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

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

3 hours ago, Xylena_Lazarow said:

I don't understand why power fantasy amounts to seal clubbing for so many players. I feel powerful when I'm killing something powerful.

Because how dare you enjoy playing the game your way. You must enjoy the game the way others do. 

Now, chop chop, demand nerfs for things you don't like. 

 

[(PSN)DidacoJack]

It's become a compelling argument since the person using such term doesn't want to see their damage-number-porn nerfed.

I've been gaming for 27 years, and the first time I've seen that term is in here, in this forum, thrown as if it is some genre-defining characteristic. So much that I genuinely googled it's meaning, only to find that it's a generic concept valid for entertainment products generically.

It's not a surprise that you never see anyone using that term as an argument reiterating on its meaning and how it should affect a video game's playability. That's because the term itself doesn't mean anything, at least not from a gameplay point of view.

Especially in an entertainment form such as the video game, in which in 99% of the products created you are meant to impersonate someone with the power of changing the status quo.

So yeah, it can only be used to describe a game's lore, but gameplay wise it means jacks**t.

 

[killerJoke66]

im okay with either power fantasy or hardcore mode god of war , or even a moderately okay gameplay that is balanced in between , but right know we dont have neither 3 of one of them.. instead we have the 'youre god unless some random parasidic unit passes by' or 'you can easily sheet on a gigantic celestial creature using kid powers  unless there are some small buddies of it passing by' 😜 you cant define it  , it isnt even there , one can't even fully state of where the game is . 

[Nakti]

I can't say what can be balanced. I'm also relatively new and cannot say about many updates or how game was balanced/felt at the beginning.

But many difficulties in the game are solely or at least partly numerical. If numbers are the main source of difficulty in general content, players will just raise their average power (dps or survivability), so they will still be able to complete those high numbers. But old content will just become "predictable and boring".

And some updates I've seen really introduce requirement of high numbers to wide public. For example, both treasurers and capture targets require DPS - if you don't kill them fast enough, they'll vanish. But compare the two enemies on same levels - treasurers are much stronger. This may show what damage DE expected from average player at the moment those enemies were introduced.

So pursuing high numbers just to make a best player feel a bit weaker will result in further disbalancing.

[Ethorin]

"Eidolons were hard on release"

Eidolons were outright impossible on release and it was only after getting the tools from the Quills that it was even vaguely possible to kill them... and then the community figured out how to kill them fast because when the primary rewards are either hugely RNG or provide tens of thousands of progress on a grind requiring millions you really do need to figure out how to kill as fast as possible.

"Fortuna got nerfed because whiny casuals!!!"

And then whiny elitists got their "hard" Fortuna restored at higher bounties and alert levels... Of course, that ignores that what people were complaining about with Fortuna was not "this is too hard" it was "This is mislabeled because lvl 40 enemies have the stats of lvl 80-100 enemies".

 

And that of course, is what people tend to ignore about Warframe and difficulty, Warframe has PLENTY of challenge if you aren't running around with the META, because, as is usual in any PvE game, the META is "how do we remove the difficulty"(this is especially true in grindy games). And if you wanna design something that avoids that... well, you have to you know, DESIGN that, doesn't work so well when you are using procedural generation for everything that isn't a boss fight... And just LOOK at how people responded to the Jackal Mk.2 Skill tests that stay relevant throughout and oh look at the response "why does this boss waste so much time?" And they were saying that when they were fighting Sortie Jackal who absolutely could murder you through 95% DR if you weren't passing the skill tests. 

[Corvid]

1 hour ago, Ethorin said:

 

And then whiny elitists got their "hard" Fortuna restored at higher bounties and alert levels... Of course, that ignores that what people were complaining about with Fortuna was not "this is too hard" it was "This is mislabeled because lvl 40 enemies have the stats of lvl 80-100 enemies".

Funny how that tends to be forgotten. DE came up with a solution that gave both parties what they wanted, yet the elitists only care that the baseline enemies got nerfed (despite, as you mentioned, their stats being out of line with other Corpus at equivalent levels).

It's part of why I don't think DE should cater to those who minmax. They'll never be satisfied, and they don't care about anyone else's gameplay experience.

That's not to say that DE shouldn't try to balance the game to make combat more satisfying, just that ramping up enemy stats isn't the way to do it.

[(PSN)Yggranya]

9 hours ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

Couldn't agree more with OP.

Oh? So now it's not the players fault if they don't take everything they can to trivialize the mission? When did your mindset take a full 180 degree turn?

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

Power fantasy is being used to describe fun gameplay.  Mundane interactions with the maps and enemies isn't interesting or fun on it's own.  So all of the fun comes from the warframes abilities and the weapons we use.  Making powerful things feel weak for the sake of balance ruins the one good feeling the game has.

I agree in principal that balance needs to exist even in power fantasy situations.  That doesn't mean DE goes about it in a good way all the time.  They seem to take things far too much in a spreadsheet fashion with little regards to any other factors.

[(PSN)Yggranya]

9 hours 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 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.

It's true that the playerbase in most games seem to be the worst enemy for the developers, but do you really think DE would put the effort into making anything fun and/or engaging with "great" rewards? I don't believe DE or the players would ever change, so i have simply given up. I still won't use any of that mind-numbingly boring crap, but solo is the only way to play, as i have been saying as soon as i got here. Other people ruin MMOs isn't really good advertisement for MMOs, so it will be ignored.

Not to mention that they would do some actual changes and nerfs that would be required to make the game more enjoyable. Trust me, people are going to come in and say the ENJOY standing there pressing a button and winning. Hilarious.

[brasteir]

What kind of challenge are you looking for? There's b*tching about damage sponges, there's b*tching about one shots, there's b*tching about being relegated to 4 frames because the encounter only allows gunplay and it's nOt fUn. 

When there's a consensus among challenge seekers we can start bouncing ideas around. Random immunities to cc might help, disabling traps like in pso2, more emphasis on weak points like nox/arbi drones? Much more exciting discussion than crying about other people's preferred playstyle.

And I'd like to see dynamic drop tables. 

 

[Stormhawkaro]

hace 3 horas, (PS4)DoctorWho_90250 dijo:

Because how dare you enjoy playing the game your way. You must enjoy the game the way others do. 

Now, chop chop, demand nerfs for things you don't like. 

 

It applies both ways, why do players who want challenge have to see it gone because of those who either can't beat it or don't even want to face it? Why can't players who enjoy seal clubbing as their power fantasy just stick to low level missions and call it a day, but instead all they do is cry for enemies to be made even easier?

[-CdG-Zilchy]

1 hour ago, Ethorin said:

And then whiny elitists got their "hard" Fortuna restored at higher bounties and alert levels...

That's incorrect, it was never restored.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

38 minutes ago, Stormhawkaro said:

It applies both ways, why do players who want challenge have to see it gone because of those who either can't beat it or don't even want to face it? Why can't players who enjoy seal clubbing as their power fantasy just stick to low level missions and call it a day, but instead all they do is cry for enemies to be made even easier?

Because they want access to all the rewards but they don't want to earn it. It annoys the hell out of me, the entitlement of today. Give me the old days where video games gave you an unapologetic middle finger in the form of a "GAMEOVER" screen.

[Corvid]

35 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

That's incorrect, it was never restored.

Actually, the Elite Terra Corpus use the same scaling as the pre-nerf basic Terra Corpus, and they start spawning in at level 30 or so. So yes, they were restored.

[brasteir]

37 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

Because they want access to all the rewards but they don't want to earn it. It annoys the hell out of me, the entitlement of today. Give me the old days where video games gave you an unapologetic middle finger in the form of a "GAMEOVER" screen.

Speaking of entitled, not every game needs to accommodate you. If you're doing the constructive thing and bringing up ideas to make the game more challenging and the devs aren't acknowledging them then maybe you need to accept that their vision differs from yours. 

[-CdG-Zilchy]

4 minutes ago, Corvid said:

Actually, the Elite Terra Corpus use the same scaling as the pre-nerf basic Terra Corpus, and they start spawning in at level 30 or so. So yes, they were restored.

Except that's not the enemies I was talking about so no, they are not.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

2 minutes ago, brasteir said:

Speaking of entitled, not every game needs to accommodate you. If you're doing the constructive thing and bringing up ideas to make the game more challenging and the devs aren't acknowledging them then maybe you need to accept that their vision differs from yours. 

Thanks for your feedback. I've done that in other threads already.

[Corvid]

7 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

Except that's not the enemies I was talking about so no, they are not.

Then specify which enemies you're talking about. Believe it or not, the forum users here aren't psychic.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

21 minutes ago, Corvid said:

Then specify which enemies you're talking about. Believe it or not, the forum users here aren't psychic.

I did mention them before in my original comment, no psychic node required, just eyes. The main threat came from the Opticor wielding Corpus sniper and the Raknoids and both now do nowhere near the same damage as they did on release. You also had some fairly hard hitting trenchers coming at you and a hell of a lot more knockdown to deal with. The enemy level cap has also been lowered though I concede to you that they may've been scaled differently for this.

[AlexMercer]

I do enjoy the power fantasy/creep but optional difficulty for all content that is not just another bullet sponge is welcome.

[Ethorin]

17 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

The main threat came from the Opticor wielding Corpus sniper and the Raknoids and both now do nowhere near the same damage as they did on release. You also had some fairly hard hitting trenchers coming at you and a hell of a lot more knockdown to deal with.

...Enemies killing you from that far, enemies killing you from the ground, and knockdown...

 

So you're mad that the silliest and least dealable parts of the enemies on Fortuna got nerfed so Fortuna was no longer "bring total trivializers or SUFFER!"

[-CdG-Zilchy]

2 minutes ago, Ethorin said:

...Enemies killing you from that far, enemies killing you from the ground, and knockdown...

 

So you're mad that the silliest and least dealable parts of the enemies on Fortuna got nerfed so Fortuna was no longer "bring total trivializers or SUFFER!"

Sorry for actually enjoying being able to be killed in this game occasionally. They were absolutely dealable, you just had to be aware of your surroundings which is a good thing.

[kxZyle]

Power fantasy isn't an argument against balance, it's an alternative to it. And it's necessary, considering DE has proven time and time again that they're absolutely awful at maintaining balance. Look at the current state of secondaries vs. primaries, guns vs. melee, the massive chasm in usefulness between the best and worst frames, the supposedly-balancing riven system, the varying usefulness (and uselessness) of the different sentinels and companions, and so on.

The one "balancing" move DE has up their sleeve is going after whatever people happen to be enjoying at the moment, and all that does is stop those people from having fun and contributes nothing towards actually fixing any of the massive underlying systemic problems.

[Ethorin]

47 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

Sorry for actually enjoying being able to be killed in this game occasionally. They were absolutely dealable, you just had to be aware of your surroundings which is a good thing.

It's not "aware of your surroundings" when something the same color as the ground distinguishable primarily by small bumps often not visible through the grass pop out to murder you while you are bullet jumping in the middle of a fire fight. Possibly higher details would help but my PC takes plenty long enough to load the Vallis already. 

Nor is it "aware of your surroundings" when something from too far to make out details blasts you from behind. At least Grineer Ballistae are A. basically always in their towers and B. have a laser pointer to alert you.

 

Also, how exactly is "awareness" supposed to help when something bounces from behind me to still behind me and off screen knocking me down and preventing me from moving?

 

Being killed by your own mistake is one thing, being killed because you are somehow supposed to know that an opticor is about to hit you from behind is something else entirely.

 

Could all of these enemies have had more telegraphing added instead of nerfs to numbers? Sure. Did DE have the time and spare attention to actually make something that works? Maybe, but maybe not. Should DE return to the Vallis to make these enemies deadly again but with more telegraphing? I'd like that personally. But if your argument is "there was enough telegraphing already", no, no there bloody well wasn't. Possibly the Raknoids had enough with the right graphics settings, but again, my PC takes plenty long enough to load the Vallis and let me start moving once I'm ON the Vallis that any more load and I'm worried my PC will outright crap out.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Since when has "fun" been a compelling argument to nerf everything into the ground?