Devstream 87 Overview

[[DE]Rebecca]

24 minutes ago, Kuestenjung said:

A shotgun is actually the best way to demo this feature, cause you have a spread and don´t aim with shotguns and you struggeled to kill the one Eximus with no other enemy around, now imagine this with 30 enemies and 10 Eximus at the screen.

That was precisely my point in the next sentence though: You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. I couldn't even pull off the necessary removal in controlled environment! We then imagine what that means in the thick of it (as that hasn't been experienced by any of us yet), and the results are less than ideal. 

[tnccs215]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Admittedly using a shotgun did not demo well: the enemy was too fast, I couldn't really aim. You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. Weak points: how can we make them more interesting? Maybe if you target them you get additional damage bonuses - turn the concept upside down? Lots of great ideas flowing around. I encourage you to remind yourself to be constructive; productive before pitchforks! 

Reb, Im sure you can see the problem wasnt your shotgun, but the enemy itself.

I made a thread regarding this: Simply sticking weakspots on enemies as they are will reduce fighting them to a frustrating chore, and nothing more -- and it is so less due to the mechanic itself, and more due to the intense speed and erratic AI of the enemies.

If you want playerd to feel skillful and rewarded, players must be able to beat enemies with their brain, not their equipment -- and that means they must be able to predict their movement, not using Vauban all the time.

I made a thread about it yesterday. I implore you to go read it.

Edited February 5, 2017 by tnccs215

[Memnarch]

I'm a bit slow and reading between lines scares me so please forgive me, SpaceMom.

For claritys sake, are you saying that the weakpoint change you demo'd will not be the final version? That more tweaking will be made and maybe even demo'd in future Devstreams for feedback?

Thank You SpaceMom.

Your loyal Tenno,

Memnarch

 

 

[Yaohru]

Once upon a time I'd have written a lengthy response regarding the eximus weak points and why I think it's a bad idea, but after the Hema it's apparent DE don't really care that much about player feedback so instead I'll just say:

Dumb idea, whoever came up with it needs to re-evaluate what they're doing and how stupid their ideas are.

[SpaceSheepie]

6 minutes ago, DoctorBagPhD said:

Once upon a time I'd have written a lengthy response regarding the eximus weak points and why I think it's a bad idea, but after the Hema it's apparent DE don't really care that much about player feedback so instead I'll just say:

Dumb idea, whoever came up with it needs to re-evaluate what they're doing and how stupid their ideas are.

Ditto. Don't care enough any more to give feedback or suggestions. This is what you did to your fans. GG.

Edited February 5, 2017 by SpaceSheepie

[God_is_a_Cat_Girl]

1 hour ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Just want to bump and quote one of the most important parts of this Overview: Weak Points (http://www.giantbomb.com/weak-spot/3015-296/) 

The giantbomb gamer community says ''Weak spots are usually used on enemy NPCs that are slightly more important or powerful than normal cannon fodder enemies. Sometimes, the weak spot will be the only vulnerable spot on the enemy." 

Right now in Warframe, cannon fodder enemy heads are largely uncommunicated weakspots. Getting headshots yields more damage. Pretty conventional practice in shooters. 

Our devstreams show the rawest aspects of what is going on. This is intentional - we often adapt to changes, get real time feedback. The overview of this Devstream hours later included one of the likely adaptions to Infested Eximus Weakpoints: they may not be completely preventative of damage. I'll also add the setting I played it in: this was a sandbox room outside of the developer branch of the game. These units don't even exist in a developer/testable mission setting yet. That's just how work-in-progess this is - totally ready to adapt! Please ensure you've read this detail before you continue to add reactions 'round the web. 

Admittedly using a shotgun did not demo well: the enemy was too fast, I couldn't really aim. You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. Weak points: how can we make them more interesting? Maybe if you target them you get additional damage bonuses - turn the concept upside down? Lots of great ideas flowing around. I encourage you to remind yourself to be constructive; productive before pitchforks! 

For me the only issue with the idea isn't the idea itself, it's the current state of infested combat, it's too busy! Plus Eximus tend to be not that rare when it comes to infested either, so we get a busy combat (avoid melee units, avoid poison clouds, avoid hooks and being near Toxic ancients that still have an attack without range visuals, find the ancient healing and mitigating damage which makes you unable to kill things as fast, avoid tar puddles, roll to remove the swarm and maggots, and then find potential weak spot on Eximus unit) with fairly often enemies that have even more effects and then weakpoints, so the Eximus rarity would need to go up quite a bit else players will just be running around like headless chicken because the energy leech is making it so they can't cast powers and it has weakpoints and the entire world is out to get them. It's all just as busy as this paragraph! :D

(This is why I don't enjoy Infested missions as much, too busy for me, except Excavation, I like that with infested.)

 

Plus Eximus only sortie would be living hell.

 

Honestly it's one of the biggest "problems" to solve, how to turn busy combat into meaningful combat when the player is so strong. Other games have things like cooldowns which make it so even if the player has a strong attack they can't always use it, but we don't have that so we can easily get rid of enemies and the way to counter us is with big numbers, which in turn requires enemies to not be that strong and meaningful by themselves which then leads to them being fodder, but then making them meaningful in such busy combat makes them feel unfair even if they actually aren't, because the issue is dealing with them while having like, 10+ enemies shooting at you, including enemies that are indeed unfair like Bombards/Napalms and Corpus Techs which just are boring to fight and way too deadly without any tactical value besides being unfair to fight against.

Though that is why I don't mind changes like Ash's bladestorm and I'm not completely against the new Eximus units, I just think Eximus need other changes, but I know this is all rather early in dev and I just don't have enough info to spit salt, so here you go some "this and this, but if this and that is done maybe not as bad as said".
I really should work on my ideas of a... Fan concept? To change enemies to have more tactical roles without always shooting their guns, because honestly, why do Grineer have so many pockets if they only shoot their Grakata? Sure they can throw penta grenades at you but the game only has 1 nade type and it's not a very good or fair asset right now and could be better, and boy I want to see that new Crewman sniper in the game already (BTW, give Corpus snipers the telegraphing from Ballistas too!)

Edited February 5, 2017 by God_is_a_Cat_Girl

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

23 minutes ago, tnccs215 said:

If you want playerd to feel skillful and rewarded, players must be able to beat enemies with their brain, not their equipment -- and that means they must be able to predict their movement, not using Vauban all the time.

This

[Molagstar_Molakath]

3 minutes ago, SpaceSheepie said:

Ditto. Don't care enough any more to moan. This is what you did to your fans. GG.

My god, what's you guys' problem?

It is OBVIOUSLY not final and it is not supposed to be. It's like a concept art.

Everytime they show a shiny tool you people bleed hatred like you got stabbed in the heart by it

They don't want to stab you with it, they want to give it to you to use

If it's not fun they'll change it. You saw that. It was not fun. They will change it. Stop bleeding now.

I don't wanna defend their stuff but GOD it was just a concept

[Kuestenjung]

38 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

That was precisely my point in the next sentence though: You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. I couldn't even pull off the necessary removal in controlled environment! We then imagine what that means in the thick of it (as that hasn't been experienced by any of us yet), and the results are less than ideal. 

The problem is not what you showed, the problem is what you talked about and that´s what the community is talking about and why so many people are upset.

And seeing the past of Warframe we already know how this will end. Over the next few years you will again nerf it to the ground where the weakspots are useless, without adressing the real issues, why such systems are introduced in the first place.

[Serbian2G]

47 minutes ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

That was precisely my point in the next sentence though: You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. I couldn't even pull off the necessary removal in controlled environment! We then imagine what that means in the thick of it (as that hasn't been experienced by any of us yet), and the results are less than ideal. 

Exactly why i personally am not fond of the original idea. Personally i spend quite a chunk of my time on hieracon (probs misspelled) and things there get very hectic very fast. Now imagine an acient healer eximus spawning with damage immunity in the middle of the chaos of you trying to protect an excavator and are swarmed by lvl 70+ enemies. It is not a great idea. I do agree that enemies need to become so to say more challenging, but this is not making it challenging. It makes it frustrating. Giving damage immunity to a enemy unit that is a bullet sponge as is on higher levels just doesnt make sense. It just makes it an even bigger bullet sponge and with an added bonus of it being extremely annoying.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Serbian2G

[--Q--Kyl0Ren]

28 minutes ago, Molagstar_Molakath said:

My god, what's you guys' problem?

It is OBVIOUSLY not final and it is not supposed to be. It's like a concept art.

Everytime they show a shiny tool you people bleed hatred like you got stabbed in the heart by it

They don't want to stab you with it, they want to give it to you to use

If it's not fun they'll change it. You saw that. It was not fun. They will change it. Stop bleeding now.

I don't wanna defend their stuff but GOD it was just a concept

^^ I think people are annoyed with the current line of thinking rather than how it is going to be implemented. Yes while i do agree with you that it wasnt voiced in a proper manner by some, I do understand where they come from.

Having an 'invulnerable state' for eximus is a wrong path to take no matter the method in which it is implemented in game. Of the top of my head : eximus strong hold missions with exterminating 200+ enemies, or even any endurance run for  leaderboard  with defense or survival missions or even a Kuva flood where the guardians are already invulnerable.This will be especially bad at high levels if the % spawns scale with enemy levels. Rather than focus on new methods of implementing invulnerable state, balance enemy scaling first perhaps? A mini-boss in a mission is fine so long as its just 1 or 2 bosses. The current line of thought with eximus units means so many such mini bosses which seems a bit excessive.  The outcome if this is implemented is going to be a shift in usage to more CC frames and AOE damage weapons if those affect the enemy at all that is. This will more than restrict the loadout  people would prefer for such missions. This is going against the entire idea of having so many frames/weapons in the game. Like @tnccs215 correctly pointed out the current state of the AI is the issue rather than anything else and this is the precise reason implementing such an idea would be wrong at the current moment 

Edited February 5, 2017 by --Q--Kyl0Ren

[Molagstar_Molakath]

3 minutes ago, --Q--Kyl0Ren said:

^^ I think people are annoyed with the current line of thinking rather than how it is going to be implemented. Yes while i do agree with you that it wasnt voiced in a proper manner by some, I do understand where they come from.

Having an 'invulnerable state' for eximus is a wrong path to take no matter the method in which it is implemented in game. Of the top of my head : eximus strong hold missions with exterminating 200+ enemies, or even any endurance run for  leaderboard  with defense or survival missions or even a Kuva flood where the guardians are already invulnerable (For instance, I'm pretty sure people will get damn annoyed if we had 50 kuva guardians storming one spot ).This will be especially bad at high levels if the % spawns scale with enemy levels. Rather than focus on new methods of implementing invulnerable state, balance enemy scaling first perhaps? A mini-boss in a mission is fine so long as its just 1 or 2 bosses. The current line of thought with eximus units means so many such mini bosses which seems a bit excessive.  The outcome if this is implemented is going to be a shift in usage to more CC frames and AOE damage weapons if they at all affect the enemy that way. This will more than restrict the loadout  people would prefer for such missions going against the entire idea of having so many frames/weapons in the game. Like @tnccs215 correctly pointed out the current state of the AI is the issue rather than anything else and this is the precise reason implementing such an idea would be wrong at the current moment 

 

Lots of tweaks and solutions have been proposed, and they know they will have to make something about it.

They already know invulnerability phases and some of the stuff you mentioned are the wrong way to make things, and are here as a placeholder until they have the courage to balance the damage numbers to reasonable amounts

Do you think they are just gonna spread it to normal enemies to the point it will be unbearable?

They can just slap a tweak and it can be bearable. Not make them invulnerable? Have a cap on how many can spawn together? Have the points give them only specific resistances? All of these together?

It is just about changing a few numbers. Vomiting bile and rage over the actual numbers makes no sense, because you know they will change

[Yaohru]

18 minutes ago, Molagstar_Molakath said:

Vomiting bile and rage over the actual numbers makes no sense, because you know they will change

I had that exact line of thinking when I saw the numbers for the Hema. Worked out well for everyone in that situation didn't it? =D

Edited February 5, 2017 by DoctorBagPhD

[Jarcu]

I get that they want to make the game a challenge, but you can't forget that for a game to be successful it also needs to be fun.

Also, wasn't the basis of this games success being the joy of killing vary many things rather quickly in an interesting theme and setting?

[Molagstar_Molakath]

18 minutes ago, DoctorBagPhD said:

I had that exact line of thinking when I saw the numbers for the Hema. Worked out well for everyone in that situation didn't it? =D

That is a matter of time, like the Zephyr.

But if you want it NOW and FREE, no. Business does not work like that

 

15 minutes ago, Jarcu said:

Also, wasn't the basis of this games success being the joy of killing vary many things rather quickly in an interesting theme and setting?

 

I don't get why some people think this is just a visual background for OSU where space men die brutally while i wave the mouse around

I mean, we can't say it does not need challenge, it is a game, not a procedural wallpaper

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by Molagstar_Molakath
Made it less personal

[(XBOX)RedChimera95]

When are we gonna get tennogen round 2-7 skins and accessories? Im still waiting for mags alata skin

[Yaohru]

18 hours ago, Molagstar_Molakath said:

That is a matter of time, like the Zephyr.

But if you want it NOW and FREE, no. Business does not work like that

Aye because there was as big a backlash with [other examples where resource costs were high] and DE went out of their way to state the costs wouldn't change in order to acknowledge the 'hard work' of players who had already done it in those cases.

Aww wait, naw, it didn't play out like that at all for any of the 'high' cost examples you could throw out, did it? This is the first time DE have said "know all that feedback we're getting over this? Awa tae pot wi' it. Unfun grinding is they way forward because we're DE and the people in charge of these decisions don't even play the game, 'cause oh look here's Steve actually playing the game for the first time in ages/ever and is noticing a ton of stuff that's been in for a good long time'.

They don't play their own game from the perspective of a player and make bad decisions because of it. They then decide to throw out well thought out, reasonable criticism because some people went ahead and paid platinum (one way or the other, boosters count) in order to get a really sub-par mastery fodder junk weapon. Really looking forward to Steve getting to the derelict and seeing how much it 'rains' mutagen samples there. 

Edited February 6, 2017 by [DE]Taylor
removed CoC violation

[Molagstar_Molakath]

1 minute ago, DoctorBagPhD said:

Aye because there was as big a backlash with [other examples where resource costs were high] and DE went out of their way to state the costs wouldn't change in order to acknowledge the 'hard work' of players who had already done it in those cases.

Aww wait, naw, it didn't play out like that at all for any of the 'high' cost examples you could throw out, did it? This is the first time DE have said "know all that feedback we're getting over this? Awa tae pot wi' it. Unfun grinding is they way forward because we're DE and the people in charge of these decisions don't even play the game, 'cause oh look here's Steve actually playing the game for the first time in ages/ever and is noticing a ton of stuff that's been in for a good long time'.

They don't play their own game from the perspective of a player and make moronic decisions because of it. They then decide to throw out well thought out, reasonable criticism because some idiots went ahead and paid platinum (one way or the other, boosters count) in order to get a really sub-par mastery fodder junk weapon. Really looking forward to Steve getting to the derelict and seeing how much it 'rains' mutagen samples there. 

They actually LIVE out of unfun grinding, so you should expect to see it somewhere.

At first it was the catalysts

Then the orokin cells

Then the primes

Clans

Argon

Syndicates

Kubrows, Zephyr, Kavats

How many of these are an issue right now? They grew old and now you have 10 orokin cells per mission. 100 oxium per mission. Argon by the dozens, and costs stayed the same

So the bulk of the unfun grind just moved to the Hema now. They live thanks to this

They just moved the goalpost and they will move it again, you just have to be patient and not get your blood pressure threaten your health over this

Yes, the Hema is their hostage right now

 

[(XBOX)DeluxeKnight831]

3 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Just want to bump and quote one of the most important parts of this Overview: Weak Points (http://www.giantbomb.com/weak-spot/3015-296/) 

The giantbomb gamer community says ''Weak spots are usually used on enemy NPCs that are slightly more important or powerful than normal cannon fodder enemies. Sometimes, the weak spot will be the only vulnerable spot on the enemy." 

Right now in Warframe, cannon fodder enemy heads are largely uncommunicated weakspots. Getting headshots yields more damage. Pretty conventional practice in shooters. 
 

The system Demo'ed on stream wasn't a weak spot though. The enemy was completely invulnerable to damage until the protrusions on it's body were destroyed. The difference between that and weak spots is weak spots generally take more damage than the rest of the enemies body a perfect example being Bursas. If the bursa weak spot idea was implemented onto eximus units with them having harder plated patches on their body while having softer parts which take more damage, it will fix issue of players curb stomping anything in their path while making the enemies still manageable but menacing enough to be priority targets like bursas are.

[SpaceSheepie]

8 minutes ago, Molagstar_Molakath said:

Blah blah

Devs lie and we're expected to have undying trust? Ok.

[Molagstar_Molakath]

Just now, SpaceSheepie said:

Devs lie and we're expected to have undying trust? Ok.

Devs lie and it does not matter until they try to steal your money with their lies

[Yaohru]

An excellent way to make this (currently stupid) system significantly more tolerable.

 

[DatDarkOne]

18 hours ago, DoctorBagPhD said:

They don't play their own game from the perspective of a player and make bad decisions because of it.

Here's the problem I have with this comment on the forums.  There are numerous videos/streams of DE employees PLAYING the game.  2 of those happen to be doing it on a regular basis and they contribute to the decisions made.  Then you have Steve doing it now and making QoL changes quite rapidly.  So, I just can't see how people can honestly say they don't play there own game when there is quite a bit of proof that they do.  This is just my opinion and observation.  Then again, how many Devs actually show you they are playing the game that they program.  Something to think about, yes?

[Lyravain]

3 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Just want to bump and quote one of the most important parts of this Overview: Weak Points (http://www.giantbomb.com/weak-spot/3015-296/) 

The giantbomb gamer community says ''Weak spots are usually used on enemy NPCs that are slightly more important or powerful than normal cannon fodder enemies. Sometimes, the weak spot will be the only vulnerable spot on the enemy." 

Right now in Warframe, cannon fodder enemy heads are largely uncommunicated weakspots. Getting headshots yields more damage. Pretty conventional practice in shooters. 

Our devstreams show the rawest aspects of what is going on. This is intentional - we often adapt to changes, get real time feedback. The overview of this Devstream hours later included one of the likely adaptions to Infested Eximus Weakpoints: they may not be completely preventative of damage. I'll also add the setting I played it in: this was a sandbox room outside of the developer branch of the game. These units don't even exist in a developer/testable mission setting yet. That's just how work-in-progess this is - totally ready to adapt! Please ensure you've read this detail before you continue to add reactions 'round the web. 

Admittedly using a shotgun did not demo well: the enemy was too fast, I couldn't really aim. You witnessed some of the first player feedback on this idea, real time. Weak points: how can we make them more interesting? Maybe if you target them you get additional damage bonuses - turn the concept upside down? Lots of great ideas flowing around. I encourage you to remind yourself to be constructive; productive before pitchforks! 

Don't sell yourself short, Rebecca. You got decent aim -there are better people, yes, but there's also tons who are worse at it. You can't judge a game's community by the 'top tier' alone.

In fact, your shotgun showed a very, very obvious issue; such an enemy is tackled only by a full-auto weapon. Anything that isn't full-auto is at a tremendous disadvantage. We don't need such weapons to be further ostracized by the community. Similarly, it points out that, without a decent (if not huge) amount of Crowd Control, these enemies are too much of a hassle to kill. It pushes the notion that 'CC or nothing', making frames with less CC even less liked by people. Lastly, you had a single enemy you could focus on -this is the same as being in the Simulacrum and expecting combos there to work the same in a mission. As 'no plan survives contact with the enemy', we can safely assume that in an actual fight, we'd be having many more issues.

Neither me, nor any of the Tenno who disagree with this, want to bring in pitchforks. In fact, most of us would welcome a legitimate challenge. But invulnerability is not a legitimate challenge, it's just a way to extend the life-span of an enemy through unfair means. Lots of Tenno have given great ideas that I hope you will consider before bringing more invulnerabilities into the game (you admitted in the same DevStream you were considering reducing instances of invulnerabilities, so why would you want to add more?).

Copying from another thread I've made, here are my ideas. They are not the most 'polished' (as I don't know how your coding works, I've done some programming, but every program is understood only by the one to program it, and sometimes not even then), and they are not necessarily the 'best'. But you can pick, choose, combine and ask us, which ones we consider to be the most 'fair' challenges to add.

• Increase AI (proper cover, not charge solo etc etc).
• Increase size (a psychological factor). It would make Eximus units pop up way more than a little orange aura around them.
• Provide a random, drastic resistance to a damage type, determined at spawn individually (or go the way of Sentients, giving them a high resistance to the first element that hits them).
• Give them faction abilities that counter-play our plays. Since Grineer are most counterplayed by Frost's Bubbles (there are other ways, yes, but this one trivializes them the most), give all Grineer Eximus the ability to teleport (only, you know, not in front of our guns) and call reinforcements there. Corpus mostly play by messing with us, so give them an (radial) EMP that disrupts our visuals (not to the extent of the bursa's flash bang, god but that hurts my eyes), damage our shields and if need be turn off channeled abilities (i.e. Exalted weapons, but not Snowglobes/Iron Skin, they already have units for that). Since Infested are primarily melee and suffer great losses by the time they close in, give their eximus a portable Volt shield their buddies can hide behind (even if that shield only reduces incoming ranged damage rather than completely negate it).
• Provide Eximus units with resistance to CC. They are elite units and so could, conceivably, not be as affected by Molecular Prime, Cold Procs, Freeze status, Bastille etc. Immunity should be the purview of the bosses.

I am sorry if I sounded a bit too aggressive. I just happen to love Warframe, spent 2.9k hours on it (a fair bit of my life) so I would like to avoid unnecessary problems by you having to balance, rebalance, nerf, buff, rework, add, remove and edit things... when you can just ask your community of people for ideas and opinions through polls. Make no mistake, we love Warframe and we want the best for it, it just makes us a bit more emotional.

[Nazrethim]

4 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Weak points: how can we make them more interesting? Maybe if you target them you get additional damage bonuses - turn the concept upside down?

I will be happy if weakspots are inmune to AoEs like Tonkors, Simulors and Telos Boltace slide radial. I want some skill requirement that can't be bypassed just by having X weapon or frame equipped! :3