June 19Th: Community Hot Topics!

[[DE]Drew]

Coptering / Wall running / Parkour 2.0

In the last Community Hot Topics, most players voted that Stamina needs to either go or be changed in some way. However, removing Stamina is bound to have a ripple effect on other aspects of Warframe. Stamina has always been a limiter when trying to run through a level as quickly as possible. Coptering became the ideal way to get from point A to point B quickly and efficiently. Coptering has become iconic to Warframe, but more than anything, it is indicative that players gotta go fast. If you’re worried about coptering or other movement changes, think about what kind of movement changes would be the most fun for you. What changes would you like to see? With Stamina being removed, does coptering still make sense as a movement mechanic? (Does it make sense with Stamina?) What other types of movement in Warframe do you think are good or bad? The current wallrun and wall fling are effective, but could they be done better? How fast do you think movement should be in the new system? Would you rather run through levels faster or slower than you do now? 

 

Source threads:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/477191-u17-with-words-from-de-steve-gonecopter-flying-stamina-wallrun/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/477024-goodbye-coptering-parkour-20-is-going-to-change-all/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/477142-if-you-remove-coptering-you-might-as-well-remove-the-entirety-of-melee/page-2

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/477311-gonna-assume-that-most-people-dont-know-what-coptering-is/

 

The Spy Alone

This Hot Topic, by KoshLovesYou, is all about Spy missions and how they can be improved for better public play. By now, most players have probably ran with a player (or been the player) that accidentally trips the alarm. Spy missions are perhaps the only game type where  a teammate can directly cause a failed mission. Because of this, Spy missions have gained a reputation as being solo missions. The source thread offers some suggestions on how to better accommodate a team and less experienced players. Do you think more obvious visual cues would make team play easier in spy missions? Is there something else you think would improve playing with groups? What about other mechanics that could require teamwork? Or, should spy missions focus more on solo play? What other thoughts/ideas/feedback do you have about the new spy missions? 

 

Source thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/466876-how-can-we-make-spy-20-smoother-for-pub-play/

 

Completionists

The source thread for this hot topic is pretty straightforward - are you/have you completed the codex? But, I think the underlying premise is a bit more interesting for this topic - what aspects of Warframe do you care about completing? Probably one of the first things most players complete is the solar map. For some players, having all the weapons and warframes is what matters. What do you care about completing? Is the codex important to you? Weapons? Cosmetics? Noggles?? What are the things you must collect and what are the things you aren’t very interested in? How close are you to getting everything you want? Post your response in this thread!   

 

Source thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/476386-anyone-else-aiming-to-complete-the-codex/

 

Balance

This is a pretty broad hot topic, but in what ways do you think Warframe is or isn’t balanced? In your opinion, what are the most pressing balance concerns? How would you define balance? Should all weapons perform equally well? Should there be tiers or niches for certain weapons? What about within specific categories of weapons? What about warframes, enemies, syndicates, mission rewards, and other aspects of Warframe? What would you say is the most balanced thing in Warframe? What is the least? If you could rebalance a single aspect of Warframe, what would it be?

 

Source thread:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/477295-for-the-most-part-warframe-is-balanced/

 

[Archwizard]

Parkour 2.0

 

I'm gonna miss Coptering; Dual Zoren was my first melee after Skana, and after I accidentally stumbled upon that effect, I was hooked.

It's been a part of my experience in the game so long, it'll feel like ripping off my own arm when it's gone.

 

But, I understand that it needs to go; as long as "fling" mechanics exist (since aerial melee is dev-sanctioned "flinging", I wonder where it fits...), travel skills and dev investments into parkour won't matter, and all non-Endless missions (particularly Deception and Sabotage) will continue to be a race to extraction.

 

... Although now I'm tempted to see an actual mission-type that's literally a frantic race to extraction. I think it'd be great if, after completing a Sabotage objective, whatever facility or ship we were in started completely falling apart (Indiana Jones-style!), forcing us to use our parkour skills to escape before the timer runs out. Something fast-paced and heart-pumping, always a narrow escape.

 

Balance

 

One thing that absolutely needs another look: Ability damage.

Since it's a long thread I just linked there, I'll quickly sum up: The main problem with abilities that deal direct-damage is that they don't hold up over time, since enemies have layers of resistances against single-damage types and there's an ever-increasing roster of units who resist or defy abilities (ie Nullifiers, Manics, etc). However, we have Warframes like Ember whose kits are wholly reliant on their ability damage, and expected to be useful into high levels due to a status proc with redundant methods of application across her kit - which can be supplied by weapons at no real loss. At best, it means half of the slots in that frame's kit are wasted as players spam the "best" damage skill (Miasma), at worst it means the frame is completely worthless past Level 20-30 enemies.

It needs a blanket change for these abilities to match the cost efficiency of weapon damage, else we'll continue to abandon such frames as more content (like Trials) is pushed out.

 

Additionally, I feel there's a solid gap between several weapons, creating "tiers" of what are the best and aren't.

Snipers are too slow for Warframe's fast-paced "zerg rush" combat and too accurate to hip-fire against nearby enemies. Shotgun falloff prevents them from being useful very far beyond melee range. Enemies like Nullifiers push us to focus on automatic, beam and burst firearms, which only adds onto the disappointment with single-shot snipers and shotguns.

Melee weapons can be built for several styles, but middle-of-the-pack weapons that don't have strong single-swing potential for Channeling builds or high critical chance and speed for Berserker builds tend to fall behind. Scythes in particular (bar Anku) have fallen behind since the loss of Charged attacks, while Daggers are generally far too slow and weak for upfront combat and too short for stealth play (which they should excel at).

Granted, there should be an expectation that an early-game weapon like Skana falls behind, but when you have things like Anku (which you can buy a blueprint for) being more powerful than Reaper Prime or Hate (which are considerably more difficult to obtain), it becomes puzzling. Personally I don't understand why recipes like Panthera require a Miter, rather than upgrading one of the several "early game"-balanced weapons.

 

Yes, Augments have attempted to fix both of the above categories... but Steve and Scott have said it's their goal to have all equipment be "endgame viable"; might be slight paraphrasing, but as I recall the plan was, if you picked up a starter and you really liked it, you could continue to use it in all content without diminishing, only growth as your skill and investment increases. Try presenting the Syndicate grindwall to a Rank 2 player who's really into Excalibur and Skana and wants their augments - unless they have a sugar daddy, it's intimidating.

Even if you've surpassed the grind, oftentimes just adding more mods won't do because you'll have no space for those mods. There's a reason why players ask for buffs to be baseline, rather than bandaged with mod extensions.

Besides, not all Augments are gems... some like Hallowed Eruption and Contagion Clouds try to solve the flat damage issue with more damage, while Fire Fright has no reason not to be baseline.

 

Also, Damage tables might need a look, particularly around the Infested. Not only is Gas damage completely worthless (it only has a bonus against Infested, but Toxic Ancients remove that bonus), but Infested have an entire damage type (Sinew) devoted to one boss. We also have 4 types of Flesh and 2 types of Robotics where, for all intents and purposes, half that would do; just sharing more health types cross-faction (particularly where it makes sense with the Mutalists) would cover it.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Archwizard

[Sixty5]

The balance question is a hard one.

 

There are a lot of aspects in the game that are balanced as well as plenty that are not so well balanced.

 

Of all of the options, archwing is probably the best off, but the lack of missions and scarcity of parts etc there are an issue for me.

In terms of the game as a whole, the biggest issue with Balance is endless missions. They are the meatiest part of the games content, yet by their nature are very difficult to balance.

Enemies like Lancers get progressively more threatening, whilst other enemies like Nullifiers and Ancients become a huge pain to deal with once large swathes of enemies start spawning.

 

Personally, I feel like most weapon, Frame and faction balance issues have their roots in scaling, but this means that problems there are very difficult to solve.

[Jackel7]

Regarding Spy mission teamwork is what make the dream work!

 

If you are with a random group you need to talk to each other and state the plan, or lack of one. As well as do one  spy vault at a time, because if an alarm goes off in one with a player inside any other with a player inside will go off too. Also Spy missions other then Rescue missions stealth is a must. In addition if a player or two in the group only have loud weapons they can still use just their melee or keep enemies from going into the spy vault by standing guard outside the door.   

 

Regarding Balance

 

Corrupted Ancients are a bit weird because there been time one ran pass me but still pulled me OR 2 Corrupted Ancients pulled me at the same time! Oh and they makes focusing on the more dangerous of foes; Ex. trying to kill an Orokin drone so enemy units like Heavy Gunner don't get bonus health BUT  its in the radius of an Corrupted Ancient! "uh oh" have to kill Ancient first but that same Orokin Drone is support it too! Very Redundant. And by the time the Ancient is dealt with your shields are low from the Heavy Gunner or from another foe during the chaos. Could it be possible to make the Corrupted Ancient a little bit different from infested still one size fit all doesn't  always work :(

just more Corrupted less infested? In addition can there be a green ring around the Corrupted Ancient to see which Corrupted are benefiting from that one C. Ancient in that pack, or identify how many are in a crowd. 

Edited June 20, 2015 by Jackel7

[Outlander3734]

I think Corrupted Mods were, while a neat idea, poorly implemented. They're so strong they're practically necessary. They should either be easier to get to reinforce their importance, or made less effective. 

[Stratego89]

I'd just like to post here since it's on topic: I do consider myself a completionist. I have been trying to finish codex actively for a while- and would like to mention a LONG STANDING bug related to certain objects being unable to be finished. In my particular case the one I remember best offhand is kubrow dens. I am not complete in scans for them, yet when I go to earth they appear as scanned. If I scan them with the simaris scanner, the count in codex does not increase. This is a bug that has bothered me for a while but has not been something so bad that I'd report it by itself.

[egregiousRac]

Parkour/Movement Speed:

Coptering needs to die. Unless a good alternative is provided, Air Melee should still provide vertical movement but horizontal should be reduced significantly as well.

You can move nearly as fast with Mag Lev, but it takes actual skill to navigate the environments instead of just flying over them.

 

Spy:

Spy is in a good place right now. It could still use a proper AI awareness system (unaware, curious, suspicious, alert, spotted states) and acknowledgement of dead bodies, but barring that it is pretty good. It is nice to have a game mode where everyone has to work as a team for once.

 

Completionist:

At this point I have nearly every weapon maxed, all of the frames and sentinels, and most of my Codex done. I haven't been playing at all without friends recently though, and schedule conflicts have slowed progress.

There are some things that I don't care about though. Number one is the raid. I only have three people that I play with with any frequency, and it is almost impossible to get them all on at once. We have tried it five times since release, and all five runs have failed due to stupid bugs. I finally just gave up. Some things simply aren't worth the hassle.

 

Balance:

Balance is so screwed up that it isn't even funny. The instant that a modding system was implemented that has six different stats that all stack multiplicatively as (quite large) DPS multipliers it should have been obvious that it would break.

If you cut out primary damage mods and multishot, and limit elemental mods to 60-150% total the game feels fairly balanced against all older enemies. It is only the enemies released in the last year or so that have started stacking stupid garbage in order to combat our stupid broken garbage.

Nerf the weapons, remove the stupid enemy mechanics, and reduce spawn rates (and boost drop rates/affinity to compensate). Each enemy will be more important and we might actually have an even playing field at level 40, just like you guys claim you intended.

[Orcot]

Like all mission types, Spies should be easier with groups, I feel more options should be available for for groups to make spies more doable for groups.  But I also feel less should be changed to make solo more balanced compared to Co-Op.

[Pendragon1951]

Regarding Parkour 2.0

 

   I think coptering evolved to combat the limiting factor of stamina, as it was said in Jurassic Park, "Nature always finds a way". Now with stamina being completely removed the need to actually copter will gradually fall away I believe depending how much they limit us because of no stamina to worry about. I think what they should do if anything is adjust the speed of a Warframe based on their initial weight, Arcane Helmets still able to boost if it deals with speed. I actually came into coptering late in the game until my son showed me how and I just improved over time. Now with Excalibur's Slash Dash able to launch me anywhere (In case you guys didn't know, Slash Dash actually can launch me higher than superjump) I see myself learning a new way of getting around, at least with Excalibur. Just my thoughts.

[Doom_Bunny]

What is balanced in warframe?

Wellll.....

Archwing weapons are nicely balanced but could use some tweaking. The recoild on decurion, no scope + charge time on the sniper, and pratically everything about corvas needs a change.

Sentinal weapons I've always found to be relatively balanced between each other so it didn't matter which weapon I picked.

Syndicate mods are nicely balanced between the sysndicates. Unlike normal mods which just boost your power these augments provide the player with different mechanics to keep it interesting, however there is no mod slot for them :(

 

Mods and enemies are all over the place, both are no where near balanced and constantly conflict with each other.

Weapons if they were just by them selves with no mods they might actualy be balanced between themselves.

Rewards nope. Interception is still the only place to get t4 keys. Spy missions are the only place to get event rewards. Meanwhile both survival and defense still hand out t2-t3 keys, credits, and silver mod rewards on Pluto and Ceres.

 

Spy missions

Honestly yes. You start putting friendship doors and places that require two people in there it's just going to be a pain in the arse. Having to communicate to the other player that they have to do this and this just to reach you, not to mention if they stuff up you're both screwed. I have played in public spy missions and most of the time we do win. However what I find is that players try to rush the vault then once they trip the alarm they panic and get locked out. This isn't so much of a problem as either I or another skilled player will rush in there and retrive the data. It does become a problem though when we're to far out to help them.

 

What I would suggest (because players can get bored waiting for another player to finish the vault) is to give the players outside the vault a secondary task. Keep them intrested (throw enemies at them) while this other player faces the task of navigating the vault.

 

Completionist

I would say some what. I do try to get all the void trader items and the prime items. I mostly like to try out all the weaponry that inculdes warframes and comapinons. I'm not so fussed about the codex or accessories but I will try to complete the sancturary, I like reading and discussing the lore. Which is strange because I wouldn't do that with a book or anything else.

 

Speed

Yes our movement speed should be faster. My pinky may lose muscle mass from not continuely switching between ctrl and shift. But I'm sure it'll be fine.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Postal_pat

[osheroth]

- Warframes are most deffinetely not balanced. Every one of them should have potential to reach high levels relying not only on player skill but on power viability as well (take the ceres interception tac alert, 4 frames at most were the only ones who could actually solo it). In my opinion this is the most pressing matter in regards to balancing.
 

- several secondaries out DPS a lot of primary weapons, as far as melee it's decent but some weapons should reward the player for using that specific type (as of now there's no reason to use the Karyst over the Scindo Prime, a dagger should be way more efficient than an axe). I wouldn't mind if weapons were sorted out by categories (low to high tier), but this wouldn't solve the problem of weapons that required a lot of materials or expensive resources to be build end up being quite mediocre (silva & aegis is clan tech yet performs poorly, Supra requiring 7 fieldron just to name a few); what I'm saying is that we should see a great performance out of weapons that took a lot of effort to get (like the dragon nikana, soma prime, tipedo, etc) 

Now that speed movement has been brought up, will smoke shadow ever get reworked? It's almost impossible to provide an efficient cloaking in a game that encourages players to cover 5 meter in less than a second.

The normal status mods should affect base status instead of chance, there's absolutely no reason to use them as of now. 

Edited June 21, 2015 by osheroth

[Digidyne017]

Spy missions should have more incentive to work in fewer numbers if you are going to encourage "true" spy play. More numbers of course means increased convenience, but that has been the only option (or better yet, preferable mindset) when engaging spy missions, while at the same time, working alone means less mistakes and better self coordination to ensure a successful mission, however with rewards being the same, there's nothing to favor soloing spy missions, and efficiency turns to be the better "incentive" in itself when working with others

 

Also, we need some Lightsabers for our beloved space ninjas...*hint* *hint*

[Jaysus41]

    Warframe Balance

as long as Mesa and Saryn are insta-gibbing missions, Valkyr remains nigh-invincible (Rhino couldn't have invincibility, but Valkyr can??), and Ember only contributing a fancy lightshow to the team, I cant say in good conscience that warframes are anywhere near a well balanced state.

And something that isnt discussed, but really should be... remove resistances and weaknesses from warframe armor, or at least give us the ability to change it. For those that don't know, all frames have a +75% weakness to radiation, that's why we always get rekt by detron crewmen and orokin lasers.

    Weapons in General

as long as Boltor P and Soma P are instilling a "W+M1=Win" mentality to players, shotguns/snipers are left on the shelf to collect dust (mainly due to certain game mechanics limiting their usefulness *cough* damagecaps *cough*,) and most weapons being just mastery fodder because of subpar stats or unuseful gimmicks, I cant say in good conscience that weapons are anywhere near a balanced state

    Archwing Balance

Hellions either need a nerf or a better telegraph.

    Grineer Enemies

Seekers and Bombards continue to be a sore spot for newbies and vets alike (SERIOUSLY, Fix the damn kraken scaling and near-sentient homing rockets! Its been over 2 years!)

 

    Corpus Enemies

 

Nullifiers continue to be one of the most horribly designed regular enemies in the entire game. Nothing i can say here hasn't been said about them before.

    Infested Enemies

Way, Waaaaaaaayyy too much synergy is going on with infested. a good solution would be to limit which kinds of enemies spawn in a mission, like say...

in a mission you get ONE type of mutalist moa and ONE type of ancient, not the entire crew. also limit how many can spawn on a given level. no more near invincible infested because they have half a billion healers, a gnat shield, goop on the ground, and just disrupted/dragged/stunlocked you.

    Interception/Defense/Survival Rewards

i don't have any issues with the way survival rewards are awarded, i do however take issue with defense/interception.

I really like that we can keep our rewards through waves and not have to cash out right away when the void key shows up, I dislike how it was changed to every 4th round instead of 3rd. as someone who has been playing since 2013, i don't care about the crap mods that get awarded round 1 through 3, I probably already have over a hundred of them already anyway. I just want that key, and making me play an extra round just to get one key felt like a kick in the pants.

just think, every time you get a 3rd key, you would've had 4 in the old system. that adds up over time.

also, going off of the useless-to-me-mod-rewards thought, an option to switch our reward from a mod to a credit/resource cache would be great. i wouldn't have to feel like i was just wasting my time up until that 4th round.

    Sentinels

sentinels are mostly great from a utility standpoint, however they need more survivability. One wrong move in a T4 mission can destroy them in an instant, so either 1) give them better health/shields/armor (not the best solution by itself) 2) allow us to craft/buy a consumable item that revives them instantly 3) allow them to regenerate health over time 4) if destroyed let them self-revive after a short while. regen would get reworked to shorten the revive time instead of one instant revive

personally i like 2, 3, and 4 the best.

[Kalimando]

Coptering needs to go. Not only does it make PvP a nightmare, its turned every mission type besides defense and survival into a race. There was a time earlier in the game when people would walk and run during missions.

 

When I first started playing around update 8 or so, it was easy to get into the game since everyone was still playing the game as it was meant to at the time. I can't help but think that when people join warframe today, they enter these missions and get paired up with people who get to the objective in thirty seconds and are only past the first room. I feel the pace of the game should be much more uniform, because as it stands now, its a playerbase divided between the new people who don't know, and the old people who do.

 

Imagine your first boss battle in warframe being finished before you even get into the boss room, its got to be disappointing.

[Magnar21]

Movement 2.0:

Why should I slow down and enjoy the ride, when everything is about the grind?

Movement needs to be naturally fast, when players want to move fast. Enemies need to reward positioning, and maps need to reward (but not force) moving around. Hard to do this without creating destructible environmental objects a la KF2.

Coptoring, as it has become central to movement in Warfarm, should not be removed. Stamina, if you chose to add it into the game, should be meaningful. Slapping stamina onto sprinting and melee *could* be meaningful, but only in a game that rewards careful consideration of each move, like Dark Souls and those like it. I don't know how to balance this in a game that, despite claims and attempts to prove otherwise, is a glorified horde shooter. Warfarm isn't about careful positioning, careful management of movement, dodging, and attacking, when you can just pop Volt Shield if you need a quick cover, or just not let the enemies attack you in the first place.

 

The Spy Alone:

Teamwork should be rewarded, period. This can be a la KF2, in terms of exp gain. It can be like an MMO, in which drops are increased if you are in a party. But anytime that a player can outright force you to fail, is a poor design choice. That is removing agency from the many, and placing in the hands of bads and jerks. If you want to keep team spy missions, make it so that hacking different data vaults within a certain window of each other nets increased rewards or something. I don't want to remove the failure mechanic entirely (particularly for solo missions), but something must be done to encourage group play for max rewards, and solo for ensuring individual skill matters most.

 

Completionists:

I have no desire to complete the codex. Absolutely nothing in it is not available on the wiki. I suppose new drop locations can be deduced or easily found using a completed codex, but outside of leaving Helios on, it matters not to me. It's just something else to grind that nets me no satisfaction in the long run. Call it conditioning (due to Warfarm just being a grind and RNG simulator now), but I can't bring myself to go out of my way to do something besides take a few seconds to scan a new boss. I suppose the Helios mod was supposed to change this, but IDK. It just didn't feel like it would matter when I can one shot most mobs anyway.

 

Balance:

While any game with multiple weapons will have *some* imbalance, and having some balance can certainly be Perfect Imbalance (see the Extra Credits video on that), Warfarm is NOT perfectly imbalanced. Now honestly, Warframe needs to have some imbalance to maintain the feel of different weapons. Hard to acquire weapons need to have something stand out about them, even if it is just cosmetic (speaking of cosmetics, allow us to put vanilla skins on prime weapons, and a skin on the blasted Scindo prime, already.) But with the way that Warfarm is determined to lock "valuable" items behind a massive grind wall, I can't justify making all prime weapons purely cosmetic.

 

Which brings me to the next type of balancing, niche weapons.

For this, you need just what Warfarm already has, unique weapons that fit different roles. Find ways to break the traditional barriers. Take time each major patch to balance some of the old weapons, and bring them into alignment with more recent weapons. Revisit awesome weapons like the lanka, tigris, Sybaris, Venka, Snipetron, boltor, and other community favorites and make them viable at end game, if one invests into it. Make every weapon have a unique feel, even when compared to its variants. Make it so that if I equipped a completely random loadout, with randomized frame, weapon, and mods, I could still do t4 void without feeling like I'm dragging my team down.

[Archeyef]

Movement speed: I'm Fine with it how it is. I wouldn't mind seeing it increased, but I think it's just fine how it is now. Hopefully the new movement system will help make up for some frames' slower speeds, and the removal of stamina as a limiting factor might help too.

 

Spy Missions: Should Spy missions favor solo play? Nah. They should definitely be completable by solo players, but I don't think they should favor solo play. I also don't think they should favor team play over solo play, though. Ideally there'd be an increase in difficulty depending on the number of people in the party. Perhaps that could be done with different puzzles or something, ones that require coordination. I personally find it more rewarding to complete a co-op stealth operation.

 

Completionism: I do not consider myself to be a completionist in this game, no. I would like to have a completed Codex, but more for the fact that it's a useful reference when constructing builds than for any kind of gratification from it being complete.

[Epicagemo]

Movement speed is a bit slow in PVE in Warframe. The main reason we copter is to get around (in PVE). We have these huge maps like the Europa one which is about 100m+ per map which can end up making the mission last 10 minutes for an exterminate. Theres really no quick way to get around other than using abilities, which are restricted to a few frames. Parkour 2.0 better address some of these issues.

 

Coptering Does not need to go. I use melee, and coptering is basically required.
Maybe restrict coptering to melee only? Quick melee resorts to gun bash.
Or...
Maybe add animations in the beginning of the copter? look closely, copter and look at the animations, your warframe pulls out his weapon in less than a milisecond. What? And s/he takes .5 seconds to sheathe the weapon.
In other words, There's an animation to putting away your weapon in quick melee, why not add an animation in the beginning of coptering? it'll cripple copter, but not remove it when melee needs it.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Epicagemo

[[DE]Artarrwen]

I was typing a detailed thought-out post addressing most of the points but then the browser lost focus on the text window and hitting backspace got me off the page and I lost everything I wrote so F*** being concise anymore

MOVEMENT
Tweak fluidity, then introduce a mechanic that rewards players for combining several parkour moves into a single fluid maneuver. (gradual movement speed buff or damage mitigation chance or melee buff or anything along those lines) Then adopt coptering and air melee to be used skillfully rather than spammed.
Take a look at level design and animations and eliminate flow-breaking issues such as bumpy terrain, restrictive animations (i always feel locked in when performing a maneuver; not even talking about constant rolls and fall animations ruining everything)

BALANCE
Warframes - Liking the direction you're headed in with recent reworks - Excal is now *the* poster boy and truly is a model Warframe. Ideally, every frame should be as fluid, active and flexible as Excal is, while still being different from him. I'm still waiting for you to implement proper passive abilities, btw

Enemies - Grineers are absolute and total wankers, the worst offenders being Commanders and Seekers. By now everyone should know why. I'm unsure as to why they still remain overlooked.
Corpus have lost the vibe of an enigmatic corporation that uses robotic proxies to do their business. With every new human enemy designed for heavy duty (Nullifiers, Crewmen, Prodmen, Techs with their Supras) in their roster they become less and less interesting to me. Balance-wise, they need to emphasize on synergy between human crewmen technicians and robot muscle doing the heavy lifting.
Infested seem most balanced now, barring the obnoxious Swarm MOAs.

 

Mods - oh boy.
I'll keep insisting that single-stat mods should go. Taking Serration, Split Chamber and Heavy Caliber apart and distributing their accumulated raw DPS boosts across all utility mods would greatly splice up the variety of builds, making players experiment and come up with specific builds for specific guns. Corrupted mods are an example of mods done right (save for HCal, Fleeting Expertise and some others). Dual or even triple stat mods with various degrees of minor stat increases or decreases is the way to go IMO. Additionally, elemental damage mods should convert a percentage of damage, not increase it by said percentage. Period.
Oh and please, please do something to D polarity. It's been a problem ever since Damage 2.0 became a thing.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Artarrwen

[CY13ERPUNK]

current movement 'speed' in warframe -

IMHO its too fast, but hopefully the upcoming removal of coptering will still give us plentiful options and even more 'mobility' without all the insane unnecessary 'speed' (nothing against speed per se, but coptering is/was always a glitchy mess and should have been removed years ago along when wavedashing/sliding was) ; TL;DR - upcoming changes to movement will probably fix most current issues/problems, really this is a bad question atm IMHO, would be better to ask again a few weeks/month after movement/parkour v2 goes live

 

spy missions - 

again, what's with the lame questions? spy missions already do favor solo play, as long as u can reliably complete the vaults, its much easier to not have other rogue tenno possibly tripping alarms, but however on the flipside, a well organized team of tenno can also work very well together, but is the mission designed so that a random group of players can charge thru and no-brain it? no and it should never be that way, IMHO spy missions are atm some of the best designed missions ingame, more of warframe needs this kind of attention to detail (if anything i think spy missions should be even harder, even the 'hardest' vaults are still ridiculously easy to complete once you know the method as they dont have enough variables, or at the very least there should be a larger upwards range of difficulty options past the current 3 tiers or so)

 

completionism - 

really sad to see this here, as the whole 'completionist' mentality is fundamentally flawed from the get-go, its got several logical fallacies associated with it ; but suffice to say, the entire concept is bonkers ; ive been playing the game since CB myself and im a hunter founder, so ive got some stuff like excal prime and the lato vandal, but i also dont have the skana/lato prime, becuz i didnt buy a high enough founders pack

     the completionist's argument would be that im trying to get every single possible thing ingame and i would be miffed that ill never be able to get those prime items, but that's silly and no argument for it holds up, its simple, the time/opportunity to get those items has come and gone, thats the end of it, should DE bring them back or offer them again? sure that's a valid argument, but they've said no, so that's the end of it

     considering how long ive been playing, ive pretty much done all there is to be done ingame, and anything that u can get ingame without having to shell out $$$ or plat for, ive probably got, but i dont do it to be a 'completionist' i do it becuz at the end of the day, the game is fairly shallow and there's not much else to do (IMHO this is a core component of the problem that is the completionist mindset)

    long story short, completionism is a bit like racism, its really stupid and its only a 'thing' cuz ppl are saying its a thing, but its silly and really should not be validated at all ; its a game we play it, we get stuff ingame, but there's nothing wrong with the game or the developers making artificial scarcity of some items, no one 'deserves' or is entitled to anything

     lastly, if someone is a playing the game as a completionist, they are basically painting themselves into a corner, they are playing with a goal-oriented mindset, so instead of enjoying the experience of the game, they enjoy the 'rewards' but often 'suffer' through the game to get the rewards, thusly building a negative feedback loop that will only end in misery since at some point, they will have done all there is to do, and then what? 

 

somewhat related, but i figure ill mention this here as i think its worth it and im glad that DE_Steve is on the same page (or at least he seems to be from what hes said previously) ; user-generated content, such as customized missions and/or quests whether they be for clans or for syndicates or for some kind of tenno 'danger room' [customized missions could either be 'VR' or some other method of maintaining them as non-canon] will go a LONG ways towards shoring up one of the true weaknesses of Warframe's game design, and once implemented, if done well/properly a well fleshed-out system that gives the players the tools to generate unique and customized missions/quests will not only take an enormous burden off of the design team (as they'll have a larger buffer to churn out content), but it will also enable the player-base to make a ton of cool content themselves (City of Heroes/Villains gave the playerbase some awesome tools for customized missions within the gamespace/world and players created some amazing missions/storyarcs)

 

balance - 

overall i dont think the game is horribly unbalanced, but across the board, every single area/system could use some improvements, so just looking at the list, i can instantly think of several fixes/tweaks to each mentioned, thus i cant vote for one system as better than any of the others, at least i can say that it seems like DE is always trying to go in the right direction, but unfortunately sometimes it takes them an incredibly long time getting there and/or they make many regressions along the way (a lot of 2stepsforward3stepsback stuff), hopefully Update 17/17.5/18/etc round out the year with some high water marks to ease the recent pains [will be glad to see charge attacks return, hopefully]

Edited June 20, 2015 by CY13ERPUNK

[PookieNumnums]

it frustrates me that the only thing people think when they discuss copter is 'speed'...

 

what about all the cool parkour combos and unique routes you can take with it? i feel like im the only one out there chaining wall runs with copter across unnecessary paths just to give some style and flair to the game that is undoubtedly repetitive. 

 

for veterans, coptering can mean the difference between 'boring running around' and 'awesome ninja flying about raining death from all directions'

 

there is nothing quite like hitting something as you copter past landing in a wall fling behind it and pulling of a mid air one eighty to successful tonkor shot on the same enemy.

 

the game currently lets me go where i want how i want when i want. the first iteration of pk2.0 looked like it would compliment it. 

from what ive seen via twitter, its just distance and speed nerfs abound, as well as turning up the metaphorical 'accessability options' for players who arent able to fully enjoy it for console based or skill based reasons. there is a certain amount of control and fluidity with how wall running is as of right now. i can jump off when i want to in the general direction i like and most times land where i want. if the wall mechanics are set distances, its going to impede agility and accuracy, making the only usable surfaces are that which cater to the limit. with the current system there are small, large, and larger wall jumps. there are small large and larger directional air melees.  a wall within copter range is a wall i can run on.

im worried the new system will feel dumbed down. 

 

i must reinforce the fact that copter isnt strictly about straight lines, a to b, and getting there as fast as i can. there are plenty of rush mechanics in game so speed shouldnt be the issue. rush, sprint boost, slide jumps, slide jumps to slides, slides, volt, nova, augments, zephyr, slash dash, teleport... i mean cmon..

 

 

 

theres plenty of balance rework suggestions and analysis on the forums i dont even know why its a thing here...

 

 

and the only things i care to complete are nice looking or event exclusive items, including baro

 

and owning warframes. i may not level them but i want them all in my inventory... blame tekken tag.

Edited June 20, 2015 by T4LCOMX

[KuroShiranui]

Movement

My proposal on movement speed is more to travel between points. I think every frame should have the same max top speed, but different acceleration. So in this case, Rhino may reach the same speed as other frames, such as ash, but takes more time to reach that speed. The only exception would be Loki I guess. Maybe Loki should have its specialty of being the fastest warframe.

 

In addition to that, I think warframe top speed should be modified by player distance and where are they going. Suppose if we have person A and Person B at different tileset. If A goes to B, his top speed will be more than the top speed of B. And vice versa. If A goes away from B, his top speed will be reduced than B. and also, vice versa. In short, if anyone wants to go away from the team, their top speed will be reduced. If they head towards the team, their speed increases.

Perhaps i'll make a separate topic on this, to see what everyone else is thinking.

 

 

Balance

Regarding balance, I think it should be like if it's hard to manage, it should be rewarding when successfully executed. For guns, hard to manage here refers to high recoil and slow projectile speed. High recoil means higher damage; slower projectile also means higher damage. Also, reload speed. I think that's a simple way to balance guns.

 

- In that sense, Snipers should definitely have its damage buffed considerably, but also increase its recoil. Or perhaps greatly reduce its accuracy while firing on the hip.

- For shotguns, maybe increase its range a bit more, so that it has more range than melee, but lower range than sniper rifles.

- Beam weapons should consider its max range. More range=less damage. And vice versa.

 

Mod balancing are still a long way; there are too many essential mods on everything. Also, changes to mod values should also be accompanied by changed enemy scaling. With that in mind, I guess I have no opinion on mod balancing right now.

Edited June 20, 2015 by KuroShiranui

[Kalenath]

Coptering-

 

Coptering may work, but it looks silly. All I can say every time I see some Frost or Rhino flying through the air is 'Big fat TARGET! How can even Grineer miss that?'

 

Yes, it makes people go fast. But not everyone WANTS to.

 

Spy Missions-

 

The idea is sound, The actual challenges are okay. The problem is that some players gotta go fast and to hell with stealth. They don't CARE if someone else is trying to ghost it, trying to get the max affinity. Not their problem. They are here for THEMSELVES. No one else. So they screw everyone and if they fail? No prob. Not their fault. They can always rush through it again in 20 seconds with some other group.

 

Then you get people joining the game as you are creeping through a vault and as soon as they spawn, they run off into a laser grid and insta-fail. Not always their fault. But still annoying.

 

I do not WANT any missions to demand solo play in this game. But that is really the only way to be sure you get the max rewards.

 

Also: The buddy doors in the Grineer vault get REALLY annoying.

 

Balance-

 

Balance is a hard one. I actually have seen people screaming about how BOLTOR PRIME needs a buff. What is scarier is I don't think they were trolling or joking. They just want their pretty golden gun to 1 shot everything in game.

 

Balance is a tightrope and you are never going to please everyone. Several of the older warframes need help but Excalibur's recent changes make it clear that DE not only know this, but is working on it carefully. Well done on that guys.

 

We need a middle ground between OMGUBER and THISSUCKS. Excalibur's rework is the best balanced of anything I have seen so far in game. He isn't invincible, but he is fast, powerful and FUN to play. The last is key for me. Mesa is OMG powerful but it is NOT fun for me to stand there spamming 4 for 20 or 40 minutes. Ember is not very powerful at all, but I can run around and light things on fire. Yipee!

 

As for mods and other things? LOTS to work on. Good luck guys.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Kalenath

[TeenageGirlVodkaPuke]

About balance:

 

-The infested faction has too many annoying units in my opinion, and it becomes even worse at high level.

-Make Djinn better

-Some warframes need a buff / rework

[CheeZeWiz]

Parkour 2.0:
I'm just excited to see what you guys put out, but more speed is always awesome. Coptering is awesome, I know that you're planning on removing it, but the option of going fast and jumping far shouldn't go away, you have to provide something to replace that.

 

Spy missions:

Managing to finish the mission with a team is harder than solo, so doing more cues, or, even allow for only 1 player to go into the vault while the others guard, have a console that shows cameras so they can assist the infiltrator, or make the vault a miniature defense mission and shower them with enemies.

 

Completionists:

Personally I don't aspire to complete everything, I just get the things I want. But I think it's fair for people that do want to complete everything the option to do so.

 

Balance:
I'll only mention some areas where I think there is some sort of imbalance

Frames - I don't really understand how to define frame balance, they are meant to be very different, my only complaint could be that some frames aren't that good for endgame.

Corpus - They die like flies, and really need some beefy units, like a, uber-moa, or something, also nullifiers suck

Rewards - I think the rewards are fine, but like every player, RNG is annoying, and there should be some way to increase chances of getting the good stuff with effort. Let's say you're doing a defense mission for that 1 super rare item that drops on rotation C, the chances of it dropping should go higher once you reach the second and third rotation C. (if that's not the case already, I didn't notice this)

Corrupted mods - I was trying to some weird stuff with the tonkor and I noticed a lack of -magazine size +reload speed corrupted mods, I guess you could throw in some new corrupted mods for weird things, that would be awesome.

[Shimonoki_Ryuji]

Movement.

 

Speed in my opinion should be tweaked. Some frames are too fast, some are too slow. Rhino prime, for example is bulky and huge, but his speed is the same as Loki. While Frost is atrociously slow, while having less speed and armor, than Excalibur. This is very strange and needs to be looked at.

 

Spy and solo.

 

The reason i hate spy 2.0, is that it requires either solo play (which i hate doing in a coop game) or sitting in the recruit chat (which is inconvenient and inefficient). Solo play should be always supported, but NEVER favored.

 

Completionism.

 

Sometimes i do consider myself a completionist, but this goes only towards warframes and mods. I see no reason, for example, to keep or build weapons or companions, that i don't like to use.

 

Balance.

 

As for now, the only things, that i consider balanced, are: Sentinels, Dual stat mods and Regular mods. I'll comment on other things as well.

Warframes - many of them are not well designed and need a rework. Specifically Ember, Rhino, Limbo, Mag.

Augments - i personally hate the way they are implemented into the game. Most of them are plain useless, others such as Irradiating disarm and Greedy pull need to be nerfed.

Primaries and secondaries - Multishot mods need to be removed and the enemies toned down proportionally. Serration mods must be built into the weapon, so that it wouldn't take up a slot and leave some space for other mods. This should make the weapon building a bit better.

Snipers and shotguns need to be looked at, as countless posts already suggest it.

Melee - weapon speed needs to be in correlation with the melee class. Daggers and Twin daggers must be the fastest (1.5 atk/sec). Then come single swords and machetes (1.3 atk/sec). Then dual swords, small axes and katanas (1.1 atk/sec). Then polearms (1.0 atk/sec). And the slowest must be the heavy axes, hammers and swords (0.8 atk/sec).

Archwings - archwing mods are currently very underpowered. They need to offer a lot more for the space they take. Archwings level up VERY slow.

Archwing needs more missions and content to be at least comparable to the regular missions.

Syndicates - i only level up Simaris and his rewards are good so far

Grineer - Bombard's and Napalm's auto-targeting must be removed. Bombard's and Napalm's AOE radius must be nerfed.

Corpus - Bursa stomping speed must be nerfed. Nullifier shields must be vulnerable to punch-thru mods and bows/snipers must be able to pierce it wit 1 shot. Nullifier shields mustn't be able to cover heavy units.

Infested - Boy, where do i even start? Swarm MOA and Tar MOA spawn rate must be significantly reduced. Swarm MOA and Tar MOA ridiculous jumping removed. Swarm MOA insects should be killed with a roll/melee and not transfer to the teammates. Tar MOA shooting range must be nerfed. Tar MOA tar mustn't damage the players, the slow effect is enough. If multiple Maggots are on a player and he rolls, they all should die. Disruptor and Healer aura radiuses must be nerfed. Disruptor should not be able to drain all player's energy at once.

Defence, Survival & Interception rewards - More valuable rewards in starchart and lesser useless crap. No forma blueprints or resources in the T3 & T4 void. People come to these tough missions for prime parts and rare cores, no need for other useless stuff.

Conclave - Not interested in pvp, so no comments here.

Corrupted mods - More variations of existing ones for warframes with different negative effects, so that the build could concentrate more on desired stats.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Ryuji-kun