Challenge or Grind?

[Hypernaut1]

Mix of both. They should have an almost inverse relation to each other though. The harder something gets, the less grinding i should need to do. 

[Fl_3]

Challenge in Warframe simply doesn't exist beyond a certain point. Once you have the mods you require and a few forma every last bit of difficulty vanishes.

If you're looking for challenging gameplay, you've come to the wrong game, this is how the majority of players seem to want it, so this is how it's going to be.

All that remains is a toxic RNG infested grind.

[Vahenir]

Id say it depends on the challenge and grind.

Challenge can be fun if done right, or keyboard smashingly frustrating if its bad. I do suspect most people look for the illusion of challenge however, where it seems hard but they pull through at the end anyway, even if the game invisibly made itself easier to make it happen.

As for grind, if its mind numbingly monotonous like, say, mining etc in other MMOs then its just boring to the point where at least i cant get any kind of motivation to go through it. That is like the kind of grind you sometimes need in games like gw2 where you will be doing the same thing over and over and over for like a month to get what you want.
In warframe it isn't that bad however, not only are grinds that are that slow and long very rare but the game is also generally fun to play and not just mindless rotation bashing or interacting with resource nodes.

[cute_moth.npc]

I prefer challenge, but I also don't think DE is willing to make challenging content with their Star Chart difficulty fixation or even capable of creating challenging content given how massive a discrepancy they would have to accommodate with warframes having ridiculously different survival, damage output and skills.

[PublikDomain]

It depends on the grind, but in every case the gameplay needs to be good and the reward needs to be proportional to the time or effort.

Challenge is best, hands down. Having something to overcome and getting rewarded for it when you do is excellent. Do the work, get the reward. The one thing I remember most from my time playing Blade & Soul is fighting what's-his-name in the tower over and over, learning his patterns and eventually, finally, beating the boss. I don't even remember the guy's name, just how awesome it felt to have finally overcome him.

Grind where you slowly accrue materials or content to achieve some larger reward is fine and it has its place. For example in Archeage the grind to build your first ship: out of all that game had, this is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of this game. It feels pretty good to work on your creation and finally see it completed.

RNG-based grind is terrible and I don't see any reason why anyone would ever prefer it. Doing content only to get nothing out of it sucks. It's hollow, it's lazy. If a piece of content is designed to take some random X average hours to complete, then dump the RNG and let me guarantee my reward with X hours of play. I don't have the time nor interest in this junk anymore; give me a bar I can see and fill up and make progress on instead of some crappy hidden dice roll.

[CrimsonXX]

In general not at all interested or caring about "challenge", specifically in regards to Warframe it doesn't really matter to me one way or another so long as its attainable by acceptable means. By that I mean, I don't want some Souls-esque b.s. in order to get whatever. I don't want to have to snipe a pin from 150ft away in order to gain some item, in the name of "tryhard". If anything this isn't a matter of either/or but a matter of both in restrained/reasonable brackets and I'd even say that in some cases for non-hoarders & non-god mode builds some of the things craftable do require both. Xaku for instance requires one to farm Deimos specific materials and going through all range of bounty missions, that means grind + challenge (for those outside of the aforementioned categories of hoarders and god mode build runners).

tl;dr Both give me the same level of satisfaction, both are able to co-exist, and both should be kept within reason for an average player (not a tryhard).

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

10 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

What you say resonates with me regarding feeling empty after grinding. Especially if the thing I grinded for ultimately didn’t support my actions at the time (namely, grinding faster). So it’s like a… double empty.

I prefer the challenge part. It’s a contributing factor to why I spend most of my plat on slots and other minor things, and have only ever bought a Warframe like, twice; once on Switch, and once on PC. I’m sorely tempted to just up and purchase Grendel because I want him now, but I’m holding off at the moment. 

Also, like playing Halo 2 on Legendary, I found myself asking what I was doing with my time when I ground hard and fast in Warframe via easy street (Halo 2 Legendary is sort of un-fun with how hard it is). There’s a sweet spot between the two, the challenge and the grind, that I try to find

I'm with ya here. To me, Warframe has plenty of challenge and grind to go around, has not a single reason to rush anything, and gives plenty of ways to make both the challenge and grind fun (friends clowning, explore days, focused intent days, build test days, etc) so I tend to stay away from the "hard grind" easy roads of how-tos and tips. I'm over 5 years into the game and still don't have everything nor have explored everything. It's been an awesome experience not needing to! 

Now, I have purchased quite a bit of forma, potatoes, slots, etc because I love supporting the game and have even purchased unvaulted packs. None of this, however, changed the scope of the game for me. My friends just benefit from the relic parts I already collected. Lol!

[LillyRaccune]

I like getting into the secret laboratory rooms in the new Gas City tile sets. It's a little memory-dexterity puzzle. I also like all the parkour that is needed to travel that tile set.

But some players hate it and don't consider it a "challenge", they consider it tedious, toxic, bad, etc. Personally I don't like the challenge of Steel Path, because I feel like "bullet sponge" enemies are like an artifical grind.

What constitutes a challenge or grind is a bit subjective without everyone agreeing on a context.