The Needed Overhaul That Will Never Happen.

[Numot]

I feel that the progression portion of the game as it stands, is at a fair point (save for scaling issues, but that's another issue).

 

The real overhaul that needs to happen is mission structure and enemy intelligence. Random maps are neat, but not all of the map needs to be random all the time. Having well structured missions combined with solid AI give an enjoyable feel that promotes re-playability. Progressing through the system needs to feel like you're actually playing through different stages, rather than just having a bunch of haphazard missions with different enemies and random tile sets.

 

When you go to fight a boss it needs to not just be a rush to the boss. Getting to the boss should be an experience as well. You've destroyed resource stores, ships, stolen valuable artifacts from Vor's fleet, cut through his personal guard and now its time to take him down. The game doesn't give you that experience at the moment. It has some the base for it, but it just isn't quite there yet.

 

Its that kind of quality that lets you sit down and play a console shooter again and again, even though nothing changes, just because of how stuff is put together. I'm sure everyone has "that one stage" that they love to replay in a shooter that never seems to get old for them, and Warframe need to generate that feeling if it wants to succeed.

[Onite]

I came to a realization recently. I got the Bronco Prime (I LOVED the vanilla Bronco before the mod system overhaul, was always at my side), but after a few rounds on a level I felt comfortable with, I found the gun lacking. Instead of saying 'it's not for me,' and leaving it at that, I said 'let me level it until I can put Hornet Strike and Barrel Diffusion.' What occurred to me, is that I wasn't using a gun anymore, I was using a mod platform with very little variation. I have my 8 mods and I stick to them. I'm not going to assume this is a widespread thing, but I can't be the only person for whom this has become the norm. I may be alone in this, but that realization has made me rethink how I play and WHY I play. I have an 'endgame' build with frames and weapons that I don't particularly care for.

 

Significant flat damage enhancers should be removed. There, I said it. In my opinion, mods should augment weapon behavior, but not damage. Speed trigger/Gunslinger/ETC gets a debatable pass because of the ammo consumption trade-off. The effect of removing these damage mods would be that enemies don't need to scale so ridiculously high. Pressure needs to be put on PLAYER SKILL rather than MOD LIBRARY. Fewer, more meaningful mods and mod slots would help this. 

 

The game could also use a dose of loadout restriction and gameplay system interactions (stats being affected by other attributes or the current loadout). The earlier iteration of the mod system was actually headed in an interesting direction because you could never max your skill tree. Each point needed to be placed deliberately. Restriction tends to breed a certain level of creativity and customization to each frames. How a new system would look is up to people with more game design experience. 

Absolutely and yes. This is exactly how i feel.

[Onite]

Did anyone here actually watch this video?

"Powercreep ruins games and makes them lose money." In what universe? The authors of the video then talk about WoW multiple times, a game which counters every point this video makes. To make this perfectly clear, WoW is 100% based on "powercreep" and makes bucketloads of money. The central thesis of the video is flat out wrong.

They then talk about pvp games. Powercreep in pvp games and pve games are two entirely different issues. People play PVE games for progression. Progression involves powercreep. It has been this way since the days of Gary Gygax and Lord British. And people love their RPGs because of it. This entire video bascially says RPGs are dumb, and everyone needs to play PVP games. Which is pretty ridiculous.

I could go on and on about the ridiculousness of this video, but when its central points can't hold up under even a smidge of critical thinking, there's really no point.

Your post has some issues too. But for sake of civility, I'll leave it at that.

 

Except RPGs are NOT defined by powercreep. But that style in powercreep is only effective when telling a story and immersing you in a single player campaign game. And in those, mostly its all turn based anyway. In those, you beat the game and then stop. The only reason you would re-play the game is if you really wanted to go through the story again. maybe incase there were other choices you could have made that interested you so much, you could go through the entire game a second or third time.

 

Warframe is a complete apple to that orange. Warframe is more of an arcade styled game. Where everything is designed around constantly doing repeatable missions. The forumula for warframe needs to play off of replayability based on how fun the game is while getting unlocks and gadgets and fun items. Earning new tools and modifying them and using them on your missions as you fight different enemies that behave differently with varying weaknesses.

 

Other arcade styled games that are similar in formula:

 

Starfox 64

Omega Boost

Killing Floor

Left 4 Dead

BRINK

Lost Planet 2

Nation Red

Super Mario

Little Big Planet

 

If you have played any of these, you will see a pattern in the gameplay where the game is fun for the action in the gameplay, not for building a long term RPG character that takes up the lifetime of a game like final fantasy while trying to tell you a very long pre set story where the main character is already written and defined and named.

 

So trying to force RPG elements into an arcade style game will get extremely dull through the repetition, because RPG styled games where the core of the game is based off of farming or grinding to get slightly ahead for permanent direct upgrades in power simply does not fit because you're ruining and making a one way path in a game thats meant to have repeated content with multiple players.

 

Instead of having a max level in which you become insanely powerful by sheer numbers alone, it needs to have more endgame content where you can polish the content yourself so you have something to work on or show for it. Like new toys, customization options, or working on the dojo.

 

That is more fun and worthwhile than farming a defense mission 500 times so you can merge all your mods into your other mod to get +15% more damage to kill the same enemies you've already been fighting but they have 200 more health. It gives you the illusion of getting stronger but ultimately when that illusion fades, and it will, is when you stop playing. Because theres nothing driving you forward, there is no story or new areas to explore, no new towns or dungeons to clear a single time to progress.   Because its not an RPG.

 

Basically it comes down to:

 

RPG: How far you can go.

 

Arcade/Action: What you can become/how good you can do it/doing it in orchestra with other people.

 

 

 

 

PVE is not always an RPG. Videogames are constantly growing so much into so many different genres so fast, its really unfair to use them to pre define games. Instead, we should be using games that existed in the past that were fun, and look at patterns and ask why they were fun.

 

This is why i mentioned formulas of arcade style games.

 

I hope this makes sense as to why i disagree with you. And why i think making some changes would make the game more enjoyable both in the short and long term.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Onite

[Hipolipolopigus]

I wholly agree with the points the OP has made, however...

 

 

 

 

Now then, to business; Dungeon crawlers like Warframe often hit this barrier incredibly fast. Irrespective of story, genre, character development, studio or even budget, games that are limited in scope by design will always have this issue. 

Edited August 1, 2013 by Hipolipolopigus

[Paprika]

The reason they have to implement a nuke button is because they tried to ramp up the difficulty by increasing mob size. Neither should've happened. I agree with the original poster. NERFS ALL AROUND!

 

I really want to see better AI implemented. I know that this isn't cakewalk and that this isn't gonna happen in a snap, but it's necessary, and I want to know that they're at the very least thinking about it.

[BadAimbot]

This thread has gone really well. It's been a while since there's been a thread that hasn't dissolved into flame wars about who's balancing philosophy is right.

 

I came to a realization recently. I got the Bronco Prime (I LOVED the vanilla Bronco before the mod system overhaul, was always at my side), but after a few rounds on a level I felt comfortable with, I found the gun lacking. Instead of saying 'it's not for me,' and leaving it at that, I said 'let me level it until I can put Hornet Strike and Barrel Diffusion.' What occurred to me, is that I wasn't using a gun anymore, I was using a mod platform with very little variation. I have my 8 mods and I stick to them. I'm not going to assume this is a widespread thing, but I can't be the only person for whom this has become the norm. I may be alone in this, but that realization has made me rethink how I play and WHY I play. I have an 'endgame' build with frames and weapons that I don't particularly care for.

 

Significant flat damage enhancers should be removed. There, I said it. In my opinion, mods should augment weapon behavior, but not damage. Speed trigger/Gunslinger/ETC gets a debatable pass because of the ammo consumption trade-off. The effect of removing these damage mods would be that enemies don't need to scale so ridiculously high. Pressure needs to be put on PLAYER SKILL rather than MOD LIBRARY. Fewer, more meaningful mods and mod slots would help this. 

 

The game could also use a dose of loadout restriction and gameplay system interactions (stats being affected by other attributes or the current loadout). The earlier iteration of the mod system was actually headed in an interesting direction because you could never max your skill tree. Each point needed to be placed deliberately. Restriction tends to breed a certain level of creativity and customization to each frames. How a new system would look is up to people with more game design experience. 

 

Mods are good because they give us a clear indicator of progression. This means that we can face tougher enemies without having to replace our earlier equipment. I don't think that there should be many mods that serve this purpose though, because there should be room for variation in our mod builds. Warframe mods in particular are the worst when it comes to this, yet they also have the most variety.

 

In the case of your Bronco Prime problem, yeah, without your regular mods it feels like crap to use it. One of the arguments in favor of progressive weaponry is that if later weapons aren't better, why bother investing in newer weapons? At later levels we probably have Potatoes to spare, plus we can use other weapons for a while and let shared xp train the weapon for a while. I think they need to go a step further. Later weaponry should have polarities so we can get mods on the weapons faster so they can catch up. It seems that polarities are thrown out randomly these days.

[Inez]

Except RPGs are NOT defined by powercreep. But that style in powercreep is only effective when telling a story and immersing you in a single player campaign game. And in those, mostly its all turn based anyway. In those, you beat the game and then stop. The only reason you would re-play the game is if you really wanted to go through the story again. maybe incase there were other choices you could have made that interested you so much, you could go through the entire game a second or third time.

 

Warframe is a complete apple to that orange. Warframe is more of an arcade styled game. Where everything is designed around constantly doing repeatable missions. The forumula for warframe needs to play off of replayability based on how fun the game is while getting unlocks and gadgets and fun items. Earning new tools and modifying them and using them on your missions as you fight different enemies that behave differently with varying weaknesses.

 

Other arcade styled games that are similar in formula:

 

Starfox 64

Omega Boost

Killing Floor

Left 4 Dead

BRINK

Lost Planet 2

Nation Red

Super Mario

Little Big Planet

 

If you have played any of these, you will see a pattern in the gameplay where the game is fun for the action in the gameplay, not for building a long term RPG character that takes up the lifetime of a game like final fantasy while trying to tell you a very long pre set story where the main character is already written and defined and named.

 

So trying to force RPG elements into an arcade style game will get extremely dull through the repetition, because RPG styled games where the core of the game is based off of farming or grinding to get slightly ahead for permanent direct upgrades in power simply does not fit because you're ruining and making a one way path in a game thats meant to have repeated content with multiple players.

 

Instead of having a max level in which you become insanely powerful by sheer numbers alone, it needs to have more endgame content where you can polish the content yourself so you have something to work on or show for it. Like new toys, customization options, or working on the dojo.

 

That is more fun and worthwhile than farming a defense mission 500 times so you can merge all your mods into your other mod to get +15% more damage to kill the same enemies you've already been fighting but they have 200 more health. It gives you the illusion of getting stronger but ultimately when that illusion fades, and it will, is when you stop playing. Because theres nothing driving you forward, there is no story or new areas to explore, no new towns or dungeons to clear a single time to progress.   Because its not an RPG.

 

Basically it comes down to:

 

RPG: How far you can go.

 

Arcade/Action: What you can become/how good you can do it/doing it in orchestra with other people.

 

 

 

 

PVE is not always an RPG. Videogames are constantly growing so much into so many different genres so fast, its really unfair to use them to pre define games. Instead, we should be using games that existed in the past that were fun, and look at patterns and ask why they were fun.

 

This is why i mentioned formulas of arcade style games.

 

I hope this makes sense as to why i disagree with you. And why i think making some changes would make the game more enjoyable both in the short and long term.

The games you listed are only fun for about 10-20 hours tops. If that's your vision for Warframe, I'll happily keep my powercreep.

Saying RPGs are not definded by powercreep is just flat out wrong. More HP and more damage by gaining levels is whats rpgs have been about since Akalabeth, building on Gary Gygax's work in Dungeons and Dragons. Another power creep game that should be financially ruinous according to the op's video.

Warframe takes great arcade gameplay and gives it longevity by using an RPG style progression system. Which means bigger numbers. You may not like it, and there well be a better system somewhere, but thats the way RPG progression has always been. Getting your next level, next weapon, upgrade, stat boost is the carrot that keeps people playing. Its why you can play WoW for many hundreds of hours, and Star Fox for maybe 20 hours.

Note, I'm not saying that Warframe is an RPG. What category of game Warframe is is utterly irrelevant. I'm not sure why labeling Warframe a certain type of game is so important to you. Warframe it what it is. But whatever it it, it uses an RPG style progression system to add longevity to the game. You can call it arcade or RPG or shooter, it doesn't change the RPG like mechanics of leveling. And these mechanics are why people play it for hundreds of hours. And sink lots of money into it. They like the constant new rewards of +15% fire damage, or getting 50 more shields for their warframe. They like being able to smack down those heavy gunners that uses to terrify them. Its called progression and it can be very addictive as many, many RPG styled games have shown.

The problem with the Op and you is that you think that adding tons of new content, enemies and AI is cheap and easy. It isn't. You act like game companies have infinite resources, when quite the opposite is true. Most video games lose money. Most video game studios struggle and don't last very long. If you know some magic secret to designing tons of innovative, challenging content for games, by all means, start up a video game company and show all these amateurs how its done. You can put all the brilliant game design lessons you've learned from internet videos to good use.

[LongDraw]

There are two glaring problems that I see in the game currently, other than the atrocious matchmaking/StrictNAT.

 

1.  Over-abundance of what I like to call "boom boom" powers

 

and

 

2.  Bosses that are too predictable.  They don't randomize their attack sequences.  Powers always have either normal or negated effect.  It doesn't change during battles.

 

I don't know that nerfing everything in the game is necessarily the "only option" available to address the most pressing issues, but I would consider it one of several options at DE's disposal.

 

Personally, I would be more confident in the problems being at least marginalized by shifting the focus of the powers on the frames from "boom boom" powers to something akin to tactical, support or defensive.

[Onite]

The games you listed are only fun for about 10-20 hours tops. If that's your vision for Warframe, I'll happily keep my powercreep.

Saying RPGs are not definded by powercreep is just flat out wrong. More HP and more damage by gaining levels is whats rpgs have been about since Akalabeth, building on Gary Gygax's work in Dungeons and Dragons. Another power creep game that should be financially ruinous according to the op's video.

Warframe takes great arcade gameplay and gives it longevity by using an RPG style progression system. Which means bigger numbers. You may not like it, and there well be a better system somewhere, but thats the way RPG progression has always been. Getting your next level, next weapon, upgrade, stat boost is the carrot that keeps people playing. Its why you can play WoW for many hundreds of hours, and Star Fox for maybe 20 hours.

Note, I'm not saying that Warframe is an RPG. What category of game Warframe is is utterly irrelevant. I'm not sure why labeling Warframe a certain type of game is so important to you. Warframe it what it is. But whatever it it, it uses an RPG style progression system to add longevity to the game. You can call it arcade or RPG or shooter, it doesn't change the RPG like mechanics of leveling. And these mechanics are why people play it for hundreds of hours. And sink lots of money into it. They like the constant new rewards of +15% fire damage, or getting 50 more shields for their warframe. They like being able to smack down those heavy gunners that uses to terrify them. Its called progression and it can be very addictive as many, many RPG styled games have shown.

The problem with the Op and you is that you think that adding tons of new content, enemies and AI is cheap and easy. It isn't. You act like game companies have infinite resources, when quite the opposite is true. Most video games lose money. Most video game studios struggle and don't last very long. If you know some magic secret to designing tons of innovative, challenging content for games, by all means, start up a video game company and show all these amateurs how its done. You can put all the brilliant game design lessons you've learned from internet videos to good use.

 

The games i listed, me and my friends have played for alot longer than 20 hours. But thats not the point. I listed those games because of the behaviour cycles you find yourself doing in those games and why you do them.

 

RPG system, like i said before, will eventually lose its feel. And when that happens, all the new content in the game goes with it. None of it will bring you running back to it for very long. Becasue you're already so powerful.

 

Warframe if given the changes i suggested, would feel alot more like a co op campaign game, like Halo . Except the campaign goes on for much much longer because of the dynamically generated areas and the things you can unlock and bring with you and your interaction with enemy AI along with their difficulty.

 

As for content being so incredibly budget and labor intensive is a complete load of crap. I'm sorry, but it is.

The hardest part of warframe is already done. Which is the core of the game, the artstyle, the game engine, the dynamic tile system, the EXP and loot tables, the concept of the game, Its all already done. That is the one part that takes up the most time and requires the most team effort of a company. I know pushing out small amounts of content consistently is not out of the question and unreasonable, because they're doing it right now and have been doing it for several months. Making a single item in the game only needs the work of a few people. One person to model the weapon, one to make the sounds, one to animate it, and one to code it into the game. Of course the content is thought up and considered by a few other people, but alot of that doesnt cost those people huge sums of money. In fact alot of it can be done and is suggested every single day by the community. The same community that throws money at the game. So right there is an outlet where DE can take in both, good ideas while getting paid by the same people who suggested that content. If they didnt, they would be wasting time and money twiddling their thumbs on a game that is either done or mostly done. So NOT making new content is out of the question.

Even if the content DID cost a bucket of benjamins, if the content pulls its weight, raking in money, then its worth doing.

 

As for DE being a new game company that is going to die out, thats just not true. They've been around for like 30 years. They've helped make alot of titles that i've enjoyed. Specifically the Unreal series. If they've been making games for 30 years, i really doubt they're just going to curl up and die overnight from making a few extra tilesets or guns or swords in their game. That doesnt mean i take that stuff for granted.

 

As for "Warframe takes great arcade gameplay and gives it longevity by using an RPG style progression system." Is where i completely disagree, where i feel the RPG progression = One way path with a dead end. I'd go more into it, but i would be repeating myself.

 

RPG gameplay is like a marathon where you progress in a straight line. You're sure to make progress while you're running but its the same throughout the entire marathon. There is no variation. Its a grind. Once you reach the finish line, theres no reason to run the exact same marathon over and over. The incentive is gone and if someone told you to do it again, you would be like "aw...again? really?" Instead you would want to run a different marathon. (A whole new game completely)

 

Arcade based gameplay like what i've mentioned before is alot more like rock wall climbing. You could climb the exact same wall a million different times. And every time new content occurs, climbing that wall becomes more and more fun because the wall is different and changes shape every single time.

 

The RPG direction is A-Z and you stop after Z. Its 100% Linear.

 

Arcade styles are More randomized. Non-linear, and give developers alot more room to add more content. They get more angles to shoot things to you.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Onite

[JamesSergon]

The games i listed, me and my friends have played for alot longer than 20 hours. But thats not the point. I listed those games because of the behaviour cycles you find yourself doing in those games and why you do them.

 

RPG system, like i said before, will eventually lose its feel. And when that happens, all the new content in the game goes with it. None of it will bring you running back to it for very long. Becasue you're already so powerful.

 

Warframe if given the changes i suggested, would feel alot more like a co op campaign game, like Halo . Except the campaign goes on for much much longer because of the dynamically generated areas and the things you can unlock and bring with you and your interaction with enemy AI along with their difficulty.

 

As for content being so incredibly budget and labor intensive is a complete load of crap. I'm sorry, but it is.

The hardest part of warframe is already done. Which is the core of the game, the artstyle, the game engine, the dynamic tile system, the EXP and loot tables, the concept of the game, Its all already done. That is the one part that takes up the most time and requires the most team effort of a company. I know pushing out small amounts of content consistently is not out of the question and unreasonable, because they're doing it right now and have been doing it for several months. Making a single item in the game only needs the work of a few people. One person to model the weapon, one to make the sounds, one to animate it, and one to code it into the game. Of course the content is thought up and considered by a few other people, but alot of that doesnt cost those people a penny. In fact alot of it can be done and is suggested every single day by the community. The same community that throws money at the game. So right there is an outlet where DE can take in both, good ideas while getting paid by the same people who suggested that content. If they didnt, they would be wasting time and money twiddling their thumbs on a game that is either done or mostly done. So NOT making new content is out of the question.

 

 

As for DE being a new game company that is going to die out, thats just not true. They've been around for like 30 years. They've helped make alot of titles that i've enjoyed. Specifically the Unreal series. If they've been making games for 30 years, i really doubt they're just going to curl up and die overnight from making a few extra tilesets or guns or swords in their game. That doesnt mean i take that stuff for granted.

 

As for "Warframe takes great arcade gameplay and gives it longevity by using an RPG style progression system." Is where i completely disagree, where i feel the RPG progression = One way path with a dead end. I'd go more into it, but i would be repeating myself.

 

I couldn't more agree with all you just said.

 

It is in the interest in the longevity of the game to not make all the game about a stats progression super ramp.  Sense of progression IS important, but it can take multiple forms other than plainly more power: progression on skill/tactic mastery, on character personnalization, on social-wise mechanisms and roles (through clan, teamwork, events; the feeling to be a part of something bigger).  Those are a much bigger glue that sticks players into the game on the long term.

 

The trick is to make it so progression in the more common sense means giving more tools (more weapons, mods warframes variety, environment elements) to the players so by experimentation and skill mastery he can get more EFFICIENT then before (and compared with less experimented players) for accomplishing similar tasks. Balance, gameplay and challenges are everything here.  It does mean it is not okay to also make it so players get a bit more powerful stat wise.  Just that you have to be careful the way you are doing it.  And right now, I think they are on a dangerous path.

Edited August 1, 2013 by JamesSergon

[Mietz]

This has been a talking point since ~closed beta.

The people that are still around from that time (probably not that many) will understand what I'm implying here.

 

Point being, we (collectively) have repeatedly pointed this out to DE. I think I personally made two article-sized threads about this with detailed proposals as to how to make the different systems interplay with each other. How we need to focus more on mods that give abilities that are interesting to use in context to the challenges (on the forefront the token stealth and melee systems), how we need to have far better AI than what is currently in the game, how we need to stop upgrading our weapons that become unstoppable bullet-hoses of doom, or that we need to stop these continuous content-releases that add moar guns and moar dakka.

 

This was ongoing amongst the community basically since inception. Unfortunately it turns out this discussion was entirely one-sided, its falling entirely on deaf ears with the developers.

 

Now, in the beginning we gave DE the benefit of the doubt. I mean the game was young and we were in CBT, DE didn't even have a release date planned so there was a sort of optimism for the future potential of WF.

 

Its been now 8 months since I'm with this game and there were no changes whatever to the important aspects of the game. There is no balance between the frames, there are still old bugs from CBT and beyond, there is no improvement in AI, gameplay and gameplay systems. Instead what we get are more weapons, more power mods for weapons, more broken warframes, more tiles and a dojo.

Don't get me wrong, they are all fine and great additions but as it stands this new content is unbalanced, partially broken, and introduces more and more problems with the systems never touched upon since CBT. This is why the Mag blows, its one of the earliest frames, designed for what was back then a different game in context to the content that was since added.

 

Warframe has been announced as a PS4 launch title so that gives us a deadline, this means there are now 4 months left to fix the gameplay until release and I see no push in this direction whatsoever from DE. Instead, again, we get more warframes, more guns and more badly balanced content.

 

Winter is coming.

 

The outlook for this game is massive stagnation.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Mietz

[Vashlion]

I think the bosses Lich Keal and Jackel and even the current Vor are what should be looked at when they design bosses from now on. They all have a certain way to tackle them and that's what makes it fun. I mean  Jackel, very early on I managed to solo him, it was hard but possible, now when I go fight Jackel, it's still pretty hard, why? Because he stands up really quickly when in a party. It doesn't matter how good your weapons are.

[Mietz]

I think the bosses Lich Keal and Jackel and even the current Vor are what should be looked at when they design bosses from now on. They all have a certain way to tackle them and that's what makes it fun. I mean  Jackel, very early on I managed to solo him, it was hard but possible, now when I go fight Jackel, it's still pretty hard, why? Because he stands up really quickly when in a party. It doesn't matter how good your weapons are.

 

Honestly I find most of them still bad, well Vor, maybe.

 

The problem with the Jackal, and also Raptor, is that they are phase-based. I.e. like in WoW you go through a set of motions that if executed correctly will lead to victory. This has one big problem: you did the boss once, you saw it all. Instead the bosses should have dynamic behaviors that players have to react to without playing green-light red-light with phases.

[Onite]

 

I feel for you. I too, have made alot of threads with alot of suggestions regarding better content. I brainstormed a whole massive ton of things i thought warframe could use, alot of them even got some community excitement, but not enough for DE to even hear it or consider it.

And yeah, people are going to keep saying "ITS STILL BETA" as if thats a wildcard that everything is magically going to liquify and solidify randomly, against the fact that we've been watching the progress and playing the game and reading the patch notes every single month for the past near year to see a track record of what the developers are doing with the game.

[Mietz]

I feel for you. I too, have made alot of threads with alot of suggestions regarding better content. I brainstormed a whole massive ton of things i thought warframe could use, alot of them even got some community excitement, but not enough for DE to even hear it or consider it.

And yeah, people are going to keep saying "ITS STILL BETA" as if thats a wildcard that everything is magically going to liquify and solidify randomly, against the fact that we've been watching the progress and playing the game and reading the patch notes every single month for the past near year to see a track record of what the developers are doing with the game.

 

Some examples:

 

I remember vividly that around U7 I made several posts about how we could for example fix stealth without impacting gameplay-pace for the action gameplay. As of U9 Stealth is still nothing more than a token "feature" with boring, uninspired and unnecessarily punishing gameplay but without additional reward.

 

I did one post about how we can make a strong and varied, flexible melee combat system with a lot of diversity in moves without even changing or expanding key-functionality (if that was somehow a problem). What we got is more melee weapons that do exactly the same things as before, except now with better animations.

 

I did a long post about warframe abilities and how to fix the energy economy for "caster frames" so they have a reason to build ability-focused loadouts. Instead the only item for caster frames, the Energy Syphon artifact, is now a waste of everyones slot/forma.

 

I did a post about how guns should not influence the playstyle of the warframe as much as they do and how the power-point economy is shoe-horning players into unnecessary "roles" that are then undefined. What we got is the Aura system and polarization that forces players to specialize in exactly the same ways for every item, prioritizing damage output, QED increasing power-creep.

 

I detailed how we should reduce the amount of enemies encountered as well as infinite backdoor-spawning and instead move to better AI and compact, stronger more challenging squads through tactics, even enumerating lore-friendly ways to have varying tactics for factions (Grineer = Individual Squad Tactics, Corpus = Buff/Debuff Tactics, Infested = Swarm Control Tactics). What we got instead is MORE bullet sponge enemies on screen with less actual gameplay challenge in taking them down.

 

I made a long post about how good boss-battles look like and why. What we got is the Raptor and a token rework of Vor which is only hard because you now need more dakka to take him.

 

I tried to explain that the blocking mechanic -could- become a valid gameplay element if we only had a reason to use it together with avoidance and other damage mitigation. Instead, blocking stays unchanged since inception, we get straight up shield tanking with resistances, the most boring way to handle damage mitigation requiring zero input from the player beyond following a build on the wiki.

 

I even made a post analyzing the business-model and how several items in the store are bad decisions, but others that should be purchasable in the store but aren't are leading to reduced profits and long-term appeal (how many Bratons will a player buy with RM vs return purchases from consumables being non existent because they are entirely pointless due to either low challenge or resource abundance). What we got instead are store-purchasable materials and MORE GUNS.

 

So you can see theres enough here to warrant my doom an glooming.

 

PS: So what is DE actually concerned about? look here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/87926-july-29th-community-hot-topics/

 

Trading

More Mission Types

Networking Issues

Nightmare Mode Balancing

More Sound

and Clan Emblems

 

Besides Networking Issues nothing on that list should even be priority right now. Clan Emblems...yeah.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Mietz

[JamesSergon]

Well.  We have reached the 1000+ views of this topic.  I could not believe that at least Rebecca or someone else at DE didn't notice it.

 

I'd love them to acknowledge their preoccupations about the issues you/we have brought up, and what they are planning to do for each of them on short, medium and long term.

 

I know, I know.  I am dreaming here.

[Boatsniper]

Come on Digital Extremes. Communicate with us a little bit. What do you all think of these changes?

[Onite]

Come on Digital Extremes. Communicate with us a little bit. What do you all think of these changes?

(crickets.wav)

[PaperAlien]

which game is that? I come from Mass Effect 3 and the power combos was a great thing, many characters could solo but they were awesome with a team.

Also, Mass Effect 3 scaled way better because scaling was within 100%~ instead of 500%-fold increases in everything. I think the difference between Bronze troopers and Platinum troopers (which never appeared anyway) was little more than double health. A 25% increase of damage/DPS was massive, and here we're just like "LOL 220% increase from Hornet Strike" while at the same time, this 25% difference between two seperate weapons still has an effect. Scaling in this game really needs to be toned down. Serration/Hornet Strike should really only reach 50% bonus MAX. In turn, enemies on Pluto should have much less than 30x the stats of Mercury.

[CriticalVoid1]

Agreed with OP. These issues need to be addressed. If done properly and carefully, they could make this game a work of art and one of the best f2p games/games period. But currently it stands to be another time bomb of Devs slowly losing interest in making something more out of a game with so much potential. Sad too. I'll hope for the best, but expect the worst. The gaming industry has taught me no less.

[JamesSergon]

Hell I am bumping this. I want to know what they are up to. We all want. I love new things, but I want old things - the fundations - to work properly first.

[JamesSergon]

Well... I am just looking at the hot topics of the front page right now...

- Frames are glass canons

- We are too powerful

- Too much grind

Plus this topic.

Hopefully!....

[VScipii26]

~snip~

Warframe has been announced as a PS4 launch title so that gives us a deadline, this means there are now 4 months left to fix the gameplay until release and I see no push in this direction whatsoever from DE. Instead, again, we get more warframes, more guns and more badly balanced content.

 

Winter is coming.

 

The outlook for this game is massive stagnation.

Why is my intuition screaming through a burning megaphone "Be prepared in three and a half months"?

I really do have a strong feeling that we'll see Update 10 or 11 right before PS4 launch. It's a bad idea, as word of mouth and more and more reviewers are questioning the long-term life of this game. If they don't gt fixed, Warframe will be universally panned by the more lively action-shooter players on consoles.

[JamesSergon]

They have been releasing roughly a major Update every month since U7. We should see at least U10, U11, and probably U12 before 1.0.

[11.11.11]

This thread and the others really ought to be combined together. It's great that so many people are recognizing these issues. But fragmenting them into separate areas of discussion isn't helping out cause.