Do we really need new content ingame?

[DiabolusUrsus]

55 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Thanks m8. Fixed. Ah, I've tweeted this video to Steve recently. (yeah I'm that kind of annoying twitter person)

Blasted mobile linking. From what I hear through the grapevine, the devs listen to Twitter and Reddit more than their official forums for whatever reason, so I'm not going to say that's a bad thing on your part.

3 hours ago, komoriblues said:

For me this is the real "deal breaker" though and the game is just not challenging at all. I've known for a very long time but only recently accepted Warframe truly as an "unplayable" game after a very long time bargaining with myself in denial about it.

You either dominate or get annihilated. In between that evolution there's really a pretty hollow way of expressing "gameplay".

I also wanted to refocus on this little tidbit, because I think it's very important.

I don't think "challenge" is the end-all-be-all solution to Warframe's problems.

Don't get me wrong; it's definitely important, and a 100% valid priority. But it's not enough. The Souls series is wonderfully challenging. I'm still not going to play Souls 24/7 or for years and years at a time. I go back to it to scratch the gritty fantasy moderately-paced action itch when I happen to get it. Warframe would benefit greatly from successfully scratching as many itches as possible. (And Warframe is so diversified at this point that if it would just polish its myriad of disjointed systems, it could do that very easily.)

Not everyone wants challenge, just the same as not everyone wants to roleplay death gods all the time.

So, there's no reason not to do both. Build the game as a power fantasy where the player is reasonably OP but not completely invincible, and build in special "challenge" modes that can be layered on top of ANY part of the normal game. OR vice-versa; build a challenging game with special "free-play" modes. No matter what, though, Warframe needs to decide what kind of a game it wants to be and stick to its guns. Is it a tactical game where meticulous strategy should be put into builds and team composition and players each have to pull their own weight for success? Or is it a relaxed shoot-em-up brawler for players to just blow off some steam?

Having a game that appears to be and operates like a casual-friendly co-op dungeon-crawler, but is balanced like a PvP twitch-shooter really only hurts the game's longevity and player retention. The casual players drop it when they run up against the cheesier stuff, and the hardcore players get frustrated with the lack of adequately challenging-but-fair content.

EDIT: For a little bit of clarity here, because I realize re-reading this that it seems like a self-contradiction (why not do both? > don't try to do both at once), let me rephrase a bit.

Warframe is very diverse and would benefit a lot from capitalizing on all of that diversity (scratching the brawler itch with melee, scratching the TPS itch with guns, scratching the god-complex itch with powers, scratching the space-fighter itch with Archwing, etc.). It can very easily scratch both the casual and challenging itches simultaneously, as well.

HOWEVER

It needs to pick one or the other - casual or challenging - as its default and stick to that. Its core balance, mechanics, and presentation need to stick to a unified direction. It needs to be cohesive and consistent. After that, all the rest is icing on the cake.

Edited December 9, 2017 by DiabolusUrsus

[AperoBeltaTwo]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Blasted mobile linking. From what I hear through the grapevine, the devs listen to Twitter and Reddit more than their official forums for whatever reason, so I'm not going to say that's a bad thing on your part.

 They actually forgot about the forums on devstream 100. I would laugh about it if I could. The worst part is that reddit is a horrid platform for any kind of feedback. You go into -100 karma if you even squeak against the majority. Your post is instantly downvoted if there's any critique in it, and all people say is "leave if you don't like something". I've come to detest reddit because of this flaw. It's a popularity poll for superficial threads with memes and junk humor. 

 I've come after a morbid expierience of playing Warthunder for a couple of years with Gaijin ent. devs that most likely never even played their own games once. Those guys are super-detached from the community. In fact, they're in an open state of war with their playerbase. I though, "Look at these DE guys! They're so in touch with the playerbase! They should be so much better!" But after playing Warframe for 2 years I'm completely disillusioned. They're still better than Gaijin, but that's like a comparison to a negative - 273.

Edited December 9, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[DiabolusUrsus]

1 minute ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 They actually forgot about the forums on devstream 100. I would laugh about it if I could. The worst part is that reddit is a horrid platform for any kind of feedback. You go into -100 karma if you even squeak against the majority. Your post is instantly downvoted if there's any critique in it, and all people say is "leave if you don't like something". I've come to detest reddit because of this flaw. It's a popularity poll for superficial threads with memes and junk humor. 

Huh. I think I see why they only pay attention to Reddit and Twitter. :P

I was considering trying out Reddit just to get some ideas out there; thanks for saving me the time.

2 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 I've come after a morbid expierience of playing Warthunder for a couple of years with Gaijin ent. devs that most likely never even played their own games once. Those guys are super-detached from the community. In fact, they're in an open state of war with their playerbase. I though, "Look at these DE guys! They're so in touch with the playerbase! They should be so much better!" But after playing Warframe for 2 years I'm completely disillusioned. They're still better than Gaijin, but that's like a comparison to a negative - 273.

Yeah, that sounds bad.

At the same time there is probably some satisfaction to knowing the devs are actually listening to specific feedback (if only to spite it). With DE, it's like "do they not read it? Do they read it but ignore it? Do they simply not care?" The "???" is the frustrating bit.

I'm not saying they should bend over backwards and implement player ideas verbatim (the chaos), but they could at least debate with us a little in our threads about why they like/dislike particular suggestions and their reasoning for certain decisions. Ideally they would also pay attention to rebuttals for ongoing points. That would be tremendously beneficial to everyone involved: the players would be more on-board with potentially controversial changes instead of change > confused outrage > explanation > somewhat less outraged, and the devs would get access to solutions they might never think of in countless hours for much less time invested.

[blazinvire]

15 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I'm not saying they should bend over backwards and implement player ideas verbatim (the chaos), but they could at least debate with us a little in our threads about why they like/dislike particular suggestions and their reasoning for certain decisions. Ideally they would also pay attention to rebuttals for ongoing points. That would be tremendously beneficial to everyone involved: the players would be more on-board with potentially controversial changes instead of change > confused outrage > explanation > somewhat less outraged, and the devs would get access to solutions they might never think of in countless hours for much less time invested.

I agree with this so much I can't even...

The community kind of always has been this crazy huge mass of potential energy flailing around trying to help but not knowing how, which devolves into thousands of wild ideas that could be completely off the mark from DE's vision of Warframe, but there's no way to know because we're never told anything in regards to our ideas.

It wouldn't need to be much, just a DE staff popping in every once in a while to give us an update on at least a vague direction to focus our efforts.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

59 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I also wanted to refocus on this little tidbit, because I think it's very important.

I don't think "challenge" is the end-all-be-all solution to Warframe's problems.

Don't get me wrong; it's definitely important, and a 100% valid priority. But it's not enough. The Souls series is wonderfully challenging. I'm still not going to play Souls 24/7 or for years and years at a time. I go back to it to scratch the gritty fantasy moderately-paced action itch when I happen to get it. Warframe would benefit greatly from successfully scratching as many itches as possible. (And Warframe is so diversified at this point that if it would just polish its myriad of disjointed systems, it could do that very easily.)

Not everyone wants challenge, just the same as not everyone wants to roleplay death gods all the time.

So, there's no reason not to do both. Build the game as a power fantasy where the player is reasonably OP but not completely invincible, and build in special "challenge" modes that can be layered on top of ANY part of the normal game. OR vice-versa; build a challenging game with special "free-play" modes. No matter what, though, Warframe needs to decide what kind of a game it wants to be and stick to its guns. Is it a tactical game where meticulous strategy should be put into builds and team composition and players each have to pull their own weight for success? Or is it a relaxed shoot-em-up brawler for players to just blow off some steam?

Having a game that appears to be and operates like a casual-friendly co-op dungeon-crawler, but is balanced like a PvP twitch-shooter really only hurts the game's longevity and player retention. The casual players drop it when they run up against the cheesier stuff, and the hardcore players get frustrated with the lack of adequately challenging-but-fair content.

I think the combination of elements you are looking for here is for Warframe to have gameplay adequate to the gear and mechanics present in the game, as well as rewards that would be worthwhile for players not to feel like they're wasting their time.

Or at least that's what I want. For me endless missions seemed like the single concept DE should have build up their gameplay on. T1-4 survivals being Warframe gameplay at the best of its capabilities at the time.

Edited December 9, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[AperoBeltaTwo]

26 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I'm not saying they should bend over backwards and implement player ideas verbatim (the chaos), but they could at least debate with us a little in our threads about why they like/dislike particular suggestions and their reasoning for certain decisions. Ideally they would also pay attention to rebuttals for ongoing points. That would be tremendously beneficial to everyone involved: the players would be more on-board with potentially controversial changes instead of change > confused outrage > explanation > somewhat less outraged, and the devs would get access to solutions they might never think of in countless hours for much less time invested.

*sigh* The exact moment when Warframe hooked me was when DE implemented an energy bar in the team status display (silly, I know). I just got myself a trin prime back then and built it. I thought, "how good it would be to have an energy bar showing!" And they did it like a week later after me thinking that up. That one accident got me to stay for two years and 1800+ hours. I thought, maybe someone else came up with it? Maybe they're actually listening to people's ideas? And probably they did back then (people who played longer than me should know for sure).

 I think TWW killed this relationship, if it ever actually existed. With the delays and problems it had, and with the backlash from the community DE might have  gone bitter from it. And publicly admitting your own mistakes is a feat of a saint. Not an awful lot of people are capable of that. It's just hard. And to actually go back to a working relationship afterwards is even harder.

Edited December 9, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[ActionPoohole]

I could easily spend a week of brainstorming to create ideas to fix massive amounts of problematic content. I could redesign the GUI/HUD artwork to make way more sense and increase the visibility for players. I'm not going to spend the effort on performing this task only to have it go unnoticed, so unless a staff member requested that I perform this task (without pay of course) then I would... Just out of sheer passion for such a great game. But there are huge problems that constantly get overlooked.

Make what is current; better. Piling on more and more isn't the answer.

Not to mention; Fix the tedious KUVA farm to make it more interesting, more challenging, more rewarding and allow people to make use of the Rivens they are re-rolling for to allow them to progress through more re-rolls. If this means to change the luck of the rolls but allow more rolls, this could help alleviate it somewhat. Right now, you farm KUVA to allow you to do other things as opposed to assisting with KUVA farming. KUVA farming is all about going invisible or cheesing the bad mechanics. Just roll a stealth frame, grab the KUVA, finish the boring mission, leave, roll again... Get a bad roll and repeat till you get something good and by that time you hate KUVA farming and look for something else to do instead. Then that ramps up the value of good rolls because no one is really interested in that tedium.

There are better ways to keep people involved. Some people (like myself) want to earn their own riven stats. I would be happy to do so for many hours and hours and hours. But I know it's going to be boring as hell so, here I am complaining about what currently is.

Now, people talk about earning money from plat sales. People who are going to buy plat are going to buy Plat. There's no question about it... Some people are happy to progress with platinum, whether it be lack of time to play, patience or just the desire to buy unique vanity items. Either way, increasing the number of players enjoying the game is going to increase profits, it just has to be done in the right way.

I have not spent a dime on this game so far... I don't want to pay to progress, I like to prolong how long this game will last. But I would spend money if it didn't accelerate my progress and kill the time that this game can keep me interested. If there was a donate button, I would use it and donate once in a while. But I don't want to buy plat as that ruins the experience for me. I don't want to buy others Rivens as that takes away hours and hours of gameplay and the satisfaction of self earned and then indulge in the goodness. :P

This company needs a proper business analyst to come and work out the issues in a logical way. This analyst needs to be a gamer. I could easily perform this task and rectify many of the issues at hand. Some of the issues are so blaringly obvious that it seems more like they don't care as opposed to not knowing about them.

When you play this game there are ever apparent visibility problems, syndana's flapping in the way of the crosshair, no customisation of camera location, very little or poor information outlined on the HUD. You can't see properly through the large map overlay. Information in certain missions are obscuring your view of the mini map. You can't change minimap zoom. You can't see how far friends are from you due to the text above their heads always being the same. You can't see enemies through objective icons that float around in 3D space... The issues are endless. I had a friend who quit the game due to how overwhelming it is. But it's so simple to correct these issues.

I have been gaming since I was 10, I'm now 32 years old. I have more practical knowledge about this than many people... 22 years of gaming has brought me to understand what is done right and what is just plain lazy and wrong.

A proper gamer based analyst can easily outline the issues that a new player has and work through towards end game. Discuss the barriers of content whether information or gameplay based and then work out a plan in order to correct said issues.

I for one and willing to give my time for free to provide not only a detailed analysis, but also provide artwork and ideas for HUD and GUI changes in order to allow a better experience for new and old players alike.

Look at the HUD and tell me what all those icons are for. Some may know, and it's not the most DIFFICULT task in the world to work out what is what, if you REALLY pay attention to when and where the buff was applied... Not only that but the crosshair is still awful... You can't move your Waframe more to the left or right so you can see properly... You can't stand against a wall without being blinded by having your camera jammed inside a Warframe.

Simple corrections such as applying transparency when camera location comes too close to the rear end of a warframe. Making icons actually look like what they do. When buffs are cast, show a quick graphic above the head of the Warframe casting such buff which shows exactly as the icon which would be applied to others HUDs... ETC etc etc...

Now I must say, this is a great game... It has such a good feel to it... But there is much than can be done to improve this game. I am extremely disappointed that I find it so hard to get friends to play... It's too overwhelming for many, and I know that if they understood what I know now that they would LOVE this game.

But that horrific deep end entry to the game is a massive turn off and I know it's impeding a huge percentage of new players from carrying on. It also causes veterans to not fully understand the game they're playing.

Mystery? Sure... Convoluted... ? Entirely.

This game needs more clarity for all players involved, because I still know a hell of a lot of MR20+ players who have no idea what is all over their HUD...

As a skilled FPS/Shooter play, I often feel blinded by all the garbage scattered over my HUD... I've never felt so inhibited by such horrible visual impedance in any game in my entire life...

Great game, it's just confusing as hell and needs a lot of work to make it go from an excellent game, to probably the best game on the market. This can be achieved, easily. It just needs a few extra hands on board to turn this all around and make the game even MORE successful than it already is.

Edited December 9, 2017 by ActionPoohole

[DiabolusUrsus]

1 hour ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

I think the combination of elements you are looking for here is for Warframe to have gameplay adequate to the gear and mechanics present in the game, as well as rewards that would be worthwhile for players not to feel like they're wasting their time.

Or at least that's what I want. For me endless missions seemed like the single concept DE should have build up their gameplay on. T1-4 survivals being Warframe gameplay at the best of its capabilities at the time.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Though honestly, I feel that if the gameplay is good enough the rewards could be secondary. Sorta how I'll always go back and play DMC4SE just because Vergil/Lady are a blast to play even though all I get are useless Red Orbs.

Throw in better character/gear variety, and better rewards, and you have a winner.

I mostly hate the meta because it involves completely disabling enemies. I want to fight, not shoot/beat on loot bags that will 1-hit me if I slip up and let them MOVE for a second.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

1 hour ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Though honestly, I feel that if the gameplay is good enough the rewards could be secondary. Sorta how I'll always go back and play DMC4SE just because Vergil/Lady are a blast to play even though all I get are useless Red Orbs.

Throw in better character/gear variety, and better rewards, and you have a winner.

I mostly hate the meta because it involves completely disabling enemies. I want to fight, not shoot/beat on loot bags that will 1-hit me if I slip up and let them MOVE for a second.

Games like DMC and DS use your brain as a rewards vending machine. You get a shot of happy hormones whenever you defeat a hard boss or keep a long combo. Those games have your brain used as a gameplay mechanic. But Warframe isn't built to do that. And frankly, I'm not sure if something like that would work longterm for an online game. Dark Souls sort of dealt with it by adding an amazing PvP mode that effectively makes the games last for as long as the servers are alive, which could be years and years, but I digress... 

 For online games reward is always a part of the gameplay. Because in online games you always need something to sustain and develop your account (your character). There's always this unreacheble goal in the far distance that requires all the items and resources you gather in the process of mastering the game. Structuring a game like that even makes up for a certain degree of faulty in the gameplay, as long as all the necessary mental triggers are set and pavlovian reflexes trained. Online games are always about addiction. And to make them addictive you need to establish trinkets that would trigger a shot of endorphins in the brain.

 By this moment, the only trinkets like that in the whole game are Ducats and Kuva. Both are universally acknowledged as valuable by the community and could also be monetized directly or indirectly through the trading system. Kuva and Ducats are well-established, perfectly serviceable rewards that could work as a foundation for a decent gameplay loop. But not with this kind of gameplay attached to them.

 Primed gear prices are so low that currently Void 2.0 could be easily ignored in its entirety and Kuva missions are just plain torture (that I still used to play for a time, because I hate myself). The second you realize that gear and rivens you are farming have no gameplay that requires them, you're off the hook and you leave Warframe. That's one of the reasons why I personally didn't bother playing through PoE much. PoE is basically about farming Eidolons to get amps that are only useful for farming Eidolons better. Why would anyone want to go through mining, fishing and puberty simulators just for Operators to have a slightly better toy that is still leagues below any weapon that warframes carry? This doesn't make any sense!... But I digress once again... I mean, WHO EVEN THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA???!!! *restraining order* *struggle* *straitjacket* I'm ok now...

 That's why endgame is so important as well. Endgame is what makes the gear and weapons you've built worth your time and effort.

 Apart from kuva and ducats we also have a bit less reliable but more functional trinket that could have served as an endgame reward as well - the Arcanes. Raids and Arcanes are a great idea with a catastrophic realization. Imagine, I know players with two-years Warframe expierience that want nothing to do with raids. They have the necessary gear, they have the basic skill required, but they absolutely loath the toxicity and the convoluted mess the raids are. I played LoR for a while myself. It has some replayability value, but not when you have to wait 24 hours each time just to have a shot at another arcane healing. God, I hate timer locks in this game.

 Anyway, I'm just ranting at this point. Lets summarize:

1. Online games need established tradeble rewards deeply rooted in the core gameplay.
2. Core gameplay has to incorporate and flesh out all mechanics present in the game.
3. Together Rewards and Core gameplay have to build a satisfying gameplay loop, that would gradually spiral up to the Endgame.
4. Endgame has to be, essentially, an upgraded version of the core gameplay that would provide a unique persistent challenge while building on everything that was present in the game up to that point in the playthrough.

Edited December 9, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[ikkabotz]

11 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I don't think "challenge" is the end-all-be-all solution to Warframe's problems.

Don't get me wrong; it's definitely important, and a 100% valid priority. But it's not enough. The Souls series is wonderfully challenging. I'm still not going to play Souls 24/7 or for years and years at a time. I go back to it to scratch the gritty fantasy moderately-paced action itch when I happen to get it. Warframe would benefit greatly from successfully scratching as many itches as possible. (And Warframe is so diversified at this point that if it would just polish its myriad of disjointed systems, it could do that very easily.)

Not everyone wants challenge, just the same as not everyone wants to roleplay death gods all the time.

 

Oh, I agree and could also reiterate what I said maybe in a different way. Challenge is important for me, but I'd even take "flow" to the game as a compromise. .I just need something mentally stimulating with layers of depth to it while I play. .I miss playing with fellow Tenno and feeling the layers of the game unpeel in front of you while the scaling would increase. .I remember the counter going off in the 40 minutes of a survival for example and then suddenly often you'd see yourselves teaming up together overlapping abilities to continue on. .I'm not great at expressing what has changed in the game, I just know that I can feel what's changed to it. 

Edited December 9, 2017 by komoriblues

[DiabolusUrsus]

11 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Games like DMC and DS use your brain as a rewards vending machine. You get a shot of happy hormones whenever you defeat a hard boss or keep a long combo. Those games have your brain used as a gameplay mechanic. But Warframe isn't built to do that. And frankly, I'm not sure if something like that would work longterm for an online game. Dark Souls sort of dealt with it by adding an amazing PvP mode that effectively makes the games last for as long as the servers are alive, which could be years and years, but I digress... 

I'm not saying that Warframe should be exactly the same as DMC or Souls, but it needs a similar foundation of compelling gameplay. Warframe's current gameplay feels very flat. I'm on mobile, so allow me to come back later today and expand on this point (errands, errands, errands), but really the combat just lacks polish.

EDIT:

For example, I'd really like to see Warframe accomplish the following:

• An energy system that is integrated into the combat instead of dependent on RNG drops or "push button to receive energy" Focus/powers/consumables.
• Firearms that actually feel diverse and interesting to use within the same class (e.g., Braton is currently the same as Karak is currently the same as *insert automatic rifle here* save for performance differences).
• Satisfying melee on-par with gunplay that isn't dependent on 1-2 builds (Blood Rush/Weeping Wounds), and where players are inclined to use more than 1 combo on most stances.
• A casting dynamic where abilities are more powerful and visually impressive but cast in moderation instead of spammed constantly. Of course, caster-frames would upset this status quo somewhat but not entirely.

Simply put I'd like a combat system that I can get fully-engaged in without getting regularly yanked out of it thinking "well that was bullS#&$," like when I come across a Bursa spewing out hard knockdowns every quarter second or notice that MOAs completely ignore Terrify's CC to continue attacking if they are shooting when I cast it. I'd like a combat system that follows its own rules 100% of the time and feels fair.

11 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

For online games reward is always a part of the gameplay. Because in online games you always need something to sustain and develop your account (your character). There's always this unreacheble goal in the far distance that requires all the items and resources you gather in the process of mastering the game. Structuring a game like that even makes up for a certain degree of faulty in the gameplay, as long as all the necessary mental triggers are set and pavlovian reflexes trained. Online games are always about addiction. And to make them addictive you need to establish trinkets that would trigger a shot of endorphins in the brain.

 By this moment, the only trinkets like that in the whole game are Ducats and Kuva. Both are universally acknowledged as valuable by the community and could also be monetized directly or indirectly through the trading system. Kuva and Ducats are well-established, perfectly serviceable rewards that could work as a foundation for a decent gameplay loop. But not with this kind of gameplay attached to them.

 Primed gear prices are so low that currently Void 2.0 could be easily ignored in its entirety and Kuva missions are just plain torture (that I still used to play for a time, because I hate myself). The second you realize that gear and rivens you are farming have no gameplay that requires them, you're off the hook and you leave Warframe. That's one of the reasons why I personally didn't bother playing through PoE much. PoE is basically about farming Eidolons to get amps that are only useful for farming Eidolons better. Why would anyone want to go through mining, fishing and puberty simulators just for Operators to have a slightly better toy that is still leagues below any weapon that warframes carry? This doesn't make any sense!... But I digress once again... I mean, WHO EVEN THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA???!!! *restraining order* *struggle* *straitjacket* I'm ok now...

 That's why endgame is so important as well. Endgame is what makes the gear and weapons you've built worth your time and effort.

 Apart from kuva and ducats we also have a bit less reliable but more functional trinket that could have served as an endgame reward as well - the Arcanes. Raids and Arcanes are a great idea with a catastrophic realization. Imagine, I know players with two-years Warframe expierience that want nothing to do with raids. They have the necessary gear, they have the basic skill required, but they absolutely loath the toxicity and the convoluted mess the raids are. I played LoR for a while myself. It has some replayability value, but not when you have to wait 24 hours each time just to have a shot at another arcane healing. God, I hate timer locks in this game.

100% agree. What I meant by rewards can be secondary is that players need to stop feeling like they are slogging through boring missions to get shiny reward X. Shiny reward X should be worthwhile and difficult to get, but the game should be worth continuing to play without it.

Good gameplay can't eliminate RNG burnout, but it can alleviate it.

11 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Anyway, I'm just ranting at this point. Lets summarize:

1. Online games need established tradeble rewards deeply rooted in the core gameplay.
2. Core gameplay has to incorporate and flesh out all mechanics present in the game.
3. Together Rewards and Core gameplay have to build a satisfying gameplay loop, that would gradually spiral up to the Endgame.
4. Endgame has to be, essentially, an upgraded version of the core gameplay that would provide a unique persistent challenge while building on everything that was present in the game up to that point in the playthrough.

1-4 100% agreed.

Edited December 9, 2017 by DiabolusUrsus

[ikkabotz]

On 12/8/2017 at 11:59 PM, ActionPoohole said:

I could easily spend a week of brainstorming to create ideas to fix massive amounts of problematic content. I could redesign the GUI/HUD artwork to make way more sense and increase the visibility for players. I'm not going to spend the effort on performing this task only to have it go unnoticed, so unless a staff member requested that I perform this task (without pay of course) then I would... Just out of sheer passion for such a great game. But there are huge problems that constantly get overlooked.

Make what is current; better. Piling on more and more isn't the answer.

Not to mention; Fix the tedious KUVA farm to make it more interesting, more challenging, more rewarding and allow people to make use of the Rivens they are re-rolling for to allow them to progress through more re-rolls. If this means to change the luck of the rolls but allow more rolls, this could help alleviate it somewhat. Right now, you farm KUVA to allow you to do other things as opposed to assisting with KUVA farming. KUVA farming is all about going invisible or cheesing the bad mechanics. Just roll a stealth frame, grab the KUVA, finish the boring mission, leave, roll again... Get a bad roll and repeat till you get something good and by that time you hate KUVA farming and look for something else to do instead. Then that ramps up the value of good rolls because no one is really interested in that tedium.

There are better ways to keep people involved. Some people (like myself) want to earn their own riven stats. I would be happy to do so for many hours and hours and hours. But I know it's going to be boring as hell so, here I am complaining about what currently is.

Now, people talk about earning money from plat sales. People who are going to buy plat are going to buy Plat. There's no question about it... Some people are happy to progress with platinum, whether it be lack of time to play, patience or just the desire to buy unique vanity items. Either way, increasing the number of players enjoying the game is going to increase profits, it just has to be done in the right way.

I have not spent a dime on this game so far... I don't want to pay to progress, I like to prolong how long this game will last. But I would spend money if it didn't accelerate my progress and kill the time that this game can keep me interested. If there was a donate button, I would use it and donate once in a while. But I don't want to buy plat as that ruins the experience for me. I don't want to buy others Rivens as that takes away hours and hours of gameplay and the satisfaction of self earned and then indulge in the goodness. :P

This company needs a proper business analyst to come and work out the issues in a logical way. This analyst needs to be a gamer. I could easily perform this task and rectify many of the issues at hand. Some of the issues are so blaringly obvious that it seems more like they don't care as opposed to not knowing about them.

When you play this game there are ever apparent visibility problems, syndana's flapping in the way of the crosshair, no customisation of camera location, very little or poor information outlined on the HUD. You can't see properly through the large map overlay. Information in certain missions are obscuring your view of the mini map. You can't change minimap zoom. You can't see how far friends are from you due to the text above their heads always being the same. You can't see enemies through objective icons that float around in 3D space... The issues are endless. I had a friend who quit the game due to how overwhelming it is. But it's so simple to correct these issues.

I have been gaming since I was 10, I'm now 32 years old. I have more practical knowledge about this than many people... 22 years of gaming has brought me to understand what is done right and what is just plain lazy and wrong.

A proper gamer based analyst can easily outline the issues that a new player has and work through towards end game. Discuss the barriers of content whether information or gameplay based and then work out a plan in order to correct said issues.

I for one and willing to give my time for free to provide not only a detailed analysis, but also provide artwork and ideas for HUD and GUI changes in order to allow a better experience for new and old players alike.

Look at the HUD and tell me what all those icons are for. Some may know, and it's not the most DIFFICULT task in the world to work out what is what, if you REALLY pay attention to when and where the buff was applied... Not only that but the crosshair is still awful... You can't move your Waframe more to the left or right so you can see properly... You can't stand against a wall without being blinded by having your camera jammed inside a Warframe.

Simple corrections such as applying transparency when camera location comes too close to the rear end of a warframe. Making icons actually look like what they do. When buffs are cast, show a quick graphic above the head of the Warframe casting such buff which shows exactly as the icon which would be applied to others HUDs... ETC etc etc...

Now I must say, this is a great game... It has such a good feel to it... But there is much than can be done to improve this game. I am extremely disappointed that I find it so hard to get friends to play... It's too overwhelming for many, and I know that if they understood what I know now that they would LOVE this game.

But that horrific deep end entry to the game is a massive turn off and I know it's impeding a huge percentage of new players from carrying on. It also causes veterans to not fully understand the game they're playing.

Mystery? Sure... Convoluted... ? Entirely.

This game needs more clarity for all players involved, because I still know a hell of a lot of MR20+ players who have no idea what is all over their HUD...

As a skilled FPS/Shooter play, I often feel blinded by all the garbage scattered over my HUD... I've never felt so inhibited by such horrible visual impedance in any game in my entire life...

Great game, it's just confusing as hell and needs a lot of work to make it go from an excellent game, to probably the best game on the market. This can be achieved, easily. It just needs a few extra hands on board to turn this all around and make the game even MORE successful than it already is.

The HUD used to be way more simple, and I've felt the same way in past posts. We are being bombarded by mostly insignificant icons on the display that are actually distracting from enjoying the game itself. Relic missions are my biggest peeve. Not only do I absolutely detest picking up void fragments (again, why do I want to mentally checkout of the experience to collect pieces over and over again??), but the HUD is flooded with their drop location, life support, and we all know what else. It was not difficult to check the existing Minimap. This is an example of options that could be set for players, allow us to customize HUD. Additionally! We are "stopped" in the middle of a game every five minutes to select relic rewards.

I'm very confident that DE needs somebody coming back to them to give feedback on how the game feels when played. The sheer amount of backwards evolution in the game to me exposes that they do not have an awareness to the neglect being applied to the gameplay. .dont even get me started on charges on Archwing. .There have been A LOT of mistakes made in the gameplay experience in Warframe over the last year and a half. .Myself personally, if they were concerned about earning my business again (which they're not lol). .let me customize the HUD so I can choose to eliminate the needless distractions. Let me select to have the HUGE and flashy "rewards" that pan into the game during a mission be smaller and less like an arcade (it's mostly crap rewards anyway), correct the issues with the AI scaling and recreate a sense of layering in the game, and recreate an expressive gameplay with teammates, and finally give us a significant sense of reward playing over an extended amount of time in a match.

I don't need flare, I don't need a new area to play, these are all superficial bandaids on the game for appearances sake. I'm not that type of player, this game used to be amazing. It's not anymore. I never get bored of playing with new players and friends alike in an expressive environment. Give us the ability to express ourselves playing the game in a way that you can feel with your friends. It's the best part of gaming and already existing in the game before it was butchered into a button factory grind simulator. I used to have a sense of creativity in how the game played, how my friends chose to play their frames. .now you join the game and the AI floods a room, somebody inevitably has every means of annihilating everything isolated from their teammates with the push of a few buttons and damage until the AI creeps over the top of that ability and can kill you almost instantly in a gimmicky way. It's just bad. .like I said before, I've known it's been really bad for months and months now, but for whatever reason I really tried to hang on hoping it would change. Really I knew it wouldn't and have finally quit and am probably here still trying to negotatie my way out of it hahaha

Edited December 10, 2017 by komoriblues

[ActionPoohole]

3 hours ago, komoriblues said:

The HUD used to be way more simple, and I've felt the same way in past posts. We are being bombarded by mostly insignificant icons on the display that are actually distracting from enjoying the game itself. Relic missions are my biggest peeve. Not only do I absolutely detest picking up void fragments (again, why do I want to mentally checkout of the experience to collect pieces over and over again??), but the HUD is flooded with their drop location, life support, and we all know what else. It was not difficult to check the existing Minimap. This is an example of options that could be set for players, allow us to customize HUD.

Additionally! We are "stopped" in the middle of a game every five minutes to select relic rewards. I'm very confident that DE needs somebody coming back to them to give feedback on how the game feels when played. The sheer amount of backwards evolution in the game to me exposes that they do not have an awareness to the neglect being applied to the gameplay. .dont even get me started on charges on Archwing. .There have been A LOT of mistakes made in the gameplay experience in Warframe over the last year and a half. .Myself personally, if they were concerned about earning my business again (which they're not lol). .let me customize the HUD so I can choose to eliminate the needless distractions. Let me select to have the HUGE and flashy "rewards" that pan into the game during a mission be smaller and less like an arcade (it's mostly crap rewards anyway), correct the issues with the AI scaling and recreate a sense of layering in the game, and recreate an expressive gameplay with teammates, and finally give us a significant sense of reward playing over an extended amount of time in a match.

I don't need flare, I don't need a new area to play, these are all superficial bandaids on the game for appearances sake. I'm not that type of player, this game used to be amazing. It's not anymore. I never get bored of playing with new players and friends alike in an expressive environment. Give us the ability to express ourselves playing the game in a way that you can feel with your friends. It's the best part of gaming and already existing in the game before it was butchered into a button factory grind simulator. I used to have a sense of creativity in how the game played, how my friends chose to play their frames. .now you join the game and the AI floods a room, somebody inevitably has every means of annihilating everything isolated from their teammates with the push of a few buttons and damage until the AI creeps over the top of that ability and can kill you almost instantly in a gimmicky way. It's just bad. .like I said before, I've known it's been really bad for months and months now, but for whatever reason I really tried to hang on hoping it would change. Really I knew it wouldn't and have finally quit and am probably here still trying to negotatie my way out of it hahaha

I read everything you wrote. I don't feel the same way about some things (yet), but I can understand how you reached that point.

My point is that I am very confident that I could take creative lead on choices to improve the game overall.

This game doesn't need more, it needs better. It needs to enhance what is already here to make current content more enjoyable and last for longer. I love shooting endlessly, I just think that many mechanics need fine tuning.

Example: In endless missions; Bombards need not one shot you so quickly, they should fire more often instead of just creating stupid "WTH was THAT?" sort of moments. You could have riot shield enemies requiring higher amounts of impact damage to knock their shield out their hand or requiring a larger amount of punch through. As time progresses onward their shields could become stronger and gain amounts of punch through mitigation that requires a larger number to achieve a punching hit. A critical punch through hit could allow more punch through. Less damage, less punch through. If the punch through is not high enough then gas damage could be one way around it, gassing them enough could eventually cause them to choke, stumble and drop their shield or even impact damage to shatter shields. Then you have gas damage mitigation with certain units that use gas masks or body suits etc. Body suits could be ripped open with slash damage. Once the suit is damaged then gas works better. Puncture could be used to smash higher strength gas mitigation systems. Impact could be used to smash bullet proof glass gas masks easier. ETC, etc, etc...

This way, everyone needs to collaborate different damage types and metas to enjoy longer lasting endless missions which feel more dynamic, more demanding of your focus and in turn become FAR more rewarding. As the missions progress on to a certain time count then the rewards can change and we can be provided with a proper feeling of achievement and satisfaction. The interactivity of the various new aspects would give us more things to aim at rather than just headshots.

This could open up a whole new world of different guns with different purposes and allow a whole new damage system to make these guns into tools to overcome challenges rather than just a tool for providing large numbers of meta damage types.

Edited December 10, 2017 by ActionPoohole

[AperoBeltaTwo]

7 hours ago, komoriblues said:

Additionally! We are "stopped" in the middle of a game every five minutes to select relic rewards.

[Spectre-8]

9 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

LMAO !

[ikkabotz]

Hi my name is Joe and I work in a button factory, one day my boss said are you busy? I said no. .(this is what I look like every time I'm pushing the "easy mode" lever in Warframe wishing there was something better to do) 

9

Except when I have to jump out of my Warframe to use my operator to regain energy and use several wasted and absolutely over elaborate and tempo interrupting "cute" keystroke combinations like this (I mean would have killed them to keep it passive, it's just tedious now and one more thing to micromanage for the EXACT SAME RESULTS so I have enough energy to spam other CUTE warframe abilities) cute. .REAL CUTE

So basically we have abilities that overreach everything (but are completely needed with the AI scaling and the way it's designed now) at the touch of a single button and then something like an energy recharge that requires you to jump out with your operator, point in the direction of your desired area to gain energy, crouch dash, and then select a key again to renter your Warframe. .four moves to do a energy recharge (Not including the micromanagment of checking in the corner if your energy tick has worn off). .that you have to stand in the area of effect for faster gain (Because you know, standing in place is so fun). .all to put emphasis on an aspect of the game not many like in the first place -THE OPERATOR- and spamming CC on a tick or whatever else. .all this did is make me hop out and back to my warframe as fast as possible. .people NEED to see how horrible the decisions are that are being made in terms of FLOW in the game. .it's killing the game..there are examples all over the place that honestly don't really make a whole lot of sense. .

Edited December 10, 2017 by komoriblues

[(PSN)fullblast35]

This is a game I think even the janitor in DE should know how to play

[BlackCoMerc]

On 12/9/2017 at 1:50 AM, DiabolusUrsus said:

Blasted mobile linking. From what I hear through the grapevine, the devs listen to Twitter and Reddit more than their official forums for whatever reason, so I'm not going to say that's a bad thing on your part.

I also wanted to refocus on this little tidbit, because I think it's very important.

I don't think "challenge" is the end-all-be-all solution to Warframe's problems.

Don't get me wrong; it's definitely important, and a 100% valid priority. But it's not enough. The Souls series is wonderfully challenging. I'm still not going to play Souls 24/7 or for years and years at a time. I go back to it to scratch the gritty fantasy moderately-paced action itch when I happen to get it. Warframe would benefit greatly from successfully scratching as many itches as possible. (And Warframe is so diversified at this point that if it would just polish its myriad of disjointed systems, it could do that very easily.)

Not everyone wants challenge, just the same as not everyone wants to roleplay death gods all the time.

So, there's no reason not to do both. Build the game as a power fantasy where the player is reasonably OP but not completely invincible, and build in special "challenge" modes that can be layered on top of ANY part of the normal game. OR vice-versa; build a challenging game with special "free-play" modes. No matter what, though, Warframe needs to decide what kind of a game it wants to be and stick to its guns. Is it a tactical game where meticulous strategy should be put into builds and team composition and players each have to pull their own weight for success? Or is it a relaxed shoot-em-up brawler for players to just blow off some steam?

Having a game that appears to be and operates like a casual-friendly co-op dungeon-crawler, but is balanced like a PvP twitch-shooter really only hurts the game's longevity and player retention. The casual players drop it when they run up against the cheesier stuff, and the hardcore players get frustrated with the lack of adequately challenging-but-fair content.

EDIT: For a little bit of clarity here, because I realize re-reading this that it seems like a self-contradiction (why not do both? > don't try to do both at once), let me rephrase a bit.

Warframe is very diverse and would benefit a lot from capitalizing on all of that diversity (scratching the brawler itch with melee, scratching the TPS itch with guns, scratching the god-complex itch with powers, scratching the space-fighter itch with Archwing, etc.). It can very easily scratch both the casual and challenging itches simultaneously, as well.

HOWEVER

It needs to pick one or the other - casual or challenging - as its default and stick to that. Its core balance, mechanics, and presentation need to stick to a unified direction. It needs to be cohesive and consistent. After that, all the rest is icing on the cake.

Well said.

For all it's myriad flaws, Vindictus was a free game where any mission featured added challenges one could add on. Some were limits on the player. Others, enemy buffs or other stuff. All challenge modes added extra XP and I think gold. It's been a while.

DE should look at challenges:

No Energy Orbs: +10% XP

No Ultimate Powers: +25%

Enemy Level +10, no shields, no energy...allow challenge versions of all Missions. Even No Alarms, No Ciphers, etc for some.

But I think keeping the core Casual friendly is necessary. It's been that, for so long...change that now, at your peril. But why not add challenge modes for those who want them?

 

[DiabolusUrsus]

50 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Well said.

For all it's myriad flaws, Vindictus was a free game where any mission featured added challenges one could add on. Some were limits on the player. Others, enemy buffs or other stuff. All challenge modes added extra XP and I think gold. It's been a while.

I'm all for challenges layering some extra rewards (creds, XP, Endo) on as an incentive. Let's just be explicit that challenge modifiers should never offer exclusive rewards.

53 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

DE should look at challenges:

No Energy Orbs: +10% XP

No Ultimate Powers: +25%

Enemy Level +10, no shields, no energy...allow challenge versions of all Missions. Even No Alarms, No Ciphers, etc for some.

I'm not so confident that those challenges would work so well. In any other game where characters are equally dependent on restorative resources like orbs, that'd be fine. But in Warframe that challenge would translate to "Use Zenurik" or "Use Trinity/Harrow."

No ults? Use frames with stronger 3s.

No alarms? Permacloaki.

I dunno how to avoid that entirely, but I'd stick to simple +enemy level modifiers for now.

1 hour ago, BlackCoMerc said:

But I think keeping the core Casual friendly is necessary. It's been that, for so long...change that now, at your peril. But why not add challenge modes for those who want them?

I agree. I was thinking of challenge modes as simple difficulty modifiers (normal, hard, etc.), but Halo's skull system might be a good thing to emulate (e.g., no revive charges, no downed state, amplified weaknesses/resistances, etc.).

[AperoBeltaTwo]

13 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Well said.

For all it's myriad flaws, Vindictus was a free game where any mission featured added challenges one could add on. Some were limits on the player. Others, enemy buffs or other stuff. All challenge modes added extra XP and I think gold. It's been a while.

DE should look at challenges:

No Energy Orbs: +10% XP

No Ultimate Powers: +25%

Enemy Level +10, no shields, no energy...allow challenge versions of all Missions. Even No Alarms, No Ciphers, etc for some.

But I think keeping the core Casual friendly is necessary. It's been that, for so long...change that now, at your peril. But why not add challenge modes for those who want them?

 

No, please. Limiting players' capabilities to create a challenge is a really-really bad idea. That's why NM missions and sorties are so bad gameplay wise.

Gameplay should flesh out in-game mechanics - not restrict them.

Forbidding players from using this kind of weapon or that kind of weapon; or using abilities, companions etc. Is a fake difficulty that restricts players creativity and gear choices. The whole game is about these ridiculous restrictions. There's nothing good about 'em.

 If you have parkour in the game, there shouldn't be mechanics just to slow you down for no reason; if you have guns and melee weapons one shouldn't be so insanely more powerful compared to the other; if you have sentinels and pets in the game there has to be a reason to use both without losing QoL; If you have multiple weapons slots for various weapons there has to be a unique mechanic and use for each slot and weapon type; if you have a gameplay mode, it has to be available on demand and not ONCE IN 24 HOURS.

Edited December 12, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[BlackCoMerc]

5 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

No, please. Limiting players' capabilities to create a challenge is a really-really bad idea. That's why NM missions and sorties are so bad gameplay wise.

Gameplay should flesh out in-game mechanics - not restrict them.

Forbidding players from using this kind of weapon or that kind of weapon; or using abilities, companions etc. Is a fake difficulty that restricts players creativity and gear choices. The whole game is about these ridiculous restrictions. There's nothing good about 'em.

 If you have parkour in the game, there shouldn't be mechanics just to slow you down for no reason; if you have guns and melee weapons one shouldn't be so insanely more powerful compared to the other; if you have sentinels and pets in the game there has to be a reason to use both without losing QoL; If you have multiple weapons slots for various weapons there has to be a unique mechanic and use for each slot and weapon type; if you have a gameplay mode, it has to be available on demand and not ONCE IN 24 HOURS.

Those are fair points. The Vindictus system likely would not work here verbatim. But it's an example of added challenge on normal Missions.

But yeah, I agree: DE gives us weapons and powers...and the only thing they can think to do, in order to challenge players, is to remove options or input. It's very poor design.

[blazinvire]

They're gonna need a foundation overhaul before they can really introduce a diverse arrange of challenge, they've kind of bandaided themselves into a corner.

Example of a different foundation:

• Enemy health and damage no longer scales, but their accuracy does, and they get different setups of armour/shields/weapons/abilities to diversify the obstacle they present.
• Weapons are magically stat-squished so damage is more consistent and easy to graph and balance, mods are overhauled to focus on customization rather than power.
• Maybe swap Crit Chance with a Weakpoint Bonus system, so damage numbers are more consistent and skill is more rewarded.
• And swap Status Chance for a Build-up and Tolerance system, so statuses are far easier to predict.
• Energy system turns into something that makes power usage more consistent and removes the 'Energy is Binary' issue.
• Healing, Invincibility, Invisibility, Crowd Control is somehow made into a less Binary situation too.
• With Damage stabilized and easy to graph with algorithms, you get the ability to carefully fine-tune difficulty, so pressure can be easily scaled up or down as need.
• From there, if you need even more fine-tuning, it's simply a matter of adding more variables to futz with, like making Armour or Shields more complex, so that the methods to overwhelm those defenses become more complex.

Once you've got good framework, introducing new challenges would be a breeze, demanding less of the developers and QA staff's time.
If you want to make fights harder, you simply increase enemy accuracy and load them with useful equipment.  Even harder, give them heavier equipment or weapons and abilities that synergy.
The next step would be designing some infrastructure for the enemy AI so you can given them complex tactics, ability to counter Tenno strategies through simple arrangement of units, equipment and abilities.  'Everyone hide in the Nullifier Bubble' -except a less lazy and bare-bones approach.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

15 hours ago, blazinvire said:

They're gonna need a foundation overhaul before they can really introduce a diverse arrange of challenge, they've kind of bandaided themselves into a corner.

Example of a different foundation:

• Enemy health and damage no longer scales, but their accuracy does, and they get different setups of armour/shields/weapons/abilities to diversify the obstacle they present.
• Weapons are magically stat-squished so damage is more consistent and easy to graph and balance, mods are overhauled to focus on customization rather than power.
• Maybe swap Crit Chance with a Weakpoint Bonus system, so damage numbers are more consistent and skill is more rewarded.
• And swap Status Chance for a Build-up and Tolerance system, so statuses are far easier to predict.
• Energy system turns into something that makes power usage more consistent and removes the 'Energy is Binary' issue.
• Healing, Invincibility, Invisibility, Crowd Control is somehow made into a less Binary situation too.
• With Damage stabilized and easy to graph with algorithms, you get the ability to carefully fine-tune difficulty, so pressure can be easily scaled up or down as need.
• From there, if you need even more fine-tuning, it's simply a matter of adding more variables to futz with, like making Armour or Shields more complex, so that the methods to overwhelm those defenses become more complex.

Once you've got good framework, introducing new challenges would be a breeze, demanding less of the developers and QA staff's time.
If you want to make fights harder, you simply increase enemy accuracy and load them with useful equipment.  Even harder, give them heavier equipment or weapons and abilities that synergy.
The next step would be designing some infrastructure for the enemy AI so you can given them complex tactics, ability to counter Tenno strategies through simple arrangement of units, equipment and abilities.  'Everyone hide in the Nullifier Bubble' -except a less lazy and bare-bones approach.

 The problem here, is that you're talking, basically, about reworking the game from ground up. And that's not gonna happen. It shouldn't be done. Not in a situation like this. And the result isn't necesserali going to be better.

 What Warframe needs right now is for the mechanics and gameplay elements we already have in the game to be arranged in a coherent way in the least number of steps possible with as little reworks and additional content as possible.

• Warframe already has missions with scaling difficulty that challenge your gear.
• Warframe already has worthwhile established rewards.
• Warframe already has interesting combat mechanics and a range of effective weapons at players' disposal.
• Warframe already has multitude of abilities - enough to take hundreds of hours to master and fully comprehend.
• Warframe already has multiple concepts for a decent endgame present in the game (Sorties, Raids, Axi-Void, Kuva Floods).

 What Warframe lacks is a road map of how all these currently disjointed elements should be arranged to work together and flesh out each other. We don't need a hammer to smash the old mechanics so we could build something new from ground up. Imagine the game as a lump of material with rough shapes already drawn out. We need to work with a chisel here, and the finer this chisel is - the better.

Here's few immediate steps that I could come up with right now (each step is meant to be self-contained and shouldn't touch the rest of the game mechanics):

1. 12m Universal Vacuum with an on/off switch in the menu, (it won't affect Chesa, Chesa doesn't work anyway right now, her rework could be done later)
2. Make Void nodes into permanent fissures with assigned tiers to them (for example Mot Survival would be a permanent Axi fissure)
3. Add kuva rewards to Kuva Fortress missions with 1000-1200 per fixed objective mission (400-600 per node for spy); and 400-600 kuva per rotation of endless missions, increasing to 600-800 after "aabcA..." rotation and forward. (Kuva Fortress missions' rewards unaffected by resource boosters, so regular Kuva missions would still be viable; add 2-5 Kuva resource bundles from kuva enemies, affected by boosters)
4. Add detailed step-by-step tutorials of normal difficulty trials to the codex. For the sake of lore, call it "The Raid Operation Plans" or something like that. Add markers that would mark what a good team leader is supposed to mark in a raid mission - the doors where to go, the consoles to hack, the pads to step on etc; and an option in the menu to turn those markers off.
5.  

Edited December 13, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[BlackCoMerc]

16 hours ago, blazinvire said:

They're gonna need a foundation overhaul before they can really introduce a diverse arrange of challenge, they've kind of bandaided themselves into a corner.

Example of a different foundation:

• Enemy health and damage no longer scales, but their accuracy does, and they get different setups of armour/shields/weapons/abilities to diversify the obstacle they present.
• Weapons are magically stat-squished so damage is more consistent and easy to graph and balance, mods are overhauled to focus on customization rather than power.
• Maybe swap Crit Chance with a Weakpoint Bonus system, so damage numbers are more consistent and skill is more rewarded.
• And swap Status Chance for a Build-up and Tolerance system, so statuses are far easier to predict.
• Energy system turns into something that makes power usage more consistent and removes the 'Energy is Binary' issue.
• Healing, Invincibility, Invisibility, Crowd Control is somehow made into a less Binary situation too.
• With Damage stabilized and easy to graph with algorithms, you get the ability to carefully fine-tune difficulty, so pressure can be easily scaled up or down as need.
• From there, if you need even more fine-tuning, it's simply a matter of adding more variables to futz with, like making Armour or Shields more complex, so that the methods to overwhelm those defenses become more complex.

Once you've got good framework, introducing new challenges would be a breeze, demanding less of the developers and QA staff's time.
If you want to make fights harder, you simply increase enemy accuracy and load them with useful equipment.  Even harder, give them heavier equipment or weapons and abilities that synergy.
The next step would be designing some infrastructure for the enemy AI so you can given them complex tactics, ability to counter Tenno strategies through simple arrangement of units, equipment and abilities.  'Everyone hide in the Nullifier Bubble' -except a less lazy and bare-bones approach.

The stat squish needs to happen. It really does.

Personally, I think Nightwatch Grineer were a great template for enemies (on their FIRST appearance). They hit hard and we're dangerous, but we're not massive bullet sponges. That's a good template.

Enemies need to lose control robbing, screen obfuscating abilities. Players in turn need to list the ability to utterly turn off enemies.

Not saying we can't have powers. Just that those powers need to be in game powers, not meta level cheat codes with special effects.

Then, stop scaling armor and shields.

Give innate energy Regen.

Build mandatory mods into stuff or eliminate the need for them.

You can balance the game, without killing it.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

16 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Personally, I think Nightwatch Grineer were a great template for enemies (on their FIRST appearance). They hit hard and we're dangerous, but we're not massive bullet sponges. That's a good template.

Enemies need to lose control robbing, screen obfuscating abilities. Players in turn need to list the ability to utterly turn off enemies.

Bulletsponges don't harm anyone - Scaling damage does. Enemies one-shotting players is the primary reason why warframes have abilities that "utterly turn off enemies". The thing is, this inherent flaw in enemy and ability design cannot be fixed in any reasonable timeframe. We gotta be realistic here. It can't be done. So what can we do to cope with it? Put a hard cap on damage scaling of the enemies and introduce some form of damage gating - and hope that it diminishes the problem.