Fate Of Warframe?

[ViceroyBubbles]

TL;DR Where's Warframe going? Recent updates have been an introduction to an antagonist and new weapons locked behind a grindwall. 

 

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in the Feedback categories, but this is about what is rather than I feel, so it's going here. It's not just about Melee 2.0 or the Solar Rails, but Warframe as a whole. The purpose of this post is not to discourage or convey anything negative, but point out the direction the game has been going.

 

The loot tables. The loot tables for anything anywhere are enormous after so many updates. The introduction of stance mods has even further reinforced how one's loot is a diamond among a desert of garbage. There are so few mediums to obtain mods and weapon parts. The possibility of obtaining something you don't need is extreme, or you can't get enough related loot at once to actually craft a product. An example of that would be a Tier 3 Void Defense: 1 of 12 loot possibilities in one game mode on one tile set. It's like a stuffed backpack. The loot tables are somewhat compartmentalized, yeah, but it's got a warehouse's worth of content crammed into it.

 

The content. Mysterious space ninjas with guns. Kill bad guys, take their stuff, make a weapon. Wait, we might actually be bad guys too? It's all been up in the air for over a year. The updates have introduced Warframes, weapons, tiles, and guys doing something to agitate the Tenno. We play the guy's game, do his event, beat the tar out of him a bunch of times to make sure we looted everything, and ultimately build whatever items were introduced with the update. There's nothing wrong with this trend, it's just that there's hasn't been anything to accompany it. They're short, don't add much depth, and are quickly written off by the next update and become irrelevant to active players.

It's still unclear what the Tenno are and, recently, what their objective is. A year ago they were keepers of the balance. Now, maybe some still are, but Ruk calls us mercenaries and treasure hunters.The tiny amount of lore that has been introduced indicates they killed their mind-controlling bosses and that the Stalker is butthurt about it. That's all there is that's reliable for background.

 

The Void. It's been ignored. It's been made stale. It's just a different grindstone. When the Void was first revealed, it was the biggest thing that had ever happened. A mysterious new dimension that no one knew would be like. Only accessible by rare keys, filled with things to explore, find, extremely dangerous, and accompanied by a few friends. Supposedly the origin of Tenno and Infested and Orokin. Finally, answers. Infinite possibility.

A loot cavern filled with pretty weapons whose only goal is power creep. If a Prime version exists, it discourages building the original in the market (or knockoff, according to lore). One of the most frustrating aspects (loot tables) of the game. All it is now is a loot dump for whatever Prime weapons and frames get into the game.

 

I think the idea has been made clear. What I'm trying to ask is where the game is going. I think it's a good time for us to ask this since Melee 2.0 was one of the few things in the game that was changed/improved rather than added, a very good thing.

[Dalu__Ka]

The game is going forward.

 

You ask us what direction the game is going, but your opening post is a list of what is "wrong" with the game, which basically makes it yet another complain thread.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Tenn00b

[se05239]

The game is going forward, but along its path exist only grind. 

DE need to change the direction soon, or Warframe will be doomed.

[(PSN)ChriswrockstaR]

This game is a Skinner Box.

 

http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_skinnerbox.htm

[Lickity-Split]

The game is going forward, but along its path exist only grind. 

DE need to change the direction soon, or Warframe will be doomed.

 

This is correct.

 

Most big titles are moving away from pure RNG loot systems because it only serves to irritate their playerbase.

Warframe is plugging its new content behind massive RNG walls.

Soon people will become annoyed with this and just leave.

[(PSN)UpscaleSteamX]

If you take the grind out a non story based game it'll be pointless and the game would've been history by now, grinding and farming gives a meaning to play so be happy til we get proxy wars

[Brahmastra]

Warframe is trying to reach a new level of being pay2skip, and people are getting tired of it.

[Mickey1779]

Aren't all games by definition Skinner Boxes?

 

The shuffling of the Void loot tables and removal of credit caches did nothing but buy DE a few months.  The problem is still there, DE just gave it a fresh coat of watered down paint.  DE needs to come up with a real solution to the Prime loot.

 

The only thing having 12 Prime items on a single loot table does is encourage abuse, being on a Defense mission, people will just Abort / let point die and requeue until they get the part they need.

 

Better than them being on a Survival mission where everyone gets burned over and over so the key holder keeps their key or any of the other mission types where keys get consumed, but all in all still just a fresh coat of paint to cover the underlying problem.

[ZephyrPhantom]

Some games are more Skinner Boxes than others; it's all a matter of how much the designer is willing to exploit game mechanics in favor of paying money/grinding vs. actual fun. Warframe's core gameplay encourages the latter, but DE seems to trend heavily towards the former, which is definitely a concern.

 

As far as I see, Warframe is going forward, but there does need to be more depth to the content we're getting, be it lore, skill-based content, a campaign, or something that takes all these cool bits we've got in the game and just plain ties together; don't get me wrong, I like llama dogs and Ninja Trigger as much as the next guy, but beneath all of this shiny stuff, we really need to see more things added to the core of the game like Melee 2.0 (and not locked behind massive grindwalls either, like M2.0 was.)

Edited April 15, 2014 by ZephyrPhantom

[VKhaun]

This grind crap is all fake and weak. Go play any other game for a week and see. Warframe is no where near a grind and has no 'GRIND WALL's.

 

Mobs do not drop too much. They have less than ten items in their tables and some of those are power mods that will eventually be taken out putting a ceiling on it, just like when they put creds and crap into void survival and then took some out when new primes were put in. Yes some are 'rare' mobs, but this isn't some MMO with 3min fights. We kill 250-400 per Tenno in a typical mission.

 

Nothing from U13 is a grind. U13 came out THURSDAY. We have had it for ONE WEEKEND. Why does anyone expect for every single person to have found the rarest stance mods already? Oh wait... because trade is blowing up and tons of people have found multiple and are selling them... I know, I know, they're just 'lucky' so it's not an argument but you being 'unlucky' is an argument right?

 

DE was compeltely reasonable. They screwed up and made the keys a little too grindy.

They fixed it. You took the inch and demanded a mile more.

 

The biggest concern I have is this community that's got it's head buried in the sand still talking about Grind every time we get new content and RNG every time we get random events and things that are supposed to happen on occasion and surprise us, but they want to run that occasional event over and over until they get their Detron or Brakk.

 

I fear the devs will be demoralized and their game will be ever more rushed as they try and stay ahead of the whines and gimmie gimmie's.

Edited April 15, 2014 by VKhaun

[semigod22]

name me one game that people can play without grindin something. ( except single player 1 time play and throw it away games and esport, beat em up games)

 

 

cant believe people still cry about RNG and grinding

 

everyone of you that hates rng/grindin will quit the game 2weeks after he got everything.

 

the only GRIND that still is bad/useless/unwanted  is the key-farm thing with vey hek. but someday they raise the droprates and everyone has 500 keys for vay hek (just like lephantis)

[ZephyrPhantom]

It's not all black and white like that.

 

Of course games will have grind. What the OP is actually asking for is more depth to the grind that makes the grind more fun - this is especially apparent when he's talking about the Void, which when you think about it is the same level over and over for Prime stuff - aside from parkour rooms, everything else can be blown away with enough grinding and the right build. There's nothing dynamic about it.

 

Let's just take Tranquil Cleave as an example. Can everyone get it by playing Earth/Phobos levels enough times? Yes. Will people get bored of tramping through the same tilesets and fighting the same enemies in the process? Yes, because there's no change in the mission - it's always curbstomp grineer, desecrate butchers, extract, rinse and repeat on a level with some interesting visuals that grow stale after a while.

Edited April 15, 2014 by ZephyrPhantom

[Sindrall]

I agree with MIddle master, ive played a lot and i mean a lot of online games, free and paid. This, compared to some i have played is no where NEAR is bad a grind game as others. Take Tera for example, you have to grindd for hours and hours to get around 40 of these scrolls to masterwork your gear so you can remotely compete with other high end people, and with that 40 or so scrolls used on ONE piece of equipment, the chances of master working that piece of gear is quite honestly lower than 1% so those 40 dont work? oh darn, youve gotten nothing at all from all your hours farming, time to go do it again!! Warframe on the other hand, may have an RNG but it is nowhere NEAR as punishing as Tera's AND even if you farm and do not recieve what you wanted, you still did get multiple usefull items and money to use on upgrading mods and what not as well as resources for Dojos. So yes you did not get what you wanted from your farming, but what you got was still usefull. Most farming games dont do that. If you dont get what you were farming for, anything else it MIGHT have given you is completely useless and worth absolutely nothing. Is warframe perfect? lol no, but does it have great potential? yes it does. Is it covered with grind walls and a merciless RNG? hell no. 

[ZephyrPhantom]

I agree with MIddle master, ive played a lot and i mean a lot of online games, free and paid. This, compared to some i have played is no where NEAR is bad a grind game as others. Take Tera for example, you have to grindd for hours and hours to get around 40 of these scrolls to masterwork your gear so you can remotely compete with other high end people, and with that 40 or so scrolls used on ONE piece of equipment, the chances of master working that piece of gear is quite honestly lower than 1% so those 40 dont work? oh darn, youve gotten nothing at all from all your hours farming, time to go do it again!! Warframe on the other hand, may have an RNG but it is nowhere NEAR as punishing as Tera's AND even if you farm and do not recieve what you wanted, you still did get multiple usefull items and money to use on upgrading mods and what not as well as resources for Dojos. So yes you did not get what you wanted from your farming, but what you got was still usefull. Most farming games dont do that. If you dont get what you were farming for, anything else it MIGHT have given you is completely useless and worth absolutely nothing. Is warframe perfect? lol no, but does it have great potential? yes it does. Is it covered with grind walls and a merciless RNG? hell no. 

I... don't think 100 Tail Winds with some random Blunderbusses and Organ Shatters mixed in are useful.

 

Just because it's not as bad another game doesn't mean it shouldn't be better, either. People still do have to grind a lot for Tranquil Cleave, and worse examples of the grindwall exist (namely, Stalker), neither of which ultimately help the fact you're still playing the same map over and over to find resource/item X.

 

[Sindrall]

I do agree there does need to be more depth to things, but give it time. with the new update weve seen more depth aded to combat, and stances (which i love with a passion mainly for giving me more polarity space) are a very nice touch imo. I personally think we can expect more of that, but we need to be patient. Try to remember we are playing this while they are building it, it even says it is open Beta lol. It is not done yet, and who is to say what they are working on and what will be added. I personally do comend them an think that the game will go far because of the interaction they do have with their own playerbase, as opposed to other companies that dont even acknowledge their playerbase exists and does what they want, regardless of what it does to the players. Do they do everything the players want? lol no, but to be fair, it is their game, their vision, they know where they want to take it. So ultimately, they do know best MOST of the time.

[Sindrall]

I... don't think 100 Tail Winds with some random Blunderbusses and Organ Shatters mixed in are useful.

 

Just because it's not as bad another game doesn't mean it shouldn't be better, either. People still do have to grind a lot for Tranquil Cleave, and worse examples of the grindwall exist (namely, Stalker), neither of which ultimately help the fact you're still playing the same map over and over to find resource/item X.

 

No? can you not use unwanted mods to upgrade your own mods? or sell them for credits? my bad, i thought these things were usefull in some way....

[ZephyrPhantom]

No? can you not use unwanted mods to upgrade your own mods? or sell them for credits? my bad, i thought these things were usefull in some way....

There comes a point where Rank 0 commons don't do much in terms of fusion, and they're practically junk when it comes to transmute.

 

As for credits, I'd like to point you to this thing called Void/Dark Sector.

 

 

I do agree there does need to be more depth to things, but give it time. with the new update weve seen more depth aded to combat, and stances (which i love with a passion mainly for giving me more polarity space) are a very nice touch imo. I personally think we can expect more of that, but we need to be patient. Try to remember we are playing this while they are building it, it even says it is open Beta lol. It is not done yet, and who is to say what they are working on and what will be added. I personally do comend them an think that the game will go far because of the interaction they do have with their own playerbase, as opposed to other companies that dont even acknowledge their playerbase exists and does what they want, regardless of what it does to the players. Do they do everything the players want? lol no, but to be fair, it is their game, their vision, they know where they want to take it. So ultimately, they do know best MOST of the time.

And to counterpoint that, the Beta argument's been used so much it might as well be a dead horse, but hey, why get rid of a convenient excuse for changes at whim.

 

While I do agree that time needs to be given, I'd like to point out that we have a massive arsenal of frames, equipment, and cosmetics thanks to DE releasing stuff every Wednesday - heck, Melee 2.0 was delayed a week, and still managed to frustrate people by locking the stance mods (aka the hyped part) behind grindwalls when DE had been treating it like something everyone could get and use easily. There needs to be less of a focus on 'material' content and more on 'core' content that would change the actual game system rather than just add more shiny bits that people are forced to grind for.

Edited April 15, 2014 by ZephyrPhantom

[Frostmire]

Warframe has always been the ultimate farming simulator :P

[VellaX]

This grind crap is all fake and weak. Go play any other game for a week and see. Warframe is no where near a grind and has no 'GRIND WALL's.

 

Mobs do not drop too much. They have less than ten items in their tables and some of those are power mods that will eventually be taken out putting a ceiling on it, just like when they put creds and crap into void survival and then took some out when new primes were put in. Yes some are 'rare' mobs, but this isn't some MMO with 3min fights. We kill 250-400 per Tenno in a typical mission.

 

Nothing from U13 is a grind. U13 came out THURSDAY. We have had it for ONE WEEKEND. Why does anyone expect for every single person to have found the rarest stance mods already? Oh wait... because trade is blowing up and tons of people have found multiple and are selling them... I know, I know, they're just 'lucky' so it's not an argument but you being 'unlucky' is an argument right?

 

DE was compeltely reasonable. They screwed up and made the keys a little too grindy.

They fixed it. You took the inch and demanded a mile more.

 

The biggest concern I have is this community that's got it's head buried in the sand still talking about Grind every time we get new content and RNG every time we get random events and things that are supposed to happen on occasion and surprise us, but they want to run that occasional event over and over until they get their Detron or Brakk.

 

I fear the devs will be demoralized and their game will be ever more rushed as they try and stay ahead of the whines and gimmie gimmie's.

i understand what you're saying and were you're coming from but iv heard countless times in past dev streams that they don't want the game to be a grind-fest by any mean's i know the average thought is "its a f2p mmo you have to expect a grind in some way or another" and i understand that but they have stated multiple times they do not want it to be a grind and with the past 2-3 major updates its been nothing but a grind like the oxium farming for example

[se05239]

There needs to be less of a focus on 'material' content and more on 'core' content that would change the actual game system rather than just add more shiny bits that people are forced to grind for.

 

Good point.

I too would like if they stopped adding stuff for a few weeks and started focusing on polish and lore. Both are rather lacking.

[JzPunk]

Unfortunately I think in early 2015 this game will truly be a disaster, De won't listen to us at all, most of the game will be buggy and the whole dame game will be PayToWin PayToSkip and eventually the game will die, that's my opinion

[TunaMayo]

A lot of people forget that this game is actually a beta.

I know it has a cash shop, but that doesnt alter the fact that this game only left alpha stages with minimal funding about 18 months ago.

A fully fledged game takes years to develop with consistent funding.

Warframe had a slow start, decided to fund itself via a cash shop and we have been granted the opportunity to play it whilst it develops.

Lore and story will and should be the icing on the cake just before release to draw people in to the addictive gameplay.

The fact that people play this game so much in beta, and so many of the community refuse to believe that the game is still in beta is merit to the game and DE and their accomplishments.

If you don't believe me, leave the game and come back when it launches.

[tmtke]

And what if RNG can be reworked? Personally I think the drops can be sanitized.

Currently enemy drop table has basically two dimensions - one for enemy type, one for rarity. There is a chance what rarity drops, this is RNG here. Another added complexity is where to find the actual enemies, but that is not RNG, maybe only the spawn rate of them. Additional problem is that the drop is not specific to the player, it is specific for the game session.

Now, what if:

* game creates a session specific drop table at the start of the game session

* at first, the game would sort out the LEAST needed drops based on player data (no more raining Reach, etc. - if all players have a lot of them)

* enemy type would only add specific mods to this drop table

* game type modifiers, like in defense the team would get a the specific drop based on the drop table, only instead of enemy type the filter would be the faction which the team is playing against

Enemy type modifiers:

* killing an enemy would add a modifier to the RNG calculation (biased towards the rarer drops) based on enemy level and type (lvl 60 bombard is harder to kill)

* any special kill would also add some biasing to the RNG, like stealth kills, targeted shots, melee combos (skill involvement)

Game type modifiers:

* finishing 5 wave or 5 minutes (or another game type) with 0 revives

* team kills would bias towards rarer mods (helping out each other and not spawncamping)

* in defense the cryopod damage would lower the bias, but each 5 wave or minute moves the drop table towards the rarer items

This is just a quick idea, there can be a lot of modifiers the devs can think up, like incorporating ability usage and so on.

TL;DR: Current drop table is static, and therefore easily dilutable. Make it more dynamic, rewarding players instead of just randomly give them unnecessary stuff.

Edited April 15, 2014 by tmtke

[Cabadath5]

The game is going forward.

 

You ask us what direction the game is going, but your opening post is a list of what is "wrong" with the game, which basically makes it yet another complain thread.

God forbid we don't like something in this game!This game is absolutely perfect and flawless and those who don't agree are just whiners that want everything for free!

 

To the OP: The game is going in the same direction it was going most of the time: to grindlandia!

 

There's still 0 challenge, 0 endgame, 0 build diversity, 0 co op elements, 0 story elements.Only semi-good thing that happened were the dark sectors.The idea is fun but it was extremely poorly executed and hopefully DE will do something about it.

 

As for the rest:

-melee is still outclassed by ranged weapons.Parrying works but at high levels your stamina gets destroyed even when buffed by mods.The combos are OK but the worst part is that they hid the stances that should have been there by default as part of the core gameplay itself behind grinding.

 

-new boss yay!Enjoy grinding for the keys because simply placing him on earth where he was supposed to be is too much to ask.

[Kagumin]

Yet again, more complaints but no solutions or suggestions.

Damn, I can't wait for the day when all the complainers leave.

It'll be a clean community by then.

 

To the "This game is perfect" argument, yes, because that is exactly how we see the game and we aren't just grateful for what we have now.

When you can find the perfect game, come back and tell all of us, I'm sure we're all dying to know.

 

Or you can stay here and ruin the game's direction with your incessant, non-helpful whining, so you can move onto another game and blame the game's downfall all on the developer.