Since when has "power fantasy" become a compelling argument against game balance?

[Flying_Scorpion]

Warframe is an action game. You know what separates edge of your seat "action" from falling asleep in your chair "action"? If the protagonist is actually put at risk. Like if they *might* actually die or fail or whatever. If the protagonist effortlessly overcame any semblance of a challenge, it would become predictable and boring. If the protagonist barely manages to overcome the challenge, it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

That is all. Feel free to trash me now because I said something that conflicts with your worldview.

[Aldain]

Since people became complacent with what basically amounts to a /killall command through some Warframe abilities.

I'm convinced people don't actually want to play Warframe, they just want rewards for nothing at all.

[DrivaMain]

You can still have power fantasy with non brain dead gameplay. God of War 1-3 comes to mind, Kratos can die easily but he can annihilates hordes of enemies with ease to reflect the feeling of "I HAVE SO MUCH POWER".

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

Since DE markets their game as a Power Fantasy game, despite their non-consistency on the matter.

Not that it serves as an excuse against balance on its own, to be fair. On the balance topic, since it's on the table, I'd consider balance to switch the OP abilities with other abilities that were more underrated. What I'd not consider balance, is to keep said OP abilities in the mix and jinx them.

This from someone who does want Dispensary and Warcry to remain in the mix.

[Phatose]

Well, open beta started in 2013, and there hasn't been any balance of the type you refer to during that time, so at least 7 years ago.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

To answer the question in the title:

Probably since the open beta trailer back in U7. The one where you have warframes being unspeakably badass and chewing through huge numbers of grineer. I know the power fantasy is exactly what drew me to Warframe in the first place. In their marketing, DE has always focused on the power fantasy, which means that the players who come to Warframe by and large tend to be interested in that.

Generally speaking, Warframe's uniqueness in gameplay stems from how awesomely fast it is. Outside of Tribes there's very few games that even approach the raw speed of Warframe. Even Doom Eternal, itself a very fast paced game, doesn't get quite as fast. Thing is, it's hard to have a 'challenging' game that is also fast. Time to kill can only be so high, otherwise you straight up lose the fast pace. Doom Eternal partly gets around this by carefully tuning each and every encounter, but that wouldn't work for a game like Warframe that's built on procedural levels and spawns. Since what separates Warframe from other similar looter shooter games like BL2/3, Anthem (lol), Division 2, Destiny 2, etc is the speed, DE really can't afford to jettison said speed without killing one of the core pillars that make Warframe good.

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

7 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Since people became complacent with what basically amounts to a /killall command through some Warframe abilities.

I'm convinced people don't actually want to play Warframe, they just want rewards for nothing at all.

I'd be up for more balanced gameplay if the reward tables were fair. At current, they're not, and so I just want to go brain dead so I don't have to think when playing content I enjoy. I'd like more engaging combat, but at present combat isn't engaging, reward tables suck, and there's a number of gamemodes that simply lack fun.

[Tesseract7777]

Much of warframe abilities are so strong that they would be considered turning cheats on in many other games. 

But it's not enough. People want more.

Bigger problem is though, reconciling what veterans want versus what casual players need to keep playing, which is a huge life blood of any games true longevity even if vets don't want to admit it. 

Veterans want more progression, and most really do want more of a challenge. And if we did have harder enemies it would be okay to power creep us more without us getting bored and vets would feel like they are still progressing instead of stagnating. 

But more casual players have shouted down harder nullifiers, harder manics (who never spawn anymore almost), harder liches, the very existence of comba/scrambus, and so many more. If some had their way nullifiers would be deleted from the game, even after all the nerfs to them. 

Right now we have a system where enemies are maybe challenging enough for the casual, but not too much so, but way too easy for veterans. 

We need a better balance. We can find a better balance. 

 

[Flying_Scorpion]

12 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Since people became complacent with what basically amounts to a /killall command through some Warframe abilities.

I'm convinced people don't actually want to play Warframe, they just want rewards for nothing at all.

That's a hot take right there! 🙂

[Aldain]

Just now, Flying_Scorpion said:

That's a hot take right there!

I mean when you look at how much effort players put into literally not playing the game it does make me wonder.

Remember Scarlet Spear and how insanely PO'd some people were when they couldn't drop down a Limbo Cataclysm, hit stasis, and then AFK for the entire mission?

People were literally complaining that they needed to actually play the game to get the event rewards, and worse yet, were content with the only gameplay being driving a space bus towing a satellite to a alien ship, hopping on board said ship, putting down a relay spike and hitting 4 and 2 on Limbo until the countdown ended.

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

Just now, Aldain said:

I mean when you look at how much effort players put into literally not playing the game it does make me wonder.

Remember Scarlet Spear and how insanely PO'd some people were when they couldn't drop down a Limbo Cataclysm, hit stasis, and then AFK for the entire mission?

People were literally complaining that they needed to actually play the game to get the event rewards, and worse yet, were content with the only gameplay being driving a space bus towing a satellite to a alien ship, hopping on board said ship, putting down a relay spike and hitting 4 and 2 on Limbo until the countdown ended.

Remember how badly scarlet credits were set up? Remember the confusion, days trying to figure out how to actually play the event and get rewards in a timely fashion, in comparison to how much the credit costs were? I do. I remember looking at the grind after they fixed it and still refusing to play because it was just too much of a bother and repetitive to get what I wanted. Of course people didn't want to play, the gameplay wasn't engaging and the rewards felt like smashing my head into a wall.

[TheTodesfall]

I have over 4000 hours in WF and I haven't played in over half a year. I picked it back up because of hype over this new system, I think this just killed my hype for it, don't know if I'm going to keep playing anymore, this incessant philosophy of nerfing things that we enjoy or excite us is killing this game for me

[kgabor]

27 minutes ago, Flying_Scorpion said:

Warframe is an action game. You know what separates edge of your seat "action" from falling asleep in your chair "action"? If the protagonist is actually put at risk. Like if they *might* actually die or fail or whatever. If the protagonist effortlessly overcame any semblance of a challenge, it would become predictable and boring. If the protagonist barely manages to overcome the challenge, it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

That is all. Feel free to trash me now because I said something that conflicts with your worldview.

Nah.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

Couldn't agree more with OP.

[Aldain]

7 minutes ago, Grey_Star_Rival_Defender said:

Remember how badly scarlet credits were set up? Remember the confusion, days trying to figure out how to actually play the event and get rewards in a timely fashion, in comparison to how much the credit costs were? I do.

So do I, but even if all of that was not a factor I have ZERO faith that many people wouldn't have just done the same Limbo thing.

I'm 100% convinced DE could make a fun, engaging experience with great and consistent rewards and people would complain that they had to do more than press 4 to get said rewards.

I have no faith in the community at large of Warframe whatsoever, maybe that's just my issue, but I keep seeing things that make me lose additional bits of hope I didn't even know I had left, and that has just made me utterly apathetic to the plight of people who want effortless powercreep.

[(PSN)MYKK678]

21 minutes ago, Flying_Scorpion said:

Warframe is an action game. You know what separates edge of your seat "action" from falling asleep in your chair "action"? If the protagonist is actually put at risk. Like if they *might* actually die or fail or whatever. If the protagonist effortlessly overcame any semblance of a challenge, it would become predictable and boring. If the protagonist barely manages to overcome the challenge, it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

That is all. Feel free to trash me now because I said something that conflicts with your worldview.

Why would you get trashed? You posted half a thought and never finished it. You described how some games (like Dark Souls as an example) are made but never connected it to Warframe. Or to anything really.

By your logic though, talking about the thrill of almost dying, i'm guessing your request is that DE introduce Perma-Death for each frame into the game.

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

1 minute ago, Aldain said:

So do I, but even if all of that was not a factor I have ZERO faith that many people wouldn't have just done the same Limbo thing.

I'm 100% convinced DE could make a fun, engaging experience with great and consistent rewards and people would complain that they had to do more than press 4 to get said rewards.

I have no faith in the community at large of Warframe whatsoever, maybe my issue, but I keep seeing things that make me lose additional bits of hope I didn't even know I had left, and that has just made me utterly apathetic to the plight of people who want effortless powercreep.

You're probably right. All I know is I take my cheese into missions I don't care for to numb the pain of doing the grind. If I want to have fun, I'll play Umbra on Sortie, or Gara on Arbitration. If I'm forced to do defection for some reason, or defense, or Index AGAIN, I'll take whatever cheese and turn my brain off.

[Flying_Scorpion]

10 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

You can still have power fantasy with non brain dead gameplay. God of War 1-3 comes to mind, Kratos can die easily but he can annihilates hordes of enemies with ease to reflect the feeling of "I HAVE SO MUCH POWER".

I haven't played that game but I've heard good things about it. And I must agree, you can have both power fantasy and balanced gameplay.

 

7 minutes ago, Cpl_Facehugger said:

Probably since the open beta trailer back in U7. The one where you have warframes being unspeakably badass and chewing through huge numbers of grineer. I know the power fantasy is exactly what drew me to warframe in the first place. In their marketing, DE has always focused on the power fantasy, which means that the players who come to warframe by and large tend to be interested in that.

Generally speaking, warframe's uniqueness in gameplay stems from how awesomely fast it is. Outside of Tribes there's very few games that even approach the raw speed of warframe. Even Doom Eternal, itself a very fast paced game, doesn't get quite as fast. Thing is, it's hard to have a 'challenging' game that is also fast. Time to kill can only be so high, otherwise you straight up lose the fast pace. Since what separates warframe from other similar looter shooter games like BL2/3, Anthem (lol), Division 2, Destiny 2, etc is the speed, DE really can't afford to jettison said speed without killing one of the core pillars that make Warframe good.

But what about the nerf to itzal's blink? That slowed it down. What about the nerf to magus lockdown? It doesn't do 60% enemy HP as puncture damage anymore. That slowed the game down. What about the nerf to shotgun status chance? That slowed down TTK. Would you say that these nerfs were bad for the game?
 

14 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Right now we have a system where enemies are maybe challenging enough for the casual, but not too much so, but way too easy for veterans. 

We need a better balance. We can find a better balance. 

I completely agree with you, and what you are saying is reflected in the data by DE's poll several months back. If I recall correctly, the number of people who said the game is lacking in difficulty outnumbered the people who said the game is too difficult by a factor of like 9:1



 

[Flying_Scorpion]

13 minutes ago, Aldain said:

mean when you look at how much effort players put into literally not playing the game it does make me wonder.

Remember Scarlet Spear and how insanely PO'd some people were when they couldn't drop down a Limbo Cataclysm, hit stasis, and then AFK for the entire mission?

People were literally complaining that they needed to actually play the game to get the event rewards, and worse yet, were content with the only gameplay being driving a space bus towing a satellite to a alien ship, hopping on board said ship, putting down a relay spike and hitting 4 and 2 on Limbo until the countdown ended.

I like you a lot and we are in a similar mindset when it comes to this game. I said something similar to what you just said in the steel path feedback megathread:

"it's the journey, not the destination" that's like two people climbing up a mountain, one of them is enjoying themselves, the other is racing to the top and then complains because they worked so hard and all they got was some rock that they found at the top.

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

Just now, Flying_Scorpion said:

I haven't played that game but I've heard good things about it. And I must agree, you can have both power fantasy and balanced gameplay.

One thing Spider-Man PS4 did was create a perfect simulation of having Spider-Man's powers, put into video game form. It had all the power. But it also had a difficulty setting, that made it very easy to be challenge and forced to fight with intelligence rather than relying on physical attack spam. Warframe has no difficulty setting, everything that's difficult is lumped into a different mode with no connection. And every one of those difficulties are intended to be taken on by everyone. That stands in the way of balanced gameplay, is this design of "everyone should have the same level of difficulty," and then giving options to circumvent that difficulty for the less skilled.

[Flying_Scorpion]

12 minutes ago, Aldain said:

I have no faith in the community at large of Warframe whatsoever, maybe that's just my issue, but I keep seeing things that make me lose additional bits of hope I didn't even know I had left, and that has just made me utterly apathetic to the plight of people who want effortless powercreep.

YES, YES, and more YES. That is how I feel a lot of the time too. I come here and and try to give feedback similar to this, but I get drowned in the tears of the crybabies because I'm standing between them and their chocolate bar. Eventually you just give up and let them have it. But all that does is reinforce the behavior. By the fact that you and I are posting here on this forum, even though apparently we have some unpopular opinions, shows that we care about the game. But I feel you on that apathy, after awhile it seems like saying anything at all is not even worth it. 

[Hypernaut1]

for all this talk of power fanstasy, people are fast to complain about powerful enemies, nerfed weapons and useless frames. Truth is, WF has always straddled the line. Its never been Dynasty Warriors and its never been Dark Souls. 

Most of the time the complaints are just trying to be manipulative. 

[Aldain]

17 minutes ago, Flying_Scorpion said:

I like you a lot and we are in a similar mindset when it comes to this game.

Careful with that thought process, I also disagree with several design choices that are considered "hard" by some standards, for example I completely dislike the structure of Profit-taker as a fight, it is mostly just a barrage of nonsense in every direction with a variable damage shield that only serves to pad the fight time. The entire fight is a mess top to bottom imo and is in my top 3 worst Warframe boss fights.

Similarly I have/had a massive distaste for the Wolf of Saturn Six, who was the definition of a damage sponge with no real threat until DE put 3 immortal mooks throwing massively damaging firebombs at players. Despite how players like Zilchy showed that they can be pushovers under the right circumstances it was disgustingly obtuse if you weren't prepared, which for a boss that invades randomly is insanely intrusive and forced players to carry around gear they otherwise wouldn't want.

The Steel Path imo was also the single most boring, useless and redundant addition to Warframe in a long time, mainly because it just boiled down to hitting the multiply key on a calculator a few times and called "hard".

I'm of a very unusual opinion that both the insane ceiling and the basement-level floor of the game need to be brought closer to a middle ground, we need a baseline, something that is considered expected for bare minimum functionality and can be compared to a reasonable ceiling, and we can't reach that with people demanding nerfs for everything or other people demanding things be stupidly spongy out of spite and parading things like endurance missions with level 1000+ enemies as a standard for what is good.

To boil it down, we need to stop the rampant use and abuse of multiplication as the only form of "difficulty" metrics, we need less effortless shutdowns and to realize that a boring spongy enemy is not a serviceable alternative to a paperweight enemy, they are just two excessive extremes that solely want nothing more than the absolute elimination of the opposite side.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

28 minutes ago, Flying_Scorpion said:

But what about the nerf to itzal's blink? That slowed it down. What about the nerf to magus lockdown? It doesn't do 60% enemy HP as puncture damage anymore. That slowed the game down. What about the nerf to shotgun status chance? That slowed down TTK. Would you say that these nerfs were bad for the game?

The blink nerf was probably unnecessary, yes. It's only tolerable because DE also gave blink to every other archwing, and even then it's still irritating. The nerf to magus lockdown was also probably unnecessary. I'm less sure on that one because I've never used lockdown myself, but when I saw others use it, I was never overawed by how effective it was compared to other options for general gameplay.

The nerf to shotgun status chance was definitely unnecessary, and ruined a good many shotgun builds to boot.

So yes, these nerfs were probably bad for the game. I'm not going to say that every nerf that increases TTK is automatically bad as an axiom, but I'd feel comfortable saying that most of the ones DE's implemented are. Simply put, tenno like going fast. We're the guys who invented coptering. The parkour 2.0 update was widely beloved by all tenno, at least I've never heard anyone complain about it at all. Killing fast is a subset of going fast.

[Flying_Scorpion]

@Aldain those are all good point. I'd love to write more in response to this but I have go in. I agree with narrowing the band a little bit because the range in power is so huge that it becomes what I can only imagine a balancing team's nightmare. The exponential growth in power with certain multiplying factors creates huge spikes which some people love, but can be game breaking.

Okay before I go, one more thing. Yes, the steel path was a low-effort thing. And yes the wolf of saturn six was a bullet sponge. Yes there are things they are doing that are not great, but I am a man who believes in reinforcing behavior even if it is only an approximation of the end-term goal, because through incremental approximations, it can get closer and closer to the end goal. Like for example: a baby trying to feed itself. I know this is kind of a crazy analogy but just bear with me for a moment. When a baby picks up the spoon, you reinforce that behavior. If instead you do nothing and just watch with a blank face, waiting for the baby to full on pick up the spoon and feed itself, you'll be waiting a very long time before you allow yourself to applaud and encourage the behavior. I know DE is full of grown up adults who make this game for a living/career, but even in adults the same methodology is kind of important - rewarding incremental progress, even if it's just approximately in the direction of what you want. 

But criticism is important too, so thank you for providing your criticism here. We may not 100% completely agree but I think there's enough overlap for me to say your opinion is valued and welcome here in this thread.

ADIOS! 🙂