Do we really need new content ingame?

[AperoBeltaTwo]

14 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I don't think it's really all that important to bring prices up.

 Actually, yes, it's very important to bring prices up. Value of prime gear directly correlates with the amount of money players spend in the game. As well as the likely chance of people bying the next prime access, opposed to just getting all the gear for pennies in the trade chat. Especially considering how often a prime access doesn't have anything unique to offer in the first place. It's a pretty f@cking serious problem, if I say so myself.
 And the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the low prices of prime gear could be the direct reason of why we have so much prime stuff removed into the vault these days. Which in turn inflates a pool of gear in the game that new players can only get with platinum. I'm not gonna directly spell what it means, but I'm sure you figured that out yourself already, considering the gear locked behind a payment wall is usually better than the regular items present in the game.
 So if I'm right and these two issues correlate with each other, it means the vauilting frenzy will only grow exponentially with time, and it's a direct result of Void 2.0 implementation, as well as the general erratic game design I mentioned earlier. Oh, and it will hit the new players directly.
 But yeah, no catastrophe here, I suppose:
 "The hull is broken, Captain!"
 "We didn't sink yet, so it's fine!"

14 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

I don't actually think that there's much of a reason at all to encourage people to min-max.

 "What's the most popular item on the market?
 "Saryn Booby Trap skin ... maybe? (please don't hit me, Captain!)"
 "Wrong! It's Forma bundle, you blithering idiot!"

 Among other things, minmaxing is the (primary) only reason for players to buy forma and potatoes, which, pretty safe to assume, aren't just the most popular but also the most profitable commodities compared to any other item on the market. Consequently, pulling a lot of ingame currency out of the trading system.
 Minmaxing is also the only framework for any kind of progression Warframe has, and if it's neglected it's a decent indicator of how little time people spend in the game. Minmaxing is very intuitive and happens naturally as the player explores various aspects of gameplay. Every single farmed and maxed out mod could have a number in hours of gameplay assigned to it - and that number is multiplied by the maxed out weapons and frames people use.
 So building the gameplay to encorporate as much of the existing content as possible, to challenge the gear and modding systems, is kind of a generally reasonable thing to do in all the circumstances.
 It's like breathing through the face, you know. You don't generally try to breathe through other parts of your body just because breathing through the face is too "meta". Breathing through the face is just how thing work... ahh, I'll scrap the dumb metaphor.

14 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

True, but not all of the veterans will just up-and-leave. Only some.

 "And we don't need those guys anyway, amaright? Amaright??"

 Veterans don't grow on trees. Veterans are a non-renewable resource. They literally burn out. Guys who played Warframe back in the days are mostly gone. And the rate at which new semi-veterans like me are produced, directly correlates with the game's player retention. The more DE focus on gameplay-irrelevant and low-level content, the lower the average playthrough time of a regular semi-veteran shrinks. Right now we could have people with about 200-300 hours of gameplay behind them, that are basically done with the entire game. They've done the starchart, they've done all the quests, they tried raid a couple of times and didn't like it, they got through the sorties twise but didn't get the reward the second time (died in kuva missions from invincible enemies)... "oh, and this open world thing is just one small map, what the hell?"

 Introducing an endgame (any endgame!) would increase the average playthrough time of a regular player significantly, but you can't have an endgame within the starchart level range! 
 Why? Because like any book, any movie, any song, any story in existence - a game has to have a beginning, middle and end. Starchart is the Beginning of the game, of quests, of understanding what Warframe feels like. This intro starts at level 1 of your chosen warframe and ends at about level 50-60 of the enemies you encounter.
 In the Middle you have all the quests and the content they unlock. Here's your Index, your Arena, "oh, I forgot this game has pvp...what the hell?". The sorties once a day. Trying to keep up with a YOLO-spin2win player in a fissure. Cursing at how much Ember prime costs and the fact that you can't farm her in the game.
 And at the End ... "We're done already? So, what do I do now? Raids, what? Oh gosh, no, anything but that! What do you mean, there's nothing else? But there's so much stuff in this game, it can't be there's nothing else to do but collect all this! You're probably hiding something from me, DE! You have an Endgame hidden somewhere. You wouldn't screw me over like this, I thought we were friends!"

 Without an Endgame, a whole Third Act of the game is missing.

Edited December 16, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[AperoBeltaTwo]

 Gosh, I'm drained! I think I've said everything I could say at this point. Guys, thank you so much for the conversation. It was an enormous pleasure to talk to you all! Thanks, @DiabolusUrsus . It's just the walls of text are growing so huge that it's impossible to answer every point individually, so I tried to summarize an write something final-ish this time. It still probably ends too abruptly, but that's what we're used to, I suppose. *wink-wink*

Cheers! 

Edited December 16, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[Iccotak]

The new content does not only serve to bring players back but it also works to flesh out the game. 

Because if we objectively look at it; its an incomplete game. Still has a narrative in the works, and just overall universe story, Eidolon was a step in the right direction to create a more whole experience.

[Valaska]

Yes, we need a mixture of new content and balance/QOL adjustments.

 

That was simple.