Too emotional and too silly

[voidctrl]

I don't know if I'm the complete outlier. I feel like too much recent stuff in Warframe is either too emotional, or too silly. 

Duviri was very explicitly all about internal conflict and emotions. The finale of New War was about two people in a toxic relationship yelling at each other. Whispers prominently featured unrequited love, and Zariman literally speaks about childhood anxiety. Jade Shadows' ending was just dripping with melodrama, they even bent over backwards to squeeze emotions into the Stalker. The Stalker of all things! I'm not saying that Warframe would be a better selling product as a sterile military no-nonsense tactical shooter ala Rainbow Six / Splinter Cell but with laserguns and swords etc - which was vaguely the tone in the very early releases - but to be perfectly honest I'd personally rather they stuck with that than the direction they've gone in. It's all just too weepy, too emotional, too melodramatic.

TennoCon and the 1999 reveals only reinforced this. I had been hoping that 1999 would revive a more tactical, methodical gameplay style akin to what the early game looked like, and bring on a very grounded tone to contrast and complement the space opera of "the future", but instead we get barrel roll bikes and boybands and dating games.

Visual choices are part of that. Geoff was right to be critical of wings and bunny ears and all those other out-of-place cartoony Fortnite visuals, too. Same goes for many primes and deluxe skins, yes I understand that the former are the product of Orokin decadence, but each iteration seems less and less practical and more and more nonsensical. The Bruntspar Necramech skin was the last addition I can think of that has a functional tacticool look to it, and I wish that was the fundamental visual language of Warframes as well.

Am I so out of touch? No, it is the children who are wrong!

[0_The_F00l]

3 minutes ago, voidctrl said:

I don't know if I'm the complete outlier. I feel like too much recent stuff in Warframe is either too emotional, or too silly. 

Duviri was very explicitly all about internal conflict and emotions. The finale of New War was about two people in a toxic relationship yelling at each other. Whispers prominently featured unrequited love, and Zariman literally speaks about childhood anxiety. Jade Shadows' ending was just dripping with melodrama, they even bent over backwards to squeeze emotions into the Stalker. The Stalker of all things! I'm not saying that Warframe would be a better selling product as a sterile military no-nonsense tactical shooter ala Rainbow Six / Splinter Cell but with laserguns and swords etc - which was vaguely the tone in the very early releases - but to be perfectly honest I'd personally rather they stuck with that than the direction they've gone in. It's all just too weepy, too emotional, too melodramatic.

TennoCon and the 1999 reveals only reinforced this. I had been hoping that 1999 would revive a more tactical, methodical gameplay style akin to what the early game looked like, and bring on a very grounded tone to contrast and complement the space opera of "the future", but instead we get barrel roll bikes and boybands and dating games.

Visual choices are part of that. Geoff was right to be critical of wings and bunny ears and all those other out-of-place cartoony Fortnite visuals, too. Same goes for many primes and deluxe skins, yes I understand that the former are the product of Orokin decadence, but each iteration seems less and less practical and more and more nonsensical. The Bruntspar Necramech skin was the last addition I can think of that has a functional tacticool look to it, and I wish that was the fundamental visual language of Warframes as well.

Am I so out of touch? No, it is the children who are wrong!

I have to partially agree , things have been a tad more dramatic than i would like. Of course no good story can completely avoid it , but it's starting to feel different for sure.

[MBaldelli]

13 minutes ago, voidctrl said:

I don't know if I'm the complete outlier. I feel like too much recent stuff in Warframe is either too emotional, or too silly. 

Storytellers and writers call this tropes and clichés storytelling.  And the elements of both are definitely there and feel extremely strong.  

Since Steve Sinclair said that the story telling for this game has mostly been done at the end of The Duviri Paradox -- the group think for the replacement management is that anything that follows this is feeling like supplemental story telling told by people that I don't feel that they were let into the what's and the where's of the story telling, so they are trying to fill it in based on that effort.  

So supplemental/filler plot and story telling is bound to occur until such time as someone either gives them the green light for more personal story creation -- or the current management gets the necessary creativity for instilling something beyond the completely speculative story telling that's been done to date.  

24 minutes ago, voidctrl said:

Geoff was right to be critical of wings and bunny ears and all those other out-of-place cartoony Fortnite visuals, too. Same goes for many primes and deluxe skins, yes I understand that the former are the product of Orokin decadence, but each iteration seems less and less practical and more and more nonsensical.

The problem here is popularity from the player base that want tchotchke for what they can get elsewhere in a free-to-play (sort of) environment.  Seems that a lot of the player community everywhere seems to put demands and unrealistic expectations that developers put as much dross into the game to look as pretty as possible when fighting enemies as well as showing off to friends in the game about their purchasing and decorating prowess. 

As an ancient, I play this game with as much forethought and strategy as possible, not only treating my energy reserves carefully, but also my ammo economy while searching the maps for anything not nailed to the ground (after all, I live by the saying I'm a ninja, not a fashionista).  But until such time as you can get (who I call) the adrenaline junkies, run and gunners and even the fashionistas to stop their demands for pretty -- then unfortunately -- you're going to see this trend continue and only you -- the owner of your own wallets -- to play the game and not be going out of your way for spending for more tchotchke.  

It's good that the developers still there can see the problems and perhaps even admit to them.  But until such time as you can convince the rest of the player base to play more wisely -- then it's going to be this state of supply and demand based on what's pretty instead of what's strategy.  

[_Anise_]

Sorry this isn't the freshest in my mind but I recall emotional things packed into the early stories, one particularly memorable scene is lotus carrying the operator? doing the trails up in the mountains, none of that really vibes the typical tactical game in my mind?

[quxier]

1 hour ago, voidctrl said:

It's all just too weepy, too emotional, too melodramatic.

I feel like they are overall good in intention but not so great (or even bad) at implementation.

1 hour ago, voidctrl said:

Jade Shadows' ending was just dripping with melodrama, they even bent over backwards to squeeze emotions into the Stalker. The Stalker of all things

Finally, something more than "revenge revenge for some stuff". Stalker is honestly very boring character. We honestly don't know too much about him, even after Jade quest (sadly).

Giving something to Stalker were good direction. However implementation were not great.

Compare

Spoiler

Slowly going with OP, "struggling" to defeat Stalekr:

To jade quest:
 

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/ekhlcM0Vn1o?si=lg1gU4KZovwmRhXl&t=1373

You can do bullet jump with baby!

 

50 minutes ago, MBaldelli said:

1 hour ago, voidctrl said:

Geoff was right to be critical of wings and bunny ears and all those other out-of-place cartoony Fortnite visuals, too. Same goes for many primes and deluxe skins, yes I understand that the former are the product of Orokin decadence, but each iteration seems less and less practical and more and more nonsensical.

The problem here is popularity from the player base that want tchotchke for what they can get elsewhere in a free-to-play (sort of) environment.  Seems that a lot of the player community everywhere seems to put demands and unrealistic expectations that developers put as much dross into the game to look as pretty as possible when fighting enemies as well as showing off to friends in the game about their purchasing and decorating prowess. 

As an ancient, I play this game with as much forethought and strategy as possible, not only treating my energy reserves carefully, but also my ammo economy while searching the maps for anything not nailed to the ground (after all, I live by the saying I'm a ninja, not a fashionista).  But until such time as you can get (who I call) the adrenaline junkies, run and gunners and even the fashionistas to stop their demands for pretty -- then unfortunately -- you're going to see this trend continue and only you -- the owner of your own wallets -- to play the game and not be going out of your way for spending for more tchotchke.  

I'm not sure what has both things to do with each other. Like, oh boy, you can have bunny ears that prevents me to inefficielly use warframe powers, treating energy reserves "carefully" etc.

 

[SneakyErvin]

I think emotions have always been there and quite heavy aswell. Early quest for instance, and then when the void actually became an embodyment it played on feelings, even before we knew about conceptual embodyment. Since just the way Wally appears to us is a heavy poke at emotions. 

And the whole childhood trauma thing has been there since the first moment the Tenno were revealed, and more deeply seen with CoH, giving us the first true glimpses of what truely went down on the Z with parents driven to insanity and the children having to fend for themselves. And then everything Rell went through personally after that in his truamatized state.

I also think what might make it seem more emotional and silly is because we are at a point where we interact more and more with the normal people throughout Sol, people that have emotions and silly standards because they are quite normal avarage humans.

[(PSN)Unstar]

I think it's definitely a taste thing.

DE has always been an experimental studio, and throughout the years they've tried a lot of different things in Warframe.  Some of them have panned out, some of them haven't.  But all of them have at least been interesting.  I'm here for that.

When 1999 was initially teased a year ago, it was incredibly corny, filled to the brim with tropes that had long since aged past being ironically cool.  If this were another studio, I probably would have been worried or disappointed.  But I trusted that DE knew what they were doing, and yesterday they validated my trust.  You cannot play combat sword motorcycle boy straight down the middle as if it's not cheese, because it is cheese.  Rather, you have to find the right balance of it being so dumb that it's cool, and adding in viral boy bands and dating sims makes it clear that they're going into this tongue-in-cheek.

And it's this approach that even has me excited about Infested Liches.  I flat out did not want DE to ever make Infested Liches, because that's something we had already seen twice before; it seemed like it would just be the same thing again with a different skin.  But then they surprised me by making that skin "90's boy band", and I'll my tune instantly changed: you son of a lich, I'm in!

[German]

3 hours ago, voidctrl said:

Visual choices are part of that. Geoff was right to be critical of wings and bunny ears and all those other out-of-place cartoony Fortnite visuals, too. Same goes for many primes and deluxe skins, yes I understand that the former are the product of Orokin decadence, but each iteration seems less and less practical and more and more nonsensical. The Bruntspar Necramech skin was the last addition I can think of that has a functional tacticool look to it, and I wish that was the fundamental visual language of Warframes as well.

This so much!

Edited July 21 by German

[MrDugan]

I'm just mad that I've literally made the sarcastic statement that they're eventually going to put a dating sim in the game because they keep putting other genres into the game, and...  they've done it.

Part of that frustration is the seeming requirement that media shoehorn romance into everything.  It doesn't need to be in everything.  Every action movie or game doesn't need the Good Guy to "get the girl."  It's omnipresent and I'm honestly just weary of it.

[GovernmentSecrets.gov]

I really miss the focus on the galactic war between the Corpus and Grineer and whoever else that was unfortunate enough to get caught between it. There's still stories that can be developed and loose plot threads to work with like how the Grineer are going to retaliate for the death of one of the Twin Queens. It's kind of frustrating that we keep getting narratives that keep leaning as far as they can away from everything that made Warframe's world interesting.

Duviri didn't feel like it added anything, because it's so detached from everything that it's effectively a separate game and the narrative seems to be keeping on that track for the most part. The official confirmation of a dating sim being added just further proves it's going to lean even further away from the universe we've come to love.

[WERElektro]

Not entirely sure wether I agree with you or not.

Part of me agrees. I've never been a fan of the out-of-place stuff - or whatever you wanna call it. 

One eye is weeping, thinking about the Corpus vs. Grineer lore bits that will never be written in favor of - what? - infested boyband? Dating sim?

The other eye is looking forward to all the things to come - like... infested boyband. Because I bet that this is the WILDEST idea they've had in a while.

Who even has comes up with that? It's insane. in a positive way.

 

That said, silly stuff has continously been introduced since I started playing... 

What about Clem and John Prodman?

I don't see anyone complain about these.

[trst]

Have you looked back at the story quests at all? That's been the tone of pretty much every major story addition. I'm pretty sure most the exceptions have been things relating entirely to boss lore. Even frame quests have had emotional responses like Lotus being sad over losing Mirage or Ordis feeling sad for Limbo's fate.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, MrDugan said:

I'm just mad that I've literally made the sarcastic statement that they're eventually going to put a dating sim in the game because they keep putting other genres into the game, and...  they've done it.

Part of that frustration is the seeming requirement that media shoehorn romance into everything.  It doesn't need to be in everything.  Every action movie or game doesn't need the Good Guy to "get the girl."  It's omnipresent and I'm honestly just weary of it.

Was it stated somewhere that it will be dating sim? Just because we have text based interaction doesn't mean it's dating sim. It can be RPG.

[MrDugan]

29 minutes ago, quxier said:

Was it stated somewhere that it will be dating sim? Just because we have text based interaction doesn't mean it's dating sim. It can be RPG.

It was literally stated that the purpose of the interaction was to romance one of the NPCs.  It's a dating sim.

[quxier]

7 minutes ago, MrDugan said:

36 minutes ago, quxier said:

Was it stated somewhere that it will be dating sim? Just because we have text based interaction doesn't mean it's dating sim. It can be RPG.

It was literally stated that the purpose of the interaction was to romance one of the NPCs.  It's a dating sim.

Thanks for claryfing, I've not watched full tennocon.

[C11H22O1]

6 minutes ago, MrDugan said:

It was literally stated that the purpose of the interaction was to romance one of the NPCs.  It's a dating sim.

Are these games: Elder scrolls, Fallout, Persona, Fable, Greedfall, Stardew valley, Hades, Dragon age, Mass effect... Dating Sims because they have romance in them?

They made characters that people would enjoy and decided to add this little romance option to it, from rewatching the tennolive it really sounds like you'll just get a special scene at the end of the quest if you actually bothered to romance anyone, it's not that big of a deal and it definitely doesn't make it a dating sim since it really looks like that's not the focus of the quest.

[MrDugan]

Just now, quxier said:

Thanks for claryfing, I've not watched full tennocon.

Someone in my alliance missed the stream.  The highlight reel that I gave him in chat was "Literal infested boy band, and an actual dating sim."  

[MrDugan]

1 minute ago, C11H22O1 said:

Are these games: Elder scrolls, Fallout, Persona, Fable, Greedfall, Stardew valley, Hades, Dragon age, Mass effect... Dating Sims because they have romance in them?

They made characters that people would enjoy and decided to add this little romance option to it, from rewatching the tennolive it really sounds like you'll just get a special scene at the end of the quest if you actually bothered to romance anyone, it's not that big of a deal and it definitely doesn't make it a dating sim since it really looks like that's not the focus of the quest.

It's a mechanic removed from the rest of the game where you have specific dialogue options to build a romance with a character.  So first off, a direct answer:  When games shove romance dialogue into NPC interactions, I'd absolutely consider those dating sim mechanics.  There is a difference though.  You are playing a character in those games.  Most of our operator's dialogue is picked for us, we have relatively little control over who we are and what choices get made in quests.  It's not like Skyrim or Fallout or Baldur's Gate where you can choose different paths with meaningful differences.  We all go pretty much the same way through these quests.  So this isn't a character RPG where we make relationship choices with tons of NPCs.  This is an action game with a chosen path for us.  

There is now going to be a terminal where we go through (what appears to be.) non-animated dialogue with character portraits via text.  It will be likely be specifically for the purposes of Romance, based on how it was presented.  That's a dating sim.  It looks and mechanically behaves just like a dating sim within the game.  It doesn't even look like the sort of romance options you get in RPGs like the ones you mentioned.  If we had robust dialogue and meaningful choices and actual RPG character elements it would still be obnoxious, and very much like a dating sim.  Because all a dating sim is, is the romance options from an actual RPG stripped from the RPG and turned into a stand alone game.  

[4thBro]

7 hours ago, voidctrl said:

I don't know if I'm the complete outlier. I feel like too much recent stuff in Warframe is either too emotional, or too silly. 

Duviri was very explicitly all about internal conflict and emotions. The finale of New War was about two people in a toxic relationship yelling at each other. Whispers prominently featured unrequited love, and Zariman literally speaks about childhood anxiety. Jade Shadows' ending was just dripping with melodrama, they even bent over backwards to squeeze emotions into the Stalker. The Stalker of all things! I'm not saying that Warframe would be a better selling product as a sterile military no-nonsense tactical shooter ala Rainbow Six / Splinter Cell but with laserguns and swords etc - which was vaguely the tone in the very early releases - but to be perfectly honest I'd personally rather they stuck with that than the direction they've gone in. It's all just too weepy, too emotional, too melodramatic.

TennoCon and the 1999 reveals only reinforced this. I had been hoping that 1999 would revive a more tactical, methodical gameplay style akin to what the early game looked like, and bring on a very grounded tone to contrast and complement the space opera of "the future", but instead we get barrel roll bikes and boybands and dating games.

Visual choices are part of that. Geoff was right to be critical of wings and bunny ears and all those other out-of-place cartoony Fortnite visuals, too. Same goes for many primes and deluxe skins, yes I understand that the former are the product of Orokin decadence, but each iteration seems less and less practical and more and more nonsensical. The Bruntspar Necramech skin was the last addition I can think of that has a functional tacticool look to it, and I wish that was the fundamental visual language of Warframes as well.

Am I so out of touch? No, it is the children who are wrong!

I feel like that's a good thing. A lot of the most memorable comedies also have a solid backbone to their story. And a lot of the most memorable "serious" things also have solid funny moments.

And as such, I also think a rough 50/50 is also good. A mix is good, and makes something feel more... real??? More immersive. If something focuses on only one of these elements, they become a one trick pony. And that can work for something like a movie. Or a comedy you watch for 30 minutes a day. But if you binge a comedy, it kinda wears down. And if you binge a drama that sticks to that act, you start to yearn for a Youtube tab with some Bill Burr or something.

 

The real world is a mix of everything. So when it's in a game, it feels more natural to me.

IMO!

[chofranc]

hace 2 horas, MrDugan dijo:

I'm just mad that I've literally made the sarcastic statement that they're eventually going to put a dating sim in the game because they keep putting other genres into the game, and...  they've done it.

Part of that frustration is the seeming requirement that media shoehorn romance into everything.  It doesn't need to be in everything.  Every action movie or game doesn't need the Good Guy to "get the girl."  It's omnipresent and I'm honestly just weary of it.

Im pretty sure that it will get abandoned and the choices you made will not matter or impact anything, DE sucks at doing anything gameplay related that isn't Warframe combat.

[GovernmentSecrets.gov]

Just now, WERElektro said:

Not entirely sure wether I agree with you or not.

Part of me agrees. I've never been a fan of the out-of-place stuff - or whatever you wanna call it. 

One eye is weeping, thinking about the Corpus vs. Grineer lore bits that will never be written in favor of - what? - infested boyband? Dating sim?

The other eye is looking forward to all the things to come - like... infested boyband. Because I bet that this is the WILDEST idea they've had in a while.

Who even has comes up with that? It's insane. in a positive way.

 

That said, silly stuff has continously been introduced since I started playing... 

What about Clem and John Prodman?

I don't see anyone complain about these.

Clem and John Prodman don't have major updates or syndicates dedicated to them. They're just small additions that spice up the world in a fun but non-obstructive way. John Prodman requires you to willfully stay for 1 hour in the Index to even encounter him, Clem sits in relays/ hub areas sometimes and has 1 optional weekly mission. Then there's stuff like Duviri which eats up tons of resources and time just to not have any ties with any of the established universe.

[C11H22O1]

24 minutes ago, MrDugan said:

It's a mechanic removed from the rest of the game where you have specific dialogue options to build a romance with a character.  So first off, a direct answer:  When games shove romance dialogue into NPC interactions, I'd absolutely consider those dating sim mechanics.  There is a difference though.  You are playing a character in those games.  Most of our operator's dialogue is picked for us, we have relatively little control over who we are and what choices get made in quests.  It's not like Skyrim or Fallout or Baldur's Gate where you can choose different paths with meaningful differences.  We all go pretty much the same way through these quests.  So this isn't a character RPG where we make relationship choices with tons of NPCs.  This is an action game with a chosen path for us.  

There is now going to be a terminal where we go through (what appears to be.) non-animated dialogue with character portraits via text.  It will be likely be specifically for the purposes of Romance, based on how it was presented.  That's a dating sim.  It looks and mechanically behaves just like a dating sim within the game.  It doesn't even look like the sort of romance options you get in RPGs like the ones you mentioned.  If we had robust dialogue and meaningful choices and actual RPG character elements it would still be obnoxious, and very much like a dating sim.  Because all a dating sim is, is the romance options from an actual RPG stripped from the RPG and turned into a stand alone game.  

I understand what you mean, still I really wouldn't consider it to be like a dating sim, the big part of dating sims is the focus on the romance, the romance stuff in the quest isn't the main part of the story just a flavor thing on the side that you can do.

At least it's optional, I doubt it'll be something that's in your face like they'll force people to interact with it, I get that it's not for everyone but it's not really a big deal that they're doing it

[(PSN)robotwars7]

to be fair, warframe is in the looter shooter category: for the most part, people are here to grind for shiny new things and watch their damage numbers go up. anything else really is just a bonus.

the story already peaked IMO at The Sacrifice, and yes, that was an emotional quest too: emotional stories can be engaging and entertaining too, but they have to be done right. IMO the writing has gone downhill a bit and it gets frustrating when our questions don't get answered, only replaced with even more questions and even more problems to solve. I think a lot of it is down to the fact that with the live service model, and it's requirement for endless content, we can never really get a proper ending, or a proper answer to some things.

I'm also concerned since fighting an eldritch cosmic entity like wally and travelling through time is about the peak of how crazy you can really get in the grand scheme of things; it's not really possible to top that, so I'm not sure what else DE could really do, other than basically experiment with wacky ideas just because they can.

nobody has to like everything of course, personally I grew up in the 90s so the visuals and such hold a special place in my heart already (the power of nostalgia!), but it's ok to not play warframe for the story. I play it for the gameplay, which has basically always been solid since the moment I started.

 

[Pavelord]

what is the alternative then?,  they greyness of the world has already been set, you cant turn this into just a story of good vs evil with stoic characters and villains bein evil just because they want to conquer the world. Just this tennocon they ask if people like anime, I think they are going that route, something that is common in anime is having this wacky or silly adventures with very dark/grimm settings, let me give an example; spyxfamily is the comedy adventures of a psychic girl pretending to be the daughter of an spy and a assassin from opposing countries with the backdrop of 2 horrible wars (as of latest chapters) and ongoing cold war during a reconstruction period, with assasinations, gestapo tactics, torture and a military police and terrorist organizations working behind the scenes.

I agree that something are rather wacky, it strange me a bit when they presented the Cavia and even though Loid kind of seem like an ass at the beggining he grew on me for his work with the Cavia.

Maybe we are getting old, you see it with new games, you cant just make a forest tileset, no matter how beautiful it is if its just a normal forest, thats boring, it has to be neon pink with blue grass and a cosmic sky box, you cant just make a goodie two-shoes in an epic tale, you bring it to an interpersonal level with the quirkness and inner turmoils that people can personally identify. i ramble enough.

 

[MrDugan]

1 hour ago, C11H22O1 said:

the big part of dating sims is the focus on the romance, the romance stuff in the quest isn't the main part of the story just a flavor thing on the side that you can do.

Which only furthers my argument that the little minigame is itself a dating sim within the game.  I didn't say the whole quest/content was a dating sim, just the little addon.