Crafting...this Is Madness!

[[DE]Steve]

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)

I've read the same. The dopamine release happens twice - once when you realize what you're going to get, and a second time when you receive it. I know Huitzil hates it but I've heard many people talk about how they like it, how they've got X 'in the oven' and can't wait to claim it tomorrow... or people who are excited about what they are building and post Foundry shots to reddit and so on.

[vieuxchat]

I would love a "real" foundry mini game for baking warframes. (not "real" like in real, but something along the lines of a very complicated jigsaw puzzle of a warframe. You succeed to the jigsaw puzzle ? You cut the waiting time by two.)

[Amistyrja]

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

I, for one am perfectly fine with that. And while waiting I find something else to do that isn't watching grass grow and paint dry.

Just 2 more days to my Ember go go go!

[Depar]

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.

We.need.this :O

[Cakes]

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...

 

Far beyond acceptable?

 

Sir. you clearly have yet to enjoy the satisfaction of viewing 10+ items simultaneously being built in your foundry.

 

If you can live with a 15 hour downtime, you can live with the 12 hours it takes to complete crafting a new sword. Because 12 is less than 15.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Cakes

[c_man_ninja_gun]

The only thing I would change, would be to make warframes build a bit faster. two days instead of three would be good for me. 

[Inez]

My boss sometimes waits 2 weeks to pay me!

 

This is far beyond acceptable!

[corpseshock]

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...

 

Ever played EVE Online ? 3 days are nothing.

[Argoms]

Ever played EVE Online ? 3 days are nothing.

Well to be fair, everything is nothing in eve when you think about how quickly you could lose it.

[GloriousYellowEmperor]

So. Much. Rage.

I actually like the wait time. Its nice. I enjoy it. Gives me something to look forward to when I come home.

Do you need it right then? Really? Because I make an item, go to sleep, come home, and tah-dah! Its done usually, unless its a warframe.

And sorry to say that at the end of the day, it still sounds like entitlement to me. "I SPENT 2378423 HOURS FARMING MATS SO I SHOULD GET IT RIGHT NOW". Oh? Really now? They could double the items needed for mats. They could triple them. Hell, they could 2834x them. Then they could take out your wait time. Would that make you happy?

tl:dr - devs can do whatever they please because most people are ok with the system

[LuckyStr_ke]

the amount of little childrens stupid complains about stupid things is tooooo daaaaamn high!

 

"deal with it"

[LuckyStr_ke]

and now i am stupidly complaining about stupid complains.... man i give too much f***s

[Leostrasz]

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. 

 

 

..... bro, you alright there? You're doing a bit of tripping over yourself.

 

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. 

 

Uh... I believe you're grabbing the wrong context and statement on why that's not beneficial for the crew.

Let's not sling mud here, it makes people bitter and exacerbates the problem.

 

But I think the main problem here is that I suppose you're used to systems in other games where crafting is instantaneous, and that's cool too. But then crafting isn't a basic function of how a game works i.e. movement inputs or the core mechanics of a shooter "shoot in the head for damage values" and what not, so it technically isn't a fair comparison. There are games that exist where a crafting mechanic isn't even present, believe it or not. Just think of it as the crafting time being part of the "cost" of the weapon.

 

As Steve has mentioned, it is a revenue generating mechanic, utilising pressure. If you want to go into economics, you WANT it now because you feel deprived of it, you feel it is a NEED because this want has value to you. The studio earns money because there is DEMAND for a way to speed up the process, which are your needs backed by buying power. From your replies thus far, I'd say it's doing a good job. For some, it's fine and life goes on, for others, the wait time just rocks their boat. I guess you just fall into the second category.

 

Foot note: You either pay it or live with it. Same with any other good like say.. a game console. You want it, but you don't have the means to buy it so you either live without it or you earn some value (cash) so you can pay the equivalent value (of production costs+profit) to the company for the good. You don't go screaming to Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo telling them to throw you one now do you?

 

 

So TL;DR, crafting is a secondary mechanic, designing how it works is DE's job. It's to earn them some money means there's some form of demand or value manipulation here and so they can do whatever the hell they want to with it.

[Guest]

I like the wait times, really builds up anticipation of your new gear and gives you something to look forward to which is a good incentive to keep playing.

 

There are some blueprint weapons that should be excused from the wait times though. Does it really take the Tenno 12 hours to figure out how to hold two guns?

[Tsukinoki]

I like the wait times, really builds up anticipation of your new gear and gives you something to look forward to which is a good incentive to keep playing.

 

There are some blueprint weapons that should be excused from the wait times though. Does it really take the Tenno 12 hours to figure out how to hold two guns?

When I build dual guns I just think of it that it takes 12 hours to get the orokin cell to integrate with the guns and sync them up/increase their damage/everything else that happens.

[Huitzil]

 

 

As Steve has mentioned, it is a revenue generating mechanic, utilising pressure. If you want to go into economics, you WANT it now because you feel deprived of it, you feel it is a NEED because this want has value to you. The studio earns money because there is DEMAND for a way to speed up the process, which are your needs backed by buying power. From your replies thus far, I'd say it's doing a good job. For some, it's fine and life goes on, for others, the wait time just rocks their boat. I guess you just fall into the second category.

 

Foot note: You either pay it or live with it. Same with any other good like say.. a game console. You want it, but you don't have the means to buy it so you either live without it or you earn some value (cash) so you can pay the equivalent value (of production costs+profit) to the company for the good. You don't go screaming to Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo telling them to throw you one now do you?

 

 

So TL;DR, crafting is a secondary mechanic, designing how it works is DE's job. It's to earn them some money means there's some form of demand or value manipulation here and so they can do whatever the hell they want to with it.

Not all revenue generating mechanics are equal and not all of them are good. I KNOW the idea is to put pressure on and get people to pay money to alleviate that. And it's a bad way of doing that. I am not opposed to "pay real money to skip things" F2P mechanics. I am opposed to THIS one.

 

Games with crafting mechanics have established that when you put all your components together, you get your item. Just like games have established when you press a movement key your character moves and when you shoot an enemy it deals damage. You could, in theory, make a game that justified breaking these assumptions -- maybe movement doesn't always work based on the emotional state of the player character affecting their ability to understand commands, or maybe when your bullet hits an enemy in an RPG-shooter the game performs a skill check to see if you "really" hit and dealt damage. You could justify these things until you are blue in the face. You could have people on your forums rationalizing it as actually cool and awesome and unique and anyone who disagrees is an entitled noob. And they would still be Godawful mechanics and your game would be terrible. You can find people to defend any bad design decision in a game on its forums, usually so they can get the smug high of calling other people entitled and/or unskilled, that doesn't mean it's a good idea -- most of the players this turns off don't post on the forum, they just stop playing. 

 

The wait period violates fundamental assumptions games have for no productive outcome. It's a feel-bad experience because unlike other platinum-payment options, I ALREADY put in effort and time to get these materials and blueprints, and therefore saying "okay but if you want to use them now you have to pay plat" feels like extortion. That is the difference. That is the psychological factor that you and the other rationalizers are continually ignoring in order to claim I just want the company to gimme gimme gimme: paying for something I have not put any time and effort into, IS NOT the same thing as paying to access something I already put work into. The former is fine. The latter is inexcusable. I already explained how the game could implement a pay-to-skip waiting period in a way that does not feel like extortion -- by giving the player a daily allotment of a new resource, allowing them to stockpile it to a point, requiring it for crafting, and allowing players to buy more of it for platinum. What makes that solution worse than the existing one? What about that solution is "entitled"?

[Tsukinoki]

Not all revenue generating mechanics are equal and not all of them are good. I KNOW the idea is to put pressure on and get people to pay money to alleviate that. And it's a bad way of doing that. I am not opposed to "pay real money to skip things" F2P mechanics. I am opposed to THIS one.

 

Games with crafting mechanics have established that when you put all your components together, you get your item. Just like games have established when you press a movement key your character moves and when you shoot an enemy it deals damage. You could, in theory, make a game that justified breaking these assumptions -- maybe movement doesn't always work based on the emotional state of the player character affecting their ability to understand commands, or maybe when your bullet hits an enemy in an RPG-shooter the game performs a skill check to see if you "really" hit and dealt damage. You could justify these things until you are blue in the face. You could have people on your forums rationalizing it as actually cool and awesome and unique and anyone who disagrees is an entitled noob. And they would still be Godawful mechanics and your game would be terrible. You can find people to defend any bad design decision in a game on its forums, usually so they can get the smug high of calling other people entitled and/or unskilled, that doesn't mean it's a good idea -- most of the players this turns off don't post on the forum, they just stop playing. 

 

The wait period violates fundamental assumptions games have for no productive outcome. It's a feel-bad experience because unlike other platinum-payment options, I ALREADY put in effort and time to get these materials and blueprints, and therefore saying "okay but if you want to use them now you have to pay plat" feels like extortion. That is the difference. That is the psychological factor that you and the other rationalizers are continually ignoring in order to claim I just want the company to gimme gimme gimme: paying for something I have not put any time and effort into, IS NOT the same thing as paying to access something I already put work into. The former is fine. The latter is inexcusable. I already explained how the game could implement a pay-to-skip waiting period in a way that does not feel like extortion -- by giving the player a daily allotment of a new resource, allowing them to stockpile it to a point, requiring it for crafting, and allowing players to buy more of it for platinum. What makes that solution worse than the existing one? What about that solution is "entitled"?

So let me get this straight:

You would rather have to go: I want to forge this weapon...but I have to wait 5 days to get the daily resource to forge it.  VS: I want to forge this weapon...but I have to wait 12 hours to use it (which if you do right before you go to bed means you have it in the morning)?

The idea you're proposing seems a lot worse and would take a lot more time to do.

And in the current system you can forge every singe weapon and warframe piece at the same time...and they would all be done at the same time, your system would just limit that further than the current system allows.  I've actually made 3 warframes at the same time and had them all finish at the same time.  That was a great feeling.

[EagleRise]

I don't want to point any fingers in any directions, but why only the "Free" players complain?

why is it, that we never see a Grand master say "HUUR! I'VE SPENET SO MUCH MONYZ ON THE GAME! WHY DONT I GET EVERYTHING NOW?!"

but every once in a while we see a pleyer says "HUUR! THIS FREE GAME IS NOT FREE EANUGH! WHERS MA FREE STUFF FOR JUST PLAYING?!"

 

pointing fingers aside, people tend to forget that DE, unlike other F2P publishers, Don't have a huge budget behind them.

and that fact never stooped them GIVING us allot more then any other F2P game iv'e ever played!

just go and try to play STO, you get a free present that you don't have to grind for only once a year, when its the games birthday, and even then, you can't move this present between your characters (oh, you payed 10$ for a shared bank for all of your characters? lol, like we care).

I'm not saying STO is a bad game, not at all, I love playing it.

but STO is an example for a F2P game, where, if you choose to use the 'F2P' option, your forced to grind for months, and the Dev team rarely listens to the players.

 

the 12/24/72 hours you have to wait are not that bad, the Dev team needs a way to earn money, beside cosmetics that they also give us for free every now and then.

and don't forget they will offer us an optional wipe, that if you choose to use, will restore your plat to its original statues (yes, including the 50 free plat you get, which is also a great example for a free thing DE gives us that other free game usualy don't)

[DaveC]

Wait times are no problem at all, because you can craft as many items as you like simultaneously....so it's no big deal.

Edited May 3, 2013 by DaveC

[Argoms]

The wait period violates fundamental assumptions games have for no productive outcome.

Not every game does it. In fact, a lot don't. Do we add aim assist next? Immersion-breaking cosmetics? Arbitrary play time restriction?

[Huitzil]

So let me get this straight:

You would rather have to go: I want to forge this weapon...but I have to wait 5 days to get the daily resource to forge it.  VS: I want to forge this weapon...but I have to wait 12 hours to use it (which if you do right before you go to bed means you have it in the morning)?

The idea you're proposing seems a lot worse and would take a lot more time to do.

Yes, if that ratio you just made up for the sole purpose of making the idea sound worse and take more time were implemented, it would be worse and take more time. If they didn't pick a ratio on the basis of "what would make this idea look bad," it would work a lot better.

 

And yeah, EVEN IF IT TOOK MORE TIME, it would be better. Because getting an allotment of something for free and having the option to pay for more is still better than putting in time to get materials and then having to pay to use them right away.

[-KrS-fsarl]

madness?.... this is warframe!!!!!

Edited May 3, 2013 by fsarl

[Tsukinoki]

Yes, if that ratio you just made up for the sole purpose of making the idea sound worse and take more time were implemented, it would be worse and take more time. If they didn't pick a ratio on the basis of "what would make this idea look bad," it would work a lot better.

 

And yeah, EVEN IF IT TOOK MORE TIME, it would be better. Because getting an allotment of something for free and having the option to pay for more is still better than putting in time to get materials and then having to pay to use them right away.

And what about the second point I brought up?

In the current system you aren't limited by some time locked resource as to how many items you can craft at once.  If you wanted you could craft 3 weapons and get them ALL at the same time, 12 hours later.  In that system it would be what, one or 2 at a time?

Also let me put it to you this way:

If you got that resource once a day and with it could craft 1 item per day, how is that different then getting the bp for an item and then crafting it which takes 12 hours?  In either system you're going to have to wait, either for that daily resource or for the 12 hours to make.  So in the end you end up waiting the same length of time.

[Thingofmyth]

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...

It is free to play. don't complain that the devs want a way to earn money.

[Leostrasz]

Huitzil:

It seems that we have come to an impasse on the way games should work here and I doubt I can convince you otherwise. I have my view, you have yours and that's fine. Since I cannot convince you to look past the imperfections and just enjoy the game, I shall move on and leave you to it.

 

Like Steve said, we shall agree to disagree. See you in game.