Curious About Your, And De's Thoughts On Transparency.

[Sumnus]

I'm curious about DE's and the player base's thoughts on the transparency (or lack thereof, depending on your point of view) in Warframe.

The most recent stream touched on it briefly, but I'd love to hear more about it from DE.

From the player's perspective (i'll use my perspective, though I don't claim to represent all players, nor do i feel my views are solely mine), I approach games from the angle of "The more information I have, the better." And I approach every game like this. I read extensively about games before I start playing them. I want to know what i'm getting into, especially if it's requiring investing some amount of money, let alone the time investment (not that I really factor that into it, because gaming is my favorite hobby, so for me it's not 'wasted' time at all, though some people seem to feel that way, despite playing frequently). I heard about Warframe, and that it was this up and coming F2P game, that had a lot of potential. So a quick Google search brought me the main forums, and the Wiki, and I was greatly interested. Six weeks later, and I'm loving it more than ever. 

 

Six weeks isn't a long time, I still consider myself new, and I still consider myself 'learning' things about the game. Not so much the controls, or where things drop, or any of those things. But i'm learning mechanics, I'm building my fourth Warframe. I bought a small Founder package because I have greatly enjoyed the time I spent thus far, and wanted to contribute, and be able to do a little with platinum, for the sake of feedback (not that any of the things I have come up with are new ideas thus far, but it has allowed me to bump a few threads with first hand experience about the topic). I'm learning the insides and outs of The Void, the Dojo, the Stalker (yeah, yeah, 'what's that?' we get it..). I'm polling my clan to ask them what Warframes they most enjoy, and why. What weapon/mod combinations they like. There are all sorts of things that I'm still learning six weeks into the game. The most recent stalker example was for the first time last night, I had the stalker flee from me. Each other time I had run into him, he either died, or killed the target. So i had to ask the clan how wary I had to be, whether he'd come back in the same level, or a following one, or I had to start farming bosses again before I had to worry about him. All sorts of the ins and outs of the game that matter for various reasons, for various levels of play.

 

I derailed my own thread a little, my apologies. But all of that aside, I'm curious how DE feels about sharing information with it's players. Warframe recently had a few pieces of information Datamined, and released to the players. As a player, I loved it. I love seeing exact numbers of what i'm doing in the games I play. If i'm farming for things, I love to know just how high (or low) the chances of me hitting that drop will be. I love to see if it's 3% higher somewhere else, so I can farm there, instead. It doesn't remove the RNG, it doesn't make the game any less farm-heavy, but it gives me (the player) the most information to do it the most efficiently. Now clearly, the numbers that have been released are in question, and given the game is in Beta, are all subject to change, even if they are accurate, but even having a ballpark guess as to what is going on in the inner workings of the game, is nothing but positive from my perspective.

Now from a developer's perspective, I could see this going both ways. On one hand, if this was information you wanted the players to have, there was no reason for it not to be open knowledge already. I'm aware from the stream, that you guys talked about sharing more with the players in terms of your future plans, and that's awesome, and one of the reasons I decided to buy the Founder package, because I feel that doing so is one of the best things a game can do for it's players. But when we hear you guys discuss something on the stream, while we get some numbers with the specific ability changes and such, we tend to hear "we'll monitor resource drops" or, "we're keeping our eyes out on the  defense rewards", and "we're watching the alert system, the Vauban dropped in the first week." Which is great, but does DE feel those numbers are better left hidden from the community? Or is the datamined information something they might consider sharing willingly in the future? If a buff to the drop rate of Whatever Mod is announced, is it going from .67% to 1%? That's a buff, so it would be a true statement, but it would be nice to actually know information in a table-layout similar to what was..borrowed..from the game files, and shared.

TL;DR: How do other players, and hopefully DE feel about more transparency of in-game numbers?

Edited June 2, 2013 by Sumnus

[MetalGerbil]

alot of numbers have changed, and they will change again most likely. its a beta you gotta give them some slack. we have had tons of updates with loads of content. its not like they are just chilling at the office.

they have spoken of a overhaul and im sure we will get it in time. its pretty vital one way or another considering the affects of mods. stats affect your mod choice and since its such a massive part of the game its pretty much mandatory.

[Sumnus]

alot of numbers have changed, and they will change again most likely. its a beta you gotta give them some slack. we have had tons of updates with loads of content. its not like they are just chilling at the office.

they have spoken of a overhaul and im sure we will get it in time. its pretty vital one way or another considering the affects of mods. stats affect your mod choice and since its such a massive part of the game its pretty much mandatory.

 

 

I'm not quite sure what this response has to do with my thread. Maybe it was too long to bother reading or something. But nowhere in it am I talking about the numbers changing or RNG being bad, or it being beta. I'm asking opinions about how much information should or shouldn't be shared regarding the numbers specifically, since they talked briefly about it in the stream, but didn't share much about it other than acknowledging they were datamined, and knew about it.

 

If you don't want to read the whole thing, the last line is the 'tl;dr' question.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Sumnus

[Cleesus]

Summus, people here dont read threads, they just post. Its annoying but true.

[Sumnus]

Summus, people here dont read threads, they just post. Its annoying but true.

 

That's why I added the TL;DR, it's one line =/

[TortoiseBoy]

Highlighted by getting his name wrong just there xD (sorry had to be said :P)

[Mak_Gohae]

Is a video game... not the parliament.

[Catniss]

I personally could not give a hoot about the numbers and mechanics behinds the scenes.  I play to have fun, not practice mathematics or perform research projects.  If I need to study and formulate its not fun, IMO.

[Sumnus]

Then how do you feel about it in terms of the Warframes. If you were a Rhino player, and they simply announced "We nerfed Iron Skin." And didn't tell you if it was going from invulnerability to damage reduction, or if it were a duration nerf, or how they nerfed it, is that information you want? Or is it still the mindset of "I play for fun, I don't care about game mechanics"?


I ask because they're already saying they are hoping to be more open with players in the future, and I'm curious (and hopefully they are, too) about what players actually want to know. I'm obviously not the only one who likes the datamined information, otherwise: A.) It wouldn't have been mined; and B.) There wouldn't be so much talk about it.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Sumnus

[winterau]

I want more transparency. I want to know accurate stats about weapons and I want to know what the mods do when I add them to the weapons. I want to be able to see the stats of my Warframe in game and see how they change when I add mods to them.

 

I want more transparency in the rewards because at the moment DE seem to be going down the path of screwing players over on the drop rate. That is pretty much just evil on their part.

[Slyver]

I would love to see all the numbers for the game (it is Beta anyways), they can be hidden or tweaked for certain things, but something such as a mod drop rate is 5% per enemy, with a 5% chance of that mod being rare, I believe DataMiners determined it actually to be much lower. 

 

This would also remove the need of Dataminers, something that I feel are currently a necessary 'evil' for the game in that while DE does want and NEED to make money on this game to continue development, I fear they are learning much more towards the Korean P2W then F2P which is solely speed and aesthetics.

[Ghobe]

As I was taught in school, transparency is key to victory. Now if the company wants to keep specific things a secret(the s word for example), that's fine. However, I don't think drop rate is one of the things that should be kept secret, nor do I believe crit rate should be(ERMAGERD Y U NO SHOW ME THIS!?). How transparent and willing to work with the community as DE, is one of the major reasons why I like them so much(yes, I really do like you guys, as much as I tear you apart).

 

Though I want everyone to keep in mind something. "Statistics are so stupid...well it's not that they're stupid it's the way people apply'em." - Bill Burr. I can't say what the community is all ragey about with these drop rates, but I think people are forgetting to keep some things in mind. When it comes to normal drop rates, remember, you're killing HUNDREDS of enemies a run. Are single digit drop rates really that bad? When it comes to defense missions, remember you can easily see 4-5 of the rewards with complete strangers regardless of skill level.

 

So...sum it up, transparency yay, hiding stuff still ok, learn to apply numbers properly. :D

[TunaMayo]

I think they are getting better at telling us stuff due to recent backlash.

I am fine with loot table and mat drops being hidden, despite being datamined..

I would however like DE to release actual stats for each weapon. Saves relying on the wiki and they can easoly update it when they balance weapons.

Certain mods could use opaque stats aswell, like guardian/regen.

Thats it basically, they are going to get better but some things should remain vague.

[Sumnus]

As I was taught in school, transparency is key to victory. Now if the company wants to keep specific things a secret(the s word for example), that's fine. However, I don't think drop rate is one of the things that should be kept secret, nor do I believe crit rate should be(ERMAGERD Y U NO SHOW ME THIS!?). How transparent and willing to work with the community as DE, is one of the major reasons why I like them so much(yes, I really do like you guys, as much as I tear you apart).

 

Though I want everyone to keep in mind something. "Statistics are so stupid...well it's not that they're stupid it's the way people apply'em." - Bill Burr. I can't say what the community is all ragey about with these drop rates, but I think people are forgetting to keep some things in mind. When it comes to normal drop rates, remember, you're killing HUNDREDS of enemies a run. Are single digit drop rates really that bad? When it comes to defense missions, remember you can easily see 4-5 of the rewards with complete strangers regardless of skill level.

 

So...sum it up, transparency yay, hiding stuff still ok, learn to apply numbers properly. :D

 

 

This is the kind of conversation I was hoping for. I had no intentions of it turning into a F2P vs P2W or anything.

I agree with you, I love surprises like the the S word that shall not be named, and things like that. They make the game fun. Although, considering this is beta, a little bit of a hint might help, just so they don't get spammed with bug reports "zomg this thing happened in my map just now!" type of things. But I agree, surprises like that are wonderful, and more than welcome.

And i'm a huge numbers fan, statistics included, so while i'm not in the camp who needs to learn to apply them properly, I agree that some seem to open up their view on what they're reading a little bit. And remember that there hasn't even been any confirmation as to whether these are accurate or not, and the community seems to be fairly split as to whether they believe it or not. But I love the conversations that it can (hopefully) bring up. 

 

 

I think they are getting better at telling us stuff due to recent backlash.

I am fine with loot table and mat drops being hidden, despite being datamined..

I would however like DE to release actual stats for each weapon. Saves relying on the wiki and they can easoly update it when they balance weapons.

Certain mods could use opaque stats aswell, like guardian/regen.

Thats it basically, they are going to get better but some things should remain vague.

 

See, the drops are one of the things I feel shouldn't be left out. The entire game is relying on them, at least for the time being, and especially since it's in beta, while they're still working out a system that is more well received. 

I agree, it'd be nice to get some more hard numbers on weapons/mods, as well. Or the ammo boxes literally say "tons of ammo" on them, which while it's amusing, doesn't actually tell me how much i'm getting. Not that i've used them yet.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Sumnus

[Otaiken]

It annoys me quite a bit. After every patch I have to head over to forums just to piece together the bits (sometimes quite significant "bits") I need to know what the hell is going on. This is supposed to be beta, wouldn't it be more efficient to tell people what changed so they can test it? 

 

Don't even get me started on the fact that you need a wiki to know what does what. The amount of in-game information is pitiful at best too. DE so far seems to be very bad at informing their players properly. There's no reason to hide changes DE, even if they are unpleasant changes, people are going to find them and then start spinning conspiracy theories. That doesn't really help you at all. 

 

The whole Latron Prime receiver fiasco could be avoided if we just had those numbers. Someone would look at it and say... "Hmm this doesn't seem right." That's it, solved. Maybe there's a concern that seeing those odds might cause players to give up. Putting aside my personal oppinion that if that's the case then those numbers are bad anyway... this is still beta, you can close it after launch.

 

PS: My little pet peeve is their refusal to talk about stalker on forums/stream. Also, there's no information on stalker anywhere in game. I get he's supposed to be mysterious and surprising encounter. But new players have absolutely NO IDEA what's going on when they encounter him. They just get instakilled. I mean, there's jokes and then there's the unfortunate reality that games need some kind of basic information delivery system/tutorials.

Edited June 3, 2013 by LocoWithGun

[Sumnus]

I know the topic is something some of us are more opinionated on than others, but please try to refrain from outright insulting DE and try to keep the discussion civil and productive. I'm hoping that they could actually get some decent feedback about what we feel is wrong, what we want, and why we want it. Don't forget, it is in their best interest to please as many of their players as they can, from a business standpoint. So we all share the same goal of making the game the best it can be.

[CosyPigeon]

I would prefer maximum transparency. People are investing money into warframe, and it seems fair that they should be able to make informed decisions about how to spend that money. 

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

I want more transparency.

By knowing what rewards you can potentially get, we are actually motivated to push on even if rng is not in our favour.

On the other hand, if the data is unfavourable to us, then it might also demotivate us since we will feel no meed to push as hard due to the knowledge of what we want to be impossible or near impossible.

Thus, I want transparency but I also want a fair rate.

In addition, the wiki should not be mrore informative in terms of stats than the actual game itself.

[.PiTHON.]

I wish the game showed us more stats on weapons/abilities, and showed their mod adjusted values.

[NotaCobra]

Take a look at some of the more popular farm heavy games out there, the best example of course being WoW.

 

WoW has lots of fansites (Wowhead, wowwiki, etc) which it actively supports, one of the login tips is actually "there is lots of information to be found on wow fansites like wowhead" or something similar.

 

These sites contain not only enjoyable tidbits of lore and stories newer players may have missed due to expansions.

But more importantly, they often include EXACT drop rates, % chances, ability details and damage.

 

If warframe had a similar system, you'd look up "Grineer lancer" and you'd get a page saying what levels they're found at, which worlds have them, what the % drop of each mod/mat is depending on planet and level, how much experience, their backstory, weakspots, damage multiplyers...

Heck, they'd probably list their accuracy based on some wonderful loner's 6 hour test behind a chest high wall....

Or their favourite diet courtesy of some lovely neckbeareded woman who's really into searching for tiny details in the lore.

 

Point is;

WoW and it's fansites, and other similar games and their respective sites, Provide players with a lot of information on how to get the most out of their time and effort.

This may mean people get what they need a little faster, but that has almost never been a bad thing;

Especially with guilds and groups, the urge to get your friends to the very top is there.

And while I won't go into pvp very much, it does leave the option of an "Endless endgame" whereby players have no plateu to reach but other players.

 

 

Leaving players in the dark and farming innefficiently for as long as possible with no idea other than supersition (I have a friend who is convinced if he clicks on a mission, then presses escape, clicks again and doesn't skip the intro, it has an almost triple chance of spawning the stalker) as to the best way of accomplashing their goals does nothing other than alienate and bore your playerbase.

THe last thing a player wants is to farm for months, then get told by another player that you can't get split chamber on venus defence missions.

[SilentCynic]

I believe that a lack of transparency, as is currently the case, fosters ill will between the fanbase and the developers. Games like these will always be about numbers. While optimization and efficiency aren't the reason I play, they are more conducive to getting what I want out of Warframe. As such, knowing these numbers allows me to make better, more informed choices and leads to the potential for deeper, more satisfying gameplay.

 

That said, I don't think transparency should simply regard numbers and statistics. Look at Steve's Update 8 thread, for instance. The vast majority of players reacted quite favourably towards it, because the developers are telling us what they're looking into, which of our concerns they're addressing. Even something as small as that does wonders to bridge the gap between players and developers.

 

Do I think that all things should be transparent? No. But should the vast majority of things be handled with more transparency? Damn straight.

[Sumnus]

Thank you so much to everyone who has replied. I am loving the conversations that are coming up now, these are what I was hoping for.
 

Great points/idea are being brought up, and the topic is taking a twist towards what I was hoping for.

I'd love to hear from more people, or to get some banter/debate going on, it'd help everyone.

 

I have read Steve's update 8 thread, and I have watched the streams (not always live, but at least the recordings). I try to inform myself as well as possible, and good amount of what the people are looking for can be found in some form or another on the Wiki, which is tremendously useful. But some of the information is only able to be provided by staff (such as their upcoming intentions, and what they have at the top of their list in terms of what they're working on, as well as specific numbers on a lot of things). They touched on these in the most recent stream, that they are looking into being more transparent with the players, most likely following E3, since that is keeping them quite busy it seems - and understandably so, most of us are quite familiar with it i'd imagine. 

 

The stream is what actually made me want to start the discussion among the player base. They are listening to the forums, and the ideas we have. When the fact that we were complaining about the resource drop rates and the inconsistencies, the reply in the stream was something along the lines of: "We hear you, and we're considering making mods so that if you so choose, you can really mod yourself to be a better farmer." They like the idea of giving players options to drastically individualize their characters to fit their respective playstyle, but in turn, that will mean more mods into the pool, creating more variance among drops without some help from them. 

I personally, love the idea of the farming mods, however they may choose to implement them (via the Sentinels, or buffing Thief's Wit, or releasing new ones, or any combination of these, or something new entirely), but it's rare that you get a company so openly listening to ideas. They even link to specific threads that they've read and say "we're listening to this". And as the players during beta, it's our job to try to shape the game as best as we can with DE. 

 

Thank you everyone for the responses, I hope to keep the conversations going.

[SilentCynic]

Let me preface this post by saying that I, in no shape or form, intend to compare Warframe directly to another game or DE to another studio. What I will compare is the level of transparency with regards to future development, which is sort of the point of a beta, in my eyes.

 

Eve Online has an annual convention held in Iceland, which plays out, despite the drinking and partying, as a sort of extended presentation of what is to come. Take, for instance, this clip. (I understand it's rather long, especially if you're not interested in the game itself, but you need not watch it all to get the point.)

 

 

This is just one such excerpt from the entire convention, which revolves around reviewing the game as a whole up until that point, and going through all the myriad developments CCP (the creators) have planned for the future.

 

And the crowd loves it. It explains the mindset and thought process of the developers, shows how it influences the gameplay and tells the players that many of their concerns and problems are being addressed.

 

This, on a much smaller scale, obviously, is what I think would really help Warframe. Knowing these things, the players can see what's coming, they can debate it on the forums and voice their opinion before the fact (Or talk to the developers directly during the convention), rather than having to complain after the updates hit. This keeps the game flowing, and allows for a much more stable, dependable - and ultimately enjoyable - experience.

Edited June 3, 2013 by SilentCynic

[matrixEXO]

Personally, I also do think they need to be more transparent about a LOT of things. Not completely transparent but at least more transparent than right now. The issues with Twin Vipers' sound being changed is also one of them.

 

Apart from that, I feel like DE is not thinking around things for the game. IE: Optional Reset and temporary disabling of the system. If you, as a developer, were to develop those 2 systems (optional reset and clan Dojo) and you know that the resource pool in the dojo can be returned back to the player under the certain conditions then you obviously should ask yourself about the possible exploiting of the system together with the optional reset. This case is actually apparent with other things like receiver and blade drops from the Void as well. What they are doing is a "Wait for trouble to start then fix it" methodology, which while saves them a lot of planning, does not help in the long term relationship with the players.

 

Sorry, I'm getting off-topic a lot and slandering DE quite a bit. It's just something that has been jarringly apparent especially since the Iron Skin change with no comment on the changelog post itself on the reason of change until a long time later.

Edited June 3, 2013 by matrixEXO

[Sumnus]

Let me preface this post by saying that I, in no shape or form, intend to compare Warframe directly to another game or DE to another studio. What I will compare is the level of transparency with regards to future development, which is sort of the point of a beta, in my eyes.

 

Eve Online has an annual convention held in Iceland, which plays out, despite the drinking and partying, as a sort of extended presentation of what is to come. Take, for instance, this clip. (I understand it's rather long, especially if you're not interested in the game itself, but you need not watch it all to get the point.)

 

This is just one such excerpt from the entire convention, which revolves around reviewing the game as a whole up until that point, and going through all the myriad developments CCP (the creators) have planned for the future.

 

And the crowd loves it. It explains the mindset and thought process of the developers, shows how it influences the gameplay and tells the players that many of their concerns and problems are being addressed.

 

This, on a much smaller scale, obviously, is what I think would really help Warframe. Knowing these things, the players can see what's coming, they can debate it on the forums and voice their opinion before the fact (Or talk to the developers directly during the convention), rather than having to complain after the updates hit. This keeps the game flowing, and allows for a much more stable, dependable - and ultimately enjoyable - experience.

 

DE started doing similar things via a Stream. I've seen this from several companies. Some do it quarterly, some monthly, some more or less frequently than that. I care rather little about the frequency, since the open beta hasn't been going on for too long as is, and they're a rather small company, which means - they would rather invest their hours into actually fixing what we are complaining about, to get the most out of their time, and should also mean lower expectations in terms of time frames. They aren't going to have the programming power of a larger company, which in some ways is actually a benefit to us. But the streams they have started doing, particularly the most recent, really give me hope in this area. They even talked about doing it more frequently after E3, which seems like a positive thing in every way.

 

 

Personally, I also do think they need to be more transparent about a LOT of things. Not completely transparent but at least more transparent than right now. The issues with Twin Vipers' sound being changed is also one of them.

 

Apart from that, I feel like DE is not thinking around things for the game. IE: Optional Reset and temporary disabling of the system. If you, as a developer, were to develop those 2 systems (optional reset and clan Dojo) and you know that the resource pool in the dojo can be returned back to the player under the certain conditions then you obviously should ask yourself about the possible exploiting of the system together with the optional reset. This case is actually apparent with other things like receiver and blade drops from the Void as well. What they are doing is a "Wait for trouble to start then fix it" methodology, which while saves them a lot of planning, does not help in the long term relationship with the players.

 

Sorry, I'm getting off-topic a lot and slandering DE quite a bit. It's just something that has been jarringly apparent especially since the Iron Skin change with no comment on the changelog post itself on the reason of change until a long time later.

 

 

I can understand the frustration with a delayed response for nerfs to people who played the Rhino frame often. They did apologize and go into it a little on the stream, and they mentioned he might still be in flux in terms of the numbers and such. There are a few things that are important to keep in mind when trying to provide (helpful) feedback:

A.) They're a small company - That isn't to condone everything, but it's reasonable to assume that the mass of players will think of/try things that their small group of internal testers didn't try. That's part of the point of the Beta, is to help them find things they didn't on their own, so they can fix/balance/remedy things that need to be taken care of.

B.) They're still human - Again, not to condone things, but it's good to keep in mind. There are things that you will never think of on your own, that other people thought of months ago, even speaking strictly about the gameplay and mechanics. 

As for more specific thoughts - I definitely think the streams are a good idea. I know it's taking up 6+ people from my count (4 on screen, one playing, one camera, and probably another one or two i'd imagine doing other things in the background, like managing the broadcast software and getting all of the preview images ready to go and such) for a decent chunk of time during the work day (the last stream was about an hour and a half), which isn't anything to scoff at. They mentioned doing more of them, or working on other ways to be more in touch with the players, and that's a great start, even if it comes (mostly) after E3. 

 

The Wiki has a lot of the information people have asked for, already. In terms of the values on Mods and such, and while it's not to be relied on 100%, it's awfully close on a lot of the content most of the time. 

I like the patch notes, not that it's necessarily a unique concept, but it's necessary. I wouldn't mind seeing more numbers for things that aren't bug fixes, though. Similar to what they announced for the Rhino nerfs/re-buffs and so on.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Sumnus