We need hard endgame content so people have a reason to farm all these stuff.

[Silligoose]

On 2023-07-31 at 11:23 AM, juanmolero said:

Hi guys, let me know if you agree with me on this.

 

We need really hard endgame content, I'm thinking like 2 to 4 really hard bosses with group mechanics, no self revives, and longer times to get revived from friends, these bosses need to have a mechanic that doesn't let underlevel people get carried, like separatings people into different instances and have them kill all mobs or complete a task that only someone that's fully geared can complete. Get some oneshot mechanics with good telegraphed attacks, make these fights long, with minions, and various mechanics, with new art for these bosses so they feel different, new and more distinguised/important than the rest. Get them to have a really really specific drop pool, with really strong items so we feel rewarded.

 

But the most important thing is, like I said, to make them difficult enough that it even takes several tries to the most veteran people that have the most op setups. So that everyone that leaves the game because there is simply no reason to farm and put these 3000h needed to fully gear yourself other than to look cooler or oneshot mobs after being 2h in a survival mission.

 

The majority of people get to really fast to a part of the game where you basically become brainless because you oneshot everything that's not level 300+, and the end of the day, only a really small portion of the game's population stay in survival missions after 30min.

Difficult content would be great if it can be achieved without erosion the game's mechanics and gameplay as we tend to see. Current Archon fights in Archon Hunts are examples of content in which various options to players are completely nullified in order to make the game harder, but it is also an example of low effort content in which far too many mechanics are sacrificed in an attempt to increase difficulty. Overguard is another example of an attempt at more difficult content, but again comes with the erosion of gameplay, seeing as how it completely nullifies damage type, as well as completely negating certain forms of cc.

In order for DE to present good, quality content, a good, engaging endgame, they would need to rebalance certain mechanics far better than their recent attempts, so said mechanics still have value, but doesn't completely trivialize content eg you can't have something like effective immortality forever in your game and still expect bosses to be some sort of threat. You can't allow players to stunlock your difficult content forever, but shouldn't then go and make enemies completely immune to stuns from the get-go either.

Their attempts at more challenging content has been rather poor, given how many mechanics they are willing to give up in an attempt to present more challenging content. 

[juanmolero]

Like I said they can also put these new bosses in a new planet/dimension and have mods display how they work differently in this new planet/dimension.

[Els236]

Le 31/07/2023 à 10:23, juanmolero a dit :

Get them to have a really really specific drop pool, with really strong items so we feel rewarded.

So, ultra-strong, epic boss fights that take the best of the best kind of gear to complete - then reward players with even more broken, OP stuff.

That "stuff" will then be used to cheese this brand new, ultra-high end content... and... we're back to square one again, where everything is ultra easy-peasy mode. 

[Els236]

Le 02/08/2023 à 04:31, CrownOfShadows a dit :

It's the dream man, we support it, we're actually with you, you're preaching to the choir. We're just not the majority, and the majority pays the bills.

We've been asking for years for difficulty spikes. We got SP, we got eximus overhaul, we got archons, we got undercroft -- all steps in the right direction, but we also got an avalanche of new power creep that rendered it all meaningless. As if we weren't boosted enough, here comes warframe overguard. They're too scared of alienating the majority. Just look at all the backlash still happening for eximus. The warframe playerbase is mindless and pathetic, and there's nothing I can think of that we can do about that.

Steel Path is not what anyone really wanted. The same, boring, tired old star-chart for the second time with enemies just having 100 levels slapped onto them - but with zero changes to the drop tables - yeah, no. Admittedly it was kind of fun when it first came out, but obviously everyone abused the extra material drop-rates and spent hours in certain survivals to get millions of resources and hundreds (if not thousands) of Steel Essence to then buy ridiculous amounts of Kuva. So, of course DE nerfed that now and made SP barely worth bothering with.

Eximus Overhaul - again, no one wanted this, at least in the way it was done. Making enemies now have double health bars that are immune to damage types is just a BS way of adding difficulty - it's just making enemies more spongier without making them anymore difficult.

Archons - ahh yes, everyone loves bosses that are spongey for the sake of being spongey and also have invulnerability phases, because that's great game design! /s

Undercroft - that's classed as difficult? 

 

As for "we're all mindless and pathetic" - maybe you should find a different game to play then, instead of insulting everyone that isn't you. This game has forever been a power-fantasy where you're OP as heck and mow down thousands of enemies.

Also, for the record, a lot of us less "meta" players have been asking for more difficult content too, but DE seemingly cannot do it. We've been asking for new mechanics and different ways to fight enemies, but all they can manage is slapping 10000 more armour and health (or an invuln. phase) on already existing stuff and calling it a day. 

[emmyemi]

9 minutes ago, Els236 said:

So, ultra-strong, epic boss fights that take the best of the best kind of gear to complete - then reward players with even more broken, OP stuff.

That "stuff" will then be used to cheese this brand new, ultra-high end content... and... we're back to square one again, where everything is ultra easy-peasy mode. 

This is the dilemma.

IMO, Warframe thrives on horizontal progression, NOT vertical progression. That means building your arsenal to be more versatile and varied, as opposed to being more powerful.

There are already plenty of ways to become so powerful that no content DE could ever introduce would be enough to satisfy endgame players and min-maxers. The game needs a major rebalancing to be able to provide that sort of challenge WITHOUT forcefully limiting our arsenals (which most players don't like anyway, as evidenced by all the negative feedback on Circuit and Drifter combat).

What people are asking for here really sounds like more of the same momentary power increase + extended periods of "nothing is challenging!!" that they've BEEN complaining about.

[CrownOfShadows]

Honestly, just removing dumb cheese would dramatically ramp up a lot of warframe difficulty.

Take away, limit, or put a hard check on invisibility - then see how many people level cap.

Take away, limit, or put a hard check on shield gate abuse, rolling guard, revenant and the like - then see how many people level cap.

Take away, limit, or put a check on absurd cc abilities - then see how many people level cap.

Do something smart about damage scaling - then see how many people level cap.

These unchecked cheeses are bad design and make enemies that would otherwise be potent trivial. The only fun I actually have in warframe these days is solo melee armor tanking SP because it feels real, is not busted, and is really hard to scale upward so you hit the true limits of your kit without having to level cap or anything, and when you are in that zone it feels pretty amazing. Disruption is also pretty fun because it makes you think about how to build and is very active without being non-stop (like a lot of newer game modes). Sitting in a hallway invisible nuking everything that comes through does not feel amazing. It's boring, sorry. I'm just not built to enjoy that, it feels lame.

I suppose the counter argument to this would be: why not just leave these exploits all in, and let the cheesers cheese and the warriors war? Who does it harm? And that would be great, except that you need content, and content can only cater to one of those things. When it comes to content, warriors lose, cheesers win. And that's WF.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

On 8/10/2023 at 7:56 PM, Els236 said:

Steel Path is not what anyone really wanted. The same, boring, tired old star-chart for the second time with enemies just having 100 levels slapped onto them - but with zero changes to the drop tables - yeah, no. Admittedly it was kind of fun when it first came out, but obviously everyone abused the extra material drop-rates and spent hours in certain survivals to get millions of resources and hundreds (if not thousands) of Steel Essence to then buy ridiculous amounts of Kuva. So, of course DE nerfed that now and made SP barely worth bothering with.

Eximus Overhaul - again, no one wanted this, at least in the way it was done. Making enemies now have double health bars that are immune to damage types is just a BS way of adding difficulty - it's just making enemies more spongier without making them anymore difficult.

Archons - ahh yes, everyone loves bosses that are spongey for the sake of being spongey and also have invulnerability phases, because that's great game design! /s

Undercroft - that's classed as difficult? 

 

As for "we're all mindless and pathetic" - maybe you should find a different game to play then, instead of insulting everyone that isn't you. This game has forever been a power-fantasy where you're OP as heck and mow down thousands of enemies.

Also, for the record, a lot of us less "meta" players have been asking for more difficult content too, but DE seemingly cannot do it. We've been asking for new mechanics and different ways to fight enemies, but all they can manage is slapping 10000 more armour and health (or an invuln. phase) on already existing stuff and calling it a day. 

100% this. People will blame vets for these additions but the problem lies fully on DE would simply cannot make challenging combat that is skill based and rewarding. No one asked for any of those things op mentioned.

Edited August 12, 2023 by (PSN)Joylesstuna

[Frendh]

I would not mind. But it seems like a lot of dev time for a very small subset of players.

[GilgaMelchi]

Le 31/07/2023 à 11:23, juanmolero a dit :

The majority of people get to really fast to a part of the game where you basically become brainless because you oneshot everything that's not level 300+, and the end of the day, only a really small portion of the game's population stay in survival missions after 30min.

Try to define "end game" without saying "something that requires everything we learned and acquired so far". Because Warframe is about power fantasy since 2013 and has never changed since then. Aka, if you have farmed the existing content properly, you will steamroll on everything. If you want "hard" content, Warframe is simply not the game.

Le 01/08/2023 à 20:31, juanmolero a dit :

If you give these new bosses a warframe drop, a new weapon drop, and new arcanes or something similar, it would be just like any other update for the game but with an actual new mechanic/gameplay, that way you guys get what you want, something new to grind for.

People would just farm that new content and beat that and find a way to make it easy again with the new drops. Making your definition of "endgame" content a never ending cycle, which is already what DE is doing, kinda.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

33 minutes ago, GilgaMelchi said:

Try to define "end game" without saying "something that requires everything we learned and acquired so far". Because Warframe is about power fantasy since 2013 and has never changed since then. Aka, if you have farmed the existing content properly, you will steamroll on everything. If you want "hard" content, Warframe is simply not the game.

People would just farm that new content and beat that and find a way to make it easy again with the new drops. Making your definition of "endgame" content a never ending cycle, which is already what DE is doing, kinda.

Crazy people are brainwashed into thinking it's ok for an MMO to not have proper end game activities.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Look... I mean, of course we all agree that some hard endgame content is necessary, but... how would that work in Warframe?

I mean, it's not like this:

18 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Crazy people are brainwashed into thinking it's ok for an MMO to not have proper end game activities.

We know that the game needs something.

But... what? How?

The Warframe movement system defeats all of the enemy AI programming the game currently has, the weapons defeat all of the scaling the game has (level 9999 has been hit regularly every single update), and the diverse amount of Warframe powers we have guarantees that a meta combo that just shreds any new content will emerge before the Devs even have the first round of bug-fixes out.

Endgame in other games relies on the ability of the devs to make enemies that have mechanics, health and damage that directly deals with a theoretical minimum requirement and a known maximum potential of the players. Players in those games can't move above a certain speed, they use certain things before their cooldowns are done, they can only combo specific abilities with specific gear, and they are additionally hampered by the need for communication and team awareness (a lack of which can easily wipe parties).

You put in a new raid, or series of quests, you raise the level cap, you put in some new mechanics to master, and then you dangle the latest and greatest set of gear for the players to attain. Once the players have that gear, they're ready for the next update whenever that comes in.

But you can't do that in Warframe. Because there isn't a theoretical minimum requirement, and there is no known maximum potential. The game breaks before the players' damage numbers do. It's downright bizarre what DE have actually created here.

And the most difficult mechanic that's ever been put in this game was getting 8 players to watch a screen for a symbol, then get each player in turn to go stand on a platform that matched the symbol, and to make sure none of those players left the platform they were on until all 8 symbols had been matched. Literally; herding other players was more difficult than any other challenge put into the game before or since.

Please, don't get me wrong.

I want there to be difficult content in Warframe.

But making something difficult in Warframe... requires completely changing up what currently exists in Warframe, heavily limiting the functions of Warframe, and gutting the mobility we have in Warframe.

Why else do you guys think that the Quests have so often featured sections with just the Operator, Drifter, and even completely different characters like Kahl, Veso and Teshin?

It's because those situations have a known maximum potential, so they can be tuned to be difficult compared to what those characters are capable of.

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

3 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Look... I mean, of course we all agree that some hard endgame content is necessary, but... how would that work in Warframe?

I mean, it's not like this:

We know that the game needs something.

But... what? How?

The Warframe movement system defeats all of the enemy AI programming the game currently has, the weapons defeat all of the scaling the game has (level 9999 has been hit regularly every single update), and the diverse amount of Warframe powers we have guarantees that a meta combo that just shreds any new content will emerge before the Devs even have the first round of bug-fixes out.

Endgame in other games relies on the ability of the devs to make enemies that have mechanics, health and damage that directly deals with a theoretical minimum requirement and a known maximum potential of the players. Players in those games can't move above a certain speed, they use certain things before their cooldowns are done, they can only combo specific abilities with specific gear, and they are additionally hampered by the need for communication and team awareness (a lack of which can easily wipe parties).

You put in a new raid, or series of quests, you raise the level cap, you put in some new mechanics to master, and then you dangle the latest and greatest set of gear for the players to attain. Once the players have that gear, they're ready for the next update whenever that comes in.

But you can't do that in Warframe. Because there isn't a theoretical minimum requirement, and there is no known maximum potential. The game breaks before the players' damage numbers do. It's downright bizarre what DE have actually created here.

And the most difficult mechanic that's ever been put in this game was getting 8 players to watch a screen for a symbol, then get each player in turn to go stand on a platform that matched the symbol, and to make sure none of those players left the platform they were on until all 8 symbols had been matched. Literally; herding other players was more difficult than any other challenge put into the game before or since.

Please, don't get me wrong.

I want there to be difficult content in Warframe.

But making something difficult in Warframe... requires completely changing up what currently exists in Warframe, heavily limiting the functions of Warframe, and gutting the mobility we have in Warframe.

Why else do you guys think that the Quests have so often featured sections with just the Operator, Drifter, and even completely different characters like Kahl, Veso and Teshin?

It's because those situations have a known maximum potential, so they can be tuned to be difficult compared to what those characters are capable of.

I get what you are saying but just because DE has completely failed to make good two very popular endgame modes (raids, and boss fights) does not mean they stop trying. When it comes to bosses, interesting mechanics can be added to circumvent the power creep issues we are facing. Same with raids. The issue is that DE is completely incompetent when trying to create end game content. With raids and archon hunts being poorly received, I don't think they are willing to try anymore.

DE will continue to shift focus so they do not have to worry about that problem. This game wouldn't just have a "cult following" if it had a proper end game, it would be huge. There is so much good here but it's buried underneath irrelevant systems and dead game modes. Sorry for the long post.

On a completely unrelated note, I would love a game mode(like survival or maybe hoarde mode) which scales insanely fast to lvl cap and starts at level 1000-2000. Fast scaling as in like 20-30 mins.

Edited August 13, 2023 by (PSN)Joylesstuna

[DrBorris]

Adding difficulty through making the horde harder to kill in this horde shooter isn't the way to go. In my opinion Steel Path hits a nearly perfect balance between requiring a real build and still allowing there to be a satisfying power fantasy. Furthermore, making mob enemies more difficult to kill through other means (like better AI) would be more annoying than difficult, enemies being more evasive would only make AoE weapons even more meta. Lancer #35492 shouldn't be a threat to a Warframe.

The way to add difficulty is through mission mechanics, target prioritization, and build-craft. And even then I don't think "difficult" should be the goal as much as "engaging" should be. Circuit Jackal for example isn't "difficult", but by requiring you to engage with its mechanics it has been considered difficult enough that there have been cries to nerf. Another avenue DE could push for is missions that are complicated enough that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. Imagine if Sorties didn't allow you to change your loadout between missions, this would require you to plan out your loadout and potentially use sub-par gear for a given mission. 

 

I'm sure its been said somewhere here already, but Railjack has a lot of potential to be a groundwork for "difficult" content. Too much emphasis gets put on the space combat, the true potential of Railjack is weaving a variety of objective types seamlessly into a single mission. Railjack "just" being a taxi is huge as it allows or immersive transitions between objectives. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

22 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

I get what you are saying but just because DE has completely failed to make good two very popular endgame modes (raids, and boss fights) does not mean they stop trying. When it comes to bosses, interesting mechanics can be added to circumvent the power creep issues we are facing. Same with raids. The issue is that DE is completely incompetent when trying to create end game content. With raids and archon hunts being poorly received, I don't think they are willing to try anymore.

I don't think they've stopped trying.

But I do think they're running into the same problem I've stated: They've painted themselves into a corner with the freedom and power they've introduced.

There are no mechanics that can circumvent power creep to the extent we've had it. When the Trials were a thing, people were using a frame combo to one-shot the end boss of that with a Fishing Spear.

The only challenges we've ever, and I mean ever, faced in Warframe have been other players.

With one exception.

Just one exception.

Back in the very early days. Because back then there wasn't the kind of damage, of movement, or even the kind of Warframes we have today, and the limitations created challenge. Back then when a Heavy Gunner walked in, it was actually worrying because they scaled so high without four Corrosive Projections.

We were limited.

And the only way that you can have challenge is when your limitations are known and can be played against by the game. It can be as simple as starting the first ever Spyro game and having a basic Glide, Charge and Flame, and having to solve puzzles with only those. Or it could be as complex as a FF14 Raid where you need diagrams and four other players on the mic to explain the mechanics to you before you go into them.

But in those there is that commonality; no matter how powerful the player character is, it has limitations that it cannot bypass in terms of movement, damage, windows for attack, all of it.

Warframe has options to bypass any, and all, of those limitations. And without a major rework to how we deal damage, take damage, move, and mod... we're not going to see challenge like that in this game.

Somebody even brings up the point right here:

7 hours ago, DrBorris said:

Circuit Jackal for example isn't "difficult", but by requiring you to engage with its mechanics it has been considered difficult enough that there have been cries to nerf.

All functions that attempt to limit the player in this boss, just look at the number of them. Not how effective they are, but the sheer amount of them that exist to prevent one-shot functions from the players:

The first layer is the way the boss takes damage; immediately it only allows damage on its legs, not the main body, which prevents just spray-and-pray tactics from beginners. After you damage it, it has an invulnerability phase, where it cannot be touched, and will damage the player heavily with an arena-wide beam. In addition to the base version, Circuit Jackal has a trick for ensuring that players move around during this phase, and don't just stand behind cover, in the form of a missile barrage. After the invulnerability phase there's a trigger phase where you absolutely must approach and press the button in the short window before your damage to the first portion of the health bar can take effect.

At all times there is a sphere of protection that cannot be shot through that forces players to approach and not just snipe from out of range. Between phases you must dispose of minions, which scatter and take cover while it shoots you. Between phases it teleports to a new location to keep the player moving.

All in all, to prevent this boss from being simply melted, and even then the portions where you can actually deal damage to it last only a fraction of a second because of how fast you deal that damage, there are at least 9 different mechanics in place.

And? Neither you, nor I, think it's difficult. Even with those.

How do you prevent us from being so powerful in any given boss fight? In any given Raid?

What's worse is that, because all of our stuff is so powerful already, what dangling carrot can you actually use to make us go through anything more than the requisite number of times it takes to get that carrot and move on? There isn't really even 'evergreen' content in Warframe because it's designed to make you collect, mod, then move on from everything you get. The only time people re-visit frames is when DE revisits something that affects that frame specifically, like the damage type changes, or Status updates, or a new Augment gets released.

DE have committed the sin of making the players too strong in their power fantasy game. And it means that nothing will ever challenge their players again, unless they take that power away.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Birdframe_Prime

[DrBorris]

42 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

How do you prevent us from being so powerful in any given boss fight? In any given Raid?

What's worse is that...

And this is why I said the goal should be to just make more engaging content. I don't think the goal of any (good) dev is to make a "difficult" game, it is to make an engaging game. Some devs use difficulty as a way to engage players, it is the difficulty of Souls games that makes players engage with all of the game's systems and (hopefully) have fun. Difficulty is just a means, it isn't an end. The oversimplification of the role of difficulty in games is why we get the comically incongruous takes of "bullet sponge bad" and "make enemy number go up." There are other ways to get players to engage with a game, don't hyper-fixate on power and difficulty. What are the things that make Warframe unique and what content could you design that asks players to engage with those systems most. 

And again, I think base SP sets a extremely balanced bar for the difficulty of the core horde-shooter combat. Obviously it isn't "difficult," but missions, especially ones that people look to for the most engaging content, should be far more than the difficulty of killing a horde of enemies. Some weapon balance is still a bit wonky in SP, but base SP is where the most Warframes are balanced between each other. And honestly even that wonky weapon balance isn't that bad. Yeah, Incarnon Torid does some questionable things, but the amount of viable weapons when built around in this game of acquiring tools to build around is staggering. 

I have fun with Jackal. Part of that is due to its placement in the Circuit where I can't pick the tool that trivializes the fight, but that brings me back to my original point of making more engaging content by making it more difficult to find a single tool to trivialize a mission. One of my oldest concepts (that is forever trapped in my wip folder) is a Sortie-like mission where you go from phase to phase without going back to your arsenal, forcing you to prepare unoptimized setups for the individual missions in order to fully complete the gambit. It still wouldn't be "difficult" by some standards, but I think (hope) it would be a more engaging piece of content.

 

What I find frustrating is the fixation on difficulty has led to what feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy where people will never be satisfied if the content doesn't fit their vision of "difficult". Rather than engage with new content on its terms in good faith, because it isn't difficult it is bad. Back to Circuit Jackal, so often I see people bring up wanting movement to be more important in "difficult" content. You know what jackal heavily encourages? Movement, it is by far the best implementation of requiring player movement as it feels natural within the fight. But I don't see any of that, I don't see people acknowledging that DE made some good use of something people have begged for, all I see is "I can cheese it, therefore bad" (or "too hard plz nerf"). 

I could keep gushing about Circuit Jackal. The more I think on it, the more I am starting to think it is my favorite boss fight in the game and maybe even a good boss fight in general (which is big for a Warframe boss). And while I get that "favorite" is just an opinion, the complete lack of acknowledgement for what Jackal objectively does makes me think people quite literally don't see it. They just see a health bar they can kill, they are so caught up in meta-commentary of "difficult" that the gameplay in front of them is pointless, because Circuit jackal doesn't represent what they want it to represent it isn't good. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by DrBorris

[Birdframe_Prime]

33 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

What are the things that make Warframe unique and what content could you design that asks players to engage with those systems most. 

This is, to be clear, 100% my point.

Warframe has so much unique content that is already used, and the players have the power to ignore it. Not only that, the players have the power to whine about it so hard that anything that's got actual difficulty to it gets nerfed, but that's a separate issue.

My entire point about the Jackal there is that the Jackal has two major problems with it:

1. Despite layers and layers of mechanisms designed to make it any form of challenge to the players, it really isn't.

2. It has no intrinsic reward for actually beating it beyond something that's available even if you don't encounter it (the rewards for Circuit play).

The OP, and every single other OP that has made this same post on these forums over the last year, doesn't seem to know how any of this challenge would actually work in a unified way so that it's actually both a challenge and a rewarding experience for the players.

In this game we have the following things that can actually affect the player:

Enemies with physical shields that block damage from a direction. 

Enemies that have team tactics, grouping up with heavies, taking cover, deploying cover, not approaching known AoE functions unless there is an aggro draw within, melee units hang back if the enemy is unreachable.

Factions can lock down areas and trap players in them.

Traps to hinder the player are triggered in many tiles.

An enemy type with a shield that blocks all incoming damage, limiting it so that it takes multiple hits to remove the shield, and then discourages players from entering the shield to deal with the enemy by having a negation of Abilities while inside, causing re-casts or even death if that happens, and also carries a powerful ranged weapon to deal with the player if left alone.

And none of it matters because we're too powerful.

There is no challenge, no difficulty, to make the game actually fun enough to play when we have maxed-out functionality on our gear.

The only fix to that is to take away our power.

In a power fantasy game.

Which makes the player base whine like toddlers.

The only thing that would stop the players whining like toddlers is having a big enough carrot on the end of that change to make it worth their time.

And that, currently, just doesn't exist in Warframe either.

[DrBorris]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

-snip-

Given the examples you gave on ways to add engaging/difficult content, it seems to me like you are taking an adversarial approach to the player when trying to make engaging content. The framing you use to express ideas is in how they can stop players from doing a thing, not in how those things can encourage players to do something engaging. I get that it is semantics, "enemy makes a shield to block a direction" and "encourage the use of positioning to take out enemies" is effectively the same thing, but the frame of reference does matter as the goals are quite different despite the implementation likely being very similar.

That isn't to say the "positive" perspective is immune to the "they can just ignore it" problem. Yeah... its an issue, but I think working with that issue is not only possible but also grounds for far more unique content. If you want a game balanced around the relationship of the player and the enemy, there are other games that do that better. Warframe has an incredibly diverse toolbox that if properly utilized could be used to encourage different combat strategies far deeper than a good build and good aim.

 

Which brings me back to my concept for added engagement/difficulty, making it impossible to use a single solution for a mission. Any objective has an answer, we have defense, CC, and DPS locked down. But nothing does it all, even when there is overlap there is nuance between approaches different frames have that makes the more/less suited to a mission type. More complex objectives would force players to use improper tools for the individual parts of a mission. At its most basic, if a mission starts with an exterminate and ends in a defense. You can take a DPS to speed through the exterminate at the cost of a painful defense, vice versa, or go for a more balanced loadout choice. I'm sure you can come up with an answer that trivializes this example, but I hope you can at least get my point.

 

This isn't to say I don't haven opinions on damage. But honestly... what we have is workable. I'm down for a Damage 3.0 as much (probably more) as the next person, but the necessity of one (with the goal of a more engaging game) is overblown. Even status, my personal nemesis, is workable. I hate it... I hate the way status works so much... but that doesn't mean good, meaningful, engaging content can't be made if the right approach is taken.

[GPrime96]

On 2023-07-31 at 4:23 AM, juanmolero said:

Hi guys, let me know if you agree with me on this.

 

We need really hard endgame content, I'm thinking like 2 to 4 really hard bosses with group mechanics, no self revives, and longer times to get revived from friends, these bosses need to have a mechanic that doesn't let underlevel people get carried, like separatings people into different instances and have them kill all mobs or complete a task that only someone that's fully geared can complete. Get some oneshot mechanics with good telegraphed attacks, make these fights long, with minions, and various mechanics, with new art for these bosses so they feel different, new and more distinguised/important than the rest. Get them to have a really really specific drop pool, with really strong items so we feel rewarded.

 

But the most important thing is, like I said, to make them difficult enough that it even takes several tries to the most veteran people that have the most op setups. So that everyone that leaves the game because there is simply no reason to farm and put these 3000h needed to fully gear yourself other than to look cooler or oneshot mobs after being 2h in a survival mission.

 

The majority of people get to really fast to a part of the game where you basically become brainless because you oneshot everything that's not level 300+, and the end of the day, only a really small portion of the game's population stay in survival missions after 30min.

Bosses would never work in Warframe unless you add about 10 billion raw health or add specific mechanics like the Orowyrm. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

19 hours ago, DrBorris said:

Given the examples you gave on ways to add engaging/difficult content, it seems to me like you are taking an adversarial approach to the player when trying to make engaging content. The framing you use to express ideas is in how they can stop players from doing a thing, not in how those things can encourage players to do something

I am. The game is literally PvE content. The challenge from this game is to either defeat the enemies or complete the objective while the enemies attempt to stop you.

The whole point of this game is that it's competitive, adversarial.

So yes, I'm going to approach it from that point of view.

The other reason I'm going to approach it from that point of view is when you say 'there's nothing that does it all'... but there literally are multiple frames with abilities that are so multi-purpose, or so powerful, that they can effectively 'do it all'.

Octavia on her own has an Aggro Draw CC that automatically deals damage to enemies that damage it on her 1st ability. Simultaneously this crowd controls, defends and deals damage. And it's not the only one. Heck, Irradiating Disarm can do the same thing at a much higher range, and even has the benefit of Crowd Control on enemies that normally can't be affected, because they will attack, or be attacked by, the Radiation affected former allies.

Many abilities in Warframe, and many weapons, are multi-functional, and some of them are incredibly powerful for all that they only do one thing well. The way that the enemy damage works means that simple Slow effects count as both crowd control and damage mitigation because of the lower DPS the enemies can put out (or outright cannot hit at all due to the movement speed difference).

So.

Allow me to attempt it from your perspective here.

Limits are not adversarial.

Limits on the player are to encourage 'in the box' thinking and allow for them to be creative at solving a problem with the limitations they have. Limits in games include things like movement speed (most FPS games limit how long you can Sprint so that you can't out-run the enemies, not so that you can't go fast across their game). They include damage caps, where any one thing on its own can't deal more than a set amount of damage, unless you use skill to hit a weak point or a combo to make it more powerful. A limit I've seen used to good effect is timing, which we've all seen in games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls, where learning the timing of attacks and the intentional windows of vulnerability, then learning the timing of how fast your weapons can attack and deal damage, combine to make a more elegant combat system.

Warframe...

Doesn't have any of those.

How can we design any combat encounter, or puzzle, that can't be easily and simply cheesed? How can we create enemies that are supposed to stay on screen for more than 0.6 Seconds after we look at them without giving them some kind of invulnerability phase, some kind of way to stop us from dealing the insane damage we can deal?

Frames can move faster than anything else in the game. Frames can output damage constantly and in greater quantities than anything else in the game. Frames can mitigate damage better than anything else in the game. And even timing doesn't matter because the second that something becomes vulnerable it can be damaged, since none of the enemy Crowd Control (except knock-down) has any real effect.

This leads me back to the conclusions I was drawing earlier; the only way we can be challenged in Warframe is... Well, there's two ways.

The first way is to limit us. Limit the players so that the power fantasy is scaled way down. Still powerful, but back in need of the four-player squads in order to complete missions, because we need to actually cooperate.

We have seen this option in the form of the Drifter gameplay, in the missions where we're confined to Operator, or Necramech, or Railjack, or even Archwing. These missions take away the largest portion of our power and by limitations we are challenged to complete missions that our more powerful Warframes would have done easily.

The second way is to have the game capable of stopping us. To be adversarial to us. Have enemies varied enough in their stopping power that any one method of approaching the game can't do it all. No more 'sword alone', no more 'just AoE spam it', an actual suite of enemies that are challenging unless you intelligently take apart their composition. Enemies that can halt our progress forward in missions that don't require us to kill them, and enemies that can last longer against us in missions that do.

Since both of these would require major overhauls to what Warframe currently is...

I don't hold out much hope for any form of meaningful or engaging endgame.

[DrBorris]

29 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Allow me to attempt it from your perspective here.

Limits are not adversarial.

It is a perspective thing, not an implantation thing. The goal you have when designing a thing matters. Getting caught up in "we have to stop X" is what gives us annoying mechanics, I get that it is corny but it is important that fun is always the goal. But I'd rather not get sucked into semantics BS though so let's just move on from that.

 

You still haven't commented on the approach I proposed to get players to be more engaged. Rather than limit the tools, make it impossible to pick a single "correct" tool through more complex mission types. 

Edited August 15, 2023 by DrBorris

[Birdframe_Prime]

23 hours ago, DrBorris said:

You still haven't commented on the approach I proposed to get players to be more engaged. Rather than limit the tools, make it impossible to pick a single "correct" tool through more complex mission types. 

I already discussed it, to be fair, I didn't realise you'd missed that.

My view on forcing limitations in this game includes that. 

The worst update DE ever did for nullifying difficulty was called 'The Sword Alone' because it forces their game design to have every single mission be possible to complete with melee only equipped.

This means that no enemy will ever need skilled interactions, such as weak points or mandatory headshots, because the game must be accessible to melee according to their own promise to the players they made with that update.

There are similar updates they've made that are on the same vein, and I want them all to be reconsidered.

Remember the first thing I listed in the things that are in the game that could be used to hinder players? It was the mono-directional shields, from Shield Lancers. Something to consider there would be to improve this enemy to be an actual gremlin to try and get rid of.

For example, this improved enemy tracks the player visually, pivoting and constantly bringing the shield into play. Is immune to punch-through and all frontal damage that isn't targeted at, say, barely visible feet. It negates melee. If left to its own devices, it negates AoE too, by turning to face explosions with the shield. And, most importantly, the shield blocks line-of-sight checks for CC and Damage abilities that require those.

The counter is then multi-lane depending on what you're doing. Using a CC ability that doesn't require line of sight, for example, would slow them down and enable flanking. Any that can put to sleep, for example, would usually work. Another would be firing off an AoE weapon that they track and look at, exposing their back to the player for a follow-up attack from another weapon. And finally would be the bit that's already in the game; they turn the shield aside to fire sometimes, so pop them in that brief opening.

You have an enemy that is survivable, conditional, can be the focal point for ranged enemies to line up behind it in team tactics, and you can't defeat it by hammering on it with a melee. You must actually use a tactic to defeat it, rather than what we currently have of not even noticing it among the other enemies.

How about something we don't use a lot; like push back. Heavy Gunners, once they spool up and actually fire, would have player push back on their shots. So blocking with melee would mean you never got any closer, and players would need to engage at range, or have movement abilities that bypass the effect, or use CC to prevent that effect.

So yeah.

This is more of what I meant. Challenge in Warframe would take placing far more limitations on players. Removing existing strengths we have, like the ability to do everything with melee only, or AoE, or Abilities only...

And... as enthusiastic as I am for that...

We still wouldn't have any rewards for doing that, because endgame rewards don't exist in the game either ^^

[(PSN)TEAINSHENNON]

Sp already is a thing and Pablo can't balance a game to save his life hence bullet sponges = hard aswell as nerf all things popular vrs elevate less popular things to make them more appealing to use if they followed the "make it harder" it would be a basic excal no mods no powers a Skanna a lato a braton all no mods basic vr and add more bullet sponges and amp up the foes it's all they have as a go to

[Mayonaiser]

they already tried everything...

big boss with complex mechanic and multiple parts that you need to destoy first to kill? eidolon and those fortuna giant spiders, ppl just speedrun and oneshot them even in sp.

bullet spongy boss? archon, ppl also just speedrun and oneshot them.

boss that can oneshot you? revenant.

you need to realize that the only way they can make a challenging content is by nerfing the players to the ground, which is just never going to happen.

[(NSW)Free_Aetharus]

The problem with introducing more end-game content is that nobody is truly elaborating on how. Nobody is explaining where. Nobody is specifying in what way.

With the introduction of Eximus, sure, the game got harder... for newer players who didn't or really couldn't handle them very consistently. They appear on all maps, on all levels iirc, and it's the one enemy type that, though it makes the game harder, it antagonizes players who are not prepared for them. I was a Mag on my alt, spamming melee on eximus, and they weren't specifically challenging with only heat and slash, but they annoy me to no end, on higher-leveled content, either because of lack of preparation or lack of interest IN preparing. This is the case of a difficulty coming to me-- Not me LOOKING for the difficulty.

Archons introduce a no-revive spike in difficulty that, over time, becomes manageable with practice and attentiveness to what's happening. It's cheesed by stealth frames and exploitation of a boss' main weakness.

You know what I'd enjoy?

An enemy type that ONLY arrives on Steel Path, something that could pass as "Something angry" as Teshin would say, even something that would not otherwise be a threat or a problem, because they otherwise couldn't consider you worth their time. A monster, maybe or maybe not from the void. A recurring threat that follows you on the star chart, the longer you play a planet's mission, and how often you farm on a planet, raises the chances of a new antagonist chasing you.

A new boss that still has phase-invincibility cycles, even potential evasion, so they're less static and less open to direct hits. I would not advocate for a boss nullifying all abilities, but I would advocate for a boss being CAPABLE of nullifying a warframe. One shots? No.

I'd like a 'challenge' that CAN be done quickly, with practice and determination, precision and skill and a little bit of genuine experience. No RNG bullcrap. No random pseudo-scientific "You were too slow" or "You were too fast," "Therefore you died."

The most challenging thing warframe could EVER possibly offer is a boss that CAN be fought-- likely MUST be fought at full power-- WILL be challenged when you seek it, and WILL be challenging, but will NOT be 'long' in the sense that your stats matter less than your ability to UTILIZE those stats. A boss that dodges and moves will CHALLENGE you to aim better. A boss with an entire arena, with cover you must utilize, parkour you must accomplish, feats you must perform, the entire Tenno Olympics.

And after considering all that, the only challenge that matters still needs to disregard damage as "The" major factor in your success, as well as your defensiveness, by giving the boss a telegraphic ability that DISABLES or LIMITS your warframe's abilities, including passives, as a temporary debuff. A boss that's less annoying than a lich, grabbing you, but is CAPABLE of stunning you and unleashing a powerful[Not one-shot] finisher.

Hell, if we get a stronger, faster, and more intimidating Stalker, the game would have a challenge that's SO much more enjoyable. Not MORE health, but so much mobility and exploitation of what a WARFRAME is, that if you're even HALF the tenno that this stalker may be, you'll manage to defeat them because you earned it. And if you can beat them with no mods, that's something to admire. Warframe is not that kind of game, and it's not a quick-paced kingdom hearts experience. So to expect a challenge that doesn't alienate ANYBODY, manages to be FAST, manages to use MOST of the game's mechanics, and PUSHES you to be a little better? A joke.

Oh, right. The cost for the devil's banquet is the loss of motor functions in your fingers, from playing too hard. You'd cripple yourself before you get a challenge 'that' masochistic. But, we have viable, none-creeping ways to make the game more challenging. it's called "Dodge this, you bastard," or better known as enemies that properly dodge and also attempt to shield-gate against YOU.

[Zaghyr]

On 2023-07-31 at 4:28 AM, Pakaku said:

I'd appreciate more in-depth combat with enemies that have more advanced move-sets and counters... but Duviri Drifter was an extremely rough first attempt

Also, my usual problem with these end-game threads: they never consider anything beyond just killing stuff. Put a typical player in a puzzle room like Lua spy, or the first puzzle before the Kela fight, and watch them struggle to figure it out... that's practically end-game as far as I can tell.

Having a new star chart type based around this would be cool. Rather can a gear/damage check, it's a knowledge/mechanics check.