Some thoughts on game play.

[MealeaYing]

I am thinking of making a new account and starting over, here's why:

This morning, I, an mr4 Ivara with completely maxed out weapons with ok mods, went on one of the Konzu's bounties. When I arrived I was directly underneath a Teralyst, died twice in rapid succession and received a pile of loot for no good reason. Escaping that I ran like hell till I was clear of this fiasco and headed off to the mission I was supposed to be on, it was 800+m away, I didn't make it before some other players finished that stage of it. Another free pile of loot. When I finally caught up I was killed instantly by a Grineer Lancer, someone I should be able to take down, and usually do. That got my attention, so I backed off and shot another one in the head until I ran out of ammo, This had no effect and I was promptly killed again, the stage ended and off we went. This time I was careful and hung back trying to pick targets from the edges and hammering them with Ivara's number four power, her (usually very powerful) multi shot bow, it did nothing, the Grineer were immune to it and so I was forced to back way off. The mission concluded successfully and I got a large heap of stuff I simply had nothing to do with. I didn't earn it, I didn't contribute anything except questions, and yet there I was, forced to be a leech in a bounty mission I thought I had initiated. This wasn't the first time, it was just the most blatant and obvious. The problem was simple, I joined a mission at mr4 with players in it that were all mr18 and above. While I dont want to be segregated bt mastery rank, something needs to change somehow, but I'm not sure what. If I didn't earn it, I dont want it.

What I want out of a game like this is a sense of accomplishment, I dont want someone else to do stuff for me. I love teamwork, but this isn't it and while I love my Tenno's, all two of them, and I love doing things with other people, I'm thinking of starting again from scratch. Make a new account, start with a fresh Tenno and begin the process all over again. The problem is that there is only one way to do this properly and that is to do all missions solo or invite only. I know that there are people that love this setup as it causes them to advance very rapidly, but Im not one of those people. So now I have a conundrum, do I abandon my first two Tennos and all this splendid stuff? Or do I keep going and try to do things differently? If I keep going I think its going to eat at me that I didn't make these advances myself, they are only 1/2 mine (give or take). Personally I'm leaning towards making a new account and starting over, I have enough experience now that it will give me a bit of an advantage, but that experience is something I did earn so I'm not too bothered by it.

If anyone has any thoughts on this I would be delighted to hear them, and thank you in advance if you do.

 

Cheers,

MealeaYing

[Omnimorph]

I have a lot of sympathy with this.  When I first started the game it was a problem, and it still is a problem.

On the one hand, it's a cool thing that "advanced" players can play with newbies.  But on the other hand the disparity in power due to vets being fully modded-up is so great that it really becomes a bit unfun for newbies to be carried, or to find themselves just having killed a few mobs while the rest of the team is suddenly already at extraction.  It's especially bad when you have the nuke frames like Ember or Equinox or Saryn in a team with newbies - there's almost nothing for a newbie to do.

It's a bigger problem than I think DE realize, and I feel sure it must be something that puts off some non-negligible number of players.  The players that stay, like you or I, probably stay because they persevere, because they like other aspects of the game so much.  For me it was the art design and the lore and the actual combat being intrinsically fun.  But I think DE is probably leaving money on the table re. a bunch of players that aren't necessarily all that committed enough to those aspects to feel they have to persevere till they're at a level with the "big boys."

Really, you shouldn't have to feel like you're persevering through something to stay playing a game.

I think Warframe is such a good game in so many ways, that it ought to be actually the number one multiplayer game, but there are some things holding it back, and I think the new player experience, and the experience up to maybe the end of the starchart, where you're starting to feel more on a par with vet players because you've got some mods, and more filled mods - something has to be done about that, both in terms of easing new players into the game in the ways we usually mean (more info, tutorials, whatever it may be), but also in terms of this problem, that vets playing with newbies just makes newbies redundant.

That said, the only thing I can suggest is that it does get better, much better, and it's worth persevering, and meanwhile, the best thing to do is get into a clan with people you enjoy chatting with - it doesn't have to be a big clan, but it's best if it's a bunch of people at roundabout your level and you do things together.  

That, and looking in Recruitment for teams that are suitable and specify new players - or starting teams like that yourself.

[Shalath]

What tiny bit of loot you gained there is such a tiny drop in the bucket in the long run so I would just continue as you are and go solo if you feel that is more your style. When I first started out I went public and everyone ran off like lunatics and I found myself rushing to catch up rather than actually learning anything about the game. I play almost exclusively solo now, firstly because I can pause (other than in PoE) but also because I don't like squad mates dictating my speed and play style. My flatmate started not long ago and burned through all of the content in a couple of weeks and keeps telling me I don't need to forma stuff and should just plow on through the game. He doesn't realise he was effectively carried through all of the content whereas I have only myself to rely on and I like it that way.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Shalath
Typo

[MrDeVil_909]

I sympathise with where you'e coming from, but tbh it's part of the nature of the thing. We've all been the leech, and one day we will all be the carry.

[FlyingDice]

That's trivial amounts of loot, don't stress it.

If you really want to avoid that sort of thing, turn your matchmaking to solo. I did that for a couple years (though admittedly more out of necessity) and I think it was a good experience.

[MealeaYing]

@Omnimorph

Your ideas mirror mine. I came here for the art too (I'm a ZBrush addict and digital sculptor), discovered that there is a massive history, which you referred to aptly as lore, and then found that despite not being into gaming that the game play in this is astonishingly fun. And that is why I persevered as you also aptly put it. I should say I had a lot of fun doing so, its not that big of a chore to arrive in a place and before you even see enemies you have to run around hunting for the exit.... It could be worse!

What I find so attractive about this is how complete it feels, it not only has a future, its got an enormous and complex (and I think, well thought out) past.

22 hours ago, Shalath said:

What tiny bit of loot you gained there is such a tiny drop in the bucket in the long run

That gives me a lot of hope, and is clarified a good bit in the next couple of replies. To me it doesn't look like a drop in the bucket, it looks like a vast complex hoard, mostly comprised of things I cant use yet, know nothing about (yet) or that I have so many copies of its preposterous (I fould out that I can melt some of that into Endo). 

 

21 hours ago, MrDeVil_909 said:

I sympathise with where you'e coming from, but tbh it's part of the nature of the thing. We've all been the leech, and one day we will all be the carry.

That second part got me thinking (usually this is bad) so I went back to Earth and did an excavation mission. You are not only right, I was stunned. I stood there and laid waste to hundreds of Grineer with little effort while MR1 people ran around collecting a lot of good (I hope) stuff... I think I see what you mean, actually I know I do.

 

On 11/5/2017 at 10:04 AM, FlyingDice said:

That's trivial amounts of loot, don't stress it.

If you really want to avoid that sort of thing, turn your matchmaking to solo. I did that for a couple years (though admittedly more out of necessity) and I think it was a good experience.

I have been for some of them, the radio tower ones are a great exception to that, but Solo is kind of cool. A little lonely perhaps, but its definitely got its benefits.

 

 

Thank you all for this, its something to think about, and I think DE could have a look at some of the dynamics; being considered a leech because you are new is not cool, but maybe it's the personalities of a few high level players. Considering high level players bossy, or self important is not good either, but when you just left spawn and cant find extraction and are being yelled at while being killed, things heat up quick.

 

[Omnimorph]

4 hours ago, MealeaYing said:

 

Thank you all for this, its something to think about, and I think DE could have a look at some of the dynamics; being considered a leech because you are new is not cool, but maybe it's the personalities of a few high level players. Considering high level players bossy, or self important is not good either, but when you just left spawn and cant find extraction and are being yelled at while being killed, things heat up quick.

 

I think it's definitely a problem with the game somehow, although it's actually not that easy to put a finger on it.

Some of the comments above are "play solo to avoid this kind of thing" - but that's hardly a recommendation in a game that's advertised as multiplayer!

Plus also, it really is actually great fun to play with other people in this game, it's an excellent multiplayer game, and a great game for PUGs (pick up groups, automatch groups) - so long as you're all evenly matched.  Gameplay with other "endgame" competent players is tremendous fun when you get into the more challenging end of the game, like Sortie 3 and endless survivals and defenses.

But there's something about the gap between new players and advanced players that's dispiriting when you're a new player. So dispiriting that, as we've seen, if players don't give up, many of them just go solo.  And that can't be right, it's a flaw in the way the game is set up somehow.

I think the main reason DE have it in is that one of the goals of developers is usually to try and find a way for older players to revisit earlier content.  That's a laudable aim, but "power creep" (which isn't really the right term, but it gets the point across) has gotten so great in this game that maybe the developers have to forego that nice idea. 

It would be far better, I think, to have a clear separation between more advanced players (which usually means players with a full suite of mods) and new players, and if they want older players to revisit the earlier maps, have missions with higher level mobs on those older maps.

Or, (another idea): in the MMO City of Heroes, there was a system of "sidekicking" and "mentoring", which meant that advanced players with the equivalent of lots of mods could play on older maps with newer players by mentoring down to their level, or have new players playing on more advanced maps with them by having them as sidekicks.  In the case of sidekicking, the newer player's power level was bumped up to something approaching the level of the more advanced player (though of course not quite as good, because they don't have the "mods" equivalent).  This game doesn't have levels, but perhaps some kind of auto-adjustment of power levels could be worked out to bring the members of a team more in line with each other on earlier maps (mainly by having the more advanced players "mentoring" the newer players, i.e. automatically bringing the more advanced players' power level down a peg or two).

Edited November 6, 2017 by Omnimorph

[MrDeVil_909]

12 hours ago, MealeaYing said:

That second part got me thinking (usually this is bad) so I went back to Earth and did an excavation mission. You are not only right, I was stunned. I stood there and laid waste to hundreds of Grineer with little effort while MR1 people ran around collecting a lot of good (I hope) stuff... I think I see what you mean, actually I know I do.

Fun isn't it? :)

Also to something else you said, 'leeching' is usually considered a bad thing, but in this game it's such a fundamental part of the design with how XP sharing works it isn't really a pejorative. There's a reason it's acceptable to take unranked gear into missions on Sedna, and high level players offer taxis. It's all part of the dynamics. It's something to get used to as a newer player because it's quite unusual, but generally it doesn't cause resentment in 'veteran' players.

I've found the other players generally just focus on what they are doing and don't want to be slowed down, but if something goes wrong on your side, like getting lost on the way to extraction, and it happens, just tell people in chat and they will usually calm down.

@Omnimorph You make some good points, but I don't think the game really needs any new systems to encourage newer and older players mixing. Older players just need to take it on themselves to sherpa newer players and encourage them. We all benefit from more players, so we need to keep people around by making the environment as positive as possible. It's something that's generally quite good in Warframe, but if more people make an effort it will be even better.