Console Cross-play

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

6 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

Thank god you made another thread instead of checking if there may be one already.
The cert-process takes too much time, and PC won't get slowed down. So no crossplay between PC and consoles.
And even consoles update on different dates. So platforms will always have to wait in order for crossplay to work. And who wants that to happen?

And btw. imagine PC got updates at the same time as consoles. PC couldn't test new patches anymore.
Everyone would have to live with broken bugs for weeks... Yeah... that would be awesome... 

Thank god there's a megathread feature because it happens many times already, lol?

Sony does do hotfixes. I'm pretty sure Microsoft does too. Bugs would be able to be patched across all platforms.

[(PSN)calvin_0]

8 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

There will never be a migration away from one console.
You progress on console is owned by the console's company. They will never allow something like that.

Quote

The first step will be an open beta beginning today for Fortnite that will allow for cross platform gameplay, progression and commerce across PlayStation 4, Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Mac operating systems. 

 

according to Sony crossplay blog, they are allowing cross platform progression.. in other word, you can port your account over to other platform for fortnite... so no reason why Warframe cant do the same with PC..

Not only progression, they also allow paid item to be used cross platform.. meaning you can buy fortnite costume in PC and use it in PS4..

So I think DE should push Sony to do the same with Warframe..

Edited September 27, 2018 by (PS4)calvin_0

[fr4gb4ll]

even IF sony will do this, there is still a big hurdle in the way for crossplay between consoles and pc - and that is the way updates will still be handled by sony, microsoft and surely nintendo too. updates for warframe comes out for pc for a good reason: to get out most bugs before shipping them to s&m (n too soon ^^) since they won't allow DE patching the game themself and sure as hell serves lukewarm beer, they won't ever be as fast as DE is on the pc-version. therefore all of us pc player would have to be "downgraded" in this QoL "feature" to be on pair for crossplay™ to work - and that is a no-go, at least for me.

maybe in the future this will change in a way that the console corps will change all those restrictions that only are there for serve their own interests, but for now, i don't see them capitulating before their customers wishes THAT far ^^)

[-.SP.-G43riel]

the only way it could maybe work is if the crossplay is only between XBOX and PS4, as they are basically always on par of the same updates and versions.

It would still be great for the community, but hard to imagine a console - pc crossplay
 

[WhiteMarker]

4 hours ago, (PS4)ArtPrince17 said:

Thank god there's a megathread feature because it happens many times already, lol?

Sony does do hotfixes. I'm pretty sure Microsoft does too. Bugs would be able to be patched across all platforms.

As of right now:
PC gets a patch. PC tests the patch. PC finds bugs. DE fixes bugs. DE brings the patch to consoles after 4 weeks or more of cert.

With crossplay across all platforms:
DE makes a patch. All platforms get the patch after 4 weeks or more of cert across all the consoles. Players find a bug. DE fixes bug. Bugfixes comes after 4 weeks of cert or more across all consoles.

Do you know why you consoles never have to deal with huge issues? Because PC tests it for you guys.
With crossplay, this all would end.
We would have to deal with a lot of bugs for an stupid amount of time.
As I said, would be great, wouldn't it?

[(PSN)obsidiancurse]

13 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

About what?
If you want to talk about Fortnite, then do that on another forum, but not the Warframe one.

As I said, Warframe won't get crossplay because of that, and because the cert-process will not change.

Well the cert process only leaves pc out, there could still be console cross play. And if that happens, big if of course, then DE may consider updating pc in line with console rather than leaving them isolated. Guess it depends on the players, while I’m sure there are certain pc elements who like to feel superior because they get updates a month before console there are also those who may want to play together and those of course who already play multi platform.

[(PSN)calvin_0]

3 hours ago, -.SP.-G43riel said:

the only way it could maybe work is if the crossplay is only between XBOX and PS4, as they are basically always on par of the same updates and versions.

It would still be great for the community, but hard to imagine a console - pc crossplay
 

 

I dont know about others, but I dont want crossplay, I want cross platform access.... Sony gives that to Fortnite, DE should push for that..

[WhiteMarker]

10 minutes ago, (PS4)obsidiancurse said:

Well the cert process only leaves pc out, there could still be console cross play. And if that happens, big if of course, then DE may consider updating pc in line with console rather than leaving them isolated. Guess it depends on the players, while I’m sure there are certain pc elements who like to feel superior because they get updates a month before console there are also those who may want to play together and those of course who already play multi platform.

DE already said that PC will never be held back by consoles.
Consoles need to speed up.
And as I said multiple times, PC is the test-server for Warframe. Not being able to fix bugs right away because of cert-process means, that we would have to play with horrible bugs, or we would have to wait even longer for new content.
Look at how long we had to wait for Excal Umbra. With the need to fix every bug before launch, we would still be waiting.
Look at how long we still have to wait for Railjack. Imagine PC couldn't test it. DE would have to test it all by themself. We would get Railjack 1 or 2 years later.

People don't know what a blessing it is to have PC update way faster...

Imagine there would be a cross-play bug.
If you loaded into a game with someone from another platform, the game would crash and you would have to reinstall the game.
Every single time...
DE would have to fix that bug for every platform seperatly. This takes insane amounts of time. Then all the hotfixes would have to go through cert for each console.
This takes a lot of time aswell.
Then the Hotfix comes.
All of this would take ages and would ruin user experience.
And imagine the first Hotfix wouldn't work.
Then this all starts all over again and would take ages again.

Edited September 27, 2018 by WhiteMarker

[BrazilianJoe]

I am not even asking for crossplay. from the 3 features, It`s the least priority for me.

It does not need to happen all at once either. 

I want cross progress first and foremost, that`s the critical part. The rest is added bonus. 

Cross progress is the critical part, because I can then level up each gameplay item only once, instead of re-grinding on multiple platforms, which most people aren't keen to do. 

Cross-prgoress - PC will have "future content", and the consoles will se from a property in the item that it has not been released to their platform yet, and would load a placeholder instead. 

For cosmetics, a default cosmetic can be loaded e.g Edo armor and Uru syandanna. For Warframes and weapons, the most played frame/weapons from the player's own stats which the game collects. 

Consoles would not be able to join parties which are on maps that are not yet released to their platform.

 

Cross-commerce is also important - buy platinum on one platform, but able to spend it on another platform, plus the ability to trade with users on different platforms. Not having it would be a bit bitter, but people can live with it. "Future content" items (PC-only) would not be tradeable with console users.

Cross-play is the hardest part by far, because not all platforms are in the same release. While some of the update content is cosmetic, some of the content is performance improvement, the hard part is when bugfixes and game updates change gameplay, which could cause a desync. 

Warframe has its fair share of simulation issues. we still see enemy rubberbanding and teleportation all the time, so part of the issues could be not too noticeable.

One way to go about it would be to have the host hammer down desyncs by affirming the game state when there is a disagreement with a guest. 

Another way would be to have the PC client either have 2 executables - BLERGS i dislike it!

My preferred way to make crossplay work:

Add ONE CHECKBOX to navigation UI: Enable crossplay. When enabled, it will load game logic from gameplay-affecting assets in sync with the console. When unchecked, it loads the latest version of the gameplay-affecting assets.

PC client would have a fattening on its size, having an additional set of game logic assets. gameplay objects such as warframes , weapons, npcs, their properties, and gameplay logic would all have a "crossplay version", with the same assets released on console, and a "pc version", with the latest changes and bugfixes. 

Cosmetic assets would not need to be duplicated, since they do not alter gameplay.

Edited September 27, 2018 by BrazilianJoe

[WhiteMarker]

1 minute ago, BrazilianJoe said:

Cross progress is the critical part, because I can then level up each gameplay item only once, instead of re-grinding on multiple platforms, which most people aren't keen to do. 

Cross-proress - PC will have "future content", and the consoles will se from a property in the item that it has not been released to their platform yet, and would load a placeholder instead. 

For cosmetics, a default cosmetic can be loaded e.g Edo armor and Uru syandanna. For Warframes and weapons, the most played frame/weapons from the player's own stats which the game collects. 

Consoles would not be able to join parties which are on maps that are not yet released to their platform.

Cross-platform will not happen with PC involved.
PC-plat and console-plat is different because of discounts.
People would just get cheap plat on PC and use it on console. This will crash the console's market. Have fun with that.
People from PC will just switch over to console and buy Tennogen stuff there.
This will mean the makers of Tennogen won't get their share. Also great.

And between consoles (excluding PC)... maybe...
But again, people will just start asking for more and more.
It's way easier for DE to just ignore all the cross-platform stuff.

[BrazilianJoe]

If it didn't make financial sense, it would never be happening in Fortnite. 

It is not that far off from Warframe, in that it is a free-to-play model which relies on a strong commuity.

Breaking down the barriers between consoles would only benefit Warframe, like it does to Fortnite. 

Epic wouldn`t do it if it wasn`t to their financial advantage, and Sony wouldn`t do it either. A larger gaming community becomes stronger and grows more without those barriers. 

It`s easy to just say "it will never happen".  But hell is freezing over Fortnite right now, just like hell froze over Warframe when it went to consoles, and it may freeze yet another time. 

 

[WhiteMarker]

2 minutes ago, BrazilianJoe said:

If it didn't make financial sense, it would never be happening in Fortnite. 

It is not that far off from Warframe, in that it is a free-to-play model which relies on a strong commuity.

Breaking down the barriers between consoles would only benefit Warframe, like it does to Fortnite. 

And still... Fortnite doesn have stuff like Tennogen.
And I bet there is no such thing as plat-discounts (on PC) and the market-coupons (on console)
If crossplatform happens, how would this stuff be handled?

And again, would you want some big whales from PC with 20k plat and more to come to console and buy all the stuff you can't afford, because you only have 1k plat?

The value of plat is totally different on PC compared to consoles.

Why aren't you seeing these problems?

And just because Warframe and Fortnite are both Free-to-play doesn't mean they are so easily comparable.

And why are you talking about financials?
Epic Games plays in a totally different league than DE.

[BrazilianJoe]

34 minutes ago, WhiteMarker said:

And still... Fortnite doesn have stuff like Tennogen.
And I bet there is no such thing as plat-discounts (on PC) and the market-coupons (on console)
If crossplatform happens, how would this stuff be handled?

And again, would you want some big whales from PC with 20k plat and more to come to console and buy all the stuff you can't afford, because you only have 1k plat?

The value of plat is totally different on PC compared to consoles.

Why aren't you seeing these problems?

And just because Warframe and Fortnite are both Free-to-play doesn't mean they are so easily comparable.

And why are you talking about financials?
Epic Games plays in a totally different league than DE.

I see some of those are good problems to have, while others are non-issues. 

Thinking crossplay is a problem can be a matter of framing rather than objective reality.

Warframe is PvE, with very minor PvP which failed to garner a strong following. 

The game acquires newcomers all the time, and there is a wild power difference between the newcomers and veterans, yet we all lift play together. 

Power difference between players is a non-issue , because the game focus on cooperation rather than competition. It's already in the game, and we live with it. Cross platform will not change it. 

I see veterans pouring in to the consoles as a good thing, as they help out the new console players level up faster, and being tutors to help them get to grips with the gameplay minutia. 

Financials are something that you brought in many of your arguments, why are you calling me out on that? Be consistent.

I talk about financials because it's perfectly reasonable for us to players to ponder about the viability of the game, and what the possible upcoming changes could entail for the game's future. At the end of the game, behind the walls, changes to a free-to-play game should provide financial benefits. Be it direct monetization, or an experience that will provide more entertaingment, and be more engaging, generating opportunities and goodwill for the player to spend.

DE has this monetization model where there is no free plat, which is different from other games. It makes up for that by allowing currency trading between players, making for a great way for it to move from the haves to the have nots. It might be the case that this is one barrier that will not be torn down, making PC plat useable on PC only, and each platform with their own, but have cosmetics show up on all platforms. There are 3 core features and not all 3 need to be enabled - but can, if it makes sense.

Of course we are not part of DE or Sony, so we do not know the nitty-gritty details. But one thing we know, the beancounters at Sony are over level 9000 in their powers - they were the ones putting the brakes on it, but changed stance. They wouldn't do it if it would cause them to lose money.

My choice as a community member is to shout out "HEY DE! think hard about it, it should work for you too!". Fortnite is a behemoth, but it is paving the way for others to come. DE probably would not have the heft to do the heavy lifting, but Epic Games is doing that part. DE can just ride the wake. Sony made it clear it is not a one-time thing and may come other games.

Rocket League devs made it clear that they can enable it for them, but had the Sony veto it before. I bet that one will come soon after Fortnite, plus others.

 

Edited September 27, 2018 by BrazilianJoe

[Dabnician]

8 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

As of right now:
PC gets a patch. PC tests the patch. PC finds bugs. DE fixes bugs. DE brings the patch to consoles after 4 weeks or more of cert.

With crossplay across all platforms:
DE makes a patch. All platforms get the patch after 4 weeks or more of cert across all the consoles. Players find a bug. DE fixes bug. Bugfixes comes after 4 weeks of cert or more across all consoles.

Do you know why you consoles never have to deal with huge issues? Because PC tests it for you guys.
With crossplay, this all would end.
We would have to deal with a lot of bugs for an stupid amount of time.
As I said, would be great, wouldn't it?

Actually cert starts same day but seems to depend on them (MS/Sony) completing it.

 

2 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

And again, would you want some big whales from PC with 20k plat and more to come to console and buy all the stuff you can't afford, because you only have 1k plat? 

There are people on console that have 20k plat already, you see trash rivens getting sold for 1-3k plat some times.

17 hours ago, (PS4)KrazyT101 said:

I suggest you check out the link in the original post, it’s all about Sony’s most recent response to that situation; it actually puts the honus on DE to actually implement any of these changes. 

Just saw that pop on my feed yesterday and read over it.

The TennoGen stuff isn't tradable so really thats not an issue, this brings up more questions about infrastructure and game world changes between platforms to be honest: gamer tags, clan names, the fact that the same relays aren't destroyed across all platforms. Quests that reward platform specific items

 

[WhiteMarker]

1 minute ago, xyberviri said:

The TennoGen stuff isn't tradable so really thats not an issue, this brings up more questions about infrastructure and game world changes between platforms to be honest: gamer tags, clan names, the fact that the same relays aren't destroyed across all platforms. Quests that reward platform specific items

The thing with Tennogen is, that on PC you buy it on Steam with real money. The creators get their share from the sales.
And you can't really get a discount for the Tennogen, because you use real money directly.
On console you buy Tennogen stuff with platinum. But as there are no plat-discounts on console, you can't get Tennogen discounted either. So there is a set Plat-$-ratio and cutting the share for creators is easy.

Now if we got cross-progress, you can just get a platinum discount and buy platinum really cheap on PC. Then switch to console and buy Tennogen stuff.
How would you calculate the share for creators?
Would you use the discounted platinum as a base for calculation? Or the platinum without discount?
Or maybe you would want to remove platinum discounts altogether?
or maybe just don't pay the Tennogen-creators anymore?

I'm sure you could provite a solution to this.
I would love to see it.
But so far, nobody wanted to solve this issue óÒ

[(PSN)KrazyT101]

40 minutes ago, xyberviri said:

The TennoGen stuff isn't tradable so really thats not an issue, this brings up more questions about infrastructure and game world changes between platforms to be honest: gamer tags, clan names, the fact that the same relays aren't destroyed across all platforms. Quests that reward platform specific items

 

I never even thought about the relays. Maybe DE could make an event out of it; a merger between different dimensions causing the influx of millions of new Tenno into the origin system or something. Although I gotta say, Tennogen is absolutely an issue; DE had to do a hell of a lot of legal work to even get it into console and even then, it costs plat, rather than actual money. As for names and such, I’m pretty sure the prefixes (PS4) (XB1) and (Switch) would do fine for everything except for clans. Alternatively, we might just get a 1 time chance to change our names and the names of our clans and have that name tied solely to the game itself like PC has it.

[(PSN)thefallenloser]

11 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

As of right now:
PC gets a patch. PC tests the patch. PC finds bugs. DE fixes bugs. DE brings the patch to consoles after 4 weeks or more of cert.

With crossplay across all platforms:
DE makes a patch. All platforms get the patch after 4 weeks or more of cert across all the consoles. Players find a bug. DE fixes bug. Bugfixes comes after 4 weeks of cert or more across all consoles.

As I already said, the cert times could change, were you paying attention to what I said?

11 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

Do you know why you consoles never have to deal with huge issues? Because PC tests it for you guys.
With crossplay, this all would end.
We would have to deal with a lot of bugs for an stupid amount of time.
As I said, would be great, wouldn't it?

I know how it works, again.

[Winstonbigboi]

Good luck with sony

[(XBOX)Skippy575]

Cross-play between the console versions would be neat and with Sony's announcement it's within the realm of possibilities now.

That being said, cross-play between PC and consoles will never happen, and that's a good thing for both parties. PC is the flagship and they shouldn't be held back because of our cert processes. Consoles generally have bug free updates thanks to the PC version testing them out first. If cross-play was a thing PC would get updates every 4-6 weeks and consoles would have (potentially) very bad bugs that make the game unplayable.

Keep in mind this is all speculation still whether or not we'll even get cross-play for Warframe. I think the chances are very slim and even if it does happen it'll be a long ways off, considering how many things DE has in in the pipeline for us.

[BrazilianJoe]

Cross-progress is a different issue from cross-commerce. 

The major logical fallacy is to try to bundle them as a monolithic all-or-nothing. 

Cross-progress is the ability to take your inventory with you when you play on another platform. 

Cross-commerce is the ability of purchasing in-game money, and move the premium currency or use it, on another platform. 

Warframe has different ways to deal with currency on different platforms, and different prices.

If those differences are un-harmonizable, due to risk to the financial health of any single platform, currencies can be kept separate. 

PS4 Platinum will be renamed "Blue Platinum".

Xbox platinum will be renamed "Green Platinum".

Switch Platinum will be renamed "Red Platinum".

PC Platinum will keep bein called simply "Platinum".

That is one simple way to solve it. 

Any inventory can hold all 4 premium currencies. But each currency can only be spent when running the game on the platform of the currency color.

I can only spend platinum on the PC Store, can only spend Red Platinum on the Switch Store, and so on.

It will still be allowed to trade all colors of platinum, but they will never change color. If a PC players accepts Red Platinum on player-to-player chat, it stays Red, and is counted separately from the "Silver Platinum" of the PC.

Put a BIG, FAT, RED WARNING. explain it.

Me, as a PC player, would be cool to accept "Red Platinum" when trading, because I also play on the Switch. The trade screen would give me a one-sentence warning: 

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO TRADE FOR RED PLATINUM? IT CAN ONLY BE USED ON THE SWITCH STORE.

I am still free to accept it. And I can pass it forward if I want to. 

Each currency retains the Prime property of warframe: THERE IS NO FREE CURRENCY. DE is the only one who mints Platinum. 

 

SIDE NOTE: There is the issue of trade scams and some players getting negative platinum values. 

Spoiler

 My proposition: Platinum should be either HOT or COOL. COOL Platinum can be traded, HOT platinum can't. 

SENSITIVE actions make the Platinum go HOT. HOT Platinum gets COOL after a few days - I propose 7 days.

Sensitive action example: email change. An account which was stolen would have its primary email changed by the scammer. If any account changes its primary email address, ALL its platinum gets HOT. Reduces the attractiveness of trade scams with stolen accounts, because the player would have to go 14 days without noticing it. Most hacked accounts will be recoverable without damage.

If a player trades in items for platinum, the acquired platinum amount also gets HOT.

HOT Platinum can still be spent at the store, but cannot be tradede until the 7-day period passes and it cools down. 

 

Edited September 27, 2018 by BrazilianJoe

[(PSN)calvin_0]

7 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

I'm sure you could provite a solution to this.
I would love to see it.
But so far, nobody wanted to solve this issue óÒ

they could just put the tenogen stuff on PS Store and Xbox Store and sell them with real money, just like in steam. problem solves..

and this way, they could remove the market discount coupon and put platinum on sale just like the PC version.. everybody wins..

Edited September 28, 2018 by (PS4)calvin_0

[BrazilianJoe]

I have already proposed a solution to the tennogen issue. See above.

Splitting Platinum in platform-specific variants, which can only be spent on their native problem, retains the value of the market of each console.

Edited September 28, 2018 by BrazilianJoe

[(PSN)DjYXA]

Different Platinum types is a headhache for developers, think about it. 

Cross-Play only for progression (warframes, arms, tools, pets..). If you want to buy on Switch store, buy Platinum on Switch, but this pl you bought cant be used on others platflorms. 

Shared marketplace across platforms only perjudicates consoles, on PC a mod or blueprints costs %20~30% more than consoles, rare mods are 200% more.. Is imposible and broke consoles market. 

If Switch starts now and shares market with others a lot of people will be scared seeing the prices and dont play the game cause of this. 

And.. If exist exclusive content (on Switch, like Zelda Sword, or Link skin, etc etc) must be non-tradeable items. Using a frame with Link skin and playing on PS4? Nintendo maybe aprove this, but not if these exclusive content can be purchased or traded to other platforms accounts. 

Another solution is make the grame Cross-Play possible but without market enabled, i have a child, the TV is occuped by him watching some kids shows all afternoon.. and i cannot play, if i can play with my account on Switch, i dont need market but i wish to play to make progress!! 

[BrazilianJoe]

I am not saying there is a single correct solution to it.

From DE's perspective, it can be looked at having different branches of a single company. It doesn't matter if finances migrate form one branch to another. what matters is, there is a reduction or increase in net income. 

One of the proposed problems was: different platforms have different economies, with different values for platinum. How do you integrate without negatively affecting any single platform? 

PC is the only platform with the 75% discount thing. That could pose a problem if peopl stop purchasing palt on the console, and start buying on the PC instead;
Conversely, the 75% discount could be a value proposition too good to pass, and make people spend more in the game, resulting in a net increase of income.
Which of these is true? We don't really know, the bigwigs at DEshould have an economy specialist and research to assess where is the best value proposition. 

While I agree that truly, one single platinum is simpler, that is only viable if the first possibility is true - the value proposition will result in a net income increase.

But, the the analysis results in the conclusion that letting the 75% platinum discount could have an impact in the consoles so strong that it would result in a net income decrease, there is no question about it - if we want to share progress across consoles, each console needs its own flavor of plat. 

Color-coding Platinum - or shape-coding, if you are color-blind - is a very, very simple way to differentiate. By no means it can be considered insurmountable or "too hard to be worth it". It is 5 types instead of one, hardly a challenge in a game with hundreds (thousands?) of inventory items.

If you think really hard about it, the economies already exist segregated, each platform already has a different Platinum, but they all go by the same name.
it would be more of a matter of rebranding each platform-specific platinum than creating a new thing. That would prepare people to see that those different Platinums exist in a cross-platform context.

Rebranding exercise with colors and using polarities to brand and give platinum a shape recognition for color blind:

Silver / Umbra Platinum - PC

Blue / Vazarin Platinum - PS4

Green / Naramon Platinum - XBONE

Red / Madurai Platinum - Switch

 

[MagPrime]

4 hours ago, (PS4)DjYXA said:

Different Platinum types is a headhache for developers, think about it. 

Cross-Play only for progression (warframes, arms, tools, pets..). If you want to buy on Switch store, buy Platinum on Switch, but this pl you bought cant be used on others platflorms. 

Shared marketplace across platforms only perjudicates consoles, on PC a mod or blueprints costs %20~30% more than consoles, rare mods are 200% more.. Is imposible and broke consoles market. 

If Switch starts now and shares market with others a lot of people will be scared seeing the prices and dont play the game cause of this. 

And.. If exist exclusive content (on Switch, like Zelda Sword, or Link skin, etc etc) must be non-tradeable items. Using a frame with Link skin and playing on PS4? Nintendo maybe aprove this, but not if these exclusive content can be purchased or traded to other platforms accounts. 

Another solution is make the grame Cross-Play possible but without market enabled, i have a child, the TV is occuped by him watching some kids shows all afternoon.. and i cannot play, if i can play with my account on Switch, i dont need market but i wish to play to make progress!! 

I don't think this would be a massive issue, we already have Steam market that doesn't interact with standalone Warframe market.  t wouldn't make sense for the markets to be merged across all platforms anyway, considering both Xbox and PS4 require you to load your account with money before you can spend it in game, while PC doesn't.  (I know nothing about Switch)