The impact AoE nerf could have

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

11 hours ago, -EPECb- said:

It's useless to ask for anything. DE will do what they want. This has always been the case, with rare exceptions. Even if the game is free (even though I've invested enough money in this beta-test), should all players now shut up and sit quietly? For what this forum here at all?  What are you even talking about? And DE still deserved some sobering gesture. It certainly won't make them worse because of this.

OK, this is my last comment regarding this. Your entire opening post was nothing but a mash-up of the rhetorical greatest hits that come from the same group. Now, please understand: That group is the same group that CREATED every problem you're talking about. 

Pablo addresses this in his interview with Brozime, where he says that content creators spoil the game for others by posting all of the metals and labeling them "must haves". Because I ignore any video discussing meta or even most how-to vids, my six year experience with Warframe does not match 90% of what you say are problems that need fixing. 

Next, stop saying DE doesn't or rarely listens. That's a bunch of crap and you know it. I hate that bs crap! In fact, self damage is gone because DE listened, aoe weapon inventory has increased because they listened, Wukong 2.0 exists because they listened, elite weapons, like the Bramma, exist because DE listened AS WELL AS their relatively low MR requirements to get them because players whined about that. Elite enemies being detuned, like the Railjack Grineer, new eximus and high accuracy Fortuna Corpus, were all requested by players. So, yes, they listen...and then get "rocks thrown at them" for doing so.

Finally, I clearly said you guys need to find a better way to discuss changes. As vets, it is our responsibility to review from our day 1 and all of the way to our current year experience before we start throwing up change requests. This is because there are MILLIONS of players with experience levels much lower than yours. The isn't "easy" to them. I invite you to view the old "New War" posts, where there was a surprising amount of players struggling with it and then revealing why increasing the challenge has caused rifts. Are you good with removing those players to get what you want...because DE sure as hell isn't. I'm just saying to at least use the feedback section and search functions to see if DE is already working on those issues, made a statement about them or are not deemed issues by other players.

[Tyreaus]

5 hours ago, Cerikus said:

What I don't understand and I am honestly asking someone to explain that to me, why is power creep bad for Warframe, specifically.

Traditionally, power creep is defined as the progression of power that renders previous investments...for lack of a less poetic term coming to mind, "unworthy". This becomes a problem for Warframe for a few reasons:

1. The obvious consequence is when player investments get shafted as content gets released in response to the increased power. Take a look at the Incarnon weapons: pretty far above many other targeted weapons. Imagine if DE decided the next big content release had enemies balanced around those. That would render massive swaths of player-favoured weapons obsolete.

2. If new content doesn't move upward in the power / challenge scale, we have the opposite problem of #1: why reinvest in the new stuff if the old stuff has the exact same, if not better, performance? This ends up being a problem with a number of newer Prime weapons: why would I use a Zakti Prime when I have a better Sporelacer kitgun for a secondary?

(The solution implemented so far has been mechanics. See the emphasis on AoE and added features like cluster bomb munitions. Problem is that mechanics have a much lower ceiling than stats. Stats are pretty much limited only by computer memory, and you can work around that with damage reductions and shorthand approximations to push it even higher - see idle games for how they pull it off. You'll cap out mechanics once you hit the /kill @e option. All things considered, we're not too far off from that in Warframe.)

3. Old content falls apart. Something like a Lith fissure is designed for a certain level of player power, like when a new player wanders through the Starchart for their first time. As power increases, they become even further divorced from the intended design of that content. That creates issues when that content gets revisited by those players at the top end. See discussions around the AoE meta.

All those issues are exacerbated depending on power acceleration. If you're bumping up the average by, like, 10 damage per year, those issues are just about never going to exist: new stuff is definitely better, old stuff can still handle it without too much issue (at least for another few years), and players don't outstrip old content faster than a GRB strips the planet's atmosphere. It's still there but so crawls along that you won't run into major issues before the heat death of the universe. Bump the average by a factor of 10, on the other hand, and you run into the aforementioned problems at mach 12 as soon as you're out the womb.

To be clear, also: that definition does mean that certain additions aren't necessarily power creep. Operators, for example, are a fancy new tool, but they don't inherently replace or combat stuff we already had. Instead, it complements it. Many Warframes are much the same, often being so unique that there's not really any replacement going on. Same with Necramechs. So you can have increasing power and avoid power creep. (And, let's be real, I don't think many people have a problem with those sorts of increases in power, beyond the "it's not Warframe" argument. From a design perspective, it's fine if not ideal.)

6 hours ago, Cerikus said:

So in conclusion. I don't understand why power creep (a design backbone of this game) is such an issue now in 2022 and wasn't such an issue in the past. The main progression always was to give us more. More items, more weapons, more frames, more power. If we stop receiving power, what then?

The reason it wasn't discussed so frequently in the past is because we're crabs in a pot. The issues were there, but we tolerated them because they hadn't gotten bad enough to garnish our attention. Those issues have now reached a critical point, and its getting our attention.

I tend to believe that it was discussed in the past, quite a lot in fact - just not always with us. Consider the second problem: do we really care that something like a new Prime weapon releases as sub-par? The mere fact that it's underwhelming is what makes the response underwhelming. The problem was there, and has been there a while, and DE probably discusses it quite a lot. But the playerbase couldn't be bothered. It's only now that some of those issues are actively affecting the playerbase and gameplay in substantial ways that we give a damn.

[trst]

Powercreep isn't just now an issue. It was an issue in the past as well because DE never kept enemies up to date with the powercreep, which is a key factor to any similar games where both players and enemies get steadily powercrept. But it's reached a tipping point in recent years where ever trying to keep enemies up to date is impossible without making them invalidate player progression.

 

But the biggest problems it's responsible for is things like killing co-op, player engagement in general, and greatly exacerbated the perception that the game is nothing but grind.

There is no reason to play co-op outside of leeching and extra relic rolls when one player can forcibly solo a mission for everyone else. The game loses most, if not all, the players gained from most updates weeks after they drop. And when players only need a fraction of the gear on offer to trivialize (or even automate) the game then they're left with the grind but no accompanying gameplay.

The game has effectively been reduced to a single player collectathon. Where it's up to the player to make the game engaging again if they actually want to enjoy the gameplay on offer. But it wouldn't even take much for DE to resolve all this if they just commit to preventing players from disabling several entire game mechanics at a time.

[Lutesque]

5 hours ago, MqToasty said:

Some amount of power creep is unavoidable in a CRPG, and you are right that the power creep (or rather, Power Fantasy) is a major selling point of the game.  But as power creep increases, it becomes harder and harder to ensure both beginners and veterans can enjoy the game.

In order to ensure veterans with the current meta can enjoy the game, they will have to toss in harder enemies that can survive a few hits from the strongest weapons/builds.  But doing so might create drastic speedbumps that will turn beginners off the game.  This is not a problem in a single-player game, since players would simply have no need to go back to older areas, and the rate of progression can be managed.  But in a multiplayer game where you are constantly tasked to revisit older content (say, for fissures) and play with players at different levels, it becomes a nearly impossible task to ensure the content is at a reasonable level of difficulty for everyone.

tldr; Power creep creates a power divide between new and old players.  And if they need to play together, the more drastic the creep the less possible it is for the content be both non-trivial and possible to complete for everyone.

This....

This sums up the Issue with Power Creep Perfectly....

5 hours ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

I just wanted to use this comment to springboard my personal experience as a new player in Warframe, and how powercreep affected me.

I played solo for a year. I was nearly ready to quit because I hadn't gotten good mods to drop, I didn't have plat for weapon/frame slots, energy was non-existent, and all my weapons were starting to just tickle enemies. I had 3 major speed bumps like this. The first was the Raptor boss. (the flying thing that you had to defeat, drop bombs down those tubes, etc)... My guns barely scratched that thing, and its missile bombardments would annihilate me. After hours of trying to figure out what I was doing wrong (nothing, just didn't have mods), I opened up my run to global to run with others... they one-shot the flying enemy, and made quick work of the boss encounter. I had no idea weapons could get that strong, so it gave me motivation to get the mods that would accomplish that.

EDIT: The 2nd speed bump was Sargas Ruk. Being a mostly melee player, and horrible guns, I would run out of ammo during his fight all the time, and could only SOMETIMES hit his weakpoints with melee... but it was so dangerous being that close to him, that I'd often die there. I finally brought in the CYCRON, with its infinite ammo... and after an hour fight, I FINALLY solo'd him. The Cycron was glued to my hip after that, and to this day, I think it's still my most used secondary... not that I actually fire it at anything though... I melee 99% of the time, and now I use the Catchmoon kitgun (my atomic sneeze).

The 3rd speed bump, much like the first, was mister tube-men. At first, I had a hard time keeping up with his movement speed, and doing any damage when he was near me. (turns out, that damage part was mods again), but I farmed Frost JUST for this encounter, because I figured if I could set up a snow globe around me, he'd be slowed enough for me to engage with... and I was right... he did slow down enough for me to hit... but while he couldn't kill me, I certainly couldn't tickle him to death either, at least not in a good amount of time. Again, I opened up this boss node to global play, entered the boss arena with the team, and they had him killed before I could put down my frost globe (which many people don't like, because of guns and stuff from the outside... whatever.)

So, again, I was motivated to achieve the power level I saw on display.

Once I got Inaros, with his pocket sand, and non-reliance on energy, I felt progress in the game. His pocket sand opened enemies to finishers, so my poorly modded melee weapons could instantly kill most enemies (or 2-3 finisher kill bombards and the like.) I also won some plat on a forum giveaway, and during a twitch stream, so I could finally build a larger selection of weapons and frames.

Now, I'm MR30 (under 20k from L1), and I have a blast playing the game, easily wiping out the enemies that tortured me for a year.

 

EDIT: I had 3 major speedbumps, not 2... totally blocked the 2nd out of my memory until posting this...

We've all been through that.... And for me this was one of the worst Experiences I've had in a Video Game 😐.....

Imagine if other games felt like this ?

4 hours ago, MqToasty said:

IMO, Warframe is a very cool game, but it really would benefit greatly to give new(er) players some more guidance and a word of advice, especially when they fail a mission.

That's only half the problem.... It also needs to give players the means of Actually Making Progress....even if you know what to do it doesn't mean you actually Have The Power To Do It....

DE be Greedy with Endo for New Players and then Shove it down the Throats of Veterans when they Didn't Ask For It....

2 hours ago, ShogunGunshow said:

I don't mind power creep as long as said power doesn't lead to complete non-interaction with the game's mechanics being the most efficient way of playing.

(Which is why Wuclone with insert-meta-AoE-weapon-here is bad for the game.)

And yet Eximus Complete Immunity to Crowd Control isn't ?

The Problem with Warframe is that Mechanics are Being Invalidated on Both Sides.

The knife Cuts Both Ways... For Every Instance enemies can Not interact with us.... There's also Instances of Us Not being Able to Interact with Them. You want Wukong Nerfed ? Yeah well I want Acolytes, Eximus, Arbitration Drones and Eidolons to bend Over and Get the Same Treatment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1 minute ago, trst said:

Powercreep isn't just now an issue. It was an issue in the past as well because DE never kept enemies up to date with the powercreep,

If Enemies aren't Being Kept Up to date with Power Creep then it's Not Actually Power Creep... That's just Raw Power Imbalance....

It's the Beefing Up of Enemies that Makes Power Creep what It is....

The addition Of Steel Path, Eximus Rework and Overguard, Arbitration Drones, Damage Attenuation, Demolishers etc... Those are just as much the Definition Of Power Creep as Primed Firestorm and Galvanized Mods....

 

[SneakyErvin]

8 hours ago, Cerikus said:

Lately, there has been a huge increase of talks about power creep and generally it's understandable that power creep has purely negative connotation.

What I don't understand and I am honestly asking someone to explain that to me, why is power creep bad for Warframe, specifically.

Even though I wasn't here for the open beta, I have played Warframe for a long time and a lot, and it always seemed to me that power creep was and is the back bone on which this game and all it's updates stand. 

I am going to simplify it a lot, but:
- At the begining we started to receive prime warframes and weapons. More power.
- Then Damage 2.0 was released. More power.
- There used to be stamina. At some point the stamina was removed completelly and we got Parkour 2.0. More power.
- Then more powerful mods and weapons started to appear, Primed mods even. More power.
- At some point Second dream happened and we got focus.  More power.
- Then we got the spoiler mode. More power.
- Let's not forget that we get a new warframe evere few months that adds to our roster of powerful tools that can solve our problems. More power.
- Many reworks happened, that increased our power. Melee rework few years ago for example. More power.
- With PoE we got Amps, more power to spoiler mode. More power.
- With Deimos we got Helminth.  More power.
- We also got Voidrig. More power.
- Recently we got weapons arcanes and galvanized mods. More power.
- Throught the years we are still receiving new and powerful weapons and on top of that Kuva and Tenet weapons exist.
- The most recent focus rework made us even more powerful and some of the new arcanes are great. More power.

So in conclusion. I don't understand why power creep (a design backbone of this game) is such an issue now in 2022 and wasn't such an issue in the past. The main progression always was to give us more. More items, more weapons, more frames, more power. If we stop receiving power, what then?

I honestly don't understand it and would be grateful, if someone explained it to me.

I wouldnt consider operator, amps, schools or the mechs more power. They are sidegrades to our power, since you cannot use the operator or mech while you also use the frame and your weapons. Granted, some few aspect of the operator can result in more power, like repair, or the new unairu self res thing.

I'm also not sure I'd consider Helminth more power either, it is more uhm added depth to building a frame. It isnt always directly a power increase as much as it allows you to change a frame to your liking, which can result in going from not playing a frame to playing it. Which isnt positively an increase in power for you, just another approach, even though it may be weaker than your regular frame of choice.

And I wish new frames were guaranteed to be powerful enough to use. Yet many of the new releases have been straight up downgrades and disappointments. I dont see how that is more power either. Most frames and weapons for that matter are just sidegrades. We do get outliers at times though.

[PublikDomain]

7 hours ago, Cerikus said:

So in conclusion. I don't understand why power creep (a design backbone of this game) is such an issue now in 2022 and wasn't such an issue in the past. The main progression always was to give us more. More items, more weapons, more frames, more power. If we stop receiving power, what then?

Powercreep isn't inherently a bad thing. Many games increase player power in many different ways and this is normal and usually fine. Most of the time this is just called progression. Progression turns into powercreep when it starts to have a detrimental effect on the game/gameplay/experience, usually because the progression is applied unequally to the player and opposing content.

There wasn't much of a problem with many of the things you list like Primes and Damage 2.0 and the Operator, because at that time player power hadn't been crept high enough compared to the content we have to play for it to harm the gameplay. There were still places to go and stuff to do that let players play the game.

It's only after years and years of slow, constant, unequal powercreep pushing the player higher and higher and higher over compared to the content that it;s become such an issue. And the main reason it's bad for Warframe right now is that it's not only eroding the gameplay and mechanics the game is built on, where it encourages and allows players to just ignore core mechanics like ammo and health and energy and enemies and death and aiming, but more importantly because Warframe is and always has been a co-op game. It's quite a big problem if, in a co-op game, one player out of four is allowed to just decide "there aren't going to be enemies today" and kill or disable them all without letting anyone else play.

Ending powercreep doesn't need to mean never receiving power again, it means having content to actually use that power for that isn't just AFKing while someone's AI monkey plays the game instead of you.

[Lutesque]

3 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

but more importantly because Warframe is and always has been a co-op game. It's quite a big problem if, in a co-op game, one player out of four is allowed to just decide "there aren't going to be enemies today" and kill or disable them all without letting anyone else play.

It's also a big Problem when Said Co-Op game doesn't Fix any of the issued that Actually Allow you to play with others....

Broken Matchmaking, Lag, Host Migrations, Duplicated Content etc... All these end up making you Play Alone... Warframe would still have problems if they implementef your Suggestion but Didn't Account for players going Solo whether by choice or not....

Just Something to think about.... Even if you don't Think it's important.... DE can't afford to ignore it....

 

[mycroft_]

Thank you for making it your last comment regarding this.

@-EPECb-, this is a great thread, and you're doing a good job presenting these issues in a reasonable and well-spoken manner. Keep it up!

[Yrkul]

6 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Even in warframe there are surprisingly people that can't even reach the actual amount of powercreep given, which is why you see people saying it takes 20 min to kill one enemy. Or that armor is hard to deal with.

It's a little before your time, so I don't blame your misconception. When they first introduced "The Wolf", he was extremely overtuned, easily taking 20-30 minutes and an armful of ammo pizzas for a group, that otherwise breezed through the map. Even after he was toned down, he was a royal pain and arguably not worth the time and effort, unless you had his specific meta in your loadout. In the end, people wen't bothering with him and just rushed past, skipping the fight.

And that, my friend, is why a fight can take 20 minutes to drop one enemy.

But I'm glad to hear, that you're part of the elite, easily keeping up with the power creep.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 minute ago, Yrkul said:

It's a little before your time, so I don't blame your misconception. When they first introduced "The Wolf", he was extremely overtuned, easily taking 20-30 minutes and an armful of ammo pizzas for a group, that otherwise breezed through the map. Even after he was toned down, he was a royal pain and arguably not worth the time and effort, unless you had his specific meta in your loadout. In the end, people wen't bothering with him and just rushed past, skipping the fight.

And that, my friend, is why a fight can take 20 minutes to drop one enemy.

But I'm glad to hear, that you're part of the elite, easily keeping up with the power creep.

One boss is what you think people are referring to when they talk about armor? One boss out of hundreds of fodder? Just want to make sure I'm not confusing what you're saying.

[Silligoose]

5 minutes ago, Yrkul said:

It's a little before your time, so I don't blame your misconception. When they first introduced "The Wolf", he was extremely overtuned, easily taking 20-30 minutes and an armful of ammo pizzas for a group, that otherwise breezed through the map. Even after he was toned down, he was a royal pain and arguably not worth the time and effort, unless you had his specific meta in your loadout. In the end, people wen't bothering with him and just rushed past, skipping the fight.

And that, my friend, is why a fight can take 20 minutes to drop one enemy.

But I'm glad to hear, that you're part of the elite, easily keeping up with the power creep.

I remember when the Wolf came out. I was but a baby Tenno back then. People who took 20 mins were undergeared and used the wrong damage type, It was not about being an elite (I certainly wasn't) and it wasn't simply about "using the meta or taking a long time" as your post implies, It was about bringing some decent gear with some decent damage types and taking down the enemy in this co-op game with other players if one is not at high enough a level to do so solo.

The fight is garbage because DE made the Wolf immune to most cc and status types, so one is essentially hitting a brick wall that gives no reaction. you know, like Overguard, but that is a different type of complaint than complaining about overall tankiness, simply because players did not want to use the right setups for the enemy. Even back then I was disappointed to see the tankiness get nerfed and the trash fight mechanics stay.

[trst]

8 minutes ago, Silligoose said:

I remember when the Wolf came out. I was but a baby Tenno back then. People who took 20 mins were undergeared and used the wrong damage type, It was not about being an elite (I certainly wasn't) and it wasn't simply about "using the meta or taking a long time" as your post implies, It was about bringing some decent gear with some decent damage types and taking down the enemy in this co-op game with other players if one is not at high enough a level to do so solo.

The fight is garbage because DE made the Wolf immune to most cc and status types, so one is essentially hitting a brick wall that gives no reaction. you know, like Overguard, but that is a different type of complaint than complaining about overall tankiness, simply because players did not want to use the right setups for the enemy. Even back then I was disappointed to see the tankiness get nerfed and the trash fight mechanics stay.

The thing is if he wasn't immune to everything then he'd crumple like any other heavy unit would have. Strip his armor and he'd instantly explode to a decent weapon or infinitely CC him until he gets whittled down.

It's problematic that they left two options for killing him: facetanking the facetank until one of you gives up or taking a loadout specifically for countering him. But he wouldn't have had to be that way if players weren't allowed to delete entire mechanics from the game.

And unless powercreep gets reigned in then every time DE wants to genuinely try and make a "difficult" encounter then it has to be in the form of immunity to multiple game systems.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

On 2022-08-03 at 3:36 PM, Beowulf22 said:

I agree, the difficulty being that there are very few situations that call for anything new. I think the new eximus units are a start at that with difficulty in the way of the Guardian Eximus for example. The real challenge is enemy design. All enemies are roughly the same, mindless drones that run at you that can be killed with ease. things like the Nox are better design due to needing to actually aim for the head. Unqiue enemy designs that require different processes to kill would help a lot I think

The problem is that would make melee almost useless, which is bad because a lot of people love melee.

[Silligoose]

5 minutes ago, trst said:

The thing is if he wasn't immune to everything then he'd crumple like any other heavy unit would have. Strip his armor and he'd instantly explode to a decent weapon or infinitely CC him until he gets whittled down.

It's problematic that they left two options for killing him: facetanking the facetank until one of you gives up or taking a loadout specifically for countering him. But he wouldn't have had to be that way if players weren't allowed to delete entire mechanics from the game.

And unless powercreep gets reigned in then every time DE wants to genuinely try and make a "difficult" encounter then it has to be in the form of immunity to multiple game systems.

There is a middle ground between being immune to everything and being susceptible to everything. There has always been a middle ground.

DE didn't leave two options for killing him, they left multiple options with varied performances. It wasn't as binary as you are pretending it was.

I 100% agree with your sentiment that power creep needs to be reigned in. I don't know if it will, as it seems the current balance team is more than happy to continue going the easy route, the band-aid way, giving enemies immunity, destroying the viability of mechanics and dumbing the game down. I don't know if it is because they do not want to, or if it is because they can't. Listening to the devstreams, it seems to be a bit of both. Aside from that...

 

 

Warframe mobile is coming and we gotta have the game nice and basic for when it arrives.

[Cerikus]

  

6 hours ago, Silligoose said:

-snip-

You gotta point. Well I kinda fear that DE don't put too much effort into endgame balance because we are not the target consumer. I think that players with thousands of hours are not the ones spending much money, but that's just a quess. I have no idea. Maybe they don't want to care about it or don't know how to fix it without making people angry. From the previous and recent interviews (like the one with Pablo) it has been confirmed that they refuse to trim the fat/remove pointless stuff/change the game too much to upset even one person.

5 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

-snip-

Well there are some things I disagree with here.
- I didn't say it's a recent issue, but that more people are talking about it recently. I don't/didn't understand why now.
- You are right that the content doesn't keep up, but the content is steadily increasing in difficulty. Good example are Zariman bounties. Yes, they are still easy, but the enemy level is something we have not seen before anywhere (not counting SP, which was explicitly said to be out of consideration for balance)
- There was a time when the RNG involved was much more brutal. The balance of RNG and effort put into the recent updates is great imo. While the RNG involved in Liches 1.0 or Railjack 1.0 was horrific. I am certain it's much better today.

_______________________

Btw. I wanna thank all of you guys for very nice discussion and explanation. Tbh, I wasn't expecting such a number of nice responses that actually answered my question perfectly. I am the type of person that would just like to get the new shiny/powerful thing and I don't care about my previous investment rendered worthless. I don't actually think about the gap between low level players and endgame players, therefore I honestly would not mind any kind of power creep. But I think I will be more thoughtful about that now. :)))

[Silligoose]

3 minutes ago, Cerikus said:

You gotta point. Well I kinda fear that DE don't put too much effort into endgame balance because we are not the target consumer. I think that players with thousands of hours are not the ones spending much money, but that's just a quess. I have no idea. Maybe they don't want to care about it or don't know how to fix it without making people angry. From the previous and recent interviews (like the one with Pablo) it has been confirmed that they refuse to trim the fat/remove pointless stuff/change the game too much to upset even one person.

I got the same notion as you from some of the interviews. One that I remember, that may be the same one you are referring to, is where Pablo talks about conserving the value of player investments and not looking to make changes as a result, which is ironic, but it is what it is.

DE may be underestimating how much a lack of a balanced endgame is hurting them, as lack of a balanced lategame/endgame may not only result in less players returning with big updates, but overall less player retention. It likely results in less players trying out the game in the first place, players quitting earlier than expected when they see the game erodes due to massive imbalances and even players spending less money, since there isn't much value in doing so, because despite Pablo's claims that DE tries try to remain mindful of player investments, said investments aren't given much weight in my opinion - of course this is speculation and anecdotal, as that's exactly how it went for me. I got to the point where I became too powerful, found the game boring, saw no value in spending money on more power when I already had too much power and quit. Even many cosmetics I liked  before quitting, I skipped, because I knew I wasn't going to get much value from it, seeing as I had less and less reason to play. I came back to complete the story and left again when I experienced the imbalances. I came back with the promise of endgame when SP was released.

Despite my rant, I agree with you and I don't think it is going to change any time soon. I believe the latest news on the new "endgame" that will be coming soon^TM is it is going to be some SP-level Sorties, so yeah, it seems they don't care about lategame players, or their investments. It is a shame, but it is what it is.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Power creep is bad because someone online somewhere said it was bad and the community just kind of ran with it.

[ShogunGunshow]

I mean, at this point I think they acknowledge that it's borderline impossible to actually balance endgame without losing most of the current playerbase. (See: the endless crying and whining over any nerf ever.)

Depending on group composition, some parties can do dozens of times - if not more - the damage of another group based on buffs alone, before you even get into weapon choices. You can't balance that S#&$. Which sucks, because from TNW you can see that DE can make good encounters! But the entire reason why the first two archons were fun and challenging at all (at least before their health nerf) was because DE knew what your power was going in. They could actually *design* the encounters based around that. They can't do that in the normal game, where the only way a boss type lasts long at all is with severe damage attenuation (which players have min/maxed around anyway) and damage invulnerability phases.

The only endgame activities I have any hope for are maybe, like, this potential Grineer gameplay, where maybe everyone gets to take in a preset Grineer unit into a fight.

[Tyreaus]

10 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

I mean, at this point I think they acknowledge that it's borderline impossible to actually balance endgame without losing most of the current playerbase.

On the bright side, just because we might not be able to balance every damage encounter doesn't necessarily mean we can't find balance points at all. Being able to one-shot everything doesn't entail Spy is a walk in the park, for example. Likewise with, say, weak points on bosses: even if you one-shot the weakpoint, you still have to aim and take out each point.

Plus you have other tricks, even besides damage attenuation and other clever formulae. Like, for example, straight up ignoring damage numbers and writing a boss's health as a function of fire rate and hits landed. It might not be ideal, and could feel a bit cheaty what with an unmodded Mk-1 Braton doing as good as a fully kitted Phenmor (though you might not notice if the visible damage numbers still show expected values...), but it enables designing specific encounters.

[Yrkul]

44 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

One boss is what you think people are referring to when they talk about armor? One boss out of hundreds of fodder? Just want to make sure I'm not confusing what you're saying.

Apparently you are a bit confused. I'm the one referring to a 20 minute TTK, in relation to challenges retaining a semblance of fun. Noone else did. Here, I'll repeat myself to make it a little easier for you to grasp.

9 hours ago, Yrkul said:

Power creep makes it harder to tune content to be challenging without getting frustrating. Very few players find getting one-shot again and again, or grinding away at a mob's hitpoints for 20 minutes fun.

I was talking about how much harder it is to properly tune content, when the power curve is as steep as it is. Engaging content needs to be hard enough, that there's a challenge to overcome, yet not so difficult, that it creates a frustrating player experience. With a curve so steep, that small variations in power level results in players either becoming grossly overpowered or hopelessly outclassed, it becomes extremely difficult to hit that sweet spot. Thus we see new content going overtuned, overtuned, undertuned, overtuned, undertuned.....

I'm not even talking about a specific encounter at this point, let alone armour (everyone was using corrosive anyway), just a vague recollection of a point, where the game went from fun to tedium.

I gave a concrete example, when asked. Asking for more is just asinine. A lot of mobs in their early iterations took if not 20 minutes, then at least long enough, that the encounter stopped being fun. And that's essentially the question here. Is the power creep, going both ways, a detriment to the game? You are essentially balancing between people quitting out of boredom and frustration, trying to keep things in the middle.

Honestly, I don't have much hope for DE being able to create balanced encounters out of the box. They removed all deviation from power level and functionality, and still ended up overtuning the archons. And sure, the archons could be beaten, but the amount of players who couldn't was high enough, that they had to nerf several aspects of the encounters.

[ShogunGunshow]

On 2022-08-03 at 12:29 PM, Silligoose said:

While I 100% agree with an actual hard mode, weapons and weapon types still need to be balanced in relation to one another, so different weapon types can be competitive choices and different weapon classes perform better in certain situations within most missions.

A new mode most certainly shouldn't simply embrace the poor balancing mechanics as seen in current SP's balancing, in which DE just applied +x% armour/shield/health - that was one of the reasons the original SP was, and still is, such an unbalanced mess.

SP was such a facepalm moment. DE retooled armor so that it would plateau at a certain point to stop enemy EHP from being annoying and requiring everyone to build armor strip... And then SP came out and slapped a huge % increase on that plateaued armor. And now oh look everyone cares about armor stripping again. 

[vanaukas]

At this point I don't even care anymore, I'm happy playing on solo.

[Tyreaus]

3 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

SP was such a facepalm moment.

The real facepalm moment was when they took what was supposed to be an entirely optional, purely-for-extremists concept (like "here's a level slider for increasing enemy difficulty to stress-test your gear so you don't have to sit in Survival for thirteen hours") and threw a bunch of goodies and other benefits into it. Half of which made players stronger so they could complete the mode more easily. Which means stress-testing now requires sitting in Survival for thirteen hours. Again.

Players wanted Steel Path for a list of reasons and DE managed to change Steel Path so that it would fulfil none of them.

[ShogunGunshow]

15 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

The real facepalm moment was when they took what was supposed to be an entirely optional, purely-for-extremists concept (like "here's a level slider for increasing enemy difficulty to stress-test your gear so you don't have to sit in Survival for thirteen hours") and threw a bunch of goodies and other benefits into it. Half of which made players stronger so they could complete the mode more easily. Which means stress-testing now requires sitting in Survival for thirteen hours. Again.

Players wanted Steel Path for a list of reasons and DE managed to change Steel Path so that it would fulfil none of them.

You just spitting straight facts. 

[(PSN)ApoX95]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb Silligoose:

Progression style games, by their very nature, embrace power creep within their design: New spells are going to be more powerful than older, beginner spells. The weapons one unlocks later on are more powerful than "Basic Sword" received at the start of the game and so on and so forth. I do not view power creep as an inherently bad thing, because I enjoy the progression in power in RPG's especially, but even racing games in which one unlocks better cars, better engines, etc.

The problem I have with power creep is when the unlocked power either serves no practical purpose, or when it makes the game too simplistic: If I needed to use various spells, buffs and debuffs to beat some boss in an RPG at midgame, unlock more power and then I can suddenly beat the lategame boss with just using basic attacks, the power creep has resulted in an imbalanced state at lategame, causing lategame to be less engaging and less rewarding.

That is what has happened in Warframe in my experience: As I was progressing through the Star Chart years ago, I HAD to make use of not only my best gear, but the strategical, tactical and mechanical skill I acquired throughout my journey: I had to use the right damage types and switch it depending on the enemy I was facing. I had to be more accurate to kill enemies faster. I had to kill enemy support, such as Shield Ospreys, before killing the Crewman it was shielding. My choice in frame also changed the way I approached the mission, because doing a mission, such as Exterminate or Sabotage, with one type of frame in suited for that frame, then trying to do the mission the same way with a different frame, meant me failing, because frames had different inherent strengths and weaknesses. Making the decision to employ different gear and the right strategy and tactics, as well as the execution of said strategy and tactics, had a very real impact on my overall performance.

Jump forward to current Warframe: Due to power creep not being kept in checked, not remaining balanced relative to the content provided, many of the strategies and tactics, the choices I made as a player, doesn't have nearly as much of an impact anymore: Changing damage types, focussing priority targets, hitting enemy weakspots - not only do these things not really matter at lategame progression, they can actually hurt performance. That is as a result of power creep leading to unchecked imbalances. On top of that, I can go play a mission, such as Exterminate or Sabotage, with one frame in a specific way suited for that frame, I can go play that same mission with a very different frame in exactly the same way and be just as successful. so my choice in frame doesn't really matter anymore. To liken it with the RPG, I went from using various attacks, buffs and debuffs, to only really having to use basic attack.

If Warframe was racing game, early-to-midgame would see players racing in a damn good game, unlocking better cars, unlocking tougher tracks, unlocking different tyres suited for different conditions, unlocking faster and varied opponents, developing their skills and improving so they can win races and progress to tougher leagues... then as players get to endgame, unlock the fastest cars to take on the toughest opponents, the game places safety bumpers all over the track and programs opponents not to race, but to just stay behind the player, so players can win by pressing drive and not really paying attention to silly mechanics such as "steering" or "braking" - those mechanics aren't for endgame, apparently.

Warframe is far more simplistic at higher levels of progression at lategame/endgame, than it is at earlier stages of progression on the road to lategame. It is less engaging, less dynamic, has less depth and is an overall disappointment when considering what it not only could be, but should be and it is all because DE seemingly doesn't care about balance at deeper stages of lategame or endgame, or the players who have progressed to that point, looking for the climactic lategame/endgame it should have, only to find it doesn't exist.

 

tl;dr: The main issue I have is not with power creep, but the lack of balance when it comes to the power creep and the impact it has on the game.

this is such a perfect metaphor. it really is like that. 

I don't even think that it's necessary to completely overhaul the system so this 'power fantasy' completely vanishes from the game - I still sometimes enjoy to just take my OP Proboscis Cernos, Kuva Nukor and just any op 'self-playing' frame to play it save when I run fissures or farm some other stuff but what would 'fix' this whole topic imo would be a true endgame. something which they probably tried with Steel Path - like a complete new star chart. but not just a 'here's an identical star chart but +100 level and more enemy spawns/armor etc' but like a true new 'star chart'.

maybe a new planet with only narmer enemies or a sentient star chart. more tactical gameplay (and maybe power creep even being necessary - but instead of nuking each room, using your OP equipment will make you feel like you're in the beginning of your warframe journey again). maybe more focus on stealth, more focus on hitting specific points - I don't know. but something where your end gear is required but the game becomes very different. 

raids usually seem to be an endgame thing and they also usually play different. more tactical gameplay is required and teamwork. having a different kind of gameplay doesn't have to be bad. first, duviri seemed to be like this but apparently this will happen much earlier than people think and new war won't be required - hence, maybe it's cool and different, tactical gameplay but seemingly endgame items/mods/etc won't be required so that's not the answer either.

I really love this game and it's literally the only game I ever played for such a long time. I'm not even sure if all the pokemon I played in my childhood combined would reach the hours I have in Warframe today. but it's definitely not as satisfying as it was several years ago. sure I feel powerful now, but I still run the very same missions. that is why I really enjoyed this metaphor. Xaku is a great example - it's basically a mobile auto-mesa. sure it's fun sometimes to just run through everything and everything is dying without much effort at all. but if it's basically all you can do then it just doesn't feel that rewarding grinding my way all the way up to the MR30s. I still like it sometimes and that's why I will keep starting this game, sometimes everyday for a short time, maybe sometimes even several hours a day to grind something really efficient - but I would still love if this would've unlocked a 'new world' somehow in which I don't feel like a demi-god anymore. a world, in which I truly feel like a space ninja again. maybe stealth wouldn't even be necessarily required if running with a squad in true RPG fashion where you combine your whole team in which you CAN have a very similar experience to the known power creep, but just with a really good buffing/healing combo of a team and when you run solo you need to be 'space-ninja-y'. but at least some form of true endgame. and I'm well aware that this is far form an easy feat for this game in which there is probably at least 1-2 frames to cheese everything.

stalker is immune to warframe abilities, too though and he's a true relic in this game. I don't think having similar mechanics in endgame content needs to be bad. there's a lot of different things the endgame could have and I bet this weekly veilbreaker thing will go straight into the right direction, hopefully. but there are definitely ways to keep the classic Warframe feeling without nerfing everything to the ground and still add something new and challenging. I'm also well aware that people complain too much as soon as something requires basic thought or tactics but maybe that's why that stuff should be lowkey 'locked' to endgame players so at least the quantity of people who probably could complain would be much less.

it's probably scary to develop a free to play game and feeling forced to listen to every person who pushes themselves in the first row shouting 'Me, Me, Me!' and they need to listen to them because they need as much people playing as possible. but Warframe already is a genius and giiaaant game in it of itself, toooons of stuff to do - just perfecting the New Player Experience would be enough at first for sure. Warframe is complicated and feeling required to use the Wiki is one big issue for sure. making everything as clear as daylight would be a good start to keep the flow of new players constant, because as previously said: there already IS endless content. this game obviously is addicting in some way or another, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of us who have literally thousands of hours over several years. 

but games also need a challenge. otherwise people would play one of those idle one-click mobile games which warframe literally can become if you use the 'fitting build'. the goal surely wasn't to go from 'tactical space ninja RPG' to 'idle game'.

the idle can stay though so people have no need to complain. but just adding something that doesn't ALLOW you to go 'idle game' would be nice. or at least as previously mentioned, being required to tactically have a squad well planned and organized that would allow you to go 'close-to-idle-game' at most in this potential endgame content.

definitely still thrilled for the future! and I can't wait for Veilbreaker and Duviri x)