Livestream #12 And Gameplay

[Mietz]

I have watched LS#12, I have read the summary.

I think we still have a problem with DE understanding the concerns of the community.

Let me quote the particular passage:

 

"What about us giving weapons when people want more interesting gameplay?"

Steve - "This is all we've been talking about internally. Initially our pattern was to add locations, enemies, etc. Now that we've fleshed out that we need to speak to the long-term player. The early term players still exist, people still experience the game as noobs. For veteran players worried about our focus. We hear them, we are overhauling the damage system - not from scratch, but making changes to how elemental, physical, and armor piercing damage in game. We have a narrowing build diversity in higher end content. We have all of our level designers right now taking mission types, tearing them apart, putting them back together. It's not fair to say the game play is boring, it's that game play after 500 hours is boring. We will put more effort into diversifying what you can do.  Mission types, damage model, dueling, are short answers. But also coming are new locations."

 

Scott - "Talking about the Mod Pool, high-end players have to remember that every mod could be valuable to a new player. There is a gradual progression to high end things, mods are valuable along the way. There has to be a gradient of value."

 

 

No DE, this isn't a high-level problem or a veteran problem.

This isn't about the gameplay being boring after 500 hours, the gameplay is boring after ~30 hours.

 

After 20 hours you have seen everything the game has to offer mechanically and its not much. The complexity of our gameplay-systems is woefully inadequate to carry the game.

 

The only thing that carries the gameplay post 30 hours is grinding for weapons, mods and/or frames turning this into a massive RNG collect-a-thon. There simply isn't enough "meat" on the bones of this game to make it appealing from a gameplay perspective.

 

Add to this the fact that the collect-a-thon is based on RNG and player retention will vary -wildly- as the required materials, mods, BPs, keys, etc. will drop at different rates for different players. Sure, as a median the drop rates will probably be entirely reasonable, but the variance at both ends of the spectrum inherent in these systems massively interferes with player progression and hence retention.

 

I speak from experience when in U7 I needed to grind 5 days (read, 8-10 hours) to get a specific BP drop because the RNG just said "F*** you". I was on the brink of just throwing the game down in disgust but then I got "lucky", however I'm sure other people with more extreme examples exist that -did- throw the game down in disgust and quit. This is a problem of inconsistent progression, the median variance does not matter if we screw over the ones at the low end of the spectrum.

 

However, this is not a problem of the RNG.

Let me repeat that: THE RNG IS NOT THE PROBLEM.

 

The problem is that both progression and retention DEPENDS entirely on the RNG post ~20-30 hours of gameplay time. At that time you have your starter weapons affinity maxed and spent your starter plat. You have seen most of the environments you are going to run until you can grind out Void Keys and max out your weapons to actually do these Void Missions. You will have seen most of the enemies and their patterns. You will have more money than god. You will have experienced all there is to the combat gameplay mechanics inherent to basic weaponry available to you in full.

 

After this point the only thing to carry your gameplay are intrinsic rewards like mods, BPs, materials and/or specific Alerts.

 

Furthermore, specific weapons/itmes that do improve or diversify gameplay are "gated" behind arbitrary requirements. Things like the Ignis are only available in clans, so you -must- join a clan as building one on your own would be nearly impossible. This is without mentioning Mastery Rank requirements.

 

This presents another problem that is incompatible with what DE_Steve says in the quote above. 

 

Diverse, unique and interesting weapons are reserved for "endgame" i.e. "The game gets good at LVL XX" Syndrome.

I have generally no problem with vertical progression (power) being tied to the amount of game played, however I have a problem with horizontal progression (diversity) being tied to it as well.

The problem here really isn't damage scaling and/or "narrowing build diversity at higher levels" but rather that the mid-game is excruciatingly same-y and devoid of diversity AND the variety being gated by vertical progression.

 

A simple gameplay overhaul to things f.ex. melee would infinitely diversify the gameplay up until the "grindwall".

 

You really have to understand the concerns here DE.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Mietz

[Shadowedcross]

I didn't get bored after 30 hours.

[Mietz]

I didn't get bored after 30 hours.

 

Post went way over your head, huh?

[Nicodemus666]

I didn't get bored after 30 hours.

 

+1

[DiabolusUrsus]

I think you've misinterpreted "your concerns" as "community concerns." Some of what you've said is related to more generalized community feedback, yes, but the rest of it is entirely personally preferential (~30 Hours of gameplay - I'm at 437 and still going strong.) or outright wrong (With the new Clan tiering system, solo-building a Clan Dojo is entirely feasible.)

Could the game use more fleshed out gameplay? Yeah, sure. Would we like to see more of an entertaining flow from mid to late game? Yes, of course. But the rebalancing of weapons, the mod pool and pretty much everything else that ties into gameplay is an integral first step in that process. Fixing the balance and flow of the existing game first will keep players stable and satisfied while the devs go work on amazing new content for us to consume, which hopefully meshes well into the established system of balance.

Your overall issue is that Warframe lacks a true end-game system, leaving you with nothing interesting to do. But the game needs to be balanced better prior to creating a more extensive end-game. It's what will help ensure that the end-game DE creates is fun to play.

[GL.exe]

I didn't get bored after 500 hours... I got bored at 1000. I think Steve has the right idea though, it's better to expand the player base than the gameplay mechanics ATM considering that this game will also be f2p in the Ps4.

[BigSchmexy]

I have watched LS#12, I have read the summary.

I think we still have a problem with DE understanding the concerns of the community.

Let me quote the particular passage:

 

 

No DE, this isn't a high-level problem or a veteran problem.

This isn't about the gameplay being boring after 500 hours, the gameplay is boring after ~30 hours.

 

After 20 hours you have seen everything the game has to offer mechanically and its not much. The complexity of our gameplay-systems is woefully inadequate to carry the game.

 

The only thing that carries the gameplay post 30 hours is grinding for weapons, mods and/or frames turning this into a massive RNG collect-a-thon. There simply isn't enough "meat" on the bones of this game to make it appealing from a gameplay perspective.

 

Add to this the fact that the collect-a-thon is based on RNG and player retention will vary -wildly- as the required materials, mods, BPs, keys, etc. will drop at different rates for different players. Sure, as a median the drop rates will probably be entirely reasonable, but the variance at both ends of the spectrum inherent in these systems massively interferes with player progression and hence retention.

 

I speak from experience when in U7 I needed to grind 5 days (read, 8-10 hours) to get a specific BP drop because the RNG just said "F*** you". I was on the brink of just throwing the game down in disgust but then I got "lucky", however I'm sure other people with more extreme examples exist that -did- throw the game down in disgust and quit. This is a problem of inconsistent progression, the median variance does not matter if we screw over the ones at the low end of the spectrum.

 

However, this is not a problem of the RNG.

Let me repeat that: THE RNG IS NOT THE PROBLEM.

 

The problem is that both progression and retention DEPENDS entirely on the RNG post ~20-30 hours of gameplay time. At that time you have your starter weapons affinity maxed and spent your starter plat. You have seen most of the environments you are going to run until you can grind out Void Keys and max out your weapons to actually do these Void Missions. You will have seen most of the enemies and their patterns. You will have more money than god. You will have experienced all there is to the combat gameplay mechanics inherent to basic weaponry available to you in full.

 

After this point the only thing to carry your gameplay are intrinsic rewards like mods, BPs, materials and/or specific Alerts.

 

Furthermore, specific weapons/itmes that do improve or diversify gameplay are "gated" behind arbitrary requirements. Things like the Ignis are only available in clans, so you -must- join a clan as building one on your own would be nearly impossible. This is without mentioning Mastery Rank requirements.

 

This presents another problem that is incompatible with what DE_Steve says in the quote above. 

 

Diverse, unique and interesting weapons are reserved for "endgame" i.e. "The game gets good at LVL XX" Syndrome.

I have generally no problem with vertical progression (power) being tied to the amount of game played, however I have a problem with horizontal progression (diversity) being tied to it as well.

The problem here really isn't damage scaling and/or "narrowing build diversity at higher levels" but rather that the mid-game is excruciatingly same-y and devoid of diversity AND the variety being gated by vertical progression.

 

A simple gameplay overhaul to things f.ex. melee would infinitely diversify the gameplay up until the "grindwall".

 

You really have to understand the concerns here DE.

This is your views and opinions and you are entitled to them but you don't speak for the community do people agree with you probably but in this large player base no one can speak for everyone and if you think about it 90 something percent of games are beaten between 4-12 hours yes you see a good amount of what can be done after 30 hours but this game is for people who do want to go past that for the mods and weapons and trying things out is rng a problem yes and it is being addressed and constantly updated but if you got bored after 30 hours you could have stopped playing I didn't almost everyone else who plays this game didn't and as I am sitting around 500 hours I still enjoy the game. you talked about it being boring that's why they release new content all the time if they took the time to fix everything and do what they need to to start fixing all the common bugs and problems they would lose a lot of players because the game would be more "excruciatingly same-y" so as always DE has to balance fixing with new content and they do a pretty good job IMO so don't claim your concerns are the communities

[Mietz]

I think you've misinterpreted "your concerns" as "community concerns.

 

Judging by the 239047203948 "melee overhaul" "gameplay overhaul" "point pool overhaul" "warframe overhaul" "ability overhaul" threads on this very forum, I have not misinterpreted anything.

 

Given the fact the question was about "stop giving us new weapons but give us interesting gameplay instead" and it made it to the Liverstream and being answered by DE_Steve (proving its a hot topic issue for them, and hence the community), I do not see how I could have misinterpreted anything about "my concerns".

 

 

Your overall issue is that Warframe lacks a true end-game system, leaving you with nothing interesting to do. But the game needs to be balanced better prior to creating a more extensive end-game. It's what will help ensure that the end-game DE creates is fun to play.

 

No my issue is not with WFs endgame, if thats what you're getting out of my OP you are reading it wrong.

In fact my summary statement makes -very- clear that my issues are not with "endgame" but with the early and mid-game gameplay (hence gameplay in general)

 

---

 

PS: Everyone that reads my op as "the game is boring after 30 hours" needs to read it again, then realize that I wrote "gameplay" instead of "game" since thats what DE_Steve addressed. Game (Warframe) =/= gameplay (of Warframe).

Edited August 15, 2013 by Mietz

[gorg_graggel]

snip

i agree with the OP.

also besides tweaking/changing primary game mechanics, like how melee works, i think that changing how missions work would also be beneficial.

right now, we only have certain mission types, that all play the same, with just how you press a button at the end is changing (exaggeration, pls don't take this literally) being the major difference. and sometimes randomly an additional mission is generated at runtime, without any real connection to the initial one...

if they take some cues off of the enemy territory or unreal tournament assault mission design the missions could be much more interesting.

(and i'm not saying to copy those games' mechanics, just take cues. it's not possible to copy them 1:1 anyway as those are pvp games...)

example:

in quake wars the missions are split up from the beginning into multiple stages, were you know from the start what you can expect.

go somewhere and blow up a door to gain access to a facility, next step: hack something to shut down security, next step: steal the intel as the final/main objective. in between there were side missions people could do to make things easier for the team, like opening a secondary access route to be able to flank the enemy. or use them as shortcuts to get to the main objective earlier (stealth option anyone?).

this would also kinda help alleviate the rushing problem (or the need to do it for farming purposes) as doing those objectives and depending on how succesful a mission goes rewards could be tight to this instead of completely (more or less) random.

what also is a major factor (for me anyways) is lack of immersion:

on the one hand we have a totally serious lore background and an absolutely awesome and unique art-style with more lore being developed along the way, but on the other hand the whole game is just a stitched together "mess" of some animated menus and a very loose approach to how the stuff you do in the missions (which are also just some maps loosely connected to the mission description) even have any effect on the world.

for starters it would be cool, if i could go into the dojo (or some equivalent housing facility for non-clanners), WALK into a foundry/market/briefing/mission selection/hangar bay and actually DO stuff to start the appropriate processes in character.

having your currently used warframe hover over a star-chart and have everything done in seperate disconnected from each other menus is totally gamey and doesn't really feel compelling at all after a while (it gets old really quick)...

i want to SEE my warframe doing all those things in person, not as an abstract menu option...

i want a treasury, where i can see all my collected ressources represented somehow. an armory that does the same with weapons and warframes...

etc...

diversity is not more of the same or changing it around, DE... ;)

Edited August 15, 2013 by gorg_graggel

[DavidSPD]

Considering most of this doesn't really resonate with me, I think the post is more personal opinion. But that's just my opinion so eh. *Shrug* Things that stand out (and why I'm posting) is:

 

1. I'm never gonna experience clan guns simply because I don't give two ***** or a **** about clans. Party size is max of four, why should I care about joining a community in a game where all the content is perfectly doable solo? If I need more bodies to complete a mission I queue up for randoms. It's not a difficult concept. Clan guns is just a needless barricade to try and incentivize (spellcheck fails me) me to take part in something that some coder was required to do for a paycheck. I don't care about clans, so content of the game is cut off from me. Fantastic.

 

2. "gameplay is boring after 30 hours" - I get what you're trying to say but you may want to consider rewording... the lot of it. I'm only JUST NOW getting bored with the game and I have 418 hours. Which is a freaking record for me. I take my time, I enjoy the scenery, I dip in & out of cover (I play solo 99% of the time) and I use Warframe abilities that people view as "worthless" to make the game fun and challenging.

 

3. RNG discussions in general - RNG will always be a problem because DE wants people to spend money on the game. If they truly "fix" RNG then you will see something compromised as a result. Like for example... warframe exclusivity time periods. Couple weeks after a new warframe comes out will be limited to plat only. Final blueprint no longer credits only and instead plat only. Mark my words, if the players continue to push "fixing" rng DE will implement some features that will make people more frustrated than having to farm a boss for a couple hours. I read what you said about RNG not being a problem but I thought this was worth mentioning regardless.

[Mietz]

Considering most of this doesn't really resonate with me, I think the post is more personal opinion. But that's just my opinion so eh. *Shrug* Things that stand out (and why I'm posting) is:

 

1. I'm never gonna experience clan guns simply because I don't give two ***** or a **** about clans. Party size is max of four, why should I care about joining a community in a game where all the content is perfectly doable solo? If I need more bodies to complete a mission I queue up for randoms. It's not a difficult concept. Clan guns is just a needless barricade to try and incentivize (spellcheck fails me) me to take part in something that some coder was required to do for a paycheck. I don't care about clans, so content of the game is cut off from me. Fantastic.

 

2. "gameplay is boring after 30 hours" - I get what you're trying to say but you may want to consider rewording... the lot of it. I'm only JUST NOW getting bored with the game and I have 418 hours. Which is a freaking record for me. I take my time, I enjoy the scenery, I dip in & out of cover (I play solo 99% of the time) and I use Warframe abilities that people view as "worthless" to make the game fun and challenging.

 

3. RNG discussions in general - RNG will always be a problem because DE wants people to spend money on the game. If they truly "fix" RNG then you will see something compromised as a result. Like for example... warframe exclusivity time periods. Couple weeks after a new warframe comes out will be limited to plat only. Final blueprint no longer credits only and instead plat only. Mark my words, if the players continue to push "fixing" rng DE will implement some features that will make people more frustrated than having to farm a boss for a couple hours. I read what you said about RNG not being a problem but I thought this was worth mentioning regardless.

 

I'm unsure, you are agreeing with me or...?

[Budd_Weaver]

This is your views and opinions and you are entitled to them but you don't speak for the community do people agree with you probably but in this large player base no one can speak for everyone and if you think about it 90 something percent of games are beaten between 4-12 hours yes you see a good amount of what can be done after 30 hours but this game is for people who do want to go past that for the mods and weapons and trying things out is rng a problem yes and it is being addressed and constantly updated but if you got bored after 30 hours you could have stopped playing I didn't almost everyone else who plays this game didn't and as I am sitting around 500 hours I still enjoy the game. you talked about it being boring that's why they release new content all the time if they took the time to fix everything and do what they need to to start fixing all the common bugs and problems they would lose a lot of players because the game would be more "excruciatingly same-y" so as always DE has to balance fixing with new content and they do a pretty good job IMO so don't claim your concerns are the communities

 

Every single person only speaks their opinion. Telling someone that is like telling water that it's wet.

[Bakercompany86]

I'm on board with the OP, he reflects my concerns with Warframe and it's future almost verbatim.

 

 

Thank you for posting this.  I don't know why some people get ultra defensive when people post discussions like this.

 

 

Yes this is the OPs opinion, but if you take the time to search through the many pages of posts you'll see his point has been echoed tenfold.

 

It's not just his concerns, but a LARGE chunk of the community.

 

Maybe a bit off on the 30 hours of gameplay.  I'm around there I think and I'm still having fun.  But the big problem is, the end is in sight for me.  I can see the virtual wall that the gameplay will hit for me when the shooting and parkour is no longer sufficient to hold my interest.

 

The mission structure, the AI, and the strict vertical progression are problems for me.  Endgame shouldn't just present players with a single most-effective option in a game that's largely supposed to be about customization and how YOU want to play the game.

[Mietz]

I'm on board with the OP, he reflects my concerns with Warframe and it's future almost verbatim.

 

 

Thank you for posting this.  I don't know why some people get ultra defensive when people post discussions like this.

 

 

Yes this is the OPs opinion, but if you take the time to search through the many pages of posts you'll see his point has been echoed tenfold.

 

It's not just his concerns, but a LARGE chunk of the community.

 

Maybe a bit off on the 30 hours of gameplay.  I'm around there I think and I'm still having fun.  But the big problem is, the end is in sight for me.  I can see the virtual wall that the gameplay will hit for me when the shooting and parkour is no longer sufficient to hold my interest.

 

The mission structure, the AI, and the strict vertical progression are problems for me.  Endgame shouldn't just present players with a single most-effective option in a game that's largely supposed to be about customization and how YOU want to play the game.

 

I picked 20-30 hours because that is the bare minimum to hit the grindwall imho.

I remember that maxing my starter Excalibur and the few weapons that I was able to quickly buy off the store for upgrades took me ~25 hours.

At ~30 hours in I built my second frame the Mag and started maxing it getting more unique weapons like the Glaive, Kogake, Paris, Kunai and a sentinel.

I'm ~150 hours in right now with a semi-break since U9 and the gameplay is just dull, dull, dull, even with two frames and ~10 weapons.

 

Its not really about the game becoming boring at 30 hours, its about the gameplay growing stale because you saw everything the game could possibly throw at you gameplay wise. At 30 i just played the game mechanically to get my next reward (BP, mod) not because it was inherently interesting to play.

I had the illusion that if I get this other weapon my gameplay would improve in variety.

[Bakercompany86]

I picked 20-30 hours because that is the bare minimum to hit the grindwall imho.

I remember that maxing my starter Excalibur and the few weapons that I was able to quickly buy off the store for upgrades took me ~25 hours.

At ~30 hours in I built my second frame the Mag and started maxing it getting more unique weapons like the Glaive, Kogake, Paris, Kunai and a sentinel.

I'm ~150 hours in right now with a semi-break since U9 and the gameplay is just dull, dull, dull, even with two frames and ~10 weapons.

 

Its not really about the game becoming boring at 30 hours, its about the gameplay growing stale because you saw everything the game could possibly throw at you gameplay wise. At 30 i just played the game mechanically to get my next reward (BP, mod) not because it was inherently interesting to play.

I had the illusion that if I get this other weapon my gameplay would improve in variety.

 

Actually that sums up my first 30 hours perfectly.  You have my support.

 

 

I've always believed shooters should reward skill and challenge the player as such.

 

My beef with Warframe is you have a 3rd person high-action shooter with an MMO progression dumped on top of it.  So you just grind enough damage to compete.  Player choice is virtually irrelevant.  And as long as I can spit enough bullets at my enemy with enough damage mod increase, I will win.  Very little in the form of skill, especially with the win buttons around.

[gorg_graggel]

Actually that sums up my first 30 hours perfectly.  You have my support.

 

 

I've always believed shooters should reward skill and challenge the player as such.

 

My beef with Warframe is you have a 3rd person high-action shooter with an MMO progression dumped on top of it.  So you just grind enough damage to compete.  Player choice is virtually irrelevant.  And as long as I can spit enough bullets at my enemy with enough damage mod increase, I will win.  Very little in the form of skill, especially with the win buttons around.

 

hell yeah, i totally fogot to moan about the bullet sponges we get as enemies the higher their level is. :D

 

i'd like to see different levels of ai skill...

 

as in:

low level mobs are so dumb that they simply run toward you disregarding any cover in their vicinity and just not caring about any damage they take. also their aim should be really bad. maybe they even stumble and fall or get stuck behind stuff... :p j/k

higher level gets them to atually use cover and try to avoid your bullets and getting better at this at higher levels.

next step could be something like rudimentary squad tactics which then become advanced squad tactics in even higher levels. them trying to surround or flank you would be cool (far cry 1, why is your ai not used in any other game since you came about? ;) )

 

bullets sponges are so booooring. the only challenge in that is using a tool to calculate maximum damage output and then stand there unloading clip after clip into the enemy...where is the actual in game challenge in that?

higher level mobs should represent better trained mobs, not how much of an invisible fat layer they have grown over time, that can soak up bullets...

Edited August 15, 2013 by gorg_graggel

[direcyphre]

I was glad Steve finally brought it up. It is difficult to quantify for some people, but this isn't some traditional MMORPG, where you have this standard lateral progression, level caps, end-game raids, and something to keep you coming back for hundreds of hours. This game  is more like Payday. Lobby-based online co-op with select mission types. You could probably never get through 100 hours play Payday without becoming terribly bored with the game types offered and the amount of customization offered. The game just isn't built beyond that. It isn't competitive PvP, it isn't open-world, and it isn't some other traditional level system where you see your advancement.

 

I know I haven't been playing as regularly after I hit 200 hours, other than events and playing with the new toys they add. All in all, a LOT more time than I'd spend on any other shooter or RPG. Every other $60 AAA title to come out equates to 8-10 hours, or 20 for the really good ones. I'd say Founder status well-spent in comparison.

[Jamescell]

And they want to work on more endgame? We need more GAME game. We need the basics down and the objective covered.

[Bakercompany86]

And they want to work on more endgame? We need more GAME game. We need the basics down and the objective covered.

 

I'm all for *more*.  I'll never complain about it.  Especially since there is a good chance the guys bringing us new areas and enemies are on a separate team than the fixers.

 

But they definitely need to address the core issues that seem to bother a large portion of the community.  Namely an AI rework so this game actually has a challenge to it.  Once that's in place, it can be balanced to be more of a shooter, less of an RPG.

 

I had my fill of the RPG/Shooter nonsense with Borderlands.

[gorg_graggel]

oh noes! i drew the wrath of the dev team upon me with my ramblings. :D

 

my words made DE_Corey check out my profile recently.

 

i hope they don't tune the RNG to screw me over even more now as punishment. :p

Edited August 15, 2013 by gorg_graggel

[Bakercompany86]

oh noes! i drew the wrath of the dev team upon me with my ramblings. :D

 

my words made DE_Corey check out my profile recently.

 

i hope they don't tune the RNG to screw me over even more now as punishment. :p

 

*gorg_graggel only finds trick mag from now on*

[gorg_graggel]

NOOOOOOO! /skywalker signature scream as he finds out about vader being his father.

:D

Edited August 15, 2013 by gorg_graggel

[Haids]

The OP definitely echos some of my sentiments. Currently, the game is far, far too simple and unrefined mechanically, in my opinion. There's very, very little gameplay variety AND there's a lack of a real narrative to make up for that (there are many singleplayer games that cover dull gameplay with a GREAT storyline). Most of the enemies you face are the exact same to each other, there needs to be more and more interesting enemy types. Another issue that amplifies that issue is also the completely garbage AI, which is some of the worst I've seen in a while, which is why at higher levels they just end up throwing more and more enemies at you, that are also hitsinks because, mechanically, they're using clinically $&*&*#(%& AI that kills itself on the player.

 

Another issue is the game types. Game types in this game are, aside from the two defenses, virtually identical. You run through corridors, you go use panels, you go to extraction. Endless Defense just has slightly increasing enemies of the (mostly) same variety being shoveled by the truck load at you, and mobile defense combines the two types. The lack of any real enemy type variety hurts all of these mods, especially E Defense since it has, depending on how far you go, the most enemies. I'd personally like to see the E Defense maps reworked to be larger and more central, more places for the enemy to flank, places where enemy snipers can be placed, be at range, snipe at the players and stay somewhat safe etc etc. Minibosses would be a nice effect too, as well as shocktroopers or such. Hell, more wild life like the Skades on Phobos would be really cool too.

 

There's another issue in that map variety tends to take its toll since there's about four tilesets used across about a dozen planets. The scenery gets so reused and boring that it starts to get less interesting AND it doesn't help make you feel that you're somewhere else. I think that each planet could really, really use its own tileset like Phobos has, and each mission could also use a unique tile or two to help make it feel like you're not just constantly going to the same place.

 

That's just content issues. There's also a LOT of balancing issues, which the armor scaling has helped make clear with weapons. But you've also got a plethora of useless mods (stun mods all around) and helmets (just remove the stats and make them cosmetic damn it, and add suit cosmetics as well). One thing I've noticed with weapons is that, other than (some, very little) utility, melee weapons are completely useless at killing things unless it's a fully maxed out Orthos charge. Their base damage is pitiful, a few of the melee mods are lacking (Shocking Touch, again with poor mod balancing) so guns tend to scale better and do more damage, meaning there's little point in actually using a melee weapon even in close quarters. A simple solution here, I think, is making the light melee weapons have a baseline of 50 damage, and going up from there. Make melee weapons high damage but high risk. Another issue with melee weapons is that Longswords and anything that isn't a heavy melee tends to just be even more useless, and dual welded weapons (this extends to pistols as well) are almost always better than the single one (even if the single one should have better control and force).

 

Mods like Serration, Hornet Strike, and Flow are a MUST have always. They either need to be worked into the Weapon/Warframe leveling system, or the other mods must be made as useful.

 

In terms of primary balancing, you've got stuff like the Ogris and Torrid which are for some, incredibly weird reason, the most ammo efficient weapons in the game. And hell, you've got handguns that end up being some of the best weapons in the game (Acrid) when they're probably meant to be backups to the primary for when it runs out of ammo, or so.

 

Warframe balancing also needs another look. Frost's 3 is amazingly godly, and everything else he has is amazingly garbage, for example. Nyx's 2 is now a worse Nullstar, and Molecular Prime is the best room clearer in the game and sort of trivializes it. Volt's still a mess who has powers that do not synergize with each other. Mag has one good ability, like Frost, Trinity's abilities don't last long enough to be useful.

 

You've also got the only type of gameplay being running and gunning. There's no stealth, even if there are a few gameplay mechanics in place for it, due to the large numbers of enemies and the map design, plus the lack of any sort of reason to stealth. There's no bonuses and resources, mods, and experience all mostly come from enemy mobs, so it's typically more economic for the player to alert the entire station so they send you an entire regiment of morons to kill for loot. There needs to be some sort of reward for beating a mission with stealth at the end, but there also needs to be in-mission rewards for it as well, something Deus Ex HR did a good job of doing.

 

Another thing that needs looking at is making exploring the map actually worth something and also potentially making missions less linear. Mods need to definitely start dropping from sources other than enemies in the game (other than the Void, which is an exception) again. Such as lockers, containers, etc.

 

The biggest issue that is detrimental to the gameplay though, in my opinion, is definitely the AI.The fact that the game throws so many of the dumb idiots at you also sort of encourages rushing, since they're simply not fun to fight. There's no challenge, there's nothing interesting about them. They're easy and boring. I mean, the game has a massive lack of variety with the base gameplay mechanics - there's not enough meat on the bones - but the enemies are a huge part of the gameplay as we know it at the moment, and even if there's more areas to explore, the enemies without a major AI reworking and improving, will still be boring and easy.

 

Currently, I think the gameplay does last, on its own, maybe 30 hours. Then after that, for me it turned into a game about collecting more weapons and Warframes to level them up, which I don't think is going to last me much longer since it's getting to the point of where I've got most of them leveled, but what do I do with them? Nothing. There's no endgame, the gameplay isn't that fun for me anymore either due to issues. It just feels like I'm leveling weapons and Warframes just so that I can forma them and start over, so a lack of an endgame is an issue. But in my opinion, it's far from the only one.

 

E: Forgot to mention the annoying mechanic of melee weapons making you move forward on each hit, which is dumb, and the annoying autoroll in the parkour gameplay that bugs me as well. As well as a lot of abilities being godlike in the lower levels, but pure suck in the higher ones. There needs to be a middle ground here, abilities should be equally useful at all levels and, in some way, always useful.

 

(P.S. Sorry OP, that went on longer and about more than I meant it to, but it's something I've wanted to post for a while, and I have never liked making new topics)

Edited August 15, 2013 by Haids

[Hayden11121]

I didn't get bored after 30 hours.

 

 

On Topic: DE really needs to work on communication. Bad. Event exclusive rewards not knowing when or if they come out, the Frost Prime problem, Steve saying we want Instant Gratification, they really need to work on how they talk/ think about what the players want.

[Bakercompany86]

I love this feedback on this thread.

 

Nobody is bashing DE or anything unnecessary.  Just honest heartfelt feedback about the game we love and enjoy.

 

And I keep hearing back from DE which gives me a lot of hope for the future.  Rebecca has been excellent at communicating with the community.

 

Keep it up guys!