishingly small, coincidental, impossible-to-maintain middle ground between the two where both sides might be happy. Maybe.

You can make it so that Both sides are equal... but ultimately anything you do to make one side happy is going to make the other side upset.

9 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

 

Second, anything is going to have that problem to some degree. The power fantasy players and the challenge-hungry players are diametric opposites

Oh... so you see the problem too ? 

10 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

A game cannot, fundamentally, be built that keeps the entirety of both groups happy. But you can, I argue, build a game that keeps most of both groups happy - especially when you're talking about a multiplayer game where you can not only mix a nuker and a challenge-seeker, but make that the best team combination.

So basically each squad would be made up a combination of these groups and they would play their roles to accomplish objectives ?

I dont know why... but something tells me this isnt how its actually going to work out in Practice.

2 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

If Warframe can't be difficult, why are enemies constantly nerfed?

Because difficulty and Balance are 2 totally different concepts.

If you want to balance something. You buff/nerf it.

If you want adjust difficulty... you need to fundementally change how it functions and then balance it accordingly. 

5 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

One upon a time you needed to kill them as soon as they showed up because they woul be litter the floor with mines.

If the solution to a problem is to get rid of before it has a chance to become a problem then thats just bad design. 

You cant have something be so dangerous that you you are forced to eliminate it before it can do anything just so you can play. 

This was the biggest issue with Nioh on Way Of The Demon and The Abyss:

 

if it makes you feel any better... Team Ninja nerfed that S#&$ too... 

 

23 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

. I needed to find high ground, destroy the mines, while all have fending off a horde and killing any more drones that showed up. This was engaging gameplay to me. It was more than just a gear check. 

In other words... You needed to Cheese to win. 

Yeah I suggest you buy a Copy of Nioh ASAP. Sounds like its your type of game.

 

[Tyreaus]

43 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

I dont know why... but something tells me this isnt how its actually going to work out in Practice.

Well, let's consider how it works right now:

If a Saryn comes along and wipes an entire tile on Hydron, for example, everyone else either sits around or helps out the Saryn with energy.

If you add in enemies that the Saryn can't reliably kill, what happens? In practice, this ends up being everyone swarming that last remaining targets. (That doesn't happen with Saryns as much as it happens with, I think, Volts + Noxs. Or it was some other Warframe, admittedly I don't remember for sure... )

So there exists a general loop of "nuker clears the room, support helps out, everyone else handles the trash left behind", and the main reason not all stages of that loop happen is because there isn't always trash left behind.

This can also happen for solo players on the basis of weapons - at least conceptually.

Of course, I can't say that is for sure how things would go were other changes to be implemented. But there is evidence of that loop existing, at least right now.

I should add: I advocate for that kind of "fodder hordes with stronger, rarer enemies" for a number of other reasons. For example, you can implement more advanced AI with fewer enemies and have their movements be impactful and discernible. If every enemy in a group of fifty could hop around like Index brokers, it would be an incomprehensible mess of motion that, often, wouldn't actually change anything (enemy A moves over to cover enemy B's location, enemy B moves right into the place where enemy A was, and nothing really changes).

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 hours ago, (PS4)sister-hawk said:

That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is Warframe is designed to allow players to bypass any requirement for skill. If you can go into a steel path Interception solo and do nothing but land headshots with a Sybaris Prime and successfully complete the mission? Holy crap that would be an impressive display of skill. But let’s be real, no one is going to do that, because it would be stupidly hard. Everyone is just going to bring their nuke/cc frames and some AoE and cruise through the mission.

And I understand what you are saying about the Eidolon hunters. I appreciate people who can look at any situation in a game and figure out how to make the impossible possible. But simply doing what they do isn’t skill. When I was still a baby tenno I celebrated being able to break a single Teralyst limb with a radiation modded Lex Prime, which probably took around 20 or 30 minutes. Then I got a Lanka and broke then limb in 5 seconds. I didn’t get better at the game, I didn’t gain any skill. I got better equipment, that’s it.

Have you even done an actual 5x3? 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

"If the solution to a problem is to get rid of before it has a chance to become a problem then thats just bad design. 

You cant have something be so dangerous that you you are forced to eliminate it before it can do anything just so you can play."

 

 

 

 

It's actually a valid tactic called "Focus Firing".

It's a coordinated attack on an enemy that is usually harder than the regular horde. 

It's used in many games as well as competitive PvP i.e. "Focus Fire that healer, he keeps healing the DPS we're trying to kill". 

Tactics and team coordination are a part of skill, no matter how much you deny it. 

Edit: to further explain, it's a tactic of putting what's called "pressure" on someone to prevent them from completing a task or providing a distraction.

[Lutesque]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

It's actually a valid tactic called "Focus Firing".

Im not concerned with what type of Tactic it is... only with what type of design it is.

1 hour ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

It's used in many games as well as competitive PvP i.e. "Focus Fire that healer, he keeps healing the DPS we're trying to kill". 

only Team PvP game Ive played is Gears. I would imagine nobody is going to play Healer if it paints a target on your back so large that you cant even play because everyone keeps killing you before you can do anything.

1 hour ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

Tactics and team coordination are a part of skill, no matter how much you deny it. 

Hey I never said ganging up on one dude isnt skillful... But it is pretty terrible for a game to be designed this way.

1 hour ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

Edit: to further explain, it's a tactic of putting what's called "pressure" on someone to prevent them from completing a task or providing a distraction.

If it happened to me I would call it Bull S#&$.

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

53 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

Im not concerned with what type of Tactic it is... only with what type of design it is.

only Team PvP game Ive played is Gears. I would imagine nobody is going to play Healer if it paints a target on your back so large that you cant even play because everyone keeps killing you before you can do anything.

Hey I never said ganging up on one dude isnt skillful... But it is pretty terrible for a game to be designed this way.

If it happened to me I would call it Bull S#&$.

 

Riiiight, well.... I guess we shouldn't have quarterbacks since they are unfairly targeted by linemen. 

Do you have any ounce of competition in you at all lol? 

I mean, maybe we should all just stop this Universal war and sit down with the Sentients, Grineer, Corpus and Infested for a cup of tea.....

[kevoisvevo]

I am okay with nerfs for both enemy and us. But in return I want my time to be worth it by increasing the rewards alot more. 

[Lutesque]

Just now, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

Riiiight, well.... I guess we shouldn't have quarterbacks since they are unfairly targeted by linemen. 

Now you're Thinking like a true Master !!! 🙂

1 minute ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

Do you have any ounce of competition in you at all lol? 

1 on 1 ? Sure Il take one anyone in Fantasy Strike, Gwent and even Sonic and All-stars Racing Transformed.

Us vs Them ? Nope... fight your own battles and leave me out of it.

3 minutes ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

I mean, maybe we should all just stop this Universal war and sit down with the Sentients, Grineer, Corpus and Infested for a cup of tea.....

Now thats real end game !!! 😎

3 minutes ago, kevoisvevo said:

I am okay with nerfs for both enemy and us. But in return I want my time to be worth it by increasing the rewards alot more. 

Naturally you cant have any rewards that would result in Power Creep... sooooo... what would like ?