Voicing my Concerns before the Whispers in the Walls Update

[Chamsgaming]

I've been a long time player and I've seen the transformation that Warframe has gone through, but it goes to say that most of those changes has concerns for the game's future.

Now these are my concerns for Warframe as a game and you are free to have an opinion, but I don't want to feign ignorance to some of these problems as a value of a game.

1. Removal of MR for story missions

The removal of MR for story missions is a bad decision in my opinion, its the only thing that's keeping beginner players from zooming through the game and going for the latest weapon that renders most weapons useless. Now, I understand that you want people to play the latest content and enjoy the game, but this can cause leeching in other cases of content where the player doesn't have full mods or proper equipment where grinding is still needed (such as archon Hunts).

 

2.  Power creep 

Like most game power creep will always be a thing, but the removal of MR to story missions makes leeching easier for beginning players to get the latest end gaming content. For those who don't know what power creep is "It refers to the situation where new content or features make older ones obsolete or irrelevant, creating an imbalance and a loss of diversity in the game." Power creep has gotten so bad that even low MR are neglecting other content for newly released content because the weapons are stronger. Remember the survey in 2021 or 2022 where it asked if there was a power creep in the game. It was pretty evident that power creep was in the game because when I was leveling weapons up in Hydron I kept seeing MR 8 spamming the Kuva Bramma, a MR 15 weapon. Later came Incarnon genesis which I kept finding MR 13 players in SP (Steel Path) Circuit struggling to survive and leaving after 1 wave every time which made grinding more tedious. I understand that even high MR player (around 20 and above) struggle, but there's a difference between a bad player and a player who isn't ready that content. This essentially leads to leeching, now there are players that help these leechers and I give you props for being a kind tenno, but this raises problems for the game's health.

 

3. Warframe & Weapon Balances

In Circuit it becomes basic as to what warframes and what weapons struggle. In my Opinion SP Circuit was given no thought at all and will be forever be a forgotten content for me, as DE already knew the struggles of most weapons in regular SP but still decided the add this menace into the game with RNG loadout. Playing it as " this will be a good way to level up weapons" or "this will be a good way to see what weapons you like" (sorry, not sorry). In reality it was for beginner players and poorly designed for veterans as they already know what's good or not. Digressing, it becomes clear that a lot of warframes are poorly built as some warframes make it way easier than other, meaning that a majority of them needs a rework. Now I'm not saying that those warframe can't beat it, but it makes it 3x as harder than other warframes. For weapons it's really clear as day to tell what weapons are just bad, reason being is that the RNG loadout forces synergies to become obsolete meaning a weapon has to perform well on its own and forces you to Forma every weapon. Now before I end this point, AOE weapons nerf was the right call but the ammo nerf was too huge and the loss of headshot multiplier was poorly executed. This is coming from someone who mainly uses assault riffles. AOE weapons that have a small blast radius (1-2m blast radius) got nerfed for no reason because of the AOE meta. Now they did add a 3x headshot multiplier, but be honest what AOE weapon mainly has initial damage compared to it's explosive counter part. It would've been smarter to add a headshot AOE fall off damage where .3m of the explosion can still get the headshot multiplier, anything further than that is 0x headshot, that way players who actually aim can still get value out of aiming.

 

4. Gameplay/Longevity 

I get a sense that this game doesn't know where its trying to go with it's gameplay as it puts some much value into killing enemies. Mods and arcanes that don't require killing has less value than killing, but have way more restrictive gameplay than just getting a kill. What makes it worse is that this game has lack/no high skill ceiling and puts massive value into meta usage which causes lack of build diversity and ego issues. Basically the rise of elites saying if you don't build my way your playing the game wrong or players who say "thank god you weren't a noob" while playing the most tanky frame (I know these people are the few). Examples of lack of value, is when I use Arcane double back (If you know, you know) I gain less or about the same value as Arcane guardian. Which Arcane guardian gains so much value for taking a hit while double back only gets some value or I just lose DPS. Not only that but the maps are so small that I auto mantle/climb on random stuff making me take shots and the climbing animation isn't fast. Right now Arcane double back is good because of the recent shield changes, but the value of skill ceiling is bad that it puts so much value in a player doing something simple and making it meta. I can see why Iflynn says Warframe doesn't feel fun anymore, the game's value plummet as mastering a intensive gameplay (skill ceiling) is zero and farming is too easy. Remember this is a LOOTER SHOOTER people expect to get the warframe on day 1 of release or they'll complain it takes too long, which DE has made a pity system making the value of the game ZERO. This means the games value is nothing because there is nothing to do, grinding becomes obsolete and there is no value in sharpening your skills as the meta plays the game for you.

Now I'm not trying to attack the game but these are my genuine concerns for Warframe as the value of it being a game is going down, as people are saying this game's content is becoming scarce. I find myself playing this game less and less as there is nothing to do but I guess it just might be me. I might have to take another 2 year break... There's more I wanted to talk about but I wanted to make this brief, because I didn't want this to be too long and it would be never ending.

[Circle_of_Psi]

1 hour ago, Chamsgaming said:

leeching

Since most of your worries are centred around this ^ you see someone leeching, report and move on.

Or go Solo.

[Dunkelheit]

To 1: The problem are people who ruin the game for themselves by rushing to the endgame, when Warframe has so many other things to offer. On the other hand, who wants to play stuff for 1-2 years till they finally reach the endgame? So finding a middle ground is hard. There will always be people who only play one Warframe and one set of weapons, because they are considered the strongest, but they are not the typical Warframe players. I play this game for a long time and I always come back for the fast gameplay with hordes of enemies and the newest content drops. So while I think you have a point, I think it won't matter in the end, because if you play the wrong game, if you desperately want raids and super hard content while playing copypasta workloads from some streamers, you won't stay for long anyway.

To 2: A game that lasts for 10 years cannot exist without power creep, plain and simple. If you think differently, you are fooling yourself. For how long can you keep new weapons and Warframes interesting without change in power dynamics? Additionally, please name one game that lasted for 10 years which did not have power creep in it? Maybe I am missing one, but I can't think of a single game. But the game also needs ideas to make the new content challenging, this is the main point.

To 3: Circuit is an extreme example. There are no companions, which are a focal point of some builds, enemies come from all sides and you cannot hide from their shots, enemies are not clustered, which makes it hard for some builds as well. On the other hand, it is fantastic endgame content, because it will show you where your builds need work. I can assure you that every single frame can reach Tier 10 in one go and survive against lvl 9999 enemies. You just need to put more work into it, e.g. use your Operator. You said somewhere in your text that there is low skill ceiling in Warframe and on the other hand you complain that some things are not effective enough in Circuit.
Last but not least you ask for buffing AOE weapons, which are the bane of high skill ceiling and make the game super boring. I am glad that a Bramma is not usable in Circuit because of ammo issues, but maybe that is just me. I like the Incarnon single target weapons that are really strong and I personally would love to nerf the AOE weapons even further. Not the AOE weapons that take preparation/skill to use for a couple of shoots, but the likes of Bramma/Zarr where you can mindlessly shoot into a direction where you see red triangles on the minimap or just shoot at your feet to clear everything without even aiming once. While we are at it, as much as I love the Torid, I feel that this weapon is way too easy to charge into Incarnon mode and it could be better balanced if it would be harder. Other weapons need faster Incarnon charge rate. Balance this the correct way and we are on a good path.

To 4: The game is more than playable without using the meta. The only thing that bothers me is that using AOE weapons like Torid/Bramma/Zarr is way too oppressive for those who want to play with non-meta setups. If someone uses one of those weapons, you won't get a lot of kills, which makes it unfun.
Whatever Iflynn says (I don't even know the guy), Warframe is in a better state than ever before. The gameplay is more fun, the new Warframes design is better than the old ones and Incarnon weapons are just amazing.

One thing though, watch at your hours that you have in the game. In my humble opinion, if you put 5k hours into one game and you criticize it on a basic level, you need to rethink your arguments. Hey, a very fair F2P game made you put thousands of hours into it, it cannot be too bad. It is just a lot more probably that your expectation and perspective of the game changed over time. For me, Warframe is a relaxing shooter that is fast paced and fun and leans more to the casual side. There is a lot of fun to find in mass murdering other factions while moving through the air like some kind of Spider-Man without his net. If I want very difficult or PVP or high skill ceiling, I just go to other games. Remember, this game is going strong for 10 years and even if I cannot speak for you or other gamers, I am very happy about the state of the game and I can't wait for the new content drop or what they have in store for next year. Your points are valid though (minus the powercreep thing, I don't want to play a game for 10 years and have the same strength all the time, I like my characters to advance to new power levels) and of course it would be great to think about them, but the game is nowhere near being a bad or even average game.

 

Edit: Forgot one thing - Occurances with players who behave badly are very rare. If someone leeches, it might be a dad/mom having to look for his/her child. Most of the time, I play with my alliance anyway and when I play solo, there are a lot of kick ass helpful players to meet among all tenno.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Dunkelheit

[Cerenax]

1 hour ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Since most of your worries are centred around this ^ you see someone leeching, report and move on.

Or go Solo.

Support doesn't do anything about leechers. Even if you provide video proof.

[Circle_of_Psi]

4 minutes ago, Cerenax said:

Support doesn't do anything about leechers. Even if you provide video proof.

Damm.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 1 hora, Dunkelheit dijo:

To 1: The problem are people who ruin the game for themselves by rushing to the endgame, when Warframe has so many other things to offer. On the other hand, who wants to play stuff for 1-2 years till they finally reach the endgame? So finding a middle ground is hard. There will always be people who only play one Warframe and one set of weapons, because they are considered the strongest, but they are not the typical Warframe players. I play this game for a long time and I always come back for the fast gameplay with hordes of enemies and the newest content drops. So while I think you have a point, I think it won't matter in the end, because if you play the wrong game, if you desperately want raids and super hard content while playing copypasta workloads from some streamers, you won't stay for long anyway.

To 2: A game that lasts for 10 years cannot exist without power creep, plain and simple. If you think differently, you are fooling yourself. For how long can you keep new weapons and Warframes interesting without change in power dynamics? Additionally, please name one game that lasted for 10 years which did not have power creep in it? Maybe I am missing one, but I can't think of a single game. But the game also needs ideas to make the new content challenging, this is the main point.

To 3: Circuit is an extreme example. There are no companions, which are a focal point of some builds, enemies come from all sides and you cannot hide from their shots, enemies are not clustered, which makes it hard for some builds as well. On the other hand, it is fantastic endgame content, because it will show you where your builds need work. I can assure you that every single frame can reach Tier 10 in one go and survive against lvl 9999 enemies. You just need to put more work into it, e.g. use your Operator. You said somewhere in your text that there is low skill ceiling in Warframe and on the other hand you complain that some things are not effective enough in Circuit.
Last but not least you ask for buffing AOE weapons, which are the bane of high skill ceiling and make the game super boring. I am glad that a Bramma is not usable in Circuit because of ammo issues, but maybe that is just me. I like the Incarnon single target weapons that are really strong and I personally would love to nerf the AOE weapons even further. Not the AOE weapons that take preparation/skill to use for a couple of shoots, but the likes of Bramma/Zarr where you can mindlessly shoot into a direction where you see red triangles on the minimap or just shoot at your feet to clear everything without even aiming once. While we are at it, as much as I love the Torid, I feel that this weapon is way too easy to charge into Incarnon mode and it could be better balanced if it would be harder. Other weapons need faster Incarnon charge rate. Balance this the correct way and we are on a good path.

To 4: The game is more than playable without using the meta. The only thing that bothers me is that using AOE weapons like Torid/Bramma/Zarr is way too oppressive for those who want to play with non-meta setups. If someone uses one of those weapons, you won't get a lot of kills, which makes it unfun.
Whatever Iflynn says (I don't even know the guy), Warframe is in a better state than ever before. The gameplay is more fun, the new Warframes design is better than the old ones and Incarnon weapons are just amazing.

One thing though, watch at your hours that you have in the game. In my humble opinion, if you put 5k hours into one game and you criticize it on a basic level, you need to rethink your arguments. Hey, a very fair F2P game made you put thousands of hours into it, it cannot be too bad. It is just a lot more probably that your expectation and perspective of the game changed over time. For me, Warframe is a relaxing shooter that is fast paced and fun and leans more to the casual side. There is a lot of fun to find in mass murdering other factions while moving through the air like some kind of Spider-Man without his net. If I want very difficult or PVP or high skill ceiling, I just go to other games. Remember, this game is going strong for 10 years and even if I cannot speak for you or other gamers, I am very happy about the state of the game and I can't wait for the new content drop or what they have in store for next year. Your points are valid though (minus the powercreep thing, I don't want to play a game for 10 years and have the same strength all the time, I like my characters to advance to new power levels) and of course it would be great to think about them, but the game is nowhere near being a bad or even average game.

 

Edit: Forgot one thing - Occurances with players who behave badly are very rare. If someone leeches, it might be a dad/mom having to look for his/her child. Most of the time, I play with my alliance anyway and when I play solo, there are a lot of kick ass helpful players to meet among all tenno.

Nah you can do all the content in  one month playing 3 hours a day and you don't have to rush. Anyone new should research the game they are going to play. If it takes you 2 years to complete everything and reach the ''endgame'' the problem may possibly be you.

hace 3 horas, Chamsgaming dijo:

leechers

If you want organized runs, use the recruitment chat. You can't complain if you enter a public game and there is someone who doesn't do anything.

DE can't ban a person for not playing the game so they haven't banned the bunch of people who use AFK playstyles and have simply nerfed that playstyle (and possibly nerfed more in the future).

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by CosoMalvadoNG

[Dunkelheit]

vor 1 Minute schrieb CosoMalvadoNG:

Nah you can do all the content in  one month playing 3 hours a day and you don't have to rush. Anyone new should research the game they are going to play. If it takes you 2 years to complete everything and reach the ''endgame'' the problem may possibly be you.

Depends on how you define content. If you mean "play all quests", yeah, that might be doable, but you won't even be close to MR L3 with playing 3 hours a day.

I don't see a problem btw, even if it is a "me" problem. The longer I need to finish the game, the better it is for me.

[-Krism-]

13 minutes ago, Cerenax said:

Support doesn't do anything about leechers. Even if you provide video proof.

Really? The few times I reported people for leeching or AFKing, they did ask me for picture/video proofs, & later told me they had taken actions

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 6 minutos, Dunkelheit dijo:

Depends on how you define content. If you mean "play all quests", yeah, that might be doable, but you won't even be close to MR L3 with playing 3 hours a day.

I don't see a problem btw, even if it is a "me" problem. The longer I need to finish the game, the better it is for me.

I don't have a legendary account and have 10 years playing this...  At most, to be able to have all the content of the game open, you would have to have MR 17. 

I mean the MR gives obvious advantages, but not mandatory.

Edited December 3, 2023 by CosoMalvadoNG

[Cerenax]

Just now, -Krism- said:

Really? The few times I reported people for leeching or AFKing, they did ask me for picture/video proofs, & later told me they had taken actions

I once opened a ticket over a player that was leeching for several rounds straight on ESO and included a link to an video I uploaded to youtube (as unlisted) as proof. I got a reply thanking me for the report and saying something along the lines that they "would continue to watch that player for such issues etc", but the video itself on youtube still had 0 views (they didn't watch it).

[Dunkelheit]

vor 7 Minuten schrieb CosoMalvadoNG:

I don't have a legendary account and have 10 years playing this...  At most, to be able to have all the content of the game open, you would have to have MR 17. 

I mean the MR gives obvious advantages, but not mandatory.

Remember? We talked about how you define content and how it changes your 3 hours per day theory. You can very well define a weapon as "content". If you only count quests, you get away with a lot less hours.

 

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 1 minuto, Dunkelheit dijo:

Remember? We talked about how you define content and how it changes your 3 hours per day theory. You can very well define a weapon as "content". If you only count quests, you get away with a lot less hours.

 

ok

[(PSN)robotwars7]

3 hours ago, Chamsgaming said:

I've been a long time player and I've seen the transformation that Warframe has gone through, but it goes to say that most of those changes has concerns for the game's future.

Now these are my concerns for Warframe as a game and you are free to have an opinion, but I don't want to feign ignorance to some of these problems as a value of a game.

1. Removal of MR for story missions

The removal of MR for story missions is a bad decision in my opinion, its the only thing that's keeping beginner players from zooming through the game and going for the latest weapon that renders most weapons useless. Now, I understand that you want people to play the latest content and enjoy the game, but this can cause leeching in other cases of content where the player doesn't have full mods or proper equipment where grinding is still needed (such as archon Hunts).

 

2.  Power creep 

Like most game power creep will always be a thing, but the removal of MR to story missions makes leeching easier for beginning players to get the latest end gaming content. For those who don't know what power creep is "It refers to the situation where new content or features make older ones obsolete or irrelevant, creating an imbalance and a loss of diversity in the game." Power creep has gotten so bad that even low MR are neglecting other content for newly released content because the weapons are stronger. Remember the survey in 2021 or 2022 where it asked if there was a power creep in the game. It was pretty evident that power creep was in the game because when I was leveling weapons up in Hydron I kept seeing MR 8 spamming the Kuva Bramma, a MR 15 weapon. Later came Incarnon genesis which I kept finding MR 13 players in SP (Steel Path) Circuit struggling to survive and leaving after 1 wave every time which made grinding more tedious. I understand that even high MR player (around 20 and above) struggle, but there's a difference between a bad player and a player who isn't ready that content. This essentially leads to leeching, now there are players that help these leechers and I give you props for being a kind tenno, but this raises problems for the game's health.

 

3. Warframe & Weapon Balances

In Circuit it becomes basic as to what warframes and what weapons struggle. In my Opinion SP Circuit was given no thought at all and will be forever be a forgotten content for me, as DE already knew the struggles of most weapons in regular SP but still decided the add this menace into the game with RNG loadout. Playing it as " this will be a good way to level up weapons" or "this will be a good way to see what weapons you like" (sorry, not sorry). In reality it was for beginner players and poorly designed for veterans as they already know what's good or not. Digressing, it becomes clear that a lot of warframes are poorly built as some warframes make it way easier than other, meaning that a majority of them needs a rework. Now I'm not saying that those warframe can't beat it, but it makes it 3x as harder than other warframes. For weapons it's really clear as day to tell what weapons are just bad, reason being is that the RNG loadout forces synergies to become obsolete meaning a weapon has to perform well on its own and forces you to Forma every weapon. Now before I end this point, AOE weapons nerf was the right call but the ammo nerf was too huge and the loss of headshot multiplier was poorly executed. This is coming from someone who mainly uses assault riffles. AOE weapons that have a small blast radius (1-2m blast radius) got nerfed for no reason because of the AOE meta. Now they did add a 3x headshot multiplier, but be honest what AOE weapon mainly has initial damage compared to it's explosive counter part. It would've been smarter to add a headshot AOE fall off damage where .3m of the explosion can still get the headshot multiplier, anything further than that is 0x headshot, that way players who actually aim can still get value out of aiming.

 

4. Gameplay/Longevity 

I get a sense that this game doesn't know where its trying to go with it's gameplay as it puts some much value into killing enemies. Mods and arcanes that don't require killing has less value than killing, but have way more restrictive gameplay than just getting a kill. What makes it worse is that this game has lack/no high skill ceiling and puts massive value into meta usage which causes lack of build diversity and ego issues. Basically the rise of elites saying if you don't build my way your playing the game wrong or players who say "thank god you weren't a noob" while playing the most tanky frame (I know these people are the few). Examples of lack of value, is when I use Arcane double back (If you know, you know) I gain less or about the same value as Arcane guardian. Which Arcane guardian gains so much value for taking a hit while double back only gets some value or I just lose DPS. Not only that but the maps are so small that I auto mantle/climb on random stuff making me take shots and the climbing animation isn't fast. Right now Arcane double back is good because of the recent shield changes, but the value of skill ceiling is bad that it puts so much value in a player doing something simple and making it meta. I can see why Iflynn says Warframe doesn't feel fun anymore, the game's value plummet as mastering a intensive gameplay (skill ceiling) is zero and farming is too easy. Remember this is a LOOTER SHOOTER people expect to get the warframe on day 1 of release or they'll complain it takes too long, which DE has made a pity system making the value of the game ZERO. This means the games value is nothing because there is nothing to do, grinding becomes obsolete and there is no value in sharpening your skills as the meta plays the game for you.

Now I'm not trying to attack the game but these are my genuine concerns for Warframe as the value of it being a game is going down, as people are saying this game's content is becoming scarce. I find myself playing this game less and less as there is nothing to do but I guess it just might be me. I might have to take another 2 year break... There's more I wanted to talk about but I wanted to make this brief, because I didn't want this to be too long and it would be never ending.

Had to quote all as there's no right click on PS5 lol

Regarding point 1, this is still better than DE's original story skip proposal, and while it might result in players rushing, it's up to the players to not burn themselves out. If they struggle, they can always ask for assistance via recruit chat

Regarding point 2, DE have long leaned towards the power fantasy side of things, because A: Its what most of us are here for and B: it's easier than leaning harder towards balancing. 

Regarding point 3, same thing, and obviously frames that have kits which cater to DPS or objective defense will be better choices, because that's what the mode asks for. The issue is that there arent as many instances where a stealth frame like Ivara, who i've been experimenting with lately, can really shine. This is why nearly every new warframe for the forseeable future will either be like Dagath (kit focused on mass killing) or Qorvex ( kit focused on area CC and defense)with little in between, because those are the only types of frame we ever want/need.

Regarding point 4, it's your choice whether to use the meta or not, and if people complain, ignore them (but depending on exactly what you're doing, don't be surprised if they report you either)

[SneakyErvin]

5 hours ago, Chamsgaming said:

1. Removal of MR for story missions

The removal of MR for story missions is a bad decision in my opinion, its the only thing that's keeping beginner players from zooming through the game and going for the latest weapon that renders most weapons useless. Now, I understand that you want people to play the latest content and enjoy the game, but this can cause leeching in other cases of content where the player doesn't have full mods or proper equipment where grinding is still needed (such as archon Hunts).

That will only affect story missions, so your concern regarding weapons, archon hunts etc. will not be a reality. All those things will still require MR, just as unlocking Rivens/sorties will still require MR according to what they said.

5 hours ago, Chamsgaming said:

2.  Power creep 

Like most game power creep will always be a thing, but the removal of MR to story missions makes leeching easier for beginning players to get the latest end gaming content. For those who don't know what power creep is "It refers to the situation where new content or features make older ones obsolete or irrelevant, creating an imbalance and a loss of diversity in the game." Power creep has gotten so bad that even low MR are neglecting other content for newly released content because the weapons are stronger. Remember the survey in 2021 or 2022 where it asked if there was a power creep in the game. It was pretty evident that power creep was in the game because when I was leveling weapons up in Hydron I kept seeing MR 8 spamming the Kuva Bramma, a MR 15 weapon. Later came Incarnon genesis which I kept finding MR 13 players in SP (Steel Path) Circuit struggling to survive and leaving after 1 wave every time which made grinding more tedious. I understand that even high MR player (around 20 and above) struggle, but there's a difference between a bad player and a player who isn't ready that content. This essentially leads to leeching, now there are players that help these leechers and I give you props for being a kind tenno, but this raises problems for the game's health.

Tied to point #1. So no that wont be a problem since they'll still need MR to unlock everything we currently need MR to unlock outside of the story quests. The change results in a few days for a player interested in hitting the latest content. Not something that will make or break their knowledge or gear progression in the game.

5 hours ago, Chamsgaming said:

3. Warframe & Weapon Balances

In Circuit it becomes basic as to what warframes and what weapons struggle. In my Opinion SP Circuit was given no thought at all and will be forever be a forgotten content for me, as DE already knew the struggles of most weapons in regular SP but still decided the add this menace into the game with RNG loadout. Playing it as " this will be a good way to level up weapons" or "this will be a good way to see what weapons you like" (sorry, not sorry). In reality it was for beginner players and poorly designed for veterans as they already know what's good or not. Digressing, it becomes clear that a lot of warframes are poorly built as some warframes make it way easier than other, meaning that a majority of them needs a rework. Now I'm not saying that those warframe can't beat it, but it makes it 3x as harder than other warframes. For weapons it's really clear as day to tell what weapons are just bad, reason being is that the RNG loadout forces synergies to become obsolete meaning a weapon has to perform well on its own and forces you to Forma every weapon. Now before I end this point, AOE weapons nerf was the right call but the ammo nerf was too huge and the loss of headshot multiplier was poorly executed. This is coming from someone who mainly uses assault riffles. AOE weapons that have a small blast radius (1-2m blast radius) got nerfed for no reason because of the AOE meta. Now they did add a 3x headshot multiplier, but be honest what AOE weapon mainly has initial damage compared to it's explosive counter part. It would've been smarter to add a headshot AOE fall off damage where .3m of the explosion can still get the headshot multiplier, anything further than that is 0x headshot, that way players who actually aim can still get value out of aiming.

How is it poorly designed for Veterans when we have full access to our OPerator? And what you describe with some frames having it harder than others, well that applies to practically all modes throughout the game, where some frames have it better than others when it comes to completing the objective efficiently. While I partly agree with the statement on weapons in Circuit we still have the operator and frame to fall back on if a bad pull is made. Which also tackles the whole idea regarding forcing you to forma everything. Regarding AoE I think for the headshot multiplier a direct headshot with the projectile should result in a headshot multiplier for the AoE on the target you hit directly in the face with the projectile, but it shouldnt apply to enemies hit by the blast otherwise. When it comes to the ammo changes I felt absolutely no different between pre- and post- "nerf". Only if I tried to blast everything with a low ammo gun like Zarr did it matter, but then again AoE is intended to be used versus groups, so not versus a lone lancer, charger or crewman.

6 hours ago, Chamsgaming said:

4. Gameplay/Longevity 

I get a sense that this game doesn't know where its trying to go with it's gameplay as it puts some much value into killing enemies. Mods and arcanes that don't require killing has less value than killing, but have way more restrictive gameplay than just getting a kill. What makes it worse is that this game has lack/no high skill ceiling and puts massive value into meta usage which causes lack of build diversity and ego issues. Basically the rise of elites saying if you don't build my way your playing the game wrong or players who say "thank god you weren't a noob" while playing the most tanky frame (I know these people are the few). Examples of lack of value, is when I use Arcane double back (If you know, you know) I gain less or about the same value as Arcane guardian. Which Arcane guardian gains so much value for taking a hit while double back only gets some value or I just lose DPS. Not only that but the maps are so small that I auto mantle/climb on random stuff making me take shots and the climbing animation isn't fast. Right now Arcane double back is good because of the recent shield changes, but the value of skill ceiling is bad that it puts so much value in a player doing something simple and making it meta. I can see why Iflynn says Warframe doesn't feel fun anymore, the game's value plummet as mastering a intensive gameplay (skill ceiling) is zero and farming is too easy. Remember this is a LOOTER SHOOTER people expect to get the warframe on day 1 of release or they'll complain it takes too long, which DE has made a pity system making the value of the game ZERO. This means the games value is nothing because there is nothing to do, grinding becomes obsolete and there is no value in sharpening your skills as the meta plays the game for you.

I think we have way too few and way too niche arcanes that are fueled by something other than killing, atleast on our weapons. The ones we do have are wonderful though when we can actually use them. Heat arcane on pistols is great since it works versus everything, no matter if adds are there or not. Same deal with the cold and toxin arcanes for primaries. The downside is you need quite specific frames to make use of those for the primary. I wanna see more of them, preferably 1 for each uncombined elemental damage type. I dont regret not using Merciless on my Saryn, Citrine and Hydroid. I'm totally with you regarding new items and how easy they are to obtain due to the pity systems. While I dont mind it at times, I do at others. Dagath was kind of one of those were I didnt mind it, since Dagath and the weapon were the only reasons to run the game mode. Now if there was something more to farm in that game mode I wouldnt mind if Dagath was fast to farm, since then I could get her and later on use her as I farmed everything else.

So if Qorvex for instance will be a quick farm I wont mind it one bit, since plenty of other things (arcanes, more shards, mods etc.) to farm comes with that update. So a quick Qorvex farm will let me use him in the new modes as I farm the other stuff that the update brings. That for me would be the optimal setup. With Dagath it was about getting Dagath from the new extermination type and then go back to whatever mode I run otherwise since there was nothing more to get from the new mode.

6 hours ago, Chamsgaming said:

Now I'm not trying to attack the game but these are my genuine concerns for Warframe as the value of it being a game is going down, as people are saying this game's content is becoming scarce. I find myself playing this game less and less as there is nothing to do but I guess it just might be me. I might have to take another 2 year break... There's more I wanted to talk about but I wanted to make this brief, because I didn't want this to be too long and it would be never ending.

I think DE needs to release smaller updates instead of the recent grand plans of gameplay changing content additions. We have plenty enough of systems already that they can flesh out and add content for. Instead of K-drive and Kaithe I would have rather seen Archwing getting improved and modernized for instance. I hope they build onto the RJ mode, add more lich types, revamp Archwing missions while improving the AW, Necramech missions, operator missions, frame missions, another Orb to fight, new isles and bounties on duviri, more tiles and new rewards in circuit etc. A couple of different content updates throughout a year that adds something to one of those modes, along with maybe revisiting old game modes by making use of them again on new nodes on exsisting planets with new rewards for those specifically.

 

 

[ShogunGunshow]

The only leech I've seen in SP circuit was over MR 20, and he was a Limbo that after 40m had literally 0% damage done and 10 total kills.  We lost the next survival round because we were killing fast enough, partly because he kept phasing enemy groups due to him just casting Cata and nothing else and also, you know, doing #*!%-all.

So yeah, no, as usual, MR isn't a terribly good indicator of who will be a leech. All it is is a measure of how much patience you have to sit in Hydron or ESO. I've seen really good sub-10 MR players and I've seen extremely bad MR 25s. 

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

7 hours ago, Chamsgaming said:

I've been a long time player and I've seen the transformation that Warframe has gone through, but it goes to say that most of those changes has concerns for the game's future.

Now these are my concerns for Warframe as a game and you are free to have an opinion, but I don't want to feign ignorance to some of these problems as a value of a game.

1. Removal of MR for story missions

The removal of MR for story missions is a bad decision in my opinion, its the only thing that's keeping beginner players from zooming through the game and going for the latest weapon that renders most weapons useless. Now, I understand that you want people to play the latest content and enjoy the game, but this can cause leeching in other cases of content where the player doesn't have full mods or proper equipment where grinding is still needed (such as archon Hunts).

 

2.  Power creep 

Like most game power creep will always be a thing, but the removal of MR to story missions makes leeching easier for beginning players to get the latest end gaming content. For those who don't know what power creep is "It refers to the situation where new content or features make older ones obsolete or irrelevant, creating an imbalance and a loss of diversity in the game." Power creep has gotten so bad that even low MR are neglecting other content for newly released content because the weapons are stronger. Remember the survey in 2021 or 2022 where it asked if there was a power creep in the game. It was pretty evident that power creep was in the game because when I was leveling weapons up in Hydron I kept seeing MR 8 spamming the Kuva Bramma, a MR 15 weapon. Later came Incarnon genesis which I kept finding MR 13 players in SP (Steel Path) Circuit struggling to survive and leaving after 1 wave every time which made grinding more tedious. I understand that even high MR player (around 20 and above) struggle, but there's a difference between a bad player and a player who isn't ready that content. This essentially leads to leeching, now there are players that help these leechers and I give you props for being a kind tenno, but this raises problems for the game's health.

 

3. Warframe & Weapon Balances

In Circuit it becomes basic as to what warframes and what weapons struggle. In my Opinion SP Circuit was given no thought at all and will be forever be a forgotten content for me, as DE already knew the struggles of most weapons in regular SP but still decided the add this menace into the game with RNG loadout. Playing it as " this will be a good way to level up weapons" or "this will be a good way to see what weapons you like" (sorry, not sorry). In reality it was for beginner players and poorly designed for veterans as they already know what's good or not. Digressing, it becomes clear that a lot of warframes are poorly built as some warframes make it way easier than other, meaning that a majority of them needs a rework. Now I'm not saying that those warframe can't beat it, but it makes it 3x as harder than other warframes. For weapons it's really clear as day to tell what weapons are just bad, reason being is that the RNG loadout forces synergies to become obsolete meaning a weapon has to perform well on its own and forces you to Forma every weapon. Now before I end this point, AOE weapons nerf was the right call but the ammo nerf was too huge and the loss of headshot multiplier was poorly executed. This is coming from someone who mainly uses assault riffles. AOE weapons that have a small blast radius (1-2m blast radius) got nerfed for no reason because of the AOE meta. Now they did add a 3x headshot multiplier, but be honest what AOE weapon mainly has initial damage compared to it's explosive counter part. It would've been smarter to add a headshot AOE fall off damage where .3m of the explosion can still get the headshot multiplier, anything further than that is 0x headshot, that way players who actually aim can still get value out of aiming.

 

4. Gameplay/Longevity 

I get a sense that this game doesn't know where its trying to go with it's gameplay as it puts some much value into killing enemies. Mods and arcanes that don't require killing has less value than killing, but have way more restrictive gameplay than just getting a kill. What makes it worse is that this game has lack/no high skill ceiling and puts massive value into meta usage which causes lack of build diversity and ego issues. Basically the rise of elites saying if you don't build my way your playing the game wrong or players who say "thank god you weren't a noob" while playing the most tanky frame (I know these people are the few). Examples of lack of value, is when I use Arcane double back (If you know, you know) I gain less or about the same value as Arcane guardian. Which Arcane guardian gains so much value for taking a hit while double back only gets some value or I just lose DPS. Not only that but the maps are so small that I auto mantle/climb on random stuff making me take shots and the climbing animation isn't fast. Right now Arcane double back is good because of the recent shield changes, but the value of skill ceiling is bad that it puts so much value in a player doing something simple and making it meta. I can see why Iflynn says Warframe doesn't feel fun anymore, the game's value plummet as mastering a intensive gameplay (skill ceiling) is zero and farming is too easy. Remember this is a LOOTER SHOOTER people expect to get the warframe on day 1 of release or they'll complain it takes too long, which DE has made a pity system making the value of the game ZERO. This means the games value is nothing because there is nothing to do, grinding becomes obsolete and there is no value in sharpening your skills as the meta plays the game for you.

Now I'm not trying to attack the game but these are my genuine concerns for Warframe as the value of it being a game is going down, as people are saying this game's content is becoming scarce. I find myself playing this game less and less as there is nothing to do but I guess it just might be me. I might have to take another 2 year break... There's more I wanted to talk about but I wanted to make this brief, because I didn't want this to be too long and it would be never ending.

The theme I'm getting here is that you have simply experienced what every long time player has: your normalcy of the game has shifted too high upward and you now only see your current very high baseline as everyone's baseline.

Man, I really wish I could remove all of the YouTuber "how-to" and opinion posts and wipe all of our memories of them, because I can tell you from several friends that this game does not have the type of power creep people normally reference. Only your mod collection and mod ranks determine what is powerful and what isn't. A fully ranked and well modded Veykor Hek easily outperforms an unranked or poorly modded Kuva Bramma...and that's a weapon history that's almost 6-7 years apart? In addition, without any of the handholding, we have clearly seen players begging for help with so much of this game's content. Many still are deeply afraid to try SP!

Powercreep is not the issue or even an issue. The issue is with the extreme  handholding and biased takes of the game based on what some players and content creators assume the game is all about (grinding, endgame, speed rush, long endurance, collecting, etc). Warframe is all of these things at all times, so it is hard for me to look at your points and see any of them as issues. I play a chill style, more than casual but not catering to any of the endgame, grinding or "rushframe" stuff, so the game still has plenty of difficulty, a TON of stuff to do and has a near over loading schedule of updates that I love to be behind on. 

So, with that said, how would you view the current and future state of the game if you played like me?

[Chamsgaming]

10 hours ago, Dunkelheit said:

To 1: The problem are people who ruin the game for themselves by rushing to the endgame, when Warframe has so many other things to offer. On the other hand, who wants to play stuff for 1-2 years till they finally reach the endgame? So finding a middle ground is hard. There will always be people who only play one Warframe and one set of weapons, because they are considered the strongest, but they are not the typical Warframe players. I play this game for a long time and I always come back for the fast gameplay with hordes of enemies and the newest content drops. So while I think you have a point, I think it won't matter in the end, because if you play the wrong game, if you desperately want raids and super hard content while playing copypasta workloads from some streamers, you won't stay for long anyway.

To 2: A game that lasts for 10 years cannot exist without power creep, plain and simple. If you think differently, you are fooling yourself. For how long can you keep new weapons and Warframes interesting without change in power dynamics? Additionally, please name one game that lasted for 10 years which did not have power creep in it? Maybe I am missing one, but I can't think of a single game. But the game also needs ideas to make the new content challenging, this is the main point.

To 3: Circuit is an extreme example. There are no companions, which are a focal point of some builds, enemies come from all sides and you cannot hide from their shots, enemies are not clustered, which makes it hard for some builds as well. On the other hand, it is fantastic endgame content, because it will show you where your builds need work. I can assure you that every single frame can reach Tier 10 in one go and survive against lvl 9999 enemies. You just need to put more work into it, e.g. use your Operator. You said somewhere in your text that there is low skill ceiling in Warframe and on the other hand you complain that some things are not effective enough in Circuit.
Last but not least you ask for buffing AOE weapons, which are the bane of high skill ceiling and make the game super boring. I am glad that a Bramma is not usable in Circuit because of ammo issues, but maybe that is just me. I like the Incarnon single target weapons that are really strong and I personally would love to nerf the AOE weapons even further. Not the AOE weapons that take preparation/skill to use for a couple of shoots, but the likes of Bramma/Zarr where you can mindlessly shoot into a direction where you see red triangles on the minimap or just shoot at your feet to clear everything without even aiming once. While we are at it, as much as I love the Torid, I feel that this weapon is way too easy to charge into Incarnon mode and it could be better balanced if it would be harder. Other weapons need faster Incarnon charge rate. Balance this the correct way and we are on a good path.

To 4: The game is more than playable without using the meta. The only thing that bothers me is that using AOE weapons like Torid/Bramma/Zarr is way too oppressive for those who want to play with non-meta setups. If someone uses one of those weapons, you won't get a lot of kills, which makes it unfun.
Whatever Iflynn says (I don't even know the guy), Warframe is in a better state than ever before. The gameplay is more fun, the new Warframes design is better than the old ones and Incarnon weapons are just amazing.

One thing though, watch at your hours that you have in the game. In my humble opinion, if you put 5k hours into one game and you criticize it on a basic level, you need to rethink your arguments. Hey, a very fair F2P game made you put thousands of hours into it, it cannot be too bad. It is just a lot more probably that your expectation and perspective of the game changed over time. For me, Warframe is a relaxing shooter that is fast paced and fun and leans more to the casual side. There is a lot of fun to find in mass murdering other factions while moving through the air like some kind of Spider-Man without his net. If I want very difficult or PVP or high skill ceiling, I just go to other games. Remember, this game is going strong for 10 years and even if I cannot speak for you or other gamers, I am very happy about the state of the game and I can't wait for the new content drop or what they have in store for next year. Your points are valid though (minus the powercreep thing, I don't want to play a game for 10 years and have the same strength all the time, I like my characters to advance to new power levels) and of course it would be great to think about them, but the game is nowhere near being a bad or even average game.

 

Edit: Forgot one thing - Occurances with players who behave badly are very rare. If someone leeches, it might be a dad/mom having to look for his/her child. Most of the time, I play with my alliance anyway and when I play solo, there are a lot of kick ass helpful players to meet among all tenno.

So... I think you have the wrong idea here. I don't mind power creep, as I said "Like most game power creep will always be a thing" because without power creep the game would have no progression. The main point I was saying is that the MR lock doesn't  enforce that weapon lock properly as players can still easily get their hands on that specific weapon. Now, I know that the max MR of any equipment is MR15, but remember after update DMG 2.0 weapons were given MR to match the stats of their respective rank. After the Kuva litch Update this was thrown out the window as some low MR weapons were performing better than MR 15 weapons but that's not the point. Players that end up with endgame weapons just to go back and earn MR fodder weapons is the problem cuz it shows that MR enforcement is really bad and shows that progressions system of the game is bad in itself. 

The circuit was just an example of how some Warframes need buffs. All being said Banshee struggles in the Circuit compared to other frames because her ability is outdated for this game play. Power creep of weapons has gotten higher to the point were her playstyle is just not fitted for the game while 2 of her abilities are useless. Basically older warframes need a rework because the playstyle of the game has changed to just mass murdering with weapons that most abilities are rendered useless, just saying oh you need to build better isn't a valid point. New warframes render older warframes useless because they have that potential to just kill everything with their ability while support abilities similar to banshee just makes her useless, its the reason why hydroid and other frames are getting reworks. The main point that you're not seeing is that warframes need buff and are just saying its a player issue, even if you use the max potential of a warframe they'll struggle way hard than some of the newer frames which is bad for the game (which is the main focus of this topic). Older frames mainly focused around CC which just stuns enemies in place and relied too much on weapons just to kill. I mainly play solo in SP circuit and the struggles for some frames are sad, you may just just use your operator but DE literally said they don't want you to just use your operator to complete the game rendering Warframes useless and this is exactly what's happening in SP circuit. In terms of AOE weapons, this isn't that big of a buff its still a nerf compared to the original state of what AOE weapons were. We could do without the ammo increase (I think they some weapons needed ammo pickup of 2) but I'm mainly targeting smaller AOE weapons as what's stated, if you've read it properly, I've stated the smaller AOE weapons (like the basmu or Castanas) got nerfed, basmu's nerf slightly got offset because of the initial impact of the weapon can still get the 3x headshot but the castanas is a straight loss cause. A nerf is a good thing if done properly but DE has just straight up nerfed it affecting other guns that didn't need the nerf. This is basically going back to the Synoid simulor and Telos boltace nerf where the weapon just falls off and is forgotten.

I mainly play Warframe for the gun play, but remember when SP was first introduced, assault riffles were struggling massively. Now in terms of meta you would normally think a person is talking about weapons and warframe right? But lets talk about mods, Galvanized mods were added into Arbitrations a couple of months after SP came out, this was to help kill SP enemies because weapons were struggling but this also introduced primary arcanes and secondary. To me this seems like a band aid to fix their poor weapon balancing, now if you were using the meta Slash and Viral combo this was never really a problem, which caused a poor shift in builds. History tells the problems that this game has, and DE seems to keep following in those foot steps. Now these mods and arcane are mandatory to keep up the kills in SP survival, but point being is that meta is also in mods not just weapons.

I feel that you're targeting me really aggressively at the end but when you say this is a casual game you do realize I'm mainly talking about SP (in terms of balancing) which DE said its for more advance players who want to test out their gear, which the older outdated warframes fall off fast. I feel you are going off topic/not properly responding to some of the  things I've said but taking parts of my concerns and throwing them out of context, but that's just how I feel. I'm having concerns of this game as a proper game, games are suppose to be fun but Warframe is negating that mid gameplay challenge and late game Frame struggles are there. Now I understand that this is a power fantasy game but gaining more value for killing an enemy than doing something so restrictive is a cause for concerns for the games health as a power fantasy (like the undying Revenant). This kinda feels like Overwatch 2 type of balance struggles.

[Marvelous_A]

Can't say I agree on your opinion especially the part of gameplay. Warframe is doing exactly what they need to please the playerbase and most active players like the current "low skill ceiling" gameplay and at least can live with it. Power fantasy and whatnot.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Marvelous_A

[Chamsgaming]

27 minutes ago, Marvelous_A said:

Can't say I agree on your opinion especially the part of gameplay. Warframe is doing exactly what they need to please the playerbase and most active players like the current "low skill ceiling" gameplay and at least can live with it. Power fantasy and whatnot.

Sorry, if I wasn't clear enough but I don't mind the current "low skill ceiling" but I want them to add more skill ceiling playability so that veteran players have something to do, some type of gameplay to master. Not increase enemy difficulty type of skill ceiling, something similarly like Arcane Double back, the problem is that the value of high skill ceiling is worse than lower skill, like there's too many restrictions for less value. It's just we're at that point because of Steel path.