Dear De, I Have Just One Question:

[RealityMachina]

Ok so I only started playing 2 days ago and was enjoying it. Then comes U9 and I get slaughtered on the first mission. The enemy force levels are insane, there's enemies I've never seen that can wipe me in seconds and they clump together like fleas on a dog. 

 

U9 is not fun, it's a game-killer. I play co-op with my wife, she's the melee expert I'm the sniper/ranged type. Even together we can't get anywhere on this update. 

 

What were the thought processes on this update?

 

"Oh, you've been wounded? Lets set your health to drop continuously so you bleed out!"

"Hey, here's an idea. They're picking up too much stuff, lets give them a time limit so they take longer to progress!"

"Nah, those bad guys were lame, they need to learn against much tougher guys!"

 

And other, lets-make-the-newbies-quit comments?

 

We ain't all super-high-level cash cows, some of us actually play for fun - and U9 is no longer fun.

 

So, I started up a random Capture mission from Mercury (I'm still getting back into the feel for playing the game) and discovered that, for some reason, without my consent, the game was draining my health and only restored it when I either found orbs or killed enemies. It didn't stop at a certain amount, it just kept draining and draining until I finally had used up all of my revives trying to complete a simple capture mission.

 

I imagine if someone was a fast moving, meele/close combat type like Excalibre, they'd be fine. A sniping Volt like me, however, does not. As a result it was a purely aggravating experience.

Did none of your QA team ever bothered playtesting what it would be like to be a new player coming into Warframe for the first time? Or someone who hasn't been keeping up with Warframe for a while?

 

Because otherwise I would find it hard to believe that not one of them pointed out that certain elements of the game like newly implemented nightmare mode are apparently never explained in-game.

 

I mean to use a proverb, "first impressions are the most lasting". And if the person gets the impression that Warframe has a difficulty rollercoaster, chances are that person is not going let Warframe remain installed on their computer, and you lose out on a potential customer.

 

In fact, the general trend of stuff not being explained in-game is a troubling one. Nothing you can learn about the Kogake from in-game sources only will tell you that its regular attacks will ignore armour. Hell, you generally don't learn anything about the fact that with most other melee weapons, the charged attacks will ignore armour. There's nothing in the game that indicates that the Dread does not use the same kind of armour piercing type of damage as Paris does, or that weapons like the Boltor have innate armour piercing compared to the Braton.

 

You don't even get told stuff like the stats of your gun once the mod has applied. You don't even get told about what your base critical chance or critical damage for your guns are even though there are mods that modify those stats.

 

Why do you hold back so much information DE? This sort of stuff gets told to players in other dungeon crawlers like Diablo, why not in Warframe?

[suadumpy]

Make nightmare mode optional.

Problem solved.

Yeah, I hate it when games make you look at the wiki, but it's not that big of a deal to open up the browser to look up some info.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Shotgunboyy

[CY13ERPUNK]

ouch... Diablo... low-blow bro

but srsly, that's a fair comparison at this point =/

I was happy to see the quick 9.1 hotfix, BUT we need a 9.2 hotfix now

- no grouping interface

- no way to know what teammates vote for (no way to choose nightmare or not as well)

- mission "go screen" scenes lockin missions without asking if you'd like to start the mish

- no way to see what "aura" teammates are bringing

- IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE TEAMMATES LOADOUTS (ie frame/weaps/etc)

- IT WOULD BE NICE TO NOT HAVE SUCH A S#&$ CHAT/GROUPING SYSTEM

- and it would be nice to not have so many unjoinable/buggy alerts right now, this U9 is kinda disasterous =[

bunch of neat new stuff implemented, but sadly, implemented with less than stellar results and unfortunately most of the new features TOOK AWAY info from the Tenno =[

[RealityMachina]

Yeah, I hate it when games make you look at the wiki, but it's not that big of a deal to open up the browser to look up some info.

The problem with the wiki is that a lot of its stuff can be heavily inaccurate, being a purely user sourced made wiki and all. And this is presuming one sticks with the game long enough to even learn there's a wiki in the first place.

 

Either DE should make an official wiki with them maintaining it so everything's up to date and accurate, providing links to it within the game itself, or they should bother to take the time to explain stuff that should be known within the game.

[Boomstick720]

Uh... aren't we the play testers?

 

That kind of invalidates your post to be honest.

[Alcoran]

Valid points, but let's not spew hate.

 

U9 was a great update in many ways, but I agree that it is a bit overwhelming for new players. Particularly because it was so easy before, and many used to complain on the forums about it being too easy, they hit it too hard I think, especially in the beginning.

 

 

 

There are a number of QoL improvements in order; the good thing is, there isn't a fundamental problem, and a series of small changes should help:

 - Give us more weapon statistics.

 

 - Explain elements/armor piercing/armor ignore ingame, and do a good job of explaining. List what kind of damage type that weapons do, and have a small screen/guide (of one-three pages) explaining armor, damage types, etc. Perhaps even make a small tutorial mission about it.

 

- At higher levels, remove some of the effectiveness of armor so an armor-ignoring weapon is not totally required, at least resistance to the "weakness" element of that faction (for example, reduce electric damage resistance of high level corpus).

 

- Some of the mid-level planets should be scaled down (Saturn, for example), as it ramps up a bit too quickly in difficulty. Many abilities become useless, for example (Volt, Ember, Frost, etc). Again, the main problem here is that level 40-60 enemies take about 1/5th of the damage from non-armor-ignore.

 

- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars should have their nightmare mode removed. This makes some thematic sense as well (inner ring planets/closer to sun).

 

- Three planets should remain high-difficulty, rest a bit adjusted: these three should be Eris (infested), Ceres (Grineer), Pluto (Corpus). Neptune, for example, should be toned down slightly. These 3 planets constitute the "end-game" planets for now.

 

- We need a more efficient grouping system, right now its a bit difficult to find a group, and the later planets are all much easier with a group.

[Weird_Stealth]

Make nightmare mode optional.

Problem solved.

Yeah, I hate it when games make you look at the wiki, but it's not that big of a deal to open up the browser to look up some info.

Agreed on both accounts.

the nightmare mode would be nice if it was optional, not a random "spawning" mode that pops up and you have to play on that mode. I wouldn't mind having it be an option pop up that asks "You can access Nightmare mode on this location, do you wish to play nightmare mode, or normal mode?".

 

The other bit, I both enjoy and hate games that make you look at the wiki to get any heads or tails of what is going on. The only game I've played where I love using the wiki is Minecraft. But Warframe, it's a pain to find things out ingame, the stats for everything are base, they're don't adjust according to applied mods. You can't compare warframes, or melee weapons like you can primary and secondary weapons.  They've started doing something with the lore, it'd be nice if they had a in game "Browser" of sorts connected to an official warframe wiki, or do something like StarCraft or some shooters have where you can look at all of the weapons in the game, and get an idea of what they cost, where to find the parts, and it's advantages and disadvantages.

 

ouch... Diablo... low-blow bro

but srsly, that's a fair comparison at this point =/

I was happy to see the quick 9.1 hotfix, BUT we need a 9.2 hotfix now

- no grouping interface

- no way to know what teammates vote for (no way to choose nightmare or not as well)

- mission "go screen" scenes lockin missions without asking if you'd like to start the mish

- no way to see what "aura" teammates are bringing

- IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE TEAMMATES LOADOUTS (ie frame/weaps/etc)

- IT WOULD BE NICE TO NOT HAVE SUCH A S#&$ CHAT/GROUPING SYSTEM

- and it would be nice to not have so many unjoinable/buggy alerts right now, this U9 is kinda disasterous =[

bunch of neat new stuff implemented, but sadly, implemented with less than stellar results and unfortunately most of the new features TOOK AWAY info from the Tenno =[

#1 "No grouping interface" | I agree, this needs to be changed, cause I like knowing who's in the group, and how many.

#2 "No way to know what teammates vote for" | This is also annoying, because I find it easier to chew my friends when they click before someone else in the squad isn't ready.

#3 "Mission 'go screen' Scenes locking missions without asking if you'd like to start  the mission" | If I understand you right, you're saying when you select a mission it starts the countdown? If that's it, you're actually in the lobby when you're looking at the planet.

#4 "No way to see what 'aura' teammates are bringing" | This is a problem I have the most with the auras other than they take up mod capacity, I like being able to see who all has what, so I can adjust accordingly, cause I see no reason to have 4 Enemy radar in a lobby.

#5 "It would be nice to see teammates loadouts" | This I kind of agree with, it'd be useful when you want to create a perfect squad for a defence run.

#6 "it would be nice not to have such a poor chat/grouping system" | The chat system in the lobby is rather annoying, Squad/lobby chat should be default open and showing teammate text to the group. Also, I hate how the end wave screen / mission finish screen stops you from using the text chat, makes it hard to go "Hey, T2 key is next 5 or 10 waves."

[MoyuTheTrinity]

Uh... aren't we the play testers?

 

That kind of invalidates your post to be honest.

I <3 you man

[Tempera]

Uh... aren't we the play testers?

 

That kind of invalidates your post to be honest.

We are also the regular players. Which is why DE is kind of already making an enormous amount of money off this game.

[DAWGUNITALPHA]

We are also the regular players. Which is why DE is kind of already making an enormous amount of money off this game.

They're not, apparently. A while back DE steve said in a topic that they were just barely making profit. Maybe that's changed a bit since then but still.

[Tempera]

They're not, apparently. A while back DE steve said in a topic that they were just barely making profit. Maybe that's changed a bit since then but still.

That's possibly true. Barely making profit is still raking in huge amounts of money, though; hundreds of thousands of dollars, minimum.

 

My point stands, though. While it's true that we're technically playtesters, a large portion of the playerbase isn't playing it to test the game out; they're playing it as an actual game, with the understanding that there may be bugs, etc, because it is still in beta.

[Kyte]

Uh... aren't we the play testers?

 

That kind of invalidates your post to be honest.

It's because it's beta that saying this is important. This is the best time to get things added/fixed/improved, and for that we need to give as much feedback as possible.

[SolitaireX]

I reset my account to experience it (lost the snipetron vandal, TT^TT), and, oh man, is it tough.

 

I have to agree that it might be hard on new players. I even find normal levels to be really challenging (I like it though, they aren't a breeze like before).

But then again, that can be solved by regrinding lower levels or even playing with a party.

(I also have to state that I solo most missions, however, playing with a party seems like a must now if your new or beginning.)

As for nightmare levels, I think they need to add more information on it in-game as I know many who never check the streams or forums (even the wikia ^ ^;;). They just send an angry txt about how 'op' they are, haha.

[RealityMachina]

It's because it's beta that saying this is important. This is the best time to get things added/fixed/improved, and for that we need to give as much feedback as possible.

I think he might be referring to my QA team statement.

 

They mentioned they had one on previous livestreams IIRC.

[Kyte]

I think he might be referring to my QA team statement.

 

They mentioned they had one on previous livestreams IIRC.

I still think their MO is "deathmarch the last week, release on friday, fix the worst bugs that inevitably went uncaught from lack of sleep (see deathmarch), then fix the rest next monday after crashing all weekend"

[VScipii26]

Uh... aren't we the play testers?

 

That kind of invalidates your post to be honest.

Actually, it validates it.

He playtested. It was bad.

It needs to be fixed.

Playtesting is not "He played it. It worked. Moving on."

[Boomstick720]

Actually, it validates it.

He playtested. It was bad.

It needs to be fixed.

Playtesting is not "He played it. It worked. Moving on."

Claiming that these problems would be fixed if the game was playtested previously and flinging insults about how they obviously just shat this out without a second thought is what invalidates the post.  Yes we are play testers, and yes we determine whats good or bad, but we don't go in and say "wow F*** you guys for trying something you sacks of sh*t".

[ZaraaK]

Make nightmare mode optional.

Problem solved.

 

That made so much so sense, I naturally assumed that WAS what was happening.

 

I raid in most mmogs, I am used to high level play, I can do it. But that doesn't mean I want that challenge every single fight. Some time I want a nice easy run, no time limit, no constant dot.

 

Previously I could take a higher level frame with low level weapons to level them up in a nice relaxed run. That isn't an option on nightmare now.

 

I was just playing single player and the phone rang, I let it ring through because I couldn't answer it and not die from the constant dot draining my health (first time I had ever seen it). At least previously you could find some cover and play one handed while talking or just take your chances with an afk. With the dot and time limit, neither are really an option.

 

Like has been expressed before. Update 9 has a lot of nice stuff, and there is nothing I don't ever want to see again.

 

Just give me the choice when to ramp up the difficulty. That has been a pretty standard choice in games for decades.

 

On a related note I think the part that irks the most is despite the big jump up in difficulty, the mod drops are not much if any better.

 

 

I reset my account to experience it (lost the snipetron vandal, TT^TT), and, oh man, is it tough.

 

I have to agree that it might be hard on new players. I even find normal levels to be really challenging (I like it though, they aren't a breeze like before).

But then again, that can be solved by regrinding lower levels or even playing with a party.

(I also have to state that I solo most missions, however, playing with a party seems like a must now if your new or beginning.)

As for nightmare levels, I think they need to add more information on it in-game as I know many who never check the streams or forums (even the wikia ^ ^;;). They just send an angry txt about how 'op' they are, haha.

 

 

I don't disagree but I also think new players, potentially knowing no one in game, should be the last demographic to be pressured into team play.

[Cytobel]

Make nightmare mode optional.

Problem solved.

Yeah, I hate it when games make you look at the wiki, but it's not that big of a deal to open up the browser to look up some info.

To the first half, yes.

To the look up, no.  New players need a smidge of hand-holding, just to help them get the feel for a game.  Warfarm is suffering multiple problems at the moment reguarding playability, and would greatly benefit from a range of features (things such as open-environments and exploration, actual stealth viability, 'Frames being made to at least feel similar in power and capability, and so on), but making a Beta title unapproachable to new players is about as counter-productive as it gets.

 

New players need a little info on what's what.  Telling them to wiki it isn't nearly the same as showing them what you mean with some kind of stats system, an optional tutorial (fully skippable, can't stress this part enough, don't make us sit through it) that shows players the ropes, and adding a few pieces of literature to the game via something like a freely-accessable library.  Heck, a library module for the Dojo, along with a very large practice hall ebnvironment would allow us to train new players as they come into the game, not to mention look sweet as hell.

 

I don't like the idea of pressuring players into team play.  This is a sort of archaic attitude in the post-WoW era (yeah, it's still big-ish, but it's dying slowly no matter how desperate Blizzard is getting), but I DON'T believe that an online game MUST be multiplayer.  Don't sacrifice playability for the solo player to provide for a group, that way leads down the dark path previously named game developers have trodden.  Better to make the game adapt to the number of players than force someone new into a situation they don't want and we as the community wouldn't feel proud to be represented by (i.e. rushers and the like).

Edited July 15, 2013 by Cytobel

[Selvitarm]

The problem with the wiki is that a lot of its stuff can be heavily inaccurate, being a purely user sourced made wiki and all. And this is presuming one sticks with the game long enough to even learn there's a wiki in the first place.

 

Either DE should make an official wiki with them maintaining it so everything's up to date and accurate, providing links to it within the game itself, or they should bother to take the time to explain stuff that should be known within the game.

the worst part of the advice of look at the wiki is that its a damn wiki i can make a wiki say what ever i want then someone else has to come fix it. so you can never garantee that the info on a wiki is even remotely acurate without testing or verfying the source since its a game wiki its go see if its right which can be very painful if your building weapons ect.

[EirikAura]

Make nightmare mode optional.

Problem solved.

Yeah, I hate it when games make you look at the wiki, but it's not that big of a deal to open up the browser to look up some info.

ONE problem solved. By no means all. Read through the list, there's a lot there.

[Grilleds]

Didn't they say on the Livestream that nightmare mode was supposed to be toggleable?