Extreme Lack Of Difficulty

[Sonbot]

Gotta agree, the only thing difficult about this game so far is bugs and not being able to pick your buddies up or activate consoles. Besides that, I cant remember the last time I failed a mission. (besides level 25 and up on defense missions of course) The game needs you to challenge you in every aspect. I managed to wiggle my way as volt through infected hell (which we know electricity tickles infected) pretty unchallenged. Let me reiterate this fact: I was unchallenged as a "VOLT" while completing the infected sectors. This means even if I could use my abilities, its like me yelling harsh words at trees. I'm sorry, but this game is too easy. Currently blowing through the game again as an unleveled chassis, new weapons and swords, blah blah..etc.

[Ghobe]

Lunarwind...a few things...

#1 Difficulty should never be around numbers. If you're capable of dealing 300% higher damage, there should be a section of the game where there are enemies that have the health to sustain against that. This does not mean changing the entirety of the game to that.

#2 Difficulty should never be around numbers. The game needs more mechanics to the fights. Shields not allowing crits, great....fast regenerating shields that nullify the point of using cover, ok...having armor so high that you need specific mods to do any form of damage, ok...having to blow out the legs before you can hurt the body, awesome...having to deal with constantly spawning adds that if left unchecked are more dangerous than the boss, awesome...what other mechanics are there....uh...missiles from the sky? grenades? those rollers? the corpus dudes that give others invulnerability?.....I think I'm out of mechanics. When it comes to games, difficulty should come from mechanics, not from numbers. Imagine, if when you rescued the hostage from his prison cell, the enemy reacts violently to it...they blow out all the windows in the base and if you want him and yourself to not die, you need to constantly hack consoles to shield the windows back over. Imagine if when you destroyed the reactor, gravity on the ship gave out dramatically reducing the speed at which you could move, but changing a major mechanic of the game in the process. Do all these mechanics need to be there in the very first system? No. The game should be getting harder and harder as you progress through it, not stay the same difficulty with one or two small jumps in difficulty for the majority of the game. Especially in a game with so many areas.

#3 Difficulty should never be around numbers.

#4 Not everyone should be able to do everything in a game. There are members of the community that are better than the others, these people should be looked up to, and there should be a way for them to shine. There is no way for people to shine right now. Everyone can do everything.

#5 Difficulty should never be around numbers.

#6 The examples you're giving of going all out damage with no survivability, is not a difficulty increase. These two things are not mutually exclusive, you can have both at the same time. Unless the developers come up with some way to make them mutually exclusive, you can't use it as a point. This is not the same as choosing your difficulty level. The way you're talking, every single game out there does it wrong. Content should be designed with certain numbers in mind, but the difficulty should not be centered on numbers. Those numbers that the content is designed around should only be there to ensure that the player has sufficient skill to do the content. Think of it as a check list. Has the person done the previous content? Has the person done it enough times to be able to do it on their own(if permitted)? Has the person got their gear/upgrade/whatever from it? If yes to all, then let's take mechanics from it and the gear level from it and apply it to the next area.

When games first came out, they weren't about just "having fun", they were about challenging ourselves mentally.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Ghobe

[Dasmir]

We need more enemies with frames abilities.

JUST FOR ONE MOMENT A SPECIAL ACIENT HAS TRNINITY LINK ! oh the lols.

[Nevara]

Yes. I equated giving yourself a bonus to health and damage via hacking, to giving yourself identicle increases via a game mechanic.

Don't like it? How about this, I'll re-work it for you.

You're playing Gears of War 6, and after the tutorial you choose easy difficulty. All this choice does is make you have +300% health and +300% damage. Same number of enemies, same AI, same levels and ammo drops. Now you complain that the extra health makes the game feel too easy.

Warframe is amazing because it lets you choose your gameplay flavor.

Do you want combat to be fast-paced and murderous? Takes tons of +dmg mods and abstain from using +hp or +shields. Now everyone (including you) dies quickly and the blood is everywhere.

Want slower paced gameplay? Ignore damage mods, but pack yourself with +hp and +shields. Now both you AND the enemies take a lot to go down, making repositioning during a fight a feasible tactic to execute. Also, bring +ammo mods for longevity.

Want to play easy mode? Mods your weapons AND warframe for tons of +everything! You'll be better than the enemies in every way, and probably encounter few situations that genuinely challenge you. Perfect for people who have slow reflexes, bad eye sight, or other factors which limit them from becoming the top 20% playerbase in terms of skill.

Really, it's all about having the freedom to build the game you feel like playing. Please, exercise your right, your creativity, and design your own difficulty.

No. Just... NO, ok? The difficulty settings are basically the challenge set by the developers, you play to the best of your ability within the confines of the 'rules' Get it? Rules? Not the rules you set your self, as you roleplay or whatever, you are challenging the game. The game has to be challenging. Get it? It is not hacking, or 'choosing' easy difficulty, because there IS no difficulty setting, 'yet'

And when it does come in, if the game is still easy, that isn't the players fault because he didn't handicap himself, it's the game makers fault for not maknig the game a challenge. Get it? Jesus wept..

[Nevara]

When games first came out, they weren't about just "having fun", they were about challenging ourselves mentally.

Exactly, we had fun trying to 'beat' the game.

[Veryk]

You try to Solo a mission=do able, not always hard, can be easy or a bit of work. you and one guy, Easier, can get overwhelmed if not working together aka being smart. 3= you start mowing through things, and give the "tougher" enemies a few moments of attention before moving on. 4 The way it is supposed to be, you are elite killing machines working in unison using tech/powers that the enemies haven't seen for who knows how long or only recently rediscovered themselves, they will need time to adapt, (or in reality give time for DE to tweak things till they put the murder to us) You want challenge without nerfing yourself? go solo or duo a "hard" system you consider easy. If your still bored... go play Dark Souls?

[PhantomWay]

Lunarwind...a few things...

#1 Difficulty should never be around numbers. If you're capable of dealing 300% higher damage, there should be a section of the game where there are enemies that have the health to sustain against that. This does not mean changing the entirety of the game to that.

#2 Difficulty should never be around numbers. The game needs more mechanics to the fights. Shields not allowing crits, great....fast regenerating shields that nullify the point of using cover, ok...having armor so high that you need specific mods to do any form of damage, ok...having to blow out the legs before you can hurt the body, awesome...having to deal with constantly spawning adds that if left unchecked are more dangerous than the boss, awesome...what other mechanics are there....uh...missiles from the sky? grenades? those rollers? the corpus dudes that give others invulnerability?.....I think I'm out of mechanics. When it comes to games, difficulty should come from mechanics, not from numbers. Imagine, if when you rescued the hostage from his prison cell, the enemy reacts violently to it...they blow out all the windows in the base and if you want him and yourself to not die, you need to constantly hack consoles to shield the windows back over. Imagine if when you destroyed the reactor, gravity on the ship gave out dramatically reducing the speed at which you could move, but changing a major mechanic of the game in the process. Do all these mechanics need to be there in the very first system? No. The game should be getting harder and harder as you progress through it, not stay the same difficulty with one or two small jumps in difficulty for the majority of the game. Especially in a game with so many areas.

#3 Difficulty should never be around numbers.

#4 Not everyone should be able to do everything in a game. There are members of the community that are better than the others, these people should be looked up to, and there should be a way for them to shine. There is no way for people to shine right now. Everyone can do everything.

#5 Difficulty should never be around numbers.

#6 The examples you're giving of going all out damage with no survivability, is not a difficulty increase. These two things are not mutually exclusive, you can have both at the same time. Unless the developers come up with some way to make them mutually exclusive, you can't use it as a point. This is not the same as choosing your difficulty level. The way you're talking, every single game out there does it wrong. Content should be designed with certain numbers in mind, but the difficulty should not be centered on numbers. Those numbers that the content is designed around should only be there to ensure that the player has sufficient skill to do the content. Think of it as a check list. Has the person done the previous content? Has the person done it enough times to be able to do it on their own(if permitted)? Has the person got their gear/upgrade/whatever from it? If yes to all, then let's take mechanics from it and the gear level from it and apply it to the next area.

When games first came out, they weren't about just "having fun", they were about challenging ourselves mentally.

Well some of thing you said is correct and interesting but

#4 Not everyone should be able to do everything in a game.

This is not right. Why not everyone should be able do everything?? All players have the right to able to create their favorite warframe/weapon.

Previously, not all warframe could Super-charge their warframe if not with Platinum. It was unfair so DEV did change it. And unsupercharged warframe couldn't use 4th ability.

The game should be getting harder and harder as you progress through it, not stay the same difficulty with one or two small jumps in difficulty for the majority of the game. Especially in a game with so many areas.

Yes but this game isn't a MMOrpg like TERA online, where vastly area with different levels.

Right now, Warframe does not got an "End game". If you got warframe rank 30, go farm boss and get the blueprint, then build another warframe and try it. You don't like it? Farm another boss then build another warframe that suit your taste. Repeating cycle cause new warframe will come out.

The new areas need unlocked once for unlock the mission assassination for the blueprint. unique warframe that need more luck is Banshee.

Repetitive? Yes. But neither League of Legends got an End game. Well you can do Ranked, but then? Playing always same map again and again. :p

I think DEV should change something on planet system. Like less nodes, and 2 boss for each low level planet so you can get warframe blueprint there, and some good mod or skins or some other rewards on more hard planets.

[Dasmir]

a grat way of improvig the difficult without destroying game stats with nerfs and buffs is adding more special enemies with unique abilities, like Tenno Counterparts.

[Ghobe]

This is not right. Why not everyone should be able do everything?? All players have the right to able to create their favorite warframe/weapon.

Previously, not all warframe could Super-charge their warframe if not with Platinum. It was unfair so DEV did change it. And unsupercharged warframe couldn't use 4th ability.

Why? Because, having a special unique-ish warframe that comes from some place requiring a rather high skill level and all supercharged all rank 30 gear should be something that exists, something special for being good and putting in the time/effort to get there. Something to show off, something to say "Look I did it all and I got this for it". Right now You can do it all....and be just another nobody. I remember when I was still pretty young and playing RO, seeing people walk around with their level 99 auras and just thinking about how awesome they were. Doing that took a hell of a lot of effort back then. Nowadays with your private servers, it's nothing special, but back then...boy was it ever. Here's the question I pose to you. If I put in the effort to max out my warframe, making it completely efficient, super charge it and my weapons, beat level 5000 on a defense mission....should I not have something special to show for it? Something that's instantly recognizable as being special? Something that you don't need to go delving into my screenshot album for?

Yes but this game isn't a MMOrpg like TERA online, where vastly area with different levels.

Right now, Warframe does not got an "End game". If you got warframe rank 30, go farm boss and get the blueprint, then build another warframe and try it. You don't like it? Farm another boss then build another warframe that suit your taste. Repeating cycle cause new warframe will come out.

The new areas need unlocked once for unlock the mission assassination for the blueprint. unique warframe that need more luck is Banshee.

Repetitive? Yes. But neither League of Legends got an End game. Well you can do Ranked, but then? Playing always same map again and again. :p

WRONG! Right now there is no feeling of the supposed level changes, changes between worlds and what-not beyond enemy type changing, and maybe they take one or two more shots. There are plenty of areas to go to in this game, plenty of opportunities to have the game step-it-up. Your examples are terrible for your argument. League of Legends is an e-sport, not a pve game. End-game does not exist in pvp. I've also seen someone say that the devs have said(oh yea word of mouth go go) that they were planning to have something for rank 30 warframes to do.

I think DEV should change something on planet system. Like less nodes, and 2 boss for each low level planet so you can get warframe blueprint there, and some good mod or skins or some other rewards on more hard planets.

Or what they could do is make each node more interesting, more impactful. Right now there are only 2 node types we care about, assassination and defense. Nobody cares about the other types because we don't have a REASON to care about the other types. Defense makes great for farming resources, assassination is great for blueprints and rare resources...what do the rest have? Minor resource gains? /fingertwirl Each planet needs to have a step up in difficulty over the previous, each type of gameplay needs to have something unique to it that makes us want to run each type. Heck make rescue missions give 1 random uncommon/rare mod per successful run. Make exterminations give double affinity. Just do SOMEthing to make them all have a purpose.

As to the bosses themselves. They almost all need to be made more memorable. Right now, I think the best designed boss of the game is Jackal, and he's a fairly early on boss. It gave me high hopes for the rest of the bosses of the game, then I got to Hek and depression sank in. I have plenty of ideas for each boss but who knows if it's falling on deaf ears eh? :\

[TheTenthDoc]

You have to keep in mind that the paths to endgame bosses are generally going to be have to be kept at a level that you can beat them without a supercharged frame and gun. Supercharging currently breaks the game in half because of how mods scale and because some weapons (pistols, shotguns),have incredibly overbuffed mods. Even the level 40-50 arenas will logically crumble under someone with the equivalent of a level 60 warframe and gun.

Whether or not you think endgame content should only be reachable by people that luck into potatos or pay money is another argument entirely.

Edited April 8, 2013 by TheTenthDoc

[neKroMancer]

Regarding difficulty:

Every game that I can imagine, even a good one, increase difficulty by increase mob capabillity while reducing certain features from player. From the day of Contra to modern day shooter, they have been using this formula over and over again. So complaining about handicapping yourself is a bit invalid at this point.

Each game genre has its own way of ramping up difficulty. Classics like Contra, Doom, etc give you less health while increasing enemies' damage. Stealth games like MGS also reduce your health and restrict your access to certain friendly features and increasing mobs' detection capability/damage. They are still fun to play in higher difficulty.

Back to Warframe.

As other posters posted above me, if you find yourself not dying in Pluto with health/shield mod then these two mods are no longer neccesary to your current build. Time to switch them out and replace them with something more useful like enemy radar, streamline, or continuity. As the game progress into future update, more mods will be introduced and players who could play without shield/health mod will have more option for customizing their frames.

The core of Warframe is co-op fast paced high mobility gunning/slashing game. The game should promote this feature in higher difficulty as well. Give AI new tactic and ramp up their damage/durability but make them less effective against mobility. Give them aiming penalty against fast movement/acrobatic. Make new enemies' which require multiple powers/players to take down. Make boss battles more interesting than Vanilla 'standing on the arena with gazillion HP' type of boss.

Blowing through Pluto with supercharged Hek and 300% shield and complaining about difficulty is not quite right since both of them are going to be balanced soon.

[Ghobe]

As other posters posted above me, if you find yourself not dying in Pluto with health/shield mod then these two mods are no longer neccesary to your current build. Time to switch them out and replace them with something more useful like enemy radar, streamline, or continuity. As the game progress into future update, more mods will be introduced and players who could play without shield/health mod will have more option for customizing their frames.

Those different mods can't come any sooner. Right now there is NO reason to not take redirection/vitality. Better alternatives just simply don't exist. No I don't see Streamline, Enemy Radar, nor Continuity as true alternatives. Either new mods need to come out to allow for new builds, or new maneuvers/limitations need to be added to the game to increase the incentive to use other mods.

EDIT: I suppose I should add, this coming from the perspective of a MAG user.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Ghobe

[neKroMancer]

Those different mods can't come any sooner. Right now there is NO reason to not take redirection/vitality. Better alternatives just simply don't exist. No I don't see Streamline, Enemy Radar, nor Continuity as true alternatives. Either new mods need to come out to allow for new builds, or new maneuvers/limitations need to be added to the game to increase the incentive to use other mods.

EDIT: I suppose I should add, this coming from the perspective of a MAG user.

It's your POV. There are reasons but you just don't see it like I do.

[touchmyoldsnake]

Difficulty needs to exist for one very important reason: sense of accomplishment. Ok, you just beat the last misson on Pluto with a level 12 trinity frame and a lvl 30 noncharged shotgun on your first try, just like your last 20 missions. What now? Is there a reason why you should care? No, because it was no more difficult than your previous missions. Dark Souls made you work your &#! off just to beat the first round of bosses. Many times, you got one shot by certain mobs or knocked off a cliff. People like that game BECAUSE it's hard. People enjoy a challenge because when you finally overcome it, it gives you a major sense of accomplishment. Here, that feeling doesn't exist.

Edited April 8, 2013 by touchmyoldsnake

[PhantomWay]

Why? Because, having a special unique-ish warframe that comes from some place requiring a rather high skill level and all supercharged all rank 30 gear should be something that exists, something special for being good and putting in the time/effort to get there. Something to show off, something to say "Look I did it all and I got this for it". Right now You can do it all....and be just another nobody. I remember when I was still pretty young and playing RO, seeing people walk around with their level 99 auras and just thinking about how awesome they were. Doing that took a hell of a lot of effort back then. Nowadays with your private servers, it's nothing special, but back then...boy was it ever. Here's the question I pose to you. If I put in the effort to max out my warframe, making it completely efficient, super charge it and my weapons, beat level 5000 on a defense mission....should I not have something special to show for it? Something that's instantly recognizable as being special? Something that you don't need to go delving into my screenshot album for?

Well I understand you. If there was some archivement/trophy i welcome them. As for now there is only a Top Player List, where is classified by kills...

I can understand your point of view if they reward cool warframe/or skin if you do something on skill based alone.

I can understand if the warframe you got was special with more power or whatever.

But those are "basic" warframe that got equal power, that everyone can "reach". First of all because you can purchase it, not by "normal way".

So if those warframe can be bought, why only few should enjoy it? And when you start, you can choose from only 3 of them. That's way too few.

I cited League of Legends, my bad, that's an e-sport, but the meccanism that you play in same enviroment, earn IP so you can "unlock" a champion... What's wrong that you farm (gain resource + blueprints) on Warframe then "create/unlock" your warframe?

It's same system, you can unlock any champion you want, if you got enough IP (credit), same for warframe.

If they make something unlockable by only effort, I'm with you. But if the content can be purchase, that should be reachable from everyone in normal way. Now we have only Helmet that can be modelled with our warframe. But i think they (warframe staff) will add more skins, and maybe one day some skin that you can unlock only by efforts.

[Ghobe]

@PhantomWay I don't feel like quoting your post along with the size of mine so ;p

If it was up to me. If I had the access and resources to do it. I'd add a new planet(we'll call it Ghobe's Comet :D ) which is designed with difficulty in mind. The first node can only be reached after completing EVERY node outside of the planet. Nodes can not be skipped by joining contacts. The first node will be an absolute gear check to make sure the player is ready for the rest of the content. It will have a very simple boss that does(if the mechanics of mods/game doesn't change from its current state) massive damage to both shields and health(probably some kind of infected boss). The content will be designed around having supercharged rank 30 gear and 4 players. Every node beyond that will have a very mechanic heavy boss in it(no standing there shooting it forever and ever while it just shoots you back...think fights like Jackal in number of mechanics). Each boss has some sort of unique drop that is used to make a new warframe/weapon, whether it be blueprints or an actual part. All these warframes/weapons will be completely new, and have an edge over the current ones, they also can NOT be bought with platinum. They will be evolved versions of our current warframe/weapon and will actually require a rank 30 supercharged version in the blueprint. So if it was a Mag: the Pull skill would now pull all targets in a cone towards you; Shield Polarize now applies its affect to everything in an aoe around where you're targeting(both enemy and ally); Bullet Attractor now causes bullets to be attracted to the target's weakpoint; Crush now deals massively more damage, bypasses shields, and the base aoe range is dramatically improved. Those are just all off the top of my head, but that would be the basic gist of it all.

[kennelai2]

This topic deserves a downvote. You are welcome.

BTW, if you are rushing the level you are not showing respect to DE.

WE DON'T NEED YOU IN THIS SUPER EASY GAME.

[austinrelis]

Pluto is meant to be the hardest planet. The fact that it's not challenging me at all is a problem; Pluto should be a planet for players with really good mods, and 4 man groups, imo. It shouldn't be solo'd so easily by some jackass (me in this case) with a 30 supercharged shotgun. Honestly speaking, all I really need is a shield capacity mod and I'm good. Everything else is just extra. Melee and sidearms are unneeded. I, for one, would LOVE to see melee do more because nothing is more satisfying than cleaving enemies in two. It's just so much more effective to shoot them, however.

>Using shotgun

>Game too easy

Yea, I have a strun that I got to about 19 and I supercharged before U7. Now that I found a bunch of shotgun mods, I decided to fuse some and put them in it.

You know what I got? A weapon that murders everything in 1 hit from terminus to the last mission on pluto. I can snipe corpus with it too.

You're making the game easy for yourself by using a shotgun (most likely a hek).

[MagpieOAO]

How's about we just improve on the Ai to be more challenging Mkay?

Grineer actually fall back away from you, moving in teams with one team trying to surpress you with fire while the other either falls back or moves in. Shield lancers actually stand in front of other grineers and hold the line. Ballista snipe you from down the hallway, and seekers toss their stun grenades of doom right before the grineer push.

Corpus crewmen move in less organized chunks with stomp moas in front to keep you off balance and shield osprey behind cover while keeping them charged. Mines actually hurt and mine osprey drop them in predictive locations between you and the enemy, rather than attempting to drop them on your head. Sniper moas quickly reposition between shots, making them difficult to track down and their stun potentially deadly while under fire.

Infested have more mobility with the "dogs" lunging unpredictably or quietly stalking through the undergrowth towards you. Runners play dead or hide out of line of sight before charging you, while ancients attempt to hold and crush you rather than slap you to death with limp wrists, making the embrace of an ancient deadly when sorrounded by the infestation.

Just some ideas.

[Sonbot]

How's about we just improve on the Ai to be more challenging Mkay?

Grineer actually fall back away from you, moving in teams with one team trying to surpress you with fire while the other either falls back or moves in. Shield lancers actually stand in front of other grineers and hold the line. Ballista snipe you from down the hallway, and seekers toss their stun grenades of doom right before the grineer push.

Corpus crewmen move in less organized chunks with stomp moas in front to keep you off balance and shield osprey behind cover while keeping them charged. Mines actually hurt and mine osprey drop them in predictive locations between you and the enemy, rather than attempting to drop them on your head. Sniper moas quickly reposition between shots, making them difficult to track down and their stun potentially deadly while under fire.

Infested have more mobility with the "dogs" lunging unpredictably or quietly stalking through the undergrowth towards you. Runners play dead or hide out of line of sight before charging you, while ancients attempt to hold and crush you rather than slap you to death with limp wrists, making the embrace of an ancient deadly when sorrounded by the infestation.

Just some ideas.

I like these ideas, this would make it much more challenging. Maybe the game should throw some rare mobs in (like minibosses or something) or make a player pay heavily for triggering an alarm. I just want the game to have areas or levels that are like "oh damn, this level sucks S***."

Edited April 8, 2013 by Sonbot

[Ghobe]

or make a player pay heavily for triggering an alarm

This would suck until alarms can be turned off. Right now, as soon as you trigger the alarm, the alarm never turns off for the rest of the run...that's kind of your punishment now :\

[Sonbot]

This would suck until alarms can be turned off. Right now, as soon as you trigger the alarm, the alarm never turns off for the rest of the run...that's kind of your punishment now :\

This is hoping for an optimistic future that one day stealth will actually mean something. Sneak attacks have issues killing enemies, and when you don't kill them, then they act like: "Oh man I just got backstabbed, better hit this conveniently placed alarm" Edited April 8, 2013 by Sonbot

[tcww]

Warframe is more of an MMO than an FPS.

If you're looking to 'prove your skill', you should play a PvP game...

[neKroMancer]

I want to see what 'Formation Bravo' really is from Grineer.

[Ghobe]

I want to see what 'Formation Bravo' really is from Grineer.

Charge in and find the nearest cover. Do not leave the cover under any circumstance, even if the enemy is stabbing your best friend in the face. /nod