Warframe is a game held back by how easy it is

[MrInubis]

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Well you get a stopwatch and you start it and then you kill some enemies and then you stop the stopwatch when you kill the last one. And then you divide the enemies by the time. That's the TTK I'm talking about. See, the AoE component gets averaged right in there with every other factor. It can be accounted for.

And than enters Chroma, or Rhino, or Harrow, or even Wisp and it all goes to dumpster.

 

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Buddy you know we can just look at your profile right?

But that just proves my point. I have them to collect them. 

 

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

1M total kills on your profile and 1/8th of them are from these same four weapons alone. Half of that from the Ignis, just click and hold. And yet I'm the one that wants to make the game "bland" smh.

And none of those are top tier dmg wise, far from it. I use them because i suck at aiming, thats pretty much it.

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

You might have these items but you sure ain't using them. You do the same S#&$ we all do. You're not saint. You get an item, siphon out its Mastery, and toss it in the pile with the rest. And there are a ton of weapons in there you don't have that don't even have a barrier to acquisition. You've never used the base Bronco and it's a market credit BP. And yet you're apparently in no rush to "progress" to this weapon or even collect it. Maybe if the Bronco weren't garbage compared to what you already have you'd have more of an incentive to open up the market for it?

Meanwhile i use currently Loki with Proboscis Cernos, soooo meta. I just didnt get to it yet. I wouldnt be using it anyway since i dont like the playstyle, maybe if it had 20 times bigger magazine. 

 

You posted most used secondaries in game yourself. One of top 10 most used is even close to being the best dmg wise and thats Leatum. One of the strongest secondaries currently, Dual Toxycyst is 21st, outdone by twin grakatas. Most of the most used weapons are there for their utility and ease of use not dmg. Your own post proven you wrong and you still double down on "just more dmg". You could even make every single weapon kill everything in 1 shot and it still wouldnt make them equal.

Edited August 25 by kuciol

[MrInubis]

5 hours ago, Scor-Chii said:

Bro got EXPOSED hard.
This post on this thread made my night and I just wanna say thanks lol.

Seriously though has this guy 100%'d SP AT LEAST????

Ignis Wraith is kinda mid in SP compared to the normal difficulty which leads me to believe they didn't. Like the IG isn't bad but even as a primer weapon it feels like it falls off in SP compared to like any kind of other option like a hound/sentinel with Contagious Bond & Manifold Bond or like the Cedo or Kompressa.

Exposed of what? I never claimed such thing in the first place, on contrary i straight up said im not good at the game. For the record i didnt do whole SP, i got bored at mars.

[0_The_F00l]

I really can't argue with the OP.

 

Edit: I see the one I commented on has been merged, my comment was with how thirsty the game is.

Edited August 25 by 0_The_F00l

[Loza03]

8 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Well, I dunno.

Let's say there's Weapon A that can kill 100 enemies per minute, Weapon B that can kill 75 enemies per minute, Weapon C that can kill 50 enemies per minute, and Weapon D that can kill 10 enemies per minute. That minute covers all the little meta properties like AoE and punchthrough and accuracy and ammo economy and how often you reload and how much you move. In this scenario, what are you picking? Being able to handle 10x fewer enemies is a pretty impactful thing, let alone half! So I will wager that you'll see most people pick A or sometimes B, a few people picking C, and barely anyone picking D. Here player buildcraft and expression is mostly centered on the two weapons who are hand over fist better than all the rest.

Now let's say there's Weapon E that can kill 100 enemies per minute, Weapon F that can kill 95 enemies per minute, Weapon G that can kill 80 enemies per minute, and Weapon H that can kill 75 enemies per minute. In this scenario what are you picking? There's still the incentive to pick Weapon E because it's objectively the strongest, but even if someone picks the weakest Weapon H they're still capable of keeping up. Here player buildcraft and expression is going to be centered on more of these weapons.

So if maximizing expression and buildcraft is the goal to strive for, then expression and buildcraft shouldn't be stifled or held back by raw performance. Having a large difference in raw performance can only lead to things not making it past that minimum threshold.

As for homogenization, well, as far as raw performance that's kinda the goal. Raw power should be homogenized. But we've got a huge number of weapons to look at which are already anything but homogeneous when you look at every other aspect, like their look and feel and gameplay and mechanics. Even if the Lato can kill about as many enemies as the Lex over a long period of time, they're still different guns.

This calculation assumes largely homogenous enemies. Which is definitely a historic issue when it comes to Warframe, but it's something DE has made a concerted effort to change. Even as far back as the Zariman update with the Thrax units and even the Trokarian and Derivators. 

That being said I do agree with this fundamental point of the stat squish - I just feel like it isn't the only thing that needs doing. It's not a cure-all. 

 

9 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Well yeah, and that's fine. If you zoom in really close there are going to be differences in the second-to-second gameplay and that's fine. But if you zoom allllll the way out and look at players over a long period of time, the guy with the sniper rifle and the secondary shotgun should still be able to keep up with the flamethrower and rocket pistol guy. Maybe Sniper struggles with hordes, that's OK because they breezed through the heavies. And Flamethrower has the hordes cleared, but spends more time on heavies. It'll average out in the long run.

But if the numbers are too skewed and the flamethrower is great against hordes and also great against heavies and also great against bosses and also great against etc. etc. etc., then why ever pick the sniper?

Which is kinda where we are in Warframe today. "Why pick a sniper" was previously only really answered with "for Eidolon Hunts", but even that's been eroded heavily by powercreep. I don't have updated graphs for recent years, but for example from 2020-2021:

You can also see just how little even back then players were expressing themselves with snipers. And it was trailing off! And it's continued since.

• 2020: Rubico Prime is the 4th most used weapon (5.35%)
• 2021: Rubico Prime is the 5th most used weapon (4.15%)
• 2022: Rubico Prime is the 8th most used primary (3.25%)
• 2023: Rubico Prime is the 11th most used primary (2.16%)

It doesn't have a role anymore and falls behind in every other aspect, so it's not being used as much. People are replacing it with more flexible options that do more in less time with less effort.

SARs were even more depressing:

As a whole category I don't think they were even 1% of total usage that year. Is anyone expressing themselves with SARs? Can they?

Very much my point!

Weapons need to have distinct and discrete niches. 

[C11H22O1]

Unavoidable when every frame is basically naked and most humans wear skintight suits.

I welcome it though, it's not that big of a deal and the game is mature

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

Seriously I get so much enjoyment out of this game that I barely play anything else these days. Even if it seems like half the time is just vibing in chats or customizing fashion frames and builds.

[dwqrf]

Il y a 9 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

Skirtless Yareli can't hurt you.

Skirtless Yareli:

Weren't you the one saying you wouldn't play the first descendant because of too many female body parts ? 🙃

[Arbitrary]

6 hours ago, kuciol said:

Dual Toxycyst is 21st, outdone by twin grakatas.

It's skewed by Xbox having a promotion that gave Twin Grakatas along with a skin for them if you had Game Pass. It started in mid September 2022 and went through 2023 (and is still a thing maybe?). In particular, it was very popular with the lower MRs who were getting a potatoed weapon when potatoes are scarce early on. The Dex weapons do a similar thing. The Twin Grakatas are not very popular on the other platforms though.

Xbox 2023 usage:

PS 2023 usage:

PC 2023 usage:

 

[MrInubis]

4 minutes ago, Arbitrary said:

It's skewed by Xbox having a promotion that gave Twin Grakatas along with a skin for them if you had Game Pass. It started in mid September 2022 and went through 2023 (and is still a thing maybe?). In particular, it was very popular with the lower MRs who were getting a potatoed weapon when potatoes are scarce early on. The Dex weapons do a similar thing. The Twin Grakatas are not very popular on the other platforms though.

Xbox 2023 usage:

PS 2023 usage:

PC 2023 usage:

 

That proves the point? Accesibility matters, mr matters, playstyle matters etc. He thinks only dmg is relevant and his worthless ttk that doesnt take into account even something as basic as warframe buffs. Even if you remove grakatas from equation there is still 19 other weapons.

[Arbitrary]

9 minutes ago, kuciol said:

He thinks only dmg is relevant

Which is what Twin Grakatas is showing? It has "the best" damage for those MRs where it's so popular. The promotion freebie had more space at base which = more damage mods.

The claim of Dual Toxocyst being the best is kinda whatever. It's very good sure, but most of the other weapons up there are either matching some aspect of it (i.e. close enough ttk), or are just a starter weapon/early freebie, or are offering something very unique (Epitaph, Grimoire).

  Don't see how this definition of ttk is worthless either.

15 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Well you get a stopwatch and you start it and then you kill some enemies and then you stop the stopwatch when you kill the last one. And then you divide the enemies by the time. That's the TTK I'm talking about. See, the AoE component gets averaged right in there with every other factor. It can be accounted for.

[dwqrf]

Il y a 10 heures, PublikDomain a dit :

I respect.

I have a Prisma Grinlok build I really like but I'm still on my several-year LMG kick. And yeah, sad that "just make it AoE" is often DE's answer to Incarnons. It was for my poor Gorgon and it's such a dumpy un-dakka mode. The base stat buffs more than make up for it but still.

Sure. Should you be topping the charts, best in class, kill-everything-before-anyone-else-can-play? Nah. But you should still be, idk, half as powerful as someone who is. The game lets me put a potato and all the Forma I want and an Arcane and an Incarnon and a Riven on my MK1 Paris, after all. If I've put in endgame work why shouldn't I get to use it in endgame content?

Sure. Should you be topping the charts, best in class, kill-everything-before-anyone-else-can-play? Nah. But you should still be, idk, 3/4 as powerful as someone who is. The game lets me put a potato and all the Forma I want and an Arcane and an Incarnon and a Riven on my Paris, after all. If I've put in endgame work why shouldn't I get to use it in endgame content?

Etc.

The problem with the idea of a """progression system""" you talk about (that doesn't actually exist) is that it's been 10 goddamned years and I still don't have a #*!%ing Paracyst variant. Your """progression system""" is slow, wasteful, and encourages a bland gameplay experience. It does nothing. It adds nothing. It can be straight up bought. And it lasts for barely a percent of the time that people put into this game. All it does is make some people's favorite things suck but not others.

But... People do level cap and eidolons with mk1 weapons... Even before incarnon, so I still don't get your point. It's just sad that you are trying really hard to make the paracyst a good dps weapons when it's already a decent, normal tiered, version of a burst weapons featuring really high status chance. But you'd like it to be a Crit+slash weapons, which it's not. 

Let's talk TFD for a minute so I can summarize what you are advocating for.

In TFD, you start the game at level 1, and make you way through the world (star chart) until you finish at level 100. From 1 to 99, you'd drop every normal and rare weapons from enemies, but they will have a level (1-99, depend on the enemy level you kill) which will result in their dps. A weapons level 77 will be able to kill enemies level 77 and under, while struggling later on. And every weapon have the same dps, except normal vs rare. There is maybe like 10 different normal weapons, and 90 rare weapons.

Fun fact, you don't need to craft or level up the weapons, as you drop them built, and the mod capacity depends on your account MR. And if you mod a weapon at level X and then drop another one (the same) at level Y, it will keep the potatoes, the formas, and the mods.

But then you reach level 100 and unlock hard mode (SP). From there, every weapon you drop is level 100, and every enemies (except boss and dungeons, being ++) will be level 100. So it doesn't matter which weapons you play, but you still may have to focus on one weapon to potatoe and forma to have a better time.

(Because of how munition works, you'd have a to choose a weapons that use the most generic munition type, unless you play one of the two most OP champ giving ammo/Infinite ammo).

But the point of the game is to grind better gear, so you'd want to farm on of the 15 ultimate (prime) weapons with amorphous (relics) with layers of rng to drop and open it. So you may be forced to main one single rare weapons to farm the ultimate(s) of your choice, but you can tryhard without.

One you get a ultimate weapon, you can go full on upgrading the weapon with formas and potatoes, mods, and (Valence) to improve its gimmick.

If every normal weapons level 100 have a base dps of 90k, every rare 100k, and every ultimate 110k, the difference isn't huge. But when base modding (with only the point from MR), reaching half the build, you may get you ultimate to 220k, and fully built to 330k. Because mods are nicely balanced. But fully formating a weapon take one week of hardcore grind.

So your base ultimate weapons which took one full clip to kill one enemy, went to kill 2 enemies with a clip with base mods from mr, and then went to kill 3 enemies with a clip while fully modded - with potatoes and 8 formas. Don't forget it's a horde shooter, but balanced.

What do you think people do ? Well, first, they completely ignore the weapons level 1-99, because, you know, who cares about base story content. But then, they also ignore the one hundred different normal and rare weapons level 100, because, who cares, you have weapons that do 5-10% more dps that you can get, and that look cool and shiny. So people eventually play all the weapons in the game only for MR, and will only use the top end weapons in endgame content. That's so weird. YOU'd think they will choose one of the 90 rares weapons which do only 5-10% less dps for the style or fun of it... But they don't, because the 15 ultimate weapons feature every top end of every categories of weapons in game, ending with 99% usage while the rest stagnate at 1%, just until players get better ones.

But you could play the others weapons if you want to be slightly slower. Spoilers alert, people are 'lazy' and want to kill as fast and as confortable as possible.

But the game is perfectly balanced exactly like you dream Warframe to be.

Is it a good game ? Nah, it feels terrible to spend a whole week farming and formating a weapon for barely any dps increase or TTK decrease. When finishing your build, you have to put magazine size and reload mods to improve your dps. It's extremely frutrasting and boring. And it's not even factoring resistance (attenuation) enemies features.

Is that what you wish for Warframe ? You can try it, it's right there, it's free. And it's perfectly balanced... As all things should be ?

[PublikDomain]

13 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Skirtless Yareli can't hurt you.

Skirtless Yareli:

How did this get here? Did the mods merge the S#&$post thread? lol

[PublikDomain]

10 hours ago, kuciol said:

And than enters Chroma, or Rhino, or Harrow, or even Wisp and it all goes to dumpster.

How so? With weapon buffs that affect everything? If you double the damage on your Spectra and double the damage on your Soma they both still do the same amount of relative damage. Nothing has actually changed with their relative power. X = Y is the same as 2X = 2Y after all. It's elementary school mathematics.

10 hours ago, kuciol said:

I have them to collect them. 

But you could have them to play them too. Or is collection all your "progression" is about?

10 hours ago, kuciol said:

And none of those are top tier dmg wise, far from it. I use them because i suck at aiming, thats pretty much it.

And that's why I talked about getting a stopwatch. Zoom out and look on a macro level and those weapons are pretty great. They're easy, convenient, and fast. That's why weapons like the Ignis are so popular.

10 hours ago, kuciol said:

Most of the most used weapons are there for their utility and ease of use not dmg.

And that's bland.

[PublikDomain]

7 hours ago, Loza03 said:

This calculation assumes largely homogenous enemies. Which is definitely a historic issue when it comes to Warframe, but it's something DE has made a concerted effort to change. Even as far back as the Zariman update with the Thrax units and even the Trokarian and Derivators. 

Well, sure, but we do fight a lot of homogeneous enemies. Even if a Thrax or a Demolisher are thrown in here and there most of what we do is cleave through largely homogeneous units. That's even true with the Murmur, which are much more interesting and varied than the usual fare.

But I could rephrase my examples as "Weapon A can get you through 20 missions per hour and Weapon B gets you through 10 missions per hour" and it's the same thing. The more you zoom out, the more things like enemy variety and ammo economies and the effect of AoE get factored in and can be measured. Though this maybe is a larger discussion about what "power" means in games, and I've gotta run to Costco. So maybe later if you're interested.

@dwqrf I've got stuff to do today but I'll read your post when I have the chance. In the meantime, I've done a lot of answering your questions so I wonder if you can answer some of mine? When you guys talk "progression" what do you mean by that? How does that actually play out, how long do you expect to progress, and what are the things you like about this? And when you talk about "blandness" what do you mean by that? Because I can point to things like usage stats and show "hey, most people play this small number of things" and in my mind "less stuff" is the same as "more bland" and that doesn't seem to be the same for you. How do you think the game's progression could be made better? How do you think the game could be made less bland? And if you'd pick a gif already I'd like to understand what you expect from your second-to-second Warframe gameplay.

Edited August 25 by PublikDomain

[dwqrf]

il y a 5 minutes, PublikDomain a dit :

 

@dwqrf I've got stuff to do today but I'll read your post when I have the chance. In the meantime, I've done a lot of answering your questions so I wonder if you can answer some of mine? When you guys talk "progression" what do you mean by that? How does that actually play out, how long do you expect to progress, and what are the things you like about this? And when you talk about "blandness" what do you mean by that? Because I can point to things like usage stats and show "hey, most people play this small number of things" and in my mind "less stuff" is the same as "more bland" and that doesn't seem to be the same for you. How do you think the game's progression could be made better? How do you think the game could be made less bland? And if you'd pick a gif already I'd like to understand what you expect from your second-to-second Warframe gameplay.

Completely fair point and I'll will deliver my opinion on those specific points as soon as I can, because I also have a few things to do this evening and I'm pretty tired from my little vacation. I'll come back to you. But for my last post, there wasn't any question, just food for thought. Have a good one Tenno.

[Quest]

Did they just merge this with ember and skirtless yareli?

[Quest]

I don't know why this was merged with a meme thread but I do not appreciate having my comments taken out of context like that. Now it looks like I'm agreeing with a bunch of stuff I don't.

Please learn from websites like Steam Community that don't do that. They either just lock the thread or leave it alone.

Edited August 25 by Quest

[MrInubis]

47 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

How so? With weapon buffs that affect everything? If you double the damage on your Spectra and double the damage on your Soma they both still do the same amount of relative damage. Nothing has actually changed with their relative power. X = Y is the same as 2X = 2Y after all. It's elementary school mathematics

Many frames dont have access to weapon buffs. You completely disregard that weapons and frames do not operate in a vacuum. Heavy hitting weapon will get a lot more from attack speed buff than fast one. You think of scenerio within just one account in multiplayer game.

 

47 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

And that's why I talked about getting a stopwatch. Zoom out and look on a macro level and those weapons are pretty great. They're easy, convenient, and fast. That's why weapons like the Ignis are so popular.

It was made mostly on low level grind, now i progressed beyond the need of them, i have stronger weapons. Now you admit that dmg is not everything, maybe there is some hope for you.

 

47 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

And that's bland.

On contrary. Being versitile is definitely not bland. Bland is having weapons as skins.

 

36 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

When you guys talk "progression" what do you mean by that? 

You start with nothing and you aquire stronger things, rank up mods, get better weapons, new frames. Thats the thing that keeps players going first 100-150 hours. Most players dont have 1k hours in missions like we do. This "upgrade syndrome" is what gets players hooked.

Edited August 25 by kuciol

[Ventura_Highway]

40 minutes ago, Quest said:

I don't know why this was merged with a meme thread but I do not appreciate having my comments taken out of context like that. Now it looks like I'm agreeing with a bunch of stuff I don't.

Please learn from websites like Steam Community that don't do that. They either just lock the thread or leave it alone.

I make lemonade from the lemons and say we can discuss the fishing warframe in here now.

[dwqrf]

il y a 9 minutes, Ventura_Highway a dit :

I make lemonade from the lemons and say we can discuss the fishing warframe in here now.

No please don't ; we were having a really serious conversation about... hu... hey what's that ? Nice fishing rod you got there. What kind of fish can you catch with that ?

[Quest]

13 minutes ago, Ventura_Highway said:

I make lemonade from the lemons and say we can discuss the fishing warframe in here now.

Maybe you're on to something

[Ventura_Highway]

4 minutes ago, dwqrf said:

No please don't ; we were having a really serious conversation about... hu... hey what's that ? Nice fishing rod you got there. What kind of fish can you catch with that ?

Hell yeah, you got an eye for beauty there mate

The rod's made of melted down Pedestal Primes, figured I'd give the fish a show before I pass them off to Hai-Luk.

The hook.. is cryotic. When the eat the bait the brainfreeze makes sure they don't struggle too much. Some say it's not very sporting. I think it's less trouble for me and the fish both.

Don't tell the Unum this but sometimes when I'm bored I stick a fieldron sample on the end and when all the fish come up, I make Grendel eat em up an spit em out. Lemme tell you, the last Grineer that got a faceful of that looked like he was about to cry. Serves them right I say.

[dwqrf]

il y a 4 minutes, Ventura_Highway a dit :

the last Grineer that got a faceful of that looked like he was about to cry. Serves them right I say.

I caught something which is still kicking but that's doesn't really looks like a fish...

[Ventura_Highway]

1 minute ago, dwqrf said:

I caught something which is still kicking but that's doesn't really looks like a fish...

'at looks like a snake to me friend. Don't shoot me a look but I got a sausage recipe for those from region chat.

[Rexis12]

Warframe isn't a game that is held back by how easy it is. 

It is a game that is held back by developers that adamantly refuse to encourage and reward the gameplay that they 'supposedly' want, and would rather force it which in turn encourages players to cheese them instead of genuinely engaging with the content and gameplay that they want. 

By refusing to provide an extrinsic reward, it results in players not playing for the intrinsic factor (a common thing for both newer players and general wide audience that Warframe wants to catch and maintain) instead ignoring or not engaging with the deep mechanics provided.

Compare how much you'd go out of your way to actively headshot as Harrow vs Chroma. Due to the inherent lack of reward, either loot or gameplay wise, players will just not care to participate. 

Why aren't players slowly going through the mission, going cover to cover and skillfully lining up shots to take down priority targets first? Because the reward of this mission has a 1% drop rate and I'll be running that particular mission several times in a row to get even a slight chance to get it, which not only encourages me to rush through it to get a higher roll at the drop table. But the lack of reward if I DO go through and play it 'skillfully' pushes me away from doing so. 

Gameplay reward is then only the half of it. Because the other half is the lack of any meaningful Counter play that can be done towards the enemies, especially those with special attacks that can be extremely dangerous either for damage or setting you up to get big damage. Hooks pre-Zariman would just pull you down even if the enemy had no LoS to you and was in a crowd of other enemies. Especially Scorpions, while Ancients tended to just spawn in absurd numbers that you'd get 10 of them in a room, meaning 10 sources of knockdown that, if landed with their attacks with little telegraph and indicator besides the miniscule body movement while also having an aimbot projectile (courtesy of me getting hit mid bullet jump OVER their heads) you could nothing about- UNLESS you had knockdown immunity which one of the most 'infamous' mods Prime Sure Footed had, which further encouraged it's use. This is just one example, we have Thrax's invincible attacks where they can just do it without you having either a chance to interrupt them. They just have several seconds of invincibility that you can do nothing about. Hell the Thrax Legate, can literally use their super move mid stagger. 

In fact that's another thing Eximi can do, I have literal videos where a Blitz was being staggered locked by Impact procs, and not only could they charge up their attacks but they could release it in the literal frames of them being staggered. Making me wonder why that mechanic is even in the game in first place, besides making Headshots more difficult for the players. 

This also extends to CC, because I used Harrow to chain up Eximus as they were going to release their attacks only for them to go through. And people wonder why players just hyper optimise for damage and how that makes the game 'too wasn't, as if DE doesn't have a hand in it.

Ironically enough the only Eximus that doesn't do this is Jade Light, who's laser respawn if they get CC'd.

 

What all this does, is that you effectively push players away from less 'Too Easy' methods, because the alternative is not only less rewarding but actively WORSE in interacting with the gameplay that they want to promote to make it more Challenging. 

It's not so bad, DE is actually learning the concept of rewarding extra effort. The Gruzling and Mocking/Scathing Whispers are actually completely optional encounters, unlike Angels who have Mandatory Drops for blueprints and standing, that reward you for going out of your way to find and fight them, while at the same time not dropping things only they have. Gruzling give you extra loot you can get anywhere, while the Arcanes from the Whispers are mainly gained from the Fragmented One.