Suggestion: competitive PVE game mode in Warframe

[wtflag]

Pvp competitive shooters have it so good. Design a few maps and developers can get players to play the same map over and over again for hundreds of hours. And the difficulty is always increasing with the player's skill level so they don't have to design any fancy AI. 

In contrast, PVE games like Warframe took a lot time to develop and players burn through the content fast. Sacifice took months to develop and players took 30 mins to complete.

Obviously DE would want to create a game mode that is constantly challenging to players of all skill levels, rewarding but not abusable, infinitely replayable, needs no sweeping balancing/restrictions to existing Warframe/Weapons, avoid player toxicity and bring warframe to the next level. "Does such a ideal game mode even exist? What are you smoking and can I have some of that?"  I heard you to ask.

I don't claim that my suggestion is going to do all of the above. But there is one game I had played ages ago that seems to fit the bill; Aeon of Strife. Younger players can Google it. For players who knows that game, you may be wondering how that gameplay can be translated into Warframe. The answer is Eilte Cross-Invasion. 

Like Eilte alerts, you can only do one per hour. Each team of four is randomly matched against another team of four on a different instance of the mission. There will be ten different mini-objectives such as hacking a vault or capture a point or destroy a reactor etc. Completing a mini-objective will increase the level of enemies their opponent have to face and place some kind of hazard into those map. The team that completes all 10 objectives win the match. Losers will be given rewards based on number of mini-objectives cleared. Winners get the same but also bonus rewards. 

There is no "toxicity" because the you don't even know who your opponents were. There is stategy because some warframe are better at some mini-objectives and given the massive number of warframes, it would not be so easy to figure out the meta squads. There is no salt or bad feels because the mode still gives you your due rewards even if you lose. 

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by wtflag

[Firetempest]

Destiny 2 released their own pve pvp mode Gambit.

4v4 like index game to bank enough points to summon a final boss and finish it before the other team.

Not necessarily a bad idea.

[AdunSaveMe]

I don't think it really translates well to Warframe. There's too much ability and weapon variety. It's a game designed for PvE, and it can work in PvP in a way, but PvPvE is a lot less feasible and way more difficult to try and balance. I guarantee you that this Hero Line Wars style mode will just be Saryns, Equinoxes and Mesas trying to out-DPS other Saryns, Equinoxes and Mesas. It won't work.

4 minutes ago, Firetempest said:

Destiny 2 released their own pve pvp mode Gambit.

4v4 like index game to bank enough points to summon a final boss and finish it before the other team.

Not necessarily a bad idea.

It worked for Destiny because it is a vastly different game. It's slower, more even, and far better suited to competitive modes. It focuses more on gunplay than abilities, and has a much lower amount of both. Warframe, on the other hand, has absolute piles of weapons, mods and abilities, all of which are capable of vastly different things, which makes a Gambit-like mode practically impossible to implement in an enjoyable way.

Destiny is more like Halo, which can fit in PvP/PvE equally well. Warframe is far better suited to a solely PvE experience than anything else.

Edited November 22, 2018 by AdunSaveMe

[Firetempest]

2 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

 

It worked for Destiny because it is a vastly different game. It's slower, more even, and far better suited to competitive modes. It focuses more on gunplay than abilities, and has a much lower amount of both, as a more Halo-ish game. Warframe, on the other hand, has absolute piles of weapons, mods and abilities, all of which are capable of vastly different things, which makes a Gambit-like mode practically impossible to implement in an enjoyable way.

It can still use the conclave ballanced mode where powers have been reigned in. Not going to have the dozens of ways to build up infinite energy.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Firetempest

[wtflag]

1 minute ago, Firetempest said:

Destiny 2 released their own pve pvp mode Gambit.

4v4 like index game to bank enough points to summon a final boss and finish it before the other team.

Not necessarily a bad idea.

I don't play Destiny but that indeed sounds like a good idea.

We know that balancing skills for PVP and PVE is impossible and just not worth the effort and complains from players those favorite warframes are nerfed/underpowered.

So we do what we are good at; PVE, and add minor competitive elements to keep things interesting.

[Zsword]

isn't that what the leaderboards and the Dark Sectors and the even kill counters and all are kinda meant to be?

[ant99999]

The idea of having a competitive PvE mode itself is interesting, and I'm for it. However I have some questions and suggestions for what you say here.

1. Why limiting participation in this mode to only one per hour? Like with PvP this mode is very different from the main game, so many players would prefer focusing on it, that's why such a limitation I believe is unnecessary.

2. Why only limiting to ten objectives. If this is what levelling of the enemies depends on, then there will be a strict level cap, which I believe makes the mode less challenging. Instead I suggest to choose winner according to a number of objectives completed during the time limit which can be dynamic like in Onslaught or Survival.

3. Don't think there will be no toxicity. If this is competitive, the toxicity is inevitable.

4. Having forming a meta squad included in the idea is not a very healthy way for the balance. On the contrary you should try to balance it so that there is no meta squad possible.

5. As with toxicity, salt will be present regardless of if you want it or not. So, this should be taken into consideration.

I'd suggest also taking Destiny 2's competitive PvE mode as the example. I find it's ideas interesting however they are not necessary suitable for Warframe.

[wtflag]

5 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

I don't think it really translates well to Warframe. There's too much ability and weapon variety. It's a game designed for PvE, and it can work in PvP in a way, but PvPvE is a lot less feasible and way more difficult to try and balance. I guarantee you that this Hero Line Wars style mode will just be Saryns, Equinoxes and Mesas trying to out-DPS other Saryns, Equinoxes and Mesas. It won't work

That is why there are ten random mini-objectives.

AOE frames may not work out well when the objective is spy or the area is covered by radiation hazard or against a boss enemy with high health/damage.

[Xaero]

6 minutes ago, Firetempest said:

It can still use the conclave ballanced mode where powers have been reigned in.

I could see it as a new Conclave mode that would most likely be much more enjoyable than direct PvP.

[(PSN)MonsieurPA]

I would play Conclave if it had PvE mode.

[Oreades]

They already added a competitive PvE mode with the last update, it's called "Being able to use your Batticors secondary fire mode" 

[uxx0]

We already had competitive PvE modes. They were called "Operations". I'm not refering to the tactical alerts Plague Star and Pyrus Project. I'm talking about the ones with leaderboards.

Edited November 22, 2018 by uxx0

[wtflag]

4 minutes ago, ant99999 said:

The idea of having a competitive PvE mode itself is interesting, and I'm for it. However I have some questions and suggestions for what you say here.

1. Why limiting participation in this mode to only one per hour? Like with PvP this mode is very different from the main game, so many players would prefer focusing on it, that's why such a limitation I believe is unnecessary.

2. Why only limiting to ten objectives. If this is what levelling of the enemies depends on, then there will be a strict level cap, which I believe makes the mode less challenging. Instead I suggest to choose winner according to a number of objectives completed during the time limit which can be dynamic like in Onslaught or Survival.

3. Don't think there will be no toxicity. If this is competitive, the toxicity is inevitable.

4. Having forming a meta squad included in the idea is not a very healthy way for the balance. On the contrary you should try to balance it so that there is no meta squad possible.

5. As with toxicity, salt will be present regardless of if you want it or not. So, this should be taken into consideration.

I'd suggest also taking Destiny 2's competitive PvE mode as the example. I find it's ideas interesting however they are not necessary suitable for Warframe.

Good questions.

1. Like elite alerts, I want each chance at the mission to mean something. If you have limited entries (24 per day),  then you will want to try your best. You are less likely to queue in and leech basically.

2. All objectives will spawn and be determined on map load. That way the best frame (e.g. Loki) for the objective and directly go and solo the objective (e.g. spy).

Time-based version means that if a team of MR8 meets a team of MR26 and the result is already very clear at the start of the match, there is no recourse for the MR26s to "end the suffering".

4. Warframe is already completely balanced. Ok I joke. But warframe is many things. Balancing frames or weapons around one particular game mode is not ideal.

There is no such thing as an all inclusive game mode. Some warframe will be better than others. It is on the players to use the right frame for the right job. Not for DE to make every frame equally good at every job.

And no one knows what the "meta squad" is anyway. DE themselves wouldn't know. After hundreds of hours of testing, some experts could figure it out. But that is fine.

 

[ant99999]

9 минут назад, wtflag сказал:

1. Like elite alerts, I want each chance at the mission to mean something. If you have limited entries (24 per day),  then you will want to try your best. You are less likely to queue in and leech basically.

Leeching is bad of course, but that's what report system is for, I'm not sure that limiting the amount of tries to prevent leeching is worth it (I'll say more, this won't deal with leeches completely). More important is that this mode is completely different from both PvP and PvE of Warframe, you can give a chance to get specific rewards only once an hour, but by no means limit players from experiencing this particular gameplay.

14 минут назад, wtflag сказал:

Time-based version means that if a team of MR8 meets a team of MR26 and the result is already very clear at the start of the match, there is no recourse for the MR26s to "end the suffering".

Ok, I'm not sure how to balance this aspect properly. Maybe you are right and the time limit is not a good idea. Whatever is better, this made me think of MR based balancing for this gamemode. As the players use PvE mods and equipment, the outcome will highly depend of how powerfull the players builds and synergies are. Best way to balance it I believe is using MR. On the other hand you can use Conclave equipment for this gamemode wich is much less dependant on player's progress.

19 минут назад, wtflag сказал:

Warframe is already completely balanced. Ok I joke. But warframe is many things. Balancing frames or weapons around one particular game mode is not ideal.

Speaking of Conclave, not only does it have such an equipment system with less power provided by mods, it also has a completely different balance in terms of damage system, warframe powers and weapons characteristics. What I was really suggesting is to implement third balance system (different from PvP and PvE) exclusive for this mode. However again you can pretty much use PvP balance system, but that way you will have to rework enemy scaling.

[Kerthis]

I like this idea very much. Every activity that I can drag into my brother is great for me! 🙂