What is their Priorities? Is it for Fun? Or is it for Balancing?

[Noryz]

Now for the sake of argument. I'm going to stay unbiased here. 
I'm not a big forum poster, seeing that I'm sure the community is already doing a bang up job all on its own and no need for someone like me. 

But after hearing about the debuffs, watching from the sidelines, and keeping quiet to myself to see how it all progressed, it's hard for me now to question things.

I'm starting to wonder what DigitalExtreme's priorities are? 
Is it for Fun for the players? 
Balancing for the sake of "Balancing"? 
Or are they just taking satisfaction that they have the power to fully ignore their general audience and when they do listen, they do it half-heartedly instead of making it Fun for everyone? 

I don't know where DE's agendas are nor do I pretend to know it. 
But I'm just noticing the trends of actions they've been doing with the updates for the game. 

"Balancing for the sake of Balancing, regardless if it's beneficial for the Fun of their Customers and Audience" 
Is a statement that I would describe what I've been noticing. 

It's a sort of outcome that's uncommon in the industry and practice business wise. But in all due respect, is a bit narcissistic otherwise. 
To even project a complete disregard to their audience just feels plain bad. 

Mid-year, it started out nicely. With Secret Developer getting insight to what player wants and fixed stuff appropriately. 
Even putting out minigames just to keep people active once the timeless grinding gets exhausting. 

But after the few months after, their communication to their community slowed down again. 
Sure, there's interaction like Prime Time and few small chats here and there. 
Yet it seems that they're not entirely listening to the people who devote their time and money in it most of the times. 
Even if it means they make numerous mistakes. Mistakes that we the players have to go through and live with every single day until they fix it or change it entirely. 

Even as a council member, we even commented on Mesa's performance at one point, only to have it mooted in silence by DE. 

At this point in time, I just have to question DE and their Decisions in silence. Because only time will tell. 

What do you all think? 

Are their priorities for the benefit of players to have Fun? 
 Or 

Are their priorities are hellbent to Balance for the sake of Balancing, even if it costs them their fun? 

[CandyDragon]

Maybe we can coin this the year of "the war without".

It started strong, but the updates have been pushed back, drug out, and honestly we are waiting for a single new tileset and a cutscene. Maybe a weapon, but given their weapon balancing it's not going to be a huge change.  Lunaro is pretty much gone, the novelty of that dying almost as soon as it arrived, for all the hype for TWW we had been built up and expected to maintain, I don't think it can deliver. Nor do I think it has. 

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

i don't see how balanced and fun gameplay are mutually exclusive, rather the contrary in fact.

[Varacal]

in any game, balance usually always comes first before fun, thats why any nerf there is always someone that doesnt like it cause it ruins their fun, and this applies to all games

also the community may have input on things, but they still have the final say in things, as with all devs in all games

[Vance.Stubbs]

Since this game has no balance what-so-ever, I guess "fun" is the anwser.

[-Amaterasu-]

"Fun" is a very vague term that applies differently to a lot of different people. Personally I see balance as balancing the fun some people might love running through a mission killing everything ever but others don't like having everything "killed for them" so they can't have fun playing the game. Balance allows for everyone to have fun in this situation by nerfing the thing that brings 1 person fun while allowing the other 3 to enjoy themselves.

DE is never going to get their balancing perfect since it almost always entails taking something that is already in the game away from someone but I do think DE tries their hardest to get balancing done to a degree that a large ammount of the community can be happy with their product.

[Top_Kekkonen]

7 minutes ago, Varacal said:

in any game, balance usually always comes first before fun, thats why any nerf there is always someone that doesnt like it cause it ruins their fun, and this applies to all games

also the community may have input on things, but they still have the final say in things, as with all devs in all games

The devs choose whether the game lives or dies. Feel ya.

[LSG501]

Well I'll be honest here, since I've been playing I can't say balance has been one of DE's strong points... usually because they just go and ignore what the majority of players are asking for and give us a 'nerfed' version which doesn't fix the underlying issues that we've been complaining about. 

Vacuum isn't the issues they're trying to fix this time, it's using other sentinels and nerfing vacuum isn't going to fix that issue due to the others being considerably worse overall than carrier.

Edited October 6, 2016 by LSG501

[Skaleek]

This is gonna sound stupid.... But its balancing fun and balance. Im aware it sounds confusing.

[Relentless.Zen]

18 minutes ago, Varacal said:

in any game, balance usually always comes first before fun, thats why any nerf there is always someone that doesnt like it cause it ruins their fun, and this applies to all games

well, no... Warframe was fun at first and now they start "balancing" things that have been as they were very fun and destroying the game that people actually really liked.

[ashrah]

they are trying  very hard to make game worse...

[SpeedOfLightPuncher]

Got to nerf you first so that you can pick up less resources so that you can buy more plat

Profit over community 

Reminds me of the corpus 

(I would do it too but they didn't need to make it so obvious) 

Edited October 6, 2016 by SpeedOfLightPuncher

[Valorosus]

Their Priorities is to make money and for that they will change game in a way that will give them more profit and will attract more and more players. It's totally normal and I'm obvious here :) Truth is however, that any balancing and providing fun in game are servants of profit. When players are drifting towards one solution (i.e. vacuum) they "abandon" other stuff, which is potential generator of profit for DE. So what's their response? Nerf to vacuum so players must think of other solutions, maybe more carriers, maybe more resource boosters for platinum? Sure, DE must listen to community carefully, otherwise they'll start to lose player base. There has to be balance between players demands and devs needs.

[(PSN)dA_BLoK_iS_hOt]

6 minutes ago, ashrah said:

they are trying  very hard to make game worse...

This is how I feel . People ask for a Vacuum for other sentinels, they give it to us but nerf the range. We can never get the whole package. These half %^$% additions to the game is what makes it blah. I still cannot get over the fact that DE Buffed Discharge (Previously Overcharge) giving it a decent form of CC, but made it so that it can only be cast on the ground. Or Mesa's shooting gallery, they made is so that it stays on Mesa (YES!) but reduced the ticks at which is jams enemies guns :) Where is the Limbo rework btw DE? He was Nerfed to garbage when Solar Rails were here and was left that way. Tired of not being able to pick up a batteries in excavation with him and not being able to stand on a pad in LOR, and not being able to hack anything while being in the rift. 

[SmallRuth]

This Vacuum fiasco isn't a "balance", though. They saw 80% of people were using Carrier, asked why, and found out it was because we liked the convenience of Vacuum. Instead of slapping on the same thing to the Warframe itself so we would be encouraged to use other Companions, they gave us a much crappier version of it for all Sentinels, so picking up loot that much more tedious and interrupts the fun of the "run and gun" gameplay. Giving an innate max Vacuum to every Warframe encourages players to experiment with Companions

Stuff like Draco needs to be modified because it prevents players from using core game mechanics like parkour, or experiencing new content like new tilesets, or an interesting passive of a new weapon.

Finally, from a financial standpoint, putting the max Vacuum on the Warframes innately makes sense. Innate Vacuum encourages players use Companions other than Carrier and therefore make them want to spend Plat on them for new cosmetics on these new Companions. If collecting loot isn't a tedious chore that takes forever, spending Plat on a resource or credit booster is encouraged.

They had the data, they had the reason for player preference, and they decided to do something contrarian for reasons they haven't shared. I'd like to know why they thought the 6m Vacuum was better and try to understand their thinking, because nothing about this decision makes any sense to me.

[Shockwave-]

9 minutes ago, Valorosus said:

Their Priorities is to make money and for that they will change game in a way that will give them more profit and will attract more and more players. It's totally normal and I'm obvious here :) Truth is however, that any balancing and providing fun in game are servants of profit. When players are drifting towards one solution (i.e. vacuum) they "abandon" other stuff, which is potential generator of profit for DE. So what's their response? Nerf to vacuum so players must think of other solutions, maybe more carriers, maybe more resource boosters for platinum? Sure, DE must listen to community carefully, otherwise they'll start to lose player base. There has to be balance between players demands and devs needs.

i actually disagree here. Everyone on carrier wasn't really hurting DE's profits. This change to vacuum won't get many people to play other sentinels because carrier has vac as well, and its potatoed and formaed. ONLY the other precepts being better than carriers new precept will do that. Honestly I would have poatoed and formaed ALL the other sentinels to try them all out again with 12m vac

But I won't now because I feel betrayed by the nerf of vac. I feel betrayed that the community wanted something extended to all sentinels and instead of saying no it's unbalanced DE chose to nerf it to the ground (89%) and then give it to everything. That's a bitter pill. So in this case I won't spend another dime or use another sentinel in protest. I'm sure there are people who won't do that either. They are killing their old player base.

Of course new players won't know the old way and may be inclined to buy more potatoes and forma for more sentnels so in that sense they may get more plat sales, but vets like me are writing reviews on  other forums about how BAD the changes are this year and horribly the game is being changed and nerfed with the removal of void, endless, and now vac. So that may cut back into their profits. keeping vets playing and happy even if they are not spending as much keeps good word of mouth for new players. Every vet that goes on hiatus and stops playing regularly isn't recruiting new players.

[ashrah]

2 minutes ago, SmallRuth said:

This Vacuum fiasco isn't a "balance", though. They saw 80% of people were using Carrier, asked why, and found out it was because we liked the convenience of Vacuum. Instead of slapping on the same thing to the Warframe itself so we would be encouraged to use other Companions, they gave us a much crappier version of it for all Sentinels, so picking up loot that much more tedious and interrupts the fun of the "run and gun" gameplay. Giving an innate max Vacuum to every Warframe encourages players to experiment with Companions

Stuff like Draco needs to be modified because it prevents players from using core game mechanics like parkour, or experiencing new content like new tilesets, or an interesting passive of a new weapon.

Finally, from a financial standpoint, putting the max Vacuum on the Warframes innately makes sense. Innate Vacuum encourages players use Companions other than Carrier and therefore make them want to spend Plat on them for new cosmetics on these new Companions. If collecting loot isn't a tedious chore that takes forever, spending Plat on a resource or credit booster is encouraged.

They had the data, they had the reason for player preference, and they decided to do something contrarian for reasons they haven't shared. I'd like to know why they thought the 6m Vacuum was better and try to understand their thinking, because nothing about this decision makes any sense to me.

that is how they need to do it.. now sentinels are pretty bad and carrier is still best

[Pavelord]

42 minutes ago, Avelyr said:

It's a sort of outcome that's uncommon in the industry and practice business wise. But in all due respect, is a bit narcissistic otherwise. 

I think is curious how practically no one ponders the contrary, this attitute of give me and think of nothing else. As if extreme efficiency is the only reasonable direction one can take. The argument that they now have to step over everything is just fallacious, we have methos like extractors that  give plenty of resources outside of missions, and ammo and resources are color coded, so you only need to step on the ones you actually need in the moment. 

Coptering was a buggeg feature that deepley affected the pace of the game, it affects how people perceive the game and the speed at which they can reach the place of having nothing to do, so a broken perception of the speed of the game plus a broken player progression system, the game propels players quickly into boringness. The development has reacha  place in which no solution has been able to apeace the players. 

People will always want more fun, but balance is what is going to maintain player interest for longer periods, which is best for the development company, so maybe the 12m radius will go just as coptering, and serration damage and many other futures that in their times, people asked to be return and threaten to leave the game.

[Necrius]

54 minutes ago, Kotsender_Quasimir said:

i don't see how balanced and fun gameplay are mutually exclusive, rather the contrary in fact.

They're not mutually exclusive, but developers can sacrifice fun for the sake of quite dubious balance decision. Much like halving Vacuum range just because it's universal (but still restricted to sentinels) and free now. Sure, I'm slow player and when I solo I won't even notice any difficulties, but I know that quality of life feature was nerfed just because devs decided that it'd be "unfair" (towards who? Enemies don't mind us taking stuff from distance).

[Tora.Prime]

the fun of the game depends of the vacuum range? serious? It sounds as if they only play warframe to suck resources

[venon23]

man this foruns post about vacumm was been realy something lol  well i have too say that carrier is the least most used sentinel  i was shade in the bigginig and wyrm prime later  never had problems with matrials too build stuff actualy 
and now i have too say im kinda happy all sentinels have vaccum  even if is less efective then the old one but well  i only thing that the dogscats should have something similar for all of them cuz exept the redcrits from cats  dogs have nothing good

 

Edited October 6, 2016 by venon23

[Metalarcher]

Well, the reasonable thing would be to prioritize balance, but only for the sake of fun. I don't really know their priorities--I don't think anyone does--but prioritizing balance inasmuch as it allows the players to have more options and more fun seems like a no-brainer to me.

The problem is that DE adds a lot of stuff very quickly, and before long it's gotten to the point that there's so much stuff that balancing it all would require an entire team of its own. So it seems to me like they want to do their best to reign in outliers as best as they can while putting other things that might still be on the underpowered or overpowered side which are closer to the baseline than those outliers on the backburner. They're trying to get the most out of their effort, essentially, tackling the biggest problems first and putting the smaller problems aside until they can find the time to solve them, too.

That's all just guesswork, really, but it's the best guess I've got, and it makes enough sense that it's probably pretty likely to be the case. I think. Or something.

[Judgebanks]

If it were for balancing then would you not go after the root of the problem, a simple look towards history(Break Crates then Abort, Greedy Mag, Pilfering Swarm) will tell you that loot is most definitely the problem.

 

Looting adds nothing to the game, it only subtracts from the game. Client sided physics exasperate this issue.

[ToaSirian]

Neither fun nor balance....

[Chipputer]

So do you want confirmation of your biases or a constructive discussion about what DE's priorities are? Posting this topic during a change period, while people are outraged and outspoken, is a quick way to get mostly negative responses and solidify a narrative that says exactly what some people in this thread are saying, "they don't want fun or balance."

Repost this in a few weeks, when people have had time to calm down, and you might get something valid, rather than the occasional good post followed by too many people going, "BUT VACUUM WAS NERFED SO--"