Community Thoughts: How are you with 8 months of low content?

[Dolerhyde]

I'm feeling the drought like many veteran players.  However, I get what DE is trying to do, and am supportive of them doing large, substantial updates.  The only thing I would ask is to not swing the pendulum so far in either direction.  There are a number of things DE could release that would keep me playing more than just the daily sortie and cracking relics if I'm bored.  For example, the rate of new warframe releases has slowed WAY down, from 4-6 a year to 1-3 a year.  Each new frame is a pile of time to learn, forma, and play existing content with in a new way.  In the same vein, getting augments out more quickly would also be low effort 'content' that gives me a reason to brush off a less used frame and play (Ivara's concentrated arrow anyone?).  Doing the primary and secondary weapon balance pass also provided many, many hours of gameplay to take fresh looks at weapons that previously were objectively bad.  

My suggestions to DE from a player that loves the game, mechanics, combat, and art style:

• Finish the current batch of major content pushes since it's well underway (Fortuna and Railjack)
• Increase the tempo of more warframe, weapon, and mod releases, even if it pushes major content 1-3 months out
• Plan a schedule that alternates between major and minor content patches, since we seem to have swung from 90% minor to 90% major; we need more more tactical alerts, invasion events, etc.
• Leverage existing content in new ways to provide content with less time investment than making something new: re-balancing of old systems like Archwing, update IPS to make them more balanced, etc.  These things give players reasons to sink hours into making new builds, adding forma to items, playing with revamped systems.

 

[(PSN)xtharbadx]

4 hours ago, Tellakey said:

Content: features that extend gameplay time.

New content: features that provide extra hours of gameplay.

This could mean a lot of things: Tenno Reinforcement, Warframes, game modes, quests, tilesets, farmables, cosmetics, etc...

Cosmetics were the bulk of this year's content. We're nearing the end of round one of deluxe bundles. In terms of other content, though, hardly anything was released; a single game mode, a quest, a frame, and like two new weapons? idk. 

This is primarily due to Fortuna and a lot of QoL, fixes, and the weapons rebalance at the beginning of the year. There's also Melee 3.0 which is new-ish content because it forces you to experiment and reacquaint yourself with melee. That said, you can see the trend: DE focused on revisiting old stuff instead of dishing out new stuff.

 

I started playing less than 3 months ago, and for me "new content" is showing up pretty regularly. In between new frames, quests ( sacrifice ), cool events ( razorback, Formorian, Ghouls, and now Acolytes), unvaulting, etc. I haven't felt any drought whatsoever.

I guess when people mention drought they are generally speaking about the time period between game changing stuff? Like PoE, ESO, etc.

Of course I can understand that for veterans who have seen it all, most of the stuff I mentioned above is nothing new ... but what would be the average live time of a Warframe player? Maybe what constitutes drought time is very different based on that.

 

[TennoPain]

I used to post a lot about how DE work slow and stufff but i got tired of being outvoiced so That being said i cant play POE and most posibly INcoming FORTUNA ''potato pc'' but WARFRAME is going into SPACE and its going the right way.

Now that being said i would like to see more ''powers and more aliens ''unhumans and creatures'' 

 universe and universes behind it so many possibilitys this game will last 10 more years easy .

And they can make WARFAME infinite or make a second game so THERE is nothing like DE and WARFRAME on the market and in ''our world'' 

be patient lick nidus spend time with saryn 

but my only broberon is my OBERON.

 

Edited August 7, 2018 by TennoPain

[Beartornado]

14 hours ago, YUNoJump said:

I personally hope that after Fortuna, they think up something other than a new open world to add to the game. PoE was an amazing addition that managed to make game-news headlines for quite a while, but they can't make lightning strike twice and they definitely can't make it strike three times. I hope that they can get back into a better release schedule after this.

I think DE might at least make a third one with Infestation as the primary enemy, maybe take the opportunity to introduce new massive infested bosses. On PoE they just kinda shoved the Lephantis reskin in there but if they had an infested-focused open map they could probably do some cool things. 

However they do have to stop eventually, we're coming up on Tau pretty quickly and that means DE will have to start developing what I assume will be another star chart, possibly with intermediary stops depending on where the mother of Natah is located.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Beartornado

[Moondancer]

12 hours ago, Tellakey said:

We're counting year to year. Since January, we've only had: 

• Sanctuary Onslaught + Khora
• A single quest with nothing to farm once finished.
• Plague Star: Part Two
• A dozen deluxe skins.
• QoL updates.

Might have forgotten something, but yeah, there's definitely a drought. Mind you, the drought exists because of a promised mega-patch near the end of the year, so it comes with compensation, but you cannot deny its presence to begin with.

Once again you're exaggerating everybody's replies with hyperbole. No one here is raving like a lunatic for free things. This isn't even a complaint thread. It's a discussion about the way Warframe's production rate is heading. Some like it, some don't.

Didn't you forget the entire primary and secondary beam weapon rework and we also have melee 3.0 which means every weapon in the game will have been given a look this year?

[Arniox]

15 hours ago, YUNoJump said:

I personally hope that after Fortuna, they think up something other than a new open world to add to the game. PoE was an amazing addition that managed to make game-news headlines for quite a while, but they can't make lightning strike twice and they definitely can't make it strike three times. I hope that they can get back into a better release schedule after this.

I personally think they should do every world as open world, but it should not be the center piece. 

They need a change in production where they can release weekly good quality content, monthly events or activities or larger content and then have the back end team working slowly for yearly releases of the open world's. But again, it should not be the center or attention cause it takes way way too long to develop 

[Firetempest]

Jesus. They are working on multiple frames, gas tileset with story, melee 3.0, pets 2.0, kingpin, railjack, around fortuna with kitguns, vehicals and boss fights galore. 

Bi weekly content used to be hey, two new trash weapons! Woo CONTENT!

People have some weird perceptions of old "content" when they don't get the same ol busy work.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Firetempest

[Kimimoto]

17 hours ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

there have been dozens of updates, not to mention 3 major quests, and a huge Open World....  I don't see the issue.

What hotfix's? There have been updates, but most of them don't provide any content, instead they've been reworking systems. I don't mind them reworking systems, but they did them all at once which led to a huge drought. They should really weave reworks in-between new content to stagger droughts.

3 Major Quests in the past 12 months? Let's count, the Sacrifice... where are you getting the others?

"Huge" Open World, for DE it was very impressive, but it's not going to give us content for more than a month or two. Two new Eidolons were put in 4 months later which we're just "Eidolon with 50% more weakspots", nothing relevant was added to the fights besides that.

They botched Kuva Survival and ESO, besides that what have they released content wise?

I love DE, but this year has been dry, the latter half is extremely disappointing.

[Tellakey]

12 hours ago, GrandCrusader said:

I dont have this Content Drough I hear so much about(still got a bunch of frames to get, and a LOT of weapons to farm for), but for the QoL fixes, and bug squashing, I believe they are in the right track, since you need to make sure ur ground floor is solid, before adding another floor, in other words, be sure older content is in working order, before adding more content, now a small detail, Working Order, means that it is working at least without any major bug, not that its COMPLETELY out of Bugs, since in MMOs its pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to get a game with NO BUGS, Even older games, had bugs, even ATARI games had bugs, and the games were quite simple, now scale it to MMOs nowadays, and you can see the picture....

 

9 hours ago, (PS4)xtharbadx said:

 

I started playing less than 3 months ago, and for me "new content" is showing up pretty regularly. In between new frames, quests ( sacrifice ), cool events ( razorback, Formorian, Ghouls, and now Acolytes), unvaulting, etc. I haven't felt any drought whatsoever.

I guess when people mention drought they are generally speaking about the time period between game changing stuff? Like PoE, ESO, etc.

Of course I can understand that for veterans who have seen it all, most of the stuff I mentioned above is nothing new ... but what would be the average live time of a Warframe player? Maybe what constitutes drought time is very different based on that.

 

As mentioned, the content drought is a veteran issue. Obviously, a new player would have infinite things to explore. It goes without saying. 

 

10 hours ago, FlusteredFerret said:

You just highlighted another part of the problems DE are having to deal with. Not just creating content, but fixing stuff, improving existing content and adding cosmetic touches.

They have pretty limited resources, compared to the larger game studios, so everything takes longer to do.

And thats without the fact WF is a story-driven game, with a lot of lore that has to be followed & expanded on, in order for the game to grow. Its not like PUBG, COD, or other PvP shooters, where they can just toss some terrain & buildings together & create a new map, or add some new weapons, skins etc. to keep players happy.

If the devs are going to "grow the game" and not just come up with new frames & weapons, or variations thereof, they need to sit down and do some serious thinking about where the game can go next. I'd be willing to bet a big chunk of development time is spent just brainstorming storyline ideas. I mean Fortuna looks like a pretty big departure from whats gone before, with new factions, characters, enemies and even a new mode of travel.

 

So, yeah, if I were a veteran player who's done just about everything the game has to offer, I would probably feel a bit bored with the game. That said, because of the way DE work and what they are trying to achieve, I'd be willing to cut them some slack.

DE has been fixing content on the fly since the very start. It's just now they've decided to put a major focus on fixes and QoL in favor of new content. My point is, they've been pretty good at maintaining both until now, limited resources or not, so it's nothing new.

I would agree that simply adding new artificial stuff like weapons, cosmetics and such would be boring. Where these things work and do make the player base satisfied is in between moderate releases. A new weapon, skin, and the like every now and then helps keep us happy. Hardly anyone complains about deluxe bundles, if you notice.

And sure, I'm all about cutting DE some slack. This is a discussion thread, not a rant.

5 hours ago, Moondancer said:

Didn't you forget the entire primary and secondary beam weapon rework and we also have melee 3.0 which means every weapon in the game will have been given a look this year?

When I mentioned QoL updates those were supposed to be part of it. I did supplement later, listing the weapon rebalances and Melee 3.0, though.

[Brorelia]

21 hours ago, BattleChief142 said:

As far as we know there will only be two open(ish) worlds. I do not see DE making many more open worlds mainly because of the current content drought and two open worlds are enough for now. Will we see more open worlds? Mostly likely. Seeing open worlds other than Fortuna any time soon? Maybe, maybe not.

They could make more in the background while focusing on other things.

But it would be nice if a third one was on Pluto, Sedna or Eris and was focused on a more challenging game style where having really good gear is basically required and not just a convenience for how fast you can clear it.

[AEP8FlyBoy]

Sorry for this wall of text... TLDR: Warframe is awesome and I'm pumped for the future.

On the topic of open worlds in Warframe, I see them continuing to work on and finishing Fortuna, and some other hot-topic items like Kingpin, Melee 3.0, and Railjack. But I do see a small pattern emerging from this, if ever so slight.

I doubt, as it was said earlier in this thread, that DE will make an open world zone for every planet in their solar system. I much rather think that they'll make an open world zone for every faction. Just think about it. Plains of Eidolon is Grineer occupied, Fortuna will be Corpus occupied, perhaps the next one will be Infested and after that, Sentient. (Likely in Tau somewhere)

Being with the game for as long as I have, you start to come to terms with just how ambitious DE is with the little wiggle room they have to keep veterans and new players alike all in good standing. I've been around since mid-March of 2013 (my current one says October, but I started on a different account in March of that year), and up until late 2016 when The War Within shipped, I had never experienced what a drought felt like. Many of us players heard DE tease TWW at TennoCon 2016, saying it'd be out this month (July at the time), for it to come out about 4 months after the fact following some intense hyping from much of the community.

After that whole debacle, I re-examined what I thought of DE's process, and I agreed with what a majority of the community would say in that "Don't set dates you can't keep." and "Stop teasing and just focus on what you're making.". DE listened, and the Sacrifice was indeed teased as well, but no approximate dates were ever stated. And I personally like that way of developing things a whole lot better.

I've come to a realization that with how set DE is with trying to innovate and inspire not only themselves but their fans with new and exciting avenues of gameplay (RailJack looks amazing btw, and it could reinvent Warframe as a whole, hopefully revitalize Archwing too.) makes them dive head first into the long-term, while forgoing the short-term and forgetting about systems they implement for that pursuit of new and shiny things. Veterans like myself who spent all their spare time finally maxing all five Focus Schools in all that off time, while newbies have tons upon tons of content to work toward and play with in that off time. DE cannot simply satisfy every type of player, but it is agreed upon that this feeling of 'nothing to do' is felt mainly among those of use that have farmed their way up to the top of the completion bar.

Personally... I could care less what DE chooses to do with their time as long as they continue working hard to make their visions of the game come to life. As a five year investor in this fantastic game, that's all I want to see for them. But you are correct, OP, in time they'll realize that making new open world zones won't be as invigorating as the first in Plains of Eidolon, or our first venture into legitimate deep-space combat via Railjack.

Other avenues of gameplay, characterization and storytelling will have to be explored in that case. Bonding systems with NPCs, Operator aging with new quests (if they can), romance, and side quests that make you question if you're really just playing The Elder Scrolls in space. To name a few.

But ultimately, Warframe will just continue to try and innovate for many years to come. And what we expect of this game will change and mutate just as this game has over the 5 - 6 years it's been around. I'm just happy to be along for the ride in the end, as these last few years have been some of the best for me because of Warframe.

I'll never forget the day I played it for the first time and wasn't very enthused. I look back at that day with fondness because I didn't know what I was getting into.
Hell, I still don't. It's changing every year.
And that's how I want it to stay. It's what keeps many of us playing, and it's what will keep us playing.

Edit: Of course, there will be fairly large lulls in content deployment if this keeps up. But like I said, I personally don't mind the periods of "not much going on" when the payoff can be exponentially better. There's nothing saying that they can't keep the short-term fresh by releasing new weapons, mini-quests, game modes and what not. But I just don't think that's on the agenda for now.

Edited August 8, 2018 by AEP8FlyBoy

[Vivian]

14 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Honestly, I think the game is getting to a point where Tenno reinforcements needed to slow down or we'd have the same people complaining that they're tired of ranking the same weapon types over and over and insist on innovation (like what DE it's trying to do now). 

Honestly, how many shotgun types are you willing to rank before you say you're bored? Not to say that we shouldn't get new weapons anymore, but every 2 weeks now compared to when the game barely had content is two completely different things. 

The game has gotten to a point where it needs to innovate and do new things. There's ton of old Warframe content already there. 

If you've completed everything the game has to offer, that's not an emergency on the devs part. You just need to realize that you've completed the game. A new weapon isn't going to change that. You'll just rank it, toss it and go back to doing old content. Why would DE focus energy on that, when they could be doing exciting things like fortuna, rail jack and the New War? It's not like Warframe 3-4 years ago when a new dual sword was actually exciting. The game has tons of variation now. 

It takes roughly the same amount of time to max 2 tenno reinforcements as to finish The Sacrifice and max Umbra and Skiajati. PoE was fun for a week. Now I visit PoE ONLY for riven tasks. 

PoE rivens are cheap as well, for a reason. People don't like going there when there's nothing "engaging". 

Kuva floods and survival are engaging but we all know that the drops from survival should be boosted to scale with time spent. If they could make a system to that, quite a lot of people would stop complaining. 

Not just kuva survival. Any challenging, scaling end game would be great. As of now, there's nothing fun to do.

[(PSN)Zero_029]

Every time I see one of these threads I have to link this.
 

There is no drought. Only the devs listening to the Community & actually following through with requests.

If the Community wants to have things rebalanced, reworked, have progression streamlined/repaired, & etc. It will come at the expense of Content releases.
This is even true for AAA Developer Studios. It's why so many games get called out for "Not Listening" most Studios decide to ignore the requests & just keep players distracted.

Now some players may prefer to have content & never get things repolished/rebalanced. Others want a more polished experience.
It's a pick your poison situation.

Considering how good the game feels atm. I'm glad they chose to slow down releases & polish content.

[skbenga]

18 hours ago, ShinTechG said:

Time to turn Warframe into Diablo 3 and add Paragon levels. Boom, now you can never finish!!!

paragon == MR 

Edited August 8, 2018 by skbenga

[LupisV0lk]

16 hours ago, Shiichibukai said:

Thats just another frame. Not content. Fortuna/Railjack is content.

I'm sorry BUT frames, weapons, companions, mods are also content.

This is why there's a so called drought, people are too lazy to play through all the games content, so suddenly they have nothing to do, while there's so much for them to do.

[FlusteredFerret]

2 hours ago, LupisV0lk said:

I'm sorry BUT frames, weapons, companions, mods are also content.

This is why there's a so called drought, people are too lazy to play through all the games content, so suddenly they have nothing to do, while there's so much for them to do.

To an extent, but they are really just "more of the same" and some players may not care to grind for a certain new frame, weapon or companion. For example, I know, right off the bat, that I don't want that new frame with the "ghost arms", simply because I don't like the appearance.

Whereas a new world / environment with new characters, enemies & missions represents completely new gameplay. I guess it depends on what you look for in the game. If you're a collector, you may well want every single frame, weapon, mod, statue etc. If you crave new arenas to explore, you just have to wait a bit longer.

[Methanoid]

some people dont even care about useless things liek somachord, codec etc, vets have had a continual content drought for ages, you just deal with it by whatever means till the next drop of content that may satisfy you or walk away to another game for another handful of months while waiting for the next next content drop .....and repeat..

Edited August 8, 2018 by Methanoid

[Tellakey]

6 hours ago, (PS4)Zero_029 said:

Every time I see one of these threads I have to link this.
 

There is no drought. Only the devs listening to the Community & actually following through with requests.

If the Community wants to have things rebalanced, reworked, have progression streamlined/repaired, & etc. It will come at the expense of Content releases.
This is even true for AAA Developer Studios. It's why so many games get called out for "Not Listening" most Studios decide to ignore the requests & just keep players distracted.

Now some players may prefer to have content & never get things repolished/rebalanced. Others want a more polished experience.
It's a pick your poison situation.

Considering how good the game feels atm. I'm glad they chose to slow down releases & polish content.

1. States there is no drought.

2. Defends the reason for said drought's existence.

There definitely is a drought, regardless of good or bad reasons. I agree with you that DE is doing well by addressing old content and QoL/fixes, but please don't deny the existence of consequences.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Tellakey

[LupisV0lk]

23 minutes ago, Tellakey said:

1. States there is no drought.

2. Defends the reason for said drought's existence.

There definitely is a drought, regardless of good or bad reasons. I agree with you that DE is doing well by addressing old content and QoL/fixes, but please don't deny the existence of consequences.

There is a drought, of logic.

Also more proof that DE is dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. Focus on QoL/Fixes and you people get buttmad, DE focus on content and it's more REEEing.

Edited August 8, 2018 by LupisV0lk

[Tellakey]

9 minutes ago, LupisV0lk said:

There is a drought, of logic.

Also more proof that DE is dammed if they do and dammed if they don't. Focus on QoL/Fixes and you people get buttmad, DE focus on content and it's more REEEing.

You extrapolate a negative opinion from my recognition of there being a drought.

I am not you people, I am not damning DE, I am not buttmad (that's a first). But thanks for assuming and implying I'm a moron.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Tellakey

[Volinus7]

Just compress experiences you had in Warframe then use Venn diagram to find out what are the actual contents and what are the multipliers(procedurally generated tedium/redundant gears/pRNGs). 

 

[DeMonkey]

Just now, LupisV0lk said:

And yet you still think i'm pointing directly at you. Spoilers i'm not, your thread and posts are what i'm targeting along with the perceived attitude in your posts.

It's not their thread, and their only posts (aside from a semi humourous one on the first page) are here, with the first one stating that they feel DE are doing a good job by addressing bugs and QoL changes.

I feel you may have the wrong end of the stick here, unfortunately. 

[LupisV0lk]

1 minute ago, DeMonkey said:

I feel you may have the wrong end of the stick here, unfortunately. 

I more than likely do, just so dam over the content drought meme at this point.

We've seen what happened when DE did a greater focus on content, it brought us to where we are now.

[Synpai]

1 hour ago, LupisV0lk said:

THE only reason people spout this drought nonsense is to dam DE.

And frankly we're sick of it. Would you rather have bland, broken and buggy weekly or bi-weekly content or slower drip fed content with a healthy mix of QoL/fixes in between content?

We? I suppose there are some that are sick of it and some that are sick of the opposite. There are multiple sides to this argument, don't dismiss the other as myth because you don't agree with it. 

 

There is validity to all sides (different content styles appeal to different people):

A) Yes old systems need to be looked at, bugs fixed etc.

B) Interesting and new gameplay being so far apart is unsettling

C) I don't care what happens because I'm preoccupied with life or another game while waiting.

 

The best way is to have a little bit of both, which is why I'm hoping DE don't make Fortuna like PoE. I.e: You play for a few months and never go back.
This will just continue the cycle. I'm perfectly fine with a massive Development time depending on the outcome.

Adding a weapon or warframe every month is also a double edged sword because or arsenal bloat and leveling being a few minutes worth of gameplay.

DE are always working on multiple things and it's a miracle what they've pulled off with their team. I think it's good to take note of these things as a player, but not to shrug off qualms because DE may not have the hands they need to fully maintain Warframe as the player base evolves.

 

Progression and gameplay are currently: us being brought fish instead of having the tools for fishing available.

I think if the game had more self sustaining progression systems and rewarding high tier missions it would give players a bigger distraction as DE introduce new content (The story of Herodotus using games to help his people survive famine is literally this). For example, having to farm materials in order to do a special quest with Baro that allows players to Umbra a Warframe or Mod every couple weeks or something.

 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Synpai

[Tellakey]

41 minutes ago, Synpai said:

We? I suppose there are some that are sick of it and some that are sick of the opposite. There are multiple sides to this argument, don't dismiss the other as myth because you don't agree with it. 

 

There is validity to all sides (different content styles appeal to different people):

A) Yes old systems need to be looked at, bugs fixed etc.

B) Interesting and new gameplay being so far apart is unsettling

C) I don't care what happens because I'm preoccupied with life or another game while waiting.

 

The best way is to have a little bit of both, which is why I'm hoping DE don't make Fortuna like PoE. I.e: You play for a few months and never go back.
This will just continue the cycle. I'm perfectly fine with a massive Development time depending on the outcome.

Adding a weapon or warframe every month is also a double edged sword because or arsenal bloat and leveling being a few minutes worth of gameplay.

DE are always working on multiple things and it's a miracle what they've pulled off with their team. I think it's good to take note of these things as a player, but not to shrug off qualms because DE may not have the hands they need to fully maintain Warframe as the player base evolves.

 

Progression and gameplay are currently: us being brought fish instead of having the tools for fishing available.

I think if the game had more self sustaining progression systems and rewarding high tier missions it would give players a bigger distraction as DE introduce new content (The story of Herodotus using games to help his people survive famine is literally this). For example, having to farm materials in order to do a special quest with Baro that allows players to Umbra a Warframe or Mod every couple weeks or something.

 

What? A moderate, non-biased opinion? Surely 'tis an illusion!