Crafting an identity as a player in Warframe isn’t possible

[Monolake]

Because WF is not even a team game anymore, it's a quasi-solo game, because over the years DE put deliberate effort into destroying coop and making solo play preferable most of the time -  since they believe any weak/new player should be able to solo almost everything. And even when DE actually try to make a 'coop' mission, they dont realize how it works and make it worse for the team play  - see netracells.

BTW its funny anyone mentions FF14 when it has exact same issue with exact same dev attitude - making everything trivially soloable, the game becoming a 3d chat room. Granted FF has lots of social activities to remain MMO, unlike WF just turning into a mostly solo game.
DE made relays and clan dojos but couldn't come up with any social activities.

[quxier]

8 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

On 2024-02-09 at 7:18 PM, quxier said:

They still can have lot of eximus units presents near your. I'm not sure if there is limit like "3 eximus per room". Or maybe there is but it's huge like 20. YMMV

There is a limit  of 2-4 (2/2/3/4) based on group size, which applies to the whole mission tile. So if you experience 20 at a given time you are likely in a stronghold mission or a bonus gate in SP Duviri Experience. And in regular SP it likely follows the cap of 4 no matter the group size, like all other SP density scaling.

Do you have source of 2-4 eximus spawn? In wiki it says:

Quote

• A maximum of 5 Eximus can appear simultaneously. This limit is removed in Sortie Eximus Strongholds.

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Eximus

But I know it can be not up to date.

[Aruquae]

On 2024-02-10 at 6:19 PM, quxier said:

Do you have source of 2-4 eximus spawn? In wiki it says:

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Eximus

But I know it can be not up to date.

Ehhh… I think that’s outdated. Only say that because I’ve had two Eximus present when Ergo decided he was going to attempt to piss me off. I think they summon like… 4-5 Eximi? On top of the 2 already there. 

[quxier]

33 minutes ago, Aruquae said:

On 2024-02-11 at 12:19 AM, quxier said:

Do you have source of 2-4 eximus spawn? In wiki it says:

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Eximus

But I know it can be not up to date.

Ehhh… I think that’s outdated. Only say that because I’ve had two Eximus present when Ergo decided he was going to attempt to piss me off. I think they summon like… 4-5 Eximi? On top of the 2 already there. 

Death squad may be exception.

[(PSN)BattleCry1791]

On 2024-02-08 at 8:41 AM, SneakyErvin said:

it just isnt a role based game, never has been.

I dunno.  I think early on it was.  The first frames were easily based on standard RGP roles.  Rouges, tanks, elemental casters, healers...they were all in there.  By the next slew of them it was more about themes than roles and grew from there, but Oberon's always struck me as a paladin.  

Sure, it got away from it pretty quick. but way back in the day, and you look like you were there for it, A trinity and a rhino were crucial to deep (relative of course) runs in new content. 

[OniDax]

On 2024-02-08 at 9:05 AM, Anti-Incarnon said:

I feel like the game is held hostage by monkey brains who like to see big numbers on the screen, and in fear of upsetting them, the devs see no other way of bringing the game forward than to add shiny new things. Granted, these things look better than ever and in some ways the game is in a better state than ever. In other ways, it is a more hollow experience than it used to be...

I do hope the developers dare take back control of the game and introduce a vision that enables proper teamplay, but I’m afraid the money stream dictates that they can’t.

Your mistake is thinking it's the "monkey brains" who make DE afraid and keep them from making the game about something more than DPS and big numbers. It's DE who made it that way, of their own free will.

I think you're afraid of DE, afraid of saying they're responsible for their design decisions, afraid of how you'll be treated by the other members of the community if you directly address your criticism towards DE.

[Packetdancer]

As someone who is usually the healer in any raid group she's part of, I agree it could be nice to see healing (and other support) given a stronger presence in the game, sure.

But really, I think you do still have ways to sort of differentiate yourself as a player—not in what role you play, but in how you play. In my usual trio of troublemakers, one of my friends tends to play with AoE nuking builds. Another is a Rhino main, which means exactly what you probably think it does in terms of playstyle. For me, I love speed and precision where possible.

Sure, all of us are willing to change it up—and frequently do—but if we're feeling unmotivated/uncreative those are what we'll default to, and I suspect if you asked us to all describe each other's play-style those would be what we'd base it off of. Those are our 'identities' in this game, as it were, even when we also play a variety of other things.

It's similar to how I'm an omni-90 in FF14—I have every combat job at level cap, and will happily play most of them (except Black Mage)—but I raid predominantly as a healer, and if I'm tired and don't want to think I will almost certainly be on white mage or sage (two of the healer jobs) because I could play those half-asleep, with a fever. They're where my 'default' is, in other words. So if you asked my FF14 friends to describe me, they would absolutely say I'm a healer main; that's my 'identity' there, in other words.

If that makes sense?

 

On 2024-02-09 at 12:55 AM, Tsukinoki said:

Isn't this, you know, just being a healer in pretty much any MMO that is dedicated to the holy trinity of archetypes?
Where healers sit there and do no damage and largely just watch everything happen while casting their spells as needed?

I mean you just described what being a healer is for the most part....and it's why finding healers is so hard to do in games.

They just aren't fun.

I'm going to (partially) disagree. As a career healer main, I find great joy in finding the most efficient way to heal something, especially in higher-end content; it pokes the same happy numbers part of my brain that build theorycrafting does in Warframe, honestly.

Of course, I also find it deeply satisfying when I see something on the edge of complete collapse and can skillfully pull it back from the brink. It's the same little spike of "okay, let's do this" that I get when everyone else in an Arbitration is down and I'm like "alright, let's get this back on the rails."

Now, granted, those don't happen that often; sometimes you stumble into a group where everything went so right that you feel like the group had to have been touched by the hand of the divine... or when everything goes so wrong that you feel like you need to stumble into a bar catering to healers afterwards and go "yeah, a shot of your strongest because I have seen things, things which will haunt me to the end of my days." (I still vividly remember every detail of the run of Dun Scaith that had 114 raises by the end of it...)

But the vast majority of the time, you're not wrong; it'll just be... okay. One person in random content will be doing meh, but not badly enough you need to actually spend any effort keeping them up, and so you just go through and finish and then hey you're done, whatever, move on. Which, to be fair, is why I have everything to level cap in FF14, so that I can tank or DPS if I'm feeling burned-out on healing for a bit.

And I do think in games where you aren't beholden to one 'thing'—like FF14, and Warframe—you do have a little more freedom to play with those roles, because it's not like you have to make an entire new character every time you want to change it up.

I just don't think you can balance Warframe's content in such a way to make dedicated healers useful, even with that ability to not be locked-in to any one thing. In FF14, you're generally going to be doing everything in a party, and will get matched into a standard party comp for that content. In Warframe, everything needs to be doable solo... and even if it weren't, given how hugely different two loadouts could be even with the same frame, I just can't see any way you could make matchmaking work in a meaningful role-based fashion.

And if you can't guarantee a healer's presence, I feel like you can't reasonably expect to make content which requires a healer to be present.

[Berzerkules]

9 minutes ago, Packetdancer said:

I'm going to (partially) disagree. As a career healer main, I find great joy in finding the most efficient way to heal something, especially in higher-end content; it pokes the same happy numbers part of my brain that build theorycrafting does in Warframe, honestly.

Of course, I also find it deeply satisfying when I see something on the edge of complete collapse and can skillfully pull it back from the brink. It's the same little spike of "okay, let's do this" that I get when everyone else in an Arbitration is down and I'm like "alright, let's get this back on the rails."

I like this right here. 

I've always preferred to play a support role, be it healer or crowd control. Anything to make it easier for dps to do there job. I'd also always have dps as a back up if team comp required it. Just don't make me tank.

Warframe is unique in that it lets me come up with builds that combine support and dps roles. It really is what keeps me playing this game, I still get that hack and slash mmo/arpg feeling of building characters. I just get to build multi class hybrids all the time now. The ability to fill multiple roles on a single frame does limit what is required and/or encouraged for group play but I'm ok with that. If I get downed I don't get to blame support because it's my own fault. I still refuse to tank tank. cc/glass cannon dps/shield gate everything. 

[Aruquae]

11 hours ago, (PSN)BattleCry1791 said:

I dunno.  I think early on it was.  The first frames were easily based on standard RGP roles.  Rouges, tanks, elemental casters, healers...they were all in there.  By the next slew of them it was more about themes than roles and grew from there, but Oberon's always struck me as a paladin.  

Sure, it got away from it pretty quick. but way back in the day, and you look like you were there for it, A trinity and a rhino were crucial to deep (relative of course) runs in new content. 

Back when things were simple. I wonder if we'll ever be able to intergrade something like that

[SneakyErvin]

On 2024-02-12 at 3:04 PM, quxier said:

Death squad may be exception.

Yes those are exceptions that can appear ontop of the regular mission eximus and have mission eximus appear even when the death squads are active.

For regular missions the number is 5. But due to how regular missions work you very rarely see anything close to the cap. Since well, if you know you have a rough time with an eximus... dont rush so you get many. 

For Endless it is 2-4 based on group size. With Sortie Eximus Stronghold having a straight cap of 5 no matter the size. And things like SP Duviri bonus portals having no real cap in defense, since it is both an eximus stronghold with an increased amount of eximus ontop of that for the uhm last wave iirc.

The sortie 5 cap and endless 2-4 numbers are explained in the notes for patch 31.5.6 and 31.5.7. Available on the Eximus wiki page. 

Sorry for the late response, should have responded yesterday with the patch note info but somehow forgot to. Cheers!

[SneakyErvin]

13 hours ago, (PSN)BattleCry1791 said:

I dunno.  I think early on it was.  The first frames were easily based on standard RGP roles.  Rouges, tanks, elemental casters, healers...they were all in there.  By the next slew of them it was more about themes than roles and grew from there, but Oberon's always struck me as a paladin.  

Sure, it got away from it pretty quick. but way back in the day, and you look like you were there for it, A trinity and a rhino were crucial to deep (relative of course) runs in new content. 

Even if the frames could do some special things, all of them still ended up as self sustaining and focused on DPS. The game also lacks aggro mechanics with the exception of that one melee mod. It's really just Diablo in third person, where everyone can pump out damage, some can support with a bit of healing, casting resource buffs or DR etc. Rhino for instance is a support buffer/CC really. Sure he gets Iron Skin to help him survive hits, but he has no way to control the enemy into focusing fire on him. I guess Trin can be seen as a pure healer, but her design is just a joke if someone wants to play a healer playstyle, since there is no management, no real need to keep track of the party and so on, she just hits a button and everyone is healed. No worries about over healing, managing "mana" or similar. Plus she can carry big guns and blades just like everyone else, and she is a superstrong tank/dps on her own aswell.

[Sambhaid]

I agree with OP, squad play in Warframe has kinda became a quad-solo rather than co-op 😅 Even basic co-op mechanics like reviving barely happen because everyone has borderline infinite self-revives

[RichardKam]

As a mainly solo player, I have to say it is not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes, coop game play can be fun. It also comes with toxicity, finger pointing, frustration, rage quit, elitism, trolling, etc etc etc. Look no further than Eidolon before necramech when you still need Trinity and Harrow in your team. People would gladly and readily throw the most obnoxious quasi death threat to you and your entire family when you were 1.5 seconds late to the altar.

If you want coop contents, no problem, feel free to do so, but keep it optional.

[Aerikx]

To add to this discussion again...

I kind of dislike the bad faith argument for coop play. These forums and Reddit are full of people complaining about coop play. 

Player A doesn't use a meta Loadout.

Player S isn't playing [Character] the way I say/believe they should. 

Player D is doing ___. I want them to do ___. 

Etc, etc. 

The usual coop crap.

FF14 originally made the overworld solo and dungeons, raids, and trials coop. This was a good formula and still is. 

However, they soon added solo options because community toxicity got out of control and paying players were locked out of content. (Cause they got kicked for being 1st timers or for making a mistake.) 

The abuse of Vote Kick compounded with community toxicity made the Trust system a reality. Allowing players to play with NPC parties. 

This ironically enraged the coop players who were to stuck up and picky to play with others in the first place. (Irony...)

For Warframe the situation is similar yet different. 

1. Being a F2P game, you have to somewhat look at Warframe as a mobile game. IE: It's pick up and play. Easy to drop in the blink of an eye. 

Imagine if 75-90% of missions in Warframe REQUIRED a group. 

Now, think back to Eidolons, Profit Taker, Railjack, Plains, Fortuna, Arbitrations, and hell...Archon Hunts. 

Imagine that for...

Every.

Single.

Mission.

Warframe would be a dead game. As many players would not progress or wish to stick with it.

Warframe already has a hard enough time retaining players. And that's because the game is overwhelming and teaches new players it's mechanics very, very poorly.

Add a toxic community who is more concerned with telling said new players they are: "Doing it wrong.", "A Hindrance.", "This is why you can't join our squad for ___.", "You must have ___, ___, and ___ to do ___ with us."

....and you have basically no players. Veterans get bored/burn out & new players say: "Screw This." 

Yeah. DE made the right call by keeping the game accessible with hard content being soloable with proper gearing and skill. 

Lord...

Imagine Duviri being group only. Folks would be screaming about which decrees people are taking...which weapon they use on Drifter...etc...etc...