Devstream #52 Overview

[Zalgo]

 

I don't remember what frame that purple one is what is it?

[AM-Bunny]

 

I don't remember what frame that purple one is what is it?

 

Reb's Banshee that she used during the parkour 2.0 demo.

[SpydexTP]

New Starchart

• Hoping to appear in U17

• 300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes

• There may be time-based instances, such as Vor appearing temporarily, dropping different things each time

• Similar to Alerts, but hopefully not something that punishes players for sleeping

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

• Re-viewing player made quests again and designing the starchart so that these will be able to fit into it; hopefully this will be the answer to players that resent the removal of choice

 

I've spent a total of $557.73 USD  on this game. I've enjoyed every dollar and have had a great time. HOWEVER, I will uninstall this game from my computer if you make these changes. Absolutely not. You're practically removing the best part of the game. You probably don't care about one person, but I guarantee other people share my feelings. I feel like this is a mistake and should be dropped before you lose a lot of potential money. 

[Hades_Underworld]

 

 

New Starchart

• Hoping to appear in U17

• 300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes

• There may be time-based instances, such as Vor appearing temporarily, dropping different things each time

• Similar to Alerts, but hopefully not something that punishes players for sleeping

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

• Re-viewing player made quests again and designing the starchart so that these will be able to fit into it; hopefully this will be the answer to players that resent the removal of choice

 

 

 

Now don't get me wrong here, i am a man of logic. I have played and been a part of this developing game for over a year. I started playing when it was first released on PC. Was playing at 9 fps, however the design kept me playing and interested. But this, this just says we given up, to many bugs to account for. In E3 or whatever stream you did in the US convention a player/fan asked about if you guys would update maps looks and feels since one of the planets in game was being explored. You said you would be. This seems to say the opposite. I will not wait for planets to change, I don't care if the missions are player made, add them to the current star chart. Why would you take planets that differed in look and feel and make them disappear. This system will lose massive amounts of players. If/when this is added I will not play and will delete everything to do to warframe. No more support, no more buying plat, nothing. Pardon my french here but this is like a slap in the face. Something that was kept the same for longest time is no being drastically changed. Unless i hear some damn fine logic on why this is a thing, no more warframe.

[AM-Bunny]

$557.73 USD  on this game. I've enjoyed every dollar and have had a great time. HOWEVER, I will uninstall this game from my computer if you make these changes. Absolutely not. You're practically removing the best part of the game. You probably don't care about one person, but I guarantee other people share my feelings. I feel like this is a mistake and should be dropped before you lose a lot of potential money. 

 

 

It does sound awful, but try not to resort to anything drastic until we see exactly how it's implemented. The player-made quests in particular might provide us with the freedom we desire, and might render all this worrying moot. Here's a recent post from Reb that confirms a lot of things are still up in the air, and will continue to be detailed in coming days:

 

This is a whiteboard - this is everyone talking, thinking, communicating, writing, erasing, repeat -  and this what makes working together at DE so rewarding. In this Devstream we had this conversation openly with each other and with you all, not because we wanted to show you the stone chiseled tablet of what is coming, but because we wanted to discuss openly what we've been discussing off-camera. Sharing what we've been struggling with, what we've wanted to achieve. Could it have been more polished? Probably - but we're not ready to polish what we're still actively figuring out.  

What's been invaluable about the surrounding discussion is where your reactions focus on what you'd like to see and what you'd hate to lose - this mirrors our conversations. These discussions are strongest when the ad-hominem is left out, though. So please keep that in mind. 

Next Devstream will pick up where we left off, and we're working on figuring out a Dev Workshop-style post on what we want to do with the Star Chart. Warframe has always changed and evolved, and as this chapter starts off with bang as the goals are candidly discussed. The ignition of dramatic energy surely reflects on how much everyone cares about this, but this chapter is just beginning. Onward to Dev Workshops, discussions, and more. 

[Hades_Underworld]

Make a game with a core gameplay of farming(grinding), then nerf it cz people do it too much... DE logic. Might as well limit play time to 1 hour per day for every account.... You gotta stop doing drugs at DE.

People farm, grind hard, draco all day long, so what? its  PvE game, nobody's gonna get hurt if i farm draco or smth else, dont try to "fix" a problem when theres no problem. If u want to do those starchart changes, u better go make a new game for a playstyle like that. 

I've been playing since open beta started, and all you do is experiment in the worst possible ways. I get it, its your job, but dont ruin this game, it was the best free2play, best 4-man squad shooter for me, overall a very good thing, and instead of basing the new stuff on the base of gold, u scrap all that existed for what? your answer is not a good reason to do it, and hell, there cant be any good reason for changing the game like this. It's not warframe anymore. If this thing actually happens, im out, even though ive played it for 3 years (maybe a little less).

I can not explain in words how well this speaks my feelings on the subject.

[Hades_Underworld]

No no no, they are trying to stop us from grinding and tiring ourselves.  They want to bring us back to when missions were fun to do w/ incentives. 

 

 

Radical idea here, why not add mission types to the current star chart. Add some variety not completely redo it in a way that sucks.

[SpydexTP]

It does sound awful, but try not to resort to anything drastic until we see exactly how it's implemented. The player-made quests in particular might provide us with the freedom we desire, and might render all this worrying moot. Here's a recent post from Reb that confirms a lot of things are still up in the air, and will continue to be detailed in coming days:

 

I never said I would quit right now bud. I said I would quit if they implement this in the game. As far as the whole "whiteboard" concept goes, who the hell came up with this. If they're going to throw an insanely (excuse my "politically incorrect" language here) RE-TAR-DED idea on the "whiteboard", they need to keep it to themselves and not stress out practically every loyal player on this game. The star chart made the game what it is. They shouldn't mess with it. Period. 

Edited May 15, 2015 by SpydexTP

[SpydexTP]

Actually, I just had a thought. If there are twenty nodes, randomly generated, that means random resources. Making farming virtually impossible. So what would I do? Buy platinum to just purchase the weapon rather than waiting on the rotation to get a certain type of node for my new item. I think this might just be a money-grubbing scam. I really hope this isn't true.

[(XBOX)BLK THORN]

First thing I am going to say is that I enjoy playing Warframe with friends but this game can be boring when I solo. So thats why I like the fact they are going to add the lore and storyline to the core of the gameplay experience because that is one of my big issues with Warframe and I understand some players feel its not a big issue and want to keep the game the way it is. I also like the fact they are trying to address the grind and giving us a chance to build our own missions for rewards. But its obvious this new starchart needs to be elegant and not make current and future gamers have a daunting or non-lucrative experience so I hope DE has a real beta-test team giving them real feedback on this monumental change.

 

We all know lots of gamers have moved on from the game because it has issues and DE must know due to this change a lot of older gamers may not like it and leave as well. Hopefully they keep some key elements of this build of the game that can satisfy them. 

Edited May 15, 2015 by (XB1)BLK THORN

[AM-Bunny]

Actually, I just had a thought. If there are twenty nodes, randomly generated, that means random resources. Making farming virtually impossible. So what would I do? Buy platinum to just purchase the weapon rather than waiting on the rotation to get a certain type of node for my new item. I think this might just be a money-grubbing scam. I really hope this isn't true.

 

Haha maybe they'll introduce Resource BP's for the remaining resources, and we'll be able to magically transform any resource into any other kind of resource.

 

Something like:

2500 Nanospores (bp costs 100 plat) - requires 8 Mutagen Mass, 4 Neurodes, 4 Neural Sensors

[Ransidius]

I like the idea of less nodes when I'm still fairly new to the game and it is a little overwhelming, and that means i can progress faster and get the segments quicker.  The condensing does make sense based off the metrics like they were saying in the Devstream.  If a mission doesn't get a lot of play through there really is no justification to keep it.

 

What if with the condensing (or later) on the nodes get set up to randomly change every week(or month), so the missions will be different types and different tile sets.

 

For example:

 

One Week/Month Pacific(Earth) is a Capture with the Grineer Forest Tileset (like it is currently configured).

 

The next Week/Month it is a Exterminate mission with the Grineer Shipyard Tileset.

 

The Next is a Survival mission with the Grineer Sealab Tileset (makes sense Pacific ocean)

 

Some missions types would probably have to have restrictions place so you would not have an Excavation with say with a Grineer galleon for logical reasons,but I feel this would help add more diversity along with the other proposed changes and help encourage new tile set design as well. 

 

I like the Idea of the Time-based instances for the bosses, and if incorporated with this idea the boss battles would change dramatically with the change in terrain, players would no longer be in the same room of the map over and over again. But appearing temporarily I think is a little punishing, when the timer runs out the boss should pop up almost immediately onto a new node.

 

Just a thought.

 

 

 

 

[Hades_Underworld]

First thing I am going to say is that I enjoy playing Warframe with friends but this game can be boring when I solo. So thats why I like the fact they are going to add the lore and storyline to the core of the gameplay experience because that is one of my big issues with Warframe and I understand some players feel its not a big issue and want to keep the game the way it is. I also like the fact they are trying to address the grind and giving us a chance to build our own missions for rewards. But its obvious this new starchart needs to be elegant and not make current and future gamers have a daunting or non-lucrative experience so I hope DE has a real beta-test team giving them real feedback on this monumental change.

 

We all know lots of gamers have moved on from the game because it has issues and DE must know due to this change a lot of older gamers may not like it and leave as well. Hopefully they keep some key elements of this build of the game that can satisfy them. 

 

The star chart made the game what it is. When i started I wanted to see what all the planets looked like. Tile sets are completely different, the look and feel of the maps are amazing. Having a constant war between Corpus,Grineer, and infested made it feel like a star system. Relays got added, a place to convene and talk to one another. Then came the void trader, someone to sell you unique items and mods. But this new idea, does not address grinding. Here is what this situation boils down to:

 

Current Situation on Grinding:

   A. Players have to farm resources in order to get what they want. Alerts offer some relief from having to replay missions over and over again. And but of course the market is there for those who wish to fork out money. But here is the thing though, Players need to determine how much of their time they want to farm, not go to DE and say it takes to long and just complain about it. Players are just as much to blame here as DE. Instead of making DE solely try and solve the problem it should rely on both parties (DE and that players) to find a better solution, because left to only one party, this new star chart system is the disastrous result. A small Team of beta testers will never be able to completely address all problems and how other players might feel. De says it isn't supposed to be like alerts however it sounds exactly like it for the following reasons:

 

 

 

 

A.  There may be time-based instances, such as Vor appearing temporarily, dropping different things each time 

Sounds like farming him a crap ton to get what you want before it disappears huh?

B. 300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes

+ 

 

Re-viewing player made quests again and designing the starchart so that these will be able to fit into it; hopefully this will be the answer to players that resent the removal of choice

 

This implies that once you have done all the nodes(keeping in mind only 20 of them, quests or not), you have to wait until they change, waiting for Vor to drop what you need.

 

The current star chart balance progression, balanced levels of enemies determined by the planet, the current star chart doesn't need changing. How items are dropped, where items are dropped (EX. Alad V is the only Boss to drop Neural sensors as the time of writing this), that should be changed. You want to remove/eliminate boredom? Change the resource drops, how to obtain them, add/change current nodes to different mission types, changing something else will not fix it.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Darks_s

[Kaiservadin]

New Starchart

• Hoping to appear in U17

• 300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes

• There may be time-based instances, such as Vor appearing temporarily, dropping different things each time

• Similar to Alerts, but hopefully not something that punishes players for sleeping

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

• Re-viewing player made quests again and designing the starchart so that these will be able to fit into it; hopefully this will be the answer to players that resent the removal of choice

 

As long as it prevents players getting burned out from playing mission type for too long Tubemen event proves it ... i really had to push myself to do it.

[Spike_Rose]

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

 

No.

NO.

NO!

 

Removing "choice" is never a good thing. It's going to leave days where I'll log on and have nothing to even do. If I want to play a different mission, why can't I choose to do that?

Edited May 21, 2015 by Spike_Rose

[Tesrac]

I'm feeling that thus huge change to the starchart without lits if transparency is iffy. Obviously we'll need to wait and see what else they share with us, but to me it feels Luke a "done deal" kind of thing, I'm hoping to see more of the proposed changes shared with the player base so that we can have some input into how the game evves from here.

I do think the void needs to be changed, I literally can't use up allmy keys and often run solo so.ply because I can, but if the loot tables aren't adjusted less void runs would cripple any given player's ability to farm for rare drops, imagine trying to get your Loki Prime systems when the keys are super rare....at that point no one is going to bother, it's a huge waste of time.

[Omnimorph]

I have a feeling this change might be good for the game.  I still haven't completed my chart - people just don't team up for most of the minor nodes, and I hate doing some of the mission types solo (especially data extraction).

 

Basically, the people go where the alerts go, and I'd be quite happy if everyone just followed a bunch of alerts around, provided we don't lose any map variety, and actually maybe gain some map variety.  That's the main thing, map variety. 

 

The "choice" at the moment isn't really all that meaningful, and I wouldn't be sorry to see some of it go. 

 

It's a balance between that efficiency and always having people to play with, on the one hand, and on on the other, still feeling like you are in your own spaceship and can travel around at will.  So long as the illusion of freedom and choice and having your own spaceship stays roughly the same, I don't mind much how the efficiency and multiplayer play is achieved mechanics-wise.

 

Personally, I think it's about time the game started moving to proper MMO status with more persistent areas and servers.  What we have now could be the bread-and-butter backbone of day-to-day gameplay (equivalent to the "radio/newspaper" missions of City of Heroes - fast, easy missions you can jump into for a quick jag, always there, always dependable), while the game spreads into more interesting, persistent world stuff, with mission chains, etc.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Omnimorph

[Urlan]

I contend that freedom of choice and world building are more important than reduction in choice for more randomness. What the nodes need are a reason for players who have cleared them to have incentive to play them again; rewards versus removing the missions and nodes. Reducing the nodes does not mean that you and I are going to be paired together. Currently we both have the ability to set ourselves for private or friends only matchs, even solo if we want. All reducing the nodes does is make it so that people have to do random missions for their runs or try to craft keys to access regular missions. If matchmaking choices were removed as well, how many players would still play? This is a very real question to ask because if the stated goal is to remove 'ghost towns' both options would need to be removed to reduce variables and assure full teams are assigned.

 

Think of it like this, would anyone here do the normal alerts that show up that only offer a few credits as the reward? Would anyone craft and run a derelict exterminate without being able to potenitally get a corrupted mod out of it? That is the system that we are looking at for update 17 according to the Devstream. I, for one, would like more information about this, as this is a big and potentially game-ending change for Warframe. Feedback from the community can only be valuable, positive or negative, for such ideas as the worst thing we could possibly do is to sit and wait while saying nothing. 

 

After doing many Derelict runs with players, and many alerts; I have never seen a player choose to run any of the other non-endless derelict missions by choice, I have never seen a player in any team I have been in choose to do an alert for credits alone. I have done many myself, but that does not mean the reward was worth the effort. Currently, many missions lack reward just like these do, by improving rewards, interest can be improved and the map can attract more players to early and late missions. By simply removing matchmaking, you would force players to play together on nodes; that would reduce 'ghost towns' by itself. I think, personally, that this design direction is coming more as another attack on player farming than team-ups myself; but that is another subject.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Urlan

[ecwp1981]

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

 

Is this better for the game or better for the players? Games are played by players and things which are better for the game might not necessary be better for the players.

 

I am not too keen on this statement provided by DE. Grinding for materials and resources can be understood as the company needs to make players feel the pain and purchase platinum to increase the drop rate which ultimately pays the bills and wages of the company.

 

There is a limit to when players feel that the company is over doing things and stop playing altogether and this feels like one of them.

 

I for one will most probably reduce my game time or even stop altogether if DE decides to limit my choice of game types. 

 

DE should look at cost saving options or other methods to increase they revenue rather than taking steps which "milk" their players imo.

 

That said, I am eagerly awaiting U17 to see what this enthralls ultimately.

Edited May 26, 2015 by ecwp1981

[JimMaru]

They need to understand that the problem is not (just) the excessive number nodes, it's just that all the rewards are either concentrated on a really small number of missions or they are nonexistent/badly balanced.

 

People do just Apollodoros and Draco because:

A - Exp distribution is ridiculous. When solo you only get exp with the weapon you got the kill with. But EXP is awarded by the number of enemies killed, not the level of them.

You also get little experience for completing the missions itself. So then only endless missions with as many of enemies you can one shot are the only place to farm experience. You can't level stuff alone on high level missions because you won't deal damage with an unranked weapon anyway, and therefore not get the kill with it.

 

B - EXP sharing is a very poorly implemented system. Seriously? You don't get exp by killing stuff yourself with a different weapon. But others get exp with everything just by staring. This basically means that leeching experience is the best way to level new stuff. Get one good leveled weapon to defend yourself, put 2 unranked equiped and just walk around while teammates kill everything to level up.

The only good side to this is that players that like to show off killing everything with their (4) skill are punished and get little to no experience for stealing all the kills (since their frames are maxed most of the time). Sorry Mesas, Novas and Saryns out there that just want to help others with their ranking. =]

 

So EVERYTHING else in the middle are poor choices, because the game's own mechanics are terrible. Endless missions with hundreds of enemies for OTHER PEOPLE to kill are the only ones that are efficient affinity-wise.

 

People only do Sechura for credits because it's one easy fast to do mission with a high mission rewards. Gee, want to fix this?

Why not make the credits you get scale with the waves you do in defense and the number of enemies killed? Make missions that are hard rewarding.

What is wrong with this? You don't calculate mission rewards properly, of course people will go to easier stuff. Increase credits on the hard to do mission and decrease on the easy ones. People will have a net increase of cash anyway, since T4 Defense has stronger and more numerous enemies. No one likes to do Sechura for the 100th time anyway. Make credits come naturally by playing. Not forcing players to farm for it.

 

Also what is wrong if something is more efficient than anywhere else to farm? Searching for that place is in itself fun. DE could just make it so every patch/hotfix the ideal place was different and required different strategies. People would still be able to farm for stuff, but it wouldn't be that boring since you're always learning and searching for something better. Not doing the same thing over and over again.

 

You guys need to realize that you have 5 kinds of things people want to farm for:

Credits, Affinity, Resources, Mods and Blueprints.

 

Please stop putting everything in the same place. Most of the worth blueprints are on the void, and behind a very punishing RNG wall sometimes.

Scatter rewards around the solar chart.

 

And most importantly: rework useless missions so that people have a reason to play them.

Extermination? What is the reason for doing them over endless missions? Survival/defense have more enemies that give better rewards, more affinity, bigger drop chances, stronger enemies for exclusive mods... You also don't have to wait for the load screen for the 20 minutes you're in the mission.

Why not make stuff like Spy 2.0 so it has better rewards for completing them?

Also why not make extermination missions only contain heavy enemies? Why do that? Because then you have a place to farm for mods like Rage. The missions might become much harder, but much more fun and rewarding too.

 

Yes there are 200 useless nodes out there, but there is also 100 that could be useful and should be kept and reworked so that people have reason to play them.

 

This plan is really crazy and punishing. You're basically making it so people can't play the game. You're reducing the amount of content people have access to. You're removing every sense of agency the player can have. You're making all the resources even more scarce and harder to obtain.

You're killing your own game for no reason, since there are many, many ways to make the game better and fixing the problems it has by targeting the problems itself. Not creating another issue so you can hide this one.

 

Also remember this: People don't play the game because they have something else to farm. They play because it's fun. If you remove the fun of the game so people can't get what they want (through their own effort, let me add) so they take longer to get them, then you're just killing the game.

As long as the mechanics of the game are fun, people will play it even if they already have all the mods and frames and the best weapons.

Stop trying to inflate the time people have to spent to get everything so you can pretend the game has more content than it has.

People are not that stupid, they can see what you're doing. They will just realize that the effort is not worth it and stop playing.

Focus on rewarding players for playing instead of making them play more for the same rewards.

Why instead of removing rewards or places like Draco no one is focused on adding better rewards for doing 80 minutes on a survival?

Why not make lv 100 enemies drop better stuff so you can progress through the hardcore content instead of just farming forever for everything?

 

Why new blue prints are added to the dojo and not to the solar system?

Why we get things like farming forever for Mesa instead of, idk... giving a reason to ever fight Ambulas?

 

Stop adding multiple layers of RNG to the game. That is NOT why people play. People play because it's fun to do when they have the equipment they love. Farming for it is okay, but the game can't be ABOUT the farming.