A Newbie's Impression

[Densoro1]

First, I just wanna say that in the two days since my friend told me about Warframe, I have come to a powerful respect for you guys, DE. What this game means in relation to darkSector is beautiful, and I love a studio that takes its art seriously enough to do something like this. It means a lot to me to know that the lot of you are constantly putting your all into this, because you're making it perfect for YOUR sake.

 

Anyway, before I get too kiss-assy. I've noticed a few things that've bugged me about an otherwise excellent game. I dunno where I'd put all of them, so I'm putting them all here xD

 

1) It's possible that you already know about this, but when I go into aim-down-sights mode with a wall directly behind me, the camera zooms flat into the back of my character's head and I can't see a thing I'm shooting at. I dunno how to fix that, but I thought I'd let you know.

 

2) It could just be because I'm colorblind, but I often can't see my targeting reticle because it blends in with the background. Can we get an option to color that free of charge, at least? I also sometimes have problems seeing the Grineer against the backdrop of their ship/through the fog.

 

3) On laggier missions (most run smooth as silk though), if I'm running away and shooting, instead of aiming backwards my character does the YMCA dance with his gun. It's a lot of wasted rounds and kinda bothers me.

 

4) Crafting time. It makes sense realistically, and the dynamic of having somebody make you a sword and then coming back for it three days later can be awesome. However, due to the freemium model of the game, it just reeks of the worst kinds of iPhone games, the Farmville model of 'pay to craft it NOW,' a transparent limit designed to make players pay to remove an annoyance, rather than gain a new piece of the experience.

 

It pushes people away as-is, but if it must stay, then is it too much to ask that we be able to visit the people making our item-in-progress, see it x% complete? Ditto new rooms in the dojo. Seems to me that leaping between half-finished support beams would make for a good day.

[Zantestsuken]

4) Crafting time. It makes sense realistically, and the dynamic of having somebody make you a sword and then coming back for it three days later can be awesome. However, due to the freemium model of the game, it just reeks of the worst kinds of iPhone games, the Farmville model of 'pay to craft it NOW,' a transparent limit designed to make players pay to remove an annoyance, rather than gain a new piece of the experience.

 

Dude aside from my hate due of recent events, crafting takes time because it's FREE. IT'S THE BALANCE between paying players and free players. Although I'm always defending free to play, this time I'm on the customer's side. He who pay get relevant advantage. He who don't pay get to do the same things, in time (I think 3d for a frame it's perfectly fine).

[Quetzhal]

Consider the fact that in order to remove the crafting times, they would have to make the process of grinding the materials take a total of three days and twelve hours more than currently so. While I disliked the system as a newbie - because it did seem like typical casual games - I'm far more comfortable with it now. I kind of like the satisfaction of claiming a built item.

I do, however, love the idea of being able to actually see your item in the progress of being built, as with the dojo. This would require a lot of resources, though, so implementation of something like that will likely/hopefully come as the game is shifting out of beta. Gameplay polishes.

That said, I agree with the rest of your thoughts. There are also a few issues with jumping, where it sometimes doesn't work. Also, if you're a new player, I feel obligated to tell you you can right click to turn tiles in the ciphers the other way, and that the ones with a hole in the middle are just two separate circuits to be solved separately. Also you can chain wallruns. That's pretty fun. You probably already know all this, but I'm saying it anyway just in case. XD

[Athros]

Well :

 

1.) This problem (Not a bug, sadly. Poorly thought aiming design I guess.) already talked about even from the Close Beta, and until today DE haven't given any solution for that. A lot of people in this forum already discussed it and creates a lot of ideas to solve it, but DE still unmoved with it. : (

2.) Again, a lot of people already talk about this in the forum. But seeing that this is more to graphics than mechanics, DE haven't touched this issue yet...

4.) Zantetsuken's post. And if you still curious about these topic's discussion, you can search it on the forum, but beware... I suggest that you stay away from it, cause not only it's lenghty, but also because of it's quite a sh*tstorm.

[Zantestsuken]

I suggest that you stay away from it, cause not only it's lenghty, but also because of it's quite a sh*tstorm.

 

You said it ;)

[Endrance]

I'm not a payer, but i do agree with  Zantentsuken, since we're can get nearly everything ingame for free, the time you spend crafting something, gives you time for your next objective.

 

While i was crafting my frost, i was able to think what new weapons i would make for him (every warframe i make, i start with a full set of equipment on Rank 0) so it literally gives you the time you need to get things done.

 

Ok, can be bothersome if you're in a hurry, but still, better then nothing, just imagine you needed to pay to get the warframe, or that you needed to spent your free platinum into it. 

[Zantestsuken]

Ok, can be bothersome if you're in a hurry, but still, better then nothing, just imagine you needed to pay to get the warframe, or that you needed to spent your free platinum into it. 

 

It adds a strategic component to the gameplay. Platinum, for me, are for contents like potatoes and slots. The rest is a well way to planing your game.

[unmog]

Consider the fact that in order to remove the crafting times, they would have to make the process of grinding the materials take a total of three days and twelve hours more than currently so.

FYI... No... no they wouldnt. Personally I never saw the point in paying plat to rush an item for essentially half as much as it would be to just buy it flat out. Rushing builds should use credits. I wonder just how much money they make from it the way it is now, who uses it all the time raise your hand?

 

Welcome to the forums though Densoro! Glad you like the game too. :)

[Densoro1]

Dude aside from my hate due of recent events, crafting takes time because it's FREE. IT'S THE BALANCE between paying players and free players. Although I'm always defending free to play, this time I'm on the customer's side. He who pay get relevant advantage. He who don't pay get to do the same things, in time (I think 3d for a frame it's perfectly fine).

Thing is, there's plenty of f2p games that don't use crafting time. Personally while I have issues with the game part of Spiral Knights, I felt like it had the most perfect freemium market. Buying currency let you do things sooner, but not because money arbitrarily makes a sword take three seconds to make. It makes the process faster because you can buy the same things with normal currency, it just takes a long time to grind that much. The entire rule of SK was 'anything you can get for money, you can get for free if you play harder.' And many people DID see fit to skip the grind, because it was a pain. Other people just played their daily fill and eventually got enough cash to buy it that way.

I guess I'd have less of a problem with it if there wasn't a 'pay to craft it instantly' cost though. Because that just makes no sense. How does a chunk of precious metal make you put together a suit of armor any faster?

 

And thanks for reminding me about the jump failures, Quetzhal, that's the other thing I meant to complain about XD The way my dude won't jump if he's too close to...well, anything. And thank you so much for clearing up ciphers T__T Maybe now I can hack them without setting off the alarms...

EDIT: Oh, and another thing. If I've already bought the blueprint and have all the materials, what the hell am I spending all those extra credits on? It's already a grind enough just to afford the prints e__e That's always bugged me with every crafting-heavy game. Unless I'm paying somebody to craft it for me, it just doesn't make sense. In Spiral Knights, you had to pay YOURSELF to make your weapons >__>

Edited May 28, 2013 by Densoro

[Gravalite]

The only weird things I've seen to pay for is the avatars and colors. Just seems odd when compared to everything else in the store.

[Zantestsuken]

The only weird things I've seen to pay for is the avatars and colors. Just seems odd when compared to everything else in the store.

 

In truth I wanted colors and payed 75 plat for that. LoL.

[Quetzhal]

FYI... No... no they wouldnt. Personally I never saw the point in paying plat to rush an item for essentially half as much as it would be to just buy it flat out. Rushing builds should use credits. I wonder just how much money they make from it the way it is now, who uses it all the time raise your hand?

The reason I said they would have to do so is because the way the way the game is currently build is based around that build time, i.e it's a method to both earn money and to control the pace of progression of F2P players. If they want the pace of progression to stay the same, they would have to make it take longer to farm the required parts. Of course, they could remove it altogether and change the pace of progressing, but that's not what I meant. I apologise if I wasn't clear.

Rushing builds as they are right now is a complete waste, yes.

 

Thing is, there's plenty of f2p games that don't use crafting time. Personally while I have issues with the game part of Spiral Knights, I felt like it had the most perfect freemium market. Buying currency let you do things sooner, but not because money arbitrarily makes a sword take three seconds to make. It makes the process faster because you can buy the same things with normal currency, it just takes a long time to grind that much. The entire rule of SK was 'anything you can get for money, you can get for free if you play harder.' And many people DID see fit to skip the grind, because it was a pain. Other people just played their daily fill and eventually got enough cash to buy it that way.

I guess I'd have less of a problem with it if there wasn't a 'pay to craft it instantly' cost though. Because that just makes no sense. How does a chunk of precious metal make you put together a suit of armor any faster?

 

And thanks for reminding me about the jump failures, Quetzhal, that's the other thing I meant to complain about XD The way my dude won't jump if he's too close to...well, anything. And thank you so much for clearing up ciphers T__T Maybe now I can hack them without setting off the alarms...

I can actually agree with that, haha, although I doubt it'll change. I see the business sense in the decision, and it doesn't really affect any of the gameplay (and I don't rush builds or buy stuff with plat, except for Vauban and the Glaive since I hate 'earning' by alerts). It's one of those things you kind of just... get used to, because there's plenty to do in the meantime. It's not really a good thing, but it's not really a bad thing. It's a platinum sink for the folks who can't resist the rush button.

And you're welcome! Did you also know about wall-launching? Wall-launching is my favorite thing to do in this game. Hands down.

[Densoro1]

By wall-launching, d'you mean the amazing jump you get if you let go of the space bar mid-wallrun? Honestly, everything to do with this game's parkour fascinates me. I would've suggested letting us make landfall without having somebody trying to kill us, but I guess that's what dojos are for.

[Quetzhal]

By wall-launching, d'you mean the amazing jump you get if you let go of the space bar mid-wallrun? Honestly, everything to do with this game's parkour fascinates me. I would've suggested letting us make landfall without having somebody trying to kill us, but I guess that's what dojos are for.

Yep! Favourite. Thing. Well, it's about equal to chaining sideruns up a circular room actually... Some of the parkour is just so fun to execute.

The parkour is also the reason for my huge fail/abort rate. I keep getting stuck in and falling out of terrain. XD

[Densoro1]

My only problem is I've been able to run vertically once. All the rest of the time, I just jump off backwards D:

[Quetzhal]

My only problem is I've been able to run vertically once. All the rest of the time, I just jump off backwards D:

Hm... Not sure what you mean exactly. Do you mean you do a backflip off the wall? That's because you need to hold down the spacebar in order to maintain the vertical run (unless you change the settings). Also, if you're trying to get on top of something, pressing crouch will trigger the climb; if you don't hit crouch you'll usually just backflip off the object.

[iancurtis]

thanks before

[Jack.Bauer]

I agree with your first point,

 

but the last thing you mention is kinda un-important .. even though I paid real money and I have lots of platinum I never paid to get something done NOW. it's kinda waste of platinum.

 

why pay 50 platinum to get something NOW when you can get it tomorrow for free ?