Comments on Warframe - A Six(ish)-Month Review

[Thalamask]

Open Letter to DE     (because apparently doing this is the thing these days! :P )

 

Dear DE

I first played Warframe back in 2014. I didn't stay long, because back in those days I was still actively playing WoW ^{(please don't hate me)} and Planetside as my primary games. I returned to give Warframe another look in September 2017, and MAN.... I was like "Remind me again why I put this down?!" It was brilliant. I loved it. I loved the action, the progression, the focus on cooperative rather than competitive play, the visuals, the movement, the total lack of chest high walls and zombies. I loved pretty much everything around it. Warframe *worked* for me, in a way that few games have in recent history.

Warframe also came at a difficult time in my life. For a number of years now, I have suffered from severe, suicidal, depression which even the strongest medication is barely able to hold in check. As if life wasn't enough of a bastard, it also handed me a nasty case of anxiety and agoraphobia as well. Warframe provided a refuge. A place I could go when the world became too much to deal with, and gave me enough distance *from* the world to be able to reengage properly with it when I put Warframe down at the end of a session.

I've now played for just over seven months. Near on 240 days by my calculation.... and I picked up my 220th login reward this evening. I've also, for probably the first time in my life, expanded my interest in a game beyond the game's medium, deciding to purchase the Warframe comics. That's how big an impact Warframe has had on my life. Despite Warframe being free to play, I've been sinking about £30 a month average into the game (unless I've suffered a major maths-fail). Not because I feel I needed to, or because I felt frustrated with the grind-wall so I was just buying stuff, or whatever. I did it because I felt that DE had earned the money. That I'd spent enough time in Warframe, and derived enough enjoyment from it, that the providers of Warframe *deserved* my support.

And more than that... in an industry where increasingly-obvious and totally-shameless wallet-raiding has become the norm, where minimum-viable-product, micro-transactions, on-disc paid-DLC, Skinner-box loot-crate systems and other obnoxious practices are fast becoming ubiquitous, DE (and a small handful of others, e.g. CD Projekt Red) have stood apart. Instead, DE has focused on engaging with the players, providing regular content that *deserved* to be paid for, maintaining their product with a regular stream of hotfixes and patch updates and just generally being one of the last few "good guys" in the gaming industry.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to become concerned that you might have lost your way. Or worse... fallen to the "dark side" of the gaming industry. I truly hope it's the former, and I hope that your continuing engagement with the community will allay my fears, but I've gotta say... recent events have shaken my faith in DE a little, and for the first time I'm having to actively consider whether keep up with my monthly purchases, rather than it being a no-brainer that I don't even think about. Please understand, this is not an attack. I really care about Warframe, and about DE, and I hope that this is just a small blip in an otherwise ongoing road of awesomeness.

All the best, and a long future!

T

 

Concerns and Suggestions

This concern has been raised by many on the forums before. Dumbing down, simplification, lower difficulty, power creep, increased grind etc. are all common complaints. Then there's the outright removal of content, like Dark Sectors, Trials, Solar Rails. DE has often *said* that it's just being removed for a rework, or update, or whatever, but how often has any of that stuff actually returned?

I can't help but wonder, though, whether the root of the problem isn't an ongoing decrease in FUN in Warframe. I recognise that fun is subjective, and that I'm probably "telling you your business" or whatever, but hey... everyone's got an opinion, and this here one's mine! :P

Achievement
For some people, fun comes from a sense of achievement. They want to have the biggest numbers, complete all the achievements, collect *all the things*, tick off all the boxes etc. They don't mind a lot of grind, but they need to see tangible progress towards their current goal. Efficiency is an important factor for these people, as efficiency controls the speed with which they proceed towards their destination... but the gameplay still needs to be FUN, or it becomes (in the words of the Great Yahtzee) : "having a second job you have to pay for." I highly recommend viewing of his review of Eve Online, because a lot of the comments there have some application here.

For example... I like to have a decently sized stash of Ducats hanging around in case Baro brings something interesting. To maintain my stash, I need to open quite a few void relics, and to open void relics, you've gotta grind them first. The fastest and easiest way I've found to grind out Lith relics is to take my Quake Banshee to Cinxia, Ceres, cap all the towers, then spam "4" while they tick down. It's fast, and it's efficient... but it's not exactly FUN, and the problem here is not really Banshee's Quake. I could do it with a WoF Ember, or an Equinox, or Octavia. Hell... if I'd rather sit and watch Netflix, I can take a Globe Frost, and just AFK and let my Vulklok Diriga solo the mission.

To me, at least, the problem is less about any specific ability, and more about how wide the gap is between the efficiency of using those abilities, or of doing anything else. Sure, so long as I don't let the enemy cap back a tower, the mission will take 12-15 minutes whether I play my arse off, with an unleveled frame and weapons and a bunch of rookies, or whether I solo it with my Quake Banshee, occasionally tapping 4 while I watch Netflix. One of these is much more fun than the other..... but which one do I choose most often? The Banshee. Not because I want to be bored, but because I don't want to be here at all. I'd rather be working on my new frame, or grinding out some mod I'm missing, or collecting Syndicate standing, or whatever. But I want the Ducats, so I need the relics, and there's nowhere else to get 'em, and I can't earn them doing <insert preferred whatever here>.

Exploration
For some, the allure of the new is what drives them. What lore can I find, why is <insert NPC> acting like this, I wonder what'll happen if I use these combinations of mods, or this weapon on this frame? For some, it's similar to the achievement goals above... I'm gonna find that last Kuria myself without resorting to the wiki if it kills me! And, for a more perverse some, it's a case of "I wonder if I can break this game mode by using this frame with this weapon, and this combination of abilities?" or whatever.

Grindy, collection games like Warframe are not the ideal territory for exploration, but even here there's scope for these people to play. But once again, the problem between FUN and efficiency rears it's head. If I'm parkouring around a room, trying to stick my Codex Scanner into every nook and cranny I can find in order to lure out that last, stubborn Kuria, the very last thing I need is a L100 Corrupted Bombard shooting at me. As such, once again, vast swathes of the content are simply ineligible. Survival, Defence, Interception, Excavation, the Void etc. all have scaling and respawning enemies. You're not going to get much peace to poke around here, so if you need anything from these modes, you're gonna run them as fast and efficiently as possible, so that you can get back to doing what you WANT to do.

Socialisation
Many people may enjoy the social aspects of Warframe, as limited and simplistic as they might be. With the limited exception of Clan-Tech gear (which, if you're patient enough, you can grind up in your own, solo-Clan) there isn't really much point in Warframe Clans except the social aspects.

Unfortunately, these people get an even shorter stick than the explorers do... the social tools in Warframe are, well... "rudimentary" is probably the politest way I could put it. Warframe has Public matchmaking for a reason... sure, Clanless people need it, but so do Clan people. I'm in one of the largest Clans and Alliances in Warframe (to the best of my knowledge) and, because there's *so much to do* in Warframe, it can be pretty tricky even in my Alliance to find a group of people who want to do the same things I do. Enter Public matchmaking... something that, over time, I've become more and more reluctant to use.

The Limbo warframe is a perfect example here. I've seen an entire 3-man group dissolve because I Limbo joined the group. I know, 'cause I was the Limbo.... I joined an inmission group right before they completed the objective. I hadn't even done anything, and one dude was like "oh #*!% this, a limbo" and quit... from a group that had just completed the objective and literally only needed to reach extraction. The other two followed straight after... giving me three sets of host-transfer loading screens, right after I loaded into the mission. I ran straight to extraction (solo), got the completion, and left... I had like 2 kills, both from my Sentinel on the way. I hadn't even fired my gun or used an ability. And the worst thing is... I get it. Having a Limbo drop Cataclysm on your final Mobile Defence objective right before you lose it in Sortie 3 is fantastic. Having Limbo drop max-range Cataclysm on every single tile in a L10 exterminate mission can be annoying as hell.... especially when you didn't equip a melee weapon for whatever reason.

Thing is, though... Limbo's just the most popular frame to hate on. Getting a fully forma'd, modded, levelled etc. Quakeshee or WOFber or Equinox or, or, or ....... etc. in your low-level mission is basically a "you don't get to play in this mission". When that happens, I often can't even complete my Challenge unless it involves something like "Hack 1 console" or whatever. And when you play Public, you take your chances... because there's absolutely no tools to deal with anything like this.

Not to mention just how bad the playerbase seems to be at Spy (my personal favourite mission type). I can't count the number of times some moron has set the alarm off, failed to find his way to the vault, then screamed profanities at me in voicechat about "how I came into HIS vault" when I get there just in the nick of time to complete the hack before it fails. This is one of the FEW times where the Warframe community has actually let me down.

So, after all this writing, where are we? Well, honestly... I don't know. That depends on DE. I can think of lots of solutions, and I'm sure the forums could come up with more, but ultimately it's gonna be up to DE to decide whether their vision for the future of the game includes veteran players or not. I hope they do, but we'll have to wait and see.

Potential solutions to the socialising problems I've listed above include additional options on public grouping. Sure, a ping limiter is nice... but what about an "avoid Limbo's" limiter. Or a "don't group with people who set off more than 25% of vault alarms, or fail more than 15% of spy vaults" setting. Sure, it has the potential to cause some exclusions and exclusivity things but, just like with the ping limiter, if you set your standards too high, YOU just won't have anybody to play with. Or maybe just cap the number of limitations you can have : pick your 5 most hated things, and we'll let you avoid them. And the thing is... if people WANT to be exclusive, they're going to find ways to do it ANYway. I already see it a lot in Tridolon recruitment, where people will only group with others with 100+ Hydrolyst caps or whatever. Hell, even I do it myself, because at this point I will basically always do spy missions solo unless it's a void fissure.

In addition, I'd love to see some *actual* additional social tools. A proper form of ingame email perhaps - the framework is already there! Maybe *gasp, horror* an actual, working ingame trading market, so we don't have to rely on 3rd party websites and trying to arrange between-mission-meetings in chat, or hanging about semi-AFK in Maroo's Bazaar to do any trading.

I'd also LOVE to see Warframe really do something good with the lore of the game. There's a really solid foundation to work with, and DE's just slowly letting it rot, adding little new stuff, doing nothing with what they have etc. Sure, the occasional Quest that adds something new is nice, but dammit DE! Khora doesn't even have any lore that I've been able to find anywhere other than "Ostrons gave it to Simaris, then /because reasons, Khora sodded off into the Sanctuary and is now hiding out there sulking or something." Where did the Ostrons get Khora? Did it come from the Tower? Why did they give it to Simaris? What's Khora's place in the world? There are so many questions. So MUCH you could do with the lore. But it just sits there, ignored... the red-haired Irish stepchild, banished permanently to the shunning-corner.

For the "I don't want to be here" problem, perhaps DE could look into allowing you to earn your desired rewards (albeit at a lower rate) doing what YOU want to do. Maybe some sort of setting where you pick the ONE thing you're after (e.g. Lith relics, Corrupted mods, Focus) and you can earn that at a slow rate whatever you're doing. For example, if I run my Quakeshee through a 14 minute Interception on Cinxia, I can average 2-3 Lith relics per mission (about 1 relic per 5 minutes). If I selected "Lith relics" as my "goal", the new system would allow me to earn 1 random Lith relic for every 20 minutes of active mission time (so that you can't just AFK in missions or whatever). This way, I can spend my time doing whatever I find to be "fun" in the game, and still achieve the rewards I'm looking for.

Another aspect to be considered is that of challenge. Over my time in Warframe (about 700 hours now) I've come to the conclusion that there are only really three kinds of fights:
1. Snorefests - where nothing on the map can even threaten you unless you go AFK for 10 minutes;
2. Marginals - Where you actually have to exert yourself to succeed; and
3. OMFG-I'm-Dead-AGAIN! - Where you don't really have a chance in hell.

Now, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. See the Flow Channel diagrams in Jessie Schell's book The Art of Game Design. Ideally, we'd spend all our time in marginal, where most of the fun is (imo) to be found. A snorefest is occasionally amusing, just to enjoy how powerful you've become. But when you're stuck there, grinding it over and over again for that one thing that just won't drop, FUN is not present, and efficiency at all costs becomes paramount. Equally, OMFGIDA is just frustrating as hell. Especially if it's blocking your progression towards your goals. Sure, it CAN be fun if you specifically set out to test yourself to the limit, but if that's not the case you're either going to slam your head into the wall in frustration, or just get a better equipped, more skilled, or whatever friend to come cheese you through it. Either way... NOT FUN.

Obviously, in a game with as widely powered characters as a brand new, unskilled, unforma'd, unmodded Mag with similarly underpowered Mk-1 weapons compared to a 5-year veteran who's got 8 forma and a potato on every frame, using the meta-est build and weapons for the task at hand, balancing things out is gonna be a right PITA. And I'm not sure DE has done a particularly good job on this one AT ALL....

See, the thing is that you need to balance the GAME difficulty (i.e. NPC level, damage output, mission type etc.) as well as the PLAYER difficulty. I'm relatively OK with what they've done with the first part of that equation, but they've fallen horribly short on the second. As mentioned, having a tricked out Octavia in your group can easily make a mission that the rest of the group would have struggled with and felt a sense of accomplishment at completing, into an absolutely trivial snorefest, where the hardest thing you need to do is just keep up! Equally, being the only properly geared player who knows what they're doing in a Sortie 3 Ambulas Assassination can be an absolute nightmare! I'd love to see some additional grouping options along the lines of : "Toggle to group with similarly equipped players" or "Yes, cheese please / No thanks, I'm a masochist". Even some sort of "Only people with some idea of what they're doing" option would be great... if we could possibly come up with some way of measuring for that!

An alternative to trying to match players' power-levels together might be to allow players to opt into a personal balancing system. When I used my Mk-1 Braton on my first mission in Warframe, it took like 1/3 of a magazine to kill an enemy. Now, I can do high-level star-chart stuff, and 2-3 shot kill things with my Soma Prime. And if I do a low level mission, even my "weak" frames are often so tanky I can virtually ignore the enemies unless I actually have to kill them to progress! Something I once saw implemented (badly, unfortunately - but which remains a pretty solid idea) is the ability to "balance" a PLAYER regardless of his gear and build. It would be a lot more fun to play a low-level mission if I had an OPTION to balance myself to the mission, limiting my health, shields, damage output etc. to what is roughly equivalent to that mission's level!

The next aspect I want to look at is content. Warframe is a living, breathing game, where DE is constantly tinkering and testing in an effort to improve the game and that's a fantastic thing. I can't help but wonder, however, whether DE's somehow moved from a positive, tinkering-testing-improving the game mindset into a "omg we haven't released anything new in a week, do sumthin nao!" shovel, shovel, shovel mindset.

I was super impressed when Plains of Eidolon came out. I wasn't really into the new mode, personally, but I thought that it was amazing that DE would be prepared to spend time, money and effort experimenting and risk trying something new, rather than sticking with the same, old, tired, cliches that seem to drive most of the game industry. And the thing is.... optimisation issues aside (my PC's a little old, but still well at/above the recommended specs and it STILL chugs it's little heart out trying to handle Plains) the whole Plains of Eidolon thing has actually grown on me. I'd LIKE to spend more time there, but until I get my new PC in a month or so, that's just not a possibility. /glare suspiciously at Venus!

Then, however, came the next NEW-AND-AWESOME^TM update... Beasts of the Sanctuary. Not impressed, DE, not impressed. It's an interesting idea, combining exterminate and survival but it absolutely, totally and clearly was NOT adequately tested. And I'm not even talking about the myriad bugs, crashes and other flaws. I'm talking simply about the absolute basic design of the whole mode. It's clear to me that a committee was involved here somewhere, because this whole thing has the unfocused, schizophrenic, multi-prioritied "too many cooks" feel to it.

• If it was meant to be "short, bite-sized content", then why did DE use the endless formula (e.g. ongoing, AABC rotation, extract when you choose) and why did they stick a leaderboard for staying as long as possible on there?
  • Hell, while we're on the topic, other than bragging rights, IS there actually any purpose to staying in an endless mission beyond C? It's certainly EASIER to restart. Why haven't they stuck the whole Void Fissure mechanic of interval bonuses in there? It would make total sense, and would provide an actual reason for sticking around!
• If it was meant to allow a different way of farming focus, why does DE seem to be upset that people are using it... to farm focus?
• And let's not even START on who thought just grinding your way through an endless series of respawning enemies for no other purpose than to keep a little clock ticking for as long as possible for no *actual* reason would be FUN!

Onslaught and Khora and everything really feels like DE released it because they felt they had to release SOMEthing. I can't speak for everybody else, but anecdotal evidence, my preference, and everything I've heard from other people indicates a clear preference for game developers to take the time and DO IT RIGHT rather than rushing things out on some arbitrary deadline.

Personally, I'd even be fine if DE skipped one of their 3-monthly "new primes and vault and frames and weapons" etc. periods in order to just focus on admin. Fix the bugs, optimise the code, tidy things up so that you're ready to keep moving forward. I'm not a programmer, but my wife is, and I've got a fairly solid grounding in the process... in a codebase as large and complex and especially as long-running as Warframe, if you don't periodically take the time to clean it up, tidy up old code, bring things back into parity etc. your codebase just becomes a ticking timebomb waiting to blow up in your face! How 'bout we avoid that outcome, yeah? :P

I've been writing this post for like three hours now, and I've still got tons more to say, but I think it's time to stop. Or at least, move on to other things. So, to summarise the above mountain of text : Please, DE. Please sit down and have a hard think about where you're planning to take Warframe. And then have a long, long think about whether the steps you're taking will actually get you there. I simply refuse to believe that the people who gave us the first few years of Warframe are intentionally giving us the events last few months!

 

Before I sign off, here's a short (by my standards, anyway! :P ) list of things I'd LOVE to see included into Warframe (in no particular order) :

1. Better communication and social tools for players - ingame email and an ingame trading market particularly.
2. An option for a streamlined arsenal selection process. I tend to pick frames and weapons and loadouts etc specifically for each mission, and the current arsenal just isn't really up to speed. Sure, it LOOKS good, and it's fun to play with when I'm fiddling around and setting things up, but if I just want to select a specific set of gear and go, it's sub-optimal. Currently, if I've got a loadout slot with a specific frame / weapon / sentinel etc and I want to use that frame in a different way, I have to :
   • Select the loadout slot I want.
   • Highlight the frame, click update, then select the build I want.
   • Highlight the weapon, click equip, find the weapon I want. Highlight the weapon AGAIN, click update, select the loadout I want on it.
   • Repeat above for remaining weapons.
   • Repeat process AGAIN for sentinel and sentinel weapons and loadouts.
   • Then drop OUT of the arsenal and go to my Operator room to select the right Focus loadout.
   • And all of the above come with their own little graphical things that take even more time zooming in and out and panning around etc.
   1. All of the above is a MASSIVE waste of time if you change frames and stuff a lot. I'd much rather have a shortcut option that's almost just a list of dropdowns (DD). DD 1 - Frame. DD 1a - Frame build. DD 2-4 - Weapons. DD 2a-4a - Weapon builds. DD 5 - Focus School. DD 6 - Companion. DD 6a - Companion build. DD 6b - Companion weapon (if appropriate). SELECT. And it just loads everything up all at once.
3. Rebalancing of pets around a utility function. This has also been mentioned elsewhere, but no matter how good the build, your pet is never going to be competitive with you OR with other players. So let's stop focusing on combat. Let's get back to the utility aspects of pets - and especially some sort of Uni-Vacuum. I'd LOVE to play with kitteh or doggo, but so long as there's still some drop-thing I actually WANT from the game, my vacuum Sentinel is just head 'n shoulders more important than my other pets. Alternatively, how about we do away with drops all together? Have stuff just drop straight into your inventory, rather than having to run around collecting it.
4. On the topic of pets, I'd love to be able to have more interaction with them. Sentinels I can kinda understand being simply tools. Pets, not so much. I'm not gonna get into this, 'cause there's already a ton of excellent ideas on the forums.
5. I'd be really happy if there was some way to lock down the chat-window. It's endlessly getting moved around as I try to click it and accidentally drag it a bit. It's a PITA and it should be a dead easy fix which I can't understand why (in this day and age of gaming) hasn't been implemented. While we're on this topic, I'd love to be able to pin my chatbox open or closed so that I can *always* see it if I want to, and that it won't pop up and interfere when I don't.
6. Again, something I can't imagine why we don't have - SOME sort of control over the HUD elements. Let's be honest.... Warframe's HUD is not great. I'd love to see something like this HUD from Planetside 2. Two little quarter-circles under your reticle showing your health and shields, a quarter-circle on the left showing your energy level and a quarter circle on your right showing your remaining ammo in-clip. And while we're on the topic... some control over our reticle too! Keeping track of the Rubico's TINY WHITE DOT (which is all it gets as an aim-point!) in the midst of the kaleidoscopic deluge of particle effects fountaining across your screen is an absolute NIGHTMARE!
7. I'd love to see an option to switch the Tap and the Hold functions on things like Ivara's Quiver or Vauban's Mines. I can't tell you the number of times I've tried to drop a Cloak Arrow on a downed friendly, only to not hold the button long enough for it to fire, resulting in it swiching to a different arrow, rather than doing what I wanted. I'd far prefer that Tap activated it and Hold switched it, but I get that some people would prefer to stick with what they've gotten used to, so a toggle option seems the best compromise.
8. Some slightly better control over Riven rolls. Seriously. This sort of loot-crate BS is one of the reasons I detest so many of the modern game "offerings". Sure, it doesn't cost real money... it costs something FAR MORE VALUABLE. Time.
9. Spin to win. Seriously. Kill this with fire. This is way more obnoxious than Quakeshee cheese, 'cause at least that doesn't require you to install macro software, or give yourself RSI!
10. Ordis and your Landing Craft. Love him or hate him, I'd love to see some development around this.
    1. For Ordis, I'd love to see the collection of his memories result in something. Maybe once you've collected all the Cephalon Fragments, Ordis gets all his memories back, gives you a quest, and depending on how you choose to resolve it he either stays with you, or leaves, giving you a much less interactive Orbiter. Or, better yet... Ordis leaves no matter what, and you get a new Cephalon, with traits that you can customise. Perhaps something like a current Sentinel mod-screen, except focused on providing passive buffs to you while on missions. For example, one mod might give you a small 5% increase in armour, because your Cephalon is really good at molecular manipulation. Another mod might give a 5% increase in shields, or shield regen, because your Cephalon has a really good understanding of electromagentic field theory or something. Nothing super overpowering, or resulting in too much additional creep, but just a little customisation, a little more individual personality.
    2. For the Landing Craft, I'd like to see something similar. Currently, there are 4 LC's and a consumable item lets you manifest one of four effects in missions based on which LC you're flying. I'd love to see this expand into more stuff. Maybe decouple the effect from the LC. Maybe add in a couple of new ones. Currently, the Liset lets you Override Security, the Mantis deploys a Med Tower, the Scimitar does a carpet bomb and the Xiphos deploys a turret. What if we took some of the Frame's abilities and made them available via Landing Craft. We could massively reduce the amount of "thou shalt use this frame"-meta if some of the considered-necessary abilities were available to other frames (even if at a cost). It's just an idea off the top of my head, so it's undoubtedly got problems, but having SOMETHING would be nice.
11. Some sort of proper vacuum mode (or straight-to-inventory drop) is required for Archwing. I've reached a point where I pretty much ONLY use melee weapons in Archwing, so that I don't have to hunt all over the map for tiny, hard to see drops in a 3D space! At least with melee, you're RIGHT THERE when the enemy dies, and you have a chance at the loot. If you're shooting all over the place, you'll NEVER find it!
12. MORE LORE! And tie it into the game in some way! Seriously, you guys have a fantastic platform to start with. You could do so much with it and make the game ever so much more engaging!
13. In addition to standard Sortie rewards, I'd love to see you earn a small number of Sortie tokens that you could exchange for specific loot that you actually wanted.
14. AFK timer in group missions... if you haven't pushed a button in two minutes.... BYE-BYE! I'd rather 3-man a mission with an active team and extract, than 4-man a mission with an AFK dude dead in the mission spawn and then have to wait an extra minute at extraction as well! And on that note... group kick. Seriously. Even if it's only between missions so that you can get rid of the ONE DUDE that won't ready up and start your next mission.
15. Shield hardening. Shields provide a nice buffer at lower levels, and mean that if you're careful, you don't need healing too regularly. At higher levels, however, they're virtually worthless. Just like [Steel Fiber] can harden armour, why can't [Polarity Generator] (or similar name) harden shields?
16. Possibly consider some sort of beta-program (or if you have one... better advertising on it!) for large new chunks of content - Like PoE, or Onslaught or whatever. I get that you're testing it as well as you can, and that there will always be bugs etc. but on something large like this, you really do need (imo at least) to put it through SOME sort of limited beta before taking it live for everybody.

Right. I'm done. For now. If you've made it this far, CONGRATULATIONS! You've probably got more patience than I do! :P Hope you found it interesting, at least vaguely so!

[(XBOX)kr1sPYDonuts]

This is one of the most finely written pieces of constructive criticism I have ever laid my eyes upon. I love it when people are actually, you know, constructive, instead of just simply flinging insults at the devs and expecting people to take them seriously. Seriously, someone at DE should see this, it has a lot of points that I feel a majority of players could agree with.

Edited April 26, 2018 by (XB1)kr1sPYDonuts

[Raspberry]

Holy crap is most of the Warframe community braindead regarding Spy missions! I've soloed every sortie Spy for several months in a row now, and play length wise, I'm close to you (199th login today). Many are like, "Ivara is the Spy meta!!! :D " and I retort, "There is no Spy meta, it's easy to go in and out clean with any frame."

Also, I agree with you that the handling of difficulty in Warframe endgame is questionable (i.e. ridiculous armor scaling, enemies insta-kill half the frames in the game, fighting the efficiency drain in ESO) and forces boring meta builds to be used (i.e. corrosive/slash on almost all weapon builds, frame choice limited to invisibility/extreme CC spam/extreme tanking, giving up on going beyond zone 8 cuz ESO is broken). Although I'm not sure some of your proposed solutions would work well, I do agree that DE should probably get to mending the game before releasing whatever Update 23 brings.

[NezuHimeSama]

There is an ingame trading market in the form of Maroo's Bazaar. It's not automated, but I think that inconvenience is important to maintaining the value of items. If people can just put their full stock of items up on an automated market, you get a very fast race to the bottom on easier to obtain items, making it harder for new players to get enough plat for a potato when they need to.

When virtually everything you can obtain early on is worth 1pl, and millions of people are fighting to sell it for that, it gets a bit hard for novices to take that first step and get the resources they need to break out of the early game. On the other hand, if it's kept inconvenient, those novice players can sell their mods for 5~10pl for a rare mod, and have a clear way to get enough plat to get by without having to turn the game into a job.

 

 

Coptering isn't really that hard, and used to be the primary means of movement for the whole game. Look at getting a more comfortable control setup for your needs imo. Alternatively, just don't use it.

 

Arcwing does have a very slow vacuum, but given the large space, I agree that it could use some work.

 

There's already an AFK timer, and it sucks. Rather, a blacklist feature so you can avoid playing with people you don't like would make much more sense. I've had loot stolen from me because of the AFK timer numerous times, not because I was afk, but because my contribution to the team didn't qualify according to the timer. It's a S#&amp;&#036;ty mechanic, and it never made any kind of positive impact. Forcing people to play sub-optimally just because some saltos got mad at people having to use the toilet is not good design.

 

In general, I think survivability and enemy damage scaling needs a good hard look rather than a quickfix like steel fiber for shields.

 

 

It probably sounds like I'm being critical, but it's not to dissuade the good ideas in this thread from being used, I just think there needs to be discussion so that better solutions can be found.

[Thalamask]

Thank you for the comments, KrispyDonuts and Raspberry!

Also, I totally agree with you, Raspberry... for the vast majority of Spy vaults, you can take any Frame, and so long as you know what you're doing, be in and out without a hitch. Before I got around to farming Loki and Ivara, I was reading all about this "spy meta" and I was like "Really? I'm not having any trouble running them with my Frost." I won't disagree that Loki and Ivara can make some vaults easier, but they're hardly mandatory!

I'm not sure I can agree with all your points, NezuHimeSama but, like you said... we're not going to make any progress without a decent back 'n forth discussion!

1. About ingame markets, I certainly don't agree. While your point is true that there would be some degree of "race to the bottom", I can't help but wonder that wouldn't help new players with limited plat budgets rather than hurt them. They'd certainly be able to buy more stuff if it was cheaper. In addition, for free to play games in general the whole "spend time or spend money" is a pretty routine concept - and DE's already in the minority by allowing players to earn plat by playing the game and trading with other players. The vast majority of games don't (in my experience at least) allow that sort of thing. Hell, many actively BAN for trading premium currency! I also think you underestimate how far market prices would drop. I, for one, even with 7 months play and over 700 hours ingame (more like 900 if you use the Steam timer) don't have a single spare Prime part. Pretty much everything I pick up goes straight into Baro's furnace because I'm always short on Ducats. I can't believe that people with less available time than me would be swimming in spare parts and stuff to sell.
2. About "coptering" as you call it, I think you're missing the point. I dislike the idea of coptering for the same reasons I dislike the idea of Quakeshee spam. It's mindless, repetitive and boring. Coptering is simply, in addition, a PITA to perform if you don't run external macros or use a fancy programmable mouse or whatever. None of them are positive game mechanics, and I think we could do without them.
3. I must admit, I've never encountered this AFK timer you speak of. Are you sure it's still a thing? I've completed multiple missions in recent history with like 2% damage, 50% damage taken and 5 kills. In none of them was I AFK (it was just me playing with a new frame and weapons, in the same mission as an Equinox or whatever), and in none of them did I have any trouble collecting my loot at the end, or getting kicked out, or whatever is happening to you, so..... elaborate, please?
4. While I agree that survivability and scaling etc. DOES need to be looked at, I still think shields should be able to be hardened. Multiple frames are shield rather than health+armour based, and allowing those frames to have some actual survivability on their shields would mean that they weren't forced into a "CC all the things forever or DIE" or perma-invisibility playstyle.

[(XBOX)kr1sPYDonuts]

14 hours ago, Thalamask said:

I must admit, I've never encountered this AFK timer you speak of. Are you sure it's still a thing? I've completed multiple missions in recent history with like 2% damage, 50% damage taken and 5 kills. In none of them was I AFK (it was just me playing with a new frame and weapons, in the same mission as an Equinox or whatever), and in none of them did I have any trouble collecting my loot at the end, or getting kicked out, or whatever is happening to you, so..... elaborate, please?

Just to expand on the AFK timer: it's actually kind of dumb. This timer works like this: after 2 minutes AFK, a player can longer receive end of missions rewards. However, they are not removed from the game. I personally feel that the AFK timer should kick people because it is very annoying when people are acting as dead weight.   

[Thalamask]

1 hour ago, (XB1)kr1sPYDonuts said:

Just to expand on the AFK timer: it's actually kind of dumb. This timer works like this: after 2 minutes AFK, a player can longer receive end of missions rewards. However, they are not removed from the game. I personally feel that the AFK timer should kick people because it is very annoying when people are acting as dead weight.   

Oh, right. Thanks for the explanation. I hadn't ever encountered this before, so at least I know how it works now!

[DreadnoughtII]

Great post, pretty much addresses most of the issues I have with the game.

- While I do like the RNG nature of drops, I would still love to have a system that would allow me to pick a particular reward or at least increase the chances of getting a desired reward from the sorties.

- The addition of mining and fishing as required activities is a horrible concept. I would have no problem with them being side activities that would give you small upgrades, but to have them be a primary necessity towards crafting your operator gear is ridiculous. If you actually step back and think about it, it doesn't even make much sense. You have the hours of fighting, grinding, facing bosses, getting better gear, unlocking nodes, learning about the lore, seeing the big reveal in 'the second dream', the huge buildup until the end of 'the war within' where you stand proud with your operator at the peak of a mountain, a symbolic realization oh how powerful you and your warframes really are, ready to face new challenges and dangers. You go down to Cetus, and the first thing they tell you is you need to go out and farm the local equivalent of copper if you want to progress... Well frankly, within the context of of Warframe's story and my character's role in it, I find this unbelievably insulting. 

So, because of the narrative reasons, and because mining and fishing as activities are incredibly boring and tedious from a mechanical point of view, I refuse to do them. I'm much happier doing anything else, such as slaughtering hordes of enemies and earning platinum that way for the resources (even then, only certain resources are available for purchase at any given time..). I get that there are people that enjoy these activities, but personally I don't. As stated before, it makes 0 sense why I have to do it.

IF mining and fishing are going to be required as a means to get necessary resources, then why exclude the single fundamental element that the entire game is based on. I read a couple of posts on mining and fishing and I love the idea of acquiring the resources through combat. (raids on grineer camps, calling down personally crafted,expensive excavators, hiring local miners then protecting them, etc) or through any other means that doesn't involve you going from rock to rock like a madman. Hell, while I mentioned it, have these methods be high risk/high reward so that players actually have something at stake. Make it so that the excavator needs to be crafted by several people and you have to defend it as a group. If you're gonna hire local Cetus NPC to mine for you, again, you have to protect them. If you let them die or be captured, you lose standing, the price for hire goes up etc.

Personally, I'd like to see such an alternative. Have both a combat and a non-combat way of gathering these resources. As it stands, I'll never do fishing and mining for the aforementioned reasons. I'm more than happy to spend platinum if that's what it takes to progress into the game.

- I'm not sure whether implementing a kick system would be such a good idea. Players might easily abuse this feature and a premade group of 3 could kick a random player just for taking too long to extract, not being properly geared, not having enough MR or whatever. At the end of the day, players could start kicking each other out of spite and seeing as how everyone gets so easily triggered and offended these days, it wouldn't surprise me if turned into the instant 'player1 has started a vote to kick player2' from cs:go. Just the other day I entered a public bounty group in the plains and had 2 people report each other for 'harassment', simply because one of them was slacking and the other expressed his disapproval in an upfront manner.

My 2 cents.

Edited May 4, 2018 by DreadnoughtII