AoE Changes - subtle but impactful? [post Devstream discussion]

[p_silveira]

I'll borrow another earlier comment's format.

From:

2 hours ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

this isnt twitter , you cant use meme ing as a counter argument

to:

1 hour ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

 

in less than an hour.

 

1 hour ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Also you may want to calm down a bit   your "main" is leaking through i think.

When bingo? I'm legit curious interested.

[_LotusPrime_]

ember and zephyr reworks are a good sign , but zephyr is a bit too well made maybe not so intendedly (imagine if DE reworked every other frame like zephyr dod daaam) not saying nerf it but a weird overtly given attention for a niche frame for sure , for ember , even tho the idea is sound and fine , the energy drain ruins it , and after the DR stacking nerf i dont currently know  why would someone use her for semi durability now , she is basically back to her old days of where low levels would complian about her , i dont even know why they kept her 4 as a nuke option when they wanted her identity to shift , you just have to press few times in a mission maybe .. insead of letting it open .. i guess .. if that low bar counts for ' interactivity' 

For the new frame ideas i like the synergies you can make with lavos a bit creative , but hes mostly good vs lots of enemies , you cant get cooldowns back without much mobs , tho thats a frame itself not a rework , 

DE is getting objectviely better but slowly and i dont want it to be ruined by knee jerk posts that receive undeserved attention , i want people to consider what other things in the game isntead of these small but very hot points like kuva zarr 

Sure nerf kuva zarr did teh game become objectively better ? No , you make it better if you give them GOOD alternatives . thats how incentives work. 

[Tyreaus]

21 minutes ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

theyre making aoe more conditional , yes i know that but making it so that for example it affects only 4 units at a time is overkill , like you just said this has to have a lot of careful consideration in it instead of 'NERF EVERY AOE IT DISRUUUUPPZZZZ ' because believe it or not there is a group of fringe but locally decentrilized mob in here that defends all nerfs to this game without giving it any caveats or giving calls for compensatation buffs , they are really be there trust me , its not just an imagination , theres a reason why most people outside this forum tends to not lay comments on this site becasue we have a mob situation here , the nerf mob , as ridiculous as it sounds yes they are here 

Word of advice:

If you're saying "trust me", something's wrong. Traditionally, you ought to be providing evidence. Not just to encourage belief, but discussion too. I might believe your statement that some hockey team is going to win, but without knowing more details, I can't exactly say anything about it.

Which is why I won't.

22 minutes ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

Tyreasus , i dont know your point here , i mean sure maybe in some cases threads may give into some better calls for qol changes but you know thats not the cae 95% of the time. 

I admit I may be getting a little side-tracked, but the point is:

1. People do propose, promote, and discuss more quality-of-life changes.

2. When it gets grouped into bigger, comprehensive packages, it can be hard to suss out the QOL stuff. Is an Ember rework considered "quality of life", even if it contains an assortment of quality-of-life changes?

3. Buffing is limited and might not be effective if its in the wrong context. More damage is great for high-levels, does nothing for low-levels. If you have a problem that's in both, you'll need something more than that.

Ultimately the core point is that this stuff is complicated. Objectivity in "better game" is only a thing on the business side: whatever lands more money is "better". The design side isn't so impartial or simple. People ask for changes for multiple reasons. DE doesn't do simple solutions like "just buff x" because the problem is more complicated than that one change can handle. And despite appearances, people do push for smaller, quality-of-life changes. But how much attention that ends up grabbing is, wait for it: complicated! That Ember change I linked? Here's one for Equinox that got next to no attention. I can guess what causes that and observe certain trends in controversy and attention loops, but even those are incomplete descriptions.

That means simple solutions and simple descriptions just aren't accurate. Sure, it's easy to say people just like nerfs and don't care for the game, but maybe they're actually trying to make the game better and are navigating blind like the rest of us. Sure, we can say that following the logic of nerfing means we just nerf everything, but maybe the reasons behind nerfing isn't so unlimited and ends up with only a few changes. Sure, we can just tell people to play solo, but maybe that isn't good for its impact on new players who don't know how to do that.

That's why we need to listen. Not say what people are saying, or claim that there's this group of people praising and defending every nerf under the sun as if they're hired by the Nerf corporation itself. We need to understand the reasons a given person asks for something. Ask questions, analyze their reasoning, discuss how they see things and the problems they observe. Then, when we do that over and over again, we can start to devise some solutions. Plural. If we assume what people say, or generalize, or come up with over-simplistic solutions, we get nowhere. I mean, adding punch through: so obvious! Why didn't we think about that? Probably because we did. And in thinking about that, all the complexities and extra factors, spoken and unspoken, we found out it didn't actually fix what we wanted to fix.

[_LotusPrime_]

6 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Word of advice:

If you're saying "trust me", something's wrong. Traditionally, you ought to be providing evidence. Not just to encourage belief, but discussion too. I might believe your statement that some hockey team is going to win, but without knowing more details, I can't exactly say anything about it.

Which is why I won't.

 

you dont need to believe me , you can read forum posts and opinions being signal boosted yourself , that would be my evidence , lets not play the PR game , this is not a real world issue where statistics are demanded , i can give you a reliably consistant patterns on whats been talked here and who talks more here . 

 

@Tyreaus
''1. People do propose, promote, and discuss more quality-of-life changes.'' I didn' say there wasn'T any , lets not put words in my mouth its not nice or a fair discussion if you do that .  This is my warning 

 

 @Tyreaus
'' Objectivity in "better game" is only a thing on the business side: whatever lands more money is "better".  '' 

i can define that without catering to % growth necessarily , its the long term satisfaction , which the summation of both on players and the people that own and manage warfarme , easy and simple , if you want to define your own version , thats another thing but i believe this definition i give is the most genuine definition you can get objectively without disregarding the opinions and the experience the people that actually play the game and consume it . 

There you go ,no need to play the word game, i tell you for what it is , objectivity in this case isn't some unreachable and abstract concept.

 

7 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

 

Your rhetoric about calling them "nerf-heads" and "the mob" aren't helping either. On a generous angle, that kind of rhetoric makes it harder to understand you. From an objective standpoint, I'm having to parse through your writing to sort out your opinions from your more factual statements. It's more work, and makes it more difficult to dissect and understand your core argument. Notwithstanding any language barriers.

 

well i dont need to worry much about that because when i say ' nerf-mob' anyone that is not consumed by their rhetoric in wf forums may understand easily actually , anyone that plays warframe and seen some of their talking points from a far past or once or twice can understand what i mean by that , well im just giving them casual forum visitors a few hope that this forum can be saved from that vocal minority mob that dictates or tries to dictate how discussions around balance goes . 

ultimately what they want is this game to become another bland and boring corridor shooter ' going back to the good ol' dark sector days' if you will , anyone that seen some of their talking points know what im referring to , they dont want warframe to be this futuristic power shellhouse which still carries tht potential and is already closing up on that ideal.

Somehow and for some reason there ARE so much against that , and yes  this is not a secret , they dont want warfame to reach that state in fact they are vehemently against it and pushing hard at EVERY CHANCE  , and instead of playing i dont know .. one of those games on steam or on xbox that they want to shape warrame in the way they want.

they are stuck with that ideal of blandness in this promissfull game unfortunately and theyre angry that DE is not listening to their bland ideas and rose tinted view of warframe , DE team exactly escaped that place to reach here , they are not going back folks. and its for the better.

and im actually happy to expose them. and by them i mean nerf-heads exactly. maybe one could find a better wording but thats all im gonna give to them no need to fancy.

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

I kinda checked out of posting in this thread once the one I was originally posting in got merged into this frankenstein'smonster of a thing that I just lost track of... ANYWAY... incoming (nicely paragraphed) wall of text to explain my position apart from "personal preference". You have been warned.

From my point of view, as someone who plays many games, and makes his own, and doesn't put all his eggs in one basket (not expecting everything out of a single game), Warframe has its unique traits that set it apart from the rest of the crowd. These are the selling points. These are the deciding points on why people play THIS game instead of THAT game.

When I consider Game Dev's decisions, I don't automatically assume they know best. They're flawed human individuals, just like me and you. They have imperfect data. They have to interpret the results of internal testing and metrics of player usage (but said interpretation is open to its own set of flaws, such as nobody can REALLY tell "WHY" people are doing what they're doing, or if they like what they're doing, even if they're doing it a lot, or a little.) That all boils down to best guesses, inferring meaning, biases, etc.

Then there are the trope-y reasons to make changes, like the oft repeated quote by Sid Meyers of Civ fame, that "people will always optimize the fun out of everything if you give them the chance"... which is a point of view, and not a statement of fact... but because of how successful Civ was, and how "wise" it sounds, it's taken like some sort of game design fact. I think it oversimplifies the situation and actively discredits the fun that people have in optimization... they're not optimizing the fun "out of the game"... they're optimizing the fun "into the game." The same goes for his rule of buffing nor nerfing that is outlandishly annoying... as it promotes the sledgehammer-to-kill-a-fly problematic version of nerfing (that DE are prone to falling prey to... nuance isn't DE's strongest point)... and such advice that many Game Devs fall back on (his are just the most memorable and contentious that I can think of right off the top of my head).

So, with all that in mind, when I consider their decisions to nerf things, I'm usually against it because of Warframe's niche and selling points. Even if Warframe didn't start out in the category it is in now, it has worked its way into this position, mainly due to the monetization model. At some point they decided that they wanted to cater to the power fantasy (OK stop - the power fantasy presented in Warframe is that of being a "ninja in space" ... a one-man-army feared by all enemy forces, capable of infiltration and obliteration of whatever enemy forces they come up against. They are the elite of the elite, legendary warriors and saviors of a fallen empire that then fell to their hands. According to lore, one Warframe was capable of creating a planet-wide sandstorm, among other things. (as well as the whole void demon angle) This is the fantasy. Masters of gun and blade; the old ways.)

Warframe capitalizes on its strengths: swift movement, fast paced combat, and wiping out hordes of enemies with a wide variety of weaponry and styles of combat facilitated by the individual Warframes. When it steps outside this niche, toward things like slow-paced Tactical Squad-based shooters (such as Destiny, Call of Duty, etc), it goes against the core concepts that keep Warframe different from those entries, and actively diminish the style of play promoted by the systems in place within the game.

People can say all they like that it's not a horde shooter. They can say it started out as a slow moving game. That's not what Warframe has grown into, what it IS today. Whether or not the Devs wanted to move away from what it originally was, is something only they can answer (and by creating Soulframe, they may have done that, but they also acknowledge that the sort of game that they want(ed) to make doesn't fit in Warframe anymore.) The design decisions, balance decisions, and game design of Warframe have essentially been established now.

Much of it really comes down to the monetization method, in reality. They have to create "friction" in the gameplay that players can grease with their money, to make their progress more fluid. Pay for convenience. The primary way they do this, is through manipulation of drop rates. People have always been able to farm up new frames and weapons by completing missions, killing hordes of enemies for the materials, and waiting for 12hr-3day build times in the foundry... or they could outright buy fully built weapons and frames from the shop, or speed up the build times for things they have collected.

As this is a free to play game, MOST people won't be spending money to buy everything that is released, they'll farm it instead. The harder it is to farm, the more of these free to play players might be pushed over the fence "just once" to buy something here and there.

 

SO, due to the game design and its niche, things that are popular in Warframe are things that free to play players can use to farm stuff so they don't have to buy it with real money. The methods of obtaining things generally fall into two categories: drops from enemies / reward from mission completion.

*     In the case of "drops from enemies", that means killing hordes and hordes of enemies over and over in many missions (sometimes spending long hours in "endless" missions.) Anything that makes killing hordes of enemies easier and less tedious, will be welcomed as a good addition to the game. It fits the niche, it fits the power fantasy. It's a win/win for players. Obviously, this goes against the Dev's desires for players to spend their money instead...

*     In the case of "reward from mission completion", the same general rule as killing hordes as fast as possible usually holds true, since most mission objectives are to kill all the enemies as fast as possible. The longer you spend in those missions doesn't matter to your reward. Completion is all that matters. If more mission objectives didn't require killing hordes of enemies, such as stealth (spy missions, rescue missions), and assassination missions (bosses and demolysts), weapons that can kill hordes would be less beneficial, and stronger single target and silenced weapons would be more attractive, better choices, in different mission types, thus spreading the "meta" to include more variety.

 

Nerfs to AoE weapons and Warframe powers are heavy-handed ways to "force" people to not use things that are most effective in the game's design. They're not popular because they're "Over Powered" compared to single target weaponry. They're popular because they're effective in the game's design. The result that they're used a lot is a GOOD thing... the weapons were designed correctly to fit the type of game we're playing. They're not "garbage" weapons that just end up being "mastery fodder" because they're useless in the game's design, like most single target weapons.

Nerfing AoE because in co-op gameplay, they take kill opportunities away from team members... is not really appropriate, given the game design. In fact, the game's affinity earning system promotes letting other players kill things so all of your gear shares in the affinity, rather than just you using your particular piece of weaponry to level it up alone - and especially companion leveling, since without team kills or objective completion (such as opening spy vaults), pets rely on their own individual kills to gain affinity, which can take forever. And since drops from enemies are for all to pick up, it doesn't matter who killed the enemy to get that loot... there's no such thing as "kill stealing" like in MMO's, where the killer has dibs on the resulting loot from the kill.

I've never had my personal gaming experience "ruined" by party members completing the mission objectives. When I open up my missions to the public, it's because I want to accomplish the mission objectives in ways that are faster than going solo. I haven't been let down by that reasoning. I don't care what the end results page shows for kill counts, as long as it's a successful mission. When I get the itch to kill everything myself, and mission completion isn't my objective... I'll go solo for that type of fun. Both things are fun for different reasons... but people calling for AoE nerfs want their fun at the expense of the fun of others. Both sides could be argued as being selfish in this case, depending on perspective... however... You have to consider the game's design.

 

For Warframe to play to its strengths, it should not be nerfing AoE. I don't think the design pillars discussed in the recent Dev Stream 163 are compelling. I think they're short-sighted. I think they're anti-fun, and anti-Warframe.

* Dominance / Popularity - I've posted several times before about why I think this is a false flag for reasoning that something needs to be nerfed.

* Automation - The edge cases that they're using to justify nerfs based on this probably have better, harder-to-implement solutions... but who here thinks they'll take the time to address the real situation, and once it's addressed, roll back the temporary nerf that was meant to address it now? That has NEVER happened, in my experience. At the end, we're hit with a double or triple nerf, or more, depending on how many band-aids they want to apply to a situation before really getting to the heart of it.

* Disruption - This comes down to what they consider being disruptive. As I noted above, when I see missions being completed successfully, I don't count that as disrupting my gameplay - that is exactly the result I'm HOPING FOR - effective completion of objectives. People who are only concerned about their own personal experience and don't care about the completion of objectives, are the ones who call that disruptive (and I call that selfish.)

Design decisions that move Warframe closer to a tactical shooter like Destiny, and farther from the "Ninjas in Space" of Warframe, will always feel out of place to me, and I will flatly reject them and the reasoning behind them. They effectively try to pry Warframe out of its niche, and try to compete in realms that the game is not designed to be. If people want tactical shooter gameplay, they should go play games that make that their aim... and not try to change Warframe to be something it isn't.

 

[p_silveira]

39 minutes ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

* Dominance / Popularity - I've posted several times before about why I think this is a false flag for reasoning that something needs to be nerfed.

For sure, popularity is not a reason. But it is an indicator that there is something wrong with the choices players are having, otherwise usage levels would be more or less even across many options. Some of the ways to fix that imbalance is looking at the root causes, but lets be realistic: it's much easier to nerf a few weapons than to change literally years of game design. I'm not saying nerfing those popular weapons is the right way to do it or the optimal way to do it, but it is one of the easiest ways to do it.

44 minutes ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

* Automation - The edge cases that they're using to justify nerfs based on this probably have better, harder-to-implement solutions... but who here thinks they'll take the time to address the real situation, and once it's addressed, roll back the temporary nerf that was meant to address it now? That has NEVER happened, in my experience. At the end, we're hit with a double or triple nerf, or more, depending on how many band-aids they want to apply to a situation before really getting to the heart of it.

Oh, doubt it. But on the other hand, is it really that big of an issue? I mean, with the current proposed nerfs, no one is going to have their missions made more difficult by the proposed changes. Unless they are someone who likes to AFK with Wukong and let the game play itself (those will probably feel the nerf a little bit more).

47 minutes ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

* Disruption - This comes down to what they consider being disruptive. As I noted above, when I see missions being completed successfully, I don't count that as disrupting my gameplay - that is exactly the result I'm HOPING FOR - effective completion of objectives. People who are only concerned about their own personal experience and don't care about the completion of objectives, are the ones who call that disruptive (and I call that selfish.)

This one is tricky. You see, you're assuming everyone plays only with the objective to see those shiny itens on the mission result screen at the end of the mission, and don't care about the rest. But some (I won't say most because I have no way to confirm this, but some) people, me included, and I assume most of the people asking for AoE nerfs on the Forums, play the game for the playing part. For the gameplay, the engagement. If somehow someone comes around and takes it away from me, making the entire mission a walking simulator because they are killing every enemy on the mission faster than I can see them (that's when huge AoE weapons come into play) and transforms the mission into a walking simulator, then the objective of being in the game, which is to play, is being taken away from us. Hence the calls for nerfs, since these weapons are pretty much incompatible with teamplay for these people who want to play (not see shiny things in the mission screen, but to play the mission).

55 minutes ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

Design decisions that move Warframe closer to a tactical shooter like Destiny, and farther from the "Ninjas in Space" of Warframe, will always feel out of place to me, and I will flatly reject them and the reasoning behind them. They effectively try to pry Warframe out of its niche, and try to compete in realms that the game is not designed to be. If people want tactical shooter gameplay, they should go play games that make that their aim... and not try to change Warframe to be something it isn't.

There's a thing though: when I saw ads for Warframe, the game presented itself as "ninjas in space". It didn't present itself as "Dinasty Warriors in space". If the game presented itself as "Dinasty Warriors in space" I wouldn't have bothered to try it. But the current AoE meta is transforming the game from "ninjas in space" to "Dinasty Warriors in space". So who is trying to transform Warframe into something it isn't to begin with?

[Venus-Venera]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb _LotusPrime_:

no , im ridiculing meme format as being in  an intellectual disccusion element because it is anti intellectual , memes are funny and all and speaks to the primitive brain sure but they dont belong in affecting a game or .. bigger things for that matter if you ask me . 

im teaching and giving invitation for a thoughtful process not monke see monke do . 

i know enough very intellectual people in real life. I've worked with them for a very long time. they have stony faces, they are boring and they think that they are much better than other people.
and they are wrong!

because human beings are very complex. and it also depends on other properties. because we live in the social environment and just intellect is not enough. and if you look around you will see that certain peoples with high intellect are die out...
because they are so "smart" and cannot adapt to the global changes in the world.

[_LotusPrime_]

1 hour ago, Venus-Venera said:

i know enough very intellectual people in real life. I've worked with them for a very long time. they have stony faces, they are boring and they think that they are much better than other people.
and they are wrong!

because human beings are very complex. and it also depends on other properties. because we live in the social environment and just intellect is not enough. and if you look around you will see that certain peoples with high intellect are die out...
because they are so "smart" and cannot adapt to the global changes in the world.

lol okay i didnt mean to say get rid of memes or some equally ridiculous thing dont get me wrong please, i was saying that when we are suggesting arguments for what we believe we should call for rationale and critical thinking and not just .. pure vibe checks , 
That being said i have nothing against them i think theyre great .. just in different context , not when people propose change in game or irl .

[Venus-Venera]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb _LotusPrime_:

lol okay i didnt mean to say get rid of memes or some equally ridiculous thing dont get me wrong please, i was saying that when we are suggesting arguments for what we believe we should call for rationale and critical thinking and not just .. pure vibe checks , 
That being said i have nothing against them i think theyre great .. just in different context , not when people propose change in game or irl .

it's okay too.
only the discussion is greatly overrated here. it doesn't affect the changes in the game in my opinion. and nobody will summarize the information here. the company does not have extremely powerful bots like google.

so I think it's just about having fun discussing. and that includes emotions.
because if it's about intellect, then i would read a book. i have more than 400 books behind my back. and these are all practical books and authors have invested years in a book and structured their thoughts. no forum post can compete with something like that....

[Tyreaus]

7 hours ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

you dont need to believe me , you can read forum posts and opinions being signal boosted yourself , that would be my evidence , lets not play the PR game , this is not a real world issue where statistics are demanded , i can give you a reliably consistant patterns on whats been talked here and who talks more here . 

Alrighty.

7 hours ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

I didn' say there wasn'T any , lets not put words in my mouth its not nice or a fair discussion if you do that .  This is my warning 

Apologies, not my intent to make that your claim, simply saying that there's probably more pushing of that QoL sort of stuff than there seems to be.

7 hours ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

i can define that without catering to % growth necessarily , its the long term satisfaction , which the summation of both on players and the people that own and manage warfarme , easy and simple , if you want to define your own version , thats another thing but i believe this definition i give is the most genuine definition you can get objectively without disregarding the opinions and the experience the people that actually play the game and consume it . 

There you go ,no need to play the word game, i tell you for what it is , objectivity in this case isn't some unreachable and abstract concept.

"Long term satisfaction" also has a huge amount of subjectivity. One person finds satisfaction in optimization, the next finds satisfaction in action gameplay. I can see that just between p_silveira and AyinDygra above. Plus, if we're summing satisfaction across the board and trying to maximize that in some way, there's two angles. One is to maximize the satisfaction of a select group. The other is to broaden to as many groups as possible, even if no one group has maximum satisfaction. It's like 5+5 versus 2+2+2+2+2: you'll get 10 either way, but you can do it a broader way, or focus down. Which measurement to use ends up, at minimum, a point of contention. It's a classic utilitarian problem.

7 hours ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

well i dont need to worry much about that because when i say ' nerf-mob' anyone that is not consumed by their rhetoric in wf forums may understand easily actually , anyone that plays warframe and seen some of their talking points from a far past or once or twice can understand what i mean by that , well im just giving them casual forum visitors a few hope that this forum can be saved from that vocal minority mob that dictates or tries to dictate how discussions around balance goes . 

ultimately what they want is this game to become another bland and boring corridor shooter ' going back to the good ol' dark sector days' if you will , anyone that seen some of their talking points know what im referring to , they dont want warframe to be this futuristic power shellhouse which still carries tht potential and is already closing up on that ideal.

Somehow and for some reason there ARE so much against that , and yes  this is not a secret , they dont want warfame to reach that state in fact they are vehemently against it and pushing hard at EVERY CHANCE  , and instead of playing i dont know .. one of those games on steam or on xbox that they want to shape warrame in the way they want.

they are stuck with that ideal of blandness in this promissfull game unfortunately and theyre angry that DE is not listening to their bland ideas and rose tinted view of warframe , DE team exactly escaped that place to reach here , they are not going back folks. and its for the better.

and im actually happy to expose them. and by them i mean nerf-heads exactly. maybe one could find a better wording but thats all im gonna give to them no need to fancy.

Alright. Just saying the rhetoric is a hindrance.

[0_The_F00l]

6 hours ago, (PSN)AyinDygra said:

I kinda checked out of posting in this thread once the one I was originally posting in got merged into this frankenstein'smonster of a thing that I just lost track of... ANYWAY... incoming (nicely paragraphed) wall of text to explain my position apart from "personal preference". You have been warned.

From my point of view, as someone who plays many games, and makes his own, and doesn't put all his eggs in one basket (not expecting everything out of a single game), Warframe has its unique traits that set it apart from the rest of the crowd. These are the selling points. These are the deciding points on why people play THIS game instead of THAT game.

When I consider Game Dev's decisions, I don't automatically assume they know best. They're flawed human individuals, just like me and you. They have imperfect data. They have to interpret the results of internal testing and metrics of player usage (but said interpretation is open to its own set of flaws, such as nobody can REALLY tell "WHY" people are doing what they're doing, or if they like what they're doing, even if they're doing it a lot, or a little.) That all boils down to best guesses, inferring meaning, biases, etc.

Then there are the trope-y reasons to make changes, like the oft repeated quote by Sid Meyers of Civ fame, that "people will always optimize the fun out of everything if you give them the chance"... which is a point of view, and not a statement of fact... but because of how successful Civ was, and how "wise" it sounds, it's taken like some sort of game design fact. I think it oversimplifies the situation and actively discredits the fun that people have in optimization... they're not optimizing the fun "out of the game"... they're optimizing the fun "into the game." The same goes for his rule of buffing nor nerfing that is outlandishly annoying... as it promotes the sledgehammer-to-kill-a-fly problematic version of nerfing (that DE are prone to falling prey to... nuance isn't DE's strongest point)... and such advice that many Game Devs fall back on (his are just the most memorable and contentious that I can think of right off the top of my head).

So, with all that in mind, when I consider their decisions to nerf things, I'm usually against it because of Warframe's niche and selling points. Even if Warframe didn't start out in the category it is in now, it has worked its way into this position, mainly due to the monetization model. At some point they decided that they wanted to cater to the power fantasy (OK stop - the power fantasy presented in Warframe is that of being a "ninja in space" ... a one-man-army feared by all enemy forces, capable of infiltration and obliteration of whatever enemy forces they come up against. They are the elite of the elite, legendary warriors and saviors of a fallen empire that then fell to their hands. According to lore, one Warframe was capable of creating a planet-wide sandstorm, among other things. (as well as the whole void demon angle) This is the fantasy. Masters of gun and blade; the old ways.)

Warframe capitalizes on its strengths: swift movement, fast paced combat, and wiping out hordes of enemies with a wide variety of weaponry and styles of combat facilitated by the individual Warframes. When it steps outside this niche, toward things like slow-paced Tactical Squad-based shooters (such as Destiny, Call of Duty, etc), it goes against the core concepts that keep Warframe different from those entries, and actively diminish the style of play promoted by the systems in place within the game.

People can say all they like that it's not a horde shooter. They can say it started out as a slow moving game. That's not what Warframe has grown into, what it IS today. Whether or not the Devs wanted to move away from what it originally was, is something only they can answer (and by creating Soulframe, they may have done that, but they also acknowledge that the sort of game that they want(ed) to make doesn't fit in Warframe anymore.) The design decisions, balance decisions, and game design of Warframe have essentially been established now.

Much of it really comes down to the monetization method, in reality. They have to create "friction" in the gameplay that players can grease with their money, to make their progress more fluid. Pay for convenience. The primary way they do this, is through manipulation of drop rates. People have always been able to farm up new frames and weapons by completing missions, killing hordes of enemies for the materials, and waiting for 12hr-3day build times in the foundry... or they could outright buy fully built weapons and frames from the shop, or speed up the build times for things they have collected.

As this is a free to play game, MOST people won't be spending money to buy everything that is released, they'll farm it instead. The harder it is to farm, the more of these free to play players might be pushed over the fence "just once" to buy something here and there.

 

SO, due to the game design and its niche, things that are popular in Warframe are things that free to play players can use to farm stuff so they don't have to buy it with real money. The methods of obtaining things generally fall into two categories: drops from enemies / reward from mission completion.

*     In the case of "drops from enemies", that means killing hordes and hordes of enemies over and over in many missions (sometimes spending long hours in "endless" missions.) Anything that makes killing hordes of enemies easier and less tedious, will be welcomed as a good addition to the game. It fits the niche, it fits the power fantasy. It's a win/win for players. Obviously, this goes against the Dev's desires for players to spend their money instead...

*     In the case of "reward from mission completion", the same general rule as killing hordes as fast as possible usually holds true, since most mission objectives are to kill all the enemies as fast as possible. The longer you spend in those missions doesn't matter to your reward. Completion is all that matters. If more mission objectives didn't require killing hordes of enemies, such as stealth (spy missions, rescue missions), and assassination missions (bosses and demolysts), weapons that can kill hordes would be less beneficial, and stronger single target and silenced weapons would be more attractive, better choices, in different mission types, thus spreading the "meta" to include more variety.

 

Nerfs to AoE weapons and Warframe powers are heavy-handed ways to "force" people to not use things that are most effective in the game's design. They're not popular because they're "Over Powered" compared to single target weaponry. They're popular because they're effective in the game's design. The result that they're used a lot is a GOOD thing... the weapons were designed correctly to fit the type of game we're playing. They're not "garbage" weapons that just end up being "mastery fodder" because they're useless in the game's design, like most single target weapons.

Nerfing AoE because in co-op gameplay, they take kill opportunities away from team members... is not really appropriate, given the game design. In fact, the game's affinity earning system promotes letting other players kill things so all of your gear shares in the affinity, rather than just you using your particular piece of weaponry to level it up alone - and especially companion leveling, since without team kills or objective completion (such as opening spy vaults), pets rely on their own individual kills to gain affinity, which can take forever. And since drops from enemies are for all to pick up, it doesn't matter who killed the enemy to get that loot... there's no such thing as "kill stealing" like in MMO's, where the killer has dibs on the resulting loot from the kill.

I've never had my personal gaming experience "ruined" by party members completing the mission objectives. When I open up my missions to the public, it's because I want to accomplish the mission objectives in ways that are faster than going solo. I haven't been let down by that reasoning. I don't care what the end results page shows for kill counts, as long as it's a successful mission. When I get the itch to kill everything myself, and mission completion isn't my objective... I'll go solo for that type of fun. Both things are fun for different reasons... but people calling for AoE nerfs want their fun at the expense of the fun of others. Both sides could be argued as being selfish in this case, depending on perspective... however... You have to consider the game's design.

 

For Warframe to play to its strengths, it should not be nerfing AoE. I don't think the design pillars discussed in the recent Dev Stream 163 are compelling. I think they're short-sighted. I think they're anti-fun, and anti-Warframe.

* Dominance / Popularity - I've posted several times before about why I think this is a false flag for reasoning that something needs to be nerfed.

* Automation - The edge cases that they're using to justify nerfs based on this probably have better, harder-to-implement solutions... but who here thinks they'll take the time to address the real situation, and once it's addressed, roll back the temporary nerf that was meant to address it now? That has NEVER happened, in my experience. At the end, we're hit with a double or triple nerf, or more, depending on how many band-aids they want to apply to a situation before really getting to the heart of it.

* Disruption - This comes down to what they consider being disruptive. As I noted above, when I see missions being completed successfully, I don't count that as disrupting my gameplay - that is exactly the result I'm HOPING FOR - effective completion of objectives. People who are only concerned about their own personal experience and don't care about the completion of objectives, are the ones who call that disruptive (and I call that selfish.)

Design decisions that move Warframe closer to a tactical shooter like Destiny, and farther from the "Ninjas in Space" of Warframe, will always feel out of place to me, and I will flatly reject them and the reasoning behind them. They effectively try to pry Warframe out of its niche, and try to compete in realms that the game is not designed to be. If people want tactical shooter gameplay, they should go play games that make that their aim... and not try to change Warframe to be something it isn't.

I agree with some of the points you make.

But i disagree with you saying Nerf = anti fun.

I also don't agree with your overall opinion that the game is only an objective oriented job , different people have different ways to enjoy the game. It does not make them selfish.

That's why I also would prefer a more robust matchmaking option , so you can be paired with those that agree with your mindset and i can be paired with mine.

When players wanting different things are in the same mission is when the friction starts.

[_LotusPrime_]

10 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

 

optimization , gameplay ? well luckily or us DE doesnt need to compromise anything between those because of their budget ,
and you mentioned that there is a utilitarian problem with 2+2+2+2+2 and 5+5 , generally speaking the ones with the 2 works because you can fix and tune the ones with 2 a lot easier and smoother than ones with 5's , because ones with 5's have intricate systems that are clumped up and piled on top of each other which also takes time to undo it which is probably a part of modding system , in which case you might not always solve it in the instant  but you can always choose to not add another 5 but lets say do a 3+2 at worst , just like if you cant solve the modding problem you can maybe next time release mods that  always have some uses and the description matches the mod value and/or effects etc. and the synergies between those mods .

but if you meant numbers as in people but not elements of the game then my example has not much of a value maybe , with people's expectations they already try to do that and they want to meet everyones expectations which is quite exhausting  , altough i think they may tone that down a bit and focus more on lack of quality fixing things that are already in the game instead of worry about 'the outlier'  problem all the time , because to be honest i dont think people would be just as mad if we had less MR fodder in our arsenal , i really do think that.
People want some reassurance that the power level they just grinded for will be rematched by some other element they may have not seen in their arsenal.

[_LotusPrime_]

some separate posts of mine seems to be emerged ... uhm ok 

[Venus-Venera]

think that makes a mod? it happened to me too. but it could also be a bot?

[Tyreaus]

2 hours ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

optimization , gameplay ? well luckily or us DE doesnt need to compromise anything between those because of their budget ,
and you mentioned that there is a utilitarian problem with 2+2+2+2+2 and 5+5 , generally speaking the ones with the 2 works because you can fix and tune the ones with 2 a lot easier and smoother than ones with 5's , because ones with 5's have intricate systems that are clumped up and piled on top of each other which also takes time to undo it which is probably a part of modding system , in which case you might not always solve it in the instant  but you can always choose to not add another 5 but lets say do a 3+2 at worst , just like if you cant solve the modding problem you can maybe next time release mods that  always have some uses and the description matches the mod value and/or effects etc. and the synergies between those mods .

but if you meant numbers as in people but not elements of the game then my example has not much of a value maybe , with people's expectations they already try to do that and they want to meet everyones expectations which is quite exhausting  , altough i think they may tone that down a bit and focus more on lack of quality fixing things that are already in the game instead of worry about 'the outlier'  problem all the time , because to be honest i dont think people would be just as mad if we had less MR fodder in our arsenal , i really do think that.
People want some reassurance that the power level they just grinded for will be rematched by some other element they may have not seen in their arsenal.

...I feel like I may not have explained myself well, or I'm not understanding what you're getting at. To cover the former and ditch the mathematics I think caused confusion:

The utilitarian problem is about maximizing happiness. You can make a bunch of people a little happy, or a select number of people really happy. If you get the same total happiness either way, it's a bit of an open question which you're supposed to do.

In the context of Warframe, that can mean one person's vision of a "better Warframe" tries to cater to everyone. Another person's vision might focus on a select group. In terms of "maximizing satisfaction", it can be unclear which way you ought to go to make a "better Warframe".

 

[BR31]

I'm actually glad that this thread started to have different opinions .
We had some cases of a random twitter joker card/guy situation (for example, remember when 1 conclave main made that you can't use universal medallions to boost that syndicate?).

In a big picture i don't want something like that happening neither from a joker or a vocal minority (so myself included) .
% of people who care enough to go on a reddit sub or forums is extremely low in any game.

I think the healthiest approach is ingame surveys. Like some mmos do or genshin impact.
Steve did one after the kuva liches and rj problems and those were fixed for the better overall experience.
And it was on a side google form, so not that many people used it and it still was effective.
_________________

On a topic of aoe- let people do sp kuva survival fissure without a nuke/loot frame or an aoe weapon of some sort and ask them if they've changed their opinion.
Today i also answered a guy with "  Sponge Path is optional and its not a "benchmark" for weapons..."  opinion.
Devs stated few times that the game is not balanced around steel path.
And i have a counter opinion with some arguments.

Let me check:

1. The latest melee nerf was triggered when quiteshy made a sp melee video and devs showed it on a devstream.
2. Galv mods and gun arcanes were introduced , so
 

"Enter melee weapons, and equally importantly, the Mods you can use on them. Tenno have spent years sharpening their blades, but as a result, we’ve seen Primary and Secondary weapons collecting rust. And the longer we avoid addressing it, the worse this divide will become.

We are changing Melee and Primary in for the singular purpose of making the combat experience more balanced, especially at high level play (Steel Path, etc). "

3. We're getting SP fissures.
4. SP is the only place outside of event alerts and nightwave (there intermissions lasted more than the full parts) where you can buy an umbra forma.
5. Unifying armor strip is changed for what content?

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, BR31 said:

On a topic of aoe- let people do sp kuva survival fissure without a nuke/loot frame or an aoe weapon of some sort and ask them if they've changed their opinion.

Steel Path doesn't exclude Starchart et al., though. I don't think you're wrong in how DE is balancing some things around SP _{(whether they ought to, as they said they wouldn't, is a different matter)}, but in much the same way balance changes looking at Starchart don't invalidate Steel Path considerations, balance changes looking at Steel Path don't invalidate Starchart considerations. It goes both ways.

(Just as a side note, does Phenmor count as AoE? I'm pretty sure I've inadvertently done an SP Kuva Survival fissure with that one time or another.)

[_LotusPrime_]

9 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

...I feel like I may not have explained myself well, or I'm not understanding what you're getting at. To cover the former and ditch the mathematics I think caused confusion:

The utilitarian problem is about maximizing happiness. You can make a bunch of people a little happy, or a select number of people really happy. If you get the same total happiness either way, it's a bit of an open question which you're supposed to do.

In the context of Warframe, that can mean one person's vision of a "better Warframe" tries to cater to everyone. Another person's vision might focus on a select group. In terms of "maximizing satisfaction", it can be unclear which way you ought to go to make a "better Warframe".

 

equal in strict math doesnt mean intrinsic equality , in warframe's context , i would say trying to cater to people that want to make this game another call of dooteh (not saying the full name just out of caution) is not as same as trying to cater to people that already like the premise of warframe. 

and this is not just from subjective standpoint , why would for example DE would want to go out of their quarters , what they are good at already , to go into quarters where they have to compete with companies who have perfected their comtrolled gun combat gameplay in their respective marketplace such as steam or xbox , in xbox i can imagine it can be even harder since its already shtty to try to aim with a console controller , im sure xbox tenno know what im saying with the last bit.

So this is like twohold , where not each and every side in this discussion has the same value but also from DE's sense , it doesnt make much sense for them to try to fit in themselves in a new competition where its shaky grounds for them objectively.

 

[CosoMalvadoNG]

You guys should ignore this guy with a secondary account. I said it a while ago at the beginning of this post.

There are several accounts that for some reason (are they the same person or maybe the same group of people?) they are all new to the forum and say the same thing even repeating paragraphs to the point of seeming like bots I have seen that DE has deleted some of the repeated posts with different titles. I don't think it's a coincidence, I've already seen this in other forums of other games and it's much more common than people think, even people threatening to leave the game if they do the nerfs or saying that they have spent too much on the game (they have spent a lot on the game but only play wukong and kuva zarr, hilarious!! ) as if it was DE's fault that they spend money on the game..

The changes will come to warframe yes or yes, it is already something decided by DE, we have seen it before when it comes to balancing they make the changes whether the crybabies like it or not. There will possibly be small changes a week or two after next update  but I doubt it will be anything much different than what they already have planned.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 3 horas, Tyreaus dijo:

Steel Path doesn't exclude Starchart et al., though. I don't think you're wrong in how DE is balancing some things around SP _{(whether they ought to, as they said they wouldn't, is a different matter)}, but in much the same way balance changes looking at Starchart don't invalidate Steel Path considerations, balance changes looking at Steel Path don't invalidate Starchart considerations. It goes both ways.

(Just as a side note, does Phenmor count as AoE? I'm pretty sure I've inadvertently done an SP Kuva Survival fissure with that one time or another.)

I play mag with any decent shotgun and I don't have any problems. The thing is to look for buts. These people don't understand that their lack of skill doesn't mean it can't be done.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

equal in strict math doesnt mean intrinsic equality , in warframe's context , i would say trying to cater to people that want to make this game another call of dooteh (not saying the full name just out of caution) is not as same as trying to cater to people that already like the premise of warframe. 

and this is not just from subjective standpoint , why would for example DE would want to go out of their quarters , what they are good at already , to go into quarters where they have to compete with companies who have perfected their comtrolled gun combat gameplay in their respective marketplace such as steam or xbox , in xbox i can imagine it can be even harder since its already shtty to try to aim with a console controller , im sure xbox tenno know what im saying with the last bit.

So this is like twohold , where not each and every side in this discussion has the same value but also from DE's sense , it doesnt make much sense for them to try to fit in themselves in a new competition where its shaky grounds for them objectively.

 

You see how this is muddying the measurement of "the long term satisfaction ... of both on players and the people that own and manage warfarme", right? That's the point I was making: that your definition of "better game" as "long-term satisfaction" gets complicated and contentious.

Just for example, the CoD comparison. Let's just say making the game more like CoD is not making the game better, so we ought not to cater to people who want that. At least not too much. Here's a question: does that mean moving the game further from CoD comparisons makes it better? For example, taking out guns and sticking players with melee and abilities. If someone asks for that, ought we cater to them more? Less? And on what basis?

I'm not expecting you to answer that, of course. It's rhetorical. The point is, like I said, that an objective idea of a "better game" has issues. It's not so "easy and simple", as you'd put it.

[_LotusPrime_]

22 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

You see how this is muddying the measurement of "the long term satisfaction ... of both on players and the people that own and manage warfarme", right? That's the point I was making: that your definition of "better game" as "long-term satisfaction" gets complicated and contentious.

Just for example, the CoD comparison. Let's just say making the game more like CoD is not making the game better, so we ought not to cater to people who want that. At least not too much. Here's a question: does that mean moving the game further from CoD comparisons makes it better? For example, taking out guns and sticking players with melee and abilities. If someone asks for that, ought we cater to them more? Less? And on what basis?

I'm not expecting you to answer that, of course. It's rhetorical. The point is, like I said, that an objective idea of a "better game" has issues. It's not so "easy and simple", as you'd put it.

its easy , i explained from different angles in my previous 2 posts regarding to the topic starting when you mentioned the utilitarian problem , it may be a philosophical problem in general but in warframe's special case its not that hard. and its to our advantage , luckily.

[Tyreaus]

9 minutes ago, _LotusPrime_ said:

its easy , i explained from different angles in my previous 2 posts regarding to the topic starting when you mentioned the utilitarian problem , it may be a philosophical problem in general but in warframe's special case its not that hard. and its to our advantage , luckily.

It's not that hard? Okay, then I'll ask it non-rhetorically:

Should we get rid of guns in Warframe, then? Cater more to that side of the spectrum? That avoids competing with companies that have well-honed gunplay.

[0_The_F00l]

7 hours ago, BR31 said:

I'm actually glad that this thread started to have different opinions .
We had some cases of a random twitter joker card/guy situation (for example, remember when 1 conclave main made that you can't use universal medallions to boost that syndicate?).

In a big picture i don't want something like that happening neither from a joker or a vocal minority (so myself included) .
% of people who care enough to go on a reddit sub or forums is extremely low in any game.

I think the healthiest approach is ingame surveys. Like some mmos do or genshin impact.
Steve did one after the kuva liches and rj problems and those were fixed for the better overall experience.
And it was on a side google form, so not that many people used it and it still was effective.

I personally have the opinion that DE doesn't actually want surveys on a large scale , (yeah i am criticising DE , shocker) , the ability to create polls exists on the forums (i have seen them in the past) and so does the ability to link to them in game , but they don't want to actually apply it.

That way they can pick any response and opinion that aligns to their own direction and show that as the reason of the change. 

They even removed the various reactions from the forums some years ago so it's not possible to downvote anything.

Of course , it's not all the Dev's that do this , some really do care about accurate feedback , but honestly unless the opposition is really massive they have already made their decision.

7 hours ago, BR31 said:

On a topic of aoe- let people do sp kuva survival fissure without a nuke/loot frame or an aoe weapon of some sort and ask them if they've changed their opinion.

I did kuva fissure survival without AoE (felarx and grendel) , my opinion has not changed.

7 hours ago, BR31 said:

Today i also answered a guy with "  Sponge Path is optional and its not a "benchmark" for weapons..."  opinion.
Devs stated few times that the game is not balanced around steel path.
And i have a counter opinion with some arguments.

Let me check:

1. The latest melee nerf was triggered when quiteshy made a sp melee video and devs showed it on a devstream.
2. Galv mods and gun arcanes were introduced , so
 

"Enter melee weapons, and equally importantly, the Mods you can use on them. Tenno have spent years sharpening their blades, but as a result, we’ve seen Primary and Secondary weapons collecting rust. And the longer we avoid addressing it, the worse this divide will become.

We are changing Melee and Primary in for the singular purpose of making the combat experience more balanced, especially at high level play (Steel Path, etc). "

3. We're getting SP fissures.
4. SP is the only place outside of event alerts and nightwave (there intermissions lasted more than the full parts) where you can buy an umbra forma.
5. Unifying armor strip is changed for what content?

I am not getting it fully , equally balanced between melee and ranged does not really mean intended for that level. Though i understand what you mean.

And i really disliked having game changing rewards behind the steel path , it effectively makes it non optional and an expected progression path (albeit still not mandatory ) which brings the exact points you raised   i think it was a mistake if it was to be kept optional and should have just been cosmetics or some peculiar items.

[_LotusPrime_]

i dont wanna derail from the topic but ... im glad that SP is softly enforced thru normal gameplay because that means DE reckons or starts to reckon to try to match our current power levels to the content we consume. its healthy , in my opinion .