CONCLAVE REDUX

[(PSN)Private_Ventures]

CONCLAVE

   Warframe's Player Vs. Player mode, widely renowned as the worst part of Warframe, and by extension, the least fun. Most players go the entire game without playing more than one round of PVP, and many others are completely ignorant of the fact that Warframe PVP even exists. Why, you may ask, is that? Let me explain. 

   Conclave is considered a very small part of Warframe, and is largely overlooked. When it is not, it is typically a rage-filled copterfest loaded with either overpowered, practically broken weaponry and mods, and the simple fact that most Warframe abilities are next to useless. 

  There is a second option, essentially Tenno soccer, called Lunaro, but is neither my domain, nor my concern.

  I'm here to discuss combat Conclave. 

  There are three game modes, the first essentially being a Free-For-All, the second a Team Vs. Team mode, and the third being a Capture-The-Flag game, Warframe style. These, though they may be staples of most PVP games, simply are neither compelling enough nor interesting enough to attract many players. Why? Because Warframe is not most PVP games. 

  I had an excellent idea, (excellent to me, at least), to revamp Conclave, and give it the much-needed Warframe re-skin. My idea revolves around a mixture of PVP and PVE. I want to present two new potential PVP modes:

 

INVASION

   Invasion is a mixture of the already-in-existence Invasion game type, a mission wherein a player chooses Grineer or Corpus, and supports their side against the other in a variety of missions, in groups of three, and MOBA PVP. I am suggesting a Conclave variant in which players choose to support Grineer or Corpus, and enter into a game with their Conclave loadout and Conclave mods, accompanied by MOBA-style "creeps" of their chosen faction, levels 5-10. Each team begins with a defense target, (I have not yet decided whether or not I would prefer this to be a mobile unit, like a Nullifier or Nox, or a stationary target like a cryopod). Each team would be tasked with killing the other team's target, and by extension, its players and creep units, to earn score which would be tallied up at the end of the game. Killing the enemy target would result in victory for the team, and a special "Winner's Circle" cinematic for the winning team, perhaps showing them fist-bumping and high-fiving as they leave the arena. Rewards and reward standing would vary, depending on the individual player's score throughout the game, promoting a Player-Vs.-Player mentality, and friendly competition. Teams would reset at the end of each game, ensuring a proper variety of players throughout the session.

QUARANTINE

   Quarantine is a favorite of mine, involving two 4-man teams trying to kill each other, explosive barrels around every corner, limited lives, and lots and lots of infested. Players would enter the game with their chosen Conclave loadout and mods, on one of two sides of the map, each player with four possible revives. Infested would spawn from Infested Spawn Pods, which appear randomly throughout the map, spewing forth Chargers, Broilers, Brood Mothers, Runners, and Crawlers, and their spawn frequency would increase the longer the game went on, as well as their spawn level. I propose beginning their level at 2, and raising it by .5 levels every minute the game continues. Killed Infested occasionally drop additional Oro, granting the player who collected it an additional life. The game ends when one team kills enough of the other team to deplete their revival stores.

 

P.S.

  Warframe, as a primarily PVE game, is not necessarily suffering from lack of solid PVP. In fact, it thrives in spite of it. What I am proposing is that instead of following the typical PVP routes of most games, Warframe uses its greatest strength, (infinitely customizable PVE), to craft a PVP game mode that not only adheres to Warframe's core gameplay, but modifies it beyond the norm, resulting in Evolv-meets-Unreal Tournament gameplay unlike anything else on the market, and giving it something it never had: dedicated Player Vs. Player action.

[Himenoinu]

All sounds pretty, but the major issue you presented in the opening segment would remain unaddressed - most probably leading to the same unpleasant fate the Conclave currently seems doomed to.The warframes' abilities and mods.

I have played a bit of Conclave a while ago and it was... unpleasant. The warframe I chose for one of the matches, Gara, had a completely broken skill-set, where virtually any of her abilities were of absolutely no use in any combat situation. Furthermore, it felt like there's no... tiers - pretty much how there are none in Lunaro either - the game pitting Conclave veterans against new players. Knowledge of the maps, of the warframes' abilities and owning whatever mods there are for the Conclave - all are potential advantages that can easily lead to new players getting frustrated and quitting the Conclave altogether, no matter how much fun potential the game modes may have.

So from this point of view, I'd define your suggestion as the intention of building new roads for the same broken car.

The game modes... yeah, they look interesting, although next to never have I seen or played a pvpve match that didn't lead to half the team focusing exclusively on mowing down mobs, giving the opponents some free points. The Aion's Dredgion and Guild Wars' Fort Aspenwood come to mind. Still let's break'em down.

The Invasion mode would need to spill over into pve, so as to not be another Simaris simulation.

• There would be some recruiters in the Conclave room that would sign up volunteers for whatever target their factions are most direly fighting over. Once a player picks a side, it's going to go like in the pve invasions - that is no betrayal. They will only be able to fight over that particular node on the same side. The invasion node that a pvp arena is opened for would have an extra mark in the invasion menu (for esthetics if nothing else).
• Along with he conclave standings, the players will also gain the pve rewards when reaching 3 victories in the pvp invasion.
• In the long run, clans could have diplomatic ties to one of the forces, preventing the clan members from ever going against them in both invasions and armada events, but gaining extra blueprints to research in the clan for both weaponry and dojo decorations. The dojo decorations would get destroyed and the blueprints would be withdrawn upon the clan switching sides and the weapons obtain would be unusable by anyone not allied with that particular faction.
• As for the arena itself, I can't think of many people enjoying the idea of yet another sortie type defense mission. But I can imagine a slightly bigger map with a few tasks to do, seeing how we'd have npc support too (hell! I can even imagine pvp in the new Railjack style! ^.^).
• But to keep it more simple for the time being, the matches could be either:

One that would have an initial mobile defense phase for the attacking team, positioned in the center of the map that - upon success - will open the doors towards the defenders' base. The new spawning point for the attackers will be moved at the terminal and from there the roles will be reversed, the defending team having to protect their VIP from being either killed or captured.

During the mobile defense phase, a type of the defending npcs would sometimes drop an energy cell that would repair the console and during the second phase, the defenders of the VIP would be able to revive it in the first 30 seconds of being downed.

Matches would go against the clock too and the scoring would be 2 points for the invaders if they manage to take down (or away) their target and 1 if they only go past the mobile defense. Defenders would get 2 points if they stop the invaders from ever entering their base and 1 if they only manage to protect their target. Each point gained would grant decent conclave standings so as to not feel like you've just wasted time.

Or one that would be a rescue/capture ping-pong game. 2 npcs would be kept in captivity by one team in a room with 4 cells. The other will have a certain amount of time to free them both or die trying.

Each time a prisoner npc is freed (maybe by means of having 2 players interact with a button at the same time, not via hacking minig-ames), the team will have to guard its trip back to the extraction. Along the path, the captors will attempt to stop the fugitive and recapture it.

To spice up the action, the defenders could choose to capture players in the same manner and have them fill the 2 empty cells that will then have a mark to indicate the fact that there's a pc inside.

As usual, points are being given for each successful rescue/capture. 2 points for npc, 1 points for players. If no npc have been escorted to extraction and the defenders capture 2 players, the game ends with defenders being victorious. But if both npc have been extracted, the rescue team will win the match. There will be arguably smaller conclave standings rewarded for each point.

These game modes would reward both teams conclave-wise, but only one will also get one step closer to reaping the invasion rewards. To make matters relevant, however, getting the invasion prize in the pvp Invasion games should also bring about a healthy amount of Conclave standings that can only be obtained once per node, just like with the pve reward. If the Clan-Faction diplomatic relations are be implemented, the Conclave standings can be replaced by Faction standings (with which the things mentioned at the beginning can be aquired).

[(PSN)Private_Ventures]

I like your suggestions, in particular, your point that there's no tiers in conclave really spoke to me. I think that's really the first step towards meaningful PVP now, is finding a way to split noobs from vets. And frankly, I'm amazed that we don't have that yet, where we get matched up only with people in our own conclave rank. 

I really like the idea of just mixing Invasions with Invasion PVP. Play one team as the bad guys and the other as the good guy defenders. I love it. 

As for the concept of the broken car, I wouldn't say it's broken. It's more like a car built by someone who only understands the basics of car-building. PVP currently has the right individual mechanics to be good, but none of them are implemented optimally. In particular, the parkour. I don't have a problem with the parkour, but the environments we're given are far too large and open for the lighting fast motion to be countered by an enemy player. On top of that, melee is really the only thing that matters in current PVP. Whips and daggers rule the conclave right now. 

I'll admit, something I'd like to see is the ability to use PVE builds in PVP, but everyone enters with an Extinguished Dragon Key effect.

[(PSN)Private_Ventures]

If I misunderstood anything, I apologize. It's been a long day.

[Himenoinu]

The Conclave does have all the ingredients for a potentially fun place to spend some quality time in. According to my lady - who's a fan of pvp in every game - it even has the occasional cheaters 😄

The fact that Warframe comes with different abilities for pvp is awesome. The fact that most of them feel irrelevant is not.

The fact that Warframe has different mods for pvp is awesome. But the fact that most of them are almost useless, changing very little in how each frame tackles the conflict, is not.

And, like you said, the fact the maps feel like they're designed for Clan vs Clan only to be mostly populated by teams of 2 players is not helpin' either. Guessing that if there's anyone at DE still lookin' into Conclave, they should travel back to Unreal Tournament times, check some new pvp games (QC or the current version of UT), add the high mobility of Warframe and give birth to some better suited arenas.

Also, yeah, both pve and pvp suffer from weapons bias to some extent and I'm guessing it's just as annoying in the conclave to have a wide selection of weaponry out of which a handful are of some use as it is in pve to always plan based on the rather broken mobs leveling system.

That's why I say that it's kinda awkward to create new pvp arenas or modes when the foundation of the whole pvp spectrum cracked all over. The order of priorities, from my point of view, puts what we're discussing here at the end of the to-do list.

1. Fix the Conclave match-making (and let new players figure out what works and what doesn't fighting their own level of opponents)
2. Revamp/rework mods, abilities and gear for Conclave (just to bring the whole range of frames and gear in the "potentially good for pvp" category)
3. Design new maps or create new pvp games. While pvp should be enjoyed for the adrenaline rush, some pvpve arenas could be fun and attractive if connected properly to both types of gameplay and the game world as a whole - not like the tacked on ESO, which lacks everything, logic, reason or challenge - because that broken efficiency system is not a challenge.

[(PSN)Private_Ventures]

1 hour ago, Himenoinu said:

The Conclave does have all the ingredients for a potentially fun place to spend some quality time in. According to my lady - who's a fan of pvp in every game - it even has the occasional cheaters 😄

The fact that Warframe comes with different abilities for pvp is awesome. The fact that most of them feel irrelevant is not.

The fact that Warframe has different mods for pvp is awesome. But the fact that most of them are almost useless, changing very little in how each frame tackles the conflict, is not.

And, like you said, the fact the maps feel like they're designed for Clan vs Clan only to be mostly populated by teams of 2 players is not helpin' either. Guessing that if there's anyone at DE still lookin' into Conclave, they should travel back to Unreal Tournament times, check some new pvp games (QC or the current version of UT), add the high mobility of Warframe and give birth to some better suited arenas.

Also, yeah, both pve and pvp suffer from weapons bias to some extent and I'm guessing it's just as annoying in the conclave to have a wide selection of weaponry out of which a handful are of some use as it is in pve to always plan based on the rather broken mobs leveling system.

That's why I say that it's kinda awkward to create new pvp arenas or modes when the foundation of the whole pvp spectrum cracked all over. The order of priorities, from my point of view, puts what we're discussing here at the end of the to-do list.

1. Fix the Conclave match-making (and let new players figure out what works and what doesn't fighting their own level of opponents)
2. Revamp/rework mods, abilities and gear for Conclave (just to bring the whole range of frames and gear in the "potentially good for pvp" category)
3. Design new maps or create new pvp games. While pvp should be enjoyed for the adrenaline rush, some pvpve arenas could be fun and attractive if connected properly to both types of gameplay and the game world as a whole - not like the tacked on ESO, which lacks everything, logic, reason or challenge - because that broken efficiency system is not a challenge.

Honestly, UT was the game I had in mind for system redesign. Aside from that, though, despite the fact that I hate what Call of Duty has done to the gaming community, I very much appreciate their multiplayer map design. In particular, Black Ops 3 had a verticality to its maps that many other games are hard pressed to emulate, especially the potential for tactical play (which you never actually see in CoD). 

I agree with fixing matchmaking. I'm tired of the game being dominated by an Atlas with a Mios, round after round after round until he gets bored enough to leave. I'm also tired of plugging a full Sybaris P mag into an enemy, to watch it deal 10s and 15s every bullet. 

I would also like to see what they've done with the updated dojo duels (limited health/shields/damage/ while still being able to use weakened PVE mod setups) in the conclave. But my real fingers-crossed hope is that someday, clans can build their own enormous conclave arenas for friendly clan PvP.

I think every Warframe ought to have at least one ability augment, specifically geared toward PvP, or at the very least, the augments already in existence need a second look. Have you seen Volt's PvP mods? They're dreadful. Absolutely awful. And Volt's one of the decent PvP frames.