More difficult content for advanced players

[THE_ZEEK]

Hi DEV team, 

I have been playing the game for a while now and i notice that i am running too easily through most missions, including sorties.

Would it be possible to design the game for more advanced players so that it will be more difficult to play? 

Some suggestions:

* Special incursions & missions like level 150+ sorties, which are based on both duration as well as enemy AI upgrades. But where Loottables AABC would take 10 levels in stead of only 5 ( --> double the time between the rewards) but increase the dropchance or dropamount for rare items. Have Enemy AI work like for example the NOX, where you will need the teamwork to take out an enemy. (especially on higher levels) - a missionexample would for example be a huge boss which will need particular team setup to defeat and will take a decent amount of effort and time to kill, with NPC's protecting that bossmore actively than current NPC's

 * Being able to play the starsystem in [TOUGH or HARD] mode, where for example earth starts with lvl 50+ and progression through the starchart into Void with enemies being 120+

* Have special missions, where team composition will start to matter (not for speedrunning it, but for survivability)

* Have special bosses spawn after a certain amount of time in a particular mission ( For example with defense, survival and other duration missions) for example after round 20 in defense. or when a new rotation starts you will get 1 or more additional bosses.(including an increase in droprate or dropamount after 1st rotation completion)

* Have a NO-FRAME (operator only) option to play the starmap. 

To actively work against leechers it would be great to have a kick from group voting action (and which is time limited for example the first rotation available) OR a report leecher button in the game.

And to get a overview for 10-15 seconds what frames and weapons people are playing in your team, so you can change your frame or weapons for better team composition.

 

Thanks

Z

[Fishyflakes]

They're making Elite Alerts.

How do Fissures and Nightmare nodes work in the "Tough" star chart?

We already have Eidolons for the "Team composition matters" mission and it has produced an elitist community.

No 40 minute rewards.

You can already do operator-only mode... just press 5 at start?

No vote kick. 🤣

Last one just use Squad Chat lol

[THE_ZEEK]

25 minutes ago, Fishyflakes said:

Thanks for the reply, i do have some remarks..

They're making Elite Alerts.~ Thats great news!!

How do Fissures and Nightmare nodes work in the "Tough" star chart? ~ better rewards on a higer and more difficult setting? - less survivability more incoming damage?

We already have Eidolons for the "Team composition matters" mission and it has produced an elitist community.~ its a shame that it creates an elitist community, but some content should just not be reachable when you either are a MR5 player being taxied to a specific mission or if you dont feel like reading or researching your modding/ skill, development. i understand that as a casual player not wanting to invest in your knowledge of the game you will not be wanting to do these higher level missions.

No 40 minute rewards.  ~ and why not? ~ thats exacly why content gets dumbed down.. and why experienced players are running into a wall..i like challenging content and not for everything to be too easy. i would like to add that you will choose for these settings yourself. SO if you dont feel like doing longer runs thats fine.. then do the easy stuff.

You can already do operator-only mode... just press 5 at start? ~ not really what i was asking for.. Press 5 at start still makes you have a frame ( and its buffs etc) it will also give you an infinite amount of lives..

No vote kick. 🤣 ~ so just the report a leech button will do fine with me too.. its starting to become a fairly common sight.

Last one just use Squad Chat lol ~ Not really an option if you play with randoms ..often you only see what the other frames are when you are in the mission, like two frosts, twobanshee's or two Saryns, very akward 😉

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2018 by THE_ZEEK

[Fishyflakes]

I don't think it's a good idea to make Twice as many fissures.

I believe all content should be available to everyone, not just meta-slaves and cheese-abusers.
I believe Warframe is best when it gives absolute freedom to players.

I do not want Warframe to encourage players to stay in missions for 30+ minutes because it simply is unhealthy/boring/etc.
For a leaderboard? Sure why not.
For exclusive rewards? Maybe for an event.
As a norm? Miss me with that scaling Kuva thanks.

Reporting for "leaching" is just going to be abused, no thanks.

If you don't like randoms, then don't play with randoms. You can't, and shouldn't, try to control people.
Once again, I believe Warframe is about freedom for the player.

[THE_ZEEK]

Currently as the game stands, the fissures are too easy. so you we differ there in opinion.

I do not think it is healthy for a game when all content is available for all levels. Like i mentioned, its another part of progression in the game, when you have levels with more difficult content on the same map.

When having content where skill becomes involved and a better understanding of the game it keeps a natural progression going. Now content just becomes being able to be cheesed and meta's. There needs to be some sort of extra level for people to keep developing towards. 

Again with missions longer than 30+ minutes, that a personal preference from you not to play any longer. I offered some solutions to take out the boringness from you, but you bluntly disagree, but have no constructive solutions or additions that might help develop the game into a more interesting place. (except fro scaling through duration, which i already mentioned)

We have a diffirent opinion in what we look at in the game. 

For me still my first post stands.

Warframe is about freedom, but also about natural progression and feeling powerful and skilled.  I do like playing with randoms, I just dont like people leeching their way through content and getting bonus rewards for doing absolutely nothing. Thats not playing a game but just taking up space. So yes, a report leecher button should be placed in game and must be taken seriously. 

I understand you points of view, but i just dont agree with them. It seems like you are very happy how the game has been designed and how the natural progression seems to be.

There needs to be some sort of content that keeps progression going in some sort of difficulty that cheesing is not an option, where being afk means death or being bounced out of a team. If the hardest content can be cheesed, then something is seriously wrong with the difficulty levels...

Z

 

[(PSN)teacup775]

the downside to operator only is no loot radar. this simple thing would ruin many a mission.

[Slimspadey101]

It sounds like you want some freaking awesome Raids dude. Me too!

[Loza03]

I'd be down with some content that's balanced for more players than the mode allows. So things like interception-esque missions with seven or eight nodes instead of four (in specially designed tiles, of course), which forces players to have to move around more to protect them, and manage which targets and objectives need focus at any given time. It'd give Sniper rifles more reason to exist for one, since sniper nests that cover multiple objectives could be built into the tiles.

Killing everything you see in a 20-metre radius doesn't help when the objectives 50 metres away, behind two walls, need your attention, after all.

[miomima]

How do you like a mode with cooldowns on all abilities? Ads aditional management, removes ability to vaporize all enemies with couple button presses every 5-10 seconds etc. adds teamplay because of that, so you need to time all your abilities with teamates just not to waste them and start long as hell cooldown?

Edited September 2, 2018 by miomima

[TinFoilMkIV]

I'm not convinced bumping things up 100 levels or so will actually result in much more challenge. There are already team compositions capable of taking on enemies with levels in the thousands. Well beyond the point where any damage is instantly lethal and 99% of our weaponry does nothing at all. I strongly believe that the player's capabilities and arsenals would have to be nerfed before actually challenging could be added. Good luck convincing the player base at large to be okay with this.

Of course you can say that it will be fine when people don't use super cheese tactics, but you might as well say just don't bring mods or energy generating effects. Part of the draw of hard content is to make full use of the tools we do have, but our tools are simply too strong and are too freely available. The alternative to nerfing the players is to resort to generally anti-fun enemy design. Stuff like outright invincibility, complete status immunity, and unavoidable/unpreventable damage.

Also you'd have to restructure how rewards are handed out. Right now Warframe heavily favors maximum killing/clearing speed. As long as it stays that way, then the harder the content, the more the players will enforce the usage of meta gear and tactics. Meaning prepare to be told you're not allowed to use your favorite frame and weaponry without being told you're trash and wasting everyone's time.

[THE_ZEEK]

On 2018-09-01 at 10:36 PM, (PS4)teacup775 said:

the downside to operator only is no loot radar. this simple thing would ruin many a mission.

I hear ya, it would be nice if that problem could be solved 🙂

 

On 2018-09-01 at 10:43 PM, Slimspadey101 said:

It sounds like you want some freaking awesome Raids dude. Me too!

I want anything that is somewhat more challenging!  

On 2018-09-02 at 3:51 AM, Loza03 said:

I'd be down with some content that's balanced for more players than the mode allows. So things like interception-esque missions with seven or eight nodes instead of four (in specially designed tiles, of course), which forces players to have to move around more to protect them, and manage which targets and objectives need focus at any given time. It'd give Sniper rifles more reason to exist for one, since sniper nests that cover multiple objectives could be built into the tiles.

Killing everything you see in a 20-metre radius doesn't help when the objectives 50 metres away, behind two walls, need your attention, after all.

Those are great idea's!!  it would be nice to have to makesure you would have to move further and between objectives.

 

On 2018-09-02 at 9:00 PM, miomima said:

How do you like a mode with cooldowns on all abilities? Ads aditional management, removes ability to vaporize all enemies with couple button presses every 5-10 seconds etc. adds teamplay because of that, so you need to time all your abilities with teamates just not to waste them and start long as hell cooldown?

The cooldowns is maybe not the best option, but definetly something that would counter one button wins would be great!

 

On 2018-09-03 at 1:07 AM, TinFoilMkIV said:

I'm not convinced bumping things up 100 levels or so will actually result in much more challenge. There are already team compositions capable of taking on enemies with levels in the thousands. Well beyond the point where any damage is instantly lethal and 99% of our weaponry does nothing at all. I strongly believe that the player's capabilities and arsenals would have to be nerfed before actually challenging could be added. Good luck convincing the player base at large to be okay with this.

Of course you can say that it will be fine when people don't use super cheese tactics, but you might as well say just don't bring mods or energy generating effects. Part of the draw of hard content is to make full use of the tools we do have, but our tools are simply too strong and are too freely available. The alternative to nerfing the players is to resort to generally anti-fun enemy design. Stuff like outright invincibility, complete status immunity, and unavoidable/unpreventable damage.

Also you'd have to restructure how rewards are handed out. Right now Warframe heavily favors maximum killing/clearing speed. As long as it stays that way, then the harder the content, the more the players will enforce the usage of meta gear and tactics. Meaning prepare to be told you're not allowed to use your favorite frame and weaponry without being told you're trash and wasting everyone's time.

I hear what you are saying and i am quite curious what options you would like to offer to keep things more challenging with our current ( and hopefully) unnerfed wrames and weapons/skills.

There should be some game format that would allow us to keep plaing being challenged without forbidding the cheese weapons in the mission.

Z

 

[miomima]

To make that:
- mission should force progression to remove camping or at least force people to move from time to time; (Escort VIP which moves on waypoints and not teleports to you, and stops in some places to hack some console so there is mobile defence part)

- greatly reduce spam ability, no energy regeneration which replenish only on special points (or cooldowns, because there is frames like nidus, so at least ESO rules)

- Sad part, its probbly imposible, AI twiking. Right now most of enemies just slowly walks in your dirrection and only rarely they take cover\fly\roll, they should be more agressive in movement.

[TinFoilMkIV]

1 hour ago, THE_ZEEK said:

I hear what you are saying and i am quite curious what options you would like to offer to keep things more challenging with our current ( and hopefully) unnerfed wrames and weapons/skills.

There should be some game format that would allow us to keep plaing being challenged without forbidding the cheese weapons in the mission.

Z

I don't think there is a solution the way things stand. There might be some potential for solo challenges, since there are limits to what a single player can combine in their arsenal. Many of the big problems are how strong combined effects can become, as well as support frames granting things like regular invulnerability and near unlimited energy.

Even without considering stacking bonuses, the variation in frames durability and damage potential is absurd. We have frames that can reach tens of thousands of effective hp, with a variety of ways to heal off any incoming damage that isn't instantly lethal. Any damage output that could threaten such frames is going to vaporize a frame that stands below that in durability. Then we have abilities capable of amplifying damage output many times over. If you balance around that, then any frame lacking such a buff is going to take ages to clear that content. Essentially, to create a challenge on the most basic level, will almost always result in a vast majority of our tools being worthless. This problem gets worse when you allow players to work together. We get things like automatic weapons hitting the damage cap per shot, unlimited use of hard CC abilities, and 99.99% damage reduction with constant regeneration.

As a quick example of how extreme the disparity between really pushing the limits versus not. The difference between 99.99% damage reduction, and 99.94% damage reduction, is 1,999.9% increased incoming damage.

The closest thing I could come up with on short notice would be making a variation of enemies that have controlled fire rate, but instantly kill when dealing damage, and only have 1 hp. I mean it's a threat to any frame, and it isn't effectively invulnerable to large portions of our weaponry. But even then, large area CC... You could make them immune, or incredibly resistant to CC abilities, but then you're basically removing those powers from the players. If a CC ability cannot deal with the biggest threat around, and that threat is not rare, then more often than not, it's not worth using.

I just don't see getting around these problems without taking away some of the power we as players have.

 

A partial solution that doesn't require messing with player capabilities, is to adjust how we gain rewards. I believe one of the big problems is that we really have two methods of acquiring good rewards. The first, is to kill as many enemies as possible in the shortest period of times. More kills, more chances at drops. The second, is from mission completion. This means ignoring anything that is not absolutely mandatory for clearing the mission, and getting through it all as fast as possible. These two reward methods honestly make perfect sense and I'm fine with them existing. The problem is the difference between how much you can gain, from even a half-assed focus on one or the other, versus everything else in the game. We don't get significant rewards for exploring. We don't get significant rewards to taking down tough enemy compositions. We don't have rewards for special feats or performance outside set events. Really I'd like to see better systems and values to reward more deliberate play. As fun as it can be to utterly annihilate hordes of enemies, or blow past them before they even realized you just trashed their reactor, there's soo much more to do and enjoy in the game. But the game doesn't do itself any favors when it rewards those two things far far more than anything else

I think one of Warframe's strongest points is that it readily allows so much variety in play style and equipment use. A big factor in that is just how far we can push our power levels beyond what our enemies can deal with. Variety is going to result in disparity of performance. If that disparity is significant at all, then the more you push the difficulty, the more mandatory the better performing strategies and equipment are going to become.

Edited September 4, 2018 by TinFoilMkIV