Warframe: The Endgame Issue

[ScopeWraith]

Endgame content can be very hard to create,as it has to be something satisfying that offers replayability,or else it could be called just another grind with no endgame behind it

 

Until we come up with great ideas though,how about an "achievement list" of some sorts that offers various misc rewards?

For example,it can start with "kill 20 grineer" and you get a morphic,to "Gather 2 million credits" and you get a funny money inspired badge like $,or skill based objectives instead of farm based ones,like "achieve 90% accuracy in a mission",where maybe you get an accuracy mod,or a cosmetic that proves you did that

 

Overall i think badges and cosmetics in general,paired with achievement exclusivity can add a lot of hours into this game

 

Great ideas! An achievement system, including rewards, is something that I am pretty sure will be making its way into the game very soon. (At least according to what Steve mentioned in livestream 16.)

[H3dsh0t]

Max level without forma is level 30. Some don't even need a forma to be pretty damn good, especially those that come with polarities already. Just had to clear that up.

 

I think that the majority of this discussion comes down to peoples time constraints. I have a lot of time on my hands, I am unemployed (not by choice sadly), so i have the time to do this, and to 4 time forma something. Some people have jobs etc to go to. Fair enough, but a game shouldn't be changed around peoples work hours. I have played other games, Battlefield 3 for example, to get to max level in that takes more hours than I have ever put into warframe, and I am not even half way there after nearly years of the game being out.

 

I know people want instant gratification, but having the ability to get everything done in a couple of hours is not the way forward. Its backwards. You shorten the grind to get everything to max level, you shorten the life of the game. DE push out content at a rate I didn't even think was possible, and its top quality content. Whatever your gripe is about the most recent event, it was an epic idea, and it was a lot of fun. Plus Lephanitis is an epic boss, if the rest of the bosses only turn out to be half as good as that I'll be happy.

 

DE are always looking at what we say as a community, and more than most developers that I know take that feedback and iterate on it. I mean look at them taking the feedback about power creep, the armour curve etc. They decided to do something really really brave and re-write the entire way it works, and in good time as well!

 

We know that DE are looking at end game goals, but to do that they need to flesh out the main game, they need to make sure the new player experience is as good as possible, because whats the point of epic end game when the new player experience isn't right.

 

Give it time to develop, on the stream last night, you saw how far DE and warframe has come in 1 year. I can't comprehend how this game is gonna be in another year if this is the result of only a years work!

 

Edit: Hey blatant, glad to see your monitoring this one :)

Edited November 2, 2013 by H3dsh0t

[Naftal]

I'd like end game content where every enemy had a lot more HP. Other stats would remain the same for their level.

 

Maybe we could get some kind of XP points there for any rank30 gear we're using (can't leech, must use the gear to get the XP points) that you could use to improve ANY stats of that item. Every increase would be very small and increasing the same stat again would cost more. There would be no hard cap for this, only soft cap created by the increasing XP costs.

[ScopeWraith]

 

"I think that the majority of this discussion comes down to peoples time constraints."

I am in the same boat you are. I currently have a TON of time to dedicate into Warframe. The discussion isn't specifically focused towards people with time constraints. Putting 50 hours+ into getting a weapon to it's maximum potential and having to do it over-and over again (no matter how much time you put into the game) turns into a grueling process that will eventually burn out players.

 

"I know people want instant gratification, but having the ability to get everything done in a couple of hours is not the way forward. Its backwards."

I don't mind grinding. I don't mind putting many hours of time into getting my gear stronger. I don't ever expect things to be easily accessible. The issue is the endgame turning into regrind the same missions 100s of times just so I can max out that new, shiny weapon.

 

"We know that DE are looking at end game goals, but to do that they need to flesh out the main game, they need to make sure the new player experience is as good as possible, because whats the point of epic end game when the new player experience isn't right."

As I stated earlier. A "Space Ninja TPS" is either going to lure you in, or not. There is a HUGE free-to-play market out there. People are always trying what is new... Until they find their next addiction. Of course, having some focus towards "the new player experience" is important. But in my opinion, keeping your long-term players hooked by establishing a stable endgame is A MUST. Those people are the ones talking about your game, and spreading the word about it can go a long way.

[Patzer]

"Constant grind for weapons and warframe experience:"

When this starts to feel grind, I will just do something else. Why I play is because gameplay itself is fun. Of course this is subjective.


"Lack of efficient ways to grind experience:"

Kind of true, some very hard, high exp missions might be nice.


"Polarities and Forma sucking the life from players:"

Same as first, when this starts to feel like chore, I will just stop/take break from Warframe.


"Farming Credits and Rare Materials:"

New players prolly have problems here. Fair point.


"Not having requirements. New players leeching:"

Just tell them that they are not ready for this content and you will abort as host.


"Limited Inventory Slots restricting F2P players from long-term play:"

True. Quick idea for trade post, trade weapon slot for credits with other players. So those with time could buy weapon slots from those with plat. DE loses pretty much nothing imo.


"Underwhelming Prime Weapons:"

Yep, many prime weapons atm are just 3k mastery now.


"ZERO Endgame content:"

People define endgame differently so not going to touch this. Only that there could be more extra hard content for vets.

[Lumireaver]

Bit of an aside, I feel you skipped over one aspect of the "endgame issue," which is how everything in the game tends to lead into a single, "best possible build." This MMO-esque design problem is the result of a tiering mentality while designing content. To avoid it, content should be designed with global balance in-mind, and progression should be tied to a player's account. The best vehicle for this would be Mastery Rank, and the best method, I feel, would be to reward players with parameter bonuses based on Mastery. (To keep low level content challenging, these bonuses could be disabled or reduced when playing missions of a lower rank than your mastery.)

[ScopeWraith]

When this starts to feel grind, I will just do something else. Why I play is because gameplay itself is fun. Of course this is subjective.

The question that comes out of this is: How many other people can tolerate the grind?

 

The grinding experience still feels like the only "endgame" we have right now.

Edited November 2, 2013 by ScopeWraith

[low1991]

 

cut

isnt this game is still in Beta-Stage?

how could there be an end-game content in this stage??

which normally appears in OLD-dying gaming community?

[H3dsh0t]

Bit of an aside, I feel you skipped over one aspect of the "endgame issue," which is how everything in the game tends to lead into a single, "best possible build." This MMO-esque design problem is the result of a tiering mentality while designing content. To avoid it, content should be designed with global balance in-mind, and progression should be tied to a player's account. The best vehicle for this would be Mastery Rank, and the best method, I feel, would be to reward players with parameter bonuses based on Mastery. (To keep low level content challenging, these bonuses could be disabled or reduced when playing missions of a lower rank than your mastery.)

 

DE have said that the "best possible build" issue is being addressed by them completely re-writing the entire way the damage/armour works, Plus the combination of elemental mods to create "new" effects again creates more and different builds.Will that stop there being a "best" build, yes it really will, because each build is likely to be good in certain areas and not in others, will it stop there being a "highest damage" build, doubtful, but IF DE can pull it off, then hats off to them.

 

MMO's are by definition grindy, if people find warframe grindy, then they should try eve-online for a true grind (i've played it for 8 years so that tells you something about me,)

 

Personally I feel that the way the "grind" is right now is ok, agreed that an affinity boost depending on how many forma you have on your frame/weapon makes sense, other than that if you don't want to grind 4 forma on a weapon, you don't have to, thats your own choice. That only really makes a difference in high lvl defence and survival right now. The majority of weapons without forma are actually just fine in normal missions.

[Avrose]

The question that comes out of this is: How many other people can tolerate the grind?

 

The grinding experience still feels like the only "endgame" we have right now.

Well it kinda is a bit of perspective. I see us as Tenno in a RP sense trying to dig up the stuff we left while we were sleeping. Frankly I think I could write up a total story alone on a Tenno once she/he gets their bearings and some gear says to her/him self. "I think i left my favorite sword with a friend on Mars... wonder if they put it away like I asked them."

 

Granted Tenno don't normally talk but a revamped say level 4 mission could be the lotus guiding throgh some ruins to get a new newb sword to replace your starting one.

 

Frankly the hacking mission is kinda meh.

 

I think by adding little events like that throughout the game that spoon feeds you bits of lore and items as you progress gives you an incentive to not notice the grindy bits so much.

[ScopeWraith]

isnt this game is still in Beta-Stage?

how could there be an end-game content in this stage??

which normally appears in OLD-dying gaming community?

November 15th Warframe comes to PS4. Will that be the end of beta? Nothing on that site says the game will be released "In Beta". We know it's nearing. That being said. I can honestly say, "this stage" isn't too early to be presenting DE with the current endgame issues.

Edited November 2, 2013 by ScopeWraith

[Lumireaver]

DE have said that the "best possible build" issue is being addressed by them completely re-writing the entire way the damage/armour works, Plus the combination of elemental mods to create "new" effects again creates more and different builds.Will that stop there being a "best" build, yes it really will, because each build is likely to be good in certain areas and not in others, will it stop there being a "highest damage" build, doubtful, but IF DE can pull it off, then hats off to them.

 

It won't be totally addressed as they keep rolling out weapons with overall better stats than older ones, and I don't think we have any reason to believe they're abandoning the practice.

 

I don't mind Warframe's grind. In fact, I think it ought to be used to empower the player, instead of being an exercise in time wasting. (As it currently is now because half of our arsenal exists (tragically) to pad our mastery.) A Lv300 Grineer could use a Grakata to great effect. Why should the weapon be invalidated for us after making so much progress? The only way to avoid this fate is to make our Grakata grow along with us.

 

Using mastery rank as the means just gives players more incentive to try everything.

[ScopeWraith]

Well it kinda is a bit of perspective. I see us as Tenno in a RP sense trying to dig up the stuff we left while we were sleeping.

 

I think by adding little events like that throughout the game that spoon feeds you bits of lore and items as you progress gives you an incentive to not notice the grindy bits so much.

I strongly agree. Releasing lore and player progression are a huge part of establishing a healthy endgame environment.

[iglumajor]

I hope there will be loads of new content in the release update, but that the game will still get more content gradually with regular updates. I do agree that the game as of now, is lacking in any sort of direction or goal, and that if I keep playing it now, I will definitely be burnt out when the game is released.

 

People who have spent much time in the beta should take a break if they want to enjoy the game when it is released in my opinion.

[BETAOPTICS]

Can the game get out of beta before you start moaning about endgame content please?

Technically we will never be out of the Beta phase or so it has been stated by the developers for now. So maybe it would be 5 years from now on. Sounds reasonable? I didn't think so. With your mentality, why should we change anything, after all, we are moaning when this game is still in beta phase. Nice logic right there.

EDIT: I agree with the OP. Raises more good points to add to my understanding of whole situation of Warframe. I think everyone of us who are conservative about this game, could write a book about good and bad things about this topic so I won't add my opinions to this topic and quite frankly, I am exhausted of voicing them anymore at this point. I am calm for now, but the problems still exist.

Edited November 3, 2013 by BETAOPTICS

[Tsumuji]

I think the OP has valid points. I really like the way the game feels, and the visual style, and I like grinding games, customizing my chara. But spending hours on like 1 place in the entire system to get an orokyn cell or something like that (which every weapon uses, why only have 1 spot with really low % drop rate?) gets boring after the 100th time. In combination of you needing to just farm the same maps on horde mode is taking a toll. And I dont even feel like I get to customize that much, its all just an upgrade. I think each mod should have disadvantages (i.e. faster fire rate, high recoil), and preferably it would be not even stats based like +20% dmg -20% fire rate, but something more interesting, maybe making weapon fully auto, but for the cost of a secondary weapon.. or something. Something interesting, something that would make me play in a different way.

[Hakuro81]

I can just tell you how I'm feeling about the game right now ... already had an idea for the developers in this thread.

 

So I'm playing that game for some weeks now. It's fun to play, but I feel it already getting a bit more boring each time. Why? Well ...

 

Right at the moment I have to goals:

1. Having fun with my friends. So I'm playing this with up to 4 other guys, mostly as a team of 3, sometimes just 2 and sometimes the team is full. It's fun to work together. Playing it alone is really boring, well it's like a short break in between, but don't like to do that long.

 

Some would say go online and have a team with others ...

I really would love to do that, but unfortunatly that netcode of this game is really S#&$, or is it the way this game chooses to stuck players with bad connections together? The thing is I'm often in games where it's laggy like hell or even worse. The KI is standing still, doing nothing more than getting killed in melee by me cause range weapons wont work in that case. Teammates are standing on the same place for minutes until they dissapear. Sometimes I can't collect loot either and the worst thing is that the game gets stucked for up to 20 minutes when the team is exfiltrating, giving me the sounds of enemies killing me and lurking over my dead body. After a long time the game is completing the mission ... well that's not just right, it's like surrendering, cause I don't get any loot ...

On the other side I got the problem to not get into games of other players, cause the game says "session unavailable" until that team is full or another team is available. I set up the ports on my router, I know how that works. But if not everyone else is doing this, I've got that problem from time to time :(

Well it's a bit more tricky I think, cause I got the some problem with a friend from germany (I'm from austria). So we put up the ports and it worked. Some day's later it didn't work any more with another friend, but still got the ports forwarded ... really funny.

 

Ok this is not a thread for that issues, but it makes clear, that the online mode is really worse right now and at least half the time not working for me!!!

 

2. My inital goal of the game was to get all weapons and warframes up to level 30 and own them. Well I think it's impossible to do that, cause there are to much. But it really is a problem for me to have more weapons. I already bought the smallest pack of coins to get some more slots, but thats really a small pack of coins, so I'm already stuck again and don't want to give up good weapons and warframes!

That coins really feel very expensive compared to other itemshop games and I'm not willing to buy a much greater package until I'm getting 50% off bonus, when I'm logging in. So wether I get coins on better conditions, get another way to have more slots by working ingame for it in some way or I'm losing a very important goal in that game.

 

You see my problem? Having problems with teamplay cause of that bad group management and don't be able to advance in my second goal is like killing the game for me over some time.

 

 

Some might say there's more than that, but everybody is playing games in another individually way, so you can only agree with me, that I have a problem right now.

I really hope I'm lucky with my login bonus the next days or something changes to get on my goals again, cause until now it was fun to play!

 

That's it ...

 

I can see the issue with the endgame right now too, but it's far away for me, so maybe I'm just checking how pvp is working here and then giving you my advice for the future of the game. Haven't seen enough of the game right now, to do that yet ;)

[Kovathos]

One thing people have to remember, this game isnt even out of open beta.

 

Not only that, DE probably has a time table of features to get out before ps4 release. Furthermore, the game has not been around for several years so it has not had the time to build up end game content.

 

Just like any other mmog, the game will expand and flesh out much more over time.

[ScopeWraith]

One thing people have to remember, this game isnt even out of open beta.

 

Not only that, DE probably has a time table of features to get out before ps4 release. Furthermore, the game has not been around for several years so it has not had the time to build up end game content.

 

Just like any other mmog, the game will expand and flesh out much more over time.

I just want to throw this out there. Again.

 

In my last post, I stated Warframe comes out for PS4 in 2 weeks (According to the sony website). Nowhere on that site does it say "Beta".

 

Another thing. The focus of this thread is mainly towards those people who have put 400+ hours of mission time into the game and are now becoming extremely burnt out. Don't get me wrong, Kovathos. 200 hours is a good amount of time invested into the game. But... Double, or even triple the amount of time you have played and try to determine if you would (at least) start feeling burnt out.

[Avrose]

I just want to throw this out there. Again.

 

In my last post, I stated Warframe comes out for PS4 in 2 weeks (According to the sony website). Nowhere on that site does it say "Beta".

 

Another thing. The focus of this thread is mainly towards those people who have put 400+ hours of mission time into the game and are now becoming extremely burnt out. Don't get me wrong, Kovathos. 200 hours is a good amount of time invested into the game. But... Double, or even triple the amount of time you have played and try to determine if you would (at least) start feeling burnt out.

Good thing there are other games like gta5 I can spend my time on as well as my college homework, my wife, the bar and the local cinima and bowling alley.

[ScopeWraith]

Good thing there are other games like gta5 I can spend my time on as well as my college homework, my wife, the bar and the local cinima and bowling alley.

IKR! But still... Returning from those activities, if it ever begins feeling like the slightest annoyance to grind for experience, you are going to turn your head away from it and play something more entertaining and rewarding for the amount of time that you put into it.

 

I love warframe. I have almost 500 hours of mission time invested into it myself. But... In World of Warcraft I had over 5700 hours logged on my account. I couldn't imagine investing 10x the amount of hours I have played, without being burnt out. I want DE to have long-term players. I don't like hearing someone say that the shelf life of Warframe is 200-300 hours before getting burnt out. But it is the truth! DE has an amazing game going here, but they need to focus on keeping their players/customers by building a entertaining endgame enviroment.

Edited November 2, 2013 by ScopeWraith

[ScopeWraith]

I can see the issue with the endgame right now too, but it's far away for me, so maybe I'm just checking how pvp is working here and then giving you my advice for the future of the game. Haven't seen enough of the game right now, to do that yet ;)

I am sorry. This thread isn't about PVP.

 

It is aimed towards players that have dedicated 400+ hours into the game. 139 hours is a start. But as I mentioned to someone else, you are just getting hooked to the game and haven't realized the real endgame issue.

 

I do appreciate your support though! =)

Edited November 3, 2013 by ScopeWraith

[TheSphynx]

One thing people have to remember, this game isnt even out of open beta.

Not only that, DE probably has a time table of features to get out before ps4 release. Furthermore, the game has not been around for several years so it has not had the time to build up end game content.

Just like any other mmog, the game will expand and flesh out much more over time.

People have been using the excuse "beta" for quite some time now. I'm going to highlight items Warframe has suffered in, since Beta release:

- A Backbone: There is close to ZERO story line. Infested, cool, how did these beings become as such? Other than mining and mass dominance, why are these two factions fighting? Why are Tenno assigned to keep the balance? All questions which are pondered daily, yet as of right now, all the enemies are just meat bags. I feel no hesitation to shoot any enemy. Up until just recently (New PS4 Trailer), I didn't hate a faction more than the other. Regardless, my hate towards a certain faction doesn't mean I'm not going to farm the brains out of the faction I favor more.

- Progression: What is the overall/average goal of Warframe players? Build weapons and Warframes, max out mods, and build your Mastery Rank. It all comes down to that little blue bar and how fast we can kill those "meat bags". The only actual way to take your weapons/warframe to the max potential, is through endless defense or survival mission. At that point, you run into issues like weapon/warframe viability, player skill, and terrible rendering issues that deal incredible fps lag to players with a mid-ranged computer.

- Co-Op Connectivity: We have ALL joined a match that has extremely painful lag. Do you really think somebody that just purchased a State-of-the-Art gaming console is really going to waste their time fighting connectivity issues? Sure, they can run the game a 60+ fps, but what does that matter when enemies are glitching across the screen due to connection lag?

- Party Finding: Recruiting/joining players in Warframe to make a party, is pretty damn frustrating, even on a PC. The system is prehistoric. Without a mouse or keyboard, think about how hard it will be for someone playing on PS4 to recruit players for a mission. "Just attach a keyboard to your PS4" or "Buy the gamepad keyboard". No, those ARE NOT acceptable solutions to the problem. Those are client side workarounds to make the system easier.

- Lack of Weapon Balancing: So you spent 50+ hours farming that new Braton Prime. Comes to find out, the good old Boltor, a weapon available to anybody, is significantly better in almost every way. What is the point of farming these "Prime" weapons, when only a couple are actually "viable" in higher level missions? To fill that little blue bar? Inb4, "Armor 2.0 is coming", realize this. Armor 2.0 will basically reset everything (damage wise) that you know about Warframe. With that, A LOT of balancing will have to be done (requiring even more of DE's time).

- Lack of Variety: This is quite typical for shooters. Counter-Strike, ME3, Call of Duty. Your main objective is to kill things with a weapon of some sort. What you have to look at is what separates these games. Counter-Strike is extremely competitive. ME3 has an incredible dynamic story line. Call of Duty/Battlefield bring amazing graphics with different periods/themes of war. There are only a few things that separate Warframe from your typical generic shooter. It's mod system, it's theme, and the amount of grind (compared to other shooters). As of right now, there are 2 factions and the infested. The Corpus are pretty much exactly the same from Venus to Pluto. Infested also suffer from lack of enemy types. The Grineer, have a much larger "enemy pool". There are only really 3 different types of enemies per faction. Heavy, Light, and Flying. Infested have heavy and light, but all melee/short-ranged attacks. Also, aside from Phobos and the upcoming "Gas Planet" pretty much every mission in the system breaks into 3-4 different level types. The only thing that changes is the level of the enemies. Yeah, it seems DE is working on this, but it seems to be a very low pace. A pace, that almost feels like this game will be in "beta" for another year.

- Developer Communication: With EVERY patch that has come out, there has always been that post on reddit or the forums that says, "Look at this new mod" or "*insert weapon/warframe* stats got ninja nerfed". There are always changes that are not listed in the patch notes, good or bad. Lets look at one of the most successful gaming companies in the industry, Riot Games. When every patch is released, they release highly detailed patch notes and they DO NOT leave anything out. This keeps players happy and builds player-developer trust. If Riot nerfed champions, without any information about it in the patch notes, the community would flood social media with questions/theories based on the changes. If the information is just put out there from the start, people just accept it and move on. This builds trust.

   Another issue with the player-developer communication is.. sometimes you feel like you are speaking to a wall. For example, when the Heavy Caliber mod got changed to Accuracy, the only statement regarding it's changes was "The mod still needs to be tweaked". That was 2 updates ago and still nothing has been done with this mod. It would be as simple as adding an Accuracy counterpart mod, as all the other Corrupt mods have a single counterpart mod. Personal messages, forum posts, and any other types of ways to communicate with the devs will most likely not yield you an answer.

   Grineeer Workshop was introduced to inform players on what was going on at DE. This brought much excitement, as it was a step into the right direction to start more player-developer communication. "This might end up being daily; this might end up being once a week or longer." It ended up being the latter. We got two entries in the month of October. If we could get more of this, even from other developers, it would be a giant step in the right direction. Also, I believe we need our Community Managers to be taking notes daily from what is discussed on the forums. Questions, Suggestions, and Feedback. We need reactions from DE. Maybe dedicate 1-2 days a month to sit down and go through everything discussed thoroughly (not just an hour on the livestream). From there, The Community Managers can post DE's answers/reactions.

These issues have been around for a very long time. For anyone that ignorantly shouts "BETA", do you really think in the next couple of months we'll see ALL of these issues be addressed and making a complete turn for the better? We are almost 8 months into Open-Beta, and we have only seen minute improvements to these issues. If you think update 12 (can only assume it will be 3-4 months away) is going to roll out and magically fix all of these issues, you're in for a rude awakening. The argument has been going on for months regarding the game being in "Beta". Majority of the players (that opted into this discussion) have come to the conclusion it is just a tag to fall back on in case of a big screw up or error. They're accepting money, releasing NEW content faster than fixing old content, and they are releasing onto a State-of-the-at gaming console in 2 weeks. If you can seriously pull the "Beta, game is in Beta" argument against any of the issues discussed in this thread, you have to be in serious denial.

Edited November 3, 2013 by TheSphynx

[ScopeWraith]

Just wanted to point out another post from a different thread. A player who got past the "new player experience" and bumped into the inventory space limitation. Shortly after investing money into the game, the player got bored. There are many good points made in the thread below. Give it a read!

 

"the second time i played was actually because a friend started to play it and i gave it a another try. this time i played solo and ignored what i already knew/experienced and got past mercury and finished most of venus alone( only did the boss with other players), and even though it was difficult it was actually fun. after some time i also spend some mony on it just to get rid of the annoying inventory space limitation and also because it seemed that the developers actually listened to feedback and tried to make warframe a better game.

at this point warframe has become nothing more to me than just a game i will play when i feel like it until i used up all my platinum or get so bored that i uninstall it from my harddrive and move on to something else and leave it behind in the dust just like i have done so many times before."

-Tharzul Here
 

Edited November 3, 2013 by ScopeWraith

[Kato-san]

I think we can all agree that there is nothing that can be done to make a good late game unless they focus on PVP. PvP is end game for every game. That is why games like LoL make a ton and can play forever because its competitive.  PvE is just like a single player game you beat it and you done with it and move on.. why don't people understand this? THis is why I been saying for a long time PvP needs to be the end game and can only be the end game.