Warframe Raids Survey + Results

[[DE]Purzzle]

 

Hiho everybody!

On friday, I shared a survey about raids in Warframe.

Today I want to show you the results!

But first up: If you haven't participated in the survey, then why don't you do so now?

More data is more good. I'll start updating things as soon as I get some more responses.

Results

Spoiler

Imgur | Google Sheet

Stuff

Past Surveys | Discord | Twitter | FAQ

Cheers!

[Aldain]

Answered, not really a raid guy, even my experience in FF14 is basically just a big boss fight.

I'll just leave my statement that if Warframe ever has raids again, they need to not utilize the stereotypical raid traits and do something unique and fitting for Warframe.

Also, no DPS checks unless they make the difference between good and bad DPS not a literal solar system's difference in size.

[nslay]

I would put this question:

Quote

Do you know what a raid is?

Because I sure don't. Never played or read about any raid mode in any game. But I did imagine and answer your questions as best as I could!

I saw that you have two "Do you play raids?" questions (one for Warframe and another for other games). Though it's possible for players to have never played raids in any game and still know what raids are.

[Aldain]

2 minutes ago, nslay said:

Because I sure don't. Never played or read about any raid mode in any game.

I've not ever been a raider, but the basic gist is a long staged mission with multiple phases and various objectives that need to be accomplished to succeed.

Think like the Assault mission on the Kuva Fortress but more fleshed out and specific, usually with things like DPS checks where a certain amount of damage is needed before the boss wipes out the party and other such mechanics that need to be done otherwise the team wipes, kind of like the Volatile mission type in a way.

[o0Despair0o]

3 hours ago, nslay said:

and still know what raids are.

In a nutshell,

a group of players, usally 4-8 people but somestimes more, fight their way through a long dungeon (dungeon = linear map/terrain with only really one way forward) filled with large amounts of enemies and puzzles that ultimately leads to a final boss fight which drops good loot if you defeat it.

 

The basic 4-player team would include a Damage Dealer (DPS), a Tank (guy who draws enemy attention and absorbs damage for the entire team), a Healer and a Support that provides buffs. Though in most games a Support and Healer are one and the same, so you'd have space for a second DPS.

 

I've never been much of a fan of raids, mainly because I dislike the more-or-less hard requirement to hand pick members instead of just going into a random match queue, but I've played a couple.

Really, if you don't care about endgame gear, raids are pretty worthless to you.

[DrivaMain]

If Raids were to return. They will have to make the challenge phobia solo casual crowd to be able to complete it and NO forced co-operation. One of the ways to solve this is to add difficulty slider to a raid. Easier difficulty can be solo'd while the higher difficulty cannot. Higher difficulty raids should not offer better rewards. They should only exist for a challenge.

[0_The_F00l]

Gave my inputs ,

one issue I observed in our raids was that there were only 2 ( if you don't consider nightmare) which broke with every update.

We definitely needed some more variety but could have done without the overly complex mechanics with no hints (JV was especially annoying)

Although there was a more lenient frame choice , there was a fixed role assigned to each player (this was before we had so much op frames and weapons with near invulnerability and utility, lvl 150 was relatively hard)

And since raids could take nearly an hour to complete (usually half that) the dependence on host was very high , host migrations could screw you out and cause frustration.

I think that was one of the reasons players didn't involve themselves much with it.

[ReddyDisco]

i'd take anything at this point, the stagnant state of wf rn is disheartening 

[Corvid]

This survey kind of falls apart if you don't think Warframe needs raids. It needs some N/A options at the very least.

[NekroArts]

1 hour ago, Corvid said:

This survey kind of falls apart if you don't think Warframe needs raids. It needs some N/A options at the very least.

I'm sure the participants of this view would put the options at the lowest if not submit a blank one with the comment being "no raids".

Now that I typed that out, OP should include in the results of those as the opposing group.

[Soy77]

Successfully pulling off raid will be straight up impossible for DE and warframe.

 

Just look at the comments on this first page. Everybody have their own different opinions. Even one person who was describing raid, are describing something different than what i have in mind when i thought about raids.

 

Railjack was an easy one to pull off. Just make freelancers -nobody hates freelancers. Yet DE still managed to blew it. Sorry guys, there's absolutely no way we can agree to one good form of raid in warframe.

[Aldain]

3 hours ago, Soy77 said:

Sorry guys, there's absolutely no way we can agree to one good form of raid in warframe.

This much might be true, but it isn't impossible for DE to make a slightly more involved and longer weekly mission with a reward at the end of it similar to Assault for example.

Full blown battleship raids, taking out a Fomorian from the inside and so on.

We might not be able to get a traditional raid, but I do believe that it would be possible to make long multi-stage single missions like Assault and give them reasonable semi-evergreen rewards similar to Sorties on a weekly basis.

Though this comes with a disclaimer of me being a person who actually really likes the concept of Assault as a mission type and would love to see a mission for each tileset with the same flow to it introduced to the star chart to serve as a narrative close to the planet.

[SpicyDinosaur]

loved raids, submitted my survey!

[[DE]Purzzle]

Updated with results

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

I thought leaderboards were going to be 98% No

[Aldain]

I find it interesting that most people haven't played Warframe raids but have played raids in other games.

That...could cause a clash between expectations and feasibility if DE were ever to develop Raids again.

[(PSN)Zero_029]

Brutal truth here:

The typical Raid format does not work in Warframe.

I'll try to break it down:

 

1. The survey showed that players want to play as Warframes that they enjoy.

Thus Raids would need to be turned in a manner where mechanics, puzzles, and bosses CANNOT lean towards specific Warframes.

2. The survey shows that players want unique mechanics but don't want one shots/group wipe mechanics aka: Failing due to one player yet also seek challenge.

These all conflict with one another. Mechanics need to be challenging but for them to be challenging...they need a fail state/condition that severely punishes the group. If you remove or significantly reduce the punishment then the mechanics become useless/easily ignored.

EX: If a player can die and thus the group can fight through it and revive them then the players just take turns dieing.

3. Warframe's gameplay & gameplay loop doesn't fit the traditional Raid style.

As videos of the old Raids show. The gameplay of the Raids might as well have be from a completely different game. If the viewer didn't know from the title that it's Warframe then they'd never put the two together until they maybe recognize a character.

That said...Warframe could maybe fit the Destiny Raid style albeit very slightly.

For example Warframe Raids would need a lot of parkour challenges/puzzles, and bosses would need to be more akin to the encounters in Crota's end, Golgoroth, Atheon, Vosik, and Aksis.

Reason is...to stay true to Warframe's gameplay the bosses need to have adds (which players will mop the floor with) that help transition between phases and mechanics, mechanics (such as Golgoroth's gaze, Vozik's room nuke) that somewhat create a dps phase, and then an added mechanic to make the boss feel different from any other boss (ie: Aksis' empowerment, Crota's sword, Atheon's relic)

Now the flip to this is that once again. The Warframe playerbase isn't found of such things.

For example if we made the Third Orb Mother a literal combination of Profit Taker and Exploiter Orb's mechanics then you have a Destiny(ish) raid.

Endless adds (Profit), a powerful boss with powerful attacks (Profit), that requires extra steps to damage such as: thermia (Exploiter) & Heavy Weapons (Profit).

But the majority of the community dislikes these mechanics. They seem to want a straight up epic fight (Jackal comes to mind although many dislike the cutscenes.).

Thing is...what is a Warframe boss fight?

To me. Jackal & Ropololyst are problem the crown Achievements of a Warframe boss fight.

They have the right amount of action  puzzle, mobility, and mechanics. But like all things Warframe. They are short and sweet.

Eidolons aren't really a fight. They are just bullet hell fights. Dodge the bad and shoot a very passive creature.

Orbs are more aggressive but also are just bullet hell (to put it simply), dodge the bad, use [blank] mechanic to kill it.

Bottomline:

It isn't a mode that really fits the game.

We can have Raid-lite content (Orbs...hell Railjack) but I don't see DE wanting to spend that much dev time on a mode that will barely get played and/or need to be balanced to be played solo (because Raid content is always gatekeeper by players. Irony because those same players complain no one is playing Raids...but they prevent 8 out of 10 others from playing said content.) so that the content can actually be experienced.

And this is before we get into drop rates...a topic where DE has severe issues. Void Storms being a shining example of time consuming content that is so unrewarding that it only gets played when required then ignored.

[Soy77]

Funny because in the boss fight i see telegraphed attacks, no visual overload, and no one-shots.

That's basically the opposite of how we all die in warframe: you just die. Very few people see it coming, know which enemy killed them, moreover which shot actually did the fatal strike. 

and that's why warframe will never be a skill-based game. There's no one huge attack to skillfully dodged. You either have the gear and knowledge to finish a mission, or you don't.

[PhiThagRaid]

4 hours ago, (PSN)Zero_029 said:

The Warframe playerbase isn't fond of such things.

To be honest, what can't you say that about? The playerbase is broad enough that almost anything DE would do would be loved by some and hated by some.

Personally I see the game as becoming way too casual-centric and overly easy, but I have been playing for 4.5 years, so most things seem casual at that point.

4 hours ago, Aldain said:

I find it interesting that most people haven't played Warframe raids but have played raids in other games.

The big issue is how long they've been inactive. It's been 3.5 years since they've been decommissioned, so a third of people having tried it is actually an amazingly high amount. (Definitely some selection bias due to Forum users being more likely to be more veteran players) Comparing this to other games with Raids(which I'm no expert on) which most likely have had their raids going consistently for those years WF has been missing out on them. All and all it makes sense that people have been more likely to do raids outside WF than in WF.

[DrivaMain]

OP. There are some lack of responses that this survey has, possibly maybe include them in another survey regarding CO-OP in this game. As we all know, solo-casual-challenge phobia players made up the majority of the warframe player base. They only want a chill stress free experience, the old trial missions are against that. Why did we rarely see them in this forum? They only come when the new content is too challenging in masses and then once DE execute their demands they go back to being silent.

Here are some responses that you should consider :

• Should Raids enforce co-operation?
• Should a raid be possible to complete by a solo player?
• Should there be a difficulty slider of a raid to separate casuals and hardcore players?
   

[PublikDomain]

3 hours ago, Soy77 said:

Funny because in the boss fight i see telegraphed attacks, no visual overload, and no one-shots.

That's basically the opposite of how we all die in warframe: you just die. Very few people see it coming, know which enemy killed them, moreover which shot actually did the fatal strike. 

and that's why warframe will never be a skill-based game. There's no one huge attack to skillfully dodged. You either have the gear and knowledge to finish a mission, or you don't.

Those qualities line up pretty well with Nihil's fight, so it's definitely not impossible. Though then you get complaints about how that fight makes your equipment irrelevant, or is boring, or whatever.

And things like not seeing death coming, knowing who killed you, or which attack it was aren't... good. There's no reason to cling to those things when they kind of suck and maybe should be mitigated. Something like shield gating would make perfect sense in any other game, but in Warframe it just gets abused to cheese immortality. The game is the way it is because of how imbalanced everything is: oneshots out of nowhere are the only thing that can actually kill us, so it's the only thing we die to. If things were more balanced the game wouldn't need to rely on those kinds of extremes, and then we could have those kinds of boss fights and raids and a more skillful game.

Everyone wants these things on paper, but few people are willing to actually give up the things that are making this so impossible.

[o0Despair0o]

5 hours ago, (XBOX)C11H22O11 said:

I thought leaderboards were going to be 98% No

I'm more shocked about how many people said "No." to "I should be able to pick any warframe and still be useful."

 

Like, why? Just why? There is literally not a single reason to be against this.

[SilentMobius]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have no problem with mechanic/boss based content.

But any content that doesn't scale down to solo while having unique content and/or rewards, will create more toxicity than it's worth. It happens is every online game I've played in the last 20 years.

DE scrapping the Trials was one of the best calls they have made (Up there with switching off Dark Sector battles) 

Do not bait-and-switch players by pivoting higher level content into the social PvP that is forced teaming content. If people want to do that sort of stuff and optimise their rewards by coordinating with other players, great, go ahead, but when you lock content and rewards behind that behaviour, everyone loses.

[-Krism-]

2 minutes ago, o0Despair0o said:

I'm more shocked about how many people said "No." to "I should be able to pick any warframe and still be useful."

 

Like, why? Just why? There is literally not a single reason to be against this.

i'm more concerned about people saying loot isn't important

 

Why would I play a raid if I get nothing worth the effort at the end

[NekroArts]

2 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

OP. There are some lack of responses that this survey has, possibly maybe include them in another survey regarding CO-OP in this game. As we all know, solo-casual-challenge phobia players made up the majority of the warframe player base. They only want a chill stress free experience, the old trial missions are against that. Why did we rarely see them in this forum? They only come when the new content is too challenging in masses and then once DE execute their demands they go back to being silent.

Here are some responses that you should consider :

• Should Raids enforce co-operation?
• Should a raid be possible to complete by a solo player?
• Should there be a difficulty slider of a raid to separate casuals and hardcore players?
   

The first two are already kind of in there, albeit they're one response since they naturally go hand in hand. From the survey, OP allowed people to answer the number requirement ranging from 1 to 16+. From the Google Sheet, 13 people answered with 1 and the Raw sheet, under the comment column, 13 people mention the ability to solo.

There is a bit of mix responses regarding solo. Like someone will comment on it being soloable, yet their number isn't 1. Counting an individual if they have at least one response to being soloable there's 8 people that commented on it being soloable (numbers were not 1), 9 with purely a 1 (no comments), 4 with both comment and number expressing solo.