"running An Mmorpg Is Like Running A Country". A Discussion About Developer Ideals

[Luminati07]

*Disclaimer*

1) I know that Warframe is not an MMORPG. The ideals present in the following images are still relevant.

2) This is NOT a dev bashing post. Do not treat it as such. This thread is purely here to incite discussion and for people to provide their points of view.

 

______________________________________________________________

 

Hey everyone,

Nugget here, yet again.

 

Those who keep up with the threads I post may have noticed a particular game that I mention quite a bit. That game is Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, a game that I have been playing plenty of.

 

Fairly recently, I noticed a thread on the forums. It was titled "SE's Ideals".

It housed some fairly interesting images, all of which, at least to me, can apply to nearly every single developer team out there.

 

I wanted to share these photos with you for a few reasons.

1) So I can give my feedback on whether or not I think DE's actions apply.

2) So I can hear your points of view on the actual content of the images.

 

Time to begin!

(Under each image is a spoiler tag. These house my opinions on DE in regards to that image)

 

Not so much I will say in regards to DE with this image.

 

However, I do agree with it.

It's a fair comparison. If the dev team is the 'government' of the game, and they are not providing for their "citizens", then those people are likely to move on.

 

 

Clarity, vision and willingness to listen.

 

Clarity and Vision

It's hard to say if DE really has clarity and vision for Warframe. It really is.

On one hand, you have them announcing three content additions (I won't call them endgame, because they aren't) that make it sound like they have things mapped out.

But, then you have the other hand which just makes it seem like there's no real long term goal.

 

Warframe's content additions are good, but when added, it doesn't seem like they are thinking long term, especially from a lore standpoint.

So, it's really difficult to pinpoint where DE stands on the clarity and vision side of things.

In my opinion, they had a vision of where they wanted to go, but I feel as if they lost it along the way.

 

Obviously nobody knows this except DE themselves, but this is the impression I am left with after the last year of Warframe. Lack of direction.

 

Willingness to Listen

To me, this is one of DE's weaknesses.

 

They do listen. They do fix things.

However, with the release of Update 13, it seems like a LOT of feedback has fallen on deaf ears.

Mainly those of RNG, grinding and dilution.

 

TIme and time again, we have been told:

"We know that grind is an issue, and we promise to lessen it"

"We know that RNG is an issue, and we promise to lessen it"

"We know that dilution is an issue, and we promise to lessen it"

 

And, time and time again, those three issues constantly arise.

We were told that the Prime parts in the Derelict would be a temporary solution. It's been how many months now?

 

Update 13 brought nothing but frustration for myself and plenty of others.

Melee 2.0 was hyped to no end, and what did we get? Grind, RNG and dilution all in one.

 

We have to grind for stances. 

While grinding, we have to deal with RNG for stances.

All the while, the addition of new mods has brought more dilution.

 

This is not just Update 13.

Every major (and some minor) updates have done nothing but bring in massive amounts of RNG, grind and dilution.

 

 

 

This isn't so much directed at DE as it is to the Warframe community.

 

Warframe has a fairly vocal community.

Lots of complaints.

 

Those that myself and others call "white knights" are those that refuse to insult or accept any criticism to the developers.

I was like them at one point. However, what they do benefits nobody.

Obviously it's all just a point of view. However, when I see players insult those who provide criticism, I can't help but get angry.

 

Complaints are feedback. Endlessly praising a developer, no matter what they do, is detrimental to the game.

If a developer releases a horrible update, and are showered with praise, then they think they are doing right, and will continue.

 

Just a message to those White Knights out there. 

Learn to accept criticism to the developers. It's far more helpful than you may think.

 

 

This is one advantage that DE seems to have over most developer teams out there.

 

DE openly shows them playing their product with the Prime Time streams.

 

However, I have to question how much they really play it.

Megan and Rebecca do, sure.

 

But, I just can't believe that everyone does.

I don't see how they can genuinely be playing from a player's perspective with the market prices, RNG, grind and dilution.

 

Probably just me being my usual, negative self. But, I simply cannot believe that they are attempting at playing from a newbie perspective. Especially when they have, what...a million Platinum?

 

Props to Megan and Rebecca for the Prime Time streams, though. Far more than the majority of other dev teams would care to do.

 

 

1) Never forget the fans

Months ago, I might have said DE is good at this.

However, with the consistent dishonesty on their part, I feel they've done nothing but lost touch with their playerbase.

Nothing more to say.

 

2) Fun comes first

Update 13 sure could learn a lesson from this.

 

Update 13 had the potential to be a great update, but fell flat on its face with the walls of RNG, grind and dilution.

Why seal stances behind mod cards? Does an ace of spades magically make me a better card player? No.

So, why does a card immediately teach my Warframe how to use his melee weapon in a completely different style? It shouldn't.

 

These mod cards achieved nothing but a frustrated playerbase.

 

The same goes for Vay Hek. 

Hyped him up for months and months, then put him behind a grind wall.

 

Update 13. Good in theory. Absolutely horrible in execution.

 

I genuinely feed bad for whoever gave these grind walls the green light. 

The frustration and disappointment of the playerbase falls on their shoulders.

 

3) Never back down

Always aim to amaze. Something I don't feel Warframe is doing.

Right now, it feels like Warframe is aiming to keep the playerbase content. Nothing more.

 

Warframe has MASSIVE potential to be an excellent game. But it just seems like it's perfectly happy being a unique shooter with generic elements.

The fast-paced, sci-fi element really is carrying the game at this point (in my point of view)

Build on it, but make the players 'wow'.

Nothing of recent memory has made me genuinely interested in the game.

 

Melee 2.0 had my attention for a short while, right up until I realised the grind walls.

My anticipation for Vay Hek was demolished before I'd even updated my game.

 

 

4) Don't forget your roots

See 1)

 

 

 

I really just wanted to touch on the last point.

 

I know Warframe is tagged as a "beta", but I refuse to acknowledge that.

Warframe seems to be suffering from point 3.

 

The fact that issues can simply be changed in the future.

 

Stances being the perfect example.

The backlash could easily have been avoided if someone at the office had simply said "will players enjoy this?"

Discussion ensues, and if DE is in touch with the playerbase in the slightest, they would instantly know that, no. No they will not.

 

So, I believe that with these major kinds of changes, DE is perfectly content to leave solutions to the future.

However, it seems like DE forgets about these changes.

 

Derelicts. These were a "temporary" solution to dilution.

I called it months ago that they would be used as a band-aid, but that band-aid would be left alone forever.

 

[CaptainPeanut]

I have to say, I kinda agree with most, if not all of these points. I've been becoming more and more frustrated with how Warframe has been developing, and how it seems like DE is listening less and less to important player feedback. That's how it seems to me at least. I still enjoy the game, a bit at least, and the great community of a clan we have. I might just be delusional, but I still hold on to hope that DE will come around and make good on all of their past claims of rising all these issues that are still here.

[Hoshigakesan]

I agree on dilution and RNG but on the grind part not so much. Think about it what would warframe be without the grind? You would quickly get all of the loot and likely get bored of the combat. You would simply play for a month (Giving DE no money because its so easy to just do it yourself) and get bored and quit until there was more content. The grind is what keeps me going in warframe. All we need is a fun grind. A grind like the prosecutors (Which I found fun to fight on defense). A grind thats keeps us busy but isn't boring or dull. A grind that keeps us interested and engaged. THAT is what we need. We could also use a controlled RNG system so that a player is guaranteed a certain item on certain conditions (I.e. the player runs the mission 10 times and has not gotten a specific part, just a rough example). and for dilution we just need more enemy types and factions to soak up the extra mods (New faction would be interesting, perhaps DE could fit it in with the upcoming secret organization mechanic?).

 

EDIT: We could also have more ways of getting rewards such as conclave rewards (conclaves are a bad idea for rewards though :P)

Edited April 15, 2014 by Hoshigakesan

[Nekriist]

I agree on dilution and RNG but on the grind part not so much. Think about it what would warframe be without the grind? You would quickly get all of the loot and likely get bored of the combat. You would simply play for a month (Giving DE no money because its so easy to just do it yourself) and get bored and quit until there was more content. The grind is what keeps me going in warframe. All we need is a fun grind. A grind like the prosecutors (Which I found fun to fight on defense). A grind thats keeps us busy but isn't boring or dull. A grind that keeps us interested and engaged. THAT is what we need. We could also use a controlled RNG system so that a player is guaranteed a certain item on certain conditions (I.e. the player runs the mission 10 times and has not gotten a specific part, just a rough example). and for dilution we just need more enemy types and factions to soak up the extra mods (New faction would be interesting, perhaps DE could fit it in with the upcoming secret organization mechanic?).

 

EDIT: We could also have more ways of getting rewards such as conclave rewards (conclaves are a bad idea for rewards though :P)

 

Dilution is linked to RNG.

 

The more crap you throw into the pot, the lower the chance of getting what you want. Which increases the grind ten-fold. I agree, and am find with this game having grind. But there are times when it starts to feel like they're starting to make things so painful to obtain, you're almost compelled to pay real money for them.

[Monolake]

That's a lot of generics and common place statements some are even laughable like 'lack of MMO knowledge is bad for MMO developer' ORLY? Thank you captain Obvious!

[DarkBabylon]

First point: DE doesn't need to consider itself a government, because this game is NOT an MMORPG. Heck many things are missing here, we barely have a market standard in warframe. But yes the Dev should consider sometimes what's good for the player, but at the end of the day, it shouldn't mean 90% of the game needs to be ran by the community unless the game is completely broken, and at that point it's not the dev's game is it?

 

Second: I don't think every single game needs a specific long term goal. In fact MMORPG's suffer from this alot, but the game still is enjoyable by many. Most arcade games did not have a point in them and they are still player for 30 years. Warframe is mainly focused on the gameplay itself, if you were to provide an "endgame" it would be either Tenno would dominate the Solar system or be destroyed to the last man/woman. They even said it themselves it's not really "endgame" it's just another goal at the end of the day.

 

"While grinding, we have to deal with RNG for stances."

wut? how does RNG even play a role for stances. In fact the only RNG you would see active in the game is the critical chance, unless I am confusing with some other factor that even going through 50 pages of google search is not going to provide an answer to?

If Random Number Generator IS the factor, then guess what, the main factor isn't RNG which makes it so grindy, it's the fact that mods most of the time aren't dropped by the enemies you need them to drop from.

But yes grinding is a bit of an issue, but I don't see how this stopped MapleStory, and Warframe to me seems the least of the grindy games I've came across.

You can't avoid grinding, it's part of the game, if you were to do it, you would change it. In fact Warframe had mods which are directly achieved through weird skill tree, but of course it didn't work out so instead they provided hunting for mods. I don't think it was a disaster especially when the game provides massive amounts of decapitating and dismembering NPCs. You may now call me a psychopath, but then again which gamer didn't enjoy legs ripped off of poorly animated enemies?

 

Points provided by under the 4rd picture? can't agree more, but a vocal community doesn't necessarily means they complain, in fact in some cases it's just being a complete dbag(unfortunately no better term) sometimes what if the update is good? and the community showers with praise about that update because it is so good? you would expect that on the first day especially from melee 2.0, of course later some people will test and actually will criticize some points but the overall outcome is the community enjoying the update and you should take a note of that AS WELL as the people who say "this and that from that update is broken, because..." AND THAT is when the vocal community because, you can't just say "horrible" and be done with it, you need to provide your own argument.

 

Under the 4th picture. IT IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM! You can say "hey look at what I made" but you can't really provide honest self criticism at least in front of a crowd. However you might have misunderstood the point, BUT knowing how a a power point presentation works, the file itself is only a debrief, the REAL detail comes from the person speaking, so unless you might have access to a video or can directly quote the presenter much would be appreciated.

 

"I feel they've done nothing but lost touch with their playerbase." again debrief with no explanation. In fact I think most of the updates as of late were actually kinda community driven except for melee 2.0, which really they were putting us in the dark on this one, but then again they wanted to AVOID player Hype because it is a dangerous move to begin with.

 

"So, why does a card immediately teach my Warframe how to use his melee weapon in a completely different style? It shouldn't." This is video game logic for you. IT NEVER MAKES SENSE...But at the end of the day you will still play right? In fact to give you some examples: Is it really realistic that Super heroes will be able to lift 50 tons of a certain object? You may say yes, but this is exactly the trick in the question: Super heroes are not a realistic idea to begin with. Legend of Zelda, using quantum physics to travel in time THROUGH A FLUTE. Magically healing wounds using Colloidal Silver. Mass Effect achieving FTL speeds without any explanation whatsoever what did the gates do in the quantum scale.

The alternative of course is give the player ALL the tools straight up and let them be on their own, which doesn't make a good game considering the fact killing enemies in Warframe is piss easy.

 

"Fun"...it's a funny word...considering it is very subjective so you can't really bring in an argument, you can only give a majority-minority scale, but you can never claim that RNG aren't fun. WHAT IF THEY ARE? What if I told the mere chance of luck which they would be an exact concept as RNG is what keeps casinos running? In fact RNGs are addictive.

 

Amazement...I can't speak for the community, so I'll tell you this: it is REALLY hard to amaze in this industry as of current, and as of current I AM amazed. They provided melee 2.0 with great animations, great viability but a dangerous risk as well. This is what's important in a game: the challenge, the challenge should be not so hard, but a risk-reward. For the real hardcore players, just amp the difficulty to the hardest. Melee 2,0 was one of the things presenting the community's personality and DE's personality. DE WERE skeptical this hype is going to hurt them...but eventually they did put it on, and so shall it be a great example of not backing down.

Backing down is not the fact if you have amazed someone or not, it is the fact you TRIED to amaze someone, and TRIED your best at it. You seem to completely misunderstand the point here.

 

As of current it is BETA, even IF you aren't acknowledging it, unfortunately that's the only way: to patch things.

But if warframe IS broken as you say it is a long process to fix it, because what you are talking here is gameplay, and it is going to change the game itself if we were to apply that. But not just "oh mods work differently" you need to patch THE ENTIRE FREAKING GAME at this point. I don't think DE is up to it. Beta is where you fix the majority of the problems, including graphics not fitting the game, glitches and bugs, etc. Beta is an enviroment made to fix these things...

Of course it doesn't mean we shouldn't stop criticizing which is where people fail, and alot of people also fail to recognize Beta as Beta like you. I will agree that the game seems finished though, but maybe DE doesn't and that's why they call it Beta.

[DarkBabylon]

"But there are times when it starts to feel like they're starting to make things so painful to obtain, you're almost compelled to pay real money for them."

Such as Vauban being alert only... Which is the real problem. When the mod is area specific it is much harder to obtain. But if it drops from a common NPC you can't consider it "hard" the real argument would be "time wasting" but then again what games were made for to begin with.

If you don't have time to waste chances are you shouldn't be playing in the first place.

[Luminati07]

That's a lot of generics and common place statements some are even laughable like 'lack of MMO knowledge is bad for MMO developer' ORLY? Thank you captain Obvious!

The fact that it's common sense is the problem.

 

There might be a dedicated team to create a new MMORPG, but only a select few of them might have the experience and competence to do so.

Not directed at DE, that's a blanket statement.

 

If your post was a way at waving off what I posted, then I say your post is "laughable", not the content in that image.

 

First point: DE doesn't need to consider itself a government, because this game is NOT an MMORPG. Heck many things are missing here, we barely have a market standard in warframe. But yes the Dev should consider sometimes what's good for the player, but at the end of the day, it shouldn't mean 90% of the game needs to be ran by the community unless the game is completely broken, and at that point it's not the dev's game is it?

 

Like I said, I know Warframe isn't an MMORPG. The same principle still applies, though. Warframe players are the citizens. Digital Extremes is the government. Whether or not Warframe is a full fledged MMO is irrelevant.

 

Second: I don't think every single game needs a specific long term goal. In fact MMORPG's suffer from this alot, but the game still is enjoyable by many. Most arcade games did not have a point in them and they are still player for 30 years. Warframe is mainly focused on the gameplay itself, if you were to provide an "endgame" it would be either Tenno would dominate the Solar system or be destroyed to the last man/woman. They even said it themselves it's not really "endgame" it's just another goal at the end of the day.

 

Well, I disagree here. A goal doesn't mean that a dev team needs endgame projects and a 5 year goal. It could just be knowing where you want the game to be. And, to me, DE doesn't seem to know this. The lore is all over the place, and the mod system is already reaching its last legs unless a serious change is made.

 

"While grinding, we have to deal with RNG for stances."

wut? how does RNG even play a role for stances. In fact the only RNG you would see active in the game is the critical chance, unless I am confusing with some other factor that even going through 50 pages of google search is not going to provide an answer to?

 

Tell me how to get Stances.

 

You can't avoid grinding, it's part of the game, if you were to do it, you would change it. In fact Warframe had mods which are directly achieved through weird skill tree, but of course it didn't work out so instead they provided hunting for mods. 

I know you can't avoid grinding. It's an integral part of a lot of games out there. I've always said that grinding and RNG aren't necessarily bad things. But, when a game has almost complete reliance on them, that's when it becomes a problem.

I know about the old mod system and the skill tree. Look at my join date

 

Under the 4th picture. IT IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM! You can say "hey look at what I made" but you can't really provide honest self criticism at least in front of a crowd. However you might have misunderstood the point, BUT knowing how a a power point presentation works, the file itself is only a debrief, the REAL detail comes from the person speaking, so unless you might have access to a video or can directly quote the presenter much would be appreciated.

 

I'll definitely look to see if there's any video of it. I'm at work right now.

 

"I feel they've done nothing but lost touch with their playerbase." again debrief with no explanation. In fact I think most of the updates as of late were actually kinda community driven except for melee 2.0, which really they were putting us in the dark on this one, but then again they wanted to AVOID player Hype because it is a dangerous move to begin with.

 

I say that because that's all I've seen. The RNG and grinding complaints are real. However, with the several apologies and promises of change, we have seen nothing of the sort. Since the incident of the datamined drop tables, DE has promised time and time again for change, and what have we seen?

Like I said, most updates have brought nothing but more of the things they promised they would lessen. Maybe it's just me. Maybe they were never in touch with the playerbase to begin with. Who knows.

At the end of the day, all the things I post are my opinion, as much as some people like to think I take my word as fact. I know how much weight my words hold

 

Funny that you mention that they wanted to avoid player hype, seeing as DE had hyped melee 2.0 and update 13 to no end

 

"So, why does a card immediately teach my Warframe how to use his melee weapon in a completely different style? It shouldn't." This is video game logic for you. IT NEVER MAKES SENSE...But at the end of the day you will still play right? In fact to give you some examples: Is it really realistic that Super heroes will be able to lift 50 tons of a certain object? You may say yes, but this is exactly the trick in the question: Super heroes are not a realistic idea to begin with. Legend of Zelda, using quantum physics to travel in time THROUGH A FLUTE. Magically healing wounds using Colloidal Silver. Mass Effect achieving FTL speeds without any explanation whatsoever what did the gates do in the quantum scale.

 

Yeah, you're right. Video game logic. Generally I can see some semblance of realism in even the most ludicrous games. But there isn't even a shred of it in the stance mods

 

"Fun"...it's a funny word...considering it is very subjective so you can't really bring in an argument, you can only give a majority-minority scale, but you can never claim that RNG aren't fun. WHAT IF THEY ARE? What if I told the mere chance of luck which they would be an exact concept as RNG is what keeps casinos running? In fact RNGs are addictive.

 

Yep, you're right, completely subjective. Take all my words as my opinion (please do. So many forum goers like to assume I talk like my words are fact, which they are not). However, like I said above, I don't think RNG is inherently a bad thing. However, when games have almost universal reliance on it, that's when it stops being fun (for me, and many others)

 

Amazement...I can't speak for the community, so I'll tell you this: it is REALLY hard to amaze in this industry as of current, and as of current I AM amazed. They provided melee 2.0 with great animations, great viability but a dangerous risk as well. This is what's important in a game: the challenge, the challenge should be not so hard, but a risk-reward. For the real hardcore players, just amp the difficulty to the hardest. Melee 2,0 was one of the things presenting the community's personality and DE's personality. DE WERE skeptical this hype is going to hurt them...but eventually they did put it on, and so shall it be a great example of not backing down.

Backing down is not the fact if you have amazed someone or not, it is the fact you TRIED to amaze someone, and TRIED your best at it. You seem to completely misunderstand the point here.

 

I didn't miss the point at all. I know exactly what you're saying. I said several times that it's all my opinion. To ME it seems like Warframe is only aiming to keep players content. Nothing more.

 

As of current it is BETA, even IF you aren't acknowledging it, unfortunately that's the only way: to patch things.

But if warframe IS broken as you say it is a long process to fix it, because what you are talking here is gameplay, and it is going to change the game itself if we were to apply that. But not just "oh mods work differently" you need to patch THE ENTIRE FREAKING GAME at this point. I don't think DE is up to it. Beta is where you fix the majority of the problems, including graphics not fitting the game, glitches and bugs, etc. Beta is an enviroment made to fix these things...

Of course it doesn't mean we shouldn't stop criticizing which is where people fail, and alot of people also fail to recognize Beta as Beta like you. I will agree that the game seems finished though, but maybe DE doesn't and that's why they call it Beta.

 

Yeah, Warframe has a BETA tag slapped on it. But tell me what about it is a genuine beta, and not just a way to charge large amounts of money for a product that is called 'unfinished'.

As far as I am concerned, the instant a developer team has a full marketplace, and is charging money for it, it is not a beta, no matter how many pointless Beta tags are attached to it

[SilentMobius]

"While grinding, we have to deal with RNG for stances."

wut? how does RNG even play a role for stances. In fact the only RNG you would see active in the game is the critical chance, unless I am confusing with some other factor that even going through 50 pages of google search is not going to provide an answer to?

 

The _drop rate_ for stances and the rarity of the enemies it drops from. As in you can grind the same faction for days and never make any progress towards acquisition of a particular stance.

[Ketec]

the " unhealthy obsession with graphics quality" is... not that right.

 

 

Gameplay is  required.. .but the  unhealthy obsession with " we don't need graphics" is completely idiotic as well.

 

Gam with great gameplay and  horrible graphics is worth just as little as a game with graphics and no gameplay. Both suck. Iv yet to see a mmo with "obsessive graphics quality issue". Majority are still quite weak and already outdated.

[Luminati07]

the " unhealthy obsession with graphics quality" is... not that right.

 

 

Gameplay is  required.. .but the  unhealthy obsession with " we don't need graphics" is completely idiotic as well.

 

Gam with great gameplay and  horrible graphics is worth just as little as a game with graphics and no gameplay. Both suck. Iv yet to see a mmo with "obsessive graphics quality issue". Majority are still quite weak and already outdated.

When they mention an "unhealthy" obsession, they are speaking from a point of view where it means that gameplay severely suffers because of the dev team's obsession with the graphical quality.

 

They used FFXIV 1.0 as their example.

To have some fancy graphics, almost every single other aspect of FFXIV 1.0 suffered in a MAJOR way. Seriously...That game was a complete mess.

[Luminati07]

Here's another interesting picture from the slideshow. Still hunting for a video (if there is one)

 

Obviously this is, again, from an MMORPG standpoint, but the points can still apply.

[SpilockT_T]

The game itself can become a MMO since a lot of the game mechanic are similar to other MMO games that I know..

"Running an MMORPG Is Like Running A Country"

Hell, running a game IS like runnning a country..

Warframe is a great game and it has a lot of potentials..

Although the game has a lot of contents hidden behind layers of RNG,

DE has reasons to do it..

I'm still enjoying this game although the gameplay is repetitive but still,

you will never meet other Dev that willingly to do something for the fans...

Edit: But the most important thing that still make me play this game is the community and our clan :3

Edited April 16, 2014 by SpilockT_T

[Luminati07]

The game itself can become a MMO since a lot of the game mechanic are similar to other MMO games that I know..

"Running an MMORPG Is Like Running A Country"

Hell, running a game IS like runnning a country..

Warframe is a great game and it has a lot of potentials..

Although the game has a lot of contents hidden behind layers of RNG,

DE has reasons to do it..

I'm still enjoying this game although the gameplay is repetitive but still,

you will never meet other Dev that willingly to do something for the fans...

Edit: But the most important thing that still make me play this game is the community and our clan :3

That's the thing with player retention.

Devs are usually torn between 2 areas.

One being the issue of releasing content that is instantly available to everyone. This means players can get bored fast.

The other is putting up time/RNG/grind walls. This means they "work" towards it, and get burned out slower.

 

Both have their pros and cons. DE just doesn't have the balance between the two. Like...at all.

 

You're right though, there are very few devs out there that will do the things DE does.

So many people think I hate DE (seriously. It's astounding), but I don't. I love the guys (and girls) who work there, and they do awesome work, but they just make decisions that make no sense, and go back on their word.

Mere peanuts to the vast majority of other dev teams out there.

 

CDPR still takes the cake as best PC dev for me, though.

 

Last point, yeah. I would have quit the game months ago if it wasn't for our awesome clan, thanks again for taking up the mantle :P

[se05239]

I hope DE drops by and learn something.

They are destroying their game more than they are fixing it, at the moment.

Edited April 22, 2014 by se05239

[Scr4mp]

I agree with you OP. In every single point. And I got only few to add:

 

1. This is a beta and I think it won't ever leave this state. I started playing this game december last year and untill now, there has nothing been added that would make me want to play this game more than what was present back then.

 

2. I couldn't agree more about the point that DE has lost their goal or to say it a bit different, I never had the feeling that DE communicated what their goal is, therefor I am left here with the impression that they don't even have one. Not that this would allready be bad, but all the updates I witnessed so far, don't gave me the feeling that there will be some major things coming next.... they are all just.... appetizers for me... somehow like "well it COULD go in this direction but we will elaborate that later". Just like they want to keep us bussy and to keep us at it, to spend more money. I don't want to say that they are really doing that, but its this impression they leave me with. Like you said, warframe has such HUGE potential to be a really really really great game, but all those updates seem so halfheartedly done. And if the rate with wich this game grows towards the state of awesomeness keeps on, I fear we will never see the day this game becomes awesome.

 

And that makes me sad.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Scr4mp

[0ceanRain]

Yeah, Warframe has a BETA tag slapped on it. But tell me what about it is a genuine beta, and not just a way to charge large amounts of money for a product that is called 'unfinished'.

As far as I am concerned, the instant a developer team has a full marketplace, and is charging money for it, it is not a beta, no matter how many pointless Beta tags are attached to it

 

Everything that is wrong with this game can be summed up right there. Lack of confidence in their product to fully release brings about lack of confidence to release great content.

 

That's not to say they don't still have an amazing game here, and that they don't sometimes come out with great game designs and mechanics.

 

For the most part though they seem to fall back on their artists, which they have amazing artists. Releasing a new Warframe, map design or even UI change to appease the masses is the right idea, but they seem to rely on it a -LOT- rather than putting a lot of thought into the actual gameplay. They just released two frames back to back and their ultimates are basically the same. I understand the difficulty in coming up with new ideas for Frames so often, but that is fairly unacceptable, considering how annoying both of those abilities can be.

[SolidSp33d]

Everything that is wrong with this game can be summed up right there. Lack of confidence in their product to fully release brings about lack of confidence to release great content.

 

Wat.

 

The game is just clearly not "finished." It's not where they, or where we, want it to be to actually call it the initial release version of the game. I mean, they are just getting systems up to snuff, many a missing, and there is no endgame. There's no "lack of confidence." It's called knowing what you have on your hands.

Edited April 22, 2014 by SolidSp33d

[VegetableBasket]

I had to stop reading when you said DE promised to lessen grind. I don't know where they have done that, but a lot of people seem to believe that it happened.

And yes, when you view literally everything you could possibly be doing in the game as grinding, everything in the game is grinding. There is no way an action in the game could be neither grinding nor RNG. Either you have to do 5 missions for a guaranteed item (grinding) or you do missions until you get the item you want, which should be 5 on average (RNG). What's the other option? I'm sure you've elaborated on this somewhere and are sick of repeating yourself, but how do you simultaneously not make the game use grind or RNG? Merit based rewards? Give people the item they want if they are good at the game or can beat a hard level?

 

Saying you have to grind for stances isn't always true, you could get them off the first enemy you kill after installing the update, you can trade for them, you can transmute for them, etc. You can actually trade for the hek keys as well, or tag along with your friends. You can circumvent all the grind by looking at recruitment chat.

 

I am a really cynical longtime player and I have to say U13 was better than I expected. Badlands is a step in the right direction and would be really cool with a few tweaks, I don't expect it to get those tweaks, though, lol. Melee 2.0 adds a lot of fun to the game, even the crazy ragdolls of U6 were returned for staff weapons and cranked up to 11, something I had been begging for a decent while now. Finding stances is annoying but you really only need the one you want, and getting that, whichever it is, isn't really that hard to do. Hek WAS behind a grindwall, but now he's behind a play-a-couple-ceres-survival-missions wall, featuring new cool enemies on a new cool tileset. Most people will run these anyways to get orokin cells, so it's not that big of a deal. You can sell your extra beacons for a fair amount of credits, so even if you're not finding what you want, you're still compensated for your time. Hek himself is a really excellent encounter. I hope eventually they just plop him on earth because I think using keys to access bosses is really convoluted and awkward, but it's not the big of a deal, since they patched the beacon drop rates on day 2 or 3. U13 also gave some more support for leader enemies and added the Tenno spectres which are really cool, and, of course, when polished, will be lots of fun.

 

I think the problem is that so many things go into warframe with the potential of being awesome, but a bit of design laziness creeps in, and really cool systems become lackluster because enough consideration wasn't given to the numbers, or the timelessness, or the "fun" of it all. Imagine if transmutation had recipes, nightmare had leaderboards, static permutations, and lots of different modifiers, badlands was more robust and incentivized, conclave more competitive and functional (PvP is pretty balanced and very fun but the levels and gametype are very buggy), bosses very challenging, mods more balanced and diverse, warframes and weapons didn't outclass each other, damage 2.0 actually fixed armor scaling, on and on forever, there are so many ways for the game to improve and potentially be amazing, but we just have an awkward foundation right now. I'm hoping with enough 2.0s and 3.0s and 4.0s DE can really nail it, but even if they don't, well, I had 900 hours of fun in the first year and few months, through all the bugs and half delivered game systems.

Overall, I get the feeling literally anything could come in an update and you'd hate it if it used a little randomization or repetition. Any highly playable game will use some combination of grind and RNG to extend the lifetime of the game, if they're not using PvP. Don't you grind in final fantasy? Wasn't the final fantasy mmo one of the grindiest games there was? Right now I'm mostly playing PoE as I wait for Warframe to get closer to being finished (it's in beta, after all), and that game is all about the grind and RNG. It just does it tastefully. It uses RNG to diversify the grind, rather than to create it. Of course I think PoE is to me as Final Fantasy is to you, I just want Warframe to copy paste all its excellent game mechanics, because Warframe is one of the smoothest games in existence right now and PoE is pretty clunky. I want a fast paced game with smart design, I think that's the general sentiment of most cynical players I've spoken with.

So, all in all, yo dawg I heard you like rambling.

Edited April 22, 2014 by VegetableBasket

[lMasterBetal]

I had to stop reading when you said DE promised to lessen grind. I don't know where they have done that, but a lot of people seem to believe that it happened.

 

I've been playing the game for a year now and I know that DE has responded to grind complaints. I do not have the source but I can assure you they have acknowledged the existence of the problem. Does that mean that they made promises, you are in the dark as I am but the fact that they are not doing a thing about it is still infuriating.

 

And yes, when you view literally everything you could possibly be doing in the game as grinding, everything in the game is grinding. There is no way an action in the game could be neither grinding nor RNG. Either you have to do 5 missions for a guaranteed item (grinding) or you do missions until you get the item you want, which should be 5 on average (RNG). What's the other option? I'm sure you've elaborated on this somewhere and are sick of repeating yourself, but how do you simultaneously not make the game use grind or RNG? Merit based rewards? Give people the item they want if they are good at the game or can beat a hard level?

 

Saying you have to grind for stances isn't always true, you could get them off the first enemy you kill after installing the update, you can trade for them, you can transmute for them, etc. You can actually trade for the hek keys as well, or tag along with your friends. You can circumvent all the grind by looking at recruitment chat.

 

1. Transmutation is a joke and you sacrifice a lot of credits and mods to have a slim chance of getting the mod you want. Transmutation is the same as grinding in a mission due to the chance of getting the mod you want.

 

2. What if the first enemy gives you a stance mod that you do not want. Granted trade chat (I managed to get my stance mods through this instead of farming) is the only way of getting stance mods besides grinding. The problem is with trade is that trade chat is very unstable and can lead to you having to pay insane prices for what you want. The fact that trade chat is neglected means that a lot of people that haven't played the game as much as others (Like myself) are forced to grind.

 

I am a really cynical longtime player and I have to say U13 was better than I expected. Badlands is a step in the right direction and would be really cool with a few tweaks, I don't expect it to get those tweaks, though, lol. Melee 2.0 adds a lot of fun to the game, even the crazy ragdolls of U6 were returned for staff weapons and cranked up to 11, something I had been begging for a decent while now. Finding stances is annoying but you really only need the one you want, and getting that, whichever it is, isn't really that hard to do. Hek WAS behind a grindwall, but now he's behind a play-a-couple-ceres-survival-missions wall, featuring new cool enemies on a new cool tileset. Most people will run these anyways to get orokin cells, so it's not that big of a deal. You can sell your extra beacons for a fair amount of credits, so even if you're not finding what you want, you're still compensated for your time. Hek himself is a really excellent encounter. I hope eventually they just plop him on earth because I think using keys to access bosses is really convoluted and awkward, but it's not the big of a deal, since they patched the beacon drop rates on day 2 or 3. U13 also gave some more support for leader enemies and added the Tenno spectres which are really cool, and, of course, when polished, will be lots of fun.

 

Badlands is not a step in the right direction, in fact it is promoting more grinding than ever. If anything it requires an entire makeover due to its nature. Melee 2.0 is alright; I enjoy the introduction of it but I feel that making stances a skill tree (See Mods 1.0) instead of an aura mod and then put channeling mods into the skill tree would've made the grind less.... annoying.

Vay Hek at first was scary but once again is a weak boss that you just farm over and over again until you get Hydroid Chassis. Vay Hek needs to be a menace as it is a key boss (Like Lephantis). DE needs to stop making bosses easier for players and instead make bosses such as Lephantis and Vay Hek as hard as the Stalker IMO. That would be a challenge, an enjoyable one.

 

I think the problem is that so many things go into warframe with the potential of being awesome, but a bit of design laziness creeps in, and really cool systems become lackluster because enough consideration wasn't given to the numbers, or the timelessness, or the "fun" of it all. Imagine if transmutation had recipes, nightmare had leaderboards, static permutations, and lots of different modifiers, badlands was more robust and incentivized, conclave more competitive and functional (PvP is pretty balanced and very fun but the levels and gametype are very buggy), bosses very challenging, mods more balanced and diverse, warframes and weapons didn't outclass each other, damage 2.0 actually fixed armor scaling, on and on forever, there are so many ways for the game to improve and potentially be amazing, but we just have an awkward foundation right now. I'm hoping with enough 2.0s and 3.0s and 4.0s DE can really nail it, but even if they don't, well, I had 900 hours of fun in the first year and few months, through all the bugs and half delivered game systems.

 

I have seen weapons that when given the right mods would make your jaw drop such as the Aklex or the Penta. These weapons outclass other weapons infinitely. I am not saying to nerf specific weapons but I am saying to bring an importance to all weapons in a certain mastery rank tier.

Overall, I get the feeling literally anything could come in an update and you'd hate it if it used a little randomization or repetition. Any highly playable game will use some combination of grind and RNG to extend the lifetime of the game, if they're not using PvP. Don't you grind in final fantasy? Wasn't the final fantasy mmo one of the grindiest games there was? Right now I'm mostly playing PoE as I wait for Warframe to get closer to being finished (it's in beta, after all), and that game is all about the grind and RNG. It just does it tastefully. It uses RNG to diversify the grind, rather than to create it. Of course I think PoE is to me as Final Fantasy is to you, I just want Warframe to copy paste all its excellent game mechanics, because Warframe is one of the smoothest games in existence right now and PoE is pretty clunky. I want a fast paced game with smart design, I think that's the general sentiment of most cynical players I've spoken with.

 

Wasn't the Final Fantasy MMO also a disaster (Disregard FF14 Realm Reborn fix)? Enough calling Warframe a BETA. This game was released to the PS4 for crying out loud and that port has a marketplace. Like the Poster said, the moment you sell content in a game that has the BETA tag slapped on to it, it shouldn't be called a beta.

So, all in all, yo dawg I heard you like rambling.

 

Lord I was born a ramblin' man. In all I like DE but I am growing more and more tiresome of their lack of openness to the community about these plans before they are released (NOT in a PATCH PREVIEW)

[ss4chris]

since the Nugget has quit should this thread be locked also?

[Vorigan]

Your points are great, as usual, especially about no.2.

 

After playing for more than a year every single day and loving this game so much, the last two updates and especially the latest, made me so disappointed. It is so sad to see that things are only getting boring with the problems you mentioned about RNG and dillution getting worse by the minute.

 

After all this time, I find myself not caring to log in to the game anymore, let alone play. Honestly, if I didn't own a clan, I don't know if I would still be here and that makes me just so sad, because I love the game.

 

I believe DE have great ideas and they're doing a good job in general, but they need to keep more of their promises and pay closer attention to the feedback about the crucial parts of the game.

[Zubaz]

I am a really cynical longtime player and I have to say U13 was better than I expected. Badlands is a step in the right direction and would be really cool with a few tweaks, I don't expect it to get those tweaks, though, lol.

 

I can't see anything Badlands offers new at all.

 

lol.

 

 

 

I really can't though. The press buttons mission on behalf of clans has these flaccid npcs in warframe skins seems to be the only thing.

[VegetableBasket]

I can't see anything Badlands offers new at all.

 

lol.

 

 

 

I really can't though. The press buttons mission on behalf of clans has these flaccid npcs in warframe skins seems to be the only thing.

There's a dynamic of control, risk, politics, and player interaction that hasn't existed before in the game. The problem is that it manifests itself as a speedrun grind mission. Player competition is good, dark sector invasions are boring from the player perspective and tedious from the warlord's. The content is fairly bad, but the concept is good. It just needs polish. I just doubt that polish will come soon if ever.

 

 

 

I've been playing the game for a year now and I know that DE has responded to grind complaints. I do not have the source but I can assure you they have acknowledged the existence of the problem. Does that mean that they made promises, you are in the dark as I am but the fact that they are not doing a thing about it is still infuriating.

 

1. Transmutation is a joke and you sacrifice a lot of credits and mods to have a slim chance of getting the mod you want. Transmutation is the same as grinding in a mission due to the chance of getting the mod you want.

 

2. What if the first enemy gives you a stance mod that you do not want. Granted trade chat (I managed to get my stance mods through this instead of farming) is the only way of getting stance mods besides grinding. The problem is with trade is that trade chat is very unstable and can lead to you having to pay insane prices for what you want. The fact that trade chat is neglected means that a lot of people that haven't played the game as much as others (Like myself) are forced to grind.

 

Badlands is not a step in the right direction, in fact it is promoting more grinding than ever. If anything it requires an entire makeover due to its nature. Melee 2.0 is alright; I enjoy the introduction of it but I feel that making stances a skill tree (See Mods 1.0) instead of an aura mod and then put channeling mods into the skill tree would've made the grind less.... annoying.

Vay Hek at first was scary but once again is a weak boss that you just farm over and over again until you get Hydroid Chassis. Vay Hek needs to be a menace as it is a key boss (Like Lephantis). DE needs to stop making bosses easier for players and instead make bosses such as Lephantis and Vay Hek as hard as the Stalker IMO. That would be a challenge, an enjoyable one.

 

I have seen weapons that when given the right mods would make your jaw drop such as the Aklex or the Penta. These weapons outclass other weapons infinitely. I am not saying to nerf specific weapons but I am saying to bring an importance to all weapons in a certain mastery rank tier.

 

Wasn't the Final Fantasy MMO also a disaster (Disregard FF14 Realm Reborn fix)? Enough calling Warframe a BETA. This game was released to the PS4 for crying out loud and that port has a marketplace. Like the Poster said, the moment you sell content in a game that has the BETA tag slapped on to it, it shouldn't be called a beta.

 

Lord I was born a ramblin' man. In all I like DE but I am growing more and more tiresome of their lack of openness to the community about these plans before they are released (NOT in a PATCH PREVIEW)

 

DE has acknowledged the complaints, but not stated "we will reduce grind" or anything as some people apparently made up, decided to believe, and purport on the forums. They've said things like, "It's not grind, it's gameplay" (Dave Kudirka on lephantis's grindwall, not his actual word choice). They don't do anything about grind because it extends the gameplay hours and incentivizes buying things with platinum.

 

Transmutation is broken, every time you used to get a warframe ability mod, you get a common. This happened when they removed warframe abilities from transmutation to make it more appealing. LOL now you get a common. Great move. DE insists it's working as intended. It's like, "here, let's fix it, then not fix it when we break it even worse." It's the same coding issue that caused voidgate, except we don't have the dataminers to prove it anymore. That being said, I've gotten a few stances transmuting and getting credits is easy as hell with the new dark sector missions.

 

No one in trade makes you buy mods for a ridiculous price. Within a short window after any mods are released they are worth 15p at the most. You can get any stance for about 5p besides tranquil cleave if you're the least bit patient. Trade chat is only unstable when patches hit.

 

See what I said above about badlands. I completely agree bosses need to be harder. Stalker included. He's a wuss. aklex aren't even that good compared to other sidearms, but yeah, most weapons are directly worse than others. I have no idea about that final fantasy MMO. Beta doesn't mean is without a market. It means it has placeholder art, systems, unimplemented features, bugs, etc. The only reason DE is forced to release the game early and charge money for it is because they are without a publisher. Not to mention nearly every online free to play multiplayer game is released first in beta with a real money market rather than completed. This is the standard now. Whether or not you like it doesn't matter. The marketplace doesn't remove the bugs and lack of polish from the game. The bugs make it beta, not the pricing model. And what hasn't DE been open about. They had basically no surprises in the update besides fine details on how certain mechanics worked and the Tenno spectres. Everything else was revealed beforehand...

Edited April 22, 2014 by VegetableBasket

[Zubaz]

There's a dynamic of control, risk, politics, and player interaction that hasn't existed before in the game. The problem is that it manifests itself as a speedrun grind mission. Player competition is good, dark sector invasions are boring from the player perspective and tedious from the warlord's. The content is fairly bad, but the concept is good. It just needs polish. I just doubt that polish will come soon if ever.

 

And why should I care about any of these when I am playing nodes that offer just one thing (warframe zombie npc), which is just worse then rest of the nodes?

Edited April 22, 2014 by Zubaz