Hello Tenno!
Maybe it's time to buff Flame Repellent? This post is going to be a bit longer than usual, but its length is just a reflection of our gratitude and investment in everything that's gone on in Warframe not just over the past 24 hours, but the past 3 years. Your feedback has allowed us to grow together – which I'll show you how shortly – so we must begin by thanking you for sticking around and providing us with the feedback you freely give.
We are less than 24 hours into the release of 18.13.0 at the time of this thread, and we're already breaking forum records:
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It seems that every big game these days uses 'passionate' to describe their players when vocalization surges, but I think it slightly glosses over what is actually at play here with Warframe - especially if you consider our history. This surge is rooted in a fervor of perspectives – the quantity of the posts has obviously increased (and so has my vocabulary on learning new profanity), and as a result the top-tier quality we are used to in community discussions has as well. As a group you've highlighted the best of the best, and we've been doing our best to read all of the Hot topics across the forums/Reddit/etc in the short time window following release.
In Warframe's 3 years of being in Open Beta, we've seen the 'surge' - the astute veteran can likely correlate spikes on that graph with balance situations that feel familiar to 18.13.0's release (note the drop on the graph is when we migrated the forums). For a lot of you, this might be your first surge! If so, welcome to Warframe – where we do things to digital EXTREMES!
In direct respect to 18.13.0:
More changes are coming – I wish I could give you a list now of exactly what but the list can only be built over time this weekend the longer we spend playing and extrapolating feedback. It is with the best intentions that we are committed to reducing cheese. At this time – even with these best intentions of more engaging play - the fundamental issue for many of you is: no amount of engagement counters the enemy's cheese. A select few abilities that we touched 'worked' in the eyes of the players because you could fight fire with fire once you entered a specific threshold of content. The tight-rope of frustration is high, and the changing of the meta can be painful. In our eyes some meta elements simply harmed the quality of the gameplay taking place. However, 'finality' is not a word I'd ever associate with our Dev process, and as flawed as that may sound I think it's one of the reasons we're such a tight-knit community is because time and time again we set the course together. As the say, if you want an omelette you have to crack a few eggs (I don't actually know if they say that).
In direct respect to what is 'familiar' with these surges:
There was a time we changed Stamina, voices surged (so sayeth the graph), and then we completely redid our entire Parkour & Melee System. Every time we shake things up – no matter how lightly - the impact is objectively better. We see more people are interested in the game, and more people realize the impact their collective constructive views have on the game. There are a few counter-narratives that often indicate the end of times, I've seen it a lot over the years, but ultimately things come out better and bigger as a result. I'm not saying it doesn't have growing pains, though!
It bears repeating that more changes are coming soon. We will be hotfixing like mad next week, and getting deeper into difficulty discussions in terms of the enemy. It's been a long time since we have looked at enemy scaling and their spiky damage output, and in that time you've found ways to deal with it.
I honestly can't think of anything I'd like to be doing more than playing Warframe right now, hashing out feedback together, and getting things ready for the next Hotfix. So if you see me in game all weekend, that's what I'm up to!
Please accept our experimentation - the messy and the clean - and be open to iteration – it's been a big part of Warframe's development and community history. Over the course of each release, you'll find so many of the changes, additions, and fixes exist because of these moments.
-[DE]Rebecca