Late game Warframe is a Single-Player game, change my mind.

[Kaiga]

After a certain point of key item acquisition, where game changing mods, frames and arcanes have been obtained that trivialize most of the content outside hour-long circuit runs, the game becomes almost entirely solo-able.

There is no need for clans, besides helping newer players within them, because there is no longer much content that requires coordinated groups, teamwork, or much of anything beyond one of the many meta builds found on sites and youtube videos. Steel path bossing, eidolons, sure, become much more efficient with friends, but the rewards from these activities have fallen in usefulness over the years of power creep, and such activities have little urgency in endgame warframe. 

There are no trials. There is no competition, or player vs player. There are no scored operation alerts. There are no clan conflicts, solar rail battles, or anything else that gives rise to voice chats and clan hubs full of people collaborating together enthusiastically about builds, strategy or anything. 

And i miss that. Everyone just does their dailies while awaiting the next content drop.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Kaiga

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

It's only lonely WHEN you solo. Jump into some random recruitment chat. Or you know, put together a group to do Orphix Venom. Those are usually great fun. Lots of failure though. No one has a decent necromech.

[AntifreezeUnder0]

It always have been soloable, just more you play and gain ability to nuke maps, the less you even want to play with others who do nuking.

Builds are moslty same copy paste mods [insert frame or weapon name here] + few helminths and usage of same game mechanics(priming, shieldgating)

Warframes main problem is that they by now should have a nodes, planets  where enemies naturaly spawn at lvl 300 to 600, next ''planets is like 600 to 900 and it goes all the way up to lvl cap. Then team play would be required for a lot of things, and many missions would simply fail instantly due to bad scaling on certain objectives, but many viable builds would be out of the window, but main goal would be 4 people squad synergizing like it used to be. Downside is that dealing with hordes of high lvl enemies even lvl cap means that only few picks be viable, kills be far and few inbetween, weapon choices be different. Yet squad play with certain frames be nearly a mandatory and soloing would be trickier.

The pvp would be nice, but if it were like circuit, everyone in cycle gets same weapons/frames and duke it out with skills and who has less lag.

Having restrictions on what we can and cannot use also kills joy to play. Like if i decided i want to main stug and use it everywhere. Some rng may not be bad, but still Warframe for most people is just take what we want, roam freely and commit the usual tenno things in large numbers.

Warframe is more about journey than the result... Since grinding your butt off for the big dmg weapon was more fun , than realising tht after you gained it others are basicaly just reskins of same mechanics and also overkill enemies given to us.

 

[(NSW)Greybones]

I don’t think many people want to rely on strangers; many games may force it on their players, but usually you don’t have to look too hard to see the cracks in camaraderie when you throw together a bunch of randos and they fail.

I agree it can be a pretty lonely experience, but you’ll have to find like-minded players who are willing to fail alongside you and aren’t afraid to try and discuss more risky alternative options outside of whatever Meta guides have to say. The multiplayer options are there, they’re typically just different to whatever you’d use to solo the game

[Venus-Venera]

vor 22 Minuten schrieb (PSN)jaggerwanderer:

It's only lonely WHEN you solo. Jump into some random recruitment chat. Or you know, put together a group to do Orphix Venom. Those are usually great fun. Lots of failure though. No one has a decent necromech.

Solo Warframe makes no sense at all!
There are extremely many FIRST-CLASS games for solo gameplay!

[PollexMessier]

Except for fissures which I'd class as esclusively co-op missions given the extreme downsides of soloing it, or things where a team actually does improve clear time Like Disruption, Railjack, Defense, Interception, Cascade, exct. (so long as you get at least one other remotely competent player)

But yeah it is a bit frustrating the amount of instances where solo is ether the best or only option. This isn't exclusively a late game issue ether tho.

Edited November 11, 2023 by PollexMessier

[Rakosta_Kai]

42 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

After a certain point of key item acquisition, where game changing mods, frames and arcanes have been obtained that trivialize most of the content outside hour-long circuit runs, the game becomes almost entirely solo-able.

The game is solo-able from MR0.
Grouping, as an option, remains viable but because people are people then PUGs are going to be PUGs.
A new player hunting Eidolans for the first few times can expect the nicest thing to happen to them is someone explain what the heck is going on and why.
I have seen (what I expect where) new players get bashed and berated in those hunts too though sadly. 

Unfortunately, people kinda suck as a group—especially when goals don't/can't align. 
 
 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Gaming is weird now, because there's so many different experiences that it depends on mood. 

I do solo a lot, but I also used to raid a lot. I did the wild 4 hour raids.

[trst]

The game has always been entirely soloable from the very start and a lot of players have always dropped off between content updates. Co-op was more viable in "old" Warframe and powercreep secured co-op being optional but that doesn't change how the game has always been. That said it's still a choice to treat the game as a single player one even without explicit reasons to engage with co-op.

But also there is PvP, competition, and leaderboards. Conclave is literally a thing, weekly/daily leaderboards are an incredibly old feature, and while less common we do still get some events with clan leaderboards. And Clans still exist for the purpose of having a personal community in-game.

So I'm not sure what exactly you're missing as not much has really changed even with the powercreep.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

1 hour ago, Venus-Venera said:

Solo Warframe makes no sense at all!
There are extremely many FIRST-CLASS games for solo gameplay!

People solo for efficiency. I can solo a capture void mission in 30 seconds. With a group that timers goes to 5 minutes. All because someone wants to look for Argon Crystals. Let's not forget Sortie Spy or missions with high failure rate.

[ReddyDisco]

3 hours ago, Kaiga said:

There is no competition, or player vs player

That is why the community remains chill mostly, i'm glad for it.

 

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

People can be fussy, fickle, overly negative, overly positive, overly dramatic, passive aggressive, annoying, busy, too communicative... Whilst it can be really nice sometimes, to have content that requires dedicated coordination and team work, with pros and cons... Sometimes its also nice to have content you can theoretically solo with enough effort, gear, skill, strategy and so on. Which also comes with pros and cons. Or also, somewhere between that, content where you can do it solo, but also do it with PUBS/PUGS, aka teams that might not have the best coordination and team work, but you are having more chill games either with more casual friends or randoms. 

A need for something, is also different from the experience of something. Also, anything that involves skill, gear, knowledge, strategy, will mean, you can have individuals who will be more refined, practiced and potentially competent than even 4 people in a team, so unless you introduce content that artificially limits such people (think a system that requires 4 items but limiting the item to 1 each, which can be frustrating), or you go with content that is so hard, even a lot of 4 man teams will fail, so even just singular successes are rare... Which can be interesting tactic as far as a game that has a lot of grinding/farming, and incentives around rewards/collecting. 

So I sympathise, and there are things about Warframe I either miss, or could be different, but also... 

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

I have to agree with OP

but with one distinction; late game isn't Solo, its PvP -via Trade Competition.

having acquired all the content and items, all I do is farm Kuva and roll Rivens

then 'negotiate' with other riven traders, all of us trying to one-up the other.

only meaningful interaction with other players is Adversarial trade, those I see in public missions are neutral/inconsequential at best.

[CephalonCarnage]

8 hours ago, AntifreezeUnder0 said:

Warframes main problem is that they by now should have a nodes, planets  where enemies naturaly spawn at lvl 300 to 600, next ''planets is like 600 to 900 and it goes all the way up to lvl cap. Then team play would be required for a lot of things, and many missions would simply fail instantly due to bad scaling on certain objectives, but many viable builds would be out of the window, but main goal would be 4 people squad synergizing like it used to be.

Yup, the greatest miussed opportunity of The New War was that it didn;t introduce the "red" startchart full of higher level, and better mechaniced, enemies that would have taken the eold players to new gameplay dimensions. They could have given us more co-op style gamemodes, or just missions that can be failed for that added extra old players have forgotten. Such a wasted opportunity. Such a shame.

[SneakyErvin]

8 hours ago, PollexMessier said:

Except for fissures which I'd class as esclusively co-op missions given the extreme downsides of soloing it, or things where a team actually does improve clear time Like Disruption, Railjack, Defense, Interception, Cascade, exct. (so long as you get at least one other remotely competent player)

But yeah it is a bit frustrating the amount of instances where solo is ether the best or only option. This isn't exclusively a late game issue ether tho.

Even fissures are as good or better solo unless you run rad share. Since the chance you end up with others with relics you actually need in a random is horribly low. The only slight benefit with randoms is 3 more chances at rarer parts for more ducats/plat. But even that is neglectable since the runs will likely be slower in return. And it isnt like we dont have an abundance of relics to crack. 

And Disruption is also one of those modes where you really need a pre-made for it to be faster, since you cant guarantee that random Joe needs the same rotation reward as you, at which point either you or he gets screwed regarding why they are there in the first palce. Sad part is that many arent really aware that you can use Disruption to target farm relics easily by simply letting conduits go boom. Defense is only faster in a group if you run SP defense exlusively, since it is the only defense that is always scaled for a full group. All other defense types are faster solo since the spawns are fewer, and in the case of arbitrations, solo defense becomes even better since only you can control the operative, while in a group someone else might drag it to the wrong place and get it killed. And the positioning also leads to better funneling of mobs, so speeds up the killing even further, even on S#&$e maps like Corpus Ship, Gas City and "Outer Terminus" defense tiles.

[MutoManiac]

The only reason I started to play WF is because I found out that I can play solo when I want to relax and test things with a build. I do enjoy pugs, but if it was only pugs/coop, I wouldn’t play as much for sure. You are right, it’s solo-able but that is a strength, not a downside.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

10 hours ago, Kaiga said:

And i miss that. Everyone just does their dailies while awaiting the next content drop.

I'm a mostly solo player, but "warframe loneliness" is a self-inflicted condition: recently I fell into a mood where I REALLY wanted to play warframe, but there just isn't anything else left for me to do. so I did the unthinkable:

I started lurking in recruit chat to see if I could spot any newbies asking for help, drowning amongst the sea of Radshares, Meta Plague Star squads and Eidolon hunts, and upon spotting one, I'd ask them what they needed help with.. then, I'd do something even MORE unthinkable, something that might be described as an act of pure MADNESS!

I actually helped them.

and you know what? it's allowed me to go back and revisit older content that I forgot how much I enjoy, as well as giving newer players a leg up. it's actually made me enjoy warframe again, despite there being no new content to go through. so if your heart isn't completely made of ice, I'd recommend giving it a try. it helps others and gives you something to do. 

[Karyst]

10 hours ago, Kaiga said:

After a certain point of key item acquisition, where game changing mods, frames and arcanes have been obtained that trivialize most of the content outside hour-long circuit runs, the game becomes almost entirely solo-able.

There is no need for clans, besides helping newer players within them, because there is no longer much content that requires coordinated groups, teamwork, or much of anything beyond one of the many meta builds found on sites and youtube videos. Steel path bossing, eidolons, sure, become much more efficient with friends, but the rewards from these activities have fallen in usefulness over the years of power creep, and such activities have little urgency in endgame warframe. 

There are no trials. There is no competition, or player vs player. There are no scored operation alerts. There are no clan conflicts, solar rail battles, or anything else that gives rise to voice chats and clan hubs full of people collaborating together enthusiastically about builds, strategy or anything. 

And i miss that. Everyone just does their dailies while awaiting the next content drop.

It's not because you need other players in region chat to rate your black and green Oberon edgy/10

[Venus-Venera]

vor 10 Stunden schrieb (PSN)jaggerwanderer:

People solo for efficiency. I can solo a capture void mission in 30 seconds. With a group that timers goes to 5 minutes. All because someone wants to look for Argon Crystals. Let's not forget Sortie Spy or missions with high failure rate.

but that's not a "solo" we're talking about here! should be obvious?
If I only play a very small part of the content for mats solo, doesn't that mean that I play solo in GENERAL??!?! 😡

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

13 hours ago, Kaiga said:

After a certain point of key item acquisition, where game changing mods, frames and arcanes have been obtained that trivialize most of the content outside hour-long circuit runs, the game becomes almost entirely solo-able.

There is no need for clans, besides helping newer players within them, because there is no longer much content that requires coordinated groups, teamwork, or much of anything beyond one of the many meta builds found on sites and youtube videos. Steel path bossing, eidolons, sure, become much more efficient with friends, but the rewards from these activities have fallen in usefulness over the years of power creep, and such activities have little urgency in endgame warframe. 

There are no trials. There is no competition, or player vs player. There are no scored operation alerts. There are no clan conflicts, solar rail battles, or anything else that gives rise to voice chats and clan hubs full of people collaborating together enthusiastically about builds, strategy or anything. 

And i miss that. Everyone just does their dailies while awaiting the next content drop.

It's a PvE game and those usually favor solo play. However, Warframe, IMO, is a game that allows any style of play to happen instead of heavily favoring one over the other. Personally, I love that because that easily fits my work schedule and traffic insanity. Playing solo or with the homies is more for fun and never for necessity, and that is awesome... especially considering my wife is an attention brat and starts negotiating for it IMMEDIATELY upon hearing the PS5's power on beep. 😂 😂 😂

 

[SDGDen]

false, the real endgame is twofold:

>fasionframe

>adopting a newbie

neither of these have ANY point on your own, why make fashion when you can't show it off to others? and if you're done with the game for yourself (which happens if you're a long-time player. for me i tend to just log on and do the new update when its out, then leave) you can go adopt a newbie and help them through the game, teach them about how all the silly things work that you've learned over the years etc. if you learned how to do everything yourself (making builds etc) it really pays off to pass that knowledge forward! 

[Numerounius]

I'd partly agree but not the full extent.

15 hours ago, Kaiga said:

After a certain point of key item acquisition, where game changing mods, frames and arcanes have been obtained that trivialize most of the content outside hour-long circuit runs, the game becomes almost entirely solo-able.

Yes everything can be done solo. But there is some content that goes by a lot quicker if in groups. Like the tri-yearly prime releases and relic cracking for parts there.

15 hours ago, Kaiga said:

There is no need for clans, besides helping newer players within them, because there is no longer much content that requires coordinated groups, teamwork, or much of anything beyond one of the many meta builds found on sites and youtube videos. Steel path bossing, eidolons, sure, become much more efficient with friends, but the rewards from these activities have fallen in usefulness over the years of power creep, and such activities have little urgency in endgame warframe. 

No need for clans? Have you heard of our lord and savior Hema? I thought not. Jokes aside, that is one item that comes into play regarding clans if you don't want to farm mutagen samples for 20+ hours, which I have. But other than that I'd say yep a solo clan is perfectly doable and what I use. Another aspect is railjacks where playing with groups is encouraged due to multiple objectives but at the same time gets to be a little frustrating due to how it assigns railjack.

Its not so much coordinated groups but rather groups going for the same end goal. I don't mind doing profit taker solo vs one with a group since the end result in still the same and don't really care much about the skill level of people involved in the group.

There is so much more than the many meta builds that are present. I still do all those activities listed without the meta builds from Youtube so sure the solo aspect there is probably reason number one that I do a good chunk of content solo since I am not usually in the mood of being put with others or attempting the meta strats. Like who else is doing SP Terrorem? Who wants to deal with someone who just aborts after 2/5 minutes just to tweak a build? Much better for me to just turn on solo. But this doesn't hold true for the majority of stuff where there is usually a set defined end goal like eidolons or fissure cracking.

15 hours ago, Kaiga said:

There are no trials. There is no competition, or player vs player. There are no scored operation alerts. There are no clan conflicts, solar rail battles, or anything else that gives rise to voice chats and clan hubs full of people collaborating together enthusiastically about builds, strategy or anything. 

And i miss that. Everyone just does their dailies while awaiting the next content drop.

Eh, this is why I love Warframe because I can do what I want and map it out accordingly without having to be forced to rely on other people or on external mechanics like a required mic.

[PollexMessier]

11 hours ago, MutoManiac said:

The only reason I started to play WF is because I found out that I can play solo when I want to relax and test things with a build. I do enjoy pugs, but if it was only pugs/coop, I wouldn’t play as much for sure. You are right, it’s solo-able but that is a strength, not a downside.

The issue isn't that it's soloable.
The issue is that it's often far better to solo a mission than to run it co-op.

I agree it's a good thing when games are doable solo. I really hate when games force you to be on a team to do something. But the same applies in the opposite direction.
This game almost forces you to be solo a lot of the time because of just how bad coop is.

All that really needs to be done to fix this is a few Qol tweaks like Removing the dumb team doors. Doing something about elevators (There's really a huge amount of different ways to solve the elevator issue), adding a "teleport to teamate" option in normal missions (Railjack already has this mechanic), And sorting out some issues with disruptive warframe abilities, and abilities that can be disrupted by other players.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

9 hours ago, Venus-Venera said:

but that's not a "solo" we're talking about here! should be obvious?
If I only play a very small part of the content for mats solo, doesn't that mean that I play solo in GENERAL??!?! 😡

I'm a Legendary 3 player. There are certain content people are avoiding. Like Grendal missions. Then there's the issue of Host Migration. I have bad connections since the router is 50 feet away from where I play warframe. So I tend to solo just to avoid host migrations.

[quxier]

22 hours ago, (PSN)jaggerwanderer said:

23 hours ago, Venus-Venera said:

Solo Warframe makes no sense at all!
There are extremely many FIRST-CLASS games for solo gameplay!

People solo for efficiency. I can solo a capture void mission in 30 seconds. With a group that timers goes to 5 minutes. All because someone wants to look for Argon Crystals. Let's not forget Sortie Spy or missions with high failure rate.

Well, maybe you can do it in 30 seconds but you would have to do like 4+ times more. So you have like16 Radiants so that's 1600 void traces. Fissures gives you 6-60 Traces (minimum & max with the Booster). So that's 266 missions (133 minutes 2 hours 13 minutes) up to 26 missions (13 minutes). Meanwhile 4x radshare would give you 20 minutes.

Maybe you are lucky to get it in first 4 missions but I got many common and uncommon formas. Solo void fissure is something HORRIBLE. I feel like someone hates me when I need to get rare stuff, solo.

3 hours ago, PollexMessier said:

14 hours ago, MutoManiac said:

want to relax and test things with a build. I do enjoy pugs, but if it was only pugs/coop, I wouldn’t play as much for sure. You are right, it’s solo-able but that is a strength, not a downside.

The issue isn't that it's soloable.
The issue is that it's often far better to solo a mission than to run it co-op.

I agree it's a good thing when games are doable solo. I really hate when games force you to be on a team to do something. But the same applies in the opposite direction.
This game almost forces you to be solo a lot of the time because of just how bad coop is.

Maybe it's "human problem" as well? I honestly couldn't count instances where solo is FAAAR more beneficial than co-op.