Let's Talk About The Dojo And How We Can Improve it

[GrayArchon]

26 minutes ago, Nezun.Skyfire said:

Personally, I think to have Forma on basic, mandatory parts of the Dojo (the empty short connecting hallways) shouldn't be there, just my preference and stance.

I can agree with this. Hallways aren't really special and I would be okay with not having Forma in their build costs.

1 hour ago, Nezun.Skyfire said:

Thank you for explaining your opinion! Personally, I would like to see Dojos play a more integral role in the WF Universe. As you have stated the Tenno are overwhelmingly powerful. We've already fought off the Grineer's most powerful Fomorian ships and the Corpus Razorback Armadas, along with killing off their troops by the hundreds, even thousands in missions (endless missions). Warframe's unique Universe and setting give them the opportunity to do more than just standard player housing (that's basically what dojos are). DE have never been ones to shy away from innovative ideas (Warframe itself is living proof of this), I do not see why they couldn't upset the status quo with Dojos.

I suppose we'll have to wait and see what DE have planned for Kingpin and Railjack. They've said that for Kingpin your clan will face consequences, such as the enemy faction invading your Dojo, but the Kingpin development has been all over the place during the years and who knows if any of it is still on the table. Railjack has so many potentially intriguing options, but again we know very little about what is currently planned. Hopefully those will serve to tie Dojos and clans into the larger fabric of the Warframe universe without sacrificing any of what clans were initially meant to be.

[Nezun.Skyfire]

16 minutes ago, GrayArchon said:

I suppose we'll have to wait and see what DE have planned for Kingpin and Railjack. They've said that for Kingpin your clan will face consequences, such as the enemy faction invading your Dojo, but the Kingpin development has been all over the place during the years and who knows if any of it is still on the table. Railjack has so many potentially intriguing options, but again we know very little about what is currently planned. Hopefully those will serve to tie Dojos and clans into the larger fabric of the Warframe universe without sacrificing any of what clans were initially meant to be.

Indeed, here's to hoping that it'll be a resounding success! Even if it is a bit out of wack on launch.

[majorchord96]

don't know if it's been brought up yet, but the advent of the k-drive lends itself to the possibility of a clan-based racetrack, especially if there was a planetary component to the dojo. It would, after all, require a spacious if not outdoor area. Even if the dojos remain in solar orbit as they are currently, I should think that the possibility of some sort of archwing "tunnel loop" track would be a feasible if not popular idea. In either case, you'd have to disable mods on the player's vehicles at the very least. 

another possibility would be to add a fish tank. Now, we already have the koi pond decoration that miraculously spawns extinct species from a bygone era for a relatively modest resource cost, but I'm thinking more along the lines of a major aquarium in which fish caught on the plains/vallas can be submitted. Such a room would also lend itself to the possibility of a "fishing contest" mode, in which the fisherman who catches the most standing rep of fish is declared the winner. Fish donated to stock the pond could not be removed once donated, much like any other resource. you could even just use the water gardens for it.

what do you think??

[Nezun.Skyfire]

4 hours ago, majorchord96 said:

don't know if it's been brought up yet, but the advent of the k-drive lends itself to the possibility of a clan-based racetrack, especially if there was a planetary component to the dojo. It would, after all, require a spacious if not outdoor area. Even if the dojos remain in solar orbit as they are currently, I should think that the possibility of some sort of archwing "tunnel loop" track would be a feasible if not popular idea. In either case, you'd have to disable mods on the player's vehicles at the very least. 

another possibility would be to add a fish tank. Now, we already have the koi pond decoration that miraculously spawns extinct species from a bygone era for a relatively modest resource cost, but I'm thinking more along the lines of a major aquarium in which fish caught on the plains/vallas can be submitted. Such a room would also lend itself to the possibility of a "fishing contest" mode, in which the fisherman who catches the most standing rep of fish is declared the winner. Fish donated to stock the pond could not be removed once donated, much like any other resource. you could even just use the water gardens for it.

what do you think??

I love the sound of a fishing competition!  I don't know why, but Warframe's fishing is probably the must fun side-activity they added yet imo (still haven't messed with the k-drives yet) but I do really like the sound of a race track as well. From what little experience I've had with the K-Drive I do find the controls a little clunky and would like to see those polished up some if they were to add a race track. The idea of the "tunnel tubes" would work great for the tracks if we remain in orbit!

[Nezun.Skyfire]

On 2018-12-19 at 7:57 AM, moonofchaos said:

For me i feel like they could include some of the sidecontent into the dojos. They could make rooms for wyrmius, frame fighter and happy zephyr where people could observe you playing it and have highscore boards that makes you compete with your other clan members. 

I would also like a kubrow and kavat room where you can send your kubrows instead of just killing them in your ship. once they are donated to the clan you could still interact with them but not use them for missions.

A quality of life thing for decorating would ofcourse be a "contribute to all decorations in room" option when you donate resources so that decorating wont be as annoying. It would also be pretty cool if decorating actually rewarded you with some new decorations or cosmetics for the dojo or your own ship. That way more players would feel invested into actually doing it. 

A docking hall would also be nice where clanmembers can enter your ship and see your ship decorations without you having to host and invite them. It will probably never happen but i could see that being a nice addition if it did. 

Otherwise we just have to wait and hope that the kingpin system the devs have been talking about is coming. 

Uber late replay!
 

Being able to have a 'pen' for clan-wide kavat and kubrows would be really neat to see. Mayhaps they could add in small interactions between them all.

Being able to contribute to all projects from a single menu would a wonderful addition as well. Small QoL changes like make a big difference in the feel of building.

I think it would be neat to be able see your friend's and clan mates' orbiters on a whim to see how much floof they've collected and treasures they've hoarded. More so if your clan has vets who spend a lot of time playing, I can only imagine how decked out some of my Clan mate's ships are. Here's to hoping the Kingpin is a resounding success if it launches!

[platypusman656]

I'm not sure if this is entirely related to the topic of dojos, but I think that it would be cool if DE added away for clans to make their own social spaces on each planet that would have to be expanded and maintained by resource donations and running mission to defend your area from enemies on that planet. If a base is not successfully defended, then tenno could either have to spend time and resources rebuilding it or perhaps run a raid for the lost parts. A lot of things could be done with this base, for instance, a more elaborate market could be set up where you could view asking prices and items. Farms/mines could be set up and can either be worked on or passively generate resources for the clan.  This would also open up a possibility for clan wars where clans would attack and defend their bases on different planets. Clans would have to upgrade defences and walls and put their bases in layouts that would be easy to protect from attacks while still letting various traders in. This could add a sort of large-scale coordination in clans seeing who would go to which planet, while also adding a pvp option to the game other than conclave. Though this sounds fairly similar to clash of clans, it could definitely be turned up to eleven with some unique warframe features that could make it an integral part of late game. We could also use this to make the sanctuary more critical, as we could allow clans to use pve mobs to fight on their side. Clan bases could either be displayed at random or as a leaderboard type system whenever a player views a planet, similar to the steel meridian base on earth. These bases could be used as a  social space for clans or a place to organize plans for difficult raids that could come in the future. clans could arrange "trade deals" with other clans or the open world factions. The clan can make trades for more exclusive gear from different syndicates or the different factions. The clan could side with either corpus or grineer for different loot or special events. Another cool thing would be it the clan bases were surrounded by procedurally generated land based on either the open world for that planet or loosely based on the tileset. This could allow for some possible difficult raids with clans that could have 8 or more members participate. I feel as if many great things could be done with these on-planet bases relating to progression and late game, but at the moment I'm kinda crunched on time. I would love to hear what you like or dislike about my idea, or what improvements you could make. This is only a suggestion but seems like some of these things would be very cool if added to the game.

[Teridax68]

I agree with much of what the OP said. In a way, the Dojo is like many other features in Warframe: the core idea is fantastic, and it's clear that the feature could be amazing, but its implementation is hampered by meaningless constraints that do nothing but make it less fun: why is it good to force the player to build reactor rooms again? What do the build costs even achieve except discourage newer players from contributing to the dojo, and mildly inconvenience veteran players who have too much of every resource to care? Why even is clan research a thing? At its core, the Dojo offers players the opportunity to hand-craft an entire level just for themselves, decorate it however they want, and foster a community of players, and restrictions aside, it actually does this pretty well. However, not only is it full of arbitrary gates and restrictions, the Dojo is also, like many other features in Warframe, completely disconnected from the rest of the game: once clan research is done, the Dojo basically serves as a trading post, and otherwise may as well not exist unless you're really invested in your clan, which may not be a given. What could be a sterling opportunity to bring players together, let a community of those players create and customize a hub for themselves, and further deepen Warframe's sense of community, has instead become a mostly forgotten side feature that pushes certain players to join clans just so that they can leech off others' work.

Stuff I'd suggest to help:

• Remove the Dojo energy mechanic, unrestrict players' ability to build rooms: why is this even a thing? The energy mechanic adds nothing to Dojo crafting, and only forces players to build rooms they may not even like for no particular reason. This doesn't stretch out progression by any meaningful amount, nor does it tie meaningfully into monetization, and it restricts players' decision-making, so we might as well take this out.
• Remove build costs and timers to construction: to a veteran, the cost to build almost any feature in a Dojo is trivial, even when they have to shoulder ten or a hundred times the base burden. To a newcomer, the cost is prohibitive as it interferes with their crafting. As such, the limitations are often not that meaningful, but when they are, they yet again halt freedom of construction without any real payoff. Constructing new rooms or features in the Dojo ties very little into monetization, and build requirements often generate friction when some players refuse to contribute and expect others to shoulder the entire burden. Removing them, by contrast, would make construction far more fluid and freeform. In some cases, it might be useful to lock some rooms or decorations behind requirements (e.g. event trophies), but otherwise the construction aspect itself need not be grindy.
• Remove or rework Clan research: this may be more controversial, considering how so many clans have poured so many resources into research, but ultimately I feel clan research does more harm than good: it's the main reason why leeches attach themselves to clans, mop up already completed research, then either leave or remain utterly inactive within the clan until forced out, taking up space while contributing nothing in return. Clans should be formed because players want to get to know each other and play the game together, not because people have to bribe each other to join a community of people they may never care about. Even if a suggestion this extreme doesn't pass, implementing some sort of participation fee by default for players to unlock access to their clan's completed research (if they didn't contribute) could already help discourage leeches.
• Add a personal toggle option to set one's Dojo as the default home location, as opposed to the Orbiter: In general, Dojos need to be better connected to the rest of the game, and something as basic as having players spawn in the Dojo at the end of each mission and upon logging in, rather than their Orbiter, could potentially work wonders by immersing players more in their community space, without having to manually select the Dojo and go through an extra transition screen each time. 
• Add more clan-related options, such as matchmaking with clanmates only, or even bonuses for going in the same missions together with clanmates: This is pretty standard in games with clan features, and even if clan-centric incentives get implemented, simply making matchmaking with clanmates easier could create a better sense of community. This wouldn't directly relate to the Dojo, but would at least make clans themselves more present, which could then make the Dojo more important.
• Add content that ties the Dojo to the rest of the game, e.g. the Kingpin mechanic, or even Dojo invasions: the Kingpin system, mentioned a while back, was a feature in development that would allow clan members to create and participate in their own missions, which could've helped turn the Dojo into a proper activity hub of its own. Similarly, having certain factions invade the Dojo, and giving players participation rewards for defending it, could also help the place feel like an actual part of the in-game world. These are but a few examples, but there's potentially much more content that could tie into the Dojo and make it an active, integrated place, rather than just some pretty thing floating somewhere in space.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Dungeon Building?

 

then again that might be too much rpg