Nightwave concept is shafting new and casual players

[Newplayer317]

Dear DE,

I've just started playing the game a few weeks ago and can't help but notice that the new alarm system is overly hard on newer players in several ways; see below. And yes, this is a secondary account as I intend to provide frank and honest feedback without being haunted by the forum warriors afterwards.

So, from a relatively new (MR8) player's perspective:

1) Starmap/quest/general content access is MR-gated. Fact. The occasional heat dagger, pangolin, dark, jaw or plasma sword blueprints from the old alerts all helped towards advancing in MR, which for new players was obviously a good thing. Free stuff! Also those weapons contributed to the fun for a newbie - regardless of weapon effectivity, it was nice to see their animations and handling (the pre-Europa content is thankfully forgiving) and advancing in MR was a good (and needed) side effect. For someone new, these things were all fresh and had a good time/reward ratio - spend a little time in an alert, often solo-shooting for 15 mins with that MK1-Paris, and get a new shiny. Happy new player! Alas, no more.

1b) Now to remedy the loss of that part, people could in theory just join a clan earlier to have access to researched weapons, however in my region, most recruitment messages have a minimum MR5 - you simply wouldn't get enrolled before. It seems clans want to see a certain degree of dedication before enlisting someone, which I guess is fair enough. However, without the alert weapons, that MR5 has become harder to reach, which means relatively more players will be lost before even making it to the clan stage. Even if clans relaxed their MR requirements over time (not likely), most weapons in the dojo lab have a relatively higher material cost.

2) All Nightwave offerings drawing from the same resource pool (currently wolf cred) is excessively punishing for new players. Newbies have a high need for Orokin reactors/catalysts. However, they'll also need the occasional mod (auras), stuff to rank up MR with and later on Nitain. Veterans need NONE of those and thus don't care much about this aspect - they're nitained out, they're geared and experienced enough to make plat ingame for market potatoes and they've gotten all the mods long ago. I've read some quite disrespectful comments towards new players since the debating about Nightwave started. It's a tad sad, as new players are the lifeblood of every multiplayer game. But I digress. For an inexperienced newbie, the potato supply on this side of Gifts of the Lotus has simply run dry. I'd have to grind 150 wolf cred just to get a pair of reactor/catalyst which equals a whopping 120.000 Wolf standing! For a newbie, that's mountainously insanely much. Probably two weeks or more - newbies can't even do the 5k sortie or eidolon tasks due to gating mechanisms. Plus, that amount of grind is simply off-putting. Moving potatoes so much out of noob reach is frankly damaging to Warframes F2P reputation.

3) The new system is hard on casual people, too. The true rewards like that umbral forma (whose usefulness I cannot even assess on account of being new) are at the very end, but I have to spend time at work and with my family. That's a fixed fact and not negotiable. I'd rather have a linear time-based share of random rewards like under the old system (it's fair as it rewards screen time in a straight time for opportunity fashion) than have a guaranteed nothing due to not being able to put in the hours. I simply cannot grind that much for a set two-month period. And then (not) do it again for the next two months. Do you really want to punish people for having jobs by systematically denying them the end-loaded, "exclusive" goodies? Forever? Create an artificial gap in gearedness in your playerbase?

4) The sense of freedom gets lost. With each old fashioned alert, I had a choice, and choice feels good. If I decide under the new system to try and grind something out over 6-8 weeks, I'll be forced to do those tasks that are technically available to me but you know what? I don't like all aspects of this game equally. Forcing me to do these by way of carrot lowers my average fun per time. It'd feel like a chore. Players dislike 'Do or lose out' scenarios, it wears them out. And having to do "only" 65% to reach the end is also misleading if the highest-end activities like friend-sortie & eidolon hunt are way overproportionally rewarded. I technically cannot do these! I've done the math and without those I will not be able to make it by the end of the event. It's effectively hard-locking newer players out, and "new" stretches prob'ly at least to MR 10.

5) The new alert system is atmospherically well-implemented, but, sadly, it's geared to reward only established veterans for what they're doing anyway. Everybody else loses: The new player gets way less than before as he is in no position to even participate sufficiently; the low-on-time player gets content denied, and you are factually trying to milk both of those groups harder than before.  I'm quite certain you currently get plenty of new players/fresh income due to Anthem comparisons in current media coverage (I'm one of them), but the current Nightwave design catastrophe will lose you an unnecessary share of them. You're prominently shoving a message in their faces stating "This content is not for you". Working as intended?

The whole format is wrong and won't please anyone. Some of vets will complain they're done two weeks early, many players, for a multitude of reasons, on the other side won't manage to advance far enough before the event times out (those will be extra frustrated as they'll feel their time investment will have been lost as they didn't get the umbral forma/current carrot) and some, regardless of outcome, will be unhappy as they felt forced to do game activities they dislike, losing the fun feeling.

If at least it had been an additional system, leaving the old alerts alone. And why remove the extra affinity from mission challenges (get 10 headshots etc.) on top? Why? Did any good come from that?

Regarding the Nightwave format, I'm just not sure what your expectations are at this point. If it's just about raising sales I wouldn't even mind, but there's genuine fun and player retention at stake here. Nightwave will be stirring up your community who is feeling the net loss and either cannot or doesn't want to play to the pace/degree needed to actually reap the rewards in time. You're effectively asking your playerbase to either play at 4000 rpm+ to stay on top of each the Nightwaves, get frustrated instead or simply not play. Parts of your playerbase /will/ chose the latter. The Nightwave mis-design is forcing a part of them out of your game.

Please consider. Thanks.
 

 

Edited February 28, 2019 by Newplayer317
Typo

[TARINunit9]

4 minutes ago, Newplayer317 said:

You're prominently shoving a message in their faces stating "This content is not for you". Working as intended?

Potentially yes.

For a new player, there are sooooooooo many milestones to start working on. Solar rails, quests, relays, mastery rank, clan research, open worlds, eventually sorties and syndicates and arbitrations, all while building warframes, archwings, and z-kid gear. Expecting a player to rush to complete all of them is frankly unhealthy. Thus, I think DE have just created a grindwall and told players "you can get to it when you get to it"

I think DE have created this system simply not caring that it can be several months before a new player can complete so much as half of it. I'm reminded of another game Summoners War. SW has this one dungeon called Trial of Ascension. There are 100 floors and the top levels are like lvl65. But the bottom floors are lvl20, and there is nothing stopping a new player from wandering in and doing the easy levels. And there are cool rewards every 10 floors. Thus a new player isn't expected to complete floor 100 as fast as possible, they can just come in every few days or weeks and see what's the highest floor they can clear

I think Nightwatch is being made with a similar mindset. I don't think it's a mistake that the Umbra Forma is a Tier 29 reward that new players literally can't get. After all, they wouldn't be able to use it either. "You're too new to get those Umbra Forma? You can work your way up to it next season, for now enjoy this pack of five regular Forma, they're still very useful at your level"

[FlusteredFerret]

I'm a casual player and I don't feel at all shafted.

These events are designed to entice people to play more...as much as they can, or are willing to, in order to earn rare or exclusive rewards. Those with more time to play obviously have an advantage, but there's nothing you can do about that, so why worry?

 

Personally I've played in, or watched others, do similar events in other games and I'm well past the point of being bothered. I'll do what I can and let others tear their hair out over missing out.

 

If you can't (or don't want to) put in the effort - you don't get the rewards. Simple as that. 

Edited February 28, 2019 by FlusteredFerret

[Sasha-]

Next time I buy some plat I'm going to gift some low MR players a couple potatoes/slots/forma. :3

❤️

[Rawbeard]

I am sorry, but apparantly Warframe is not the game for people who get shafted by this system. and since the systems caters to people who say that kind of crap, I have to assume it is DE'S intent to move away from expanding the player base and into squeezing whales with mental assault. I play chinese mobile f2p games that have less grindy events with time limited rewards, so I am really, really worried what influence DE's chinese owners have on this game's future.

[(XBOX)Deathjt1218]

I just don't like the Nitain extract change. Other than that i'm fine.

[TARINunit9]

Just now, Rawbeard said:

I am sorry, but apparantly Warframe is not the game for people who get shafted by this system. and since the systems caters to people who say that kind of crap, I have to assume it is DE'S intent to move away from expanding the player base and into squeezing whales with mental assault. I play chinese mobile f2p games that have less grindy events with time limited rewards, so I am really, really worried what influence DE's chinese owners have on this game's future.

Does Leyou even still own DE?

[Rawbeard]

1 minute ago, TARINunit9 said:

Does Leyou even still own DE?

seems like DE is a subsidiary still, so... yeah. It saddens me to see how DE switched from making content for their players to content that shareholders would be excited about when they sold themselfs. and the way the abandon "old" stuff like PoE the moment they announce the next "hype" like Fortuna is really not helping that impression

[Sasha-]

Aaaaand the thread goes into Doom and Gloom and how Warframe's gonna die and everything is terribad. >_> ~

 

This is why I don't come on the forums XD Having too much fun in game 😛

 

Laters❤️

[Zebiko]

I wish we could pick and choose what we want because not everyone will be able to do all of them or find doing some them even fun, so they won't even want to do them.

I'm concerned how much is needed each week at minimum to at least get the umbra forma because I cannot do two of the 5k challenges and my simsam scanner quests are bugged. He gives me a new scan target even though I already had one. When I accept the new scan target, the missions spawn the old target. 

I hope missing out on 10k or more points would be okay but I fear it will not be enough. 

I still can't believe they turned the alerts system into a bigger grind. In reality all they had to do was extend the up time availability of the alerts, like the 24 hour gifts of the lotus ones. That way people can login and do the mission when they have free time in that day. 

[mikakor]

one evening of farming : done.

jeez, and you call this grind? go make the Hema. THIS IS GRIND.

nightwave grind is a calm and relaxed grind that you can make in one evening. in total game time, around 8 hours and i'm done doing all the challenges we have yet. so clearly, the one whinning about grind here are simply not the kind of player that should play the game. if you find this grindy, what are you even doing on Warframe to begin with?

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

I love how people are posting these big feedback threads in general discussion where DE doesn’t look.

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

The OP hit the nail on the head. The Nightwave tiers are fantastic but they place way too much emphasis on elite weekly challenges instead of on daily challenges, which is ironic considering they replaced random alerts. We need more daily challenges and fewer elite weekey challenges overall.

Additionally, the wolf credits are gated behind Nightwave tiers which goes against earning alt helms, nitain extract, oxium, auras from completing a single star chart mission. Sure, you allow players more flexibility with their time but it is akin to having your boss let you make your own schedule and then lowering your pay by 33-50%. You just have to work more to earn what you do before, except now you don't have to work on the weekend. Congrats?

So overall the Nightwave changes are a mixed bag. The tier rewards are great and give the community something to works towards but they are catered to veteran players which is certainly bad. The wolf credit store gates credits behind Nightwave tiers which would be fine if they were just a bonus, but as the only way to earn wolf credits it is a horrible way to implement them as it prevents players from crafting items that require nitain extract for weeks at a time (not counting crafting time).

Sadly the system challenges need an overhaul and we need way more dailies and less elite weekly challenges. And we need an immediate way to earn wolf credits, along with a smaller bundle or individual nitain extract purchase options.

[S074]

OP I have to agree completely.

I don't have the time and the willpower to constantly focus on task I have no interest in repeating ad nauseam. I like to play warframe, hop in, do something I enjoy, hop on an alert that gives me something I want/need.

Now I can't. If I want to complete the content I am forced to do something I may not enjoy (scanning, eidolon hunting...) to hope I'll have enough points to reach the new rewards.

I remember previous game events where you could focus on them a bit and get the reward you wanted in a few days and toy with it.

Now we lost the alert system and received a very long term event filled with repetition, not much lore and unrelated activities and a lot of mandatory steps to get the only item you want.

DE, I don't have time to play warframe this much. I really, really don't.

I will try to see how long I can last and see if I'll be able to reach the armor reward, but I fear I will be really fed up by that time an I won't be on board for season 2 at all.

It seems warframe is trying its best to make me quit since POE came out.

The time required to achieve something is becoming absurd, and now there is the concrete risk of being unable to get a reward for all the time you have to invest...

Edited February 28, 2019 by S074

[Ambivadox]

I'm a new player as well.  Hit MR7 recently.  The only thing I don't like about the new system is there aren't enough dailies.  It's all weekly or ellite/beyond my capabilities.  I've yet to find a clan and mostly play solo (or duo with a liability) so the elites won't happen.  Had the dailies, and quite a bit of credit towards a couple weeklies, done in one run.  3x the daily count and I'd be happy with the whole setup.

I always missed the alerts.  Want an Aura?  Too bad.  Want that?  it ends in 22 minutes and you're at work for another 30.  Want this?  Too bad you had to sleep this week, better luck next time.

1 hour ago, Newplayer317 said:

The whole format is wrong and won't please anyone.

Long story short:  ^^ is false.  I'm quite pleased.

[peterc3]

1 hour ago, Rawbeard said:

I am sorry, but apparantly Warframe is not the game for people who get shafted by this system. and since the systems caters to people who say that kind of crap, I have to assume it is DE'S intent to move away from expanding the player base and into squeezing whales with mental assault. I play chinese mobile f2p games that have less grindy events with time limited rewards, so I am really, really worried what influence DE's chinese owners have on this game's future.

Mark off Chinese overlords on your bingo cards everyone.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

It also incentivizes consistency and long-term dedication.

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Silverback73 said:

It also incentivizes consistency and long-term dedication.

Because login rewards didn't already? Maybe I missed something but 800 logins (not counting evergreen rewards) is a lot of dedication.

[Genitive]

54 minutes ago, Ambivadox said:

I'm a new player as well.  Hit MR7 recently.  The only thing I don't like about the new system is there aren't enough dailies.  It's all weekly or ellite/beyond my capabilities.  I've yet to find a clan and mostly play solo (or duo with a liability) so the elites won't happen.  Had the dailies, and quite a bit of credit towards a couple weeklies, done in one run.  3x the daily count and I'd be happy with the whole setup.

I always missed the alerts.  Want an Aura?  Too bad.  Want that?  it ends in 22 minutes and you're at work for another 30.  Want this?  Too bad you had to sleep this week, better luck next time.

Long story short:  ^^ is false.  I'm quite pleased.

Welcome to the forums, then. You will learn that people here like to generalise and blow things out of proportion.

[numanoid]

While engaging, I dont think an episode format should replace random alerts. Maybe the "seasons" will return later similar to the other events, but I already dread every mail from the lotus explaining about the ghouls, if you catch my drift.

Additionaly, the limited-time-to-get-rewards thing is reminding me very much of mobile games (and apps like facebook) constantly poking you and giving you something every time you come in. I do not like this implication at all.

Edited February 28, 2019 by numanoid

[trst]

Seems that expecting players to put in up to three hours of play time once every two to three days is too much of a grind for some.

[Soulden]

Hard for DE to take Forums seriously when 2k players are dooming them, while 200k are actually playing it.

Yes, I was being shy about the later numbers, I haven't logged in to make that 200k turn into millions....

Edited February 28, 2019 by Souldend78

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

27 minutes ago, Souldend78 said:

Hard for DE to take Forums seriously when 2k players are dooming them, while 200k are actually playing it.

Yes, I was being shy about the later numbers, I haven't logged in to make that 200k turn into millions....

You really need to learn what a strawman is because you think you made a good point when in reality playing Warframe has nothing to do with supporting the Nightwave changes.

[(PSN)wintersfrozen]

3 hours ago, mikakor said:

one evening of farming : done.

jeez, and you call this grind? go make the Hema. THIS IS GRIND.

nightwave grind is a calm and relaxed grind that you can make in one evening. in total game time, around 8 hours and i'm done doing all the challenges we have yet. so clearly, the one whinning about grind here are simply not the kind of player that should play the game. if you find this grindy, what are you even doing on Warframe to begin with?

Yes lets complain about the Hema then brag about how we dedicated 1/3rd of the day to the grind for standing. That will teach everyone.

[GrimAtrament]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Hiero_Glyph said:

Because login rewards didn't already? Maybe I missed something but 800 logins (not counting evergreen rewards) is a lot of dedication.

no i could just login and log off in like 2 seconds. that's not playing the game. oh god how dareDE have incentive for you to actually play there game GASP

also as some one with a job and sleeps. this is much better then timed alert rng cancer.

also i finished basicly all the weekly missions and daily ones in a single day didn't even take all day.

SO MUCH HARD WORK/ sarcasm.

4 hours ago, Newplayer317 said:

 

The whole format is wrong and won't please anyone.
 

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF NOT FOR OTHERS!!!

3 hours ago, mikakor said:

one evening of farming : done.

jeez, and you call this grind? go make the Hema. THIS IS GRIND.

nightwave grind is a calm and relaxed grind that you can make in one evening. in total game time, around 8 hours and i'm done doing all the challenges we have yet. so clearly, the one whinning about grind here are simply not the kind of player that should play the game. if you find this grindy, what are you even doing on Warframe to begin with?

Ikr so many people complaining about grind forggeting about some actual GRINDs in warframe.

lets talk about the resource sink that is Vauban prime

 

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by hazerddex