Vivergate: Vent Radioactive Gas Y/n

[Wyldbill]

I have spent around 2 hours sitting here thinking about possible fixes for everything that vexes us in the game and I think I burned an image of the text box into my screen, I hope you bear through and read all of it.  And remember, spoilers are your friend.

 

Summarizing what I was concerned with 24 hours ago, totally unnescesary as it doesn't actually summarize all of what concerns us now and those topics are generally touched upon later SO WHY IS IT EVEN HERE? .... so if you skip one section, make it this one (After years of essay writing, I cannot stop with the intros).

 

I know while during the s*** storm during Hotfix Update 15.1.3, I was supporting the Viver spamfest.  After rereading a few of my posts, I realised that I forgot to mention that I knew it was possible for someone to essentially "bot" their grind experience, and even though I just turned on the tv and pressed 4 for around an episode of Futurama (I base how long things take mostly by tv show times) others more than likely did not.  I understand that the problem that comes from unbalanced gameplay was that it was just plain too easy.

 

But I'm sure you know by now, there is another tactic on Viver again which involves spamming (Or is that a secret because devs obviously can't track how many times their client base plays a map?) and would like to express how it isn't a fault in the map itself.  Now know I am not bringing this to light to mess it up, but to try to make it clear a solution is desperately needed.

 

A lot of the players that seek maps like these, at least the ones that do play the grinds properly and have spent a decent amount of time on them, are end level players that are trying to find a map worth their time.  The End-Game in Warframe is dull.  Terribly dull.  After talking with a couple of people, I learned some have resulted to doing T4's melee only, with Loki obviously being the pivitol role.  Even then, the matches are still too easy and boil down to being, once again, boring.

 

You may say, "But those Viver grinds involve pressing '4' Repeatedly until the match is done.  How is that more interesting?".  I'll tell you, it is from the purely insane amount of mods, resources, and Affinity you get just from 20 minutes.  Us in the endlevel category are constantly looking for something to capitalize on to get more loot, to expediate our rank ups, and to essentially become gods in the game.

 

Nerfing the Frames isn't quite the right choice as even though it inconveniences those higher up using them, it drastically weakens them for lower level players and affects new players in a negative fashion.  After saying that, refinement is needed.  And even though I don't generally like it, a cooldown mechanic would efffectively halt these spam fests (Although careful playtesting is needed, a global 5-10-15-20 cooldown for abilities 1-2-3-4 respectively would probably not work in all cases.  For instance, Snowglobe (Frost) and Vortex (Vauban) needs to be able to be launched instantly else no one would bother with those frames).

 

Now, onto the actual details and possible fixes to key issues

 

Spawn System/Warframe Abilities:  

People have been calling for a total rebalance of all the frames, I know this is time consuming and I don't think it is necesary.  After playing a game called Dungeon Defenders for awhile I realized that their solution to people killing enemies right out of the gate was to essentially create invincibility spots right in the spawn and a little outside of it.  

 

I don't think warframe should have spots that always make enemies invincible, but maybe add a flag where if the enemy hasn't fired yet, taken damage (From enviormental hazards or weapons fired), been spotted, or spotted a player would be invincible.  This would make the .3  second lifespan of enemies on Viver considerably longer and remove the need for abilities that only target enemies within an area in the player Line of Sight (Referred to as LoS from now on).  And to make sure this flag gets tripped, add a check where if they leave their spawn room or have been alive for 5-10 seconds, they become mortal.

 

Trinity, Mag, Excaliber, and soon Saryn: 

The Nerfs on Trinity and possibly Mag were unnescesary and a little rushed as the only reason anyone really uses them was affected.  I honestly have probably only seen 5 trinities outside of Viver in the 2-3 years i've been playing the game and that nerf could effectively make new players think they are ultra rare, event only (I'm saying no one would ever use them, if it wasn't clear enough).  

 

Excaliber Can live without his "X-Ray" Ult, but it sure made me feel all fuzzy inside when I started a Viver, used the ability, and gotten my "KIller' Challange completed instantly.  I hope the above section, concerning enemy spawns, would enable for Excaliber to have this X-Ray ability again as it finally let me clean the dust off of him, use him, AND enjoy playing him. (He was my first frame and I am very fond of him even though Frost is more practical for objectives).  The maps I used with him before his Ult was reverted to an LoS style ability again was excellent as I was able to help a clan member with a Defense objective by waiting near the center and 10 seconds into the game, use the ability and clear the wave.  It wasn't as rewarding in the sense of mods or resources, but it was fun and made me remember why I liked using him in the first place.

 

I have no idea how Saryn plays, but considering she is being used in Viver, I ask that no frame killing nerf is enacted as at some point as I plan on earning her and getting her to 30.

 

I'm not calling for a rebalance of the frames, that would be soul sucking work and technically change around 25% of what makes the game what it is (Can't be many sections, Rougelike map Generation, Enemy AI/Data, Warframe Data, and Objective Data.  In its simplicity is its briliance) it would be a very risky move and quite possibly break the game entirely.

 

Syndicates

Even though it isn't brought up, the abuse of these maps stem from a lack of a real hard endgame. Due to the additions of new items and Warframes, a powercreep has been introduced and now those of us who have almost literally done everything in the game are looking for a new challange.  The Viver runs stem from a lack of a map or game mechanic that is suitable for groups of end game level players who are looking for more everything.  Pretty much all the maps reward the same thing with the only difference is higher level enemies, it just ain't worth the trouble to play the game properly as of right now.

 

The introduction of Syndicates was the catalyst for all of this, originally the main purpose of long grinds were mods and even though more enemies helped, people weren't insane enough to think of something that didn't involve playing the objective.  I came up with a relatively long metaphor on this on the update 15.1.3 patch notes, but i'll just summarize it, The end game players feel less than 1 Syndicate point per kill on some of the toughest enemies is an insult to all of those who spent hundreds of hours playing the game already.  It feels unfair that we have basically been forced to their level without a way to progress quickly as per our right as endlevel players.

 

Even with Viver grinds leading to around 8.5k kills per round, you still received only around 8k points.  That is still less than 1 point per kill and was annoying.  I am not saying we need maps that give 1k syndicate points per run, but making enemies reward more points per kill (2 per kill sounds like it would be worth enemies that take 1.5k damage before they dropped dead) and pretty much any match where you'd kill everything you come across would give around 240 points survivals and defenses would of course be a little lopsided, but maybe a system where there was a VERY slight loss in points per 100 or so kills would help alleviate the long grinds while keeping the map worthwhile enough to play for an average time.

 

On to the endgame.

 

Endgame

 

The following suggestions are relatively large in scope, and no matter how unlikely, would be hugely appreciated by the gaming populace.

 

All the players who have the energy/Time to really play the game seriously need a new outlet, T4's don't cut it and that is basically the hardest you can get.  I was thinking something like a campaign (Basically, it would be a boss runs one after another scaled to the average of the players Conclave levels) with a few extra cutscenes involving the players current Warframe set and loadout.  Remember how Halo 1 had modified the beginning cutscene to have 2 master chiefs frozen instead of one?  Something like that where the cutscenes would basically have a spot for all the players involved to be in it

 

I know this would require more voice acting, plenty of time spent in creating cutscenes, pretty much an entire story arc, and tuning but I cannot help to feel it will be as epic as how the new tutorial made me feel even though by that time I had already knew how crossing paths with Vor would end (Hint, he ended up only being half the man(?) he used to be).  Maybe have a list of rewards at the end of the campaign that changed depending on the conclave levels.  But it would always have to be worth it.

 

Alternatively, maybe create a new type of random mission generator involving players heading out of our solar system looking for new resources... the lore could be something as follows, The forces opposing the Tenno have lately been venturing farther into deep space originally only inhabited by the Infested and returning with orokin relics originally thought to be lost (The relics could be weapons or purely objects of interest).  It was originally thought that all points of interest were in our Solar System, but with the discovery of these new artifacts, Tenno will be sent out to recon and or recover artifacts of interest on missions that are entirely random in scope and objective (Enemy level could be based off of Conclave level again) however, with the rediscovery of new artifacts, a long lost threat will be uncovered.

 

The artifacts in question should probably be considered as a mid level dynamic currancy (Dynamic by essentially having some artifacts that are rarer than others, that appear more often in higher level maps, be worth more), between credits and plat, and could be used at the Tenno's leisure for Credits, Mods, Affinity, sacrificed to a syndicate for study (Brownie Points), or other resources. And I mean resources (I would really like something that I could farm for and use in a pinch that could be used to buy stuff like Neural Senosrs that didn't require plat).

 

The point of the "Outer Void" would be to have an entirely new objective for the players that have been playing the game for a long time with the same general objective, to obtain an object of value and profit from it.

 

New Players

I feel that this should be mentioned as Warframe has come a LONG way from when it was first introduced

 

I read in the last set of patch notes, that someone appreciated Warframe when they first started for how easy it was to get in and play.  Menus were concise and mechanics were simple yet intriguing when put in a rougelike enviorment.  They mentioned how at this point new players would probably feel daunted by all there is.  I agree that the menus have definately gotten more complicated, and even though I am sure someone amongst the devs feels the new-ish screens for Mods and Planets are cool, they are not very intuitive at first and can be annoying for new players to understand.  

 

Hell, I am rank 12 and I always feel like the new map screen is overly complicated.  Call me an old fogey, but I liked having a clear path of progression in the route style mission menu (Also, it was a lot easier finding the map you wanted when it was always in the same place).

 

I hope that at least one of these suggestions can help make a great game even greater, and even though something comes along every once and awhile that ticks off a good majority of the playerbase, understand that this is by far one of the greatest Free-to-Plays I have ever played and have never regretted the 25 dollars I have put into it, nor the hours played. and one bad update is never going to make me ever regret playing this game.  You devs have done an excellent job and I hope you keep putting all the dedication into future updates as has been put into the previous ones.

 

I, for one, am tired and will be back on later and see if there is anything new to discuss.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Wyldbill

[elixze]

Well as long as you do not friggle With my volt I am happy xD. With that said, I was sad Excel and my Trinity got this debuff... But then again, I do not use them that much.

 

 

Make my volt stronger :P!

[NoelleAllogene]

yep, Steve it was a rush half baked cookie. It was bad, taste bad, and you still can taste the flour.

[Cerenax]

You nerfed 3 of the most underpowered and already underestimated warframes in the game just so the ridiculous grindwall that is the syndicate system stay up and strong demanding at least 5 years of natural gameplay to be beaten. Great job.

[ArcariusAero]

How about some new type of elite enemies?

Such as: skill immune, melee immune, range attack immune

Skill immune sounds fine, but melee immune and range attack immune? No. That would cancel out the whole idea of "the gun or sword alone".

That would force us to bring weapons we don't have fun with just because some entitled players say "Omg the game is too easy 4 me"

[frozenballz]

There are a few ways to fix Viver so to speak.

 

Because there are endless spawns, that's what makes viver perfect for the role of repfarming, and more to the point, very efficient. added the fact that the map is quite tiny and that aoe nukes work very well on this map, it's all those small things coming together to make the perfect pie.

 

fixes- 

 

1. Change the map. much harder to do than suggest, considering i understand the colossal amount of time it would take to create a new tile set (modelling, texturing, lighting, setting up AI pathing, etc) so might not be the best solution currently, but by far one of the fixes that doesnt result in alot of warframes being nerfed. the changes to interception may be a bit extreme, but i think they work so thats fine.

 

2. Put a cap on total amount of spawns per wave, or alternatively put a cap on rep earned per wave. This would limit the amount of cap you could get by doing interception, or allow you to "control" the amount you get to be gained in a certain amount of time/waves played instead of getting 293849288492 rep in wave 1. 

 

If you nerf warframes to become LoS, you're going to invalidate all range mods and break alot of builds. think of the scenarios outside of Viver. Loki disarm becomes LoS, doesnt work properly in t4 defenses. aoe based nukers or utilities will lose their ability quite a bit. 

 

You buffed excal then nerfed him a week or two later due to viver, then nerfed mag and trinity as well. Lets not kid ourselves, those frames were nerfed because of viver. and from what i understand from this post, you're looking at nerfing all the aoe frames to the level of excal/mag. I'll be blunt. this post looks to me more like a faux-apology to appease the mindless sheep and calm the forums down than anything, although i -really- hope this is not the case. 

 

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. the underlying problem, the main reason why people keep searching for workarounds for easy repgain, is the rep system itself which is so unrewarding and extremely grindy for mods that are mediocre at best. There is only 2, maybe 3 mods that are actually worth using, the rest are just junk (this is me after testing all the available mods). Kickbot mentioned in council chat last night something similar to that people should consider syndicates were aimed as a target audience for new/semi new players. Fair enough. where does this leave your vets that have sunk 2k+ hours into the game as well as a tonne of plat as well? There should have been a method for people who have gained MR 15+ through playing to get some sort of.. "buff" to rep gain. 

 

Someone suggested the idea of getting a rep-multiplayer for each level of mastery rank you are at. that could work. or take the total amount of xp earned via mastery, using a percentage, give a bulk sum rep based off the mastery xp earned. in the end i understand warframe is a grindy game, but this step with syndicates and how it's been presented towards the vets just seems like a footstomp in the face.  :/

[Monolake]

 

 but again - ‘everyone within 80 meters dies with keyboard macro’ is a larger issue than any one particular map. I’d be curious what your thoughts are

As it was discussed in more detail in 'frames and abilities' forum several times: dont make blind, self-acting, huge circular aoe nukes. Attacks should reward player skill and decision-making (above 'see some enemies = press 4') . Make directional attacks. skillshots, combined abilities. And while we're at it - make them strong to be worth using, as of now most damage abilities are very underpowered compared to weapons and are good only for farming lower level locations (ie ults doing ~3000 damage max moded, when Penta does ~13000 per shot, and non-ult attacks are even weaker AND dont have large AOE making them not worth using at all)

Leave circular AOE to CC and debuffs.

 

(btw max radius for some abilities is ~59m with all the mods, not 80)

Edited November 14, 2014 by Monolake

[phazefox]

well first of all i'd like to say that, while indeed fixing exploits should be high priority, this whole issue was born out of the insane syndicate grind, i get that you guys want it so one has to choose a side, but making the grind unfathomably high is befinetly NOT the way to do that, specially considering players will ALWAYS find a way around things if you leave even the slightest hole in a sistem, in this case the hole was the mega-farm from viver to get around the syndicate uber-grind.

 

second, while i agree that ult-spam is not a good thing, you have to consider two things, A) the problem is ult-spam, not the ults themselves; B) you yourself said that:

 

Our ‘press 4 to win’ ultimates are metered primarily by the supply of energy. Finding an energy loophole means that Homer’s drinking bird can play the game for you. That is not team synergy. That is just broken.

 

see the issue here is the energy loophole, not the abilities fueled by it, as such the changes should be directed at the energy loophole, not whatever it was fueling last time you checked, because the loophole will still be there.

 

speaking of energy loopholes, if infinite energy is such a big issue, the first thing you should have done was remove energy restores (as in, the ones you carry in your gear, players would have to be compensated though, i'd suggest a full credit/resource refund),as they are the single most powefull energy source in the game by yottajoules, and if you really want to nerf energy vampire then do so by reducing the amounth of energy it

restores, or giving it a slight cooldown, not by limiting it's capability to reach teammates (the whole point of the ability is to easely restore the team's energy after all)

 

third, "X-Ray AoE" is not an issue in and on itself, sure it doesn't fit some abilities, and on some it is overkill (i'm looking at you old radial blind), but on some it is as much a feature as it is a necesity, and giving said abilities a LoS limitation will only cripple them into uselessness.

 

lastly, and as many have pointed out before, this whole issue was started by the syndicate grind, it is insanely high, and due to the "standing" being both reputaion and currency, every single thing obtained form a syndicate would result into an even greater grind, which only made buying things an extremely hard decision.

 

now while i do like the syndicates as an idea, i really think the whole sistem should be reworked, i actually have some ideas for a revamped syndicate sistem i'll get around posting (in a thread of their own) sometime tomorrow night, but one thing i have to point out is that STANDING SHOULD NOT BE A CURRENCY, it not only makes the grind even more anoying, it makes no sense, if our reputation within a syndicate allows us access to various benefits then how is making use of those benefits supposed to make us lose said repuation?, are we offending the syndicates by accepting the offerings they themselves offered to us?, really, if anything i think "offerings" should be acquired through an offering from the tenno, something like a mix of credits and resources, with components taking the place of resources in a few, special, cases.

[Ole_G]

[matrixEXO]

Primarily, LoS on Warframe doesn't really promote element of skill, just frustration. This is due to map design and clutter in the form of cover for enemies. Element of skill can be something simple like punch through on weapon (aiming at enemies behind objects) to something like Tesla (placement is key).

 

Primarily, good skills for this game can be skills that do certain things like:

1) Delayed activation

2) Charge-up time (different from delayed activation in the sense that you could have the damage ramp up over time instead of delaying the damage until that time)

3) Traveling skills (IE: Antimatter Drop, Prism; skills that have travel speed and/or travel distance)

4) Pre-requisite activation (IE: Molecular Prime; skills that require a certain trigger to properly activate it, another example could be a skill that requires an enemy to damage you in order to trigger a shield ability you cast on yourself)

 

 

Adding these skills do mean that they need to be more powerful and have a certain degree of flexibility when it comes to landing the skills. This does not mean that all ultimates needs to be AoE or uber pain.

 

The issue with Warframe abilities, I feel, tend to stem from the point where AoE tends to have too much power over any other. This is due to modability of the abilities in a hefty manner (+45% range AND + 90% range - 60% strength == +135% range - 60% strength) and this makes the issue that becomes extrapolated into 'spam 4' case and the current Viver outbreak.

Edited November 14, 2014 by matrixEXO

[Velmarshal]

Thank you for your money, most valued components (You know, catalysts and reactors are pretty damn rare) and most of your social life. Here you go, take this worthless ability mod, unless you're a vauban. Oh, you want a weapon mod? Here you go, weapon specific mod, that isn't all that good, oh and the weapons these are available for are those "throwaway" weapons.

 

Are you going to tell me that I need to give you a goddamn CATALYST and craptons of money, for shoddy weapon mod? You do know, that I can use that catalyst on a half decent weapon and turn it into a decent weapon. Installing that catalystwill always outweigh those worthless syndicate mods.

 

Why are those mods worthless? Because getting them requires a fortune and two kidneys.

 

PS. You want my Potatoes? Well you can try taking them from my cold dead hands,but you can be sure I'll will haunt yo &#!.

[Humblestout]

Thank you DE, for all that has been done. 

[nyiinx]

Thank you, Steve. It's great that we sorta kinda know what's going on now.

 

Although I wasn't too happy about the LoS changes myself, I didn't think it 'broke' the frames, it just severely limited their potential. 

The nerfhammer did seem like a quick and badly executed fix for one node, namely, Viver. (Damn it Viver. You're the black sheep of all the nodes. You have disappointed your family)

 

With your clarification, my ire has been greatly reduced. I do think that the players who found the exploit are sort of admirable in their ingenuity, and although they exploited the heck out of it, I don't blame them, because Syndicate Rep is crazy difficult to max out any other way. I understand that it's a background achievement thing (like revive allies 1000 times etc) but, well, mods. Seriously. The want is off the charts.

 

As a player that drops in for a couple of hours every couple of days, I feel like I will never, ever get to the top of my Syndicate. I chill out, chat, farm for a bit, and maybe do a bit of grinding to rank up stuff. I don't have the time to spam interceptions or defense just to get reputation. 

 

 

All in all, I know you guys are hard at work, and the game has changed so drastically over the one and a half years, it's just a given that it'll continue to morph and evolve. Every single time I feel a rush of frustration over certain decisions (coughtrinityexcaliburcough) I tamp it down, knowing that eventually, you guys will fix it.


TL;DR 

 

Have faith in DE! They're human too, and you can't expect things to remain the same forever. Yes, I know that LoS is a huuuuge change, but so was damage 2.0. You didn't even need to forma at that time! All you needed was a potato and you were set forever. Things change, and as much as we despise change, we should give stuff a chance before we knock it off a cliff.

[(PSN)SentientSword234]

i like Steve, he's sassy

[GefestXXL]

Grind Grind, Nerf Nerf - The whole essence of the current DE

[tris1]

Thank you, Steve. It's great that we sorta kinda know what's going on now.

 

Although I wasn't too happy about the LoS changes myself, I didn't think it 'broke' the frames, it just severely limited their potential. 

The nerfhammer did seem like a quick and badly executed fix for one node, namely, Viver. (Damn it Viver. You're the black sheep of all the nodes. You have disappointed your family)

 

With your clarification, my ire has been greatly reduced. I do think that the players who found the exploit are sort of admirable in their ingenuity, and although they exploited the heck out of it, I don't blame them, because Syndicate Rep is crazy difficult to max out any other way. I understand that it's a background achievement thing (like revive allies 1000 times etc) but, well, mods. Seriously. The want is off the charts.

 

As a player that drops in for a couple of hours every couple of days, I feel like I will never, ever get to the top of my Syndicate. I chill out, chat, farm for a bit, and maybe do a bit of grinding to rank up stuff. I don't have the time to spam interceptions or defense just to get reputation. 

 

 

All in all, I know you guys are hard at work, and the game has changed so drastically over the one and a half years, it's just a given that it'll continue to morph and evolve. Every single time I feel a rush of frustration over certain decisions (coughtrinityexcaliburcough) I tamp it down, knowing that eventually, you guys will fix it.

TL;DR 

 

Have faith in DE! They're human too, and you can't expect things to remain the same forever. Yes, I know that LoS is a huuuuge change, but so was damage 2.0. You didn't even need to forma at that time! All you needed was a potato and you were set forever. Things change, and as much as we despise change, we should give stuff a chance before we knock it off a cliff.

Tryed the radial blind will it was nerfed and it's still rubbish after that why should I wait to see its affects on other abilities when I already know it's a bad idea and nearly the whole community shreds Los is a bad mechanic and should to stay or be here

[JoMenton]

Solution is to gain Synd Rep via high reward Synd Rep missions to face multi Synd faction opponents

to keep the interest and all other missions reward fixed Synd Rep with fix amount per round/wave/Surv min

 

this is what i am telling in every related thread before and after nerf patch  Viver is not the

problem and i suggest to lieve a place to go every1 to gain exp and lvling frames and weapons

 

@DESteve thank you for your honest responce manly i say

@ fellow Tennos Alarm reset (nerves calm) going to our daily dutys and the fixes will come

[Rhekinos]

What about Trinity? What do you have in store for her?

[Sherbniz]

You're always so good at damage control, thanks for this thread Steve!

 

I think xray AOEs are the most satisfying powers in the game, buti t takes a lot of work to get them to a point where you can allow homer's bird to take over the wheel...

The right mods, other players with similar gear, the right strategy... It's endgame stuff!

 

So really, the only place these players SHOULD be going for the best results is the hardest, baddest turf that really tests them.

 

And accordingly, for them to keep the game interesting, enemies can't just get more health, but they have to become smarter!

 

Remember from the Frohd Beck Event where you'd take a big corpus warp gate to an infested ship?

 

Or sometimes during invasion if you look into side-rooms you can witness a Corpus warping in JUST this very second.

 

So the Corpus have the ability to teleport? Why they don't use it against the Tenno?

 

Alternatively, what if the Grineer used drop-pods to shoot absolute elite-units on-site?

[Darkraider00]

I just want to say and I'm sure its been stated that we are playing space ninja's with incredible abilities.  LoS shouldn't be a thing that is affecting the frames considering it is an AoE ability that you are using, not a target base ability.  The maps/tile set were not created with LoS in mind as it has been stated before.

 

 I mean if the 1% that has played this game from the begging, are able to have a 4gasim  and win well congrats you have figured it out.  I have been around this game for almost 2 years now, haven't played non-stop but that's because of what happens in the game.  Damage 2.0 brought new difficulty to the game on correct modding and the use of weapons.  The player base figured it out and we have control of it.  You place hard to obtain and costly to use modds and the players that could do so maxed them and found the best way to use them.

 

 Don't go down the LoS wave.  Because then your just taking away god mode, what makes games with customization like this so fun once you have placed the time and dedication into to achieve.  And yes we are upset as a player base because you took out 3 frames that over all are worthless for mass game play.Not everyone will agree with me but we can go back on the frames that have been changed and state how they are not up to par and instead of bringing all frames up to par you keep nerfing and creating a gap between the tier of the frames and as players/people in general we will choose the best frame for the game not the one we enjoy the most.  For the simple fact that we strive to have the best stats, most kills, be the carry and not be carried.  It can be fun to play your favorite frame in solo mission but for group play you need to be able to bring something to the game.

 

Start with Nova- number 4 use to be a instant debuff on the target increasing the damage dealt by 200% for the range that you have modd the ability for.  Well now,lol, you can out run the ability when you use it on a mission that may require running to stay alive.  So now nova has joined frost in the Defense mainly missions.  Nova was a top tier frame with Saryn, Rhino, Loki, and Nyx.  Now she is a fast squishy frame that can outrun the ability that allowed her to bring something to the game.

 

Excalibur- Was a Radial blind only frame.  Everything else he brought was a waste of energy time and would potentially place you in a dangerous position.  BUFF.  Hey now with time forma's and mods he can be useful(or you were a founder and payed real money for the prime version, to sit around and not be played).  NERF.  Well buddy its been fun, ttyl bye bye.  Their are other frames that do everything BETTER then you.

 

Trinity and Mag also under played frames without large purpose.  Back to Saryn to bring the damage we want and another Saryn.  Enough energy will drop to sustain.  So Trinity and Mag go back into the toy box as well.

 

Idea for a fix.  Do what so many other F2P games are doing right now.  Maybe slow down on new frames and content to update and bring old frame up to speed.  Complete ability changes are tough to adjust to but normally are well appreciated in the end.  Or maybe create content that requires players to work together in the way people did on viver.  Real boss mechanics not wait for back piece to glow red, shoot, wait , wait ,wait, glow red shoot.  I mean we want diffculity at the boss fights but up to the boss fight if we have been farming then yes we should blow through the trash mobs in the game.  I could go on, as I have with a close friend that has played since closed beta. 

 

In the end stop nerfing frames, buff all(sorry I forgot to say volt for all playing purpose is dead) frames so we as the players can play the frame that fits our play style but allows us to feel as we are contributing to the match not just being there.  LoS is just a bad idea on skills that are not a single target ability.  As many I will sit and wait to see what happens now.

[YukiRee]

Just introduce the ability cooldown and stop nerfing! It would easily solve the problem of "press 4 to win" playstyle. The stronger the ability is, the more advantages it gives to the player, the more is cooldown time. Isn't that simple? And please revert LoS changes.

[(PSN)SentientSword234]

Just introduce the ability cooldown and stop nerfing! It would easily solve the problem of "press 4 to win" playstyle. The stronger the ability is, the more advantages it gives to the player, the more is cooldown time. Isn't that simple? And please revert LoS changes.

Another solution would be to re-work the energy economy in game. If energy was as plentiful as Sniper type ammo i think it would be solve a few issues, yeah?

[BrazilianJoe]

I think the pecking bird Argument is too much of a strawman justification. 

 

Sure, some people there will use macros. But I don't believe it will be a significant enough portion of the player base. I estimate the pecking bird crew to be smaller than the Windows XP crew (i.e less than 5%).

 

We play the game TO PLAY. 

 

It is not fair to put everyone in the same bag and fry us along with the macroers. It's like throwing the baby away together with the baby's bath water.

 

The Syndicate reputation scale is way off, by at least an order of magnitude (10x too much). 

 

If you want to reduce skill spam, sometimes the solutions are among the simplest ideas:

 

ADD COOLDOWN TIMERS TO POWERS. 

 

CHANGE NATURAL TALENT TO A 10-LEVEL MOD AFFECTING COOLDOWN. 

 

COMPENSATE COOLDOWN WITH MORE POWER ON SKILLS.

 

With Cooldowns you will not have so much ultimate-nuking. You will affect the macro crowd because they will not be able to nuke as often, and will probably have to some running and jumping between casts. 

 

But please do away with the idea that every 3 and 4 skill needs to have LoS. It'sbullS#&$, and it's bad to the game. THe ultimates AS IS (no LoS) are the most satisfying and empowering abilities to the player. If you take that away, you take away a large amount of THE FUN FACTOR.

[MSD3000]

Dear DE,

Please put Line of Sight on every move in teh game. I want to watch these whiney baby's heads explode from frustration.

[wodanclay]

Can't say I've ever sat in one spot and kept hitting 4 on my keyboard until it was time to farm Sydicate points from Viver. Those god awful points. Game wasn't fun at all during that time. Actually farming sydicate points itself isn't fun. I can't play other missions because of the worthless amount of points they give. 30 minute t3 void survival solo only ranks in about 400. So of course players used the resources you gave us to ult spam Viver into the ground for about 5k points per 15 minutes.

 

How did you fix this? By nerfing already average warframes into the ground even more. Instead of putting a temp fix on Viver's instant enemy respawn or changing the map type back to defense like it use to be... You guys decide to put another nail into the average warframes. Line of Sight isn't going to help anything either because this game's map systems really are not set up for it at all. Should I note how Viver instantly respawns enemies when they die? This is the whole reason this "exploit" was possible. Granted it isn't much of an exploit since all we did was use Trinity for Energy Vampire. Mag's shield polarize, Excalibur's Javalins.. and 4th is up in the air. This is all possible because of how you coded the abilities and how the map instantly respawns enemies. This isn't anywhere near the player's fault. This really isn't even an exploit since nothing was abused to do it. We all just used our abilities as we normally do with enough range to cover most of the map.

 

Making the game require more skill again? That would be cool, this game stop requiring skill a long time ago when Forma's were added and we could make very high end builds that invalidated all of normal gameplay and only gets walled by lv 80s or higher in survival (level based on current enemy system). Right now this game doesn't reward skill, it stopped rewarding skill long ago, and I'll be impressed if it ever rewards it again.

 

Instead of poking at more things I'll just give my thoughts on how to fix it.

 

Fix the rep system. Points being tied to kills or exp is the worse idea possible. All you are doing is once again promoting players to only play defense, survivals, or intercepts. Once again all you are doing is promoting us to find the best place to farm for efficently/time.  I don't want to play a game to spend my life farming the same maps over and over and over... Yet for being here nearly 1 year and 5 months now that is exactly what the game as ever been. Farming X boss for resources. Farming X map for loots/exp. Farming X Void for items. Farm this, Farm that. Farm everything. Farming Simulator Warframe Edition.

 

 

With the way things have been I keep losing interest in this game. I take breaks for 1 - 3 months at a time. Whenever I came back all I see is more farming. The current rep system? Just more farming. So I came back again to see update 15. Archwings, sydicates, etc. More farming. I had to farm Elytron solo because the typical pugs couldn't handle Uranus... you know why? No one used Repel.. le gasp Repel is another 4 ability. Repel, disabiling enemies, pushing them back, making it so they couldn't move for a few seconds. Only legit thing that made Uranus Intercept actually winnable. Even the Elytron we farmed for is a joke compared to this ability.

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not against farming, I am against farming that isn't even fun though. Which is what most of Warframes farming turns into between the RNG and only a few good maps to play.

 

(I am not going to list things in order for appearance)

Back to the topic of "Skill". This game use to require some concept of Skill.

 

Then we got Formas. Allowing us to make extremely overpowered gear and Warframe setups.

 

Then you made Auras give us more Warframe mod points instead of just being a legit aura slot.

 

Then we got Corrput Mods, adding fuel to the overpowered fire.

 

Then we got event mods (which are slowly being released again)... adding even more fuel.

 

Then we got even stronger weapons. (Ogris, Boltor Prime, Pentra, Angstrum, Paris Prime, etc etc etc I can't list them all).

 

Then we got even more Corrupt Mods.

 

Then you removed ability mods, giving us even MORE space on our Warframe to add even stronger mods. Adding more fuel to the fire. Never in my time did I think I could ever have max Shields/HP/Armor and still have enough points to max out my abilities. Never once a year ago did I ever think this would ever be possible.. but I was proven wrong it seems.

 

A long time ago we couldn't ult spam everything. We couldn't make these setups that mow down everything in the game until way past normal gameplay. This isn't an issue that has SUDDENLY appeared. This is an issue that has been slow in the making... slowly snowballing up until it got out of control. Viver was just the start. This issue won't be easy to fix, and it won't be fixed anytime soon.

 

Ok, making all Warframe abilities Line of Sight? Please no, this game can't handle it with how it currently is. I could keep typing but I really should stop before I write a book.

 

Then again if this happens I guess it will be like the old days and just kill everything with our overpowered weapons again.

 

Anyway, I wish you luck if you truely plan to make Warframe require skill again. If that day comes I'll happily be there playing more actively than now.

Edited November 14, 2014 by wodanclay