Here are the results of the Warframe Content Review 2020 survey

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)Primus Patronum said:

My biggest concern about all this is... is DE listening? 

I want to see admin take your research and do something genuine with it. It'd be a shame if they just ignore this or just stay silent about it.

Until they actually say something, we can only guess if they are reading and digesting this information. 

Then again, it's not like Steve will jump on the forum and type, "In response to your survey and analysis, I hereby order more content to be done for 'insert game mode here' and thank you for volunteering your contribution." I mean, he might say something to that effect or similar, but I doubt it.

What do you imagine the 250+ staff at Digital Extremes are doing?

[(PSN)thegarada]

Thanks for the work. I am genuinely surprised that Deimos is popular. I find it the worst content added to the game. Not cuz it is inherently bad. However, it is a recycling of what we seen before twice, against the most boring faction and with emphasis on the worst aspects of previous open worlds.

[Teridax68]

2 hours ago, (PSN)thegarada said:

Thanks for the work. I am genuinely surprised that Deimos is popular. I find it the worst content added to the game. Not cuz it is inherently bad. However, it is a recycling of what we seen before twice, against the most boring faction and with emphasis on the worst aspects of previous open worlds.

I can agree with this, and more broadly I think it's likely that updates aimed primarily at updating or reworking existing content are being consistently undervalued by the playerbase, because their benefit is more of a slow burn in terms of the quality they inject into the game, whereas big batches of new content give all they've got pretty much in one go. That aside, though, I do think the survey itself is rich with interesting information, and I think the conclusion is also accurate given the findings. Kudos to the OP for the excellent work!

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Primus Patronum said:

My biggest concern about all this is... is DE listening? 

I want to see admin take your research and do something genuine with it. It'd be a shame if they just ignore this or just stay silent about it.

Until they actually say something, we can only guess if they are reading and digesting this information. 

Then again, it's not like Steve will jump on the forum and type, "In response to your survey and analysis, I hereby order more content to be done for 'insert game mode here' and thank you for volunteering your contribution." I mean, he might say something to that effect or similar, but I doubt it.

I played a game before this for 7 years and watched the game implement loot boxes for the first time. People pleaded and gave legitimately constructive feedback over and over, and they're still releasing new loot boxes every 3 months. 

Money is money. Nothing is ever gonna really happen with rivens. Just prepare for that reality lol

[Graavarg]

If DE were to continuously publish some core statistics of the game (like the drop tables, doesn't have to be fancy) it would be possible to take all this one step further. And in addition to look at WHAT players like also look at WHY they like what they like. And even take that a bit further by looking at the differences between different types of players.

In other words, go at the things that makes statistical analysis interesting, illuminating and fun!

To keep control and increase the usefulness for Warframe itself, DE could even consider to participate in the process by doing a small in-game survey. This would allow the creation of a small data pool that is hard to get at from the outside, while still keeping both anonymity and "company secrets" in place. This could include stuff like age & gender, overall income, "geographical location", "playing with friends vs solo vs PUG", overall weekly time use for gaming overall vs Warframe and all this pre-analyzed and coupled to in-game statistics. The game (and so DE) has statistics on when we play, how much we play, what missions we play and what equipment we use. The "2020 statistics release" is great, but it is only the tip of a pretty huge iceberg... 🙂

[Yamazuki]

19 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

Personally, I'd say "no".

If I go by the 80/20 rule alone:

20% of people actually visit social media sites for their game. 20% of THAT are actually active. The forums, reddit, youtube etc make up 4% of the playerbase. Opinions here represent 4% of the people that actively play warframe.

And I believe DE understands. Nothing short of a mass outcry that results in bad marketing gets them to move their hand.

Frankly, I'd wish there was a mass outcry against rivens.

DE are aware rivens are bad, but at the end of the day, they're optional. They're intentionally catered to the very small group of people that enjoy them as is, and given they're optional, it means the masses are free to ignore it. Unless DE made using them a hard requirement, there won't ever be mass outcry over them. If DE wanted more people to use them, they would've done some meaningful changes by now; although, this likely would just be met with a ton of complaints from the people that wish to never see changes.

[Aadi880]

7 minutes ago, Yamazuki said:

DE are aware rivens are bad, but at the end of the day, they're optional. They're intentionally catered to the very small group of people that enjoy them as is, and given they're optional, it means the masses are free to ignore it. Unless DE made using them a hard requirement, there won't ever be mass outcry over them. If DE wanted more people to use them, they would've done some meaningful changes by now; although, this likely would just be met with a ton of complaints from the people that wish to never see changes.

Well yeah. I'm not saying DE doesn't know rivens are bad, because I'm pretty sure they do.

What I am saying is that it doesn't cause a bad enough marketing for DE to considering doing anything right now specifically. 

DE has a lot on their plates. They are more inclined onto fixing things that both cause or has caused bad marketing and is in all player interest to do so, like Railjack for the most part.

Content fixing does not provide a lot of money. That is just the sad reality of it. DE has to fix content AND release content at the same time, or plan future content to be properly fixed onto the current game.

14 hours ago, Dayren said:

That's a funny thing about statistics: obviously, you can't ever poll a group of people in its entirety BUT you don't need to. Even a seemingly small fraction of the whole can give you reasonably accurate insights, even when you're using random sampling (which is really the only option here since, well, we don't really have the information needed to do quoata sampling). In practice: the sample size in this survey would be good enough to produce data with a 99% confidence level (academics normally use 95%) with the margin of error being 3% for a group consisting of a MILLION people - and, while I don't have the player stats obviously, I still think that'd be an extremely generous overestimation of Warframe's active playerbase.

No, the amount of people answering is most assuredly not a problem. The only issue to consider is mentioned in the doc as well: it's whether the data is not biased due to where the respondents have been found at, i.e. mainly Reddit, Facebook groups, the forums and Discord communities - if people who do not take part in Warframe online socially would not hold singificantly different opinions. Realistically though, we have no way to properly find out.

tl;dr this is as good as it gets

 

Good job OP in trying to make sense of the data, it's a stimulating read, even for people who would view the results differently.

I'm not saying this data is or is not accurate, nor to downplay ones work or insight. To the person I was replying to, I was saying its nothing that DE already didn't know. 

[Dayren]

7 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Yeah, I think DE has a better idea of what people enjoy with their internal stats.

Absolutely (or at least in terms of what people spend more time on): I meant that in the context of sample size in player-made surveys (which the post covered), not as a general statement.

I don't know though if a significant amount of people on the forum would be as disingenuous as you suggest: to lie about what they enjoy just for the sake of complaining (seems silly but I can't rule it out, don't visit here often). What I really think the discrepancy you describe primarily comes down to is previously mentioned here and in the doc as well: the source of the respondents. It's possible - and I'd argue it's even very likely - that people from the forums are not representative of Warframe's playerbase.

I'd agree this kind of polling can't be taken at face value but it's not supposed to be and it's not because it's flawed - you simply need to work with and attempt to interpret the data, which the linked document does very nicely. In business, companies normally use both internal metrics and consumer surveys to draw conclusions, as both of these provide different kinds of data (both of which are valuable for different reasons). As for DE though, I can't say - as far as I know, they haven't done a survey in some time, and looking at  https://www.warframe.com/2020stats I am honestly not sure if they put much stock in internal statistics either.

 

43 minutes ago, Aadi880 said:

I'm not saying this data is or is not accurate, nor to downplay ones work or insight. To the person I was replying to, I was saying its nothing that DE already didn't know

Sure, cheers then. I was just clarifying the "But they will do nothing regarding it. Why? Because the sample size is mind-numbingly low compared to the people who are actively playing warframe." sentiment.

[Teoarrk]

15 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

While many will come to the forum and say how much they hate liches, if DEs numbers show that same player returned again and again to the content to completion, then maybe that person isn't being genuine

A phrase I hear passed around the industry is 'positive engagement is better than required engagement.' A player can despise a system, but put time and effort into it because they are required to do it to stay competitive. Pure numbers can't tell the full story as to how much people enjoy what they are doing with their time, only that they are doing it.

15 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

I think social media polling is far too flawed to be taken at face value. 

I have stated as much in my discussion and conclusion. Only DE can really get a broader picture from an ingame survey. They have the means but have not demonstrated the will to do so in a while. While it can't give the full picture, it is at least representative of sub communities within the Warframe sphere. I would have said the same thing even if I was presenting ten times the number of results. 

[Teoarrk]

14 hours ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

The graphs are super distorted to the point where I can’t read them on mobile. Just thought you should know :)

I don't know what I would need to do to fix that to be honest. I'm sorry, but thank you for letting me know. :(

[Yakhul]

A very interesting and well summarized poll. I was impressed that heart of deimos was one of the most liked updates, given how much backlash it received after launch.

We need more player made polls like this tbh.

[Teoarrk]

7 minutes ago, Yakhul said:

A very interesting and well summarized poll. I was impressed that heart of deimos was one of the most liked updates, given how much backlash it received after launch.

We need more player made polls like this tbh.

I think it's a tradeoff on who makes the poll - DE can reach more people, but they have no obligation to show the results to us. On the other hand, the community member/members that make the poll are more likely to reveal the results, but can only reach so many people. 

I am considering making a follow up poll based entirely on what people think of Railjack now that devstream 151 let us know that DE want to really up the ante on Railjack content and whatnot. That being said, I'd like to take things slow for a bit. I don't want to bog down communities with surveys.

Finally, thank you :)

[Teoarrk]

8 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

DE has a lot on their plates. They are more inclined onto fixing things that both cause or has caused bad marketing and is in all player interest to do so, like Railjack for the most part.

I don't doubt for a second that they aren't putting work into improving the game. Devstream 151 has shown that they are willing to steady the ship as they add more content. It takes guts to stand back in front of people after messing up and the fact that they not only did put work in to fixing Railjack, but are going to do another pass of that tells me that they are committed to making things right.

8 hours ago, Aadi880 said:

I'm not saying this data is or is not accurate, nor to downplay ones work or insight. To the person I was replying to, I was saying its nothing that DE already didn't know. 

Sometimes it is not so much that its not something they didn't know, but rather that surveys like this can help shape their profile of a certain type of player. That might not be as constructive as an overall consensus, but as a community we rarely agree on what we want, but in smaller factions there is some level of agreement. 

I thank you for being critical, because I am by no means infallible and this survey is my first attempt at something on this scale.

[Teoarrk]

8 hours ago, Dayren said:

As for DE though, I can't say - as far as I know, they haven't done a survey in some time, and looking at  https://www.warframe.com/2020stats I am honestly not sure if they put much stock in internal statistics either.

It is very hard to really make much of an interpretation out of what DE thinks is the next step for the data in that report - asides from potentially nerfing the Kuva Nukor. It's not tied to what mission types are the most popular per MR, which could have given some much needed context. I just hope that any decision made from this data is not made in a vacuum based on these usage stats alone.

[(PSN)Double991]

For some reason the remove votes on railjack made me laugh. I'm sure DE put a lot of assets into that so I feel bad for them.

[Colyeses]

On 2021-02-06 at 4:58 AM, (PSN)thegarada said:

Thanks for the work. I am genuinely surprised that Deimos is popular. I find it the worst content added to the game. Not cuz it is inherently bad. However, it is a recycling of what we seen before twice, against the most boring faction and with emphasis on the worst aspects of previous open worlds.

I think a big chunk of its value is actually in that it came with Helminth, which is an actual game-changer.

[CephalonCarnage]

On 2021-02-06 at 10:15 AM, Dayren said:

I don't know though if a significant amount of people on the forum would be as disingenuous as you suggest: to lie about what they enjoy just for the sake of complaining

Looking at the railjack responses, I'd say this is exactly what is happening. The limited number of players responding must be amongst those who know the game and to be invested in it enough to participate on the forums and this poll. And yet so many say "remove" (its the largest section of the chart - with even more saying add or rework). Given that railjack is almost entirely optional and you have to go out of your way to play it, these are either people who have tried it once and given up in disgust (at the lack of tutorial - RJ is quite good once you know what to do) or are those complaining about RJ because they've read so many others complaining about RJ.

necramechs are perhaps another example of the same thing - some people do not like the concept of mechs, they're not "proper warframes" and RJ is similar to the "not space ninja" gameplay they want as purists, so complain about them and will probably never have used them (most likely given how bad the grind for the damn things was)

 

Still, the poll results do 1 thing well: show which bits of the game get the most passion from these players, and passion = gameplay = ultimately cash for DE.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

On 2021-02-05 at 10:15 PM, (XBOX)Primus Patronum said:

My biggest concern about all this is... is DE listening? 

I want to see admin take your research and do something genuine with it. It'd be a shame if they just ignore this or just stay silent about it.

Until they actually say something, we can only guess if they are reading and digesting this information. 

Then again, it's not like Steve will jump on the forum and type, "In response to your survey and analysis, I hereby order more content to be done for 'insert game mode here' and thank you for volunteering your contribution." I mean, he might say something to that effect or similar, but I doubt it.

Like me, many are starving for lore/story/world-building, sticking to the classic Warframe combat blueprint and improving it as tech innovations come along, and QoL.  Look at the responses.

The problem is that these things don’t directly drive Revenues (you could argue indirectly, but try selling that to ownership).

The Second Dream set this ENORMOUS precedent, but the key will always be to provide gameplay that brings in quantifiable revenue and keeps people playing AND paying.

In an ideal world we could buy a Prime access and designate how we want that development money spent as a consumer.  But I don’t know any game system or company/consumer relationship in this business that is that evolved...

And honestly, there is a bit of the AMAZON algorithm effect going on here, or the sports analogy of the quickest way to get fired as a coach is to listen to the fans in the stands.

DE has to listen to what we “pay” we want vs what we say we want.

And 90% (guess) of us are )&@@ing cheap and USE the F2P system vs voluntarily contributing for DE’s efforts.