Skill is not crowd control

[Awazx]

+1

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

6 hours ago, DrBorris said:

CC is not inherently skill-less. There are quite a few CC abilities that take not necessarily mechanical skill, but they take skill in knowing when/where to use them. Magnetize IMO does have somewhat of a skill gap because knowing where to use it and how to make the most of it does take game knowledge and situational awareness (both of which are skills). Even Booben has this to an extent because most of his abilities are short duration and range (of course you can cheese your build but at base he is well balanced IMO). 

However, pretty much any mass area CC like chaos, stomp, etcetera are "skill-less". 

 

People who think Warframe has no skill are just too arrogant to think that there is any form of skill that is not mechanical aim. Yes, you can do a lot of things in Warframe without "skill", but then there are builds like Savage Banshee that have absurd skill ceilings. Not everyone takes the easy path, some people like to challenge themselves by not necessarily gimping themselves. 

 

Naramon on the other hand... 

Yeah, I agree. I am honestly okay with infinite invisibility if it took more effort than just playing melee like you normally would. 

its not from a point of arrogance (says the person accused of arrogance).... If enemies have no counter to it, and it can be used at all times with no consequence, it might just be cheese. And if cheese is readily available to players, they might just stop pushing for actual change in a game, which leaves the devs with the impression that this is what everyone wants...

I guess thats just how it is supposed to work, but there was a time when the majority pushed for real improvements to the game. This reliance we have developed on crowd control to counter enemy scaling is just a form of appeasement (tinfoil hat area) so DE doesnt have to go back and rework the entire game. 

I guess to focus on what you just said specifically as a response to my post, it would just make more sense to me if some people who preferred crowd control did not exhibit a master race mentality to anyon who wishes to play any other way. The "best tool for the job" or "it requires skill" arguments that led to this posts birth into the world. Anyone who mains banshee has bragging rights automatically...there is cc that requires skill, but its rare. 

[ikkabotz]

Agree with OP, skill is being drastically replaced by game mechanics. It's a big deal because the gameplay feels the same everywhere now and there's no real teamwork or synergy or anything that stands out as unique with each player since everything just dies fast or is massively controllable. I've been missing Warframe of old for a long time. It did require skills to play. People don't know what they're missing. Now we have a bunch of arrogant players basically handling every situation with an extremely powerful amount of cc and damage. It's a very boring state the game is in right now. I'm bitter about it and am very skeptical it'll improve.

Meanwhile we're dying of boredom and no challenge or expression existing in a game once loved because casuals couldn't handle it. I've heard the argument Warframe was always easy, and some of that is true. But if that's the case it had a lot more depth and expression to it than what we're stuck with now. I wouldn't bother posting stuff if I didn't care about the game. I can't be the only one who feels this way. Unfortunately the game gives everything to you easily. There's no reward in it in terms of challenge. I think the largest issue is casuals want to feel like they're good at something and they they get their hot prime frame with prime access and an appeasement of game dynamics so they can feel that way. Meanwhile the smaller audience who really loved the complexity of the game has a harder and harder time finding a real challenge in a PVE environment without being very limited in possibilities in grouping together and the raw amount of time taken to reach the enemy scaling for it. Put simply, the game was in its best state around Second Dream pre-relics and everything else. I hardly register any hours to the game anymore. It's clearly marketed for a casual audience now and very bland for those looking for some layering in it. If I'm honest with myself I think the game has turned a direction it will never recover from. I've seen this same bland formula applied to large games and it sucks Warframe feels like it's fallen into it. Lots of junk, little to no feeling of variation. No challenge. Lots of casuals bragging.        

Edited June 13, 2017 by komoriblues

[ikkabotz]

20 hours ago, Volinus7 said:

wwwwwww

I have been waiting for quite a while to drop this dank meme on an appropriate thread lol.

 

Warframe puts unlockable cheats in a plain sight and calls them contents. Many people like trivialized gameplay though, things that differentiate Warframe from incremental tapping mobile games are getting fewer and fewer. 

This is so true. I'm still hanging onto the game, but honestly I think it's just so I take time for my exit strategy in saying goodbye to it. Makes me sad.

Edited June 13, 2017 by komoriblues

[CY13ERPUNK]

the 'skill' ceiling in WF for PVE is quite low

PVP however is another story, the skill ceiling in there is thru the roof

[True_Naeblis]

I get wanting some ease with things. Want quick relics? Go to a defense and drop Banshee in the middle for a minimum time farm. The problem is that with higher content it's either run a CC meta or die. Everyone's already said it, but enemies get better and better and auto-aim, they can shoot through walls in places, and they hit so hard that it's one and done. Shield gating will lessen that, but it still doesn't fix the design issue. Enemies need to be dynamic and not just come in massive waves.

If freezing everything in place meant having to hunt the area for 5 or 6 enemies that were more spread out and could over time break the CC rather than one or two clumps of enemies who can be easily located and nuked while they're immobilized some variation in play style might show up.

[yles9056]

Knowing what you're doing is more important than having skill in warframe. WF doesn't need that much skill IMO.

[ikkabotz]

One more thing I'd like to add to all this, the relic system is not an easier way to farm specific prime parts. On paper it is, but add that you have to radiant charge the relic and pair up with players also specifically radiant charging the relic in mind.  Even more to the point overall Pre-relics was more fun to play. It just felt better!

Edited June 14, 2017 by komoriblues

[True_Naeblis]

9 hours ago, komoriblues said:

One more thing I'd like to add to all this, the relic system is not an easier way to farm specific prime parts. On paper it is, but add that you have to radiant charge the relic and pair up with players also specifically radiant charging the relic in mind.  Even more to the point overall Pre-relics was more fun to play. It just felt better!

The radiant system seems to work out relatively well when grouping up, but the RNG can still be painful. People who do five-plus radshares without getting what they are after I'm sure feel a bit trolled. At least that means it's likely that a player has gotten enough other items that they can sell for plat and perhaps get what they want.

[ikkabotz]

11 hours ago, True_Naeblis said:

The radiant system seems to work out relatively well when grouping up, but the RNG can still be painful. People who do five-plus radshares without getting what they are after I'm sure feel a bit trolled. At least that means it's likely that a player has gotten enough other items that they can sell for plat and perhaps get what they want.

I think what is cumbersome for some of my friends is trying to solo farm a prime part or work in pairs. For me I just had more fun grinding prime stuff in old format, but the topic has been covered many times and relic system is the way it is whether I like it or not haha

[FireSegment]

DE is amazing on create new and interesting mechanic, but also extremely lack luster on guiding how player should use such mechanic. My earliest impression on warframe after i spend ~100 hour with it (3 year ago) was that this is the game where things consider as hack in other games, are normal in this game. But ... well ... it advertise itself for such atmosphere and excuse itself for still being "Beta" to add broken mechanics on top of each other. Player skill that u speak of, was never important enough as an element so it can denied new and "more fun" mechanic because it affect the skill balance. Thus, we have this situation that we are in.

 

[True_Naeblis]

@FireSegment they need to bring in a few more coders who can learn the engine and focus on going back and polishing issues. There's money there to do it and more money to be made when it's done well, but it's very clear that DE's team has a certain pride of place in what they do and are not very open to anything that can compromise that. It's kind of strange, though, because in some instances as you mentioned they introduce things then never give them the proper polish. They really need to bring people in who can help do that.

[(XBOX)Onyx Schnee]

Cc becomes skill when my bro and i combine sonar with things like WOF or other such skills.

its amazing how some multi frame synergy can work out.

 

editing in: not literal skill....but the combo is better than using WOF or SQ mindlessly 

Edited June 15, 2017 by (XB1)Orcus Imperium
Added some info

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Zenurik atlas rakta cernos akbronco prime and scindo prime tyvm.

[DarkFlameZealot]

 

So you're all about the old mechanics where blocking properly did something worthwhile (now it's just for Vaykor Sydon and Arcane Phantasm) and say that Naramon/cc isn't skill because it's a cheese mechanic? Skill has little to do with this game unless you're discussing conclave statistics and maybe Lunaro (LUL). Not exactly sure why you're whining about an extra to the game (focus skills) alongside frames' abilities that are incarnate powerful and useful when it comes to missions. If we had no cc at all, I guarantee you'd die in probably 10s past level 60s on sorties or endless missions.

 

Skill really means nothing and probably never will anymore due to the simple fact that it's a PvE game. You either press 4 as ember (kill yourself, kthx), ash, excal, etc and wipe the map out or play a frame that doesn't rely so massively on its abilities to do everything while instead using your actual hand-eye coordination to kill enemies and complete missions with your weapons. So unless you're whining about conclave balancing cause you got fekked by the broken Struns and Boars out there, it's worthless to even talk about 'skill' in PvE.

 

 

[Ventura_Highway]

I don't think there are actually a lot of people who feel the need to equip naramon and maiming strike together, actually. I mean, it's hideously strong yeah, I just don't see it in gameplay as much as you'd think. Like, maybe one out of every four/five sortie missions I'll see a single person spin2winning.

I think the problem has another aspect, in that if you don't consistently hard CC enemies, as they climb in level the opportunities you give them you attack you will eventually lead to you bleeding out on the floor. Playing a perfect game that leaves you completely unexposed to enemy fire is unrealistic, and the best I can do really is trade strikes with enemies really efficiently with intelligent gameplay. Strike when they don't notice you, don't go headfirst into shotgun fire, etc. Hard CC is more or less the only consistently reliable reaction to enemies like bombards and toxic ancients. Without it those toxics could cough on me to death.

My position is that Hard CC shouldn't be unlimitedly accessible, and that counterplay should be be possible for a competent player that doesn't require binding and gagging every enemy.

[NinthAria]

I don't think it's any secret that the focus trees as-is (and probably Naramon in particular) need a lot of design attention--along with, for that matter, the reason why it's so prevalent at certain tiers of play, i.e. high-level enemy scaling basically resulting in absolute control vs instant death scenarios. Both are on DE's radar, but they're mum on the details right now, so sadly the most we can do for the time being is wait.

Edited June 16, 2017 by NinthAria

[ikkabotz]

On 6/15/2017 at 4:46 PM, DarkFlameZealot said:

 

So you're all about the old mechanics where blocking properly did something worthwhile (now it's just for Vaykor Sydon and Arcane Phantasm) and say that Naramon/cc isn't skill because it's a cheese mechanic? Skill has little to do with this game unless you're discussing conclave statistics and maybe Lunaro (LUL). Not exactly sure why you're whining about an extra to the game (focus skills) alongside frames' abilities that are incarnate powerful and useful when it comes to missions. If we had no cc at all, I guarantee you'd die in probably 10s past level 60s on sorties or endless missions.

 

Skill really means nothing and probably never will anymore due to the simple fact that it's a PvE game. You either press 4 as ember (kill yourself, kthx), ash, excal, etc and wipe the map out or play a frame that doesn't rely so massively on its abilities to do everything while instead using your actual hand-eye coordination to kill enemies and complete missions with your weapons. So unless you're whining about conclave balancing cause you got fekked by the broken Struns and Boars out there, it's worthless to even talk about 'skill' in 

Although you make good points it abandons the true intent of the conversation. Pve needs improvement and it does have a skill cap. A really low bad one right now. Nobody said it's current game state is in a good one. If anything we're talking about the same thing, so why are you being an overconfident jerk? What's the alternative in your mind? I don't get where to constructively move in your response. Honestly, you just look like the type of person looking for a confrontation. It gets old dealing with energy from people like you. Can't you see that?

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by komoriblues

[DrBorris]

On ‎6‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 6:46 PM, DarkFlameZealot said:

Skill really means nothing and probably never will anymore due to the simple fact that it's a PvE game.

Just so you know, Dark Souls is a PvE game...

 

Skill can exist in PvE games and exists in Warframe to an extent, Destiny and Battleborn PvE are both balanced to a degree where there is difficulty (but still allowing you to feel like a god), thus a skill curve. The "problem" is that you can bypass said skill with certain Warframes. 

[DarkFlameZealot]

1 hour ago, DrBorris said:

Just so you know, Dark Souls is a PvE game...

 

Skill can exist in PvE games and exists in Warframe to an extent, Destiny and Battleborn PvE are both balanced to a degree where there is difficulty (but still allowing you to feel like a god), thus a skill curve. The "problem" is that you can bypass said skill with certain Warframes. 

Dark Souls PvE isn't exactly skill per se, it's 100% pattern reading and learning attack queues, whether visual or audio, yet it is also a PvP game unless you yank your internet off to prevent invasions from other players, one of the few real tests of skill due to unpredictability of facing a non AI character. Warframe is no different except the PvE is a joke unless it's something akin to Raids or Sorties (sometimes, depends on settings) or even endless past lvl 100s. I'm not disagreeing with PvE having a skill 'cap', but the fact remains that unless DE forces us to actually use our heads and think rather than mindlessly slaughtering everything (Limbo players can rot in hell), Warframe won't ever have a visible worthwhile cap.

[ikkabotz]

9 minutes ago, DarkFlameZealot said:

Dark Souls PvE isn't exactly skill per se, it's 100% pattern reading and learning attack queues, whether visual or audio, yet it is also a PvP game unless you yank your internet off to prevent invasions from other players, one of the few real tests of skill due to unpredictability of facing a non AI character. Warframe is no different except the PvE is a joke unless it's something akin to Raids or Sorties (sometimes, depends on settings) or even endless past lvl 100s. I'm not disagreeing with PvE having a skill 'cap', but the fact remains that unless DE forces us to actually use our heads and think rather than mindlessly slaughtering everything (Limbo players can rot in hell), Warframe won't ever have a visible worthwhile cap.

Agree with you here, totally

[DrBorris]

21 minutes ago, DarkFlameZealot said:

Dark Souls PvE isn't exactly skill per se, it's 100% pattern reading and learning attack queues, whether visual or audio, yet it is also a PvP game unless you yank your internet off to prevent invasions from other players, one of the few real tests of skill due to unpredictability of facing a non AI character. Warframe is no different except the PvE is a joke unless it's something akin to Raids or Sorties (sometimes, depends on settings) or even endless past lvl 100s. I'm not disagreeing with PvE having a skill 'cap', but the fact remains that unless DE forces us to actually use our heads and think rather than mindlessly slaughtering everything (Limbo players can rot in hell), Warframe won't ever have a visible worthwhile cap.

But... pattern reading and learning attack queues is a skill... Just like being a mathematician shows "skill" in math. 

 

Skill is not just how accurate your aim is and how fast you can snap between targets, there is a lot of skill that is just "mind games". You can have the most "skill" in terms of mechanical skill, but if you don't have the "skills" to know how/when to use your abilities, then your mechanical skills are worthless. 

 

It really urks me how, for some reason, it is just assumed that if there is an option to be "skill-less", then everything is. I would go out on a limb and say that a majority of players don't "cheese" there way through all of Warframe, part because they don't want to and there are a lot of players who just don't know how to cheese. There are people who play Banshee and get work done, in some cases faster than "cheese" Warframes, just because you can cheese the content it does not mean that the Banshee player has no skill... obviously it did take skill for that player to get stuff done. So Warframe DOES have the potential there, the combat systems that exist now can work with skill-based combat, it is a few of our tools that take the skill out. 

One "OP" thing does not mean everything in a game is "OP", I agree that the skill cap is relatively low now but you are assuming that Warframe can't ever have one just because a few select things bypass skill is short-sighted. 

[DarkFlameZealot]

@DrBorris I think what you're missing is that the skill related to reading and memorizing attacks/patterns isn't really that high skill anymore. You ingrain it into your memory that x implies y and possibly z if a,b, and c occur as well. It's all memory and it's as much skill as you'd imagine. It's actually quite funny how simplistic enemies like the Ogres in Siltbreaker (dota 2 campaign thingy for Battle Pass owners) have two attacks, a forward club slam and a jump stomp, yet people constantly die to them because it's simplistic xD.

 

You mention Banshee, but Banshee is just as cheesy as the other options, just requires more skill cap due to being squishy (prime's 65 armor isn't much anyway over the base version's 15); however, this is somewhat countered by RQ (only used for defense/MD), Resonance's insanity damage boosts if you can aim (use a bow or sniper, ez) and 100% armor reduction from her 1's augment while savage silence is also godlike with Hirudo, gaining infinite hp back.

 

The thing is that everything can bypass any PvE cap due to augments (bandaids), primed mods and weapon/frame/ability/companion interactions. Until the AI actually becomes relevant enough to force us to have a semblance of skill against them like Dark Souls, BL2, etc, I don't see much real comparison. 

[ikkabotz]

1 hour ago, DarkFlameZealot said:

The thing is that everything can bypass any PvE cap due to augments (bandaids), primed mods and weapon/frame/ability/companion interactions. Until the AI actually becomes relevant enough to force us to have a semblance of skill against them like Dark Souls, BL2, etc, I don't see much real comparison. 

Pretty much and before we had instant solutions to AI the complexity of the AI didn't have to be too complex so long as the scaling started to force the player to negotiate into making more "skillful" moves  and decisions like when to roll out or slash jump glide and fade away blast the next enemy coming in from the left...check their back or use CC in a thoughtful way. When to run to a teammate if shield had dropped or when to conserve energy to use it in the right moment. Now what do we have? A blanket of dmg over every situation, a blanket of large aoe stuns over every situation. A blanket of energy easily full barred. By no means was warframe hard before but it at least required you to think and flow through the situations handed to you. There's no feeling of pacing in the game anymore. It's just blast and control each situation on a macro scale till enemies can one shot you and you quit. 

If I had a dream solution to the game it would be more complex enemies and unit types, less abundance of energy to dispense at every turn (but you still could have support roles to help increase the use of such abilities), and a scaling of enemies enemies moderate enough to put players in the situations to agree to be creative and tactical together drawing out individual expression in how the game is played. I don't think that is out of reach to the game. I by no means want to slow this down into a MMO, the game should still feel dominate but at least give players the ability to express their sense of style in a more complex way together. Player creativity is what is the most fun when playing with friends, seeing their personality in the gameplay and feeling like you are on the same wavelength. Not just blasting everyone to smithereens and bragging about your massive numbers. Too many games are like this nowadays and Warframe is that type of game right now. It bothers me how "ok" some people are with this.

People should be more outspoken to DE about wanting this sort of thing. We keep getting spoon fed more content, more aesthetics, more damage. We have shield gating being proposed which is a very small step in the right direction. I'm thankful for the effort, but I would hope they start focusing A LOT more effort into gameplay issues as more and more players are becoming aware of them.      

Edited June 17, 2017 by komoriblues

[Xzorn]

We can't actually have challenging and skillful fights with one-shots from a 15m AoE Napalm or 2 rooms away Eagle-eye Nullifiers.

Flooding players with enemies so there's no humanly possible way to react to all of them.

Even if you're playing in a level range where enemy damage hasn't completely broken yet there's such a massive gap between Nekros' 62,680 eHP and Nyx 3,004 eHP, the player no longer really has a choice other than to resort to CC "cheese". I've done plenty of lvl 400 Solo runs without CC or Invisibility but something like Nyx has no chance of pushing lvl 80 without her CC.  Ash and Loki will vaporize the moment they're caught without Invis. 

They've ignored enemy damage scaling and continued to build on top of a broken system and this is what we have now.

Skill kinda left this game when they made it a horde shooter.