Why I Finally Had To Call It Quits On Warframe

[R34LM]

There is no TD;LR here. Read this in full if you want to have a reasonable argument.

 

Yes, this is partially a goodbye thread, but I wish to leave a last bit of feedback for the game because others may feel the same way. I've been playing this game since late Update 8 and have spent a good amount of money to support the game, dating back from getting the Grand Masters package of founders to a select few of Prime Access packs. I love this game, and I was hooked from the very start. But, I wouldn't be posting this if there wasn't a big glaring issue that forces me away.

 

All of it could basically be summed up in the last mission before I called it quits. I was doing a solo Neptune DS Survival to farm some cores to stock up for the next investment. I took my Excalibur, with a perma EB build. Everything ran fine...until the ancients spawned in. Next thing I know there was one in front of me and one behind me. Not a huge deal, just try to get the first before they become a nuisance. Five minutes later and the worst luck occurred. A Tar-Moa had spit a tar pit just behind me as I was fending off an oddly large amount of small guys, and then before I know it I have four, yes four, Ancients, one by one, use their grappling hook to pull me through the tar pit in between all of them. I took damage from the pit, so it killed my shields, and just before I could get up from the last one, I died from a charger who shredded me. One Alt F4 later the game was deleted.

 

I wouldn't quit like that if it was the first time. Just bad luck, right? And I am even a sore loser. But this was not the first time.

 

The biggest issue I have with the game now is the overspawning of enemy units. Ancients should not be spawned in so much, nor should Bombards, Nullifiers, Seekers (if they insist that their guns do as much damage as a sniper) and Heavy Gunners. Overspawning, as I have stated in another thread, kills stealth as a first offense.

 

When I first started out, stealth was a very viable option, and you could do it with any frame with relative ease, better if you had Shade before his nerfs. Why? Because the enemy spawn count was low and it stayed that way. A high level mission had only about 60 enemies at max. But as the years went on I began to notice that spawn rates continued to increase slowly, to the point where a Ceres Exterminate would have 120 enemies on average. Even worse is that the actual spawning mechanics have not been updated to account for the change, so we constantly see enemies clumping in groups 10 just on the other side of a door. 3/4 times I play a Ceres Ext there is at least 30 to 40 enemies within the first room, and 10 to 20 more the flood in from the adjacent room when they hear the battle. OK, half the mission is done now. This makes stealth runs very much impossible, as it is just a fools errand to try and sneak through a giant mass of eyes.

 

So, overspawning was one issue, but it surely isn't the only one. The next issue is overall game balance and how the devs are treating it. To put it shortly, it's S#&$.

 

Look, from the start we have been given an immense amount of power, enough to destroy armies, or so we are told. What can the devs really do to give us a fair challenge? Well, they have to Ancient units that 1. give a 95% damage reduction to all allies in the areas and 2. nullify blast and power damage in the same radius, and they spawn them incessantly so it is perma aura, and a DSS is just a game of killing ancients...and lets not forget their grappling hook. They also have an enemy who can Nullify our powers, block incoming fire and has a sniper rifle that can kill us in one, untelegraphed shot. They have a grineer sniper that has the same damage potential. The have grineer seekers who's kraken damage and bomb damage are backwards. They have flying units that can drop a barrage of rockest that, not only do serious damage to you and your sentinel, but also stun lock you.  Look I don't need to go on. The quick responses to our player power is just cheap tactics that usually result in the same outcome: you don't change your tactics, you just continue to run and gun and kill mobs on the way.

 

Along those lines, the devs are trying to hard to please a wide array of playstyles and difficulty levels. Look, I prefer to be overpowered, as that is my idea of fun, and I am a very sore loser, especially when there is nothing to learn from the mistake, that it was just a lucky shot from the AI. Others, on the other hand, will laugh at my playstyle and claim I should get out of easy mode, and they want the biggest challenges, to which people on the other side would call them a masochist. There are people who like Prototype 2 and there are people who like Dark Souls, and they all come to join here in this game. But Warframe sits in the middle, cheaply raising enemy difficulty or nerfing weapons to give a decent challenge or giving crazy buffs to warframes and weapons to give player power.

 

DE, you need to decide which side you want to stay on, as this is not an issue you can sit in the middle. Which do you want to balance for? Player power or challenge?

 

Another big issue of why I chose to quit is the beta tag. YES, it is a beta, and I will never argue that. Here is the issue though:

NO ONE HERE TREATS THE GAME LIKE A BETA! This includes players and devs alike. We have been given a very polished game compared to most beta ftp titles, with weekly updates. But what do the updates do? The give us new stuff and tweak a few things. But core gameply? Left behind for a year then finally changed. Parkour, I am looking at you. Stealth, better be next. Look, what I am seeing is just a  bunch of extra DLC that does nothing to help the base game, it just adds more new instead of fixing old. Many core mechanics in the game have been left behind. Look at Archwing and how shallow it is. We just got a new weapon. What does that do to help the core gameplay? Nothing, it's still the same three mission variations, still the same UI problems, still the same spawn problems, still the same slow grind.

 

Here's why I can really tell that DE does not treat it's game like a beta: they have no idea, or have not shared, what the game will be when it is FINISHED. I mean, it's in beta, so there is a finish line, right? What are we going to see? Anything? This is not a question of how long it will take, this is a question of what will be there. If the answer is "when the entire game is polished", then, as per my earlier argument, that won't come after a 10x the content new stuff is added. I invested into a finished product, not an unfinished game that just releases new DLC. If you want a successful beta title, look at Hand of Fate. Seriously, read in on that, because they are one of few games that got out of beta hell.

 

Close to done, and one of the main reasons why I quit: the game refuses to be solo friendly. The bigger issue? It never will be. All of the problems I have listed above, cheap difficulty and overspawning and others, are made much more rage inducing when you are the only one in the mission to have it all focus on. 40 guns pointed at you, with all the grineer slash damage included. Why do you think I play as Ash so much? Invisibility, a teleport combine with Covert Lethality, and spamming 4 when the numbers get to high. Why do I spam 4? Because I prefer to get rid of the 40 guys who could kill me just as quickly. It takes less effort and has a bigger payoff than trying to shoot them one by one on my own.

 

Sure it's a co op game, but there is still the solo option and people WILL take it. I don't want to play on a team unless I play with friends. And you know what? They all left the game months ago. So I have been soloing all of this content pretty well the entire time I have played this game. Things need to be addressed to make solo a better experience, the first by making stealth more viable, which means not forcing me to play as Loki or Ash all the time to work around a broken stealth system. Actually fix the system by changing enemy awareness and spawn rates so I don't have to fix it myself. I'm not the one playing the game.

 

And finally, the biggest reason: it is no longer fun. The grind, the cheapness...I've had enough. Thinking about it, all I did was level stuff up by killing a crap ton of enemies so I could use that said item to kill more crap tons of enemies more efficiently. If I didn't buy all my frames I would have left a long time ago because of the time and build costs. "It's a sense of progression and anticipation!". No it's not, it's waiting for an item that will use for your next grind run. The game just isn't fun anymore, and that is extremely sad because it used to be.

 

So, yes, this is goodbye. Everything I have discussed here has taken too much of a toll on me that I just can't go on. This lone Tenno is returning to stasis. If anyone, including DE, reads this, the only things you take away are the reasons why I left, and be wary that it might force other players like me to do the same. I don't expect anyone to give two S#&$s about the fact of me leaving; I've seen plenty of that evidence on the forums.

 

It's been a fun two years, Warframe. But I can't play a game I don't enjoy. If I see any good changes, then you just might see the Sanguine Reaper hunt within the darkness of space again. Until then, his business is elsewhere.

 

Until then, Tenno brothers and sisters.

[(PSN)Zenurixx]

Sorry for your experience with Warframe. Hope the game will chance for all of us

[The_Raall]

WOW that's lots of text so I wont be reading but have a safe journey and goodbye. it's always sad to see someone leaving

[(PSN)Clockwork_Kaiju]

will wake you from status when the lotus needs you again.

[Kestral9999]

One thing I'll definitely grant you is that the certain parts of the game will never be solo friendly. But there are certain game modes that actually benefit from solo play due to less distractions/chances of failure. Spy, Rescue, Sabotage, and Deception all come to mind. 

 

Sorry to see you go, check back in six months or so and you'll likely see improvements to some of the issues you find with the game. Don't forget to freeze your Kubrow in the event you do want to come back eventually. Worst thing to see when coming back to a game is that one of your pets died.

[(PSN)IIIDevoidIII]

So long, fair Tenno. 

Good luck in your future endeavors.