So, have the power fantasists "won" then?

[Impulse_Nine]

TL;DR- Do you think the Tenno are going to stay this powerful / get even more powerful in 2021?

I joined this game shortly after Hydroid was released and it was *very* different! I liked it! I kept playing until today. But with the release of yet another warframe who, (no offense to Mr. Sevagoth) looks like a completely redundant addition to my arsenal - I'm genuinely wondering if I'll bother picking him up. In my average Warframe day I need to kill / defend / infiltrate- and over time I've found for that I really only need Mesa, Limbo and Wukong to do all that- and taking anyone else to do those things is really just making work for myself.

The reason for that is fundamentally because Warframes and their weapons are now massively more powerful than the enemy. It was not always this way though, and looking back I think the main shift was at parkour 2.0- after that the enemy could never pin me down and kill me, removing danger from combat. Before then we couldn't fly you see- we needed to actually *run* to get to a place, and often had to use the stairs.

I'll bet you newbies didn't know Excalibur used to have an ability called "Super jump". Seriously, it literally just propelled you into the air- sounds (and was) slightly ridiculous but it was legitimately useful at opening up shortcuts in (a few very restricted) set of tiles.

 

Anyway- I love the parkour system but in removing a lot of danger from combat I like the game less overall for it. That trend has only continued with additions like Rivens, the Prime mods, infinite daily revives, the Operator, and more recently- Necramechs.

From what I gather this has split the player base a little in a way that was highlighted well with the modless* Grendel part missions. My friend and I loved those missions- loot we wanted, with 100% drop chance and a challenge that was definitely possible but very difficult and required we work hard to get it. Other players I gathered hated it- they came to this power fantasy, and for those three missions, had the fantasy snatched away from them.

There is no reason in a game with this much content that both bases can't be catered for. But now we enter 2021, I see DE still fussing over new weapons and warframes- and I really feel that is only content for people looking for new ways to enjoy the same power fantasy. So, with no grand mod rebalancing or nerfing of the Tenno even on the radar from what I hear (and I may have missed news on that front, and if so please tell me!) - have the power fantasists "won" the day on this game?

 

*I realise the Gendel part missions did still permit augment mods, and I've never appreciated those mods more than I did there! Which is kind of my point- less can be more.

[o0Despair0o]

I sure hope they won.

If they didn't, one of the largest parts of this game - that being the promised power fantasy - would become a lie.

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

"Winning" assumes there is a competition, or that the main intent and crowd of the game isn't really related to power fantasy.

Sure, there may be a few attempts here and there to go all out Dark Soul's style, just as there are with PvP - each to appease the player groups who like those sorts of things. But neither one changes the core of the game, and end up being underappreciated in the long run.

It's like complaining that Warframe's PvP isn't as good as the likes of Call of Duty or other PvP focused games, or that Frame Fighter is a joke when compared to Mortal Combat. All this even though I like the occasional challenge, but not all the time. I mainly play to vent steam off, so the core loop is good as it is for me and keeps me returning.

 

[Ace-Bounty-Hunter]

If the outcry from Tenno after DE's kneejerk nerfs to a number of things over the past year is any indication (Catchmoon, Bramma, Xoris, Helminth, Khora's Whipclaw, etc). DE would be crazy to try and "balance" the game now. 

[Loza03]

Depends on what you mean by 'power fantasy'. It's an absurdly broad topic - it's not even a genre. I'd say that 'by the loosest definition', but the phrase is by definition loose - it is the fantasy of you, or rather some avatar meant to represent you, becoming powerful. Be it a rags-to-riches story, a criminal mastermind gleefully outwitting everyone they come across, a frail or otherwise handicapped individual nevertheless being able to dominate, or yes, an overpowered mary sue.

What is typically ascribed as 'power fantasy' in Warframe is, of course, the latter. A great deal of Mary-Suing. and that's been done well, to be sure - see also Master Chief. Beloved character, great games, but Halo 3's first cutscene lampshades that the universe will go out of it's way to let him, and therefore by extension the player, do some truly outrageous stuff, allowing the player to feel and be awesome. And that's genuinely fine - Bungie basically built a Universe with the sole intention of saying "hey guys - you're awesome!" - and it helps that the gameplay loop that you use to interact with that universe rocks too. Warframe, unfortunately does not do it well.

 

I've got no issues with Warframe being an easy game, or even a casual-focused game. I can scratch that itch elsewhere when I have it. What I take issue with when it comes to Warframe's particular brand of Power Fantasy, is that it's done in such a way that actively degrades the value of other aspects of the game. Energy is so cheap and rampant, half a frame's kit is going to be underutilised or mathematically an inferior choice in 90% of circumstances. This is unless it's built into some kind of forced combo setup or something. Likewise for guns - why should I ever use guns when Melee deals more damage, is completely free and its main drawback of needing to enter melee range (which can actually be longer than some gun's optimal ranges BTW) is invalidated not only by fast movement, but blocking 100% of frontal damage? 

'Don't like it don't use it' only goes so far too - I know, because I'm already doing that. And the game is having to be designed around the idea that I am. Especially before shield-gating, Limbo's stasis, easily one of my least favourite abilities despite Limbo as a whole being one of my favourite frames, was practically mandatory in higher-level content due to the simple reality that I'd get deleted in seconds by some of the newer units if I poked my hat out of the rift or let them in. Though that specific issue remains (I've since banished stasis to an even deeper pit, dedicating myself to the way of the short-duration Limbo)), the experience is a harsh reminder that the way I like to play - something between a super-hardcore experience or a metahead 0-effort playstyle, just goofing around with stuff I like - is slowly but surely not being supported anymore.

[(PSN)EVILFLUFFMONSTER]

I could argue that if the playerbase wants power fantasy, and a few frames and weapons outclass every other, then there needs to be more frames and weapons that are just as effective as it gets boring using the same ones.

I personally dont want overpowered cheese frames, but that all frame powers can be made to scale with difficulty, likewise normal weapons should be able to scale like melee weapons, otherwise they get completely overshadowed.

[Corvid]

On 2021-02-06 at 3:21 AM, Loza03 said:

Beloved character, great games, but Halo 3's first cutscene lampshades that the universe will go out of it's way to let him, and therefore by extension the player, do some truly outrageous stuff, allowing the player to feel and be awesome.

Knowing about the lore behind the character, I'd have to disagree with the idea that the Chief is a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu, as the case may be). Sure, he's powerful and all, but it's explicitly come at the cost of his humanity.

[Aldain]

On 2021-02-05 at 9:21 PM, Loza03 said:

'Don't like it don't use it' only goes so far too - I know, because I'm already doing that. And the game is having to be designed around the idea that I am.

Pretty much, you can't even have a discussion about how interlocked aspects can negatively effect other things many think are unrelated these days.

The further things get pushed to ESO style "KILL KILL KILL" design the less valuable almost everything that doesn't do that efficiently will wind up, same with enemies dealing obtuse damage and NEEDING to be CC'd or else most frames will explode in 2 shots (as you mentioned with Limbo).

Power creep isn't just numbers, it causes damage to the game at large by limiting choices, be it through hard limits or "why am I using this crap?" ones, I like the Veldt and even have a Riven for it, but the weapon is crap because it is a semi-auto rifle that doesn't even deal 100 base damage in a game where a single swing of a mediocre sword can likely kill level 100+ enemies faster and with no aim/reload time.

Like Loza said, we've reached the point where things aren't just easy, they're outright pointless, were the MR grind not a thing nobody would level 90% of the crap they have in the game and no amount of excuses will fix that, hell an MR 5 can get hard carried to a Kuva Bramma right now and it isn't until the early 10s where anything worth bothering with is there. The worst part is there are people who try and insist that MR fodder is just a mentality but outside of a handful of people who LOUDLY say "I use X and its fine in Steel Path" every time balance is brought up.

Honestly at this point we should just have a Debug gun that kills anything in one hit, we're at a point where nothing matters, DE can't make content that matters and any content they do make has to be an exercise in frustration because it has to account for the fact that some things don't even need to try to clear it. Look at Scarlet Spear, people literally COMPLAINED THEY COULDN'T AFK THE MISSION AFTER THAT LIMBO CHANGE in a mission that was 90% standing around anyway.

This isn't depression or burnout talking, nothing matters anymore, there is no real reason to put effort in anything because everything is cheapened to the point where players only complain about how long it takes than anything else.

[Loza03]

24 minutes ago, Corvid said:

Knowing about the lore behind the character, I'd have to disagree with the idea that the Chief is a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu, as the case may be). Sure, he's powerful and all, but it's explicitly come at the cost of his humanity.

When it comes to actual game analysis, this certainly didn't come up in the games themselves until 4 or so. Maybe the endpoint of 3? In terms of the Bungie Era games, I'm not even sure the games acknowledge that Spartans are a 'tad ethically dubious' (largest air quotes known to man) until Reach.

 

13 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Pretty much, you can't even have a discussion about how interlocked aspects can negatively effect other things many think are unrelated these days.

What's worse is that a lot of the small fixes are becoming impossible to implement. The power level of the players puts us atop a Jenga tower that looks like this:

Spoiler

 

 

Rebalance our damage types? Armour still says hi. Rebalance armour first instead? Our damage is still the same - you have to do them at the same time. Energy busted? Half the frames are designed for spammy gameplay, the other half for rarely-used high-powered perma-stunlocks or nukes. So you have to rework a bunch of abilities at the same time.

Remove one piece and the tower collapses.

[Aldain]

22 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Remove one piece and the tower collapses.

At this rate the tower is going to collapse anyway, better to take it down safely than let it fall randomly on whatever is nearby.

Bring in the demolition crews! Tear it down to the roots! Squish the hell out of all the stats! Do anything other than leave it as this stagnant mess where one Kuva Bramma-like thing can snap the game in half for months on end.

I've seen good games die from bad design choices, but many more die from stagnations and apathy than any are killed by a bad patch...The Culling notwithstanding.

[Loza03]

17 minutes ago, Aldain said:

At this rate the tower is going to collapse anyway, better to take it down safely than let it fall randomly on whatever is nearby.

Bring in the demolition crews! Tear it down to the roots! Squish the hell out of all the stats! Do anything other than leave it as this stagnant mess where one Kuva Bramma-like thing can snap the game in half for months on end.

I've seen good games die from bad design choices, but many more die from stagnations and apathy than any are killed by a bad patch...The Culling notwithstanding.

You're right of course. But it's still a risky move that would definitely cause a vivergate fiasco.