(XBOX)The Reject7946

I've had a soft-lock on the mission results display after running the Steel Path Bounty related to Gargoyle's Cry. I couldn't leave the squad, open the menu, exit the mission results display, etc. It makes running it repeatedly require closing and restarting the game.

People aborted after stage 1 completion into the final hours of the event. People that can't handle Steel Path Plague Star really shouldn't have ruined it for the community. Shorting other players their Forma? Not letting others actually play the game and earn their own stuff? This is a level of toxicity within the community that makes me want to play on a Solo connection on every mission just to avoid having to 'team up' with such people. This is a new low. They should feel ashamed of themselves. I'm an MR L3, a player of over 8 years, with over 3,150 Hemocyte Cystoliths donated to the clan that I manage, with over 830 Forma earned through Plague Star donated to my clan's vault. I've never disliked Plague Star as much as I did this year, and it was the community of players doing the whole 'abort after stage 1' that really ruined it for me. I did around 90% of my bounty playthroughs solo, because of this.

People are still aborting after stage 1. How about making stage one 100 points and increase the points for other stages accordingly, so that they only short themselves instead of everyone else?

I'm guessing that you don't apply around 4+ Forma to a lot of stuff whilst having a 23hr timer on Forma Blueprints to finalize? It's pretty normal to try to speed run things, even Super Mario for NES has that as a theme with world-records being set and all. A slight reduction to the stage 2 defense timer could make it feel like the bounty has an overall better rate of flow to it in regards to the time it takes on a per-stage basis, for experienced players that want to speed through things, as well as newer players to the event as they could earn more Forma over the course of a 2-week long event, especially if they aren't playing for hours each day. We have the ability to speed up stage 1 with things like Wormhole and Void Sling, Volt's Speed ability. We have the ability to speed up the stage 3 drone escort by using Volt's Speed, Whisp's Haste Mote, and Nova's Wormhole. We have a variety of equipment items that make the stage 4 Hemocyte battles take far less time than ever before, like the Kuva Kohm, Kuva Grattler, Kuva Ayanga, the Arquebex, Pyrana Prime, the Strun Prime or Strun Wraith with the Incarnon Adapter, the Prisma and standard Angstrums with the Incarnon Adapters, etc., etc., etc. Why not an improved rate of flow for the stage 2 defense, as there's currently no away to impact that time by the player? 2 minutes vs 2:30m, 1:30 vs 2:30? That wouldn't be a HUGE change to the timer's duration, but enough to improve the feeling of running the bounty on repeat.

I appreciate the increase in points that add up to becoming Forma. The abort mission method is horrible for those that experience the host migrations as a result, adding to the amount of time and frustration on their end. Would it be possible to improve buffer/loading times within gated areas to open worlds, like Cetus to the Plains and the Necralisk to the Cambian Drift? On Plague Star in particular, I have a few ideas that might improve the gamer experience that could draw from past design and experience and some new 'stuff': 1.) Would it be possible to add more of the caves into the cycle and reduce the chances of those around 1,400+m away from the gate in contrast to others? If memory serves me correctly, I recall between 8-12 caves, and I'm mostly getting the far-right from the gate, Mount Nang, and another on the far-left center area (pond, net over the cave entrance, drone spawn can be there, too.) 2.) Could the mixing station timer be reduced to a flat 1:30-2 minutes? 3.) I recall Dev's already somewhat addressing this one: The hut by the gate where bounties can be selected excludes Plague Star from the selection and used to have it available to select, which helped improve the experience by reducing time between runs, due to the gate aspects eating up more time, and less time to complete more Plague Star bounties means more Forma, which was a big appeal about that. Dev's said that might be re-added for next year's Plague Star event, right? Annnnd I love the changes for abilities interactions with the drones--Nova is far more efficient with the drone actually redirecting itself to the Wormhole portals when a good pathway is setup, Volt and Whisp being able to speed the drone's movement up--it all goes a long ways toward improving the gamer experience. Just like more carry-over points adding up to more Forma :D Thanks, D.E.

It isn't a permanent skip. Story progress is there to be made.

I look at it from an 8-year player perspective of choppy questlines that are parts of different timeline plots. I look at it from the perspective of having Duviri as a starting point, without knowing who's hand was sent through the portal for the Drifter to be able to acquire powers in Duviri. I look at it from a partial, choppy, not fully coherent storyline plot that was pieced together over 10 years. Skipping quests temporarily won't change things from how they are now. That's not affecting progress. Updates haven't been linear. The Duviri Paradox is a time paradox resultant from the New War questline, which new players already don't have to do before playing Duviri. People said the same thing about that change being added--that it'd ruin the player experience and it'd turn new players off to the game, that they'd be clueless. Truth of the matter, is that most new players are clueless until longer-term players offer insights, until they discover good content creators like Brozime, Knightmareframe, Tactical Potato, etc. on YouTube along with the wiki. Most people don't have any real comprehension of Albrecht traveling through time and space to end up on the Zariman for the Zariman Disaster, back in time to encounter the progenitors of Dax warriors in the upcoming 1997 update, or to have traveled to Duviri as well. Most don't bother reading through all of the Codex entries of Warframes to get more lore, just as not everyone scans every Kuria to get that lore.

Content is free: Mission play is free, equipment can be earned through gameplay, upgrades such as Mods and Arcanes can be earned through gameplay. Platinum can be traded for. Payment is always optional and doesn't prevent player progress through some sort of 'payment only' set-up. Mastery experience, for example, is progress on one's personal account that requires access to warframes, weapons, companions, necramechs, a railjack ship, k-drives, archwings, the starchart missions, Duviri for drifter intrinsic points, etc. That can all be done without payment, making payment purely optional. Heirloom stuff wasn't gating any progress-based content of the game that can't be earned--it's cosmetics. I would have preferred that the Heirloom bundles were added in for platinum, so that plat could be traded for to acquire those cosmetics in the same way that Tennogen can be earned by playing for platinum, Having payment remain optional keeps it a free-to-play. Platinum purchases of things that aren't Tennogen basically amount to being time-savers. I can spend less time meeting a quota for an equipment item's Blueprint requirements if I use a resource booster and use platinum to do so. I can avoid some grind, like for the Sibear let's say, by using platinum. I can get slots by using platinum or Orokin Reactors and Orokin Catalysts by using platinum. I can also replicate the Sibear BP in my clan's lab, play through Excavations, and earn it. I can play through Nightwave over time and get slots that way, as is true for Catalysts and Reactors (or invasion missions, Lotus Gift missions, Sorties, and Archon missions.) None of it REQUIRES real-world currency to get or do. I can play through every aspect of the game, as I have. I'm an MR L3, with zero equipment to get and level, all Focus maxed out, all Intrinsic Points for my Railjack and Drifter stuff, most Arcanes at max, and all but around 14 or so Mods left to earn. I didn't have to pay for a thing. I did pay for Prime Access bundles along the way, over the 8+ years that I've played for, though. I've also traded prime sets, primed mods, arcanes, etc. for plat. False advertising would be DE requiring real-world currency to make progress in the game, like requiring money for Excalibur Prime, the Lato Prime, and the Skana Prime with no option to earn the Mastery Experience-rewarding, useable/playable equipment through Void Fissures when those were added. (Thus the Founders are the only one's to have those after a legal settlement.) We don't have that. A pay-to-skip quests option isn't taking away the grinds, the progress, or even access to repeatable quests. It isn't locking quests or any content behind payment. It's free-to-play, and if they aren't in a rush to get to the more recent update-based content, they can take the time to grind. If they want to join the current grind of the broader community from the get-go and get around to those quests later, the proposed option allows for that.

No grind=no free to play, might as well monetize everything. Earning things, sinking the time--that's what makes it work. It appeals or doesn't, but it'll never be free of grind. Time savers are time savers. Pay to skip to get back to it later is what was pitched.

Go play a game that you buy everything for. You don't like grind? Do that. They don't like the grind? Do that. How about COD Cold War or Vanguard?

You've seen Grendel in the market for plat and the requirements to earn it, right? And the Railjack ship for plat? Nidus? Atlas? Octavia? The Necramechs? The Opticor? Mod bundles? The Stalker weapons bundle? Boosters that mean less grind-time for reaching a goal toward blueprint crafting, like Vauban Prime or the Itzal? Or the Sibear and Knux for plat? Time savers are what they offer, for things that could be grinded out for free via gameplay. Replayable quests being skipped for a period of time? What a ground-breaking change to the game..... Now, let us trade primed sets for plat...... >.> ... <.< ... >.>

It's clear that you don't like the grind, as your projection implies that new players wouldn't chase other shinies due to the grind. I say that they either don't mind enough to be deterred, or the mind enough to be deterred. That's always been the case as a free-to-play--some deal with it, some don't. I invest in resource boosters after trading for plat. I gift boosters and slots after trading for plat. I also do so following Prime Access releases that I buy. I have no shinies to chase, just a clan to prep for a Moon tier, members to assist in their progression. I don't mind investing plat or grinding out over 6000,000 Cryotic to end up with 500,000 in the clan's vault, having researched the Hema by myself at a Ghost tier. Other people have access to the game that I've enjoyed for 8+ years. Other people can enjoy variety as I have. Other people now contribute when reimbursed with boosters, rather than due to some overly structured rule-set requirement. People can use every equipment item that the Dojo Labs offer. Other people can have enough equipment to have many completely different loadout slots set-up to have completely different equipment for each loadout. Grind is what there is. Time-killing is what there is. There's also the enjoyment of finding equipment that you like to play with, of lifting others up, of achieving self-set goals of resource quotas. If I gift slots or other stuff to people that stop playing, it's not a major loss to me. I know that it isn't a game that everyone enjoys, even if I'd like them to. Chasing the updates is most of what there is to do as a long-term player. That, and finding some niches of the game to revisit, like Eidolon Hunting being fun or pushing for level cap, some new time record for one's-self in a Survival, etc. I've grinded Grendel twice, I've earned the Sibear many times over. I've earned more than half a million Oxium. Over 30 million Salvage. Over 24 million Ferrite. Over 8,000 Orokin Cells and Neurodes. In excess of 20,000 Mutagen Samples. That's sitting in the clan's vault, because it's more than I can ever personally use. I enjoy the game, though, instead of complaining about grinds of it. I use platinum to earn more, as I know Moon tier costs are steep, yet I can provide access to equipment to more people that are interested in the game by doing so. I'm all for enabling others to enjoy more of their Warframe experience, including their starting experiences.

Pay for Grendel with plat, unlock the parts later after clearing every mission--currently an option. Get warframes, weapons that are better than the starting options, arcanes, forma, and Origin System resources from Duviri without doing most quests or any of the star chart in the Origin System. Buy all normal frames that could be earned from questlines with plat--also an option at present. Pay plat to get a Railjack. This is but one more such option to skip over some things. You shouldn't become a lawyer, that's for certain. The quests remain playable after paying to skip ahead for more current content, maintaining status of free to play.

More hyperbolic input. Nice.

I think that you'd be surprised by the levels of inactivity of newer players via clan management. Some clans have a 2-week duration before booting people over inactivity. In mine, it's 100+ days to get booted for inactivity. The turnover rates when such rules are implemented is pretty high. We already have a failure to retain a lot of people.

Elaborate on what qualifies any of this as false advertising as though you were taken to court for defamation: Like after the hype of a prime or a riven?

Like the notes for updates, as stated in my full comment that you only quoted part of in order to miscontextualize again.

Add in a text notification, like we have for update information, then it's an informed decision. They can decide to spend money or not. That's THEIR decision. Yes. lol Like with Riven Mod trading lol

That's fine. They could add in some text notification of the option to play and earn things as well as to skip, so as to allow for an informed decision, can't they? That'd be a really easy addition. Cool your anxiety a bit. DE hasn't even pitched a cost estimate yet.

False advertising is adding the Excalibur Prime, Lato Prime, and Skana Prime without anything like a Void Relic system to earn things. Pay only, no way to earn. Get that part straight. That's why no-one gets the Founder's Bundle after legal settlement between DE and the Founders that paid for that stuff. We can trade for plat. Many people buy plat as a new player, prior to figuring out how to use the wiki, market website/app, and how to trade in-game. We can earn blueprints, we can trade to buy them. That's not changing. It's still free-to-play in the sense that you can play to earn everything, even Tennogen.

I think that if the game leaves a positive impression after playing through gameplay content during a quest and thereafter, we'd gain the player. If Warframe doesn't appeal, they won't be retained. Plain and simple. Leaving people excluded from the very moment that they join isn't likely to appeal to people, though. How many players with accounts that are years old haven't touched the game for several years? Is everyone that's played prior to this consideration still playing? Again, if they don't like the grind of earning equipment, they don't like the game. A quest that awards Nidus and a quest that awards Inaros? We have those, but we have plat to skip it, and it doesn't mean that the player with the Nidus or Inaros doesn't play the game to earn other things. Maybe they just didn't like the starter or the upgrade system, thinking that a different frame would amount to being an upgrade? What else? The game. The layers of grind. Or not playing. Like the hundreds of people that I've booted from my clan for not touching the game for 100+ days.

I wasted money on Fallout 76? Have it but don't play. That's how product consumerism works out sometimes--you like it or don't, but the money is spent. It's been brought up as being optional, not mandatory. So, if they make a poor investment decision that they don't like, it was still a choice. They could just as easily decide to play through questlines and the star chart without playing, after adding in the option to skip. Do things like the What Stalker? bundle leave a bitter taste if they don't like the game in the long run or went on to play long enough to earn the equipment from that bundle, making it an expensive Pakal armor set?

I missed that change if it happened. That's even jumpier. And no New War for Duviri still, right?

No. I didn't say it will be a tutorial. Duviri isn't a Warframe tutorial either. It's a Drifter tutorial at best. Start Duviri? Get Arcanes, Forma, the Cinta, Syath, Sun & Moon, etc. before doing The Awakening and Vor's Prize. That's currently possible as is. Jumpy, huh? What results from The New War as a starting point for one's new account playthrough?

Enter the Origin System with the Syath, Cinta, Arcanes, Forma, Warframes, etc.--that's possible now, too.