Crossplay: A failure that sacrificed the enjoyment of PC players to the altar of trendiness

[Kaiga]

Now that crossplay has been out for a while, it's time for DE to face the music of what they've produced: 

-Lowered spawn rates for no reason

-Terrible connections, host migration and slow loading performance 

-Unfamiliar, unresponsive players lagging behind in controlability and player performance 

-Hotfixes held up by cert on every console

-Non-crossplay being dead from it being turned on by default.

 

It is safe to say that the game experience was made objectively worse for the majority of players, in order to accomplish some long awaited bandwagon obejctive, accommodating the increasingly obsolete hardware limitations of last-gen consoles at the expense of the experience overall.

Cross-save and account transfers are the only way out of this mess.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Kaiga

[trst]

The problem isn't crossplay itself but that the game is still supporting obsolete platforms that couldn't run the actual game in the first place.

They either need to disable crossplay (hosting at the minimum) for those platforms or drop support for them entirely. While bringing performance parity to the remaining ones that can run the game.

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

I don't believe that is the only way, if the game stops supporting the last gen consoles and older PCs(don't know if the most basic PC that can play Warframe is better than a PS4, Switch or Xbox one) then a lot of the issues that people experience would be gone.

I doubt they're gonna do that now since there's still plenty of people that either can't or don't want to upgrade to current gen.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

49 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

Now that crossplay has been out for a while, it's time for DE to face the music of what they've produced: 

-Lowered spawn rates for no reason

-Terrible connections, host migration and slow loading performance 

-Unfamiliar, unresponsive players lagging behind in controlability and player performance 

-Non-crossplay being dead from it being turned on by default.

 

It is safe to say that the game experience was made objectively worse for the majority of players, in order to accomplish some long awaited bandwagon obejctive, accommodating the increasingly obsolete hardware limitations of last-gen consoles at the expense of the experience overall.

Cross-save and account transfers are the only way out of this mess.

It's very far from a failure my dude. We all knew that the older consoles would be a hinder but that's not a reason to not make the feature possible...especially when options like turning the feature off or having a setting that separates older consoles from newer ones could solve this temporary problem. This conversation will be significantly different when older gen consoles become less used. 

[vanaukas]

Today I did the alerts on publc... By the void, what an awful experience. I'll stick to solo and keep crossplay on so hubs aren't a desert area.

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Kaiga said:

Now that crossplay has been out for a while, it's time for DE to face the music of what they've produced: 

-Lowered spawn rates for no reason

-Terrible connections, host migration and slow loading performance 

-Unfamiliar, unresponsive players lagging behind in controlability and player performance 

-Non-crossplay being dead from it being turned on by default.

You forgot one from the PC perspective:  We're now on a console cert schedule for major bugfixes. :/

1 hour ago, Kaiga said:

It is safe to say that the game experience was made objectively worse for the majority of players,

I don't know how safe that assumption is.  I can only speak for myself and say it has its upsides, but it's been at least a slight negative overall.

 

 

[Artekkor]

People are actually upset about this? I barely noticed any difference. But again i do play Warframe in effectively brain-off mode on my ancient HDD that is still alive by a miracle.

[sunderthefirmament]

11 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

You forgot one from the PC perspective:  We're now on a console cert schedule for major bugfixes. :/

This really does sting.  By the time they finally fix aimglide casting, my muscle memory will have already been replaced.  _{If you start casting while your frame is still ascending in a jump, you can usually get moderate distance.}

 

1 hour ago, (XBOX)C11H22O11 said:

I don't believe that is the only way, if the game stops supporting the last gen consoles and older PCs(don't know if the most basic PC that can play Warframe is better than a PS4, Switch or Xbox one) then a lot of the issues that people experience would be gone.

I doubt they're gonna do that now since there's still plenty of people that either can't or don't want to upgrade to current gen.

And there's mobile to consider as well.

 

We need more options for forcing host/avoiding console or bad hosts.  At a minimum.  Oxomoco and equivalent fissures take about twice as long as they used to now, and quite often someone will load in when you're at extraction.  I imagine that crossplay is good for the health of the game, but it has been a net negative for my experience.  I'm only one player though.

[trst]

21 minutes ago, Artekkor said:

People are actually upset about this? I barely noticed any difference. But again i do play Warframe in effectively brain-off mode on my ancient HDD that is still alive by a miracle.

Quite upset, every farm that's tied to killing enemies like Relic cracking or everything from Mirror Defense is slowed down with a console host. Plus there's already so little to do in a group and having fewer enemies makes that problem even worse.

Like before I accepted needing to solo Citrine and everything else out of Mirror Defense I'd have matches with console hosts where I spent most of my time doing nothing between the one nuke frame clearing enemies and one Titania collecting Remnant. Simultaneously having too few enemies to kill and too few enemies being killed to keep up Remnant spawns.

[CoffeeElemental]

1 час назад, Tiltskillet сказал:

You forgot one from the PC perspective:  We're now on a console cert schedule for major bugfixes. :/

OP forgor probably the main downside that crossplay brings. 💀

[MutoManiac]

1 hour ago, sunderthefirmament said:

This really does sting.  By the time they finally fix aimglide casting, my muscle memory will have already been replaced.  _{If you start casting while your frame is still ascending in a jump, you can usually get moderate distance.}

 

And there's mobile to consider as well.

 

We need more options for forcing host/avoiding console or bad hosts.  At a minimum.  Oxomoco and equivalent fissures take about twice as long as they used to now, and quite often someone will load in when you're at extraction.  I imagine that crossplay is good for the health of the game, but it has been a net negative for my experience.  I'm only one player though.

First time this happened to me. I loaded into an exterminate SP incursion the other day and the rest of the squad was just finishing up and heading to extraction. I thought it was great, mission accomplished and it was quick. So on to the next one. 😉

[(PSN)thowed]

I wish theyd drop last gen consoles also but I want PCs that aren't on par with new gen to be dropped too.  Or drop it entirely,  tired of carrying PC players that don't speak English lol.  I can be this type of person too.  Happy Easter.

[Lilybun]

The spawn throttling is the only thing that really bothers me. Slow loading and bad host migrations have been a thing since dawn of time and until DE decides to update their hosting network architecture those issues will persist -- in other words, if we're lucky warframe2 in 2035 is going to support distributed p2p hosting.

Did I mention that spawn throttling bothers me? It bothers me a lot. Cracking relics with pugs in survival is my favorite way to pop bubble wrap in this game but if I end up with a bad console host the lobby is ruined and I'm forced to abort repeatedly until I get a host that can support enemies spawning. It's miserable. With void fissure survivals rarely even being up when I'm ready to game for a few hours having to sacrifice those few and far between lobbies to an old console host I have no way of avoiding if I want to play with strangers is a serious flaw in my books.

[sunderthefirmament]

1 hour ago, m_a_r_c_h_ said:

First time this happened to me. I loaded into an exterminate SP incursion the other day and the rest of the squad was just finishing up and heading to extraction. I thought it was great, mission accomplished and it was quick. So on to the next one. 😉

It's decidedly less great when it means you don't crack your relic.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Today I learned that wanting to play a game with a friend is a "trend".

[MutoManiac]

11 minutes ago, sunderthefirmament said:

It's decidedly less great when it means you don't crack your relic.

For sure, I was mostly joking, but that would not be good. I’m one of the fools that does relic runs solo, so it wouldn’t apply to me.

[Felsagger]

 

Cross play: Please, NO. DE, STOP. 

Cross saves: Please yes, when?

 

[taiiat]

my only dog in this race are two things:

• Console Hosts having dramatically slower Enemy Spawns - for some Gamemodes that can mean mostly standing around not doing anything because Enemies just aren't Spawning
  • (or worse if you're trying to like, grind Resource Drops or something)
• sometimes meaning Loading into Missions can take like, a full Minute or so, with those same Console Hosts

yes yes i'm aware it's only the older Consoles that are applicable for that (and Switch), i know who to blame and not to blame.

[ReddyDisco]

Times like these i'm thankful i play solo mostly

[kamisama85]

Must not be bad enough for the many people complaining to keep it off permanently. Otherwise you would have repopulated the anti cross play population by now.

I have yet to experience any if these issues with console players and I am usually in steel path and arbitration where such issues would be the most annoying.

Why not just start a thread or clan alliance of anti cross play clana and recruit more people to the cause. If there are truly a significant number of people making the jump you may trigger a response from DE to make some emergency corrections.

Time for you to be the tenno syndicate faction we don't have in the game yet.

[xcrimsonlegendx]

As a PC player I've hardly noticed a difference to be honest.

[Merrcenary]

3 часа назад, Lilybun сказал:

The spawn throttling is the only thing that really bothers me

so 2 months without fixes for ability casting while aim gliding doesn't bothers you? :) it all because of crossplay and stupid console cert

[Graavarg]

The problem is only indirectly linked to crossplay, since technically it is all about computer power and internet connection. Since the "console" group contains hardware with less power (and often wifi-based link-up, with built-in variable connection speed depending on signal and usage) it logically follows that there will be more "technical drag" from consoles.   

However, the real problem lies elsewhere. Adapting enemy spawn numbers/rate to computer "power" is a ridiculous concept in itself, and especially so in a (supposedly) co-op game. It actually means that players are not playing the same game. I can't even remember the last time I came across such a game, since the "industry standard" way of handling less computing power is lowering the biggest resource hog = graphics (resolution, framerate, content, specific functions like anti-aliasing etc.).

Measuring a computer's "power" (from a gaming or specific game perspective) is child's play nowadays, and with consoles it's even easier due to the uniform specs. So is measuring internet connection. The solution to this problem then becomes two-fold, and sort of gives itself:

1. To activate/allow internet-based PUG => force local game (graphics) settings that runs the game at a certain minimum speed according to computer hardware and connection. A setting that can manage hosting any mission (with the normal number of enemies).

2. To remove "bad user experience" => allow users/players to set the minimum "hardware" and "connection" level they want to connect to.

No more need to separate consoles from PC or vice versa.

And while at it, do add "ghost host"-functionality to the game, which basically would entail transferring and updating the hosting data to all applicable participants (with enough "power" and "connection") in a squad continuously, "piggy-backing" on game session data, according to connection load. This would allow almost immediate switching if the current host leaves or drops, or if the host loses "power" or "connection speed". No more in-mission "loading screens" and (probably) no more "lost session data" (including drops etc.).

[trst]

39 minutes ago, kamisama85 said:

Must not be bad enough for the many people complaining to keep it off permanently. Otherwise you would have repopulated the anti cross play population by now.

I have yet to experience any if these issues with console players and I am usually in steel path and arbitration where such issues would be the most annoying.

Why not just start a thread or clan alliance of anti cross play clana and recruit more people to the cause. If there are truly a significant number of people making the jump you may trigger a response from DE to make some emergency corrections.

Time for you to be the tenno syndicate faction we don't have in the game yet.

It's bad enough for anyone on PC who values their time and who cares about the fact that PC has been objectively downgraded by crossplay between bad console hosting and delayed hotfixes. Or how it made loading speed issues even worse for older gen consoles having a far larger pool of potential hosts with faster loading times and performance issues caused by PC host spawn rates.

And it being bad alone isn't going to get enough players to turn off crossplay. As for that to have any effect it'll require a lot of players further downgrading their experience, from occasionally bad pubs to virtually  zero pubs, until enough players have it off.

The only hope for DE actually addressing this is players staying vocal about the problem.

[Yamazuki]

Crossplay isn't a feature of trendiness; not everyone on pc has people that play games exclusively on pc. Some people I know play games on console, so until crossplay is a standard we don't get to play games together.

The issues with Warframe isn't crossplay itself, but having no way of ensuring who ever the host is happens to be an optimal one. I've had terrible hosts before crossplay was even a thing, and even after crossplay I have mostly experienced host migrations from PC hosts.

9 hours ago, Kaiga said:

-Unfamiliar, unresponsive players lagging behind in controlability and player performance 

Yeah, there definitely aren't anyone on PC that falls under this category.