From Fighting For The Survival Of Your Race, To Being A **** Ass Robot Mercanery - Latest Patches Reduced Warframe's Playvalue Even Further

[Cpl_Facehugger]

5 Problems i would like to talk about:

1. Drop system

2. Infested

3. Mercanery

4. Invasions

5. Still adding more farming and grinding, still no end game content in sight.

 

1. The new loot tables

Back in the days, i was one of the people who was against the one single loot table, all out rng based drops because it made players completely unable to get certain mods.

Im happy to announce that the devs managed to do the unthinkable: Screw drops up even more.

Thanks to the latest patches, drop tables are now per enemy type. As such every each enemy has a chance to drop specific mods.

 

While in theory this sounds pretty neat, you quickly arrive at the part that denies you certain mods altogether.

Bosses and elite spawns received their own loot tables as well, completely denying rare mods to the player base.

Mods like Quick Thinking, Sanctuary, Coolant Leak, Firestorm are completely inaccessible via drops. Firestorm is a drop from toxic ancients. A last tier elite from a race that has been completely removed from the game outside from invasion missions. So in essence you got a mod that has a drop chance measured in 0.XY from a monster that spawns only a few times each mission if at all.

Go to derelicts they've got craploads of toxic ancients. ;)

In fact, that's the main problem with your second point too. Infested aren't constrained to invasions. They're constrained to invasions and derelicts as well. Now granted it's not as easy as rolling up to Eris in the olden days and farming Xini for awhile, but it's not much harder. Derelict coordinates drop extremely commonly and they take trivial amounts of resources to craft the keys.

 

3. From survival and arch enemies to running a happy shop and being a mercenary

I started playing warframe from update 3 and up i think. Ever since then, this pull was the biggest downer in terms of lore and story, that was implemented.

First we are all ninja, fighting for our survival, saving the few of us that remain.

NOW: A mercenary crap force employed by the grineer and corpus, playing solar system police.

Spoilers: Ninja were historically mercenaries.

Further spoilers: We fight for the highest bidder when it won't upset our own interests. This is more ninja than what we were doing before. ;)

 

4. Invasion "events"

The very first time this war even was introduced, many people have already called it:

- Its repetitive

- Nothing but grind

- Literally ZERO challenge

- Doing the same tile-set with arbitrary differences over and over again

Yes, but nowadays there's more invasion tiles to help with the repetitiveness. (Also the corpus boarding mission is huge fun). More could be done, absolutely, but it's not as bad as you suggest.

 

This is also the part where i simply have to applaud the devs for their repeated display of ignorance.

Your game consists at present of NOTHING but grinding. There is LITERALLY nothing in warframe other than grinding for mods, because word for word there is damn literally nothing in the game you could do.

There is exactly ONE SINGLE boss in the game that presents an actual boss fight, with the rest still being no challenge trash.

To be totally blunt, I really hate when people whinge about 'challenge' without actually talking about what they mean. I mean, what do you want, multi-stage boss fights? We've practically got more multi stage ones than we have normal ones at this point, and all the ones left are getting a make over anyway. (Hek's next up for that.) What, Lephantis is the challenge you mean? Except he's not, really, not unless Kril, Ruk, Vor, Jackal, and Alad/Zanuka are too because they all use very similar mechanics for their fights.

Do you mean general difficulty? Okay, but what exactly *is* general difficulty? Not damage/HP/armor scaling, I assume? What then? Some nebulous "better AI?" Well, we know from last livestream that they're working on that, but I still wouldn't expect much on that front because actual good AI in games today is 80% smoke and mirrors that merely gives the impression of good AI.

 

If I could upvote that a billion times, I would.

 

I won't contribute anything else to the thread, simply because I've created too many threads and typed too many words to know that what I've said is falling on deaf ears.

I, meanwhile, wish I could downvote this thread the same number of times. Or at all. Because holy carp a lot of its points are horrible. I mean, the thing about infested and grinding would be accurate if it was true, but it's not. The challenge thing would be accurate too, but he isn't even clear what he means by challenge or what he wants. :(

 

Mars effectively became a Grineer system, and Alad ganked enough pods to complete Zanuka anyway

Alad started the event with enough pods to finish it; all his taunts were like "When Zanuka's completed, I'm going to kick your butts." Not "If it's completed, I'll beat you", but when. What the event did was let us slow it down by keeping him from getting large numbers of pods, forcing him to rely on the harvester instead of spamming us with a fusion moa Zanuka army.

Edit:

It's stupid as hell. If there's anything in the game that's going to break lore, it's that.

Hell, it doesn't just break it, it rips it apart.

Also, the Allies allowing the USSR into their group to defeat the Axis is completely irrational and breaks the verisimilitude of real world history.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Cpl_Facehugger

[Taranis49]

Alad started the event with enough pods to finish it; all his taunts were like "When Zanuka's completed, I'm going to kick your butts." Not "If it's completed, I'll beat you", but when. What the event did was let us slow it down by keeping him from getting large numbers of pods, forcing him to rely on the harvester instead of spamming us with a fusion moa Zanuka army.

 

From the event text: "Alad V and his Corpus troops were on the verge of capturing a long lost group of Tenno" - it was also made clear in the buildup to the event with the back and forth messages "They will soon be in our inventory. When the Betrayers awake, they will find themselves a part of our Zanuka project... My operation must remain secret"... enter Ruk and his message about how he wanted the pods, didn't care what Zanuka was, etc.

 

IOW, he needed the cache of pods to complete it, since he talks about how the Grineer would work for them once Zanuka was complete... it wouldn't be necessary to keep it secret if he already had the pods on-hand to complete it. :-P

[Cpl_Facehugger]

From the event text: "Alad V and his Corpus troops were on the verge of capturing a long lost group of Tenno" - it was also made clear in the buildup to the event with the back and forth messages "They will soon be in our inventory. When the Betrayers awake, they will find themselves a part of our Zanuka project... My operation must remain secret"... enter Ruk and his message about how he wanted the pods, didn't care what Zanuka was, etc.

 

IOW, he needed the cache of pods to complete it, since he talks about how the Grineer would work for them once Zanuka was complete... it wouldn't be necessary to keep it secret if he already had the pods on-hand to complete it. :-P

I disagree. Given what we know about how Zanuka is made, getting a bunch of unresisting Tenno to convert them over would be a tremendous boon. Well worth keeping the deal a secret until those Tenno are safely in your clutches.

After all, Zanuka can't be mass produced without Tenno.

So what we've got here is the difference between lone harvesters who have to use cunning to abscond with Tenno when they're weak ala Stalker, and a new Corpus miniboss type unit for all corpus maps.

Though I do think it's funny that Alad is literally farming us like how we farm other bosses. I wonder if he has the same issues with repeat drops that we do. "Oh damn, another Nova? I need a Frost to finish off the latest Zanuka. Damn you RNG!"

[Aerensiniac]

To be totally blunt, I really hate when people whinge about 'challenge' without actually talking about what they mean. I mean, what do you want, multi-stage boss fights? We've practically got more multi stage ones than we have normal ones at this point, and all the ones left are getting a make over anyway. (Hek's next up for that.) What, Lephantis is the challenge you mean? Except he's not, really, not unless Kril, Ruk, Vor, Jackal, and Alad/Zanuka are too because they all use very similar mechanics for their fights.

Do you mean general difficulty? Okay, but what exactly *is* general difficulty? Not damage/HP/armor scaling, I assume? What then? Some nebulous "better AI?" Well, we know from last livestream that they're working on that, but I still wouldn't expect much on that front because actual good AI in games today is 80% smoke and mirrors that merely gives the impression of good AI.

To be honest, i really hate when people strawman challenge with wanting definitions about it.

But fine, what is "challenge" in a nutshell?

The game posing enough difficulty even for a high end frame to not simply stroll across the level while nuking entire rooms, similarly to a walk in the park during a calm, warm spring day.

 

The current set of enemies can produce 2 difficulty levels:

- Low tier swarms that wont do a damn thing other than providing practice targets

- High tier single elites that instead of dealing damage, straight out one shot you ala grineer bombard

 

Challenge would be kind of in between these two options, driven by enemies that deal enough damage for you to think about your next move, but wont simply insta kill you on sight. Enemies that would MAYBE take more than one single shot to kill on your side too.

Enemies that actually add play and fun value to the game instead of being practice targets.

 

Difficulty apart from enemies?

How about level design?

Instead of adding more and more tunnel vision tiles, why not add something that actually makes the player jump, time, move?

99.9% of the tile sets are simple strolling grounds with no need for you to even consider a jump or pressing space.

 

I hope i gave you a general idea and direction of what i mean by "challenge".

[MeduSalem]

Difficulty apart from enemies?

How about level design?

Instead of adding more and more tunnel vision tiles, why not add something that actually makes the player jump, time, move?

99.9% of the tile sets are simple strolling grounds with no need for you to even consider a jump or pressing space.

 

I bet that's the reason behind why so many people have problems with mastery rank tests. Because you're nearly never forced to use any next-level movement-skills or other advanced gameplay. The tests throw you in situations you never have to face during normal gameplay - the best example being Mastery Rank Test 8.

 

A friend of mine and me already discussed a proposal for high-level regions to gradually have more advanced tile-sets which force players to use their movement skills to even be able to advance in the map... "Can't do that multiple Wallruns? - Well then. Try harder, because otherwise you won't see the extraction point."

 

Considering something like this, people would find it less hard to succeed in mastery tests, because it would be something they are training anyways. And it would offer some different aspect of challenge too, instead of taking an easy-ride nature-walk while onehitting every enemy.

 

Other things are environmental hazards... That they nerfed the laser-doors to hell is just another example for a freeride that killed some gameplay-depth. Because of that in nearly every online-session I got somebody selfishly rushing ahead, not minding the security cameras and everybody else just gets knocked down because not expecting a laser barrier when a door opens. I already deny resurrecting such egoistical people, if they get downed by rushing ahead. Let them die.

Edited December 25, 2013 by MeduSalem

[CosyPigeon]

Could be worded nicer, but I agree with the OP on these issues. Please take those suggestions into consideration DE, I like your game, hence why I backed as much as I did, but it would be nice to see something implemented that isn't just more grind. 

[Taranis49]

I bet that's the reason behind why so many people have problems with mastery rank tests. Because you're nearly never forced to use any next-level movement-skills or other advanced gameplay. The tests throw you in situations you never have to face during normal gameplay - the best example being Mastery Rank Test 8.

 

A friend of mine and me already discussed a proposal for high-level regions to gradually have more advanced tile-sets which force players to use their movement skills to even be able to advance in the map... "Can't do that multiple Wallruns? - Well then. Try harder, because otherwise you won't see the extraction point."

 

Considering something like this, people would find it less hard to succeed in mastery tests, because it would be something they are training anyways. And it would offer some different aspect of challenge too, instead of taking an easy-ride nature-walk while onehitting every enemy.

 

Other things are environmental hazards... That they nerfed the laser-doors to hell is just another example for a freeride that killed some gameplay-depth. Because of that in nearly every online-session I got somebody selfishly rushing ahead, not minding the security cameras and everybody else just gets knocked down because not expecting a laser barrier when a door opens. I already deny resurrecting such egoistical people, if they get downed by rushing ahead. Let them die.

 

Can't agree on the movement part atleast until parkour's actually responsive and intuitive. Particularly since some of the older parkour areas don't function the way they really should with the addition of the mantle/vault routines, e.g. some of the void parkour rooms where it now tries to have you mantle an imperceptible bump or some such on a flat surface in the middle of a vertical wallrun (which cancels the run in its entirety for no good reason), or when a guard rail is in front of a narrow, wall-runable surface (since the momentum from the vault will propel you downwards before it registers the wallrun).

 

It's always been my view that parkour is something the player should want to do, not something they're forced to.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Taranis49

[MeduSalem]

Can't agree on the movement part atleast until parkour's actually responsive and intuitive. Particularly since some of the older parkour areas don't function the way they really should with the addition of the mantle/vault routines, e.g. some of the void parkour rooms where it now tries to have you mantle an imperceptible bump or some such on a flat surface in the middle of a vertical wallrun (which cancels the run in its entirety for no good reason), or when a guard rail is in front of a narrow, wall-runable surface (since the momentum from the vault will propel you downwards before it registers the wallrun).

It's always been my view that parkour is something the player should want to do, not something they're forced to.

 

Didn't say that movement is unresponsive and unintuitive, even there could be some tweaks like proposed in the Megathread with the gifs showing the problems:

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/116872-the-grand-thread-for-animation-improvements-and-fixes-with-gifs/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/119650-parkour-has-been-ignored-for-too-long-its-the-key-element-in-making-warframe-gameplay-unique-and-fresh/

The problem is the same with Damage 2.0, if they don't force players to switch loadouts nobody will do it and everybody takes the straightforward easy-ride.

 

When there's a way around wallrunning some places then mostly everybody takes the workaround and that's nothing I make up. The best example is the Grineer-asteroid where most people take elevators or crawl inside the vent-pipes instead of simply wallrunning the shortcut.

 

It's because people are lazy and then at the same time start to complain about how there's no real parkour challenge. So the way to stop that is to get rid of the newb-workarounds once the point is reached one can expect you to be able to pull off that stuff... and to make it get gradually harder the more experience one can expect.

Edited December 25, 2013 by MeduSalem

[essenbaek]

No offense, but this complaint thread resonates so many others like it.

 

It's mostly filled with founders' opinions.

 

You guys aren't veterans. You're like, the ultra-veterans of this game - Most founders I've met have clocked in more than 300 hours. I can't think of other games with loot, except WoW, that WOULDN'T get stale after such a long time.

 

And don't talk about investments. I paid 100 bucks / 250 hours, and still having fun.

 

Oh well, just wanted to give a positive perspective to offset all this negativity...

[Taranis49]

Didn't say that movement is unresponsive and unintuitive, even there could be some tweaks like proposed in the Megathread with the gifs showing the problems:

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/116872-the-grand-thread-for-animation-improvements-and-fixes-with-gifs/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/119650-parkour-has-been-ignored-for-too-long-its-the-key-element-in-making-warframe-gameplay-unique-and-fresh/

The problem is the same with Damage 2.0, if they don't force players to switch loadouts nobody will do it and everybody takes the straightforward easy-ride.

 

When there's a way around wallrunning some places then mostly everybody takes the workaround and that's nothing I make up. The best example is the Grineer-asteroid where most people take elevators or crawl inside the vent-pipes instead of simply wallrunning the shortcut.

 

It's because people are lazy and then at the same time start to complain about how there's no real parkour challenge. So the way to stop that is to get rid of the newb-workarounds once the point is reached one can expect you to be able to pull off that stuff... and to make it get gradually harder the more experience one can expect.

 

I'm aware people take the workaround. Half the time, the "shortcut" actually isn't - it'll take you just as long to reach the end destination as the guy being "lazy", e.g. the big circular room in the Grineer Galleon tileset that allows you to either horizontally wallrun up to a series of platforms with storage lockers, or take the staircase at the start. Even if you don't stop at the lockers or make any mistakes, odds are the guy taking the staircase will usually beat you to the top of the room, all else being equal.

 

Incidentally, I'm of the opinion that particular tileset shouldn't even have big open playground spaces in the first place, simply due to aesthetics, since it just wrecks the whole "space submarine" vibe the developers were going for they introduced the tileset (which really only works when the areas are cramped and claustrophobic).

 

IMO, the void time trials do enough to incentivize parkour - i.e. to make me want to do it, not have to.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Taranis49

[Xylia]

The main reason people played Xini, Cyath or Palus was one of two things.

1. The drops.

2. Because they are fun.

 

 

 

2. Because they are fun.

 

...........can I have some of what you're smoking?

 

You're trying to tell me that standing ontop of a cryopod blowing up infested with an ogris for hours is fun? Oh, I guess on Cyath you had to run between OMG THREE COMPUTERS instead of just a cryopod, right?

 

No, people did Xini and Cyath because they were easy and because they gave ridiculously awesome rewards for how hard the missions actually were(n't). XP, Neurodes, and the Defense Rewards. That's why people did Xini and Cyath.

 

They DIDN'T, however, do Xini and Cyath for the compelling gameplay of standing there pressing the 4 key over and over again.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Xylia

[Madotsuki]

...........can I have some of what you're smoking?

 

You're trying to tell me that standing ontop of a cryopod blowing up infested with an ogris for hours is fun? Oh, I guess on Cyath you had to run between OMG THREE COMPUTERS instead of just a cryopod, right?

 

No, people did Xini and Cyath because they were easy and because they gave ridiculously awesome rewards for how hard the missions actually were(n't). XP, Neurodes, and the Defense Rewards. That's why people did Xini and Cyath.

 

They DIDN'T, however, do Xini and Cyath for the compelling gameplay of standing there pressing the 4 key over and over again.

The same could be said of ALL Defense and Mobile Defense missions, no? This just shows the fundamental flaw of Warframe: Its MECHANICS aren't fun. The gunplay is generic sans a minority of high-end special gear. Melee consists of spamming charge attacks and nothing more. Enemies lack actual variety, intelligence and challenge. Many ults trivialize most content. The line between playing for fun and playing for grind is so fuzzy that many players don't even know WHY they're playing anymore.

Either DE should be applauded for making such a successful Skinner's Box, or gamers nowadays have WAY too low expectations.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

To be honest, i really hate when people strawman challenge with wanting definitions about it.

It's not a strawman, it's the fact that 'challenge' means different things to different people. Say we've got two people. One of them is practically an aimbot when it comes to shooting. He can rack up headshots like nobody's business. But he plays the game like a cover shooter because he can't into parkour at all. Challenging him wouldn't involve harder parkour because he can't even complete the parkour challenges we've got now. (For him, harder parkour would just be punching him in the face with a wall he can't surmount).

Another of them has crap aim but he's a parkour genius. He can barely make center mass shots with his guns, and headshots are beyond him. Tougher parkour arenas would certainly challenge him. But some sort of aim challenge (enemies who don't take damage save the head, for example) wouldn't challenge him - it'd just frustrate him.

But fine, what is "challenge" in a nutshell?

The game posing enough difficulty even for a high end frame to not simply stroll across the level while nuking entire rooms, similarly to a walk in the park during a calm, warm spring day.

That's so broad as to be meaningless though.

"I want the game to be challenging!"

"How?"

"Make it so high end frames are challenged!"

When I want to hear what you mean by challenge, I want you to describe what you'd find challenging - what you're looking for - in terms of actual gameplay.

 

The current set of enemies can produce 2 difficulty levels:

- Low tier swarms that wont do a damn thing other than providing practice targets

- High tier single elites that instead of dealing damage, straight out one shot you ala grineer bombard

...Not really. At high levels even mooks can be dangerous, and even heavies won't oneshot you. I usually solo around Nuovo on Ceres for twenty-thirty minutes to get the last few levels on my gear.

 

Challenge would be kind of in between these two options, driven by enemies that deal enough damage for you to think about your next move, but wont simply insta kill you on sight. Enemies that would MAYBE take more than one single shot to kill on your side too.

Except we've already got that. Enemies in, say, Nuovo-Ceres are basically exactly like this. Elite Lancers do enough damage and are numerous enough to keep you on your toes even in a high level frame with high level weapons, but they aren't overpowering.

I mean, seriously. Go do twenty minutes of Nuovo solo and tell me that this is not challenging in exactly the way you mean.

Difficulty apart from enemies?

How about level design?

Instead of adding more and more tunnel vision tiles, why not add something that actually makes the player jump, time, move?

99.9% of the tile sets are simple strolling grounds with no need for you to even consider a jump or pressing space.

 

So the players who aren't good at parkour (this tends to be newbies especially) get punished in pursuit of your 'challenge'? Yeah, no. The only good way to encourage parkour 'challenge' is things like void obstacle courses - purely optional tests that grant extra rewards.

I hope i gave you a general idea and direction of what i mean by "challenge".

Not really. You gave me some extremely vague stuff that really doesn't help me understand what you're looking for here. Just more vague waving your hands in the sky and demanding 'challenge.'

[Luminati07]

...........can I have some of what you're smoking?

 

You're trying to tell me that standing ontop of a cryopod blowing up infested with an ogris for hours is fun? Oh, I guess on Cyath you had to run between OMG THREE COMPUTERS instead of just a cryopod, right?

 

No, people did Xini and Cyath because they were easy and because they gave ridiculously awesome rewards for how hard the missions actually were(n't). XP, Neurodes, and the Defense Rewards. That's why people did Xini and Cyath.

 

They DIDN'T, however, do Xini and Cyath for the compelling gameplay of standing there pressing the 4 key over and over again.

Yeah, you're right, to an extent (I personally never played Xini. And I only played Cyath for the XP)

 

However, I loved Palus. It was literally the only mission I played.

 

If you don't find those missions fun, fine. But, name something else in the game that's enjoyable?

All the other missions are dull as hell, and are not fun in the slightest.

 

What are the other most played missions.

Appolodorus?

Kiste?

Kappa?

 

Personally, I find Grineer and Corpus extremely boring to fight, so I played Infested.

Now that DE completely obliterated any fun I had in the game, what am I meant to do?

 

Go to the Derelict? lol

Do these Invasions, which are absolutely nothing compared to the old Infested missions.

 

I'd love to know what DE was thinking when they thought this was a good idea.

 

The Void doesn't offer any variety (other than treasure rooms). It's still the same old missions, fighting a mixture of the same old enemies.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Nugget_

[Workaround]

Easiest way to a challenge in this game is to bring your frames that aren't Trinty/Frost/Vauban/Nyx/Nekros/Nova.  Invulnerability, full heals, Safety cones, huge AOE enemy lockdowns, unlimited health orbs/life support packs, etc. nerf the hell out of high level survivals and defenses.

 

Loki, Mag, Ember, Volt, Rhino, Saryn, Oberon, Ash, Excalibur, Banshee, Valkyr... there's a lot of other frames in the game with a lot of strengths and weaknesses. But when you go to do the hard content most people bring two or more of the frames that negate the challenge.

[Dan137W1750n]

I agree with the OP generally...

 

I'm not too concerned with the Tenno selling out to the highest bidder... It makes sense to me that Grineer and Corpus would manipulate the strongest forces known with financial incentives to fight against their enemies. I'm sure both the Grineer and Corpus have mad respect for Tenno when literally millions of ships and installations have been overwhelmed by small groups of Tenno. From the Tenno's point of view, they have someone feeding them information about how to effectively strike an enemy, plus desperately needed resources. The Tenno don't mine, they scavenge. They don't have territory, except maybe dojos and spaceships. They are reliant on the enemies they prey on for the resources they need... So from everybody's point of view, this is a win. Grineer or Corpus get highly skilled mercs to do their dirty work, Tenno get extra resources over what they would get from their normal missions.

 

The issue I have with the OP is that he has listed the problems as he's seen it, but provided no solutions, other than "DE fix this!"

 

I'm thinking gameplay needs depth... DE is trying with events and invasions, but they are big on grind and short on plot. I think there should be a flow from mission to mission... you would build on missions to accomplish an overall goal. Recover access codes on this Spy mission to get access to the Kidnapping mission to discover the location of the end goal, which could involve a Mobile Defense mission to protect before extraction... Then balance the rewards to exceed what you would get putting the same amount of time into on Survival and Defense missions... Add consequences for failing missions beyond having to repeat the mission until you get it right... put in an alternate path to accomplishing the goal. Add NPCs that harass you throughout the missions until you finally meet them to fight in the last mission. Add more mission variety to support different gameplay, like starting the mission in prison and having to break out and steal weapons... Add different ways to get to the mission goals, like through air vents unseen by enemies. Add more interactivity with the environment to do things like plant false alarms and sighting reports to mislead the enemies, or overload pressures in a machine to cause it to explode, or reduce lighting and increase ambient noise levels and release steam to create mists to improve stealth. Right now, everything is "change mods to be most effective against enemy, fight enemy", and it gets boring because there's no other options for gameplay.