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

[Felsagger]

32 minutes ago, rhoenix said:

Other ideas:

- Have a Tenno campaign ongoing to subvert Corpus and Grineer, and get them to join Tenno-friendly factions such as Perrin Sequence or Steel Meridian respectively.

- Give long-term, Tenno community projects where Tenno can contribute to friendly settlements like Cetus, Fortuna, and others - build up the town so it's better defended and more capable.  And, of course, give better rewards.

- Have ways of letting Tenno help create and strengthen ties between various friendly factions.  Joint projects between the Family on the Necrolisk and Fortuna for new technology (which would then result in new shinies for Tenno), establishing trade networks between them, defending transport convoy shipments using Railjacks - the options are endless here.

- use the Dark Sector missions on each planet as a gateway to exploring the unknown areas nobody has yet explored since the fall of the Orokin Empire.  Derelict towers, old vaults, old laboratories and prisons can all provide juicy opportunities.

 

That could be the next step for the game. I do understand if Steve and Pablo are a bit tired but there's a lot of material that is UNEXPLORED. Even simple things like duos of Warframe on auto pilot and tenno. Or even those ideas of switching schools on mods. Those are ideas that has NOTHING to do with power creep and innovative game play but can provide INNOVATION to a game that everybody knows. 

When the game is way large on many related systems, tiny tweaks can change the whole game to a new level. DE has more than five to seven years exploring these. If they run out of ideas with the Warframes, work with the weapons and take out the useless ones, DELETE THEM. If DE finds hard odds working with all the open worlds, why not focus on the ones that needs urgency or the most visited ones. 

DE can make a ton of money selling weapon sets that looks good and packs a punch. I am a complete sucker for great powerful heavy weapons and robotic capable nechramechs. Why not work with the Daikyu, the bow we all love and like. Why not work with the classical Katana and the variations or the flexible Chinese sword? When this game started everybody was speaking about martial arts and styles. Focus on that again on certain frames. 

I still like Ash and blade storm. Bring him back to his former glory with certain limitations providing the fun he had previously. Let those NINJA frames be NINJAS. I do not like being the ninja but others do. Keep these traditions while all the story of the lore unfolds. There is bench for further work, always. 

[rhoenix]

39 minutes ago, Felsagger said:

 

That could be the next step for the game. I do understand if Steve and Pablo are a bit tired but there's a lot of material that is UNEXPLORED. Even simple things like duos of Warframe on auto pilot and tenno. Or even those ideas of switching schools on mods. Those are ideas that has NOTHING to do with power creep and innovative game play but can provide INNOVATION to a game that everybody knows. 

When the game is way large on many related systems, tiny tweaks can change the whole game to a new level. DE has more than five to seven years exploring these. If they run out of ideas with the Warframes, work with the weapons and take out the useless ones, DELETE THEM. If DE finds hard odds working with all the open worlds, why not focus on the ones that needs urgency or the most visited ones. 

DE can make a ton of money selling weapon sets that looks good and packs a punch. I am a complete sucker for great powerful heavy weapons and robotic capable nechramechs. Why not work with the Daikyu, the bow we all love and like. Why not work with the classical Katana and the variations or the flexible Chinese sword? When this game started everybody was speaking about martial arts and styles. Focus on that again on certain frames. 

I still like Ash and blade storm. Bring him back to his former glory with certain limitations providing the fun he had previously. Let those NINJA frames be NINJAS. I do not like being the ninja but others do. Keep these traditions while all the story of the lore unfolds. There is bench for further work, always. 

To be honest, some of the weapons could just be made into variants of existing weapons.  In fact, being able to collect the various weapon parts of variations on a gun to make something new could be interesting.

Take the Strun, baseline.  It has Wraith and Prime variants; "patterns", essentially.  One could in theory rearrange the parts used (some Prime, some Wraith) to make your own custom version of the Strun.

[rhoenix]

For a bit of love for Teshin:  there's a way to expand Conclave (e.g. PvP) without going horribly sideways - which is, quite simply, make it a PvM competition between two squads.

Set a basic, multi-stage objective - like the taking possession of a ship idea posited earlier.  Stage 1 would be resetting the primary and secondary nav consoles (a mobile defense mission), Stage 2 would be gathering enemy troop attention while an NPC hijacks the primary computer core (10 min survival, ranked by # of kills), and Stage 3 would be to cause the engine core to overload (sabotage mission), and Stage 4 is exterminating the remaining troops, and then racing to extraction.

Completing a stage before the other team gives the option of making life harder for the competing team - letting you vote on increasing their enemy level, increasing the number of eximus spawns, or bringing a miniboss to their location.  Teams would be ranked by number of kills by total xp, number of eximus kills, number of miniboss kills, and time completing each stage.  In other words, the options to make life harder for the other team can actually help them get more points, if they play it smart.

The winning team would receive a selection of evergreen shinies as a reward.

[RichardKam]

FFXIV 1.0 was a total failure. That's why SE has to hire a new director to remake the entire game before player count drop to absolute zero.

Warframe on the other hand is a very successful business model and is making good money.

I don't think you understand the difference.

[rhoenix]

1 minute ago, RichardKam said:

FFXIV 1.0 was a total failure. That's why SE has to hire a new director to remake the entire game before player count drop to absolute zero.

Warframe on the other hand is a very successful business model and is making good money.

I don't think you understand the difference.

Meaning, in this case, "if it's not broke, don't fix it?"

I am not attempting to imply Warframe in its current form is a "total failure" for what it's worth, as you term the original FFXIV.  However, I have seen many players drop off the game, for common reasons.  I have seen updates spike player interest, only to have it drop right back down again after a week or three.  I have seen updates being targeted more and more at newer players, almost as an acknowledgement that player retention is an issue.

Given that Warframe is a live service sort of game with a wide variety of activities, and given that it has been expanded in exactly that fashion for the reason of giving players expanded choice, doesn't it therefore make sense to ensure that the product at hand can offer that same thing for players for an extended time?

If you agree to this, then might you also agree that these things can not only be fixed by adjustment of the systems involved with the pieces they already have, but done so in such a way as to provide a solid foundation for the rest?

I acknowledge that a ground-up rework is a drastic ask.  However, I think it would give them a chance to fix many underlying systems at once in a way that could easily be built on for years to come - both in terms of lore, systems, and other connective tissue for gameplay.

[RichardKam]

1小时前 , rhoenix 说:

Meaning, in this case, "if it's not broke, don't fix it?"

I am not attempting to imply Warframe in its current form is a "total failure" for what it's worth, as you term the original FFXIV.  However, I have seen many players drop off the game, for common reasons.  I have seen updates spike player interest, only to have it drop right back down again after a week or three.  I have seen updates being targeted more and more at newer players, almost as an acknowledgement that player retention is an issue.

Given that Warframe is a live service sort of game with a wide variety of activities, and given that it has been expanded in exactly that fashion for the reason of giving players expanded choice, doesn't it therefore make sense to ensure that the product at hand can offer that same thing for players for an extended time?

If you agree to this, then might you also agree that these things can not only be fixed by adjustment of the systems involved with the pieces they already have, but done so in such a way as to provide a solid foundation for the rest?

I acknowledge that a ground-up rework is a drastic ask.  However, I think it would give them a chance to fix many underlying systems at once in a way that could easily be built on for years to come - both in terms of lore, systems, and other connective tissue for gameplay.

My point is that, FFXIV 1.0 was dead on arrival. The core system was broken beyond salvation and I am not talking about game balance. It was something far more fundamental like interface, functionalities, connectivity (eg you need to sync client and server every time you open your inventory). The development team knew nothing about MMO (the team leader had never played any MMO in his life, not even WoW). That's why SE can do a rework - both in terms of business interest and gameplay experience. The game was dead anyway, and SE cannot afford to admit defeat in their first attempt of large scale MMO FF franchise. Realm Reborn is basically a new game made by a new dev team.

Warframe on the other hand is a 10 year old service game. The business model is good. The game is enjoyed by a substantial and sustainable number of players - sustainable is the key word here. There is no strong reason for a complete revamp.

So, if you are asking for a rework, FFXIV is a very poor example to support your argument because these two are like apple and orange. 

1小时前 , rhoenix 说:

Meaning, in this case, "if it's not broke, don't fix it?"

In the world of business, yeah. I will go further to say this: if it's not broke, don't even touch it. 

The road to hell is paved with good intention, especially when the "good intention" is merely a subjective opinion. A one-sided total rework of Warframe will almost certainly be the death of this game. Old players leaving en masse - our builds become useless, our investment are all for nothing, give me back my forma and potato, this is not the game I enjoy anymore - and new players not giving a damn. 

I have seen countless posts asking for game rework and you are not the first one here. I say again. The game is currently enjoyed by a substantial and sustainable number of players in its current state. Over 10 years this game gradually evolved into this chaotic good mess. You may not like it, but it is still enjoyed by many. At the very least, all the forum or reddit or youtube about Warframe are not filled by complains or hates. 

Maybe you can do some adjustments here and there. Mod balance. Frame rework. Something like that. But total rework? No.

[rhoenix]

37 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

Warframe on the other hand is a 10 year old service game. The business model is good. The game is enjoyed by a substantial and sustainable number of players - sustainable is the key word here. There is no strong reason for a complete revamp.

So, if you are asking for a rework, FFXIV is a very poor example to support your argument because these two are like apple and orange. 

Observe the last 7 days of Warframe traffic, as per Steam, and please tell me what you see:  https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#7d

Now, compare to the past year overall:  https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#1y

The numbers here quite clearly indicate a playerbase that briefly comes back only for updates, and then don't come back until the next one. You can even match the traffic spikes to release dates.  April 26th was the release date for Duviri, spiking up to 115k players.  Now, it's dwindled back down to half that.

Those do not appear to be sustainable numbers, nor does it indicate an active playerbase as substantial as one might think.

This is the heart of my concern.  I see the playerbase dwindling more and more over the years, with new players mostly, but not entirely sustaining the loss of players leaving.  This is a trend that has continued now for years.  The issue, of course, is how to combat this.

Now, you're quite welcome to draw issue with my comparison to FFXIV - I fully acknowledge it's not a great comparison.  However, it was the best metaphor I could think of at the time to get across my point, regardless of its direct accuracy.

37 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

In the world of business, yeah. I will go further to say this: if it's not broke, don't even touch it. 

The road to hell is paved with good intention, especially when the "good intention" is merely a subjective opinion. A one-sided total rework of Warframe will almost certainly be the death of this game. Old players leaving en masse - our builds become useless, our investment are all for nothing, give me back my forma and potato, this is not the game I enjoy anymore - and new players not giving a damn. 

I have seen countless posts asking for game rework and you are not the first one here. I say again. The game is currently enjoyed by a substantial and sustainable number of players in its current state. Over 10 years this game gradually evolved into this chaotic good mess. You may not like it, but it is still enjoyed by many. At the very least, all the forum or reddit or youtube about Warframe are not filled by complains or hates. 

Maybe you can do some adjustments here and there. Mod balance. Frame rework. Something like that. But total rework? No.

Can the dev team approach these issues singly?  Certainly.  In fact, in the end, I'm expecting them to do so, despite the idea that I think a rework would be a better and more holistic approach.

The issue isn't that commentary about Warframe is filled with hate, it's that commentary has become indifferent or entirely nonexistent - which in my mind is far, far worse.  As the saying goes, the opposite of love isn't hate - it's indifference.  That's what I am seeing about Warframe currently, more often than not - when the game is mentioned, people roll their eyes, make jokes about all the issues DE won't address, and instead play other games.  You can observe this in traffic form in the charts above.

As for your point about players getting mad about changes about forma and such, that's a rather solvable problem in returning the resources expended, or their equivalents if they're somehow replaced with something else.  As long as players feel recompensed for their loss without feeling like they're getting sneering looks and pats on the head, I don't think the playerbase at large would be too upset, as long as the rest of the things to expend resources on felt at least as impactful to do, if not more.

Thank you at least for acknowledging that this game we both enjoy can be termed a "chaotic good mess," which is a description I agree with.  This is precisely what I am attempting to address with the ideas contained in this thread.

Now, finally, I have to ask - do you honestly think I wrote out the original post topic, and made all these replies in the fashion I did because I don't like Warframe?

 

[RichardKam]

9分钟前 , rhoenix 说:

Observe the last 7 days of Warframe traffic, as per Steam, and please tell me what you see:  https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#7d

Now, compare to the past year overall:  https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#1y

The numbers here quite clearly indicate a playerbase that briefly comes back only for updates, and then don't come back until the next one. You can even match the traffic spikes to release dates.  April 26th was the release date for Duviri, spiking up to 115k players.  Now, it's dwindled back down to half that.

Those do not appear to be sustainable numbers, nor does it indicate an active playerbase as substantial as one might think.

This is the heart of my concern.  I see the playerbase dwindling more and more over the years, with new players mostly, but not entirely sustaining the loss of players leaving.  This is a trend that has continued now for years.  The issue, of course, is how to combat this.

Don't think too much about player numbers when the company was making good money. 

Beside, isn't that expected? They stated clearly in DevStream that they don't expect players to stay all days. Hence all the daily standing cap and "1 per day" purchasing. That's how their business model works.

50分钟前 , rhoenix 说:

The issue isn't that commentary about Warframe is filled with hate, it's that commentary has become indifferent or entirely nonexistent - which in my mind is far, far worse.  As the saying goes, the opposite of love isn't hate - it's indifference.  That's what I am seeing about Warframe currently, more often than not - when the game is mentioned, people roll their eyes, make jokes about all the issues DE won't address, and instead play other games.  You can observe this in traffic form in the charts above.

As for your point about players getting mad about changes about forma and such, that's a rather solvable problem in returning the resources expended, or their equivalents if they're somehow replaced with something else.  As long as players feel recompensed for their loss without feeling like they're getting sneering looks and pats on the head, I don't think the playerbase at large would be too upset, as long as the rest of the things to expend resources on felt at least as impactful to do, if not more.

Thank you at least for acknowledging that this game we both enjoy can be termed a "chaotic good mess," which is a description I agree with.  This is precisely what I am attempting to address with the ideas contained in this thread.

Now, finally, I have to ask - do you honestly think I wrote out the original post topic, and made all these replies in the fashion I did because I don't like Warframe?

Gaming is an entertainment. You prefer this, while I prefer that, others feel nothing. There is no right or wrong. I won't argue with preference. 

Just that a total rework will not work the way you wanted. It won't be the magic bullet you are looking for. It will do more harm than good to this game at this stage. 

That's why Soulframe.

[rhoenix]

29 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

Don't think too much about player numbers when the company was making good money. 

Given that this is a F2P model game, I'd say it matters quite a bit.  If one presumes that 5% of a given playerbase spends the most amount of money, for example, doesn't it then make sense to want the total number of players to be larger?

29 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

Just that a total rework will not work the way you wanted. It won't be the magic bullet you are looking for. It will do more harm than good to this game at this stage.

Maybe you're right - I can certainly grant that possibility.  That if DE does precisely what I suggest as a ground-up rework, it would have an effect entirely counter to that which I've been expressing in this thread, despite my arguments to the contrary. 

However, as I've said once or twice before in this thread, my realistic expectation is actually that DE overhauls things progressively through updates as a result of all this feedback, rather than a ground-up rework as I'm asking for.  I'd actually be just fine with that - as long as all of these things get addressed. 

My hope of course is that they dial it up to 11, shift into fifth gear, and go for the full ground-up rework, since I think the result would be better. :)

 

[Atsia]

On 2023-05-02 at 10:44 PM, rhoenix said:

The numbers here quite clearly indicate a playerbase that briefly comes back only for updates, and then don't come back until the next one. You can even match the traffic spikes to release dates.  April 26th was the release date for Duviri, spiking up to 115k players.  Now, it's dwindled back down to half that.

Those do not appear to be sustainable numbers, nor does it indicate an active playerbase as substantial as one might think.

For Warframe, it does. You don't look at the spikes, you look at the average. 60k to 70k is where WF has always been, fluctuating down when things are slow, and going up when there's an update. DE is well aware of people only check out an update before leaving again. They aren't trying to keep those numbers, they're trying to make sure the people that actually play stick around, which they're excelling at.

[rhoenix]

26 minutes ago, Atsia said:

For Warframe, it does. You don't look at the spikes, you look at the average. 60k to 70k is where WF has always been, fluctuating down when things are slow, and going up when there's an update. DE is well aware of people only check out an update before leaving again. They aren't trying to keep those numbers, they're trying to make sure the people that actually play stick around, which they're excelling at.

There is another interpretation of the same numbers.

Which is that the number of people no longer playing over time are replaced relatively equally by newer players.  This is also called "zero population growth." 

This is also observable in the points between peaks consistently lowering over time, indicating a developed populace that plays consistently for a while, and then either only comes back during updates, or doesn't come back at all.  This is cyclical, as indicated in the graphs seen over more than one year.  This also logically explains the emphasis DE tends to give to newer players and the relatively early-game experience.

The reasons for every data point in that cycle are observable and quantifiable.  Moreover, they are resolvable.

Overall, despite my yelling to the sky about reworks, here's what I actually see that would resolve many of the observed issues I see with various points in the game, that would result in players being willing to stay longer, and player growth to rise above zero:

- Make modding simpler and much more intuitive, while preserving player choice. (this resolves the major reason people ditch the game after getting to their orbiter, and seeing their Arsenal).

- Make the planetary maps more dynamic, with fewer active nodes at a time, and each one feeding into either an invasion mechanic, a quest mechanic, or an optional unlock mechanic.  Each node on a planetary map should not only provide the gameplay we all know and love, but should be impactful to events on the planet or in the system in some way.

- Make the various extra capabilities of the Tenno (e.g. Archwing, Railjack, Necromech, etc.) have impact on mission decision, beyond just choosing from a specific set of special missions.  My suggestion for this was to allow for different deployment options for existing missions, depending on the vehicles available, but there are a number of ways to approach this.

- Make weapons less overwhelming in number, while preserving player taste and choice beyond just cosmetics.  This can easily be done by setting up various weapons as having "patterns" for example, such as the Strun having the Wraith or Prime pattern available, each with different variations on stats.  Similar in idea to the Arcane Helmets, but for gun stats.  This setup can even replace the need for damage mods entirely, if players are also allowed to swap out gun parts like barrel and stock.

- Give more challenging content per planet, and overall.  Dungeons, Raids, giant monster fights - the options for doing this are endless, but should be available to players as optional content at all levels of storyline and play.

- Have more impact for various factions, which ties into planetary maps above.  This includes elevating the Invasion mechanic to actually creating quests and alerts, allowing friendly factions (Solaris, Cetus, etc.) to generate their own alerts; essentially to show that the various enemy and friendly factions are doing things on their own all the time - the Tenno get to be the Ace card on a given conflict if they choose.

[Felsagger]

1 hour ago, Atsia said:

For Warframe, it does. You don't look at the spikes, you look at the average. 60k to 70k is where WF has always been, fluctuating down when things are slow, and going up when there's an update. DE is well aware of people only check out an update before leaving again. They aren't trying to keep those numbers, they're trying to make sure the people that actually play stick around, which they're excelling at.

 

Warframe is a cumulative game. DE knows that not everybody sticks with it. Not everybody has the time to it and not everybody understand the player assisted model. These are things that DE understands well. 

This game is NEVER free despite if entry costs are zero. This game is dangerous too in a way that builds up some sort of attachment and even such attachment could become addiction. DE knows this too well. 

DE knows that their skillset is not at the level of pro developers such as Guerrilla Games, From Software, Santa Monica, Kojima Production, Sucker Punch, Insomniac or Rockstar. They are sophomores all the time finding comfort on a model that helps them stay afloat during good and bad times. They found a business model and a set of players with a particular mindset. DE went multi platform for that exact reason. 

I left the game for a long while in a hiatus and probably will come back at it one day, probably. This is a game that requires a lot of dedication. Adult responsibilities makes me push it sideways or even to the shelves. 

Their average game is the statistical average of games that are out there. It's not that great but is not bad. 

 

[rhoenix]

There - added some examples to the original post, so people don't have to hunt through several pages to find it.

[rhoenix]

To try turning this more into a positive, I've begun making specific feedback posts about the changes I've mentioned in this thread.  I welcome your feedback and ideas.

Dynamic Planets & Invasions: 

 

Charging the Keep (Dungeon example):

 

Weapon Damage & Mods change:

And now, my pleas to the heavens for more giant monsters for Tenno to bring down: 

And lastly, for suggestions regarding the Operator, the Drifter, and their effect via Transference for Warframes: 

 

[Packetdancer]

This is a first, Rhoenix. I think you've managed to create a thread where I actually fundamentally disagree with you.

Well... okay, maybe not entirely fundamentally, but I definitely disagree with the core premise as stated in the thread title.

First off, speaking as both a Warframe player and a survivor of FFXIV 1.0, when folks say that Warframe's current state -- as unfriendly or unintuitive as it might be to newcomers -- is nowhere near as bad as the worst parts of FFXIV 1.0, trust me when I say they are not wrong. I've said before that FFXIV 1.0 was a collection of a few interesting ideas (many of which were badly implemented), some unbelievably terrible ideas (many of which were also badly implemented), strung together by a tangled mess of jank and questionable technical choices. It was a disaster.

(It's just a disaster we can maybe be a tiny bit nostalgic for now, from the safe distance of more than a decade away. It's been long enough that the trauma has mostly healed.)

The reboot into A Realm Reborn involved not just firing the entire team and throwing out the game, but was an effort so intense that the new team nearly killed themselves working an insane schedule to bring out an entire new MMO in unheard-of time. (Which is actually evidently why Yoshi-P is now allegedly very protective of his team, and will guard them against external pressures to work overtime.) And there are decisions that were made hastily as a result that we're still paying off some technical debt for even now, a decade later.

It was a success, yes, but it was one where the team stumbled half-dead across the finish line and collapsed, barely able to function, and praying that things didn't fall over and catch fire. They were so burned out that they had to keep stalling on Heavensward, which is evidently a factor in why the pacing on the content between ARR and Heavensward is legendarily slow/bad, even after they've gone back and tried to retroactively tighten it up.

FFXIV's phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes of its earlier incarnation makes for a great story about a game reinventing itself, that's indisputable. And while I know you are not arguing to literally emulate that process... I would still argue very strongly that it is not a model that anyone sane should attempt to emulate, even in the most abstract of senses.

Especially as Warframe is not in any state that's remotely dire enough to warrant even a fraction of that sort of madness.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way...

I think almost every Warframe player would agree with you fairly unanimously on two main points: first, the entirety of the Arsenal system is daunting and wildly unfriendly to a new player, and second, the game is full of disconnected content islands -- both in terms of systems and in terms of story -- that would be nice to see more synergy between. I think most of us would also agree that seeing those things change would be really, really great.

But I categorically disagree that making those changes requires anything even remotely beginning to approach the level of a Realm Reborn-level rework.

There's been a lot of really good ideas tossed back and forth (including by you!) about how the various factions could be tied together, or how various missions could be reworked. I think a lot of those are quite good, so I'm going to just focus on the Arsenal, and how it could be simplified.

Right now, there are several significant problems with the Arsenal, even before we get into the mod system. (Which I could write a whole separate post on, but I'm not sure I have the energy to write that right now, and I really doubt any of you have the energy to read a second one of my lengthy posts.)

To touch on just a couple examples...

A huge one is that there's no way to get slots short of paying platinum or Nightwave rewards; that's one wall I've seen a lot of early players bounce off of, since they tend to hit it right when they're getting enthusiastic about trying out some new frame or weapon, but when they're far too early in the game to have anything worth trading for plat to speak of. Yes, slots are almost certainly a major driver for plat purchases, but either new players ought to have a few more slots than they do, or there ought to be some more consistent way than just "watch for Nightwave rewards and then grind" for them to earn a few extra slots. Early game is when you are most in need of a couple more, when you're trying to figure out exactly what the heck it is you want to play!

Another is that the fact that you don't just 'unlock' a frame is not clear to many players. This is not helped by the fact that the Arsenal shows a list of all the frames you have, followed by a list of all the market-available ones you don't. You don't have Nova? It shows Nova there, for plat! You do get a Nova? Nova disappears from the end of the list! Based on these UX cues and general experience in basically every other modern game, this looks a heck of a lot like a checklist, where it's a "have you unlocked this yes/no" collection.

As a result, I have encountered more than a few newbie players who do not realize that it's possible to have duplicate frames or weapons, and who get confused if they do end up with a duplicate, thinking it's a bug. Or who think that if they sell off a frame to get a slot back to try a new one, that if they then get the frame again it's just 'getting back' an unlocked thing and that their progression on the frame will have been maintained, because the slots are just "how many can I have available to use right now".

To veteran Warframe players, it's obvious that things don't work this way; to people who are fresh to the game, though, I'm not sure there's actually anywhere that makes any of this clear to them. (And if there is, they're probably already in the middle of information overload when it does.)

And the thing is, as much as I would love a redesign of the Arsenal at a fundamental level -- and a way to make engaging with the complexities of the mod system optional, as we've discussed in another thread -- I think you can make a substantial difference right now to that new player experience even just with some QoL changes that make the UX less confusing to new players.

(Especially if you also give them an obvious path to get a few more slots to experiment with things in those early "oooh, and I could try this!" days.)

And if you look at the two? I'm not convinced the difference in effort in a complete redesign of the Arsenal, versus even quality-of-life changes and improvements to existing systems that would be far more extensive than the ones I suggest here, would actually result in a proportionally equivalent gain. A full redesign is a much bigger investment of time and resources, for a payoff that is quite possibly only marginally greater.

And that, when you get down to it, is the reason I disagree: I think that's the calculation pretty much regardless of which thing you look at, be it the Arsenal or any other portion of the game.

As a systems engineer, I'm all for redesigns that give you better foundations to build on. But in this case, I just don't think the cost/benefit analysis there comes out at all in favor of an ARR-style rebuild, not when there's so many things that can be done to make such a big difference with what we have now.

tl;dr and to use an analogy... I agree wholeheartedly that it would be nice to remodel the house. I'm just not sure I think we need to bulldoze it and redo the foundations, as opposed to remodeling what's already here. Or that we could even justify doing so, when a lot of the changes could work by knocking down the interior walls and redoing the interior layout, as it were.

[MagPrime]

On 2023-05-01 at 4:38 PM, rhoenix said:

I say this with love, as a player who has enjoyed Warframe for nigh on a decade now.

Warframe has continued as a living project by constantly moving forward, constantly adding new things to try.  All the pieces added are individually very well done, but only loosely connected.  Moreover, it strongly appears that players have no real higher-end (e.g. "endgame" content, apart from Steel Path.

Each and every piece, on its own, makes sense and is well-crafted.  In context with the others however, they resemble a badly-fitted bunch of puzzle pieces.  You have all the basic lore of what happened when and where (and if you don't, then it should be easy enough to write out), and you have the excellent gameplay that has kept Warframe going for many years.

Duviri on its own is very good, but its incongruity with the rest of the game makes the other incongruous pieces stand out that much more starkly.

For whatever you might think of Final Fantasy 14, the developers redesigned the game from the ground up, turning it into an outstanding experience that to this day garners a substantial playerbase - a playerbase which notably and markedly increased after their remake was done. 

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 most certainly have the talent, the lore to work with, the added features other games just don't have (such as Archwing and Railjack), and the gameplay that rivals that of Destiny 2 directly - and in quite a few cases, much better.  For one thing, after playing Warframe for a bit, Destiny 2 feels very... slow.

The game can be remade with these pieces, using the excellent programming, artistic, musical, and sound talents you have on staff to turn these many different pieces into a vast, interwoven ocean of content.  The planetary mission map, the mods system, Focus system, Drifter Intrinsics, Railjack mods and parts, and Archwing mods and parts all have potential to be great, but in their current forms feel only loosely connected to one another and to gameplay.

The Orowyrm proves you can do multi-stage, cinematic boss-fights, and do them well. The Orb mothers on Venus can be expanded, other Sentient Eidolon weapon remnants left over from the New War could be walking around.  Multi-stage Raids (which, let's be fair - they'd be essentially higher-level multi-stage Bounty missions), even four-player ones, can make for more challenging content at all levels of play.  These are but examples - but veteran players should have content for them too, with corresponding rewards for completing them.

Warframe is now a living, adapting game unlike any other, and has the potential to be a living, breathing vast game universe better than any other.  If you take the time to take the pieces you have for the game, and rework them with the talent and skill you have on staff today, I feel very confident in saying that not only will the playerbase be very interested, but many players who tried it and left will be encouraged to come back.  This would reinvigorate many people to spread this by word of mouth and online, ensuring that ripples cast into the ocean rapidly become waves.

I thank you for reading.  Please take my words here for whatever they're worth to you, and I wish you a good day.

EDIT:  Fixed title for clarity, at the suggestion of several.

EDIT2, on 5/4:  Examples of changes requested are as follows:

- Make modding simpler and much more intuitive, while preserving player choice. (this resolves the major reason people ditch the game after getting to their orbiter, and seeing their Arsenal).

- Make the planetary maps more dynamic, with fewer active nodes at a time, and each one feeding into either an invasion mechanic, a quest mechanic, or an optional unlock mechanic.  Each node on a planetary map should not only provide the gameplay we all know and love, but should be impactful to events on the planet or in the system in some way.

- Make the various extra capabilities of the Tenno (e.g. Archwing, Railjack, Necromech, etc.) have impact on mission decision, beyond just choosing from a specific set of special missions.  My suggestion for this was to allow for different deployment options for existing missions, depending on the vehicles available, but there are a number of ways to approach this.

- Make weapons less overwhelming in number, while preserving player taste and choice beyond just cosmetics.  This can easily be done by setting up various weapons as having "patterns" for example, such as the Strun having the Wraith or Prime pattern available, each with different variations on stats.  Similar in idea to the Arcane Helmets, but for gun stats.  This setup can even replace the need for damage mods entirely, if players are also allowed to swap out gun parts like barrel and stock.

- Give more challenging content per planet, and overall.  Dungeons, Raids, giant monster fights - the options for doing this are endless, but should be available to players as optional content at all levels of storyline and play.

- Have more impact for various factions, which ties into planetary maps above.  This includes elevating the Invasion mechanic to actually creating quests and alerts, allowing friendly factions (Solaris, Cetus, etc.) to generate their own alerts; essentially to show that the various enemy and friendly factions are doing things on their own all the time - the Tenno get to be the Ace card on a given conflict if they choose.

- Focus 3.0.  The rework was overall a good improvement over Focus 1.0, and the reworked trees were a vast improvement over the original.  However, currently the system feels very out of place with everything else.  Lore-wise, it references schools with the same names as types of mods we have, but there's no other connection or explanation.  Now with the Drifter included, this feels even more out of place.  My request here is to either have School choice influence mods in some way (e.g. allowing you to shift a mod's polarity from Naramon to Vazarin, getting a minor stat change in the process), having the active School influence passive stats of your active Warframe in a more direct fashion, or otherwise have School choice have impact beyond just active School.

I am surprisingly in favor of a Final Fantasy like rebuild. 

[rhoenix]

24 minutes ago, Packetdancer said:

l;dr and to use an analogy... I agree wholeheartedly that it would be nice to remodel the house. I'm just not sure I think we need to bulldoze it and redo the foundations, as opposed to remodeling what's already here. Or that we could even justify doing so, when a lot of the changes could work by knocking down the interior walls and redoing the interior layout, as it were.

Amusingly enough, I had mostly arrived at the same conclusion - my post right above yours includes links to the various ways in which I'm suggesting the main things be accomplished - the Dungeons thing, Moar Monsters, Factions & Navigation, etc.

Because essentially, you're right - most of the basics are good and solid, and the things that aren't don't necessarily suggest rebuilding the entire house.  The ones that do are fairly major, but can be approached singly, as long as there's holistic connections made in mind.

EDIT:  I also agree with you that the Arsenal needs a redesign.  However... I honestly don't have a great idea for that one yet.  If you do, by all means post it and I can link it above.

[rhoenix]

28 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

I am surprisingly in favor of a Final Fantasy like rebuild. 

Thank you!  As others have noted, a full house rebuild isn't necessarily required to resolve the issues at hand.  While it would likely be easier to do in a holistic fashion, it would also be impractical given that it's already an active game.

So, I was happy to leave threads all over the Feedback forum for the specifics I thought of, and others helped me flesh out during the course of this thread.  I would welcome your (and of course anyone else's) thoughts on those ideas as well.

[Packetdancer]

10 minutes ago, rhoenix said:

Amusingly enough, I had mostly arrived at the same conclusion - my post right above yours includes links to the various ways in which I'm suggesting the main things be accomplished - the Dungeons thing, Moar Monsters, Factions & Navigation, etc.

*laugh*

One of the occasional downsides of sometimes being Wordy as All Heck... you start a post, realize it's long, put it aside for later, finish it the next day, and don't notice the person's decided to agree with you in the meantime. 😅

As for the Arsenal... yeah. The Arsenal is... uhm. It's... a thing. That exists. And... probably needs to... not exist in this current form? Somehow?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Making it so you have an alternative to needing to mod things is easy enough, but that just lets you sort of try to ignore the Arsenal system. The problem is that the Arsenal is still this hungry monster, you've just locked it in a closet to pretend it's not there. But as soon as you decide you want to do any tweaking or customization, you open the closet door (go to use the Arsenal), and the monster still eats you.

I ain't got a good answer to that one, yet.

[rhoenix]

1 minute ago, Packetdancer said:

*laugh*

One of the occasional downsides of sometimes being Wordy as All Heck... you start a post, realize it's long, put it aside for later, finish it the next day, and don't notice the person's decided to agree with you in the meantime. 😅

As for the Arsenal... yeah. The Arsenal is... uhm. It's... a thing. That exists. And... probably needs to... not exist in this current form? Somehow?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Making it so you have an alternative to needing to mod things is easy enough, but that just lets you sort of try to ignore the Arsenal system. The problem is that the Arsenal is still this hungry monster, you've just locked it in a closet to pretend it's not there. But as soon as you decide you want to do any tweaking or customization, you open the closet door (go to use the Arsenal), and the monster still eats you.

I ain't got a good answer to that one, yet.

I made one thread for weapons and damage mod scaling, which I posted above - but I'm not at all happy with it, mainly because it adds more complexity to solve an issue with complexity.  If you have a better idea, the floor is most certainly yours. :D

[Felsagger]

A full reconstruction is a big risk. Could it work? Probably yes. I'm sure that a new engine like the Unreal engine 5.2 will do some good to the franchise. That is if DE reboots with the Warframes. 

I think that a gradual transition may take place in few years. Right now DE is not going to kick the bucket yet with Warframe 1. 

[Packetdancer]

1 minute ago, rhoenix said:

I made one thread for weapons and damage mod scaling, which I posted above - but I'm not at all happy with it, mainly because it adds more complexity to solve an issue with complexity.  If you have a better idea, the floor is most certainly yours. :D

Anything else aside, I do still think expanding on Duviri's "Default Mods" concept is an easy win. It doesn't solve the Arsenal problem, but it kicks the can down the road a bit and sure as heck reduces the information overload factor for newer players in the meantime.

After all, we have default mods for basically everything now as a result of Duviri, so you just make that an option you can pick outside of Duviri. Now when you get a frame or a weapon, you have this 'Default' mode for it, and if you wish to use the existing Arsenal system it's the 'Advanced' mode where you get to customize the functionality, feel, and performance -- like opening the hood and tinkering with a car's innards.

Moreover, the Default Mods setup is viable, unlike the [ ORDIS DID NOT REALIZE THE OPERATOR KNEW THAT PARTICULAR GRINEER PROFANITY; THE PHRASE HAS BEEN REMOVED FOR THE SAKE OF POLITE COMPANY ] generated by the Install Mods automatic functionality in the Arsenal; you could almost certainly use the Default mode and know that it'll be up to the task of pretty much all the normal star chart content. But it isn't going to blow the doors off anything, so there's still benefit to diving into the "advanced" mode and optimizing.

And because it's both average and not customizable -- with the defaults, you get what you get -- I don't think it's particularly problematic that it functionally gives people mods which they don't actually have.

Like I said, that doesn't remotely solve the problems with the Arsenal, but it sure makes it a lot easier on many players who don't enjoy the mod system or find it actively confusing/stressful. And, bonus: it's code that seems to be pretty much already here, so it's (probably) not a huge amount of time/effort to tie in as at least an interim improvement.

[rhoenix]

1 minute ago, Packetdancer said:

Anything else aside, I do still think expanding on Duviri's "Default Mods" concept is an easy win. It doesn't solve the Arsenal problem, but it kicks the can down the road a bit and sure as heck reduces the information overload factor for newer players in the meantime.

After all, we have default mods for basically everything now as a result of Duviri, so you just make that an option you can pick outside of Duviri. Now when you get a frame or a weapon, you have this 'Default' mode for it, and if you wish to use the existing Arsenal system it's the 'Advanced' mode where you get to customize the functionality, feel, and performance -- like opening the hood and tinkering with a car's innards.

Moreover, the Default Mods setup is viable, unlike the [ ORDIS DID NOT REALIZE THE OPERATOR KNEW THAT PARTICULAR GRINEER PROFANITY; THE PHRASE HAS BEEN REMOVED FOR THE SAKE OF POLITE COMPANY ] generated by the Install Mods automatic functionality in the Arsenal; you could almost certainly use the Default mode and know that it'll be up to the task of pretty much all the normal star chart content. But it isn't going to blow the doors off anything, so there's still benefit to diving into the "advanced" mode and optimizing.

And because it's both average and not customizable -- with the defaults, you get what you get -- I don't think it's particularly problematic that it functionally gives people mods which they don't actually have.

Like I said, that doesn't remotely solve the problems with the Arsenal, but it sure makes it a lot easier on many players who don't enjoy the mod system or find it actively confusing/stressful. And, bonus: it's code that seems to be pretty much already here, so it's (probably) not a huge amount of time/effort to tie in as at least an interim improvement.

I can easily grant this point.  Granting players default loadouts for these weapons works as a bandaid, at least until a longer-term solution is found - since exactly, Duviri already has the code for it.

But... it also suggests that the Arsenal and how weapons are modded really needs a strong epic overhaul as a punchline.

[Packetdancer]

1 minute ago, rhoenix said:

But... it also suggests that the Arsenal and how weapons are modded really needs a strong epic overhaul as a punchline.

I feel like at this point, anyone who doesn't think the Arsenal needs some sort of significant overhaul hasn't been paying attention to any new player "help how do I even wtf is this" type threads that crop up. 😔

[rhoenix]

19 minutes ago, Packetdancer said:

I feel like at this point, anyone who doesn't think the Arsenal needs some sort of significant overhaul hasn't been paying attention to any new player "help how do I even wtf is this" type threads that crop up. 😔

I remember watching Josh Strife Hayes' video on Warframe, and the part where he described multiple players outright quitting and uninstalling the game when they got to the Arsenal modding screen for the first time... yeesh.  It hurt my soul, since I've spoken to multiple friends with the exact same view, or related ones.