Why people think player numbers are dropping off. Are they? And when did it happen? (Where DE really screwed up)

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

10 hours ago, Dioxety said:

Warframe is doing fine and not dying anytime soon. However Warframe is lacking engaging and endgame content. We used to have long Void Tower runs and trials to fill that gap. 

It doesn’t take long for everything to just die in one shot with any gear. AOE, Kuva/Tenet Weapons, Incarnon just obliterates everything. There isn’t really any combat or mechanics that gets my brain excited anymore.

I still enjoy coming back to play the story and going through the new content but It’s more going through the motions and the reward as the excitement rather then gameplay. 
 

Unfortunately balance is so far gone that DE doesn’t even really know how to solve it. Which is why a lot of recent gameplay forces you out of your Warframe to prevent steamrolling. Operator, Drifter, Necramechs, Khal, Duviri, now WF1999.

 

im sure many veterans feel the same, sitting on a pile of maxed out gear with nothing to really keep them engaged after getting all the mastery.

Not to be a snobby noob but I hope the game never gets to that point. “Bringing back the challenge” is why I quit Destiny. Quite enjoy OHKO everything. Warframe is a LOOOOOOOOOOOT like Diablo.

Also I’m not really a fan of the “mechanics”. Things like Vay Hek and Eidolons and most of WFs bosses besides like Orowyrm do a really poor job of explaining how to engage them and just use invincibility to gate.

Edited December 2, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

Like other things considered to have a cult following, warframe has had a loyal fan base which has led to a consistent playerbase. However the numbers have been stagnating for years.

[KIREEK]

Just want to add something, FOMO has been in the game since day 1, the moment you play the game, you already missed out on something. Content is usually scattered into several ways of being aquired, some for cash, some for plat, some for participating in a real event, some for using some 3rd party thingy, some for login in, some for playing.

It's never about FOMO that detracts players from playing the game, because 100% of players have already missed something.

[SneakyErvin]

22 hours ago, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Like other things considered to have a cult following, warframe has had a loyal fan base which has led to a consistent playerbase. However the numbers have been stagnating for years.

Aye, but also consider that unlike practically any other game, WF increased in active numbers over roughly 5 years, constantly increasing the avarage/concurrent player number together with the total. The norm for games is to see a huge active number at release and then drop to the expected avarage number after the first 6 months to a year. And after that just really see increases in the total (not active total). That is practically where WF is at now, no big increases in concurrent numbers, but steadily increasing in the total as time goes by. While the consistant playerbase that sticks to the game is roughly the same, while you also see the regular GaaS type players around releases coming back to play the latest content, grind it out and then leave until the next arrives.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

Nowadays, I feel like there's like two big updates per year, each giving you maybe a month of playtime at best... Rest of the year is essentially just logging in for daily rewards, maybe do a couple missions here and there for stuff like archon shards and nightwave stuff, but overall it's been years since I considered Warframe my "Main game".

That said i'm kinda fine with it. You can only be super invested in a game for so long ,and while I do think they really need to make a dedicated "Live Content" team that spends 100% of their time thinking of stuff like Events, Tactical Alerts and the like while the rest of the team works on the big releases, for now it seems the team always only focuses on the big updates and leaves us with recycled systemic stuff in between big updates.

It's just hard to get excited when the only thing happening is reruns of Plague Star / Fomorian / Razorback / Ghoul Purge / Thermia Fracture / Nightwave Meow Mix Volume 69.

Again, It's cool to come back , play pretty intensiely for like a month when let's say Duviri comes out, but after that you know there's like 7 months with the game being essentially dead.

Like I'm really looking forward to the Whispers in the Wall update, but I have a feeling it'll keep me occupied for like two weeks, then we'll get an "Echoes" update a month later giving us maybe a couple more weeks

[(PSN)Joylesstuna]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Stealth_Cobra said:

Like I'm really looking forward to the Whispers in the Wall update, but I have a feeling it'll keep me occupied for like two weeks, then we'll get an "Echoes" update a month later giving us maybe a couple more weeks

This is unfortunately where I have been for over a year. There isn't anything to keep veterans engaged and active. 

[ShogunGunshow]

On 2023-12-02 at 7:14 AM, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

Not to be a snobby noob but I hope the game never gets to that point. “Bringing back the challenge” is why I quit Destiny.

Apt considering a few days ago D2 launched their new season that absolutely gutted ability regen across the board in an attempt to force people to use guns more.

It has, among other things, resulted in an angry playerbase, top players that had been among those asking for the nerfs saying it went way too far, and the lowest population for a season release since it was released on steam. 

Warframe is a power fantasy game built on a decade of creep, and you will only challenge players by removing almost everything that they actually enjoy about the game.

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

1 hour ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Apt considering a few days ago D2 launched their new season that absolutely gutted ability regen across the board in an attempt to force people to use guns more.

It has, among other things, resulted in an angry playerbase, top players that had been among those asking for the nerfs saying it went way too far, and the lowest population for a season release since it was released on steam. 

Warframe is a power fantasy game built on a decade of creep, and you will only challenge players by removing almost everything that they actually enjoy about the game.

Yup. Every time I visit the Destiny forums to check up on the game all I am met with is disappointment.

When their servers were being “DDOS” I decided to remake my Titan… I guess it lagged or something when I was depositing my armor into the vault and it all got deleted when I deleted the Titan. I’ve had zero will since to even attempt to play. 
 

I’ve been on and off since Beyond Light. Came back for the tail end of Witchqueen, was great and Lightfall just killed everything and they just don’t stop. Endless nerfs all year. People screaming at the top of their lungs that this isn’t what they want and they just keep doing it. Won’t even be buying Final Shape. Money better spent here. Much better developer. Better monetization model.

Edited December 3, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[ShogunGunshow]

1 hour ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

Better monetization model.

To be fair that's a low, low bar. Almost subterranean. I'm so glad that we as a community pushed back hard on the heirlooms, and hopefully we never see that bullsh*t again.

And yeah I also won't be buying TFS. I foolishly bought the Lightfall bundle before release based on my positive experience with Witch Queen, but this time I'm just gonna ... watch a youtube compilation of cutscenes for the story.

Meanwhile Warframe is killing it with their updates recently. We are eating good. 

[Morgawse]

I spent 8 hours a day sitting at my PC, at home, for work... I tried using it for gaming but more than 8 hours a day in that chair, in that room. Nope. So I switched to console. Cross save is just coming now. If there was a drop off it was all PC I'd bet. The DE developers not taking that massive factor over the pandemic into account, even though they all had to be living it. DE focused on crossplay instead, For me the importance of being able to take my account to a console and play where I left off vs. playing with someone on a switch or Console was no contest.... I wanted the Cross save and I didn't care at all, not even a tiny little bit, about the crossplay aspect. Most people on console have no interest in playing with PC anyway and turn it off in most games. There is less cheating in Warframe (afaik) - it's pretty pointless really - so it is less of a concern but DE's focus was on something only a handful of switch players wanted instead of cross save which everyone wanted 2+ years ago, and that was a big, giagantic, mistake imho. If the player count stayed steady, then I'd suggest they lost a ton of growth opportunity.

Heck just them announcing cross save is coming soon has me back at forums I have not looked at in nearly 2-3 years.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Morgawse

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

On 2023-12-02 at 7:37 AM, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

Like other things considered to have a cult following, warframe has had a loyal fan base which has led to a consistent playerbase. However the numbers have been stagnating for years.

I think It's just people who create these Steam threads keep forgetting there's 7 (soon to be 9!!) different platforms to play Warframe and the numbers from Steam are not the numbers from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo's platforms. 

[(XBOX)Mastermitchel89]

On 2023-12-02 at 3:13 PM, 0_The_F00l said:

Snip

On 2023-12-02 at 4:11 PM, Dioxety said:

Snip

These two will do

How about we share to see thee symptoms so we can diagnose the source, shall we

So i've been playing for a long while, 2ish years, recently alot of pressure from the updates and issues causing my blunt boredom to set into stone

The only things left to farm accomplish at my point was things with Citrine, Voruna, Zarimon, Liches and forma'ing or basically Content farm time wasters or literally 5/6 of Prime parts that i don't have

So look for void fissure farm forma or scrap, capture, capture, capture spawns were slow, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate spawns stopped, sabotage too bad hack 5 terminals, rescue 5 terminals

No Void traces to crack relics i want to crack. Bored

Hunt liches, Kuva lich, its too slow to farm ephemeras or in general. 5 years later Farm sisters, is faster but the ephemeras NEVER show. Get some tenet weapons

Wait a week for a daily login affinity booster. Only get coupons i will NEVER use 

Finally get one and relay boost, went to sedna disruption, 4 rounds no affinity boost or eximi wave 30 minutes later

Forma, (whilst all of this is happening i actually have to live my life) basically this is taking months to clean my inventory more than fill it

Redo disruption, get bored because 30 minutes of RNG or bust

Lose boost give up and try tomorrow

Daily login. No boost, No farm

Back to void fissures or liches, inwhich requiem mods exist and require void traces so you choose. Do i waste time farming chance or waste time farming chance ontop of chance

Leave to annihilate botw because warframe skill in kids game. Switching between stuff, totk

 

The positive part.  Now im back refarming warframes of all things and just messing around and finding fun 

I don't care about the new content because why waste time stressing about the defence objective i can't defend or a 15 minute survival i don't want to do twice

Im just going to do the codex since i can waste time myself and actually figure out what to do myself without a big bone at the end to "Reward me" 

[SneakyErvin]

On 2023-12-03 at 9:22 PM, (PSN)Joylesstuna said:

This is unfortunately where I have been for over a year. There isn't anything to keep veterans engaged and active. 

Yeah that is a downside. Duviri was a massive exception for me in that regard since it actually kept me occupied for about uhm 3 months without boring me while also still being rewarding. It just had so many things worth farming overall. I kinda hope WitW will have atleast a month of replay value and things to farm, and it shouldnt be completely impossible considering they're adding TennoKai mods, melee arcanes and the new shard related items, plus a new frame with a weapon. And I cant recall if there were some other mods aswell they talked about, or that is me mixing it up with TennoKai mods.

Then with all that there is also the reason to test melee again with new builds thanks to those mods and arcanes.

[0_The_F00l]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Mastermitchel89 said:

These two will do 

Are you sure you can handle half of that ? :p

but yeah , it's not that the game suddenly becomes boring. But there are things outside the game that may be more interesting if you already have reached a threshold.