Crafting...this Is Madness!

[Huitzil]

I'm sorry you feel this way. The evidence we have does not support your claim but I understand that some feel this way. If we have hard currency items and soft currency blueprints+auto complete than people spending money to support the game (and thereby adding more items and enjoyment for people that are not paying a dime) would be getting ripped off.

 

Every single game I've played with crafting has a time component. That time component serves two purposes: 1) Gives you a reason to come back. 2) Let's players who can afford it support the devs by skipping the wait.

 

The sarcastic realism argument cuts both ways, I think its a wash if immersion is worse with the digital sword popping into existence vs. a hidden Tenno 3d printer slowly smelting it with sparks and stuff.

 

A three-second casting animation to make an item is not in the same league as a three-day waiting period to make an item and it's incredibly dishonest to claim some kind of parity. I would LOVE to hear about all of these games you have played with crafting times measured in days, and I'd also love to know how you managed to avoid every game with a crafting system that doesn't have that.

 

Paying hard currency to get items does not become a "rip off" if crafting the items is instant. Because crafting the items ALREADY takes a long time, the time spent farming the materials. Time farming materials is okay. That is perfectly fair. Paying hard currency to skip that is like getting a boost or taking a shortcut, which is what paying for things in a F2P game ought to be. The waiting time after you have assembled all the materials is not. It is glaringly artificial, it's the very worst of F2P misbehavior. Paying money to circumvent an annoyance is not the same thing as paying money to get a boost. 

 

If you expect "paying to circumvent waiting times" to be a major source of your hard-currency income, you need to come up with a new source of hard-currency income. One that has people feel as if they are paying to get something extra, not paying for something that absolutely should be free.

[[DE]Steve]

-Casting animation?

 

-Farming the mats coming from infinite sources. IRL there are not infinite trees to chop down. Economic rules are bent. Paying money to get a boost is avoided in this game. You pay for faster access. Don't agree this is the very worst of F2P misbehavior.

 

-Not glaringly artificial. Making a sword takes time. Not everything is 3 days. Some are in hours.

 

-Again we avoid pay for extra due to fairness. We'll have to agree to disagree.

[Archistopheles]

a hidden Tenno 3d printer slowly smelting it with sparks and stuff.

 

The imagery was perfect.

 

I can now plainly see an old HP laser printer cranking back and forth at about 2 lines per second with the loudest, most annoying sparking sound ever conceived.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Archistopheles

[Carcharias]

There is nothing wrong with the wait in this game. This is just one of the ways you can support the game if you want to. If you're so impatient that you just can't wait the time you are probably 10 years old and I hate to break if to you but Santa won't be coming for like over seven months! It is wonderful that a game that is as good as this one (currently just in its beta) is "free to play," but be realistic. A lot of work goes into making a game like this, people have to be paid so they can and eat and stuff, have to have money to get decent servers which in case you don't realize, are so not cheap. If this game was not free to play with ways to encourage you to cough up some dough every now and it would probably be released at $60 and we would have to buy it before could play it. Free to play is primarily a way to be able to play a game to see if you like it before you have to drop any cash. If it was truly free there would be no game, It. Is. Not. Free. Games just don't show up out of never land because we will them to. In reality the term "free to play" is a terrible term, because it not. Somewhere somehow there HAS to be some profit generated for a game to exist, especially an online game that requires a team to build and servers to run. If you want go ahead and make a game yourself and see if you can / how long it takes for you to do it for free. In the mean time if you are playing a game for free stop complaining and welcome to the future. If you haven't paid then it's free and you have to room to complain, if you have paid then you have the option to skip the wait if you wan to. You have that power, use it wisely.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Carcharias

[Huitzil]

-Casting animation?

 

-Farming the mats coming from infinite sources. IRL there are not infinite trees to chop down. Economic rules are bent. Paying money to get a boost is avoided in this game. You pay for faster access. Don't agree this is the very worst of F2P misbehavior.

 

-Not glaringly artificial. Making a sword takes time. Not everything is 3 days. Some are in hours.

 

-Again we avoid pay for extra due to fairness. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Casting animation. Like in every MMO from the past ten years, you get your materials, and the "wait time" to craft something is the three seconds it takes for your character to perform the "making something" animation, and then you have it. Where are all these games you play where they all have crafting times measured in days, and how did you avoid all the ones that aren't?

 

And it doesn't matter that farming the mats come from infinite sources. Did I say anything about limited supply? I said TIME. I put in TIME to gather crafting materials and the blueprints, so making me wait longer to get the assembled product or pay platinum feels like extortion.

[PapaKicks]

However, I DO think that the "RUSH" option should have a scaling cost.

 

Currently, it costs the exact same amount to rush a project when it has 3 days to completion as it does to rush the same project with minutes to completion.

 

100% agree.

I will not pay 50 plat to rush my warframe for 3 days. But when there's three hours left and I can't wait any longer, I'd totally pay 5 plat or whatever.

 

That is 5 plat you devs would not otherwise get (ignoring other uses for plat).

[SFkenny]

I actually kinda like the wait times. Makes me think there's a micro factory in my Tenno's starship that has to craft this stuff from acquired blueprints and resources. I'd love to be able to see the crafted object being built in real-time though.

[[DE]Steve]

Casting animation. Like in every MMO from the past ten years, you get your materials, and the "wait time" to craft something is the three seconds it takes for your character to perform the "making something" animation, and then you have it. Where are all these games you play where they all have crafting times measured in days, and how did you avoid all the ones that aren't?

 

And it doesn't matter that farming the mats come from infinite sources. Did I say anything about limited supply? I said TIME. I put in TIME to gather crafting materials and the blueprints, so making me wait longer to get the assembled product or pay platinum feels like extortion.

 

I assume you are talking about subscription MMOs? :(

 

TIME... yes. I don't want to come off unsympathetic but it isn't extortion. It is pressure, I fully concede that. I totally understand your position and your arguments are well made. A player who uses our servers, gets regular updates, spends gobs of time in the game... this costs us money. We need them there and we need the community. That is why generally fairness and access for them is prioritized over time. I realize you feel that you've *given* that time to us and we owe you something for it but its a difficult thing to build a business on unless we use ads. (Where player time = ad exposure = direct-ish revenue). I'd prefer to avoid that entirely.

[plznohurtme]

Casting animation. Like in every MMO from the past ten years, you get your materials, and the "wait time" to craft something is the three seconds it takes for your character to perform the "making something" animation, and then you have it. Where are all these games you play where they all have crafting times measured in days, and how did you avoid all the ones that aren't?

 

And it doesn't matter that farming the mats come from infinite sources. Did I say anything about limited supply? I said TIME. I put in TIME to gather crafting materials and the blueprints, so making me wait longer to get the assembled product or pay platinum feels like extortion.

You mean the same MMOs that have hardcoded cooldown timers between when you can make certain things? The same MMOs that incorporate daily quests to get crafting items because the only other way to get them is through an organized raid or super rare drop rates?  The wait time in this game doesn't mean anything beyond it being a time you wait until you get your item... it doesn't penalize you for doing anything in particular, just makes you wait, and if you don't want to wait you have a way to circumvent it.  Yes there's an incentive to get your item "now" but aside from Warframes themselves nothing takes beyond 24 hours so it's not like the wait is terrifically long.  Seeing as we all know this wait time is in there perhaps preparing for it and maybe farming your bp/mats earlier before you run out of things to level/clear would be good? (I'm not sure of your circumstance or why you're complaining, because I don't really get the impression it's just wanting it "now")

 

I like actually playing Warframe and don't do it just when there is an item to get, so I have a lot of materials just because I like the game.  If there was no wait time involved I'd have anything I wanted immediately without going to any effort to get it at all aside from buying a blueprint or farming a boss (or in the case of banshee not getting lucky on drops, but it's been weeks another 3-4 days doesn't exactly matter to me).  I don't use platinum to speed up the crafting of my items as I'm not offended by the fact that I have to wait while they craft since it doesn't impact game play.  Good planning gets around the innocuous disadvantage of a wait time in my opinion.

[Huitzil]

Don't try to make this about "entitlement". It's about psychology. It's not about YOU owing anything, it's about the GAME owing me something -- and you are god damn right, when I assemble all my materials and blueprints the game does owe me that item and it owes me that item immediately. Just like when I shoot an enemy in the head, the game "owes" me to deal damage to that enemy. 

 

There's a huge difference between paying for something extra and paying to get something you should have already. Pay for more revives? That's fine. Great. The game gives me four revives per day, without me doing anything, and if I want more it totally makes sense for me to pay platinum for it. Pay for Affinity boosters? Sure. I'm still playing the levels, which gets me affinity normally, the boost is something totally extra. Pay for color schemes? All for it. Color schemes don't affect how I can play the game, so I'm not pressured into buying them. Pay for frame and weapon slots? Fantastic. I don't "need" more than one of the former and three of the latter, and the more of them I use, the more I am invested in the game, paying platinum to expand that capacity makes total sense. Paying for more lives in a game like Candy Crush Saga where you need lives to play the game at all? Sure, because I know I could wait for them to be given to me based on time, and it's okay to have to pay to bypass that.

 

But crafting materials aren't given to me freely based on time elapsed. I spent my own time and effort to collect them. I have already paid for them. And that is why saying "You can wait for this totally unreasonable amount of time, or you can pay platinum" feels like extortion, and that is why it is inexcusable. 

 

Do you really really REALLY want there to be a time delay? You still can't have a "X days to assemble..." countdown, because, again, that's inexcusable. Make crafting require an extra resource that is given for free every day, and can only be stockpiled to a certain limit (perhaps both of these can be upgraded during game play), and you can pay platinum to get more. Now if I only craft an item once in a while, I just get it right away since my reserves built up will be enough to deal with it. And if I craft so many items I run out of reserves and have to either wait multiple days for more or pay platinum to refill my stockpile, now that wait time is directly correlated to how much I have been making, and it feels like I am paying to get something extra, instead of paying for something that should be mine.

[Mietz]

Don't try to make this about "entitlement".

[....] it's about the GAME owing me something [...] game does owe me that item and it owes me that item immediately. [....]the game "owes" me to deal damage to that enemy. 

 

Can't....stop-- laughing.

 

Deep breaths....deep breaths.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Mietz

[[DE]Steve]

Never implied this is about entitlement. I explained why it is this way. The 'game god-damn-right'-owing you something is the same as .. it's creators, coders, artists, animators, admins, etc (e.g. people that eat food, take better jobs if we can't pay them) owing you something. Totally the same.

 

I've been candid, read your comments carefully and explained why it is the way it is. I wish I could agree and smash it out right now to make you happy but I can't and I won't. A potential compromise would be 'rush sauce' that we give out now and then. It is entirely possible but not in the queue right now.

 

Thanks for the comments.

[Huitzil]

Yeah I was saying "owes" to highlight how astonishingly stupid, arrogant, out of touch and meaningless it is to claim that talking about what a game should do is "entitlement". The fact that you quoted the line about the game "owing" me dealing damage to an enemy when I shoot it in the head, and thought it was somehow humiliating to me, shows that you didn't read it, or you didn't understand it, or you're just a jackass who enjoys sneering at people for the sake of sneering.

[Huitzil]

Never implied this is about entitlement. I explained why it is this way. The 'game god-damn-right'-owing you something is the same as .. it's creators, coders, artists, animators, admins, etc (e.g. people that eat food, take better jobs if we can't pay them) owing you something. Totally the same.

 

So when I say that the game "owes" me to deal damage to an enemy when I shoot that enemy, is that somehow an unreasonable burden on all the people working on the game? No. It's what a game should be doing. Failure to do so would be an indication the game is not working correctly.

 

The game "owes" me the immediate construction of my crafted items in the exact same manner it "owes" me damage for shooting enemies and it "owes" me making my character move when I press a movement key. 

[Argoms]

 

The sarcastic realism argument cuts both ways, I think its a wash if immersion is worse with the digital sword popping into existence vs. a hidden Tenno 3d printer slowly smelting it with sparks and stuff.

So that's why it takes so long. The tenno should invest in some CNC machines to speed things up a bit.

[vladroot]

One thing in particular caught my attention while I was crafting a new sword. The waiting time. The waiting time that is far beyond acceptable and is there for no other reason than getting real credits into Dev's pocket. Seriously..are we playing a PC game or an Android building game where you buy diamonds to shorten the time you wait for  new pot of coffee to be ready? 

I can live with 15h downtime. But if the time required rises with the rarity of the blueprint. Well..this is definitely not the way to go.

Think about purchasable, visual variations of the available Warframes, weapons etc. Please...get rid of that stupid thing...

so they kinda should make everything work fast, easy to use and easy to obtain? Then the game should have a mandatory subscription - otherwise how the hell are they suppose to make money?

Edited May 2, 2013 by vladroot

[[DE]Steve]

Yeah I was saying "owes" to highlight how astonishingly stupid, arrogant, out of touch and meaningless it is to claim that talking about what a game should do is "entitlement". The fact that you quoted the line about the game "owing" me dealing damage to an enemy when I shoot it in the head, and thought it was somehow humiliating to me, shows that you didn't read it, or you didn't understand it, or you're just a jackass who enjoys sneering at people for the sake of sneering.

 

Thanks! My mom still loves me though.

[vieuxchat]

You can wait for this totally unreasonable amount of time, or you can pay platinum.

Unreasonable amount of time ?

You should read "the little prince" which explains far better than me that is that "lost" time that will give value to what you're going to get. It's like preparing yourself to get a gift, or the last few hours before christmas.

3 days isn't even near from an "unreasonable" amount of time. 3 weeks would be near that. 3 months would be.

 

Farming mats isn't really creating a warframe. It's more like "preparing" a warframe.

 

And the game don't "owe" you anything besides what the coders wanted to "owe" you. When you play for free at warframe you use the servers. For free. You try the game ? You cost money to the devs.

DE_steve conceded that it was a kind of pressure, but extortion a not the right word to use for a ... game. Even if you're talking about your feelings, and not about real extortion.

[iotimoline]

The game "owes" me the immediate construction of my crafted items in the exact same manner it "owes" me damage for shooting enemies and it "owes" me making my character move when I press a movement key. 

It does?  Really?  Why does it owe you immediate completion?

[Huitzil]

Thanks! My mom still loves me though.

Actually I was responding to the guy above you, the one who quoted me and talked about "entitlement" and acted as if it was somehow humiliating to me. You posted right before I did. How did you think that post was directed at you, when it very clearly was talking about actions you did not do?

[PapaKicks]

Unreasonable amount of time ?

You should read "the little prince" which explains far better than me that is that "lost" time that will give value to what you're going to get. It's like preparing yourself to get a gift, or the last few hours before christmas.

 

Funny. I just read a book on an animal's mental well-being. Long story short is that knowing a treat was coming, was more stimulating than actually getting the treat. Since humans are animals, the same should apply to us as well. (To be fair it has to be within reason, too long of a wait and it stops being true)

[[DE]Steve]

Actually I was responding to the guy above you, the one who quoted me and talked about "entitlement" and acted as if it was somehow humiliating to me. You posted right before I did. How did you think that post was directed at you, when it very clearly was talking about actions you did not do?

Ahh duh.

 

Still, the mudslinging (on either side) makes me sad.

[Carcharias]

Yeah I was saying "owes" to highlight how astonishingly stupid, arrogant, out of touch and meaningless it is to claim that talking about what a game should do is "entitlement". The fact that you quoted the line about the game "owing" me dealing damage to an enemy when I shoot it in the head, and thought it was somehow humiliating to me, shows that you didn't read it, or you didn't understand it, or you're just a jackass who enjoys sneering at people for the sake of sneering.

Wow, I don't get that impression at all. You sir, have vision, I believe your talent is wasted here. Stop holding back, go forth and cure cancer for the good of the world.

[Huitzil]

Funny. I just read a book on an animal's mental well-being. Long story short is that knowing a treat was coming, was more stimulating than actually getting the treat. Since humans are animals, the same should apply to us as well. (To be fair it has to be within reason, too long of a wait and it stops being true)

The anticipation building period is the time you spend gathering materials and blueprints. Adding another wait time on top of that is not reasonable.

[Mietz]

I must record this thread for posterity, it is my destiny.