Dev Workshop Part 3: 18.13.0 Aftermath & Beginnings.

[[DE]Rebecca]

Hello Tenno!

 

Maybe it's time to buff Flame Repellent? This post is going to be a bit longer than usual, but its length is just a reflection of our gratitude and investment in everything that's gone on in Warframe not just over the past 24 hours, but the past 3 years. Your feedback has allowed us to grow together – which I'll show you how shortly – so we must begin by thanking you for sticking around and providing us with the feedback you freely give.

We are less than 24 hours into the release of 18.13.0 at the time of this thread, and we're already breaking forum records:

It seems that every big game these days uses 'passionate' to describe their players when vocalization surges, but I think it slightly glosses over what is actually at play here with Warframe - especially if you consider our history. This surge is rooted in a fervor of perspectives – the quantity of the posts has obviously increased (and so has my vocabulary on learning new profanity), and as a result the top-tier quality we are used to in community discussions has as well. As a group you've highlighted the best of the best, and we've been doing our best to read all of the Hot topics across the forums/Reddit/etc in the short time window following release.

In Warframe's 3 years of being in Open Beta, we've seen the 'surge' - the astute veteran can likely correlate spikes on that graph with balance situations that feel familiar to 18.13.0's release (note the drop on the graph is when we migrated the forums). For a lot of you, this might be your first surge! If so, welcome to Warframe – where we do things to digital EXTREMES!

In direct respect to 18.13.0:

More changes are coming – I wish I could give you a list now of exactly what but the list can only be built over time this weekend the longer we spend playing and extrapolating feedback. It is with the best intentions that we are committed to reducing cheese. At this time – even with these best intentions of more engaging play - the fundamental issue for many of you is: no amount of engagement counters the enemy's cheese. A select few abilities that we touched 'worked' in the eyes of the players because you could fight fire with fire once you entered a specific threshold of content. The tight-rope of frustration is high, and the changing of the meta can be painful. In our eyes some meta elements simply harmed the quality of the gameplay taking place. However, 'finality' is not a word I'd ever associate with our Dev process, and as flawed as that may sound I think it's one of the reasons we're such a tight-knit community is because time and time again we set the course together. As the say, if you want an omelette you have to crack a few eggs (I don't actually know if they say that).  

In direct respect to what is 'familiar' with these surges:

There was a time we changed Stamina, voices surged (so sayeth the graph), and then we completely redid our entire Parkour & Melee System. Every time we shake things up – no matter how lightly - the impact is objectively better. We see more people are interested in the game, and more people realize the impact their collective constructive views have on the game. There are a few counter-narratives that often indicate the end of times, I've seen it a lot over the years, but ultimately things come out better and bigger as a result. I'm not saying it doesn't have growing pains, though!

It bears repeating that more changes are coming soon. We will be hotfixing like mad next week, and getting deeper into difficulty discussions in terms of the enemy. It's been a long time since we have looked at enemy scaling and their spiky damage output, and in that time you've found ways to deal with it.

I honestly can't think of anything I'd like to be doing more than playing Warframe right now, hashing out feedback together, and getting things ready for the next Hotfix. So if you see me in game all weekend, that's what I'm up to!

Please accept our experimentation - the messy and the clean - and be open to iteration – it's been a big part of Warframe's development and community history. Over the course of each release, you'll find so many of the changes, additions, and fixes exist because of these moments.

-[DE]Rebecca

Edited May 28, 2016 by [DE]Rebecca
Grammar

[TenStorms]

Thumbs up.

Just go on with the great work.

[Fifield]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

It is with the best intentions that we are committed to reducing cheese.

Then you have my support.

My whole clan quit last year because the game was too easy.  I suspect you are losing thousands of veteran players for the same reason.

Do not take the complaints too seriously.  Frankly, no-one will even have had the chance to properly test the nerfs yet. Nerfing is an acceptable process in every other game apart from this one (though I'd recommend doing it asap when you recognise something is OP).

When DE made Sorties vastly more difficult than anything else in the game, did the community blow up?  No.  They just got better at the game.  They learned a little bit about how mods and Corrosive Projection work.

[About 90% of pubs I play with in Sorties still don't really know.  There is plenty of room to up the difficulty but don't hide content behind it, just increased rare drops and XP]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Please accept our experimentation - the messy and the clean - and be open to iteration – it's been a big part of Warframe's development and community history. Over the course of each release, you'll find so many of the changes, additions, and fixes exist because of these moments.

There are two things I'm sure you need to look at:
1. The Draco nerf actually increases the gap between Draco and other interception nodes for XP because Draco is small.
2. Because you don't have cooldowns, ability spam is a big part of the problem.  You really need to have an idea of how you're going to fix energy supply before nerfing other OP abilities (I'll make an exception for mapwide CC, that's annoying as hell).

Edited May 28, 2016 by Fifield

[Megakruemel]

woah. That's a lot of forum activity... What happened at that huge interruption after January 2016 were the graph hits the bottom of the chart?

Edited May 28, 2016 by Megakruemel
typo.

[Praxxor]

The only problem that i personally have is that LoS detection acts a bit weird, completely unstable if the host is bad, both of those problems make prism... well... bad?

[(XBOX)NecroEric420]

I never got to experience a dagger to the heart like my old buddy used to talk about until now because, im newer... trinity was perfect in every way and didnt need to be touched... i can deal with any other change.... :(

 

You guys do great work but this one really hurt me.

Also just a side note but an aura range and xp share isnt very fun... i think it should just be universal and infinite range. especially in archwing.

 

cheers. thanks for breaking my heart. im sure you will many times again because you cant leave anything alone even when its perfect.

 

[Eufrasia]

 noice can't wait for enemy nerfs xD

[Xiusa]

3 minutes ago, Megakruemel said:

woah. That's a lot of forum activity... What happened at that huge interruption after January 2016 were the graph hits the bottom of the chart?

Forums were revamped/recoded

[Sajochi]

Someone told me I have blind faith in you guys, the devs. I said I have objective optimism. That hasn't changed. I'm glad you guys are still looking into reducing cheese and making Warframe a fun escape. Looking forward to the next line of updates and I'll be sure to keep bringing feedback.

[NovusNova]

3 minutes ago, Megakruemel said:

woah. That's a lot of forum activity... What happened at that huge interruption after January 2016 were the graph hits the button of the chart?

Likely the downtime when they migrated the forums.

Looking forward to further changes.

[Megakruemel]

4 minutes ago, Fifield said:

Then you have my support.

It should be possible if enemies stop one-hit-K.O-ing frames. I think this needs work, not only at the player side but also at the AI side.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Megakruemel

[Phatose]

Anybody wanna label that graph's peaks?  Molecular Prime Nerf, Greedy Pull Nerf, Synoid Gammacor Nerf, etc?

[God_is_a_Cat_Girl]

I don't mind the changes, I've been having a lot more fun now with Volt and Mag than I had before, Mag was good, but very fast would go down as not being fun, so I'd honestly only pull, a frame that I actually like and saw potential on, only when I needed to press 2 to have an easy time, and I've been waiting for this for a long time, been saying that she needed changes for a long time, and I'm not disappointed, but sure, she's different now, but she does fit the support role a lot better now, which she could barely do before. Of course, she's not perfect, tweaks and fixes are needed, but I'd say those will happen anyway.

But, does the aftermath have space for weapons that REALLY need to be looked at? Mutalist Quanta (Reb, if you have time, shoot a beachball into Magnetize, it will be fun), Sicarus (Prime), Stradavar, are examples of weapons with something that makes them unique, but all suffer greatly in someway. I'm actually putting forma in the Mutalist Quanta and will do so to the Sicarus Prime, but I'm getting the same exact result that I saw when Mutalist Q was released, issues on top of issues which made the weapon have very little value and be frustrating when it has potential to be good, fun and useful, but the issues take away all those things.

Still, a look at the enemies will be great, it does get tiring that some (many actually) Frames just aren't any good in certain places because Bombards will rapid fire and a single hit sends us to the other side, so yeah, people resort to cheese to fight cheese. D;
I don't mind being killed, high level content is meant to do that, but it's just silly when it's 1 shots.

Edited May 28, 2016 by God_is_a_Cat_Girl

[(PSN)zenoe1562]

It is because you and the rest of the dev team that I am so in love with Warframe, everything you guys do only improves the game and you guys actually listen to the community, unlike most devs. I have only been playing Warframe since last year, but the impact that playing this game has left on my will keep this game at the top of my favorites list for years to come. I've also have had the pleasure of helping grow the community by telling my friends about it and doing weekly Warframe streams (Warframe Wednesdays). Keep up the amazing work, I can't wait to see what's in store for U19

[Nightmare]

We wouldnt need cheese abilities if enemies didnt scale so ridiculously :c

[vazerd68]

18 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Please accept our experimentation

do,do,do   we'll be ready to give you feedback with more testing that you could ever do.

the more experimentation the better, just make sure not to let the game in a broken state for too long

prove yourselves with actions, not lip service

Edited May 29, 2016 by vazerd68

[achromos]

10 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

It is with the best intentions that we are committed to reducing cheese. At this time – even with these best intentions of more engaging play - the fundamental issue for many of you is: no amount of engagement counters the enemy's cheese. A select few abilities that we touched 'worked' in the eyes of the players because you could fight fire with fire once you entered a specific threshold of content.

It bears repeating that more changes are coming soon. We will be hotfixing like mad next week, and getting deeper into difficulty discussions in terms of the enemy. It's been a long time since we have looked at enemy scaling and their spiky damage output, and in that time you've found ways to deal with it.

I honestly can't think of anything I'd like to be doing more than playing Warframe right now, hashing out feedback together, and getting things ready for the next Hotfix. So if you see me in game all weekend, that's what I'm up to!

Please accept our experimentation - the messy and the clean - and be open to iteration – it's been a big part of Warframe's development and community history. Over the course of each release, you'll find so many of the changes, additions, and fixes exist because of these moments.

-[DE]Rebecca

 

 

 

This is why I absolutely adore DE, they listen to the community and don't simply hold their nose up and tell us to deal with it like most other ever changing games. 

 

Thank you for your dedication to the community, [DE]Rebecca and the rest of the Warframe Staff.

 

[painterman]

I agree that a big part of what keeps wf alive its the constant change and constant content, but a change like the one done to trinity its just too much without a change to enemy scaling at the same time. Now the raids are 10x harder, not only because you just cant facetank then, because mirage also got a huge hit, not a one that i mind that much, but the trinity one is the bad one. Also we got the tenno affinity counter, and that made me reallice how small the radius is, you can say that 50 meters is big, but in a lot of maps that means that its just half room, like a lot of the ones in corpus escavation, or in earth titleset were there are 3-4 big rooms that are more than 50 meters across. And dont get into the new algoritm.

Pls DE, get your prioritys right, and enemy scaling should be the first one, even before reajusting/reworking frames.

[Icpmcp]

guess I'll be staying till No Mans Sky comes out then.

[Giantconch]

DE makes Ash an even more P42W frame, while taking away squishy frames survivability powers...

 

Waiting to see what you "fix" next...

 

Hopefully frosts globe, walls, roofs, floors can at some point in the future stop explosions and flames from magically passing through their surface...

 

***everything below was adding after much thought vvvv

 

Nullifier bubbles. Why do my punch through mods mean nothing against them?

 

Why does Trinities blessing now scale not only off the average health of all allies within blessings range, but the Kubrows and sentinels too? To effectively achieve any decent level of blessing that turns frames from 1hk to even simply 2hk requires not only all the frames to be near death, but kubrows and sentinels too.

 

**How to fix without a straight up reversion to the old Blessing that might keep the nerf crowd, and the WTF crowd happy: Remove sentinels and kubrows from blessing calculation entirely, and have the new math base the amount of bless damage reduction off Trins health + only ONE of the next lowest teammate in range, while either removing the range or at least have the range scale off mods. Would still be the nerf as achieving 99% is still practically impossible unless there is someone else self damaging and taking a huge risk of needing a revive, while not being such a ridiculous nerf that achieving more than 20% bless is borderline impossible short of every team member unequipping their companion and running a QT build and standing in front of a truck.

 

Trins passive is also... .. a bit of a joke. An extra 1m of range on healing and 1 second off total heal time? This passive is immediately outshined by new moon, which can be used on any frame. I'd like to suggest an alternative that I believe fits with the healer/support theme that is Trin. Any health orbs Trin picks up grants 10% of the orbs value as a team heal. Range? Let it be dictated by the warframes Blessing range, or a flat 20-25m or something...

 

Why do enemies who scale up endlessly, get increased health increased damage output AND increased damage reduction? Any two would make them OP as it is, all three makes it broken. Amor limit, HP limit, or removing their ability to 1hk entire squads would keep them challenging. As it stands, every. single. endurance run requires something in your squad to negate damage (which you have now ruined) something to buff your damage, then running the ridiculously OP tonkor squad.

 

***Suggestion to fix broken scaling: Straight line increase in enemy level. Instead of going from 20-120 in the first hour, then 120-520 in the second, +1 level every minute. Level 20-80 first hour, level 80-140 second hour etc. as an example.

 

Alternatively, hard cap the max armor enemies can have so their damage mitigation doesnt make every single weapon essentially a tickle on an unimaginably large health pool. Healer type units also need to be addressed as having the enemy already able to mitigate huge amounts of damage and on top getting a Healer unit that has an AURA that mitigates 95% of all incoming damage makes mobs unkillable. While the enemy has the ability to 1hk entire groups they shouldnt be able to not be killed.

 

Rant vvv

 

You guys pretend that you want to fix warframe powers trivializing content but do nothing about the content trivializing players abilities. You are pretending there is balance, or balancing in place, but there isnt. You guys have tipped the scales away from the players having abilities that let them counter the enemy cheese and left the enemy cheese in. You basically gave in to the nerfherd who want this game to be like "oh you didnt bullet jump midair roll parkour extreme while unloading your entire ammo capacity into one enemy YOU LOSE"

 

Someone in the latter part of where the thread is as I'm editing this pointed out "You are taking away the crutch before fixing the broken leg" and that is probably the single most accurate way of looking at this situation I have seen yet.

Edited May 30, 2016 by giantconch

[Bazools]

Thanks Rebecca for addressing the community with this post and for trying to appease our concerns following 18.13. I know that u and the devs are aware of the main issue the reworks have brought to light once again (enemy scaling) and the very effectiveness that some frames lost at higher levels due to the implemented changes. It does indeed reasures me that u guys and gals are aware of this and I'll be expecting a solution for this problem. 

We know that u guys listen to feedback but this needs to be solved sooner than later... Some of us have been waiting 3 years for a fix to this problem. 

Best regards,                                       

Bazools 

[Archwraith]

Still lots of bugs after the update, but I wish you guys best of luck.

[Zhoyzu]

Been here for over 3 years and no plans to leave anytime soon. DE always seem to iron things out to work best for everyone. (i was salty as F#(% about some frost changes for a long time, lol. But in the end hes better than he was regarding the changes to avalanche in feb 2014, sorry Scott for my bitterness).

 

Im still trying to figure out mag myself atm but ive so far been enjoying volt again.

Doing good work DE

[(PSN)demishock]

As long as the lack of finality doesn't only apply when you get something right and also includes being able to admit when a change turns out to be a mistake, then I'm all about that. I've only been playing for a short while but I've found myself very quickly invested in this game, and it's become a huge favorite of mine. As a console player, I try to play close attention to the storm of activity that happens whenever PC gets an update, so I can batten down the hatches for when it reaches us in console-land. Some of the recent changes are very exciting. Others fill me with unease. I hope you guys are able to strike a balance based on the feedback you're getting!

[(PSN)zenoe1562]

1 minute ago, Icpmcp said:

guess I'll be staying till No Mans Sky comes out then.