Warframe – Pve Oriented But Lacking In Solo And Co-Op Play

[DSMK2]

This has been nagging at me, I noticing that I’ve never particularly felt fulfilled every time I’ve been playing and completing Warframe’s missions. I’m killing things from the start point to the objective, and then to the extraction point; it’s the same regardless of squad size with only a difference in the speed the mission is completed. The PvE content does feel solid though, dealing with, blowing up, slicing, and shooting enemies in different ways has a kind of satisfaction to it.

 

I feel a strong sense of character progression through acquired and ranked equipment and mods, as well as mastery rank and planets completed, but not the ‘true’ sense of fulfillment from actual gameplay.

 

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If I were to make my thought more specific, Warframe doesn’t seem to naturally evoke good solo or cooperative play.

 

Solo play issues seem endemic to any online game, makes me think of why I stopped playing PSO. I guess it’s because nothing really felt ‘personal’ when I played by myself, probably due to the dungeon crawl nature of the game. A dedicated single player mode could fix that, a la traditional non-online shooters, probably. Do note, I don’t consider it the main issue, Warframe is online!

 

With cooperative play, the main point of the game, I don’t think Warframe brings it out naturally; I’ve experienced good natural co-op in the Monster Hunter series of games, where four players work together (somewhat) to defeat bosses and enemies though usage of (or sharing) items and tactics. There was also moments where what would usually be an act of annoyance to others, could save a player i.e. shoving a player out of the way to save him/her from a fire beam that could have hit.

 

*recalls all the times I've placed barrel bombs "LURE HIM HERE!"*

 

In my opinion, co-op in MH came out naturally because it’s really easy to get killed when one screws up, thus we had to really work out how we were going defeat our target together; instead of playing hero and whaling on a boss.

 

However, Monster Hunter is a game about hunting and chasing large bosses where each has different approaches to beat. Warframe isn’t that, but I feel that Monster Hunter is a great example for good co-op.

 

Currently, the vestiges of co-op I see now are in the player revives and locked doors. It’s forced. Though I could say the obstacle course rooms in the void is a good step towards it.

 

I think DE should focus on developing better cooperative gameplay while adding more PvE content, maybe even to the point where content revolves around cooperative gameplay. Once that is fulfilled, solo gameplay can be fleshed out.

[Symbiont71]

So many constructive feedback lately. All telling that warframe needs a hell of a change, but still constructive. I couldn't agree more on the co-op statement you made.

[VileRocK]

I agree, currently most of the bosses are just meat shields, it would be awesome to have a late game mega-boss that required careful teamwork and co-ordination to take down (not too early on in the solar system, though). Infact, the only boss I think is anything but a meat shield is Lech Kril, who has an interesting boss battle, first with the device on his back and then a completly different second stage when you complete the first. Other bosses do have some abilities, but they don't really "Flow" as nicely as Kril's, in my own opinion. 

[MetalGerbil]

i agree with the co-op as well.

its something i noticed some time ago. while there is the option to take more people, those people dont really matter. its just more fire power. which is nice but there is no need for strategy. "kill things faster" seems to be the only benefit.

makes me think of games where one person would distract while another shot at a weak spot in the back. forcing you to deal with something that you couldnt handle on your own due to specific mechanics. there really isnt anything like that in this game other than just stacking numbers against you.

thats not necessarily bad. but it does leave some of the combat feeling "empty".

edit: boss fights are an exception in some cases. but here im referring more to the game in general.

edit2: im actually ok with the solo play. it feels more interesting and alot of the systems have more affect on you that you dont see in co-op. weapons feel alot more solid as their characteristics are easier to measure to the enemies in the game. where co-op removes much of that and only prioritizes damage output.

Edited June 27, 2013 by MetalGerbil

[bluehawk1976]

I agree in the sense that the game doesn't force a squad to work as a team.

It seems that to many players the term "co-op" means that they don't shoot other players.

This is also, in my opinion, the source of the "it steals my kills - nerfed this weapon" posts.

If we take ME3 as an example, the teams there had to work togather or they lost. Of course team work and improves with communication, and when I play with friends or clan mates I see a much better coordination, but that solely depends on the players and not because the game makes it necessary.

[Coratha]

Long story short: they're already working on it.

 

The devs have stated that from U9 onward they're going to start overhauling the boss fights (Vor and Golem have already been previewed) to make them more unique and interesting, and they are going to start implementing episode-esque story installments (starting with the Mercury/Captain Vor arc previewed in the PS4 trailer).

[DSMK2]

Long story short: they're already working on it.

 

The devs have stated that from U9 onward they're going to start overhauling the boss fights (Vor and Golem have already been previewed) to make them more unique and interesting, and they are going to start implementing episode-esque story installments (starting with the Mercury/Captain Vor arc previewed in the PS4 trailer).

 

It doesn't extend to just the bosses, it's the idea that Warframe's content needs to mesh better with both solo or co-op gameplay. I consider Warframe as it now a barebones shooter with basic gameplay objectives with a solid PvE foundation... With style.

 

I daresay that the game is (mostly) easy enough for us to romp stomp many enemies on our own, which I consider a good thing. The problem is that there's nothing right now that gives us a good reason to help each other in that "keeping each other alive' mentality I've felt in Monster Hunter, because we're so generally powerful over our enemies. 

 

It's like that recent Ogris kill steal thread. I should be glad that someone is bringing a Ogris into a mission, because it's explosive capabilities allows 'us' to be less hampered by enemies on our way to the target. Being a Ogris user myself, I get the nagging feeling that I'm getting in the way of other player's end of mission performance every time I hear "OGRIS OP".

 

Which probably means that there shouldn't be an end of mission performance stat screen which shows everyone's mission stats, instead each player should be looking at their own performance during a mission and rewards gained.

 

It's feeling like Warframe can learn a lot from Monster Hunter.

Edited June 27, 2013 by DSMK2

[Coratha]

It doesn't extend to just the bosses, it's the idea that Warframe's content needs to mesh better with both solo or co-op gameplay. I consider Warframe as it now a barebones shooter with basic gameplay objectives with a solid PvE foundation... With style.

 

I daresay that the game is (mostly) easy enough for us to romp stomp many enemies on our own, which I consider a good thing. The problem is that there's nothing right now that gives us a good reason to help each other in that "keeping each other alive' mentality I've felt in Monster Hunter, because we're so generally powerful over our enemies. 

 

It's like that recent Ogris kill steal thread. I should be glad that someone is bringing a Ogris into a mission, because it's explosive capabilities allows 'us' to be less hampered by enemies on our way to the target. Being a Ogris user myself, I get the nagging feeling that I'm getting in the way of other player's end of mission performance every time I hear "OGRIS OP".

 

Which probably means that there shouldn't be an end of mission performance stat screen which shows everyone's mission stats, instead each player should be looking at their own performance during a mission and rewards gained.

 

It's feeling like Warframe can learn a lot from Monster Hunter.

 

It's odd to hear you say "it's not just the bosses", then make such a point to compare it to Monster Hunter (a game focusing heavily on big intense boss fights). :S Also, MH is a bit of an odd comparison to make seeing as, although with some it's VERY hard, just about any boss monster in the game can technically be soloed given the hunter has the skill to do it. In both the online and arena multiplayer the only real difference in the bosses from the campaign mode is extra HP, and maybe a little extra damage per swing. Having party members technically only makes things go faster.

 

Don't take that the wrong way though, I do get where you were going with that comparison and I agree. I do believe that DE already has at least a little bit in the works to help though. Lech Krill, the Ceres boss already got a combat rework, which I think is a step in the right direction. Strength-wise he was already one of the few bosses that gave that sense of "work together as a cell, or die" feelings, and since his rework adding different stages to the fight he now feels more dynamic too. I know it's been echoed a million times, but the game is still in beta, and most of the current boss fights may as well be placeholders (aside from the fan-favorite Jackal and recently-reworked Krill). Vor and the Golem have already been confirmed to have overhauls in the works, and if DE does it right they'll be just as interesting, if not more so than Jackal and Krill. One thing to remember though is that they can't be as straight-up powerful; the planets they preside over are fairly low-leveled.

 

To segway away from the boss-specific side of things though, I think the main issue people have with Warframe in it's current state is a tiny bit misplaced. People say that "this game is too easy", and in a way that's true, in a way it's not. Sometimes I think people (myself included at times) are too used to having a full set of max-level, potatoed, thrice-forma'd gear. They forget that back in "ye olden newbie days" with barely-ranked, starting gear, even the current Captain Vor was kind of difficult. I remember the first time I tried to fight him I almost lost. And my first Jackal fight... messy to say the least. xD Point being that the current content in the game is actually designed to be a fair challenge to a group of Tenno with no-potato gear averaging at the level of the mission in question. Therein lies the issue:

 

The difficulty of the current mission in the game doesn't take into account the current maximum attainable power for gear in the game.

 

Orokin Potatoes, and to an extent Forma, have become such a mainstay in the game, some people forget just how powerful the little f**kers are! Once our existing content gets the Update 9 Spit-Shine to make it more dynamic, and the dev team resolves to mimic that in future content, the biggest issue Warframe will have is simply to add higher-leveled content to keep up with the higher levels of gear.

 

To get back closer to the main focus of the topic, let's focus on the "Update 9 Spit-Shine" aspect. My suggestion to you, good sir, and anyone else who wants to post in this thread, is to be more specific. We've already identified that the game could serve to be a bit more dynamic, and co-operative. We know the problem, what we need is a solution. What specific ideas can you think of to make the game more interesting? In what ways would you change current missions - of all types, boss fights and otherwise - to make them encourage more teamwork? What sort of things would you like to see in future content?

 

/inb4 somebody suggests a "Mecha Rathalos boss" :P

 

Actually, wait... that might work... ಠ_ಠ

 

TL;DR: Warframe's biggest issue is lack of content level matching effective gear power, U9 should make old dull content feel more fun and dynamic, anyone posting here should try to think of specific ideas to give the devs, Monster Hunter is awesome, long live Mecha Rathalos.

[DSMK2]

Mecha Rathalos would be a nightmare to fight ;_;

 

But rather than the bosses in Monster Hunter, it’s how the non-bosses can be a threat. Recall the cephadromes? The BULLFANGOS? Even to the velocipreys, you really had to kill them if you didn’t want to be interrupted or even killed. But our shields tend to shrug off most non-boss stuff, or we kill so fast and hard that there’s very little to left to hurt us. That leaves very little reason to help keep each other alive.

 

Yeah, I agree with you that the problem stems from the fact that we become so stat-buffed that content which is supposed to challenge us doesn’t. I still recall the rage about the lack of passive stat increases when U7 hit, I get the feeling DE should revisit that.

 

Staring the lack of co-op (not solo play*) fulfillment… I’ll just list out what I think contributes to it:

• Lack of scarcity

It’s not common to run out of ammo for weapons. Not much people I know carry spare ammo packs. When one does underestimate a mission and run out of ammo, there’s not much they can do but wait for another ammo pack to drop. There could be a form of tag item share, but ammo drops would need to become much rarer.

 

This also applies to health pickups and maybe even to energy pickups. The fact that they exist makes staying alive and using abilities less ‘valuable’. It’s too easy to maintain max energy for ultimates and easy to maintain a good amount of health for general mission survivability.

• Barebones consumables System

As it stands right now, I think Warframe’s in-game consumables are just as barebones as it’s gameplay.  The lack of scarcity prevents consumables from being ‘valuable’ enough for us to carry. Almost everyone I’ve played with never carries any consumables.

 

Once again, I’m looking at Monster Hunter. There weren’t any health pickups, but rather the health pickups are what we carry with us and what the quest provides. We couldn’t carry an unlimited quantity of each item and also not all the items. We had to decide on what we needed most in the quest.

 

And again, Monster Hunter has a consumables crafting system using materials found during the quest. Why not also use this to make finding materials relevant to gameplay?

 

... Tag based item sharing when a guy needs a health pack.

 

It doesn’t help that the way to use consumables is a major pain, and really interrupts me during a firefight when I really need that heal.

• Shields

At some point, our shields become high enough to shrug off most hits, and possibly regenerate fast enough to shrug off even more hits. Once again, not much people I know carry spare health packs. This contributes most to the lack of ‘sticking together to stay alive’, because our powerful shields keep us alive and unscathed most of the time. My experience with Warframe’s damage: Can take some hits or NEAR INSTANT OHKO. Valuable, valuable, valuable.

• Lack of threat

There are not much enemies there to level the playing field with us, but I still want to keep romp stomping. I’m staring at the grind balls and ancient disruptors. I’ve made a thread on having elite units and mini-bosses that appear during a mission:

 

[suggestion] Mini-Boss And Elite Enemy Encounters

 

Enemies that break our romp stomp moments, and have us work together to survive and successfully complete our mission. I daresay that the lack of scarcity makes using our super buffed primary/secondary weapons on the enemies now, really cheap.

• Lack of situation variety

Every mission is the same, there’s nothing to hamper a group of Tenno aside from the possible ice level. Most of the time we’re free to run off and murder everything. Warframe’s virtual dungeon master doesn’t throw in a wrench into the works well enough. One of my ideas was this:

 

[suggestion] Capture Mission Subtype – Cooperative Carry Door Busting Laser Cannon

 

It doesn’t need to be a brand new mission type, but there needs to be situations that make us work together beyond defending a pod.

 

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*I feel the above applies strongly to co-op. In my opinion I think solo gameplay should have a different feel, but it still needs to be expanded upon all the same :P

 

I’m really using the word ‘valuable’ a lot.

Edited June 28, 2013 by DSMK2

[eStecko]

I agree with you DSMK. That's pretty much a current meta of Warframe in constructive way with suggestions how to improve the game. Good job.

 

But let's remember that afterall beta is beta and it's not finished product. Which shoud be obvious even for people that dont know what beta is, when they see monthly content updates, but some people tend to forget that. Also dont use it as a cheap excuse. :P

 

With difficulty i think (as my personal opinion), many problems can be solved with modifiers that give you reward for every one of them enabled i made one post about it - https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/65541-if-you-want-to-make-the-mission-more-difficult/page-2#entry731265 and i've seen it going around the forum after and before. Also the idea came to me from Bastion, where you can make missions more difficult with similiar system, the thing is more of them you have, the overall difficulty scales exponentionaly.

 

Also i love the idea of reworking health drop into consumables, make ammo more scarse to push people into looking for it and use the ammo boxes, which could be a place where to expand with fast crafting. Shield recharge is pretty much useless, meybe a shield damage system would be in place, so maximum shield goes down everytime you get hit, which would get up by using the useless item mentioned above, etc...

 

I think we can all agree that Warframe has a many things to improve in, even though its not a bad game in its current state either, but it has a lot of potential.

[xenapan]

totally agree. this is also why we have the rushers vs explorers. people "playing together" but not really. both are doing their own thing and don't really care about what the other does... until it affects them. rusher gets to the end and says "hurry up noobs so I can extract" explorer says "im still looting stuff here. dont extract without me". only time "co-op" happens is when someone goes down and needs someone else to revive them. other than that most other players just stand in my way and block my shots, kill stuff im aiming at, afk/ leech etc... it feels like most people feel about a "good team" is just everyone did their job. with very little satisfaction, but on the other hand it can be very negative. "person a didn't do any damage" "person b got killed like 20 times and we kept having to revive them" like teammates only hinder you.

[Mietz]

I would also add a lack of synergy between frames as one of the major problems.

 

There are only a handful of abilities and frames that go well together while others are straight up too useful but never synergize with anything.

 

Lets take for example a hybrid support frame like Mag: Bullet Attractor should in theory be a nice team skill but is often counter-productive, Shield Polarize doesn't restore enough to be of use with Sentinels filling that role on automatic and the short single-target CC from pull isn't something that can be exploited by the team naturally.

 

On the other side of the discussion stand frames like Excalibur that have almost no synergy whatsoever and are generally a "ME" frame.

 

Positive examples are Vauban where almost every skill can be synergized and shines in coordinated team-play.

 

Currently most Frames do not compliment each other and are self-sufficient. I understand why that is, we don't want to S#&$ on solo players. However the game design should be a situation where we become more powerful as a coordinated team instead of everyone doing their own thing and being just as good.

[WARLOCKE]

The real problem is DE is allergenic to scaling in every sense. Its like they want a progression game, but dont at the same time. The only good atm is that the game gets hard enough at t3 void where you start noticing your shields go in 2-3 seconds if you play solo. Currently the challenge in this game is in solo play. Because the game doesnt scale at all from 4 players to 1.

Edited June 28, 2013 by WARLOCKE

[DSMK2]

But let's remember that afterall beta is beta and it's not finished product. Which shoud be obvious even for people that dont know what beta is, when they see monthly content updates, but some people tend to forget that. Also dont use it as a cheap excuse. :P

 

Thanks and of course. For me, Warframe's beta as it stands now is giving me the impression that the game is not going to be able to succeed with the direction it's going, we need to act as canaries in a coal mine for DE. We shouldn't be afraid to find and pick out the negative aspects of the game in a constructive and analytical manner.

 

DE really needs to look at Warframe's core gameplay mechanics before they can tack on more features, i.e. the mutators you've mentioned. In my view, creating and adding content is the 'easy' way to update a game.

 

Currently most Frames do not compliment each other and are self-sufficient. I understand why that is, we don't want to S#&$ on solo players. However the game design should be a situation where we become more powerful as a coordinated team instead of everyone doing their own thing and being just as good.

 

It's definitely hard to balance between us having fun romp stomping everything and us actually working together when romp stomping isn't an option. Though I have a very hard time seeing how most Warframe abilities could work with each other, in my view, they're a form of 'get out of jail free' card that can be used to level the playing field when things get tough. Why not synergize players first?

 

I think DE could experiment with making abilities valuable to use, while overlaying on us roles to play (strangely I'm seeing TF2 in my mental vision) without forcing dedicated 'support' Warfames, IMO I get the feeling that it's generally unfavorable to be labeled as the healer guy because of a class. This is what I'm thinking:

 

- Squad member brings hacking equipment to control rooms

- Squad member brings a healing tool to heal players

- Squad member has pack rat gear to ensure the squad remains well supplied, they're able to carry more and share ammo and items

- Squad member brings along portable zip lines and barricades

 

Each extra equipment is does things similar to but are less powerful than Warframe abilities, but generally better than consumables. Though my idea will definitely take away from DE's vision for the game...

 

Tiers

- Warframe abilities - Probably self explanatory

- Equipment abilities - Heal tool, advanced cipher, trap tool, etc.

- Item abilities - Health packs, ammo packs, etc.

Edited June 28, 2013 by DSMK2

[eStecko]

Yes i know and you are not wrong, but its still a fact that is there. As i said, some people forget it, meybe because some companies use beta "sticker" as a demo version for marketing with product that is ~month(s) close to release.

 

I'd like to see Payday: The Heist-esque style of health/ammo bag in utility slot (1 slot per player), which players can put down and have 1 use for every player when restocking/healing them to full capacity. But we already agreed that gear and drop system needs a little rework... or is it just us and our subjetive view on how we would like to have game to evolve?

 

Synergy between warframes is nothing i we're gonna see (i guess) atleast on ability level, because many warframes dont have abilities to be synergized with. Guild Wars 2 is perfect example. If we wanted to look for Combo Initiatior - mosty AoE Field and Combo Finisher - Projectiles or AoE Blast in Warframe... shuriken on Ashe, Slash Dash and Rhino Dash in Frost's AoE? Not many AoE's last long or kill the mobs in few seconds. Also it would add so much more clutter to the screen. I dont know.

[Bones226]

 

 

Staring the lack of co-op (not solo play*) fulfillment… I’ll just list out what I think contributes to it:

• Lack of scarcity

It’s not common to run out of ammo for weapons. Not much people I know carry spare ammo packs. When one does underestimate a mission and run out of ammo, there’s not much they can do but wait for another ammo pack to drop. There could be a form of tag item share, but ammo drops would need to become much rarer.

 

This also applies to health pickups and maybe even to energy pickups. The fact that they exist makes staying alive and using abilities less ‘valuable’. It’s too easy to maintain max energy for ultimates and easy to maintain a good amount of health for general mission survivability.

• Barebones consumables System

As it stands right now, I think Warframe’s in-game consumables are just as barebones as it’s gameplay.  The lack of scarcity prevents consumables from being ‘valuable’ enough for us to carry. Almost everyone I’ve played with never carries any consumables.

 

Once again, I’m looking at Monster Hunter. There weren’t any health pickups, but rather the health pickups are what we carry with us and what the quest provides. We couldn’t carry an unlimited quantity of each item and also not all the items. We had to decide on what we needed most in the quest.

 

And again, Monster Hunter has a consumables crafting system using materials found during the quest. Why not also use this to make finding materials relevant to gameplay?

 

... Tag based item sharing when a guy needs a health pack.

 

It doesn’t help that the way to use consumables is a major pain, and really interrupts me during a firefight when I really need that heal.

 

I like this a lot. I think it wold be fantastic to be able to rely on our consumables more (or eliminate ammo, energy, health etc entirely) and be able to craft superior consumables in the foundry. Shield consumable could be replaced with an energy pack for energy reliant frames (Loki for example feels real under-powered when he runs out of energy).

[arch111]

Hnmm i have not grinded enough to know what it feels like to be super powerful.

i have limited hours to play and the ease and short missions suits me fine.

My concern is that the game falls into the Eve trap. Only hardcore and elite players are playing. That means it becomes a hc game.

Single player takes care of some if that, but only if its easy missions.

A scaling of how hard the game is by adjusting enemy count, stats, level size, multiple objectives etc

and could do much.

What if squads had a captain, boosting morale and being

like a mini boss?

Further imagine a boss vulnerable in the back.

Players need to draw his aggro so others can flank.

Think also shields, multiple damage spots and vehicles.

What do you think?