Bored? Blame The Npcs

[XRAY0128]

Yeah I also wondered if Vay Hek had anything to do with water, or if they just gave him the blueprints just cause.

 

Also agreeing with the map thing. Especially ship maps, Asteroids and Planet bases can partly get away with it, but ships should be more uniform.

 

Everytime I play a ship mission, I just look around and wonder "what the HECK does this look like from outside?"

 

Also, I always wonder what the heck the cannons are shooting at...

[ReiganCross]

Yeah I also wondered if Vay Hek had anything to do with water, or if they just gave him the blueprints just cause.

 

Also agreeing with the map thing. Especially ship maps, Asteroids and Planet bases can partly get away with it, but ships should be more uniform.

 

Everytime I play a ship mission, I just look around and wonder "what the HECK does this look like from outside?"

 

Also, I always wonder what the heck the cannons are shooting at...

 

Every one of those questions aren't answered by the game, but just by "Because it's a game"... So, y'know, complete illusion breaker on all of those.

[Goosmo]

 

Warframe has the smartest AI

Warframe sure has.

This guy totally knows i'm next to him.

 

[ReiganCross]

Another illusion break... Seriously, we could have an "Illusion Break Counter" for this game for how many times it drives you out of the experience because of those problems. And no, i don't claim to know what all the problems or answers are, i just run a diagnosis from the only viewpoint that is useful for Devteam, that is, from a person playing their game.

[blackhalo321]

You know what... You're mostly right, but this won't fix anything. What you need is Warframe's illusion not to be broken every turn. ONE of the things that breaks the illusion of this game is enemy behavior because instead of hardened enemy you see a bunch of robots chasing you, but i'll argue that this game have MUCH MORE Immersion breaking items, such as Interface, contrived maps and overall lack of Lore. Warframe is supposed to give you that illusion of being a super-cool ninja, but that won't happen while you're patiently waiting for an arbitrary weapon to come out of the sky while you're looking for what DE decided the drop tables would be this update...

 

"Because it's cool" does not create an illusion... You need extensive work to create a believable illusion of an actual deep game. This means that you can't just over-look details such as two windows facing each other and both looking at an empty sky. Another thing that completely kills illusion is contrived arbitrary decisions such as "Vay Hek drops the Hydroid Blueprints because he was the boss we worked on and Hydroid is the U13 Frame."

 

Ehh.

I've always been a guy that lives for gameplay.

Allot of people get off on lore and immersion and minimal UI, but I've never even considered caring about any of that :/

And I'm fine with it, I could have sat down and played this game for 4+ hours every day for a week, just like I do with LoL from time to time... I mean, IF the game was worth it.

 

Warframe is fun, don't get me wrong, I did playit pretty hardcore right after I finished the download, but the gameplay wore down on me... the things I loved in this game and was going buy plat 'just cus' for... they melted away... they changed.

 

Warframe went from early level 'we all have S#&$ gear and Vor is a @(*()$ badass, I'll ocassionally distract him with melee until the the third phase, then when things get intense, everyone kite your skinny asses around while sticking near some piece of cover for his lazer beams'... like that never happened again...

The intensity of praying the guy didn't pop up behind you, the fun of actually (at that time) diverse enemies, rare to use but powerful abilities on the Teno, actual decent strategy and teamwork... a focus on well aimed shooting and headshots...

 

Anyways, I guess we're of two different minds.

Edited April 29, 2014 by blackhalo321

[blackhalo321]

Why? So ults can obliterate them in nicely formatted rows?

 

Nice overall sentiment, honestly. However as long as every player can disable/kill every enemy in the game with the exception of Stalker and Prosecutor with a single click.

 

It's impossible to fix anything relating to challenge or play experience as long as that's the case. We wouldn't even notice the difference.

 

Yeup, take an upvote, good thoughts because I honestly don't have a solid answer to them.

 

That's the whole reason I filled the post with maybes and likes, why I can't say "silly devs stop being silly, take this easy tweak, patch it in and the game is a million times better".

 

It's a tough issue to work around.

I talked about making shield offsprey give a decent defense bonuses to every resist type besides slash/pierce/impact, their bonuses can stack with other offsprey.  That would combat the aoe grinding a bit (in early game it'd just be 'use a second spell to grind the dudes' in lategame it might be 2 more maybe 3 or 4 if you let the offsprey stack up).  That'd bring the occasional curve-ball to the fight, especially if the offsprey was more spassy-mobile (at least in higher ranked missions) if a Teno was near and so certain weapons would end up being notably more effective against them (I like that more than just insane raw health scaling).  The other example was an NPC with something like a personal sized frost bubble that would stop him from being easily nuked/aoe grinded,.  The guy can bring allies back to life for 10, 15 seconds with buffed stats and maybe being 2~ times harder to kill so just aoe'ing down a formation of enemies can actually put you're team in a worse situation for a time.

 

But you're totally right, those are sketchy work-arounds at best.

Those fixes to the NPCs can easily end up being as obnoxious as knockdown locks, like they could end up doing nothing to bring Warframe back to an intense action filled game, only fill it with more 'to counter this army, bring this weapon' style stuff.

Edited April 29, 2014 by blackhalo321

[Monolake]

Draining energy doesn't even have a counter (except blindly nuking everything in the distance), its a bad type of difficulty that punishes regardless of your actions

[notionphil]

Yeup, take an upvote, good thoughts because I honestly don't have a solid answer to them.

 

That's the whole reason I filled the post with maybes and likes, why I can't say "silly devs stop being silly, take this easy tweak, patch it in and the game is a million times better".

 

It's a tough issue to work around.

I talked about making shield offsprey give a decent defense bonuses to every resist type besides slash/pierce/impact, their bonuses can stack with other offsprey.  That would combat the aoe grinding a bit (in early game it'd just be 'use a second spell to grind the dudes' in lategame it might be 2 more maybe 3 or 4 if you let the offsprey stack up).  That'd bring the occasional curve-ball to the fight, especially if the offsprey was more spassy-mobile (at least in higher ranked missions) if a Teno was near and so certain weapons would end up being notably more effective against them (I like that more than just insane raw health scaling).  The other example was an NPC with something like a personal sized frost bubble that would stop him from being easily nuked/aoe grinded,.  The guy can bring allies back to life for 10, 15 seconds with buffed stats and maybe being 2~ times harder to kill so just aoe'ing down a formation of enemies can actually put you're team in a worse situation for a time.

 

But you're totally right, those are sketchy work-arounds at best.

Those fixes to the NPCs can easily end up being as obnoxious as knockdown locks, like they could end up doing nothing to bring Warframe back to an intense action filled game, only fill it with more 'to counter this army, bring this weapon' style stuff.

Having to cast your ult twice is the same as making an enemy more bullet-spongy.

 

Enemies need medium/hard counters to our powers/guns which we in turn can easily counter with a deliberate action.

 

Anything short of that will not force player action, or change the place of play. The personal bubble idea you suggest is along this line, and would work well. I can assume he is vulnerable to guns or melee but not powers.

 

Imagine Prosecutors with near-complete damage resistance.... but replace their random RNG defense with a weakness to one of the following:

 

-a weakspot in the back of their heads

-open to damage after their attack is parried or blocked

-vulnerable to damage only when knocked down

-vulnerable to damage only after being hit by a direct damage power

etc etc

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/200883-where-are-the-interesting-enemies/

[Riot_Inducer]

It's already here. It got slipped in the back door.

 

Fight a Tenno Spectre in the contested rails sometime holy COW are those things intelligent.

 

I had a 3 minute battle with one and it had the high ground. Friggin INTENSE. Dont need a '2.0' if the spectres are anything to go by for future AI upgrades to mobs. This game is gonna get a hell of a lot more fun.

I'm not sure if it's that the Tenno Spectres are more intelligent as much as they have much better tools to work with, being able to block/reflect/parry along with having moderatley dangerous weaponry and a variety of useful abilities they're much better suited for an interesting fight than hordes of grineer troopers what have a gun and that's it.

 

Honestly though I agree with the sentiment, if it's better AI or just an enemy with better tools the spectres are very fun to fight and I think it shows what the other factions are missing as far as enemy types/abilities at the moment.

[blackhalo321]

Having to cast your ult twice is the same as making an enemy more bullet-spongy.

 

Enemies need medium/hard counters to our powers/guns which we in turn can easily counter with a deliberate action.

 

Anything short of that will not force player action, or change the place of play. The personal bubble idea you suggest is along this line, and would work well. I can assume he is vulnerable to guns or melee but not powers.

 

Imagine Prosecutors with near-complete damage resistance.... but replace their random RNG defense with a weakness to one of the following:

 

-a weakspot in the back of their heads

-open to damage after their attack is parried or blocked

-vulnerable to damage only when knocked down

-vulnerable to damage only after being hit by a direct damage power

etc etc

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/200883-where-are-the-interesting-enemies/

 

The thing I like about the offsprey deal was that you can still be a dunce PvE'er (no offense to anyone) and play into endgame.

You can spam you're ult and still eventually kill things... but you won't be anywhere near optimal.

That keeps the audience for the game broad, but gives people who want more... well, more.

 

Fighting those offsprey, if you've built for an aoe-grinding spec at you're best you'd be looking out for un-offsprey-buffed bunches of enemies or sniping out offsprey to open up groups for the grinding. 

It'd make your energy far more efficient (energy regen/efficiency mods can be nerfed/changed when you don't have to spam abilities 24/7 to be end-game viable) and you will kill the enemies notably faster (at least in higher ranked missions).

That adds another layer to gameplay, it opens up more skill/optimizing but only if that's the kind of thing you're into.

That's the sort of idea I was shooting for.

 

More hardcounters... I like the more interesting enemies part... but hard-counters...

Maybe if it's part of a boss fight or boss style NPC that has a chance of being part of a wave in a higher ranked missions.. fine, it might manage.

It's just complete damage resist... Kril was a $#*(@ to fight, and not in the good way, he was just obnoxious, you spammed attacks at the back of his head hoping you hit the bite sized coil hitbox... it was no fun.

'while knocked down', I like the concept, making knockdowns more meaningful is actually a decent idea, But maybe not 'no dmg', maybe just 'double' or 'triple' so it's not "F*** I have the wrong spec, time to run back and forth spamming my flying kick until I get lucky and hit" because that just sucks.

 

 

Draining energy doesn't even have a counter (except blindly nuking everything in the distance), its a bad type of difficulty that punishes regardless of your actions

 

Yeup...

Go counterplay, by not being melee, by not using abilities... such fun, so skill...

Edited April 29, 2014 by blackhalo321

[z.ck]

"Medium team energy restore" would like to have a word regarding the alleged lack of ways to counter energy drain.

[notionphil]

The thing I like about the offsprey deal was that you can still be a dunce PvE'er (no offense to anyone) and play into endgame.

You can spam you're ult and still eventually kill things... but you won't be anywhere near optimal.

That keeps the audience for the game broad, but gives people who want more... well, more.

 

Fighting those offsprey, if you've built for an aoe-grinding spec at you're best you'd be looking out for un-offsprey-buffed bunches of enemies or sniping out offsprey to open up groups for the grinding. 

It'd make your energy far more efficient (energy regen/efficiency mods can be nerfed/changed when you don't have to spam abilities 24/7 to be end-game viable) and you will kill the enemies notably faster (at least in higher ranked missions).

That adds another layer to gameplay, it opens up more skill/optimizing but only if that's the kind of thing you're into.

That's the sort of idea I was shooting for.

 

More hardcounters... I like the more interesting enemies part... but hard-counters...

Maybe if it's part of a boss fight or boss style NPC that has a chance of being part of a wave in a higher ranked missions.. fine, it might manage.

It's just complete damage resist... Kril was a $#*(@ to fight, and not in the good way, he was just obnoxious, you spammed attacks at the back of his head hoping you hit the bite sized coil hitbox... it was no fun.

'while knocked down', I like the concept, making knockdowns more meaningful is actually a decent idea, But maybe not 'no dmg', maybe just 'double' or 'triple' so it's not "F*** I have the wrong spec, time to run back and forth spamming my flying kick until I get lucky and hit" because that just sucks.

 

 

 

Yeup...

Go counterplay, by not being melee, by not using abilities... such fun, so skill...

 

Agreed....i mean medium-hard counter, like the Prosecutors.

 

You can grind him down if you want (70-90% damage resist for example) but it would be much more satisfying and efficient to kill him the 'right' way....IF DE actually put a 'right way' as a gameplay option not a RNG option.

 

Ex: You can knock him down and cut off his head in one fell, skill based, incredibly ninjalike satisfying swoop.

 

Or you can unload your boltor prime into his face for 3 clips. Your call.

[notionphil]

I'm not sure if it's that the Tenno Spectres are more intelligent as much as they have much better tools to work with, being able to block/reflect/parry along with having moderatley dangerous weaponry and a variety of useful abilities they're much better suited for an interesting fight than hordes of grineer troopers what have a gun and that's it.

 

Honestly though I agree with the sentiment, if it's better AI or just an enemy with better tools the spectres are very fun to fight and I think it shows what the other factions are missing as far as enemy types/abilities at the moment.

 

I will hopefully get to check the 'updated' spectres out today.

 

Prior to last week's patch, they would literally stand there while you unloaded clips into their faces. I once found a pair who were right next to eachother. I'd kill one, by unloading a clip into its face (popping out of cover each time) and the other would revive it!

 

However, it would stand in the same place, and i'd just kill it over and over. It was like a slapstick comedy routine. Hopefully that's no longer an issue.

[gaurdianaq]

It's already here. It got slipped in the back door.

 

Fight a Tenno Spectre in the contested rails sometime holy COW are those things intelligent.

 

I had a 3 minute battle with one and it had the high ground. Friggin INTENSE. Dont need a '2.0' if the spectres are anything to go by for future AI upgrades to mobs. This game is gonna get a hell of a lot more fun.

While they are an improvement, they still die in 1 hit from a well modded shotgun. (but damn you trinity specter!)

[ReiganCross]

Ehh.

I've always been a guy that lives for gameplay.

Allot of people get off on lore and immersion and minimal UI, but I've never even considered caring about any of that :/

And I'm fine with it, I could have sat down and played this game for 4+ hours every day for a week, just like I do with LoL from time to time... I mean, IF the game was worth it.

 

Warframe is fun, don't get me wrong, I did playit pretty hardcore right after I finished the download, but the gameplay wore down on me... the things I loved in this game and was going buy plat 'just cus' for... they melted away... they changed.

 

Warframe went from early level 'we all have S#&$ gear and Vor is a @(*()$ badass, I'll ocassionally distract him with melee until the the third phase, then when things get intense, everyone kite your skinny asses around while sticking near some piece of cover for his lazer beams'... like that never happened again...

The intensity of praying the guy didn't pop up behind you, the fun of actually (at that time) diverse enemies, rare to use but powerful abilities on the Teno, actual decent strategy and teamwork... a focus on well aimed shooting and headshots...

 

Anyways, I guess we're of two different minds.

 

In that case you need Immersive Gameplay. You need to feel the attacks, match the motions, believe that you are playing the ninja. What you are complaining about the guy being bored is that he didn't gave you enough of a challenge for you to feel like a badass ninja. Hell, fighting Vor probably CAN be done while standing still with a big enough gun, and that IS boring, but mainly boring because he does not give you that feeling of fighting a smart badass bastard.

 

Imagine, if you will, a Fighting Game on the old Arcade. Old Shin Akuma was a sunova*@##$ wasn't he? If you have the same character in your hand, even if you know all the combo, you're not going to fight as well as he fights. No, he was well programmed, that bastard was ready for anything you could throw at him and had about 5 ways of countering your every move. Shin Akuma felt like there was another guy using him, a guy very well trained and ready for you. As for Vor, he just feels like a dumbass robot with a faulty targeting chip that hasn't fully internalized the basic concept of cover or any semblance of strategy, so he must rely on contrived defense mechanisms like an invencibility bubble to artificially prolong the fight. Vor feels empty, like he's just there to die, he does not feel like he is ready for you in any way and therefore is a complete non-challenge (which leads to him being boring to fight.)

 

Monster Hunter, for example, got us great monster fights that provided all the little details of making us believe in fighting a monster, all of it as part of Gameplay. First you had to find the Monster that always had a natural habitat that you could learn in order to find him faster. Then he starts to run away to regenerate stamina in order to stay enraged for longer. He eats and uses the enemies on his surroundings in order to defend himself or basically trying to eat you. They did everything they could possibly do to survive your attacks, and therefore was much more engaging to fight a monster that you genuinely believe is fighting for his life against your attacks.

[blackhalo321]

Agreed....i mean medium-hard counter, like the Prosecutors.

 

You can grind him down if you want (70-90% damage resist for example) but it would be much more satisfying and efficient to kill him the 'right' way....IF DE actually put a 'right way' as a gameplay option not a RNG option.

 

Ex: You can knock him down and cut off his head in one fell, skill based, incredibly ninjalike satisfying swoop.

 

Or you can unload your boltor prime into his face for 3 clips. Your call.

 

When making up NPCs, right now Warframe needs them to be more, the whole point of this better NPCs thread is so that fights stay entertaining, they play out differently depending on the NPCs the new interesting NPCs are randomly grouped with and what allies the player has. Players should have a malleable decision with no static 'right way of handling this NPC'.

 

Like, sure the first time you knockdown and kill one of the NPC you suggest, it'd be satisfying.  The thing is, when you fight another one of those NPCs, every one of those NPCs from there on out... it'll play out mostly the same... toss the guy in a static kill order depending on his CC/ranged-dmg then, knockdown->kill when the time comes.

 

That's why I said it was a decent idea instead of great, it can bring some teamwork and the action behind it can be fun... but it'll just become repetitive soon enough.

That's why I like some parts of the rez NPC so much, there isn't a strict answer to what you should do whenever you see him. The guy changes up how fights against entire groups of enemies are played, if you don't have a sniper rifle, to kill him, someone has to go up and melee him down which could be tough depending on where he's positioned and who the other enemies are.  You probly want to avoid killing dudes near him, and is it even worth it? is the guy at this time even worth killing?  he has no effective value in and of himself and has to run up to enemies to rez them.  Or maybe it is worth just aoe'ing down everyone near him, then running away for a bit.

 

The aim is for more lasting entertainment in the game, not so much two part kills.

Edited May 1, 2014 by blackhalo321

[blackhalo321]

In that case you need Immersive Gameplay. You need to feel the attacks, match the motions, believe that you are playing the ninja. What you are complaining about the guy being bored is that he didn't gave you enough of a challenge for you to feel like a badass ninja. Hell, fighting Vor probably CAN be done while standing still with a big enough gun, and that IS boring, but mainly boring because he does not give you that feeling of fighting a smart badass bastard.

 

Imagine, if you will, a Fighting Game on the old Arcade. Old Shin Akuma was a sunova*@##$ wasn't he? If you have the same character in your hand, even if you know all the combo, you're not going to fight as well as he fights. No, he was well programmed, that bastard was ready for anything you could throw at him and had about 5 ways of countering your every move. Shin Akuma felt like there was another guy using him, a guy very well trained and ready for you. As for Vor, he just feels like a dumbass robot with a faulty targeting chip that hasn't fully internalized the basic concept of cover or any semblance of strategy, so he must rely on contrived defense mechanisms like an invencibility bubble to artificially prolong the fight. Vor feels empty, like he's just there to die, he does not feel like he is ready for you in any way and therefore is a complete non-challenge (which leads to him being boring to fight.)

 

Monster Hunter, for example, got us great monster fights that provided all the little details of making us believe in fighting a monster, all of it as part of Gameplay. First you had to find the Monster that always had a natural habitat that you could learn in order to find him faster. Then he starts to run away to regenerate stamina in order to stay enraged for longer. He eats and uses the enemies on his surroundings in order to defend himself or basically trying to eat you. They did everything they could possibly do to survive your attacks, and therefore was much more engaging to fight a monster that you genuinely believe is fighting for his life against your attacks.

 

People are different.

 

I love LoL. 

There is literally no immersion or any sort of 'feel the theme' in that game.

It brings something entirely different and does it so well that it needs none of what you are talking about.

Part of what it does so well is what Warframe is missing (getting people to work together; making very limited content play out interestingly enough time and time again that it is addicting), that's the part of Warframe I'm talking about fixing ;D

Edited April 30, 2014 by blackhalo321

[Ronyn]

I agree with most of the Original post. Great stuff there.

One thing I want to clear up-

For an MMO, ....

Digitcal Extremes does not consider Warframe an "MMO".

On the website the Official description says-

Warframe is a cooperative free-to-play online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world. Join your freinds in player-vs-enemy raids across the solar system and master the power of the Warframes. Stand alone or fight together against enemies that threaten your world.

 

That may not seem important to some, for others it may sound like nothing but semantics.

I only bring it up so that we remember to keep our expectations in the right place.

Carry on

[blackhalo321]

I agree with most of the Original post. Great stuff there.

One thing I want to clear up-

Digitcal Extremes does not consider Warframe an "MMO".

On the website the Official description says-

Warframe is a cooperative free-to-play online action game set in an evolving sci-fi world. Join your freinds in player-vs-enemy raids across the solar system and master the power of the Warframes. Stand alone or fight together against enemies that threaten your world.

 

That may not seem important to some, for others it may sound like nothing but semantics.

I only bring it up so that we remember to keep our expectations in the right place.

Carry on

 

:)

Good to hear.

And, yeah, I just heard someone call it an MMO so stuck with that lable.

 

Anyways, by that little spiel I just meant that DE can't just convince someone to buy it and then it's done like some XBOX game.  The content has to last, it has to keep people playing and wanting more.

 

I guess F2P would have been a better word.

Edited April 30, 2014 by blackhalo321

[Ronyn]

Anyways, by that little spiel I just meant that the game has to keep people engaged, it can't just convince someone to buy it and then it's done like some XBOX game... the content has to be long lasting, it has to keep people playing and wanting more.

Indeed. I agree with that a zillion percent.

[Unibot]

Bored because of npc ? Blame DE

I mean who made them boring in the first place...

 

AI stupidity is only 1 of many thing why this game is boring.

 

You got commander units, did it get better ? Nope. Not for me at least. Game lack variety.

More powers, more utility items, more combat depth...

So far we get more of the same and less of new(I mean new weapons, new frames, new tilesets - its all the same, just in different colors).

They could twist what we already have, but they don't.

New features implement goes behind rng wall.. by the time you get it - you do not want it anymore..

Edited April 30, 2014 by Unibot

[blackhalo321]

@Unibot

 

Close enough to what I've been thinking

 

This is a new F2P game though and fixes to NPCs/AI are like the toughest things to go about.... so I don't blame DE much, at least yet.

If the game's in the same sort of state in half a year, yeah I'll be annoyed if not completely gone.

 

The commanders and whatnot was a bad call on their part, complete rehash of what's already there.  Useless idea.

That's why I'm trying, that's why I made this thread with interesting ideas that point out the problems new NPCs should address, the sort of abilities that fit that mold, exc. exc.

Edited April 30, 2014 by blackhalo321

[alocrius]

The great downfall of Warframe is that almost zero effort in the course of updates has been put into making the gameplay more fun or interesting.  Events are just more horrible grind and the stream of content updates can't hide the fact there's barely a game to be played.  Unless you just like to collect stuff.  Collecting stuff is a nice addition to a game but a very poor rationale for the entire theme of a game.  I can't believe they don't even talk about improving gameplay in the devstream's.  

 

In my worthless(to DE) opinion,  this melee update should have come hand in hand with a slew of more challenging enemies/factions/missions and it should have been the first priority in the dev cycle.  Instead they keep adding superficial content to a game that has almost zero rewarding gameplay and is constantly encouraging you not to play with incessant grind.  The community has talked about this till we are blue in the face and have just been stonewalled the whole time.  

 

A few months back there was constant *@##$ing about this and a lot of the core forum contributor's seemed to have moved on, unsurprisingly.  I always check in on devstreams just for the random chance DE's priorities will change and they'll start caring about the player experience but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.  Fun/replayability has never been a priority in Warframe.  They never address the player experience.  They never actually act on the ton of community feedback (that has come and gone) about how to make nightmare mode, missions, enemies and gameplay in general more exciting.  Melee 2.0 is a decent update but for me, too little too late.  If DE really in reality, cared about it's audience, they would go out of their to way to acknowledge that grind is a poor rationale for a game and they would do something about it.  But you will never hear them address the pink elephant in the room.  So I enjoy dropping by for the occasional rant.  Thanks for letting me share.

Edited May 1, 2014 by alocrius

[NoSpax]

 

Warframe has the smartest AI

 

Someone sneaked an mp3 of this on his iPod:

 

[XRAY0128]

The great downfall of Warframe is that almost zero effort in the course of updates has been put into making the gameplay more fun or interesting.  Events are just more horrible grind and the stream of content updates can't hide the fact there's barely a game to be played.  Unless you just like to collect stuff.  Collecting stuff is a nice addition to a game but a very poor rationale for the entire theme of a game.  I can't believe they don't even talk about improving gameplay in the devstream's.

Collection is even hampered by the whole slots system