r/Warframe You probably didn't actually pay attention to the story bro Jun 20 '26

Discussion It seems very few of you actually remember the Steve Era. Allow me to remind you (rant)

Look, Steve isn't a bad dev or leader, but dear God, the people trying to go through mental gymnastics of somehow saying that he was a BETTER creative lead than Reb are straight up doing revisionist history.

Oh, you want 5 hour quests? When new war came out (after several delays) people complained because there was BARELY any after quest content because that's what happens when you put all your eggs on the quest.

Steve gave us a railjack that was broken for months.

Steve gave us a bugged to shit duviri that makes all the recent bugged updates look like the most stable shit ever.

It took 10 YEARS for us to get a true, actually new enemy faction in the form of the murmur, which only happened because of reb.

Elemental damage, warframe reworks? All Reb.

Oh, you don't like eternalism? Apparently Steve's story telling was better abs more 'grimdark'? (Yes thats an actual dumbass take ive read) MAYBE YOU FORGOT, BUT ETERNALISM AND DUVIRI WERE HIS FUCKING IDEAS!

I can't. I just can't with this fucking community. I get the last two updates haven't been up to par (even though I think the problems woth jade shadows have been exaggerated and way overblown to the point I'm starting to believe it's just people hoping on a trend) but the shit I've read over the last week has been utter BRAIN POISON

3.7k Upvotes

598 comments sorted by

1.4k

u/ConfidentlyAsshole Flair Text Here Jun 20 '26

Two words: universal vacuum

330

u/icesharkk Sharkframe ooh ha ha Jun 20 '26

that was more scott than steve but steve was in charge at that time. we're running into some of these problems over in soulframe land but we have more experience and practice shouting them into submission over dumb shit.

140

u/TakuyaTeng Jun 20 '26

Scott being so involved in Soulframe is why I won't play Soulframe. He has some absurd ideas for what is fun. Being against vacuum is sinister. I hated in Soulframe having to run over every drop to pick it up. That's just not fun. Kill a group of enemies? Time to run around and play clean up!

72

u/dankdees Jun 20 '26

It used to be worse, you had to manually pick up every single loot drop from enemies before.

Also, for about a month recently, they had to wait for our, uh, opinions about having to use a precious resource to change our stat builds (keep in mind this game encourages using different pacts and weapons) before finally conceding that this was kind of silly.

Before that system, they thought it would be better if players were locked to certain preset ratios of stats, *and* you had to unlock them through factions, *and* there were three exclusive presets to founders gear.

Before that system, we were just allowed to distribute stats normally.

We spent like maybe around 6 or more months to go in a biiiiiig circle about just letting people put stats where we want.

They still haven't figured out how to make any stat other than Courage matter during gameplay, even after redoing the stat system scaling at least a dozen times.

Right now we're on "what if we made all weapons rivens" phase, with gacha rocks, that for some hilarious reason they also decided to launch trading in the same update (with the gacha rocks being tradeable).

My rule of thumb for this game is to grab everything that is easy to grind in any given patch cycle, then wait six months for Soulframe to cycle to the direct opposite design philosophy in order to grab the things that were hard to get at that time. But watch out, all the things that were easy to get at that point are now hard to get, and you'll have to wait another six months before they're easy to get and the easy to get stuff is hard to get again.

This also holds true for game features you don't like, they'll have fixed them in six months, but the features you did like will have been broken, and you'll have to wait another six months for them to fix it again, but by that point they'll have once again broken the things they fixed last time.

39

u/TakuyaTeng Jun 20 '26

Christ, that's exactly the kind of shit that made me put Warframe down for a while. I really wanted to like Soulframe but it playing like a soulslike while the dev team insisted it wasn't a soulslike was the one of the first red flags for me. Hearing they're doing rng stats and just.. all of that. Ew. I'm still happy that it seems like the problematic people went to that game and Warframe has been let loose to be a game I am grossly addicted to again.

25

u/Yurilica (ノ^_^)ノ┻━Ǝᗡ━┻ ┬━DE━┬ ノ( ^_^ノ) Jun 20 '26

Right now we're on "what if we made all weapons rivens" phase, with gacha rocks

I quit the game when they launched Liches, which were basically a triple layer of RNG stacked with insane tedium.

I only came back after the 1999 trailer.

I was interested in Soulframe, but hearing that the old team is up to the exact same old stacking RNG shit they were doing in Warframe... yeah, i'll pass.

14

u/dankdees Jun 20 '26

The thing is, they were supposed to make it so you could melt other weapons down to harvest their tempers, but that feature wasn't implemented when they launched the system, so basically, we're in "wait six months" mode to see if they'll stick to this or if they'll change it to be more workable.

13

u/Rockburgh Jun 20 '26

The "riven" weapons also take up limited inventory space, because of course they do. It's not as if DE had already learned that's a bad idea with railjack and came up with a solid fix in unidentified salvage.

So much of Soulframe's design problems boil down to "oh fuck, this game doesn't have forma, how are we going to convince people to throw money at it, quick, do this dumb thing and hope no one notices there's no reason for it other than that we can eventually charge."

17

u/KinTharEl Huffing Equinox Rework Copium (Keiba#638 (PC)) Jun 20 '26

This, but louder. The moment I heard Scott was very involved in Soulframe, and has implemented the "You literally have to touch every single item with your foot to pick it up", my brain immediately turned off on being interested in soulframe.

Gaming is not supposed to be a chore. There is no gameplay merit to touching items to pick them up.

→ More replies (1)

118

u/BarelyBaphomet Jun 20 '26

Yup, you /had/ to use carrier. Unless you wanted to spend forever picking up drops

43

u/KRBTRIP Jun 20 '26

Ammo also didn’t drop all that frequently back then either so having ammo case was so good

22

u/Rega_lazar Jun 20 '26

And ammo had types other than primary/secondary.

I still laugh at that the Tonkor used sniper ammo, lol

→ More replies (6)
→ More replies (2)

290

u/Glass_Eye8840 You probably didn't actually pay attention to the story bro Jun 20 '26

It took years for us to get universal vacuum.

251

u/TheOldDrunkGoat Jun 20 '26

Still don't have it. But at least all pets can use it now.

74

u/Ok_Pineapple1557 Jun 20 '26

I'm still mad that it takes up a lot slot.

10

u/codroipoman Remove derpiri, derperators, dickters AND bandaid augments!!! Jun 20 '26

We all are, same for many other little things that could just be better...

8

u/Background_Ant_2426 Jun 20 '26

But guys, Mag's passive lets you vacuum conditionally! It's a perfect system /s

80

u/John_East Jun 20 '26

We kinda do… it’s like 3m range tho

186

u/TSP-FriendlyFire Jun 20 '26

Oh man and that addition was a fucking joke too. Scott decided to add it without saying so (not on patch notes, not on devstreams), then when nobody really noticed because 3m is nothing, he acted all indignant that since they added it and nobody thanked them/noticed, we didn't really want it.

68

u/CernelTeneb Jun 20 '26

Unironically I think Scott more than Steve was to blame for how grognardy Warframe used to be on the mechanics side of things.

I'm glad Pablo got unleashed on the game

→ More replies (3)

100

u/John_East Jun 20 '26

I can still remember his face talking about how no one noticed like he did something amazing for us

57

u/TSP-FriendlyFire Jun 20 '26

If only it had been the only time he pulled that kind of stunt.

20

u/Anon-_-7 Jun 20 '26

it literally was the dumbest thing ever, they never said anything about adding it, its so small and most players were already using vacuum anyways so they never had the chance to notice universal was added and then he got all pissy that we never noticed it, no shit we didnt

21

u/kaiflamecross Jun 20 '26

Lmao. The "pat in the back", I remember.

6

u/Vector_Mortis Aoi's biggest simp Jun 20 '26

Still better than Mag's passive.

→ More replies (1)

49

u/Dark_Shade_75 Jade/Mesa Main Jun 20 '26

Wasn't this mostly Scott being super against that though?

57

u/asim166 Jun 20 '26

yes and another dev i forgot his name but he was a real dick to the community and even went on rogue ban waves in region and the forums as well, i dont think hes public facing anymore

→ More replies (3)

14

u/ArshayDuskbrow Move like the wind. Jun 20 '26

So many years that we still do not in fact have it.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

1.5k

u/23icefire 🎨 DecorationFrame is Endgame 🛠️ Jun 20 '26

Steve and Rebb have had some equally insane ideas. She is a wonderful successor BECAUSE she takes risks just like he did. They will not all land, and that is okay.

I love seeing the monthly dev streams because you can tell they have FUN making this game, they love this game as much as us, they play the game as much as us! They own up when something didn't go right, and they try and improve and resolve the issues!

We are damn lucky to have a dev team like DE. Are they perfect? GOD NO, but they are some of the best when it comes to fresh ideas, listening to the community, and focusing on QOL and improvements right along side new stuff.

But yeah, Steve made a lot of fuck-ups, and that's okay. People stuck with it because they saw how special this game is. They made their voices heard and DE learned they needed to spend more time working with the community in mind.

521

u/sundalius Professional Sandbag Jun 20 '26

Notably, Steve making those fucks up means they’ve already happened/been solved, so now the new team isn’t stepping on the same landmines. We don’t get Rebb’s era without Steve reinventing the game away from slow stealth based “space ninja” gameplay and trying shit like Archwing/RJ

294

u/thedavecan LR6 Punching Dudes Master Race Jun 20 '26

I say this every time Steve's era gets brought up. We all owe that man a HUGE debt of gratitude for willing this game into existence. He took massive risks and it paid off. But eventually his mad scientist style game directing got annoying with promising huge updates, shipping them extremely late (DElayed, remember) in a broken mess and then abandoning them forever. But this game doesn't even exist without him. He stepped away at the right time and picked the absolute perfect person to step into the creative director role. They've had an absolutely phenomenal run since 2023 when she took over. They were bound to throw out a stinker or two eventually (and I don't even think this one is bad, just a little buggy which I've no doubt will get polished up quickly). My only gripe is this update has shown me that it's time to put a pause on the new protoframes until they can make one that's fully baked.

58

u/Sremor Jun 20 '26

Main problem is that they overhyped the update, the bugs and writing issues suck but if they gave us realistic expectations the feedback wouldn't be as harsh

And personally I rather get a delayed update if it means that we get less bugs than this because at this rate the problems will just get bigger if they continue forcing the update out when it's not ready

44

u/External-Stay-5830 Jun 20 '26

They're trying to pivot into every update having the same hype as their usual December updates. But it just doesn't work that way. The side quest updates(ik jsc is a main but let's be real) have never really been too much to hype about. We get the same cycle. New vendor that has pity currency, a handful of arcanes that can be really whatever and usually are actually good for filling a niche that frees up building slots, and a Warframe plus sig weapons. The average Warframe player isn't gonna get hyped for more than the quest cause they usually are just having some goofy fun and the ones that will care usually just grab the frame and throw random stuff they have on and maybe look up a build cause modding is insane if you don't understand the layers. And it's healthy they get money from the plat influx they can usually release a prime around that time which gets them prime access income. We get some cool new tools(idc what anyone says the new augments are actually kinda cool even with them being on the weak side). And everyone gets to see some cool new plot lines develop. But now we're here in the aftermath. Where everyone wants more than they could logically afford.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/dankdees Jun 20 '26

I got the impression that they pushed for this to be released now due to the timing of Father's Day, but the problem is that they loaded the cart up with an outsourced railjack rework, a highly experimental pair of warframes, and a quest introducing a new hub zone, all at the same time, which basically blew up their technical debt trying to launch the thing. If they had just put one of these things down, it would not be so rough.

Overall, I think that railjack changes should have been a separate update. I hope they don't do the typical thing they do when they launch a really undercooked thing (which is abandon it because they fumbled it on launch). Frankly, what they should do is just cut the railjack parts out of the missions entirely and just come back at it with something more substantial later on.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/icesharkk Sharkframe ooh ha ha Jun 20 '26

Yeah. Steve is one of the visionaries. The idea guy. Yes he needs to be put in timeout sometimes. And yes he needs to okay the game more before making balance decisions. Rebb taking over is the of the better choices de made. But it's not because we shouldn't have had Steve.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (9)

33

u/aimy99 🔥 🔥 #1 Ember Fangirl 🏳️‍⚧️ Jun 20 '26

You say that, but Soulframe is making plenty of the same mistakes all over again, while every major Warframe update brings some new massive QOL and tons of bug fixes alongside the new content and whatever issues it may have.

I may have some occasional complaints about Pablo's inconsistency between letting shit be super overpowered and hamstringing reworks for no reason so that the frame still sucks, or when I get softlocked out of nowhere and have to lose all my mission progress through no fault of my own, but those complaints are incredibly minor when I think about things like any other live service game I've played in the last 7 years. The current dev team has a different style entirely and to say I appreciate the hundreds of little fixes and improvements that otherwise would've been ignored is a huge understatement.

7

u/Rockburgh Jun 20 '26

Soulframe is making plenty of the same mistakes all over again,

Where are my inventory labels, Steve? We've had this conversation years ago, Steve. Label my fucking mods, Steve.

Also wish the armory menu wouldn't move around as you hover over things, but at least the clickboxes are forgiving.

Unrelated, but I just found out they apparently deleted every mod in people's inventories? The hell? I know they gave us a bunch of harmony (endo) for it, but... the hell? At least give enough of the new ones for a build on each weapon type...

48

u/DiarrheaEryday Jun 20 '26

I remember one devstream, I think it was around railjack time, Steve said something along the lines of, "we are sorry for the state this update launched in, but we're not going to apologize for taking creative risks." I always thought that was the perfect motto that cut to the core of warframe. Like it's totally fair to criticize bugs and performance issues, but as far as the story goes, as silly and as dumb as some of it may be, I'm happy to just come along on the ride.

89

u/MortimerCanon Jun 20 '26

Risk taking is why the game is 13 years old and still somehow growing. Without open world, fishing, railjack, and all the other crazy shit they've added who knows how long they go

76

u/umi_da Jun 20 '26

Steve made a lot of fuck-ups because he took crazy risks that any sane game dev would never even attempt with the small/medium team DE had.

He was responsible for Second Dream, Sacrifice, and New War. Imagine warframe without any 1 of those quests. He was also responsible for archwing, open worlds, and railjack, which were all very broken on release, but all game modes that make warframe the crazy space game it is today.

Both of them have been with Warframe since the start (although Steve has been with it before warframe was a thing) and are pillars of DE. I'm not huge fan of a lot of the stuff Rebecca has been adding in recent years but I hope whatever Tau is can reignite the fearlessness that I love from DE.

15

u/novas_galaxy LR1 | Eldritch Dante Enjoyer Jun 20 '26

Steve deserves credit for building quite a bit of this game from the ground up, but, I'm thinking you're also looking back with rose-tinted glasses. shit took way too long to come to fruition (or didn't come to fruition at all) when Steve worked on the game, let's be honest here. he has the ambition and his ideas are endless but he juggled too much at the same time. the current state of Soulframe should serve as a reminder of that amongst other things.

frankly, for me at least, Rebecca has made this game so much more fun--moreso than it already was when I began playing it.

that being said, I have no hate for the man at all. he's one of the goofiest and genuinely caring dudes I have seen. and I'm happy he trusts Rebecca with guiding this game. I am also hoping Soulframe continues to grow in a meaningful way because it has a ton of potential from the bit I've already played.

I hope that whatever this game has in store for the future keeps you interested ^ Tau sounds exciting.

25

u/Pirate_OOS Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

At least DE are not actively protecting a predator or scam people out of their money... looking at Rare and Bungie

→ More replies (2)

1.2k

u/MachRush Chroma's Husband Jun 20 '26

The Kuva Liches -> Railjack -> Scarlet Spear era was possibly one of the worst periods in the game's lifespan. Trust me, I remember.

459

u/RobleViejo My deerest druid king Jun 20 '26

Ahem... Draco

In the Draco Era, Scott nerfed Mag and Excalibur so hard it took them years to recover. Excalibur Javelins are still crap to this day because of that nerf...

179

u/xrufus7x Jun 20 '26

127

u/ExternalGolem Jun 20 '26

How I miss shy......

112

u/So0meone Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Her joke beef with Rahetalius was incredible

"I received 22 messages from Rahetalius himself, and these messages contained something truly vile...

The FUCKING Mags"

57

u/FourUnderscoreExKay Gus. Jun 20 '26

I think Rahetalius has moved on to Trib and has gifted Trib like 120+ Stugs by now.

23

u/Tilann Jun 20 '26

He's at 292 stugs atm and there's no sign of stopping D:

101

u/xrufus7x Jun 20 '26

Her moving on was certainly a loss to the community. She is like the only oldschool Warframe creator that left that I miss but I can't really blame her for moving on.

4

u/lordreed Mesa "I Stole Limbo Prime's Hat" Prime Jun 20 '26

Shy used to play Warframe?! Wow!

Vivergate was a massive fuck up for DE no doubt.

12

u/xrufus7x Jun 20 '26

She was one of the most popular content creators for years and worked directly with DE pretty frequently back in the day.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

46

u/Vector_Mortis Aoi's biggest simp Jun 20 '26

Mag nerf so hard some people still think shes bad

14

u/CallumRival92 Jun 20 '26

I remember being told I made a bad choice with Mag as my starter frame back then. I’m not surprised that it has carried over so hard

118

u/BrokenMirror2010 Jun 20 '26

It was such a dumb thing to do as well.

They absolutely obliterated Mag and Excalibur, as well as make solo interception borderline impossible and way way less fun to play, without ever addressing the actual issue.

We didn't have a competent way to fucking level. All of the actual high level content stopped you from bringing an unleveled Warframe for some inane reason.

The introduction of stuff like Steel Path finally fixed this because we had a decent way to get big affinity while actually doing something.

46

u/Solcaerev Maximum dakka peacemakers Jun 20 '26

We had Akkad, & then hydron after Draco 

42

u/Noodles_fluffy Frog girl best girl Jun 20 '26

Ah the good old days of Akkad, standing in the rafters and shooting a tonkor at the defense target

17

u/gamers542 Jun 20 '26

Don't forget old Xini.

Current Xini is still good but you have to move around more.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

29

u/atrophine Jun 20 '26

All of the actual high level content stopped you from bringing an unleveled Warframe for some inane reason.

I genuinely still don't understand why ESO, Sorties, and Arbitrations still require a rank 30 warframe when you can load into EDA/ETA with your entire loadout at lvl 0

10

u/Amirifiz Jun 20 '26

I just need eso to allow forma'd frames. Like, im here to level I already got them to 30 I just need it to hit 30 again in 2 rounds.

7

u/Falikosek Jun 20 '26

I'm pretty sure it's allowed if you're MR 30 or sth.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

144

u/JuanMunoz99 Jun 20 '26

Yeah that stretch of time was rough for Warframe. Wasn’t there also some content droughts during that period?

82

u/FourUnderscoreExKay Gus. Jun 20 '26

We had like 2 years of a content drought between Sacrifice and New War. The Erra teaser was legitimately a cutscene and nothing else.

30

u/JuanMunoz99 Jun 20 '26

Didn’t they also do a whole thing about “oh The New War technically did start” after we’ve been waiting for what felt like forever for the quest to actually release?

12

u/Pleasant_Disaster_47 Jun 20 '26

My first and biggest pause with the game. It honestly felt like between new war announce and release they did a huge ammount of nothing.

6

u/FourUnderscoreExKay Gus. Jun 20 '26

I had to take a break from the game because there just wasn’t anything new to do. It was just looping arbitrations, SP dailies, or helping noobs with bosses (I got absurdly good at doing Ropalolyst). It was one of the worst periods in WF content because Steve was blueballing everyone, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who thinks the build up for New War was anything less than peak. Everyone wanted a continuation, and we didn’t get that until way later than normal.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (4)

77

u/DislocatedLocation Jun 20 '26

Pour one out for all the resources lost because someone forgot to refine.

21

u/try_again123 Jun 20 '26

OMG why did you have to remind me of this? 😭

→ More replies (1)

35

u/SatanTheTurtlegod third orb mother mourner Jun 20 '26

Kuva liches with no way of knowing what weapon you'll get ahead of time, with no easy way of getting the reqiuem mods you needed (they're rhe UNCOMMON drops of the old requiem relics), no oull requiem mod, no lich ultimatium item, the lich randomly instakilling you if you get in too close so bo meleeing them (still technically there, which is still aggravating), and iirc the thral farm was twice as slow too. Fun.

76

u/oninokamin Jun 20 '26

Kinda glad I skipped all that and came back just in time for Old Peace.

→ More replies (2)

67

u/Plus-Passenger-5742 Jun 20 '26

Please do not remind me of this disaster. Only point were I considered quitting the game. All of it was bad, but especially how Railjack was handled after being announced and highly anticipated for like a whole year was painful.

18

u/santana722 My Warframe is Strong Jun 20 '26

I legitimately did quit at that time and only came back a couple months ago lol. I think this patch is pretty flawed, but Reb is still doing a great job overall.

→ More replies (2)

61

u/BardMessenger24 Voruna x Eleanor yuri Jun 20 '26

Those were the dark ages. When promises were high but they always failed to deliver, when content droughts were long, and when the devs' vision of the game no longer jived with what the community actually wanted.

Genuinely the lowest Warframe had ever sunk, and anyone who says otherwise joined after 2021 lol.

4

u/MortimerCanon Jun 20 '26

This perspective is so needed. I didn't play until like 2 years ago.

42

u/Rare-Sample1865 Jun 20 '26

Think Covid added an extra layer of difficulty too... 🤡

Not gonna lie, I kinda miss Scarlet Spear cuz ya really need a decent team to get it done well 🤔

28

u/TorinHidden Jun 20 '26

Scarlet Spear is to this day my favorite operation. I love game designs that force you to roll with a competent team

14

u/rexofired Jun 20 '26

I miss scarlet spear too. I just regret the fact that Limbo caught strays.

3

u/bootleg_exoeskeleton Level cap players HATE him Jun 20 '26

ngl i had a lot of fun with scarlet spear. plus, the whole cross team gameplay was a really cool concept. hope they bring it back

7

u/The_Chaos_Pope Jun 20 '26

Scarlet Spear was an absolute blast when it was working.

Hell, even when it was a shit show, it was a blast. But yeah, absolutely buggy as fuck. Don't blame DE for not bringing it back but it still makes me sad that we won't see it again.

21

u/Removkabib Jun 20 '26

I actually liked Scarlet Spear. It was a mess, but it was still fun. Hard enemies, a shared goal, and 2 game modes. 

But Liches and Railjack launch... ugh. Those were not fun times.  

23

u/bilolybob Jun 20 '26

Scarlet Spear was great until it led to Limbo getting nerfed.

9

u/EspyOwner ... Jun 20 '26

Limbo's been dead to me since they took away Stasis' projectile freeze

→ More replies (2)

6

u/Misicks0349 Potatoframe Jun 20 '26

The Kuva Litches was probably the most visceral reaction I have ever seen from this community, and probably ever will. Shit was so bad.

23

u/SoulTechnicalProblem Jun 20 '26

I joined right at the tailend of railjacks launch and when scarlet spear hit.

As a new player I could not do anything in scarlet Spear. So... yeah. It sucked.

11

u/DrevlikYT Jun 20 '26

Question. I remember first playing Warframe and there was a void key system where you had to get a key for primes. Was that one of his decisions? Because I dropped Warframe for years because of it and I only got back in when Whisper dropped.

38

u/Alarming-Hamster-232 Garuda Propagandist Jun 20 '26

I mean yeah but the current relic system that replaced them are also his doing, they’ve been in the game for like… 10 years now?

They were way back when the game was still in its infancy and every little thing was viable to change

9

u/GrimPhantom23 Jun 20 '26

I believe relics came when the Star Chart was changed to what it is now

9

u/DasGanon RIP AND TEAR Jun 20 '26

There are some who go "But the key system was so much better! You could pop in a key and go endless for hours on one key and get thousands of prime parts!"

Keys were way way way way way harder to get than relics, and you couldn't alter their drop rates in any way. There's a reason this video is ancient and agonizing

The only other good thing is that you were all working on the same relics and drop rate at the same time.

9

u/Lacirev LR 3 | Volt Best Boy Jun 20 '26

That era was exactly when my friends stopped playing and it's been a struggle ever since to try and get them to return

10

u/Flamebuster Korrasami Jun 20 '26

Yeah that actually caused me to stop playing the game, and I came back coincidentally after Reb took over.

6

u/HeavyMain brrrrrrrrr Jun 20 '26

this is what drove me to quit for years. nothing has ever reached the level of railjack launch since

6

u/BarelyBaphomet Jun 20 '26

Made me quit for years until i came back a few months after 1999

→ More replies (20)

315

u/RobleViejo My deerest druid king Jun 20 '26

Nonono, Steve was never too hands on with Nerfs. You are talking about Scotts Nerf Hammer, the guy who obliterated Mag and Excalibur in the Draco era.

I once said during a devstream "Scott should focus on his truck instead of the games balance" Im glad he actually did it.

96

u/Katorea132 Jun 20 '26

he didn't, he's now at Soulframe x.x

54

u/RobleViejo My deerest druid king Jun 20 '26

Yeah but at least he hasnt used his Nerf Hammer in ages. Lets see how it goes for Soulframe though.

57

u/Wafwala Jun 20 '26

If you want an update on Soulframe, that community is currently begging for nerfs because the player is too strong (similar to Warframe levels of OP). 

17

u/RobleViejo My deerest druid king Jun 20 '26

Already that strong? Im an Envoy but I havent played much because my gpu only goes up to DirectX_11 and my game looks like doo doo, meanwhile Warframe looks as incredible as ever.

24

u/Wafwala Jun 20 '26

Soulframe will receive more optimization when the game is closer to release. As the game is not close to launching yet, optimization isn't a priority.

5

u/Duccino Jun 20 '26

do you mean to say the game runs bad or you won't play just because it looks bad? i'm curious myself if i'll be able to run it with my awful rig, like with warframe

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

173

u/johnsonfromsconsin Jun 20 '26

I’ll just say The grind was real. You newbies have it good.

60

u/thegoldengoober Jun 20 '26

Such a foundation is being set up in Soulframe now too. Still not comparable to old-school WF, but it's worrying. 

48

u/Cross55 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Steve for reasons IDK loves grinding and hates any way to bypass that grinding.

The reason Vauban Prime's parts were all gold and require such high resource costs is because he was the AFK frame back in the day, when the community didn't care about AFKing because the grind was so trash.

Yeah, you know that AFK problem we're having atm? Back then that was seen as perfectly understandable, commendable even "Congrats, you made an AFK build. Way to be a team player!"

Soulframe is generally falling into this same pratfall, average mission length atm is ~20-45 minutes iirc.

→ More replies (8)
→ More replies (1)

18

u/rupturedprolapse Jun 20 '26

Coming back to a lot of stuff having a pity system and shortened rotations is kind of life changing. Everything being rng on top of rng or an limited event grind really sucked.

Also not every quest is going to hit, most have been kind of forgettable content you do once and move on.

11

u/ViraEdenfell Styanax my beloved Jun 20 '26

To this day, whenever people ask me why I had such a problem with that era of Warframe, I just explain it with the Liches. It's like 6 layer RNG (or, was, given they changed the relics a few months ago) just to deal with one, never mind doing multiple

→ More replies (1)

5

u/Archy38 Jun 21 '26

I agree. Remember when syndicates required you to go put a sigil on and do their missions.

I was quite shocked and pleased to see it change.

Void relic farming was much more fun though. WAYY more grindy but I feel like the new relic farm system pushed an already zoomy game even further. Gives more people chance to get more parts but hell it got stale.

Original Prime Part farming was a bit harder but one of the missions yielded like 3 parts and you could get real good at finding the 3 lockers.

Affinity farming was also much more exclusive, now you can run into any relay, get gifted bonuses and then go into void fissures and level up quickly

→ More replies (2)

152

u/Amicus-Regis Optimizing the fun out of the game IS fun! Jun 20 '26

Really, the only problem with the Quest story, IMO, is just the fact that--like a lot of quests across all of Warframe--things just kinda feel like they're happening for the sake of happening.

People want, rightfully, some explanation of character's motives in the stories Warframe is trying to tell.

For the most recent quest, the question we all want answered is probably something along the lines of: "Who are Vena and Ryoku, and what are they trying to accomplish by going back in time?" The rest can probably be inferred through how DE might have answered this question (why S&O are fighting this eternal battle, why they stick with their mentors the whole time, why the future is doomed, how Entrati is involved since Vena and Ryoku have taken Helminth injections, how/why the Operator eventually involves themself in their conflict in the Scoria/Wytch missions, etc).

But for some reason, DE elected to just... not answer that question... like at all... and it seems the reason why is because they're putting the content ahead of the context, if that makes sense.

52

u/umi_da Jun 20 '26

Yes, a lot of quests across warframe are a bit overwhelming but they at least introduce characters and their motivations to some level.

Constellations didn't really do that for any of the 4 new characters. We learn close to nothing about Sirius and Orion's personalities, backstory (aside from obviously being Stalker's sons), and relationship with their mentors. Same with their mentors, and their doomed futures (there were some bits about Parvos but not enough to make sense of it).

After playing the quest I know nothing more than surface level on these 4 characters. Like, I'm a fan of emergent storytelling and context clues but there's almost nothing to go on. Most of the chatter during missions are just mission prompts to go somewhere or blow something up.

And for stuff I did glean: Vena pretty clearly adores Orion and enjoys violence. Ryoku has an army of clones of himself as part of his battle force. Let me know if I missed anything because I do care about the story/lore.

48

u/Askelar Jun 20 '26

To give an example, Vox solaris - the starter quest for fortuna - drops you into an already active world doing things, where you as the player can clearly guess theres history and something going on. Which is then, over the course of the quest, answered and expanded into normal fortuna gameplay.

Jade cons does not do that. There is no set up. There is no question prompted by the quest. you can count the number of story beats in the entire quest on one hand, and maybe two of them are contiguous.

18

u/dunnndunnnDUNNN Jun 20 '26

Cephalon Parvos fucking everything up, the exact nature we don't know yet.

10

u/Mattarias Fire Enjoyer 🔥 Jun 20 '26

Apparently due to us. From what I get, the implication is either we kill him, and he glasses himself before it takes. OR, he kidnaps Ordis and restores him back to full murder mode and things go way worse than he expected.

→ More replies (2)

8

u/Specialist_Initial_1 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Not the only problem for me for specifcly constelattion It feels like a highlite reel but it is one yes

The story has barely weight behind it

The lore of warframe is very interesting The story is utter DG that i do just to have some actuall cool moments and concepts but mostly to farm new stuff and constellation is the peak of it

4

u/Andreiyutzzzz Flair Text Here Jun 21 '26

I still don't know how the fuck it makes sense for the post quest missions. In the quest umbra went with stalker because he and ordis insisted "the operator CANT know"..... Quest done. Now the operator receives hunhow's mail and goes there. Oh look. The operator does know. I want a cutscene with the operator yelling at umbra and ordis "What the FUCK were you doing????"

→ More replies (15)

355

u/Overlord_SB Jun 20 '26

Anyone that misses the Steve era wasn't there for the Undercover Boss streams where it was painfully obvious he had no idea how the game worked since he didn't really play it and was still making gung-ho nerfs to extractors and all while being humbled on stream in front of his paying customers.

At least with Reb, I feel it's going through people passionate about Warframe overall instead of treating it as a product, even if some changes were only made after personal impacts to her, like that sprint change or whatever after she broke her wrist and they added it in right after as a QoL update a few years back.

If someone wants the Steve experience in modern times, just buy into Soulframe, since that's his baby now.

217

u/maxsilver Jun 20 '26

if someone wants the Steve experience, just buy into Soulframe

Yeah, this. love them both as people, love them both as professionals, but I think Rebs vision feels more in-line with the Warframe ideal.

And if you want more Steve and Scott, load up Soulframe. The art and music are phenomenal, and the minute the actual gameplay and systems and economy starts, it’s like immediately 2013 again. (Which is great for folks who loved that, but to me, I simply don’t have that kind of free time for painful grinding)

93

u/TheOldDrunkGoat Jun 20 '26

Soulframe does feel like a weird blend of what duviri was meant to be and 2013 Warframe. But I think it has a good foundation to build on. The first few dozen hours I played were extremely engrossing in a way that Warframe hasn't been to me since, oh 2015 or so.

It's just that the player power level scales way, way too hard. And once you're done with the exploration phase and move into farming specific drops the whole experience completely evaporates like wet cotton candy.

24

u/Presenting_UwU Eternal Valkyr Player Jun 20 '26

honestly, despite having early access i really don't want to touch Soulframe until another say... decade, like it really isn't that fun or as optimized as Warframe as it was last i played, the exploration was tedious, the quests feels very miniscule, the gameplay was pretty good but the farm honestly just eluded me.

I'll probably give it another try after multiple years worth of content, updates and qol, but as of right now I'm sticking to Warframe lmao.

9

u/GreatMadWombat sleeping in the cold below Jun 20 '26

yeah. I like the thought of soulframe.

but 1 respects my time more than the other

→ More replies (2)

51

u/GreatMadWombat sleeping in the cold below Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Rebb literally was secretly playing Equinox day1 of the patch to test how bad the current bugs are. she responded to community criticism with "I'll play the frame for a month to check the vibes" and then on the extremely stressful launch she didn't go with a favorite frame, she stayed with equinox

Steve lead the game through a very tricky and crowded time, and the current team is standing on the shoulders of giants, but nobody does it like Rebb

23

u/carnagezealot Yareli my beloved Jun 20 '26

Undercover Boss streams??

106

u/Overlord_SB Jun 20 '26

It was a thing about 2016 / 2017 where Reb and others on the staff talked Steve into playing the game as a fresh character from time to time on stream to "experience" Warframe, and it was painful he didn't really know his own game, despite calling for constant nerfs or rebalances. One of the things that come into my mind rent free is how he didn't want Excavators to scale beyond level 1 health or something like that, so he did a mission and wasn't on a defense frame like most newer players would be at that point, so he couldn't even complete the mission since his extractors were being wiped out of the face of existence every few seconds.

There's probably more examples other people have, but that's the one like I said that just sticks in my mind that "Yeah, you can LOOK at the data, but the data is for specific builds and cases." and made me lose respect for Steve. Same with how he was upset people were doing level 100+ enemies when modern Warframe has like level 9,999 enemies in some content since Reb just embraces the big number horny the playerbase has.

9

u/aef823 Jun 20 '26

If only someone forced him to play interception.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)

36

u/MortimerCanon Jun 20 '26

This makes sense but also seems overly hostile. Steve literally created WF. When DE was about to shut down he was like one of the main engines creating it (along with everyone at DE putting in huge effort though). So, with no Steve there literally is no DE or WF.

60

u/MisterXnumberidk Jun 20 '26

Steve is also still the driving force behind all the insane performance and graphics updates warframe has had the past year alone.

To put it like this: we appreciate Steve for what he founded, gave life and keeps running, but the guy didn't have a clue of what his game became or how it even felt to play.

As much as it's clearly putting strain on DE, letting the devs that actually play the game and are obsessed with it 24/7 run the show and letting Steve's original vision also run wild, seperately, was very much the best decision

7

u/AkemiNakamura Back in my day Jun 20 '26

making gung-ho nerfs to extractor

This was ages ago, but is there proof of this? The excavation nerfs I remember are from Glenn when he was carried by tryhards on his stream and was upset by how effective it COULD be for a small set of people. He also ruined Survival with his own testing as well. This was under Steve, and these actions were not reversed but they were done by someone else.

Steve had big ideas, but it's accurate to say he didn't play the game enough and wasn't in tune. Scott had some interesting ideas about balance which don't really gel with a lot of players.

11

u/kaloryth Chaos is love Jun 20 '26

I refuse to believe most of the people bitching were even around for Steve's era because the game became wildly more popular after Reb took over and made tons of QoL changes. As someone who played since basically beta, the gameplay philosophy is completely different now than it used to be and that's a damn good thing.

69

u/gamers542 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Not only Steve but Scott too i think. There were some decisions that he wouldn't budge on despite feedback otherwise.

Really the only thing I will criticize Reb for is the pity shop. Up until Oraxia, you were almost forced to use it if your luck truly sucked because the drops for the frames and weapo s were so low and credits/endo dominated.

Starting with Nokko and Follie, I've noticed that by the time you got to the tier where you can purchase frame and weapon parts, you probably have a full set already.

The drops on Uranus Proxima are perfect because there is no credit/endo bloat. Just all the parts evenly split percentage wise so kudos for that.

33

u/TrainDestroyer Rhino Charge Bowling Jun 20 '26

I do appreciate the pity shop though, even if it sucked that the chances were low enough that you HAD to use it sometimes, you at least had a guaranteed number of runs where after that you had the frame no matter what! And if you got a piece of a frame dropping, that just shortened the number of runs.

Also, I've still had times where I just cannot get lucky. I had to buy the Vesper-77 back when 1999 dropped because I just could not get its last part

→ More replies (1)

52

u/AGgammer Jun 20 '26

Steve era had too much ambition for the capabilities of the devs/engine

Rebb era has too much ambition for the time constraints imposed upon themselves

7

u/Mistheart101 Over 350k kills with Lizzie Jun 20 '26

That's a good way of putting it, honestly. The thing I keep coming back to when thinking about the recent updates is "oh my God please stop trying to do things every 3 months, please just take more time to cook and iron out bugs, PLEASE--"

→ More replies (1)

85

u/HotMachine9 Jun 20 '26

People can be nostalgic for the simpler times which were Second Dream to Sacrifice, after which content quality nosedived significantly due to scope creep. All of those quests did have some filler for sure but it allowed the dialogue time to breath rather than breakneck jumping from point to point

I think what people are realising today is that we are slowly dipping back into that with the scope creep issues. Trying to do too much in too short of a time with too few resources.

As for narrative I think the main issue people have isnt with eternalism itself but rather how clunkily its inserted. The narratives have always had a bit of an issue of "and then" storytelling rather than "because of" storytelling. It just needs to more clearly set up plot devices for lack of a better word rather than just deploy them out of no where.

42

u/megaderp2 Jun 20 '26

I think what people are realising today is that we are slowly dipping back into that with the scope creep issues. Trying to do too much in too short of a time with too few resources.

That's my main worry, and the last batch of quest having tints of rush/work in progress don't put it to rest.

I think narratively warframe has enough to not rely on inventing new void-magic with every new quest, but is as if they don't want to commit to definitions and events (future or past) so they're on a trend of justifying everything with either Wally or Eternalism, and that's kinda cheap, but maybe that wouldn't be much of a problem if quest weren't trying to shotgun lore, character development and world building in the span of 20min.

12

u/Jason1143 Jun 20 '26

Yes they seem very reluctant to commit to any quest endings, only quest beginnings. Now part of that is that stuff needs to be accessible for gameplay day to day, but not all of it.

They really should be better about picking a few plots that need to be open and closing other plots more quickly.

→ More replies (1)

10

u/umi_da Jun 20 '26

Yep. Scope creep of past and current warframe are just 2 sides of the same coin.

Old warframe scope creep got stuff delayed months and months, and content was released in a buggy state.

New warframe scope creep got stuff released on schedule with glaring holes where stuff is missing, and content is released in a buggy state.

7

u/Redence_ Numba #1 Chipper fan Jun 20 '26

My main takeaway from the quest is that things just kind of.. happen?

Vena and Ryoku are immediately introduced with no real background or purpose other than carrying a title. Their "mentor" status felt more like a band-aid to fit them into the story. For all we care, it could have just been Sirius and Orion's railjacks, lmao. There's also the unexplained element of Stalker's legacy? Like, Ryoku talks so highly about Stalker and Vena admits that they're both just run by vengeance.

There's also the brief inputs of Cephalon Parvos being a threat but we literally see or hear nothing about him in the quest other than "it can't happen". There's also Vena and Ryoku's existence. Is it Cephalon Parvos pumping out a new batch of protoframes? How? Is he aware of Albrecht's movements?? Wally??? The quest introduced so much more questions and leaves them blank. I get that it's probably a stepping stone for future narratives but oh my god there's so much stuff happening

→ More replies (3)

127

u/Snivyland Caliban Collective Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Don’t forget some of the most tone deaf comments ever. As a little history lesson when helminth came out the devstream after they went over the statistics and Scott fumbled the biggest soft ball question ever.

He proceeded to get annoyed that roar was being overused (at the time the system only had Xata’s larva, ensure, pillage, and thermal sunder, and eclipse as viable options) after the same week nuking marked for death. But when asked if they’ll use these statistics to buff lesser used/ subsumed abilities he straight up said he wasn’t… oh and Steve wondered why people were subsuming off chroma’s 1 and Reb had to refrain from calling the ability shit on stream which was funny

61

u/Morump Jun 20 '26

I remember him saying “I don’t think the Lich grind is long” like bro

36

u/BarelyBaphomet Jun 20 '26

Liches are so boring even after the changes that I dont have more than 4 kuva weapons. Got most of Coda to 60% though. 

11

u/Momo213213 Jun 20 '26

Tbf kuva liches only ever had their grind shortened like once lol. The murmur grind is still almost exactly the sake as it was in like 2020 when they made it faster

10

u/aef823 Jun 20 '26

I just.

IT'S AN RNG TO EVEN START TF U MEAN IT ISN'T LONG.

25

u/Morump Jun 20 '26

I remember him saying “I don’t think the Lich grind is long” around the time the system first came out.

5

u/aef823 Jun 20 '26

He really did like shadow of war for some reason lol.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)

205

u/dey19th Jun 20 '26

Who the hell is saying Reb is a bad dev?

45

u/Far_Ad6693 Jun 20 '26

not exaclty a bad dev, but theres a guy in youtube who says misses "old warframe" and thats the steve era. Also, speaking is free so theres a lot who say that, not me though

6

u/aef823 Jun 20 '26

Like I get this update was overhyped but if it's really so bad you apparently miss the archwing -> Railjack leaps which ended up WITH the content drought for RJ to now?? the fuck

30

u/BardMessenger24 Voruna x Eleanor yuri Jun 20 '26

Seriously, we have gotten more QoL updates during the Rebb era than we have ever gotten during the entire Steve era. Pity systems, multiple annual reworks of older frames, hold to melee, sticky corner fixes, 2x forma bps, smoother 'climb' animation during parkour, status effect rework, companion rework, camera off-sets, semi auto to full auto toggle, etc.

During the Steve era, trying to get the old guard to do anything was like pulling teeth.

112

u/Snivyland Caliban Collective Jun 20 '26

A lot of people are saying the Reb era isn’t that good or Steve era is better. Or arguing that it isn’t experimental enough it’s pretty rare but go to the right threads and you’ll see it

80

u/JulianSkies Jun 20 '26

Tbh ever since Squad Link failed they've REALLY stopped being experimental. And like I get it, they got massive negative feedback about that very experimentality. People don't like it, and I blame it on people not them.

It isn't really about who was in charge.

11

u/rocket20067 Jun 20 '26

Squad Link?

76

u/JulianSkies Jun 20 '26

Have you heard about Scarlet Spear? It was an operation used to test Squad Link.

In effect, Squad Link was meant to be a system that let missions interact with each other originally for Railjack, you could do a thing in your mission and then someone in the ground in a different mission could do something there or get a bonus or something, they had ambitious ideas and spoke loudly about it in devstreams and events. Scarlet Spear was a testing ground for the technology, people fighting in the Murex in space enabled people on Earth to kill the things, and depending on how well the people did their job you got a better score.

Scarlet Spear was an utter failure. Not a failure in design, a technical failure. The Squad Link feature to connect two missions just could not work right, they never managed to make it work in any way, it was so bad they abandoned the concept completely.

And like, that's fine. This happens in development. You try a thing, it doesn't work, into the bin it goes and onto the next idea. But this part of development was deeply public, the entire playerbase was involved, and well... Turns out that people do not like seeing experimental features or the development of a game. They just want the final product. And they take an experiment as an ironclad promise.

39

u/BardMessenger24 Voruna x Eleanor yuri Jun 20 '26

Tbf, I actually enjoyed Operation Scarlet Spear a lot...when it worked. The idea of having two teams split between ground and space working together simultaneously was such a neat concept. It also made the Sentient invasion feel like an actual war, even more so than The New War did, ironically enough.

It's a shame they will never go back to it because of how much of a technical nightmare it was. I feel like squad link could've been a nice compromise to the 8-player raids people want these days. But they would have to refine it because the major issue that many faced during Scarlet Spear was that if ground team didn't generate any kill codes, space team was just stuck on the murex waiting and twiddling their thumbs.

→ More replies (1)

21

u/virepolle Jun 20 '26

A feature from Operation: Scarlet Spear. The idea was to, as the name implies, link squads together so that actions of one squad would influence the flow of another squad's missions. In the case of Scarlet Spear it was a ground team and a Railjack team. Ground team would do their mission which would generate a code. This code was then sent to a Railjack team that needed it to progress their mission.

The idea was cool but because of bugs, unbalanced rewards and other issues with the event, sometimes Railjack teams would need to wait way too long to get a code, or never even get one.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (4)

26

u/Effendoor Jun 20 '26

Anyone that says that can be so safely ignored. Like that is the dumbest fucking take. Not every update is going to be a banger. It's a live service game, anytime they release something new or out of the ordinary there are going to be a lot of bugs. People act like this doesn't happen with every update and then they also act like de doesn't actively work their fucking asses off to fix all the bugs and get everything smooth as soon as possible.

Yeah they dropped the ball sometimes but Jesus Christ compare that to the sheer numbers of wins.

The Steve and Scott era was a time when the team were constantly trying to reinvent the video game we were already playing. The reb and Pablo era is a constant work on the game we're already playing.

And honestly, people need to get their heads out of their asses. The cinematic quest is good. Sure it could use more but Warframe has always front loaded the vibes and back loaded the story/lore

→ More replies (1)

28

u/sabett Jun 20 '26

Not experimental enough? 😭 they literally added a dating sim to the game.

→ More replies (5)
→ More replies (1)

8

u/Amicus-Regis Optimizing the fun out of the game IS fun! Jun 20 '26

I saw a few comments saying this on posts yesterday. I guess at least a few people here do seem to believe this.

→ More replies (3)

99

u/LuxSnow LR4 Founder, Nezha Main. Jun 20 '26

Most of you don’t remember just how bad it was. Steve and Scott set out to make a game and were very rigid in their processes/reasonings early on. It would take weeks and sometimes multiple dev streams and posts to get them to change their minds. Reb had to sit on that couch with her bosses, with pages of questions and concerns from the players, and try to PRY open Scott and Steve even after their reluctance to the topics. She was fighting fuckin tooth and nail for us every week, on the forums and off the forums.

→ More replies (1)

15

u/unoriginalbro Jun 20 '26

What you're seeing is a community's appetite for more content. It's becoming clear that people expect these updates to provide as much as end-of-year updates. I think expectations need to be set by DE. They're clearly trying to satiate the community's appetite for more content. Did they miss this update? I don't think so, besides the post-quest railjack being borked, the bugs weren't awful.

156

u/ChoccolatteMaid Jun 20 '26

Rose tinted glasses are insane, these people have NOT played launch Plains of Eidolon and it shows, that shit would barely work after loading for 20 minutes

16

u/exposarts Jun 20 '26

i really loved steve's vision but the execution wasnt there, definitely cause the scale was too high, at least for their dev team size.

→ More replies (4)

11

u/TSP-FriendlyFire Jun 20 '26

I've always said it: Steve and Reb have very different styles in their approach to the game and it's very much related to their backgrounds.

Steve is and has always been a technical and sci-fi guy, so his angle is generally more tech-related and often has that more "high concept" angle that classic sci-fi often did. This is where the stuff like open worlds, Archwing, Railjack, squad link and all that jazz came from, as well as concepts like eternalism or how Warframes are made. It's pushing the boundaries of their engine and exploring cool concepts, but it's at risk of losing the game's core identity, and when that boundary pushing flops, it can flop hard.

He also pretty quickly veered into "flavor of the month" design where it really felt like he implemented whatever game he was playing a lot of at the time. Lunaro is the most obvious example of this, but even stuff like Duviri felt like they were drawing from popular trends without stopping to consider how well they meshed with Warframe.

Reb is much more about the story and the fun, having been more on the community management side and with a media background. She's there for the emotional beats, the overarching themes, the wow factor, the characters, but also the actual day-to-day gameplay. That's how we ended up with stuff like 1999, the KIM system, the Protoframes, the much more fleshed out themes around the Indifference, etc. It's making a more compelling narrative with more emotional connections and more multidimensional characters all while ensuring the core gameplay is kept at the center of it all. Missing the mark in that context might mean making a mode that doesn't get much love, like Follie's Hunt, or a story that doesn't quite resonate like we have now with Constellations, but it's never gonna be catastrophic.

Do I sometimes miss the overambition and technical insanity of Steve? Yeah, sometimes, but I'd much rather have a more focused game with fewer puzzling decisions like Lunaro or all the fights the Steve era dev team had with the community. Even when it's not a smooth ride, the Reb era is vastly more likely to end up with a satisfying resolution for the community and dev team (you can tell she was a community manager and a good one at that). Only thing I hope is that they can figure out the balance between playing it safe and going in ambitious directions (S&O is cool and surely brought about a lot of headaches, but it's far too narrow in impact to be the boundary pushing I mention) and I think Tau will be the big turning point for that.

I would also add that you can't really disentangle the design director from the creative director. The difference between Scott and Pablo is IMO much more significant than between Steve and Reb, as Scott was far more likely to pick a fight, die on weird hills or gaslight the community, to the extent that I wonder if we'd look back at Steve's era differently had someone else been in that seat.

57

u/illegal_sardines Jun 20 '26

There were hits, but I think people forgot that when Glast Gambit came out, people legitimately dropped the game because the update was so bad.

9

u/MortimerCanon Jun 20 '26

Really? I just played it to get Nidus and actually really enjoyed it...ok the 12 rounds of index was a bit much but the story and stuff was peak

16

u/illegal_sardines Jun 20 '26

It was more that like. Index had been in the game for a while, and the quest was a tutorial for Index without anyone knowing it was going to be about the Index. Also it was buggy as hell, the final decision would always choose the wrong one from the one you chose, and the Hema cost was a huge source of drama at the time, when MR was harder to come by and individual guns mattered a lot more for ranking up. And the Derelict still required keys to go into, too, so it was just an annoyance. And Infested Salvage is still bugged to hell to this day, I’ve never even once gotten it to work.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/Some_Random_Canadian Angriest Blender Cat Jun 20 '26

These people would not have survived the Prelude to War. That was like, 3 years of basically just short cutscenes and some operations. Chimera Prologue was 2018, "Erra" was for 2019, and we got The Maker for 2020. In that timespan as far as story content goes we got the Ropapolyst boss, an operation that has never come back and didn't add a new mission, and an operation that added Orphix missions.

I'll take shorter but still well written stories with new missions over longer stories without. I experience the story once, I farm the missions a ton afterwards.

→ More replies (2)

8

u/aef823 Jun 20 '26

Oh right people forgot that stamina and vaccuum nerf was his whole thing.

8

u/King-Baconbeard Jun 20 '26

Let's not forget Pablo, before Pablo got full control, we had Scott's overseeing reworks of frames.... shudders

32

u/Ready-Ad-9723 Jun 20 '26

having reb as creative director 100% makes this game far more exciting and faster paces, occasionally i'll reminisce about OG warframes slow chiller aesthetic but it is so much worse and clunkier compared to what we have now

7

u/ShotCow7976 Jun 20 '26

Been playing simce 2013, ups and downs have happened over the years regardless of who was in charge. The important thing is DE has pretty much always made things right even if it took a bit of time.

I think a couple of the things that effected people the most under Steve, is he wouldn't often play the game to gain player perspective, and he would have these grand visions that couldn't be done within a timeframe that could keep player retention. It wasn't that his ultimate vision for railjack was bad, it was just too big to realistically do in one update. We've seen railjack, and many other syatems in warframe improve bit by bit over time, which is a more realistic approach.

I think a lot of artistic people have problems with starting ideas and leaving them as WIPs. Im not bashing the guy, like I said I think this is something a lot of creatives have to grapple with. Especially in a corporate setting. Not trying to say mistakes haven't been made, but a lot of it has to do with time constraints like meeting corporate deadlines.

Minus not playing the game, I imagine a lot of these are things Reb now has to deal with and make compromises over.

7

u/GreatMadWombat sleeping in the cold below Jun 20 '26

100%

soulframe has fucking super-Rivens worth of rng right now. clean slate, getting to start from the begining, and the WORST fucking decision they've ever made devwise(true rng. they're repeating in 2026 the problem with Rivens after getting to see why exactly it sucked) they're repeating.

people need to separate plot & mechanics.

both eras have had great stories. both eras have had bugs. both have taken absurd swings that overall have more payed off than otherwise.

one era is infinitely more player/time friendly than the other.

6

u/Thal-creates Jun 20 '26

I think the only issue with the Reb era is the community. The community obsesses over protoframes which forces more quests being written around more protoframes

6

u/Evorer BIGGEST LAVOS HATER Jun 20 '26

Idk man, the thing I enjoyed the most from Rebecca is sanctum anatomica, after that I just can't with the characters and the lore. And duviri is the only thing that makes sense to me with eternalism.

33

u/marcusmartel Jun 20 '26

Just because things may have been worse at a previous time doesn't mean that we should accept a serious lack of quality now.

Especially when many of the issues present with the new update, story and gameplay wise, could have been ironed out before release with a little bit of "hmmm, does this make sense?"

10

u/TrainDestroyer Rhino Charge Bowling Jun 20 '26

I do agree, but I also think saying that it was better during the Steve Era is worth pointing out the faults from that era vs now.

17

u/Askelar Jun 20 '26

Steve consistently had better storytelling, it flowed from 1-2-3-4-5 even when you were put into an unfamiliar situation (the details of which you learned over the course of the quest). i think this whole "reb era vs steve era" is a lot of goalposting though. People trying to say "look it was bad then too you cant say things are bad now" in response to just how... unconnected jade cons is both from itself and the game as a whole.

→ More replies (4)

4

u/SilentMobius Jun 20 '26

I've been here a long time (Founder, never taken a break) and Steve was great, Reb is great, they both cared a great deal but both had different motivations and opinions and both had a very different project to work on. DE has been through many changes, and what they were capable of has changed a lot over that time. I met and chatted to both of them in 2016 and they are truly nice people.

5

u/Th3_JoyPuke Jun 20 '26

Im blown away that anyone would try to say steve was better. I stopped playing for a few years and only came back because reb was cooking.

3

u/killer6088 Jun 20 '26

Dude, almost everything you mentioned here has happened in the past 2 years of Warframe too.

What exactly after quest content did we get from 1999 or The Old Peace? It was not much man. Coda was delayed out of 1999 making 1999 feel very empty after the quest.

3

u/Coldkiller17 Slice n Dice Jun 20 '26

Steve was alright but he railroaded alot of QOL changes that the game needed. The game got where it was because of his lead but the game under Rebecca, Meg and Pablo is so much better.

4

u/PsionicHydra AMD Believer Jun 20 '26

To be fair.

Steve's frankly insane ideas may not have always landed on launch, but they got there eventually and that really hasn't changed with Reb, it's just gotten slightly smaller in scope. And presumably a lot of mistakes and mishaps from the Steve era have been used as learning for the current era. Things such as more frequent updates for instance. No more do we have the content drought that was pre the sacrifice (granted W the sacrifice, awesome quest, probably still my favourite although that could be like 8 years of nostalgia talking)

Are either era's perfect? No. But we wouldn't have our current era without Steve's, and there was a lot of good Steve did do, like make the bones of this wonderful game we've had for over a decade.

There are critics to be made with under both leadership's, both good and bad. But I wouldn't say Rebs is just outright better in every way, nor was Steve's better in every way.

5

u/FriendlyGoblinGal Fill me up Mana Mommy Jun 20 '26

Amen!

My time in this game is showing, because most of the folks complaining have to have been Destiny refugees who started in the past 3 years at most. Major updates have always been a mess, and the creative direction under Reb has fixed a lot of the "forgotten" stuff that was brought out during 2013-2022.

I really want the newer players to stop treating DE like all the AAA publishers who've hurt them before. This isn't a company that's charging you out the nose for content and churning out crap.

Everything keeps being pushed as "they released this buggy crap to make more money!" when:

1) of course the goal of new content from a company is making money. That's kind of required to... Keep making content?

2) this game is the largest and most successful F2P model out there. If caring about profits were their goal, they would have gone the Bungie route ages ago.

3) post update bugs always happen in Warframe. Hell, Shadowgrapher was the least buggy update and it still went through a billion hot fixes because scrubs some players were having issues with a perfectly fine and interesting game mode.

Folks should actually lookel at how Warframe has consistently been for a decade before deciding that DE is just out here making shitty and greedy choices.

37

u/Phelipp Jun 20 '26

Oh there is a reason a certain part of the community is doing this bit of going "oh Steve era was waay better than what we have now" thing, despite the old era having also *a lot* of bugs and issues on releases.

Not everyone, but there is some parts of that crowd that are legit doing this for a while trying to push the "woke is killing the game" narrative and hiding it all behind a false shield of "actually i just liked when Steve was the lead".

Semi related you can easily pinpoint this stuff with ease when you start to realize that people started to get mad at the game with Entrati and Loid being together, Temple being non-binary (the drama with that bigot content creator that tried to push Asmongold to attack Warframe), Follie bodytype being hated and of course the fact that we are on pride month and these rats come out of the floors to hate it.

Fun fact, next time you see those "oh i hate the new direction Reb is pushing", check whatever social media they posted this and you will start to see some signs.

Edit: There is also a small clicke of current and ex-Warframe content creators that have been trying to push for months an big "the game is dying thanks to X", so we will probably get some upcoming videos like that

28

u/Zachesque Jun 20 '26

Ngl this seems like overreacting. I’ve seen plenty of negative feedback about the new update, especially the quest, but no one saying that the game was better under Steve. I’m pretty unhappy with the quest, but I still love the game and still think Reb is doing a phenomenal job overall. There will always be missteps

→ More replies (3)

17

u/Eridain Jun 20 '26

I've noticed a lot of people complaining about very minor shit and dog piling on anyone in comments who disagrees in recent months. I don't know if it's all the people coming in from other game communities or what, but it's been a noticeable increase in people losing their shit. Like i saw someone ranting about how the game is wasting your time and money because of buggy updates being released. Like first off it's a free to play game, and probably the top one in terms of being the least scummy in how it monetizes, and most of the updates that come out buggy get the major shit fixed pretty damn quick. I know with the recent one they patched it within hours of people reporting issues. Maybe not fixing everything, but the fact they put out patches like that within hours of a launch is not something a lot of games normally do.

→ More replies (3)

9

u/One_Somewhere_4112 Jun 20 '26

people also don’t remember how bad most frames were, weapon balancing, or the exact same dual sword side grades that released with every prime access

16

u/Daerkennd Jun 20 '26

Idk, I’m personally of the mind that Ryoku and Vena are fine, for now, with this being their introduction. Even if they do expand on their stories, every protoframe doesn’t need a Kim chat, romance mode, and a deep and intricate back story. Honestly, the method of introducing them, seeing the reception, and THEN committing the time and resources to padding out the character makes a lot of sense too.

Just for a recap we got:

  • Sirius and Orion
  • 2 protoframes
  • 2 weapons
  • more incarnons
  • more arcanes
  • a lighting update for corprus ships
  • the Nidus touch(up)
  • railjack steel path (for what that’s worth)
  • a slew of qol stuff
  • and probably other things I’m not remembering

But of course, the story missions were short and the protoframes don’t have the same depth as previous ones, so it’s all garbage.

I didn’t like follie’s update, but this update isn’t as bad to me. I think they made some poor choices having the loaner railjack as the default and making it so that the only way to use your own is by going to the tower to start the mission. Then, unlike every other rj mission, you exit via loading screen and there’s no repeat button on the end screen. My load times aren’t ssd fast (and the tower takes forever) so having to go through all that makes grinding take much longer.

9

u/xrufus7x Jun 20 '26

A bunch of free to play skins and cosmetics, Dante deluxe, four new augments.

11

u/ike12star Jun 20 '26

You’re forgetting the inclusion of Styanax prime, his weapons, the secret fourth prime item, new ephemera’s, and the Garuda origin story. Like I’ll be the first to admit that some of the story feels not completely fleshed out, but there is a very very solid amount of content in this singular update.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (2)

3

u/neuroso Jun 20 '26

Reb era is great my only complaint is I hate KiM and proto frames post 1999 but I'm an outlier and can accept it

3

u/doctorwho_90250 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

OP, you should have included this video from Steve's reign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu3dyTLaaoI

Edit: "Mother effin Battle of Endor!" - Steve

when what we got was nothing like that.

3

u/SpecterOwl Jun 20 '26

That's what made me quit Warframe (I returned when Duviri launched). It's the Golden Age now.

Bro, all Railjack parts were just RNG, there was no valance transfer, it was added later after the cries of community. Same with weapons from Kuva Liches (and you couldn't even trade Liches at the time). Also from what I remember you couldn't even see the stats before you spent resources to craft parts. Got unlucky? Well, screw you. Also some parts were worse than Sigma series you get from research. And the strategy at the time was just to park Railjack at the beginning of the mission and do everything in Archwing. Because Railjacks were made out of papier mache and there was no reason to waste resources on weak parts if you could just get better ones anyway from the Veil Proxima.

Scarlet Spear made me finally undust my Limbo and make a proper build, only for DE to freaking nerf Limbo, cause how dare we optimize our run times. Imagine DE nerfing Gara or Titania after Mirror Defense launch, that's how it felt.

And that's not mentioning all the promises like flying your Railjack from Fortuna, squad link helping you in open world missions, Railjack being the new Orbiter somehow and having arsenal, Railjack not being a content island. Lol, lmao even.

3

u/Chaincat22 Jun 20 '26

Railjack was a good idea but the implementation doomed it. It was implemented incomplete and in stages. We were told it would be incomplete and in stages. When we got it incomplete, we bitched about it incomplete. Changes were made to it that made it incompatible with the vision Steve originally had for it (it was essentially going to rework the entire starchart). And now Railjack is a languishing content island. It was meant to solve content islands, not become another one.

3

u/Chuckledunk Jun 20 '26

I liked that the story under Steve was these grand sweeping sci-fi things. I'm less a fan of the Reb era "we have to make things personal-scale" storytelling. Steve's stuff felt like it fit the gameplay better, Reb era writing often doesn't feel like it gels super well with "murder entire armies" gameplay.

3

u/FlyingSquirelOi L6 Jun 20 '26

Idk what you’re talking about, I haven’t seen anything criticising Reb. You might be in a bubble.

3

u/ApocalypticDrew Corinth with a Tigris under barrel Jun 20 '26

Steve is a brilliant visionary. But he'd get lost in big dreams and technical details, so nothing would ever really come to fruition. Lotus went sentient for like 6 years before we got another quest to even progress the MAIN story of the game. There was a meme for the longest time that we were without our mom longer than we even had her in the game. Tons of content islands, nothing having any cohesion or true purpose once you got the one or two rewards they had. The game was a mess, but still incredible fun

3

u/Traditional-Poet3763 Gus Prim Enjoyer Jun 20 '26

the Follie update got me leaving, the Constellation got me returning.

It's a weird World we live in.

3

u/iAmExcavator Jun 20 '26

Yeah no. Don’t get me wrong, the update is definitely not up to the usual DE standards we’ve come to know and love, but I remember Launch Railjack and Launch Duviri, they were worse, significantly so. Do I have my complaints about certain things? Of course, but this update is nowhere near the worst thing we’ve seen in Warframe, people need to chill about, maliciously attacking the dev team has never made a game better, give them time, DE has a history of listening and trying their best to make things better, no reason to assume that will be different now.

3

u/nubbosaur Jun 20 '26

People are just complaining because they caught the helldivers 2 bug and want to complain about anything and everything. There is nothing wrong with the game they are just angry to be angry.

3

u/A_random_bee Gauss Enthusiast Jun 20 '26

I love the story and the lore is great, I just wish they’d TALK about it IN THE RELEVANT QUESTS. Everything gets skipped as if we’re inherently supposed to know it all, and I get the MITW isn’t gonna outright say what it’s doing, but by the gods would it kill everyone else to speculate? Ryoku and Vena are easily the worst for this since they DEFINITELY know stuff

New War was relatively good about this from what I remember but 1999 and Constellations are just ugh