Devstream 30: An Unexpectedly Large Blow To My Hopes For The Game

[DiabolusUrsus]

I understood what you were asking for, but I don't think you got what I was saying. It will restrict what the devs can do with bosses if extremly handicapped players must be able to defeat them.

We'll use the new Derf Anyo as an example.

His totally sweet hoverboard? If players must be able to defeat him with melee only, his flight and speed must be restricted. He cannot fly higher than players can reach (there's another threat complaining about not being able to kill drones melee only where the OP steadfastly refuses to bring a gun and would rather fail) and Derf cannot fly faster than players can run (there is another thread complaining about not being able to melee-only capture targets with gauntlets and a slow stance). Now Derf and his styling new helmet are barely better than any other slow, ground-based boss.

There isn't more variety, there's the illusion of more variety. You feel like you have more options, but all your options are really the same. You attack the slow moving boss like you would any other. It's just a bag of hitpoints. It can't have anything other than a big pool of health because some Thrak Rhino with gauntlet weapons and no guns needs to be able to beat him too.

I believe their goal is to make bosses which can't simply be flavor-of-the-month spray cannoned down in five seconds. Do to this, they need strategies and gimmicks, and those mean not every approach can be viable for every boss.

 

I can see where you're coming from with this, and I'll just say that I don't want to see boss capabilities brought down to player par; I want to see player abilities brought up to boss par. So... rather than slowing Derf down to the point that the player can easily keep up with him, improve the parkour system so that the player can better take advantage of the environment to get the drop on him. Or... using your gauntlet-wielding Thrak Rhino as an example, properly timed knockdown/ stun attacks to unsaddle him. Perhaps some environmental interactivity if bosses get unique arenas. What I'm asking for wouldn't necessitate the gimping of bosses in any way, shape or form. It would necessitate a little more creativity in terms of the options that are made available to the player, which don't need to be limited to a certain playstyle, either. Of course, knowing DE it is totally possible to fall back on gimping the bosses to be within reach of everyone as an easier solution, but that's something they do anyways when it comes to their other traits, so you can expect me to argue against that when it comes around. 

 

The allusion you made to a player refusing to use a gun being comparable to a player refusing to use parkour elsewhere in the thread is also misguided. Unlike a gun, you can't actually remove their ability to use parkour. They may choose not to use it, but they'll never find themselves unable to if an unexpected situation arises in which it is necessary. It is quite literally impossible to simply forget your parkour module at home, figuratively speaking. I know you meant it as a joke, but I felt it illustrated the context of our disagreement rather well. 

 

And... while Dark Souls is a very different game, it is also somewhat more comparable than you seem to be willing to admit. Players are more strongly locked into their character roles in Dark Souls, yes (not the case in Dark Souls 2, but that's a different story,) but players are also locked into whatever Warframe or weapons they bring into the mission at the start. To understand why this is significant, you need to look at this from a few different perspectives.

First, the new player: Ideally, the player will have no idea what to expect out of the boss. It is therefore unfair to expect them to magically guess which weapons or Warframes would be most appropriate. Consider the fact that their ability to acquire Warframe ties directly in to their ability to defeat bosses, and you should see how little weight the whole "you can change your character" argument carries here. If the Warframe they need happens to drop somewhere beyond the boss they have yet to beat, they're kinda screwed without a) someone to taxi them or b) money. I think we can both agree that circumventing actual game progression should not be an acceptably mandatory mechanic, and it would be nice to avoid as much "pay to win" as possible. Warframe has done a good job of the latter thus far. 

 

Second, the free-to-play player: It's easy to forget how limited your inventory is to start with. Was it two Warframe slots? Three? How many weapon inventory slots? What happens if they have a full arsenal of weapons and Warframes that they've heavily customized and don't want to get rid of, yet they need a particular weapon/Warframe to bypass a boss fight because the weapons they have aren't suited to the job? Sure, they could just pay into the game, or suck it up and sacrifice one of their favorite pieces of gear, but payment isn't always an option (hence, free-to-play) and the second choice is just pure, unadulterated and completely unnecessary suckage. 

 

Third, the solo player: Not everyone has teammates to rely on, for a number of different reasons. They hate interacting with other people. They don't have an internet connection that can handle more than one player. They suffer from arbitrary Strict NAT issues beyond their control. All of the aforementioned people have a legitimate claim to being able to play (and succeed) at the game... or at least, that's what we've been lead to believe by the free-to-play model and the existence of a Solo Play option. 

 

Hence... we need to decide whether or not we are going to accommodate solo players or not. Until that decision has been made - and acted upon - you can't handwave flaws in game design with "teamwork solves everything." Expecting players to rely on random chance for competent team compositions in public matchmaking is also a shaky foundation to stand on. If it turns out that we go with "no, we're not going to accommodate solo players [or any other type of player that can be comparably substituted,] then fine. "Teamwork solves everything" is a valid excuse. At the same time, you have to recognize that you're alienating a good number of players by being more exclusionary. 

You make mention of decreased boss diversity and homogenization into slow, plodding bosses that aren't worth fighting... but... isn't that what's already happening? I'm seeing a bit of a pattern: weak-point invulnerability phases followed by open vulnerability phases accompanied by increased damage output. (e.g. Lech Kril, Vay Hek, and Lephantis.) I don't honestly see that changing anytime soon. I'm hoping for more, but level with me, here. Do you really expect some astoundingly new mechanic out of Derf and his hoverboard, or do you think additional cyclical invulnerability phases are more likely? I'd be more interested in safeguarding boss diversity if it actually existed to begin with, beyond the visual aesthetic level. If anything, forcing the devs to accommodate multiple playstyles and thereby add additional layers of complexity would make for more interesting and varied boss encounters. 

 

It's nice to talk about potentially limiting player choice by making choices indistinguishable and potentially limiting boss creativity, but at the end of the day what you're doing is funneling players into a set path and turning boss encounters into one-time use puzzles. Once you have it figured out, you have it figured out. There's no reason to experiment, because you're not going to find anything new. Those sort of one-off challenges are great for single player games when they're well-designed or accompanied by a compelling story, but Warframe currently lacks a story, and it is the type of game that needs to subsist off of replayability. So while I can empathize with your position and you aren't entirely wrong in the observations you're making, I don't think that the model you are suggesting will be beneficial to Warframe as a whole. 

[DiabolusUrsus]

I spent a little time thinking about it, and decided that the new enemy types and abilities wouldn't be so horrible as long as our HUD can inform us, in real time, about special enemies entering the field.

 

Tangerine's awesome HUD mockup thread from forever ago (an early contributor of the gear radial concept, among other things) included the idea of "Augmented Reality" HUD elements. These could be used to make the new enemy types a challenge of skill and awareness.

 

I'd like to propose a compromise. Scanning certain enemies into our codex could give us access to optional AR HUD alerts that can mark these "mini-boss" types on our map, in addition to marking them on-screen.

 

This would allow for what I'd consider to be an immersion-friendly way of dealing with more threatening enemies. Sure, you might be surprised by them once or twice, but scanning them into the codex would provide the Lotus with data on "signatures" for early detection in the field. This idea could be applied to any range of enemy types, and integrated via a range of dialogue/flavor text options.

 

It's a rough idea, but it might be the solution we're looking for.

 

I remember that AR HUD, and I really liked it. I'd LOVE to see it integrated into the game in some way, shape, or form. The ideas that jump immediately to mind are augmentations attached to Enemy Sense, Enemy Radar, Thief's Wit, and weapon zoom mods. How cool would it be for enemies to be highlighted on-screen? How awesome would that be to see it complement a player's ability to utilize punch-through weapons? That would be awesome. 

 

However, what you're suggesting is nothing more than a band-aid fix for the issues at hand. It does nothing more than help us identify which enemies we need to kill shoot faster. Sure, it'd help with random Eximus procs, but it wouldn't do anything for making the game more fun or engaging. 

So while I love your idea, and would love to see it implemented, it still feels like it would be a cheap cop-out on the part of the devs that skirts around the root of the problem rather than doing anything to address it. Stack that on top of actual improvements to enemy design and gameplay mechanics, though, and you have yourself a winner. 

[DiabolusUrsus]

You certainly don't want to see what's behind that design council "curtain". The lack of substance would put the Wizard of Oz to shame.

 

What this game needs is player representatives. More than ever.

 

Quoted for truth. That, and to nominate notionphil as one of the first player representatives.

 

I can only imagine how awesome it would be if you could get into an actual public discussion with the devs as a sort of real-time explanation of your ideas to ensure mutual understanding. That, and you'd be able to rebut some of the instinctual dismissals, like "More complex enemies are already in the works; look at the Prosecutors." 

[WhisperByte]

Just leaving a +1 for easier thread tracking

 

I agree, the game is in serious lack of polishing and balancing (stuff that's usually done in BETA) as well as more enemy variety who do not rely on gearchecks. And I would rather see them rework the existing units to be more... diverse rather than adding new ones

[Beladric]

You certainly don't want to see what's behind that design council "curtain". The lack of substance would put the Wizard of Oz to shame.

 

What this game needs is player representatives. More than ever.

 

If this is true, then it means the Design Council has failed its intended purpose, since they were supposed to be the player representatives, in a sense. Otherwise its just a paid window into seeing what the designers intend to do, which is quite pointless, since we have the Live Streams for that.

 

And you know what, that makes me sad, because the OP is 100% right. Warframe has the potential to be a brilliant game, but more and more its being bogged down in little (and not so little) issues. I genuinely think that Warframe needs to stop with Tenno Reinforcements for a little while. Hell, you have a Disney vault of discontinued and Wraith weapons. If you must be releasing weapons every week, use them for the next few months, and at least sort out where the game is going. I was originally on board with the Kubrows, but every new thing about them just turns me off them more and more.

 

One of my friends is ecstatic for them, not for the chance to use them, mind you, but because he compares them to the Chao Garden in Sonic. When that happens, you need to step back and think is this appropriate for your game, because 3d Sonic games tend to have a gamut of problems that I'd rather not see Warframe face.

 

Also, Prosecutors do not count as complex. Their obnoxious, and force you to mod in a specific way to play on Ceres. They don't even fight appreciably different from Butcher's to warrant being called complex. Just another melee combatant to beat down.

 

On the boss debate, I kinda weigh in on both sides. I think bosses need to have some situations where the fight is a log affair for variety. Lephantis wasn't a bad idea, and can be fun to fight. That said, thing's like Vor's invincibility phases have to go. They're annoying and don't add anything to the fight. Likewise, Krill and Ruk need to either become vulnerable to melee and abilities or the ability to forgo using guns needs to go. A new player would not know that they're only vulnerable to guns.

 

Honestly, the Dev Stream worries me on pure fact that DE wants to improve their boss experiences when the only good bosses they have under their belts are Lephantis and Alad, an Lephantis still has problems. Alad, for the most parts, a good fight, if not needing some more work to make Alad a relevant factor in it. The concept, at least, was sound.

[AlphaPsyCongaroo]

yea, upvoting this. i only read the top part though since it's tldr. but agree about his general points and especially about prosecutors. they really just posess a tedious mechanic. ive actually played other games which had bosses that had this same exact mechanic, which was complete resists to all but 1 element. but they all eventually changed the monster to have more interesting ways to activate vulnerability and the general resists to like 85 percent resists to all but 1 random element so that it doesnt punish players too much for not bringing exactly what's required. Just saying that other game companies have done this lazy mechanic before and have changed their ways eventually for the better. I hope DE will change for the better as well.

[Noble_Cactus]

If this is true, then it means the Design Council has failed its intended purpose, since they were supposed to be the player representatives, in a sense. Otherwise its just a paid window into seeing what the designers intend to do, which is quite pointless, since we have the Live Streams for that.

 

 

Not to mention that screencaps get leaked and spread across the Internet anyway. If you know where to look. From what I've seen (and heard from a friend who was on the design council but doesn't play anymore), it's mostly just voting on aesthetics and suggesting names for things.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Noble_Cactus

[Beladric]

Not to mention that screencaps get leaked and spread across the Internet anyway. If you know where to look. From what I've seen (and heard from a friend who was on the design council but doesn't apply anymore), it's mostly just voting on aesthetics and suggesting names for things.

 

Then it completely failed, since from my understanding it was also supposed to help serve as quality assurance, given most of the people on it paid a absurd sum of money to get there. That's just depressing to me.

 

DE may well benefit from giving the Design Council more of a say in what happens, but that's fraught with risk, since the Design Council, by its nature, is filled almost completely with long runners and the elite veterans. Their the ones who are clamoring for the most difficult content because they've exhausted everything else.

 

Not to come off as bashing DE, and I'm sorry if I do, because I really do love this game and I am perfectly willing to sing its praises when it gets stuff right, but the last two months feel like one step forward, three back, and that's ignoring the clean up I feel Melee 2.0 needs.

[calabi]

I've only been playing this a little while and I agree totally.  I like the game but its kind of a mess of conflicting ideas neither fully one thing or the other.  Loads of mods I'm required and restricted with using them.  I have to have knockdown resistance I dont like being knocked down and killed unable to do anything about it.  I dont like being frozen and slowed being unable to do anything about it.   I find out my shields are useless my health reduced straight through them, I have to use a health regen mod. There's lots of mods which are required and I havent got yet. Loads of mods I cant use half of them they are, useless why bother making them.  I bet no one bothers using the noise reduction mods.  So now your saying I've got to figure out what random enemies I may face in the future and fit those mods accordingly.  

 

I'm enjoying the game for now, but where's its headed I cant say I will enjoy it for much longer.

Edited June 7, 2014 by calabi

[Davoodoo]

Then it completely failed, since from my understanding it was also supposed to help serve as quality assurance, given most of the people on it paid a absurd sum of money to get there. That's just depressing to me.

 

DE may well benefit from giving the Design Council more of a say in what happens, but that's fraught with risk, since the Design Council, by its nature, is filled almost completely with long runners and the elite veterans. Their the ones who are clamoring for the most difficult content because they've exhausted everything else.

 

Not to come off as bashing DE, and I'm sorry if I do, because I really do love this game and I am perfectly willing to sing its praises when it gets stuff right, but the last two months feel like one step forward, three back, and that's ignoring the clean up I feel Melee 2.0 needs.

You cant imagine how disappointed i was when i bought master founder and discovered what design council actually was.

 

Veterans want difficulty but its not because we exhausted everything, at some we just noticed that this game got nothing to offer except grind for new shiny toys.

You forget though that veterans played this game for long time and know its problems better than any newcomer.

 

We cant offer any significant help on new player experience but we have something to say about difficulty, challenge and balance

[Beladric]

You cant imagine how disappointed i was when i bought master founder and discovered what design council actually was.

 

Veterans want difficulty but its not because we exhausted everything, at some we just noticed that this game got nothing to offer except grind for new shiny toys.

You forget though that veterans played this game for long time and know its problems better than any newcomer.

 

We cant offer any significant help on new player experience but we have something to say about difficulty, challenge and balance

 

Sorry, mis-said my point there. You are the people they should be listening to the most. The problem is that the design council, as you said, can't really offer help on the new player experience, which is one of the problems with listening solely to it.

 

My apologies for that.

[Davoodoo]

Sorry, mis-said my point there. You are the people they should be listening to the most. The problem is that the design council, as you said, can't really offer help on the new player experience, which is one of the problems with listening solely to it.

 

My apologies for that.

You got nothing to apologise for, on the matter of new players you were completely right

 

De should directly ask new players on their opinions, this is beta after all, make at least a poll that will ask players what they think about game so far and what could be improved.

[Rajko]

Then it completely failed, since from my understanding it was also supposed to help serve as quality assurance, given most of the people on it paid a absurd sum of money to get there. That's just depressing to me.

 

DE may well benefit from giving the Design Council more of a say in what happens, but that's fraught with risk, since the Design Council, by its nature, is filled almost completely with long runners and the elite veterans. Their the ones who are clamoring for the most difficult content because they've exhausted everything else.

 

Not to come off as bashing DE, and I'm sorry if I do, because I really do love this game and I am perfectly willing to sing its praises when it gets stuff right, but the last two months feel like one step forward, three back, and that's ignoring the clean up I feel Melee 2.0 needs.

You are exactly right about the Design Council.  It is not what it could or should be.  

 

The discussion of player agency and empowering both players and AI to cope with incoming removal of agency (or even damage spikes like #4 spam) has been discussed so much, and so well.  That's what disappoints me about the livestream the most, to see that all of that hasn't permeated through to all areas of development.  

 

I'd like to point out another downer, though.   I got the impression while watching the livestream that DE design flow involves a number of fences between teams.  I.E. Concept team has an idea and kicks it over a fence to the Art team, who kicks it over another fence to the next team down the block, et cetera.  Once a project is over to the AI team, it sounded like that team has full creative ownership of the outcome.  Getting that moa to drop off troops is a great idea, making it also fart out huge toxin clouds is a bad idea.  (I say, knowing it was an un-balanced early WIP)

 

If that really is the case, the simple fix is to put Megan and other community moderators into the design process as a sanity check.  They lurk the forums enough to know we don't enjoy unavoidable removal of player agency, or unavoidable anything, really.  They have the time to really sit with and understand what the community has to say, and the can help facilitate interior communication to keep the design process from being a relay tag game across communication barriers.  

 

NotionPhil had suggested a community representative be elected to fill that role, which is a fantastic idea and could work, but I can see why DE might not be thrilled with /willing /capable of implementing that.  I think dragging a DE staffer in might be a reasonably achievable, low cost option to approach the same effect.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Rajko

[Othergrunty]

I was seriously concerned when he showed all these new enemies which will hit your HP directly bypassing your shield and how excited they sounded about that.  It's the same bad feeling, as the one when i see the other Devs so utterly unfaced or almost gleefull about people getting knocked to the ground in livestreams. Like in Scott's presentation of the Melee system or their jokes about Rollers.

It's the feeling that they don't care about how punishing these two things are to players, despite that being exactly why Rhino is so overused currently.

 

But then i remembered that almost all enemies voted by the design councils are based around knocking down players or tanking their damage, so it seems even the majority of Design Council seem to be okay with how the enemies currently work and since they are the ones who vote for us, it's possible all the rest of the playerbase are most likely just white noise for them. It's really not a good sign when you can take multiple episodes of Extra Punctuation and point how Warframe is having the problems they mentiod.

 

So i just commented that the designs are nice and that they could work with better AI. Because i think bringing up critic doesn't really help.

 

But you are making a good point bringing all the issues to word, which is great of you, so thanks for that. I hope they read it.

 

I also still hope DE can still make this game better, they don't have a really stellar history of games they developed alone (Star Trek being one of the low points), so i see Warframe as their chance to produce something truely great. Not trying to bash them here, just really feeling they let something great slip here.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Othergrunty

[Davoodoo]

You are exactly right about the Design Council.  It is not what it could or should be.  

 

The discussion of player agency and empowering both players and AI to cope with incoming removal of agency (or even damage spikes like #4 spam) has been discussed so much, and so well.  That's what disappoints me about the livestream the most, to see that all of that hasn't permeated through to all areas of development.  

 

I'd like to point out another downer, though.   I got the impression while watching the livestream that DE design flow involves a number of fences between teams.  I.E. Concept team has an idea and kicks it over a fence to the Art team, who kicks it over another fence to the next team down the block, et cetera.  Once a project is over to the AI team, it sounded like that team has full creative ownership of the outcome.  Getting that moa to drop off troops is a great idea, making it also fart out huge toxin clouds is a bad idea.  (I say, knowing it was an un-balanced early WIP)

 

If that really is the case, the simple fix is to put Megan and other community moderators into the design process as a sanity check.  They lurk the forums enough to know we don't enjoy unavoidable removal of player agency, or unavoidable anything, really.  They have the time to really sit with and understand what the community has to say, and the can help facilitate interior communication to keep the design process from being a relay tag game across communication barriers.  

 

NotionPhil had suggested a community representative be elected to fill that role, which is a fantastic idea and could work, but I can see why DE might not be thrilled with /willing /capable of implementing that.  I think dragging a DE staffer in might be a reasonably achievable, low cost option to approach the same effect.

Thought that project manager/lead designer is supposed to fill that role.

 

I get impression that DE hesitates to make any gamechanging decision to not upset any players, only if majority screams that something should be changed they do it. They can freely add new things, at worst they will need to remove or change them, like broken lights but changing anything that was already in game is usually long process which requires majority of community supporting idea.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Davoodoo

[Deidaku]

All my yes

 

The prosecutors are a terrible addition to this game.

 

Not challenging. Just pains. walking RNG pains

[Beladric]

Thought that project manager/lead designer is supposed to fill that role.

 

I get impression that DE hesitates to make any gamechanging decision to not upset any players, only if majority screams that something should be changed they do it. They can freely add new things, at worst they will need to remove or change them, like broken lights but changing anything that was already in game is usually long process which requires majority of community supporting idea.

 

In a perfect world, the team leader would act as that check, but having been one recently, I can tell you that the **** can hit the fan fast and sometimes you just don't have time to check. Things can run away from your really easy.

 

That is something I've noticed in my time here, too. DE doesn't seem willing to change things without being screamed at. It borders on driving me personally insane, since it means that things that need immediate looking at (we'll agree not to devolve into a argument on what needs looking at there, since my answer is anything that involves numbers in the game, honestly) doesn't get seen, or worse, isn't acted on till the community reaches a boiling point. It could just be cosmic coincidence that the cookie crumbles that way, but then again, it really shouldn't have taken as long as it did for Molecular Prime to at least get a look at, as a example.

 

Player Agency is a debate I hate weighing in on, because my opinion is that, frankly, there should be no unavoidable ways of losing control of your character. Unfortunately, the type of game Warframe is precludes my favourite method of preventing the lose of player agency, which is forethought and preparation beforehand with ample clues of what your up against. That only really works in RPG's or Adventure games, where forewarning is viable.

 

I've heard suggestions of using the stamina bar as a method of avoiding knockdown, via a insta-getup that costs stamina. I don't know if that's a solution, really, but its a option. But this is straying from the topic at hand.

 

In short, the responsibility to keep things sane and on task generally does lay with the Team Leader, but it can very easily get away from them. Being a team leader is a unbelievably stressful job sometimes, and we get very consistent updates, surprisingly. I can only imagine the stress their under sometimes.

[BloodArmoredApostle]

So, I have come up with a plan of how to get the idea across....We can construct this device everywhere...and DE will listen...haha

 

Yuri explain...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZBnFBE-tp8

Edited June 7, 2014 by BloodArmoredApostle

[Beladric]

So, I have come up with a plan of how to get the idea across....We can construct this device everywhere...and DE will listen...haha

 

Yuri explain...

-Snip-

 

Oh my god I love you. I haven't played that game in years.

[Rajko]

Thought that project manager/lead designer is supposed to fill that role.

 

I get impression that DE hesitates to make any gamechanging decision to not upset any players, only if majority screams that something should be changed they do it. They can freely add new things, at worst they will need to remove or change them, like broken lights but changing anything that was already in game is usually long process which requires majority of community supporting idea.

I'm sure that the project managers do, but looking at how many of the new ai types involving player agency removal, or how nothing has changed with all the existing AI capable of it, that I feel like someone with a direct connection to what the players actually say about those mechanics needs to be present during the design process to provide an "Is this the right direction?  Is this fun?" type of ownership role.

 

I'll give DE a complete free pass on the player submitted winners though.  The voting was pretty close, but Lyssa had a really on point comment that the voting mostly seemed to go toward the prettiest and most polished art, even if the design would be incredibly annoying in game.

[Keltik0ne]

Well, this is surprising, when I last mentioned that having an enemy type that was randomly immune to a damage catagory was the height of lazy bad design, I was shouted down and told to "optimise" my loadout.

 

Watching the devstream was more depressing than normal, since while they appeared to have read Notionphils suggestions, they sure as hell didn't put much effort into understanding them.

 

Anyhoo, +1 to the OP, good post.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Keltik0ne

[Davoodoo]

I'm sure that the project managers do, but looking at how many of the new ai types involving player agency removal, or how nothing has changed with all the existing AI capable of it, that I feel like someone with a direct connection to what the players actually say about those mechanics needs to be present during the design process to provide an "Is this the right direction?  Is this fun?" type of ownership role.

 

I'll give DE a complete free pass on the player submitted winners though.  The voting was pretty close, but Lyssa had a really on point comment that the voting mostly seemed to go toward the prettiest and most polished art, even if the design would be incredibly annoying in game.

I havent voted for exactly that reason as soon as i noticed it.

 

Before that i voted on design that would benefit specific race diversity and fun most and if that wasnt possible to the least annoying one.

Seriously, grate mimic?? <insert kirk image here>

Edited June 7, 2014 by Davoodoo

[MageMeat]

So, recap:

-Bosses need to be vulnerable to all types of attack (but not any easier, for example, it would be feasible to kill Derf Anyo with melee but nigh impossible).

-Our characters need to be able to have a more noticeable effect in game other than dealing damage (a properly timed punch would knock Derf right off of his platform. A well placed block would reflect Vor's laser back at him and stagger/stun him).

-The Design Council is effectively almost useless.

-There seem to be layers of separation between the teams working on the game.

-DE has a tendency to only make important changes when the majority of the player base is shouting at them.

-It would be nice to have player representatives (I would say notionphil would be the first to go) that the developers can consult directly.

-RNG IS NOT GOOD DESIGN. It is lazy and forces players to guess on what they need, guess on when they will get a well deserved item, guess when to use their weapons. It is no fun and does not reward anybody properly for their efforts.

Edited June 7, 2014 by MageMeat

[CBAROG]

If it's more or less mandatory to play with a team to tackle new enemies like the Juggernaut, make it clear that you either play with a team or don't play at all. 

Nah, press-4-to-win. Just like always. *sigh*.

[F1UXie]

All of this got me thinking. What if we or DE set up polls on the forums to give the community more of a voice? Kind of like the survey they did awhile back: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/189247-optional-mission-feedback-survey/

 

I would especially like to see a poll where we as a community could vote on what priorities we would like to see DE focus on. For instance, I would vote for them to focus more on improving their existing content rather than adding new content such as weapons or frames.

 

If they set up more surveys and polls for us to vote what we'd like to see more, I feel it would give them a lot more feedback to go by.