Is "Fun" being sacrificed for "Challenge"?

[EmptyDevil]

2 minutes ago, LilithLovett said:

True, but I'm pretty sure getting 1-hit killed, facing a mob of Nullifiers, Sapping Ospreys & Bursas, raids that are essentially puzzle simulators, outrageous armor scaling is pretty much objectively anti-fun.

 

DE is working on fixing that. They aren't going to nerf/fix our powers and leave the cheesy enemies - it's in the workshop thread.

Nullifiers basically came into existence because of how cheesy/broken some of our powers are. We were capable of rendering Corpus completely helpless and farming the hell out of them.

[MagPrime]

Personally; Warframe is turning into a numbers game to make it challenging.  That isn't fun for me.  It would be nice to be able to just go in an slaughter waves and waves of things without worrying whether or not DE was going to nerf it due to being unbalanced or OP.

So, yes.  For me, fun is being sacrificed for challenge.

[TyrannRedeagle]

Fun is a subjective thing. I can honestly say that my worst experience with this game involves a mirage, locking all enemies for 20+ minutes and rendering any type of gameplay meaningless. I can get behind some missions featuring low capped enemies for mindless slaughtering fun(like dynasty warriors). But I also expect challanging raids and maps after the enemy tweaks.

[(PSN)Akuma_Asura_]

59 minutes ago, LilithLovett said:

True, but I'm pretty sure getting 1-hit killed, facing a mob of Nullifiers, Sapping Ospreys & Bursas, raids that are essentially puzzle simulators, outrageous armor scaling is pretty much objectively anti-fun.

 

I love this guy (or girl) 

Edited June 1, 2016 by (PS4)Akuma_Asura_
Realized PC name was Lilith

[-CM-Emptiness]

Personally, the only 'fun' lies in procuring new experiences for the player. The moment you have to do it a second time, that 'fun' goes down the drain. In a sense, the 'challenge' also lies within the first experiences, as well as every experience after until you manage to succeed. In terms of endless, the challenge is relative; people compete in order to reach the top of the high-scores. Perhaps thankfully, there is a high-score system for almost everything, weekly or permanent.

If you look at other online experiences, most prominently, the F2P COD scene, each experience is unique to the player due to the PVP, hence why the system tends to be self-sustaining, until the player-base diminishes eventually. Since Warframe is predominantly PVE, the 'fun' and 'challenge' only come with the experience of new content, be it weapons, frames or new missions. These experiences are also quite brief, and since things like events are implementing familiar or uncreative designs, along the inherent design of WF as a grind, its essentially a downward spiral from the get-go.

[AdunSaveMe]

If fun is being sacrificed for challenge, then we're still waiting on the challenge bit.

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

Well if the Devs are gonna switch it from fun over to a challenge, then toss in some Dragon Keys that go the other way. Instead of burdening the player they do the opposite and load you up with Unlimited Energy, shields, and health. Speed you up, boost your guns, and let you perform awesome moves. 

You know,... so we can be fair since the Challenge Police has had challenging Derilect Keys to equip to challenge themselves for two years now. The Awesome Police should have the same opportunities just in case they need some fun casual gameplay in between the get gud and "you're dead screens." awaiting them. 

Edited June 1, 2016 by (PS4)FriendSharkey

[Kronxito]

For me:

Challenge = Fun

 

[CY13ERPUNK]

basically 'anything' that moves the game AWAY from infinite-scaling enemies in the most boring missions evar {ie the 'endless' missions : surv/intercept/def/excav}, is a step in the right direction in my eyes

IMHO these recent tweaks are exactly what warframe has needed for YEARS, and it is going to be even better considering what else is coming down the pipes soon =]

[Hixlysss]

I find it hard to agree that "fun" is sacrified for "Challenge" in this game...now is it less fun than it once was? In my opinion...very little of the fun is lost. But they have sacrified one kind of challenge, for a different kind. Everything used to be...a lot tougher, but this was back in closed beta, the gameplay was much slower and enemies were challenging. It took as many shots from your weapons to kill them...as it took them to kill you, that's balance, and there were more of them than you.

The thing about warframe is it is fun, but they have crammed several different ways/types of fun into the game and it's kinda...wonky. You got the min/max people kinda fun, the "Let's just put mods on a weapon/warframe/randomize everything and play!" kinda fun, and the hard core "gimme some puzzles, gimme a raid!" fun. There is...something for everyone, and if you're the kinda person who finds all of these things fun, you'll never get bored of warframe.

But as it stands...some enemies could use some tweaks/buffs, but as a whole the game needs a cap. It needs a limit set somewhere so we can balance everything else around that limit, cause trying to balance weapons/frames for the endless missions is...clearly not working.

[RazrOutlaw]

I feel the same way and I'm worried the time comes when this game becomes Dark Souls 2.0, that doesn't mean I don't like challenge or Dark Souls for that matter.

I honestly don't think anyone who did LoR, JV release date completed the mission and thougth it was a piece of cake/wasn't challenging at all, of course if you look up tutorials on how to do it & what frames/equipment to take it losses a bit of challenge, but you're the one choosing to, so you can't go and complain it was easy, It's like stealing the answers from a test and then complainig to the teacher the exam was too easy, the same can be said about repeating anything all the time, of course it'll become way easier the 100th time you do it.

So for me it's the lack of new content that's taking away the fun and the challenge at the same time, I know DE have their best intentions and work their a** off on this game, but instead of concentrating on all these changes that just scale and limit enemies and ourselves, why don't introduce something new & challenging?  Like new Raids, new mission types, new enemies.

Personally, Rathuum was fun and it was a bit challenging, it even introduced a new game-mode (Arena) & new enemies (Executioners), aswell as new tylesets and mechanics, I enjoyed that event a lot.

Edited June 1, 2016 by RazrOutlaw

[Kevyne_Kicklighter]

29 minutes ago, Noamuth said:

Personally; Warframe is turning into a numbers game to make it challenging.  That isn't fun for me.  It would be nice to be able to just go in an slaughter waves and waves of things without worrying whether or not DE was going to nerf it due to being unbalanced or OP.

So, yes.  For me, fun is being sacrificed for challenge.

Yep. If I wanted the numbers game I'll play WoW.

Want to simply go out and blow up some Infested and send them into orbit. When that becomes a chore -- that they need 10000000001% armor to be a "challenge" -- I know it's time to go.

I once had an AoE burst frame that felt like the old days spamming AoEs. Nooooooooooooooo, yet another copy and paste game that joined the herd, instead of taking the best things from other games and carve their own niche that's DIFFERENT. I don't need to play WoW 2.0. -_-

[Autongnosis]

Well i personally feel that, while going for the challenge at any cost is not healthy, particularly not if you hit the fun core of the game, and while Warframe should never get into the twich / skill shooter completely, balancing out some big offenders is somenthig that actually adds to the fun of the game :)

[ShardsSuperior]

The real question is fun AND challenge being sacrificed for nothing.

There is nothing "fun" about sitting as an EV Trinity, pressing 2 until your finger aches. There is nothing "fun" about spamming 3 as Excal, letting your team leech as much XP as possible off Draco enemies, nor sitting in a Corrupted Tower Sewer, pressing E as the turret, waiting as the minutes tick by to your next rotation C reward. There is nothing "fun" about shooting incapacitated, helpless enemies when your Mirage's Prism stunned them from two rooms away. 

You should re-evaluate what makes a game fun and what makes a game challenging if you think that the recent changes to balance Trinity, Mirage, and Excal made the game less "fun."

[(PSN)Akuma_Asura_]

21 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

If fun is being sacrificed for challenge, then we're still waiting on the challenge bit.

Then it's just fun that's being sacrificed,  for nothing. DE should work on enemy mechanics . There's no challenge in the enemies in warframe . Their "challenge" comes from their level and stats not in what they can do. 

[shut]

10 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

If fun is being sacrificed for challenge, then we're still waiting on the challenge bit.

I'm surprised that I had to go so far into the thread to see this.

There's really not a lot of "challenge" in the game when so many frames can either stunlock (or make themselves immune to) problematic units with a press of a button. Getting instagibbed by crappily-designed enemies is no fun, but insta-winning against these same enemies by mindlessly pressing a button is no fun either. Not after you've played enough that the novelty of being a god wears off, anyway.

 

Both players and AI need to be toned down if we want to see any sort of fair challenge come about. At the moment, Warframe requires less and less player skill as you progress through the game, and this is a serious problem. The past few weeks haven't been lovely, but all in all, I'm glad DE is finally starting to do something about this.

[Heatnix.]

I don't seem to see a lot of people getting the problem: DE isn't doing a good balancing job. They are very extreme with their nerfs and most of them aren't justified enough. Instead of buffing things that aren't viable, they want everyone that is on top to be as bad as the unused frames while enemies are sponge bullets and one-shot you.

There's no real mechanics going on. Enemies are just flat strong and frames are becoming less and less efficient at fighting them. There's no balance (no pun intended) in their balancing since their buffs are pretty much nonexistent compared to the increasingly heavy nerfing.

[Tuxie]

13 minutes ago, Mastikator2 said:

There's still Venus if that's what you're into. But why should your preferences be prioritized over mine to the point where I don't get anything? It's a bit selfish.

He didn't say that. And on the same coin, there's still taking out of your mods if that's what you're into.

[AdunSaveMe]

10 minutes ago, SortaRandom said:

I'm surprised that I had to go so far into the thread to see this.

There's really not a lot of "challenge" in the game when so many frames can either stunlock (or make themselves immune to) problematic units with a press of a button. Getting instagibbed by crappily-designed enemies is no fun, but insta-winning against these same enemies by mindlessly pressing a button is no fun either. Not after you've played enough that the novelty of being a god wears off, anyway.

Yes, everyone is unbalanced. But the enemies have the worst design of the lot. There's always a difference between a player being an instakilling god and the enemies doing the same thing, like in every videogame.

[alfaomega04]

If anything, all these changes actually made the game more fun for me. 

Mirage had needed her nerf a LONG time ago. Excal felt extremely cheap, and so did Valk. Mesa got a nice change which now makes her viable for high lvl play. The mag rework tried to address the part about where mag was really only used to cheese copus missions. As for trin, I can understand why they did it. 

So while some of this stuff did manage to make the game a little more challenging, I wholeheartedly support the changes as most of the the changes where simply people cheesing the high end content. Finally, Intercept mission feel like we're actually trying to hold points, not the normal "no kill, blind the whole map."

And sure, the mag might need a bit more work and tweaks, but overall, I applaud their efforts at actually changing something that had been broken for a while now.

Now, if only that tonkor nerf would be released...

[Mr.ToastForPresident]

To be honest, I never really had that much fun in Warframe to begin with. I just really liked collecting things and trying those things out. Most of the "fun" times were smashing things with Valkyr and a Scindo prime, when I was actually in a sticky situation with no revives left, slashing things up with Excal, slamming fools with Atlas, and sneaking with Ivara. Other than those rare times, it has always been farm frame.

Right now, Warframe is changing from an okay game to a slightly annoying okay game. If they change enemy scaling, take away those annoying enemies, changed how damage worked, and so on, the game will stay the same, just more balanced. We will still farm for the same items, fight the same enemies, use the same frames, fight on the same maps, over and over until we find something else to complain about.

What we need is more variety instead of having to fight the same enemy and enemy type over and over again in the same environments that don't change the gameplay in any way. That should the next goal after balance is more variety to spice things up.

[Mastikator2]

20 minutes ago, Noamuth said:

At no point did I say that.

Not necessarily you, but your "side". You can be a godlike killing machine if you want in the current game, nobody on my side is saying you shouldn't be allowed to do that.

What *we want is that skill should make you better and skill should be the test of success in the highest levels of play. You should not need a great deal of skill to just go in an slaughter wave after wave without worrying about DE nerfing. And you don't have to, not really.

Not unless you think you should be able to do that in the highest level of play where skill should matter, then you shouldn't only rely on godmode builds. I absolutely think you should be able to go in and slaughter freely. And I just want to go in and be challenged without having to hold back or deliberately play stupidly.

*I only speak for those who agree with me

[Kevyne_Kicklighter]

6 minutes ago, Heatnix. said:

I don't seem to see a lot of people getting the problem: DE isn't doing a good balancing job.

When my main frame is reduced to using the Tonkor, as Pulling level 143 Infested will kill by Toxin damage alone (as they weave toxin emiting trash in the trash mobs); Crush just tickles them, and how on Earth will I use the new Magnetized with it's small heal to kill them and also keep Mag from dying, fighting the controls TO switch to a primary to kill a mob [freaking game fights the "F" key, and gives me anything BUT the primary as a bad joke])?

I have to shoot w-a-y away with a hand cannon like artillery or mortars, 2x every time, because the mobs can and do auto-spawn right where I killed them. I have to use the Sonicor just to get them off the walkways to get to objectives too (as there's so many to kill, and no time to do it before dying, so I just blow them off).

It's either you start with nothing and enjoy dying 101x by the faction you're the weakest against as some "challenge" (so most quit as it's now a CHORE TO LIVE); or there's freaking too many mobs -- 3 Hekka Masters 3 spawning in one map at once!!! (good God Mag suffered!!!); or level 100+ mobs with armor so thick maxed out Tonkors are the only answer (and some idiot crying to have them nerfed so his swag weapon has higher DPS [as he can sell it for plat, unlike the Tonkor]).

Literally, playing Solitaire is more fun ... AT LEAST THAT GAME DOESN'T CHANGE FOR THE NTH TIME!!!

[torint_man]

I'm not ashamed to say that I like the existence of several of the commonly hated enemies. Nullifiers actually encourage the skilled use of weaponry, and insure that the factions they belong to aren't excessively trivialized due to the extensive powers and one shot weaponry we have. Sapping ospreys actually do their job, sap an area. When I see the excessive complaints about them, I just think "Would it really kill you to look out for the big blue circle and shot the mine in the middle?" Bursas are just fine because they are actual heavy hitting threats that you must consider the existence of. When at least half if not more frames have hard counters to them:

it makes sympathizing with the complainers that much more difficult. I do agree that the raids are lackluster and armor scaling gets a bit out of hand, but the raids will be impossible to make "challenging" or "fun" until there is a lot of changes to frames and enemies in terms of balance, and the armor scaling is something that DE is looking into, as implied in their latest dev workshop.

Also, the latest nerfs. In the latest dev workshop, they said that blessing will simply be a flat 75% damage reduction, regardless of health, which is great as it solves every problem blessing had before the nerf(99% DR is kind of hard to argue not being broken) and received from the nerf(except the limited range bit, but it's debatable whether or not it's an issue). Valkyr will have the ability to more or less get rid of her suicide bubble, so after that, valkyr will be in a perfect spot, tanky with capacity to be invincible, but no longer infinitely sustainable. The prisim nerf is just fine, as it gets rid of prisims ludicrousness in the CC department. It can still blind just fine, it just takes more setup to get the same results(i.e. throwing it up or casting it in the air to get above cover). Excalibur was barely nerfed at all, it just discouraged its use as a medium range turret behind a wall instead of the intended heavy hitting medium range swordsman. 

Edited June 1, 2016 by torint_man

[MagPrime]

@torint_man Those are two different posters.