Endgame Content Idea - Self-sustaining and relatively easy to build

[Ozymandius]

I know this is very long, but I couldn't really get it much shorter.

The System War – A New Set of Content for Old and New Warframe Players

Introduction

The new Venus open world is amazing, and a lot of hard work went into it.  As an amazing new thing to attract new players or bring old players back, it is a great expansion to the game.  However, as a tool for game longevity and keeping players into the game long-term, open world content is inefficient based on the work required to create it compared to the rate at which players complete it.  It is important to create sustainable content that doesn’t require so much work by the development team, but still gives players a reason to log on and play every day.  The below is a proposal for persistent and dynamic content.  It makes use of existing resources, and once implemented, will be partly or fully automated dynamic ongoing content without the need for further work by the development team.  The content is best described by a series of mission types, that logically fit together to create an overarching dynamic system that will provide perpetual playability and can constitute both end-game and mid-game content, as well as system-wide railjack content.

Summary

The set of missions and overall gameplay will revolve around the conflict between the three main factions (Corpus/Grineer/Infested), the Tenno, and the Syndicates.  It can be thought of as an expansion of the current Invasion system, and a way to connect it to syndicate content and make it more compelling.  Invasion missions are currently just a way to get certain resources, and once those are obtained, there is no reason to participate.  These changes will add real stakes to participation, and consequences to failure.  It will motivate endgame players to participate and provide urgency to the missions and a reason to participate beyond resource-gathering.

The end result will be a state of warfare that changes daily, and will motivate players to log on, see the current state of the conflict, and participate accordingly.  For end-game players, it will provide an unpredictability that is lacking for those who have completed or nearly completed all the game’s regular content.  For mid-tier players, it will provide access to rare and faction-specific resources, and a break from star chart progression ennui.  The mission types listed below form a logical chain and create a more realistic simulation of the Origin system’s factions’ war against the Tenno and each other.

Briefly, the progression would be as follows (more details below):

1.  Spawning/Production Sabotage

2.  Transport Sabotage

3.  Active Conflict Missions

4.  Fleet Production Sabotage

5.  Pre-emptive Relay Defense

6.  Relay Combat

7.  Relay Reconstruction

The overall difficulty would be tuned so that the other factions have a very real chance of achieving their goals, and the tenno can lose relays without focused participation.  The approach will be carrot and stick, with the carrot being resources not available elsewhere, and the stick being loss of relays.  The stakes of relay loss and gain will be enhanced, through syndicate mechanics.

1.  Spawning/Production Sabotage

These will be missions based around centers of production:

Infested:  Essentially the same as the current Hive missions – but the Hives actively spawn enemies, such that the spawning rate can overwhelm an ill-prepared team.

Corpus:  Similar to the above, with rapid robot spawns coming from hive-like robot factories with shield generators mirroring tumor nodes.

Grineer:  Clone chambers, spawning grineer.  Either via a simple rapid spawn system similar to the above, or a system where spawns start normal, but leaving the spawns alone for a short time results in them cloning themselves (sacrificing 2 to get 3), to the point where they can become overwhelming quite quickly.

These would all be essentially sabotage missions.  The spawns would be much faster than normal, but with the max number of spawns capped to keep the processing load manageable for the client.  If left alone, the spawns would follow a path to an exit in the mission that would represent them being loaded into transports (see #2).  How much the AI weights running to the transports vs. fighting the tenno would be determined by their numbers – this is the mechanic for capping the max spawns.

Note:  There is a potential issue with affinity farming.  To limit this problem, these missions would be hidden, similarly to how acolytes are hidden.  The missions would spawn on random nodes, only revealed by community completion of a certain number of successful interceptions, spy missions, and syndicate missions.  This would represent the fact that the factions are trying really hard to hide their production centers from the Tenno, and could also represent the notion that without Lotus, the Tenno have much less “intel” than they used to (which might be an ongoing important theme), and they have to rely on the syndicates for support now.  Strictly speaking, these missions would be unnecessary, but success here would make category 2 and 3 missions easier – so these can be made quite hard to find without destroying the fairness of the system.

There might be issues with aoe weapons and aoe warframe powers, but these could be addressed by specific thematic countermeasures built into these missions, as the factions’ extra defense against the tenno.

2.  Transport Sabotage

These would be railjack and archwing missions.  Large, well-defended convoys would move from planets with active production nodes to planets with active conflict (see #3).  This would be the way that players would know where to look for spawning missions.  Players would fight the convoys, which are essentially transport ships full of troops, escorted by fleets, moving from production to the battlefield.  There would be pathing from planet to planet, similarly to how the Kuva fortress works.  This would be another chance to affect the conflicts in #3, as well as providing consistent Railjack content.  These missions would also be accessible by archwing, but archwing completions will have very little impact on the outcome.  However, these missions will be the best way to obtain the components necessary to participate in category 5 missions, so archwing access will allow players without access to railjacks to still acquire these components and experience the content.

3.  Active Conflict Missions

These would be based on the current invasion system, but seriously amped up.  Conflict on a planet would always be tied to two other planets, one for each side’s powerbase.  These missions will fall into a level ranging from something challenging for low to mid-level players, to something sortie-level or a bit tougher.

Spawn rates would be very high (as high as possible without creating technical issues), intentionally making these missions very difficult on their own; but success at missions in #1 and #2 would reduce the spawn rate and make them more manageable.  Also, the progression bar would be accelerated from where it is now, such that tenno participation makes a noticeable difference in the conflict, and the opportunities for that participation are somewhat fleeting.

The planets feeding into the conflict would be of similar level, and that level would determine the level of the conflict missions.  The low end of the conflict would be Mars (fed by Mercury/Venus/Earth), such that overall access to the System War would be unlocked at the end of “The Archwing”, either automatically or by a new quest at that point in the story.

The conceit for these missions would be that each faction needs components to create their heavy warships, and these components are rare and therefore constantly contested.  The war between the factions is over the change in ownership of planetary nodes and the corresponding resources and territory, and the war against the tenno requires the fight for resources needed to build relay-attacking warships.

Note:  Any potential issue with affinity farming here should be resolvable by tuning mission difficulty.  For high level players to farm affinity, they will need to participate in the high-end missions, and these will be difficult enough that they won’t be easy “farm” missions.  Lower level players should be similarly challenged enough by these missions to make them fun, but not ideal for farming.

4.  Fleet Production Sabotage

These will be mission nodes on conflicted planets where the factions are constructing fleets.  These will be very difficult sabotage missions, beyond max sortie level, and requiring rank 30 warframes.  A more difficult version of the fomorian power core hijack, with corresponding missions for infested and corpus, will be ordinary missions, and a corresponding class of mission will be accessible via archwing/railjack in orbit (similar to category 2 missions).

Completion of Category 3 missions by either faction will first trigger, then accelerate, progress in this category of mission.  Tenno participation can weaken the attack, but not stop it.

This will provide players with a channel to inhibit the production of both troop transports and warships, which will impact the difficulty of missions in categories 2 and 5.  These missions will also be the main source of components for category 5 and category 7 missions.

5.  Pre-emptive Relay Defense

These are based on what are currently Balor Fomorian/Razorback Armada alerts, with the addition of a similar mission type based on the Jordas Golem (but boosted to have more offensive power).  All of these will be triggered by the results of category 3 and 4 missions, but will occur much more frequently than they currently do.  The difficulty will be higher, the escort will be increased, and the duration will be decreased, in that the ships move toward the relay they are planning to destroy quite quickly, and there is a real possibility of failure to save the relay.  These will also be railjack/archwing/ordinary missions, with the impact of successes differing depending on the completion method.

6.  Relay Combat

If the players fail to stop a category 5 mission, there will be a very real chance of the destruction of a relay.  The warship and escorts will arrive, and a fast-paced and very difficult mission node will be created on the relay.  Ordinary functions of the relay will be disabled, and the relay will, more likely than not, be destroyed.  (Essentially, stage 6 is tuned to be probably too late to save the relay, but there is a chance of success.)

7.  Relay Reconstruction

After a relay is destroyed, there will be a path to reconstruction.  Similarly to the reconstruction of the Strata relay on PC, the syndicates will work with the Tenno to reconstruct destroyed relays (including the ones that are currently destroyed and have been for a long time.)  The missions to recover relay components will be tied in with syndicate missions, and different relay styles created for each of the factions, allowing for competition between players to complete the reconstruction via one faction or another, such that once enough resources had been gathered to rebuild the relay, the syndicate with the most contributions would determine the style of the new relay.

8.  Syndicate Mechanics

Firstly, most of the intel for the System War will come through the syndicates.  In particular, category 1 missions will be discoverable through syndicate missions and category 7 missions will be completely syndicate-based.  Syndicates will also form a motivation for players to care about the status of the relays.  With no functioning relays, no syndicate relay services are available, even remotely from the orbiter.  In addition, syndicates will offer rare resources for sale, based on which planets have functioning relays; the rare resource of a planet is available from syndicate shops if that planet has a functioning relay.  In addition there will be syndicate-based buffs linked to the number of functioning relays built by that syndicate – something like adding the syndicate proc to all weapons for members above a certain standing with that syndicate, with a value equal to the number of relays it “owns” (for instance, if Red Veil has 2 relays, all players with Red Veil Exalted status gain ‘Blight 2’ on all their weapons).