Why I'm taking a break.

[Tesseract7777]

Now, before anyone asks. I'm not rage quitting. I still have my account, and I will probably check out U19 if it looks interesting enough. To be honest I was planning to buy the $80 Prime Access package, and now I am having second thoughts. If U19 really draws me back in I might buy it then, it's not like the package is going anywhere for a while.

 

 No, it has nothing to do with crafting requirements. Anyone who has seen me post knows I'm not against the crafting requirements or the need to do a lot of farming. The issue is that WF has become stale and I feel like the developers won't take the necessary steps to keep vets interested every day. 

For those of us who have most everything, or at least most everything we want, there isn't a lot of reason for us to keep coming back. Outside of events or updates or new quests drawing us in, or the occasional new item to get, we are back to doing sorties every day or raids or both. There's not much more for an end game player to do. 

But there are some serious issues with both of those game modes. 

Raid's in WF are, with all respect, poorly designed and non-inclusive. For a game that prides itself on being COOP and bringing people together, I have never seen a set of missions more designed for extreme frustration if everyone doesn't know all the ins and outs and makes sure to not make any big teamwork mistakes. The problem with the raids are not that they are particularly hard, so much as they are unforgiving. Completely and utterly unforgiving. Especially in certain stages, where one little screw up can ruin everything for everyone in an instant. It doesn't even have to be a troll, just one tiny mistake from one person. 

I know this is supposed to encourage teamwork, but WF itself by it's design already encouraged teamwork. What Raid's or "trials" encourage is for people to get together the most elite team of people who have already done raids as many times as possible so people won't waste their time/key when someone inexperienced makes a mistake. For someone who has not done raids before, even with a good clan, just trying to get accepted into a raid group for the first time can be a nightmare. And even if you read up on it many times, one mistake can ruin things and then people will want you less in the future and that person will be traumatized by their failure and the anger of their fellow players, making them not want to try again. 

Quite frankly raids should be redesigned from the ground up. They are a huge shame for WF in my opinion. The least inclusive part of the game, designed not for vets but for a specific group of people who want to learn how to get through the fake/unforgiving difficulty and deal with it. Newer players, or long time ones who never tried before, are excluded. 

 

And onto the other thing, sorties:

Sorties are a nice idea: Give the veteran players something to do every day and give them a reward befitting the effort. Both of those things are kind of failing with sorties. 

Many of the conditions make no sense at all for the given mission, and make the whole thing feel like a roullette wheel instead of a professional game. Could you at least have someone physically pick the conditions and mission types for the day? So that it would at least make some semblance of sense in terms of the challenge we are supposed to get? Only sidearms on a spy mission? Oh no... I'm "SO" crippled. Yes enemy scaling is awful, but at least handpicked sortie conditions would ensure the challenge made a little more sense. 

Also, some of your conditions in general need to be looked at. Eximus Stronghold missions on endless have become "no energy the second half of the mission" missions. It's completely broken and out of control and it feels totally unprofessional. 

But the biggest issue isn't the randomnes that makes no sense or the sometimes awful conditions. 

The bigger issue is that we are not properly rewarded. In a game time spent should = effort. This is a simple equation all devs should keep in mind. And the simple fact of the matter is that doing three sortie missions is simply not rewarding us for our effort. We get nothing but credits for the first two missions and apart from the random sortie reward for doing all three, nothing but credits for the others. ALL normal rewards for those missions are TURNED OFF. And all we get are some credits and one of the rewards. Many of which are awful. 

I don't get this obsession... it's like certain people at DE are obsessed with NOT giving us value for our time. It's like there's someone at DE responsible for drop tables who is actually resentful at the idea of people getting a fair reward for their work. I don't want to believe anyone really has that attitude, but that's what it feels like. It feels like they don't even WANT to reward us for our time. 

The fusion core/checkbox thing only made things worse. Sorties are still not an efficient way to get cores and it's made getting weapons and such from sorties even harder. You can't get an extra piece and trade for the one you want. You just have to keep doing it and hope you get that checkbox. It's asinine. 

We were given extra cores for each mission for a very short time once and people loved it, but you all at DE ended that quickly because for some reason it feels like you don't want people to be rewarded for their time and effort. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter whether you are usually more F2P or more of a whale. Sorties are quite an effort/time and they are supposed to be rewarded properly but they are not. 

What about that token system? No more talk of it. Completely disappeared. The sortie has become another abandoned system in WF. And yet people want something, anything like the token system suggested. But instead of a token system? You guys implemented the awful checkbox that made things worse. 

We can get nothing but x25 cores, or a Nezha piece when we already have several sets, and super cheap lenses that are hardly worth anything. I could sell a couple things for 20p and get a greater lens? How is that a reward for three entire missions? It would make sense if I was properly rewarded with tokens, cores or even just the regular damn mission rewards for the other missions I did. But that and some credits is all you get if you roll a lens or something else you don't want. 

And now the straw to break the camels back, [DE]Danielle says "a new season is coming", but it's NOT a new season. It's a rerun as we are getting the Dera Vandal again. I know the devs aren't lying, or particularly trying to be dishonest, but it feels galling to be told a new season is coming and then see nothing but stuff that we have already had in sorties. 

And the other straw? Sorties are supposed to last 15 days originally but each one is progressively and more ridiculously longer. How long are we going to have to endure the second coming of the Dera Vandal? Even longer than the last sortie? Probably close to fifty days this time if it keeps going up as usual. 

We know you are working hard on U19, but make the daily stuff you put in to keep us interested in the meantime worth doing or we won't play until a new event/quest/major update comes out, and then get quickly bored again. But if you can make Raid's more accessible, and if you can make sorties worth doing and not just feel like random fake difficulty, then you can keep vets like me playing every day between big updates. 

Please, consider this. Consider how you are discouraging much of your playerbase from playing the game. Please think about making raids more inclusive and sorties worth doing. Thanks! 

P.S. I'm not angry. I'm not rage quitting, like I said. But I have to admit I just can hardly bring myself to play anymore, and I feel it worth explaining why and what could be done to fix this. I am sure I am not alone on some this. 

Thanks for all you do DE, I still think you are a good company for trying so hard to listen to the players. 

Edited May 23, 2016 by Tesseract7777

[(PSN)DanteVincent]

Came in ready to bash but was actually surprised. IMO these are valid critics and the problems I 'suffer' with as well in the condition of a veteran who has everything one could want.

The best fix to this, and i've said this for a while, is fixing the gameplay itself, damage across the board, ours, our enemies', fix CC, again, ours and our enemies'; tone everything the F down, so we can actually have variety in builds, so we can stop getting cheap kills AND being cheap killed. When all of these are toned down, what's left is a challenge, we'll have time to react (being a ninja, right) time to see our builds showing their strengths and weaknesses and so on.

If the gameplay is fun, long lasting fun, it needs to be challenging and not cheap.

Take GTA for example, San Andreas if you will. We all have good memories, hella fun game BUT how long would that fun burst last before we changed the game? Not very long. Mindless fun doesn't last, I'm sorry, neither does frustration; Warframe seems to go from one to another, mindless fun to frustration. 

Thankfuly more and more people are noticing this, TP, headsh0t, quiette and others talked about this. We got a thread with more than 120 upvotes on it as well. 

When that is done we can even get rid of that Beta status I am sure.

 

[Crewell]

I kind of agree a bit with what you're saying. I stopped doing sorties for the most part because they can be a giant headache. The only reward worth the time is legendary cores, and you'll likely never see that. On the flip side, making new rewards is time consuming. It takes away some of the effort being used for content updates. 

In the end breaks from any game are healthy. I personally took a very long break about a year after the game went from closed to open. After several months I came back with a lot of new frames and content to enjoy. Even now I don't play like I used to. 

[(PSN)VariantX7]

I definitely agree 100% about the lenses. It takes far less effort to grind out prime parts in the void or sell syndicate stuff to get a better version of a lens in the market than  you would get from sorties. They're just not worth the effort and the requirements needed to both participate in and complete sorties.  I don't agree about the rerun seasons though, others should have a shot at these weapons that may have missed them for various reasons. If not through sorties, then at least through other means. 

[Multicom-EN-]

Can't do much else  but to agree with you. It's starting to get way, way out of hand.

[VRHmason]

Agree with OP, taking a break from WF, might even skip U19 and wait for U20.
There is nothing for me to do except farm Vauban P and rest of the gear that came with him, but as he is here to stay for some time then I might take even bigger brake.

You described Raids perfectly, thats why I don't do them, arcanes are not worth it. Sorties are not worth it, lenses are not worth it, arcanes.  Its just mechanic on top of mechanic on top of mechanic on top of mechanics, sorties token system forgotten, raids forgotten, focus implemented broken....but hey...lunaro....

For me the game lacks challenge and im not counting Conclave as it is lag fest...that frustration not challenge. Only challenge in game is beating RNG and beating RNG has become pretty boring for me. 
The will for grinding new equipment is slowly wearing off...its just chore...doing missions I don't wanna do in first place, trying to do them with less effort possible....yey fun.

[(PSN)B0XMAN517]

[_jorgi_]

Very valid post, I agree.

Hopefully U19 will bring something for vets to get them busy for a long time and we will not face the same crisis as we have at the moment.

On the other hand I feel U19 is a bit late, many people got a break already or are going to do so.

[djternan]

Agree with everything you said.

[Chipputer]

This is exactly why I am so glad that I actually enjoy Oberon's gameplay. He makes the game into an actual game-- nothing he can do is overpowered enough to trivialize anything, yet it's good enough to give some breathing room when utilized properly.

Can't blame you for getting bored, though. Aside from some event weapons that I literally have no choice but to wait for them to come around, I have everything mastered. Definitely feel your pain.

[Valar.Morghulis]

Honestly if you have the weapon there is no reason to do the Sorties at all. In fact I was pretty happy when the the weapon was something we already had so we didn't feel like we needed to do the Sorties at all.

The raids are simply poorly designed, there should be a larger variation on difficulty. The raids should be inclusive to more players at varying skill levels. Right now mistakes are punished to harshly and with no check-points or ability to pull new members in if someone leaves. It just isn't fun to burn a key because someone rage quits and the worst part is that I don't blame them for rage quitting half the time.

 

[tripletriple]

Great post. That is the problem with warframe. The grind to obtain the items isn't what the game is about. There is only a game when you are grinding. I feel like DE know about it but instead of rectifying the problem they only elongate the grind to give you something to do. 

[S0V3REiGN]

I have completed over 100 raids and they lost their novelty long, long ago. Most of the time enemies are CC locked, doesn't really make the mission more interesting. I agree that for new players it's quite unforgiving, I still remember when I first dipped my feet into law of retribution. Boy was that a nightmare... I failed or quit my first 8 - 10 raids because the team was uncooperative and expected everyone else to carry them.

Only stubbornness got me through it because I was already fed up and had next to no desire to do them. I decided that I was going to host my own raids and get only experienced players and that is how I meet a lot of "regular" raid players. After that doing them was a breeze since I knew all these players could carry their weight. It's really all a process of repetition, once you have completed them a few times it's easy.

As for sorties I agree as well. Sometimes the conditions don't make any sense. The prizes are boring and only do them for cores once I have whatever weapon is available which is the only real nice thing. Repeated seasons are a bit lame and would rather have the token system. 

[BlackCoMerc]

13 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Now, before anyone asks. I'm not rage quitting. I still have my account, and I will probably check out U19 if it looks interesting enough. To be honest I was planning to buy the $80 Prime Access package, and now I am having second thoughts. If U19 really draws me back in I might buy it then, it's not like the package is going anywhere for a while.

 

 No, it has nothing to do with crafting requirements. Anyone who has seen me post knows I'm not against the crafting requirements or the need to do a lot of farming. The issue is that WF has become stale and I feel like the developers won't take the necessary steps to keep vets interested every day. 

For those of us who have most everything, or at least most everything we want, there isn't a lot of reason for us to keep coming back. Outside of events or updates or new quests drawing us in, or the occasional new item to get, we are back to doing sorties every day or raids or both. There's not much more for an end game player to do. 

But there are some serious issues with both of those game modes. 

Raid's in WF are, with all respect, poorly designed and non-inclusive. For a game that prides itself on being COOP and bringing people together, I have never seen a set of missions more designed for extreme frustration if everyone doesn't know all the ins and outs and makes sure to not make any big teamwork mistakes. The problem with the raids are not that they are particularly hard, so much as they are unforgiving. Completely and utterly unforgiving. Especially in certain stages, where one little screw up can ruin everything for everyone in an instant. It doesn't even have to be a troll, just one tiny mistake from one person. 

I know this is supposed to encourage teamwork, but WF itself by it's design already encouraged teamwork. What Raid's or "trials" encourage is for people to get together the most elite team of people who have already done raids as many times as possible so people won't waste their time/key when someone inexperienced makes a mistake. For someone who has not done raids before, even with a good clan, just trying to get accepted into a raid group for the first time can be a nightmare. And even if you read up on it many times, one mistake can ruin things and then people will want you less in the future and that person will be traumatized by their failure and the anger of their fellow players, making them not want to try again. 

Quite frankly raids should be redesigned from the ground up. They are a huge shame for WF in my opinion. The least inclusive part of the game, designed not for vets but for a specific group of people who want to learn how to get through the fake/unforgiving difficulty and deal with it. Newer players, or long time ones who never tried before, are excluded. 

 

And onto the other thing, sorties:

Sorties are a nice idea: Give the veteran players something to do every day and give them a reward befitting the effort. Both of those things are kind of failing with sorties. 

Many of the conditions make no sense at all for the given mission, and make the whole thing feel like a roullette wheel instead of a professional game. Could you at least have someone physically pick the conditions and mission types for the day? So that it would at least make some semblance of sense in terms of the challenge we are supposed to get? Only sidearms on a spy mission? Oh no... I'm "SO" crippled. Yes enemy scaling is awful, but at least handpicked sortie conditions would ensure the challenge made a little more sense. 

Also, some of your conditions in general need to be looked at. Eximus Stronghold missions on endless have become "no energy the second half of the mission" missions. It's completely broken and out of control and it feels totally unprofessional. 

But the biggest issue isn't the randomnes that makes no sense or the sometimes awful conditions. 

The bigger issue is that we are not properly rewarded. In a game time spent should = effort. This is a simple equation all devs should keep in mind. And the simple fact of the matter is that doing three sortie missions is simply not rewarding us for our effort. We get nothing but credits for the first two missions and apart from the random sortie reward for doing all three, nothing but credits for the others. ALL normal rewards for those missions are TURNED OFF. And all we get are some credits and one of the rewards. Many of which are awful. 

I don't get this obsession... it's like certain people at DE are obsessed with NOT giving us value for our time. It's like there's someone at DE responsible for drop tables who is actually resentful at the idea of people getting a fair reward for their work. I don't want to believe anyone really has that attitude, but that's what it feels like. It feels like they don't even WANT to reward us for our time. 

The fusion core/checkbox thing only made things worse. Sorties are still not an efficient way to get cores and it's made getting weapons and such from sorties even harder. You can't get an extra piece and trade for the one you want. You just have to keep doing it and hope you get that checkbox. It's asinine. 

We were given extra cores for each mission for a very short time once and people loved it, but you all at DE ended that quickly because for some reason it feels like you don't want people to be rewarded for their time and effort. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter whether you are usually more F2P or more of a whale. Sorties are quite an effort/time and they are supposed to be rewarded properly but they are not. 

What about that token system? No more talk of it. Completely disappeared. The sortie has become another abandoned system in WF. And yet people want something, anything like the token system suggested. But instead of a token system? You guys implemented the awful checkbox that made things worse. 

We can get nothing but x25 cores, or a Nezha piece when we already have several sets, and super cheap lenses that are hardly worth anything. I could sell a couple things for 20p and get a greater lens? How is that a reward for three entire missions? It would make sense if I was properly rewarded with tokens, cores or even just the regular damn mission rewards for the other missions I did. But that and some credits is all you get if you roll a lens or something else you don't want. 

And now the straw to break the camels back, [DE]Danielle says "a new season is coming", but it's NOT a new season. It's a rerun as we are getting the Dera Vandal again. I know the devs aren't lying, or particularly trying to be dishonest, but it feels galling to be told a new season is coming and then see nothing but stuff that we have already had in sorties. 

And the other straw? Sorties are supposed to last 15 days originally but each one is progressively and more ridiculously longer. How long are we going to have to endure the second coming of the Dera Vandal? Even longer than the last sortie? Probably close to fifty days this time if it keeps going up as usual. 

We know you are working hard on U19, but make the daily stuff you put in to keep us interested in the meantime worth doing or we won't play until a new event/quest/major update comes out, and then get quickly bored again. But if you can make Raid's more accessible, and if you can make sorties worth doing and not just feel like random fake difficulty, then you can keep vets like me playing every day between big updates. 

Please, consider this. Consider how you are discouraging much of your playerbase from playing the game. Please think about making raids more inclusive and sorties worth doing. Thanks! 

P.S. I'm not angry. I'm not rage quitting, like I said. But I have to admit I just can hardly bring myself to play anymore, and I feel it worth explaining why and what could be done to fix this. I am sure I am not alone on some this. 

Thanks for all you do DE, I still think you are a good company for trying so hard to listen to the players. 

Agree completely. Random conditions, bullet sponges and standing on pads while Cheesing crowds are not fun or engaging. Nothing about late game is enjoyable.

So it's break time for my girl and I as well. Lucky for us, Doctor Who is back on Prime, Dark Souls III is a thing, and we have ample interests beyond gaming as well.

[Mr.Lube]

14 hours ago, (PS4)DanteVincent said:

We got a thread with more than 120 upvotes on it as well.

Which thread are you referring to? I would like to take a looksy.

[(PSN)DanteVincent]

9 hours ago, Mr.Lube said:

Which thread are you referring to? I would like to take a looksy.

I tried to find it again but couldn't, which is weird since i upvoted it less than 24h ago. It was in the 120ish upvote mark and addressed pretty much what I said, but more deeply. I'll edit this if I find it.

[Mr.Lube]

This one?