Fun vs Annoyance?

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Caught myself today

I was looking at Navigation trying to decide what to do next.

and was looking at the Kuva Alerts and Fissures since I need both Kuva and Forma atm, trying to find whichever node/objective was the least annoying.

Least Annoying. Not Most Fun

Same goes for the Sortie, I just want a shot at some nice reward, but the mission itself is just a chore to get there, not fun in itself.

How did it come to this?

When did I stop playing for fun and started to chose activities based on how 'tolerable' they were instead?

 

Is anyone else feeling this too?

 

[Fratellino_Palevino]

Just stop playing ?

[ZarTham]

Log out, uninstall, wait for next update, install, play, rinse and repeat.

[Jivy]

Just now, ZarTham said:

Log out, uninstall, wait for next update, install, play, rinse and repeat.

Wouldn't say uninstall if you are just waiting for a update

[Loza03]

Simple. Extrinsic rewards have begun replacing Intrinsic ones - rewards over the joy of playing in and of itself.

My suggestions: play some other games. Even if it's only for a short while, I find it helps reset my perspective and provide some new ones. Or if it doesn't, then maybe it's time to just cool your jets and take a break from WF. Alternately, actively stop yourself from thinking and playing like this. Find something that you find fun to just goof around with (I've been playing with Valkyr's Ripline lately. Completely transforms movement once you figure out how it works). It might not solve the underlying issue, but playing for playing's sake is what you're missing. Might help re-define the 'annoying' stuff as fun, even.

When I argue for balance, this is why I do so. More variety, encouraged down to the game's systems, helps avoid this. Much more than any kind of nuke can.

[(PSN)xBellikx]

Yeah, been feeling like this for some time, it's kind of hard to find something engaging or "fun" to do, Mot survival is something that always comes back to mind but it gets boring after mindlessly melee-ing my way through tons of enemies.

Then I feel like I need to keep grinding, farming and opening relics just so I don't miss out on anything.

This is one of my all time favourite games, but sometimes it feels like it could be much better, like the potential is there and it feels like something's missing..

[Kaggelos]

Yesterday I did the 30 min Survival for NW, and used Hildryn with the Trumna and the Mausolon. Those two weapons are just soooo much fun, that I totally forgot about the time limit, and played just for the playing part. Point is, the mechanics of those weapons are just so satisfying to use. Build up your gauge and then let it rip with alt fire and all of it's explosive glory.

To me, this is an intrinsic reward, and it ties in with a combination of things, not only mechanics, but visuals, sound design, animation, enemies and their density, you name it.

Also, im going to list some very specific things i've noticed that make me enjoy playing the game (or any game for that matter)

• Core gameplay/loop, like movement system, customization, mission type etc
• animations. they need to look stylish and cool, with lots of buildup, payoff, anticipation, recoil, as well as looking good from most, if not all angles, in terms of shapes (artists and animators will get what im saying, im one myself)
• Colors. if the color pallete is good, them im sold. specifically, balance of cool/warm colors, complementary ones, the works.
• sound design. Some sounds can be oh so satisfying to hear. A Nox's wheezing and breaking of the glass of his helmet, the alt fire of the Stahlta, or the Quartakk, or Hildryn's dodge sounds, you name it.
• Certain mechanics that follow the "build up and climax" logic, like the Mausolon, Trumna, Keratinos, setting up your Marked for Death combo, etc. I love when there's a certain amount of building up something and then paying it of, like I mentioned earlier with my previous examples.

 

Anyway, these are just my two cents.

[DrivaMain]

That means it’s a red flag showing you are feeling burned out of the game. You need to take a break. Stop playing the game and not think about it for days, weeks, months, or even years.

[BahamutKaiser]

Void Fissure on Kuva Survival?

Honestly, this is a mechanical game, it's popular feature is the mechanics. The setting grows old eventually, and the story is shallow, it's not going to capture you forever. If you can get into another game, do it, because grinding for grinding sake is foolish. 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

Simple. Extrinsic rewards have begun replacing Intrinsic ones - rewards over the joy of playing in and of itself.

My suggestions: play some other games. Even if it's only for a short while, I find it helps reset my perspective and provide some new ones. Or if it doesn't, then maybe it's time to just cool your jets and take a break from WF. Alternately, actively stop yourself from thinking and playing like this. Find something that you find fun to just goof around with (I've been playing with Valkyr's Ripline lately. Completely transforms movement once you figure out how it works). It might not solve the underlying issue, but playing for playing's sake is what you're missing. Might help re-define the 'annoying' stuff as fun, even.

When I argue for balance, this is why I do so. More variety, encouraged down to the game's systems, helps avoid this. Much more than any kind of nuke can.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

I partially have this problem.  Some things I genuinely enjoy, and I don't feel annoyed at all by.  That's most of the game.  Some things are incredibly irritating, but have things I want locked behind them so I know I'll do them eventually and I dread doing it.  The dread comes from unfun mechanics, bad reward tables, lack of any kind of balance (even within the framework of a power fantasy.) and bugs.

Steel path is the perfect example of this dichotomy.  For exterminate, defense, spy, sabotage, assault, and several others, I found the Steel Path versions much more enjoyable to play through.  I found myself actually slowing down to play through the missions at first, before I remembered the sheer amount of them I had in front of me for completion of the SP star chart. 

But mechanically, some things just flat out don't work well at all with SP enemy buffs.  Units like the Stalker, Ambulas and Treasurers are nigh impossible to kill without specific gear.  Sure, if you've brought a heavy attack Stropha the Stalker is easy.  Bring a pure status CO melee weapon and guns to apply status with for that, or weapons that suit your frame's powers.  Stalker face tanked my Kuva Drakgoon, Mara Detron, and Ether Sword (which were straight chewing through the exterminate I was in with Mag) for over 10 minutes.  He's status immune, ability immune, and with all the extra EHP on top of his DR he was shrugging off everything I had.  I had a SP Ambulas take over 2 whole mags from my Mausolon straight to the weak points on SP while it was one shotting me through over 2500 armor.  Combine these now broken units with the always annoying nullifiers and constant enemy CC into a mission like Hijack or Mobile defense where the defense targets are made out of tissue paper and the game gets infuriating real quick without specific set-up.

I disliked the lack of rewards, because even for the base versions of these missions the reward tables are ass.  Doing a regular Jupiter disruption and getting 10 hex as a rotation reward is already laughably bad.  Like it boggles my mind how they thought that was in any way even remotely rewarding.  Doing a level 130 SP Jupiter disruption and getting 10 hex makes me pretty irritated.

Content like that isn't fun to me at all.  Content like that is basically a gear check and meta enforcement, where bringing anything outside the required gear results in failure.  Topping content like that off with bad rewards means I definitely feel where OP is coming from, but at the same point, there's a lot I enjoy about this game that doesn't annoy me in the slightest and there's more of that than there is of the annoying stuff.

 

[kevoisvevo]

I would suggest trying risk of rain 2. It's my go to game after I stopped playing Warframe. I just log in and log out for my 900th day primed sure footed.

[Steel_Rook]

On 2020-11-10 at 2:20 PM, ZarTham said:

Log out, uninstall, wait for next update, install, play, rinse and repeat.

Uninstalling is pointless if you're just waiting for an update. The game is something like a 30 gig download. Not a lot of storage on a modern hard drive, but quite a bit of a download on a modern network connection.

 

23 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Simple. Extrinsic rewards have begun replacing Intrinsic ones - rewards over the joy of playing in and of itself.

In a nutshell, yes. DE themselves even admitted as much, and it's honestly sad to realise. I've often described Warframe as "a genuinely good game fundamentally undermined by its own monetisation and progression." It seems to me that DE have all but entirely given up on creating compelling content or exciting gameplay. Or finished systems... Instead, they rely on releasing the the bare minimum viable product and then backfilling the rest of the "intended experience" with grindgrindgrind. Warframe by this point feels less like a game and more like a job. The playerbase has felt this, too. Many feel like the OP: "All I care about are the rewards. Which part of the game do I hate the least that'll get me these rewards?" And it's DE themselves that have fostered this kind of mentality.

For whatever reason, DE seem to have chosen "daily active users" as their metric of success. In other words, they seem to want us logging in every day for a bit and not a lot else. Whether or not we're having fun doesn't matter - have to get in those dailies/weeklies because there's not a lot else TO do. I've been trying to mellow out my "devbashing" in recent days, but some things are undeniable. Since late 2019, most of what we've gotten has been unfinished, light on content and heavy on grind. Liches and Railjach are hollow systems with nary any content, but they have lots of grind. Scarlet Spear was an alpha test for a new system with nary any content, but lots of grind. Deadlock Protocol was probably the highlight of the last 12 months due to the new tileset, but it also came with the Granum Void which is absolutely terrible. The we had Deimos, which is just another empty Free Roam map with next to no content actually in it but bog-standard MMO quests and lots and lots AND LOTS of grind.

Man, though - spaceship combat could have been SO COOL! Except it's unstable, broken and unfinished and DE's promises to update it seem to have evaporated. Necramecs could have been SO COOL! Man I'd love to be able to use those things on, say, Jupiter! But I can't, because they're unstable, broken and unfinished. Even basic future-proofing, like giving them a separate melee weapon with no choices (just fist) hasn't happened. Supposedly we're due a Deimos update at some sliding future date, but what'll that give us? Another Necramech? Cool, but "Necramechs in ground missions" when? Necramechs using Archwing Melee weapons, maybe?

There's so much content which could have been SO COOL, but it's left in whatever half-baked state it was in when it was released unfinished and behind schedule. For reasons unknown, DE have decided that their business model is going to be that of a "content farm," releasing mediocre stuff as fast as possible and never going back to polish old things. Instead of creating robust, expansive systems we can have fun with, all they seem to aim for is the next content island that'll keep us grinding for a few weeks. I mean, why do Railjack Revised if it doesn't come with a new massive grind. Making it more fun isn't going to generate those daily concurrent numbers if people don't have "anything to earn."

 

18 hours ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

Content like that isn't fun to me at all.  Content like that is basically a gear check and meta enforcement, where bringing anything outside the required gear results in failure.  Topping content like that off with bad rewards means I definitely feel where OP is coming from, but at the same point, there's a lot I enjoy about this game that doesn't annoy me in the slightest and there's more of that than there is of the annoying stuff.

That's a side effect of DE's focus on "extrinsic rewards," and why it makes me so sad that they feel that way. Their over-focus on rewards seems to have come at the expense of compelling gameplay. It's the admission that "people wouldn't play our game unless we paid them to do so." They COULD knuckle down and work to improve the core gameplay loop, improve the flow of the game and work on smoothing over bugs and balance issues. But they don't, because those things don't generate more grind, and grind seems to be the only goal here. Add more grind, get people to keep logging in every day or every week, show high concurrent numbers. The overall design goal isn't to make something that's FUN. It's to make something that we're going to grind for a few weeks, and "fun" ends up as a necessary sacrifice to achieve that.

That's the reason I've grown entirely apathetic towards Warframe. Well... One of the reasons. I don't care about the grind any more. I have everything I want, there's really nothing that I care to grind for. I play for fun... But time and again that "fun" is undermined by the grind. New systems just aren't designed to be "fun" any more. They're designed to be borderline functional so they can support the monetisation and progression systems, and that's it. I said this before, but - Necramechs could have been more fun. Liches could have been more fun. Railjack could have been more fun. The Granum Void... Could have not existed at all. They still can, but they won't. Because making things "fun" isn't a priority. Making things a grind is. After near a full year waiting for Railjack updates, I just don't think my understanding of what makes Warframe good align with DE's, and possibly never did.

[Zairilia]

If you're not enjoying playing the game, take a break so you don't totally burn out.

[matt11mz]

I can't really say something other than what's been said already, but I'll say it anyway: To avoid burnout (or clear burnout if I find myself in the middle of it), I do one of two things. One, I search for a mode I like and ignore the rewards. Defense/Excavation with Vauban, watching my traps do the work for me, Spy with Wisp, getting in and out without being seen, or finding easy bosses and spamming hirudo with Nidus, watching the boss quickly die without Nidus ever getting low health, all ideas that work for me. Two, I play another game. I love looking for secrets, and optimizing builds, but it always becomes mundane at some point. That's why I tend to play a game for around one to two weeks before switching to something else.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

When I new and inexperienced it was an issue, but now I can handle all situations so it's all fun.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

9 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Because making things "fun" isn't a priority. Making things a grind is.

A large part of this problem is on the community.  Someone will come forward with an entirely valid complaint about something being a tedious grind and not a good gameplay loop, or something being a really janky mechanic, and inevitably someone will come along and shout at them about how they need to git gud and stop trying to remove "challenge" (which 90% of the time they're talking about bad mechanics or just straight RNG that have nothing to do with challenge.) and how the game being nothing but grind is acceptable because muh small indie devs are gonna starve if we don't all accept the 0.02% drop rates on items that only come from one enemy in the game.  Some of these people are brainwashed into looking out for DE's bottom line for them, and they're loud enough that DE thinks they're doing a bang up job, when a lot of people are still pretty upset with the actual playable content to mindless grind ratio.

[Steel_Rook]

4 hours ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

A large part of this problem is on the community.  Someone will come forward with an entirely valid complaint about something being a tedious grind and not a good gameplay loop, or something being a really janky mechanic, and inevitably someone will come along and shout at them about how they need to git gud and stop trying to remove "challenge" (which 90% of the time they're talking about bad mechanics or just straight RNG that have nothing to do with challenge.) and how the game being nothing but grind is acceptable because muh small indie devs are gonna starve if we don't all accept the 0.02% drop rates on items that only come from one enemy in the game.  Some of these people are brainwashed into looking out for DE's bottom line for them, and they're loud enough that DE thinks they're doing a bang up job, when a lot of people are still pretty upset with the actual playable content to mindless grind ratio.

There's a lot of that, yes. For whatever reason, a contingent of players seem adamant about investing their sense of self-worth in their hobbies, to the point where those who don't enjoy them are seen as "weak" rather than "a source of feedback." I don't think that's the primary issue here, though. "Git gud" players will always exist, but smart developers will know to tune them out.

The problem is Warframe's nature as a Live Service and - as I said - DE's chosen metric for success. For reasons unknown, they've decided that players MUST be involved with the game daily and CANNOT be allowed to leave or take breaks. Even long after the game has stopped being fun, progression keeps trying to keep us logging back in and going through the motions. As a result, you have a plurality of severely burnt-out players resenting the game but playing solely for the rewards and a development team who can't afford to do cool stuff because they need to keep cranking out the illusion of progression else people start asking "Why should I play that?" It's a vicious circle that I'd argue DE put themselves into. Players ARE to blame in part, of course, because we bought into this business model, but DE are the ones who perpetuate it. At this point, Warframe being fun is no longer enough of a reason to play it either for players or developers, which is why this drudgery happens.

As someone with a history of compulsive gaming, I don't think this is ultimately a successful approach. It keeps the concurrent numbers high, sure. I'd argue that having the faith in your own product to let players go - let them leave for months if need be - and trust that they'll come back and spend more one is ultimately the better option. Whether I log in every day once every week or whether I'm gone for six months but come back for the next new release - I'm going to spend roughly the same amount of money, because I spend money on what I WANT, not what the game tells me I NEED. Except keeping me coming back every day is going to burn me out - potentially enough that I don't come back at all, or come back in another three years instead. It's always better to part with players on good terms and welcome them back, than it is to wring them like a towel for all their worth and cause them to ragequit forever. That's something modern Live Services don't seem to get.

I'll give you an example - I played The Division 2 for a couple of months after release. Did all it had to offer, burnt myself on it and went on to do other things. Never really had bad memories of it, just moved on. Then they released Warlords of New York, a $30 expansion. I got that, because I liked what I saw in the patch notes. I hadn't logged on in a year, but I still spent money on it. Same recently with Season 3 I think it is. Hadn't touched it for months, but I saw a bunch of additions I'd been waiting for, so I plonked down $20 for a Battle Pass. I mean, why not? Game's still fun. Every time I've left this game, it's because I've done everything it had to offer and moved on to other games. It means I can keep going back to it with no ill feelings. I've been trying to log back into Warframe of late, and it just feels... Dreary. Rather than remembering all the good times I've had with the game, all I can remember is the ever-longer list of grinds I have left... Because the game has consistently undersold its fun and oversold its progression.

[xombob89]

The problem is, Warframe is and has always been quite repetitive. And the fact that the oldest gamemodes we have, have seen no noticable changes since release of the game and the new ones we got arent much different, more like reskins of the old ones.

I hope at some point they will start overhauling ALL gamemodes in the game to be more engaging and interesting.

In fact, I think they should start holding community gamemode design contests, because Ive seen some pretty good ideas over the years that would be very possible to implement but they usually seem to take the easier route instead of just make another mobile defense clone. For example we have K-Drives but theres no missions around them aside from the mini-games. How cool it would be to have some kind of K-drive chase/shootout as a bounty stage or something so we might actually have a reason to use them. Someone pitched an idea of a trainheist kind of thing where you chase a train with K-Drives, sounded pretty sweet.

 

[MrHBN]

On 2020-11-10 at 11:01 AM, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

 

Is anyone else feeling this too?

 

I did for a while. The reason why I think was because I would play whenever I had the chance, for almost 2 whole years Warframe was all I would play. Day in, day out. At least 1-5 hours a day. The feeling of love I had for the game slowly became hate. So I had a good 6 month break. When I came back I would play every other day sometimes for maybe 10 min to get some relics to open when I felt like a longer play session. Sometimes I would login and just do the sortie, more recently some nightwave challenges. Sometimes I won't play for a week at a time and when I do login only play an hour. 

I love this game but at some point you burnout. It has happened to a lot of Warframe players. I would say lower your playtime before you become one of those toxic guys who hate the game yet still play it everyday while saying how bad the game is. It's ok to play other games and have breaks. DE actually advise people to do this.

[(XBOX)EPOSSTYLE]

How about some grind with 30% more but wait, if you grind we'll throw in 20% more grind! That's 50% more grind for the price of regular grind. But don't stop there if you give your soul to the grind we'll throw in a free sayandana and a forma bp so u can have concurrent grind. Yes u heard it correctly, "u get to grind while you're grinding". 

Ii said to my boss, "giving away this much grind is incredibly generous". He then looked at me with concern in his eyes and said "we do it for the people".

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

11 hours ago, (XBOX)EPOSSTYLE said:

How about some grind with 30% more but wait, if you grind we'll throw in 20% more grind! That's 50% more grind for the price of regular grind. But don't stop there if you give your soul to the grind we'll throw in a free sayandana and a forma bp so u can have concurrent grind. Yes u heard it correctly, "u get to grind while you're grinding". 

Ii said to my boss, "giving away this much grind is incredibly generous". He then looked at me with concern in his eyes and said "we do it for the people".

Or just don't do what you don't want to do?

[(PSN)thegarada]

On 2020-11-10 at 6:01 AM, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

Caught myself today

I was looking at Navigation trying to decide what to do next.

and was looking at the Kuva Alerts and Fissures since I need both Kuva and Forma atm, trying to find whichever node/objective was the least annoying.

Least Annoying. Not Most Fun

Same goes for the Sortie, I just want a shot at some nice reward, but the mission itself is just a chore to get there, not fun in itself.

How did it come to this?

When did I stop playing for fun and started to chose activities based on how 'tolerable' they were instead?

 

Is anyone else feeling this too?

 

I run into this from time to time. I have nonos.

No Eris.

No defense, interception or the one you save the Graineer defectors (forgot the name). I do not run a Sortie that has any of these. I most definitely wont run these on a node. 

No under level 50 missions, mostly. 

No leveling or running junk weapons. You have to do this sometimes, but I do it only if I need to level the frame to put forma in it (very rarely nowadays), or for weapon I am interested in and have a riven for it.

No RJ. Tried with it 2-3 times. I cannot tolerate it.

No Cambian Drift. I have the Helminth. The only time I went to the crappy place again was for the Halloween stuff. 

No hunting or fishing. Very rarely mining and only on the PoE, if I ever go there.

 

I used to run most of these in the past, but I have no reason or patience now. I may run some of the nonos, but only if necessary.