Warframe's sandbox endgame

[Legion-Shields]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

You may well be right.  Just was offering food for thought.  I'd love to see it eventually implemented, either way.  Still begs the question: Why don't more people give Conclave a try for -its- rewards?

the peer-to-peer connection leaves a lot to be desired.

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)johnsoigne said:

It’s like they have a great sandbox rpg gear system that you can work on but there’s nowhere to actually put it to test. T3 sorties and Kuva floods that’s literally it which is not even remotely close. I enjoy putting formas into every single items in the game (1100+ forma used) but I’d really love to have a really high level game mode (starts frome lv155) that I can just get in and play with some cool rewards. It isn’t too much of a favor we’re asking here it is taking way too long so it just made it look like we’re asking someting impossible. 

Gotta also consider that DE knows how important it is to encourage the higher-level players to mix with the low-level new players.  They realize how heavily PUGs are used by new players, and how hard it can be to meet helpful higher-level players when starting out.

By leaving things as-is, they know they can count on higher-level players to be playing those same missions, and ensuring those meetings....but if there were to be lvl 155 nodes for all the higher-tier to "hang out" at, they'd likely abandon the lower-level players and leave them to their vices, which may result in less player retention as they'd become a bit lost.

Just speculation, but makes some sense to me with years of game dev and administrative experience. 😕

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

1 minute ago, Legion-Shields said:

the peer-to-peer connection leaves a lot to be desired.

That much is true, though I've not found it (on PS4 at least) to be as drastic an issue as many imply.

[(PSN)Exia0321]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

Well said!  I think gamers these days honestly do need to slow down their consumption a bit of games and, ya know....stop to smell the roses, if you will.

Amen!

 

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

4 minutes ago, DrakeWurrum said:

That might be too high. I've heard it said a few times that the game isn't scaled for beyond level 100 due to the enemy health scaling curve.

PvP

Indeed but PvP is still just an opponent to fight.  Turn mics off in Options, ignore chat, and go ham.   I don't see the issue  😕  I've successfully fought in Conclave many times, found it an incredible challenge (usually), and honestly....I'm not one who normally like PvP at all.  

[Legion-Shields]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

That much is true, though I've not found it (on PS4 at least) to be as drastic an issue as many imply.

Even if it was, many have said already that Conclave simply isn't popular enough to justify the money DE would have to spend on dedicated servers for the mode. 😞

 

 

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

Just now, Legion-Shields said:

Even if it was, many have said already that Conclave simply isn't popular enough to justify the money DE would have to spend on dedicated servers for the mode. 😞

 

 

I agree, but as those "many" are not experts in all things DE, I'd assume it's not in the realm of impossibility.  Honestly, that's one reason I'll fight like hell to make sure honesty prevails on these forums...."popular opinion" =/= facts..  ...but it can be perceived that way if left unchallenged by reason and thought.

In the case of Conclave, it's a Catch22 situation:  If noone gives it a positive outlook, noone tries it.  If noone tries it, people say there's noone there.  If people hear/read that, noone tries it....etc etc etc.   I, for one, think more people should give it another go.  It's alot of fun if you put the time into it....much like the regular PvE itself!

[(XBOX)D00M INCARNATE]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Exia0321 said:

While I agree with your overall perspective---I am not mad at WF for not having an endgame.

I disagree with this specific line of argument. 

Sorry, I guess I didn't explain in much detail why I saw warframe as a sandbox.

Build customization is key to warframe's creativity. Yes fashionframe is one form of creativity, but the fact that a Nova can be a Slowva or a Speedva or a Nuke or anything in between and STILL BE VIABLE is show of how flexible WF can be. Whereas any other MMORPG, you can easily look up "who's the best dps and what's the best build for dps" and there's usually 1 or 2 answeres. WF shows again and again that that isn't the case.

I just spent the last week forma-ing Nova over and over learning all her niches. And at the end of the day, what am I going to do with this blingy Nova? Probably mess around in POE, maybe show my cousin the game giving him easy targets...idk, WHATEVER I FEEL LIKE is the cool thing!

Back when I played Wow it was "farm gold every day for 5 hours at least. Be online Thursday at 7 to raid or get kicked. Blast through the newest content to be ready to speed clear the raids. Study the beta testers YouTube videos so you know the fights by heart." But in warframe it's more "I feel like doing ____ today"...much like what I say when I play Minecraft, GTA or G-mod.

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

4 minutes ago, (XB1)D00M INCARNATE said:

Sorry, I guess I didn't explain in much detail why I saw warframe as a sandbox.

Build customization is key to warframe's creativity. Yes fashionframe is one form of creativity, but the fact that a Nova can be a Slowva or a Speedva or a Nuke or anything in between and STILL BE VIABLE is show of how flexible WF can be. Whereas any other MMORPG, you can easily look up "who's the best dps and what's the best build for dps" and there's usually 1 or 2 answeres. WF shows again and again that that isn't the case.

I just spent the last week forma-ing Nova over and over learning all her niches. And at the end of the day, what am I going to do with this blingy Nova? Probably mess around in POE, maybe show my cousin the game giving him easy targets...idk, WHATEVER I FEEL LIKE is the cool thing!

Back when I played Wow it was "farm gold every day for 5 hours at least. Be online Thursday at 7 to raid or get kicked. Blast through the newest content to be ready to speed clear the raids. Study the beta testers YouTube videos so you know the fights by heart." But in warframe it's more "I feel like doing ____ today"...much like what I say when I play Minecraft, GTA or G-mod.

THIS! 

And I think this is one other reason why DE has yet to implement what these so-called vets are demanding as "endgame", as well as why they removed Trials, bugs aside.

They understand that with "Easy content" we have now, you are FREE to do as you please and clear it however you like.  You can be creative and ya know... have FUN!

Whereas, in pushing the limits of the content higher and higher, you begin to FORCE a meta to develop, and you pigeonhole your playerbase into having to choose from limited options.  It then becomes an endless sea of "Must have x, y, and z loadout to join!" in Recruit Chat....much like we had with Trials, and much like we have now with Eidolons, though the latter CAN be completed without that meta.   

And this is where we stand.  We have the POTENTIAL to fight higher enemies, but first DE wants to change HOW those enemies are FOUGHT, so that when the time comes, we still have FREEDOM to CHOOSE, making ALL of the items we've leveled to that point --- WORTH IT---

But to do that, we need things like PoV, Railjack, etc.....We need more expansions to introduce more content and more changes, like Melee 3.0 and weapon reworks, to pave the way for these changes.

This is very much why Warframe is still in Beta, and the thing is...it's fine.  It's just a matter of time.  But this playerbase, at least those on the forums, aren't patient.  
I come from a different generation of gamers, I think....I know many are in my age bracket, but we grew up playing games just for the fun of it!  The idea of sequels didn't even -exist- for the longest time!  We just kept coming home from school, turning on our Coleco, Commodore64, TI, Nintendo, etc...and we'd pick up where we left off, or start the games over again from level 1.  Every. Single. Time.    Because PLAYING was the fun part, not reaching the end screen.  Because once you did that...you didn't have much else to do >.> and it was back to drawing on the sidewalk with chalk.

I think alot of players really take for granted this amazing opportunity to play this game, for this long, and for FREE, ...very much for granted.

[--END--Rikutatis]

17 hours ago, (XB1)D00M INCARNATE said:

I wanted to put my 2 cents in on this topic.

Warframe's endgame is comparable to a sandbox game's endgame.

You don't play GTA online for an endgame.

You don't play Minecraft for an endgame.

You don't play Gary's mod for an endgame.

You play them to explore all the cool things the developers put in there. To drive around Los Santos in a tank. To build the coolest castle you can. To make a car out of a refrigerator and trash can lids. To bling up your Nova and prisma grakata to see what shinanigans you can get away with in missions.

I know you don't get to defeat the Lich King or Ganondorf, but that's because Warframe isn't designed to be that way.

On a side note, it fits that the universal leveling up system - Mastery Rank - revolves around trying every warframe and weapon in the game. Not maxing out a frame with all the forma, potatoes, mods, exilus adaptors, arcanes and fashion you can - which would instead support a challenge based endgame.

Thanks for reading.

I'm not even going to discuss the concept of what a sandbox is, but GTA online is a really bad comparison to argue why Warframe doesn't need an endgame (never played Minecraft so won't comment on that). GTA online has a huge open world map with 30 players online and in public matches PVP is a core aspect of the experience. PVP in itself is already an endgame goal for progression for a lot of players. There's some progression in GTA online (as you unlock new weapons and mission types), but it's not nearly as progression based as Warframe. Moreover GTA online has some mission types that pretty much require the coordination of multiple players to complete, it's impossible to solo those. 

Warframe by comparison can be soloed throughout (even eidolons can be soloed), the only open world map with a more sandbox feel to it is PoE and that's just a baby step towards open world sandbox (on top of not having pvp or anything requiring coop in it), only 4 players per map/mission, and the entire core of its gameplay experience is character progression through grinding/farming. It's not a sandbox, just being able to build/customize your character any way you want for different gameplay experiences doesn't make it a sandbox.

Two totally different games. More similar comparisons would be other progression based grinder shooter/horde mode games Destiny, Division or Diablo 3, or even MMOs like WoW or FFXIV, all of which have strong endgame content (robust pvp systems tied to the pve grind, raids, dungeons, rifts, etc). Warframe has some endgame, but not a whole lot, and in fact it has historically deleted end game content from the game (void keys, trials), leaving it even more skimpy. 

Just because you're personally satisfied with testing different builds in different low lvl missions as the ultimate goal for yourself in Warframe, doesn't mean the game doesn't need an endgame, or that it isn't a prime candidate for endgame content. 

Edited August 6, 2018 by --END--Rikutatis

[Legion-Shields]

15 hours ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

I agree, but as those "many" are not experts in all things DE, I'd assume it's not in the realm of impossibility.  Honestly, that's one reason I'll fight like hell to make sure honesty prevails on these forums...."popular opinion" =/= facts..  ...but it can be perceived that way if left unchallenged by reason and thought.

In the case of Conclave, it's a Catch22 situation:  If noone gives it a positive outlook, noone tries it.  If noone tries it, people say there's noone there.  If people hear/read that, noone tries it....etc etc etc.   I, for one, think more people should give it another go.  It's alot of fun if you put the time into it....much like the regular PvE itself!

 

In my case, putting time into Conclave was why I got sick of its flaws. I suppose there are some people who brush it off by not playing it, in which case sure, they should try it out so their criticisms are legitimate. I imagine most people who complain about it and point out actual problems have played it to some degree though.

 

 

Edited August 6, 2018 by Legion-Shields

[TinFoilMkIV]

Honestly, I don't think we'll ever see anything people would call a true end game challenge. Our tools are far too varied and powerful beyond mere numbers for DE to ever create anything that's a real threat to a truly serious group of players. Not without absolutely neutering the players abilities and weapons during said challenge. There are groups that are capable of running endless modes nigh indefinitely,with the main limiting factor being life responsibilities and schedules of the players themselves, rather than anything in game. Players have killed enemies above level 9999. There are setups to make entire maps worth of enemies completely and absolutely incapable of harming the players. People have dealt enough damage in a single hit to reach the hard cap of allowed damage within the engine.

Without resorting to literal invulnerability, hard damage caps, and status/ability immunity, there is no enemy that can stand for very long against a well prepared and determined group of players. And god forbid DE every try to reduce our power ceiling whatsoever... I think many of us have seen how players react to news of any change that even has the possibility of being an overall nerf.

Even if DE managed to tune content to be challenging for the most ideal group, it would result in nearly any other team/equipment composition being completely ineffective due to just how strong our overall capabilities and certain combinations really are. If an enemy outputs enough damage to threaten a player with 99.99% damage reduction, anything less than that will be vaporized. If it's balanced around a group putting out several thousand times their weapons paper damage, then any less and the fight takes exponentially longer to finish. The more difficult the requirement, the less tools we have that are capable of even being able to compete. You balance around allowing player variety? Optimized groups will make it look like a joke.

So as nice of the idea of content that really challenges and tests player skill is... I honestly do not see it ever being a thing. Not for a standard game mode. Perhaps in a challenge specific to a more limited mode, like operator only, or archwing only... but never with our actual warframes and standard weaponry. Warframe really isn't designed in a way that will currently allow it.

Edited August 6, 2018 by TinFoilMkIV

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

1 hour ago, TinFoilMkIV said:

Honestly, I don't think we'll ever see anything people would call a true end game challenge. Our tools are far too varied and powerful beyond mere numbers for DE to ever create anything that's a real threat to a truly serious group of players. Not without absolutely neutering the players abilities and weapons during said challenge. There are groups that are capable of running endless modes nigh indefinitely,with the main limiting factor being life responsibilities and schedules of the players themselves, rather than anything in game. Players have killed enemies above level 9999. There are setups to make entire maps worth of enemies completely and absolutely incapable of harming the players. People have dealt enough damage in a single hit to reach the hard cap of allowed damage within the engine.

Without resorting to literal invulnerability, hard damage caps, and status/ability immunity, there is no enemy that can stand for very long against a well prepared and determined group of players. And god forbid DE every try to reduce our power ceiling whatsoever... I think many of us have seen how players react to news of any change that even has the possibility of being an overall nerf.

Even if DE managed to tune content to be challenging for the most ideal group, it would result in nearly any other team/equipment composition being completely ineffective due to just how strong our overall capabilities and certain combinations really are. If an enemy outputs enough damage to threaten a player with 99.99% damage reduction, anything less than that will be vaporized. If it's balanced around a group putting out several thousand times their weapons paper damage, then any less and the fight takes exponentially longer to finish. The more difficult the requirement, the less tools we have that are capable of even being able to compete. You balance around allowing player variety? Optimized groups will make it look like a joke.

So as nice of the idea of content that really challenges and tests player skill is... I honestly do not see it ever being a thing. Not for a standard game mode. Perhaps in a challenge specific to a more limited mode, like operator only, or archwing only... but never with our actual warframes and standard weaponry. Warframe really isn't designed in a way that will currently allow it.

THIS ^ 

Basically, y'all claim an "endgame" would be "healthy" for WF, but in all honesty, as Tin so eloquently pointed out above,  all it would do is pigeonhole players into a very specific group of "capable" frames and weapons, which limits playstyles significantly.  This was one of the major issue with Trials, and is one of the complaints people raise against co-op'ing with frames like Limbo.   People can't complain there but then argue it's a positive here.  

Good points, TinFoil.  Well spoken

[--END--Rikutatis]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

Basically, y'all claim an "endgame" would be "healthy" for WF, but in all honesty, as Tin so eloquently pointed out above,  all it would do is pigeonhole players into a very specific group of "capable" frames and weapons, which limits playstyles significantly.  This was one of the major issue with Trials, and is one of the complaints people raise against co-op'ing with frames like Limbo.   People can't complain there but then argue it's a positive here.  

Doesn't seem like you ever did trials a lot. It's quite the opposite. There was a huge variety of team composition and build possibilities available in trials. Just check Zanagoth's channel on Youtube for a sample. The same goes for endurance runs, there's huge variety of builds and comps possible there. Again, check Youtube channels like Summit's and LifeofRio's for an idea of what is possible. Eidolon hunting and ESO past zone 8, now THOSE modes have a very narrow and specific setup you need to succeed because of artificial constraints like efficiency drain in ESO and eidolon hard immunity to status effects on top of damage resistence. So no, the whole meta excuse is just that, an excuse.

Now I do agree Warframe's powers and mod selection do allow for high levels of cheese and crazy synergy for the people who understand the math and mechanics behind it. But it's not the only way to do it as I pointed out above. Also the current easy content in the game is already cheesed anyway with those same powers and mod selection for speedrunning and fast farming anyways, so it's not like we're avoiding that by any means by staying away from difficult content. We're just taking the option away from people who genuinely want to challenge themselves. 

[TinFoilMkIV]

Now go ask anyone who regularly completed trials if they were actually hard... They weren't. Figuring them out without an experienced guide could take some work, but they were more puzzles than tests of skill/power. Once solved you just repeat steps 1-4 and claim victory. I will say one thing they had going for them that we don't really have anywhere else outside Eidolons, is a need for some level of coordination between players. I wouldn't complain about having more group-centric content that needed people to do different tasks. Railjack seems to have some of that, so I guess we'll see how it works out.

Far as the argument that people can just not cheese this so called "challenging content"... How exactly is this different than telling people to just under-mod their gear and such for the content we do have? The missions we do have can actually be plenty difficult if you don't just completely brute force them with crazy numbers and limitless energy and such.

[(PSN)Exia0321]

20 hours ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

And I think this is one other reason why DE has yet to implement what these so-called vets are demanding as "endgame", as well as why they removed Trials, bugs aside.

They understand that with "Easy content" we have now, you are FREE to do as you please and clear it however you like.  You can be creative and ya know... have FUN!

Whereas, in pushing the limits of the content higher and higher, you begin to FORCE a meta to develop, and you pigeonhole your playerbase into having to choose from limited options.  It then becomes an endless sea of "Must have x, y, and z loadout to join!" in Recruit Chat....much like we had with Trials, and much like we have now with Eidolons, though the latter CAN be completed without that meta.   

And this is where we stand.  We have the POTENTIAL to fight higher enemies, but first DE wants to change HOW those enemies are FOUGHT, so that when the time comes, we still have FREEDOM to CHOOSE, making ALL of the items we've leveled to that point --- WORTH IT---

You hit the nail on the head!

I applaud DE for taking the slow and thoughtful approach to their game. 

 

Yes as a 4yr vet I would really appreciate a true endgame...but I do enjoy the opportunity to be creative with my approach to killing the current bosses 

[(PSN)Exia0321]

3 hours ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

Doesn't seem like you ever did trials a lot. It's quite the opposite. There was a huge variety of team composition and build possibilities available in trials.

Umm No!!!!!!!

That was not at all true. 

During the last 3 years when trials were available recurit chat was full of people setting up LOR and JV squads asking for very specific frame and setup demands. 

I remember when I first started WF and finally ready to do trials 

I wanted to do it by joining through recruit chat and I was told "no" for several weeks because 

1. My EV Trin build was not right

2. My Vauban bastille was not big enough

3. My Loki was not fast enough (wtf is that about)

When I explained that I didnt have comfort with those 3 frames and asked could I bring another frame I clearly remember people in chat saying "those are the 3 REQUIRED frames" --and dont get me started on the nonsense that was JV frame requirement.

Using Nyx was the only way I got access into LOR...

Nyx...the same frame that now without LOR is unused by almost everyone except Nyx mains. 

 

 

[(PSN)watt4hem]

My endgame has always been making dumb builds to the point that they actually work. Like fast detron with almost 0 recoil (lower damage but when you spam 7 shots it kills as fast if not faster), quick reload speed drakgoon to spam the flak, stupid fast obex with valkyr, etc. 's fun.

[--END--Rikutatis]

9 hours ago, TinFoilMkIV said:

Now go ask anyone who regularly completed trials if they were actually hard... They weren't. Figuring them out without an experienced guide could take some work, but they were more puzzles than tests of skill/power. Once solved you just repeat steps 1-4 and claim victory. I will say one thing they had going for them that we don't really have anywhere else outside Eidolons, is a need for some level of coordination between players. I wouldn't complain about having more group-centric content that needed people to do different tasks. Railjack seems to have some of that, so I guess we'll see how it works out.

Far as the argument that people can just not cheese this so called "challenging content"... How exactly is this different than telling people to just under-mod their gear and such for the content we do have? The missions we do have can actually be plenty difficult if you don't just completely brute force them with crazy numbers and limitless energy and such.

I agree, trials were not hard from a combat perspective, but they were challenging compared to the rest of the content the game offers for the exact reasons you described. It just wasn't a combat challenge. The enemies were not high level and for LoR at least you could just CC your way through the whole map. Trials were more about figuring out the puzzles and the coordination and communication between the squad. Fast hacking and parkour skills were part of the challenge in certain sections as well. I wasn't personally a big fan of trials because while I loved the coordination required I'm not a huge fan of puzzle gameplay. But it was certainly an endgame activity that provided some challenge and had a dedicated community built around them. I also really hope Railjack brings some of that squad coordination back, but they already said Railjack can be soloed as well, so *shrug*

As for under-modding my gear, I wouldn't do that. For me that breaks the game loop and kills the purpose of the game, which is exactly farming and collecting all that gear. That suggestion always misses the point for me. One thing I do however is use frames and weapons considered off meta, and build them as well as I can and see how far they can go. I enjoy doing that, but it's still min-maxed builds for those loadouts. 

Edited August 7, 2018 by --END--Rikutatis

[--END--Rikutatis]

7 hours ago, (PS4)Exia0321 said:

Umm No!!!!!!!

That was not at all true. 

During the last 3 years when trials were available recurit chat was full of people setting up LOR and JV squads asking for very specific frame and setup demands. 

I remember when I first started WF and finally ready to do trials 

I wanted to do it by joining through recruit chat and I was told "no" for several weeks because 

1. My EV Trin build was not right

2. My Vauban bastille was not big enough

3. My Loki was not fast enough (wtf is that about)

When I explained that I didnt have comfort with those 3 frames and asked could I bring another frame I clearly remember people in chat saying "those are the 3 REQUIRED frames" --and dont get me started on the nonsense that was JV frame requirement.

Using Nyx was the only way I got access into LOR...

Nyx...the same frame that now without LOR is unused by almost everyone except Nyx mains. 

 

 

Recruit chat is always more toxic. But that doesn't even mean they knew what they were talking about either. My clan speedran trials daily and never used Vauban or Loki in LoR for example. There were multiple alternatives, even for speedrunning. Raid School Bus (a discord community) was more flexible and friendly towards new players starting out in trials. It might have been a more pleasant experience to learn there. Just look at eidolon hunting. Recruit chat always seems to require Chroma-Volt-Harrow-Trin for the speedruns of 4x or 5x trios a night, but then someone recently did 6x trios a night for the first time and turns out they were using a Mesa. People are lazy and just want to copy the meta and what popular youtubers say, but there's a lot of viable stuff in the arsenal if you spend the time to do some research. 

As for Nyx being unused outside of LOR, another myth that she's a trash frame:

It was the same with Mag pre-rework. Youtubers like Brozime in their holy authority said she was trash, and all of a sudden the entire community accepted Mag as trash without even questioning or trying her out for themselves. When in fact even before the rework Mag has always been an amazing strong frame. 

[TinFoilMkIV]

6 hours ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

As for under-modding my gear, I wouldn't do that. For me that breaks the game loop and kills the purpose of the game, which is exactly farming and collecting all that gear. That suggestion always misses the point for me. One thing I do however is use frames and weapons considered off meta, and build them as well as I can and see how far they can go. I enjoy doing that, but it's still min-maxed builds for those loadouts. 

That's actually a very good point.

I do agree that the game is really better if you don't worry too much about being completely optimal, but that's always going to be a thing when it comes to even considering creating "hard" content. Too many frames have abilities that can break nearly any encounter all on their own... Then you got up to three other people to consider. While not impossible, I don't expect to see any combat oriented challenge that manages to require real coordinating without being utterly obnoxious. At least not anytime soon. Eidolon's sorta do? But at the same time you only need one person with a clue as to what to do, so the coordination isn't a real requirement imo.

I'd personally be totally fine with toning down the player abilities to allow more challenges that don't need to rely on outright immunities, but I doubt that's ever going to happen.

[(XBOX)D00M INCARNATE]

I'd also like to point out that the ability for any warframe/playstyle being relevant is because there is no endgame. Say the level 9999 enemies referenced earlier became the new endgame. Well, although certain frames and weapon loadouts can accomplish this, suddenly a lot of previously viable tactics are now useless. And we slowly move towards the "best dps frame", "best tank frame", "best healer frame" mindset.

[DrakeWurrum]

On 2018-08-05 at 11:58 PM, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

Gotta also consider that DE knows how important it is to encourage the higher-level players to mix with the low-level new players.  They realize how heavily PUGs are used by new By leaving things as-is, they know they can count on higher-level players to be playing those same missions, and ensuring those meetings....but if there were to be lvl 155 nodes for all the higher-tier to "hang out" at, they'd likely abandon the lower-level players and leave them to their vices, which may result in less player retention as they'd become a bit lost.

Just speculation, but makes some sense to me with years of game dev and administrative experience. 😕

Not necessarily. The reason us veteran players head to lower-level missions is for the sake of farming resources, usually. That's actually the most genius thing about Warframe: by having regular plain resources that matter from the beginning of the game to the end, so long as equipment is still being put out that makes use of it.

I regularly have to farm Polymer Bundles because I constantly run out with all the Energy Restore gear I build with it, plus when things like Razorback Cipher calls for me to build up a bunch of stuff using it for events. I specifically go solo Ophelia for this, of course - but I could set it to Public and end up running into newer players (they're just not likely to run it for 30 minutes like I tend to do).
I probably won't run out of Ferrite anytime soon, but I've yet to encounter an important BP that actually calls for enough Ferrite where I could run out.

Same thing with the fissure runs. I encounter low-level players in my Public fissure runs whenever I go to Lith or Meso endless - which is whenever I need traces, or whenever I need a specific drop.

Having "hardmode" content wouldn't prevent this so long as we still grab up blueprints that force us to grab those resources, so long as fissures still give us traces and Prime parts that we want, etc.
Hell, we're forced to specific nodes or planets for certain kinds of events and alerts, too. Just look at the Acolytes right now on PC, where we hunt them down in random nodes, or the Razorback Armada right now on PC forcing us to farm a specific pair of Archwing nodes. Specifically in the case of Razorback, both new and old players want to do it because older players will want to farm the drops (if nothing else, for plat, let alone the rare ones), while both newer and older players alike will want to at least grab the Catalyst.

By giving out rewards that players want to gather across all levels, and setting events that make use of lower-level missions (that also give rewards older players want), older and newer players are forced to interact. Adding exclusively "veteran player hardmode" content will not stop this, it just means there will be content that older players have no chance of running into newer players because they're not likely to do it.

3 hours ago, TinFoilMkIV said:

While not impossible, I don't expect to see any combat oriented challenge that manages to require real coordinating without being utterly obnoxious

That's actually very easy. Forcing teams to split up for different tasks to accomplish an objective, or having tasks that specifically require multiple people to work.
Railjack shows some good examples of this already.

What if there was a gauntlet, even one that calls for stealth, that only allowed one player in, and the rest of the group has to defend a specific location in order to make sure that player can get through the gauntlet... and that player's success allows the rest of the group to move through to the next part of the mission somehow?

3 hours ago, TinFoilMkIV said:

Too many frames have abilities that can break nearly any encounter all on their own

Eh, depends on how you design the encounter. You see this being a problem even in WoW hardmode raiding, though, and it's not really avoidable. There's times where world-best raiding guilds would take a raid that's half druid just because of a specific spell being too damn useful, forcing Blizzard to change some of the encounter design specific to how that spell works.
If you have only 4 players to worry about, it's easier to design around.

I see this in Warframe more as features for how to handle an encounter better, and could actually create unique metas for encounters that the devs may not have expected. Look at the Razorback fight. Some frames can completely bypass those laser barriers to get to the Bursas. Hell, Hydroid can actually afflict the Razorback with his water trap, though it can still move out of it and fire missiles.
Player creativity like that should be rewarded, frankly.

On 2018-08-06 at 12:07 AM, (XB1)D00M INCARNATE said:

Sorry, I guess I didn't explain in much detail why I saw warframe as a sandbox.

Build customization is key to warframe's creativity. Yes fashionframe is one form of creativity, but the fact that a Nova can be a Slowva or a Speedva or a Nuke or anything in between and STILL BE VIABLE is show of how flexible WF can be. Whereas any other MMORPG, you can easily look up "who's the best dps and what's the best build for dps" and there's usually 1 or 2 answeres. WF shows again and again that that isn't the case.

I just spent the last week forma-ing Nova over and over learning all her niches. And at the end of the day, what am I going to do with this blingy Nova? Probably mess around in POE, maybe show my cousin the game giving him easy targets...idk, WHATEVER I FEEL LIKE is the cool thing!

Back when I played Wow it was "farm gold every day for 5 hours at least. Be online Thursday at 7 to raid or get kicked. Blast through the newest content to be ready to speed clear the raids. Study the beta testers YouTube videos so you know the fights by heart." But in warframe it's more "I feel like doing ____ today"...much like what I say when I play Minecraft, GTA or G-mod.

Including hardmode content doesn't have to take away from any of that. In fact it's better designed if it doesn't. Nobody said endgame would require you to sit at your computer for 4 hours 3 nights a week with 20 other people in order to be possible, nor did anybody said endgame would require you to farm a bunch of random resources in order for you to be fully effective to your team, nor did anybody say that engame would specifically force you into a "This is how to build, no exceptions" mentality.

WoW is specifically designed with only endgame in mind, is consistently designed for a specific meta directly by the devs, and ignores everything else and all other options, but that doesn't mean that's how endgame itself works. That's just how the groupthink of devs works when it comes to mainstream endgame design. I'd trust DE to do better.

Instead of looking at WoW and being afraid of how Warframe endgame could go wrong, we should be thinking of how Warframe endgame could be designed to NOT go wrong in the ways that would ruin the game. I'd like to think I've got a good understanding of how that could be accomplished, but I'm not perfect and simply a nobody. 😛

Edited August 7, 2018 by DrakeWurrum

[TinFoilMkIV]

3 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

That's actually very easy. Forcing teams to split up for different tasks to accomplish an objective, or having tasks that specifically require multiple people to work.
Railjack shows some good examples of this already.

What if there was a gauntlet, even one that calls for stealth, that only allowed one player in, and the rest of the group has to defend a specific location in order to make sure that player can get through the gauntlet... and that player's success allows the rest of the group to move through to the next part of the mission somehow.

Yea. That's the way I'd likely go with it as well, but I wouldn't necessarily call that a "combat oriented challenge". The most challenging part of your example would almost certainly be the player running the gauntlet. A group that was serious about minimizing the risk of failure would in all likely hood result in the other three sitting around staring at their watches and occasionally swatting away whatever enemies are trying to bother them.

Railjack does have the opportunity to have what I would call truly challenging content. Largely due to significant portions of it having nothing to do with our standard combat mode. Our Warframes and their weapons are the greatest obstacle to straight combat ever being difficult to well equipped players.

3 hours ago, DrakeWurrum said:

Eh, depends on how you design the encounter. You see this being a problem even in WoW hardmode raiding, though, and it's not really avoidable. There's times where world-best raiding guilds would take a raid that's half druid just because of a specific spell being too damn useful, forcing Blizzard to change some of the encounter design specific to how that spell works.
If you have only 4 players to worry about, it's easier to design around.

I see this in Warframe more as features for how to handle an encounter better, and could actually create unique metas for encounters that the devs may not have expected. Look at the Razorback fight. Some frames can completely bypass those laser barriers to get to the Bursas. Hell, Hydroid can actually afflict the Razorback with his water trap, though it can still move out of it and fire missiles.
Player creativity like that should be rewarded, frankly.

And I'm personally totally cool with that, but it doesn't result in content that's legitimately hard once you add in good preparation and any kind of teamwork. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually happy with Warframe how it is. I've accepted that it won't be able to do literally everything I want, how I want it to be. At least not any time particularly soon.

[Kimimoto]

On 2018-08-05 at 7:12 PM, (XB1)D00M INCARNATE said:

You don't play GTA online for an endgame.

You don't play Minecraft for an endgame.

You don't play Gary's mod for an endgame.

Good thing Warframe is closer to these games and not MMO's/Destiny, otherwise you might not have a point. /s