De's Current Stance On In-Game Weaponry Is A Good Thing

[413X]

First off, this is NOT about shotgun falloff damage or the Brakk nerf or at least not specifically). This thread is about two issues that apply to weapons in Warframe in GENERAL.

 

1. Event item trivialisation (and please wait up and let me explain before you jump me with "Brakk is still a powerful gun!" replies.)

 

2. Mastery rank and actual weapon utility (aka - The-gun-that-I-spent-billions-researching-and-hours-training-to-use-is-less-effective-than-the-stuff-they're-selling-out-there-on-the-street-that-can-be-operated-by-a-newborn-baby Syndrome).

 

First off, in regards to event-item trivialisation, Event items are supposed to be worth the effort spent in getting them, not something that will eventually be nerfed to make way for the next powerhouse (a fact which some people have already noticed and pointed out). This is just bad game design.

 

Or is it?

 

Think about the recent Gradivus Dilemma event for the Brakk. How many people did 100 missions because it was fun or even remotely interesting? If DE did not dangle the carrot of a Supergun, how much interest could the event have garnered based on just a uniquely-skinned regular weapon with a free weapon slot? (Make that 2 weapon slots if you count the melee weapon.) It may still have been a pretty good draw. After all, without superweapons and after damage 2.0, you're definitely going to need more slots than they gave you at the beginning. No multi-purpose gun means no reserving one slot for just that weapon and using the others to level new weapons after all. Anything that promotes the sale of plats is good for DE's pockets. So this seems like a pretty solid move to me in that light.

 

Of course, those who have accumulated enough weapon slots to keep a balanced loadout for all enemy types may just give it a miss as too much bother for another alternatively-skinned weapon. Which is not a bad thing either. It sends a message that "This event is horrible and boring." and maybe DE would not think that reintroducing the mission type later (albeit with a much-shortened map to grind through, thank god) would be a brilliant idea. Because it was not. The missions were still horrible and boring in the hunt for Alad V. It was a series of glorified exterminate missions with extra sentinels on your team (worked great for codexing corpus battlefodder though).

 

But what about the Mastery you lose from not levelling that event-exclusive weapon you ask?

 

Well, that highlights the second point right there. Mastery rank (and build costs) and actual utility seem to no longer be on speaking terms in the Warframe universe. In fact, it looks more like they're on the fast track to a divorce.

 

At the moment, I'm Rank 14 and the only event exclusive weapon I'm missing is the Snipetron Vandal, and of course the Founder-only equipment (Skana, Lato and Excalibur Prime). That means nothing at the moment because max requirement is Rank 8 for a bug spray. Even without event exclusive weapons you could get to Rank 12 at least if not 13 and be way overqualified to shoot any gun that exists in the Warframe universe.

 

So you see, this all helps promote casual gameplay. Which is GREAT. We don't have to be Warframe addicts grinding for hours on end to get equipment, because they are all pretty much the same level of mediocrity anyway barring a few starter weapons). Also, lower entry barriers means more players can join and quickly level up to be as "effective" as the veterans (though they may have to pay plats for some of the mods offered by the vets in trading... oh... wait.... this is BRILLIANT, DE).

 

To sum up, with non-engaging events that are tedious and low priority (I have enough weapon slots to allow for balanced load and weapon-levelling) and a low barrier to entry for "powerful" weapons (heh, "powerful" like soma on high level missions, that's hilarious), I guess I can ease back on my Warframe time. Seems like it's now geared to the "casual game" approach, which means that I'll probably run it every once in a while to just have fun killing things in low level missions, or alternatively, NOT KILLING things in late-stage high level missions. Hmm.... that does sound like a fun experience for a casual game to provide. But I guess for DE, profit numbs the feeling*.

 

*Though to be fair, this is a business, so maybe in DE's case: "Profit Pays the Heating Bills?" Still, they'd have to be careful not to overdo it. Pursuing profit at the expense of player enjoyment can end very badly in terms of failed investments of time and money (for both sides).

[Angius]

1. Make god-weapon
2. Earn money from people wanting that weapon and spending Plat to get it faster
3. Nerf it
4. Release another god-weapon
5. Repeat
6. ???
7. PROFIT

[Detheroc]

1. Make god-weapon

2. Earn money from people wanting that weapon and spending Plat to get it faster

3. Nerf it

4. Release another god-weapon

5. Repeat

6. ???

7. PROFIT

How was Soma nerfed? The fact they put it on mastery 6 doesnt hurt people who got the weapon (most likely everyone). How was Galatine nerfed? How was Vectis nerfed? Unless, of course, you consider dmg 2.0 as a nerf.

[Angius]

How was Soma nerfed? The fact they put it on mastery 6 doesnt hurt people who got the weapon (most likely everyone). How was Galatine nerfed? How was Vectis nerfed? Unless, of course, you consider dmg 2.0 as a nerf.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention, that only the hardest weapons to obtain are getting nerfed. Sorry!

[NalkorRN]

1. Make god-weapon

2. Earn money from people wanting that weapon and spending Plat to get it faster

3. Nerf it

4. Release another god-weapon

5. Repeat

6. ???

7. PROFIT

That explains most F2P games, sadly.

[413X]

That explains most F2P games, sadly.

 

The actual issue here goes beyond DE trying to make a profit, but how their whole attitude towards weapon releases (and the subsequent tweaks to these weapons) is affecting the game and player attitudes.

 

Yes. We know the game is still in beta. Yes we heard what Steve said about DE monitoring the game post-damage 2.0 update to make adjustments. So yes, nothing is set in stone. The damage and effects could still change, and stuff like damage falloff may go away if there is enough negative feedback. Sounds fair until you consider that DE is still rolling out new weapons on top of the currently "in-the-works" damage system.

 

DE's priorities on this just seems really questionable. Yes, new weapons means new items in market for people to spend plat on and more money for DE to pay salaries, bills, promote the game, etc. However, releasing a constant slew of new weapons while taking so long to fix a core mechanic like damage has led to the problem where players don't really know what they are getting when they acquire a weapon, because it could be nerfed or buffed or even be declared so awful it will be removed from the market.

 

On top of that, we have 2 additional game mechanics to add to the joy: limited weapon slots and weapon rank that is actually tied to one INDIVIDUAL weapon rather than all copies of that weapon.

 

In short, if you're not sure whether the interesting but lacklustre-damage lemon you have max ranked is going to turn out to be useful later on (or simply no longer overshadowed thanks to nerfing of superior weapons), you better buy a weapon slot to keep it for goodness knows how long it takes for DE to finalise their damage mechanics and the stats for each weapon. The more well-off players can't even decide to just sell it and then rebuild the weapon later on because they will lose the ranks on that weapon. So basically, the current situation seems to be that you should buy a weapon slot for every weapon that you make. That might be fine for some collectors with plats to burn, but not me (even though I have 32 weapon slots myself on account of not being able to give up on some fun to shoot weapons that, alas, fail to do their job on really high level mobs).

 

And of course, there's forma and re-levelling. Some of the more hardcore players might say that it no longer takes forever to level a weapon anyway and they have grinded so much they are sitting on mountains of parts, resources and credits. Well, with multiple formas the time taken to get a weapon fully up to spec increases significantly, not to mention that some of us actually have a social life and commitments beyond Warframe.

 

DE's seemingly rather cavalier attitude towards the efforts of players who have spent time on their weapons is appalling. Of course, there seems to be plenty of those who say "it's happened before, and people just complained about it for a little while and went on playing." That's an interesting observation, but hardly an excuse for DE's behaviour. It is however, noteworthy to see that there are players who are so willing to tolerate it. So is the lesson to be learned from all this: "Yes, you can take your players hard work for granted and dawdle on core game mechanics while prioritising merchandise that will eventually also be drastically altered later down the line?" I hope not.

[Detheroc]

Oh, right, I forgot to mention, that only the hardest weapons to obtain are getting nerfed. Sorry!

You cannot buy Strun wraith with plat if thats what you mean. Or do you mean clan tech weaponry and rushing in the foundry?

[Brimir]

How exactly was the Brakk hard to obtain? It was one of the easiest events ever. It just took time. Obtaining the Brakk doesn't even begin to compare with farming the Prime equipment.

[drMightyPotato]

How exactly was the Brakk hard to obtain? It was one of the easiest events ever. It just took time. Obtaining the Brakk doesn't even begin to compare with farming the Prime equipment.

I did less missions for the three prime weapons that i have combined than then number of missions i did for brakk. On a side note i did well over 200 missions for brakk while, as a example, i did about 7 for paris prime, 10 for braton prime, and 8 for dakra prime... so yea thats 25 missions compared to 100 that were neccesary.

[VentiGlondi]

1. Make god-weapon

2. Earn money from people wanting that weapon and spending Plat to get it faster

3. Nerf it

4. Release another god-weapon

5. Repeat

6. ???

7. PROFIT

How do you even spend platinum on Brakk? Is there any item which makes event progression faster, that I'm not aware of?

[Angius]

You cannot buy Strun wraith with plat if thats what you mean. Or do you mean clan tech weaponry and rushing in the foundry?

 

How do you even spend platinum on Brakk? Is there any item which makes event progression faster, that I'm not aware of?

 

I'm not talking only about Brakk, this one was not possible to rush for $$$, however we got plenty of Clan Tech weapons, which are pretty much useless now, after indirect nerf (example - Acrid).

And about rushing Brakk... Well, if someone saw that it was a good gun, and decided to buy affinity booster to level it up and forma it faster... You can say, that he'll be rather upset now.

[Cytobel]

My issue is the trivialization of hours of play that some of us put into acquiring something, only to have that something taken away...

 

I'm referring to the Brakk, to be sure, but it's more than just that one gun.  We've seen an emergent pattern here with various good weapons becoming available, only to be reduced to oblivion in a trash heap by a nerf.

 

And more problematic is the callous way Formas and catalysts are overwritten or ignored.  Some of us actually worked for those items, only to see them fade to insignificance at someone else's whim.  I've lost players from my clan over this.

 

Frankly, if this goes on too long, they'll lose too many of us to keep Warframe going.

[VentiGlondi]

I'm not talking only about Brakk, this one was not possible to rush for $$$, however we got plenty of Clan Tech weapons, which are pretty much useless now, after indirect nerf (example - Acrid).

And about rushing Brakk... Well, if someone saw that it was a good gun, and decided to buy affinity booster to level it up and forma it faster... You can say, that he'll be rather upset now.

Clan Tech cannot be rushed though.

The problem is that people call things useless after every nerf. It makes me think they post first, then see how different the weapon is.

It would be better if new weapons were UP and buffed until people liked them. Look at Volt, people are extremely happy about his update even though he's nowhere close to Nova. And Nova players are really friggin mad at people wanting to change M. Prime.

 

But seriously, the most used argument against Brakk is that it's not viable at LONG range anymore. The second most used argument is that "it's useless". I really wonder what do these people consider useful. If Brakk is too weak for them, they shouldn't even think about endgame.

 

And even though I'm gonna be called names anyway, I'm gonna make a note here: I don't care if someone manages to get Brakk buffed back up, the amount of dead grineer still increases at the same pace. It just bothers me how people get upset for such things.

Edited December 9, 2013 by VentiGlondi

[--MANA--]

1. Make god-weapon

2. Earn money from people wanting that weapon and spending Plat to get it faster

3. Nerf it

4. Release another god-weapon

5. Repeat

6. ???

7. PROFIT

mmm yeah.. no. brakk was an event item if youre referring to it. and people using plat to get weapons faster is not your business but theirs.

[Derpo]

413X's original post is valuable and authentic. The initial excitement and subsequent nerf of super-weapons and event rewards has become a Warframe cliche. Stipulated: DE is overdoing the ner%&^e. OP's feelings are valid and understandable. Caution is advised with regard to confusing high utilization of an online entertainment resource with productive work. One pays to play games and is paid to perform work. Thus, playing a game a lot does not put the game's providers into your debt. Any sense of entitlement is ill-advised. That said, your post is highly valuable in that it will be parlayed into a better gaming experience for everyone. Therefore, you (original poster 413X) have considerable value - just not in the precise way you seem to believe. Thanks for a useful and interesting post.

[xXxdarksephiroth420xXx]

I don't know if having 95% of the weapons be garbage with 2-4 god tier weapons is a good thing