Devstream Overview: home stream 10/9/2020

[Loza03]

2 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

Just no.  Let's properly frame this, because the global pandemic is an absolutely asinine justification when you're working on a coding project.  

I ask you, have you struggled this year?

Felt a sense of looming dread, fear for the safety of yourself and your loved ones in a world of growing uncertainty in not only the politcal and economic respects as for the past several years, but also in terms of your physical safety due to the ever-looming threat that is an unseen death that, for every defence you seem to have, is ultimately unstoppable and could strike at you and your family at random? A lot of people have. I sure as hell have.

Under these conditions have you done your best work? Have you really sought to push the envelope? Or have you thought to yourself 'just surviving this year is enough.' And that's entirely normal. Whilst Maslow's Heirarchy of needs isn't 100% accurate by any stretch, it's well-documented that the fewer stressors you experience in regard to your physical health and your security for the future, the more able you are to innovate and create. And unsurprisingly, a year when a global pandemic breaks out, and some of the most powerful people in the world seem intent on driving the globe into a brick wall, security for the future and physical health concerns aren't exactly sparkling.

DE is comprised of people. A lot of those people are probably thinking 'just surviving this year is enough' like everyone else.

28 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

I want the DE of 2014 and 2015 back.  A DE that delivered a slightly rougher product, with a smaller scope, far more often.  A DE that released, bug fixed, bug fixed, and once things were good they moved on to the next tenno reinforcement pack.  This, combined with regular events, was great.  Today it's two annual releases.  One early year rework, one late year open world.  2018 was ESO/SO and Fortuna.  2019 was disruptions and Liches/Railjack.  2020 is Deadlock and Deimos.  Between these releases the game dies, and DE's response is to add more grind.  That's rapidly becoming toxic, and while not the end of this game it will be the end of new players.  That's the start of a death spiral, and why so much content is new player driven rather than veteran focused.  These are DE's decisions, and not some outside choice foisted upon them. 

This isn't the Warframe of 2014 and 2015, where drawing 50,000 players to steam was a good day. This isn't the gaming market of 2014 and 2015, where No Man's Sky hadn't come out and shattered the illusion that Indie studios headed by auteurs are capable of achieving the impossible. This isn't the Warframe community of 2014 and 2015, where the community was a great deal more united.

This is 2020. The world has gone to hell. People's faith that things will be OK has been shattered so many times over, especially in games as independent and AAA alike frolick in the worst of industry. DE needs to please a community that always expects more, more ambition, more content, bigger numbers (you yourself said you want Warframe to move forward!), with content that requires bigger paychecks just to make let alone fund the next, even bigger project, and their community has never been more divided.

[master_of_destiny]

28 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

In fairness, 2018 was also meant to be a year focused on going back and fixing things that needed fixing. And people hated that year too, which is probably why 2019 was such a rushed trainwreck.

Wait, that's not fair at all. That's the opposite of fair.

 

 

DE are a company that straight-up can't catch a break. And if they make the call to start designing the game for themselves, so long as they're not internally divided then we'll get a better, more cohesive game out of it.

 

No.  Again, rosy view.

 

2018 began with the mission of "let's fix things."  Within the first quarter that was utterly ejected out the airlock.  ESO/SO were introduced, as a massive murder fiesta to combat the need for defenses to accumulate vast quantities of affinity.  The year progressed, and we got a substantial content drought over the summer.  This was DE based, because they were at work on the next open world.  It was going to have so much larger of a scale, it was going to not be content islands, and it was going to introduce whole new stuff like railjack....eventually.

 

Now, why did it fail?  Well, short answer is that 2017 was PoE.  It was a huge push to sell warframe as a game with open worlds....and it wasn't.  PoE was a single content island that could almost be carved out of the game without an issue.  New players could immediately drop in, and get curb stomped by level 40 enemies because taking a bounty with better rewards was an obvious choice...until the enemies taught them that scaling with these enemies was health and armor so they were way too spongey to be an Earth based foe.  This rather painful diversion killed the experience for a lot of players, because it broke the progression of the game.

 

Now, what did DE do?  Fortuna repeated the same sins but on Venus.  It was even earlier, so people got to see the corpus.  Again, little content overlap, but at least Venus brought a rework to some of the grindier bits of PoE.  Yeah, fish for fish, grind rep, buy blue print, carve fish into bait, craft bait, fish for a different fish, grind more rep for a new blue print, to carve those fish up and craft the bait for the fish you needed to catch to carve up to make the thing you want (only after getting the rep to buy its blue print) was a terrible design.

 

 

Now we get to the fun parts.  The DE team has continued to promise crap.  Dual wield nikanas, melee 3.0, ghoul saws, and a litany of other stuff.  This is not the community having an issue, it's DE not being able to shut up.  Imagine a fantastic world where we haven't been promised modular archwings.  Imagine instead of that, they spent time showing us Grendel.  More meatball fun, and no magical promises.

 

 

 

 

Let me short track this.  If DE wants to "win" they just need to shut up.  You want an example?  No Man's Sky.  It released bad after a lot of promises.  Sean Murray is basically guilty of promising too much....just like DE.  Instead of promising more, he shut up.  The team buckled down, and released patch after patch.  It's not 100% as promised now, but the game is arguably fantastic.  If DE could do this, and just display the stuff which will be launching in 4-6 weeks, they'd be so much better.  No promises of far off content, just demonstrations.

Sean Murray did it.  Why can't Sheldon, Scott, and others at DE?  I believe they can, but they don't.  That's not "oh poor DE."  That's DE being stupid, but people not making them repent and learn from that stupidity.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

12 minutes ago, (PS4)Yggranya said:

Hah! That's rich, coming from you. Will "casuals" ruins something in the next update, or is that just your answer to everything? Let me guess: If DE makes the nukers even slightly worse at deleting the entire tileset, "casuals are to blame! ROAR!". Now that is hilarious!

I've only subsumed 2 frames so far....I'm a bit of a casual myself. Pointing out that casuals make games easier isn't an insult. It's an objective fact that businesses appeal to a wider audience to have more people play their game. 

This is why you always have no-good elitist "book readers" nitpicking at Hollywood releasing movies about books or comic books. 

You, on the other hand.....look at an entire swath of information and say "There is nothing there (except UI updates)." 

You chose of your own accord to ignore many things the game does because you personally don't like or see value in it. Let me guess: you've played the game for awhile and you're tired of DEs antics? Yadda yadda, same old veteran story.

[(NSW)FlameDivinity]

53 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

In fairness, 2018 was also meant to be a year focused on going back and fixing things that needed fixing. And people hated that year too, which is probably why 2019 was such a rushed trainwreck.

Wait, that's not fair at all. That's the opposite of fair.

 

 

DE are a company that straight-up can't catch a break. And if they make the call to start designing the game for themselves, so long as they're not internally divided then we'll get a better, more cohesive game out of it.

The unfortunate truth. I hope they look at what's objectively best for the game and accept that the entire playerbase won't be happy. 

[(NSW)FlameDivinity]

27 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

 

Wheel out the useless arguments.  It's time to have some fun.

 

They released updates....let's talk about those reworks.  One was for railjack...and it was because it launched absolutely broken in 2019.  That's not them listening, that's DE deciding to push their pre-alpha build into the early beta we expect.  To this day it's still buggy, so that railjack revision was an absolute bust.  Should I explain?  Well, fly out and use 4 dome charges.  Craft the replacement 4, and return to dry dock.  Note that you have 3 or 4 in your inventory.  Now, use the reactor that provides 100 avionics capacity, and hyperflux.  You theoretically have 796 flux capacity.  So go out, and use any.  Note that you've only got 720.  Weird.  Now, craft until full.  The station says you have 796 on the ship.  Now, go back to dry dock.  Yep, that's 720 and you've simply lost 76 flux in the ether.  This is railjack now.  It's missing 20% of the intrinsics, factions (sentient-corpus-infested), and basic functions refuse to calculate correctly.  On top of this, you can't actually place maxed out avionics in each slot, because with one totally empty I only have 1 capacity despite having the best reactor.

 

Now let's talk about status and melee.  Melee started rework literally years ago.  Let's go back to the initial proposal for it, with slash, impact, and puncture all getting some sort of effects.  Impact's was to ragdoll enemies, and people collectively lost their crap.  The thing was then shelved, and kicked down the line for years.  This is why people say we're in melee 2.99 not 3.0.  Now the status changes have come through....and the combo counter got rebuilt, along with the melee based combo dependent mods.  That was good....but this is not something from 2020.  It was finally implemented here, but it's been literal years since DE noted it and gave the first half baked proposal.

 

Now, the tileset rework....oh boy.  Consider me torn.  More stuff breaks enemy AI and pathing.  The new tiles still have things spawning outside of bounds.  The new layout for things like defense are less intuitive, and often make the sessions longer because enemies simply take forever to engage.  This said, it's pretty and brought us a half decent story.  Countering that, DE reflexively nerfed the Xoris because it made things slightly easier for stat sticks.  No actual addressing for the need to have a stat stick melee weapon, just that one instance.  Protea released weak.  The machine pistol is a joke, the Stahlta is now something I seen in regular use, and the gunblade is alright.  That's not a great rework, given the outstanding bugs months later.  It's even funnier that on the lead-up to Deimos the ability to enter the granum void was broken, and took about two months to supposedly patch (not tried personally).  That's not exactly a stellar rework.

 

 

Now, the butt-hurt argument that DE isn't catering to what I want is stupid.  Really, fundamentally stupid.  It's wielded largely against people that hate newbies, hate veterans, or as a strawman against people who can construct no better argument.  Let me help you.  What I want is a stable game with a minimum of bugs.  I want new players to have some limitations, so that when those limiters come off they know what to do.  I want veterans around, and willing to help new players.  I'm the idiot that finds people at MR 2-8, asks them to hang around after a mission, and trades them the 60-60 mods so that they have an easier time getting through the early game.

None of what I ask for is specific content.  It's also not insane to request stability and the removal of grind.  It's really stupid to argue that I need to like everything, and I don't.  I'm not asking for DE to remove the content I don't like, only to give us rewards that balance out against the grind they require.

 

Now, what do they give us?  Let's focus on just the necramechs.  They're open world only.  They have 30-60 mod capacity, and 12 slots.  This means 5 mod capacity per slot, with 9 required forma.  Ouch.  The issue of course is that even with 9 forma you couldn't put a mod in each slot...because there are so many 11 and 14 drain mods and only 1 at 7 drain.  Cap all of this off with a literal 0.201% chance on a single spawn enemy every 10 minutes, and you should understand that DE released this way under done.  1.5 months later they announce in a stream that they'll allow us to have 40-80 capacity.  They'll be including the second mech, something promised at tennocon.  On top of this, they'll maybe offer us some better way to get T1 and T2 mech mods....glossing over the 30 minutes for 3 mech spawns with the same 0.201% drop chances.  This is...insulting.  It's obviously trying to release something to say it's present, and milk player time during the interim.  No release dates provided, only "coming soon."  Not a good look, and bad for all players.  This isn't about what I personally want, it's about a string of bad releases.  Something stretching back to the origins of open worlds, and the company wide tendency to release a framework rather than a core system.  A core system is built upon and expanded, a framework is just an outline that lacks the substance needed to be substantial.

You can choose to nitpick on the negatives or you can focus on the positives.

There's a fine line between criticism and pointless negativity.

[master_of_destiny]

8 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

I ask you, have you struggled this year?

Felt a sense of looming dread, fear for the safety of yourself and your loved ones in a world of growing uncertainty in not only the politcal and economic respects as for the past several years, but also in terms of your physical safety due to the ever-looming threat that is an unseen death that, for every defence you seem to have, is ultimately unstoppable and could strike at you and your family at random? A lot of people have. I sure as hell have.

Under these conditions have you done your best work? Have you really sought to push the envelope? Or have you thought to yourself 'just surviving this year is enough.' And that's entirely normal. Whilst Maslow's Heirarchy of needs isn't 100% accurate by any stretch, it's well-documented that the fewer stressors you experience in regard to your physical health and your security for the future, the more able you are to innovate and create. And unsurprisingly, a year when a global pandemic breaks out, and some of the most powerful people in the world seem intent on driving the globe into a brick wall, security for the future and physical health concerns aren't exactly sparkling.

DE is comprised of people. A lot of those people are probably thinking 'just surviving this year is enough' like everyone else.

This isn't the Warframe of 2014 and 2015, where drawing 50,000 players to steam was a good day. This isn't the gaming market of 2014 and 2015, where No Man's Sky hadn't come out and shattered the illusion that Indie studios headed by auteurs are capable of achieving the impossible. This isn't the Warframe community of 2014 and 2015, where the community was a great deal more united.

This is 2020. The world has gone to hell. People's faith that things will be OK has been shattered so many times over, especially in games as independent and AAA alike frolick in the worst of industry. DE needs to please a community that always expects more, more ambition, more content, bigger numbers (you yourself said you want Warframe to move forward!), with content that requires bigger paychecks just to make let alone fund the next, even bigger project, and their community has never been more divided.

 

Are you not listening?  

 

DE sets their own content schedules.  They set their own goals.  Imagine any other industry doing this.  No, you aren't able to get bread this week because the bakery decided to close down.  They're planning to make twice the quantity in three weeks, so whenever that happens you should thank them for doing it.

 

Let's talk about a measured response in uncertain times.  DROP THE OPEN WORLDS.  It's simple.  Release a trio of weapons every other month, and bring back old events.  Dog Days, weird modifiers (heavy fog, etc...), and a stripped down version of plague star or something like the proxy rebellion is a very low effort way to recycle content and not have a huge strain.

What does DE do instead?  Well, Deimos.  A visual rework of a tileset.  This would be reasonably ambitious on a good year, but instead of changing to meet business realities (as you claim above) they've decided to continue half cocked and quarter baked.  If you're going to use the mental health angle that's fine, up until your internal goals reject that reality.  Up until you promise releases, that can't be delivered upon.  That's up until you fail to deliver so consistently that there's a meme about people being angry with under delivery and constant delays.  Primed Soon and Primed Salt anyone>

 

 

Let me address your last two paragraphs together.  I'll start with a hearty laugh.

About 50k players were what watched the Nezha Prime reveal....and that was hyped.  They only revealed what we already new, because they included the files in-game and console players had captured it.

Regarding the steam charts....oh boy.  Steam has an average in the last 30 days of less than 50k, with a peak of 85k.  I don't think your numbers are very accurate...as 2015 was a ball park of 20k average and 40k peak.  The catch is of course that steam charts don't measure the people logging in, doing a few things, then logging out.  Something like feeding a frame to Helminth, building a forma, and leaving because there's nothing new to do.  You want the real story, Deimos is 1.5 months in.  Almost all players gained from the Deimos drop are already gone (and as we move farther from this date it will get worse as the helminth feedings finish for people).  Ouch.

Regarding the world being turned upside down...it's only viable if this was new for DE.  It is not.  It's a pattern built over the last three years.  To miss that is fundamentally galling.  My pity if you cannot see that.  I'd suggest you review the steam charts.  https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#All

The truth here is that since PoE content drops are the only time warframe does well.  Then players finish the grind, and leave until the next drop.  This is what you get with a game built around grind and fashion frame...and it's not new in 2020.  The only new thing is people don't go outside and forget.  Because this is now our outlet it's critical.  When you start paying attention the cracks are easier to see, they aren't new.

[master_of_destiny]

12 minutes ago, (NSW)FlameDivinity said:

You can choose to nitpick on the negatives or you can focus on the positives.

There's a fine line between criticism and pointless negativity.

 

Are you for real?

 

I'm asking because the switch is a platform that only recently got warframe, so it may be entirely reasonable that you simply don't have enough experience with DE's practices to understand.  

 

Let me suggest you learn some of the history.  Vacuum.  It's a mod that at one point was only for Carrier.  The community told DE that it was vital, because at the time only Carrier and Helios were ever equipped, by DE's own data.  There was one person at DE vehemently opposed to giving this to any other sentinel, and had an axe to grind with the community for not using any other content.  Eventually, they decided to acquiesce and nerfed the range to the point of nearly being useless.  The community flipped out, because this was a spiteful action to prove a point.  It was de-nerfed.  It could not be applied to all sentinels, with a decent range.  It was now a critical mod on any build.  It then fell to the question of why organic pets were not being used.  Well, degradation and a lack of a vacuum mod meant they were more expensive and less functional.  So years later DE adds the Nutrio segment to decrease decay and the fetch mod.  Great, organics are now not total garbage.  With the inclusion of Kavats they're even good because one can offer a litany of loot based buffs.

Now fast forward some more.  Organic pets are still subject to wait timers on reviving, and you get one at a time.  Ouch.  DE announces the Nutrio segment will basically stop decay all together, there'll be no waiting time, and organic pets are now as good as sentinels.  We're still waiting on pets 2.0, literally years later.  The pets 2.0 is supposed to allow for organic breeding that isn't a dice roll, better AI, and maybe even some customization of sentinels.  Each time it is brought up the promises differ, so who knows what will actually be included when it finally comes.

Note that all of this came about not because the developers wanted it.  They in fact opposed most of it.  If it isn't abundantly clear, this is how the conversation with DE works.

 

Let me short story two more instances.

The train man (name beginning with R) spent years asking for a Vauban rework...and it came out to mostly be what he had outlined in a video prior to DE's announcement.

Jim Sterling never played the game.  He decided to, and made the comment that not having a cosmetic pack was odd.  Something the community asked for over several years.  After his video went live the next prime unvault had a dedicated cosmetics pack.

 

 

 

My point here is that 2014 and 2015 DE listened to commentary.  They got community support, and I was happy to pay them despite the problems with the game.  2020 DE requires outside influencers and absolute s*** storms of controversy to offer basic features requested by the community.  They release increasingly content poor frameworks, and take literally years to bring them over the line.  Looking at you dual wield nikanas and 3rd orb mother.  This isn't the little company that could, it's the medium sized management mess that occasionally fires out something viable.  I just can't get behind that.  Every time we get something that's good it's mired in misery.  My favorite example is the Mausolon.  It's by far the best archgun.  To get it you have to get 4 unique random drops from necramech enemies.  They spawn 6 per about every 30 minutes and are bound to time cycles.  Once you get it you've got a 12 hour wait for each part, if you've gotten the 2 scintillants which are are rare spawn.  You then have to wait 72 hours for it to build.  You finally get the Mausolon...and it's glorious.  It shames all other archguns.  It's like opening a box of bran flakes and finding a solid gold bar.  That's modern warframe, only there's a hundred boxes of bran flakes for each one with a prize which only contain monopoly bills. 

[(NSW)FlameDivinity]

2 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

 

Are you for real?

 

I'm asking because the switch is a platform that only recently got warframe, so it may be entirely reasonable that you simply don't have enough experience with DE's practices to understand.  

 

Let me suggest you learn some of the history.  Vacuum.  It's a mod that at one point was only for Carrier.  The community told DE that it was vital, because at the time only Carrier and Helios were ever equipped, by DE's own data.  There was one person at DE vehemently opposed to giving this to any other sentinel, and had an axe to grind with the community for not using any other content.  Eventually, they decided to acquiesce and nerfed the range to the point of nearly being useless.  The community flipped out, because this was a spiteful action to prove a point.  It was de-nerfed.  It could not be applied to all sentinels, with a decent range.  It was now a critical mod on any build.  It then fell to the question of why organic pets were not being used.  Well, degradation and a lack of a vacuum mod meant they were more expensive and less functional.  So years later DE adds the Nutrio segment to decrease decay and the fetch mod.  Great, organics are now not total garbage.  With the inclusion of Kavats they're even good because one can offer a litany of loot based buffs.

Now fast forward some more.  Organic pets are still subject to wait timers on reviving, and you get one at a time.  Ouch.  DE announces the Nutrio segment will basically stop decay all together, there'll be no waiting time, and organic pets are now as good as sentinels.  We're still waiting on pets 2.0, literally years later.  The pets 2.0 is supposed to allow for organic breeding that isn't a dice roll, better AI, and maybe even some customization of sentinels.  Each time it is brought up the promises differ, so who knows what will actually be included when it finally comes.

Note that all of this came about not because the developers wanted it.  They in fact opposed most of it.  If it isn't abundantly clear, this is how the conversation with DE works.

 

Let me short story two more instances.

The train man (name beginning with R) spent years asking for a Vauban rework...and it came out to mostly be what he had outlined in a video prior to DE's announcement.

Jim Sterling never played the game.  He decided to, and made the comment that not having a cosmetic pack was odd.  Something the community asked for over several years.  After his video went live the next prime unvault had a dedicated cosmetics pack.

 

 

 

My point here is that 2014 and 2015 DE listened to commentary.  They got community support, and I was happy to pay them despite the problems with the game.  2020 DE requires outside influencers and absolute s*** storms of controversy to offer basic features requested by the community.  They release increasingly content poor frameworks, and take literally years to bring them over the line.  Looking at you dual wield nikanas and 3rd orb mother.  This isn't the little company that could, it's the medium sized management mess that occasionally fires out something viable.  I just can't get behind that.  Every time we get something that's good it's mired in misery.  My favorite example is the Mausolon.  It's by far the best archgun.  To get it you have to get 4 unique random drops from necramech enemies.  They spawn 6 per about every 30 minutes and are bound to time cycles.  Once you get it you've got a 12 hour wait for each part, if you've gotten the 2 scintillants which are are rare spawn.  You then have to wait 72 hours for it to build.  You finally get the Mausolon...and it's glorious.  It shames all other archguns.  It's like opening a box of bran flakes and finding a solid gold bar.  That's modern warframe, only there's a hundred boxes of bran flakes for each one with a prize which only contain monopoly bills. 

I joined on PC and eventually transferred to Switch. I have around 750 hours in play time just on my Switch.

And I 100% agree with you. I was saying you can focus on the bad or focus on the good. You seemed to be entirely focused on the bad.

So let me try and give an example:

For the rework of Empyrean you can focus on -

- DE #*!%ed it up, which is what caused a need for a rework

- DE learned from #*!%ing it up and decided to take more time working on content and open back up to community feedback because of it

It's right to be upset that DE #*!%ed up Empyrean, and it's only natural to worry that DE may do it again after repeated instances. However, DE said and has so far proven they are listening to our feedback and taking more time on projects while listening to our complaints. Are they communicating as much as they should? No. Definitely not. Or else they'd explain why they nerfed Marked For Death instead of just saying it was unbalanced. But are they doing better than before? Yes they are. So thank them and give them room to grow. Don't just bash them and make them think their efforts are going unrewarded.

When you only focus on the negative, you aren't giving DE the chance to learn from their mistakes. You end up making them think, "Well nothing we do will please our playerbase, so why even listen to them in the first place?" We, as a community, need to hold DE accountable while praising them for what they do right. Because I assure you they feel very hated by much of the community, and that effects morale big time.

[RingoDesu]

Having a real issue/question: the rank 30 rewards includes 30 riven slots, and what would happen if I had already got 150/150, I think it is extremly unfair to waste the 30 slots if maximum is already reached. Can DE consider making this riven slots rewards 10 X 3 riven slot " Tokens" to that we can use whenever possible, e.g. when 180 riven slots are available.

[Aadi880]

31 minutes ago, RingoDesu said:

Having a real issue/question: the rank 30 rewards includes 30 riven slots, and what would happen if I had already got 150/150, I think it is extremly unfair to waste the 30 slots if maximum is already reached. Can DE consider making this riven slots rewards 10 X 3 riven slot " Tokens" to that we can use whenever possible, e.g. when 180 riven slots are available.

It goes above the cap apparently, according to Reb on the devstream

[Loza03]

6 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

 

Are you not listening?  

 

DE sets their own content schedules.  They set their own goals.  Imagine any other industry doing this.  No, you aren't able to get bread this week because the bakery decided to close down.  They're planning to make twice the quantity in three weeks, so whenever that happens you should thank them for doing it.

 

Let's talk about a measured response in uncertain times.  DROP THE OPEN WORLDS.  It's simple.  Release a trio of weapons every other month, and bring back old events.  Dog Days, weird modifiers (heavy fog, etc...), and a stripped down version of plague star or something like the proxy rebellion is a very low effort way to recycle content and not have a huge strain.

What does DE do instead?  Well, Deimos.  A visual rework of a tileset.  This would be reasonably ambitious on a good year, but instead of changing to meet business realities (as you claim above) they've decided to continue half cocked and quarter baked.  If you're going to use the mental health angle that's fine, up until your internal goals reject that reality.  Up until you promise releases, that can't be delivered upon.  That's up until you fail to deliver so consistently that there's a meme about people being angry with under delivery and constant delays.  Primed Soon and Primed Salt anyone>

 

 

Let me address your last two paragraphs together.  I'll start with a hearty laugh.

About 50k players were what watched the Nezha Prime reveal....and that was hyped.  They only revealed what we already new, because they included the files in-game and console players had captured it.

Regarding the steam charts....oh boy.  Steam has an average in the last 30 days of less than 50k, with a peak of 85k.  I don't think your numbers are very accurate...as 2015 was a ball park of 20k average and 40k peak.  The catch is of course that steam charts don't measure the people logging in, doing a few things, then logging out.  Something like feeding a frame to Helminth, building a forma, and leaving because there's nothing new to do.  You want the real story, Deimos is 1.5 months in.  Almost all players gained from the Deimos drop are already gone (and as we move farther from this date it will get worse as the helminth feedings finish for people).  Ouch.

Regarding the world being turned upside down...it's only viable if this was new for DE.  It is not.  It's a pattern built over the last three years.  To miss that is fundamentally galling.  My pity if you cannot see that.  I'd suggest you review the steam charts.  https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#All

The truth here is that since PoE content drops are the only time warframe does well.  Then players finish the grind, and leave until the next drop.  This is what you get with a game built around grind and fashion frame...and it's not new in 2020.  The only new thing is people don't go outside and forget.  Because this is now our outlet it's critical.  When you start paying attention the cracks are easier to see, they aren't new.

Deadlock Protocol was known to be in development long before Covid, and it's been confirmed on interview that Deimos was the same way. What do you expect them to do? Abandon the project? And risk 2018 all over again (a year without a health crisis). Especially when they have metric proof that it doesn't work - there was both a minor event (Proxy Rebellion) and an old-fashioned Tenno reinforcements mid July 2019. It didn't have any noticeable effects.

You're complaining that they don't release 'appropriately sized' content fast enough, but they already know the rate at which they used to wasn't bringing in customers as much. Because as 2016's charts shows, the way they were releasing content had stopped working, and player counts were falling just as they are now. So, DE knows that model has outgrown its usefulness. Plenty of people on the forums will also complain that 'Weapons aren't content', and that's a fact. Don't forget that people were also expecting them to capitalise on the financial boon of Covid in the gaming sphere, irrespective of the effects DE themselves were experiencing.

I'll admit I'm definitely one of the more willing to give DE the benefit of the doubt when it comes to delays, but I've also given substantial criticism on recent releases, including with my wallet and playtime.  But at the end of the day, what you suggest has been tried - it failed.

 

You ignore the simple fact that the world that produced the Warframe you're looking for does not exist anymore. That's not just in terms of the game - I mean the whole world. You're focused on player counts, but you forget that the market itself has changed since then. Indie Developers are under way more scrutiny in general for one. And you forget the community has changed as well.

[Felsagger]

10 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

 

Are you not listening?  

 

DE sets their own content schedules.  They set their own goals.  Imagine any other industry doing this.  No, you aren't able to get bread this week because the bakery decided to close down.  They're planning to make twice the quantity in three weeks, so whenever that happens you should thank them for doing it.

 

Let's talk about a measured response in uncertain times.  DROP THE OPEN WORLDS.  It's simple.  Release a trio of weapons every other month, and bring back old events.  Dog Days, weird modifiers (heavy fog, etc...), and a stripped down version of plague star or something like the proxy rebellion is a very low effort way to recycle content and not have a huge strain.

What does DE do instead?  Well, Deimos.  A visual rework of a tileset.  This would be reasonably ambitious on a good year, but instead of changing to meet business realities (as you claim above) they've decided to continue half cocked and quarter baked.  If you're going to use the mental health angle that's fine, up until your internal goals reject that reality.  Up until you promise releases, that can't be delivered upon.  That's up until you fail to deliver so consistently that there's a meme about people being angry with under delivery and constant delays.  Primed Soon and Primed Salt anyone>

 

 

Let me address your last two paragraphs together.  I'll start with a hearty laugh.

About 50k players were what watched the Nezha Prime reveal....and that was hyped.  They only revealed what we already new, because they included the files in-game and console players had captured it.

Regarding the steam charts....oh boy.  Steam has an average in the last 30 days of less than 50k, with a peak of 85k.  I don't think your numbers are very accurate...as 2015 was a ball park of 20k average and 40k peak.  The catch is of course that steam charts don't measure the people logging in, doing a few things, then logging out.  Something like feeding a frame to Helminth, building a forma, and leaving because there's nothing new to do.  You want the real story, Deimos is 1.5 months in.  Almost all players gained from the Deimos drop are already gone (and as we move farther from this date it will get worse as the helminth feedings finish for people).  Ouch.

Regarding the world being turned upside down...it's only viable if this was new for DE.  It is not.  It's a pattern built over the last three years.  To miss that is fundamentally galling.  My pity if you cannot see that.  I'd suggest you review the steam charts.  https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#All

The truth here is that since PoE content drops are the only time warframe does well.  Then players finish the grind, and leave until the next drop.  This is what you get with a game built around grind and fashion frame...and it's not new in 2020.  The only new thing is people don't go outside and forget.  Because this is now our outlet it's critical.  When you start paying attention the cracks are easier to see, they aren't new.

 

MOTHER F, well said. 

 

 

[Felsagger]

10 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

 

My point here is that 2014 and 2015 DE listened to commentary.  They got community support, and I was happy to pay them despite the problems with the game.  2020 DE requires outside influencers and absolute sh1t storms of controversy to offer basic features requested by the community.  They release increasingly content poor frameworks, and take literally years to bring them over the line.  

 

 

This man knows what he's talking about. 

[master_of_destiny]

9 hours ago, (NSW)FlameDivinity said:

I joined on PC and eventually transferred to Switch. I have around 750 hours in play time just on my Switch.

And I 100% agree with you. I was saying you can focus on the bad or focus on the good. You seemed to be entirely focused on the bad.

So let me try and give an example:

For the rework of Empyrean you can focus on -

- DE #*!%ed it up, which is what caused a need for a rework

- DE learned from #*!%ing it up and decided to take more time working on content and open back up to community feedback because of it

It's right to be upset that DE #*!%ed up Empyrean, and it's only natural to worry that DE may do it again after repeated instances. However, DE said and has so far proven they are listening to our feedback and taking more time on projects while listening to our complaints. Are they communicating as much as they should? No. Definitely not. Or else they'd explain why they nerfed Marked For Death instead of just saying it was unbalanced. But are they doing better than before? Yes they are. So thank them and give them room to grow. Don't just bash them and make them think their efforts are going unrewarded.

When you only focus on the negative, you aren't giving DE the chance to learn from their mistakes. You end up making them think, "Well nothing we do will please our playerbase, so why even listen to them in the first place?" We, as a community, need to hold DE accountable while praising them for what they do right. Because I assure you they feel very hated by much of the community, and that effects morale big time.

 

So, thank you for the background.  Hopefully that was framed correctly, because I can understand new players giving DE a huge amount of positivity considering that it's often compared to other games that are "free" on mobile.  It of course comes out on top.

 

Now, let me be frank.  2+ years for railjack.  That's about 1 year out and a minimum of 1.5 year in development.  What was released was broken, there were about 5 enemy units (1 crew ship and 4 fighters), and pallet swaps of all normal grineer enemies.  Everything was multiple layers of RNG.  Structurally, rewards were worthless until rank III, and purchasing them actively penalizes players twice in the inventory slot and resource department.

 

Then DE went about fixing.  They increased most resources.  They decreased costs (by the sale refund going up).  They added valence transfers.  They rebalanced and added enemies, and then they finally significantly reworked the basic mechanics.  It took 6 months for the stuff to settle entirely, to a solid beta build.   Beta given the lack of content, lingering bugs, and honestly still lopsided progression.  

 

Let's single out where DE never learned their lessons, and how if anybody was awake at the wheel these issues would not have occurred.  I'll strip my argument bare.

-Railjack was a buggy mess.-

All releases from DE are functionally falling under this umbrella, given that they're bolting new systems into miles of spaghetti code that this engine was never designed for.  Fine.  The issue here is that you had 18+ months to develop this.  From the testimony they experimented with craftable temporary bonuses, an FTL like power balance mechanic, and a litany of other things that aren't in-game because they didn't work.  Fine.  What none of this explains is the fact that you sold the game mode with features not in-game.  You had no way to make this stuff work.  Instead of admitting to this, and pouring resources into the Lich system you released two half baked systems at the end of 2019.  One of which launched during a gamin event....to a resounding thud when the technical issues far outpaced the game mode's ability to simply not crash.

If DE learned anything from their past it would have been to stop promising the moon, set expectation reasonably, and not do a bull-shot of the feature that you aspire to someday being able to have.  Instead they continued to lie and sell their new game mode as game changing.  Less than a full year later it's only viable if you can do it yourself, because finding a random group is like finding a unicorn unless it's speed running the sentient event.

 

-The content is not there.-

This is largely about insane promises.  It's also about pushing this out the door with artificial intrinsic caps, and claiming it would be weeks before people made it into the Veil.  For the record, day two people knew about the sentient event.

Now that's not too much of a problem, until you see what they've setup with open worlds.  PoE started out without Eidolons, and with no amps.  What it had in return was a fleshed out modular weapon system, with many types.  They added in the Eidolons, and the rework added thumpers.  That's largely it.  While economic balances were required, it had stuff to do.  Then Fortuna rolled around.  Oh goody.  4 weapons, and moas.  Moas were very content poor, and there were 4 total possible secondaries.  Not great, considering the orb mothers being promised and taking months to implement.  Two years in and we're at 2/3.  Now we get Liches....which were received poorly.  We get Railjack, and it was received so poorly that DE did the previously unthinkable and offered players a resource refund.  DE knows content brings players in, and despite this they release Railjack.  Not an intelligent decision.

 

-RNG rewards aren't rewards.-

The thing they wanted to nerf was loot frame interactions, because people were using them to farm.  People lost their minds.  They introduced a mod drop chance booster, and people lost their minds.  DE introduced Rivens, and the RNG stats necessitated re-rolling with kuva.  The fundamental need for RNG rewards as a core feature of this game mode meant it was literally a slot machine.

Let me pose you a situation.  You get lucky, and get the 2% vidar reactor drop.  Now you get a roll.  It was 100-50 if memory serves on release.  I got one with 80-10.  I got another with 98-25.  It was nuts, because getting that drop was useless.  You got lucky, but that was then negated by a garbage roll.  There was no fixing it, that piece was scrapped for dirac because it couldn't be fixed.  Liches got valence transfers, then railjack.  If ANYONE at DE saw how the riven roll system worked then they should have known these mechanics were dead on arrival.

 

-Resources were wonky.-

Let me pose you what I can see as the situation.  DE balances in the 10th hour before release.  The slot in maxed weaponry, maxed parts, and run a couple of missions with a full crew in the same building as testers.  It's not difficult, but that's reasonable.  They ship it as good because the endgame is balanced.  They failed to test progression, failed to test resource acquisition, and failed to account for the garbage stat rolls.  That's fine though, this will be long term content.

Day 2 players are talking to players.  They say the equipment is al garbage until the Veil, so spend nothing.  A few people discover cheese, and Void Hole enemies.  About 6 days in the Sigma III dojo research is done, and since it uses common resources literally nothing less that tier III stuff matters anymore.  You still have RNG drops....so crafting anything less than 90-100% maximum buffs is a waste.

A month later DE buffs drops.  That's multiple times for basic resources, and once for rarer ones.  You know when they should have learned their lessons on this one?  Hema-Sibear-Vauban Prime.  That content was where DE promised not to have wildly imbalanced resources anymore....but they didn't learn that lesson.

 

 

 

 

So here's the skinny, Railjack was not a one time screw up.  They didn't learn their lesson from bunches of previous errors.  They still haven't, as Deimos launched with 4 guns, a broken economy, and time locked events with a myriad of artificial internal timers to extend engagement.  This points not to an error, by systematic tom-foolery.  I don't give DE credit anymore because they continue to be Sean Murray.  Not the Sean Murray who has gone radio silent and fixed the game, the absolute mad lad promising that the game's going to be everything to everyone.  

I'll revise this stance once the list of unfulfilled promises from DE only goes back two years from the current date.  As of now, 2016 is calling.  By the way, they're still promising 4 frames this year.  Protea and Xaku are out.  Lavos has a name but no gameplay.  The fourth is _____?  Please fill in that blank.  With two months in the year remaining, I don't know what it is.

[(PSN)Yggranya]

13 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

2020 DE requires outside influencers and absolute s*** storms of controversy to offer basic features requested by the community.

That's how it always goes. An unknown company that most people don't know about or don't care about who have their cultlike fanbase where the people working at the company want to know what the players want and are intrested in how to improve the game for them. Not exactly like the players want, but they still pay attention to what they request.

Then the game becomes popular and all that disappears for trying to milk every dime they possibly can, while ignoring everything the players say, unless they make some social media uproar about it. The cultlike fanbase get replaced with people who are REALLY loud and obnoxious and so it isn't really surprising that they want nothing to do with them. Just smile and wave, maybe they won't bite your jugular if you pretend to care. Cue devstreams. Also a pretty face to represent you so that it might help keep all that bile from spilling over TOO much. Cue DE_rebecca.

That is how it is in warframe at least. Not EXACTLY the same in the other game, but companies in similiar situation have something similiar happening in them all the same. Gaming industry is pretty easy to predict, as it is all mostly the same. After all, it is really easy to recycle old BS. Especially if their masters (higher-ups) encourage it. Could be their own choice, of course, but we don't know that.

[master_of_destiny]

7 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Deadlock Protocol was known to be in development long before Covid, and it's been confirmed on interview that Deimos was the same way. What do you expect them to do? Abandon the project? And risk 2018 all over again (a year without a health crisis). Especially when they have metric proof that it doesn't work - there was both a minor event (Proxy Rebellion) and an old-fashioned Tenno reinforcements mid July 2019. It didn't have any noticeable effects.

You're complaining that they don't release 'appropriately sized' content fast enough, but they already know the rate at which they used to wasn't bringing in customers as much. Because as 2016's charts shows, the way they were releasing content had stopped working, and player counts were falling just as they are now. So, DE knows that model has outgrown its usefulness. Plenty of people on the forums will also complain that 'Weapons aren't content', and that's a fact. Don't forget that people were also expecting them to capitalise on the financial boon of Covid in the gaming sphere, irrespective of the effects DE themselves were experiencing.

I'll admit I'm definitely one of the more willing to give DE the benefit of the doubt when it comes to delays, but I've also given substantial criticism on recent releases, including with my wallet and playtime.  But at the end of the day, what you suggest has been tried - it failed.

 

You ignore the simple fact that the world that produced the Warframe you're looking for does not exist anymore. That's not just in terms of the game - I mean the whole world. You're focused on player counts, but you forget that the market itself has changed since then. Indie Developers are under way more scrutiny in general for one. And you forget the community has changed as well.

 

So...both sides of the argument here.  On one you highlight that it's a 2020 issue due to covid, and on the other it was in development way before.  By that logic DE can say for the forseeable future that no content releases are acceptable, until quite some time after the restrictions on working together are relaxed.  Isn't that a mite bit hypocritical.

 

 

Now, let me offer you my solution.  USE THE TEST SERVERS.

Let me elaborate.  Use the smaller content patches as a stop-gap.  Push Deimos to early 2021 release.  In October 2020 roll out a huge test server implementation for Deimos and in parallel roll out a new dojo research lab for the helminth system.  Release the helminth as dojo bound content, where you can buy the segment and research new abilities for the clan to access.

Players are keeping busy with the smaller content, and recycled events.  They get access to the helminth, and it's clan research that unlocks these abilities.  Now, instead of a ranking system with powers and subsume caps you've got investments in abilities, the ability to expand in the future, and most importantly you've now got the Helminth as the focal point for 2020 as a new way to build stuff.  

So 2020 is a bit light on content...and that's entirely reasonable given the covid situation.  What they've offered was a way to play with ourselves (sly suggestive language chosen for comedic purpose), by butchering and iterating frame powers.  This will roll into a small team using helminth data to get a rolling review of powers that are replaced, and give them a touch up.  With a monthly touch-up, a rotation of tenno reinforcements and events, and the new Helminth system you've got a nearly constant stream of content that frees most of your team to get working on Deimos.

In late January you roll out Deimos.  It's got the token system, the test servers have proven out the content, and your team isn't crunched to get this thing out as only a content framework.  In February and March pump out new Helminth powers, focusing on Deimos resources to keep that open world relevant.  April and May can be your return to the Scarlet Spear event, without a lot of static.  June and July are content light, but it's to free up your team to start working on a large content patch for Deimos.  August and September bring Tennocon, and you announce an expansion of Deimos with it culminating in an October month long event to celebrate Day of the Dead, bringing Deimos into focus for nearly a quarter on top of the power reworks and minor events.

Note the above has us all the way into October of 2021.  Nothing is grand and sweeping, and nothing is immense crunch for the team.  At the same time it's a near constant string of content, so that the player base doesn't drop out.  Use that engagement to sell a boat load of Tennogen garbage, and the team is in the black without the insane peaks and valleys of 2018, 2019, and 2020 to date.

 

 

That's what I expect.  Somebody in a leadership position at DE to set reasonable goals, and modify as crap hits the fan.  No, I don't expect as much.  Yes, I expect recycling.  I would be happy with both....but instead we get another framework that is obviously content poor.  I say this because immediately post launch DE began talking about expansion, which indicates they knew it wasn't good.  That extreme lack of faith in a product is frightening.  It should have set bells and whistles off in our collective heads, because it highlights that day one they knew this was going to be content light and grind heavy.  The player participation bears that out.

 

Regarding the insanity of "the world I knew no longer existing."  Maybe you should check again.  Fallout 76 still releases about as badly as Warframe.  Developers listening to their customers is still a big thing....let's take Rimworld and Terraria as shining examples.  Developers being punished for huge promises and poor delivery still exist, see No Man's Sky.  EA was called out for shooting their mouths off with Battlefield V.  Disney is having a calamity because the agenda driven narrative isn't profitable and they're in the midst of painful layoffs.  I'd say my world is alive and healthy.  The things is that DE became rockstars in their industry.  People think of them as the little dev that could.  Their recent actions are making it clear that the actions taken are hurting them, and making them the little devs that cannot.  That's not new.

Ironically, let's look at Zenimax.  Bethesda is the former gaming giant that sold out over the years.  ID was a joke after Rage, until Doom and Doom: Eternal showed the world that the series was not dead.  From 2013-2016 DE was like ID.  Scrappy, unpolished, but infinitely fun in marvelous ways.  They then decided on annual releases, and went Bethesda.  The problem is that Bethesda only works with content, and warframe has no extended content or mods.  With DE not providing constant content there's no reason to keep playing.  That's a bad place to be in, when you want to be ID ambitious.  It's impossible to have all of this without manpower and vision....both of which seem to be poorly coordinated at DE.

Regarding indies....have you been on Steam?  It's still a dumpster fire of indie.  There are still good games, and the difference in expectations is negligible.  How might I quantify this?  Well, Carrion.  It's mediocre pixel art.  It's poorly mapped, and mechanically it can be improved.  Despite this it was a large success.  Will it last 7+ year?  No.  What has (Terraria)?  That's not more scrutiny for indies, it's the indie lottery and large returns on games.  Are good games lost, yes.  Is it fair, no.  Do I consider this when PUBG, Rocket League, and Rust are in Steam's top 10 played games? NO.  It's a fallacious argument, when DE has enjoyed the spotlight to suddenly be afraid of it when your bad decisions are coming home.  

[Loza03]

14 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

So...both sides of the argument here.  On one you highlight that it's a 2020 issue due to covid, and on the other it was in development way before.  By that logic DE can say for the forseeable future that no content releases are acceptable, until quite some time after the restrictions on working together are relaxed.  Isn't that a mite bit hypocritical.

I don't see the logic here.

As you say, coding is unlikely to be affected to a significant degree - on a technical level, it doesn't matter so much . The issue is almost certainly a creative one. So it makes sense to continue working on existing projects, especially ones like Deimos that are using variants of existing aesthetics rather than an entirely new, untested one (they previously cited, well before Covid, that the Sentient tileset was one of the hardest to put together, creatively speaking) which remember, was moved up. They confirm as such. Both Deadlock and Deimos were in development before Covid, alongside the New War content that they had previously and publicly announced would be the focus of 2020. Deadlock came first because it was already mostly done, and even that got a substantial delay from a matter of weeks after Scarlet Spear to several months. And, later on, people at DE noticed that Deimos was further along development despite being scheduled for later compared to the original focus. So, DE changed the schedule.

Is rescheduling your entire year's worth of content that you've already put effort into publicizing to something lower effort in the department that matters not setting a reasonable schedule and modifying as crap hit the fan?

29 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

Now, let me offer you my solution.  USE THE TEST SERVERS.

Let me elaborate.  Use the smaller content patches as a stop-gap.  Push Deimos to early 2021 release.  In October 2020 roll out a huge test server implementation for Deimos and in parallel roll out a new dojo research lab for the helminth system.  Release the helminth as dojo bound content, where you can buy the segment and research new abilities for the clan to access.

Players are keeping busy with the smaller content, and recycled events.  They get access to the helminth, and it's clan research that unlocks these abilities.  Now, instead of a ranking system with powers and subsume caps you've got investments in abilities, the ability to expand in the future, and most importantly you've now got the Helminth as the focal point for 2020 as a new way to build stuff.  

So 2020 is a bit light on content...and that's entirely reasonable given the covid situation.  What they've offered was a way to play with ourselves (sly suggestive language chosen for comedic purpose), by butchering and iterating frame powers.  This will roll into a small team using helminth data to get a rolling review of powers that are replaced, and give them a touch up.  With a monthly touch-up, a rotation of tenno reinforcements and events, and the new Helminth system you've got a nearly constant stream of content that frees most of your team to get working on Deimos.

In late January you roll out Deimos.  It's got the token system, the test servers have proven out the content, and your team isn't crunched to get this thing out as only a content framework.  In February and March pump out new Helminth powers, focusing on Deimos resources to keep that open world relevant.  April and May can be your return to the Scarlet Spear event, without a lot of static.  June and July are content light, but it's to free up your team to start working on a large content patch for Deimos.  August and September bring Tennocon, and you announce an expansion of Deimos with it culminating in an October month long event to celebrate Day of the Dead, bringing Deimos into focus for nearly a quarter on top of the power reworks and minor events.

Again - Deimos wasn't meant to be the mid-2020 release when Covid hit. In fact, there's a pretty good chance it already was a 2021 release window. The New War was the headline content for this year, to be released as a series of smaller content patches, starting with Scarlet Spear. DE weren't exactly hiding that, taking multiple interviews.

If Deimos was the mid-2020 release from the start, then this might have been a reasonable way to chunk up the content, with the benefit of knowing the crisis was going to last as long as it was (which of course, we didn't back then)

44 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

Regarding the insanity of "the world I knew no longer existing."  Maybe you should check again.  Fallout 76 still releases about as badly as Warframe.  Developers listening to their customers is still a big thing....let's take Rimworld and Terraria as shining examples.  Developers being punished for huge promises and poor delivery still exist, see No Man's Sky.  EA was called out for shooting their mouths off with Battlefield V.  Disney is having a calamity because the agenda driven narrative isn't profitable and they're in the midst of painful layoffs.  I'd say my world is alive and healthy.  The things is that DE became rockstars in their industry.  People think of them as the little dev that could.  Their recent actions are making it clear that the actions taken are hurting them, and making them the little devs that cannot.  That's not new.

People thought of them as the little dev that could. Believe me, I've been quite active on the Forums for several years now, and that is most definitely a past tense statement. At the very least it is around here.

That's what I mean when I say the market has changed. No Man's Sky, and the seemingly mainstream trend of huge promises and no delivery has made people far more sensitive to false advertisement. I've had somebody try to accuse DE of false advertising because they update the game.

1 hour ago, master_of_destiny said:

Ironically, let's look at Zenimax.  Bethesda is the former gaming giant that sold out over the years.  ID was a joke after Rage, until Doom and Doom: Eternal showed the world that the series was not dead.  From 2013-2016 DE was like ID.  Scrappy, unpolished, but infinitely fun in marvelous ways.  They then decided on annual releases, and went Bethesda.  The problem is that Bethesda only works with content, and warframe has no extended content or mods.  With DE not providing constant content there's no reason to keep playing.  That's a bad place to be in, when you want to be ID ambitious.  It's impossible to have all of this without manpower and vision....both of which seem to be poorly coordinated at DE.

DE's lack of polish is one of the most common criticisms levelled against them, often as much as the release schedule. Why should they listen to you over the rest of the population screaming at them about a lack of bugfixes?  You yourself have said they should make more use of the test server - what's that for if not for polish and balancing (which the community is also vocally against)?

 

Though I certainly agree that DE's manpower and vision are poorly co-ordinated. Chronically so. They're pulled in more directions than I can count, and that's just the community. I don't know what it's like there, but there's definitely rumblings that DE's own director visions are far from aligned.

[ValinorAtani]

vor 16 Stunden schrieb master_of_destiny:

There was one person at DE vehemently opposed to giving this to any other sentinel, and had an axe to grind with the community for not using any other content.  Eventually, they decided to acquiesce and nerfed the range to the point of nearly being useless.  The community flipped out, because this was a spiteful action to prove a point.  It was de-nerfed.  It could not be applied to all sentinels, with a decent range.  It was now a critical mod on any build.  It then fell to the question of why organic pets were not being used.  Well, degradation and a lack of a vacuum mod meant they were more expensive and less functional.  So years later DE adds the Nutrio segment to decrease decay and the fetch mod.  Great, organics are now not total garbage.  With the inclusion of Kavats they're even good because one can offer a litany of loot based buffs.

Sadly this one is still on board and in charge and defending the own "Vision" instead of making the game better. Its so sad to see this stuborness that he actively hinders the game just to be right with his opinion.

[(XBOX)CI shadow2397]

11 minutes ago, ValinorAtani said:

Sadly this one is still on board and in charge and defending the own "Vision" instead of making the game better. Its so sad to see this stuborness that he actively hinders the game just to be right with his opinion.

Well it’s thier game and they have 100% final day in what they do.

[master_of_destiny]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

I don't see the logic here.

As you say, coding is unlikely to be affected to a significant degree - on a technical level, it doesn't matter so much . The issue is almost certainly a creative one. So it makes sense to continue working on existing projects, especially ones like Deimos that are using variants of existing aesthetics rather than an entirely new, untested one (they previously cited, well before Covid, that the Sentient tileset was one of the hardest to put together, creatively speaking) which remember, was moved up. They confirm as such. Both Deadlock and Deimos were in development before Covid, alongside the New War content that they had previously and publicly announced would be the focus of 2020. Deadlock came first because it was already mostly done, and even that got a substantial delay from a matter of weeks after Scarlet Spear to several months. And, later on, people at DE noticed that Deimos was further along development despite being scheduled for later compared to the original focus. So, DE changed the schedule.

Is rescheduling your entire year's worth of content that you've already put effort into publicizing to something lower effort in the department that matters not setting a reasonable schedule and modifying as crap hit the fan?

Again - Deimos wasn't meant to be the mid-2020 release when Covid hit. In fact, there's a pretty good chance it already was a 2021 release window. The New War was the headline content for this year, to be released as a series of smaller content patches, starting with Scarlet Spear. DE weren't exactly hiding that, taking multiple interviews.

If Deimos was the mid-2020 release from the start, then this might have been a reasonable way to chunk up the content, with the benefit of knowing the crisis was going to last as long as it was (which of course, we didn't back then)

People thought of them as the little dev that could. Believe me, I've been quite active on the Forums for several years now, and that is most definitely a past tense statement. At the very least it is around here.

That's what I mean when I say the market has changed. No Man's Sky, and the seemingly mainstream trend of huge promises and no delivery has made people far more sensitive to false advertisement. I've had somebody try to accuse DE of false advertising because they update the game.

DE's lack of polish is one of the most common criticisms levelled against them, often as much as the release schedule. Why should they listen to you over the rest of the population screaming at them about a lack of bugfixes?  You yourself have said they should make more use of the test server - what's that for if not for polish and balancing (which the community is also vocally against)?

 

Though I certainly agree that DE's manpower and vision are poorly co-ordinated. Chronically so. They're pulled in more directions than I can count, and that's just the community. I don't know what it's like there, but there's definitely rumblings that DE's own director visions are far from aligned.

 

Let me shorten your argument.  What I'm reading on one hand is that covid screwed up the schedule.  What I'm then reading is circular logic, suggesting that the schedule was not a schedule but more of a guideline.  It's arguing that no matter what DE put out in 2020 was going to be worse off, despite all of it actually having its bulk of development outside of 2020.  That's an interesting view...and doesn't exactly lend itself to reality.  There's my problem in a nut shell.  You argue that stuff was developed outside 2020, but then that the events of 2020 are the sole reason people somehow believe things are different.

 

 

Regarding the false issue of the community somehow driving things, I cannot tell if you understand how deeply wrong you are.  Let me elaborate.  When new content releases the first thing you hear about is bugs.  Then it's anger with the things not documented.  It's then followed up with frustration that even older bugs aren't yet patched.  Why is this?  Well, DE as a developer is kind of a mess.  

How so?  Well, there seem to be people who want to build a marvelous castle.  They want said castle to be built atop a beach, and in the process you always wind up with that sandy infrastructure crumbling.  Let's talk how this fits warframe.  DE introduced archwing back in the day.  It was a buggy mess, but we played it because it could be awesome.  The game mode was a content island.  New mods, new things to grind for, and most frustratingly it had weapon pieces as rare drops from archwing only missions.  How were you to get the powerful stuff if you had to be powerful to unlock it?  DE included a bunch of missions.  They then did nothing to support them.  All of the mission simply became dead nodes, because archwing didn't interact with the game.  Literal years later we were introduced to craftable launchers for using archwing on the open worlds.  After that we got a one time craft launcher.  Finally, we got railjack.  This illustrates literal years where content was dead, until it coincidentally allowed for fast traversal of a mostly empty open world.  DE didn't connect archwing, and it died until it could be used somewhere.  Most frighteningly, the latest developer stream indicated archwing missions might be disappearing in the future, as they have railjack now.

Let's circle back to the key point.  DE released stuff that was content locked to its island.  People tolerated the bugs, because it had promise.  DE actually largely worked to fix these bugs, but the lack of connective tissue meant after the grind this was dead content.  If things aren't addressed before that death they remain perpetually broken.

 

Now, let's talk about this design philosophy, and how it's created a community that needs content to live.   Tell me, what's the endgame to warframe?  I'm not talking high level content, I'm talking the thing that you do when everything else is done.  It isn't eidolons, because they're time locked and buggy.  It isn't the orb mothers, because they have mediocre rewards once the resources aren't needed.  Literally the only endgame is fashion and rivens.  

As a player, if rivens are it then why care?  This is especially true when every 90 days a riven could be nerfed or buffed and completely restructure its value.  This means there's really no infinitely repeatable content in warframe.  That's not the fault of the players, this is 100% DE's design decision.

So, the result is that the game is only viable for veterans when new content comes....yay.  DE releases half baked, and buggy.  This means on release day they've got the sword of Damacles above them.  If the content isn't patched before the player base dries up it's useless to expend the effort.  Likewise, if they don't release something then players evaporate.  DE has created a game where content is literally volatile and must be replenished constantly to get players.

 

 

Now, how do we fix it?  I'll tell you a simple truth, once weekly riven shards isn't it.  0.201% drops isn't it.  Finally, the nightwave dragging on forever isn't it either.

Instead of understanding this, DE announced the year of patching...saw its impact....and reverted.  They did this because simply announcing that you're going to fix your mistakes is not viable (given a history of proliferation rather than solutions).  It's necessary, otherwise you end up having to invest substantial manpower on significant revisions.  Read: the 3 things they are touting as 2020 progress, all stemming from buggy and messy delivery of some system that became so toxic they actually had to deal with them.

So what is the solution?  It isn't an annual release.  It's turning down the promises, scaling back a little, and doing the 2014 warframe dance.  That is to say more releases, much smaller, and resources dedicated to bug stomping.  The fact they magically thought saying that "this would be the year of bug fixing" was catastrophically stupid.  After setting the game up to be content driven, and demonstrating issues with promised delivery, they told the community that content would be coming at a crawl and maybe they'd fix some of the issues.

If you cannot see the stupidity there, let me draw a parallel.  You watched a fox murder three chickens.  You know it hasn't eaten in 48 hours.  You then hear the fox say that it's going to enter the chicken coop but it won't eat a chicken.  Does it make sense to let it in?  No.  DE has spent years demonstrating fundamental technical issues, and a lack of the ability to follow through.  It's likewise insane to think that a year of bug stomping was going to be used as anything but an excuse to plug less work into the game, and extract money from people for no additional content.  It's frankly idiotic.  If DE wanted the year of bug fixing they simply had to restructure content to 2014 standards.

Instead of rolling back the scale, and doing reasonable work, DE released open worlds.  They took a year of content and made it a single release.  They all launched buggy as all get out, but since it's content it drives players.  Instead of understanding that scale issues are present, DE doubled-down.  This isn't an expectation that players have decided to have, it's us watching what DE does and assuming that they are incapable of managing.  That's managing time tables, scope, features, and something so mundane as their own words in their public facing discussions.  That indicates not some magical change, but people finally understanding trust for DE died with 2017, where they turned their ambition to 11 but didn't get the skills or manpower to complete their goals.  Those things are consistently a 4 or 5.  

To somehow blame this on a virus, or consumer expectation, is foolish.  The problems started after the second dream, owing to the huge delays.  This isn't a 2020 problem, it's a DE leadership issue.

[Loza03]

13 minutes ago, master_of_destiny said:

Let me shorten your argument.  What I'm reading on one hand is that covid screwed up the schedule.  What I'm then reading is circular logic, suggesting that the schedule was not a schedule but more of a guideline.  It's arguing that no matter what DE put out in 2020 was going to be worse off, despite all of it actually having its bulk of development outside of 2020.  That's an interesting view...and doesn't exactly lend itself to reality.  There's my problem in a nut shell.  You argue that stuff was developed outside 2020, but then that the events of 2020 are the sole reason people somehow believe things are different.

This is a misreading of my argument.

I feel like you're dramatically underestimating the time it takes to produce a game, or in this case a major game update here. Most of the stuff DE puts out in a year would have started development several months prior at least. That's just how long it takes to produce large-scale content. Longer when the creative team is put under stress and seperate out. The Sacrifice, which required orders of magnitude less in terms of new assets and tech than the New War or Deimos and had nearly the full force of the studio behind it for the latter parts of its creation, still took three months. We knew about some kind of 'plains of venus' since a little before January of 2018 - some of the stuff in Deimos was confirmed to be in production by virtue for at least the bulk of 2019 (the API had references to dev-build versions of the worm cycle and bounties since at least midway through Arlo). Railjack was in development for several years before it got revealed, and several more before it first started to come out (and... well, it's still in development. I'm hardly claiming DE's a perfect company here) It's not an argument - it's just a simple fact of life that large chunks of development happen long before we catch even the faintest wind of them.

So, yes. Deimos was in development before Covid. So was TNW and Deadlocked. That's just reality.

 

How do we know that it was re-scheduled? Rebecca has pretty much confirmed as much

Quote

"A few months ago we made the decision to commit to the year of 'New War'. It's a bit of a challenge to do this without a studio environment or mocap studio - bear with us. We are figuring out ways to achieve what we were hoping for for this year. It is a challenge. It is a new reality because we have lost our facilities. We are adapting for TennoCon which will feature not what we intended to show - but is super cool and interesting - we are doing something we were already working on, we just rejigged to work with the production realities of us not all being together."

 

So, yes. We have explicit confirmation that DE changed the schedule - this year was meant to focus on The New War. I'm not making up some crackpot theory.

Granted, I was incorrect about one thing which I've been corrected on by research - Deimos was planned as a 2020 release. However, given the above statement, it's still the case that it was originally planned at the end of the year, either after or at the tail end of the New War, as evidence by this article, which was released around the same time as Scarlet Spear:

https://mp1st.com/news/warframe-new-war-and-duviri-paradox-planned-to-launch-this-year

(I know it says Duviri, but since the statements only refer to 'another open world' which was assumed to be Duviri at the time of this articles release, it's likely that the statement meant Deimos and it's just journalists being journalists.)

 

 

The rest of the stuff I think's getting somewhat off topic, and much as I genuinely enjoy discussing game design philosophy and my own thoughts on what DE should or should not do, or how they should release content, it's not really relevant to the original point. (and skimming, I don't disagree with a lot of of what's said from that perspective).

However - that doesn't really change the fact that this year, not only have they had to put up with continually mounting expectations, community discontent (as deserved as it may or may not be) and all of the normal stresses that they signed up for, but a massive shift to all of lifestyles and a very real possibility that them or their loved ones could die or suffer debilitating after-effects.

All I'm asking is to maybe not criticize DE for not really giving it their all this year. Criticize their design decisions? I'm already there with you. Suggest their management might be screwed? I've made the same observations. Call them out on anything that has to do with the problems they've already got? Like I said at the start of this... 100% fair game in my book.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

On 2020-10-10 at 8:17 PM, AzureTerra said:

Well another disappointing PA set of weapons

Agreed

[master_of_destiny]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

This is a misreading of my argument.

I feel like you're dramatically underestimating the time it takes to produce a game, or in this case a major game update here. Most of the stuff DE puts out in a year would have started development several months prior at least. That's just how long it takes to produce large-scale content. Longer when the creative team is put under stress and seperate out. The Sacrifice, which required orders of magnitude less in terms of new assets and tech than the New War or Deimos and had nearly the full force of the studio behind it for the latter parts of its creation, still took three months. We knew about some kind of 'plains of venus' since a little before January of 2018 - some of the stuff in Deimos was confirmed to be in production by virtue for at least the bulk of 2019 (the API had references to dev-build versions of the worm cycle and bounties since at least midway through Arlo). Railjack was in development for several years before it got revealed, and several more before it first started to come out (and... well, it's still in development. I'm hardly claiming DE's a perfect company here) It's not an argument - it's just a simple fact of life that large chunks of development happen long before we catch even the faintest wind of them.

So, yes. Deimos was in development before Covid. So was TNW and Deadlocked. That's just reality.

 

How do we know that it was re-scheduled? Rebecca has pretty much confirmed as much

 

So, yes. We have explicit confirmation that DE changed the schedule - this year was meant to focus on The New War. I'm not making up some crackpot theory.

Granted, I was incorrect about one thing which I've been corrected on by research - Deimos was planned as a 2020 release. However, given the above statement, it's still the case that it was originally planned at the end of the year, either after or at the tail end of the New War, as evidence by this article, which was released around the same time as Scarlet Spear:

https://mp1st.com/news/warframe-new-war-and-duviri-paradox-planned-to-launch-this-year

(I know it says Duviri, but since the statements only refer to 'another open world' which was assumed to be Duviri at the time of this articles release, it's likely that the statement meant Deimos and it's just journalists being journalists.)

 

 

The rest of the stuff I think's getting somewhat off topic, and much as I genuinely enjoy discussing game design philosophy and my own thoughts on what DE should or should not do, or how they should release content, it's not really relevant to the original point. (and skimming, I don't disagree with a lot of of what's said from that perspective).

However - that doesn't really change the fact that this year, not only have they had to put up with continually mounting expectations, community discontent (as deserved as it may or may not be) and all of the normal stresses that they signed up for, but a massive shift to all of lifestyles and a very real possibility that them or their loved ones could die or suffer debilitating after-effects.

All I'm asking is to maybe not criticize DE for not really giving it their all this year. Criticize their design decisions? I'm already there with you. Suggest their management might be screwed? I've made the same observations. Call them out on anything that has to do with the problems they've already got? Like I said at the start of this... 100% fair game in my book.

 

So here's the problem with such a long and complicated justification.  At the start of this conversation I claimed that DE was responsible for poor planning, and that they were also directly responsible for poor delivery.  Your retort back is "but corona."  My retort is that DE controls their release schedule, size, and scope.  As such, no.  You cannot both claim some magical corona virus interference unique to DE and cite that because work was done in 2019 that I want it to just be scrapped....both your exact suggestions about my expectations.  You now suggest that was never the case, and that because in early 2020 there was a shift, we should accept them releasing badly....again.

On one hand I need to feel bad, because they have to do what literally everyone else did and alter plans to deal with a pandemic.  I should feel sympathy.  I don't.  You may not get why, but there are plenty of businesses where the pandemic didn't change delivery requirements.  It didn't let you work from home.  It didn't let you decide that delivering your product was a choice.  Despite that' we continued to work.

 

Now, let's dig into DE.  The justification you gave, from them was that they can't do motion capture....fine.  Let's understand what that's good for.  Humanoid actors doing humanoid things for cut scenes or animatics.  I think we can agree on that, because of the definition of words.  Now, what is motion capture used for by DE?  It's used in some warframe animations, but primarily in cut scenes.  Let's re-eximine the conversation.  What we are being told is that because DE cannot animate cut scenes we cannot get the new war.  DE has just pulled a Final Fantasy, where if the cut scenes cannot be delivered then apparently we cannot get any content....ouch. I was unaware that space ninjas required cut scenes to deliver content in a looter shooter game.  Can somebody explain why in a game with gigantic phallic spitting monsters and runners with large fleshy sacks attached we absolutely require motion capture.  So we are clear, I am unaware of a phallus monster they can motion capture, and the only fleshy sack runner I'm aware of is in Rick and Morty as a joke.  

 

 

Let's shelve that.  Maybe DE was planning an elaborate new system that would require something mind bending.  It's speculation, but let's give benefit of the doubt.  The catch is that the only thing we've justified is now a content slow down after Scarlet Spear, as they pivot development to something you have said was already in the works.

What did we receive instead?  I'd like to focus only on the promises of the last four months, with the virus under way and the work from home situation a reality that was not new. Bearing that in mind, the promises made in 2020 for 2020 are as follows:

Multiple Necramechs

4 new frames

4 new prime accesses

An infested themed open world.

A new Nightwave chapter, focusing on a unique new investigative mechanic.

The Helminth system.

Steel Path.

and more.

Let me put this into perspective, because it's stupid.  If DE's management believed all of this was possible (and their employees continuing to promise more), then they're saying that the only impact is what content is released.  Not the scope, and not the scale.  This list of content is equal to 2018's release schedule.  If they are agreeing that there's an impact, then this is patently promising the impossible.  Let's say that they are good managers, they have sat down and planned this out, and somehow came to the conclusion that all of this is possible.  Well, that's idiotic.  Utilizing DE's own feedback, Deimos was slapped together in the 11th hour and barely came out at the promised date.  So which is this?  Is it impossible promises because of incompetence, or is it entirely reasonable promises that DE is simply incapable of delivering on?

 

 

Let's not answer that just yet.  Let's first look at the delivery, and measure whether those promises were met.  We have 2 frames released, 1 has art but no gameplay, and the fourth is not talked about.  That's an unlikely 4 release is 2020.  Necramechs were shown at tennocon, and multiple were promised.  As of the stream they couldn't even agree on a name for the second.  Deimos released....content poor in comparison to every other open world's launch.  Nightwave is now in section 3, lots of people have it maxed, and there's no start date for its conclusion yet.  The Helminth is getting constant patches, as its release state had many broken powers....continuing to be found to this day.  Steel Path is a one and done mastery for most, unless you found a cheese tactic to farm the 2% drop rate from eximus units resource.  It's objectively a very content light year, that started with significant patches and reworks to Liches and Railjack because both of them released in a bad state.

Being clear, this is not bad.  It's expected if there's a pandemic issue.  That delivery isn't terrible....until you start to measure it against the promises they've made and continue to make.

 

Putting all of this together, let's short answer the big questions.  Is DE delivering against their own promises?  No.  Has DE's management decreased the scope of things, to account for new realities of the work?  No.  Is this a new state of affairs for DE, given a pandemic?  No.  Is there a reason Primed Salt and Primed Soon are memes?  Absolutely, and it's not changing any time soon.

 

Now, is it possible to look at all of this and be happy?  Yes.  There are genuinely people out there willing to pay Bethesda for Fallout First.  As such, that's not a qualifier.  Is there hope that DE will reign in their promises, learn from their PR blunders, and stop making stupid promises?  No.  DE as a team really needs to praise Reb and the community outreach group here given some of the crap that they say.  Do I hope Ten Cent comes in, and forces DE to put on its big boy pants and be something more?  Absolutely.  I want warframe to live, but it's been years of them failing delivery.  That's not really sustainable, and it's why this game's player base is finally getting angry.  They took it for years....and still listen to people singing its praises because of endorsement money.  

There's only so far the good will from the Second Dream can be spread, and it stopped in 2019.  2020 has done nothing to rectify this, and it's not a pandemic thing.  It's a DE writing gigantic promises, never coming through with them, and then repeating this failure again and again thing.  If you want to pretend it's a pandemic thing, explain to me why Steam has the most players active ever.  Explain to me why consoles could literally not be found this year, as people bought up gaming like it was crack, and this was a terrible neighborhood.  I make jokes to try and remain happy, because as I stare at DE I'm reminded of the worst managers of my life.  The thing is, they got fired...and firing would mean this game dies.  I don't want that, but it's inevitable unless they change.  Unfortunately, given DE's responses I don't think they see the failures and they will repeat them until nobody can give them the benefit of doubt any longer.

[xcrimsonlegendx]

On 2020-10-11 at 7:25 PM, (NSW)FlameDivinity said:

Thank you for your explanation. Would you surmise that your positive experiences with darker, zombie, and generally infested media formed your appreciation for them?

I've always been curious why some people like "the badguys." And this makes me theorize it could have something to do with positive childhood experiences with that type of content.

Honestly I'm not sure if there's any deeper meaning other than things like, I enjoy how they look. My favorite color is purple and growing up in the 80s/90 most comic book and cartoon villains were purple. Skeletor, Shredder, Magneto, Frieza, the Joker, the Decepticons, etc. The good guys also always looked much more lame, I mean Megatron turned into a gun. Optimus prime was a red truck. Skeletor was a skeleton, He-man was a mostly naked blonde guy. Bad guys win 110% when it comes to character design in my book.

[LarenaBot]

6 hours ago, master_of_destiny said:

On one hand I need to feel bad, because they have to do what literally everyone else did and alter plans to deal with a pandemic.  I should feel sympathy.  I don't.  You may not get why, but there are plenty of businesses where the pandemic didn't change delivery requirements.  It didn't let you work from home.  It didn't let you decide that delivering your product was a choice.  Despite that' we continued to work.

It sure #*!%ing should have lol. Any company that didnt change their practices due to coronavirus or dragged their feet is putting profit over the lives of their workers and deserves to burn to the ground.