An Open Letter to Digital Extremes

[Genitive]

Stating that China is responsible for anything regarding Warframe (apart from the Chinese version) is just silly. You do realise that the partnership started in 2014, right? But when reading posts like this I feel like it happened last month.

 

I also like the direction the game has taken. If you don't, just move on and stop blaming who-knows-what for it.

[Tizodd]

I agree with a lot of what you've said OP.  And for those of you who might be thinking it cannot happen to Warframe, take a look at the histories of Star Wars Galaxies, Firefall, and APB.  They were awesome games that all but died in one bad update.  I'm sure there are other victims, but I'm not familiar with them.

I created this post with an idea to bring together the old and the new but so far it hasn't picked up much traction.  Feel free to post suggestions there in hopes that DE will take notice.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Tizodd
fixed link

[-ITS-Syzo]

This is rather pointless. Yes, DE screwed up, yes, i myself havent even played the game for awhile (i just login to check the forum for updates) but saying that SotR was bad or contentless - its subjective. I aint tellin you to appritiate the update or love it coz "DE HAS SPENT TIME ON IT!", na, if u dont like thats fine - i dont either but just proclaiming it to be bad just seems childish. I dont see the fissures as a bad thing either tbh, i havent ran out of relics and i didnt have many to begin with, getting Prime sets is alot easier now and the old system was getting stale - ow, sure it aint perfect but nothing is, lets just hope they smooth it out aventualy.

Saying that - whats your argument here? asking DE if they are willing to ignore thier shareholders incase.... "something" heppens? obviusly they wont, and you yourself admitted to being a nameless no one to them (like all of us here) so obviusly they wont, sure, there might be a vision clash and i generaly belive DE are good folks (unlike so many game devs out there) but when the shareholders demend thier money - you oblige ^^.

The point im tryin to make i guess is that this should be judged on a case-to-case basis and speculating like this is rather unproductive. When and IF something like you implied heppens in the future then we all can revisit the matter.

Edited August 17, 2016 by -ITS-Syzo

[Calvyr]

16 minutes ago, Tizodd said:

I agree with a lot of what you've said OP.  And for those of you who might be thinking it cannot happen to Warframe, take a look at the histories of Star Wars Galaxies, Firefall, and APB.  They were awesome games that all but died in one bad update.  I'm sure there are other victims, but I'm not familiar with them.

I created this post with an idea to bring together the old and the new but so far it hasn't picked up much traction.  Feel free to post suggestions there in hopes that DE will take notice.

Firefall didn't die in one bad update. Firefall died because they continually completely overhauled the game mechanics, changing the the levelling, crafting, and upgrade systems multiple times and people just got tired of having to start from scratch again. They also went long periods of time without adding any new content at all, so people got bored and stopped playing. Yes, I do remember one terrible update in particular, which was pretty much the final nail in the coffin, but Firefall was on life support at that point, anyway, after a long deterioration.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Calvyr

[Tizodd]

Just now, Calvyr said:

Firefall didn't die in one bad update. Firefall died because they continually overhauled the game mechanic, changing the the levelling and upgrade system multiple times and people just got tired of it. They also went long periods of time without adding any new content at all, so people got bored and stopped playing. Yes, I do remember one terrible update in particular, which was pretty much the final nail in the coffin, but Firefall was on life support at that point, anyway, after a long deterioration.

I don't disagree with you.  Firefall's demise was more of a domino effect.

My fear is Warframe heading down that same path.

[Shockwave-]

45 minutes ago, Omega-Shadowblade said:

They reverted  the credit "nerfs" you know they were bugs. How is focus harder to earn now, cause draco isn't draco anymore? rare parts not being rare tends to be a thing that changes constantly just as it has in the past. 

Endless void was also a good way to earn affinity. You could earn decent affinity while you played looking for primes. Now you have to farm primes OR affinity. Affinity was now made it's own farmable thing since the gains are now so poor in the missions we do the most (prime missions).

[Calvyr]

Just now, Tizodd said:

I don't disagree with you.  Firefall's demise was more of a domino effect.

My fear is Warframe heading down that same path.

In my opinion, not in the slightest. While controversial, I think that the overall direction of the game is in a good place. DE is working to add more interesting mechanics to frames and missions, rather than making them spamfests. Let's be honest, a lot of those endless missions that people are crying about were just 4 meta frames spamming the same abilities over and over again for a couple of hours. Where's the fun in that?

Are they in the best place right now, maybe not, but I think the direction is a good one, striving for more engaging gameplay. There's going to be a period of transition, that may be a little tough at times, but I think, in the end, it's going to make the game a lot more fun. People just need to give it a chance, instead of being so crotchety and stubborn.

[Shockwave-]

27 minutes ago, Calvyr said:

tl;dr - Please stop whining that the game isn't exactly as it was, or how you envisioned it; if you're that unhappy, vote with your wallet and playtime.

Problem is people are doing that. Playtime is way down after SOTR. Simultaneous players is down. I can only imagine now that primes are so easy to get in the relic system that Nekros prime access will be a bust as people try out how fast they can get it with the new relics.

You say it like "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" but if too many people leave you won't have a game to play either....

[CarrotSalad]

DE did explain thier situation numerous times have you not been watching the last few dev streams and primetimes? Dev's have given allot of time after the update to people during primetime especially. Although most answers i saw him give were in chat. But he still gave a fair few in stream too.

[Calvyr]

4 minutes ago, Shockwave- said:

Endless void was also a good way to earn affinity. You could earn decent affinity while you played looking for primes. Now you have to farm primes OR affinity. Affinity was now made it's own farmable thing since the gains are now so poor in the missions we do the most (prime missions).

You can still run endless missions all you want, to farm relics, and affinity, and credits, and your choices of missions are much more varied now. If you like fighting Corpus, there are missions for that that will give you good relics. Same goes for Infested and Grineer. Even Corrupted. And sure, you can't farm prime parts in endless missions anymore, but you can burn through the fissure missions pretty quick, and I'd wager you can actually get more prime parts that way in a shorter period of time. Rather than having to wait 20 minutes for another C rotation, you can rerun a capture mission 4 times in the same 20 minutes, giving you 4 times as many chances.

[DrBorris]

44 minutes ago, (XB1)AnnoyedHaddock said:

Thankyou for clearing that up :)

 

40 minutes ago, JSharpie said:

+1

This has been known since the debacle when someone accidentally stumbled on an incomplete contract.

 

To reference the original post, this is not your game, and it still has thousands of people playing, eagerly awaiting new updates, the forums are incredibly active. This is DE's game and they'll take it in the direction they see fit. You cannot say, however, that DE does not take community input, and that they don't regularly inform us with changes.

Ehhh... I may have been wrong. After some more sleuthing it turned out that this is not the case really.

 

It would appear that the majority of Common (Class A) (voting) shares are owned by Multi Dynamic Games. Here are the Numbers

Spoiler

http://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/sehk/2015/0721/LTN20150721806.pdf

Class A (Voting) (Also called Common shares in some places)

58%: Multi Dynamic Games

3%: Perfect Online

26.13%: Ontario Ltd. 1

2.73%: 2475202 Ontario Ltd. 

3.94%: 2475200 Ontario Ltd.

6.2%: Digital Extremes Employee Share Trust

 

Special Class B (non-voting)

58%: Multi Dynamic Games

3%: Perfect Online

39%: Ontario Ltd. 1

 

This does not mean that the companies necessarily have a say in the design path of Warframe, it may just be that they have a say in the more business end of Digital Extremes. This is nothing like the relationship between a Publisher and the developers of games. I am sure there is a lot more paperwork and agreements that we don't know about. Either way though, I was the guy that jumped to conclusions and spread misinformation, sorry.

 

I also have personally not noticed a push in any direction as far as monetization, everything seems just as fair if not more fair than they used to be.

 

Edit: I am confused because in one place we were told by [DE]Rebecca that ALL of DE was being sold to Leyou, but the paperwork does not really match...

Edited August 17, 2016 by DrBorris

[artemisfortune]

59 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

-snip-

Also remember that DE works on a specific Chinese build, which may be what Multi Dynamic has a say in.

[Proxykon]

First of all, why are you pluralizing most of your personal statements? As far as I am seeing it, you are giving a personal opinion, so I would refrain from doing that the next time.

Secondly, I can understand that you felt betrayed. Your response is this letter and you made your points clear. Still, actions speak louder than words. If you feel concerned or betrayed by DE, show them. Do not buy any further Prime Access Packs. Do not play the game as actively as before. Do not buy as much or even no platinum anymore.

I highly doubt that DE will make an official statement either towards the "poor" content introduction of SotR or your open letter, so what I stated above seems like the most effective solution to this problem.

And lastly, I mostly disagree with your arguments, but I will not explain why. You seem annoyed by people who do so, so I will indulge.

[Censium]

In my opinion Sotr is a mixed bag that leans positive. I like the new market and void system and star chart, not a huge fan of the new archwing. I hate how the update was broken up into 3 (now 4) parts. I would've rather waited a good 3 months instead of this piecemeal.

But it's not my game. It's DE's, and considering the history of it's development  before it was even Warframe, I doubt they'd change their direction. It's DE's dream game, they're going to make it what they want. We're just along for the ride. 

On DE being bought out, it's old news. If you bother to do any research you'd know that it states in the contract that (Chinese company name that I can never remember) has no creative oversight on Warframe what so ever. It's still DE's game. No one else's. The only change that happened is that DE got a lot more money to make warframe and future games even more kickass. 

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but OP is filled with non-existent drama because "It's not how I wanted it"

Edited August 17, 2016 by Censium
Word flow and grammar issues. Also 1000th post. Yay me.

[Shockwave-]

7 minutes ago, Calvyr said:

You can still run endless missions all you want, to farm relics, and affinity, and credits, and your choices of missions are much more varied now. If you like fighting Corpus, there are missions for that that will give you good relics. Same goes for Infested and Grineer. Even Corrupted. And sure, you can't farm prime parts in endless missions anymore, but you can burn through the fissure missions pretty quick, and I'd wager you can actually get more prime parts that way in a shorter period of time. Rather than having to wait 20 minutes for another C rotation, you can rerun a capture mission 4 times in the same 20 minutes, giving you 4 times as many chances.

You must be joking.Captures don't give 4x the primes as Endless as endless has primes in Rotation B and A in many cases.

 

Old way:

Run one Excavation for 1500 cryotic. Get 4 keys, lets say a capture, surival, sabotage, and exterminate key (T3/4).

Play 4 captures (4 primes), then play 4 sabotage (8 primes) Then play 4 extemrinates (4 primes) then play 4 HOURS of survival (48 chances at a prime 12 Cs, 12Bs 24As) (you can mix up the order by playing survival, then doing the others then back to survival, etc)

Get all of your 100K focus for the day. No problem.  Get some argon. Have some challenge. 

 

New Way:

Farm 1500 Cryotic Get 4 relics. 2 T3   2 T4

Play the Exterminate T3 fissure twice 2 primes. Play the T4 MD fissure twice  4 primes

No mission choice, no challenge, just mindless run through.

Now you have to farm excavation again. So you do another 1500 cryotic and repeat this. 

Time use this is much worse than the old void.

 

If you want Argon go to the void. If you want affinity go farm affinity. for 2 hours. (and hour long void survival gets you about half your affinity)This 2 hour run for affinity replaces a single excavation mission (15 minutes per 1 relic)

If you don't care about getting a specific prime part (narrow farming) the GAMEPLAY is much worse in the new system

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

Except survival, excavation, and defense are boring? That's your opinion if you like those game modes, there are people like me who don't like them too. The new relic system sure as hell beats keys only because it doesn't force you to fight Corrupted 24/7, which gets boring as soon as you figure out their weaknesses and just rinse them. I do agree though, DE is moving in a direction that I could only call unwise, due in part to the whole "3/5 of your company is owned by the Chinese, who don't get the concept of free 2 play" (They really don't, just look at any of their MMO's) SotR wasn't a giant flop like everyone makes it out to be, and while it does bring its own set of issues, just because it wasn't what some players wanted (the keys to the kingdom on a silver platter) doesn't mean it's an objective negative. I for one like the new look to the star chart, Draco was cancer, syndicates selling archwing stuff is a good change because Salacia was terrible, and with junctions being a thing now at least you have some form of goal on each planet instead of just bumrushing the boss down. 

[Urlan]

I think its good you posted your feedback on the matter, not everything can be a good decision and sometimes the audience needs to remind the artist or performer.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

2 hours ago, Dark-Vortex said:

 

With SotR you have received an avalanche of negative feedback, and we have had no tangible response to it.

Err, what do you mean no tangible response to it? DE changed the kavat DNA drop rates and generally fixed the design issues with void tears in direct response to player feedback? Heck, they even reworked the market in response to player feedback. And the void trace limit, come to think of it.

I guess you could buy into a conspiracy theory ala /wfg/ about how DE intentionally starts out with unreasonable mechanics/prices/drop rates/etc in order to dial them back in order to build up goodwill from the community, but the fact that DE makes changes in response to community feedback shouldn't really be in question.

What we gain from the relic system is speed and the ability to influence RNG in our favor. Suddenly I don't have to do a twenty minute survival mission for a 0.5% chance at a rotation C rare prime part, I just have to do a five minute exterminate with a potentially 10% chance with a maxed out relic. I miss the ability to get multiple prime parts per run, but my chances at the prime part I actually want have gone way up and the effort involved have gone down, so overall I have to say this is at worst a neutral change.

[(XBOX)jbakos]

1 hour ago, Serafim_94 said:

I always found it funny how people spending money in F2P game start to behave like develoeprs are now obligated to them. They are not. Their obligaions end with providing the thing you paid for. Nothing more. Not like you are paying subscription or bought the game

if this is the case then wouldn't the money that we pay them be considered a type of investment? wal-mart, a multi billion dollar company still invests in customer service and changes based on consumer feedback. why? because that's how they get paid. i don't get why you and so many other people are using the whole "its a free to play game! they don't have to listen to you!" argument. its sad because you don't realize how a business works so ill explain it very clearly: they give you something that they think you like, you buy it, they say "oh this sells!" and makes more, then they make money because other people buy it. FTP games thrive off of the fact that they get these micro payments because people want to experience more of a game or, in this case, want to buy in-game items that cant be obtained by playing. saying that customer feedback is FUNDAMENTAL for this type of business because customers weren't shoehorned into paying a down payment of sixty dollars. we can, and will, leave at any time. if the game gets boring, gets too hard or becomes complete trash because of bad decisions then us as the consumers must let them know. 

but i could give you a better, simpler answer: why do you think that they have put in place open forums for feedback? or was that just a mistake?

[notlamprey]

I think that what you're saying does need to be said and discussed, but I don't trust this community to discuss it rationally.

In the end, I'm (unsurprisingly) conflicted.

Regarding the business end of things, I certainly don't know enough to definitively say who is calling what shots around here. I also don't think anyone in this community knows enough about business (generally) and DE (specifically) to make any strong claims as to what's going on.

What's more, no one from DE who could conceivably speak on those topics is going to discuss them with us, here, on this forum. That would be unwise, and they won't do it. Not here, not on reddit, not on social media.

I see a lot of finger-pointing and accusations of "conspiracy-mongering," but I don't see anything in the OP that demands rebuke. The long and short of it is this: whether you believe that DE is being forced to make these changes, or whether you believe DE is setting the course themselves, you believe it blindly.

We simply don't have hard evidence to support either claim. We don't have hard evidence of "outside meddling," and we also don't have hard evidence to rule it out. All we have right now is opinion, based on personal perspective. I hope everybody can be honest with themselves about that, and I hope we can discuss the issue without resorting to name calling. I want to see this stuff actually talked about for once, without an instant flame war and locked topic.

For my part, I feel like I have sufficient cause to believe that outside meddling is possible, and for that reason I'm severely limiting my investment in Warframe at the moment. This is all subject to change, of course. I'd happily invest more in this game and its community if an opportunity presented itself. As an example, we have GotL, which I think is a great thing to have. Feeling like our contributions are meaningful is important.

I have to say, right now it really, REALLY doesn't feel like our feedback and investment in the game is meaningful.

[Destrab]

Let's actually look at what @Dark-Vortex 's feedback concerned, instead of dancing around the issue like everyone is in disputing some of his opinions and general train of thought.

The gameplay that SotR introduced was not fun enough to compensate for the changes that concerned the void, ultimately removing any reason to play in that tileset and in that style.

The "lack of content" argument was actually a valid concern even before the void prime part system was done away with, and now to players who have progressed through the star chart, finished all the quests and gotten a few primed frames and deluxe skins, there is literally nothing to do other than a daily set of sorties.

Do I personally think the situation is hopeless? No, of course not, anyone who does simply hopes for immediate gratification from the game and there's nothing wrong with that. those players will return when engaging gameplay returns, and all will be fine. The real struggle is for the players who cling to the development of the game (myself included) because, frankly, this is the only game (perhaps among a small few) that they invest their time and likely money into. 

Endless missions are the widely-accepted "long-lasting" archetype of gameplay in that you can control the level of challenge and fun to a degree, and it makes Warframe itself replayable over a period of time long enough to accommodate DE's constant toiling away for new content.

Relics have removed the point of endless missions, and thus have cut the lifespan of the game severely. That's the main issue with SotR as a majority of the playerbase would tell you, and I agree with them. More engaging, complex, balanced and above all fun gameplay on top of that is of course extremely welcome, but at the moment I feel like Digital Extremes are trapped between a rock and a hard place in getting TWW/TItania out and maintaining the actual game, which may be at the breaking point for some of the more temporary of the players. That's what this post is trying to discuss (among other things everyone may or may not agree with, they may or may not be proven and it's up to DE to reveal at their discretion), and frustrations are running high because we love the game but we can't bring ourselves to play it out of sheer completionist boredom.

[Calvyr]

The fact is that they don't have to listen the players. If they're smart, they will, but they're under no obligation whatsoever to do so. As I said in an earlier post, I'm far more amused by the entitled attitude that people have. "I've put money into this game, so they should be making it exactly the way that I want it." You don't get that from a AAA title that you pay $60-$80 for, why would you get it from a free-to-play game? Again, if the devs are smart, they'll consider community feedback when developing new content, which we all know DE has been very good about. DE is constantly taking feedback from players on the forums, on Twitter and during devstreams and adding/changing things to the game based on that feedback. Maybe you've forgotten about TennoGen items?

[Eminem2420]

If you take away all of the unnecessary information, all I take away is that you don't like the SOTR update. The Chinese company that bought some of the shares from DE has no say in what DE does. Read the contract if you don't believe me. DE has responded to the mountains of feedback in devstreams, primetimes, hotfixes, etc. You are trying to make it seem like DE doesn't listen to feedback at all and this just isn't the case. Just because they are not responding to threads and arguing with people, it doesn't mean they don't read these threads. They do. It would be very unwise for them to appear in threads aside from the exceptions. People will not talk freely if they know a developer is watching them. It can shut discussion down. Also, the fact that you have paid for Vauban proves nothing. I have spent hundreds of dollars on this game, and it doesn't make my feedback any more special.

[[DE]Rebecca]

Dear Concerned Customer Dark-Vortex,

We appreciate your open letter and would like to respond. I think it's important that we dispel any arguments you've made supported by a gloom and doom relation to peripheral business dealings. The fact remains that you're stuck with the same team that makes the same successes and mistakes as always, no outside influence exists. You may not remember, but the day and timing of the SotR release was not ideal. I vividly remember sitting on the couch at TennoCon's TennoLive broadcast, looking to the viewers at home, and saying 'yah we are sorry it's a bit bumpy but Hotfixes are coming!'. And those Hotfixes and Updates have indeed continue to come. And more are coming. Always. We take risks, iterate, change, and react as quickly as we can in the scope of the immense force that game development applies on us.

Thank you,

Rebecca