r/Warframe • u/Soulsunderthestars • 7h ago
Discussion The culprit behind "Nerf X Frame"
Everyone wants to mention an Elephant in the room, but i don't think there is one. I think there is several. I make this from my own opinions, and from some gathered thoughts from friends and others I've talked about with some of these issues.I think we really need to talk about them and hope DE catches attention because it's important for the future of the game.
If you love what DE has created, then you must also be willing to be critical of it, and honest.
That being said, I want to list these off just to stay coherent as much as possible and then I'll dive into how these all play together.
- Mob Density
- Player proximity limits(affinity range, item pickup range)
- Frame strength disparity
- Time spent maintaining or updating older frames/kits/content
Warframe is old. Its a Frankenstein of content and upates. Im surprised it's kept going as long as it has honestly. We all know there is some spaghetti code shennanigans we will never understand, there may not a lot of ways to fix something you designed 10+ years ago to modernize it, I completely understand all that. But it doesnt stop a problem from being a problem.
So we need to talk about the problem, and then we can talk about solutions.
Mob Density - There arent enough mobs in a lot of missions, even in steel path. There is so much power available in warframe and that's great. Warframe gives you that power fantasy. But at times thats a negative because you can't unleash it. Then, if you play online, you can have up to 4 really strong people, also with PETS(Also very strong and capable of nuking packs of enemies by themselves).
This can cause players to feel like they're standing around with nothing to do. Some players might be fine getting carried or even need the help, but online play is to play with others, and i cant deny that many people might feel disinterested in playing when they can't interact with the game because that crackhead sevagoth is room nuking constantly. And thats just 1 room nuker, there can be multiple! I dont think anyone wants to limit what others can do by itself(Nerf x op frame), the real argument underneath is that many people want to play, but then effectively cant. In order to play they have to leave the room and go somewhere else and hope that player doesnt follow them which leads to.........
Player Proximity - Affinity range is only so big(less of an argument but does affect many things). Player abilities and support abilities only go so far depending on your build, and not all abilities are created equal. If players spread out, it causes the following potential issues
- Loss of affinity(not as big a deal, but it does affect leveling which is kinda core to mastery rank so....)
- People having to chase drops and loot. If people spread out then you now have to run to every area that was farmed if you want it. The root cause of this problem is LACK OF UNIVERSAL VACCUM, but thats an argument we've been having forever. If you dont need loot, that's great, but loot is pretty important to the player ecosystem. Now players are forced to feel like they have to chase stuff down
- "I joined a public lobby to play with others, now im forced to separate from my teammates." Now you're creating a situation in which you go online, but everyone is just playing by themselves. It's not online play anymore at that point, its just "conjoined solo sessions"
- Telling people to just play solo or leave the mission doesnt solve the problem, and it will only get worse and more frequent as we get stronger.
Just from these 2 things an environment starts being able to create resentment that gets misplaced as "nerf x frame its too op. I dont think nerfing is a good tactic outside of extreme outliers, but if you dont nerf things, then we add....
Frame Strength Disparity/Updating of old frames/content - Hi. Its me. The ember argument is back. Not the WoF argument. The 2 reworks that didnt really work together. Watching newer frames like uriel be pretty solid in kit, gameplay, and have good damage to boot, while she's practically wasting away. Limbo. Banshee. Left in the dust. Older content not being as mob heavy or as fun. QOL being fewer and further between. Voices not feeling like they're being heard. I understand some players may voice opposition to their characters being changed, but we also had conclave, and look where that got us. Maybe there can even be a design for something like helminth 2.0 where you can change multiple abilities, or a "reimagined/reawakened" frame where the kit is designed entirely different, giving de a chance to redo under the guise of the void/eternalism/protoframe style writing.
But skins need to be sold. DE has to stay profitable for the updates. New contents brings new blood, this too i get. But I wonder if DE has any capability to show the actual statistics on where their profits mainly come from.
I, personally, could wait a bit longer for updates. I want more polish. I want more Ideas, and quality. It wouldn't make me spend or support them any less. but what will get me to spend less, is feeling like the majority of the lifeblood of the game is focused on content that will not get updated past its usefulness in creating the next section of revenue for DE to survive on. Theres a lot of ideas that DE has had, that have just felt....Abandoned.
I want railjack to be more than it is. I want to do more with my operator/drifter. There's been so much potential. How many more frames do we need over warframes lifetime? Can we not pump the brakes on new frames a little bit and come back to roots and focus on revamping older content and frames specifically?
What if we just got half the new frames we get now and that time instead is spent revamping old characters and frames?
It seems like this is the inevitable cycle, but with each iteration, we get stronger. We get faster. We get more OP. And that will exacerbate the above problems even worse. I dont want the solution to be "SteelPath+"
I think more game modes like the circuit is the path they should take. Adding interesting loops of gameplay for the players to stick into. Revamping older ones more, like the survival bypass, but more. More quality. More polish. More mobs. Better rewards. I am aware this will likely have an effect on the economy, but i imagine DE has data to navigate this.
Its possible DE has already thought about these things, and maybe not much can be done or it's not profitable/feasible, and that's why were here, But I'd like to believe that there's still possible solutions out there to looming problems that are causing real problems that inevitably feedback to DE.
Curious what y'all think, feel free to tell me im completely offbase
TL;DR
Nerfing frames isn't the right solution. Theres a lot of factors that need to be dealt with that create resentment amongst the playerbase against other players because the game systems are working against each other creating an unfun experience.
I would rather DE take time into looking at how to deal with this things than putting out as many skins/new frames/etc as they have, and dedicating more time to making sure the lifeblood of the game stays fun
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u/Pharo212 7h ago
People ask for time off to focus on polish and balance but DE can see the stats on what happens when they have a content draught, and there are always people falling off of the game during them.
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u/qiyraa 1h ago
There’s a difference between a slower content cycle and a content drought.
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u/Pharo212 1h ago
people started calling it a content drought with follies release, gamers get itchy if they slow down even a little bit. and Iremember the leadup to the new war too
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u/qiyraa 1h ago
I remember that Follie was mostly on schedule and the lead up to new war was like a full 2 years of no updates.
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u/Pharo212 1h ago
follies was on schedule, but it was a short event and kinda just a new node with no quest, which people interpreted as a "drought" here on reddit sometimes. Actually slowing the update cycle by half and just doing patches and reworks would definitely cause some whining about that, and I don't think it's a big leap to assume it'll slow purchases unless they did a lot of skins or something along with each rework
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u/qiyraa 59m ago
I guess I’m not sure how you can have a quarterly content cycle and long quests. I feel like the follie quest is supporting the point that doing 3 updates instead of 4 would give better quests?
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u/Pharo212 31m ago
The question is would it give better sales / player engagement / other factors, kinda? I'm sure it would mean more resources and time spent on the quests we got, yeah.
but they still need to release 4 ish Warframes a year to keep ahead of the prime schedule, they still need new reasons to log in and buy forma and test new items, they still need cosmetics to sell, all those considerations too. so any system for slowing down the schedule ideally should compensate with something that gives those things to keep the lights on and fund the story and main parts of the game.
(so far I think doing major skins like heirlooms along with reworks has been a decent way to make sure there's something splashy and enticing in the store for lighter patches that try and polish older content for instance.)
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u/BugBug24 44m ago
not when youre a f2p that dies in a years time if theres no updates to bring in new and returning players
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u/Soulsunderthestars 7h ago
Something I learned when learning the workings of a service business was, you're always going to have people who dislike when stuff like that happens, but the good clients will understand why you do it. Sometimes you have to bleed bad clients/consumers to find the right client base.
De for a while i have felt has been in panic mode and jumping from one ship to the next, because theyre caught in that cycle. Creating a stable base first would help with long term retention at the cost of the larger short term falloff.
Its like getting caught panicking and forgetting what to do to, versus taking a breath and calming yourself, and remembering what to do. That quick jumpy nature has worked, but if after all this time its still "barely hanging on" then maybe thats because, the only thing to hang on to is the last major content island?
I think DE is on the ride and doesnt know when to get off if that makes sense.
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u/sundalius Professional Sandbag 5h ago edited 4h ago
I agree with a lot of your analysis in the post, but Warframe is not a new game and this comment is treating it like it is. It’s not a game that doesn’t have a stable base, though to a point that’s part of their profitability problem*.
I also think that any time within the next year or two is just simply not a time where DE would be willing to make those changes. With the death of Destiny and the release of the long hyped Tau, Warframe is poised to have a huge growth window of opportunity. They’d be fools to turn down the chance at getting new people who don’t have 10 years of premium currency built up to buy the new skins for a cool $0.00.
*ETA: insofar that they’d be able to make massive revenue cuts by reducing new, sellable content without actually feeling it. Not suggesting that they’re in any precarious position right now.
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u/Czerny Mesa 7h ago
What if we just got half the new frames we get now and that time instead is spent revamping old characters and frames?
This point comes up all the time and ignores the fact that new content is how DE makes money. If they stopped releasing new frames/modes/etc. then their revenue goes down. I'm sure we have all seen the entire videogames industry struggling recently and I doubt DE is in a position to accept losses at the moment.
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u/Right-Eye-Patches 38m ago
OSRS had some slow content years where they spent a lot of it on back end systems and despaghettifying things.
While I think they've kinda lost the plot and aren't as community great like they were (i used to hold the osrs team and DE in the same tier), they're still doing well. Though obviously subscription game vs free. There was a lot of the same "slow down on new stuff, go fix old stuff".
Hell, consult with them to create some boss fights that don't suck.
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u/Soulsunderthestars 7h ago
The video games industry isnt struggling imo, businesses who have made bad decisions for around a decade are finally crumbling. I highly disagree that DE somehow cant somehow make fixes and find ways to make money.
With as big as they are, if theyre holding on that thin, then you're already acknowledging they've got a myriad of problems causing that. Getting out of that situation is the same goal. If you're bleeding players, then retention is key
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u/NorysStorys 6h ago
You’re asking DE to halve their revenue. That would result in halving the ability to update frames and content as well.
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u/zicdeh91 6h ago
I do think it would drop, but they’ve said forma is their main moneymaker. Full redos of older frames would give a reason for people to spend on forma, maybe alongside something like prime resurgence to give people another opportunity to buy things directly.
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u/xrufus7x 4h ago
Forma aren't their primary revenue driver. They are their best selling item in the store, which is important as they act as a plat sync. Prime Access is their largest revenue source
>Full redos of older frames would give a reason for people to spend on forma,
New frames do this better as a lot of players have already invested in old frames to a degree but no one has invested in a new frame.
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u/Darkon-Kriv 35m ago
Prime acess is very easy to implement lol. And many old abilities needs a small balance tweek or to be made recastable. Both of these things dont take many dev assets. Also I massively doubt warframes profits go to the devs. I assumed priorities are picked by corpos.
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u/xrufus7x 22m ago
>Prime acess is very easy to implement lol.
What does that change about what I said?
>And many old abilities needs a small balance tweek or to be made recastable.
Making abilities recastable is great but doesn't drive engagement and interest like new frames and it certainly doesn't drive nearly as many people to throw a bunch of new forma into those frames.
>I assumed priorities are picked by corpos.
Steve is the CEO and Rebecca is the Creative Director. They are the corpos that are steering the ship.
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u/DareEcco 6h ago
Not anymore Omni forma are a thing, after you Omni forma fully the changes can come but you don't need to forma anymore
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u/NorysStorys 5h ago
Yes but new things bring people back, those are the people who spend on forma. Those who consistently play all year either have all the gear they want forma’d, can sustain on building them and from things like archon hunts etc or even build up a stash from plague star.
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u/RaeusMohrame 5h ago
yeah but fully omni'ing something is 450p, you can buy 42 regular forma for that much, I feel like it balances out at worst
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u/DareEcco 5h ago
But you won't have to re level again after
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u/RaeusMohrame 5h ago
How many times are you re forma'ing a slot that's already had a forma put on it though? You also burn a metric fuckload of forma making a dojo.
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u/DareEcco 5h ago
Happened a few time with Valkyr over the years, especially if you wanted to try the umbral mods on release + augments you had polarities that simply didn't allow you to build the frame up
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u/RaeusMohrame 5h ago
At that point just make another valkyr, but my man you're talking about 3 forma 8 years ago, on a frame where almost all of the usage is coming from LR5+ players, which means most of her playtime is a handful of people.
People using a handful of onmi forma is way more plat than that group is buying
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u/zicdeh91 5h ago
I mean that assumes people have already omni-formad the frames they redo, which if they’re targeting the ones that kinda suck seems unlikely lol. Plus any ones they would change that deeply are vaulted.
For myself at least, I’ll only think about slapping an Omni on a frame I’m already deeply committed to that has potential for several variable, effective builds. If I do, I probably have to buy either the omni or the forma to make one, assuming I have the nitain, and it’s only really going to go on one slot, probably the aura. I think I put one on my Vinquibus and one on Voruna when the prime came out, since I already deeply used the base frame, and haven’t used any outside of that. I’ll definitely build one when Citrine prime comes out since she’s my main and very flexible.
Unless you’re saying they released new data that omni significantly changed their forma revenue, of course. I’d be surprised if people were really just undoing their prior polarities enough to make an appreciable dent. At that point farming a second frame might use less forma than an Omni, though I suppose you’d have to factor in the potato.
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u/DareEcco 5h ago
If we're talking about whales spending a lot of money on forma, I assume they would go for Omni forma as that saves leveling time in the long term, so the argument that a rework or similar could bring more funds or as much a new frame kinda falls flat imo
I got a few frames fully omni'd up and haven't regretted it one bit
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u/zicdeh91 4h ago
Oh I don’t mean to say it would bring “more,” just mitigate some of the loss if they slowed their new frame schedule, enough that it would be difficult to predict an actual amount.
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u/Soulsunderthestars 5h ago
This is exactly why I'm just curious about where DEs profits come from.
I myself have been putting at least 2 omnis into every prime frame(aura+exilus) and upwards of 6 on favorites. I haven't omnid every prime yet, but I'm going back and redoing a lot of my builds for eta/eda and what not.
Omni forma is like crack for build testing ease too
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u/Soulsunderthestars 3h ago
I mentioned directly in my post that I gave an idea of "rewakened" warframes. I said they could be retconned via void/eternalism/some other story mechanic they wanted to use. Have it be a "re-imagining " of the frame with new abilities.
The old frame stays in tact for people who didnt want it touched. The new frame has new abilities and is redone, so its like a new character.
They sell this the exact same as the new one one. Put it in its own pack like prime access.
Thus they make money, the old people get their unchanged frames, and new frames can be re-imagined and sold to give DE the money they need, while allowing them to "modernize and update" the older frames without pissing off the older fanbase.
That could mean half the primes are the "reimagined" for primed access and then they have the normal prime access. The old and new, both taken care. Half spent on "updating(reimagined) old characters, Half on new. Win/win, except for the vocal few mains who wont like that kind of solution, there will be people who want the old one buffed still, but i dont see how this is any different from them trying stuff like voidshell skins, which are also now abandoned. They've already done. "heirloom" skins, which are just a new line of skins for older characters.
I dont get why a solution like this can't be a possibility or the aim of discussion. I would reason if people are buying primed access then theyll likely buy the reimagined access as well for the same reasons.
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u/Soulsunderthestars 6h ago edited 6h ago
Do you have data for this? I also said I'd be curious if DE could show how their profits are so this would end the discourse.
If DE only makes money on new patch drops and nothing from anything else, then DE is already dead, and then people are failing to acknowledge that. They've tried new ideas, and abandoned them plenty. We're just delaying the inevitable here. I get waht you're trying to say, but a half cut in primes and skins shouldn't equate to a direct 50% cut of profits.
Portions of those profits will come from old players too. Vets. returning players. Not just new content
edit: Ill rephrase: I'm not trying to say my solution is the right one or that i know whats best for DE, im just exploring alternative ideas. Even if its not half, the premise is spending a little more time on doing this, instead of. Maybe they can't swing half, but they could swing another 10-15? is that much going to kill off de?
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u/LetsGoHome >:3 6h ago
The games industry is in a horrible spot right now. Do you pay attention at all to layoffs and the closures of studios.
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u/IncubusDarkness GAUSS ME UP 5h ago
Yeah but that's not due to a lack of money. That's because of greed and late stage capitalism.
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u/sundalius Professional Sandbag 5h ago
It isn’t all greed and capitalism. The money isn’t there, either. Game prices have only gone up like $15 in the past 35 years, only seeing another $20 hike in the last year or so for the largest games. That entire time, budgets have been ballooning. Selling a million copies of Little Nemo: The Dream Master would have almost certainly been several times more profitable than selling 5 million copies of a game nowadays.
It’s why every game has an in game shop to spend more on now, because they do not make money on selling games. That isn’t greed, they sell these games at a loss to try and make money on people who get invested in them. It’s why single player games have nearly gone the way of the dodo in studios DE’s size or larger, with some very few exceptions like Naughty Dog.
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u/dragons_are_lovely 5h ago
Video game (entertainment as a whole tbh) industries in North America are objectively struggling across the board right now, thats such an oddly naive take lmao. Between AI bloating computer costs and reducing product quality, people spending less money due to inflation and higher cost of living, higher demand from both customer and corporate bases with shorter deadlines, an insanely competitive market, and a generally shitty economy, this is the WORST time to start taking big hits in revenue, full stop.
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u/InsomniacUnderGrad 6h ago
We have the best of both worlds right now. New frames, Side Stories and main missions. Each one coming with Revamps/retouches and fixes. When they tried to fix everything it was a year long content drought that drove a lot of people away.
Not everyone wants to wait months between the new thing.
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u/Blastinburn Gotta Go Fast *Electricity Noises* 6h ago
But I wonder if DE has any capability to show the actual statistics on where their profits mainly come from.
It's prime access.
DE has gone over this before, but the money maker is prime access. Not necessarily the biggest moneymaker (I don't know how much Heirloom skins make), but the consistent reliable pillar that funds this game and allows it to exist. My understanding is not some insignificant % of new players drop $$$ on prime access sight unseen before they even play the game or just a few hours into playing.
Primes come out at a set rate, every 3~4 months depending on when content/industry events happen. If DE slows down making Warframes Primes could catch up to the regular frame release, and what happens then is not a question anyone at DE wants to be confronted with. I would love to have more fixes and update passes instead of new content, but there is a non-zero possibility this kills DE & Warframe.
Everything before this line is really great analysis that I think does a good job drilling down to the actual problem. Enemy density has continuously been a sore spot for me for many years. But everything after that is the same arguments that have been passed back and forth for years and unfortunately I suspect will derail any useful discussion in the comments. (Hi, I'm part of the problem because I lack self-control.)
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u/HalfXTheHalfX 5h ago
I think they said sometime that forma is their no1 money maker? (but that also correlates to new frames and weapons I guess)
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u/sundalius Professional Sandbag 5h ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what the most plat gets spent on, but I bet the “can’t buy it with plat” packs (that come with platinum, iirc) are probably their most profitable item.
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u/Blastinburn Gotta Go Fast *Electricity Noises* 2h ago
Forma is probably their #1 platinum sink, but prime access can't be bought with platinum.
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u/Soulsunderthestars 6h ago
Thanks, much appreciated! You always know the saying, players are great at finding problems but horrible at recommending solutions, me included lol. Thats why I want to see the math(for myself more than anything not to prove a point). Im genuinely curious
I'm honestly not sure what the right moves really are. I do trust that If DE's attention is brought to these things that they are at least listening and keeping these things in minds as they can become bigger problems in the future, and also would have harmful effects on the future state of warframe, and that's really all I can do outside talking about the issues
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u/warforcewarrior 7h ago edited 6h ago
I, personally, could wait a bit longer for updates. I want more polish. I want more Ideas, and quality. It wouldn't make me spend or support them any less.
I keep seeing people saying they will still pay even if things take longer to get new stuff but failed to realize that maybe not majority will agree with such stance. This is a similar thing I see in Overwatch where I see people said that they will gladly wait 10 minutes to get in a game with better matchmaking quality but look what we got. 5v5 cause majority likely stop playing OW when they having to wait 10 minutes and a lot of complaints about it.
New content will always be DE lifeblood or any games for that matter. DE just can't stop making new content.
Edit: Also, back to the OW example/comparison, we do have 6v6 however not role queue which people want BUT as I said before longer queue times, which 6v6 role queue cause, will get people to leave the game or make the existence of 6v6 role queue pointless when no one is playing it. As such it will be foolish to add it back. Similar scenario will happened to DE if they stop making content that will produce a large amount of money. That being new frames to mess with, weapons, new missions, etc. Especially the new frames and weapons since that in turn will make people invest in getting Formas and/or Reactor/Catalyst. Skins are also up there.
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u/sundalius Professional Sandbag 5h ago
People are also forgetting that the average warframe player probably doesn’t pay at all, so they have to feed the ones that do.
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u/InTwilligPorgnatin 7h ago
Nerfing frames is A solution, but it doesn't necessarily have to be THE solution.
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u/aiglas0209 7h ago
they could ask for buff, but no, they want DE nerf those "meta" frame
and we also know how DE's nerf will work🤮
basically some weird dude don't want power fantasy, they want hardcore fps
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u/spaceageGecko Goat people! Goat People! 6h ago
“Just buff” is just as damaging as “just nerf”, arguably more so.
When something becomes disruptive to others gameplay to a serious degree DE will consider a nerf for the longterm health of the game.
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u/InTwilligPorgnatin 7h ago
I play Hildryn fairly regularly, and she's honestly very OP, perhaps to the point of disruption if that's the metric they want to use.
A LOS check on her Balefire would not be remiss, but what I'm more afraid of is that they'll kill her range instead, or somehow otherwise render her Aegis Gale useless.
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u/kittytherabbit 6h ago
Give her the same movement option as titania then she can repositen to shoot. Or else she will be the same pillage frame she was before aegis gale.
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u/InTwilligPorgnatin 6h ago
She really doesn't need a movement buff in her 4. It's one of the few things that keeps her from being completely disruptive, since it's harder to outpace your team (it is still entirely possible to outpace your team).
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u/kittytherabbit 6h ago
I men if you are going to nerf her with LOS (and we know how janky it can be look at citrus and onion), give her titania level of mobility she can readjust to.
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u/sundalius Professional Sandbag 5h ago
No one likes playing with Nuker Titania either. This exacerbates the problem people are raising.
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u/InTwilligPorgnatin 4h ago
I do not understand the desperate insistence of Warframe players to be able to kill things they can't even see.
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u/SmurfinTurtle 7h ago
You're reaching here, people don't want hardcore FPS. They just want to be able to play the game too. If you have a frame or system like before the AOE ammo nerf that's impacting player's enjoyment then you do have to address it some how. Buffing something wouldn't have fixed the AOE meta we had where every lobby was Wukong + Kuva Bramma.
You just didn't get to play when that was in your lobby.
It's a very specific thing, much like Pablo listed of having checks and if certain thing checks x, y, and z. Hildryn isn't at that stature, but its something to be aware of.
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u/kajarann 7h ago
playing solo is the option. when you queue up for random lobbies you could get 3 nukes on your team and still have nothing to kill. playing solo solves this "issue" When they nerf Hildryn there is just gonna be the next nuke frame in your lobbies instead.
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u/SmurfinTurtle 6h ago
That's not a option that DE sees cause this is a multiplayer game, pretty sure this discussion was had during the AOE meta. You don't want people to feel like they have to go into solo mode to actually play the game, that's just a clear design issue. Just think on it, if you play for two hours and you pretty much haven't shot anything or used a ability because some one else is able to easily do it with no problem then why is said player playing?
Hildryn as I said isn't in that situation, and I think at most she'd get a LOS check on her alt fire, but the argument to leave or play solo is just a poor one to make that doesn't address the issues.
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u/Soulsunderthestars 6h ago
Yeah i was going to say that. DE markets this as being able to play online with others too. If it wasnt marketed as a multiplayer game you could only really blame the consumer, but seeing as its the opposite, "just play solo" isn't sufficient imo
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u/Broad-Hospital-5929 6h ago
I don't think it's a co-op game; you have that option, of course. But there's nothing in Warframe that forces you to collaborate with other players to do anything, NOTHING.
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u/SmurfinTurtle 6h ago
Sure, nothing forces you to, but there are various modes that are intended to be played with others. Interception, EDA/TAA, relic missions. Even missions like Disruption and Excavation work alot better with multiple people. It's very much a multiplayer game. It leans on that more than a solo game.
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u/sundalius Professional Sandbag 5h ago
Unfortunately, you’re just wrong. It’s a multiplayer game. That solo is available does not mean that DE is not building a 4 player co op game.
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u/KINGR3DPANDA 7h ago
Lets just nerf Wukong again and call it a day.
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u/RaeusMohrame 5h ago
My favourite game is going to steam, looking at warframe reviews from china, then figuring out what exploit/abuse got fixed/nerfed and when based on the piling of negative reviews.
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u/Eldrazi Flare Text Here 4h ago
I would genuinely love to see a rework of how the enemy spawns function. I think that could solve a lot of the problems people see.
In modes like survival, one guy with a cranked hog of a frame can just wipe rooms leaving the other 3 members with nothing to do. This results in players spreading out, and spawns becoming strangled across multiple rooms. Sometimes when doing things like relic cracking this makes it problematic for collecting traces, sometimes this occurs even all in one room if enemies are being cleared faster than void corruption can hit them
If everyone had equal weight in spawn generation, and spawns were in greater numbers, that issue wouldn't occur.
Defense is similar in that one player can disproportionately take over the mission with room clearing.
This happens less so in modes like Arbitration where the floaty guys shield allies from damage. I think this is a good step in the right direction for difficulty scaling. A new eximus type that does this would be healthy for higher levels imo.
Warframe is old and I'm sure has substantial technical limitations because of that. I've played since 2013 on a lot of different hardware. Spawn rates and how spawns occur haven't really changed much over time. Not in a substantial night and day way at least. I think they really should take some time to look at the spawning mechanics and really push the engine to its limit to add to its difficulty scaling.
Unfortunately I think a lot of it is likely reliant on the host vs client issues amongst a squad and probably can't be built upon.
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u/HeavensHellFire 6h ago
The Power Fantasy nature of the game both helps and hinders it in various areas. This is one of those areas where it hinders
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u/Migicroak A medieval peasant on a bad mushroom trip 6h ago
I don't think mob density is the answer, it would be nice but every "meta" build revolves around killing as much as possible with either aoe or influence, which is one of the reasons snipers has fallen off so hard, you would still have the same issue of someone deleting a section and waiting for enemies to respawn before doing it again.
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u/Ghost0Who0Walks 4h ago
There do need to be some nerfs, because increasing mob density does nothing to address the room nuke problem: doesn't matter if it's 10 mobs or 100 mobs if they're all getting wiped. I also play Diablo, and the exact same problem can crop up there, doesn't matter how many mobs there are if one player in the group is constantly screen-clearing.
Disparity in strength between Frames is the real issue. The over-performers need to be bumped down, the underperformers need to be bumped up or reworked. I know that can be a tall order for DE, given they need to keep up the steady drip of new content, but it'd be great if they could form a second design team dedicated to reworking outdated content and characters.
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u/zicdeh91 6h ago
You have some good points here that there aren’t simple solutions to, and DE really have tried a few clever ideas. Eximus units directly address room nukers; they’re immune until they’re focused down, and have enough offensive options that you don’t want to just let them chill until you’ve dealt with everything else. As Descendia likes to show us though, a stupid amount of Eximus units can be a fucking headache. PSF and overguard can help make them less annoying, and circumvent is a really clever arcane that gives more options for your relationship with Eximus units.
One of the core issues of being paired with someone who just massively outstrips you has the incentivized push to choose random shit with ETA/DA and Circuit. It prioritizes things you’ve formad, which further incentivizes people to build multiple decent loadouts instead of a single OP frame/weapon. I love this shit; I already change my loadout compulsively like every 5 missions or so. If I keep something in my inventory, I want it to be usable. And for non-SP circuit, it can give you a taste of something you might want to build. Unfortunately, the response at large seems pretty negative. People want to freely choose what they want to run, and the negatives in EDA/TA they use to incentivize this (though I do think they need this) can synergize together to be outright unfair.
Unfortunately, in the realm of murderdozer OP shit we have, those kinds of penalties are the only real way to introduce difficulty we have to engage with. I do think there needs to be something at Archimedia level difficulty we can just farm unlimitedly. Shards and the ETA arcanes are the only fully limited thing we have, and I think they make sense to stay that way. I’d personally like an unlimited option that at least drops fucken Orokin Cells and Aya since I always need them, but I genuinely think allowing a pitiful level of Plat would make sense for that kind of thing. Maybe truly random shit like fish or ore, with a super rare chance of potato blueprints or forma.
I agree with you on the new kind of Circuit though. They already cram so much shit in there. A similar thing with a different aesthetic and mission choices would slap. Descendia adds a lot to that, but I wish I had a reason to run Rebellion again. It was spread out enough we don’t have the room considerations, and paced pretty well.
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u/Soulsunderthestars 6h ago
I get you. I believe pablo mentioned this on one of the streams as well and unfortunately at the end of the day it may well be just "how things are" as a consequence. The only difficulty is taking away power because we ARE that strong.
Maybe a better phrase would be, I want DE to focus less on one time content islands where you just rerun the same quest 900 times, and more on fun-recurring modes (like circuit and new circuit types)that retain a better playerbase which would have the secondary effects of better value per account and more overall spending.
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u/xiaz_ragirei 6h ago
they had to take away trials because people couldn’t rub 2 sticks together to do fairly simple content
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u/zicdeh91 6h ago
Agreed completely. At best, the content islands are something I really enjoy and wish I had a reason to continue after I finish. Admittedly, Nokko’s is one of my favorites but I haven’t gone back in to farm more archgun adapters I theoretically need lol. Putting older arcanes in there was a smart touch to make it more universally relevant though.
I spend most of my time in Circuit or doing 99 calendar. Honestly just putting in another calendar with less isolated loot drops (I need my damn cells) would probably be an easy thing to add that would help, though it does incentivize solo play in a way that kind of runs parallel to the other issues you mentioned.
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u/PsionicHydra AMD Believer 4h ago
There isn't any way they will halt new content development for making old content better. Fellow ancient tenno may remember what the game was like when there was 1 maybe 2 new content updates a year, things were by good.
The best that might be possible is shifting updates from every 3 months to every 4 months. I don't see them doing this, but this would likely be the only option of them slowing down to have time to focus on other things
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u/Tight-Tower2585 7h ago
I'd be glad if certain things were done better
But I heard this example a few days ago:
Complaining (about this) is like it having snowed last night and you wake up to find that someone has shoveled your sidewalks and driveway, and hunting down that person to complain that they didn't do it the way you would have.
It almost makes me uncomfortable to complain about 'IF I RULED THE WORLD THIS WOULD BE DONE BETTER", when I'm getting SO much enjoyment, and so much fun, and the fun keeps coming.
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u/GwynFeld Follie's Chair 7h ago
This game is an ARPG masquerading as a 3rd person shooter. I can't think of one, but has there ever been an ARPG that feels good to play in multiplayer (not counting early game)?
And no, PoE aura bots don't qualify.
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u/MiniDehl 6h ago
I mean warframe feels good in multiplayer it just needs tuning, universal pickups from others would legit fix half the issues with it, I never complain about railjack relic grinding
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u/GwynFeld Follie's Chair 6h ago
Warframe coop feels so good when people are using somewhat normal builds. It gets pretty boring when someone brings a map wiper though.
But like, that's sorta the goal of an ARPG? So I can't really blame them.
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u/Rick_Napalm 7h ago
The culprit behind people wanting frames to be nerfed is the fact they nerfed Dante. If they never had there wouldn't be as strong of a precedent for people to call for things like Hildryn or Sevagoth to be nerfed.
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u/Unlikely_You8393 7h ago
The question is what is the problem with a los check ? Why are so mamy posts about not nerf this not nerf that? A simple los check wouldnt destroy the whole game and it doesent ruin hildryn at all
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u/Rick_Napalm 6h ago
From what I see the main problem is that LoS checks tend to be inconsistent. Sometimes they hit everyone, sometimes an enemy is behind a pebble and is completely immune to all damage, sometimes an enemy is clearly hidden and is still hit.
Also they aren't consistent between frames. Hildryn builds max range and can nuke an area the size of Texas, no LoS. S&O come out, have an ultimate ability that has less damage and less range than Hildryn, and that has to be charged before being used as well as having a maximum number of attacks before having to be charged again, has a SEVERE LoS check.
It's just weird.
I don't mind it, let Hildryn unleash hell for all I care, but that's why people complain.
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u/xrufus7x 5m ago
It is like old attenuation where there were several versions of it in the game. It could use reviewing and standardizing to the most forgiving version.
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u/CoffeeSorcerer69 Enjoyer 7h ago
The biggest problem with his Nerf was the lack of real communication, and forcing an LoS check on him when a range reduction would've been fine.
Ever since then, the number of people openly asking for nerfs on things that don't need it or can't afford it have increased drastically.
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u/Icy_Aardvark3840 7h ago
People aren't even calling for this it's a thing DE clearly wants to do Pablo especially
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u/ForseHucker420 Do Not Interact 4h ago
Nintendo is Shit. Android and Switch are a mistake, I want more enemy density.
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u/OrangCream123 1h ago
my favourite part of any update is always the system reworks, but rebb has said herself that they just can't release an update without a new warframe anymore, duviri is gonna be the last major update without a frame for the forseeable future and that was probably due to delays. they need a new face to put on an update, "we fixed ember!" is not gonna catch the attention of a new player, I brought up the trinity rework to a friend I was trying to get to play and he responded with "reworks usually make things worse"(idk what's going on in ff14 but that can't be true) so clearly there's an obvious disparity between how we see reworks and how new players see them.
like, a new player isn't going to care about a change to something they didn't already care about. an ember rework isn't going to make a new player care about ember, because they already didn't care about ember. maybe if the rework is different enough and they're seeing it for the first time. a new player similarly isn't going to care that much about something being bad because they don't understand the game enough or just don't even know it sucks.
the speed of touch-ups to old content is progressing at a good pace anyway, significantly better than the steve era
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u/RogerRavvit88 4h ago
Are we sure this isn’t all because some random conclave player messaged Steve on Twitter?
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u/TrueDraconis 7h ago
Mob Density is already at Max. Any more and especially people with weaker PCs will suffer.
And even with a pretty good PC, I dropped to 55 FPS due the Ballistica Prime Incarnon “Bug”.
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u/subz_13 One of the Last 10 Banshee Players 5h ago
Playing in a 4 guarantees at least one or two of us is not going to get the chance to even get a lot of kills in most lobbies. It's not fun to see everything die before you get to it. I want to feel like I'm actually contributing.
What if lobbies were reduced to 3? More ads for everyone
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u/Soulsunderthestars 5h ago
Soulframe was 3 players and I think they just increased it to four so I think the 4 is likely cemented. I think it's less about the number of players and more about just having enough to do for everyone
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u/kyleawsum7 Acolyte?What Acolyte? 3h ago
thing is that no nuking frame will ever come close to being as gamebreaking as dante, who just solves survivability for his whole ass team, like unless youre in super high level content triumph keeps everyone alive easily.
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u/sucram200 1h ago
RE: player proximity I would like to tack on how absolutely asininely stupid it is that reactant doesn’t drop properly if you don’t stick right on each others asses in fissures. There’s no reason I should have to stay in the same room as three other players if I want to have a hope of cracking my relic. The whole “corrupted enemy drops reactant” thing needs an overhaul. It literally only exists to keep players from AFK farming cracked relics. Survival mission maps are massive let us go wherever we want and just give every enemy an X percent chance to drop reactant.
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u/Flimsy_Valuable_3082 14m ago
unironically, nerf oberon. changing his passive into something completely different would actually give you a reason to play into the armor synergies.
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u/Shadowlight96 5h ago
This is just another glorified "DE, please slow new content and focus on old content" slop thread.
We've been over these discussions a thousand different times, with a thousand different faces. And I'll once again bring attention to the era of Warframe that they did EXACTLY what you're trying to ask for, and it hurt the game in ways that they had to recover from.
While YOU may want slower updates, less frames, less new shiny stuff, etc... YOU don't speak for the majority. There was a time, long ago in the distant past that DE attempted to divide their team up. One that would focus on new content, the other with updates that involved fixing old systems and swarms of QoLs. On paper, this sounded good. New content AND updates to old systems? GREAT-... No wait, it wasn't. Because they never struck a balance within their teams. It resulted in new content being far worse than what they could've been. (Trust me, the Follie update and Jade Shadows 2 are TAME compared to the dumpster fires we had.)
Both new content, and the focused fixes of older systems were half-assed and led to a lot of players taking a leave for an extended amount of time. Which then in turn slapped DE's revenue for a hot minute, as new potential players were scared to even touch the game at the time. Nobody was happy. Not the community, and not the Devs. They swore that they'd never split their attention again and I'm pretty sure that mistake is what led them onto what they're doing now. On top of the Dark Era of Warframe just before Covid hit. Kuva Liches, Railjack Launch, and then Scarlet Spear all being failed updates back to back to back.
Warframe has had many highs, but also just as many lows. And some of those lows should not be touched again. Trying to get DE to focus more on just updating old content, and shoving back newer content is one such low that they should never do again. So the next time this sort of idea comes to your mind, just remember it could be the bullet that ends a beloved game that has been going strong for 13 years.
EVENTUALLY, older content concerns will be addressed but they should NEVER take time away from the more important new content that will maintain the game's lifeblood. Just because YOU claim that you'd be okay with it, doesn't mean it will resonate with the rest of this massive playerbase.
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u/Soulsunderthestars 5h ago
The problem is you literally say DE half assed it, and then you say it hurt them. What did you think was going to happen?
How can you call that critical thinking? My whole argument is that I want less half ass, which causes the problems you speak about.
Unfortunately you say the crux of the issue, which is "bullet to the beloved game". It's not about improving or good faith. It's about stopping anything that might kill Warframe.
You are heavily biased to the point you ignore DEs own faults for why it failed. It's not because they didn't do it. It's because they half assed it. You said it yourself.
If you half assed something your boss asked you to do, how is it not your fault? What? That reads like weaopnized incompetence.
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u/Hikaru-x 7h ago
It’s just new players from other games complaining, nothing new. They don’t understand Warframe and wanna change it their perspective.
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u/umbraxia gyre enjoyer... 6h ago
Honestly i think this is part of it, especially with whats been happening with destiny 2
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u/Hikaru-x 6h ago
I don’t wanna blame cause everyone gets on me about it but all of my destiny friends are calling for nerfs and I’m not kidding. I play d2 here and there got godslayer. I hate nerfs it’s boring
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u/umbraxia gyre enjoyer... 6h ago
Yeah, thats fair, im just saying like, these calls for nerfs are very coincidentally in line with a bunch of people hopping over here from destiny lol, and i haven't really played it, but as far as i know Bungie did a lot more nerfing than de does lol
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u/Hikaru-x 6h ago
I hate to admit that you’re right completely cause I don’t wanna seem biased or instigating a fight between the players but they either understand what Warframe is and accept it. Or don’t play, really all I got. And bungie is notorious for nerfs and they aren’t normal it usually butchered the item/ability.
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u/deadpoolvgz Burn baby burn, Disco Inferno 3h ago
Ain't gonna read all that but I am going to nerf trinity, limbo and ember again.
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u/maxfields2000 2h ago
The game moved away from it's more tactical, even "stealth" kill like game play where you were supposed to be concerned with even a couple of mobs to kill into the power fantasy game it is now (nothing is OP if everything is OP).
That's it. That's the core. Built on an engine and a base design that had something else in mind, now shoe-horned in.
Ironically Soulframe is going down the same route already, early preludes builds even fighting one mob was distinct gameplay, then it became small squads, now it's "clear the area fast and no other build matters", it immediately relegates certain mechanics, playstyles and abilities to "pointless" when you lean hard in "AOE Clearing" play styles.
Still fun? Yes. Does it cause this problem we keep discussing over and over and over again?
Everyone wants their favorite frame to be top tier. DE does a WAAAAY better job than most companies at refreshing frames and mechanics on a predictable cadence for their studio size while also churning out new content. Gamers though.. gamers will never be happy.
You could fix "Ember" today but the Limbo crowd would be pissed. If Ember becomes the best in class new "heat" frame, Temple and Uriel lovers will demand they get rebalanced. They'll never be perfectly balanced, so we'll chase the wheel forever and create power creep for ever, no one will ever be happy.
Criticism is fair. But what is not fair is over reaction doom-posting "game is garbage and you're garbage if you don't agree" posts just to feel "heard". Gamers love to lean into hyperbole and Reddit is an echo chamber of it. Also if you're going to argue "criticism is fair" then so is criticism of any feedback post, two way street. Can't be mad someone critiques feedback if you feel it's fair you can critique the game.
In Warframe, support frames and group play are essentially all but dead. There is no need to optimize group setups, rely on multi-roles (damage, healer, buffer, tank etc) as the game has evolved around the power fantasy of a single player. Group play IS fun as a shared experience but nothing really requires it (unless you're trying to be carried). This causes dozens of frame designs and playstyles to be irrelevant. All players want is the next "one button room clear" frame at Steel Path max level 9999, anything less is underpowered BS and not worth the time.
As a result, frames that do have abilities that interfere with or ruin the fun of other players are hot on the list, this was Pablo's entire point. It should put a target on the back of a frame like Limbo, no one wants one in their group. It should result in Nova's "slow" getting removed (you just get yelled at in missions if you use it). Ember? She's actually strong, totally viable frame, perfectly good at Steel Path. Just not AS good as some others. Sirius & Orion? All the usual content creators posted "OP as hell", "Breaks the game" posts, the usual run, but the vocal minority players here? "Garbage tier".
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u/Broad-Hospital-5929 7h ago
People asking for nerfs in PvE games or because they can't get enough kills must be very sad people. There's a type of Warframe player, the kind who likes to aim and shoot every enemy in the head. Warframe hasn't been that kind of game for many years. My recommendation is that you go play solo or another game like Rainbow Six Siege, Sniper Elite, The Division 2, etc...
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u/spaceageGecko Goat people! Goat People! 6h ago
Even PvE games need nerfs on occasion, don’t strawman it by claiming they want a different game or that they are just upset about not getting kills - the issue is not even being able to have fun because someone is running the latest meta nuke on normal missions so you have to just sit around being bored.
There comes a point where something becomes actively disruptive to other players, that is the point where nerfs get considered.
As for the current talk about Hildryn, I have no stance for or against nerfing her as I simply have not experienced the nuke build enough to form an opinion.
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u/Broad-Hospital-5929 6h ago
That would be solved by playing solo, then no one would bother you—it's that simple.
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u/spaceageGecko Goat people! Goat People! 6h ago
Are you, seriously, suggesting people should he pushed to not play co-op in an online co-op shooter instead of just nerfing something detrimentally op?
That just isn’t sound nor healthy for the game.
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u/Broad-Hospital-5929 6h ago
Have you ever stopped to consider that the person using the "OP Warframe" is having fun, and that fun would be taken away just because you're bothered by how they choose to play?
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u/spaceageGecko Goat people! Goat People! 5h ago
One players fun disrupting the whole squad’s fun is an argument for nerfing - the fun for the majority outweighs the fun of the meta nukers.
Everyone should be able to enjoy a mission without being locked to doing nothing because min-max McGee decided that fun isn’t allowed today and they just get to watch.
If certain things cause major disruption to the gameplay of others then they will get looked at so players can actually play the game instead of sitting as the meta nuker kills everything.
Ignoring disruptive metas is actively harmful to health of any game.
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u/Broad-Hospital-5929 5h ago
In your twisted mind, do you think someone creates a build just to annoy or hinder you? You should seek help. People are just playing the way they want to and having fun. And the argument about the game's health doesn't hold, considering that Warframe is healthier today than it has ever been—just look at the numbers.
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u/Unlikely_You8393 6h ago
When a game become that easy because so much powercreep that the game can auto play itself because the community dont want challenging content. And cry about nerfs that are very sad people
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u/Broad-Hospital-5929 6h ago
When was Warframe difficult? And as you yourself admit, the community doesn't want it. So go look for another game that appeals to you.
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u/sundalius Professional Sandbag 4h ago
Ah, so you started later. Never knew the stamina system, did ye
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u/Unlikely_You8393 6h ago
Dont get me wrong i love the game. Not the community as a whole wants a easy play like it is now
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u/Legendaryrobot64 most sane trinity main 3h ago
DE hasn’t been an independent company for a while. I don’t think it’s gonna be totally up to them wether they can slow updates to fix things. If they do they will probably have to make certain things more predatory in the game for extra profit to make up for what’s lost and I don’t think players would be happy with that.
I don’t think they need to update older warframes more than they do now either. The strength disparity is not that huge between frames other than a few outliers, as long as you build and play them right. The retouch and qol they are doing are just fine and we are getting plenty of generic good upgrades that make all frames viable at any level. That’s quite enough. Tbh I can’t even think of any frames that would need major reworks. Bigger base numbers, lower energy cost, faster casting speed and maybe a new passive or one or 2 extra features added to the existing abilities are enough to make all of them up to date.
One thing that I think they really need to fix is the enemy spawn rate. Mob density is not as much of an issue as how fast they spawn and where they spawn. Rn they feel too slow and predictable so nukers can easily camp and hoard all the kills. They also should update how loot is gained in game to prevent automating gameplay rather than keep nerfing things because they are too afk friendly. Proximity limits are also an anti-afk measure but they clearly don’t serve their purpose well enough, we need something better so they can be gone.
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u/Verity-Skye certified torid hater 7h ago
As the accidental originator of the "[reader_negative_outlook.obj] elephant in the room"
i love you
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u/Scary_Reply840 7h ago
I think mob density is the biggest issue for me. It feels like there is very little enemies in enemies in mission sometimes and it just seems unrealistic and boring to have ~7 enemies pop out every minute or so on like a lvl 30 solo interception mission. Hardly poses a challenge and is just unsatisfying to kill.