Concerns Regarding The Sustainability Of Warframe.

[geninrising]

There are several problems at the core of WF that I think MANY of us agree on.

The issues I am going to broach in this topic are considered by me to be the most prolfic reasons I have encountered that players give up on WF and just walk away.

 

This posts primary focus and design is to hopefully garner enough attention from the DEvs to hopefully get some resolution for these things that are a continual source of issues the community has.

 

 

RNG

 

This singular thing is the object of much frustration and endless grind. There are a couple of ways this can be alleviated that would help us immensely and would go a long way towards player satisfaction without really hurting DE's bottom line too much

 

1. Discontinue the practice used in the Mesa acquisition method-there should never be time limited RNG that prevents access to even being able to attempt to acquire the fame.

 

2.Allow the Void trader to actually trade Prime parts, please view this post https://forums.warfr...dpost&p=4168786

 

3. Discontinue weighting of rewards in the Void(this is only a temporary fix, as the dilution increases due to new primes this will ultimately not be enough to alleviate Void RNG)

 

4. Ensure that Rare resources(looking at you Orokin Cells, Neurodes, Neural Sensors, Tellurium) are added to end of mission rewards as a MISSION reward, also ensure that mission rewards are not weighted in any manner.

 

5. Offer all Void keys individually for various prices in the Syndicates or from the Void trader

 

Just as a point of clarification, currently in order to even be able to farm a prime we must deal with RNG on top of weighted RNG. I realize a bit of RNG is necessary in order to make it seem like more of an accomplishment to acquire said primes.

 

However having us deal with the RNG to get the keys in the first place, then having to deal with the DILUTED and WEIGHTED reward tables in the void is just adding insult to the whole process and is the precise reason some people quit the game. After running 100 t3 exterms to get that Soma stock I can attest full and well to this, that is not even saying anything about the 100+ runs I ran for scindo blade or bo handle.

 

 

 

Ability Spam

 

This is quite a controversial topic in it's own right due to the fact that some players feel entitled to be able to mass nuke whole rooms at the press of a button.  Players feel that because they CAN do this and it is the most efficient means of handling enemies it is a valid playstyle decision. 

 

When a mechanic allows a player to reliably destroy all enemies in a given mission potentially prior to another player being able to take any action given mission is obviously broken. What to do about this is still up in the air due to the fact that P42W supporters do not see that as a problem. The fact that they have the choice as to whether or not to ALLOW another person the ability to take part in said action is flawed.

 

This again feeds into my concern of balance within the game, yes each frame should be unique and have a niche, however abuse of energy mechanics and abuse of min/maxing mechanics are potentially hazardous to the longevity of the game as I have stated before in our p42w conversations.

 

My fears regarding this matter coincide with the paradoxical behavior of DE Steve in his statements that the "Viver" playstyle (which is p42w) is "exploiting an energy loophole". Then down the pipe comes Primed continuity and Primed flow. Soon to be followed by prime streamline and prime stretch I'm sure.

 

This seems to condemn with one breath and then support with the next, thus bringing up my concern for DE's integrity.

 

 

How ability spam is being addressed by DE

 

The idea of combating ability spam with new in game elements versus implementing a cooldown or nerfing of energy efficiency, is actually a positive idea in some respects as it still allows freedom of playstyle but also requires a good bit of skill be thrown into the mix in order to maintain use of said abilities. However my concern is how all these changes utterly destroy a newer players ability to use said skills at all due to various drains and lack of requisite mods to combat the drains.

 

We currently have energy siphon and 75% efficiency that helps us to continue doing what we do in the face of these drainers of various kinds, however newer players have no such luck and are hit below the belt with these implementations thus creating a larger gap in our playability of the game.

 

As I stated before in another post I recently started an account to see what it was like for a new player and honestly even with someone to carry me it was not fun at all facing eximus units or nullifiers and especially not parasitic(those are the aoe energy drainers, Disrupters cast an aura that reduces radial and power damage received by nearby allies. Its attack will reduce shields and drain all energy, while Attacks of linked nearby allies will deal extra damage to shielding and drain a little of your energy with each strike). 

 

Add to that tar moas and Ancient Healers reducing damage to all their allies(which can all spawn as parasitic type) makes infested currently nearly unplayable at all for newer players(and the other factions more or less the same, infested just feel like the worst offender to me ATM). The only reason I am able to do it at all is full situational awareness and target prioritizing as well as mastery of the movement systems in place which allows me the ability to simply out manoeuvre them.

 

All of these things implemented to counter our Farming methods are insanely detrimental to a newer player and make the game nearly unplayable unless someone carries you on their back.

 

If they could somehow balance these things on a per player basis it might be completely beneficial or perhaps do not include said enemies if players have less than X amount of energy efficiency, but that would be weighting enemies against certain players and I am against weighting anything in anyone's favor.

 

I know that sounds ironic considering I advocate removing the ability to spam to the extent it is currently utilized but the ability to spam is the impetus for these other methods the DEvs are producing to combat our abilities. This in turn is CRIPPLING our new players.

 

The way Energy spam could easily be addressed.

Meter our 4th ability in an entirely different way than energy usage. ENERGY is the source of the problem with ULTS. Not their range/damage/effect. Constant unending ACCESS, and while removing energy packs could alleviate this Trinity makes that idea useless. So without removing access to energy a separate gating mechanic is needed.

 

 

 

 

Balance

 

Currently in the game there is a ton of content that is viewed as nothing more than Master Fodder. This is at it's core a broken bit that provides useless content that is pointless to touch except for that elusive MR. MR currently is not enough of a driving factor for most players to even get them to touch said weapons when they can simply jump to top tier gear and bypass every single "progression" element in the game at MR 2.

 

Ways we can improve on Warframe's balance.

 

1.Tiered weapon system- Actually develop a tiered weapon system in which weapons of Like DPS/burst DPS are bundled together and that way weapons can be balanced with an eye towards ensuring that at certain respective tiers there are weapons of all damage types/methods of damage delivery in order to suit the tastes of any player. Currently the top tier weapons are dwindling more and more with every release and this proposed change would allow the DEvs a clear guideline to produce side grades at all tiers that would not cause a massive level of power creep in the weapons department that we end up getting every few months.</div>

 

2.MR locking, Primes are the Pinnacle of the games various incarnations of weapons and are veritably the hammer of the Tenno Gods so to speak. Why should a brand new player be able to skip directly to the mythical beast gear located in the void without first proving their mettle with other gear first? As an additional question to ask yourself what true incentive is there for worrying about MR at all beyond level 10(and they expect us to be able to hit MR 30). 

 

 

Progression and our MR leveling system

 

Mastery Rank- Currently MR is caught in a weird place. Being absolutely necessary one minute and nearly superfluous the next. Also as evinced by the majority of the community the mechanic for MR is believed to be rather broken as you can get bonus MR completely passively without any real "Mastery". I am on the fence on this subject as I feel that all MR is a designator of is Time. It does not signal that you are better in any way shape form or fashion other than to say you spent a lot of time carrying CRAP(see balance topic above)

 

Unfortunately I cannot envision a fix for this that would promote both player choice and skill.</div>

 

 

BUGS

 

The long term effects of these cannot be emphasized enough. These must be addressed and corrected aggressively. Any bug that is left untouched or uncorrected over time will cause players to feel as though the developers do not care about a given element of their game and that causes players to feel unsure about the quality of the developers themselves.

 

 

Connectivity

 

The game's netcode must be reworked or dedicated servers must be set up to allow all players to play with one another regardless of various networking settings. For too long players have been at the whim of their ISP or hardware. DE needs to take the reigns on this one and implement fixes to guarantee their players CAN play with one another. Quite frankly it is beyond me how this has not be resolved yet. I am aware of how networking functions and what all of the restricting/limiting factors are on this method of game implementation but I am also aware of the developers ability to EVOLVE their game and it's coding OR SETUP(dedicated servers).

 

 

It cannot be stated enough that a developer is responsible for making it's game playable by it's customers and in WFs current iteration this relies far to much on ISPs and hardware "allowing" players to connect to one another.

 

There are many concerns we have regarding the game and it's longevity that must be addressed and I feel it is our right as consumers to have these fears addressed in more ways than the few questions answered on the livestreams cherry picked by DERebecca from the heads up post regarding Devstreams.

 

All of the points I have broached in this topic have been hot topics over the last year and I feel we should have more insight into the workings to address these major community concerns.

 

Other posters that I feel have a good grasp of the matters affecting us as a community please feel free to look up any of their posts to see my reasoning for mentioning them here.

MechaKnight

Azawaura

Nighttide77

Edited January 18, 2015 by geninrising

[MechaTails]

Players love trivializing game content. For bragging rights, for fun, I dont know, they just do. Players around here are always looking for the fastest way to do anything, to exploit everything, for the best way to turn this game into a racing simulator.

For this reason warframe will be around for a long time. Its currently easily possible to exploit the game mechanics, and the players cry any time their precious cheating/exploiting is hampered.

Recently I played a T4 Def., there was an Excal and Ash there who wiped out the map in 1 to 2 uses of their ults. This made the game incredibly boring for me, while they merrily chatted about how great these boring tactics are.

This is the mentality that will keep Warframe alive, the repetitive fun-sucking monotonous playstyle players love.

And no, there's nothing DE can do about this, perfectly balancing everything doesnt even matter. Players are always going to look up a youtube video on how to build the maxxest dps build and use that always and forever if it even has a .0001 advantage over everything else.

Edited January 5, 2015 by DarkTails

[TheErebus.]

 

 

Players don't have a choice in development, players only give feedback and the developers make the choice. The only choice players have is to stay and participate, or leave. 

Right okay, I've been reading through everything and while some parts I agree and some parts I don't, this one gets me peeved.

What is the problem with this exactly? Nothing. I don't get why he brought this up when this is a part of every game in beta testing. You stay and help the game improve, or you just leave. That is how it works. You cannot change this. 

 

And frankly, I despise press 4 players. I understand why they do this, it's all part of the dominant strategy. Give a player the most easy way to dispose of an enemy, and they'll use it constantly. But the fact is that this is always detrimental to the game, and in the case of warframe, makes the player base far too comfortable with how the game is like. This in turn, causes problems whenever DE changes something. Buff it up, they will rejoice! Nerf it down to make it more fair and balanced, they cry and moan as to how their method of play is just completely gone. 

 

This needs to be fixed. 

[Circle_of_Psi]

Yeah, all I see from this is Dev bashing, granted there are a load of things that need to be solved, like Nova Prime's colors, the Dojo, Arcwing, The Hubs etc.

 

 

But this will get locked no doubt, as well this is painful to read, also you have someones name on there, if you chuold edit it to be more professional, this be alot more better to read.

 

What I mean more professional is something like this, or more cleaned up and tidy. Maybe something likes this below

 

 Core Gameplay:

Text here

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Player's Concerns.

Text here

Edited January 5, 2015 by LegionCynex

[HibikiGanaha]

Read the whole thing and there is only one part that I have a comment about.

 

All the exclusives have been nagging at me for awhile now.

 

I'll never be as good since I haven't been around as long.  I'll never have a machete, i'll never have a dex furis, I'll never have ether daggers, etc.

 

It feels pretty bad, hopefully in 10 years there will be a mastery cap and that bonus mastery wont matter.

[Shion963]

Read the whole thing and there is only one part that I have a comment about.

All the exclusives have been nagging at me for awhile now.

I'll never be as good since I haven't been around as long. I'll never have a machete, i'll never have a dex furis, I'll never have ether daggers, etc.

It feels pretty bad, hopefully in 10 years there will be a mastery cap and that bonus mastery wont matter.

Don't think 5-6 weapons will impede getting max mastery rank, just will get to them slightly slower. And they've mentioned that aside from Founder weapons (and probably Snipetron), stuff like event weapons, Boar and Ether Ds are in the Disney vault, and aren't actually exclusives.

And the weapons you mentioned aren't exactly known as top tier stuff. You won't "never be as good" as those with them.

EDIT: Related: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/379772-about-reaching-mastery-rank-18/

Edited January 5, 2015 by Shion963

[TheErebus.]

Yeah, all I see from this is Dev bashing, granted there are a load of things that need to be solved, like Nova Prime's colors, the Dojo, Arcwing, The Hubs etc.

 

 

But this will get locked no doubt, as well this is painful to read, also you have someones name on there, if you chuold edit it to be more professional, this be alot more better to read.

 

What I mean more professional is something like this, or more cleaned up and tidy. Maybe something likes this below

 

 Core Gameplay:

Text here

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Player's Concerns.

Text here

How exactly is this dev bashing? Just curious.

 

(Also, why have you been putting Hs in words like could)

[Severuslanskerr]

Yeah, all I see from this is Dev bashing, granted there are a load of things that need to be solved, like Nova Prime's colors, the Dojo, Arcwing, The Hubs etc.

NO! dont change Nova Primes Colors ... patch the REST of the primes like HER

Im waiting for ever to color my stupid golden rhino ... im stuck with him because he has more speed but he looks ridiculous with that golden iron skin .... im getting sick of not being able to color him properly XD

Edited January 5, 2015 by Severuslanskerr

[faiyde]

For the 4 to win how about reducing the strength of power efficiency mods, to a combined max of 50%, but then also reducing the base energy cost of abilitys that are actually ok to spam -superjump, well of life, rhinocharge ect.

The idea behind it being cc kill abilitys requiring more than one energy orb to recharge.

 

Increased costs alone wont be enough though, people will just camp on energy restores and whatnot more.

Someone's idea for RJ (cant remember thread) was for damage to be determined by melee combo counter.

Think of some more things like that for other abilitys and people would have to work for their cc killers to be effective.

[geninrising]

Removed hyperlink to a  post due to the forum acting up in regards to links. For some reason it kept typing everything out in an obscure html code.

Edited January 14, 2015 by geninrising

[geninrising]

For the 4 to win how about reducing the strength of power efficiency mods, to a combined max of 50%, but then also reducing the base energy cost of abilitys that are actually ok to spam -superjump, well of life, rhinocharge ect.

The idea behind it being cc kill abilitys requiring more than one energy orb to recharge.

 

Increased costs alone wont be enough though, people will just camp on energy restores and whatnot more.

Someone's idea for RJ (cant remember thread) was for damage to be determined by melee combo counter.

Think of some more things like that for other abilitys and people would have to work for their cc killers to be effective.

Sorry but this thread is not primarily about the P42W thing, as I stated above you are welcome to join us there for that discussion, please keep this one on topic regarding any concerns you may have about current gameplay that may affect the longevity of warframe.

[(PSN)Hooligonzo]

DE is doing an incredible job of developing and supporting this game.

 

I don't play it so much these days, since I played the hell out of it months ago and burned out on my mad dash to Mastery Rank 16, but months later I am still admiring the changes and additions to the game.  It's a very worthy thing.

 

I don't think your fears for the longevity of the game are warranted at the moment.  If the playerbase gets too washed out, they can easily revitalize it with larger squad missions, PvP revamp, and some engaging Raid missions that are on exotic maps that aren't procedurally generated.

 

And that's just off the top of my head, at nearly 6AM EST, while wishing a sleep aid had taken effect hours ago.

[Nighttide77]

I mentioned this on the thread this came from, and I'll just repeat it here:

 

I think this game's longevity depends on more mini-bosses and bosses that require some quick reflexes, attention to detail, and quick thinking to defeat.  The bosses should also be mostly, if not entirely, immune to CC from powers and weapons (especially since they're supposed to be on par with warframes).  Oh, and memorable bosses that are larger than life.  Though...mutalist Alad V is memorable for me just cuz mad scientist stereotype.

 

If people want puzzles, I think Warframe needs more platforming with better rewards for those challenges.

 

If people want event rewards without participating in the event...actually, I'm kind of at a loss for them because there should be certain things that are exclusives.  Not everyone gets a trophy.  Some of the event weapons can't even be colored over :-P  The event mods, I'm sure, will be eventually released like the Cicero set was.  I kick myself for not getting the Tethra set when I could have, but I'm still very capable of lasting a 40min solo T4 Surival.

 

I don't think anyone is really missing too much if they didn't get the Dex Furis...or that grineer pizza cutter...or the gorgon wraith...

 

As it stands right now, Warframe is a game of legendary warriors versus hordes of cannon fodder.  I can see how some people will get bored with that in the long term, but I think DE is working towards things that will challenge even veteran players and make the game more exciting, challenging, and rewarding than wiping out dozens of opponents in one fell swoop.  Moments like the G3 arriving should keep even veterans on their feet, not make them think, "I hope I get that Brak receiver this time."

[geninrising]

All great ideas Nighttide77 and all would be welcome additions to WF and perhaps just what the game needs.

[Kruglov]

I mentioned this on the thread this came from, and I'll just repeat it here:

 

I think this game's longevity depends on more mini-bosses and bosses that require some quick reflexes, attention to detail, and quick thinking to defeat.  The bosses should also be mostly, if not entirely, immune to CC from powers and weapons (especially since they're supposed to be on par with warframes).  Oh, and memorable bosses that are larger than life.  Though...mutalist Alad V is memorable for me just cuz mad scientist stereotype.

 

This.

This this this.

 

This game needs proper mini-boss type enemies that force players to stop and think about what they are doing.

 

The Grustag 3, Stalker, and Zanuka thing are good starting points, but every faction on every planet needs things like this.

 

Warframe is very similar to Killing Floor.

You run around, you take down swaths of enemies.

In KF you do it to level up and earn dosh to buy better guns temporarily.

In Warframe you do it to level up and craft better guns/frames permanently.

 

Why does Killing Floor feel more rewarding?

Because every wave, amongst all the cannon-fodder enemies are ones who will F*** YOU UP.

Grineer sort of have these with Bombards and Napalms, but that's mainly because those particular enemies have terrible hitboxes.

 

Warframe needs an equivalent  to Killing Floor's Husk. A zombie that shoots constant long range aoe explosions that cause damage over time.

Warframe needs an equivalent to Killing Floor's Scrake and Fleshpound. Special Zombies that grow faster, angrier, and more powerful depending on how hurt they are. That strike FEAR into th hearts of players.

 

An equivalent to the Snorks from S.T.A.L.K.E.R enemies that jump into your face and can hit HARD. The infested leapers are sort of like this but they die far too easily.

 

An equivalent to the Smoker, Spitter, or Charger from Left 4 Dead. Enemies that force players apart from each other. Tar Moas could have done this but their puddles are too small and do far too much damage.

 

An equivalent to the Dark Elves in Dungeon Defenders. Enemies that have the same agility as the player, and will leap over and past any barricades or mobs to strike players down. The Stalker is similar but he appears only once in a while and spends most of his time invisible.

 

 

We need minibosses.

Eximus don't count.

Most enemy variety boils down to what weapons they have equipped.

And in a game where everyone is a wizard, that just will not do!

[HibikiGanaha]

Don't think 5-6 weapons will impede getting max mastery rank, just will get to them slightly slower. And they've mentioned that aside from Founder weapons (and probably Snipetron), stuff like event weapons, Boar and Ether Ds are in the Disney vault, and aren't actually exclusives.

And the weapons you mentioned aren't exactly known as top tier stuff. You won't "never be as good" as those with them.

EDIT: Related: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/379772-about-reaching-mastery-rank-18/

It will eventually and it is getting worse over time.  Someone who starts 3 years from now is going to be 100k mastery behind the people that have been playing since the game started.  I have never seen any of these weapons come out of the vault and the wiki mentions they were offered a few weeks after they were removed only.  Years ago for some of them.

 

It doesn't matter that they are bad weapons, they are still mastery points that I can never get, that new players will never get.

[ShardsSuperior]

It will eventually and it is getting worse over time.  Someone who starts 3 years from now is going to be 100k mastery behind the people that have been playing since the game started.  I have never seen any of these weapons come out of the vault and the wiki mentions they were offered a few weeks after they were removed only.  Years ago for some of them.

 

It doesn't matter that they are bad weapons, they are still mastery points that I can never get, that new players will never get.

Snipetron came out of the "Vault" at the same time Snipetron Vandal was released - if you qualified for a SnipetronV, you got a Snipetron bp for free.

Brakk came out of the Vault; Detron was released.

Machete, even in it terrible glory (or lack thereof) was released, built, and instantly discarded once it hit 30.

Gorgon was retired, but login rewards still allow you to get it.

[YourBusDriver]

I have five friends that play... played this game.

Out of the six of us I'm the only one still playing, and these are people who loved this game as much as I do. Although it would be rash to extrapolate a ratio of player retention that is 1 : 6, this is a very grim indication. I myself may very soon drop this game altogether. I defiantly felt the sting of missing out on important events during a previous hiatus from the game.

I agree with everything in the OP. This is an issue that has be on the hirozon since this games inception, and players and devs alike put it on the back burner. Now it's finally arrived and it is hurting the game ten fold.

My comment here, and the OP's aren't complaints. They are more desperate crys for... justice, to put it in the simplest word. The recent course this game has taken does not give its vets, fans, newbies, and future players what they deserve.

I've invested 500+ hours into this game. I'm sure some people have put in much, much more. I'm scared the think it was all for naught.

Edited January 6, 2015 by YourBusDriver

[HibikiGanaha]

Snipetron came out of the "Vault" at the same time Snipetron Vandal was released - if you qualified for a SnipetronV, you got a Snipetron bp for free.

Brakk came out of the Vault; Detron was released.

Machete, even in it terrible glory (or lack thereof) was released, built, and instantly discarded once it hit 30.

Gorgon was retired, but login rewards still allow you to get it.

How many vandal weapons have been re-released?  none?  I doubt that anyone who doesnt have a snipetron right now will ever own one.

Pretty sure brakk and detron are different since those were event guns that got released into the game later, just like the dual status mods are being reintroduced.

You're describing like 85% of the weapons in this game.  A lot of them are really terrible.

 

I can understand letting the founders stay ahead by the 15k mastery lead since they paid a bunch of money when the game was still in it's early stages.  That being said, this ever widening gap of mastery exclusives is a pretty awful thing imo.

[geninrising]

I agree that the exclusive rewards will cause an ever widening gap in the MR that players can attain. This is a major issue that really cannot be ignored, especially if the focus system is implemented in a way that uses MR to define how many customization points you are allowed(if the system even uses points in that way).

 

Once again folks I am asking for others to weigh in on this topic and provide their feedback. P42W is a symptom of the affect that GRIND has on players. We feel that there is no sense in working on skills when we NEED to kill off massive amounts of enemies as quickly as possible in order to get to what we WANT to do.

 

So long as the grind is so unappealing P42W will continue to be a problem and those two things combined will continue to drive more and more people from the community.

 

We need a change to almost every aspect of WF currently in order to ensure it's longevity, and while I realize it is a tall order it is not impossible.

 

It will take work yes, but is that worse than losing your bread and butter completely DE?

[Nighttide77]

P42W makes grind so much more relaxing, though V_V  Especially when it looks so cool...  Calling down that avalanche with a raised hand, and the wiping your hand to deal the damage to your enemies?  Pretty cool animation.  Like making multiple slashes with a katana, and when you click your katana into back into the sheathe, the damage is then displayed.

 

Another way to level up, though, would be good.  I mean...I just forma'd my Ash and wasn't able to just blade storm till 10, nor use Smoke Bomb to just avoid being attacked altogether till there were at least 6 seconds of base invisibility time to mod with.  I ended up using a Reflex Guard build to maintain the awesome factor.  Though...thinking about it, I haven't really given much thought to just grinding spy or deception missions.  Those are perfect for running parkour grinds...didn't even give a thought to boss grinds...

 

Gotta say, though, I do enjoy Excavation.  I'm not keen on having to defend points or objects, but excavation is fun cuz you're mining for stuffs and even if the excavator is destroyed, it's not a mission failure.

[MechaKnight]

I just found this thread, wow am I late. My original post I'll be pasting below is from this thread. I'm copying/pasting and not quoting so it's easier for you to read.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I've been playing the game and reading the forums for a long time. We're about to lose our void keys from syndicates, as is being said on the forums recently. So let's talk about...

 

Why Press #, why do we win when we do it, and what is the game Warframe supposed to be? What are the problems, and why "Press # to win" is a problem as well as a symptom.

 

Why spam # in gameplay?

It's not restricted to just damage nukes, one can say Desecrating for extra loot and life support is a problem, Trinity playing as a pure Energy Vampire build, Vauban being a pure Vortex build, and other builds which dwindle themselves down to become one-trick ponies since we don't care about the other three abilities. Also a running trend, these one-trick builds have a frequent tendency to kill the warframe ability augments either because we don't mod towards the attribute stats the augment uses, or because our one-button build needs to use all those slots.

 

We understand the case, but why do we do it? It's happening because between locking enemies down to stay in one location and not harm us, make enemies powerless, or outright kill them, if we can do this using only one ability and overcharge to be overpowered, we sure as hek are going to do it.

 

Why do we win when we do it? Why are other strategies less effective?

There are no limiting systems which dictate we can only use a power 1 to 3 times in a row during some amount of time before we don't want to anymore. It's not like we lose the ability to spam, or our spam becomes less effective, or because our other abilities are worth using--building for only one ability even at the peril of all the other abilities and augments is totally okay with the way the game is designed because it's the best way from point A to point B, and there are no penalties for it.

 

Meanwhile, playing a more balanced build that is more fun and varied is generally not as effective because most of our abilities are not as good as our best ability. One can argue that energy cost is a valid reason, but when our "most expensive" ability can come at the price of a single energy orb, and our generally inferior #1 abilities don't match the ability of our #4 ability even when we cast our first ability 20 times over and ignore the energy cost to do it, clearly it's just not a valid option. This is a comparison of both abilities that do the same task as well as abilities that do different tasks. Ash's Shuriken is not as valid as his Blade Storm for killing enemies, and Saryn's Venom, although used debuffing, is not as effective as Miasma since it's way easier to harm enemies in a general vicinity and often kill them than it is to use precision to fire at spores and spread them.

 

Some warframes are even encouraged to spam only one ability, since one inverse attribute can be seen as a positive so long as the good attributes on the only ability you care about are still high. Trinity and Saryn builds tend to go for low duration at the cost of their other abilities since the duration mechanics reward us for doing so, and our range and strength attributes are still high as we want them.

 

So the reason why this seemingly bad idea of nerfing your kit for one ability is actually a good idea in this game is because the option is generally overpowered, we aren't penalized for it, and the game certainly doesn't put up a good fight against us to resist.

 

That's another set of points right there. Is the game built around our ability? Why do some people want a stronger game opponent, why do other people not want strong opponents? Why do some players want our abilities to be less dispensable, why do others want to remain so powerful? Does this game possess any challenge? What is challenge? What should challenge be?

 

Is the game built around our ability? Hek no. Excalibur Radial Javelin mega-nuke builds carried the Alad V Mutalist Incursions event because the game's enemies are not balanced around our ability to stack 3 maxed strength mods on him and 2 range mods to make a 60 meter death nuke. Once, the Infested were trivially easy until their Mutalist Moa troops arrived. Corpus were fodder for abilities until the Nullifier was introduced.

 

So, does our community want stronger opponents in enemies? Seems like it, but not unanimously. There were relatively few threads about the new enemies. For the Mutalist Moas, threads simply didn't want them being so deadly, even though that's their general purpose. For the Nullifiers, threads wanted them to be easier to kill because these players didn't want to get in close to endanger their abilities. However, most of us now agree they are a good addition that enriches our gameplay experience by providing a challenge. Speaking to friends in the game, we always wanted something that wasn't ability fodder and gave more importance to using weapons. To those who didn't like the new challenge these enemies brought, they just wanted to continue their meaningless farming... or is the farming not meaningless? We'll arrive to this point later.

 

Post-analysis note: Did you notice I didn't say anything about Grineer Drahk Masters? Probably not, and neither did I until a bit later. These enemies are designed to steal our guns from us, and the community has been completely silent about them. It seems that gunplay is heavily depreciated in this game, because nobody cares about losing their gun when they barely used their guns at all. That's another point we'll reach later.

 

Does our community want abilities to be less dispensable? Mostly no. Many threads appear talking about the issue of "press 4 to win", but the closest approximate conclusion is that while we do want to use abilities constantly in gameplay, we just don't want the game to fall apart so easily every time we do it. Other abilities are meaningless, guns are meaningless, melee is meaningless, aim is meaningless, sometimes even walking is meaningless depending on the range of our ability. I have seen people use epic radial room-cleaking nukes just to kill a single flying osprey they were annoyed to aim at. They sometimes don't even try, they use the power of a room-destroyer to kill one little enemy that could die in a single bullet.

 

Gameplay at this point for many people is hard to justify. Many players have quit the game after going hours into a T4 survival with only a couple of people, or running through a mission and not doing anything besides pressing 4, and winning when we do it. So... there's a few ways of solving this scenario.

 

1) Make enemies stronger

2) Make abilities weaker

3) Make abilities less dispensable.

 

The developers have already been implementing option #1, although they do so at a snail's pace, and it's not solving the problem everywhere. T4 void keys were good and so was the late planet buff that boosted enemy levels on Ceres and Pluto to reach a possible level 35-45 range on some nodes. Corpus Nullifiers in Corpus and Void levels are considered a major success in depreciating ability spam and increasing the importance of weapons. Mutalist Ospreys served to force us into mobility instead of raining abilities and bullets down on the heads of our enemies from safe perches. Grineer Drahks... didn't really do anything because we have two guns on us, and gameplay these days isn't really focused on guns despite this game's advertised identity as a shooter. That's another point we'll get to later. As for now, option #1 is a successful option the devs should stick with.

 

Option #2 was explored in the aftermath of Viver and Syndicate point farming. Line-of-sight was implemented to keep the ability strength the same but diminish their mindlessly destructive capacity. Part of the reason why the playerbase didn't accept the change was because it was not applied universally on all 20 warframes at the time, but a lot of the voice behind this issue was that we didn't want to lose effectiveness on our abilities. It helped us farm more effectively. This farming is a recurring theme.

 

Option #3 was not explored in the slightest after closed beta over a year ago but there really should be more attempts at it. Players holed up in rooms waiting for their abilities to replenish before moving on to the next room. Enemies stopped spawning in the room depending on where the player was standing and whether or not someone was looking at a spawn point. The old hard-timer cooldown mechanic was lost due to players overextending the time of missions by hiding too long. However, energy for abilities was nowhere near as dispensable as it is now, and enemies are much less durable and do much less damage than they did back in closed beta too. The game's obstacles have gotten far easier, yet our ability limits were simultaneously skyrocketing as cooldowns were removed and we were given a lot more energy to play with. This is one of the origins of "press 4 to win."

 

The limiting can be enforced in other ways besides solid timer-based cooldowns between every cast of an ability. Spending abilities on a replenishing counter (ammunition) is one way to do it. Let's think about gameplay to understand how valid it is.

 

If we spam one radial nuke, that's fine. If we spam 2 radial damage nukes in a row, our damage just fell off and we did it to finish the job. If we use a radial damage nuke 3 times or more in a row, it's blatant power farming. That said, there should be a perk to using all 4 of our abilities instead of using only ability #4 (or other ability #). This system can make earlier abilities more dispensable relative to later ones, like giving the first ability 14 casts, giving the second ability 10 casts, giving the third ability 6 casts, and giving the final ability 2 casts. This draft is following the expression of...

 

(10 - 2*ability#) + (8 - 2*ability#)

 

Ability casts before replenishment:

14/10/6/2

 

The expression is made so our first ability is exponentially more dispensable than our fourth ability. It will give it some reason to be used and modded towards, but I can still see stubborn players waiting between casts to let replenishing fill up a unit, and still modding towards the radial ultimates in an attempt to still farm play the most efficient way, scraping by on a frequent limit that can easily be covered by a tiny bit of gunfire or a tiny bit of teamwork. And then, if you actually organize into a team the limit isn't really there anymore anyway.

 

The above ammo limitation was suggested to me by a friend and I've polished it a bit. The system I originally schemed was a limiting system that penalized us for spam similarly to how the Operation: Gate Crash event challenged us by lowering our ability attributes from however we modded them beyond base 1.0 down to nearly 0. All attributes were lowered (duration, strength, range, efficiency), so the abilities in general became less effective.

 

My proposed system works similarly, where casting your radial ultimate will be penalized in all attributes simultaneously when you cast it 3 times in a row, and the penalty stacks every next increment if you don't wait for the ability to replenish itself back to the full power. Additionally, other abilities you have not been using often enough get stronger once you do use them as they overcharge themselves. If you were a player that spammed a radial nuke, you'll be spamming weak radial nukes but your other abilities will become stronger. If you take on a more balanced play style where you use your other abilities and don't use your radial ultimate, you will get stronger ultimates via overcharge. There can also be some number tweaking to make earlier abilities exponentially more dispensable and overall useful compared to the radial ultimate.

 

But why am I going through such trouble to make earlier abilities better than ultimates? Because ultimates are already exponentially better for only a linear cost. You will not cast Slash Dash 30 times over and still expect it to be as good as one Radial Javelin. Meanwhile, said Radial Javelin only costs 4 times as much as Slash Dash. That's an obvious problem. It can be solved simply: either make all other abilities better (buff), or make radial ultimates worse (nerf). I'm actually not concerned with either option. We simply know radial ultimates have become the mainstay of this game, and define what it is despite what it was advertised to be.

 

What was this game supposed to be? What has it evolved into? Just look at the trailers for this game, they're beautiful but as players of warframe for such a long time they show a painful truth. As I've played deep into this game and watched

, it hit me like a ton of bricks: as epic as those scenes and those tenno and those weapons were, I'd call them worse-than-noobs for taking over a thousand times longer as a team to clear that nearly empty room of corpus and Alad V than I would have completely solo. But wait... didn't we like that trailer? Didn't we appreciate the cool scenes, awesome characters, awesome guns, cool powers, cool villain? Look how balanced that gameplay was, they didn't use powers all throughout, some guns and melee were used. Rhino didn't even have Iron Skin on 24/7. Volt only cast his radial nuke at the end after being overcharged with energy. The trailer looked fun and balanced, and unlike many game trailers all of what was depicted within was very accurate... except for the one glaring problem.

 

Let's consider the real gameplay scenario: Speed in with Volt, cast Overload once. That room's all dead. You didn't even have to care about your positioning in that room, really. You just had to be in it. Boss fight? Overload, Speed + melee stagger, Shock to stun. Repeat until dead. Mag would be even quicker: Shield Polarize would mostly kill the room of grunts, and another Shield Polarize would already down Alad V before you took a single step forward in the boss room.

 

Tenno, did you really believe... it would BE.... THIS... EASY?!

 

No. We did not think the game would be this easy. Almost universally throughout the entire game, 24/7. Many of us want it to be even harder, but many also don't want to be penalized... but then, why penalize our farming efficiency? Why do we fear it?

 

Is this Warframe, or Four-frame? Or War-Farm?

All of the above. We came for the amazing design and concept of the game, stay because... well, mostly for new stuff but honestly with this many people being seen leaving it's hard to justify. The new items don't add any additional dimension to the game, they're just arbitrary goals. Additionally, since we are losing syndicate keys, our grind will be even harder.

 

We already work hard to find the source of specific void keys, to grind that location's random number gamble as efficiently as possible. We then go to the void to grind some more random number gambles as much as possible. Repeat the cycle until new prime is assembled.

 

Regardless of how you play, that's the metagame of warframe. We grind a lot, and therefore want the most efficient way to do it possible. Guns, melee, powers are all fair game. We're just trying to get new stuff as time goes on, but as I've said earlier..

 

Part of the problem with new stuff is some of it is around for a limited time in events. Players who missed said events will not have the mods and weapons we acquired within them. The mods are more of a problem, as I can't even show new players a link to my build without them telling me they don't have a mod, and as I verify which one they're missing, it's usually an event mod. At which point, I tell them they're out of luck unless they buy some platinum and try their luck in trade. Prime parts can also be acquired through trade too.

 

Part of the reason players spam powers so much is that their guns aren't up to quality with the rest of the players, and the other part of the reason is that farming = profit. The community has become competitive through these means, and toxic as well. We're bitterly farming to save ourselves from the intense powercreep, and feeding our platinum/ducats/syndicate wallets to save ourselves from whatever impulse famine comes next. For example, removing void keys from merchants. The reason why players defend "press 4 to win" is because sadly, it's looking increasingly like a necessity, and sometimes the developers start to look less like friends and more like adversaries. I prefer we work together instead of being fearful of one another.

 

I still remember the devstream DE_Steve was given the question, "did you learn anything over your time developing this game?" He responds, "Yes. Don't make everything overpowered." I understand his plight exactly. It bothers many of us players that the game is looking trivial to the point of pointless, but I can imagine the developers see it the same way too. Line-of-sight mechanics, repeat nerfs to Trinity, Mutalist robot-infested and Nullifiers are all ways to keep us in check with the game as advertised by trailer, as imagined dancing in our heads for why we like this game, and as a way to give players the experience developers intended. They do listen to the community, but it's very hard to change this cycle in motion when players get so angry over a power restriction change. I like my powers to be strong too but something has to be done so that the game doesn't fall apart so easily when we play using our accumulated power. This is especially apparent in void which is our only endgame outlet with decent rewards, because those enemies are nowhere near strong enough to withstand our ability spam, even with the Nullifiers added in.

 

Does this game possess challenge? As of currently, not for us experienced players. New players have tons of challenge learning a completely unexplained game with many complicated systems, and will eventually discover this game's events have created meaningful history, which has also left them behind in a savage cycle of powercreep since there are no comparable options to the mods they just missed (3x event mods with 60% element/60 status compared to weak 60% cold mod, weak 60% shock mod, and weak 15% status mod).

 

Our challenge is in the RNG and wait. Grind stacks of random number gambles for items, wait for foundry items, event progress, alerts, Stalker. I mean, these elements are fine but they shouldn't represent the challenge factor of our game.

 

What should challenge be? It should be occasional parkour through levels, it should be fast-moving, potent bosses who have mechanics and can interact with a custom battlefield. It should be enemies which resist our onslaught and challenge us by removing the agency of our powers, guns, and movement. We should have the option to use powers but the challenge of managing them. We should have occasional yet optional exercises of teamwork, which should always be optional since we should aim to support solo players too.

 

Challenge should not be: walls of RNG, incredibly hard learning with zero help, impossible expectations powercreep has created that dooms everyone and anyone who has and will one day fall short of a core exclusive.

 

What is press 4 to win? A symptom of issues like unlimited farming, hard RNG, limited edition weapon powercreep with no decent comparables, trivially easy "end game", a kit of abilities where one ability outshines the rest by a massive margin, and there's no reason to use said abilities and not abuse our best ability. However, Press 4 to win is still its own issue because of the way it diminishes our game to nearly nothing.

 

What should Warframe strive to be? Fun, not a grind or a job. Balanced to make all options viable. Challenging near the end of the game (we need better endgame), and easy to learn as a player as you go on through the cycle of gameplay. As of currently, Warframe is heavily unbalanced so only a few options are viable. It's hard for new players to learn and hard for old players to feel motivated. New players are shut out of the system by missing items with no similar comparable content, and old players get paranoid over it to the point where they're farming their girlfriend's account just to keep her in the cycle or quit the game alongside them. The game needs a breathe of fresh balance, and quelling "Press 4 to win" is the solution alongside fixing the RNG and powercreep cycles.

 

We players here on the forums try endlessly to fix this game, as we imagine developers care enough to make the game in a labor of love for us. It's just very hard to stay in the cycle in the face of long-stagnant subjects such as this. I genuinely hope the developers take notice and help us out as we try to help them. Hopefully we can find a balance where everyone's okay with not steamrolling the game and feel comfortable within it.

Edited January 7, 2015 by MechaKnight

[geninrising]

+1 as usual MechaKnight, I got involved with the new thread you built around this post as well. I also placed an idea for a new way to utilize/restructure the way ults are utilized as well. I'd like you to give it a look, should be the first post on page 2 I think.

[(XBOX)Skode]

I wouldnt mind if they scaled back the amount of new content personally, the experience of the game is slowly but surely becoming a more and more buggy one. They can discuss long and hard and i think they do things like nerfs, buffs and tweaks to existing gameplay but the issue is more they are spreading themselves too thin - as the game gets bigger there is more demand for more weapons, frames, tiles and modes and more often... they are giving us that and at a much faster time scale than before but practically everything theyve added they have to go back and retweak or look at again and that is not ideal, far from it.

 

Most of the complaints we get about Warframe is about what we have got and NOT what we aint got. I hope the next update will look into some of this... we will be getting likely a new boss in the J3 Golem, a new frame and new weapons with likely new quest on a new tileset... Awesome and i hope thats it. Everything else in the big update can be going back and looking at whats being moaned about most... boss retweaks are on the go, stealth and focus has been mentioned regular, syndicates are being looked at and updated etc. So yeah a good update enchancing what we have already instead of giving us much more new stuff would be great update for me, hell even the weapons i want to see should all be similar to what weve got... Claws, Tonfas, Sword and Shield, Gunblade - all the new stuff needs its own new mods as well just to function like the other already do in the game, maybe some new fists or something next time to lighten the load and save some creativity for the next big update. Lately weve seen everything added from Archwing to Relays - thats a lot of new content in such a short space of time, its time to let the content breath.

[capia]

My 2 cents I like the game but see some different issues like takes forever to level tiers and the stupid RNG you could play forever and never get an the item you want unless you buy it and did we really need archwing not so much.  The endless weapons that which some are total crap people don't want to waste resources to build a weapon that ends up being junk or even close to being any good. Also some off or if not all the game has turned to hardly able to get resources or even to make warframes so you are forced to buy them. make an economy where everyone can make money on missions and enjoy every part of the game and implement a real auction to buy and sell all items, make an epic weapon where each warframe gets to quest his own. I know theres a lot of time spent from DE's put into the game not bagging on them just an opinion. I feel a lot of things need changing but make the game a more equal playing field so if you have tons of cash to blow you can just buy it or if your like me I don't like to spend tons of cash then items are much harder to get. I would be in favor of a monthly fee rather than the way it is now.  I remember when Kubrow came out thought wow this is nice well after a bunch of eggs and other resources still cant get the kubrow I want unless I buy wow stopped making them them all together and then the dog needs resources to fix him all the time. I sent a ticket once about the crappy RNG and response was well some people are lucky some are not LOL come on really.