Reworks should not ramp up the difficulty of existing content.

[Flirk2]

Short version:

In my opinion, reworking existing content to make it harder is unfair to the player base. Cries for ''challenge'' that we often see are not, in fact, an indication that the game is too easy. They are an indication that there are players that went through what content there is, and want more.

If you want to make those people happy, you need to make challenges, balanced for the gear and skills those players acquired, sure. But you have to remember that there needs to be a way for a new player to experience the game in a reasonable manner.

As it is, ''reworked'' bosses went right into the insane territory as far as new players are concerned.

 

Now for the details.

My first post on this forum was prompted by the reintroduction of bursa units in the game and me getting utterly stomped by them. I got some pretty heavy ''git gud'' for it. But the problem as I saw it was not the actual difficulty of this unit, but how out of place it was on the star chart.

And now, after a little over a year, I got another taste of the same medicine.

You see, I started with Excalibur warframe, and before even getting corrupted mods, I put 3 forma on it, so I would have 4 Vazarin polarized mod slots. I then switched to Oberon and did not play Excalibur much. When I went to try it out again I found out that I couldn't quite put the mods I wanted because of all those Vazarin slots, but as I never liked Excalibur that much, I didn't bother to change anything.

Now, the new augment came, Chromatic Blade, so I decided to test it out, saw how badly polarized the frame was, and thought: “I'll probably be better off building another Excalibur than re-polarizing this one.” I then went to check my foundry only to find out that I lack Excalibur Systems Blueprint.

A quick Google search (as I couldn't for the life of me remember what boss drops Excalibur parts) lead me to the Wiki, where to my great surprise I found that you can get Excalibur not only by fighting Ambulas, but from Teshin as well. Conclave is unappealing for me enough to keep as far from it as humanly possible, but still, that was a piece of information that I never came across before.

I was still in the mood to test the Chromatic blade. After putting max rank Redirection, Vitality and Primed Vigor on 3 of the Vazarin slots and a rank 4 Streamline on the 4-th, filling out all the other mod slots the best I could, and equipping a 5 forma Dex Sybaris, 6 forma Aklex Prime, and 1 forma Prisma Skana, off I went to Hades on Pluto.

First thing I noticed, I needed 40 beacons to go there, and I only had 72 after the event. I remembered that there won't be enough beacons dropped on the mission itself to go there once. But I thought: “Oh well, I try it once, and if systems won't drop, I'll just put it off like I do with everything else I don't like to do.” And started the mission. Only to fail. I could not defend 2 hacked ambulas by myself, while on my last revive.

Now, you can tell me to ''git gud''. You can tell me, that I should have went there with the same load out that I used in the event (with Vaykor Hek modded for radiation and a Frost). You can tell me that I probably needed to mod my weapons for radiation instead of corrosive.

And you will be right. The only problem is, why is it even necessary?

Just before the event, Ambulas was a quite easily dispatched unit. It didn't require top end weapons, it didn't require pre-farming beacons, and it didn't spawn 2 of them at once on you even if you were the only player in the squad!

 

But when I thought about it... Ambulas was not the first one to get into insane territory. Kela de Thaym was. Instead of a scaled up heavy gunner with an Ogris in her hands we got this 3 stage fight with a queen of bullet sponges, sprinkled with orbital bombardment and rollers. And as an icing on the cake, you have to pre-farm judgment points to even try killing her once!

Then instead of the scaled up osprey we got the reworked Raptor. Again, 3 stage fight. Again, bombardment. The only thing lacking is some kind of resource that you need to farm beforehand. But at this point I will not be terribly surprised if one was added.

And now we get back to Ambulas. To even try to fight it, you need beacons. That you can't get in a hurry, as they are a time-based resource. And what's more, you get to fight at least 4 of them. If you happen to be not alone? You need to get 5 hacked and delivered. And if that person quits half way through? You still need 5.

Add bombardment, CC resistance that now every boss has, and modular corpus units, wielding automatic rocket launchers. Units that by the grace of RNG can spawn in such a way that all your powers will be nullified at the same time, like in the nullifier bubble, only without the bubble (happened to me once during the event).

All that for one piece of a warframe.

 

With introduction of the new Kela primed version of Saryn became less difficult to get than the normal one.

Now Excalibur is pretty much unobtainable. Seeing as there are very few people who will suffer through about an hour of beacon collecting and a 4-6 stage boss fight on top. Multiple times to get all the parts.

 

It's like if Alad V was replaced with Mutalist Alad V. Coordinates and all. Or meeting Corrupted Vor during the Vor's Prize quest.

I have to wonder, why? Why not make a new assassination node next to the old Ambulas? Why not make a new assassination next to the old Kela, with the old one dropping Saryn and the new one dropping mods?

Why is it that suddenly you are not supposed to solo bosses with the equipment you have at the very point you get to them?

 

I hear: “They listened to players at last. Players need challenge” and I have to ask: “Is replacing the existing game content with the higher difficulty one a way to go about it?”

And what's more? People who want challenge will most likely not find the reworked bosses challenging. They already have the equipment and skills to breeze through them.

[PrVonTuckIII]

If you died to Crewmen and MOAs on Pluto, then you most certainly  need to git gud.

However, I do think that the requirements need to be looked at. 

[kyori]

What you said is quite true. Although I have no problem fighting them alone but I agree it may not be pleasant to humble new  players who work through the star chart solo. 

For Kela, getting Saryn prime is much easier than normal saryn because one of the factor is that we can buy saryn prime but she will be vaulted soon enough, after Trinity I think.

The new ambulas boss fight is one of the better boss fights in the game but I at the same time agree that DE has lost sight of certain stuffs. Maybe they are trying to hard to satisfy the present numbers of old and middle aged players? lol

[Tailion]

While i will agree with you on the stupidity of having to farm a resource for a boss you should really have just ran endurance (defense so you don't have to mess with air) it makes it all much easier.

 

Now to address the other point you brought up. "Is replacing the existing game content with the higher difficulty one way to go about it?" yes, it is. The best way to do it? No but it is an option.  Teaching players how to deal with different scenarios is a good thing, introducing them to bosses with mechanics is good. Kela is a joke if you bring a frost and eat the bombs, not something a lot of players even to this day have sorted out. Setting a precedent for having mechanics that matter in this game is good, or would you rather just have Lech Kril on every planet?

 

Personally i wish they would just add some incentive to endurance run content like they did with John Prodman. What 'Most' of the player base seems to want from endgame, at least as far as i have been able understand, is a reason to actually DO the longer, harder content.

[BLI7Z]

What's the problem with having to go with specific damage and all that? Want everything easily killed with anything and bosses to be a one-shot kill fight like it was before? I don't understand why people instead of TRYING HARDER and GITTING GUD, just whine and moan, and whine and moan more, on the forums. 

[Reifnir]

Ambulas (and to a lesser degree, Raptor) is a prime example of a redesign done wrong. 

First off, it's a boss fight that went from trivial to annoying without adjusting rewards. At least Kela got her mods, many of which are really, really good. And if you're farming Judgement points you're getting a fair amount of Endo as well. Grindy, yes, but at least the reward is there in some form.

Ambulas simply went from a free-for-all boss that drops a starter Warframe for those who did not pick Excal from the start to a freaking grindwall with a truckload of tedium on top. When Ambulas spawns in your Corpus mission, all you get is added threat and a meager amount of beacons. No mod drops, no extra reward, just more trouble. When you fight the Hades version, it still has no new drops apart from Excal parts and is even more trouble for inexperienced players. It's also one the more needlessly dragged-out boss fights in game.

And the worst thing? It's like someone decided to spit on every player who did not farm Excalibur parts in time before the change. Ha-ha, losers, it used to be a walk in the park, now you get to suffer for no reason at all!

It's almost like the Hema statement all over again, except this time instead of "we're not gonna change the research requirements to honor those who overcame the challenge" it's "we're gonna screw over everyone who did not make it to old Ambulas in time because of reasons". It's a terrible, ill-planned design choice. 

[Skaleek]

Does it consume your beacons even if you fail the mission? Cause that's just dumb.

[Reifnir]

8 minutes ago, BLI7Z said:

Want everything easily killed with anything and bosses to be a one-shot kill fight like it was before?

Excalibur is a starter frame. It's not a near-invincible wrecking ball like Mesa, which is hard to get for a reason. It's not even one of the best de-buffers in game that is Nova. It used to be available as a drop from a simple boss fight. 

The way Ambulas is now, it should drop something worth the hassle, and Excal should be moved to Dojo research. I don't mind a complicated boss fight if the reward is right. I do, however, mind when things turn into a grindfest for no particular reason. 

Edited June 9, 2017 by Reifnir

[Xekrin]

Summary : Currency based bosses are a terrible idea, especially when it requires currency that is rng based and requires dozens of said rng based encounters before ever even getting to the boss.

Saddest part is they will very likely not make even useful changes to the game until Tennocon is over with as all their time and resources will be invested in that.

 

[BLI7Z]

Just now, Reifnir said:

Excalibur is a starter frame. It's not a wrecking ball like Mesa, which is hard to get for a reason. It's not even one of the best de-buffers in game that is Nova. It used to be available as a drop from a simple boss fight. 

The way Ambulas is now, it should drop something worth the hassle, and Excal should be moved to Dojo research. I don't mind a complicated boss fight if the reward is right. I do, however, mind when things turn into a grindfest for no particular reason. 

Excalibur can do quite a lot of damage on his own... radial blind? exalted blade? That he is a "starter" frame doesn't mean that if you didn't choose him at the start, it should be easy to get... I never complained about resource costs of ... Vauban Prime, Hema, etc etc. Just farmed them. And I'm not going to complain if something is HARD TO GET. Just go get it. If you can't, get better. If you can't get better... TRY HARDER

I think it is good that Tennos have to understand many mechanics and get really good by doing a lot of farming and boss fights to get what they want. 

[Flirk2]

1 hour ago, PrVonTuckIII said:

If you died to Crewmen and MOAs on Pluto, then you most certainly  need to git gud.

Thanks, but no, thanks.

And I died to the combined damage of Ambulas and bombardment mostly. Though I failed not because I ran out of revives, but because I couldn't defend hacked chickens well enough. Especially when there were two of them and one of me.

43 minutes ago, kyori said:

The new ambulas boss fight is one of the better boss fights in the game but I at the same time agree that DE has lost sight of certain stuffs. Maybe they are trying to hard to satisfy the present numbers of old and middle aged players? lol

It's great. Once. But not as something you need to do at the very least 3 times to get all the parts for a warframe. And not when the upper limit of tries is the sky because of RNG.

36 minutes ago, Tailion said:

Kela is a joke if you bring a frost and eat the bombs, not something a lot of players even to this day have sorted out.

That's the problem. Why do you need a specific tactic for a normal boss that you need to kill again and again to get all the drops?

I mean, there is only so many times one can use some tactics before he becomes fed up with it.

35 minutes ago, BLI7Z said:

What's the problem with having to go with specific damage and all that? Want everything easily killed with anything and bosses to be a one-shot kill fight like it was before? I don't understand why people instead of TRYING HARDER and GITTING GUD, just whine and moan, and whine and moan more, on the forums. 

Thank you. After 2.1k hours in the game, I'm obviously in need to ''gitting god'' and ''trying harder'' with a mission that was supposed to be a stepping stone to the new planet and a place to get Excalibur parts from.

I'm of the opinion that on star chart missions, damage type should matter for weak weapons. Damage type should matter for under leveled mods. But with the sheer amount of damage a 5 forma Dex Sybaris with maxed mods dishes out, damage type should not matter on a level 40 opponent.

And yes, I want the old ''easy'' bosses. ''Easy'' because they were not easy for the gear you were supposed to use on them. They were easy when you started to use gear you use on 60 minute survivals.

You didn't read far enough to see that I propose to have 2 boss fights on the star chart? The old one for frame parts, and the new one, better rewarded, for people who need challenge. Maybe even have a third? Reworked version of the boss scaled to level 150?

32 minutes ago, Reifnir said:

It's almost like the Hema statement all over again, except this time instead of "we're not gonna change the research requirements to honor those who overcame the challenge" it's "we're gonna screw over everyone who did not make it to old Ambulas in time because of reasons". It's a terrible, ill-planned design choice. 

And Archwing gear. Don't forget the Archwing gear slots...

32 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

Does it consume your beacons even if you fail the mission? Cause that's just dumb.

It doesn't seem to do that at least. Still 72 beacons left last I checked.

Or I would totally flip.

23 minutes ago, Xekrin said:

Summary : Currency based bosses are a terrible idea, especially when it requires currency that is rng based and requires dozens of said rng based encounters before ever even getting to the boss.

Not only that, but the fight itself should not be made harder than it was. I mean, why take away the old version of the boss from new players, who never saw those old bosses? How would they know a difference? How would they see the progress?

22 minutes ago, BLI7Z said:

Excalibur can do quite a lot of damage on his own... radial blind? exalted blade?

Used both. Didn't help. The CC resistance of bosses makes it so blind doesn't last long enough to lay into them. You have to be close, and you have to time it just right. And even then, you may not hit the weak spot.

22 minutes ago, BLI7Z said:

I never complained about resource costs of ... Vauban Prime, Hema, etc etc. Just farmed them. And I'm not going to complain if something is HARD TO GET. Just go get it. If you can't, get better. If you can't get better... TRY HARDER

Well, that's nice that you are a ''try hard''. Not everyone is. Some want to have fun playing the game, not ''try hard''.

22 minutes ago, BLI7Z said:

I think it is good that Tennos have to understand many mechanics and get really good by doing a lot of farming and boss fights to get what they want. 

Oh, and it's especially good that they will need to farm a mission that takes about half an hour (because of all the waiting for the drop ships to arrive). To then get helmet, chassis, helmet, chassis, chassis, helmet....

And a Metal Auger on rotation C.

Take sorties, for example. All most people want from them is a riven mod as a reward. I stopped doing them after 5 or 6 endo packs, statues and lenses in a row.

''Carrot on a stick'' approach to the rewards will get you only so far. Then frustration levels just overwhelm any enjoyment the process brings and it's easier to convince myself that I don't want whatever there is to get than to try and be disappointed again and again.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Flirk2

[djternan]

The biggest problem I have with Kela and Ambulas is the prefarming to even attempt the boss fight.  They should allow you prefarm to have the mod drops added to the reward table or just fight the boss without judgement points or amino beacons for Warframe parts. 

 

It's not a bad thing to have more difficult boss fights but it is a bad thing to gate those boss fights behind a new resource.  I'm not sure if I'd still be playing if this was the case a couple years ago when I started out.

[PrVonTuckIII]

Just now, djternan said:

The biggest problem I have with Kela and Ambulas is the prefarming to even attempt the boss fight.  They should allow you prefarm to have the mod drops added to the reward table or just fight the boss without judgement points or amino beacons for Warframe parts. 

 

It's not a bad thing to have more difficult boss fights but it is a bad thing to gate those boss fights behind a new resource.  I'm not sure if I'd still be playing if this was the case a couple years ago when I started out.

Pretty much this. The fights themselves are great, IMO. It's just the grind to get there (although, the Kela fight grind isn't too bad. The Ambulas one is annoying).

[DrBorris]

And I don't like it when new items are added that reduce the difficulty of the game.

But obviously that happens all of the time so in my opinion it is not the difficulty being "ramped up", but rather "brought back in line". 

 

It is a tough fight solo, I will give you that, but that is because it is balanced around having a full squad, even the most experienced players could have some trouble if the did not bring a cheesy loadout. But in DE's infinite wisdom they require you to grind out keys, making it very difficult to find buddies to play with. I see no reason why there should be keys, Salad V and Hek had (have) keys because they were linked to new Warframes, keys made it more likely for players to buy said Warframes with plat. Excal however is the oldest Warframe and poster boy of the game, I see no reason why there should be keys. 

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

While I personally have no issues completing the new Ambulas boss fight solo, I can definitely see the issue for newer players just getting to pluto. Excalibur is now easier to farm through conclave than through Ambulas.

 

 PS: @Flirk2I would be happy to help with you with the Ambulas fight.

[Flirk2]

5 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

 PS: @Flirk2I would be happy to help with you with the Ambulas fight.

Thank you. But as I only need the systems, and they drop with 22.56% chance, that would most likely take so much beacon farming and then slogging through that epic bossfight (that, as I said earlier is epic only once, then it's tedious) it's just not going to happen. But still, thanks for the offer.

19 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

And I don't like it when new items are added that reduce the difficulty of the game.

You didn't get the point, right? All those items are unobtainable for a new player. Why re-balance the existing content for the new one? Just add the harder version for those who already went through the old boss.

Not to mention, increasing the difficulty and time needed to finish the mission without increasing the rewards is just bad no matter how you loot at it.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Flirk2

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

2 minutes ago, Flirk2 said:

Thank you. But as I only need the systems, and they drop with 22.56% chance, that would most likely take so much beacon farming and then slogging through that epic bossfight (that, as I said earlier is epic only once, then it's tedious) it's just not going to happen. But still, thanks for the offer.

Ok. But if you still want an Excalibur, look at conclave. You can farm standing pretty easily and can just outright buy a finished excal from Teshin.

[Flirk2]

1 minute ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

Ok. But if you still want an Excalibur, look at conclave. You can farm standing pretty easily and can just outright buy a finished excal from Teshin.

Thank you. I mentioned it in the opening post. But as I said, I'll keep away from Conclave. The PVP always brings the worst out of me. So I'm quite happy to keep the conclave stats at 0. :-)

[TaylorsContraction]

I agree that gating ambulas behind 40 animo beacons is insane.  The boss fight is so long and boring I'm never doing it again.  I ran it during the double drop weekend as a kuva flood and the whole process takes a ages.  There wasn't a any difficulty for me but the time it takes was too long.

I already see new players asking for help with Hades.  Who is going to help them? I'm always eager to help new players,  with raptor and even kela but not ambulas.

DE reduce the mission length to just 3 hacked ambulas please,  why make a boss that players never want to touch again.

[DrBorris]

14 minutes ago, Flirk2 said:

You didn't get the point, right? All those items are unobtainable for a new player. Why re-balance the existing content for the new one? Just add the harder version for those who already went through the old boss.

I think you missed it too. I am not talking straight Ambulas here, but the game as a whole. Warframe has gotten easier over time through power creep, and I don't like that. It was a sassy rebuttal to your title, you don't like enemies getting buffed and I don't like enemies getting effectively nerfed. Just adding new content doesn't work because the old content is left behind a waste. You can't just say "only use OP toys on the new stuff" because that old stuff is still part of the game. 

 

And the old Ambulas was clearly a place-holder, it was not "intended content". Ambulas is the second to last boss fight and the last Corpus boss in the game, it should be on level with Kela (which it is, but they are difficult in different ways). Bosses, in pretty much ever game I know, are a pseudo "gear-check", a test. The game is designed for you to easily win that Exterminate or Capture, but a boss fight is supposed to actually be a challenge. If a new player, or player in general has an issue with a boss, if the boss is well designed it means the player does not "deserve" to continue.

However, being basically locked into solo with Ambulas makes it an unfair fight for a lot of players, bringing us back to the "beacons are stupid" note. 

[Xekrin]

46 minutes ago, Flirk2 said:

I mean, why take away the old version of the boss from new players, who never saw those old bosses?

I kind of wish there was a way to get to the old stalker, for example, mostly because I never finished scanning him but it would be nice to switch it up.  Same goes for past events.  I will never see a huge chunk of content this game had to offer that a lot of older players rave about because they were one time only events never to be seen again.

[Flirk2]

26 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

 You can't just say "only use OP toys on the new stuff" because that old stuff is still part of the game.

That's not a valid argument, IMO.

Yes, it's a part of the game. But it's a part of the game that for quite some time was manageable with starting gear. Balancing it around stuff suitable for fighting level 100-s will just make progression painfully slow.

The junctions were bad enough, but this? It's just unreasonable.

Again, I urge you to look at it not from a perspective of someone who has almost every item, and done almost everything the game has to offer, but from a perspective of a player with about 100 hours of play time.

26 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

And the old Ambulas was clearly a place-holder

When something is a place-holder for more than 2 years... I think it earned it's place at that point.

26 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

should be on level with Kela

And it was. It was on level with the old Kela. Which is the point I was trying to make. The old bosses made sense. As people could get warframe parts from them without the need of specific frames, weapons and mods.

The whole ''I'll get a new frame, try it out, see if I keep it'' is out of the window with how you need maxed mods, syndicate weapons and skillful use of your warframe powers just to get one part of a warframe you have not tried yet.

I know if I started the game as it is now, I would most likely drop it by Raptor. Saryn (and, maybe even Chroma) I wouldn't get to try at all.

I find it hard to understand why so many people see the game as ''too easy'' when they went through it all already. If it was ''too easy'' for them, then why did they stay? And if it was not, then why does it need to change?

Wanting new, harder, missions with better rewards I can understand. Increasing the difficulty of the old, unrewarding ones? Not so much.

 

20 minutes ago, Xekrin said:

I kind of wish there was a way to get to the old stalker, for example, mostly because I never finished scanning him but it would be nice to switch it up.  Same goes for past events.  I will never see a huge chunk of content this game had to offer that a lot of older players rave about because they were one time only events never to be seen again.

If you play with people who didn't get to the Shadow Stalker (public matches on the low level planets work), you sometimes get the old Stalker visiting them. Then you can scan it.

As for events.... I really don't get why they were not made into mini-quests. DE has all the stuff to do it, after all. Just add them as a reward to relevant junctions (and some as a reward for that mini-quest), and mail the quests to those who already completed said junctions, as usual.

Would be a much better way to get the event weapons as well. Just make those quests reward only blueprints that don't need parts to fabricate (like the Ignis Wraith). No clan participation segregation that way.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Flirk2

[(PSN)fullblast35]

if you randomly crossed my comments on certain posts on this forum, and understand my point of view regarding too much access to any kind of player through junction, market  and the relic system, you will release That DE is trying to fix a mistake.  I see it like Excal has a new augment mod which honestly is very overpowered ( not that it bothers me).  Taxxon was already something to give to new players to ease their efforts in the beginning of the game.  you'd  put out an augment and make an ability become so powerful, there has to be a way to temper the future spamming down (not that its gonna be 100% effective).  For regular Saryn it has to do strictly with getting quick access to chroma.  at the time he was all over the place and very tanky, this avoided an actual nerf by making it harder to get sarin systems.  not saying its the right thing to do for ambles, but i think this is what is going on.

[Nezha_Rose]

Right now. Excal is the last warframe on the normal starchart progression,  he is a starter frame.  People that start with him can save themselves the farm,  making choosing volt or mag more or less affected by users who ask "what is a good  starter" on a place like this.  I think moving excal onto another planet and switch ambulas wf to another,  like they did for Trinity and Frost,  is a good idea. 

[Flirk2]

20 hours ago, (PS4)fullblast35 said:

 at the time he was all over the place and very tanky,

I think I can count instances of Chroma (apart from the ''credit farming'') as a teammate on one hand. Sorry, but I don't think there is any kind of reason for making a warframe harder to get that would be acceptable to me.

17 hours ago, Nezha_Rose said:

Right now. Excal is the last warframe on the normal starchart progression,  he is a starter frame.  People that start with him can save themselves the farm,  making choosing volt or mag more or less affected by users who ask "what is a good  starter" on a place like this.  I think moving excal onto another planet and switch ambulas wf to another,  like they did for Trinity and Frost,  is a good idea. 

That's the thing. When I had 2 warframe slots that were occupied with Excalibur and an Oberon, I got rid of Oberon purely because Excalibur was dropped on a planet I would not have access to for a long time. Then I built a Rhino and couldn't wait for another Oberon to get finished so I can get rid of that Rhino and get back on the frame that I actually like.

Now for those who will think ahead there is no option to get anything but Excalibur as a starting frame and no option to do anything but to keep him. I mean, you can get Mag from Phobos easily enough. But the sad thing is, you can build a Dojo of your own and research Volt much easier than you would get a specific Excalibur part. And there won't be any element of RNG to the Volt.

I really think every warframe needs to have about the same level of availability. There are way too many of them to drag this out with artificial barriers like the beacon locked boss fight with 4 bosses at minimum.