Tweaking conclave into a "proper" arena shooter

[Tyreaus]

Disclaimer: Idea moved from another thread and reformatted to A: get more player input and B: get more details. This is mostly centred around 1vAll DM, but could reasonably apply to any of the non-Lunaro modes. Also, it's "proper" because this wouldn't make it a real arena shooter by any stretch. It's just a lean a tiny bit more in that direction.

TL;DR:

• Start everyone with a peashooter and a basic avatar.
• Replace ammo boxes with weapon pickups.
• Replace energy orbs with ability pickups.
• Throw in occasional buff to fire rate or damage or shields.
• No more people asking how to equip guns. No more "meta" builds. Fewer balance issues.
• ???
• BECOME A PROPHET OF PROFIT

Maps:

Same except:

• Ammo boxes are replaced by weapon pickups
• In recruit conditioning: Energy orbs are replaced by occasional mod powerup spawns
• Out of recruit conditioning: Energy orbs are replaced by ability pickups and occasional mod powerups

Starting Equip.:

• A basic avatar with standard, balanced stats (likely modelled after Rescue targets)
• 50% damage Lato with unlimited reserve ammunition
• Hand-to-hand
  • Low(-ish) damage
  • Borrows from Sparring quick melee animation set
  • Slam attacks stagger, do not knock down
• Equipped Warframe - sans abilities

Only the appearance of the Warframe and the Lato can be changed. No more mods.

Weapons:

On starting a match, a weapon pool is created from weapons chosen at random, one weapon from each (or most) type (e.g. sniper, bow, burst, speargun, launcher, auto, semi-auto - see the wiki). Every spawn point for a weapon (currently where ammo boxes spawn) selects a random weapon from that pool, represented as a holographic picture of the weapon. Players run over these spawn points and get that weapon with full ammunition. If the weapon would conflict with something they already have in that slot (melee, primary, or secondary), what they have is replaced by the new pickup.

Weapon spawn points go on a cooldown when someone picks a weapon from them. When the cooldown ends, they regenerate with a new weapon.

When a weapon runs out of ammunition, it is discarded from the player's arsenal. Discarded secondary and melee weapons revert to the starting equipment above so players always have something with which to fight (and something to use for the quick-melee button).

Dying does not reset equipment (weapons or abilities).

No weapons are modded. Everything else regarding headshots, no syndicate effects, etc. remains just as it is.

Melee Weapons:

There are a few changes to Melee weapons to fit with the above changes:

• Melee now has an "ammunition" counter to represent durability, i.e. the number of hits it can deal before "breaking"
• Durability is lost only when striking an opponent with any attack
• Striking multiple opponents with the same attack depletes durability only by 1

For example, if I have a glaive with a durability of 10 (e.g.), I can throw it as much as I like and explode it however much I want. If I explode it and it deals damage to someone, it now has a durability of 9. If I hit three people with the explosion, it still has a durability of 9.

Warframes (non-recruit conditioning only):

On starting a match, a select number of Warframes are added to a pool. Every spawn point for a Warframe (currently where energy orbs spawn) selects a random Frame from that pool, denoted by a picture of the Warframe. Players run over these spawn points and get that Warframe, it's abilities, it's passives, and its stats, plus 100 energy to use on abilities.

Warframe spawn points go on a cooldown when someone picks a Warframe from them. When the cooldown ends, they regenerate with a new Warframe.

As with weapons, picking up a Warframe with one already equipped replaces the currently equipped Frame with the new one. Expending all energy also discards the Warframe and reverts the player to the standard stats and model.

Dying does not reset equipment (weapons or Warframes).

These are excluded from Recruit Conditioning on the advice that new players might find Conclave just a bit too complicated with both additions.

Mods / Powerups:

On occasion, weapon and ability pickup locations may generate a temporary buff powerup, indicated as a bronze, silver, or gold mod icon. Likewise, there are three buffs:

• Bronze: Gives the player max overshields
• Silver: Gives the player 2x damage on all their weapons and abilities
• Gold: Increases the player's movement speed, fire rate, and cast speed to ~150%

All buffs are temporary, indicated by an aura around the player, and are replaced by picking up any other buff (no stacking). Dying does reset buffs.

Why:

Looser balance requirements: Things don't have to be balanced to perfection. Given random weapon selections and open accessibility to all players, eyeballing balance should be good enough. If DE were to use even an internal DPS cap for weapons (hint-hint), they could even make adding a weapon (almost) completely automated, since most balancing seems to be around TTK (itself derivative of DPS on an ideal Warframe).

New-player friendly: No more new players stuck in Conclave asking how to equip a gun. It's on the table. Powerups also give new players the opportunity to compete with the more experienced, even if only temporarily.

Higher, faster accessibility: Everyone has immediate access to the same weapons / abilities / powerups. If someone wrecks you with a Tonkor, with a bit of luck and skill, you can do the same to them in the same match. You don't have to grind for weapons: if you want a game in Conclave, you hit a button (or two) and go.

Versatility requirement: Nobody can cheese with "meta" builds. If you are good at Conclave, you are good on principle of skill alone—and maybe a bit of luck with drops.

Feedback:

Let me know what you like and don't like, and ask questions. I'm totally open to changing and clarifying things to fit the interests of more people. Making Conclave more accessible is what started the idea, after all.

I'd include more things I'd personally like to see, like a removal of Oro pickups, adjusting how recruit conditioning works with standing, and a (closer-to) universal sprint / dodge / bullet-jump speed so that people unaware of the bullet-double-jump-dodge combo stuff aren't so left in the dust (and not just for PvP either), but I feel those are for other topics.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Tyreaus
Changed abilities to Warframes for better cohesion

[(PSN)vidare]

I really like this, could actually be amazingly fun. Imagine if we could have some reimagine maps from Unreal Tournament, since they worked on that game also.

[Xarteros]

Did our talks inspire you, old friend?

I like your suggestions overall. It's a few more steps to the classic arena shooter than mine was, but I'm wondering if that would be more appealing to the general community that my ideas. I still stand by the notion that weapons be limited to Tenno weapons, primarily for the unified theme (I'm sure Teshin would approve) but also because it represents a good distribution of the weapon types (barring the super-unique niche weapons that cause a lot of the balance issues). To maintain fashionframe, I'd also like to see some sort of option to automatically copy your Warframe colours onto weapons you pick up, but that could also backfire in many cases and might just be simpler to keep default colours going.

I also still like the idea of removing the theme from the Warframe abilities that drop in matches. It suits the lore of how Warframes work better (since Warframes are built to shape void energy in specific and unique ways to other Warframes), and could also make it easier for DE to balance the abilities. Even if all the players can access the abilities equally during a match, you don't want any single ability becoming too impactful. In a sense, newer players might also find it easier to work with, since having a simplified ability theme might be easier to grasp without needing to already know a bit about the frame. New players, for instance, might not realise that Snowglobe is not only a one-way projectile shield, but a cold zone inside. Removing the cold zone makes it a bit more streamlined, and also allows DE to tone down some of the visuals (making the bubble a simple energy sphere, without the blowing winds). Slap a new name on it (Like Globe Shield or something) and it's set.

As to your energy pool idea, I don't think it'll quite work out with a pool of 100. Powers that cost 75 energy would be usable only once, but have 25 energy left over that can't be used. You could implement a larger, universal pool, like 225 or 300, which would give players a decent amount of variety between the abilities they have. Alternatively, each ability could simply have a number of 'charges' to use (#4 would typically have 1 use, #3 might have 1-2 depending, #2 might be 2-4, and #1 might be 4-6). Either that, or just rebalance all abilities that cost 75. If you go with the theme-free abilities, the removal of some of the additional effects might be enough to lower the costs from 75 to 50 anyway, but I won't beat that dead horse any more unless you want to actually discuss the ins and outs (I'm happy to drill up some rough examples if you do)

On the notion of melee weapon 'durability', I'd also like to suggest the notion of losing durability by blocking incoming bullets. I feel that the durability loss should be based on the damage per-hit, both on attack or on block. That way, you give each weapon a durability threshold of say, 500 damage. If it's a heavy blade that deals 100 damage per hit, you get 5 hits, or can block 500 damage. If it's a single dagger, it might only deal 10 damage a hit, so you get 50 hits, but it blocks the same amount of damage. The durability lost from blocking would only apply to the percentage actually blocked, so a weapon which blocks 80% damage will sponge up damage faster and therefor break faster, compared to a weapon which blocks 50% for instance.

Also on the topic of default melee attacks, I'd say that all players would have a default sparring attack (Much like when you get captured by the Harvester, not that anyone ever sees it any more), rather than a pistol-whip. That's mostly personal preference, since I don't feel that Tenno would really resort to pistol-whipping when they are such excellent fighters.
 

2 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

• BECOME A PROPHET OF PROFIT GROFIT

 

The only actual 'downside' to this is that it makes all the PvP mods completely redundant, since you can't mod anything any more. Perhaps you could still mod your Conclave arsenal, but those mods only apply once you actually pick up the weapon in question? I mean, DE have removed mods in the past (long ago) and replaced them with the old equivalent of Endo, but idk. I think Conclave mods are the only thing that keep the touch of unique playstyle choice in the system.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

Did our talks inspire you, old friend?

Maybe a bit. 😛

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

I still stand by the notion that weapons be limited to Tenno weapons, primarily for the unified theme (I'm sure Teshin would approve) but also because it represents a good distribution of the weapon types (barring the super-unique niche weapons that cause a lot of the balance issues). To maintain fashionframe, I'd also like to see some sort of option to automatically copy your Warframe colours onto weapons you pick up, but that could also backfire in many cases and might just be simpler to keep default colours going.

Limiting to Tenno weapons is an idea, but at the same time, I feel like it'd be throwing out all the work they have done on balancing weapons and for not a whole lot of gain. Plus, we have matches in the Kuva fortress and there's Conclave skins for Grineer weapons so I think keeping the Tenno theme's already out the window lol.

As for fashionframe, I doubt that would work very effectively. Given those brief load times when switching weapons in the arsenal, I am guessing colour palettes (and skins and the like) are requested from the server only when you select a particular weapon. I.e., they're not normally all loaded into the game. This would mean either front-loading every single skin you (and every other player in that particular server) have before the match starts on top of actually selecting weapons, or generating server requests mid-match. Neither's particularly kind on data flow and lag, especially when it's just for a pretty skin.

But it would be nice if they loaded the Conclave-specific skins instead of the default ones, at least where applicable. Give it a little extra flair. Maybe incentivize more Conclave skins...

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

I also still like the idea of removing the theme from the Warframe abilities that drop in matches. It suits the lore of how Warframes work better (since Warframes are built to shape void energy in specific and unique ways to other Warframes), and could also make it easier for DE to balance the abilities. Even if all the players can access the abilities equally during a match, you don't want any single ability becoming too impactful. In a sense, newer players might also find it easier to work with, since having a simplified ability theme might be easier to grasp without needing to already know a bit about the frame. New players, for instance, might not realise that Snowglobe is not only a one-way projectile shield, but a cold zone inside. Removing the cold zone makes it a bit more streamlined, and also allows DE to tone down some of the visuals (making the bubble a simple energy sphere, without the blowing winds). Slap a new name on it (Like Globe Shield or something) and it's set.

I feel like most abilities are balanced enough. Consider typical RPG themes. Cold typically means "slow". Most players, even if they don't get it straight away, would likely catch on quite quick - not to mention this is non-RC, where they've had time to get used to everything else. There already is a sort of trial by fire just with weapons, so a learning curve is an unavoidable fact they'll recognize by then.

If they did need to balance and, for example, remove the slow effect on Snowglobe, I don't see why they couldn't keep the visuals and theme. It saves the cost of re-texturing. Not like they haven't adjusted how abilities behave elsewhere.

And as for lore, I'm pretty sure we could write the entire thing off as Simulacrum funzies. Even if we couldn't, the Stalker does have access to multiple abilities, so it isn't unfathomable for Teshin to know of a way to reverse-engineer that technology. Maybe little pocket modules that give Warframes temporary access to other abilities, like a handheld Void energy filter. Excuses can be made.

(Funny thing is, either excuse also explains why the abilities are weaker in the Conclave than out on the field - they're sub-par copies that manage to look the same but only get so far acting the same)

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

As to your energy pool idea, I don't think it'll quite work out with a pool of 100. Powers that cost 75 energy would be usable only once, but have 25 energy left over that can't be used. You could implement a larger, universal pool, like 225 or 300, which would give players a decent amount of variety between the abilities they have. Alternatively, each ability could simply have a number of 'charges' to use (#4 would typically have 1 use, #3 might have 1-2 depending, #2 might be 2-4, and #1 might be 4-6). Either that, or just rebalance all abilities that cost 75. If you go with the theme-free abilities, the removal of some of the additional effects might be enough to lower the costs from 75 to 50 anyway, but I won't beat that dead horse any more unless you want to actually discuss the ins and outs (I'm happy to drill up some rough examples if you do)

The main idea was to have charges, yes. I'll adjust that to clarify that the "100 energy" is more of a guideline than a hard rule. Also noted that some abilities may need to be adjusted for usability, e.g. Trinity's energy vampire, since energy doesn't play in.

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

On the notion of melee weapon 'durability', I'd also like to suggest the notion of losing durability by blocking incoming bullets. I feel that the durability loss should be based on the damage per-hit, both on attack or on block. That way, you give each weapon a durability threshold of say, 500 damage. If it's a heavy blade that deals 100 damage per hit, you get 5 hits, or can block 500 damage. If it's a single dagger, it might only deal 10 damage a hit, so you get 50 hits, but it blocks the same amount of damage. The durability lost from blocking would only apply to the percentage actually blocked, so a weapon which blocks 80% damage will sponge up damage faster and therefor break faster, compared to a weapon which blocks 50% for instance.

I haven't seen blocking be a major thing in my time playing, so I can't say that it would need an adjustment, considering doing so neuters one's effective range. And if it only absorbs a percentage of the damage rather than all damage (as it does in PvE), then I don't see a particular reason why that needs to be changed. Perhaps I don't play enough?

If it is a problem, I feel like there's surely something else that can be done to adjust it—an independent decay on blocking efficacy instead, perhaps. To have blocking drain relatively precious durability feels far too punishing for what is a defensive act.

TBF we also have yet to see how Melee 3.0 will affect Conclave. I don't want to propose too many changes to Conclave melee before that drops.

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

Also on the topic of default melee attacks, I'd say that all players would have a default sparring attack (Much like when you get captured by the Harvester, not that anyone ever sees it any more), rather than a pistol-whip. That's mostly personal preference, since I don't feel that Tenno would really resort to pistol-whipping when they are such excellent fighters.

That was my original idea. Not sure why I didn't fix the "pistol whip" part before. Will adjust. TY!

1 hour ago, Xarteros said:

The only actual 'downside' to this is that it makes all the PvP mods completely redundant, since you can't mod anything any more. Perhaps you could still mod your Conclave arsenal, but those mods only apply once you actually pick up the weapon in question? I mean, DE have removed mods in the past (long ago) and replaced them with the old equivalent of Endo, but idk. I think Conclave mods are the only thing that keep the touch of unique playstyle choice in the system.

While I recognize it removes the mods and that's a problem, it's also a problem to keep them around, since it goes against the idea of keeping almost everything equal and accessible. Personally, I'd rather see them reworked into PvE-capable mods that drop in, perhaps, the new Arbitrations they're adding.

They could keep the effect mods, though. But I'm very wary about keeping much beyond aesthetics, lest it start fussing with balance. Or, worse, being a technical nightmare to implement.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Tyreaus

[----Legacy----]

6 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Weapons:

The pick up system is dumb, it would be really annoying to go with an AR, engage in combat and suddenly see it replaced by a bow just because in an attempt to dodge enemy fire i managed to touch the bow spawn.

This system works in shooters where players can store many different weapons and swap according to the environment, warframe allows this customization with the loadout system that supports only three weapons (primary, secondary, melee) and allows us to swap on respawn.

6 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

No weapons are modded. Everything else regarding headshots, syndicate effects, etc. remains just as it is.

Syndicate effects? So i guess people will love dying to a random syndicate aoe burst just because the guy who picked up a synoid gammacor got some kills with it, filled the enthropy meter which killed anyone around.

6 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Abilities (non-recruit conditioning only):

Part of the balancing factor of abilities comes from being able to identify what are the other players using in order to adapt to their loadout and play around them. With the proposed system you are straight up removing such capability.

Also even if you "balance" all warframes by normalizing EHP and mobility, abilities still need to be rebalanced or reworked in order to fit a pvp environment to avoid frustrating situations.

With both things in mind, imagine shooting at an ivara and suddenly your warframe falls asleep because she had mesmer skin enabled, granting a free kill to anyone who sees you in such situation.

Your proposal also adds a lot of work to the art team since powers making use of warframe models (iron skin, chaos, blade storm, effigy, decoy, etc) would need to be adapted to use every single warframe model instead.

6 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Why:

Looser balance requirements: Things don't have to be balanced to perfection. Given random weapon selections and open accessibility to all players, eyeballing balance should be good enough. If DE were to use even an internal DPS cap for weapons (hint-hint), they could even make adding a weapon (almost) completely automated, since most balancing seems to be around TTK (itself derivative of DPS on an ideal Warframe).

Fun enough, balance is mostly fine, it was degraded by pve changes (sniper changes on PoE plus primary and secondary rebalance at the start of this year) but still mostly fine barring a few outliers.

Quote

New-player friendly: No more new players stuck in Conclave asking how to equip a gun. Preferred fashion frame is all that's required. Powerups also give new players the opportunity to compete with the more experienced, even if only temporarily.

DE could make it so new players have their starter loadout equipped for conclave by default and call it a day.

Quote

Higher, faster accessibility: Everyone has immediate access to the same weapons / abilities / powerups. If someone wrecks you with a Tonkor, with a bit of luck and skill, you can do the same to them in the same match. You don't have to grind for weapons: if you want a game in Conclave, you hit a button (or two) and go.

I'd argue instead for DE allowing players to equip anything in conclave regardless of MR locks, etc. In order to get mastery from them these should still be unlocked in pve, but mastery would be pointless to pvp players if MR and grind restrictions were removed for this mode only.

About the bolded sentence, the luck factor should play a role as small as possible in pvp games.

--------

My biggest gripe with this system is that it removes a core part of warframe from its pvp that is customization, and that's in both, ability to pick weapons you're comfortable with and ability to customize the way your weapons work in order to make them fit your own style.

Edited October 8, 2018 by ----Legacy----

[Tyreaus]

7 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

The pick up system is dumb, it would be really annoying to go with an AR, engage in combat and suddenly see it replaced by a bow just because in an attempt to dodge enemy fire i managed to touch the bow spawn.

This system works in shooters where players can store many different weapons and swap according to the environment, warframe allows this customization with the loadout system that supports only three weapons (primary, secondary, melee) and allows us to swap on respawn.

Perhaps this can be alleviated by pressing "interact" to swap weapons.

The question is, then: how else should we alleviate the problems this would fix? Particularly about weapon accessibility (i.e. the grind to get a lot of the weapons) and new players being thrust into the game with just a melee at best. Something that makes balance much less of an issue should also be an ideal (albeit less necessary).

7 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

Syndicate effects? So i guess people will love dying to a random syndicate aoe burst just because the guy who picked up a synoid gammacor got some kills with it, filled the enthropy meter which killed anyone around.

I meant there being no syndicate effects. Guess I wasn't terribly clear on that...

7 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

Part of the balancing factor of abilities comes from being able to identify what are the other players using in order to adapt to their loadout and play around them. With the proposed system you are straight up removing such capability.

Also even if you "balance" all warframes by normalizing EHP and mobility, abilities still need to be rebalanced or reworked in order to fit a pvp environment to avoid frustrating situations.

With both things in mind, imagine shooting at an ivara and suddenly your warframe falls asleep because she had mesmer skin enabled, granting a free kill to anyone who sees you in such situation.

Your proposal also adds a lot of work to the art team since powers making use of warframe models (iron skin, chaos, blade storm, effigy, decoy, etc) would need to be adapted to use every single warframe model instead.

One possible solution is to have icons of the other players' abilities show above their name / healthbar on hover (as those WF portraits).

Balance of abilities is something that would be required regardless, assuming they are currently not well-balanced.

As for art, some elements like Iron Skin could use a metallic filter in lieu of heavier textures (along the lines of @Xarteros' thoughts), others like Blade Storm, Decoy etc. can use their original, default-style assets (Ash holograms for Blade Storm, Loki holograms for decoy, etc.). I'm also not 100% sure how those extras are affixed to models, if they extend to the skeleton and poke through the visible model or if they're attached to the model's surface and by what mechanism that works. (For all I know, they could pin to the surface at certain points of the skeleton so something like Iron Skin would auto-adjust itself to, e.g., Equinox's model. I'm not a game designer, certainly not in DE's team, so IDK)

Mind, arsenals in terms of possible abilities and weapons could be limited if certain things are too much effort to implement.

7 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

Fun enough, balance is mostly fine, it was degraded by pve changes (sniper changes on PoE plus primary and secondary rebalance at the start of this year) but still mostly fine barring a few outliers.

"Mostly fine" is my gripe and the gripe of a non-null number of others.

7 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

DE could make it so new players have their starter loadout equipped for conclave by default and call it a day.

 

7 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

I'd argue instead for DE allowing players to equip anything in conclave regardless of MR locks, etc. In order to get mastery from them these should still be unlocked in pve, but mastery would be pointless to pvp players if MR and grind restrictions were removed for this mode only.

About the bolded sentence, the luck factor should play a role as small as possible in pvp games.

These work as alternatives, even if I find they're less ideal. (I'm also sure I've seen those suggested before)

Luck is an unavoidable factor regardless. I get lucky shots all the time. Any kind of "luck" with drops can be mitigated by skill in versatility, for what that's worth.

Not to mention that, in a mode where new players are stuck playing against veterans, there really should be something to give them at least a temporary edge to be able to compete. It's one of those big principles of game mechanics for PvP.

7 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

My biggest gripe with this system is that it removes a core part of warframe from its pvp that is customization, and that's in both, ability to pick weapons you're comfortable with and ability to customize the way your weapons work in order to make them fit your own style.

The problem with this particular thought is that there are core aspects of Warframe that have to be removed from PvP in the first place. Weapon customization has to be neutered. The power fantasy, for the most part, has to go as well, what with the removal of mobs. An idea like this shouldn't be discarded for the sole reason that it doesn't fit Warframe 1:1, or else we'd end up discarding PvP outright. We've already had those threads.

If it wouldn't be fun, too much work, or should be relegated to a separate mode to for in-game experimentation, that's one thing.

I also find it pertinent to point out that modding, while it might be something fun for veterans, is something that hinders new player experience. They are already at a disadvantage with regards to knowledge and, even assuming they get starting weapons, equipment if things are not perfectly balanced (and while it's well done, right now, it's not perfect). Mods like Reflex Draw, Anticipation, and Follow-Through provide linear advantages for veterans over new players even at Recruit Conditioning level. And that doesn't count other mods that tweak mobility and damage in manners that can be just as advantageous, or golden mods like Eject Magazine that only those MR 0-2 (assuming the wiki is right about RC being enabled by default only for them) don't have to deal with. In other words: it's exacerbating the terrors of the new player experience.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Tyreaus

[Theroxenes]

This is a pretty cool idea and I would love to try it out! (not sold on the idea of scrapping the current system in favor of a full arena shooter but hey, I love trying new things).

My main gripe with the idea is the weapon pickups -- as much as it would level the playing field and lower the barrier to entry for people who just want to play PvP, the mobility system makes meaningful levels of map strategy... difficult at best. The maps would almost certainly need to be redesigned from the ground up with weapon pickups in mind, and even then I'm not sure it would play out particularly well. Dying completely resetting your weapons also sounds like it could get extremely snowball-y as well.

And again, despite the criticism I think ideas like this are really amazing and if DE ever gets serious about overhauling PvP, experimenting with stuff like this in variant modes could be a great way to explore options before committing to one or the other. Even without a goal of changing up the game having fun and different options is crucial for a healthy game.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Theroxenes

[Xarteros]

An alternative option for weapons that makes the game noob-friendly, as well as fitting in with a more concise range of weapons, would be some form of physical loading lobby.

Each type of PvP except Lunaro could have a 'playground' lobby, where players can run about a virtual space and select their weapons/frames before proceeding. I'm visualising it a bit like a cross between Simulacrum and the entrance portal to Sanctuary Onslaught. All the weapons are up on walls around the room, and there's an area for live-fire target practice (so new players can just pick up a weapon, step into the zone, and get a feel for it straight away).

If DE were to keep mods (which I still stand for, since they mostly just shift stats one way, rather than really buff them), there could be a modding terminal (with automated tutorial text if the player is in the Recruits lobby) that lets you pre-mod before you play. If you find weapons throughout the levels, you'd need to allow players to pre-mod by weapon category, or have a 'copy mod loadout' option to help speed things up for the 20-30 weapons. If you equip them beforehand, it would just function much like it does currently in the Arsenal.

Once you've found the weapons you want, and selected any mods you like (if any are available), then you head through the portal to join the queue for a match. You could still keep options in the Arsenal for customising, but it'd allow players to just seamlessly try out/equip their weapons and start the queue when they're ready. Lunaro could even have a similar lobby, but with various practice goals to try and score into (arc practice), a few extra Lunaros, and maybe even some of the rules/guides from the 'warm up' mode thingy.
 

On 2018-10-08 at 8:20 PM, ----Legacy---- said:

-snip-
Part of the balancing factor of abilities comes from being able to identify what are the other players using in order to adapt to their loadout and play around them. With the proposed system you are straight up removing such capability.

Also even if you "balance" all warframes by normalizing EHP and mobility, abilities still need to be rebalanced or reworked in order to fit a pvp environment to avoid frustrating situations.

With both things in mind, imagine shooting at an ivara and suddenly your warframe falls asleep because she had mesmer skin enabled, granting a free kill to anyone who sees you in such situation.

Your proposal also adds a lot of work to the art team since powers making use of warframe models (iron skin, chaos, blade storm, effigy, decoy, etc) would need to be adapted to use every single warframe model instead.

In my other post where Tyreaus and I had a fairly lengthy discussion, I proposed that the number of abilities be considerably limited (trying to include as many iconic, diverse and centrally useful abilities), and that they be given new effects to de-hinge them from their original Warframe. Whilst yes, that's going to still be work for the art team, the abilities would all be fairly basic in terms of appearance, to reduce visual clutter in PvP, and to be easier to work on every frame.

Players carrying an ability pickup could have some form of glowing effect (much like Melee channeling, Void relic buffs or Derelict vault buffs), so you could always be aware of someone ready to use an ability. I feel like an energy trail of the player's team colour (or just red for FFA) would help it stand out without dwarfing the player's existing team glow outline. I suppose in a sense it is more difficult if you don't know what a player is carrying, but with a greatly diminished selection of powers, I feel like it'd be ok. If a player carries a power and is sprinting towards you, it is more likely to be a close-range power, or a power that cannot be used directly against you (such as Volt Shield). If it was easy enough to add in without overfilling the effects on-screen, you could even colour the ability trail effects differently based on their purpose (Red for attack, Blue for defend, Green for tactical, Yellow for support).

With a more limited selection of powers, with less character focus to them, DE can streamline them more clearly, balance them more accurately, and it would make it easier for them to manage forum feedback. They could also still add more of the existing powers in the form of 'sub-batches' that are themed bundles of powers that might be added to a match as a special condition. It'd be interesting to have a 'Protect' batch of powers, that includes more defensive options for players. Or a 'Life' batch of powers, giving access to more team healing powers. If there were more tiers to Conclave matches (beyond Recruits/non-Recruits) then DE could keep low-tier games simple, and give a little bit more diversity to 'higher tier' games. Including them in batches could help them receive more concise player feedback. If a healing batch of powers increases the TTK to un-fun levels in typical matches, it would be easier for players to report that than to try and pick on one specific ability. If DE want to 'stress test' or 'focus test' a particular batch for imbalanced abilities, they could just make a PvP alert for non-unique rewards that always has that batch available.

Just to post for examples, I'll make a mock-up list of what sort of powers I think the Conclave should be limited to. T1-4 denotes what power slot the ability would likely take, or in general how much it should cost/how strong it should be.

• Offense: Ember Fireball (T1 AoE on hit), Ember Fire Blast (T3 DoT AoE), Excal Slash Dash (T1 Target), Nova Null Star (T1 Auto-Attack), Excal Exalted Blade (T4 Exalted Mode), Frost Ice Wave (T2 AoE Cone)
• Defence: Frost Snow Globe (T3 AoE shield), Volt Shield (T2 Directional shield), Rhino Iron Skin (T1 Personal shield), Gara Mass Vitrify (T4 AoE Physical barrier)
• Support: Oberon Renewal (T3 AoE heal), Rhino Roar (T3 Damage buff), Valkyr War Cry (T2 Armour buff), Trinity Well of Life (T1 Lifesteal buff), Nekros SotD (T4 AoE Ally bleedout recover/respawn timer reset)
• Tactical: Nova Wormhole (T3 Shared teleport), Mag Pull (T1 AoE Trip/Stagger), Excal Radial Blind (T2 Flashbang), Banshee Sonar (T3 Stealth breaker), Ivara Prowl (T3 Invisibility), Loki Radial Disarm (T4 Radial weapon jam), Vauban Vortex (T4 AoE Trap)

Those are just some off-the-top-of-my-head abilities that would give a diverse array of options to players, without being close to the problem of trying to balance 140 abilities (which is the current amount they've got, not including split abilities like Ivara's Quiver). Obviously, they'd need to put more time and energy into picking the best assortment of powers, making sure there's little overlap (so each power feels unique and effective). That list there is 22 abilities, which is nearly seven times less work for DE to do. You could even cut that back if you wanted, like taking stealth out of PvP altogether, or removing healing powers, or whatever. Either way, DE could easily thin down the options to make sure each option is worthwhile, balanced, and not match-breaking in any way. I know they've done a good job balancing the 140 abilities so far, but it's just too many to prevent there from being exploits, imbalanced combos, and meta tactics. I'm not saying that reducing the power list to 20-30 would prevent metas, but it'd reduce their impact drastically and again, bring DE more concise feedback via the forums. If there are only 20-30 abilities to talk about, it's going to be a fifth of the amount of posts to sift through to understand what is out of balance.

 

[Tyreaus]

13 hours ago, Theroxenes said:

This is a pretty cool idea and I would love to try it out! (not sold on the idea of scrapping the current system in favor of a full arena shooter but hey, I love trying new things).

My main gripe with the idea is the weapon pickups -- as much as it would level the playing field and lower the barrier to entry for people who just want to play PvP, the mobility system makes meaningful levels of map strategy... difficult at best. The maps would almost certainly need to be redesigned from the ground up with weapon pickups in mind, and even then I'm not sure it would play out particularly well. Dying completely resetting your weapons also sounds like it could get extremely snowball-y as well.

And again, despite the criticism I think ideas like this are really amazing and if DE ever gets serious about overhauling PvP, experimenting with stuff like this in variant modes could be a great way to explore options before committing to one or the other. Even without a goal of changing up the game having fun and different options is crucial for a healthy game.

I'd rather have it as a separate game mode, at least to start with, to see if it ends up more popular than what we have now. Makes it easier to see if it works better or not.

As for the weapon pickups, they basically hijack the "strategy" associated with grabbing ammo, just with the caveat of swapping weapons. Since they're randomized anyway, it's unlikely any sort of strategy surrounding weapon pickups would appear, like you might see in legit arena shooters surrounding power weapons. Thus, I don't think maps would really need to be redesigned: it's just piggybacking the extant strategy and placement. I don't think letting people keep weapons between deaths is a huge deal, though, so I can swap that over—but there won't be ammo replenishing from suicide, for example.

Thanks for the feedback!

2 hours ago, Xarteros said:

An alternative option for weapons that makes the game noob-friendly, as well as fitting in with a more concise range of weapons, would be some form of physical loading lobby.

Each type of PvP except Lunaro could have a 'playground' lobby, where players can run about a virtual space and select their weapons/frames before proceeding. I'm visualising it a bit like a cross between Simulacrum and the entrance portal to Sanctuary Onslaught. All the weapons are up on walls around the room, and there's an area for live-fire target practice (so new players can just pick up a weapon, step into the zone, and get a feel for it straight away).

If DE were to keep mods (which I still stand for, since they mostly just shift stats one way, rather than really buff them), there could be a modding terminal (with automated tutorial text if the player is in the Recruits lobby) that lets you pre-mod before you play. If you find weapons throughout the levels, you'd need to allow players to pre-mod by weapon category, or have a 'copy mod loadout' option to help speed things up for the 20-30 weapons. If you equip them beforehand, it would just function much like it does currently in the Arsenal.

Once you've found the weapons you want, and selected any mods you like (if any are available), then you head through the portal to join the queue for a match. You could still keep options in the Arsenal for customising, but it'd allow players to just seamlessly try out/equip their weapons and start the queue when they're ready. Lunaro could even have a similar lobby, but with various practice goals to try and score into (arc practice), a few extra Lunaros, and maybe even some of the rules/guides from the 'warm up' mode thingy.

A pre-game lobby does sound like a great idea, especially with live fire weapon testing, and I think Lunaro has something like it (but not the greatest I admit). If it were to use my idea, it could even let people get an overview of the weapons and abilities available for that match. That said, I do have a few concerns about this particular version:

1. Modding still provides a bit of an issue if not everyone has access to things from the onset. There are certainly mods that aren't straightforward "+x and -y". Some silver mods give 10 energy on death. Holster rates, too. Depending on the weapon, damage altering mods can be advantageous as well (e.g. if a weapon is high-Slash, it can be switched more toward Puncture).

2. Tutorials aren't DE's strongest suit given one of Warframe's biggest complaints is (or at least was) getting lost very easily. We also have to consider the newb POV: unless someone throws a tutorial at them, they're unlikely to know it exists. If a new player doesn't know how to mod and, thus, hasn't modded their gear, they're at a further disadvantage compared to players who know how that system works, which is the exact opposite thing you want for newbies.

3. Assuming a tutorial is made mandatory, we couldn't rightfully throw people into a match automatically - everyone goes through tutorials and testing at different rates. The problem is that making it manual allows someone to just AFK in the lobby, possibly filling up a spot. We're at a bit of a catch-22 here.

Of course, with the right amount of effort, 1 and 2 can be alleviated, but I can't think of a solution for 3 that doesn't screw someone over.

Also, as far as:

2 hours ago, Xarteros said:

number of abilities be considerably limited

This concept goes, the main issue I see is: how do we choose outlines / trails if we give Warframes 4 abilities? If someone has one of each, do they get a white trail? It feels like that information could be either confusing or misleading than helpful given the options available.

We could give players just one ability at a time, but I'm wary about that...

Edited October 9, 2018 by Tyreaus

[DarkwarriorJ]

I like the idea of making a good arena shooter mode for Warframe, but I feel like the overall effect of these suggestions is 'too complicated'. Let's go in order:

Maps: The maps will probably have to be completely redesigned for weapons pickups. Here's one of my gripes with Warframe's PvP: Everything is way too small; and the map way too large. At least in my opinion, it certainly feels this way - health orb and energy orb spawns are barely visible and they're so goddamned puny.

2. Mods as power up pickups makes sense... except abilities as pickups? This does not seem right. Reading on...

3. Weaker starting weapon is fair; it's the industry standard for arena shooters, though personally I like it when the starting gun is actually very strong. I feel like a 50% nerf is excessive though; starting a life with basically no real way to fight back is unfun beyond belief. Quake Champions has theirs be around 30% weaker than the versions in the field, which for their game is enough to make starter weapons not feel like trash but is also enough to make players want to switch to better weapons ASAP.

4. Why weaker melee? If you consider the standards of arena shooters, you don't start with trash melee either - in fact, you start with some pretty gloriously powerful melee, but because of the nature of PvP tending towards ranged, getting into melee range is hard. In short, I don't see why starting with basically trash melee is something needed. 

5. This being warframe, I strongly dislike the idea of warframe abilities being removed from the warframe we're using. It removes a lot of the diversity and fun from diversity that defines fighting different enemies - and is part of why I like Quake Champions and couldn't for the life of me bother with Quake Live.

6. As mentioned by others above, instantly switching to the weapon you just touched is likely to end up being an annoying system. Unfortunately, with the quick pace of warframe, it does seem hard to have the system be "hit F to switch with  weapon on the ground" as in Splitgate, for example. This is something where I'd want to see it to believe it.

7. Oh. That's actually massive - dying not resetting equipment. That actually makes my prior comments about weaker starting weapons nearly null and irrelevant; it is something where again, the particulars I need to see it to believe it, but huh, this is a very different system. It's not very much like Warframe's PvE though, so I'm a tad skeptical as to how much it 'fits' this game, but that's all there is to it. But, I mean, trying to take this part of this map so that you can get X weapon and run away with it does feel rather Warframe-like.

8. Melee durability, while an interesting idea, also seems to be along the veins of being maybe far more complicated than it needs to be, to the point where I'm skeptical if it fits warframe, and skeptical if it helps make for a good arena shooter. Still, this is specifically balanced around not loosing weapons on death, which is a pretty big deal.

9. See my disagreements with warframe abilities. I'd prefer they keep energy orbs instead, and let different warframes remain different, as separate 'classes' to unlock. While that wouldn't be a true arena shooter, it doesn't have to be.

---

Overall, the big thing I don't really like here is that the resultant mode feels even further divorced from warframe than conclave already is. One thing that I feel like should be kept is differences between warframes - including abilities. Similarly, as per above, there is disagreement on distributing abilities because seeing a warframe should tell you what the warframe's capable of. Weapons pickups and powerups make sense - weapons pickups are basically exactly as I'd have envisioned them, though the particulars of how pickups work and what weapons you spawn with are different, and the particulars for powerups are pretty seriously different. 

If I were to go at it, I'd have simpler arena changes. I'd keep all warframe abilities and statistics as current balanced, give the player a choice on spawn between each of the starting Mk.1 weapons, spawn weapons across the map at designated zones like health orbs, increase the size and visibility of all of the pickups by, well, a lot, and then go for a host of fun powerups on the map. This doesn't solve a good number of other issues, but my gut instinct is that arena mode doesn't have to be complicated. Just fill in the blanks that the current mode has, more or less.

Also not mentioned but of which would help with weapons pickups being balanced relative to mobility and make them a zone to fight over - same with powerups actually - would be to have them spawn on a cooldown timer. Again, basic standard boilerplate for any old arena shooter, or Halo-esque shooter.

Edited October 9, 2018 by DarkwarriorJ

[Xarteros]

7 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

1. Modding still provides a bit of an issue if not everyone has access to things from the onset. There are certainly mods that aren't straightforward "+x and -y". Some silver mods give 10 energy on death. Holster rates, too. Depending on the weapon, damage altering mods can be advantageous as well (e.g. if a weapon is high-Slash, it can be switched more toward Puncture).

2. Tutorials aren't DE's strongest suit given one of Warframe's biggest complaints is (or at least was) getting lost very easily. We also have to consider the newb POV: unless someone throws a tutorial at them, they're unlikely to know it exists. If a new player doesn't know how to mod and, thus, hasn't modded their gear, they're at a further disadvantage compared to players who know how that system works, which is the exact opposite thing you want for newbies.

3. Assuming a tutorial is made mandatory, we couldn't rightfully throw people into a match automatically - everyone goes through tutorials and testing at different rates. The problem is that making it manual allows someone to just AFK in the lobby, possibly filling up a spot. We're at a bit of a catch-22 here.

Of course, with the right amount of effort, 1 and 2 can be alleviated, but I can't think of a solution for 3 that doesn't screw someone over.

1) DE can limit the number of mods if that's easier, rewarding endo for players who used to have that mod. I just feel like having a few +X/-Ys won't really hurt anyone, since we don't deal with the big problems (Damage, Multishot etc), and we're remembering that a smaller pool of weapons will be much more easily/accurately balanced.

2) Conclave mods are all very low rank, and if we're trying to go for a balanced & fair game system, they need to just be max rank at all times. That way, new players try out the mod console, it brings up the weapon for them to mod, and it's a simple matter of seeing how many they can afford. It would be pretty much tutorial-free, with nothing but some tooltips needed for prompting (if that)

3) That's not the purpose of the lobby. The lobby is not a queue, and you aren't in queue for any match if you're in the lobby. Once you're done testing your weapons and modding them, you enter the portal for the game type you want and now you're in the matchmaking queue. That way, people dallying about with mods aren't choking up the system, nor are they rushed. At the end of each match, you either stay in the matchmaking queue, or you return to Lobby/Orbiter, simple as that.

On the topic of carrying multiple abilities, I don't really care how they do it. I don't care if they limit us to 1-2 abilities, or give us 4 slots but only show one colour. I don't really care if they don't show colours at all. I'd be more than happy to at least see that an enemy is glowing with power, so I can be more wary about how I deal with them in case they bust out something unexpected. I definitely don't see it as a show-stopper, and there are plenty of other ways they could do it. With the absence of Sentinels, for instance, they could display the types of power as orbs circling above your head.

49 minutes ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

-snip-

I know it's kind of tedious to think of removing Warframe abilities, or reducing them to a more concise pool (as I listed above) but currently I feel like trying to incorporate all 140 (144 once they add Revenant) is not just chaotic and hard to balance, but time-consuming for DE and typically results in ruining the theme/feel of the original abilities anyway. Every time I try out a deathmatch with a few friends (when there's finally enough of us for an Australian match), every frame I pick just feels like a broken knockoff. I basically have to research all the changes on the wiki beforehand, just to make sure I don't blunder into something with the wrong idea. None of our favourite powers work the same, or have the same effect, because Conclave is so drastically different from PvE.

I feel like Conclave is sort of like Laser Tag. You're using mock weapons to battle each other to simulate real combat, but typical Laser Tag doesn't include grenades, or tanks, or air strikes. If you WERE to incorporate special rules to simulate grenades, or tanks etc, you would need to have those rules be pretty limited so as to be clear to all the players. When you start saying that there are rules for 70 types of grenades, 50 types of tanks and 20 airstrikes, each with different ranges, effects, and requirements; it's going to be a very confusing Laser Tag game. 

DE are just making it worse for themselves as well, since all their current frames have been designed to incorporate more 'synergy', and various older frames are being updated to such. It's just more messy to try and add the new frames when their powers depend on each other, but each power is too strong/niche in Conclave and has to be changed.

I think Conclave could still be really quite fun with a good selection of ~30 abilities (give or take), and it would definitely be more welcoming for new players who aren't familiar with the 36 different frames and their 4 powers each. It's also going to be visually less messy, and contain a lot less overlap in terms of effects.

[Tyreaus]

Can't respond to every single detail, apologies!

7 hours ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

3. Weaker starting weapon is fair; it's the industry standard for arena shooters, though personally I like it when the starting gun is actually very strong. I feel like a 50% nerf is excessive though; starting a life with basically no real way to fight back is unfun beyond belief. Quake Champions has theirs be around 30% weaker than the versions in the field, which for their game is enough to make starter weapons not feel like trash but is also enough to make players want to switch to better weapons ASAP.

Admittedly this is kind of a quick-and-dirty placeholder number. I can't say what would feel good or not without actually hopping in and testing things out.

7 hours ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

4. Why weaker melee? If you consider the standards of arena shooters, you don't start with trash melee either - in fact, you start with some pretty gloriously powerful melee, but because of the nature of PvP tending towards ranged, getting into melee range is hard. In short, I don't see why starting with basically trash melee is something needed.

Primarily to make actual melee weapons stand out some. It needn't be ridiculously weak (see above), but I feel like it shouldn't be on par with equipped melee or else it just makes others feel like a waste.

7 hours ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

5. This being warframe, I strongly dislike the idea of warframe abilities being removed from the warframe we're using. It removes a lot of the diversity and fun from diversity that defines fighting different enemies - and is part of why I like Quake Champions and couldn't for the life of me bother with Quake Live.

Admittedly, weapon randomization is probably enough to achieve what this concept sets out to do (assuming Warframes themselves are divorced from painful acquisition routes and slot limits for Conclave in particular so new players aren't so blockaded from using them). The shift away from abilities comes from two motivations:

1. Fitting in with the randomization of weapons (to get a more even, accessible playing field - I don't trust 'probably', especially with my own concepts)

2. The personal desire to show off a little Equinox fashion without having ass abilities. Because I'm selfish like that.

7 hours ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

6. As mentioned by others above, instantly switching to the weapon you just touched is likely to end up being an annoying system. Unfortunately, with the quick pace of warframe, it does seem hard to have the system be "hit F to switch with  weapon on the ground" as in Splitgate, for example. This is something where I'd want to see it to believe it.

Perhaps it's just me, but I find pressing F while moving to be one of the easier things to do in WF: most mobility is centred around W, shift, space, and ctrl, none of which use my index finger. So if I'm going as fast as I can in some direction, I can press F pretty freely.

I do it all the time whenever hitting buttons for gates. Lol.

8 hours ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

Overall, the big thing I don't really like here is that the resultant mode feels even further divorced from warframe than conclave already is. One thing that I feel like should be kept is differences between warframes - including abilities. Similarly, as per above, there is disagreement on distributing abilities because seeing a warframe should tell you what the warframe's capable of. Weapons pickups and powerups make sense - weapons pickups are basically exactly as I'd have envisioned them, though the particulars of how pickups work and what weapons you spawn with are different, and the particulars for powerups are pretty seriously different. 

This is something I've been mulling over (since Legacy pointed out modelling issues), but what if it were Warframe pickups rather than ability pickups? I.e. switching Warframes on the fly and getting their ability sets, passives, etc. for 100 energy worth of use, rather than individual abilities.

It'd kind of ruin the fashion frame aspect, since players would have to start with some kind of neutral model, but I think that's far more cohesive than divorcing abilities outright. And maybe there is something DE can do to load fashionframe into Conclave without too much data overhead - who knows.

I'd like to hear what you and others think on this front because, personally, I prefer the "package deal" concept over the original. Fixes a lot of issues without diverting from the core concept.

8 hours ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

If I were to go at it, I'd have simpler arena changes. I'd keep all warframe abilities and statistics as current balanced, give the player a choice on spawn between each of the starting Mk.1 weapons, spawn weapons across the map at designated zones like health orbs, increase the size and visibility of all of the pickups by, well, a lot, and then go for a host of fun powerups on the map. This doesn't solve a good number of other issues, but my gut instinct is that arena mode doesn't have to be complicated. Just fill in the blanks that the current mode has, more or less.

One of the big issues I have is with weapon accessibility. Emulation is a pretty big deal with competitive multiplayer. If someone's dominating with a Vauban + Zenith + Zenistar combo, I want to know why, and I can't exactly know that terribly well if I'm just getting nuked every time. Which wouldn't be anywhere near the problem it is if it wasn't such a nightmare to get those items for PvP, cough-cough...

Of course, there are plenty of other solutions to that, like just making everything accessible. But as I said before: I'm pretty sure that's been thrown up before, and I don't like being an echo. 😛

(And my personal philosophy goes kind of like this: if we've suggested the simple solution and nothing's happened, maybe the devs need something more inventive to get their creative juices flowing so they find a way to fix it. Maybe this idea of mine doesn't get implemented, but if it leads to some big improvements, it's still worth it.)

8 hours ago, DarkwarriorJ said:

Also not mentioned but of which would help with weapons pickups being balanced relative to mobility and make them a zone to fight over - same with powerups actually - would be to have them spawn on a cooldown timer. Again, basic standard boilerplate for any old arena shooter, or Halo-esque shooter.

Yes, I had that in mind, forgot to mention it. Adding it now. Thanks!

---

7 hours ago, Xarteros said:

1) DE can limit the number of mods if that's easier, rewarding endo for players who used to have that mod. I just feel like having a few +X/-Ys won't really hurt anyone, since we don't deal with the big problems (Damage, Multishot etc), and we're remembering that a smaller pool of weapons will be much more easily/accurately balanced.

I feel like this is kind of an either-or debate. We'd have to discard at least some mods not to have that concern and the question is just whether to keep what's left. I, personally, would just toss them all: it hinders the ability of newer players to emulate the more experienced and just makes balancing things a nightmare. If a weapon is high slash, then swapping for more puncture is just better. And that doesn't get into things like weapons with no recoil with the extra recoil mods...

It's not that it isn't doable, but it feels like keeping them around is a giant pain in the rear, especially when it comes to re-adding and balancing any other weapons. It's another possible point of failure.

7 hours ago, Xarteros said:

2) Conclave mods are all very low rank, and if we're trying to go for a balanced & fair game system, they need to just be max rank at all times. That way, new players try out the mod console, it brings up the weapon for them to mod, and it's a simple matter of seeing how many they can afford. It would be pretty much tutorial-free, with nothing but some tooltips needed for prompting (if that)

By the sounds of this, there's still the acquisition requirements (and endo and credit and item level requirements), to which I say: no. Again, these are things that are, at minimum, pretty liable to giving older players the advantage.

7 hours ago, Xarteros said:

3) That's not the purpose of the lobby. The lobby is not a queue, and you aren't in queue for any match if you're in the lobby. Once you're done testing your weapons and modding them, you enter the portal for the game type you want and now you're in the matchmaking queue. That way, people dallying about with mods aren't choking up the system, nor are they rushed. At the end of each match, you either stay in the matchmaking queue, or you return to Lobby/Orbiter, simple as that.

Okay, yeah, that was my misunderstanding now that I've read it again.

I do think a little testing playground is a good idea, independent of the mod debate. Beyond people being able to test weapons out, if there are physical portals and people share the same lobby, then players have a visual cue of where to go for games. (It's also something a server browser could solve but I like the idea of it doubling as a hang-out lobby)

7 hours ago, Xarteros said:

On the topic of carrying multiple abilities, I don't really care how they do it. I don't care if they limit us to 1-2 abilities, or give us 4 slots but only show one colour. I don't really care if they don't show colours at all. I'd be more than happy to at least see that an enemy is glowing with power, so I can be more wary about how I deal with them in case they bust out something unexpected. I definitely don't see it as a show-stopper, and there are plenty of other ways they could do it. With the absence of Sentinels, for instance, they could display the types of power as orbs circling above your head.

I made a change throwing Warframes in, instead of individual abilities, to avoid what is a slew of issues with modelling, visual cues, et cetera... Would like to know what you think!

[Xarteros]

45 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

-Zoidberg-   😛

1) I feel like this is kind of an either-or debate. We'd have to discard at least some mods not to have that concern and the question is just whether to keep what's left. I, personally, would just toss them all: it hinders the ability of newer players to emulate the more experienced and just makes balancing things a nightmare. If a weapon is high slash, then swapping for more puncture is just better. And that doesn't get into things like weapons with no recoil with the extra recoil mods...

It's not that it isn't doable, but it feels like keeping them around is a giant pain in the rear, especially when it comes to re-adding and balancing any other weapons. It's another possible point of failure.

By the sounds of this, there's still the acquisition requirements (and endo and credit and item level requirements), to which I say: no. Again, these are things that are, at minimum, pretty liable to giving older players the advantage.

2) Okay, yeah, that was my misunderstanding now that I've read it again.

I do think a little testing playground is a good idea, independent of the mod debate. Beyond people being able to test weapons out, if there are physical portals and people share the same lobby, then players have a visual cue of where to go for games. (It's also something a server browser could solve but I like the idea of it doubling as a hang-out lobby)

3) I made a change throwing Warframes in, instead of individual abilities, to avoid what is a slew of issues with modelling, visual cues, et cetera... Would like to know what you think!

1) From what I remember, you get mods as a reward for any Conclave match you complete, regardless of score or victory/defeat status. I was thinking, if the mods were cut down quite a bit, it could still be nice to get dribbled some mods to toy with and just help shift your weapon a smidge to suit your playstyle. You could just make all PvP mods accessible to all players all the time, I just thought dribbling them over the course of their early gameplay would help new players get used to the base feel of a weapon before they go tinkering too far, and it would stop them being overwhelmed by mods. Realistically, I could easily stand to have all PvP mods removed, I was just thinking it'd be the one method left of keeping a shred of customisation to the mode.

I guess certain mods that are problematic could just either get kept aside, or maybe even just limited to 'advanced' matches

I also don't mean to require any endo or credits, I mean that they are rank-less mods that are just at maximum power, much like Coolant Leak for sentinels. No need to worry about fusion, no PvE requirement, it's just a set amount of power for a set amount of mod capacity cost.

2) I quite like the idea of keeping away from traditional menus and browsers, in favor of something a bit more in-lore themed. There are a lot of extra ways that DE could implement to show us roughly (or exactly) how many matches are being played of each mode, and how many players are in those matches. Then, for the love of Space Odin, they could let us join in-progress games as a spectator, in order to be in the next available match of that group. DE could have some of those nice big Tenno screens from the Relay Navigation, but with info on player distribution.

3) I don't mind the idea as much, provided there's some control over the frames and that the frames can be accessed equally and fairly (RNGesus doesn't need even more power). You could very easily start matches in Operator form, and have 5-6 Warframes arrayed out in your team spawn room. You could keep some in levels as well, but I'm not sure how you'd go about swapping quite so much (what happens to your old frame? Do your weapons/energy transfer?).

TBH, the more I think about creating a small contingent of abilities, the more I like it. I was thinking about abilities they could make for Conclave that none of the Warframes have. Perhaps one ability would let you deploy up to 4 Blunt's in front of you? It'd let players create their own cover to bottleneck certain corridors and give their team a bit more cohesive strategy. Then, you could add in expanding nullifier bubble grenades, or the remote observer beacons, shock traps, stuff like that. Now, alternatively, that could become an optional 'gear' system for more pickups in matches (although probably just 1 slot). It would fit quite well into the arena shooter vibe IMO.

IDK, I don't want to beat a dead horse, so I won't try to oversell a limited ability pool any more here. It's just the option I'd personally prefer the most.

[Tyreaus]

9 hours ago, Xarteros said:

1) From what I remember, you get mods as a reward for any Conclave match you complete, regardless of score or victory/defeat status. I was thinking, if the mods were cut down quite a bit, it could still be nice to get dribbled some mods to toy with and just help shift your weapon a smidge to suit your playstyle. You could just make all PvP mods accessible to all players all the time, I just thought dribbling them over the course of their early gameplay would help new players get used to the base feel of a weapon before they go tinkering too far, and it would stop them being overwhelmed by mods. Realistically, I could easily stand to have all PvP mods removed, I was just thinking it'd be the one method left of keeping a shred of customisation to the mode.

I guess certain mods that are problematic could just either get kept aside, or maybe even just limited to 'advanced' matches

I also don't mean to require any endo or credits, I mean that they are rank-less mods that are just at maximum power, much like Coolant Leak for sentinels. No need to worry about fusion, no PvE requirement, it's just a set amount of power for a set amount of mod capacity cost.

It's also a thing of transparency. I can look at someone's loadout in PvP and I know what frame they're using and what weapons they're using. What that doesn't give me is what mods they're using. If someone 3-shots me with a Boltor, is it lag, their aim, or a mod? I could rule out lag based on other behaviours, but the other two...

Perhaps some mods that really evidently change behaviours, like something that turns a Boltor into a burst rifle or something akin to that, wouldn't have that problem. But that still rules out just about everything in the current mod list.

I am, admittedly, focusing a lot on newer player experience and getting that right. Little things like emulation and transparency aren't huge issues by any stretch, but they do still help. Or, more accurately, their lack thereof hinders.

I get the max rank thing now, though. That's not as bad.

9 hours ago, Xarteros said:

2) I quite like the idea of keeping away from traditional menus and browsers, in favor of something a bit more in-lore themed. There are a lot of extra ways that DE could implement to show us roughly (or exactly) how many matches are being played of each mode, and how many players are in those matches. Then, for the love of Space Odin, they could let us join in-progress games as a spectator, in order to be in the next available match of that group. DE could have some of those nice big Tenno screens from the Relay Navigation, but with info on player distribution.

IMO I like the idea of having something like a doorway with "X matches active / X players active" above. We might not have a spectator mode since we might not be able to join a particular match (like it is now), but it'd at least give some indication of activity.

Next best thing is a server browser, so it's a trade-off between "avoiding traditional menus" and "letting players pick a particular game": IDK how exactly we'd be able to pick specific matches outside of a menu without a lot of development overhead. (e.g. lots of doorways. Unlimited doorways, pretty much.)

10 hours ago, Xarteros said:

3) I don't mind the idea as much, provided there's some control over the frames and that the frames can be accessed equally and fairly (RNGesus doesn't need even more power). You could very easily start matches in Operator form, and have 5-6 Warframes arrayed out in your team spawn room. You could keep some in levels as well, but I'm not sure how you'd go about swapping quite so much (what happens to your old frame? Do your weapons/energy transfer?).

It's the same as weapons. If you switch weapons, you don't lose your current Warframe. If you switch Warframes, you don't lose your current weapons. And you don't lose either on death, only when you run them dry.

Energy is set to 100 for every Warframe pickup, just like weapons are set to max ammo and dropped when they run out.

Having an array of starting Warframes is an option but they have their own dedicated spawn points mid-match and a much smaller pool (compare 20-odd Warframes to 150+ weapons), so I don't think acquisition is going to be too much of an issue. At least not something readily alleviated by moving some of them to a pre-match spawn room.

10 hours ago, Xarteros said:

TBH, the more I think about creating a small contingent of abilities, the more I like it. I was thinking about abilities they could make for Conclave that none of the Warframes have. Perhaps one ability would let you deploy up to 4 Blunt's in front of you? It'd let players create their own cover to bottleneck certain corridors and give their team a bit more cohesive strategy. Then, you could add in expanding nullifier bubble grenades, or the remote observer beacons, shock traps, stuff like that. Now, alternatively, that could become an optional 'gear' system for more pickups in matches (although probably just 1 slot). It would fit quite well into the arena shooter vibe IMO.

Not saying this is a bad concept, it really does seem interesting, but it's also a fair bit of overhead and it's removing a lot of the PvP / PvE translation. If you play Frost in PvE, you have a general idea how he works in PvP, and vice versa. Who gets these sort of abilities? (Maybe the starting avatar?)

IMO I think you should flesh it out independent of this idea. It's something that could add some spice to Conclave whatever else gets done; it needn't be tied down to this.

[peterc3]

This is entirely divorced from the rest of the game, though. None of what was mentioned in the OP are applicable to gameplay anywhere else in the game. There are concepts that are borrowed asset wise from the main part of the game but given entirely different properties and purpose.

On 2018-10-07 at 10:27 PM, Tyreaus said:

like a removal of Oro pickups

Kill confirm just means you have to go to where it drops, instead of sitting some place and getting credit for kills without making yourself at least vaguely vulnerable.

Perhaps as a new Conclave mode, but this doesn't work as the main Warframe PvP.

[Tyreaus]

23 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

This is entirely divorced from the rest of the game, though. None of what was mentioned in the OP are applicable to gameplay anywhere else in the game. There are concepts that are borrowed asset wise from the main part of the game but given entirely different properties and purpose.

A question, then: why must Conclave be so married to the rest of the game, especially when doing so is to the detriment of the mode itself? Mind that we're talking about a mode already divorced from PvE in the mere fact that it's not based in a horde shooter style with negligible emphasis on a power fantasy.