My Initial Thoughts After A Reset.

[Razorfire]

I've been playing for a little under a couple of weeks now and I'd like to post some of my thoughts...

 

 

The aimpoint needs more work. At close range, the reticule is useless. I think this is because of the third person shooter viewpoint. In a first person shooter, it's pretty simple. Line of fire goes straight from the weapon to the aimpoint. Bang, it's dead. But from the third person, if you're tracing the line of fire from the weapon to the aimpoint, there's a gap at close range and the aimpoint is no longer accurate, going off to the left or right, depending on your point of view. All rounds should hit the aimpoint regardless of range.

 

Headshots seem to be a bit sloppy. It doesn't seem to be the head itself but a point just above the head. After the patch, I think it even got smaller or higher.

 

Fire rates seem to be inconsistent. Some times slower, sometimes faster, regardless of aim mode or hipshot. I had the impression that as there were more enemies in the room, the more inconsistent the rate of fire became.

 

Enemy shotgun weapons don't seem all that realistic. They're supposed to have a fan pattern, getting wider further away from point of origin. After the patch, it seems to be hit or miss, as it should, but, the damage should diminish over distance, not JUST all or nothing.

 

MK1 Braton and LATO seem to do less damage or the enemies have gotten tougher, in spite of what was said in other postings. I don't think they're doing as much damage as they used to. 

 

Skana seems to be missing, rather than hitting 100% of the time unless the target is out of range.

 

Sentinels are basically soap bubbles. Enemies seem to target it first, or switch from the warframe to the sentinels. It seems that the sentinels take the aggro and hold it. I would think that the enemies would switch back or be more focused on the warframe. They don't seem to last long. That being said, I want grenades too. If the enemy has them, I want them. Seems only fair.

 

Also, I'd like to be able to monitor the health of my sentinel. Health, shields, ammo, energy, etc. 

 

Enemy spawning is not a good thing. I've had them spawn in front of me several times. I'd like to think that once I clear a room that has no other exits, I've secured it. I've also noticed that some spawn points are too close to walls and doors. A powered up Skana strike though an orange door or through a wall deals with them easily, as well as the Skana AOE attack. Also, the spawns should be more limited or a fixed number of enemies in a map.

 

AI group behavior could be improved. Having them charge at you like a crazed Bolivian army isn't really all that fun, especially at the starting levels when you have weaker weapons. As you progress through the maps, the difficulty should progress as well in a smoother curve.

 

Enemy drops are FAR too random or restrictive. I suspect something is going on here. Often when I'm using a Braton, I'm getting a lot of pistol drops, and when I'm using the pistol, I'm getting a lot of rifle drops. Is this intended? Drops should also be appropriate to the enemy. Riflemen should be dropping rifle ammo, shotgunners should be dropping shotgun ammo, etc. Mod drops should also be appropriate to the difficulty of the enemy as well. Taking down bosses and elites without a drop worth having doesn't provide much in the way of reward or satisfaction.

 

The lighting is okay, but it would be nice if the flashlights were automatic, in some missions, there are dark spots on the map that are just too dark to see. Also, if the flashlights were a bit more modern, that would be good too. You'd think that after thousands of years, they'd have developed flashlights with better more even coverage.

 

Lotus has to be made more helpful. Seriously. Or shut up. Announcing that something LARGE is coming and I walk into an empty room... it's just aggravating. 

 

Audio needs work. Stereo placement and distance attenuation is pretty messed up. I'm getting blindsided by stuff from the wrong side at times, and I'm hearing comments from far away enemies as if they were standing right next to me. Not good. I'm getting ulcers.

 

As a concept, it's a good game, guys. It needs some work, and I'm a bit disturbed that you're charging real money for an unfinished product. I'm afraid you'll lose your objectivity and focus on that hard cash, rather than working towards a more finished product. 

 

I'm going to try a little while longer to play Warframe, but... I don't think I'll be spending cash on something that seems like a subscription game. Players can only progress if they buy the progress. :P

 

Doesn't seem like a good model to me. It can lead to poor conduct, for the player as well as the company that is producing it.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Razorfire

[Lane]

There are two points that I would like to add to your observations:

1) There are in fact rifles, such as Gorgon, that are deliberately made to have 'inconsistent fire rates, if that's what you're saying. It's something like a 'warm up' for the gun. Adds believe-ability to the game IMO.

2) As for the Mod system being 'too random', think of it like this:

At lower level missions, your RNG pool is restricted to the common/uncommon mods (in most cases at least).

but at higher level missions, your RNG pool is expanded to all the Mods within the game, thus making the overall probability of getting one particular Mod even harder.

My two-cents.

[Neskartu]

I've been playing this game for a couple months now:

 

1. You're spot on about the aiming at close range. Needs to be fixed.

 

2. Head shots are working perfectly. Dunno why you're having problems.

 

3. Have not noticed any decrease in fire rate that correlates to the amount of enemies in the room. Any video that you can share with us?

 

4. Agreed. Enemy shotguns should have same damage drop-off that we have.

 

5. Mk1 and Lato weren't all that useful against higher level enemies in the first place. I would suggest getting different weapons as they are your starting gear and not really intended to be used everywhere.

 

6. Don't have a Skana anymore; can't corroborate.

 

7. I don't see what you're complaining about for the sentinels. Because they get shot at? Also, grenades may be on the way, you just have to be patient. This game isn't even closed to being completed.

 

8. Enemy spawns does need to be dealt with. Having 5+ guys spawn in the room I started in after I leave it is highly frustrating.

 

9. The difficulty progression is actually quite well done. The earlier stages are shorter with fewer enemies and the later stages are much longer with many more enemies. There is a high initial learning curve to the game but hopefully that will be softened with a better tutorial in the future.

 

10. If enemies dropped ammo for only the weapons they carried, snipers would have even less ammo drops than they get now. That is not a good idea. While the ammo system may need to be tweaked, that doesn't solve the problem. Also, mod drops are completely random. No pistol kill = rifle mod type deal. The only complaint that I would make is that there are FAR too many Warframe ability mod drops. Tired of getting Mind Controls/Shocks/Shurikens/Smoke Screens. It's really slowing down leveling up more important mods.

 

11. Adjust your graphics settings

 

12. Turn off in game voice effects

 

13. The problem is with your stereo then. My system has the right sounds coming from the right directions.

 

14. What exactly are they charging you for? There is nothing in-game that you are forced to purchase. As of right now, they need that micro-transaction shop to be able to fund the game. If you don't want to buy anything, don't.

 

15. Progress has no limitations on it. All frames/weapons/items/mods can be earned without spending a single dollar. And if you think that micro-transaction shops are a bad model, you should go spend some time in other games with similar shops. They work out extremely well.

[ChaotikDreamz]

Fire rates seem to be inconsistent. Some times slower, sometimes faster, regardless of aim mode or hipshot. I had the impression that as there were more enemies in the room, the more inconsistent the rate of fire became.

 

 

 

Seems RoF is still linked to FPS I still notice when more mobs enter FPS starts to drop so does RoF when they start dying off and FPS picks up so does RoF. It's on everything even specially noticed in Melee

[TehJumpingJawa]

Seems RoF is still linked to FPS I still notice when more mobs enter FPS starts to drop so does RoF when they start dying off and FPS picks up so does RoF. It's on everything even specially noticed in Melee

True.

It becomes noticeable as soon as your framerate dips below a solid 60 fps, and even more so with high attack speed melee weapons.

I'm levelling a Pangolin sword atm, and with max fury its attack speed it very high.

However if I get into a situation where my framerate drops significantly (e.g. busy fight in mobile defence), I often find my attack speed being halved!

This also adversely effects timings of movement controls, and makes some moves impossible or unreliable. (propelling yourself with running jump-spin attacks for instance becomes very unreliable)

This really is a fundamental issue that needs addressing urgently as it effects so many aspects of the game's balance & gameplay.

Edited May 19, 2013 by TehJumpingJawa

[Razorfire]

Just a follow up... 

 

The melee weapon is definitely missing and it really shouldn't when you're within range.

 

Good thing to note about the FPS and RoF... I'll examine that closer.