Stalker mode ideas

[Kontrollo]

Well, turns out all the time I put into researching things for these posts were not (yet?) worthy of a response. Here's the last part, anyway.

Fair warning: Personal bias ahead.

 

On 2019-02-11 at 11:18 PM, Kontrollo said:

You really have no idea who you've been talking to this whole time, right? But more on that in the next part.

To pick off where I stopped: This actually doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who was invested back then. Just as now, it was near impossible to have a normal discussion thread on GD, and if you tried to create threads in here that weren't strictly feedback, those got moved somewhere else, too^{[see here]}. Reach of the Conclave community was and continues to be extremely limited.

More on that below.

 

But first, I noticed I didn't address this 2nd paragraph directly, so let's do this quickly:

On 2019-02-10 at 8:53 AM, Urlan said:

Spoiler

1) In that thread you will see both myself and Stormdragon mostly making around the same kind of posts as here. At least we are consistent eh? 2) The real take-away however is the overall read from the players posts that remained after a significant but sadly necessary purging that occurred. It shows how the players reacted to the mode and the feeling of being 'forced' to run the tac alert conclave mini-events (They were shipped as tac alerts and gave Tac alert points to our emblem but that was changed mid-way to be more fair to players that just saw conclave activities and avoided them) Hey, got me an Oro Sculpture and provided and extra body for 3) conclave regulars like Nazrethim to kill with that Nikana ninja'ing of his. 4) For my clan mates and a group of allies (about 30-40 players at the time) this experience was devastating to their trying Conclave again, though we did run try a few more before 5) they started getting worried about being considered 'feeding'  and reported for banning which was becoming a thing as the 6) conclave population got so low, sorta swirling the drain numbers wise sadly. I hope that trip down memory lane was valuable for showing the perspective you were seeking.

 

1. Quick Steel -- I've seen them:
   • Your posts don't quite speak in your favour. See here, here and here. (I don't know who Lotus.Slayer aka. --NyxMaster-- is, btw.)
   • Stormdragon has two posts, and both sound reasonable to me:
     • the first one in response to Sannidor^{[don't know that name]} and Vance.Stubbs^[nope]
     • the other one to Caligran^{[no idea, either]}
       • (talks about different scoring from Snowday Showdown because of "peace rounds"?)
2. As is often the case. Other part I did address, I'd say.
3. Go have a look at the Reddit topic with Pythadragon's graphs below, you might've been unlucky.
4. Or do you mean to say the notoriously small Conclave community was somehow dominating that event?
5. Only people who were actively boosting/cheesing in public games had to worry about that.
6. We can talk about population if you want, because you know, I can come up with some actual facts.

 

Now back on track:

On 2019-02-10 at 8:53 AM, Urlan said:

Spoiler

5. That is an interesting perspective, that the majority of players not liking something reflecting influencing others to not play. ... The new conclave players asking for help on how to get into Conclave and what they could build up to; how it seems difficult to be competitive when conclave vets have conclave mods or experience in the mode and no one wants to be the new meat in the grinder. I would contend that the response to those questions, to those players, and how quickly and completely they were crushed upon testing the waters is why so players spun down particularly after the colorful response to players trying Conclave for the first time in the wake and running up to Quick Steel. If the mode had players working like the Raid School Bus, like players helping new players in Co-op and teaching the basics and gear; it could be more inclusive for the generally curious players who might seek the skins, conclave mods, or other cosmetic options conclave can offer.

 

They introduced a Conclave Players Helping Players subforum at some point. It was not quite what was asked but hey, it was a good something? And well, turns out people didn't actually want to learn more about how Conclave works, no one even bothered to post there. So the help we were willing to offer to the wider Warframe community wasn't actually in demand, at least not on the forums. Proof of that we were putting together a lot of information is in the link at the bottom of this post.

And I'm not gonna lie, that also made it easier for me to take that long break when I got tired of the game a few months later. Looks like Conclave PHP disappeared and got merged back into PHP at some point, but thanks again at least for trying @devs.

After all, things were finally in pretty good shape after long months of balancing and the introduction of dedicated servers at the end of October 2016 -- some hiccups notwithstanding.

All the information that was out there didn't stop people from making threads like this one, however.

Oh wait, dedicated servers in 2016? But this is still a point of contention even now:

Spoiler

 

And this is not a singular occurrence.

 

Meanwhile -- from early 2016 on -- the community gathered in the Warframe Conclave Discord and I spent quite a bit of time programming the now defunct ConclaveBot, with stats and information put together by a lot of helpful people (special thanks to Neah and Pythadragon). Some of us spent literally hundreds of hours on testing and maintaining these things:

Spoiler

 

Disclosure: I haven't actually left that server, but have never bothered to gain access to the channels that are now managed by a different bot, because I don't use Discord all that much anymore. Anyhow, here's the start of these days' welcome message:

Spoiler

Oh, what's that -- a Conclave School bus? 🤔

 

Again, those who actually wanted to get informed, we were trying to advertise that Discord in quite a few places. And after the servers got introduced it appeared in a lot MOTDs, too, of which there's undeniable proof if you care to have a look at the Dedicated Server Leaderboard:

Spoiler

 

Others (e.g. Phasedragon and NNKanell) were creating helpful videos on Youtube about movement and weapons. If people had wanted to get help, they could've had it. Again others made some cool videos and tried to promote it (Witchydragon, Bernad, for example. care to watch the "Warframe PVP - Unofficial Gameplay Trailer" perhaps?). Pythadragon, one of the top players, was extremely active all over the place. Special thanks as well to the people hosting the servers, some of them have also programmed tools and other cool stuff to manage them (I know because some of them are on the Discord server I initially created to test the bot).

 

Now if you want to get a bit of a more unfiltered view -- some stuff has tendency to disappear, like my comment in the latest GD Battle Royale thread -- of the general Warframe community's opinion, look no further than Reddit. Some examples:

• showing a simple clip: "Don't blink." Note upvote amount & rate and the enlightening discussion in the comments
• Movie by Subject525/Subjikt -- one of the few guys who specialise in Sword Alone and make it look easy: thread here.
  • upvote percentage and top upvoted comment are telling yet again
  • aside: hilarious when he even manages to slo-mo melee kill the guy in his Snow Globe at 3:14
• Quick Steel rant
  • still gets more upvotes/percentage than an entertaining Sword Alone fragmovie
• Regarding dedicated servers in particular, read this exchange (Pythadragon again)
  • or maybe just this one post
  • wait, what's that: Raid and Dojo dedicated servers?
• more Quick Steel data in this thread; this is the one mentioned above. direct imgur album link. (13 upvotes total, 65% upvoted, need one say more?)
• and here's a rant in favour of Conclave (no idea who OP is: u/HellsSapper - IGN: StalkerIsMyWaifu; 5 upvotes total, 53% upvoted)
• Pythadragon's summary of Conclave balance two years ago
• in a thread made literally by/about people cheesing the Snowday Showdown event, search for and read the posts made by Pythadragon: u/supertraveler (lines up with my own opinion)
• yep, looks like Triplinster sums up how it (still) is in 2018
  • I mean in this post of his

I'm going stop here but could go on for quite a while, you see.

 

And if you want to go explore Reddit yourself...

Spoiler

... if necessary, try to suspend your disbelief for a bit and imagine we were living in some evil twin dimension where everything is backwards. The game is called FARMWARE (it's an anagram), and mainly about PvP there. Then go and do a...

• Search for "Conclave" on the Warframe Sub-Reddit, you may find:
  • ~5k upvotes for a rug on the console
  • a post making fun of Lunaro, but where there's quite a bit of surprise that this exists
• Pytha was very active for a long time and tried to be helpful: u/supertraveler

 

Finally, here's a recent post by myself where I took the opportunity and went back and gathered some useful threads and links in one place. If anyone goes and actually clicks on one of these, you might even encounter a post by a mod that says they got moved to Conclave PHP back when. These are about:

• Conclave EHP & Mobility Reference
• Damage Types in PvP
• General Guide (Conclave - All you should know)
• Warframe Abilities in Conclave
• Conclave weapon stats
• Conclave on the Warframe Wiki
• ... plus some more

 

(Imgur album containing the images in this post, in case hotlinking doesn't work: https://imgur.com/a/1kzlWeu)

 

P.S. some random thoughts:

Spoiler

Ironically, the backlash that may have caused the devs to stop doing any more PvP based events (were there any others in the meantime?) is working against that part of the PvE community who would like to own those Conclave Syndicate skins, but hates playing regular Conclave/Lunaro. The events were a very easy source of standing gain, after all.

 

And hey, maybe they should "temporarily remove the Conclave modes pending rework" like they did with Trials. Maybe they've even thought about it?

But I guess then they'd have to hand out a special cosmetic item like the special Trials Sekhara, and I'm sure they're afraid the forum servers would spontaneously burst into flames after that.

 

You know what they call someone who has spent a lot of time in Warframe, and since the early days?

• PvE: a veteran
• PvP: at best: a tryhard. Often something a bit more -- let's say -- colourful; "being #*!% bucketed by aimbotting lagswitchers" was original, at least.

 

Edited February 13, 2019 by Kontrollo
lots of small additions

[Aramil999]

Conclave would be more popular with quality of life fixes and much better rewards even some resources and credits. Hardest mode in game has worst rewards, that is not fair.

[(PSN)SacredTenno_Zen]

How about adding missions specifically ment for Acolytes AND BEFORE WE AGREE TO GET THIS MODE. I want to remind everyone OBVIOUSLY there are more Stalkers than just the one. We got 5 other Acolytes right? Why not add them to the mix? RIGHT?! We also don't even know if Stalker is... The first Tenno of all. (Hayden Tenno) heck of a twist huh? Hayden as the operator. And how about The Acolytes side of their story? (Acolyte Specific Quests) Why not? That'll be easy for DE. Yeah they totally got this. :) (Crosses fingers in anticipation) o_O   <-- *Guy waiting patiently*

[nlas-slayerkane]

sort of a stalker survial mode / mega boss fight would be awesome xD

[IllogicalLogic420]

Isn't stalker mode where a player controls the stalker? Where does AI or difficulty come into play if its human controlled?