Warframe system ideas (title formerly "please rebuild the entire game")

[cute_moth.npc]

Just now, rhoenix said:

...For the record here, I'm not trying to suggest with this topic that some people at DE get fired.  Just want to make sure that's clear. :)

I am not either.. But I'm trying to suggest that it might have to be a lot more than just Pablo making decisions after looking at a chart if you wanted to end up with a game that was balanced enough to have raids and encounters like you're looking for. Like, an actual design team whose presence could be felt that had the resources to keep the game touched up as time went on. D.E. based on empirical evidence strongly seems to lack the resources right now to make that happen.

[taiiat]

7 minutes ago, cute_moth.npc said:

They also actually did fire / replace the entire development team as well.

oh
😅

6 minutes ago, rhoenix said:

Fair, and both you and others have already raised the counterargument that a ground-up rework is a bit of a drastic ask.  I do fully grant that it is a bit drastic.

But, I do think that not only do they have the staff and talent required to do it, it would re-awaken interest in the game again pretty strongly overall, more so I think than if they wait until player numbers drop until nearly floor-level to do so.

whether i'm interested at all depends on what direction they'd be going in, i guess. as swinging into everything hinging on Narrative and reducing the purpose & use & freedom of the Gear/Combat/Gameplay that we currently have, that'd reduce my interest rather than increase it, heh.

for most i think 'the main problem' is just having a purpose to collecting all of this stuff. 

[rhoenix]

2 minutes ago, taiiat said:

whether i'm interested at all depends on what direction they'd be going in, i guess. as swinging into everything hinging on Narrative and reducing the purpose & use & freedom of the Gear/Combat/Gameplay that we currently have, that'd reduce my interest rather than increase it, heh.

for most i think 'the main problem' is just having a purpose to collecting all of this stuff. 

For what it's worth, I agree with you.  I don't want to see the freedom we currently have taken away either, and I do think more or less the same capability growth curve present now would work - just the numbers behind the curtain need to be reworked, and their presentation made a bit more clear.

And yeah - one of the main issues seems to be not as many activities to do once you get to the point of collecting things.  However, even things like fleshing out the Quills as a faction a bit more, and using them as a vehicle to encourage the player to go monster-hunting would work, as long as other large-scale threats like the Eidolons & Orowyrm are added.  But, things like Dungeons (like multi-stage bounties, but within a single large complex), Raids (even if these are just high-level multi-stage bounty missions, similar to the Archon hunts and Sorties, as long as they're done well they can work with even four players).

On that note, the Railjack can actually be made the lockout point for Raids, as in once you assemble a working Railjack, you can then use it to explore the system more, and of course go on Raids and the like.  Like true... uh... pirate/ninja/Tenno.

[rhoenix]

13 minutes ago, cute_moth.npc said:

I am not either.. But I'm trying to suggest that it might have to be a lot more than just Pablo making decisions after looking at a chart if you wanted to end up with a game that was balanced enough to have raids and encounters like you're looking for. Like, an actual design team whose presence could be felt that had the resources to keep the game touched up as time went on. D.E. based on empirical evidence strongly seems to lack the resources right now to make that happen.

That's a fair take, and you may not be wrong. 

However, I would counter that by saying however disconnected an experience Duviri might be compared to the rest of warframe, it still does show pretty good design within its own context - and, in my eyes at least, that shows that such a thing like a deep-level remake is at least possible with what and who they have.

[cute_moth.npc]

46 minutes ago, rhoenix said:

That's a fair take, and you may not be wrong. 

However, I would counter that by saying however disconnected an experience Duviri might be compared to the rest of warframe, it still does show pretty good design within its own context - and, in my eyes at least, that shows that such a thing like a deep-level remake is at least possible with what and who they have.

I kind of enjoy it for what it is but..

The game balance goes out the window the second you realize that if you walk away from doing your bounty for a moment and go open some chests, you get powered up like mad for sneezing and instead of having to care about what your enemies are doing you just come back to that first bounty and hit them for a billion to say "hi I leveled up a bit". It's even more out of control than the base game.

The controls also kind of need some work..

They're getting WAY better with telegraphs and the gameplay loop of watching and responding to your enemy though.

I actually enjoy Duviri but it's definitely showing the same lack of curation that the base game is. I'm not sure if the staff internally is disappointed or not that instead of players engaging with the "Soulframe preview" gameplay they tried to set up that players are basically actually stacking decrees to the point where there is basically no Soulframe preview to be seen..

Unless Soulframe is going to be like that and they're showing us an actual preview?

[rhoenix]

6 minutes ago, cute_moth.npc said:

I kind of enjoy it for what it is but..

Like the game balance goes out the window the second you realize that if you walk away from doing your bounty for a moment and go open some chests, you get powered up like mad for sneezing and instead of having to care about what your enemies are doing you just come back to that first bounty and hit them for a billion to say "hi I leveled up a bit". It's even more out of control than the base game.

The controls also kind of need some work..

They're getting WAY better with telegraphs and the gameplay loop of watching and responding to your enemy though.

I actually enjoy Duviri but it's definitely showing the same lack of curation that the base game is. I'm not sure if the staff internally is disappointed or not that instead of players engaging with the "Soulframe preview" gameplay they tried to set up that players are basically actually stacking decrees to the point where there is basically no Soulframe preview to be seen..

Unless Soulframe is going to be like that and they're showing us an actual preview?

Yeah... that lack of curation issue is honestly what got me thinking about this rework madness in the first place.  I won't at all disagree on that point.

I can't speak to Soulframe or whatever pieces of it are in Duviri, but I do think that if focused in different directions with a good lore bible and clear outline, what can be accomplished by the devs can be made great - from many loosely-connected puddles to a vast and expanding ocean.

For me at least, going back and re-examining works I've written years ago, and trying to approach them with the perspective I have now is oftentimes a rather interesting and somewhat enlightening experience.  I think that the staff of DE would enjoy the challenge of the process.

[(PSN)ApoX95]

the only thing that comes to my mind when I read this is that I indeed wish they would somehow rebuild the engine to make the game overall more stable although im unsure how 'possible' or 'easy' that would be for DE.

I truly enjoy this game so much, since almost a decade as well stretched over 3 accounts on different platforms. The only thing that bothers me so much is the constant amount of (gamebreaking) bugs that turn the joy ful experience quickly into a frustrating one. Especially as a console main - just the fact that loading times are so vastly different between platforms led to so much host migration/loot-loss shenanigans and there is nothing more frustrating than spending an hour+ just to end all of it with a sudden error which results in the loss of everything you've achieved in the last hour - pretty sure a rebuild engine could combat issues like this more easily as well

 

[rhoenix]

37 minutes ago, (PSN)ApoX95 said:

the only thing that comes to my mind when I read this is that I indeed wish they would somehow rebuild the engine to make the game overall more stable although im unsure how 'possible' or 'easy' that would be for DE.

I truly enjoy this game so much, since almost a decade as well stretched over 3 accounts on different platforms. The only thing that bothers me so much is the constant amount of (gamebreaking) bugs that turn the joy ful experience quickly into a frustrating one. Especially as a console main - just the fact that loading times are so vastly different between platforms led to so much host migration/loot-loss shenanigans and there is nothing more frustrating than spending an hour+ just to end all of it with a sudden error which results in the loss of everything you've achieved in the last hour - pretty sure a rebuild engine could combat issues like this more easily as well

 

I completely agree.  Even if they don't make an entirely new engine and instead re-approach the original engine with fresh eyes, it would still be a cascading improvement.

I've enjoyed Warframe for ten years, with more than 6k hours, according to Steam - far more than any other game in my library.  Deep Rock Galactic and Elden Ring are a distant second and third, with 500+ and 440+ hours, respectively.

But, it has all the gameplay, ideas, lore, and potential to be even greater with the same ideas - far more so even, I think.  This isn't to say that the devs are bad people or whatever, simply that when one is working on a project, it can be harder to see it from another perspective - it can get easy to get locked into certain assumptions and modes of thought.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I've personally benefited from revisiting my older works as a writer, and approaching the same thing with my current experiences - and oftentimes found that it becomes something of a profound experience.  I think DE could experience the same positive benefit, and would be rewarded by the playerbase for doing so.

[TheArmchairThinker]

Here's a catch, FF XIV requires subscription to play or you'll hit a wall. You want to pay $15 a month just to play? I don't

[rhoenix]

1 minute ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

Here's a catch, FF XIV requires subscription to play or you'll hit a wall. You want to pay $15 a month just to play? I don't

Nah, no need for such here.  The same F2P model used now would be fine - if the game got a ground-up rework as I'm suggesting, it would start generating more money by consequence as more players returned or tried the game again.

We've all made the joke that Fashionframe is Endgame, but in a way, it's true - we all have the urge to make your character look awesome, and if you're enjoying the experience of playing that much more, you're more likely to cough up extra money for skins.  More players joining and doing this means more revenue for DE, which becomes a positive feedback loop for doing so.

[TheArmchairThinker]

11 minutes ago, rhoenix said:

Nah, no need for such here.  The same F2P model used now would be fine - if the game got a ground-up rework as I'm suggesting, it would start generating more money by consequence as more players returned or tried the game again.

We've all made the joke that Fashionframe is Endgame, but in a way, it's true - we all have the urge to make your character look awesome, and if you're enjoying the experience of playing that much more, you're more likely to cough up extra money for skins.  More players joining and doing this means more revenue for DE, which becomes a positive feedback loop for doing so.

And I'm not going to say I'll enjoy being balanced when the next thing to come is "challenging" fight with bloated health bar and you can't blow through it like what we have now. Warframe is fun being an overpowered JoJo character, no need to follow other balanced games

[rhoenix]

3 minutes ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

And I'm not going to say I'll enjoy being balanced when the next thing to come is "challenging" fight with bloated health bar and you can't blow through it like what we have now. Warframe is fun being an overpowered JoJo character, no need to follow other balanced games

Well, "balance" is a very relative term.  I'm most certainly not suggesting that we get the power fantasy of mowing through armies taken away here.  Rather, that the things within the game be better balanced with one another to allow for better enemy health/damage scaling, better & smoother player power progression, and more intuitive use of all of them through the systems present without limiting player choice.

[TheArmchairThinker]

22 minutes ago, rhoenix said:

Well, "balance" is a very relative term.  I'm most certainly not suggesting that we get the power fantasy of mowing through armies taken away here.  Rather, that the things within the game be better balanced with one another to allow for better enemy health/damage scaling, better & smoother player power progression, and more intuitive use of all of them through the systems present without limiting player choice.

"Better balanced" means buffs and nerfs and a sizeable part of the community is allergic to the word "nerf". Look at AoE nerf where they only touch ammo economy, you get a meltdown with "DE killed AoE" and you expect the "better balance"? Where you have people that want to be challenged but without losing their ability to wipe out hordes of enemies with one button? Feel free to get your wisdom to fulfill that demand from whatever eldritch creature you can meet

[(PSN)Rebel-sonie]

No, What they need to do is “remake” their back end and purchase some servers so the game no longer relies on cheap P2P but legitimate server-client architecture. 
 

As I was playing SP Circuit (the only Duviri content I can play atm, as farming resources are not being saved in Duviri Experience - a problem that would be solved with client - server networking), I was in constant fear that something would happen to the host which would bug the whole thing out causing me to lose all my progress! I should not, in an online multiplayer video game, be IN PERPETUAL FEAR that I’m going to lose progress because of something out of my control. Warframe’s Host Migration is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced as an online gamer. Also, the amount of bounties I run that are laggy or had objectives completely break because the host had bad internet, it’s too much. 

P2P has got to go. Remake the networking first!

 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

10 hours ago, rhoenix said:

To be clear, this is NOT to say I am asking the developers to remake Warframe to be an MMO in the style of FF14, but to approach the game from a similar mindset - to take the same experience and gameplay of Warframe, but rebuild the systems behind the gameplay from the ground up, with all the knowledge and skill available in the present.

you should probably put the first part of that in Bold text, people tend to misunderstand things quite easily here.

at this point though, while my heart yearns for some kind of major ground-up reworks, it feels like pointless idealism at this point. I kept hoping that after every major cinematic update went out the door, DE would actually look back, see the flaws with the older content, think "oh lord, we should probably revamp this" and actually do so, but alas they have never turned around, the last time I remember a true rework of something old was Deadlock Protocol replacing the old Corpus Tileset, but even that was done to accommodate new content (Granum Void, rescuing Solaris etc.), I cannot recall any time where they reworked old content simply out of love for the players, or because they felt they could improve it with new dev techniques that they didn't have before. if such a time happened, it was LONG ago.

I'm not expecting warframe to be any different Post-Duviri. but times like that, right after the major work on the major update is done, that is the golden opportunity to take a look at what you've created and how far you've come, and potentially see where players are coming from when they say that older content is neglected. if that opportunity isn't taken right there and then, they will end up focusing on what's next exclusively, and the cycle repeats.

it's peak irony that Duviri is all about spirals and repetition when DE are stuck in one themselves. but just like how Drifter created and owns Duviri, they OWN warframe, the area where their own "spiral" is taking place, and they can break out of it at any time they please, all they need to do is play like 30 minutes of older content and then think about what they saw and felt; that alone should be enough to spark the fires of creativity for how it can be improved. 

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

10 hours ago, rhoenix said:

.  For one thing, after playing Warframe for a bit, Destiny 2 feels very... slow.

 

Agreed. In terms of abilities, only Warlocks with specific exotics (fallen sunstar, osmiomancy gloves, starfire protocol etc.) seem to rival the ability spamming of Warframes, while the movement of a Warframe can't be replaced even by a Dawnblade Warlock or a Hunter...

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

9 hours ago, trst said:

But what justifies a ground-up remake of the game over their existing approach of slowly reworking older content? There's nothing that indicates that DE can't expand upon existing systems and connect them to each other more than they already do other than the effort, time, and money investments required to do so.

So basically, you're suggesting the Fortnite style of adding QoL onto the base game overtime until Warfare basically is unrecognizable from "the og days"?

I don't think that would be bad, it might even work out like it did yor Fortnite where people come back to WF and are blown away at how much better it feels.

[(XBOX)Lord ChibiVR]

I would suggest that you change the title to "Warframe should be rebuilt from the ground up like FFXIV was with a Realm Reborn"  as that would keep the confusion away from people reading your title.

[MouadSaqui]

Judging by the replies I can say with confidence that any attempt for change to how content is being developed will be met with backlash, and people hating on you personally for saying you want Warframe to be a better game.

Bcs for the Majority of this community still think This game is Perfect. Saying you want DE to rework the game will trigger them, I used to write posts like this in the past and all I got is Warnings for ''Bashing on the developers'' and ''Play Other Games'' types of replies...

As for duviri paradox, it's by far the best update DE ever released that actually revamped how we play this game, I even thought about starting a new account just to play the new player experience, but still, DE need to take big risks and completely remove the old and embrace the new, things like daily caps and long crafting times should go away, it's doing nothing but driving away a big chunk of players that have short attention spans.

We also live in the days of twitch streaming and tiktok, DE can't should stop paying big content creators to play Warframe and instead make the game good for streaming to encourage players to stream it themselves.

DE also should stop alienating Veterans, make content that is worth their time and stop giving us excuses in devstreams.

If DE wants to make warframe better, all they have to do is stop making the new shiny thing, and instead fix the game.

[(XBOX)K1jker]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb (PSN)ApoX95:

The only thing that bothers me so much is the constant amount of (gamebreaking) bugs that turn the joy ful experience quickly into a frustrating one. Especially as a console main - just the fact that loading times are so vastly different between platforms led to so much host migration/loot-loss shenanigans and there is nothing more frustrating than spending an hour+ just to end all of it with a sudden error which results in the loss of everything you've achieved in the last hour - pretty sure a rebuild engine could combat issues like this more easily as well

 

Servers would help with that. Loading can't be streamlined without gimping next gen and PC players.

Loot would be safe though, better drop in and out experience, and the most important, old hardware only punishes the user of it, not the entire team.

Plus, don't forget mobile will soon join the fun. (I don't mean this in a negative way btw, I'm one of those waiting for mobile Warframe 😅)

[rhoenix]

8 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

"Better balanced" means buffs and nerfs and a sizeable part of the community is allergic to the word "nerf". Look at AoE nerf where they only touch ammo economy, you get a meltdown with "DE killed AoE" and you expect the "better balance"? Where you have people that want to be challenged but without losing their ability to wipe out hordes of enemies with one button? Feel free to get your wisdom to fulfill that demand from whatever eldritch creature you can meet

People tend to have an issue with it when it affects their playstyle, or how they relate to their playstyle by degrees.  If the devs were to take the piecemeal approach, then yes, I can see this causing outrage.

However, if those things are just a part of the overall rewrite, then those things would be seen in context with the rest much more easily.

[rhoenix]

3 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

you should probably put the first part of that in Bold text, people tend to misunderstand things quite easily here.

at this point though, while my heart yearns for some kind of major ground-up reworks, it feels like pointless idealism at this point. I kept hoping that after every major cinematic update went out the door, DE would actually look back, see the flaws with the older content, think "oh lord, we should probably revamp this" and actually do so, but alas they have never turned around, the last time I remember a true rework of something old was Deadlock Protocol replacing the old Corpus Tileset, but even that was done to accommodate new content (Granum Void, rescuing Solaris etc.), I cannot recall any time where they reworked old content simply out of love for the players, or because they felt they could improve it with new dev techniques that they didn't have before. if such a time happened, it was LONG ago.

I'm not expecting warframe to be any different Post-Duviri. but times like that, right after the major work on the major update is done, that is the golden opportunity to take a look at what you've created and how far you've come, and potentially see where players are coming from when they say that older content is neglected. if that opportunity isn't taken right there and then, they will end up focusing on what's next exclusively, and the cycle repeats.

it's peak irony that Duviri is all about spirals and repetition when DE are stuck in one themselves. but just like how Drifter created and owns Duviri, they OWN warframe, the area where their own "spiral" is taking place, and they can break out of it at any time they please, all they need to do is play like 30 minutes of older content and then think about what they saw and felt; that alone should be enough to spark the fires of creativity for how it can be improved. 

Perhaps it is pointless idealism of mine.  I am after all asking for the devs to put in a whole lot of work that I won't be taking part in (though I'd love to).

But, I agree with your sentiment here.  I completely agree that now, post-Duviri, is an excellent time for DE to look back at the older systems left for years, and taking a fresh look at them.  While I am asking for substantially more than that as a ground-up rewrite and while it would be quite a bit of work, I strongly think the payoff and result would be well worth it.

I agree that it metaphorically feels like the devs are stuck in a cycle of their own at the moment.  That instantly reminded me of when I was stuck with a story or two, and not sure how to proceed - it often benefited me greatly to re-approach the story again with the same ideas and plot points in mind. 

I think that the devs for Warframe would at first see this as a giant mountain to tackle at first, which is fair given how much stuff there is in Warframe.  However, once started, I strongly think that with the talent and people they have on staff now, the result would be far greater than we suspect.

3 hours ago, (XBOX)Upl0rdYT said:

I would suggest that you change the title to "Warframe should be rebuilt from the ground up like FFXIV was with a Realm Reborn"  as that would keep the confusion away from people reading your title.

Good point - and you're not the first to point it out.  I've edited the title for clarity.

[rhoenix]

3 hours ago, MouadSaqui said:

Judging by the replies I can say with confidence that any attempt for change to how content is being developed will be met with backlash, and people hating on you personally for saying you want Warframe to be a better game.

Bcs for the Majority of this community still think This game is Perfect. Saying you want DE to rework the game will trigger them, I used to write posts like this in the past and all I got is Warnings for ''Bashing on the developers'' and ''Play Other Games'' types of replies...

As for duviri paradox, it's by far the best update DE ever released that actually revamped how we play this game, I even thought about starting a new account just to play the new player experience, but still, DE need to take big risks and completely remove the old and embrace the new, things like daily caps and long crafting times should go away, it's doing nothing but driving away a big chunk of players that have short attention spans.

We also live in the days of twitch streaming and tiktok, DE can't should stop paying big content creators to play Warframe and instead make the game good for streaming to encourage players to stream it themselves.

DE also should stop alienating Veterans, make content that is worth their time and stop giving us excuses in devstreams.

If DE wants to make warframe better, all they have to do is stop making the new shiny thing, and instead fix the game.

Yeah, I knew the idea and post both were more than a little provocative.  However, at this point in the game's lifespan, I think it's well worth examining as an idea.   I also think it would encourage many people who've left to come back and give the game another try.

There are certain points of the game that causes people to leave (first seeing the mod system after the first mission, vets feeling like there's nothing further to do than fashionframe, etc.) that can be taken care of quite well if the rewrite approach is taken. 

The mods are a good idea for power scaling and growth, but the implementation could be made much more intuitive and impactful, without limiting build options.  Vet players would be attracted to the higher level raids/dungeons, even if they used The Circuit design from Duviri as a template for it.  The starmap can be made better, more dynamic with changing events, and tied in better to invasions and events happening in various places.

To use the old joke & cliche, "you can rebuild it, you have the technology!"

[(XBOX)AlingsasArrende]

Interesting idea and well-written posts, and I must say I admire your passion for the game.

7 minutes ago, rhoenix said:

The mods are a good idea for power scaling and growth, but the implementation could be made much more intuitive and impactful, without limiting build options.  Vet players would be attracted to the higher level raids/dungeons, even if they used The Circuit design from Duviri as a template for it.  The starmap can be made better, more dynamic with changing events, and tied in better to invasions and events happening in various places.

Here you start fleshing out a little bit more concretely what it is that you actually propose. Good, since even though your first post had me hooked, it left me wondering exactly what that type of remake or integration would entail. Perhaps it would serve the discussion to try to be more concrete and elaborate a bit on that?

[Felsagger]

Fine. let me not be a douchebag troll just for once. :D (sarcasm intended. :3)

 

A construction of the game should be made by stages on environments that are easy to control. I highly doubt if DE will drop their engine for Unreal engine 5.2. However a change of engine may help. Not always this is the case but if the rebuild of assets may take place, it should be a ground up construction on a new fresh engine that is scalable. If DE don't want to do that then how we should proceed? 

The obvious route is "lego building construction" where all the props are made beforehands like components of a machine if we think like an engineer. The assembly of the world you propose is valid but the market has a fierce force with the return of investment. If the move you propose doesn't provide green dollars, the whole idea remains a statue. I know you do not want that. The other component is the chronology and time stamps, say, for your story. Warframe has a good story that may admit a reset due to the idea of "eternalism". Reboot are plausible on a world settled by alternate ''parallel universes". 

Comic and manga writers uses and abuses this crutch. 

Should Warframe be an open world? Please by all means but with separated hubs for the classical missions and the limited corridor run/gun/slash that characterized the game. Could these levels become full open world experiences? DE established a tradition. You want to embrace that idea into your structure. Is it possible? Yes. Take a look at the game No Man Sky or take a look at the Game Horizon Zero Dawn with the cauldrons or even the game Everspace 2. You want an open world game/limited world map that provides both the flavor of openness and the restriction for your parkour. Horizon Burning shores tried but the game was not entirely successful. 

A tabula Rasa rebut YOU suggest is the same that KOJIMA is working with Death Stranding and now Death Stranding 2. He was bold enough to RESET the whole game entirely keeping the same assets while modifying some alternates in the proposed world. That will give him chance to modify, define and add the things he really wants for the franchise WITHOUT resting importance of Death Stranding 1. Developers may reset and reboot their franchises. That artistic license is valid. It happened before. It will continue happening in the future. You want an archetype model that sustain all the ideas you want but at the same time be careful enough not to lose track with your clients that helped you build the franchise. 

That is a tough task that requires ARCHITECTURE and ENGINEERING in game design. I don't know much about game design but I do know about architecture. The budget constraints are our rival always. If DE get the chance for a reboot their chance could be soulframe. But I think DE has a better chance in my opinion of course, if they stick with Warframe without throwing away the game play elements that made Warframe a good ride. If for some odd reason SoulFrame (I suggest a name change) expands and reboot Warframe, please do so. 

If you want to rebuild. You need a plan. If you have one please by all means let me read about it. That can make the conversation more fruitful for what you are looking for. I know your initial post gave a flavor of what you want.  

You guide the pace of the conversation.