A lot of new systems don't get enough commitment

[AdunSaveMe]

Something new is added, it maybe gets a couple bug fixes and tweaks, then it's like it gets forgotten. Examples:
-The star chart. They admitted SotR came out too early, but didn't keep on it to fill in the gaps. Still has some issues, visually and functionally.
-Syndicates. Still use placeholder-like death squads. Mechanics haven't been expanded upon. Couple of quests, but they're separate from the system.
-The U14 interface. Looks like a placeholder, feels like a placeholder. Only change has been to the market and codex, and the star chart. No changes to all the submenus, nothing to make it more streamlined or convenient to use.
-Focus is apparently getting reworked along with the new TWW system. But the point here is that Focus hasn't gotten any changes aside from a couple of minor tweaks and the addition of Convergence, for nearly a year now, despite the tag on it saying "expect changes as we evolve this new system!"
-Void fissures got big changes and now they're in a good place, but this is one of the few exceptions.

My point here is that when something new is added, it needs commitment. Don't tweak it a bit and forget about it for months. Keep working on it until it's better, THEN you can leave it. Even just little things, like improving visibility on the star chart, adding hotkeys to the liset for faster navigation, or rebalancing a couple of Focus passives, just something. I get that you have to prioritize certain things but dropping new additions and coming back to them months or years later is not working out. Commit to them, act on the mountains of feedback.

You don't have to do full reworks within weeks of adding something, but even just small changes and updates are enough.

[Cortanis]

Welcome once again to DE's professional ADHD. They've been talking dojo reworks and such for how long? I have a hard time believing they're working on anything other than soon-to-be-released content considering nothing else gets dealt with. The game has so much more potential and nuance if it would only get done.

[AdunSaveMe]

Just now, Cortanis said:

Welcome once again to DE's professional ADHD. They've been talking dojo reworks and such for how long? I have a hard time believing they're working on anything other than soon-to-be-released content considering nothing else gets dealt with. The game has so much more potential and nuance if it would only get done.

That's a tad harsh imo. Not exactly what my point was going for.

[Tekka_Croe]

Don't forget the snippets of lore that were unlocked through Cephalon Simaris global scanning challenges.  We got what, seven or eight of those, before that was completely abandoned?

[AdunSaveMe]

Just now, Tekka_Croe said:

Don't forget the snippets of lore that were unlocked through Cephalon Simaris global scanning challenges.  We got what, seven or eight of those, before that was completely abandoned?

I forgot to mention Simaris as well.

[Chroia]

3 minutes ago, Tekka_Croe said:

Don't forget the snippets of lore that were unlocked through Cephalon Simaris global scanning challenges.  We got what, seven or eight of those, before that was completely abandoned?

Seems to me that they decided it requires too much manpower to upkeep, so we subsequently got personalized synthesis targets.
Automated, scalable, no further human intervention required.

Oh, that means no more Simaris lore? Yeah, shame that.

[OriVerda]

Oh here's a great one they forgot:

Nef Anyo and Derf Anyo. We did get Scrambus from it. 

Cortanis is right, DE has a mild case of ADHD.

[Sziklamester]

There is still a tons of content which needs some tweaks and kept living dead for a while. If you want to mention then you can aswell the resistance mods, old and outdated mods, which just needs some tweaks others needs some changes or the old dojo design vs new with new rooms etc. Also there is missing a lot of qol changes on menus no emotions can be used in liset, clipping issues and invisible wallls in certain levels.

Older frames and weapons still needs balances the riven system is not a solution for this because the differences still there and no one will use old content if the new one is perfectly good to them with rivens aswell.

The list can goes on but DE's work habit is begin something stop it for a whle then work on another then do it again. I don't like this personally because my work habit is different and I like to focus and finish it things instead of begin new one till that one what i am working on not finished yet.

Easier to categorize things and remember what needs if you not take long breaks from it. 

[gluih]

I hope you do realize that updates with NEW content are what keeps the game going and not small changes to existing systems?

New stuff keeps players interested, it can make players come back to the game and it might be a good opportunity to bring new players into the game.

You claim that what the Devs are doing is not working out, but all you have to proof this is your own personal opinion. There are a lot of things that have to be worked on, but the Devs are working on things.

What visual and functional issues are there even with the starchart?
I don't see what your problems with the interface are. What changes would you make to them?

They are working on focus and syndicates.

And I don't see how the void fissures are one of few exception of things that do work. Most of the game works fine. It might not be perfect, but it's overall pretty damn good.
And don't forget, that they are also making quite a lot of small changes and fixes. They might not be the ones that you specifically have on your mind at that moment, but they are still there.

[AdunSaveMe]

21 minutes ago, gluih said:

I hope you do realize that updates with NEW content are what keeps the game going and not small changes to existing systems?

Only for a small amount of time. Existing systems are what make up the entire game. If you just have an ever-increasing pile of new systems that got left behind for the next brand new toy, you've got a large part of the game that feels unfinished and keeps collecting dust and issues. You know it's possible to work on new content AND work on existing content at the same time, right?

There's "quite a lot" of small changes and fixes, is there? What were the recent ones to Focus trees? What were the recent ones to Syndicate death squads? When was the last time we got Simaris lore? It's not an opinion; it's a fact. There are a lot of systems which get no attention beyond the first week or so.

21 minutes ago, gluih said:

What visual and functional issues are there even with the starchart?
I don't see what your problems with the interface are. What changes would you make to them?

The star chart has clunky ways of displaying information such as stacked alerts on nodes, and resources on planets, of which there have been many suggestions for the most basic streamlining. Subjectively, it looks bad. There are problems with interface visibility with depth of field turned off. It was rushed, it was stated by Steve that they had to meet a deadline, that is a fact.

As for the interface, there are far too many submenus, it takes too long to go between menus, there's a hell of a lot of unused space and it's a chore to navigate, as well as being visually unappealing. All of these things have had months and months of feedback. There have been suggestions to reduce the amount of clicks needed to navigate menus, to add hotkeys, to use up more space to fit more on screen at once, to improve visibility etc.

You can't deny that these things have had little support, because it's a fact that you can back up by seeing all the changes made to these systems over their life spans, and when those changes were made. The U14 interface alone is a perfect example. There's some changes at the start, and that's it. In a couple of cases, there's the occasional small addition or tweak. No action taken on any of the major concerns, feedback or opinions, no matter how valid or well-written or popular.

Opinion doesn't change the fact that syndicates still use placeholder death squads with no expansion on their mechanics, despite DE's own intention of doing so. Opinion doesn't change the fact that we haven't gotten new Simaris lore since August LAST YEAR, and the only change made to the system was made so they could forget about it. Opinion, especially, does not change the fact that we have had exactly the same interface since update 14. Steve himself said New Loka's death squad was because they didn't have anything better.

There's a lot more to this than my own opinion.

Edited December 15, 2016 by AdunSaveMe

[gluih]

46 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

Only for a small amount of time. Existing systems are what make up the entire game. If you just have an ever-increasing pile of new systems that got left behind for the next brand new toy, you've got a large part of the game that feels unfinished and keeps collecting dust and issues. You know it's possible to work on new content AND work on existing content at the same time, right?

There's "quite a lot" of small changes and fixes, is there? What were the recent ones to Focus trees? What were the recent ones to Syndicate death squads? When was the last time we got Simaris lore? It's not an opinion; it's a fact. There are a lot of systems which get no attention beyond the first week or so.

What is a small amount of time? The amount of time it takes for a large portion of the playerbase to have issues with unfinished systems is actually pretty large imo.

And I did not know that it is possible to work on new and existing content. I think it's impossible. You could argue that replacing something means that you can do both at the same time, but I would just call that working on new content.

Every update has a list of changes and fixes. As I mentioned in my previous post, they might not be the ones you are looking for, but they still exist.

54 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

The star chart has clunky ways of displaying information such as stacked alerts on nodes, and resources on planets, of which there have been many suggestions for the most basic streamlining. Subjectively, it looks bad. There are problems with interface visibility with depth of field turned off. It was rushed, it was stated by Steve that they had to meet a deadline, that is a fact.

As for the interface, there are far too many submenus, it takes too long to go between menus, there's a hell of a lot of unused space and it's a chore to navigate, as well as being visually unappealing. All of these things have had months and months of feedback. There have been suggestions to reduce the amount of clicks needed to navigate menus, to add hotkeys, to use up more space to fit more on screen at once, to improve visibility etc.

You can't deny that these things have had little support, because it's a fact that you can back up by seeing all the changes made to these systems over their life spans, and when those changes were made. The U14 interface alone is a perfect example. There's some changes at the start, and that's it. In a couple of cases, there's the occasional small addition or tweak. No action taken on any of the major concerns, feedback or opinions, no matter how valid or well-written or popular.

Opinion doesn't change the fact that syndicates still use placeholder death squads with no expansion on their mechanics, despite DE's own intention of doing so. Opinion doesn't change the fact that we haven't gotten new Simaris lore since August LAST YEAR, and the only change made to the system was made so they could forget about it. Opinion, especially, does not change the fact that we have had exactly the same interface since update 14. Steve himself said New Loka's death squad was because they didn't have anything better.

There's a lot more to this than my own opinion.

Your opinion is that this is a big problem. I expect that a large portion of the player base would rather see new content, than have small changes to existing systems. The reason for that a lot of companies that run games similar to warframe do the same thing. They prioritize new content over improvements to existing content. I also hear from friends who program different software, that most of them focus on getting stuff done quickly instead of making it perfect. This includes bugs and how good the product is in general. You can look at the time before TWW was released. There were a lot of players complaining about the delays and that there was this large gap between The second dream and TWW.

I am not denying that there are systems that have not been worked on for a long time (which is again very subjective). I am questioning how relevant they actually are. And you can voice your opinion about what part of the game you care about and what should therefor be priortized by the Devs, but claiming that something is not working out or that the Devs need to do something is just wrong.

And then you should also keep in mind that the stuff you mentioned isn't everything. They are also working on reworks for older frames and that's something you should be very happy about, because they could also just focus on making new ones.
I also care about actual bugs, that can break parts of the game. It is really annoying when enemies get stuck inside a wall or when you get stuck in a menu and have to restart the game.
And then there is also a lot of information that should be added to the game, like how armor works or how different effects stack.

[Lluid]

Hi guys, your debate is very interesting, and I believe you're both right (Adun & gluih). It's only a matter of balance between adding new stuff, polishing existing stuff, and replacing existing stuff.

My personal preference would be to have more focus on polishing stuff (see this list of 100+ QoL ideas), like Adun. However, it is clear that a good number of players don't feel the same. So how should DE behave ?

DE perspective

Obviously the developers would like to reach a perfect state on their game, but I believe that wouldn't be a good idea in terms of profit. They need to keep their player base interested. How can they achieve this from a marketing point of view ? Well obviously adding new content is very effective, but I'd like to stress the impact of replacing stuff. Every time we have a "stuff 2.0" coming, we're excited almost more than with new content. And in general, doing a "2.0" requires less work than creating a new system entirely. Maybe more thoughts, more tuning, but far less developing steps than for a "1.0".

So if we're analyzing the game development with the possibility of replacing everything in mind, then it appears clearly that polishing stuff is not interesting. Why would they spend weeks polishing something if they envision changing it the following year ? Again, it's only a marketing consequence, if they want to keep the player base.

The balance depends on the type of players they want

I believe this is a very interesting question : should game designers try their best to keep their player base by adding or replacing stuff, or should they focus more on game quality to get more new players ?

Interestingly, DE are actually working on both sides. That's why I love the game. It's more like only 20% polishing. Each of us has his own preference, that's fine, but what's the best commercial behavior ?

Edited December 15, 2016 by Lluid

[WhyNotBro]

I don't know much about game development. In my perfect world Warframe barely stops introducing new content and starts to reworking / tweaking all already existing things. This lasts as long as it needs to. It's like Warframe 2.0 :D But i know, not gonna happen.

Amount of new content makes me worry. Everything what we have is just a disposable product (i'll be quiet about the quality of this product). Once you've done the TWW (year of waiting) for couple hours...and you are sitting in your liset wondering what to do next. But there is nothing to do. You are coming back to what it was before.

As i said, i have no clue about game development. For me, as a player, it is strange to see more and more new stuff, while everything what left behind remains the same. In my opinion, DE someday will awake in the development grave burried under amount of things need to be fixed / reworked etc. And comunity will demand new and new and more new stuff, but developers physicaly couldn't deal with all that.

What is the point to buy a new fancy wheels, when your car has no engine?:D


From the other side, if we guess that Warframe is just a leeching money project, without any long future plans, then the situation makes sense :D
However, i can not believe in it.

Edited December 15, 2016 by WhyNotBro

[GinKenshin]

Don't forget AW too, That's probably the biggest one. I do hope they know what to do with AW. As in making it a large scale gameplay or just limited content to change the pace a bit....if that's so, it only needs some small additions and tweaks. And I hate that they focused the whole year on AW movement which was fine before. The weapon/AW parts drop change was awesome though, that's a big +1 for DE 

 

Also for starchart bugs. The sigils and emblems still don't show up. And there's that weird angle to your hand when you zoom I on a planet 

[lodoubt]

There's a lot of general housekeeping that is several years overdue (Weapon rebalancing, clan dojo update, resuming dark sectors, dynamic syndicate alliances). But I'm not concerned that the new systems are seeing a lack of commitment. Fissures, Rivens, and Focus are all passable in my opinion, and definitely getting the attention they need, present tense, to iron out any flaws. Archwing is also actively being developed, but people actually become upset to hear DE is working on making it better because they've decided they hate it so much and it shouldn't be taking up any developer time. As a result, Archwing has become more and more irrelevant (You don't even need to get Tellurium from there anymore!), with Atlas and the Jordas Verdict being the only things of consequence to incentivise players getting good at Archwing. Because you know, if you put any good rewards behind an Archwing level people throw tantrums.

The problem is that ironically, the game is now so old that to go back and revisit and rework the stuff that has been on the backburner starting from the *oldest* stuff, would actually be like 8 times more cataclysmic and divisive for the fanbase than any system rework or new content they could possibly add at this point. Also, DE only has a certain number of staff in each area. A lot of this stuff would involve the coders and QA putting in like 20 times as much work as they normally do for an update while the art team sit on their hands doing nothing. DE continues to produce content the way that they do because it is a workflow model they can support.

Imagine, if you will, if they like, actually did Damage 3.0. Lets say they do *extremely well*, and that under damage 3.0, all weapons are relatively balanced to one another, and enemy health and weapon damage no longer scales exponentially or whatever, such that we're back where we were under damage 1.0 and locational damage still trumps things like weapon modding etc.

This will involve a good number of people complaining that they were robbed of all the effort they put in to get a 6 forma Soma Prime with a Riven, because now it's no better than anything else out there. People would *riot*.

Alternatively, they can just rework a fringe system, like I dunno, Kubrow breeding, and end up with something that piques interest for players that have been gone for a while and gives a little fun improved thing to do on the side, and doesn't really mess with the status quo. Not to mention that in doing so they can utilise *all* of their staff effectively.

Edited December 15, 2016 by lodoubt

[Artekkor]

I completely agree. Even though i understand that new content is what keeps the game going - its truly shameful how often DE forget about everything else. I want to play a finished product, not a stockpile of systems that were finished only by 90%.

Prime examples in my opinion are focus, certain mods and Simaris lore-hunt (which was awesome. Lore hype was always so intense!)

The thing with human psychology is that no matter how good things are all it takes is little bad things to ruin the experince. When you feel like something is unfinished and / or unrefined you start to feel like you're playing a game that is not as good as it COULD be and this feeling starts haunting you like a mosquito.

I suggest for DE to invent a "quality month" which happens once or twice a year when they focus the majority of their resources and attention on finishing, improving and refining old content.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Artek94

[Volinus7]

Perfect the game as fast as possible 

Vs

Hoard money as fast as possible 

Obvious choice isn't it?

[Vance.Stubbs]

Don't forget the Archwing, Kubrows\Kavats, existing ability imbalance, etc, etc.

I honestly have no respect for Warframe gameplay design team, most new weapons feel like they were done with dedication by art team and then just slapped with random numbers for its stats and build requirements. Same goes for other current issues OP mentioned. I doubt that even half of that will ever be fixed.

[Xenoraptor]

I believe @lodoubt has quite eloquently explained the situation DE is now in; Warframe has developed too far, with too many players too heavily invested, to allow them to go back and rework core systems that are badly in need of updating and refining, because whatever happens, a substantial proportion of the fanbase will explode in the incredibly volatile, outrage driven world of the internet.

It would be PR suicide.

Unfortunately, that probably means Warframe is set to die from suffocation as more and more unfinished and poorly refined systems are added on top of the already unstable base, with large quests acting as a cracked mortar trying to hold everything together while new frames and weapons are added to try and cover over the decaying superstructure.

[Vance.Stubbs]

3 minutes ago, Xenoraptor said:

I believe @lodoubt has quite eloquently explained the situation DE is now in; Warframe has developed too far, with too many players too heavily invested, to allow them to go back and rework core systems that are badly in need of updating and refining, because whatever happens, a substantial proportion of the fanbase will explode in the incredibly volatile, outrage driven world of the internet.

It would be PR suicide.

Unfortunately, that probably means Warframe is set to die from suffocation as more and more unfinished and poorly refined systems are added on top of the already unstable base, with large quests acting as a cracked mortar trying to hold everything together while new frames and weapons are added to try and cover over the decaying superstructure.

Well said. Couldn't agree more.