What Direction Is Player Empowerment Taking In Warframe?

[Destro6677]

I seem to remember the devs saying in a livestream that the focus of Warframe is player empowerment. You are supposed to feel godlike as a Tenno. You're a space ninja.

 

I'd like to ask all players, how do you feel about U9 with regards to that feeling of empowerment.

 

I personally see U9 as putting warframe a step closer to halo or gears of war.

 

Fighting mobs for me has become a game of parkouring between cover and either solo-rushing missions other than defense because I run out of ammo. Either that, or go in with a 4-man team and press 4 to faceroll everything.

 

Let me give a clearer example as to what I find empowering:

 

I find soloing Raptor empowering. Correct me if I'm wrong when I say Raptor has a good deal of health and shields, deals 200 damage per shot with his main weapon and goes invulnerable with nuker missiles when he's at 1/3 health. He doesn't need fully potatoed weapons or an overpowered frame to kill. 

 

Even if he had a bombing run to stop me from box-camping him (which he should), fighting Raptor involves playing smart. Dodging his laser blasts and missiles is important, as well as watching out for mines. Killing Raptor puts a lot more emphasis on being mobile.

 

Contrast this with killing his mooks, where I have to box-camp to avoid being shot to atoms and pray that my mods are strong enough to kill them.

 

In other words, killing Raptor is satisfying for me because it rewards smart use of cover and parkour (but should not allow box-camping in future) and punishes me if I slip up (every frame can at least take 2 hits from his main gun).

 

Killing his mooks is not so satisfying because I just have to wait for them to come to me and pick them off from the hill otw to extraction.

 

So let me ask you again: Which do you prefer? Warframe that's more like killing Raptor, or killing his mooks.

 

I urge you to take this question seriously because we are shaping the future of warframe.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Destro6677

[Lumireaver]

Needs more miniboss enemies, like Garradors from Resident Evil 4, and Big Daddies in Bioshock.

It would break the monotony a bit.

 

Other than being a bit of a chore, I don't mind regular enemies.

[-HAKUNA-YOUR-TATAS-]

I'm not writing this to put you down, but killing Raptor (and I did it 130 times to get Nova) was a brainless exercise/chore for me. It was almost like hunting balloons. (and I killed over 700 of those too) I've seen several strategies being used, Loki Swtich/Teleport into the greenhouse room, Lure him into the hanger, hide in a half open container, or simply shoot from below using a Frost snowglobe.

Other boss missions are more fun, and I feel that any kind of mission or boss kill that requires the presence of any particular frame for success (Frost or Loki in this case) is sorta broken. Every other boss can be played and killed with any assortment of Warframes and that's the way it should be.

[Chris9428]

There should definitely be more fights like Raptor.

Let me take an example..

Vay Hek -> stand in front of him and chase him when he goes behind a cover till he dies

Vor -> Stand in front of him and burst him down till he uses his barrier. Repeat till dead

Kril -> walk in front of him till he melee's, walk behind him and shoot his bump and wait till he freezes. Repeat till enraged

          when enraged, shoot till dead

Jackal -> walk close to him and stunlock him till he dies. (My Dethcube can currently stunlock and kill Jackal by himself.)

 

The other bosses are pretty much just shooting till death as well.

 

Need moar challenging bossfights!

Raptor was a true satisfaction.

[Hoezell]

Those stronger enemies makes me wonder if they are making us need the cover system back... It's just that, after playing some pluto runs, my frame had the feeling of being made of paper. And no, I wasn't standing still like a autist... it's just way harder to have a shooting in the higher levels.

[Shion963]

I find soloing Raptor empowering. Correct me if I'm wrong when I say Raptor has a good deal of health and shields, deals 200 damage per shot with his main weapon and goes invulnerable with nuker missiles when he's at 1/3 health. He doesn't need fully potatoed weapons or an overpowered frame to kill. 

 

So let me ask you again: Which do you prefer? Warframe that's more like killing Raptor, or killing his mooks.

 

Hell yes. Raptor and Jackal boss fights are fun as HEK. But the crewman/lancers ripping me to bits because I mistakenly jumped out from behind a pillar is bad.

 

I'm still on wait-and-see for what they'd do with enemies' difficulty scaling.

[Venarge]

Sorry but they never said they want you to be god like. They want you to be a badass space ninja. These are two seperated things.

[Ced23Ric]

I am definately in the grind/chore category of opinions when it comes to bossfights in Warframe. I have hopes for the new golem, though. Maybe one day, we get bosses like in Lost Planet:Extreme Condition ... at least, I am dreaming of such fights.

 

[ToeSama]

The power is nice, but it's not really what I'd call "empowerment" in a game like this. There are fundamental things missing from the game that are neither shooter nor parkour related that I feel are quintessential to being any sort of fantasy style ninja, be they of the space variety or not. The game needs a lot of work to offer more in these areas before I can feel empowered as such a space ninja. The biggest example probably being stealth and how enemies react on a universal scale to non silent weaponry (it just feels like if I fire enough shots in one area, the rest of the ship hears and gets on high alert even without needing to sound the alarm... and how are there 27 Infested running at me when there was three in the room next door before?!)

Enemy AI has been my biggest complaint for ages. The enemies are too clunky and stupid in how the AI handles you, and the Devs seem like they're more focused with buffing enemy damage and armor levels than they are making the enemy AI a legitimate threat. I don't feel empowered because I feel like everything in the game is a paper tiger just waiting for me to rip through it. They look scary, but they're not. Even the bosses feel like they're little more than a slightly stronger sort of cardboard instead of paper. It makes the game even less fun when coupled with the horrendous grinding times and often laughable returns. How hard is it to make an RNG that doesn't feel like I'd rather be pulling out my own teeth work? Plenty of other games do it very well without having to go through 9 updates and still not even have a lick of these sorts of drop problems...

Update 9 did a lot to display that there COULD be a future in this game, but the work put into making that future a reality in the updates to come will be the true test. All I know is that stealth as a game play option had best become spectacular by Update 11, or the game has failed on a level that no other ninja based game would ever dare to fail.

[Venarge]

I am definately in the grind/chore category of opinions when it comes to bossfights in Warframe. I have hopes for the new golem, though. Maybe one day, we get bosses like in Lost Planet:Extreme Condition ... at least, I am dreaming of such fights.

 

So much this^

[Guest]

Enemy AI has been my biggest complaint for ages. The enemies are too clunky and stupid in how the AI handles you, and the Devs seem like they're more focused with buffing enemy damage and armor levels than they are making the enemy AI a legitimate threat. I don't feel empowered because I feel like everything in the game is a paper tiger just waiting for me to rip through it. They look scary, but they're not. Even the bosses feel like they're little more than a slightly stronger sort of cardboard instead of paper. It makes the game even less fun when coupled with the horrendous grinding times and often laughable returns. How hard is it to make an RNG that doesn't feel like I'd rather be pulling out my own teeth work? Plenty of other games do it very well without having to go through 9 updates and still not even have a lick of these sorts of drop problems...

Yes, I would hope that enemy AI would get a buff instead of enemy "stats". I mean sure they deal more damage, but I can easily just take cover or cloak; sure they have stronger defences, but that just costs me a little more ammo. You said it with the cardboard.

As for the drops, I can finally agree with you and those like minded on the issue. They've introduced so much since I last played "hardcore-like" and now the drop tables are being spread too thin. I read once about a token system of sorts, separate from platinum and credits that can only be achieved by alerts and the like. What do you think about the token system?

[theasl]

There should definitely be more fights like Raptor.

Let me take an example..

Vay Hek -> stand in front of him and chase him when he goes behind a cover till he dies

Vor -> Stand in front of him and burst him down till he uses his barrier. Repeat till dead

Kril -> walk in front of him till he melee's, walk behind him and shoot his bump and wait till he freezes. Repeat till enraged

          when enraged, shoot till dead

Jackal -> walk close to him and stunlock him till he dies. (My Dethcube can currently stunlock and kill Jackal by himself.)

 

The other bosses are pretty much just shooting till death as well.

 

Need moar challenging bossfights!

Raptor was a true satisfaction.

Raptor -> Just get a Frost to globe up, then shoot till dead.

[-HAKUNA-YOUR-TATAS-]

Raptor -> Just get a Frost to globe up, then shoot till dead.

Which is kinda bull$#it if you think about it. Borderline an exploit there. (I'm not disagreeing as I did that over 100 times myself.) I even did Volt with 2-3 electric shields overhead, basically works the same way too. It should never be Frost = Win with any boss, mission, etc. I'm not a nerf nagger (I have all frames and love all of them), but my point is that players shouldn't be punished/forced into having a certain frame in order to be successful. Edited July 23, 2013 by sushidubya

[Vabla]

Can't feel empowered without /dance to proclaim your superiority.

[ToeSama]

As for the drops, I can finally agree with you and those like minded on the issue. They've introduced so much since I last played "hardcore-like" and now the drop tables are being spread too thin. I read once about a token system of sorts, separate from platinum and credits that can only be achieved by alerts and the like. What do you think about the token system?

 

I'm a bit indifferent to it myself. It would just be another grind of sorts if you ask me. Maybe not so bad if Alert System 2.1 had them show up in plentiful values instead of credits often enough, but I'd prefer they just take certain things out of certain drop tables for the rest of our days, or altering the drop tables to take into account things that a player has in their inventory already for weapon/frame part grinding sessions. I don't know how many times a good Xini run has been ruined by Heated Charge/Hellfire, let alone a good tower run getting shat on by giving us a piece of a Prime weapon we already have 3-5 of...

 

[RagDollRat]

yea U9 made most frames sqishy x.x

 

running missions with nova or ember is silly xD

[Destro6677]

yea U9 made most frames sqishy x.x

running missions with nova or ember is silly xD

I have to deny that. Ember has 70% damage reduction from everything with her maxed aura up and Nova can kill things so fast they're not threats anymore.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Destro6677

[RagDollRat]

I'm not writing this to put you down, but killing Raptor (and I did it 130 times to get Nova) was a brainless exercise/chore for me. It was almost like hunting balloons. (and I killed over 700 of those too) I've seen several strategies being used, Loki Swtich/Teleport into the greenhouse room, Lure him into the hanger, hide in a half open container, or simply shoot from below using a Frost snowglobe.

Other boss missions are more fun, and I feel that any kind of mission or boss kill that requires the presence of any particular frame for success (Frost or Loki in this case) is sorta broken. Every other boss can be played and killed with any assortment of Warframes and that's the way it should be.

wow man RNG hates you, i got nova in 6 runs :l

[RagDollRat]

I have to deny that. Ember has 70% damage from everything with her aura up and Nova can kill things so fast they're not threats anymore.

i dont use that EVER XD

I have her specced to bash 4 and run in circles

 

also nova being able to do dammage doesnt make her any less squishy

Edited July 23, 2013 by LaoTao

[Chris9428]

Raptor -> Just get a Frost to globe up, then shoot till dead.

I actually have Frost, but I'm not even gonna use him for Raptor. I refuse to do that.

I mostly don't have a Raptor in my squad, so it's not that easy.

[Destro6677]

Admittedly, Frost's globe is a 'legal' exploit. But it doesn't prevent any frame from soloing Raptor if played well enough.

 

Defense missions? Whole other kettle of fish.(Which probably should not be discussed here to avoid derailing the thread)

Edited July 23, 2013 by Destro6677

[-HAKUNA-YOUR-TATAS-]

wow man RNG hates you, i got nova in 6 runs :l

Well if recently you farmed her then yes... I did that starting Update 9's release Friday night last week. With regards to RNG? Well I wouldn't say it hates me as I've got all the multishots, flows, streamlines and frames anyone could ever want. With thousands of plats in storage, I could have bought her and nearly did. But I wanted to know for myself that I got her fair and square.

It was bugged while I was playing that weekend. (probably not bugged and DE's way of getting people who wanted her bad enough to buy) Yes it was 3 days of grinding, but I do have something like 180 control modules to show for it.

I'll probably never have to see Hyena EVER again. With what a 25% drop of a CM from Hyena I may have saved myself some 400-600 hyena runs. XD

Edited July 23, 2013 by sushidubya

[Xinoxlx]

Kela, Phorid, and Raptor are three bosses that actually reward mobility. Grunts and bosses like Hek or Ruk don't. Why? Because grunts and some bosses use aimbot with hitscan weapons.

 

Always thought it was odd to have so many parkour aspects to a game yet you're never rewarded because no matter how fast you go enemies can track you perfectly and in the case of Grineer and ancients they can actively halt all momentum for an overly slow recovery animation.

 

It's like the game wants you to go slow, but going slow is counter intuitive with how much grinding you need to do.

[Fleetwing]

Depends on the Frame, but with a fully modded, fully equipped Ash, Rhino, Frost, or Excalibro, I do in fact feel rather unstoppable. :3

[NalkorRN]

It would be nice if the armor stat also affected shields like it did in that one patch before it was fixed.