Focus Feedback

[Justin_Case001]

I've come to greatly fear words like "rework" and "overhaul".  When I first heard that focus schools were being reworked, my heart filled with dread.  When the update dropped, as with every single other update that overhauls or reworks major things, I felt icy fingers gripping my spine and fear in the pit of my stomach.  Sure enough, when I looked at my beloved primary school, my heart just sank...

 

I know that I will get eviscerated by the community for this post, but I really couldn't care less.  I know I'm in the insignificant minority here, but I'm entitled to voice my opinion, and I want DE to hear it, even though I know it won't make any difference.

Back when we lost Ember's World on Fire, I wrote a comprehensive post about the ethics of change in video games, which I can't seem to find anymore.  The gist of it is that I believe that it's highly unfair to completely remove abilities or core gameplay aspects that we've been accustomed to for years.  That doesn't mean I'm against tweaks and improvements to those things, I'm just against outright removal.  I expect there to be regular balance tweaks, functionality tweaks, nerfs, buffs, and improvements.  That's totally fine.  I have no problem with that.  I also understand that in an ever-evolving game such as this, many abilities will become obsolete or impractical if left untouched for long enough.  I have no problem with changing or improving the function of abilities so long as the general idea and effect remains more or less the same.  I'm also okay with merging the effects of some abilities, as was the case with the past Vauban rework.  What I have a problem with is completely removing an ability altogether, and replacing it with something else entirely.

This isn't just a Warframe problem, this extends to nearly every modern game, except for your short, story-based, single player games.  If it's multiplayer in any way, then every aspect of every game nowadays is completely precarious, and subject to complete change at any time.  I absolutely despise this aspect of modern gaming.  There are certainly pros to modern online games as well, but I absolutely hate that my favorite thing in any online game could be gone tomorrow.  In many ways, I long for the days of cartridges and finished products, the days when you bought a finished game, and you knew that it was going to stay that way forever.

I'm not saying that I want Warframe to stay exactly the way it was a decade ago, or whenever it was that I started playing this friggin' game, but I just wish that I didn't have to live in perpetual fear that my favorite ability and favorite build will be gone the next time I log in.  Yeah, I know, I know: "You don't like it?  Then go play some single player thing like God of War or The Witcher 3 and shut up."  Well, I do play those kinds of things, but it's also unfair to tell me that I shouldn't play anything multiplayer just because I wish to voice my opinion that I don't like having my favorite abilities ripped away.

I absolutely loath and despise every aspect to the operator changes in the Zariman update, except for getting rid of pool.  Pool sucked.  That was a great idea to dump it.  Thank you.  Everything else is terrible.  What I am particularly devastated by is the loss of void shadow and void chrysalis from Unairu.  I loved void chrysalis.  It was one of my favorite abilities in the game.  I loved protecting my team with it.  What I used it for the most was protecting Eidolon lures.  I have a friend group that I run tridolons with, and we each have a role.  One of them was the shield killer with the old Madurai ability, two were senovia and body killers, and I took care of the vomvolysts and protected the lures and the team.  I didn't deal much damage to the big guy, but I kept the team healthy and shielded.  I used chrysalis any time the boss did the big attacks.  I love being the team shield in games, and I absolutely loved protecting my team and the lures in tridolons.  Losing chrysalis was absolutely devastating to me.  Incidentally, I have no idea how anybody keeps lures alive during the hydrolyst without void chrysalis.  I probably just suck, but all of our lures pop instantly without it.

After looking through the other schools, I found that Vazarin has a couple of sort of comparable abilities.  Guardian shell and protective sling seem like they might be okay, but I'd much rather have chrysalis back.  Guardian shell doesn't appear to effect Eidolon lures at all, but protective sling does, and that might do okay to keep them alive.  But the only problem is, that's Vazarin.  My primary school was Unairu.  I had far more points in Unairu than anything else.  I'll have to change a bunch of lenses and farm for a year before I'll have a decent team protecting build again.  Swapping the school effects like that was also unfair.

Look, I know that this isn't Portal or God of War or something.  I know that WF is a completely different model than a single player, finished product game that is simply released, and then it's done, apart from perhaps minor bug fixes, and then the studio moves on to the next game.  I realize that a game like WF depends on constant evolution to keep the player base engaged.  I realized that DE just has to keep the pedal to the metal constantly, and if they let up, then the players drift away, and with them, the money.  I'm not suggesting or asking for WF to stagnate.  I just wish that entire abilities didn't have to be removed altogether.

I still enjoy Frame enough to stick around, and I don't want to walk away from all that I've invested, but I'm tired of fearing the loss of every beloved ability with every update.  I'm sick of having to treat every single aspect of every single multiplayer game as "enjoy it now while you can," and then, ultimately, "whelp, it was fun while lasted."