Nah, Seriously, Why Is A Shooter Using The Most Disagreeable Leveling System?

[Innocent_Flower]

A shooter game is a bad one when either of the following happens. 

A- You can't actualy kill anything. The game is too hard

B- You don't really need to pay attention, the game plays itself. 

 

Now warframe hit's the sweet spot of bad by simultaneously hitting both points. I've been playing this game for a while, and it's still a beta, and this still hasn't been addressed. I keep playing because I think it will be addressed some day, and I'm recurringly disappointed that it isn't. 

 

In a game where you're constantly changing to missions of very different difficulty to the last, this needs to stop. It takes time to equip yourself and mod items, so it's inconvenient to do that with every mission (and as a co-op game, you're teammates are unlikely to do the same.) The game's moding system's fundementals are to damage boost your weapons to broken levels to fight enemies who may or may not be broken in the amount of health and armour they have.

 

This isn't a call to have everything totaly even across the board, but when I see a better system, say, PAYDAY 2 for instance ,which isn't that hard to implement; Health still scales and weapons get more powerful. But at the same time a player with poor weaponry can still kill a man in the ultimate 'death wish' difficulty, they just won't kill enough.

 

it gets a little painful.  To have this absurd scaling system for so long, makes me feel like I've misplaced my trust in DE. 

[sekushiiandee]

are you having a problem with the scaling or the leveling system?....im having a hard time trying to decipher what you mean

 

the absurd scaling you speak of, imo, is just lazy design.....granted DE was been making an effort to make the game a bit more difficult....

 

but their efforts also seem lazy.....they still scale bosses to insane levels, not to mention they have them negate damage....

 

making an enemy invisible, insanely strong, or invulnerable does not always increase difficulty....

 

this is something they have known for a long time and choose to ignore it.....they should know that their "difficulty" in this game is really what is burning playing out, frustrating them, or making the game less playable....

 

 

granted the majority of the game becomes simple when you become super powerful.....but even then....having players get one shot after 40 mins-60 mins in a survival isnt exactly a fun thing to do....granted there are only a few players that would go beyond the 40 minute mark these days

 

 

i do have to mention that scaling used to be a lot worse.....but back then weapons were better than they were now....but thats all changed

Edited June 30, 2015 by sekushiiandee

[VoidPunch]

Not sure if your title fits, you are talking about enemies scaling, not leveling. The leveling system is pretty fine honestly. The enemy scaling though is something that players are starting to address more and more. It may eventually get fixed seeing as how they already changed the entire damage system entirely before, along with modding (was a skill tree before), armor values and so many more crucial game mechanics. I wouldn't be surprised if that they will eventually address enemy scaling and balance once they run slow on content ideas again.

[Archistopheles]

Damage 2.5 will fix that, right after the devs fix all the other things on their to-do list.

[Lukap99]

DE was rather lazy at the beginning, and didn't pull off the band-aid when they should've.

Now the attempt to fix the broken scaling of enemies and challenge will cause a rather large backlash by the less... game design aware part of the community.

[Dualstar]

The fake difficulty is in place because players like myself would just plaster the walls with whatever new thing without much more than a glance otherwise.

 

As for game playing itself, thats pretty much down to Greedy Pull and Peacemaker. The former is in for a nerf, one hopes the latter follows it.

 

Which reminds me to say, everything in the game is subject to change. DE may get around to it eventually.

[SickoSike]

Not sure if your title fits, you are talking about enemies scaling, not leveling. The leveling system is pretty fine honestly. The enemy scaling though is something that players are starting to address more and more. It may eventually get fixed seeing as how they already changed the entire damage system entirely before, along with modding (was a skill tree before), armor values and so many more crucial game mechanics. I wouldn't be surprised if that they will eventually address enemy scaling and balance once they run slow on content ideas again.

Leveling system FINE?

Ever heard of Draco?

[ApolloXIII]

Leveling system FINE?

Ever heard of Draco?

You do realize people use Draco to either grind MR or to make formaing equipment less of a hassle. Yeah, its lame, and abused. Get over it. When the Draco meta dies a new one will be found sooner or later.

[Rakshal]

I agree, scaling is very broken at the moment. DE needs to put scaling on top priority and make a scaling/enemy/AI 2.0.

[ThePresident777]

It's not a shooter.

[Phatose]

It's not a shooter.

 

And again we visit the fundamental truth of Warframe.  Mechanically, it's simply not a shooter.  If it ever was, it was before I started playing way back when (and I'm fairly sure it simply wasn't).

 

Shooters don't have single button presses that nuke everything in a 50 meter radius.  Shooters do not have massive loot drop tables.  Shooters don't have exponential power scaling.  Shooters don't have twitch master expert players being less effective the a bad player with better gear.

 

RPGs, especially grindy RPGs?  Have always had those in featured roles.

 

 

 

This isn't a shooter.  The third-person interface is window dressing - it's an RPG.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Phatose

[Rakshal]

And again we visit the fundamental truth of Warframe.  Mechanically, it's simply not a shooter.  If it ever was, it was before I started playing way back when (and I'm fairly sure it simply wasn't).

 

Shooters don't have single button presses that nuke everything in a 50 meter radius.  Shooters do not have massive loot drop tables.  Shooters don't have exponential power scaling.  Shooters don't have twitch master expert players being less effective the a bad player with better gear.

 

RPGs, especially grindy RPGs?  Have always had those in featured roles.

 

 

 

This isn't a shooter.  The third-person interface is window dressing - it's an RPG.

RPG, without story? Man all I can think of is ProJared reviewing Hydlide, the worst RPG ever. "...and what would an RPG be without a plot, I'll tell you what it would be, it would Hydlide (or Warframe in this case)." - ProJared 2012

[shut]

Shooters don't have single button presses that nuke everything in a 50 meter radius.

*Well-designed shooters. There are plenty of shooters with separate Ability buttons.

 

Shooters do not have massive loot drop tables.

"Oh, this game has massive loot drop tables? I guess that it's not a shooting game, then, despite the core gameplay revolving around shooting things." Come on, man.

Also, Team Fortress 2.

 

Shooters don't have exponential power scaling.  Shooters don't have twitch master expert players being less effective the a bad player with better gear.

This is correct, and this is the problem that OP sees with Warframe.

The fact that WF is so stat-based is a problem, not something that should be used as an excuse for "well, I guess it's not a shooter and shouldn't be held to the same standards as one!".

 

it's an RPG.

Also correct. It's not like the genres are mutually exclusive.

Edited July 1, 2015 by SortaRandom

[Phatose]

RPG, without story? Man all I can think of is ProJared reviewing Hydlide, the worst RPG ever. "...and what would an RPG be without a plot, I'll tell you what it would be, it would Hydlide (or Warframe in this case)." - ProJared 2012

 

Electronic RPGs didn't include much story for a good bit of their history.  At their origin, there was none.  Rogue had pretty much none.  Bard's Tale (the original), Ultima 1, Wizardry 1.  The entire gold box series.  On the console-side, the original Dragon Quest was a zen leveling experience, and Final Fantasy 1 wasn't much better. 

 

*Well-designed shooters. There are plenty of shooters with separate Ability buttons.

 

"Oh, this game has massive loot drop tables? I guess that it's not a shooting game, then, despite the core gameplay revolving around shooting things." Come on, man.

Also, Team Fortress 2.

 

This is correct, and this is the problem that OP sees with Warframe.

The fact that WF is so stat-based is a problem, not something that should be used as an excuse for "well, I guess it's not a shooter and shouldn't be held to the same standards as one!".

 

Please name 3 shooters where you can press a single button and kill everything in 50 meters.

 

The core gameplay doesn't actually revolve around shooting things.  It revolves around loot and leveling up. 

 

No, it's not a problem that it's stat based.  Warframe being stat heavy is not a problem any more then chess being turn based is a problem.

 

Face reality.  It's not a shooter.   That's not excuse any more then "Well, if that's the case, then it's not a dating sim and shouldn't be held to the same standards as one."

Edited July 1, 2015 by Phatose

[ThePresident777]

Good points, but, I wouldn't call Warframe an RPG, even if it's the best fit out of the common genres.  It's a hybrid.  I'd categorize it as something like Guns, Melee, Nukes, CC.

[shut]

-deleted original post-

 

 

The core gameplay doesn't actually revolve around shooting things.  It revolves around loot and leveling up.

That's like saying that the core gameplay of TF2 is to collect hats.

(Spoiler: The "core gameplay" of both WF and TF2 is to run around and shoot people to complete objectives. Loot, leveling, and hat collection are long-term goals that have very little to do with core gameplay.)

 

Regarding the rest of your post, WF is very much a shooting game. You run and you shoot stuff in order to accomplish everything that this game has to be accomplished. (Obviously there's the whole ability-spam thing, but DE has made it clear many times that sitting there and pressing 4 to destroy galaxies for ten hours straight was not exactly their intended design.)

Again, shooters and RPGs are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of games fall under both categories.

 

 

My original post had this whole spiel about "the trailers and tutorial clearly advertise WF as a skill-based shooter!", but then I realized that DE can change the entire direction of the game with the snap of their fingers at any time. Whether the game conceptually "should" or "shouldn't" be stat-based is up to DE entirely. All they'd have to change are mods and enemy scaling if they wanted to completely embrace or avoid stat reliance.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that trying to argue about whether the game's stat reliance fits the original design intention is completely pointless when DE's stance on stat reliance isn't even set in stone. I just think it would be healthier for the game in the long run if it were more reliant on skill than stats; just look at TF2 (still going strong after nearly a decade) and Vindictus (an action RPG that withered and died when the devs decided to make it more stat-reliant than it already was).

 

 

 

tl;dr:

- WF's a shooting game, no matter how you look at it. Stat reliance doesn't stop WF from being a shooter. Again, shooters and RPGs aren't mutually exclusive genres.

- Whether the game is stat-reliant "by concept" isn't even set in stone by DE, so there isn't really any way for us to properly discuss that.

- I think that, based on what I've seen from other F2P games, it would be healthier in the long run if WF weren't so stat-reliant.

Edited July 1, 2015 by SortaRandom

[Phatose]

I've completed missions in this game without shooting anything, or for that matter without even killing anything.  As core components go, shooting isn't anywhere near the core you're suggesting.

 

Very simple question:  Has the non-stat reliance you're aiming for ever existed in Warframe?  If it has been stat-reliant for the great majority, if not the totality of it's existence, is that not a sign of developer intent?  

 

And if that's not a sign of developer intent, is the lead developer calling it "A game about progress" as Steve has done in a devsteam sufficient proof of intention?  And does not that declaration - "About progress" - run fundamentally counter to the assumptions made in the thread's original post?

[shut]

I've completed missions in this game without shooting anything, or for that matter without even killing anything.

I've won matches by running around with a candy cane and completing objectives without dealing or receiving damage in TF2. I guess it's not a shooting game.

(For clarity, this is sarcasm.)

 

Very simple question:  Has the non-stat reliance you're aiming for ever existed in Warframe?  If it has been stat-reliant for the great majority, if not the totality of it's existence, is that not a sign of developer intent?  

 

And if that's not a sign of developer intent, is the lead developer calling it "A game about progress" as Steve has done in a devsteam sufficient proof of intention?  And does not that declaration - "About progress" - run fundamentally counter to the assumptions made in the thread's original post?

You could make that same argument about Excal's Super Jump, or our current wallrunning system. Yet SJ was recently scrapped and replaced, and wallrunning will be scrapped and replaced.

Point is, the devs' intent can change. It's not set in stone.

Edited July 1, 2015 by SortaRandom

[Phatose]

Yes, their intent could theoretically change.  They could decide to change the game into an infesting dating sim, or John Madden Ninja Football, or a space transit management game.  Heck, their intent could theoretically change to turn warframe into a turn based strategy game entirely about managing a tribe of hunter-gatherer orangutans.  I'd characterize all of those as extremely unlikely.

 

Has anything the devs said or did given you reason to believe the game - as it exists now, with a very heavy focus on stats - is not their actual intent?  And by comparison,  have their action repeated reinforced that focus?

 

Primed Mods, Syndicates, Dual Stat Mods, constant stat creep.  Introduction of new features ala Archwing that follow the same stat heavy model? 

 

Cause I look at what DE is doing - and then I listen to what they're saying ("Game about progress") - and I am absolutely convinced that the stat heavy, action-light approach that we're all well aware of is intentional.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Phatose

[elele]

Now warframe hit's the sweet spot of bad by simultaneously hitting both points.

 

Or maybe Warframe magically avoids both points. 

 

Depends on how you play the game really. 

 

Use unpotatoed Mk1-braton on lvl 50 enemies, and use 6-forma Boltor Prime for Mercury? 

 

Or use unpotatoed Paracyst for Mercury, and use Torid for 60min T4S. 

[taiiat]

Damage 2.5 will fix that, right after the devs fix all the other things on their to-do list.

excuse me if for once i am very much not trusting that it will.

Damage 2.0 was all about 'no more Rainbow and no more Armor Ignore'. we still have plenty of Rainbow (just a bit less of it - put on two Elementals, and probably one more since you'll have open space, choose whatever since your main Combo is almost all of your Damage), and we still have Armor Ignoring being required to deal with Armored Enemies in a timely fashion.

[RealPandemonium]

And again we visit the fundamental truth of Warframe.  Mechanically, it's simply not a shooter.  If it ever was, it was before I started playing way back when (and I'm fairly sure it simply wasn't).

 

Shooters don't have single button presses that nuke everything in a 50 meter radius.  Shooters do not have massive loot drop tables.  Shooters don't have exponential power scaling.  Shooters don't have twitch master expert players being less effective the a bad player with better gear.

 

RPGs, especially grindy RPGs?  Have always had those in featured roles.

 

 

 

This isn't a shooter.  The third-person interface is window dressing - it's an RPG.

No, the guy you are replying to supports powercreep in all its forms.  He views Warframe as a power fantasy and nothing else.  There's no reasoning with him on the issue.

 

That being said, gunning and swording things is the core of Warframe.  It is most definitely a third person shooter and definitely is not an MMORPG in the traditional sense.  Many players seem to think it is, but they have only trivial, hollow gameplay to show for it.  We need to get DE to get their game back on track, because what we have now is just a mess.  

[(PSN)shadowraith_666]

And again we visit the fundamental truth of Warframe.  Mechanically, it's simply not a shooter.  If it ever was, it was before I started playing way back when (and I'm fairly sure it simply wasn't).

its core mechanics make it a shooter

 

Shooters don't have single button presses that nuke everything in a 50 meter radius

BFG9000 the oldest game-based nuker gun says hi. 

 

Shooters do not have massive loot drop tables.

Shooters don't have exponential power scaling.

Borderlands, Destiny and Defiance say hi

This isn't a shooter.  The third-person interface is window dressing - it's an RPG.

no its a shooter with rpg elements

Edited July 1, 2015 by (PS4)shadowwraith_666

[(PSN)DesecratedFlame]

Warframe is a RPTPS (Role Playing Third Person Shooter).

[tzaeru]

..Is this genre war really necessary? It doesn't help to reach any actual conclusions and surely a game can have elements from multitude of genres. Any one of them failing badly is a bad thing for the game. Take, for example, the original Deus Ex. You have special abilities, leveling up, gearing up and so forth, but if the shooting mechanics of the game were super bad and glitchy, it wouldn't be as popular as it is. It doesn't matter if it's an RPG or has RPG elements or if it's a FPS or has FPS elements or if it's a third-person tactical turn-based strategy game. What matters is that all the components of the game play together well and that none is so subpar that it drags down the whole experience.

 

Now, it's clearly obvious that Warframe has shooting, sword fighting, whip lashing, choosing gear layouts and leveling up stuff. In none of those would it be difficult to find a game that does a single component better, so obviously Warframe's main asset is the interplay of all these components and how they tie together.

Personally, I'd be tempted to agree that as is, the scaling of enemies does not work well. But this isn't news to anyone and DE has pointed out that this wasn't supposed to be the final form. Most likely it will not be. Yes, the gear leveling system is also quite excessive, but again, I'd like to imagine that this was a temporary solution to give players something to do while DE works on more permanent systems.

 

Now, instead of pointing out what is obviously wrong and already pointed out daily on the forums and in-game, we should rather come up with specific, accurate fixes to specific, accurately described problems. Saying "Well the game is bad because.." is not productive.

 

 

A shooter game is a bad one when either of the following happens. 

A- You can't actualy kill anything. The game is too hard

B- You don't really need to pay attention, the game plays itself. 

 

Now warframe hit's the sweet spot of bad by simultaneously hitting both points. I've been playing this game for a while, and it's still a beta, and this still hasn't been addressed. I keep playing because I think it will be addressed some day, and I'm recurringly disappointed that it isn't.

 

 

I don't think that "A" is really a problem from the perspective of rewards.. But still, if you think a game is bad, why do you play it for two years? Surely there must be quite few good factors in it too.

Edited July 1, 2015 by tzaeru