Now that I've stopped playing, I feel the need to say a few things

[Antiphoton]

I've been playing a lot of Warframe in the past few months. I enjoyed my time with this game, and it has become one of my all-time favorites. However, not so long ago I began feeling more frustration than anything else while logging in, which eventually made me stop playing. I still love this game, so I feel that it is my duty to leave some feedback, hoping to add my grain of sand to make it better.

Please keep in mind two things:
1. Even if I'm going to focus on some negative stuff, my honest intention is to give constructive criticism.
2. This is my own, personal and subjective opinion. It may differ from yours. I'm not aiming to discuss the topics below with the community, but to leave my feedback to the devs. Of course, discussion is welcome anyway, as long as it remains respectful.

 

First, I want to talk about player progression and rewards. Most online multiplayer games keep the players engaged using two main tools: good mechanics that are fun in themselves, and "carrot on a stick" rewards. Warframe's mechanics are pretty good and unique for a sci-fi shooter, but they aren't complex enough to keep people hooked up just to experiment with them. The "carrot on a stick" progression model is vital for this game. Players need some goal to work towards, be it Mastery Rank, farming some rare mod or Prime set, a perfect fashionframe design, formaing gear, etc. The problem is that, outside of the star chart (which can be completed in a few days, even with basic gear), there is no clear path to follow. This is good and bad. It is good when you're a new player, because it makes the game world feel huge. It is bad because, if you liked the game and kept playing, sooner than later you're going to reach a point where you must ask yourself "ok, I've got all the carrots I ever wanted, WTF do I do with them?". Allow me to illustrate this using my amazing MS Paint skills:

In Warframe, once you learn to navigate the whirpool and get what you want, you realize that you long to use your hard earned rewards to explore new paths or work towards new goals, but... there are none. The whirlpool is always the same. You could work towards a loadout that can handle level 100+ enemies, but why? Even if you encounter them, they don't have carrots. If you want to enjoy the gameplay, you could as well go with weaker gear against level 40 +/- enemies. It gets even worse when new sections are added that actually make your past rewards useless, like the Index (practically zero warframe powers) or Kuva farming (enemies that are inmune to warframes and weapons).
Conclusion: we need a decent end game. DE has been doing a great job making the experience of new players better, but how to keep entertained those who decide to stay for a long time? I refuse to accept that creating our own challenges is a decent equivalent for an endgame. This isn't a sandbox game. That argument is the same as saying that the solution to boredom in CS:GO is playing competitive forcing yourself to use only pistols. Of course, you can enjoy that challenge, but if the game pushes you into that corner sooner rather than later, is that good?

 

 

Second, I want to talk about balance. I find it extremely frustrating that DE keeps releasing new warframes and weapons, while ignoring the issues with the old ones. They are as important as character classes in RPGs, the core of the idea of fairness of the game. And many of us want to use specific loadouts not because of their power, but because of their theme and design. It is discouraging that they under-perform, compared to the "kings of the meta". For example, even if she isn't my favorite, I'm angry at the fact that Zephyr still has not been reworked, even after Parkour 2.0 made half of her toolkit useless.
We were told that the balance team had their hands full all these months because they had a lot to prepare for TWW. And what did we get, that required six months of balancing? Operator mode, which is useless outside of the Kuva minigame, and rifle Riven mods, which still have effects like -150% damage and -150% multishot.

 

 

And lastly, I want to talk about something that was mentioned several times in streams during the past months. I can't remember exactly if it was on a devstream, Prime Time, Twitter or the forums, but after DE (or Reb alone, can't remember D= ) went to an event focused on talks about gaming, they started talking about this idea that, if your game only gets "decent" reviews, that's the worst that can happen to you as a developer. It doesn't matter if the quality of your game is a 10/10 or a 0/10, what matters is that it has to bring something innovative, something unique and wild, something that will make the people talk for months to come. I feel that DE focused on that idea too much, specially with TWW. I didn't like the quest, specially after DE themselves couldn't avoid comparing it to The Second Dream. I didn't feel that they gave the best they could, I felt that they didn't care if the quest was good or bad, I felt that they only wanted to create a few "WOW" moments that would shake the community, and the results are Operator mode and Riven mods. Imagine yourself describing the game to a friend that stopped playing months ago, of course you're going to tell him that now you can actually use your Operator in missions, and that there is a new system that brings new life to old weapons. Yeah, on the surface. If that guy decided to go back to the game and see it for himself, he would find that it's a lot more complicated than that, and not actually good. I don't know how did that strategy work with other players, but I know that at least it pushed me away from the game.

DE keeps saying that they took a lot of risks to make this game. The best risk they could take now is stop trying to impress us with weird gimmicks, and instead focus on keep developing the rough edges of the mechanics and the story, disregarding the pressure and the expectations from outside, and concentrating in doing it with honesty, passion and love for their work.

 

Besides all that, I also feel the need to say that I love every bit of the visual and artistic designs. The warframes alone and the themes they are inspired upon have a lot of depth, the levels are beautiful and unique, the atmosphere and the feel of the ingame world when the immersion kicks in are perfect. Many times I logged in just because I wanted to take another look at my collection.

 

That's all. See you all later. I hope.

 

Edited December 13, 2016 by Antiphoton

[str4dlin]

You never leave warframe carrots.

[Kibbols123]

Carrot Frame confirmed?

[xRufus7x]

Yah Endgame fatigue is pretty much the eternal struggle of Warframe. It has been for years. The solutions were endless void void then t4 endless void then raids then sorties then endless relics and now Kuva. While DE has given us more "Endgame content" most of it isn't super engaging and a lot of that comes down to the fact that most of the people taking on these modes know at least a few tactics for cheesing the hell out of them.

As for the Warframe balance thing, Im not sure how long you have been around but Warframes get balance passes relatively frequently. I can't think of a single frame that hasn't been touched in one way or another and quite a few have gotten large reworks. You can disagree with how effective some of those reworks were(Mag) or how much they actually changed(Ash) but they definitely do happen. We have known for a while that Limbo is next up which makes sense since most people consider him to be one of the worst frames and is a bit divisive as a bad limbo player can hurt the team as much as help them. After that, hopefully Zephyr will get a look as she is in a pretty rough spot right now and is one of the weaker/least engaging frames to play unless you really like parkour.

Edited December 13, 2016 by xRufus7x

[Antiphoton]

5 minutes ago, xRufus7x said:

Warframes get balance passes relatively frequently

The last batch of reworks for warframes was somewhere around June. I was very happy with the results. After that, it took them like six months to rework one single ability.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Antiphoton

[xRufus7x]

1 minute ago, Antiphoton said:

The last batch of reworks for warframes was somewhere around June. I was very happy with the results. After that, it took them like six months to rework one single ability.

Nekros got reworked in August and Ash was a week ago.

[Antiphoton]

5 minutes ago, xRufus7x said:

Nekros got reworked in August and Ash was a week ago.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Nekros, sorry.

The idea to rework Bladestorm, however, was announced more or less at the same time that TWW.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Antiphoton

[xRufus7x]

1 minute ago, Antiphoton said:

Oh yeah, I forgot about Nekros, sorry.

The idea to reworkd Bladestorm, however, was announced more or less at the same time that TWW.

This is true but they also mentioned that they had tried to rework Bladestorm multiple times and did not like the result and ended up scrapping it. Do what you want with that information but I don't think it is fair to say that they don't make balance passes on older Warframes.

[Antiphoton]

3 minutes ago, xRufus7x said:

Do what you want with that information but I don't think it is fair to say that they don't make balance passes on older Warframes.

Yeah, they do. But they release new stuff a lot faster than they fix the old stuff.

Titania, for example. She's in a better spot than Zephyr, of course, but she could use some tweaks, like fixing the fact that Lantern'ed enemies fly away in open tilesets. You have a lot more time here than I do, based on that, when do you expect her to be revisited for some tweaks? How many new frames do you think will be added by then?

Of course, I may be wrong, each player has his/her own perspective. Mine tells me that fixing older frames should be a number one priority, because the longer they pospone it, the harder it will become.

[SenorClipClop]

26 minutes ago, Antiphoton said:

we need a decent end game.

The issue I have with the concept of "end game" is that since Warframe is so reliant on continual new content and for players to continue playing (it's not a done-and-released title like Titanfall) it's kind of a race the developers have with the players to keep up content, and in order to do that, they need the veteran players to continue investing in the game to support their continued making of content (it's free-to-play, so that's basically the only funding they get). They've tried to introduce modes that are less looty and more match-based (Conclave, Rathuum, Index), but not enough of the player base is into it and are still more interested in the new loot. "End game" means that the developers would have to provide an end to the game and encourage players to put it down.

For me, I kind of like this whirlpool model as opposed to the carrot on a stick. I don't want to be led on a linear path that I could just as easily read a walkthrough for. I want to explore the vast expanses and uncover the mysteries of the Old War in a way that is entirely my own. There is no "right answer" in Warframe, and I really like that. The big area that needs to be improved is, as you mention, variety and meaning in this exploration, in this answer seeking. Have our choices have consequences. Improve matchmaking and make clans have a stronger effect on the game. Put in more stakes and consequences that reach beyond personal ones.

Here's an example idea:

Spoiler

In a bad-to-worst scenario, a Faction found your Clan's Dojo, they invade it, and now your clan has a clan-exclusive mission to drive the invaders out of their own Dojo or risk facing reparable but severe damage to the Dojo itself. We already have the tilesets and peer-hosted missions, we'd just need to add in the weapons and enemies, with a bit more exposition voiceover from Space Mom.

 

This game is constantly in development. We've seen a lot in the past year and a half, and I'm hoping we see a lot more. Even when Warframe gets a little wonky, the IP as a whole stays engaging and compelling (for me, anyway). It's a strong idea, and I want to see more of it.

[notlamprey]

41 minutes ago, Antiphoton said:

~snip~

I also recently decided to 'loosen my orbit' around the game, mostly because I hit one of those points you described.

Eventually I could find no other goal aside from "pile up more platinum while not really enjoying the game," and that didn't seem at all like a good way to spend my time. With the advent of Riven Mods, it seems like now is a very good time for me to back away from playing every day and sell off a bit of my 'investment' in the game.

While I don't plan to break away from the game entirely, this does feel like a good time for players to be re-evaluating their play habits and reasons for playing.

[(PSN)Darth-Escar]

So rewarding content is too easy, and what we work towards trivializes it too easily? If that's what you're saying then I agree. Warframe is the only game I've been playing for the last few months, and my main game for almost the whole year. The crazy thing is I've spent almost half of that time with Oberon. I'm not sure how to explain this, but I haven't been getting bored of the game, yet I have a hard time enjoying it. I wish I could be more rewarded for the challenging stuff. (And that when I go do it for fun, I'm not stopped by glitches, which run the mission, and have me contact support, hoping for what I was supposed to get.)

[FLSH_BNG]

I'm kind of hoping for a new 'early' game for players who've finished TWW. We have an opportunity for a sort of restart with the game that could focus on new developments that require our expertise and ability with what we're already good at to progress and continue in a different direction that isn't a part of the main stream of progression.

 

Spoiler

I really just want operator-only missions where some new mechanics are not only introduced but essential for success in and can be helpful but aren't necessary in regular play.

 

[onieyez]

You're right, there really isn't much to do

the only reason i do sortie is to get a riven mod that will disappoint me, and will probably just sell it for 20p-50p

syndicate missions, get 125k and sell syndicate weapon

I think that's about it, I don't really need to farm for prime parts because I can just buy that with the plat i make from selling rivens and syndicate weapons

and then I log off, if i get bored i log back on to do some kuva farm, sell some stuff to stack my plats that i barely ever use

[Katinka]

No game has ever mastered endless end game.  Every game either ends and stops getting played or gets updates with new content.  The games that update usually follow a path of every update adding new progression, driving the desire to play through not just added story but increased power, higher level caps, new gear etc.  Warframe tries not to increase power with new frames (except Prime versions) and gets criticised if they do it with weapons or mods (everyone wants new stuff to be useful yet also wants their old favourite to still be good too).  It's a very difficult position, trying to keep everyone happy.  I can see though how they have tried to do it.  Reactors/Catalysts and mods allow you to boost the gear of your choice.  Forma was added as something we choose to use to add extra power to the gear of our choice.  Exilus Adaptors were added allowiong us to further unlock power on the frames of our choice.  Arcanes from Trials fit that too.  Now Rivens follow in that pattern as any existing rifle can now get a boost.  We can chase the Riven for our favourite (or buy it from another player if so inclined) but we might also get them for something unexpected that may become a new favourite if willing to give it a chance.

Anyway... I think it's a good thing if the game doesn't have you hooked all night every night.  If I log on and only play the Sortie I've probably still sat staring at a computer screen for about twice as long as my optician would recommend (especially as a large amount of my work is sitting in front of a computer too).  There are other games I'd like to play sometimes too.  I still enjoy Warframe after all this time.  I like a relaxing mission slaughtering my enemies and I'll keep logging in and running Sorties/Syndicate alerts/random other alerts for whatever takes my fancy until the next update/Prime release that gives me a bit more direction.

[Etharien]

@Antiphoton, i agree with you 100%. To lengthen the game for myself, i set out to forma pretty much every weapon to min/max standards. Now I'm out of weapons/frames, and only play for that potential riven reward. I have 3150 hours in game, more time than any other game i have played by a long shot, so it's hard for me to complain when I've played this game for so long. But the fact that there is a direct lack of "endgame" is unappealing. I wish there was some sort of Mad Moxxi's arena (Borderlands) where you start at the sweet spot level, but instead of enemies leveling up, you get randomized debuffs. But that is for a different thread (perhaps i'll go do that).

Furthermore, I think you are spot on with the balance team. I don't know how many people they have, but it is not enough or they are spread too thin. The fact that so many things remain so obviously over/under tuned is a real shame considering the amount of feedback players give on the forums. See Zenurik/Naramon focus schools. They trivialize 99% of content. The fact that our energy economy hasn't been reined in is also leading to an increasing number of "nerf frame X" threads. If they decided to fix the root of the problem, energy, there wouldn't be as many complaint threads. The balance also works both ways, with so many enemies being overtuned (see enemy flamethrowers, high level techs & sappers, identical ancient aura stacking, nullifiers etc.). Many people cling to the notion of a damage 3.0 to magically alleviate all these issues, but they have been singing that song for so long now it just seems like it will never come. I could go on and on about what is unbalanced, but this isn't the time or place.

I also think the art and animation team hit it out of the park more often than not. I always enjoy the new designs, melee combo animations (even though most get unused), and the tile sets.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Etharien

[xRufus7x]

1 hour ago, Antiphoton said:

Yeah, they do. But they release new stuff a lot faster than they fix the old stuff.

Titania, for example. She's in a better spot than Zephyr, of course, but she could use some tweaks, like fixing the fact that Lantern'ed enemies fly away in open tilesets. You have a lot more time here than I do, based on that, when do you expect her to be revisited for some tweaks? How many new frames do you think will be added by then?

Of course, I may be wrong, each player has his/her own perspective. Mine tells me that fixing older frames should be a number one priority, because the longer they pospone it, the harder it will become.

Before Titania gets looked at? Probably a while. She is in an OK place right now and you can control where lanterned enemies go by smacking them or shooting them. So that really isn't a big issue.

 

Also, FTP games live and die off of new content. This is just a fact. DE needs to keep pumping out new content to keep people playing. A zephyr overhaul will never draw in as many people as trying a new frame and certainly will draw in less money as many people already own Zephyr. and like it or not it is money that keeps Warframe going.

[Antiphoton]

8 hours ago, Etharien said:

To lengthen the game for myself, i set out to forma pretty much every weapon to min/max standards.

That's what I've been doing with warframes, too. I potatoed and formaed several times almost all of them, but in the end almost never found a reason to use them.

[Pinkkifantti]

Only thing what i have to say about this post is:

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

10 hours ago, Antiphoton said:

DE keeps saying that they took a lot of risks to make this game. The best risk they could take now is stop trying to impress us with weird gimmicks, and instead focus on keep developing the rough edges of the mechanics and the story, disregarding the pressure and the expectations from outside, and concentrating in doing it with honesty, passion and love for their work.

i'm almost crying from the overwhelming power of agreement... have a big fat +1, you wonderful internet person!

[(XBOX)DeluxeKnight831]

can i give this guy a +2 ?

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

Wow OP , i came expecting a angry rant from a leaving player.

You gave a very well said post and you touched on some very key issues.

I would give you +10 if i could.....

Something I have found is my brother and i have beefed up our kits to the point where nothing gets in our way. But we don't have anywhere to really let loose the full power because balance is seriously out the window. Even against lvl 120+ enemies the challenge is just not there.

We own almost every single weapon in the game including alot that don't display. But 99% of them including sets like wraiths are 100% useless.

They need to stop adding more weapons into the game and focus on balance before anymore content.

Riven mods are interesting but they should not be an excuse to pass over a proper balance update. Never alone the sheer amount of rng that goes with them. 😂

 

Edited December 13, 2016 by (PS4)Mofojokers

[Epilogia]

Logged in just so I can upvote. You speak in the name of many.

[DrBorris]

Is this an "I'm done"  post that doesn't devolve into a whiny rant but rather gives level headed feedback that promotes conversation?

 

The end must be nigh... 

Edited December 14, 2016 by DrBorris

[Tizodd]

You make some very good points.  The illustrations are perfect imo.  I find myself forma'ing gear then logging off to play something else all-too-often.  Ideally, I should be forma'ing gear then tackling content I wasn't able to handle without my forma'd gear.