Warframe's Monetization And Lack Of Depth: A Challenge To De

[zoboso]

Investors 101

There are two sides to investing: enriching your pocketbook and enriching the world. While the two often are shown to be at odds with each other, when the two sides align it stops being a wild dream and becomes something that perpetuates it's brand of goodness until it is obsoleted.

 

Platinum 101

When the player buys platinum the money goes to one of three things: infrastructure, content, or investors. I'm going to grossly oversimplify and say the investors gave DE money in some form of a loan that they want a percentage of the money that DE makes like say 10%. Now that you have your sweet shiny plat we can go to the platinum shop. There are two kinds of content in the platinum shop: content paid for by the players, and content paid for by the investors. The content in the shop has a price for it's creation, and after enough players 'buy' the item in question the sale of the item only brings in profit. This is why DE is encouraged to create content for the Plat market.

 

Onto notionphil's idea if DE needs to pay part of the money (the same percentage as the get from Plat & Prime Acess) raised to the investors to keep them from instigating trouble, I'd be fine with that as long as the rest of the money is spent on the stated project and the infrastructure supporting it.

[Mokkania]

Ill start from beginning.

 

Crowdfunding is gonna pay to start developing certain features and in the way OP mentioned its meant to start funding any project that wouldnt bring money by itself.

But how is it gonna be finished, working on something and expanding upon isnt free, there needs to be money coming from somewhere, still no one explained where this money would come from, so i looked into 5 possible options, 1.further crowdfunding, 2.investors, 3.self funding, 4. monetization, 5.no further development

Option number 1 is too unreliable to fund continous development.

Option number 2 will lead to option number 4

Option number 3 would simply mean that our initial funding was unnecessary

Option number 4 wouldnt provide any changes from what we currently have in the long run

Option number 5 would mean that we funded something that aint gonna benefit us in the long run and players interested in this content would start leaving.

 

You ignored all of these and pretend like money gonna rain from sky and it will nicely develop into what we want.

Ok about crowdfunding you do get one part of why it's asked for, but not the second part.

 

that's why I said you didn't read

I'm not sure, I think you're associating too closely project production workload with after-production updates/fixes workload.

 

or maybe you're confusing yourself with the logic between your own points since you do mention later ->"initial phase"

 

There are two things here that seemingly you're pushing away for unknown reasons

 

1) First of all there are game features that once they are finished aren't ever reworked, not every game and most likely not Warframe where every thing change at a relative fast rate.

But there are games online or not, where once a feature is made no one need to work on it again

-> continuous development

 

2) Second thing then, again your ambiguous continuous development concept,

I'll horribly simplify it, I don't know DE's organization I can't say for absolute that it works like that but

-U13 : DE got "200 people", there are 4 features in U13, 50 people work on each feature [u13 is a one month development project from scrap to end]

-U13 feature A : melee 2.0, 50 people, [one month]

-U13 is done, now do you think that the same 50 people are still working on melee 2.0 ? for the exact same rythm during U13 development?

IMO and still simplifying it, only maybe up to 10 person still working and depending of the project the rythm might be spread on a larger time schedule, like maybe several days a month on a 6 months span ; or very much more or less.

Meaning in theory it doesn't need as much resource than during the production phase, (?)

meaning you don't necessarily need crowdfunding or in another way it may join the normal development system fundings necessities.

 

Extension of the second point is what was already said, first a feature isn't necessarily reworked, or even barely scratched depending of what it is, (see first point)

second a feature of the game doesn't have to(circumstances once again) be "monetized" since a part of the game make up for a selling point of the game itself,

game are made to sell/to be sold

and each feature are part of the game. (don't go saying I'm making an absolute fact, I know some game prioritize simple monetization schemes and work solely on theses)

 

Critics about your options

Option 1 Yes and No, depends of circumstance it may or may not work I'm not the one making the decision to take a gamble at DE's,

secondly what is said above.

Option 2 - 4 the missing half you're missing from why OP made this thread idea

Option 5 first point above,

additionnally there is a very strange shortcut about players leaving...? As if the sole interest of a player on a game would be one unique feature? or that we're scraping the risk concept from any feature one gaming company would give a try in developing? I mean people are never displeased enough to leave a game as a matter of historical fact...

 

 

Now lastly, as I said you did get one part about crowdfunding... if you consider crowdfunding by itself, but you're still missing half of OP's reason/motive for proposing this thing.

 

I doubt it, especially that you got no plan to develop it further past initial phase.

Also do you think that 1 or 2 projects are gonna satisfy all our needs for content we wont normally get due to ROI based decisions.

This thread concern 1 project, if people want more they can ask for more, where are you going?

Who said we are going to dictate all of DE's future financial decisions here, right now in this thread?

 

The whole problem is this idea being combined with their normal work routine, succes or failure of each of these projects will affect warframe as whole, even if these projects arent monetized at all they will bring players which might and probably will spend money on monetized stuff, meaning that every loss of player caused by these projects are gonna affect sales and create problems with investors.

Yes that's why I said it's idealistic, I'm not advocating this idea just in case you're wondering.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Mokkania

[notionphil]

 

To sum it up, even if these project are best thing ever happened to gaming which is very unlikely, unless you continously expand them they are gonna be the cause of player loss

 

 

How many devs are currently working on Damage 2.0? Where is the player loss?

 

How many devs are currently working on Dark Sector PvP? Where is the player loss?

 

How many devs are currently working on Nightmare mode? Where is the player loss?

 

How many devs are currently working on the Corrupted faction? Where is the player loss?

 

These are examples of "One time" non-monetized systems which add depth to WF & benefit the game but do not significantly add to upkeep. Your entire premise is flawed. Not every feature requires constant development; and those that do are not appropriate for this funding method.

 

The above are the sort of features are what I am suggesting we crowdfund. Not features like "create 100 melee stance animations and make another one every 3 weeks forever". Features which essentially stand alone, benefit the game, and if designed correctly (damage 2.0 for example) don't need to be constantly built upon but instead offer a framework that deepen other parts of the game.

 

Yes, a dev may go in and spend a few hours tweaking those systems every few weeks/months...but clearly there is not a significant amount of "continuious work" on those projects.

Edited October 15, 2014 by notionphil

[Genoscythe]

I believe that statement is more referring to "we never want to exclude newer players from things". This doesn't mean older players can't have challenge. An example of this would be the Tactical Alerts. Sure, they couldn't become an extreme test of your ability, but they were a start. Newer players could still access these missions, and older players still found challenge within it.

 

We'll have to see where this experimental feature goes, but for now I am satisfied with the current direction.

 

Well the vets are not satisfied with this direction, it doesnt hurt to exclude newbies from certain areas and content of the game, this gives motivation to keep going and grinding.

 

As for focus, from what we know its going to be only a strength upgrade we get by leveling gear again and again (grindtastic!), there are no cool bosses you can fight only with mastery 15 only or cool cosmetics or weapons that are restricted by hard missions or real challenges (if you dont consider RNG as a challenge)

[Metalarcher]

I still think that all DE needs to do is bring back a set of game modes like the Suspicious Shipments in which the enemies could kill you just as fast as you could kill them. Remove AoE nukes. Add cooldowns for abilities. Provide some incentive to move without needing cover, since it does not seem that cover is supposed to be an important part of the gameplay (and I'm glad for that; cover is almost always a boring mechanic). Basically, bring our enemies on our level, so we're not unkillable tanks with massive cannons fighting children with peashooters. Can a dera kill a Corpus crewman in 5 shots? Yes? Then a Corpus crewman of the same level as that dera should be able to kill me in about five shots.

 

Seriously, those Suspicious Shipments were the most fun I've ever had playing Warframe. It was plagued by the impossible-to-deny exploit of standing behind a wall and pressing 4, thus killing everyone, but it was a very good start. Has DE said or done anything about them since?

[VnickV]

 Hey guys, just felt I had to jump in here. I ended up getting the masters package and playing for about a month and a half before quitting. Now I came back here recently for about another two months. Honestly I'm regretting giving them any $ to found this game. Yes it is fun to run around as a futuristic tech ninja, yes you are able to make honest actual progress FREE, minus the whole "pay to not wait". I am proud that Warframe is still and honest Free-to-Play. However this is completely opposite the game they said they were going to create. No more Skills just Mods, No story to explain who and what the tenno are and how they came to be. Who are the Grineer? Corpus? Infested? We know more about our enemies than we do "ourselves." There's no more wonder of the Tenno for the blatant fact that the pieces that came out are usually half proof-read donkey skat.

 

 Go onto your codex and read the description of Ember Prime and Mag Prime, now compare that to every other description in the codex about the Primes.  I mean it all sounds like it has a wonderfully great opportunity; until you remember that DE doesn't notify you unless you log on that there is a new "Alert" going. These Alerts are usually how you gain your best mods. So if you're at work or such you better hope the alert is an actual 3-7 day alert and you log on in the time frame, if you are not an avid player like myself you're up a stream without a paddle. (Unless you have copius amounts of platinum laying around like everyone else.) I must say I am severely disappointed and wish I could have never founded this version of Warframe.

 

 The AMAZING story we were promised of the Tenno and Who and What they were; How they came to be, WHY they had to come to be! These things are all 98% gone from the game with no explanation. All that's left are small codex entries and generic speech codes from Lotus when you land on mission, sometimes you may get a new one when you try a new game mode. With everything going on it feels as if DE is starting to focus towards the "Noobs", (12 year olds who think space ninjas are cool. [Everyone says its a joke and its not nice to say... While this is true, I have many memories of children yelling into my mike the second we touch down.]) while not putting all that much out for players who've been here from the beginning. All the content seems to be coming out to give all these new players something to do like the little sugar-hyped rugrats they are. I have an idea, DE LISTEN to your players, listen to the fact that we need END GAME CONTENT not accessible by new players, with an ENTHRALLING STORY. Actually care about we think because without us, you will not be here. The new players don't stay for long, (unless they're on ps4, then they usually spend all their free platinum and ask on clan chat where they can get more and why its so "hard") some do but i watch many drop out of alliance of clan and never come back. Yet something I've noticed here recently, ALL of my friends list that've been active up to update 14, are all suddenly silent.

 

 In two months I have met only one other founder in game while not on council chat. We had a good honest conversation and that's how I've ended up here. Im sorry for those of you that have read this from the beginning, it is very long. However to wrap up with a sentiment I believe we all have, DE start catering to your long  term players; because we're done catering to your lack of content after you consistently put out "standard" content. Lets see some actual Warframe, from the days when profit didnt matter so much and keeping players coming back for more was their goal. In-Game Depth not more "width". Actually put LOGIC behind the depth.

 

Thanks, Hope I didn't offend anyone with my rant, (wasn't sure if this was the right place for it) and I hope you all have a great day.

 

VnickV

Edited October 15, 2014 by VnickV

[Lukap99]

-snip-

 

Dude, use paragraphs. Seriously.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Lukap99

[Neocyberman]

I'm agreeing with a lot of what is being said here about the lack of focus from the development team, the systemic issues that result from not improving existing systems and so on. I really do. But I cant find myself agreeing with the beta idea. Of paying into another beta for a game that is already a "beta in name only".

 

My sentiments align more with the poster VnickV above. I may not have been there for very long but watching the dev cycle from afar I'm not inclined at all to give them money because they have not done much good with what money they have been given. I could not drive myself to buy plat now when many others buy plat and the game isn't expanding a lot of what it is, what guarantee do I have that more money will actually put the game on a better course. 

Edited October 15, 2014 by Neocyberman

[Phoenix86]

-snip-

 

wow... this post is just amazing, nailed it 101% !!

 

+1

[Sitchrea]

If we had an enthralling story I would overlook a vast majority of the problems this game has...

[notionphil]

I still think that all DE needs to do is bring back a set of game modes like the Suspicious Shipments in which the enemies could kill you just as fast as you could kill them. Remove AoE nukes. Add cooldowns for abilities. Provide some incentive to move without needing cover, since it does not seem that cover is supposed to be an important part of the gameplay (and I'm glad for that; cover is almost always a boring mechanic). Basically, bring our enemies on our level, so we're not unkillable tanks with massive cannons fighting children with peashooters. Can a dera kill a Corpus crewman in 5 shots? Yes? Then a Corpus crewman of the same level as that dera should be able to kill me in about five shots.

 

Seriously, those Suspicious Shipments were the most fun I've ever had playing Warframe. It was plagued by the impossible-to-deny exploit of standing behind a wall and pressing 4, thus killing everyone, but it was a very good start. Has DE said or done anything about them since?

 

Those were challenging because they were a surprise, and our builds weren't adapted to them. Agreed, they were fun.

 

But if endgame were running those missions over and over, more people would quickly adapt to a pure rage/QT build and learn to spam powers more efficiently. We need new gameplay elements which can hard counter our overwhelming power, not just provide a slightly different form of resistance.

 

EDIT - T4 void has similar damage scaling to suspicious shipments FYI, note the level range and the damage they do compared to other void. It's less noticable bc Corrupted do far less damage than Corpus...but you'll still feel it.

Edited October 16, 2014 by notionphil

[cesmode]

Without reading all of this, I'll agree with the title.

 

Putting aside the pretty mundane and boring events that they pump out...All we have as far as progression is a new gun and new warframe or prime.  Buy those, forma them, level them, forma more...If you dont have the required forma, spend $$.  Thats all Warframe is.  I think Warframe has a good foundation, but in order to keep me hooked for more than a month at a time(and I take 3-6 month breaks from it), you need to give me reason to keep logging in.  Having all the warframes, weapons, and mods that I want all leveled up...theres no reward incentive to run a survival other than for kicks and giggles.  No Post lvl 30 progression for anything.  It becomes stale.

 

This is why I turn to D3, because at least theres a chance at an upgrade anytime you play the game, even with a BiS weapon.

[cesmode]

Adding to this after having read the OP whole post...I entirely agree.

 

Add depth to everything about the game. 

 

Add depth to class balance and abilities.  Maybe even give us more choices for abilities to our warframes.

Add depth as to game modes and challenges for Vets.  Like the OP said, I don't want to sink 30 minutes into a survival that Ive done 1000 times to get to the difficult stuff to have a chance at a reward that MIGHT drop at the 30 minute mark.  Short session gameplay.  Meaningful rewards.  More variety to maps and monsters and mechanics.

Add depth to the content you release.  A few "quests" and tiers of completion rewards is so lame.  Oh, and taking the Arenanet approach witth "new in the gemstore is a new sword!!!" is just...I want to puke.

Who in their right minds asked for space-suit combat?  Looks neat, but completely negates all of the work one did to max out and fit their character with their weapons and abilities.  Space suit combat is just too seperate from the rest of the game and negates everything Ive done.  Im not a fan of it.  Id rather you give me an arena boss fight type of system or something.  A gauntlet..indoors.  Or, hell give me the ability to fly my space ship around the different planets.

 

And for gods sake, stop adding new weapons, primes and warframes into the game and balance out whats there.  As the OP said, its flat content.  A new week a new gun.  Woopty doo.  Spend some plat spend some time farming it..great, yea ok it doesnt work for my gameplay so Im going to put it down.  Flat content, flat game experience.  That new weapon did NOTHING to further my current setup.

[Calayne]

Well the vets are not satisfied with this direction, it doesnt hurt to exclude newbies from certain areas and content of the game, this gives motivation to keep going and grinding.

 

 

I actually agree with this statement.

 

If it's something we're going to fund, this will be the first thing I'd like to draw the dev's attention to: The progression of a player, beyond simply adding more content for everyone, and towards more content for the veterans. This is approaching end-game, but is not true end-game.

 

That being said, I would like to draw your attention to the typical MMO: World of Warcraft and Ragnarok Online. Key to the feeling of having an open, immersive world is that you can literally go everywhere. Problem being, you are limited by the fact that you can be out-run and out-murdered by the local mobs. It's enjoyable, because there's a certain sense of exploration. Each part of the world is unique, and differentiation is key to giving a sense of diversity. 

 

Warframe is approaching that in terms of map tiles: Eventually, we'll have unique tile sets for each planet, ideally. More than one, too, possibly, if we ever get "Hidden" nodes in each planet. A.k.a, on one planet, there's a surface level tile set, and on the same planet, there'll be underground labs/ landing/take-off pads/barracks, etc.

 

I support this direction in differentiating between newbs and vets: It encourages skill to progress, because the deeper you go, the more skills you have to adopt to survive, and complete the nodes to enter into an even more difficult planet, with even more types of mission and enemies. This way, strong newbs can progress further than their weaker contemporaries, while vets will have to get gud or die. 

 

And as we fund to develop it, we get more and more enemy varieties unique to the later levels, and they become harder and harder to beat, even at an individual level, where fighting a group begins to need real skill. And this is, of course, not having the enemy rely on simply face-planting your Warframe perpetually, and without being able to respond. At this point of time, Warframe will no longer need to rely on hoards of enemies. Small, calculated groups will already be enough to make us wet our pants.

 

This change in enemy focus, I hope, is what will distinguish between the lower level maps, and the higher level ones; The brutes with big guns will mow down hoards of enemies in Apollodorus, while the coordinated, well-oiled group takes down the small but elite guards in Orokin Palaces; A place where noobs and vets can enjoy curb-stomping enemies, and a place where only a band of battle-hardened veterans can survive.

 

 

 

So... What am I promoting?

 

 

 

 

 

Notionphil's Cells concept, applied more generally (perhaps). I'd pay for that.  

[cesmode]

What about seasons?  I keep referencing Diablo 3 because its a very similar game in experience.  Diablo 3 put in seasons and a leaderboard( I know leaderboards exist for certain things in warframe).  But what if you were able to create, via a GUI, a new warframe(only from a pool of those you have already), and start from scratch.  No resources, guns, credits or anything.  Who can last the longest in defenses and survivals.  

 

Or, seasons could start you off from scratch completely with only choosing a starter warframe and go through the motions again.

 

Seasons would have seasonal exclusive guns, mods, and whatnot...obtainable by simply participating and completing certain achievements like getting a warframe to 30, or Clearing 20 waves on T4 defenses or something.

 

Would this be something people would be into?  At least as a start?

[Davoodoo]

How many devs are currently working on Damage 2.0? Where is the player loss?

 

How many devs are currently working on Dark Sector PvP? Where is the player loss?

 

How many devs are currently working on Nightmare mode? Where is the player loss?

 

How many devs are currently working on the Corrupted faction? Where is the player loss?

 

These are examples of "One time" non-monetized systems which add depth to WF & benefit the game but do not significantly add to upkeep. Your entire premise is flawed. Not every feature requires constant development; and those that do are not appropriate for this funding method.

 

The above are the sort of features are what I am suggesting we crowdfund. Not features like "create 100 melee stance animations and make another one every 3 weeks forever". Features which essentially stand alone, benefit the game, and if designed correctly (damage 2.0 for example) don't need to be constantly built upon but instead offer a framework that deepen other parts of the game.

 

Yes, a dev may go in and spend a few hours tweaking those systems every few weeks/months...but clearly there is not a significant amount of "continuious work" on those projects.

Damage 2.0 is a game mechanic not feature, they dont need continous development, once they are deemed good enough they might stay that way, making product work should be a duty of developer not a good will, but it seems its accepted these days that product might not work like advertised.

Dark sector pvp is worked on or it will be forgotten one time feature like nightmare mode, which btw you mentioned, it was never a thing, it never brought extra players, so theres no one to be lost and devs didnt bother to improve it to bring players. Even despite being forgotten pvp might have brought some ppl but looking at how it works now it havent kept them for any longer amount of time, if they however make it work im sure there will be ppl interested and then disappointed when de decides to not continue that.

Corrupted faction is compliment of feature called voids, new tileset, new enemy faction and new loot, voids are being worked on constantly, even if it means adding new game modes from core game and new weapons.

 

If you however discountinued voids, without further flow of new primes ppl would leave, i would leave for sure if there was nothing added in its place.

 

What will this idea fund then?? another 2.0?? bugfixes and balance maybe?? if you want to develop endgame or at least something that remotely resembles it then you will need stable flow of money to keep it going, endgame is gonna bring ppl in and for large part of them it will be reason to keep playing, if you gonna stop adding to it, they wont have any reason to continue playing.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Davoodoo

[notionphil]

Damage 2.0 is a game mechanic not feature, they dont need continous development, once they are deemed good enough they might stay that way, making product work should be a duty of developer not a good will, but it seems its accepted these days that product might not work like advertised.

Dark sector pvp is worked on or it will be forgotten one time feature like nightmare mode, which btw you mentioned, it was never a thing, it never brought extra players, so theres no one to be lost and devs didnt bother to improve it to bring players. Even despite being forgotten pvp might have brought some ppl but looking at how it works now it havent kept them for any longer amount of time, if they however make it work im sure there will be ppl interested and then disappointed when de decides to not continue that.

Corrupted faction is compliment of feature called voids, new tileset, new enemy faction and new loot, voids are being worked on constantly, even if it means adding new game modes from core game and new weapons.

 

If you however discountinued voids, without further flow of new primes ppl would leave, i would leave for sure if there was nothing added in its place.

 

What will this idea fund then?? another 2.0?? bugfixes and balance maybe?? if you want to develop endgame or at least something that remotely resembles it then you will need stable flow of money to keep it going, endgame is gonna bring ppl in and for large part of them it will be reason to keep playing, if you gonna stop adding to it, they wont have any reason to continue playing.

 

I'm sorry man, you're bending so many things around trying to point to some imaginary risk that it's starting to be comical.

 

Damage 2.0 is a mechanic. So? Focus could also be a mechanic. So could stealth, or a player created quest system.

 

If nightmare mode was done well, it could have been a mechanic as well. missions go into nightmare modes, players choose random conditions, as they gain higher nightmare mode score, they get access to harder condition sets. Done, no more development.

 

Voids/Corrupted? Adding new items to drop tables is not "constant work on void". I can't even believe you're trying to make that argument.

 

And again, what is this talk of "discontinuing" features/mechanics? You totally made that up! Why would DE remove functional features/mechanics from the game? They stay in, and ppl who enjoy them can keep using them, like damage 2.0, nightmare mode, voids, vaults, etc.

 

You ask what would this fund? It could be used to fund a variety of systems. Not all depth, or endgame modes require ongoing dev, obviously.

 

• It could fund a player created content/quest system.

   

• It could fund a randomized daily challenge system, where we get a specific test each day, such as "survive 10 minutes in T4S, solo, with Ember, without firing a shot" for a second, better spin on the rewards wheel.

   

• It could fund dojo challenges, where we visit other's dojos and have to do X Y Z objectives there.

   

• it could fund alternate advancement paths, or alternate ability sets for frames

   

• It could fund a student/disciple system where we train an army of young tenno to face the challenges in the world

   

• It could fund a real stealth system, complete with real stealth rewards

   

• It could fund creation of a new elite class of named mobs for each faction, that only appear in the highest level content.

   

• It could fund a gunplay 2.0 system...

   

• It could fund a massive expansion of nightmare mode, turning it into an evolving challenge with new mission conditions that you can earn, and share with your squad

   

• It could fund another solar system for high rank players

   

• it could fund the development of a new faction

   

• It could fund a traits system for weapons, creating 50 different traits which DE could apply to weapons (existing and new) to make them more distinct.

   

• it could fund player hubs

   

...essentially it could fund anything that doesn't REQUIRE new content in order to be playable. Which, basically, is everything. It would be espeically good at creating systems which interact in beneficial ways to extend exisitng content, such as creating a new solar system, or a new faction. This is much like creating the void. DE doesn't "constantly work on the void" at all. But instead can use it to easily add a new tier, or disperse prime rewards.

 

It would also work very, very well with systems that allow players to create content.

 

I know you won't get anything I am writing here, and instead reply that all of these things somehow require ongoing work, and create risk when they are "discontinued"...which again...won't happen. Nothing needs to be removed or discontinued. New features and systems can just add something...and that's it.

Edited October 16, 2014 by notionphil

[Calayne]

Damage 2.0 is a game mechanic not feature, they dont need continous development, once they are deemed good enough they might stay that way, making product work should be a duty of developer not a good will, but it seems its accepted these days that product might not work like advertised.

Dark sector pvp is worked on or it will be forgotten one time feature like nightmare mode, which btw you mentioned, it was never a thing, it never brought extra players, so theres no one to be lost and devs didnt bother to improve it to bring players. Even despite being forgotten pvp might have brought some ppl but looking at how it works now it havent kept them for any longer amount of time, if they however make it work im sure there will be ppl interested and then disappointed when de decides to not continue that.

Corrupted faction is compliment of feature called voids, new tileset, new enemy faction and new loot, voids are being worked on constantly, even if it means adding new game modes from core game and new weapons.

 

If you however discountinued voids, without further flow of new primes ppl would leave, i would leave for sure if there was nothing added in its place.

 

What will this idea fund then?? another 2.0?? bugfixes and balance maybe?? if you want to develop endgame or at least something that remotely resembles it then you will need stable flow of money to keep it going, endgame is gonna bring ppl in and for large part of them it will be reason to keep playing, if you gonna stop adding to it, they wont have any reason to continue playing.

 

 

I think you don't understand how Notion is presenting how the development of features work:

 

It's like toast. 

 

First, there was no toast. There was no bread. There was only wheat. 

 

But one day, someone, an investor, said to a person, the developer, "You make something delicious from the wheat, and I'll give you what you need for it to happen". 

 

Then, the developer having decided he wants three cows and a chicken, he makes flour. Not quite a hit. In the span of development, he's eaten half a cow. 

 

More research goes on, and finally, dough is made. Meeeeeeeeeeeeh, kinda squishy,and kinda gross. Investor don't like it. Developer eats the other half of the cow, and his chicken. 

 

Finally, developer learns how to bake dough! Yay! Now we have bread! You know what the best part is?

 

Now everyone knows what bread is, and everyone loves it, and no one can take your bread away from you. This bread is now property of the whole freakken' world, thanks to the investors and developers. And, the best part is, the developer still has two cows left, and with that, he can make even better improvements to lame ol' bread.

 

Like toast. 

 

Or maybe even make jam.

 

Or nutella. I freakken' love nutella. I would have crowd-funded the heck out of nutella if it needed it. 

 

Or maybe even peanut butter. 

 

So you see, there's no taking away. I don't know why you keep talking about continuous funding. You don't need continuous funding. The bread has been created. It's not going away. Unless you destroy the whole of civilisation, the bread is going to be a part of our daily enjoyment. Our nice, fluffy baked treats are an improvement of that, which, while reliant on bread, are add-ons. 

 

This idea will fund end-game features which DE may not have the resources to commit to, not only because of capital, but because of continuous revenue to make up for developing this feature if we had not invested in it for them. 

 

That is to say, if they don't have to worry about eating while developing it, then they won't have to charge for it after they've finished it. And no one likes to pay a dollar for every time you take a playground slide. Takes away the fun of it. 

 

This, of course, suggests that we'll be funding FEATURES, not bug fixes or balances. Like if we crowd sourced for Tenno Go-kart. Or Tenno mounts. Or Open-world maps. Or massive raids. Or 8-player co-op. Or weapon attachments. Or maybe even player-content generating tools for Warframe. We're not aiming for something as general as "End game", but specific features that compose "End game", decided upon by players willing to fork out money to speed up and encourage gameplay depth rather than monetize it. 

 

That's it. 

 

Seriously.

 

I don't know how much simpler I can put it than "Bread". 

[Calayne]

- snippity snip snip-

 

 

Davoodoo, by the sound of it, I think you've got to be the person closest to driving notion insane. 

 

Please, slow down a little, good chap, and read and understand the arguments before typing another comment. I've realised your argument has not changed much since three pages ago, despite being continuously addressed. Is there a particular... Notion you can't quite grasp? Please, recall that semantics, that is to say, the nitty-gritty definitions, don't really help. 

 

Mechanics and features are almost essentially the same. Melee is a feature of Warframe, but it is also a core mechanic. And in either case, features and core mechanics have never been withdrawn. Ever. 

 

So, when you pay for a bike, the bike stays with you. You can eventually add on accessories to the bike, literally bells and whistles, but the fact that you invested in a bike means you get to keep the bike. Same concept, man.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

I'm concerned about this: What would "force" them to spend the money on what was asked for? How could we legally prevent investors and the company from forcing the developers to spend that money elsewhere?

 

Also, what if an idea ended up having "insufficient funds"? Maybe there should be a pledged amount of money required where if the playerbase didn't reach it in a set time DE wouldn't charge player accounts, and only would once it reached that threshold.

[Calayne]

I'm concerned about this: What would "force" them to spend the money on what was asked for? How could we legally prevent investors and the company from forcing the developers to spend that money elsewhere?

 

Also, what if an idea ended up having "insufficient funds"? Maybe there should be a pledged amount of money required where if the playerbase didn't reach it in a set time DE wouldn't charge player accounts, and only would once it reached that threshold.

 

 

I think the idea is that DE should roughly know the estimate of what they want, and we take a gander if it's worth the price. In that sense, there's really no clear cut way to tell if it's ever enough, or if we're giving them too much. We can only measure it based on the perceived worth and the estimated cost of implementing that particular feature.

 

I'd like to suggest that after the initial recommended pledge has been reached, even exceeded perhaps, if it still falls short of funds, it would be DE's responsibility to continue that research and development because what they asked for has already been given, and not to mention, it's in their best interest that features that are popular enough to receive monetary support of sufficient levels make it into the game. They were popular and they were funded for a very good reason, and even if funds fall short, the inclusion of it would likely prove a boon for the game as a whole.

 

The only thing we need a guarantee on is that they will try to keep it as little monetized as possible, in the way notion has outlined in the OP. Monetizing their features is not the issue, of course; Rather, it's the pervasiveness of it, and how it affects the game that is questionable in my opinion. 

 

Edit: Also, where money is concerned, how can we be so sure, even in Kickstarter, that they won't spend our money elsewhere?

 

We don't, I think. But you invested in something, and whether they use it on other stuff or not, at the end of the day, they need to deliver what they promise. Perhaps the deliverable points are negotiable prior to investing. Maybe not. But at the end of the day, what matters is that the finished product comes out, and misusing funds will leave a distrust between developer and playerbase that I believe DE would not enjoy doing. 

Edited October 17, 2014 by Calayne

[AlphaHorseman]

Wouldn't improvements on systems be good though? I'm not for/against Davoodoo or NotionPhil in this argument, but even if a system is good (there are few in this game that are good, in my opinion), wouldn't it be nice if they continually improved on those systems? 2.0 of everything in game can only be good for the game overall. Hek, even 3.0's if we're able to do so. I'll agree, we have a large foundation that DE has given us, without much buildings happening upon it, but I'd be disappointed if the only way DE sees they need depth in this game is by players throwing money at them. Isn't progression of the game depth-wise something that should be kept in mind from the outset?

 

Notion, I'll agree that this game needs depth, and if the only way DE sees it is by the green flashing in front of their face, then so be it. I'd hate excluding any part of the player base with anything that concerns the future of WarFrame, and thats why I'm not one who supports the exclusivity of having a money-only segment of the player base. I'd rather have it where all can comment on the incoming systems, where all are able to give feedback, provide ideas, expand on the projects, because the entire community pitching in actually makes it feel like WarFrame is all of our works put together in tandem with DE making it possible.

 

Having to exclude a large part of the community, simply for the fact that some literally cannot afford to pitch in money, sounds like exclusivity that would divide players. It feels like a divide where the players with money benefit because they have money, and those without...well tough luck to them. I understand that Prime Access gives some cosmetic exclusives, but that's it, they're only cosmetics. Anything given in Prime Access (other than the exclusive cosmetics) is something that players can achieve through game play.

 

Though I must also state that the systems you are proposing, though they are not cosmetic, have the potential to make it into the game. I must also say though, if a player outside of the proposed test group had a wonderful idea that could make a game mechanic work, was excluded only because he didn't have the money, would feel like a total loss to all of us involved. Players without cash are unable to input their ideas only because they do not have the funding for it. Their ideas could save a game mechanic, introduce something that could be transcending to an aspect of the game, and to be left out only because they don't have the money for it sounds like a bad idea.

 

Sure, a small number of players could join the group without having to pay if they had good ideas, but what happens if a test system experiences a problem that the exclusive players do not have a good solution for? That's the flaw I see with this plan. It excludes solutions, ideas, potential improvements, simply by the fact that it excludes a massive amount of the player-base.

 

I'm all for improving and expanding on the content we already have in-game, but I'm just not for excluding a lot of the players simply for their inability to fork up money in a Free To Play game as great as this one.

Edited October 17, 2014 by AlphaHorseman

[Davoodoo]

I'm sorry man, you're bending so many things around trying to point to some imaginary risk that it's starting to be comical.

 

Damage 2.0 is a mechanic. So? Focus could also be a mechanic. So could stealth, or a player created quest system.

 

If nightmare mode was done well, it could have been a mechanic as well. missions go into nightmare modes, players choose random conditions, as they gain higher nightmare mode score, they get access to harder condition sets. Done, no more development.

 

Voids/Corrupted? Adding new items to drop tables is not "constant work on void". I can't even believe you're trying to make that argument.

 

And again, what is this talk of "discontinuing" features/mechanics? You totally made that up! Why would DE remove functional features/mechanics from the game? They stay in, and ppl who enjoy them can keep using them, like damage 2.0, nightmare mode, voids, vaults, etc.

 

You ask what would this fund? It could be used to fund a variety of systems. Not all depth, or endgame modes require ongoing dev, obviously.

 

• It could fund a player created content/quest system.

   

• It could fund a randomized daily challenge system, where we get a specific test each day, such as "survive 10 minutes in T4S, solo, with Ember, without firing a shot" for a second, better spin on the rewards wheel.

   

• It could fund dojo challenges, where we visit other's dojos and have to do X Y Z objectives there.

   

• it could fund alternate advancement paths, or alternate ability sets for frames

   

• It could fund a student/disciple system where we train an army of young tenno to face the challenges in the world

   

• It could fund a real stealth system, complete with real stealth rewards

   

• It could fund creation of a new elite class of named mobs for each faction, that only appear in the highest level content.

   

• It could fund a gunplay 2.0 system...

   

• It could fund a massive expansion of nightmare mode, turning it into an evolving challenge with new mission conditions that you can earn, and share with your squad

   

• It could fund another solar system for high rank players

   

• it could fund the development of a new faction

   

• It could fund a traits system for weapons, creating 50 different traits which DE could apply to weapons (existing and new) to make them more distinct.

   

• it could fund player hubs

   

...essentially it could fund anything that doesn't REQUIRE new content in order to be playable. Which, basically, is everything. It would be espeically good at creating systems which interact in beneficial ways to extend exisitng content, such as creating a new solar system, or a new faction. This is much like creating the void. DE doesn't "constantly work on the void" at all. But instead can use it to easily add a new tier, or disperse prime rewards.

 

It would also work very, very well with systems that allow players to create content.

 

I know you won't get anything I am writing here, and instead reply that all of these things somehow require ongoing work, and create risk when they are "discontinued"...which again...won't happen. Nothing needs to be removed or discontinued. New features and systems can just add something...and that's it.

If you want to make a game about space ninjas killing tons of enemies, then you will need to make that concept work.

 

You need to make space nijas, so you probably gonna need some kind of futuristic suit, they were advertised as ninjas, so melee and stealth action, they need to kill enemies so you need enemies and damage system.

 

To fulfill that concept alone they needed systems like damage 2.0 in place, because what is damage2.0?? its necessary mechanic that makes game work since damage 1.0 was deemed too flawed.

Focus could be a mechanic, can you play the game just fine without it?? ye sure, its extension of progression so theres no problem, could you play a game purely about combat without damage model?? impossible.

inb4 parkour argument, feature is parkour, parkour 1.0 is system by which it works, if parkour 1.0 isnt good enough then this should be changed, but its pretty much update to flawed system, something closer to bugfixing than actual content update, is that what you want to pay for??

 

"if nightmares were done right", they werent, de intorduced nightmare modes, added 3 extra mods there, changed few challenges and havent continued to develop it, if ppl would actually enjoy that piece they would eventually ask for more, more challanges, more rewards, tilesets and game modes transfer from core game but they would also ask for those at some point.

 

New weapons is content, whether you consider it good or bad, sure de could do so much more with voids and i would really appreciate that, but they release mostly new weapons and switch few things in tilesets every now and then, ill have my objections of putting money to improve feature which they already monetized.

Would you play voids if de announced they are not gonna make any new primes, i wouldnt, it would mean i have nothing to do anymore, i got everything i wanted from there.

 

Ill skip stuff that devs already promised us from that list.

 

daily challenges is really neat idea, but that thing isnt something really complicated or expensive and rewards would also be problem, if its something meaningless then players wont bother, if its worth anything then de will lose money on it and will simply refuse to implement it. Not that it adds depth into game.

 

student/tutor system also isnt expensive to develop, sure it would help lvl our stuff, but doesnt really do anything to give some depth to the game, new players will again complain that veterans destroy everything and they cant play and veterans will get all exp.

 

Elite enemies sure, but de already promised us new enemies, i would first like to see them in action before i decide to accidentaly fund a new elite lancer.

 

Gunplay is core mechanic of the game, even if they get paid they cant really do anything if players say that they find gunplay sufficient and honestly with current mechanics present even i find it sufficient, if however ppl would want to improve, you shouldnt pay to make game work.

 

Nightmares i mentioned already.

 

Another solar system would be great, every veteran would go, complete it sooner or later, maybe do a few more runs, then majority of players would do it and then what?? 2 months after its release ppl would ask for more, you cant simply leave it there, its not enough content to keep ppl interested forever.

 

I feel like these traits should be included in mods2.0 so again i wont pay to make customisation work, since de decided to add customisation in their game they should work with it. Expect some quality instead of throwing money everywhere.

 

Everything i havent mentioned de promised us already, if you want to shape it then thats what this forum is, hopefuly they will show prerelease content in devstreams and you can comment upon it on forums, if they ignore criticism and suggestion now, nothing would stop them from ignoring it during "beta access".

Edited October 17, 2014 by Davoodoo

[fatpig84]

There will never be an endgame (points at WoW).

Challenges will always be broken eventually, even if it is hardest of content.  

 

Dedicated players will get down a strategy within the first 2 weeks.

People emulate then slowly farm it.

Within that same month, everyone and their dog can run it with tried and true methods or getting the requisite gear.

 

Within 2 months the community will be craving for something new again.

So content and "challenges" will always have a finite limit.

How many challenge content do you wanna fill in ? 

100, 200, 300 challenges ?

 

 

But right now to have have an endgame is when DE finally puts the lid on how strong you can be.

And that cannot be done until we have the Focus system, because Focus actually makes frames and their abilities stronger as well.

Push that out, then DE can work on endgame or challenges or handicaps that veterans seek.

Edited October 17, 2014 by fatpig84

[Calayne]

-snip-

 

 

Davoodoo, you're not making any sense. 

 

Your argument is suggesting that all the features now need to be fleshed out, and if that's the case, we shouldn't be paying for it. Correct? You also mentioned how if that were the case, then it'd be more of a fix from a broken feature to something workable, which is something we most certainly shouldn't have to pay for, being a feature that can be worked on simply if we keep demanding it. Correct?

 

Basically, your argument is based on the premise that paying for improvement to the current features is bad. The developers shouldn't need to be paid for that. It's their job. 

 

Before I continue, I want to point out what Notion mentioned were examples. Don't nitpick. It's not the examples themselves that matter, it's the idea of what's possible. It doesn't have to be about end-game, or daily challenges, or what have you. But it has to be something the whole community cares about.

 

That's why your argument is flawed. You're basing your premise on the idea that we may fund for features that are eventually useless, or damaging to DE, so even after paying for it, it won't come out. This is a flawed, pessimistic viewpoint. I appreciate a devil's advocate, but you're beginning to push it by introducing very unlikely scenarios.

 

Based on your argument, you shouldn't go out. It's possible that a meteor might fall on your head, and you might die. Or you could trip, and fall into a puddle with an electric wire connected to a 2kw power supply. Or if you fall in love, you just might get AIDS. 

 

You focus on negatives which will not be likely to come to pass, nor are likely to be issues if properly circumnavigated. Am I using too difficult words? 

 

We do not fund something like we go to a market and buy it. We monitor its progress, based on the promises that DE has made, and assuming it's worth it, we help fund it. It is, I repeat, IT IS IN DE'S BEST INTEREST TO LIVE UP TO THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE PROMISE MADE. I cannot stress this enough. 

 

Davoodoo, I don't mean to single you out, but your pedantic manner of approaching our points is a little infuriating. I don't have an issue with concerns raised, but these are not hard questions to answer, nor, I would think, are they significant points. We can go on forever. You are beating on straw-men.

 

I'd recommend seeing the forest for the trees, and not focusing on the nitty gritty. It's not important. The details aren't what matters, because we're not the designers. We're throwing an idea out, a broad stroke, to give an idea of what we're trying to suggest, and you're trying to dismantle our argument by poking little holes in what's basically nothing.

 

The idea is simple: Even if we do fund an improvement to the system, it will be a necessary improvement NOT BECAUSE IT FIXES BUGS AND OTHER ISSUES OF THE WEAPONS; THOSE WILL ALMOST ALWAYS EXIST. What we ARE trying to fund, and why it's totally worth it, is THE FEATURES THAT ARE ADDED INTO THOSE CORE MECHANICS TO INCREASE DEPTH. While I am not of a mind to highlight these points so rudely, I feel it is necessary to get the point across in as gentle a manner as possible, while still emphasizing the main points.