Tenno Clock, Discussions Of The Community [Youtube] (Ep 89)

[Xenogelion]

Episode 43 with SherlockShuffle can be found on the first post as well as here:

 

 

http://youtu.be/8f3sGUMOxAc

 

 

Additionally the winner of the PC and PS4 plat giveaways are DarkNuva & (PS4)SuRReAL--OnE respectively.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Xenogelion

[Calayne]

Wow, an hour long video! The topics sound promising, and I'm just going to type in my opinion as I watch it, if you all don't mind. ;)

 

On play-style diversity: 

 

I think people tend to gravitate to established roles in any scenario, whether heavily or only subtly. It's simply ingrained, in-built, and in our nature as social beings. We've always (Or mostly) had designated "Farmers", designated "Warriors", designated "Leaders" throughout history. There are exceptions, like the Spartan community, where all men have a job, and are also trained warriors, however, even then, they had slaves to do the things which they didn't want their men doing. Cleaning up sheep dung was hardly the most desirous job a man could have. 

 

The people who are loners, like myself, had to fill more roles to "Survive" in games where you are able to sort of "Branch out" your skills, or take to more general tactics of survival, because nobody else was going to fill that role for us. But the problem with that is, if we do decide to branch out, it becomes terribly hard to get everything. These loners are Jack of all trades, master of none. We'll be able to dabble here and there, but we'll never get to finish all the way, or beat the really difficult challenges because of insufficient skill-points in that particular skill; I'm a warrior-wizard-rogue, but I'll get completely demolished in terms of pure wizardry, rogue-ry and warrior-y.

 

This is especially more prevalent in group, or multiplayer, settings. Let's say four of these loners get together, and they're just a hodge-podge of skills, all of them quite equally distributed in terms of skill and abilities. They may be versatile in combat, and four of them can tackle four small problems individually, or one big problem together, but their limit is the same; They're all proverbially the same (rather dwarf-like) height in all categories. 

 

It's only natural, therefore, for people to sort of get funnelled into a particular role; a niche, that society and the social animal within us find so appealing, and for good reason. Specialization is generally how a group can get further: The dedicated thief can get through very difficult traps and locks, though he sucks (relatively) at combat; But he's complemented by a warrior, who tanks well, but can't do nuts at range; And the archer covers the targets the warrior can't reach; and the wizard basically gives the utility and raw power for when turbines and doodoo meet, though they generally lack relative sustainability and durability. 

 

In that way, I feel that it's natural for min-maxing to occur, depending on the situation. Warframe is particularly apparent in this regard, I feel, because of how awesome the frames are at what they do, Frost at defence, Nekros at farming and survival, though it's not the only thing they do. In that sense, all frames are capable of playing very well alone, or in a group. But when you have a dedicated group, formed for a specific objective, then, I feel, that's where the niche-funnelling truly begins. 

 

The problem with people trying to exclude certain frames (like Nova), and expecting specialised roles from certain people playing certain frames (Like Frost in Defence) is actually an exaggeration of the dull thing I've been talking about earlier, and a lack of courtesy on the part of the players in managing their expectations. If one would so desire to come up with an imaginative way to combine Warframe powers and make a decent strategy for a high-level-defence, it's certainly possible; But people are lazy, and generally quite stupid in the sense that they will almost always take the path of least resistance: After all, nature does it, why not men? 

 

And really, it's crazy effective. The problem being that games are meant to be fun, and now, they've turned everything into a job. Freakken' jobs, man. 

 

So for myself, I just play whatever funky mod load-out I darn-well please, because I'm a loner, and I have no standards whatsoever to hold myself to; That's why my Excalibur is modded simply to jump very high, and slash dash very far, and I just have good fun with it anyway, no matter what anyone else says about its bugger-all damage. 

 

I think everyone needs a "Fun-frame". And a "Fun-gun". Just something you love to play, pretending that all those damage mods and stuff don't exist. A frame you can just laugh like crazy while using, and die happy in-game. You guys got a frame like that? I think those people who are particularly obsessed with having optimum solutions for everything are cool, but also somewhat boring, because everyone else is using the exact same build across the galaxy. Good for business, when you need a suit, tie, bald head with a bar-code and dual silverballers. 

 

Not so good when you're trying to get away from the suit, tie, bald head with a bar-code, and dual silverballers. 

 

Unless that's what you consider fun, of course. In that case, I won't judge. (You utter bore!)

 

 

As for the PWE buy-out:

 

To me, it's not known whether they'll really completely kill this game if, ever, DE is bought out by PWE. As Drew points out, most of the games they have bought over are not the kind of games which were massively successful even before they were bought out. 

 

That doesn't mean I don't agree at all with those who think that PWE might potentially get Warframe to do the bend-over and introduce cat-ears into the game; That may actually be possible. But, I feel, depending on how DE plays their cards, they may have more say over what they do than what the worst-case scenario is, which is basically a world of Plat-For-RNG-Gear chest boxes or massive boosts for plat after horribly nerfing everything. 

 

Even if that happens, I think Warframe might still make it, on account of: 1.) Warframe's uniqueness, 2.) Good replayability/core-mechanics/system development, and 3.) Good customer service, of which DE, I feel, is particularly high in my books for. 

 

PWE, at the end of the day, is still a corporation intent on making a whole lot of money; What makes more sense:

 

A.) Completely revamping everything that has worked up to now, screw every player over, make them leave, screw new players, and then leave everyone with a sour taste in their mouths, or, say,

 

B.) Sticking to what works, perhaps sneaking in a screw or two to speed up that money-making process, and let the game grow naturally, into a game that garners good reviews, lots of new players which sticky by and spend money and generally has a very good reputation?

 

I'm no Sun Tzu, but if I bought a cash cow, I'd like that cash cow to make as much money as possible for as long as possible, which is more beneficial in the long run, considering the games demographic is massive, and thus far, there is nothing like Warframe? Sure, they'll probably get customers to bend over for some things, but I think, for the most part, we'll just be slightly disgruntled, not entirely put off. 

 

 

 

Aaaaaaaaand I think this wall of text should end here. It's grown far too massive. Like the new Ancient Healers.

[Calayne]

Also, heck-yeah, another Sybaris-bro. I love the Sybaris. In fact, I love all of the burst weapons. The Marelok is another Clan weapon that I have very thoroughly enjoyed, in addition to the Supra, which is awesome. The Attica, too, I liked for a while, but the non-silence, super-slow-reload was pretty off-putting.

 

I have both Nikana and the Dragon Nikana too! And just like Drew, I have the single weapons in addition to the Ak-versions. I think it's the trait of people with OCD.

[MDRLOz]

I'm no Sun Tzu, but if I bought a cash cow, I'd like that cash cow to make as much money as possible for as long as possible, which is more beneficial in the long run, considering the games demographic is massive, and thus far, there is nothing like Warframe? Sure, they'll probably get customers to bend over for some things, but I think, for the most part, we'll just be slightly disgruntled, not entirely put off. 

 

Apart from the possibility of the whole rather than the parts. PWE may not try to win the battle of Warframe making money when they try to win the F2P war. 

 

Arc was released as PWE's game platform of all F2P games. They want to be thought of as "I want to try a free to play game... I shall browse Arc". 

 

So by removing key competitors either by running them into the ground or simply packaging them on to the "Arc" they can get players looking at their other titles which they are more interested in being successful. Warframe is a successful F2P title and normally in top 20 most played things on steam. By getting players onto that the increase likely hood players will try other Arc games. 

 

Time is up now and no announcement by DE. However i don't expect one anyway. However that Tennolive is looking more and more ominous. 

[Calayne]

Apart from the possibility of the whole rather than the parts. PWE may not try to win the battle of Warframe making money when they try to win the F2P war. 

 

Arc was released as PWE's game platform of all F2P games. They want to be thought of as "I want to try a free to play game... I shall browse Arc". 

 

So by removing key competitors either by running them into the ground or simply packaging them on to the "Arc" they can get players looking at their other titles which they are more interested in being successful. Warframe is a successful F2P title and normally in top 20 most played things on steam. By getting players onto that the increase likely hood players will try other Arc games. 

 

Time is up now and no announcement by DE. However i don't expect one anyway. However that Tennolive is looking more and more ominous. 

 

Actually, that's pretty interesting. 

 

I wonder if that's quite possible, but then, after looking at the range of games under ARC, and noticing even "Blacklight: Retribution" is there, it's pretty scary. It's frightening to even consider "Warframe" being one of those featured there, though, assuming that DE still gets to decide, largely, in what direction the game goes, perhaps it is truly going to be mutually beneficial. 

 

But yes... I'm not sure what to expect in Tennolive. I've been sort of anxious for a while now, about what they'll be unveiling there: Hoping it isn't them taking this opportunity to announce "The good news", like breaking out of the closet. 

 

At any rate, we can only wait and watch; This is almost certainly beyond our control, and we can only hope for the best. This portion of DE working on Warframe is not the entire company, if I'm not wrong; Perhaps not even close. 

 

What horrors await us, in the mystery of the future? 

[MDRLOz]

Wow. Reading the forums there is a lot pinned on tomorrows announcement. 

 

I thought I would retreat into here for some quite reflection.

 

Do you think other people actually check out this thread? It so nonsensical if you just come in at the end and try and read it. 

Its like having a small isolated forum within the forum to hide in.

 

This event is interesting and a lot of people are trying to work out what it means. 

 

I see ice planet reveal coming up a lot. 

However it makes me sad that we get people expecting the ice/status mods or the freeze gun as a reward from this event. Even though its just a kill 100 dudes thing. Maybe DE does not run enough small events like it used to. I remember having double affinity and double resource weekends. I miss this kind of small event. They ought to come up with a host of them and have them rotate or something.

 

However I cant wait for the event tomorrow to be over so that we can get some perspective PWE wise. If it gets mentioned then we will know however it does not even get addressed what does that mean? Oh well 1 day 5 hours to go! Must make sure I get all my lab work done early tomorrow.

 

I also need to get back to my SFM projects...

[RSITH]

I got hook once I saw it!

[Lorche]

Finally have time to listen (well, I haven't in forum for ages,so.....yeah). Woo!

 

Words may added as I type this while listening.

Frames have variants of skills, and many can be used in creative way. That's the main reason why I wouldn't forma the ability slots of every frame I use, even if that's for my own benefit. I like to have options, whether it was the most popular build, personal build, or 'what-the-hek-was-that-build'. It's the same for weapons. I keep weapon that for myself is 'fun'; and fun for me doesn't always translated as 'effective killer'. One of the reason why I still keep Ignis, Pyrana, Sybaris, Synapse,and Attica (this is because of the nerf/buff galore, but we're not talking about that here, so another time). There's a lot of these weapons that i liked in the end, but have to be sold because limitation in weapon slots.

 

Personally, I never give a crap on what people use in the field. What matters to me is how they act in there. and I dunno if I'm overthinking things, but it seems that our community (well, the vocal one) are against game-balancing. Because they love inbalance (even though it has potential to kill the game in the future)

 

Personally,I don't think rainbow bridge will happen, at least for the time beings.There are several reasons:

- The way things are now in PC. U14 launched with lots and lots of bug (which I kinda used to, sadly). Not to add that Sony's certification system is......well, we all know about it. If we're trying to build the rainbow bridge with the way things are now, very much problem will arise on PS4 side. Lots of it. That, is no good.

- The whole Founders thing. This is a long stuff, and you guys probably know about this, so I won't talk about this much.

The only way to make this happen is when DE have bigger bug-testing team and in general have less bug (I just give the benefit of doubt here), and DE can bypass the Sony's certification process. And that's the first step for it's foundation. For myself, I don't mind PC are getting held to make this rainbow bridge happened, but again, most people in PC are super duper inpatient.

 

Biggest gripe in PWE is that they have a very shoddy and really monetize their game. If you ask around, you may see many examples of it. Recent case: they just 'mercy killing' RH:R, when it should have happened waaaaay back when the whole Windysoft stuff happened. I don't like (and want) to give them the benefit of a doubt option here, because the whole deal for me (IMO) is too fishy; and PWE is already equivalent to terrible company these days, beaten only by EA. While I hate to say this, but wait and see is the only option players have at the moment. And that, makes TennoLive more omnius than it should be. Hek, it shouldn't be omnious in the first place.

 

The problem of those lab weapons are sometimes, the mats needed to build them sometimes are too ridiculous. While it intended to be a weapon you cannot buy in the market, and enforce people to find clan and play with group; the recent policies to sell clan weapons kinda destroy that. Building the mats are time-sink on it's own, and the weapon itself are timesink. Some maybe patient, but not many share the same opinion.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Lorche

[Xenogelion]

So right now I'm going to emulate Loz:

 

Archwing archwing archwing!

(Now for episode!)

 

 

 

Archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing, archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing [AR]Chwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing.

(Unfortunately there isn't a plat giveaway this week, I was hoping for one but I believe [DE]Drew went to gamescom which would be why no codes.)

 

Archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing archwing?

(Sorry to ask this again but I'm now assuming people don't care for a podcast version of our talks and are just happy with the vidcast?)

Edited August 18, 2014 by Xenogelion

[Calayne]

What's a podcast? 

 

But if the question is "Happy with vidcast", then I'd have to say, absolutely yes. 

[notlamprey]

What's a podcast?

 

It's official. We're old.

 

A podcast would basically be Tenno Clock with audio only. The term comes from a time when the iPod was king of portable AV, and people ran with the idea of making episodic content - "broadcasts" - available for portable MP3 players and other such devices. "Broadcast to pod" became "podcast."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

Edited August 19, 2014 by notlamprey

[RSITH]

What's a podcast? 

 

But if the question is "Happy with vidcast", then I'd have to say, absolutely yes.

Dont know what it is either... ( Totally Honest )

[Xenogelion]

Episode 45 can be found on the first post as well as here:

 

 

[Traeyze]

Back in action this week after being busy with work and stuff the last couple. Regarding your other episodes, don't worry... I am an old man like you guys and I still say podcast.

 

I remember when I was writing up commentaries on frames and weapons that I always said the future of frame abilities was utility and proc, and I think it is great that it is happening the way that I hoped. The changes to Oberon to remove procs and offer buffs is so good, I am hoping we see more of him.

 

I personally think you are really underselling Radial Blind. In a lot of senses it has overtaken Chaos in terms of usefullness in my mind. Similarly though I feel that Excal suffers from pre Absorb buff Nyx in that while she was very viable she was overly simplistic and other frames that had overlapping usefulness [in that era it was Nova since Mprime did so many more useful things] meant that there were times that people would criticise you for even bothering to use her despite how useful she is. The fact that a lot of Excals don't build around Radial Blind or perhaps more frustratingly just don't use it enough is also a factor... Excal suffers as much from the idea that people who use them tend to be new and people carry that prejudice with them onwards even though Blind can get you through T4 survivals with surprising efficiency.

Still don't care about Kubrows though the extended death clock helps as I was gone about 15 days and my Kubrow didn't die which was nice.

 

I've always found it odd that weapon rebalances are so slow to come. In my eyes rebalances would be the easiest way to spice up weak patches: we only have a smelly low tier dagger thing this week... but here, have some random buffs/balances! People would care more about that than more lame mastery fodder. Particularly frame assessments. 

 

I'm one of the people that debates how good Boltor Prime is, I feel the travel speed is enough of a detriment to accuracy and ammo efficiency to justify the power it has. I understand also that it has great on paper DPS but I feel that in terms of performance, especially on heavies, that the Bows easily compete, if not overtake once Red is calculated in. That said I do believe a travel speed nerf would make it a close range only weapon and make it feel less over the top.

 

To me the 'fun' is in having choices. I am personally a fan of the Dread, and my typical end game setup will always include the Dread over a Boltor. And I love that I can have that belief and be every bit as viable with a Mirage raining down death on people while others will go the standard RhinoP and Boltor and etc. I want more weapons that are really strong to mash enemies with. That said, I am one of those people that considers T4 and other high end stuff as 'end game' or whatever, and I know a lot of people hate power creep while I personally like big numbers.

Attica needed something to make it viable, and an autocaster with Thunderbolt is perfectly fair. It can't red crit so it will never do the kind of numbers the single target bows do, so instead it becomes blaster. If we are arguing that it becomes too good with Mirage than that is more about the HoM ability and despite being a fan of it I acknowledge it is pretty damn good. Dread plus HoM is hilarious.

Angstrum ammo it is worth noting that if fire in the way it was designed, ie 3 at a time, that 'ten magazines' in reality is only ten attacks, so you can sort of see how that is an issue. I didn't have an issue with it having a larger ammo pool than the others as a result of this: it was strong but the ammo it had didn't go very far.

Hundred Crack Fist. You ha shocked. Legit Hokuto no Ken reference.

 

I thought Biggs and Wedge the first time I saw the pair as well.


 

[Sixty5]

More balance changes are definitely something that I would like to see. Things are getting stale at the top and any time there are balance changes we get people trying new things.

Also a podcast would be pretty cool, since I mostly listen to episodes anyway.

[MDRLOz]

Well I feel Excalibur just took another hit once the Oberon buff has been revealed.

 

Now Excalibur big trick of radial blind is going to be a part of Oberons ultimate. Now I know we don't know the specific and the times on it but even so Oberon is shaping up to be one high tier frames now.

 

It is really odd that re-balancing is not something continuously looked at and discussed with the community. Instead we have to wait till major updates are done before they get a look in. It takes far to long for things to get sorted. There are still some weapons that have not had a look in and probably wont for a long time. The dera and supra are still poor for their costs and, my personal fav, the braton prime really doesn't deserve to be about par with the normal boltor and karak. There are others to but it will be ages before they get a look in.

Edited August 26, 2014 by MDRLOz

[Lorche]

Excal is really becoming more and more like the scrub of the whole game. Sure, he's one of the frame with easiest learning curve, balanced in almost everything, and balanced moveset, most people that I know found this frame's hidden gem: Radial Blind. Now that his blind is distributed among other frame (won't be surprised if Nekros get Radial blind next), what's left of him? It also suffer from "new player stigma" that's still plastered around Excal's face. Kinda sad, that DE intentionally (or not?) butcher its own poster boy.

 

Balance is something that's hard to archieve. But, sometimes people are kinda....lazy to adapt. Not too add, people are more sharp on paying attention to bad things rather than good things. So, even if a good buff is coming, as long as there's nerf, people will complain. And I can't keep understand why the ammo cut isn't there when Ogris first announced? *sigh*

 

Speaking of the sniper-and-weapon buff/ launcher nerf; like I say before: the changes may affect greatly in the grand scheme of maximizing damage, but I personally find it affect little on the field. Sniper ammo drop are more often (it's almost like they want us to touch those snipers >.>), and I rarely out of ammo when getting reckless on field. Still, ammo cut on Angstrum and Castanas are a tad bit too severe. Well, it's not like they can't adjust the numbers in the future (personal opinion time: just double the amount of the current launcher ammo, not the old 540 one, and it won't force people's hand too much on ammo management, while still giving the cut it deserved ages ago.)

Edited August 26, 2014 by Lorche

[bejuizb]

Things that need some serious love:

 

Supra

Dera

All Heavy melee weapons and their combo chains (less flashy moves and more useful maneuvers, but this can be applied to almost all melee combos anyways)

Cernos

Excalibur

Braton Prime

 

I'll expand more about the topics discussed in the episode after a bit. 

[Spikey844]

Things that need some serious love:

 

Supra

Dera

All Heavy melee weapons and their combo chains (less flashy moves and more useful maneuvers, but this can be applied to almost all melee combos anyways)

Cernos

Excalibur

Braton Prime

 

I'll expand more about the topics discussed in the episode after a bit. 

Very true. I used to use my Gram a lot, but now it sits on the shelf collecting dust.

[Sixty5]

I'd disagree on the heavy melee, for greatswords and axes at least.

Cleaving whirlwind has a lot of utility and damage. More so I'd say combos need a bit more transparancy, telling you what effects each hit has and such.

[MDRLOz]

More so I'd say combos need a bit more transparancy, telling you what effects each hit has and such.

Id say this is the biggest failing of Melee 2.0.

 

 We have had it for months but I have no real understanding of which combo path will give me an AoE or have a higher proc chance or crit chance (i think some do that). We have these combos but unless you are skilled it is very hard to know which to even use in a given situation.

[Sixty5]

Id say this is the biggest failing of Melee 2.0.

 

 We have had it for months but I haved no real understanding of which combo path will give me an AoE or have a higher proc chance or crit chance (i think some do that). We have these combos but unless you are skilled it is very hard to know which to even use in a given situation.

I think the idea is to have you learn what they do through testing. The problem there is the sheer number of different combos there are.

I've used melee a lot since the new system came out and personally I think I have only mastered three stances, iron phoenix, cleaving whirlwind and reaping spiral.

With those stances I can reliably perform the combos I want, when I want them.

A bit more transparancy may help us see what does what, and make combos actually seem worth it as opposed to just mashing melee

[Traeyze]

Yeh, no kidding on the effect/proc disclosure issues... frankly it is outright pointless that they don't let us know as it would be such easy metagame fodder for the hardcores to debate about and would make stances [and multiple stances] matter more as we would have to choose between procs and effects and etc etc.

 

Crimson Dervish being revealed to have the modifier changed the way people looked at one handed swords and started some really interesting discussions on what makes a melee 'strong', etc.

[MDRLOz]

I think the idea is to have you learn what they do through testing. The problem there is the sheer number of different combos there are.

Also the problem is our inability to test reliably. If say we had a target dummy or a DPS counter then we could see when things proceed properly. I hate trying to work out damage values against mobs in the game. All it takes is a higher or lower level mob to turn up or simply a slightly different mob and you get different numbers. Then the fact that trying to test step X in the combo is very hard when the mobs died at swing two. Lastly you have to guess whether you proceed especially on that final blow? or was it luck? do you crit more? Is it AoE? 

 

Its to much to just test. 

 

 

Also here is a thread. I made it.. It might get discussed next time:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/298387-prime-weapon-re-balancing-how-many-threads-till-we-get-it-so-many-braton-prime-threads/

[Xenogelion]

OMG It's here! So Loz and I actually prepared this on Monday however I wouldn't work on anything else till Faulty Frame Squad Ep #5 was finished. Episode 46 can be found on the first post as well as here:

 

 

 

Additionally another Plat giveaway which is for PC and PS4 Europe players. Same rules as normal and you can find the entry at the link in the description. Oh and also this one won't end till Friday the 12th due to how late this was aired. No point in doing it just for 3 days.