Content Focused for Stronger Players

[Mr.Fluffins]

One of the main reasons I like warframe is that I don't have to constantly run my most OP set of gear to be efficient.

A low-level alert can have items that I need. Faction standing missions are generally low-level too. Fissures are also medium-tier content at best.

And this makes me feel great. I can screw around, take some unleveled or unoptimized items or builds, and still feel like I am accomplishing something (getting the standing, or Nitain, or invasion reward, whatever).

I like diversity in my games. One of the things that put me off a game I played for a very long time (Path of Exile, if anyone heard about it), was this constant tension and feeling that if I was not using the best of the best, was not spending all my resources just to have one OP build, I was missing out and lagging behind, since the only factor that limited my progression was my power level.

But in warframe it is completely different, and I don't want it to turn into another race to the max level/strongest gear type of game.

I fully embrace the fact that even the game's highest tier of content (sorties, eidolons) are not very difficult to do, and you are not forced to only run them 24/7 if you want to have the most OP build just to run this same content but slightly faster. This game embraces the idea of fun, and it builds from the ground up on the concept of the player being OP. I mean, we are talking about a game where characters that can turn completely invincible for a prolonged period of time are considered medium tier, a game where it is ok to have abilities that immobilize or stun enemies for a long time with huge AoE for barely any cost, a game where abilities that give you 10x damage boost (banshee sonar) or give you 4 clones with 50% of your weapon damage are normal.

I don't think warframe was ever designed to be "difficult" or "hardcore". I have never played raids (I can barely assemble a 4 man RAD relic party, no way I would waste time to get an 8 man squad), but it seems like even their difficulty (mind you people managed to beat them in operator mode only or with fishing spears) relied mostly on gimmics (timed puzzles and stuff), that you either knew about beforehand or got screwed. 

And if you really want to challenge yourself, you can always do that - do an endless run, or farm John Prodman in gold index. The key, however, is that you don't have to do that to feel efficient, and most people won't feel like they are missing out if they can't do these activities.

 

 

Edited March 2, 2018 by Mr.Fluffins

[shootaman777]

1 hour ago, Kaotyke said:

No... no it doesnt.

If this is something along the lines to give players a "sense of pride and accomplishment" we are going to have a very big disagreedment...

No. It is a matter of RNG. Rivens are the PUREST form of RNG, you can NOT dispute that.

And you contradict what you said above, I thought you said it wasnt a matter of RNG.

And I will say for the second time: I kindly disagree.

It will. And not for the better.

No. You are the one who is saying that. Dont put your words in my keyboard.

"

No... no it doesnt.

And I will say for the second time: I kindly disagree.

It will. And not for the better.

"

The difference between early, mid, and late game players is their mod collection.  I used to bring MK1-weapons to raids, for fun.  With the right mods, a MK1-Bo or MK1-Paris goes from being meh to being solid.  Shattering Impact, Maiming Strike, Blood Rush, Body Count/Drifting Contact, Hunter Munitions, rivens, Ayatan Statues for endo, the few good Primed mods, the few good Corrupted Mods.  Or you can by 10 rank mods maxed to skip the credit and endo grind on them.  All of these are buyable options of skipping the grind and becoming endgame on the spot, from the player market.  Credits and affinity are the only things that can't be bought (credits can be bought with platinum in the market, but at such a dismal rate to make it nothing short of stupid to do so). 

 

"No. You are the one who is saying that. Dont put your words in my keyboard."

I haven't put a single word in your keyboard.  First of all, that's impossible to do from here.  Secondly, I phrased it as a question.  I did not explicitly state that you explicitly stated that. 

And I said that, because of what I mentioned in the previous paragraph ("The difference between... stupid to do so."). 

 

"If this is something along the lines to give players a "sense of pride and accomplishment" we are going to have a very big disagreedment..."

Oh, I intended nothing so sinister, by what I said.  It was just a comment in tandem with what I first said. 

 

"

No. It is a matter of RNG. Rivens are the PUREST form of RNG, you can NOT dispute that.

And you contradict what you said above, I thought you said it wasnt a matter of RNG.

"

I'm speaking from the perspective of statistics, and theoretical probability.  Let's say you have a drop chance of 10% on an item.  As the number of rolls of the drop chance approaches infinity, the odds of NOT getting the item that has a 10% drop chance at least once, approaches 0%. 

0.9^(n).  Let's say you do 4 radshares, with a total of 16 radianted relics, which makes the rare item have a 10% drop chance.  0.9^(16) is your chance of not acquiring the rare item a single time.  Your odds of not getting the rare item at least once are 18.5%, in this case.  Which means that there's a 81.5% chance that you acquired the rare item by this time. 

Let's say you do 50 radshares, for 200 radianted relics.  0.9^(n) -> 0.9^(200) = 7.055 x 10^(-10) = 0.0000000007055 = 0.00000007055% is your chance of not getting the rare item. 

 

Rivens are a different matter altogether.  There are bad rivens, meh rivens, good rivens (1 god/good stat and a second at least meh one), and god rivens.  A good or god riven is worth using in the endgame.  Let's say that god rivens have a 1% chance of being rolled, and good rivens have a 9% chance of being rolled.  Now we're rolling the same odds.  Refer to the stats above for chances of getting a usable riven.  Of course, this disregards acquiring a riven for a good weapon altogether, since that's a daily gated roll that everyone shares the same gate on, and everyone can roll daily. 

 

Now, let's calculate the odds of getting a god roll.  Assuming 1%, so 0.99^(n) is the chance of, on n rolls, not getting a god riven.  Let's say we do 100 rolls.  0.99^(100) = 0.366 = 36.6%.  Meaning that you have a 63.3% chance of getting a god-tier riven in that number of rolls. 

At this point, it's just a matter of grinding 100 riven rolls' worth of Kuva, which is what I'd say is the REAL problem with rivens.  The Kuva.  94 * 3500 = 329,000 Kuva, approximately, for 100 rolls.  If Kuva were able to be grinded faster in larger quantities, then a riven's stats should reflect a player's effort in grinding Kuva, rather than their luck with RNG in the few rolls they managed to get with the little Kuva they were rewarded for their efforts at grinding Kuva.  So, the issue is entirely separate from what you made it out to be, in my opinion. 

 

All in all, I'm not seeing where you're coming from.  Instead of just saying that you disagree that the game has a p2w option, since I've provided evidence in favour of the notion, I'd ask that you provide evidence as to why it is not. 

Edited March 2, 2018 by shootaman777

[shootaman777]

52 minutes ago, (PS4)AbBaNdOn_IGN said:

Why cant veterans self regulate?  Take off some of that uber gear that makes the rest of the game so boring and maybe you will have your challenge back?? 

Im not very happy with the difficulty of the bounties in PoE.  The last two bounties are pretty tough.   Next to last is doable...  last one I dont even try because of how little damage I do in the one before that one.   I even slapped a maxed out Corrosive Projection on and tried that and I didnt see a single bit of difference.   The fact that the lowest bounty has no lith relics and the axi relic is hidden behind a sortie level difficulty is not fun for me.

Venus is going to be the same way and that makes me sad just thinking about it even though I mostly enjoy these new open world maps.   But no I need rivens and primed mods and stuff... bleh.  

I came to Warframe cuz DCUO reworked their game and made it more challenging.   It didnt make me enjoy it more it made me quit.  

Because handicapping yourself to make something more difficult takes the fun out of it.  There's always the underlying thought/notion that 'I could do better/be faster with x gear on that I already have'. 

On top of that, as an instance-based game, this game is not gameplay-based, but end-of-instance reward based.  The most efficient gameplay, whether or not it's fun, is the most rewarding in terms of useful drops.  Whatever gets to the end-of-instance the fastest. 

Also, you don't need rivens or primed mods for the Plains, be it bounties or Eidolon hunts.  Can they help improve efficiency?  Yes.  Are they necessary to get the job done?  No. 

On top of that, the majority of the Plains is low-level content to begin with.  You may want to find better weapons or mods if you're having trouble with it.  For example, the Hek.  That thing's a beast.  With a decent build from a pool of readily available and not overly expensive mods to upgrade (Hell's Chamber, Point Blank, Scattering Justice, Vicious Spread, Blaze, Accelerated Blast, Vigilante Armaments, Frigid Blast, Scattering Inferno, Toxic Barrage, Shell Shock, Charged Shell, Contagious Spread, Incendiary Coat, Chilling Grasp), it can become an endgame beast.  And the Hek only requires mastery rank 4. 

Edited March 2, 2018 by shootaman777

[Ragnarok160]

A lot of content is focused on alowing new players the option to join while letting longer standing players pass on what they know, ive been playing online games for a long time now and warframe is a very healthy and nice community at its core, please dont base what u see on the forums as the whole of the community cause it gets pretty ugly here sometimes, as for your giving meaningless things to noobs, if i give you a dollar yea its not a lot but its one more dollar then you had

[Efro_D_Siac]

Honestly the only things that DE has done to cater to new players while discrediting vets are the twitch drops, and the PROPOSED rework of the daily login system,

I don't agree with either, but it's not world ending. 

Take the arcane system: they're sure as hell not giving them away for free just making them more accessible. Because I'm sure there a lot of seasoned players who never cared about arcanes but now see them as worth grinding for, which is a good thing imo

[Jeoxz]

Vets this Vets that. We are looking at the problem wrong. Yes, certainly we haven't been the focus of attention as Veterans/Cheesers/Masters with all the new cool stuff that almost everyone can access. BUT you cannot say that we haven't received a lot as players in general. From Cinematics, a new way to play and bosses. PoE has been supported the most, but all tilesets have recently received new parts and tweaks. All of our arsenal had new life just breath into it with the rebalances. The only change is that it isn't "just for us" but for the whole community. Dark sectors are coming. The raids will come back. Kingping system is a ways to go but still coming. Just have fun with the game. Until the cycle comes back on.

[TinFoilMkIV]

2 hours ago, shootaman777 said:

It's quite simple, really.  The devs can release content that's difficult (not something that has its difficulty lowered) when we go against it with our endgame weapons.  Something that we need our 'cheese' to be able to lower the difficulty of to challenge it in the first place, not something that becomes incredibly easy with 'cheese'.  Like JV in the aftermath of Update 18.13. 

And how exactly do you propose this "Simple" solution be achieved? I see a lot of people go around saying "Just make something hard, it's easy!" yet so very few specifics on how to pull that off. I suspect the task of creating something that actually feels challenging to someone with access to every item in the game, is going to be virtually impossible without ignoring a good portion of their tools.

For example. Let's make a Lancer with several billion hp, perfect accuracy and insta kills instead of dealing damage. Invis + zakti + covert lethality. Okay lets make it immune to finishers, otherwise it dies to any invis + dagger. Now what about all those pesky powers that can be spammed for nearly permanent CC... well I guess our "hard" enemies will need to be immune to CC, drain massive ammounts of energy, or just be immune to all powers. Oh wait, there's a handful of warframes that can just build walls/decoys and just never get targeted, I suppose we'd better make our new units dispel abilities as well. So now we've reached the point where an enemy resistant to cheese and brute force is basically a massive bullet sponge that disables basically anything that isn't raw damage.

Obviously that's not the only path that can be taken, but it's the obvious and "simple" solution to enemies that keel over when certain tools are brought to the table. In it's current state, I'm not sure Warframe is fit for truly challenging combat experiences, other than perhaps the time trial against other players records idea that we may be getting. If people have suggestions on proper tactics that aren't sheerly rage inducing, I'd like to hear.

[(PSN)TertulSee]

Bring back the Hemocythe! I actually enjoyed fighting a non Operator needed bossof the plains

[shootaman777]

1 hour ago, TinFoilMkIV said:

And how exactly do you propose this "Simple" solution be achieved? I see a lot of people go around saying "Just make something hard, it's easy!" yet so very few specifics on how to pull that off. I suspect the task of creating something that actually feels challenging to someone with access to every item in the game, is going to be virtually impossible without ignoring a good portion of their tools.

For example. Let's make a Lancer with several billion hp, perfect accuracy and insta kills instead of dealing damage. Invis + zakti + covert lethality. Okay lets make it immune to finishers, otherwise it dies to any invis + dagger. Now what about all those pesky powers that can be spammed for nearly permanent CC... well I guess our "hard" enemies will need to be immune to CC, drain massive ammounts of energy, or just be immune to all powers. Oh wait, there's a handful of warframes that can just build walls/decoys and just never get targeted, I suppose we'd better make our new units dispel abilities as well. So now we've reached the point where an enemy resistant to cheese and brute force is basically a massive bullet sponge that disables basically anything that isn't raw damage.

Obviously that's not the only path that can be taken, but it's the obvious and "simple" solution to enemies that keel over when certain tools are brought to the table. In it's current state, I'm not sure Warframe is fit for truly challenging combat experiences, other than perhaps the time trial against other players records idea that we may be getting. If people have suggestions on proper tactics that aren't sheerly rage inducing, I'd like to hear.

By simple, I meant conceptually simple. 

But hey, if you're asking for a few ideas, I'm always willing to brainstorm.  xD

Let's mention an open-world scenario.  A bounty-esque mission where we have to ambush a caravan, perhaps. 

Let's assume it's a Corpus or Orokin caravan/transport, a 2-3x scaled up in size version of a Corpus rover, the kind we find in Europa hijack missions. 

 

***********

We'll take a step back now, to consider the much-overlooked punch through mechanic, for a whim, and min-maxing: 

Of course, there's punch through on rivens to consider, but I don't have the min-max numbers to work with for punch through rivens. 

For rifles:
Primed Shred/Shred gives 2.2/1.2 meters of punch through. 
Metal Auger gives 2.1 meters of punch through. 
Vigilante Offensive gives 1.5 meters of punch through. 
Charged:
1 meter - Cernos, Dread, Paris, Paris Prime, Rakta Cernos, Miter, Opticor
1.5 meter - Ferrox
3 meter - Daikyu
5 meter - Lanka, Drakgoon
Innate:
0.5 meter - Quartakk, Flux Rifle
1 meter - Rubico, Vectis, Vectis Prime, Vulkar, Vulkar Wraith
2.5 meter - Snipetron
3 meter - Snipetron Vandal

For shotguns:
Seeking Force gives 2.1 meters of punch through. 
Seeking Fury gives 1.2 meters of punch through. 
Vigilante Offensive gives 1.5 meters of punch through. 
Innate:
0.5 meter - Phage
1 meter - Kohm
1.5 meter - Kohmak, Twin Kohmak

For secondaries:
Seeker gives 2.1 meters of punch through. 
Innate:
0.5 meter - Spectra
1 meter - Cycron
6 meter - Embolist

For melees:
Power Throw gives 0.6 meters of punch through, but cannot pierce surfaces. 

For Archweapons:
5 meter - Grattler, Velocitus
275 meter - Fluctus

**********

 

Now, back to the caravan. 

There would be a few ways in which to stop the rover.  The first of which would be to use a codex scanner on it, at which point Ordis would reveal several weak points within the rover.  However, the only way to hit these weak points would be by dealing enough damage with a weapon with enough punch through to shoot through many meters of the rover's armour to its weak points.  Tenno would have to properly position themselves and have adequate punch through and damage to defeat these weak points, and the punch through requirement would gate damage on its own.  This would stop the rover from moving and open one of its doors so we could steal its contents. 

As another option: 

Of course, it would have an armed escort.  Now, let's make some uncheesable enemies, shall we? 

The Corpus could design a portable AoE version of the Scrambus unit, that the rover could employ a field of, surrounding it.  That's idea #1.  However, I'd prefer if this field didn't cancel already active abilities, and only prevented casting within it.  But whether or not that would be the case would depend on balance. 

Idea #2 consists of the Corpus using Orokin technology that was originally developed as a Sentient energy filter/modifier to provide a remote, mobile, non-invasive shield for the Orokin elite, but repurposed to provide shielding for elite Corpus guarding convoys, since the convoys contain merchandise, which is almost sacred by the Corpus doctrine of profit above all (and therefore a priority target for protection).  This technology would have the raw power to compete with our amps/void beams, simply based on the regenerative abilities of the shield.  However, void energy being swung around with brute force?  That's a different story altogether, and where melee channeling would come into play against these shields.  To prevent cheesing, the shield would have to be DPS-gated, so that the shield on an individual unit could not be brought down in less than x seconds.  However, what would not be gated about the shields is that, for every point of energy put into melee channeling that hits these shields, power is drained from the Corpus rover to the point where, eventually, it would lose power, stop moving, and the electromagnetic locks on its doors would open. 
Ever thought you'd be making a build with minus channeling efficiency and increased attack speed to drain your energy ASAP? 

Remember, you're also being shot at and melee'd in the meantime. Rage/Hunter Adrenaline could work here.  Though Quick Thinking might also become mandatory in this case.  Or Life Strike could be a part of the build, and waves of Corpus grunts could be sent to attack the Tenno unshielded while the shielded elite Corpus rain the hurt on the Tenno.  The grunts would give a way to get energy orbs, health from Life Strike, etc. 

 

Since this is just an idea, I'm not going to mess around with the values I've mentioned, and leave it at the conceptual.  How does this sound? 

Edited March 2, 2018 by shootaman777

[BETAOPTICS]

There is a particular design challenge for veterans that Kaotyke eloquently observed and Steve has spoken about this problem with a difficult nature that because this game has such varying degrees of performance gaps, they don't want to create content that is way out there for only the most geared players currently as then you'd have a spike in player requirement, playet performance and player expectation. Another problem is that players can progress trough content than any developer in any game can make.

Kaotyke had a good point that a lot of the proverbial ' end game ' content was made easier by player discovery and tools that already exist. Of course there is strategy but Eidolons were never meant to be 1 shot but players with the gear figured out that shortcut anyway and they'll use them no matter what because it is the most efficient way and time is fixed and limited for everyone. Without it, content like Eidolons would be more challenging even currently. At the end none of that would change the fact that the person themselves is the ultimate challenge. Players will learn and achieve almost any obstacle developers design and do it enough times to feel satisfied and done for.

But play mice and cat, challenge yourself. Kill an Eidolon with only 1 mod equipped, do a Sortie without using abilities. There are plenty of ways testing your limits out if you want to, you just have to be a bit creative.

Addittionally what's with the attitude? New players are great and I don't mind that content is made from their perspective towards us veterans than the other way around. This attitude is only serving to be divisive, unproductive and unuseful. Remember you were once there as well when we welcomed console players into Warframe few years ago. It would serve you well to learn a bit of manners.

Edited March 2, 2018 by BETAOPTICS

[TinFoilMkIV]

9 minutes ago, shootaman777 said:

Since this is just an idea, I'm not going to mess around with the values I've mentioned, and leave it at the conceptual.  How does this sound? 

Not bad for a try. Certainly miles better than what I'd usually hear from people complaining about the game being too easy.

For part 1, the flaw being allowing abilities before hand encourages stacking a bunch of decent duration support abilities. So Rhino roar, Chroma armor, Oberon's rez heal and armor. I could easily see the meta becoming, stack stat buffs, vaporize all enemies that aren't dps gated because the squad is doing several hundred times the damage that nearly any other comp could put out.

The big flaw for idea number 2 that I can think of is Valkyr. Hysteria can be channelled, so a full squad of Valkyrs could likely tear the entire encounter to shreds.

 

Again, ultimately creating what I consider to be proper challenge is going to require flat out removing player tools. Like warframe powers, statuses, uncapped dps... That kind of stuff easily lends itself to becoming very frustrating, and very very different from the regular gameplay. Not necessarily a bad thing, but tricky to balance out the fun factor while not missing the one combination that breaks all the challenge.

I'd be up for throwing some ideas around, though this thread isn't the best place for that kinda thing. I also suspect the chance of DE getting to this kind of content any time in the near future is pretty low, but you never know.

[BETAOPTICS]

15 minutes ago, TinFoilMkIV said:

Not bad for a try. Certainly miles better than what I'd usually hear from people complaining about the game being too easy.

For part 1, the flaw being allowing abilities before hand encourages stacking a bunch of decent duration support abilities. So Rhino roar, Chroma armor, Oberon's rez heal and armor. I could easily see the meta becoming, stack stat buffs, vaporize all enemies that aren't dps gated because the squad is doing several hundred times the damage that nearly any other comp could put out.

The big flaw for idea number 2 that I can think of is Valkyr. Hysteria can be channelled, so a full squad of Valkyrs could likely tear the entire encounter to shreds.

 

Again, ultimately creating what I consider to be proper challenge is going to require flat out removing player tools. Like warframe powers, statuses, uncapped dps... That kind of stuff easily lends itself to becoming very frustrating, and very very different from the regular gameplay. Not necessarily a bad thing, but tricky to balance out the fun factor while not missing the one combination that breaks all the challenge.

I'd be up for throwing some ideas around, though this thread isn't the best place for that kinda thing. I also suspect the chance of DE getting to this kind of content any time in the near future is pretty low, but you never know.

Yep. I mean heck think of speed runners and Mario. The average run of classic Mario takes well over 24 hours to complete. But then you had people who mastered in-game mechanics so well they completed them in 1 hour and 30 minutes. Those players completely trivialized all the challenges the game developers had designed in hopes of working and being a fun and engaging experience. Developers have spoken  at length about these problems in many game developer conferences trough out the years and honestly I can't blame the developers for not having a solution because I don't have one to offer either. The only game that has been extremely challenging end game was Crash Bandicoot Racing and only because it pitted you against very cheating studio high score replica or to race against yourself and your previous best performance.

Edited March 3, 2018 by BETAOPTICS

[TinFoilMkIV]

2 minutes ago, BETAOPTICS said:

Yep. I mean heck think of speed runners and Mario. ...

Yea. And stuff like that is incredibly hard to avoid, and only gets harder the more tools you give to players, and Warframe gives us a hell of a lot of tools...

The difference here is that stuff like Mario had it's own sense of rewards just for playing it. Warframe does as well, but it puts a lot of very desirable rewards into completion and other things that are based on raw efficiency and clear time. A large portion of rewards fall into "Kill all the things as fast as you possibly can for best results", and most of the rest fall into "Get this thing done, as fast and as many times as you can". I think the greater issue is the sheer difference in the rewards obtained from playing "normally" versus meta tactics. A really easy and obvious (if not necessarily the best) example is focus gains. You can spend an hour playing high level content and walk out with a few thousand... Or grab a designated setup, run solo and net 100k in a matter of minutes.

The difference between this and speed running stuff, is that speed runs are a challenge against other players, and yourself. Generally the record is the reward. The space Warframe is in is closer to giving out rare benefits or bonuses every time the game is cleared, and more based on quantity than the quality of the run.

[Isca]

You know, I think a big problem with modern gaming is we've become used to amazingly deep progression systems, and naturally we want that progression to keep on scaling into an endless endgame. It's a massive challenge that no dev team has managed to find a neat answer to.

When I have come near to the end of progression in modern games, I either move on - so many good games, so little time - or I try to enjoy it for the gameplay's sake instead of needing more progression. Thinking back to my childhood, we'd obsessively learn the ins and outs of a pinball table, and the only reward on offer was high score table bragging rights - if that. I see Warframe a bit like that; yeah, I've played the same tilesets over and over, and the reward is no longer quite as important as it was when I started, but it's still fun! I'm close to 700 hours in and just hit MR23, so there's still stuff for me to achieve in the game, and to be honest it's incredible that one game can even offer so much for a player to do. I really hope they find a way of adding a real challenge to the endgame for players who have done it all, but if they don't I'll still be playing Warframe because it's a darn fun game, if not a super challenging one, and I'm OK with that.

[SenariousNex]

As a veteran with 2k+ hours, I feel generally catered to, I remember the days before Eidolon hunts, or sorties or index, or kuva floods where only difficulty was in endless missions (and conclave rating 200 requirement for lvl 99 grineer interception to get the first Rift Sigil, that was a hard and fun event). These things are comparatively difficult to the rest of the star map. Do I want lvl 2000 Mobs in Sorties? Hell, yes. Do I feel the game caters only to noobs? No, not really. I am hoping to fight something strong in new upcoming challenge modes and I hope new Eidolon are even stronger. No complaints, just great hopes for the future.

[RayxAyanami]

Ballas was right, Tenno are Children.

[(PSN)johnsoigne]

IMO DE has never made any worthwhile challenging contents for 5 years and they shouldn’t be force to do so. They have proven themselves that they are totally capable of making a fun game without any “hard mode”. Such high demands for “challenging experience” will totally ruin this game.. weapon and frame nerfs, reworks, more unnecessarily annoying CC enemy types that makes this game temporarily not fun each time it hits me out of nowhere. They just can’t make a MHW game on top of this game and put it out for free. Instead they will have to perpetually keep beating around the bush by unnecessary nerfs and reworks so it looks like they’re at least trying hard.

I agree that old players(stop saying veteran cringy af) need more benefits but don’t ever cry out whilst using words like “challenging”. They had 5 years and it’s obviously just not in Warframe developer’s ability pools at least until they make a new ip and start fresh. The game has been around for too long as a “Ninja play free” game. It’s come to a point where they just can’t kill our awesome frames without cheap tactics. We’ll have to be satified with semi-challanging but still quite enjoyable things like Teralysts hunting granted they keep adding new ones and it’s already been confirmed right? developers will gain experince how to make challenging contentes and probably in a new ip but not gonna happen in this one. I’ve already cleared many, many hardcore games or still playing or stopped playing so I don’t really mind if this game is a gear check simulator. I’m not a noob to video games so I don’t see why people want challenge in this game. It’s more like you want more “Power fantasy”. Please choose your words carefully “Challenging” is a wrong keyword for this game IMO. Totally agree that we need more of that “Power fantasy” we would’ve chase for if there were any left. Riven mods are good example of that and we just need more bullet sponges to shoot at. That’s not “Challenging”. 

Edited March 3, 2018 by (PS4)johnsoigne

[Volinus7]

8 minutes ago, (PS4)johnsoigne said:

gear check simulator

Some people are too late to realize that Warframe is a gear check simulator and have already sunk a lot of time and money into it, they're kinda in the bargaining stage of grief, I guess? 

Edited March 3, 2018 by Volinus7

[THE_MAANIAC]

Okay Tenno, here me out. From what I've seen reading through all this is that many players would like a bigger challenge within warframe. And most of these people are interested in the new time trial like dungeon game mode announced in recent dev streams. So what I see from this is that the so called 'vet' players enjoy the challenge of going up against other so called 'vets'. I hope I got that right.

I have a solution: give Conclave a chance. Okay before you skip this, hear me out. You can say that not enough people play conclave. The solution to that is pretty simple: play it. Also, you could say that the content/ balancing has been ignored by DE. Wonder why? It's because nobody plays it. Again, easily fixable. Now, some of you may say that basically starting all over again (because you can't use your non- conclave mods) is too tedious. But come on, you've done that before, with a recent example being the PoE economy. And Conclave does reward stuff that isn't seen anywhere else ( especially that AWESOME syandana). So that gives incentive.

 

 

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: LUNARO is SOOOO FUN!!!!. And perhaps just as important : Conclave provides relative difficulty without you having to handicap yourself. And what's more? Since very few people are Conclave 'vets', this evens the playing field, making it more based on skill thany anything else in the game. Sure it's not a perfect system, . Just give it a shot, what have you got to lose, especially if you're effectively finished grinding out everything.

TL;DR : Just read the underlined parts

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

17 hours ago, (PS4)AbBaNdOn_IGN said:

Im not very happy with the difficulty of the bounties in PoE.  The last two bounties are pretty tough.   Next to last is doable...  last one I dont even try because of how little damage I do in the one before that one.   I even slapped a maxed out Corrosive Projection on and tried that and I didnt see a single bit of difference.   The fact that the lowest bounty has no lith relics and the axi relic is hidden behind a sortie level difficulty is not fun for me.

Message me in game and I'll give you some assistance. It's just your Warframe build that's making things difficult. I can help.

[Corvid]

9 hours ago, THE_MAANIAC said:

TL;DR : Just read the underlined parts

There's just one problem with your suggestion: I (and several others) simply don't enjoy PvP.

[FashionFrame]

6 minutes ago, Corvid said:

There's just one problem with your suggestion: I (and several others) simply don't enjoy PvP.

This^ Most of the Warframe community don't play this game for the PVP. This is definitely more strict to PVE, and I'm glad they're keeping it that way.

On topic of people wanting challenge so badly for this game. DE has tried numerous times for challenge. I remmeber when stalker was crazy hard, but then he because easy. I remember when sorties first came out and that was a major challenge, but then it became easy. OH, and when T4 towers were first introduced, that was a good time of challenge, but again, it became easy! Guess why these end up becoming easy? Because we're always getting new weapons, warframes, and content that makes the "challenging" stuff not so hard anymore. Thus, everyone's hope of "End game" challenges can only last so long, because this is a constant evolving game, and there's too many weapons and warframe variables that can break any challenge with ease.

[helioth137]

I really appreciate all the replies to this thread and the effort put into them.

This a going to be a long post and I offer my feedback after extensively playing plains of Eidolon.

I have nearly all the zaw weapons, arcane upgrades, all the operator amps, nearing completion of all the waybounds, and closing in on mastery rank 24. I took a long break before plains of Eidolon hit and since returning I have gone from rank 17 to 23, it's been a blast.

I think they (you) are steadily improving on their endgame... Eidolon hunts were a great introduction. Reworked sortie rewards were also a good change. Some people say they stopped playing because of the plains... I only restarted because of them and Eidolons.

I've captured around 100 and it's been a fun ride... great alternative to daily focus farming/ sorties and other daily quests.

For those of you who are already familiar with the endgame content currently available and its m.e.t.a; most efficient tactic available, some of what I type will be redundant

What a lot of players probably really want is a place where they can put their amazingly built weapons & warframes to use and are rewarded for it. I think the reworked "time trial" ex dark sector mode will offer that.

We already partially have this, but I sense a lot of frustration in the player base that they are required to level yet another gear type (amps) which have their own arcane types and the focus tree requiring daily dedication.

the fact This Eidolon hunting is limited to 4 or max 10 viable frames and 3 to 6 weapons also annoys people by forcing them to only play with those setups in order to be decent.

I have a suggestion on how to fix this below; "Eidolon shield disruption" mod

the fact that rare resources have to be gathered to craft these which ONLY come from fishing and mining is a game stopper for the players who do not like these 2 things. If p.o.e and coordinated 4 player boss hunting did not already scare them off.

1. Farming those resources

2. Trading for them

This is why I think they need to create an in game auction house which requires platinum & credits (both at once not either or) to use ... people think it will kill the game and sink prices... it doesn't have to, in fact the opposite can be true. They can design it in a way that suits their f2p model, whilst also cutting through the hassle and giving players a more satisfying experience of progression.

This is a very common request amongst the player base. Using 3rd party sites like warframe.market riven.market wftrader.com is not something people want to spend time doing ... they want to actually play your game and they will throw money at you if you let them.

The fact is FORCING all your players to spend a good chunk of time mining and fishing OR trading will split your endgame player base. Buying these resources from other players is a HASSLE... you have to be lucky and find a continuous supplier or be patient and scour trade chat/ know how to filter it.

I guess the keyword here is diversification; how about another vendor in cetus who, upon reaching kin rank, let's you trade either: reputation, fish, ores & gems, or a 4th type; bounty collectibles for the rare resources only gathered from those types? So people who only enjoy bounties could get mining gems this way, or fish, and vice versa. At a rate comparable to doing those tasks.

Now to the meat of my post and insights / suggestions on endgame content.

with Eidolon hunting you have 1 category of weapon (snipers) that requires forma for maximum efficiency and 4 different categories of frame for group synergy, maxxing these out would be possible in 1 day, as in 24 hours, if you already have them, or 2 weeks if you play casually. Compared to other mmo games this is not a long time. 

So here's the roles and weapons:

the direct & group damage buffers; Chroma Rhino Octavia. Out of 34 frames there's only 3 that can fulfill this role.

The healers: Oberon trinity. Only 2.

The operator buffers: volt exclusively right now with his shield increasing any projectile crit multipliers damage. 

And the immunity creator: harrow & limbo, with limbo NOT being used, making harrow unique.

So we have a total of 7 frames of 34 which see any real Eidolon use. 

Notable mention: ivara with Artemis bow modded correctly can do good damage to the limbs.

The reason only 7 out of 34 frames see any action in the light of night, is because of 1 key element: efficiency, simply put chroma trinity harrow and volt is the most effective tactic available and ANYONE who wants to trade their time for platinum/ focus/ arcanes will run this setup if they want to be effective & efficient.

The numbers can be crunched and as long as the encounter has those mechanics that composition of frames or a variation of it will always be what is used.

It might seem like an easy demand to make "give us more challenging endgame..." but as some have pointed out, players ALWAYS clear content faster than it can be developed...

It truly requires genius to offer both: a very diverse set of tools with near endless combination AND challenge which cannot be made trivial with those tools. 

The "stat budget" overhall & change to weapons is a step to achieving this goal, after they rebalance melee weapon stats, the next step is mods and frame powers, which is a continuous effort and touchy subject because of the investment people have put into those 2 things. As can be seen with ember and chroma feedback.

Creating both a continuous challenge as well as diverse gameplay and progression is a monumental task and it seems no one has the easy fix for it.

So artificial limits have to be set on the way and the speed content can be cleared. Currently the approximate limit is 9 eidolons per night. No more than that can be done because of the time it takes for the eidolons to get up after they are shot down, lures to be charged, have loading screens, e.t.c,

So 9 Eidolon yield 9 brilliant and 9 radiant shards for 225 and 360k focus; 585k in 50 minutes, or; over 2 days worth of focus daily cap... Granted this is only possible with ALL the right gear/ focus nodes, but that is possible.

The most I have done is 2x3 and get a + gaunt in 1 night.

A dedicated raiding group can do 3 x 50 minute runs a day (more if they do not have other commitments) 5 days a week, yielding 1.675m focus x 5; 6.325 million focus. You can earn in 3 ingame nights with the m.e.t.a setup what would take you over 6 days of daily cap otherwise... and in 5 days almost a month's worth.

In a matter of months player like me will have every single focus node at maximum rank, if they do not have it already and that is not including the adaro stealth runs with banshee/ equinox for 250k focus in 15 minutes.

Simply put: we find a way of running out of things to do, fast.

Once you fulfill these gear check and coordination requirements you feel like "ive done it all". The "I've done it all" or "everything related to progression can be farmed without challenge now" stage of the game is where players start looking at other games.

I think this is a critical stepping stone part of the game that needs more attention so that players actually keep playing instead of leaving...

2 things could greatly help here, 1. More tutorial / interface messages which help players figure out this new game mode.... I am the type of player who enjoys reading the Wikipedia devoted to warframea but many are not. If that site and similar did not exist I would have quit in frustration much earlier...

The fact a wiki is almost needed to play this game says a lot about it.

2. Diversification as I have stated above and below; offer playes more (equally efficient) methods to achieve the same goal. This will do wonders for overall satisfaction vs. Frustration. 

The limit gear check wise is: amps & snipers & right power boosting mods on frames. Once you have around 10k + radiation damage, 6x crit multipliers and 150% rhino buff or 500-600% damage multi from chroma / octavia, you start 1 shotting the limbs and the fight difficulty becomes trivial.

This is a problem many games face... Once you have the right gear and tactic the fight becomes so much easier than when you first encountered it that it becomes boring.

What is the solution?

Exponential risk and reward; for instance, when a group clears limbs under a certain time limit, another Eidolon spawns and helps/ buffs/ heals the Eidolon they are fighting, when you THEN kill them they yield 50% more or 2x the reward each... 

Limit group coordination wise is, correct movement, correct timing, and being in vicinity to other squad members.

The "immortal until" mechanic of bosses alienates a large portion of the player base who fall more on the casual side of the spectrum; those who just want to deal damage using their frames and weapons. The fact you are forced into operator amp shooting is a turn off to some players who get to this stage of your game. Players with over 1000, sometimes even 5000 hours invested, 10x the amount I have, who I talk to and who have helped countless new players as well as recruited them and spent money on platinum. I think if you have then the option to equip "sentient shield disruptor" in their weapon or frame loadout they would do that, you could cap the damage similar to the t3 amps, but that simple change would see a lot more engagement from long term players.

The challenge that stands before the dev team has multiple aspects

1: how do they keep progression available to all whilst still being challenging or offering challenging modes for those who cleared the difficult version? 

Many people now find Eidolon difficulty trivial after learning all the ins and outs and upgrading the gear, it's like a dance script and the dance moves are pretty simple... however if they make the script too elaborate it will scare off new players...

surely the new spider boss + flying Eidolon will be hard when we dont know what to do, but: this is a key thing in life: almost everything is easy when you know exactly what to do and how.

What warframe needs in order to become harder/ more challenging  is 2 fold: 1. more mechanical skill in the sense of timing, dexterity, situational awareness (theres already a fair amount of these 3 but if you have played games a long time you get to a stage where you blast pass the target audience and their "challenge" and everything just becomes "farmable" to you)

2. More team play coordination required... this is a double edged sword as we saw with Raids, make too many of these "team play checks" and you frustrate and scare off your audience, especially when there is NO tutorial and the in game hints are so vague that a "raid school bus" was created by this community just to teach people the "script".

but after a while the same thing will happen: we will learn the script. 

The reason they have to keep the difficulty comparatively low is if they make it too hard and block off lower time invested/ lower skilled players from progressing they lose customers. 

Final suggestions/ notes TL; DR version:

I enjoy this game the most out of all the p.c games I've ever played... I meet great people playing it and it is so deep many just want to go on playing it forever... sadly there is a moment all players reach after a certain time investment: we have reached our final destination...

and there's only a select few methods to reliably progress, none of which are challenging. Players want to be both effective AND make progress WHILST playing their favourite frames & weapons, in diverse game modes with different options. So there's 5 (ish) variables that all have to line up together. 

Efficiency

Progress

Fun/ favourite loadout

Diverse methods to gain rewards

Diverse/ unique challenging game modes

When you can allow them to do this, without reaching an "end" your game will experience exponential growth. 

 

I typed this from my mobile and kept having new ideas so it was hard to edit.

Thanks for reading! People like you who care and read what other players think and feel are why this community is great and we are able to enjoy one of the best games available... thanks to the fact that the developers do listen to us.

Edited March 4, 2018 by helioth137
Clarification

[(PSN)Tactless_Ninja]

19 hours ago, Corvid said:

There's just one problem with your suggestion: I (and several others) simply don't enjoy PvP.

That was pretty obvious by the hundreds of threads crying about snowballs of all things. And didn't see a single thread decrying how the pvp Valentines reward was now basically free for everyone yet somehow changing the login system slightly is an affront to every player who checks in for a minute each day then goes back to playing Monster Hunter.

[(PSN)vidare]

I really hope endless kuva missions will be something challenging and rewarding, that makes rivens really usefull. Rivens we farm kuva for in the first place.

Before weapon buff update, sorties 3 were where you started to feel, this riven was worth it. So a kuva endless that start around lvl 100 would be great imo.