DEs problem with everything needing to be *new* and always forgetting the old

[dragonborn0998]

I get that new content, warframes and updates are needed to keep a live service game alive but is it worth it at the cost of whats already there?

 

Railjack was soooo hyped, it came out, was complete and utter S#&$ , got a update or 2 and is now forgotten forever. Another content island.

PoE was supposed to be a new age of level design for warframe, fast forward to now and this semi-open world level design is long and forgotten.

Warframe quests were a important source of Lore and backstory for new Warframes, now we got the sad excuse that is the Leverian with barely what? 7, maybe 8 actual warframe lore in it?

A new mechanic is introduced every other week and forgotten the next, it seems pointless to spend time in anything as it'll just get left in dust by the next update. whats so wrong with updating old stuff? Why are so many Warframes lackluster and lagging behind the "meta" ones, weapons included. Remember when we was meant to be getting a whole arsenal (hyperbole, obviously) of ice weapons, we got the Sibear and thats it. never to be spoken of again.

Nightwave is barely hanging by a thread in terms of care from DE, they update it whenever they feel like by the looks of it. 

Conclave is...... yeh i dont even need to say anything about that.

What ever happened to Arbiters questline? everyone else got one but DE decided #*!% that syndicate in particular. The new planets dont even get a Junction anymore.

Third Orb mother? DE did 2 and decided yeh i cba.

too many mechanics, too many islands. Is it really that hard for DE to focus on anything for longer than 2 updates? Did pets really need 8+ years just to get some attention?

[SDGDen]

11 minutes ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Why are so many Warframes lackluster and lagging behind the "meta" ones

because of powercreep.

it's an endless cycle of buffing the worst frame up to modern standards, only to leave other frames behind. 

11 minutes ago, dragonborn0998 said:

PoE was supposed to be a new age of level design for warframe, fast forward to now and this semi-open world level design is long and forgotten.

they've done openworld-style content for 4 areas now, and used the same hub style for both the zariman and the upcoming whispers in the walls area. 

13 minutes ago, dragonborn0998 said:

What ever happened to Arbiters questline? everyone else got one but DE decided #*!% that syndicate in particular. The new planets dont even get a Junction anymore.

the arbiters have arbitrations instead i guess. also, IIRC no new planets have been introduced that NEED a junction? the latest "planet" addition is deimos which is just the derelict + an openworld, unless you count the zariman and kuva fortress as planet additions but those don't need a junction because they're gated by a quest, same for lua. 

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

14 minutes ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Is it really that hard for DE to focus on anything for longer than 2 updates?

Yes

 

they're a small indie dev studio

and don't have the staff/hours to do both New Content and Maintenance at the same time.

given that the New Content brings in more money, that takes priority.

 

[dragonborn0998]

4 minutes ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

Yes

 

they're a small indie dev studio

and don't have the staff/hours to do both New Content and Maintenance at the same time.

given that the New Content brings in more money, that takes priority.

 

that argument isnt valid in 2023. 7 years ago yeh maybe, not anymore.

Google Digital Extremes and you will find they have Liyou as a parent company and the top result is literally "Digital Extremes Ltd. proudly ranks as one of the world's top development studios in the interactive entertainment industry." that is FAAAR from "small and indie", they dont get to have that excuse anymore

[Venus-Venera]

vor 28 Minuten schrieb dragonborn0998:

I get that new content, warframes and updates are needed to keep a live service game alive but is it worth it at the cost of whats already there?

 

Railjack was soooo hyped, it came out, was complete and utter S#&$ , got a update or 2 and is now forgotten forever. Another content island.

PoE was supposed to be a new age of level design for warframe, fast forward to now and this semi-open world level design is long and forgotten.

Warframe quests were a important source of Lore and backstory for new Warframes, now we got the sad excuse that is the Leverian with barely what? 7, maybe 8 actual warframe lore in it?

A new mechanic is introduced every other week and forgotten the next, it seems pointless to spend time in anything as it'll just get left in dust by the next update. whats so wrong with updating old stuff? Why are so many Warframes lackluster and lagging behind the "meta" ones, weapons included. Remember when we was meant to be getting a whole arsenal (hyperbole, obviously) of ice weapons, we got the Sibear and thats it. never to be spoken of again.

Nightwave is barely hanging by a thread in terms of care from DE, they update it whenever they feel like by the looks of it. 

Conclave is...... yeh i dont even need to say anything about that.

What ever happened to Arbiters questline? everyone else got one but DE decided #*!% that syndicate in particular. The new planets dont even get a Junction anymore.

Third Orb mother? DE did 2 and decided yeh i cba.

too many mechanics, too many islands. Is it really that hard for DE to focus on anything for longer than 2 updates? Did pets really need 8+ years just to get some attention?

I don't think they'll forget that.
but that is intentional.
They make all the popular things lousy and unusable before the content patch.
This allows devs to sell new items.

[Genitive]

20 minutes ago, dragonborn0998 said:

that argument isnt valid in 2023. 7 years ago yeh maybe, not anymore.

Google Digital Extremes and you will find they have Liyou as a parent company and the top result is literally "Digital Extremes Ltd. proudly ranks as one of the world's top development studios in the interactive entertainment industry." that is FAAAR from "small and indie", they dont get to have that excuse anymore

I think it is valid. They currently have around 300 employees. By comparison, companies like Bungie have around a thousand, and Destiny 2 is still underperforming. 

[xXDragonGodXx]

First of all, Railjack is consistently being patched so that it's playable, and calling it:

35 minutes ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Another content island.

Does not make it a bad content island. If you for some reason don't like the content that it provides, then don't play it. All you get from Railjack is plenty obtainable by other methods. They haven't forgotten about it, or mostly anything in their game. But everyone must realise at some point that older code is often buried under the new content, so it's harder to get to or change without screwing something else. This is also true for new content. If you look at Angels of Zariman, the code for the elevator was busted for several weeks before they could fix it, as it was interacting with old code. This in turn screwed with the code for extractions on Survivals. But they fixed it as fast as they could.

With newer technology they are also working on getting certain parts of the game up to speed on a technical side, which is also taxing. It takes time and resources, so why would they need to work on getting everything done yesterday when a simple code change can take weeks to deal with, on top of testing that the change did not affect anything important.

And talking about other content like nightwave and conclave and saying that they don't care is unreasonable. While it might feel like it's being neglected, you have to start reading all the update notes and hotfix notes to get the bigger picture. Change takes time, and even more so when we are talking about the scale that Warframe is, and DE are dealing with. Cause DE doesn't only have obligations to the player base but to investors and proprietors as well.

[Circle_of_Psi]

As of late, everything has to be about Vampires, Jo-Jo or Female Power

 

That's how I'm seeing it. 

Edited November 12, 2023 by Circle_of_Psi

[SDGDen]

12 minutes ago, Genitive said:

I think it is valid. They currently have around 300 employees. By comparison, companies like Bungie have around a thousand, and Destiny 2 is still underperforming. 

bungie HAD 600 employees... and recently laid off 100 of them.

 

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

38 minutes ago, dragonborn0998 said:

that argument isnt valid in 2023. 7 years ago yeh maybe, not anymore.

Google Digital Extremes and you will find they have Liyou as a parent company and the top result is literally "Digital Extremes Ltd. proudly ranks as one of the world's top development studios in the interactive entertainment industry." that is FAAAR from "small and indie", they dont get to have that excuse anymore

Don't forget the Tencent buyout, and the fact that they have 300+ staff on hand. DE aren't Scott Cawthon, Toby Fox, or any other small-time bloke growing from next to nothing. Dark Sector never struck me as much of an indie title given how much it takes from other late 2000s shooters.

Edited November 12, 2023 by (PSN)IndianChiefJeff

[SDGDen]

Just now, (PSN)IndianChiefJeff said:

Don't forget the Tencent buyout, and the fact that they have 300+ staff on hand.

just fyi, tencent bought leyou, not DE. and leyou only had shares that did not allow them to interfere with production in any way (except they DID have production rights to the chinese version of warframe). tencent and leyou have no control over DE, they just get a cut of the profits. 

[Genitive]

7 minutes ago, SDGDen said:

bungie HAD 600 employees... and recently laid off 100 of them.

 

Not according to sources like this Bloomberg article.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-31/sony-s-bungie-game-unit-cut-jobs-as-destiny-2-popularity-waned?embedded-checkout=true#xj4y7vzkg

[SDGDen]

18 minutes ago, Genitive said:

Not according to sources like this Bloomberg article.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-31/sony-s-bungie-game-unit-cut-jobs-as-destiny-2-popularity-waned?embedded-checkout=true#xj4y7vzkg

"estimated 1200", chances are that estimate is way off considering that just before the sony buyout they had 600 staff members. i HIGHLY doubt that they scaled to double their employee count within a year. 

[Homucifer]

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

PoE was supposed to be a new age of level design for warframe, fast forward to now and this semi-open world level design is long and forgotten.

Completely baffled at this comment. DE made four of these things and is now backloading their mechanics into the starchart. You really don't have any comprehension of the situation, do you?

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Is this a DE issue, or a fanbase, consumer issue though? A lot of people aren't necessarily the best at parsing the difference, and often this is also a habit of framing. Since often, people prefer the idea of their preferences and views, being supported and shared by one particular group, and the issue, lies with a different specific entity. It can be harder or more difficult, if its more complicated than that, for certain people, arguments, so on. 

If more people generally respond more favourably to newer content than older content, then thats not a player versus DE problem, thats some fans not realising they are in a minority or that their personal views may not be supported by a larger portion of the playerbase. 

Another issue with some peoples rhetoric, is subjective terms and ideas presented as more than that. If Railjack had 20 more updates would everyone suddenly magically start liking it? If Railjack was made to be essential to everything in Warframe, would that be welcome? More constant updates, and making something the opposite of a "content island" isn't inherently better or a good thing. As it stands, subjectively, arguably, Railjack after many different types of updates and reworks, is a pretty good place for multi-task style efforts. Like its decent for Credits, levelling, and you can also crack Relics there, and also get certain weapons you can't get anywhere else. Like its not the best place for Credits solely, (say compared to Profit Taker), but it can be a decent place if you want to multitask and make progress in a few multiple directions. Does it need to be more than that, or better phrased, could it be better and improved? Sure, definitely, but even if it is, its never going to be to everyones taste. Some people will alwaus prefer new and different stuff over it. So its about balance. 

Third Orb Mother? This is DE, its taken us years, like in some cases, 5 plus years to see and get to certain weapons teased that long ago. To get to big quests teased from that long ago. DE likes to tease. Not everyone likes teases sure, but it would be a flaw to think, just because something is hinted at, it must appear in a weeks time completed. 

Not all old things are equal either, and even for people who like old things, there are preferences. The good news, is that if the last QOL was well received (which it generally seems to be), but also pulled numbers as far as people playing the content, we could reasonably expect a bit more. Alternatively, think of something like Nightwave. I personally sort of wished it was more, but what would you rather have, something like Glassmaker in December and Whispers in the Wall gets pushed back 3 months? Or Whispers in the Wall in December and Nightwave is just what it is, a shop you get stuff with Creds and thats about it. Personally I would rather get Whispers, and I imagine a lot more people generally do, and so thats why/what DE prioritises. If you want that to change, its other players that you need to appeal to. 

[0_The_F00l]

I have always said DE is like a child with ADHD ,

They can't focus on any one thing for long enough.

[Genitive]

30 minutes ago, SDGDen said:

"estimated 1200", chances are that estimate is way off considering that just before the sony buyout they had 600 staff members. i HIGHLY doubt that they scaled to double their employee count within a year. 

Not sure where you're taking your numbers from, but here it says they had around 900 last year. The article didn't age very well, though.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/02/03/sony-is-spending-12-billion-to-make-sure-bungie-employees-dont-leave/

[Famecans]

The market is the hardest boss in the game and this is knocking several accounts into the void

[Stafelund]

1 hour ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

As of late, everything has to be about Vampires, Jo-Jo or Female Power

 

That's how I'm seeing it. 

Wouldn't mind references to other media, but I hope it doesn't have to be all JoJo (and I love this one for sure). Give Berserk, Mazinger Z or Gundam, and Mega Man a chance please DE.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Stafelund

[Numerounius]

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Railjack was soooo hyped, it came out, was complete and utter S#&$ , got a update or 2 and is now forgotten forever. Another content island.

And corpus got added. So not forgotten forever.

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

PoE was supposed to be a new age of level design for warframe, fast forward to now and this semi-open world level design is long and forgotten.

Did you play New War? Did you see the other open worlds?

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Warframe quests were a important source of Lore and backstory for new Warframes, now we got the sad excuse that is the Leverian with barely what? 7, maybe 8 actual warframe lore in it?

Not too invested into lore to matter. Just a little bit annoyed at how many definitions of Void we have right now in regards to having no consistency regarding gameplay/cosmetic updates.

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

A new mechanic is introduced every other week and forgotten the next, it seems pointless to spend time in anything as it'll just get left in dust by the next update. whats so wrong with updating old stuff? Why are so many Warframes lackluster and lagging behind the "meta" ones, weapons included. Remember when we was meant to be getting a whole arsenal (hyperbole, obviously) of ice weapons, we got the Sibear and thats it. never to be spoken of again.

Sibear was a long time ago, and having singular weapons with a unique mechanic is not noteworthy towards them forgetting the old.

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Nightwave is barely hanging by a thread in terms of care from DE, they update it whenever they feel like by the looks of it. 

I'd say this falls on recency bias. It wasn't always like this. At least they are still keeping up cadences with it so can't blame forgetting the old on that considering the acts have been changed.

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Conclave is...... yeh i dont even need to say anything about that.

Eh, still seeing patchnotes regarding it. But yeah they aren't doing anything about that.

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

Third Orb mother? DE did 2 and decided yeh i cba.

How is this old? It isn't even here!

1 hour ago, dragonborn0998 said:

too many mechanics, too many islands. Is it really that hard for DE to focus on anything for longer than 2 updates? Did pets really need 8+ years just to get some attention?

You can complain about how there are certain mechanics that needs to be updated more often than others but assuming that everything old is being forgotten about isn't true.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

Funny enough,  we had this exact same discussion in clan chat a few hours ago.

DE abandoning content shortly after its release is a major annoyance for me personally,  and what I truly believe is a large contribution to what keeps the community from growing even further. 

Imagine what a fully fleshed out Railjack, Duviri, PoE, etc would do for the game's popularity, in spite of it's lack of challenge 

[Stafelund]

54 minutes ago, Numerounius said:

How is this old? It isn't even here!

Not really old in that sense but they promised this years ago and up to now, nothing came out of it and it's still swimming in that coolant lake in Fortuna.

[Voltage]

I think it's really a case of how you're looking at the game and when you started. For example, players who played pre-Shrine of the Eidolon have some form of opinion on Trials/Raids (whether positive or negative) compared to players that have only played post-Shrine of the Eidolon. You can even narrow down to specific gamemodes like Eidolons on release vs. Eidolons now (old Itzal, the addition of Wisp, Helminth, spawn manipulations, etc.). 

It's not very hard to have the opinion OP does, but it also omits alot that has changed over the years in a positive direction (even if some of these changes were overdue for the longest time). There's an opportunity cost with everything, and at the end of the day DE has to be the most efficient with their time for business purposes. Making the most solid game does not actually equate to the most income, as you see with the releases of new Call of Duty titles or something of that nature. Sure, you can look at examples like Baldur's Gate 3 or Elden Ring for the "refinement is valuable" stance, but it's honestly really easy to assume that those studios sacrificed maximum profit and efficiency in order to deliver a very specific experience that was heavily refined.

Warframe is a live service game, and it's free to play, so it does not afford the luxury of single player games that focus solely on refining one experience. Warframe has to constantly float above water to maintain relevancy and attention of players. This is the type of situation that drives mechanics like Battle Passes. DE has to settle for "good enough" with the functionality of old content to steamroll ahead with brand new content.

I'm not trying to sound like a preachy DE sympathizer, that's just how it is. I would absolutely love more refinement to several areas of Warframe, but it's not in the cards to see that happen all that often. I am a bit disappointed with how things like Archwing, Railjack, and recurring events like Plague Star have aged, but I am also aware that DE would see more return from brand new events or brand new mechanics to grind through. That's why instead of just having an extremely rich Archwing experience with many things to do in Archwing, we have Necramech, K-Drive, Merulina, Kaithe, Razorwing, Railjack, and probably more in the future.

Like you OP, I would like more of the older game to see refinement and expansion, but that's just not how a live-service goes, unless the live-service is specifically a pvp experience only. Every PvE content focused live service game would quickly become boring and lose all the dedicated players it creates if the content was extremely rich but lacking a treadmill of new things to do and earn.

Let's take the solar map for example. You could have Starchart 4.0 with all new tilesets that heavily improved player progression and cut down on node bloat. The game would be tremendously upgraded. Or, you could get the Tau System. Brand new tiles and brand new rewards and progressions to take part in. In this scenario, DE would be foolish to choose Starchart 4.0 (provided the scope and man-hours line up with the Tau System, for the sake of comparison). That is how things are going with Warframe. DE could have spent all that Railjack development on Archwing and really beefed it up to be more enjoyable with more space missions, but that's just not what sells, even if it refines the base game more than adding Railjack would. 

You have to also consider the player expectations as another player mentioned. People expect to always have new things to do in live service games like this, that's just how it goes.

Basically, all I am saying is that you aren't wrong, and it is completely valid. I totally agree with you too, but it's just not a smart way to prioritize the game's health when the game is in an industry competing in the attention economy. Warframe has to compete with games that may grab your attention more, and because Warframe is much less predatory than some of the giants, they are actually at a disadvantage. This is why I also think we're seeing the slight creep of some questionable marketing decisions. DE has to compete in the industry at the end of the day. If you lean too much on pro-player practices, you lose out on loads of revenue. That's just how the world works. That's why Apple had to be forced to use USB-C, even though they heavily contributed to the development of the standard. The Lightning cable is just way better for their pockets.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Voltage

[SneakyErvin]

It is indeed an issue. While new things are fun, and have been so in WF, it needs to stop at some point. We have enough systems now, introducing more really serves no purpose, while designing content for the current systems serves many purposes. And I hope this is what we'll see for the future of WF, with less grand plans like RJ, Duviri and so on, and more content for RJ, Duviri, the open worlds and so on.

All of it will still be new content since not everything new needs to introduce yet another system on the pile of systems that already sees too many go unused in the majority of conent we get. 

Flesh out what we have with new content additions to the exsisting systems.

[Voltage]

2 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

It is indeed an issue. While new things are fun, and have been so in WF, it needs to stop at some point. We have enough systems now, introducing more really serves no purpose, while designing content for the current systems serves many purposes. And I hope this is what we'll see for the future of WF, with less grand plans like RJ, Duviri and so on, and more content for RJ, Duviri, the open worlds and so on.

All of it will still be new content since not everything new needs to introduce yet another system on the pile of systems that already sees too many go unused in the majority of conent we get. 

Flesh out what we have with new content additions to the exsisting systems.

It's not as clear cut as that though, when many players who are decently invested in the game can easily bypass standing, resources, Credits, Endo, and many other hurdles that "building onto existing content" does. You could look at Bond Mods vs. Archon Mods. How many players saw Bond Mods and just purchased them right away, completely removing the acquisition part of the process because they've pre-completed all these vendors. Archon Shards forced everyone to get playing Kahl's Garrison and waiting weeks to purchase mods at a time. The only saving grace for players with those was the ability to transmute them, because DE goofed like they often do.

Building on existing content is certainly awesome, and in my previous comment, I want to make clear that I am in total agreement with these kinds of comments. I want more impact on the game as a whole through systems already in-game as opposed to new. However, old content expansions are often figured out too fast, are bypassed in grind, or become stale in nature (like replaying Plague Star or Nights of Naberus every occurrence. Even if they changed up the bounty, it would be very similar in nature). If we got Infested Liches tomorrow, with a brand new set of Infested Proximas, players would boil them down like they did to Sisters of Parvos.

Part of Warframe's charm is the never-ending surprise of how they add completely brand new systems, and how these systems tie into existing ones. That's part of what makes builds in Warframe so much fun is how many systems you can cross-collaborate with. In Plague Star, I'm using my Operator/Focus, K-Drive, Necramech, Loc-Pins, Helminth with Augment Mods, Archon Shards, Duviri Arcanes, Eidolon Arcanes, Vastilok from TennoCon, Kavats, Archwing, Railjack Intrinsics for Archwing, etc. That's honestly wild and super rewarding to get extremely fast Plague Star runs because I've farmed all of these random updates and items over the last several years they were added.