Power Creep, Feature Creep, And De's "year Of Quality"

[(PSN)gino1313]

*****This will mark the location of all TL;DR because each section needs one.

 

Warframe players make up one of the most dedicated communities in gaming, right behind giants like WoW and Borderlands. While these gamers often have backgrounds in design and share it with their respective communities, DE's fans rarely do.

 

Creep is a funny term. It really means that one way or another one side of balance in a game has been pressed down, a teeny tiny bit at a time, until finally it removes the originaly intended fundamentals of the game. In Warframe's case this is the feeling of being a space ninja, not being a mad scientist using his trusty Ti-83 calculator.

 

Lets start with power creep. What is it?

 

Power creep- in its simplest form- is when a developer continues to add more powerful enemies, weapons, and defensive tactics such that players lose touch of the original game. Warframe has had minimal problems with this, because weapons like the Soma and Marelok have always been the top tier, and nothing has surpassed that. The addition of T4 could be considered the beginning of Warframe's power creep, as that is when enemies dealt 4x damage and took 1/3 damage, making all previous tactics obsolete in the current market. So it is safe to say enemy power creep spiked at U13.

 

Players have seemed to follow 2 schools of thought on this, either that it is fine as is (embracing the creep), or that weapons need buffs/ enemies need nerfs (fighting the creep). This is what always happens when powerful enemies are added, the same thing happened with the release of Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode in BL2. BL2 then split into two player bases, those who had time to farm and glitch the best guns for getting to the final Overpowered Level 8 pinnacle of the game, and those who could not spend upwards of 100 hours on one character to get it to max level. This made only 4 of the 6 playable classes viable in the highest endgame, about 25% of legendary (highest rarity) weapons useless, and all of the players who invested into those mad.

 

*****Power Creep means something (be it player or enemy) became more powerful than the other and created niches        where only a few things can be used in endgame.

 

Feature creep is not as well known as power creep.

 

Feature creep is when the developers focus more on creating new content than fixing the main game. Making new tilesets and weapons is all well and good, as well as keeps the visual design teams at work, but the code needed to make those tick subtracts from the time spent making fixes and tweaks to older, less developed, and quite frankly overlooked parts of the game.

 

Threads focussing on parkour, animation, and many others have touched on this, and are quite true:

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/116872-the-grand-thread-for-animation-improvements-and-fixes-with-gifs/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/119650-parkour-has-been-ignored-for-too-long-and-the-current-directional-melee-is-killing-it-even-further/

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/245184-indie-approach-to-procedural-animation-clever-ways-to-animate-and-how-this-relates-to-wf/#entry2850133

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/294625-coptering-discussed-in-depth-like-really-in-depth-and-arguments-on-why-it-needs-to-change/

 

*****Feature creep = too much new content pulling the devs away from the original mechanics that need fixing.

 

Finally, the year of quality and what the devs need to do for it to truly work.

 

Feature creep continues to happen, and while they skipped one month in order to keep on schedule, the community continues to pile new proposals of fixes (excuse the hypocrisy) and DE will never be able to keep up. I hope that the devs  know this has happened, and I even further hope that the main intention of the YoQ was to fix all the creeps, but I am starting to doubt that now because they continue to add new tiles, weapons, and other features. They continue to add more mods, enemy buffs, and other powers. But the creep has remained at a constant growing rate and I just hope the devs know it.

 

*****Feature and Power creep should be the main focus of the Year of Quality, but so far they both have been growing steadily.

[Ognj]

General fixes of the old content are here, very slowly pacing but here none the less.

This is a F2P game afterall, and in order to stay relevant they need to pump the content out. Whatever it is it needs to get going and keep going, because if game does not get anything new, people will slowly leave, and new players will not even bother playing it ( thinking it went dead ).

I completely agree on the subject of they need to spend more time and re-work a lot of old stuff. There are so much more frames that needs to get revisited, mods/energy system, making syndicates much more relevant, make the difficulty system rather than to use unlimited scaling and bulletsponge armored units... we could go on forever in terms of stuff needing revisits, but have in mind that devteam is not that big, and making both new and reowrking old content takes a lot of time/money.

[ACorpse]

Can someone check how much more quality is left? Are we halfway through? I can't tell when it started, hardly seems to be making a difference.

[YourLocustBuddy]

Can someone check how much more quality is left? Are we halfway through? I can't tell when it started, hardly seems to be making a difference.

There was some quality... Somewhere... I don't know. 

 

I mean our old methods were bad... but having a bi-weekly void grind, enemy scanning grind, syndicate rep grinds, ultra-grindy-events, increased timewalls via weapons that require other weapons or our newer methods of acquiring frames, or even a frame that requires built parts of other frames... Oh and RNG being very prevalent in a recent event... I mean it's always there, void drops, farming for resources, mod farming, all those wonderful things. Sure love these timewalls and all the extra grind. I haven't even tried PvP, but I'm sure that's great too. It's all great.

 

Actually I lied. It's been awful. Yep. That sounds more truthful to how I feel about the year of quality.

[AM-Bunny]

I feel as if the community is equally (or greater) to blame for power creep. The amount of outcry every time anything is nerfed even in the slightest is pretty overwhelming. Therefore, DE has taken a "always buff, never nerf" stance that leads to the power creep. Honestly, it would've been easier to nerf Boltor Prime long ago, but instead, they chose to let it remain in its place, while introducing new, powerful weapons to attempt to compete with it.

 

Feature creep is a dumb term, but reading the description of it, is something all Warframe players are well aware of. I totally agree with you on this point, and this practice really breaks my heart. It's the devs enthusiasm for the game that keeps me invested in Warframe, but I'm sure that this is what will eventually make me quit the game.

[Nikodemos]

While you do raise valid points, I'll just say that this is better suited for the Feedback section and not Players Helping Players.

[--RV--Cola]

While you do raise valid points, I'll just say that this is better suited for the Feedback section and not Players Helping Players.

Agreed.

[srlhama]

I think we get hyped that the year of quality would fix old things, instead of new(usualy bugged) content.

Just look at Tubeman, you need to do the same easy and boring mission 4 times to get 1

Point, and you needed 4 points to get the weapon. We were fighting for the side we choose that one was ofering a Dera and the other Karak, then the people who helped Nef( the Dera guy) received what??? A KARAK!!! They were tryng to stop Alad V by heal herself but in the end he gave them a weapon. IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!

The relays was another sad part, I had hope that relays would be the first step to an open world Warframe, now we only visit relay on Fridays every 2 weekk to see that guy with half head seling his stuff, and I don't mind the prices I would like more if the itens keep on kiosks but with a price boost after he go.

There is to much timed thing on warframe, you aren't online when that happens??? Sorry for you...

Or need to spend dozens of hours to get what we want, I only managed to get Vauban after 800hours of game and I play it every night.

I could sugest more reward for more chalenging things, but Mesa is there to ruin the gameplay...

[Esguord]

General fixes of the old content are here, very slowly pacing but here none the less.

This is a F2P game afterall, and in order to stay relevant they need to pump the content out. Whatever it is it needs to get going and keep going, because if game does not get anything new, people will slowly leave, and new players will not even bother playing it ( thinking it went dead ).

I completely agree on the subject of they need to spend more time and re-work a lot of old stuff. There are so much more frames that needs to get revisited, mods/energy system, making syndicates much more relevant, make the difficulty system rather than to use unlimited scaling and bulletsponge armored units... we could go on forever in terms of stuff needing revisits, but have in mind that devteam is not that big, and making both new and reowrking old content takes a lot of time/money.

 

They've reworked Excal and they're working on Frost, so I'm assuming they're going to do the same for the rest of the frames. 

 

As you said, the game is F2P. The dev team is amazing and they actually listen to the community. Changes are coming, people just need to stop complaining so much. We all know what's wrong with the game and it has been said way too many times.

[Wingblaze21]

This sounds more like a general discussion topic to me.

[LascarCapable]

Moving to general discussion.

[EmptyDevil]

I feel as if the community is equally (or greater) to blame for power creep. The amount of outcry every time anything is nerfed even in the slightest is pretty overwhelming. Therefore, DE has taken a "always buff, never nerf" stance that leads to the power creep. 

 

The community also asks for mobs that are intended to be a challenge to be nerfed too.

[ArbitUHM]

People are always throwing around "year of quality" sarcastically but they've actually addressed some long standing issues and added more QoL changes than previously. Off the top of my head, I can think of

 

-cumulative rewards for defense and interception missions (huge one for me)

-numerous UI fixes and improvements

-some HUD improvements (adding numbered waypoints, allowing you to mark your kubrow, etc.)

-making it easier to rejoin games ("you were disconnected would you like to reconnect?")

-frame reassessments and buffs (Rhino, Excal, Ember (yes I like the Ember changes)) edit: Nekros buffs too!

-normalization of elemental mods (e.g. increasing the damage of the 11 point cold and electrical damage melee mods from 60 to 90%)

-sniper and heavy weapons buffs (although I don't think they went far enough with the former)

-I liked the removal of mod cards for abilities as it simplifies builds and creates incentives to make builds that use all four abilities

 

I'm sure I could think of more if I really sat down and scratched my head.

Edited June 29, 2015 by ArbitUHM

[(PSN)gino1313]

General fixes of the old content are here, very slowly pacing but here none the less.

 

I completely agree on the subject of they need to spend more time and re-work a lot of old stuff. There are so much more frames that needs to get revisited, mods/energy system, making syndicates much more relevant, make the difficulty system rather than to use unlimited scaling and bulletsponge armored units... we could go on forever in terms of stuff needing revisits, but have in mind that devteam is not that big, and making both new and reowrking old content takes a lot of time/money.

I agree that changes are happening, but I'm deathly afraid that they aren't going to happen fast enough. The dev team is huge for warframe, and they need to focus on mechanics and glitches.

 

Can someone check how much more quality is left? Are we halfway through? I can't tell when it started, hardly seems to be making a difference.

It has been an improvement, started in January. I think it stemmed from the mixed reviews of Archwing, and how it seemed like a minigame not a mechanic.

 

Feature creep is a dumb term, but reading the description of it, is something all Warframe players are well aware of. I totally agree with you on this point, and this practice really breaks my heart. It's the devs enthusiasm for the game that keeps me invested in Warframe, but I'm sure that this is what will eventually make me quit the game.

Feature creep is the official term for product development. Because Warframe is both a full F2P game and a beta, they have to juggle more problems with power and feature in order for older and newer players to both have content. I was just hoping that the YoQ would shorten the gap.

 

While you do raise valid points, I'll just say that this is better suited for the Feedback section and not Players Helping Players.

 

This sounds more like a general discussion topic to me.

 

The point was to tell newer players who don't understand these terms and it ended up morphing into my current problems with the YoQ.

 

 

 

They've reworked Excal and they're working on Frost, so I'm assuming they're going to do the same for the rest of the frames. 

 

As you said, the game is F2P. The dev team is amazing and they actually listen to the community. Changes are coming, people just need to stop complaining so much. We all know what's wrong with the game and it has been said way too many times.

I know the changes are/ have come, but there are way more changes needed and they are not coming fast enough. We are nearly 7 months into the YoQ and aside from PvP and a couple of frames, there have been no mechanical fixes.

 

Just look at Tubeman, you need to do the same easy and boring mission 4 times to get 1

Point, and you needed 4 points to get the weapon. We were fighting for the side we choose that one was ofering a Dera and the other Karak, then the people who helped Nef( the Dera guy) received what??? A KARAK!!! They were tryng to stop Alad V by heal herself but in the end he gave them a weapon. IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!

 

Huge example of feature creep. They added an event that was not thought out enough or explained properly, and hardly went with the lore.

 

I'm sure I could think of more if I really sat down and scratched my head.

 

The problem is that those are really just a few of the changes needed, while features and basic damage values are way out of proportion.

Edited June 29, 2015 by (PS4)gino1313

[Monybags33]

Moving to general discussion.

 

First time iv ever heard anything ever being moved to "General Discussion" before in my life, usually people are thrown elsewhere. 

 

Anyways moving to the topic I'm really started to feel bitter about this talk on "Year of Quality" witch I had hoped ended when the year first began since we all know people make mistakes and are trying to do the best they can you'd think a little credit would be given since they do a pretty dam good job as is. I honestly think nothing has changed and that comment did the developers more damage then good in the end making everyone think some major change of updates would come our way, it just didn't go the way it should have.

[(PSN)gino1313]

Anyways moving to the topic I'm really started to feel bitter about this talk on "Year of Quality" witch I had hoped ended when the year first began since we all know people make mistakes and are trying to do the best they can you'd think a little credit would be given since they do a pretty dam good job as is. I honestly think nothing has changed and that comment did the developers more damage then good in the end making everyone think some major change of updates would come our way, it just didn't go the way it should have.

I'm not saying that the YoQ is wrong, or that the devs are not trying to fix their game, but what I am saying is that they were inaccurate in their original statement of dropping everything and fixing the core.

[Monybags33]

I'm not saying that the YoQ is wrong, or that the devs are not trying to fix their game, but what I am saying is that they were inaccurate in their original statement of dropping everything and fixing the core.

If thats the case I can agree on it seems like nothing has actually changed since the statement had first been made, glad you don't just complain without good reasons its a nice change of pace. Completely agree with you.

[Kasseopea]

I feel as if the community is equally (or greater) to blame for power creep. The amount of outcry every time anything is nerfed even in the slightest is pretty overwhelming. Therefore, DE has taken a "always buff, never nerf" stance that leads to the power creep. Honestly, it would've been easier to nerf Boltor Prime long ago, but instead, they chose to let it remain in its place, while introducing new, powerful weapons to attempt to compete with it.

 

Feature creep is a dumb term, but reading the description of it, is something all Warframe players are well aware of. I totally agree with you on this point, and this practice really breaks my heart. It's the devs enthusiasm for the game that keeps me invested in Warframe, but I'm sure that this is what will eventually make me quit the game.

New, powerful weapons? Like what? The Simulor? The Panthera? Yeah, those powerhouses are sure to rock t4, no doubt.

[Invalid_Infinity]

I highly approve of OP's post.

 

DE needs to read this.

[Ishki88]

I have a new term called Utility Creep :^)

 

Vauban and Mag are ultimate utility creeper :^(  

 

What shall we do with these utility creeps?

[(PSN)gino1313]

I have a new term called Utility Creep :^)

 

Vauban and Mag are ultimate utility creeper :^(  

 

What shall we do with these utility creeps?

Any sort of creep in development  arises when the team has an idea and wants it to get out. They then rush development and produce a slightly off brand version of what they intended, usually with a few broken mechanics that arose during the rushed development. Utility Creep isn't really a thing, but Vauban and Mag are both really effective niche frames.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

I feel as if the community is equally (or greater) to blame for power creep. The amount of outcry every time anything is nerfed even in the slightest is pretty overwhelming. Therefore, DE has taken a "always buff, never nerf" stance that leads to the power creep. Honestly, it would've been easier to nerf Boltor Prime long ago, but instead, they chose to let it remain in its place, while introducing new, powerful weapons to attempt to compete with it.

 

I disagree entirely. In every way. Both in that boltor prime is "too powerful" when our endgame is long dive T4S/T4D and level 75-90 raids, in that DE has introduced new weapons that are grossly more powerful than the others (even the old Synoid Gammacor with its huge DPS was let down by its limited range, low status, and the fact that the beam doesn't do damage until about a half second in.), and in the fact that DE cares about the players complaints when nerfs happen.

 

Last I looked, synoid was still nerfed into the ground with even most of the pro nerf faction saying maybe it went too far, and DE's response was to shrug rather than fix it.

 

Fundamentally speaking, the "power creep" people like the OP complain about is a symptom of the problem, it's not a problem in of itself. And that problem? It's how utterly broken the armor and health scaling is at high levels. When enemies in the present endgame *need* 20k DPS just to kill in a timely fashion, you're damn right people are going to oppose any nerfs to the handful of weapons that provide that. And they're right to. Until DE changes the scaling mechanics such that our endgame tier enemies don't oneshot you and take a bazillion bullets to kill, you're going to find people opposing the nerfs and being right to do so.

 

Frankly though, I generally oppose the nerfs because the majority of people who talk about power creep have no idea how to balance a game and are generally just doing it because they hate the current meta without realizing that a meta will always form because of what the meta is.

 

 

The community also asks for mobs that are intended to be a challenge to be nerfed too.

 

There's challenge and then there's abject stupidity.

 

Manics and nullifiers fall into the latter.

 

Fortunately, Manics were indeed nerfed. They still have their challenge but now they're not as frustrating to kill because their i-frames were shortened. Ideally they'd lose the iframes entirely, but, well, baby steps.

 

Nullifiers remain as terrible as ever though. They punish low ROF weapons like snipers and bows with their damage cap, and on top of that, they have nearly undodgable lankas that will oneshot you at higher levels from across the map while you can't even CC them to prevent this because of the shield.

 

Nullifiers need to lose the rifles in exchange for something more thematically appropriate and gameplay friendly. Perhaps a spectra or cestra. They also need to take more damage from high damage/low ROF weapons like snipers so that everyone's not forced into carrying an assault rifle.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Cpl_Facehugger

[EmptyDevil]

There's challenge and then there's abject stupidity.

 

Manics and nullifiers fall into the latter.

 

Fortunately, Manics were indeed nerfed. They still have their challenge but now they're not as frustrating to kill because their i-frames were shortened. Ideally they'd lose the iframes entirely, but, well, baby steps.

 

Nullifiers remain as terrible as ever though. They punish low ROF weapons like snipers and bows with their damage cap, and on top of that, they have nearly undodgable lankas that will oneshot you at higher levels from across the map while you can't even CC them to prevent this because of the shield.

 

Nullifiers need to lose the rifles in exchange for something more thematically appropriate and gameplay friendly. Perhaps a spectra or cestra. They also need to take more damage from high damage/low ROF weapons like snipers so that everyone's not forced into carrying an assault rifle.

 

No. If you couldn't handle the Manic before it's nerf, then you were doing something horribly wrong or failed to temporarily change your tactics for one simple enemy. It's basically a fast butcher now. The Nullifier is also fairly balance except for the fact that it's bubble punishes low ROF weapons. It's weapon could be changed too, so i'll agree on that.

[AM-Bunny]

I disagree entirely. In every way. Both in that boltor prime is "too powerful" when our endgame is long dive T4S/T4D and level 75-90 raids, in that DE has introduced new weapons that are grossly more powerful than the others (even the old Synoid Gammacor with its huge DPS was let down by its limited range, low status, and the fact that the beam doesn't do damage until about a half second in.), and in the fact that DE cares about the players complaints when nerfs happen.

 

Last I looked, synoid was still nerfed into the ground with even most of the pro nerf faction saying maybe it went too far, and DE's response was to shrug rather than fix it.

 

Fundamentally speaking, the "power creep" people like the OP complain about is a symptom of the problem, it's not a problem in of itself. And that problem? It's how utterly broken the armor and health scaling is at high levels. When enemies in the present endgame *need* 20k DPS just to kill in a timely fashion, you're damn right people are going to oppose any nerfs to the handful of weapons that provide that. And they're right to. Until DE changes the scaling mechanics such that our endgame tier enemies don't oneshot you and take a bazillion bullets to kill, you're going to find people opposing the nerfs and being right to do so.

 

Frankly though, I generally oppose the nerfs because the majority of people who talk about power creep have no idea how to balance a game and are generally just doing it because they hate the current meta without realizing that a meta will always form because of what the meta is.

 

Hour+ long T4 Survival and Wave 40+ T4 Defense should be considered "aberrant missions" because they stretch the difficulty much further than it was probably originally intended to. They are not defined as "endgame" and the only reason that they could be considered such is because we can handle them. That is, if Boltor Prime, or the usual suspects were incapable of scratching enemies at this level, it wouldn't be considered endgame, it'd simply be impossible, like a 10 hour T4 Survival run. It's our gear that defines our endgame, not the endgame that defines the gear. 

 

Subsequently, DE has designed "endgame" content such as the Escalation Rift Sigil alert, not necessarily because they endorse this as being an acceptable level of difficulty, but because they are aware that we can handle it. It's the weapons and powers that we use that have caused these ridiculous enemies to be introduced. 

 

I don't think Synoid needed "fixing". The nerf was fine, and I think handled well. The community always cries out in rage anytime anything remotely popular is touched, so the devs have almost have no choice but to "shrug it off". What do you want them to say on the matter exactly? 

 

I disagree entirely with your viewpoint. I do agree that we could do with some adjustment on health/damage scaling overall, but that's a pretty deep can of worms.

[AM-Bunny]

New, powerful weapons? Like what? The Simulor? The Panthera? Yeah, those powerhouses are sure to rock t4, no doubt.

 

the topic of discussion is Power Creep. Have you ever seen those weapons used in that context? No? Okay.