Going from intrinsic to extrinsic motivation in Warframe... Not sure it's the best thing in the long run...

[Steel_Rook]

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

They do similar with all content really. If you take initiative and go quickly it will most always be easier at a later date having wasted your time

The issue at hand isn't letting other people get what I have more easily than what I had to go through. Far as I'm concerned, let 'em. The issue is not respecting actions I've already done and asking me to repeat them. The net result is we end up afraid to DO anything in case it becomes a challenge next week and we have to repeat it. DO I slot all of my Ayatan Sculptures? On the one hand, I can use the Endo. On the other hand, what if we need to slot Sculptures next week and I got rid of mine today?

[Xzorn]

5 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

The issue at hand isn't letting other people get what I have more easily than what I had to go through. Far as I'm concerned, let 'em. The issue is not respecting actions I've already done and asking me to repeat them. The net result is we end up afraid to DO anything in case it becomes a challenge next week and we have to repeat it. DO I slot all of my Ayatan Sculptures? On the one hand, I can use the Endo. On the other hand, what if we need to slot Sculptures next week and I got rid of mine today?

 

It's a tangent comparison. The result is pretty much exactly the same.

Think of it as a comparison in development attitude. Your previous time was pointless; go do it again.

I've no doubt that the Orb Mothers will drop something else in the future outside those now trivial resources that will make players want to yet again go back. A new player's investment is considerably smaller by comparison. I finished PoE swearing to wait at least a week when Fortuna comes out before doing anything because of how much of my time was wasted but I looked at much of the rep and resources and it looked like they might have learned from those mistakes. While they did some. They did not others.

Now we have Nightwave asking us to go fish, where before Exploiter that might have been annoying but acceptable with 100 Synathid where as now I have 300 of their Ecosyth + the fish I had and it's a complete waste of time. Bordering on insulting. PoE is similar in that I fished with expendable bait for a while before they made it a recipe. Once it was a recipe I made sure to get all I'll need because I'd grown to absolutely hate the content partially due to DE's changes I mentioned but yet again; go fish.

They're two different examples of the same attitude towards a player's time and interests.Pro-active players especially. My resulting attitude towards Warframe itself is that I might as well just idle and not jump into fresh content or goals because it's bound to waste my effort in some manner.

[Teljaxx]

I am fairly certain that many of the people that love Nighwave are the ones that consistently get lucky enough to have most of the challenges line up with their normal goals. This means that Nightwave is basically still intrinsic motivation for them. They enjoy it, because they get to do what they enjoy anyway. Its great when you log in, and see that you can now get an extra reward along with whatever else you were planning on working towards.

But it would require a huge amount of luck for this to happen consistently, and for every player. So far, I have been quite unlucky, and basically only the extremely general challenges ever come close to matching my preexisting plans. So instead, my "motivation" is a list of chores that I have to get done first, before I can go do what I want. So Nightwave is nothing but extrinsic motivation for me. And it is not working.

I too have suggested before that we need to be able to choose our own personal challenges. Expecting a single permutation to satisfy every single one of the millions of people that play Warframe is absurd. More personalization is necessary.

My Proposal: Every week, DE creates a large list of challenges. There are easy challenges for 1,000, medium for 3,000, hard for 5,000, and elite for 10,000. Each player can choose up to ~45,000 standing worth of challenges from the list as their personal challenges for that week. This would allow players to choose challenges that match their own goals and abilities, instead of relying on pure luck. So it would be much more enjoyable for everyone, not just the lucky few. And hopefully, the extrinsic motivation would become intrinsic once again.

[Steel_Rook]

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

It's a tangent comparison. The result is pretty much exactly the same.

Think of it as a comparison in development attitude. Your previous time was pointless; go do it again.

The distinction I was trying to drive was between "You wasted your time, now do it again!" as you said, and "It's easier now, but you've done it already." The former requires a redo, the latter does not.

 

51 minutes ago, Teljaxx said:

am fairly certain that many of the people that love Nighwave are the ones that consistently get lucky enough to have most of the challenges line up with their normal goals. This means that Nightwave is basically still intrinsic motivation for them. They enjoy it, because they get to do what they enjoy anyway. Its great when you log in, and see that you can now get an extra reward along with whatever else you were planning on working towards.

I honestly don't see how that's possible. Nightwave covers such a wide spectrum of activities (by design, no less) that I don't see how anyone can end up enjoying all of it. The problem with trying to give something for everyone in a shared activity is you end up pushing everyone through everything they don't like.

[NezuHimeSama]

People who are new and fascinated just by the core gameplay of Warframe will naturally enjoy any excuse to play it, and to that end, a degree of extrinsic motivation is a good thing. It's that push you need to go and have fun with the game.

For people who played the game more, and have already done the things, it's going to wind up being a chore because you have other things you could be doing that Nightwave is preventing you from doing by virtue of it's existence.

 

This kind of thing isn't new. It's no different from many other competing online games. PSO2, for example, has TACOs weekly, daily orders, a new pile of "special events" every week, and an emergency quest schedule telling you when to log in and what to play. The end result is that people log in, do their daily chores, and then log out until the next maintenance period and the next set of weekly chores. It's impossible to find a game doing any of the content that isn't part of some campaign or related to some newly released content, and after the weekend hill, it's difficult to find a game doing anything.

The only people who play PSO2 now are addicts who don't want to miss out, and casuals who play a little with a friend once a month or whatever. Everything inbetween is just gone. Nightwave is taking Warframe in that direction, and that is a very bad thing.

[Teljaxx]

20 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

I honestly don't see how that's possible. Nightwave covers such a wide spectrum of activities (by design, no less) that I don't see how anyone can end up enjoying all of it. The problem with trying to give something for everyone in a shared activity is you end up pushing everyone through everything they don't like.

This is exactly what I was saying, and why I made the suggestion to allow people to choose their own challenges. It takes a crazy amount of luck to get a decent amount of challenges that actually fit your interests. So just how many people enjoy Nightwave because it is a legitimately good system? And how many simply enjoy it because of pure dumb luck?

Besides, the enjoyable part of Nightwave is supposed to be the challenges. So is anyone going to enjoy it if they don't enjoy the challenges they get? Its why I don't enjoy it. Almost all the challenges are either so easy they may as well not even exist, or so tedious and annoying that I never want to do them. I have still done most of them, but I have yet to get one that I would actually call fun.

Otherwise, the only reason I can think of that people would still like Nightwave, even without enjoying the challenges, is simple greed. They like the rewards enough that they put up with unenjoyable challenges long enough to get them. For them, the extrinsic motivation is plenty.

[NezuHimeSama]

1 minute ago, Teljaxx said:

This is exactly what I was saying, and why I made the suggestion to allow people to choose their own challenges. It takes a crazy amount of luck to get a decent amount of challenges that actually fit your interests. So just how many people enjoy Nightwave because it is a legitimately good system? And how many simply enjoy it because of pure dumb luck?

Besides, the enjoyable part of Nightwave is supposed to be the challenges. So is anyone going to enjoy it if they don't enjoy the challenges they get? Its why I don't enjoy it. Almost all the challenges are either so easy they may as well not even exist, or so tedious and annoying that I never want to do them. I have still done most of them, but I have yet to get one that I would actually call fun.

Otherwise, the only reason I can think of that people would still like Nightwave, even without enjoying the challenges, is simple greed. They like the rewards enough that they put up with unenjoyable challenges long enough to get them. For them, the extrinsic motivation is plenty.

Like, having a series of challenges each week and you only get to and therefore have to do one?

Would probably help, especially if you can stack, say, 3 weeks worth into one day.

[Steel_Rook]

13 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

Like, having a series of challenges each week and you only get to and therefore have to do one?

Would probably help, especially if you can stack, say, 3 weeks worth into one day. 

Maybe not "just one," but I'd argue half to maybe even a quarter would be fine. You could offer 80K, even 120K's worth of challenges, but cap people to 45K per week. And before we get into how Standing caps are evil - Nightwave is already capped to 43K Standing per week. All of the Dailies, Weeklies and Elite Weeklies available in a week come up to 43 000 Nightwave Standing per week, with no option to earn more. Doubling or even tripling the number of challenges available while retaining the same cap would allow a LOT more choice without also allowing for much faster progression. In short:

 

19 minutes ago, Teljaxx said:

This is exactly what I was saying, and why I made the suggestion to allow people to choose their own challenges.

This. Give us the choice to stick to at least MOSTLY the stuff we already like.

[NezuHimeSama]

Standing caps are evil, and they're even more evil when you don't have any choice in how you do them. Current nightwave is a lot like if you only got syndicate rep from syndicate missions and syndicate medallions.

I still think it would be better, though, if you could just do any of the challenges at any time during the entire season, or if seasons didn't just expire, and you could go back to old seasons to get stuff you missed. Nightwave is really a particular combination of otherwise small problems that wind up creating a massive compound problem.

[Teljaxx]

8 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Maybe not "just one," but I'd argue half to maybe even a quarter would be fine. You could offer 80K, even 120K's worth of challenges, but cap people to 45K per week. And before we get into how Standing caps are evil - Nightwave is already capped to 43K Standing per week. All of the Dailies, Weeklies and Elite Weeklies available in a week come up to 43 000 Nightwave Standing per week, with no option to earn more. Doubling or even tripling the number of challenges available while retaining the same cap would allow a LOT more choice without also allowing for much faster progression.

This is why I was suggesting a 45,000 standing limit for choosing weekly challenges. Its a nice round number, and it would still take about 6.5 weeks to get to rank 30, as it is now. Plus a little extra leeway, which isn't a bad thing.

Though, I also think there should be some actually useful method of gaining extra standing beyond the weekly cap. Like if capturing fugitives actually gave a decent amount, like 100~150 each, and the Wolf himself gave 1,000 or so.

36 minutes ago, NezuHimeSama said:

This kind of thing isn't new. It's no different from many other competing online games. PSO2, for example, has TACOs weekly, daily orders, a new pile of "special events" every week, and an emergency quest schedule telling you when to log in and what to play. The end result is that people log in, do their daily chores, and then log out until the next maintenance period and the next set of weekly chores. It's impossible to find a game doing any of the content that isn't part of some campaign or related to some newly released content, and after the weekend hill, it's difficult to find a game doing anything.

The only people who play PSO2 now are addicts who don't want to miss out, and casuals who play a little with a friend once a month or whatever. Everything inbetween is just gone. Nightwave is taking Warframe in that direction, and that is a very bad thing.

Unfortunately, you're right. And that is why I am so worried about Nightwave.

Setting up a system where the most addicted players will always keep logging in for their dailies/weeklies is great for the developer's bottom line. But if the company actually cares about its game, and more specifically, having actual fans, not just customers, then this is a fate they should want to avoid. Its basically the equivalent of putting the game on life support, even though its glory days are clearly gone and never coming back. At that point, its usually better to just move on.

 

Also, this is another thing I don't like about Nightwave: Once you do all your weekly challenges, you're done. Even if you want to keep going, you can't. You have to wait until next Sunday to get another set. So, even if you actually do enjoy the challenges, they still offer very little in the way of entertainment. And no, the dailies are not enough to be entertaining in between.

So, the system punishes casual players for not playing enough. Yet it also punishes dedicated players for playing too much. Once again, its the complete lack of control that ruins it all. You play how DE wants you to, or else.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

Alot of cool discussion going on, hope de takes a peek and see that there's pretty easy ways to tweak the system to make it feel rewarding without forcing you to do goals you don't need.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

After finally reaching Nightwave Rank 30, it feels so good no longer have to worry about doing these menial tasks everyweek, which imho hints that the system isn't sustainable in the long run if it doesn't change.

Now that i'm finally back to doing the stuff I enjoy, It makes me dread season 2. Wish season 1 would go on for months just so I don't get back into the whole routine of spending half the week doing stuff like cetus bounties and mining gems every week to appease the DE gods.

[Netheren]

After years of gaming in MMOs I found myself tiring of the weekly checklist that EVERY game has. Weeklies in wow, weeklies in gw2, weekly reset in ff14.

 

I quit all those games last year and found a refreshing game that let me play my way, without a weekly reset of chores that come with rewards that go away each week. Yes I understand that's a way to reward players for playing the game but the psychological tricks that does to gamers I told myself I was done with.

 

 Then I found warframe. Always wondered what the hype was and why so many people on steam were playing it. And after a few days I understood, yes it was grindy but it was free. Do it on your own time. No time limited weekly checklists. Yes there were alerts, but they were small bite sized, and nonstop populating. It felt like something that was a bonus, not mandatory.

 

Then after a few months of playing and enjoying that I could pop on whenever worked for me, play at my own pace and work towards my own goals, they introduced the weekly checklist I quit other games over.

 

Wonderful. Years this game did fine without it, and I had found my refuge, and they put in the same treadmill psychological pusher that other games use. I groaned and day 1 thought to myself this is the end for me.

 

 Then I saw the umbra forma and armor, and the carrot got me.

Now that I'm done with this season though I am questioning why I am again playing a game with a weekly time limited checklist. Not sure I will be for long.

[(NSW)Henalie]

I too think that the weekly checklist is bad for the game.

It's been terrible for me and my partner, because we get a few hours a day to play together, and we spend ALL of that time chasing the NW carrot, we get a couple of days at the end of the week where we can pursue our own goals, but by and large by that point we've forgotten what our own goals even are. We've stopped gunning for long term goals in favour of hitting NW's short term system. I've stopped helping out random people when I play on my own because I don't want to leave my partner behind and hit goals without them.

If there was a big list that had everything and we could pick and choose how to make our 45k weekly standing cap, we'd have a much better time of it, better still if the rewards weren't this pseudo battle-pass crap that goes away at the end of the season because that makes the game feel like a job; makes NW feel mandatory. I came here to play, not to work. I'm not against having to work within the game to complete a challenge, that's the game, but having to do arbitrary tasks every week is meta-level work that goes against what hooked me in the first place and drew my partner into the game. For my first few months I completely ignored PoE because I didn't find it fun, and I didn't feel excluded for putting it off until later. NW has exclusivity built in, and getting excluded pushes people out, it doesn't bring them in.

NW's design is inherently predatory, preying on FOMO, which only lasts as long as player's patience and addiction. Eventually the fear turns into not caring that you're missing out, because you've moved onto the next game... and that's the true 'game over' for games of this generation.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

Agree. My time with Destiny 2 was cut short because the game keeps asking you to do the same menial tasks week after week and they keep increasing the leveling cap to force you to grind the same old crap instead of producing new, meaningful content. Tried getting into magic arena , same thing, only thing there is to do is doing menial weekly tasks to unlock gold which allows you to play the cool games and buy packs to build your decks ... Diablo 3 has annoying seasons forcing you to start over every time for a couple exclusive items and cosmetics, same with Path of Exile.  Then there's all the battle pass games which I simply avoid because I don't need another perpetual hamster wheel in my life to turn.

Nowadays, every game tries to be a "live service" game with menial tasks and daily chore lists.. But gamers can only take so much before they get sick of such a model... And you can only realistically "handle" so many of these games before burning out. I tried running Warframe and Destiny 2 simultaneously for a while, and it was like having two full-time jobs. In the end it's not sustainable. I know nightwave is an "awnser" to content drought, but if the system doesn't allow users to choose their tasks, it becomes a chore and pushes people to quit.

Edited April 22, 2019 by (PS4)Stealth_Cobra