An Essay About Universal Vacuum

[Mr.ToastForPresident]

24 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

Why not provide a con, rather than ask others to? You seem to think you know enough about game design to make this post. You tell me what the cons are.

I'll be waiting.

I did provide the reason to why DE might leave out Universal Vacuum. I said multiple times that universal vacuum is a threat to the early game progression systems, causing burnout faster than usual. DE wants a steady growth of progression and rewards for newer players without overwhelming them in order to make it so that later-game feels more rewarding than early game.

I can't see a reason why we can't have universal vacuum for late to mid game, so I provided a solution to universal vacuum for mid-game players through the use of Simaris. That way, it doesn't interfere with the progression of early-game, but rather adds to the progression of early-game by providing another goal for newer players to aim towards other than just new weapons.

[robbybe01234]

I'm not going to use any anecdotes, not going to jump to conclusions, not going to make assumptions about other people I've never met.  

I would like vacuum to be a thing that is acquired by the player allowing the player to experience a period of non vacuum gameplay.  I would also like to be able to use each and any companion with or without the vacuum utility.  I would want the vacuum utility to remain apart of the overall loadout "budget" that the player must adhere to as this is a game that has systems with restrictions.

 

Now that that's done, I can't help but ask the same questions when this comes up.

1st - Why isn't this just in the options menu with an on/off switch?

2nd - Then why isn't it just on all the time?

3rd - Then why is it just 12 meters and not the entire map?

4th - Then if it just puts everything into my inventory anyway, why are enemies even dropping items at all?

5th - Then how is this going to change the economy of the materials?

[(PSN)Final_Dragon01]

To answer a bunch of your open ended questions:

Warframe is constantly in flux.  Originally there was no vacuum.  Originally there were not even sentinels.  One day carrier came along and things were good for a while.  It was a time where there were fewer enemies, dropping fewer things, and the movement system was far more restrictive.  However, power creep and changes happened.  We are now killing far more enemies than we were and they are dropping more and different types of loot.  Also the movement system was updated to improve the flow of the game and the new challenges we face.  Not using vacuum when it came out meant less than it does today.  A long series of changes over a long period of time changed warframe from a game that did not need vacuum to a game where most of the community now relies on vacuum so they can keep playing the parts of the game that have meaning.  

DE was not blind, they noticed the strong usage of carrier over literally everything else.  To help solve the problem of most people using carrier, they added kuburows.  That didn't work so they added kavats, and this time gave them massively powerful abilities, and instant armor stripping.  Even then people still used carrier because of vacuum and no other reason.

So why is universal vacuum not a thing yet?  Steve told us himself in the last Devstream.  He does not like the solution 'just make everything the same.'  When you look at their two past and failed attempts to solve the vacuum problem you can see he actually means it.  They tried to solve the problem by give us more options.  Even in the change that gave vacuum to all sentinels, simply expanding it's usage to all sentinels without molesting vacuum was the last thing they tried.  However, universal vacuum is just an instance of a larger trend.  Because Warframe is constantly changing DE often has trouble keeping up with the reality of their game.  This is apparent in other systems like archwing, focus, sortie rewards, and damage scaling.  Things that work 'well enough' tend not to be looked at again for a long while.

So long story short, there is no grand design as to why we can't have universal vacuum.  Just a long series of mostly unrelated changes that brought us to today.  Steve has said multiple times that he never expected Warframe to have the longevity it has.  Who knows, they might come up with something that simply makes loot collection obsolete.  Remove all loot from the game so the physics and graphical resources can be spent elsewhere?

However, a lot of the comparisons to other games you made are unfair.  Take BioShock as an example.  BioShock is a complete game that will not change.  Defined start and finish.  There is a very good reason you have to loot trashcans and bodies individually.  You are supposed to realize that you are literally rooting around in garbage for used needles.  After you horrifically dismember someone with an explosive shotgun you have look at their body to collect loot so that you are forced to look at what you have done.  These were stylistic choices made for a complete game designed to make you consider the choices you were making.  Such reasoning does not apply in Warframe.  In BioShock we do not kill 1600 enemies in 20 mins.  DE needs to face the reality of the game they created.