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Onyxtraz

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  1. I've read the comments to integrate all these important points to the thoughts i already had about this. Normally i never spend such time just for a comment, but i see this like some kind of possible turning point in WF, for the best or for a reaaally slippery slope. So after reading almost these 15 pages of comments & thoughts on this topic, first here's my sum up of key points. Then my recap of key points and a list of suggestions (mines and people's) considering all of these. FIRST a recap of the clearest or most helpful messages of each points of view. ( Italic+bold type = what i consider as especially relevant, organized &/or pertinent) System suggestions p1 BraveDude8 ->Not a "Story Skip", but a "Grind Skip". A "Story Acceleration" pack that gives the player all of the requirements they need for the main story quests, or waives them outright. p1 balckillofdeath -> too high costs -> BraveDude8's way p1 DrBorris -> Using paths in a Duviri(sh) way with two separate silos of progression and allow to swap between their "new content" and "personal progress" paths at will. "New content" with 'rental' gear mechanics to play with decent gear and grind some of their own new stuff, the other with their own stuff from "personal progress" . p2 Heal -> Getting to play the replaybable story quests with preprovided inventory & loadout in chronological order to experience the lore & quests while heavily reducing the grind. Then later making the progression through the main story more clear and accessible. p2 PublikDomain -> How players feels the mechanics, what bother them, and ways to solve some major keys that induce the huge grind. p3 Stormandreas -> A "Story Only" mode with loaned equipment. [though, doing so would in fact require that it unlocks these steps of the story and gives the quest completion rewards accordingly to make sense and gain time as intended]. p5 (XBOX)JHodges0845 -> Recap of community solutions AND how introducing someone to the game REALLY feels on the long run for someone who stay. p10 vampiru94 -> Instead of offering story skip options, you could provide temporary free access to the new expansion for all players, say, for a month. (with default loadouts and steps to achieve to keep them after the month. If steps not done, suggestion to buy the appropriate packs) p10 SeigneurSauron -> Respect toward the work done and the time players invested in the game => no skips. Aiming to lessening the farm & grind aspects to achieve the primary goal of this suggestion. p11 yarl5000 -> Aim of the function, and Codex restructuration p12 RLanzinger -> Quests UI p13 SilentMobius -> Rather than make it "pay to skip" make it like an eternalism "Time break" where you get a summary and the stuff but you get a specific guide-list of things you need to "fulfil your timeline" and when you complete those and "earn" the things that were previously given to you "out of order" you get given things (like rivens, forma, catalysts, slots) as alternate, one time, rewards. Meaning that the Plat expenditure isn't made irrelevant by going back to earn the thing in question. p13 Synitare -> Instead of a "Story Skip", make it a TRUE Efficient "Starter Pack" (Starter frame lvl30+6built forma+some efficient weapons+RJ with some intinsic+Necralvl30+useful mods+endo and a tutorial for modding and using Endo,...) p14 Archwizard -> "Skip to Story" option instead of "Skip Story" p12 (PSN)Worta696 -> Review of TRUE requirements and suggestions on how to alleviate them. p12 shut -> GREAT recap of real spending time with graph + comparison to other game's systems. Feelings and approaches p1 2wentyThre3 -> Induced economy and feeling about it p2 _Illindi_ -> Value about taking time to experience something p3 (PSN)ChaoticDoomOfBob -> Reminder of what such feature would imply and suggestion to approach this differently. p4 Petroklos -> Skipping = lessening the impact of upcoming content AND lessening the value of the work done to make all the skipped content. p4 (PSN)rexis12 -> If a new player were to skip up to Whispers in the Wall and finish the quest... then what? p6 mrgudveseli -> There is no need for "skip", there is a need to fluent and quicker learning instead of all in trials and errors. p6 DecadeX -> What a skip induces and why wanting it in the first place? Wouldn't there be lot better ways to adress the original intention? p12 -Krism- -> His own recap of key points as to why this feature is a bad idea p12 Hexanaticious -> an accelerated beginning option instead of a skip, comparison to other games using similar methods, and hopes for futures decisions from DE. p14 DawnoftheWhiteFury -> Review and list of facts about how WF works & realistic hypothesis behind the reasons given about this feature, and what it would generate... Feelings said more or less bluntly, but clearly showing what could go wrong with the approach and needing caution p3 -Krism- -> The kind of feelings induced by approaches like "pay-to-skip" p10 Roble_Viejo -> the concept of buying progression p11 (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan -> Good recap of the feeling induced by "skipping" SECONDLY the key points in this -The very meaning of this feature is to make recent content accessible for new players, and encourage them to come play WF (and preferably on the long run, not one purchase, 2h of playing and bye). Thus: -New players who just want to play the new content could experience it right away. -New players who want to play with their long time player friends can do so. -It require Vor’s Prize for basic game understanding, and The New War for story reasons. Questions induced: -A lot of big main quests that will be skipped and mastery tests done through playing are in fact the immersive way to teach the player how to play and use features (archwings, operators, amps, Focus Schools etc...). For "The New War", you need a Railjack, a Necramech, and an Amp. How to adress this since the new players won't know how to use them, and not even what these are? -If this feature goes with the use of plat: -won't it go from "WF is really a game that can be enjoyed for free" (which is a noble approach which, in fact, motivate players to invest because they respect this unique and ethic economic way) to "To access the New stuff, either you grind 100h-200h or you pay", which can be quite a slippery change of approach. In the end, people will tend to sum this up to "pay to play/win". -what will be the price range? (Basic stuff required for New War: railjack 400plat + necramech voidrig 375 + archwing 175 = 950 (+ base damage mods & crit chance mods at half of max rank + A basic Amp. All of these are required to have basic stuff usable. If we add the value of story-skipping and some other stuff? Yeah, that will become very pricey very quickly, won't be bought, and probably will have a bigger effect of driving new players away instead of attracting them). -ensuring it won't be the beginning strong pushes (nor intrusive ones) to buy plat. -How far will this go? Main quests? + absolute required stuff (Necramechs, railjacks, Amps)? + Stuff necessary to make previous requirements useful (MODS, focus schools, companions, Arcanes...)? -Will players who just pay to skip will still be invested in the game after the quest to keep playing? -Will new players even be able to keep up in the new content if they just skip everything to get there or will the new content be even further tuned down to make it easier for them? -Invested players already have a tough time to understand a lot of mechanics and key-points due to the lack of proper explanations/tutorials (about How to mod stuff? ; How does armor, shields & overguards works? How critical hits & Status works? What are the elemental damages, and how to combine them? What is the use of the companions and how? What is affinity range? How do these "Tenno schools" works and how to level it up? How could know how/where to try my arsenal? Etc...) and content addition over the years. To the point that anyone immersed in playing & understanding the game NEEDS to go search community knowledge on the web or being lucky enough to find a mentor. ->So, while a full course of playing the game is already vastly lacking to understands the "how" and "what should i aim to do what i want", how someone skipping all the steps that gives a basic understanding of features could possibly make it? He'll feel completely overwhelmed and won't feel in touch or immersed with anything, so he'll leave. Important thoughts: - You shouldn't be taxed to play with a friend after being attracted to te game thanks to him. ->Asking for payment after someone has added to the player base is innappropriate and greedy. - Adding a "Story Skip" is an insult to your own hard work. Moreover, it will halve the impact and richness of the story for those who would use such function. - As it is, Warframe IS a game working on grind. That's an aspect that artificially extend the playing time, but at the same time is one of the most frustrating point of the game. Were you to implement a "Story skip", once the purchase made and the new quest finished, will the new player stay and invest more on the long run when he'll discover that the game by essence works by grind? Or will he leave? If it's the 2nd, then maybe the efforts were put toward the wrong audience at the cost of the good one. Then, the "skip option" isn't a solution for the problem, and alleviating the high grind parts AND improving the visibility of where the player should go to complete his objectives would be a true solution. - If there is a skipping option, the overall quality of experience of matchmakings will decrease since all the people skipping won't have decent stuff and even if they had, wouldn't know how to use it. - If Warframe have 10 years of content, not all of it are mandatory to play the most recent parts. Someone knowing what he was doing succeded to go to The New War from a new account in 15 hours. It shows that it's mostly the guidance that is lacking plus an exessive grind on a lot of stuff (this guy knew what he was doing. A new player would need guidance and good equipment to do something similar in 3x this time). - Never once heard of any new player expressing the desire to skip Warframe's story. It's the grind & the feeling of being lost that push people to leave. - This is a poor business decision in the context of how DE make money off of Warframe, since it's by getting players hooked via building upon a foundation more and more overtime, tempting players further and further to spend money on the game as they continue to see customization options shown to them over time. - Allowing this option, you are pitting TWO groups of tenno against each other in the future STORYWISE, the old "we know it all, give us more depth" tenno and the "meh i know kinda whats going on i guess, but can we keep it understandable and easy to follow please?" tenno. Comment from "shut" showing extremely well what actually takes time for a player: CONCLUSION WHILE CONSIDERING ALL OF THIS: A "Skip Story" option as it were described would be a no-go. It would only push player's perception of the game a lot closer to the "pay to play/win" concept, and the monetary value of such function would either be way too high to be considered, or would make the buyers of other packs (Necra, RJ, etc...) feels scammed. And in the end, even if all were to miraculously go well, the player base targeted by this "Skip-pack" and using it will be entirely overwhelmed after completing the new content, won't feel any link or immersion to anything, will discover the grindy aspect of Warframe and leave (instead of being bit by bit addicted to it by all it's qualities). So instead of a cheap cheat-skip that will halve the experience of the game and the perception of value about all the work done by DE on these quests, let's think it the wise way: What bother new players? The Grind. And something that can tire Veteran players? Helping (sometimes to the point of babysitting them) new players again and again, doing the same thing way too many times. Solution? Reducing the grind, polishing mechanics, making the progression more fluent and ordering the codex & quests. The Grind is by essence an artificial way to extend the time spent playing a game. Now that WF have 10years of additions & reworks, there's plenty enough of content to play, making all this old tedious ways of grinding way too much. Here's some polishing suggestions, then some alternate ways to adress the issue aimed: Polishing suggestions: - Reducing the overall hardblock MR requirements (for a lot of weapons, Rivens, etc...) (and remove it completely for quests) - Reducing grind and craft times on lower MR gear - Remove the access conditions of junctions. - Increasing the rewards of the story quests, like orokin reactors , important mods, materials, and other stuff as guaranteed rewards so they can get a headstart. - Increasing drop rates and/or altering drop tables - Giving more continuity and/or logical structure to the quests. Even if some parts are intertwined between realities, as it is lots of parts are given out of order or context, worsened by old events that played major roles in the overall story, requiring to search OutGame content (community-ran wiki's and youtuber's videos) to be able to understant and link most of it. - Making in the Stellar chart some highlight of the road through the main quests, at least until the second dream. - Adding old temporary story arcs as optional missions to be able to experience it too (Wolf of Saturn Six, Arlo, Nihil, etc...). - Giving starting players just a bit more slots (strict minimum +3WF slots & +4 weapons slots) to lessen the early frustration and allow them to taste a bit more of the good sides of the game, having opportunity to grow fond of it and finally making them more inclined to stay and invest in it. It will allow them to understand that they will be able to gain plat later by themselves too, which will make them enter your buisiness funnel. - Adding some kind of tutorial/explanations missions & tips about basic and important knowledge through the game. Essentials shouldn't have to be learned outside the game. -> as mentioned higher: Modding ; How armor/shields/overguards works ; Critical hits, Status, Elemental damages, Combinations, Companions, Affinity range, "Tenno schools" & Focus Lens, Learning that the Simulacrum exists, What is and how to acquire Corrupted mods? How to use Dragon Keys? etc... - Making the codex more fluent, easy-to-use. Especially the "how to acquire stuff" parts: -adding to the Prime frames descriptions some icons of each parts which, when highlighted by the cursor, would show the list of relics containing it ; adding some lines of text to give an idea as to where these can be obtained would be great if technicly reasonable. -if the previous point were done, adding the location hints lines to codex library of relics -adding similar hints for the weapons & companions acquisitions - Turn Steel Path into a personal modifier so newbies and veterans aren't segregated. - Removing the Necramech requirement, add a few father voice lines to new war where he send You a Nechramech to help for those specific sections if you don't own yours. - Removing the Railjack requirement by providing a pre-built Railjack in the quest if none owned. It would pick the player interest to craft Them later to access the rewards it offers. (would require to rework need to break the Crystal in the anomaly node since that requires a good RJ setup. A good way to do it would be to turn this requirement into a small mission quest for Veil Proxima so people don't have to craft & improve theirs just to unlock the next steps of the story.) - Include some kind of rewards for replaying skipped quests. - Adding a new specialised Tier on radiant relics: would need an item ("Void cristals?") hard but certain to obtain. From Liches/Sisters rewards, we would get an "Incomplete Void cristal". When used on a radiant relic, you'd choose a specific loot. Then it would have 50% chances for the player using the relic of getting another choice of loot at the opening of the relic containing the selected loot. From Archon's rewards, we'd get a "Perfect Void Cristal" which ensures at 100% to have the additional choice for the player ("Cristal radiant relics" would become untradable of course). - Since the game would in fact become less tedious & grindy, each old steps will take considerably less time. It could be a good mark of appreciation towards the old players who played it the hard way to offer them something nice & exclusive (a WF skin & a Syandana, stuff like that, which would be given to all players who have an account the day of the update). ALTERNATE SOLUTIONS about the Story-Skip feature: - A "Starter pack" that gives the player all of the requirements they need for the main story quests, or waives them outright. (the choice of a Starter frame lvl30 + 6 built forma + some efficient weapons + RJ with some intinsic + Necramech lvl30 + useful mods + endo) (a tutorial for modding and how to use Endo would be most appropriate if such packs were to me added) - Using paths with two separate silos of progression in a Duviri(sh) way, allowing to swap between paths "New content" and "Personal progress" at will. "New content" with 'rental' gear mechanics to play with decent gear and grind some of their own new stuff, the other with their own stuff from "Personal progress" . - A free "Story Only" mode with loaned equipment to bypass the strict requirements (Necra/RJ/Amp...). Would allow to unlock quest conditions locks very, very quickly to be able to access newer content while learning essential mechanics and the story through the quests. - Providing temporary free access to the new expansions for all players, say, for a month. (with default loadouts and steps to achieve to keep them after the month. If steps not done, suggestion to buy the appropriate packs). Adding an alternative feature in a proper and clean way for december would be way too rushed. (exept maybe the "Starter Pack"?) It would be better to implement this on the next update to do it in an immersive and fluent way instead of a basic "pay plat to acquire a pack of stuff you won't know how to use and be overwhelmed with in the middle of nowhere" way? If a way to experience the new content first were made nonetheless, barging in without having experienced the previous quests should be made with high cautious and ingenious steps story-wise (imagine how bad it would feel to begin the viewing of "Lord of the Rings" by the 3rd film ? The experience, understanding of the story and it's rythm would be a complete mess, without any immersion from the spectator). A good approach to adress this (from a narrative point of view) could be something Matrix-like: we barge somewhere where we don't understand what's happening nor the reason behind some strange stuff that occurs around us. We meet important key characters (in Matrix, Trinity, Morpheus & Agent Smith, here Albrecht Entrati and others), but don't understand their part in all of this yet. Then, later when we dig in (here when the player will do the quests that would have been kept for later, NOT SKIPPED), we begin to understand and become more and more interested by the story. Important Side-note about the parity for stores: Tennogen content being buyable only with money and not plat on PC is already quite unpopular (most of the PC players i know just don't touch it for this very reason). What's great about the platinum economy system is that it's core stand with paying players, but extand to all the playerbase, making everything really accessible for any player who could want it. It will just takes time and care. Paying the Plat make the gains a lot quicker and bigger for the player, and sustain the economy and income for DE. TennoGen's PC's paying system goes agains that (same goes to Regal Aya). For both the pack is always WAY too pricey compared to what it worth (a Helmet cosmetic DON'T worth 6$, and a frame standart skin DON'T worth 7$. It can cover half of the price (or even full price) of full games...). While Plat have the nice coupons systems (with 25/50/75% off) to be able to buy virtual content at honest prices and imply all the player base. Even if the price paid is greatly reduced at first, it induce the players to actually spend money and buy stuff, and even if it makes harder to follow which investment of money for plat is used on what and when, the final amount of money spent will be higher. If while doing the parity, you'll choose "TennoGen = $" instead of "Tennogen = plat", a lot of the console players will be quite angry, pushing them to not buy these anymore, while the "Tennogen = plat" will keep the console players satisfied AND make a lot PC player really happy, inciting them to actually spend money to buy more plat. (To DE) Objectively, you have all the real stats and numbers of each economic systems (Plat, Tennogen by $, Tennogen by Plat, Regal Aya, Prime Packs & Special packs like "Heirloom"). You know what stuff brings more money. Just please don't forget to include the time criterion to use and understand these numbers the best way. (for example were I had to choose PC or Console Tennogen payment, i'd be curious to compare the total amount of Tennogen purchases through the past 3 or 5 years from PC compared to Consoles. Then consider the number of player on each and do the maths to put them on an equal base of number of players. Then see the results.) (if i made disturbing grammar mistakes, don't hesitate to tell me and I'll fix it. But please do ignore the minor ones. English isn't my native language, and it already took quite some time to write this ^^)
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