Being forced to use outdated or bottom-tier RNG equipment in new high level game modes is not "difficulty"

[Kaiga]

So devstream 177 teased a new level 300+ sortie-like game mode with random debuffs, where you're locked all week into a random loadout and frame set to pick from like the circuit, where the way to play efficiently or get any decent rewards is to go with the selected options, whatever they are that week.

That's sounds like a lot of fun- If warframe's arsenal and frame roster was reasonably suited to gameplay in 2024, and not when they were released. 

But it is not. Most of our arsenal and frame design is stuck in 2011, and it shows. This game mode is supposed to be, like reb said "A challenge for people who want something extra" but, we didn't spend all this time tweaking, experimenting, investing resources and fine tuning our builds only to be told "whoops, here's banshee and a stug- go fight level 300 enemies in three different mission types in a row with it!"
The number of items that cannot perform at these levels vastly, vastly outweighs the number that can, and since you're locked in for a week to whatever random items roll, well, you're probably getting the shaft more often than not. An expectation of consistent player performance is a cornerstone of design.

Difficulty, this isn't. You're being given potentially bad options against debuffs and higher enemy levels and told that it is.
Warframe is a game about building and mastering content, and the inevitable response to this is: "not so strong now that you're forced to not use your one overpowered build, huh?" or some variant of "just build out everything in the game 5head duh"

Well it doesn't really matter if you've acquired tested and built everything to perfection if you still get the stug regardless, does it? Sure revenant and wukong exist, but competent players will have built out several different setups uniquely suited to different tasks and roles that you need to do.
And you can't even use any of that on a regular basis.

Difficulty in my mind, is something being mechanically difficult with movement techs to master, enemy weaknesses to exploit, and team roles to play, leading to a feeling of "wow that was tough, but we did it."

Meanwhile DE: Nah, let's randomly pick your loadout for you.

 

UPDATE 4/4/24

Deep archemedia is out. There's uh... no unique rewards or progression, aside from a sumdali for your ship if you do an elite one with all the negatives. It is a more efficient vosphor and shards farm than Netracells.
There is largely no reason to max out research value unless you want to, and you can kinda ignore it so, problem sidestepped I guess? The designs still kinda whack.

Edited April 6 by Kaiga
Content released.

[UnstarPrime]

When it comes to fun, the devil is often in the details.  Because of that, I'm not going to form an opinion until it's in my hands.  There's certainly potential for it to go wrong, but with the right balance and mechanics it could go quite right as well.

[Voltage]

I like the concept of the new mode and I've been waiting for something to release with even a shred of the feeling Trials had. 3 uninterrupted missions where you need to consider different objectives sounds really enjoyable, and it rewards having the most gear fully built with proper Forma settings. 

I know it isn't a popular take, because people like playing in their comfortable loadouts, but this mode would be a snooze-fest if you could just take Revenant and Torid like you can most stuff these days. Giving extra research points for making a determined set of gear work looks fun to me.

Also if you can't handle it, just play normal Netracells. I don't understand this idea of "forced". The players who can handle this kind of content getting rewarded appropriately is something this game severely lacks.

Edited February 24 by Voltage

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Do you have any non meta weapons forma'd and ready to go? 

 

[obiwandandobi2]

Picking those frames and weapons are optional. Sure you lose some reward, but it is still optional

[Brunzwick]

5 minutes ago, obiwandandobi2 said:

Picking those frames and weapons are optional. Sure you lose some reward, but it is still optional

It would only be optional if it were an endless mode. Since it's locked to two a week, it's not optional. Who the hell's going to choose to get less rewards? 

[Skoomaseller]

30 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

So devstream 177 teased a new level 300+ sortie-like game mode with random debuffs, where you're locked all week into a random loadout and frame set to pick from like the circuit, where the way to play efficiently or get any decent rewards is to go with the selected options, whatever they are that week.

That's sounds like a lot of fun- If warframe's arsenal and frame roster was reasonably suited to gameplay in 2024, and not when they were released. 

But it is not. Most of our arsenal and frame design is stuck in 2011, and it shows. This game mode is supposed to be, like reb said "A challenge for people who want something extra" but, we didn't spend all this time tweaking, experimenting, investing resources and fine tuning our builds only to be told "whoops, here's banshee and a stug- go fight level 300 enemies in three different mission types in a row with it!"
The number of items that cannot perform at these levels vastly, vastly outweighs the number that can, and since you're locked in for a week to whatever random items roll, well, you're probably getting the shaft more often than not. An expectation of consistent player performance is a cornerstone of design.

Difficulty, this isn't. You're being given potentially bad options against debuffs and higher enemy levels and told that it is.
Warframe is a game about building and mastering content, and the inevitable response to this is: "not so strong now that you're forced to not use your one overpowered build, huh?" or some variant of "just build out everything in the game 5head duh"

Well it doesn't really matter if you've acquired tested and built everything to perfection if you still get the stug regardless, does it? Sure revenant and wukong exist, but competent players will have built out several different setups uniquely suited to different tasks and roles that you need to do.

And you can't even use any of that on a regular basis. DE need to start making a lot more balance passes or cranking out the incarnon adapters by volume if they expect people to play these game modes that remove access to all the work you've put in over the years.

agreed

[quxier]

44 minutes ago, Voltage said:

I like the concept of the new mode and I've been waiting for something to release with even a shred of the feeling Trials had. 3 uninterrupted missions where you need to consider different objectives sounds really enjoyable, and it rewards having the most gear fully built with proper Forma settings.

And what's great about this? If it was few frames and ~10 weapon from each category then I would be ok with that. Game has many more items. 55 frames, hundreds of weapon from each category. Each item having 3-5 forma, maybe helminth. Imagine how much work and time it would take. If you like such stuff then it's fine. However expecting it from people is CRAZY.

44 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Also if you can't handle it, just play normal Netracells. I don't understand this idea of "forced". The players who can handle this kind of content getting rewarded appropriately is something this game severely lacks.

If you want arcanes then you almost have to play it. Otherwise what you get? Stupid small chance 5 times a week?!

39 minutes ago, obiwandandobi2 said:

Picking those frames and weapons are optional. Sure you lose some reward, but it is still optional

Sure, they are optional but each "take X" stuff gives you points. I may remember it incorectly but near base level you get 2-3 chances for Shards & Melee adapters. No Arcane. You need either last one or maybe pre-last one too.

50 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

(...)

Where is my +10000000000000000 buton?

I'm tired of recent(ish) "challenges":

- slap more ehp, damage reduction, immortality phase

- random gear

When I beat something with my preferred gear.I feel like I've achieved something. Those kind of things just makes me cheater or playing roulette. It's horrible feeling when you are basically told: "grab everything or it will be bad experience".

Edited February 24 by quxier

[schilds]

1. It's optional.

2. All it takes is one decent weapon in a loadout and you're set. *Every* frame can be modded to be viable in *any* high level content, so at worst you'll get three terrible weapon choices and have to give up just *one* bonus for a decent weapon.

3. The top bonus may not require taking *all* presented options.

4. The top bonus is a guaranteed legendary arcane. Since at some point your set of arcanes will be completed, forcing extra arcanes will probably not be what most people want anyway.

That means the gold bonus is going to be good enough unless you're farming legendary arcanes to trade.

 

DE can *never* satisfy people who want everything their way, and shouldn't even try, quite frankly.

Edited February 24 by schilds

[trst]

Actually it's the only way DE can create difficulty in this game without imposing artificial limitations on our stats/mechanics. And it's even one in-line with the only actual difficulty the game has: gear checks.

To be more specific that difficulty is present in needing to be able to utilize a random loadout to complete those missions. Either by having just enough gear set up for such content that you can get by with just one good roll or optimizing everything you have/can get to be viable thus always being prepared regardless of what you get.

Also the idea that this is somehow invalidating gear you invested in is just blatantly wrong. As it's putting more value into all the gear you've invested into. Meaning everything you've previously put work into that you shelved for one reason or another is now relevant again. As well as being able to invest into random gear and getting value out of every one of them as it's increasing your odds of getting a good setup in such modes.

[Kaiga]

On 2024-02-23 at 3:13 PM, schilds said:

*Every* frame can be modded to be viable in *any* high level content

I'm sorry but that's complete cap
Most players (and i'm guessing you) think that the base steel path where an unmoodded frame can facetank for a bit to be "high level" but no, level 300+ with perma debuffs is going to be a genuinely unfun experience. Why? Well...

The thing you can do with old or low survivability frames is to slot shield gating and rolling guard to avoid being one tapped, but those things don't work on nullifiers, disruptors, toxin clouds, eximus, and so on. Health and armor will not save you after a certain point, everyone knows this.
You have to play extremely cravenly even with these setups, which is again, unfun, and probably not the experience DE wanted to have for their flagship endgame content.
Just because something is technically possible, doesn't make it enjoyable or worthy of an actual endgame challenge, this is the problem that you "git gud" people fail to grasp is that games are meant to be fun, and in warframe, much of the fun is testing your builds against said challenges.

Not getting to do that, literally the entire "here look at all these options to play how you want" only for endgame to be "nope, play how we want you to this week", makes the game seem even more like a theme park on rails than one where you can test and experiment in.
I really don't need to discover for the 4th week in a row that unreworked items from 2013 are entirely outclassed by modern content, again. That's boring.
 

Edited March 18 by Kaiga

[Kaiga]

15 minutes ago, trst said:

Actually it's the only way DE can create difficulty in this game without imposing artificial limitations on our stats/mechanics.

Wrong. They could create unique enemy types that resist meta builds, or improved enemy AI not from 2012 that require different strategies and movement/tactics to handle, but it's far easier just to limit player choice. RNGframe *is* an artificial limitation on our builds.

 

15 minutes ago, trst said:

Either by having just enough gear set up for such content that you can get by with just one good roll or optimizing everything you have/can get to be viable thus always being prepared regardless of what you get.

Also the idea that this is somehow invalidating gear you invested in is just blatantly wrong. As it's putting more value into all the gear you've invested into. Meaning everything you've previously put work into that you shelved for one reason or another is now relevant again.

I answered this point earlier.
You cannot seriously expect the player to retain 10+ years worth of often obsolete content for the sake of these new game modes. This is that same "just build everything 5head" reply i mentioned in the OP. Also:

1 hour ago, Kaiga said:

Well it doesn't really matter if you've acquired tested and built everything to perfection if you still get the stug regardless, does it?

Congratulations, you broke the time and platinum bank on loadout slots, only to get items from 2011 that are hardly viable in level 300+ content anyway this week, while your friend gets the kuva bramma and glaive prime and has a lot more fun than you because lolRNG

Like i said, a consistent expectation of player performance is a cornerstone of good design.

Edited February 24 by Kaiga

[trst]

Just now, Kaiga said:

Wrong. They could create unique enemy types or enemy AI not from 2012 that requires different strategies and movement/tactics to handle, but it's far easier just to limit player choice.

"Just make better AI lol" is not a solution when the average enemy life span is measured in a range from a few frames to a few seconds. Enemies literally don't live long enough for any AI system to make a decision other than "get as much damage and/or abilities off as possible before evaporating". Especially when their targets can be literally immortal and outright immune to damage/effects.

4 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

I answered this point earlier.
You cannot seriously expect the player to retain 10+ years worth of often obsolete content for the sake of these new game modes. This is that same "just build everything 5head" reply i mentioned in the OP. Also:

Congratulations, you broke the time and platinum bank on loadout slots, only to get items from 2011 that are hardly viable in level 300+ content anyway this week, while your friend gets the kuva bramma and glaive prime and has a lot more fun than you because lolRNG

Like i said, a consistent expectation of player performance is a cornerstone of good design.

Except you can expect players to do exactly that in a game that doesn't impose forced inventory limits. Platinum can be easily earned for free and Forma isn't even a requirement here as virtually anything can be made viable, or at least useful, at such levels with just a Catalyst. Something which is also effectively free with how trivial Nightwave is.

Also the expectation isn't to get everything anyways. Just enough to consistently get gear that can trivialize the content.

[schilds]

22 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

I'm sorry but that's complete cap

Git gud, mate.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

55 minutes ago, schilds said:

*Every* frame can be modded to be viable in *any* high level content

Tell me you've never seen the level cap without telling me you've never seen the level cap

[schilds]

Just now, (XBOX)zThulsaDoomz said:

Tell me you've never seen the level cap without telling me you've never seen the level cap

Another person who has to git gud.

[schilds]

There's no small amount of irony in people complaining about the difficulty of having to make a couple of tradeoffs for lvl 300 enemies and then bringing up "level cap".

Edited February 24 by schilds

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

Just now, schilds said:

Another person who has to git gud.

Interesting 

You're telling someone to get good while making statements proving your lack of knowledge about that very subject.

Sorry, git gud doesn't work here

[schilds]

Interesting how some people can't see the contradiction in flexing references to "level cap" while simultaneously complaining that making a few *optional* tradeoffs to fight enemies 9699 levels below cap is too much of an ask.

Are you trying to argue that the new mode will be too difficult or too easy? Make up your mind.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

1 minute ago, schilds said:

Interesting how some people can't see the contradiction in flexing references to "level cap" while simultaneously complaining that making a few *optional* tradeoffs to fight enemies 9699 levels below cap is too much of an ask.

Are you trying to argue that the new mode will be too difficult or too easy? Make up your mind.

I simply pointed out YOUR proclamation that any frame with any weapon can be used in any high level content.

So you're basically saying Inaros with a Stug is viable "high" level, correct?

[SpiritTeA]

Lvl 300 enemies can be done with only operator, so you’re not even that screwed with random gear c’mon.

Random loadouts are pretty fun and at least for me, who invested in plenty of “off-meta”  weapons and frames, is very rewarded and personally I can’t complain.

 

You just need 1 decent weapon in any slot and you’re done, and as I already said - just tune up your operator that can crack those lvl 300 enemies. If you don’t want to adapt it’s not really a problem of game design.

[schilds]

3 minutes ago, (XBOX)zThulsaDoomz said:

any frame with any weapon

Any weapon?

 

You obviously did not actually read what I said.

1 hour ago, schilds said:

*Every* frame can be modded to be viable in *any* high level content

1 hour ago, schilds said:

at worst you'll get three terrible weapon choices and have to give up just *one* bonus for a decent weapon.

I'll engage with you when you decide to engage with what I actually said, and not your own modified, cherry picked, strawman version of what I said.

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

2 minutes ago, schilds said:

Any weapon?

 

You obviously did not actually read what I said.

I'll engage with you when you decide to engage with what I actually said, and not your own modified, cherry picked, strawman version of what I said.

Fair enough, I'll take that one back. 

The point about any frame in any level of content however, stands

[schilds]

All this flexing and arguments over "high level" aside (I did not expect my statement regarding viability of frames to be so controversial, but whatever) ...

 

I think people will find this game mode to be less restrictive than they currently fear it will be, assuming it is released as presented in the dev stream, with the gold* bonus looking like the highest level most people will care to reach, meaning there will be some flexibility to leave out multiple restrictions of their choice.

* Most people will only go for the highest level bonus to complete their legendary arcanes faster.

[Aldain]

If these "restrictions" weren't in place I'd imagine people would just blitz the content mindlessly with the same gear they always do and go back to demanding harder content because "2ez".

Assuming people don't just do that anyway, I'm honestly so severely disinvested from "difficulty" in Warframe because it always just devolves into "MOAR ARMOR MORE DAMAGE" from the enemies most of the time, when it's not just plain ass damage attenuation.

Edited February 24 by Aldain