The future of Warframe

[(PSN)NicolaiBM]

In order to have a look at what could benefit Warframe in the future, it's necessary to have a look at the past and the problems it's having. I know there's far more problems than the ones I'm listing, but I think these are the biggest problems Warframe is suffering from and the problems that needs the most attention. Problems with gameplay will be there until they get fixed, adding new content is not a fix, it's nothing more than a distraction.

Damage 2.0
The current mechanics of 2.0 is a problem of the game, while I'm aware that the devs have been trying to fix it, but I got the impression they've failed to see the full range of problems with Damage 2.0. It extends further than just Damage 2.0, it also includes the factions of Warframe and their mechanics. In order to understand the range of problems we're having with Damage 2.0, I'm going to start with the IPS portion.

• Impact Damage is effective against Shields and Proto Shields, offering up to a 50% damage increase, while this at first glance sounds appealing, the problem is Armor and it's damage reduction. Anyone having tried to tacle an armored and shielded enemy at higher levels knows, the shields are never the problem. The damage reduction offered by armor outweighs the pros of doing addional damage to shields by far.
• Puncture Damage is effective against Armor, offering an up to 50% additional damage increase, thise again at first glance sounds appealing, but the problem with puncture is the armor bypass damages and the armor reducing damage types, aswell as the scaling of armor.
• Slash Damage is the only real physical damage type with any benefits. It's the only physical damage type that is capable of dealing True Damage, but not equally over all weapons either.

The next portion of Damage 2.0 that is suffering from issues, is the elemental damage type. Corrosive, Viral, Radiation and now to lesser extend Gas being the only 4 damage types ever considered in any builds is no coincidence, as these are the only 4 elements offering any advantages to the current mechanics of warframe. The rest are never considered, because the pros of those damage types is outwieghed by the cons of not using the others. This comes down to partly the elements themselves and what they do, but it also comes down to how the factions is designed; armor being the only modifier enemies have to offer any actual challenge. This of course can be bypassed with one of the many bandaids in Warframe, Corrosive Projection.
The list goes on further than this, but I feel like this is enough to just outline how flawed Damage 2.0 is and how much it will take to bring the base mechanics of dealing damage up to a level where there's actual upsides and downsides to consider.

Another area where the mechanics of Warframe fails in terms of functionality is Melee 2.0. Not as much in the way of damage, as we all know, melee is capable of the most damage by far, but in terms of game design and how it fits in. Melee is not a problem in the star chart, but then again, neither is Damage 2.0, just put on Serration and you're fine. The problems come when you try to do sortie level and above, especially above. By level 200 the only real way of making it viable is with invisibility. With the changes to Naramon focus school, the combo counter problem have gotten some much needed help, but it's still not in a good place. It should be a 8-10 second by default eleminating the need for mods to even have a fair chance of keeping it going.

Bandaids fixes
Warframe have a lot of bandaids within, depending on who you ask the list is massive, but mods like Corrosive Projection, Shield Disruption, Infested Impedance, Body Counter, Drifting Contact, Gladiator Rush and many more. All of these mods simply needs to be removed from the game and the root cause of the issue needs to be adressed properly. If the factions are meant to be different to fight against, with there own unique set of strategies and defenses, then as developer it's important to make sure to keep those aspects kept to the individual factions. The solution of just adding armor to all factions instead is not acceptable and should have been a priority to address. Why try and make a differense between the different factions in their description, when in reality they're just all the same generic brand of enemies? Gladiator Rush in particular is an extremely disappoiting bandaid, in the sense that it's a set mod, which offers only half of the combo duration extension compared to Body Count and the set bonus for the entire Gladiator set will make you loose (compared to the mods respective regular counter parts): 6 seconds Combo Duration, 65 Armor, 180% efficiency on energy drain to counter lethal damage, 30% Critical Damage and 260% Health. Only the attack speed is viable to change from the regular Fury mod to Gladiator Vice, but if you have Primed Fury, you're back to loosing out on stats. I could in parts understand the in all honesty ridiculous handicap you would put yourself in by using all these mods, in respect to their normal counterparts, if the benefit was good enough, but that is not even the case. Each Set Mods is thus rendered a bandaid, an addition thrown in to the game, to fix the problem of players not having anything to grind/farm for.

• Augur Set returns 240% of energy spent as shields. This would be reasonable, if it wasn't capped off to the point where it could only grant overshield once and not to the overshield limit like all other sources of overshield in the game.
• Gladiator Set grants a 90% Critical Chance, stacking with combo multiplier. On it's own a very, very reasonable bonus to have, but considering the handicap you have to put yourself in, it's not worth it. Especially considering Blood Rush grants you 165%.
• Vigilante Set grants a 30% chance to enhance critical hits (if anyone reading isn't aware, it move the critical hit to the next tier, not adding 30% additive critical chance), on it's own yet another reasonable bonus to gain, but considering the handicap you have to put yourself in, yet another set not worth fully using.
• Hunter Set allows your pets to deal 150% additional damage to enemies affected by Slash procs. Not entirely unreasonable, but it's even further handicapping Impact and Puncture, while at the same time handicapping your pet, which by the time it'll need the 150% additional damage, is already struggling to stay alive.
• Umbral Set is the only mod set, which actually give you a mod set worth using, to some extend at least. The 3 mods that goes on Excalibur Umbra offers better performance than their regular counterparts. While very reasonably having the higher drain of being a primed mod, thus requirering a forma to use, you can actually not forma for them and use them on any other frames.

Riven mods
Now this is a minefield of missed opportunity. With just minor tweaks, rivens have the capability of being in a really great spot, but the way they have been added, they're just a down right horrible addition to the game. I do not think the drain of a riven is the issue, nor do I think it's unreasonable to spend 200.000+ kuva on a single riven. What I do believe to be the problem, is both how you cycle rivens and how they affect the weapons. 
First lets have a look at the cycling of a riven. It's lottery every single time. I do not believe that to be reasonable, considering that unless you bought it, you had to be lucky to first get a riven, second it had to be in the right class and the third it had to be for the right weapon. After that amount of RNG, I think it's completely reasonable to be able to either cycle individual stats or lock in stats you want to keep. Obviously the locking of stats should include a kuva cost, in the 10.000-20.000 kuva range. It's also not unreasonable to be able to optimize your riven, once you're happy with the stats you've cycled on it.
Next issue and the biggest problem of rivens, is how they affect weapons. If they're supposed to make us use weapons we rarely use, then they're supposed to fix the issue those weapons have, which in by far most cases is inferior stats to their newer counter parts (this is what power creep does DE, make us only use specific weapons). I will be using Sobek for the following example, as it's a weapon I enjoy, none of this is objective anyway, it's heavily opinionated, but apply to your own favorite weapon and see how it could affect that weapon.

Picture a Sobek riven, that had the stats "Critical Chance Enhancement", "Status Chance Enhancement", "Reload Speed Enhancement" or "Critical Damage Enhancement". Each of those stats would completely alter the weapons base stats to a fixed number. All rivens, no matter the weapons base stats, would be able to be enhanced to the same stats. Let's say 55% critical chance, 55% status chance, 3.0x critical damage, 1.0 second reload speed. Now those stats will be worth modding for and the Sobek, no matter what you cycle on your riven, will be able to "compete" with the newer weapons. Another interesting stat would be Damage Conversion, Converting all physical damage in to Impact, Puncture or Slash (admittedly at the moment only Slash would be a viable choice).

Rewards and End Game content
Currently the rewards Warframe is offering for your efforts, is not incentivisingyou to get better and stronger, it's only incentivising to play until the end of the rotation. That on it's own, makes rivens a very weird addition to the game, as even with the most basic of weapons and frames, you can easily play out a full rotation of any endless mission type, but even more problematic is, it makes the "short fense" the better option for the greener grass. Harder content should reward better rewards.

Conclusion
In order to ensure a future for warframe, that offers a good and balanced game place, it needs an overhaul and get some of the problems that have been neglected for so long fixed. Once those problems have been addressed and solved, expanding the game with new quests, weapons, frames and so on is the way to go, but ignoring those problems, that's what have been causing 4 year veterans to finally give up and say "No, it's not worth it, we've supported Digital Extreme with our time and money, for 4 years, and now we're getting pushed aside, because Digital Extreme have desided to double down on the newer players of Warframe.". It gives many veterans a very, very sour feeling that cannot be put to words if I'm supposed to follow the rules of this forum, but just use your imagination and think how you developers would feel, if you had sunk in time and money to something you believe in and enjoyed, only to have it completely transformed and cater pretty much exclusively to the newer generation. Warframe needs a mechanic, not a stylist.

Edited July 7, 2018 by (PS4)NicolaiBM

[peterc3]

6 minutes ago, (PS4)NicolaiBM said:

I got the impression they've failed to see the full range of problems with Damage 2.0

Not to get too snarky, but... you realize what you are saying here, right?

And then going on to basically call every mod ever a bandaid.

8 minutes ago, (PS4)NicolaiBM said:

especially above

This is not content that is designed for. That you can get to it is just for giggles. That the game is essentially yelling at you to leave is not a reason to say you should have an easier time with it.

[(PSN)NicolaiBM]

36 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Not to get too snarky, but... you realize what you are saying here, right?

And then going on to basically call every mod ever a bandaid.

This is not content that is designed for. That you can get to it is just for giggles. That the game is essentially yelling at you to leave is not a reason to say you should have an easier time with it.

Yes. I realize what I'm saying here and I do stand by it.

It might not be the intension DE set out with for us to be able to go to extreme levels, but none the less, the mission is called endless and adapting to players being good enough to go to those levels, I do not think it's unreasonable to ask for. I'm not asking for an easier time with higher level content, I'm asking for set mods to to handicap you in the way they do.

Think you should have a look again, didn't call all mods a bandaid.

Instead of just attacking half heartedly, at least show some initiative and explain why you come to the conclusion you do? To me you just look like a troll saying no to everything in the forums you can find.

Edited July 7, 2018 by (PS4)NicolaiBM

[(XBOX)RPColten]

I think you (OP) are missing entirely the point with these topics.

The Plains set mods were not intended to be powerful, nor late game. They were designed with the intent to be of value to new and mid game players, and then later discarded as they happen upon better options. DE was quite clear that Plains of Eidolon was for early-mid game while the nighttime portion was for the late-game players.

 

Also, just don't include 'endless missions' in any arguing stance or discussion point. 20 minutes, 20 waves? Normal. One hour? Not intended, so anything that results of this is not relevent to discussion on balance. Endless endurance runs are not endorsed by DE, and the game modes are designed specifically to push players out by ramping up enemy power. They are not endless.