Nightwave + alerts removal feedback

[Westeller]

Me and a friend duo'd the hour long kuva survival. We failed once due to a catalyst dropping almost right on top of a capsule -- trying to pick it up triggered the capsule instead. That kinda sucked. But we had no trouble on the second run and I enjoyed it. Personally, I've always liked endurance runs more than hopping in and out of missions over and over again. I enjoyed the kuva survival run much, much more than completing xx invasions, and I'd be disappointed to see more of that and fewer endurance runs.

I think if anything needs to change at all, it's only that the optional nature of each challenge should be emphasized. That means not needing to do basically everything every week to meet reward goals. If it was really a choice between getting that umbra forma a bit earlier or still getting it while avoiding the mission types you don't like, I think there'd be far less complaints. (Not no complaints, mind you, because someone is always going to complain).

Edited March 6, 2019 by Westeller

[Dioxety]

I liked the 60 min challenge.  Unfortunately gonna be another thing that gets removed because of Crying. 

 

 

[Andvarja]

6 hours ago, dpencil said:

@Andvarja I appreciate your perspective. I certainly was not trying to insinuste that constructive criticism was unwarranted. I gave my own feedback and suggestions a few pages before. 

The toxicity I am referring to is people calling Nightwave garbage, calling for Steve to be fired, and saying they are done with Warframe because of it. This is all massive overreaction and immense negativity for a system that has many very positive features. I played Elder Scrolls Online consistently for years and was very active on their forums. Those devs got raked over the coals a lot, and in many cases they deserved it. Coming to Warframe, I saw a community that stood behind the dev team and recognized their dedication and care for this game and this community. It's just been disappointing to see similar behavior showing up here.

I'm sure there are people being rude to those who voice concerns about this or that aspect of the system as well, and that's also not good. We should all strive to be level-headed, civil, and thoughtful in our discussions. 

You know what, I'm on board with this. I absolutely agree with you on all of this, and I seem to have interpreted your original statement too broadly and perhaps a bit defensively - I apologize for that. We like a lot about the system, see the potential in it, have our own thoughts on how it can be improved, and want to see constructive discussion on it without insults thrown at either side or the devs, and that's great.  And I'm still so glad that DE made this thread and asked us for this.

But yeah, thank you for this post. 🙂

Oh, I wanted to mention something I rather liked this week. I did my very first floof captures this week!  A little wonkiness with multiplayer when my brother showed me how it worked (I've posted a little about this in Fortuna feedback), but it was neat to go out and do something I always sort of planned to go out and do eventually, but which I hadn't gotten around to and which was reasonably accessible. I see why some want its requirement reduced a bit, especially if they've already done a ton of that. But I did enjoy that.

I was content skipping the Hydrolyst last week because I just don't feel ready and didn't want a carry, and was okay with that. But I've also been actively working to get ready for it, so it doesn't feel so far off to me as it might to someone who is very new.

I posted earlier that I wasn't necessarily on board with having something like a weekly cap and then having more and more varied acts available as options to reach that cap, but seeing others' input on that in this thread has actually changed my mind on that. That sort of thing wouldn't perfect - but it doesn't need to be to be a valid way to improve and help alleviate several issues. It seems a reasonably viable solution, not only to the social requirement (I'd have less objection to it staying in such a system) but to issues with addressing the needs of players both experienced and new as well. And though I'm strongly PvE-oriented, myself, it could even allow for conclave players to be represented, to get a chunk of their rep through one of their favorite activities as well. More variety, more agency in how we attain the required standing over the event in general would be helpful.

I'm glad this thread has been a thing.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Andvarja

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

My biggest issues:

A - System Could use more daily missions. Most vets end up doing all weekly challenges on day on or two of the week, then it's just doing a single, often booring kill 150 dudes with x dmg daily for 1000 pts after that.

B - Many bounties are too long and kinda tedious... Doing 10 perfect captures, 10 syndicate missions, 10 invasions, all of these could be halved or more and it would make it less repetitive and grindy. Likewise make shorter survival challenges that start at a high lvl. Think people would prefer doing shorter tasks with more frequent rewards.

3 - Most challenges are grind and not actual challenges. Killing 150 dudes or 30 eximus isn't hard, just time consuming. I would rather get stuff like getting 40 headshots and other things that you can do in any mission type you enjoy... Think riven challenges... The non tedious ones.

4 - Still don't think wolf creds should be part of nightwave. Nightwave should be it's own system , while wolf creds should be given in alerts and in other endgame activities... Then you buy what you want with the wolf credits. Would remove the frustration of missing a specific alert. Having no alerts makes the game feel kinda dead imho, plus it makes it really hard for newcomers to catch up. Removing wolf credits would also allow more cool rewards per nightwave season (eximus, potato, maybe another Umbra forma, riven slots, etc).

5 - I think putting all the cool rewards at the very end in the nightwave reward table kinda forces users to no-life the game. People that only play WF sporadically will never reach rank 30 and will mostly only always get the kinda meh rewards from the first few tiers. Sure getting emblems, noggle , niche mods and the like does give you short term goals, but what we all want is the exclusive armor set and forma, which could probably come at rank 15 and be less grindy. Heck, just put one Umbra forma at 15 and one at 30.

Edited March 6, 2019 by (PS4)Stealth_Cobra

[Umgak]

My biggest issue with Nightwave as-is is the scarcity of Wolf Creds. I feel like having an occasional drop from rankups and nothing else simply isn't enough; it makes buying anything from the Creds store feel like a waste since I can only afford to buy a couple items per week. We definitely need a consistent method of acquiring Creds. However, such a consistent method would obviously result in it being too easy to acquire items like Nitain, potatoes, or certain Mods. If a consistent method is introduced, a limit would likely need to be placed on Nightwave purchases per-week to prevent players from simply running whatever method that is for an entire week and ending up with more potatoes than they'll ever need. Obviously this would need to be thought over more, but I thought I'd throw in my $0.02.

 

All of that said, however, I do think Nightwave is a step in the right direction, especially for players who aren't able to play the game consistently.

[(NSW)EDarkness]

I've been fairly vocal about not liking the Nightwave system as a replacement for Alerts.  It's not a bad system, but as a replacement for Alerts it's terrible.  The advantage of Alerts was that when you saw something interesting, you could do it quickly and move on with your day.  It was simple and easy to understand for new players.  It also seemed like the world of Warframe always had something going on.  Before the Nightwave system, I was log in, check to see what Alerts were going on and do them to get me motivated to do something else in the game.  Now, I log in and just sit there trying to figure out what I should do.  Looking at the challenges in the Nightwave system just fills me with a bit of dread, because some of them are challenges I have no interest in doing and when a game forces you to do stuff you don't want to do, I consider that bad game design.

That said, there's nothing wrong with having a system like Nightwave for those who want to delve into the lore and want some crazy challenges.  The rewards should be primarily cosmetic and the challenges shouldn't bust people's chops too much...yet still be something folks would have fun doing.

There are a couple of issues that really need to be addressed.  The first being that it's difficult for folks to actually get Wolf coin.  It should be something you get from every tier.  If this content wasn't meant to gate people, then why is it so hard to actually get the currency?  With old Alerts, I could have gotten all of those helmets without much trouble.  They show up all the time and I can do one run and get them.  With the new system the amount of Wolf coin needed is huge.  Especially if you wanted to get the things we could get easily with the old system.  If you're not going to bring back Alerts, then you need to adjust the cost of getting things accordingly.  The same amount of effort needed to get those things with the old system should still apply here if the goal is actually to let people get the items they missed because they had to work, or were traveling, or something like that.

Second, some of these challenges are just not beginner (or even mid tier player) friendly.  A new player isn't getting anywhere close to the top of the chart.  The amount of work/time needed to even get halfway is gonna be severe.  My wife hasn't been doing anything with this system and at the rate she's going she'll maybe hit 6 or so.  The sheer number of tasks needed to get anywhere just makes her not want to participate at all.  She's fairly casual and it's obvious this system was not made with folks like her in mind.  I was under the impression that this was supposed to be something fun with some lore to mess around with and get some cool stuff.  What we have now isn't that.  Having to do 60 minute survivals with no air is crazy talk for a lot of folks.  Sure, some of the vets don't see this as a real problem, but put yourself in the shoes of someone who isn't that experienced, doesn't have great mods, doesn't have many warframes, and in general isn't prepared to do some of this stuff.  I think watching the Nintendo Switch stream this morning and seeing them trying to get somewhere in this system with fresh players really drives home the point that it's not really made for new players at all.

I'd like to propose a new system that would actually be a replacement for Alerts.  The issue with Alerts as they were was that if you were not in the game you had to log in an inopportune times.  Like a catalyst shows up, but you're at work and will miss it, unless you can log into the game at work and do the mission real quick.  I get this being a problem.  The system really was made for people with a lot more time on their hands and a constant access to the game.  Those with a life would miss out.

What I'm proposing is to keep Alerts as they were.  However, everything that was in the Alert system that day will be added to a vendor/list that would be available the next day.  To purchase these items, you need coins, but the coins are gotten by running missions.  Any mission would count.  Do a mission, get a coin.  I think most items should cost two coins.  So two missions will net an item.  The reason for this is because the advantage of doing Alerts when they appear is that you get the item instantly, but buying the item from the vendor should have just a little extra cost, because you're able to choose from the list.  This means you can miss an alert over the course of a day, but the next day you can just buy the item you missed from the previous day.  This solves the problem of missing out on items because you had to work or weren't in the game at the time the item popped up.  Since players are running missions anyway for either Alerts or other things, then they're always stocking up coins that they can use to buy the things they want from the list without having to grind things out.  There could be a cap on how many coins you could have at any given time and the list itself would rotate daily, but I think this would work great for those who don't want to be rushing into the game to make that Alert when a reactor shows up.

It's just an idea, but I think it's better at solving the problem of missing Alerts than what we have now.  New players can still get things like helmets, resources (Nitain, tellurium, control modules, etc.), reactors, aura mods, etc.  And folks who aren't logged into the game 24/7 can still get the things they missed.

In any case, giving folks options isn't a bad thing.  I like the idea of seeing Nora and the whole The Warriors throwback.  That stuff was awesome.

[xTerrain]

5 hours ago, dpencil said:

@Andvarja I appreciate your perspective. I certainly was not trying to insinuste that constructive criticism was unwarranted. I gave my own feedback and suggestions a few pages before. 

The toxicity I am referring to is people calling Nightwave garbage, calling for Steve to be fired, and saying they are done with Warframe because of it. This is all massive overreaction and immense negativity for a system that has many very positive features. I played Elder Scrolls Online consistently for years and was very active on their forums. Those devs got raked over the coals a lot, and in many cases they deserved it. Coming to Warframe, I saw a community that stood behind the dev team and recognized their dedication and care for this game and this community. It's just been disappointing to see similar behavior showing up here.

I'm sure there are people being rude to those who voice concerns about this or that aspect of the system as well, and that's also not good. We should all strive to be level-headed, civil, and thoughtful in our discussions. 

I can't help but feel that you're referring to one of my prior posts, given that I did use the 'garbage' line.  I will take the opportunity to apologize for this.  I had just seen the hour-long survival challenges, and I was...overzealous against them.  It was less than called for.

I still maintain that an hour is too long for a single session required for any sort of specific reward.  Especially if the challenge for it is going to be repeated regularly, which these Nightwave challenges are.  That's only going to burn out non-endurance running players.  Which does not mean less-elite players.  My complaint with these challenges has never been my ability to do them.  It has been my lack of desire to.  Long-term survival has always been part of the game, and there have always been people who do them.  I have never been one of them, but there's no doubt in my mind that I could do these challenges.  I simply have no desire to.  And I can't put my finger on any specific reward that would give me that desire.

And yes, you can miss some missions, as everyone keeps saying, but there's no telling how many of these endurance challenges are going to show up.  It's been two endurance-running challenges so far, but how many will there be next week?  Or the next?  The more of them there are, the more necessary it becomes to do several of them to get to the end of the series.  That's what I dread with the current system.  And it's what's going to lead to burning out of myself and many others.  I mean this as no threat, as I do not want to lose my will to keep playing Warframe (it's a wonderful game), but I know it's going to happen if endurance running becomes a central aspect of how to progress.

That's what I was trying to communicate.  I fully believe that Nightwave itself is a good concept, and it's already gotten myself, and surely many others to do things in-game that we'd been ignoring.  But it fails as a replacement for alerts.  Because it doesn't replace them.  It took them out, and expanded a totally different part of the game (the in-mission affinity challenges).  Whether or not alerts were typically played by veteran players, that is a reduction to the game.  That's my stance on things here.

[saitohgr]

I'd like to suggest making the weekly challenges to not expire. 10 weeks, 2 and a half months, is a long period for an event and I'd be pissed if something unexpected happens and  lose 2-3 weeks and become impossible to reach max standing.

This nightwave system is too similar to Fortnite's battle pass actually, so making the weekly ones not expire will be better. Even if someone starts nightwave after 5 weeks, they'll still be able to reach max standing.

[(PSN)grevenilvec75]

According to Megan, any fixes to nightwave won't be applied to series 1, is this the official dev position?  That means some of us will have to wait ~20 weeks for an umbral forma (assuming they make meaningful changes).   

 

I don't see why changes can't be made mid-stream.  Nightwave was launched simultaneously on all platforms, there's no reason why changes can't be as well.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by (PS4)grevenilvec75

[Chappie]

Penalty for Failure

The punishment for failure for the survival I think is a primary Issue.     Make it so you need to complete 1 continuous hour, or 2 40 minutes or 5 20 minutes.  Thus the people who can "endure" are rewarded via efficiency and people with smaller blocks of time arne't shut out.

If we have "friend missions", what about solo?

The issue I see with the "with a friend" is there has been no "do this alone".    If you make maybe 5% group and 5% solo and 90% "do what you want" then I think that is a fair compromise.  Because no matter what...somebody will complain.  But, at least not make it one sided.  

All or Nothing

Right now each individual mission is a binary "do this task or get nothing".   While some basic tasks that are "quick" (like 150 kills) would be okay for this, the ones where it requires a chain of time could be off putting.   

• Therefore if you want an PoE type thing make it more broad.    Thus something like earn 100 points in PoE where a bounty stage is 5, a wisp is 3, and a gem or fish is 1 point. 
• Could be something like 'run each available mission type on Jupiter'.     
• Another example is "assassinate" 6 different bosses in warframe.

Late (or stuck in traffic) to the Party 

Right now the current 10 weeks almost mandates you play every week to not do everything.  If you want to miss a week or three you HAVE to do everything.  Therefore "having a life" or "life happens" can be seen as  kick in the groin for something that is supposed to be fun.  The system should be tuned, IMO, about being able to miss 2 weeks and still only complete 70% of the tasks.   Give a participation trophy (noggle) to the people who did a t least 1 task every week.  

Too much Prestige

I think the whole prestige thing might be causing some FOMO.  The fact that there is a measurable reward for doing everything could be seen as DE putting a thumb on players to play.  Thus I would prefer to see no prestige.  If I get it done...it is done.   Maybe just make the "perfect attendance" some sort of marker in our profile (e.g. total points earn, most points earned in a season, # of perfect seasons).  It gives something to measure among the people that want to measure it.  

Edited March 6, 2019 by Chappie1975

[MagPrime]

22 minutes ago, (PS4)grevenilvec75 said:

According to Megan, any fixes to nightwave won't be applied to series 1, is this the official dev position?  That means some of us will have to wait ~20 weeks for an umbral forma (assuming they make meaningful changes).   

 

I don't see why changes can't be made mid-stream.  Nightwave was launched simultaneously on all platforms, there's no reason why changes can't be as well.

 

 

That took a lot of preplanning due to cert process though. By the time DE came up with a good change, got it pushed through cert and implemented, the series would probably be mostly over.

[LeCelly]

I wouldn't mind the 1 hour survival runs if the hosting system wasn't so unreliable.

I just got kicked out of a 40 min run because the decided to host migrate for no reason. It just kicked me. No one else in the squad DC'ed.

It feels like a endurance test of whose connection can last the longest.

[Leon-Darkheart]

4 hours ago, (XB1)EternalDrk Mako said:

i have a lot of animals so i typically clean up after them ,prepare their food and such  when i get home from work, but prepwork for next day is faster if i get it done ahead of time so i do that before i head to bed. 

and sure why not scrub my floors , i take pride in my home and like a clean house ? 

if you dont like a clean home its up to you , but i like to clean its just how i am 

 

 

i hope you know we are talking about nighttime. a time a person who works and every normal person too, should sleep you know? i have no problems about animals or clearn houses but i do that sure not in the nighttime mate.

[(NSW)EDarkness]

11 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

That took a lot of preplanning due to cert process though. By the time DE came up with a good change, got it pushed through cert and implemented, the series would probably be mostly over.

It didn't take long from when they submitted their build to Nintendo lotcheck to when it was approved and released.  Not sure how it would work with Sony and Microsoft, but they should be able to update the NS version fairly easily.

[Rawbeard]

"we learned a lot within the first week, we will not change anything for 2 months at least"

DE, who hurt you? why are you acting like that?

[MagPrime]

3 minutes ago, (NSW)EDarkness said:

It didn't take long from when they submitted their build to Nintendo lotcheck to when it was approved and released.  Not sure how it would work with Sony and Microsoft, but they should be able to update the NS version fairly easily.

Yeah but certification isn't the only hurdle, the first one is finding the right changes and that alone can take a couple weeks.  Depending on the size of the cert, that can take upwards of a week to get through.   

Assuming they settle on the "right" changes this week, that puts any changes out by at least 3 weeks, which puts us half way through the estimated run time of series 1.  If it takes longer to do any of those, that means changes happen closer and closer to the end of the series, making changes rather pointless. 

[Wrenzer]

All they have to do is give us a week or two extra, they dont have to actually change the rewards. Extra time with more weeklies and dailies to help boost us would probably be really easy to implement. Just dont turn off the event when it's scheduled to be turned off. That helps make up for some of the awful missions that some of us arent able to complete for one reason or another.

Would they even need to send in a patch for consoles for that?

[Hardwood]

The problem is that everyone feels obligated to complete every single mission and there is no way to convince the 'casual' players that they don't have to do the endurance challenges. I think that letting people do it piecemeal is probably the best solution. The 'casual' players can take their time completing it and everyone else can just get it done in one go.

Another option is having a weekly rep cap (maybe in mission captures don't count against it?) and more challenges than are necessary to hit that cap.

Please no more 'with a friend' stuff. I don't want to have to find new friends in trade chat and awkwardly unfriend them afterward every single week.

[(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako]

21 minutes ago, Leon-Darkheart said:

i hope you know we are talking about nighttime. a time a person who works and every normal person too, should sleep you know? i have no problems about animals or clearn houses but i do that sure not in the nighttime mate.

some are night-owls 

[IciclePunk]

The worst part of Nightwave grind is Umbral Forma. In short, to polarize at least once all current 38 Warframes you'll need to grind for several years!!! But it gets worse... 

And that quite an issue. Currently in order to fit in their build some players keep their umbral modes unranked. In that case 1 umbral forma won't do anything as if you used it to fit ranked up umbral modes, it would mean that you must get rid off other "umbral builds" and use only one minmaxed Warframe. And currently you need to complete 38 seasons of nightwave to get all Warframes on one power level. Which by itself would take you about 8 years. 
But here is the next thing. If as promised current frequency of realising new/Prime Warframes now is 12 weeks, that means at the same time growth number of Umbral Formas that would needed.

So that diagram below visualizing relation of Umbral Formas and Warframes to time of acquiring it. 
Black line - 38 is current amount of regular versions of Warframes (38=x).
Purple line -  22 is current amount of primed versions of Warframes, not including Excalibur (22=X).
Red line - umbral formas per completed Nightwave seasons of 10 weeks (10*Y=X).
Blue line - every 12 weeks increasing amount of normal Warframes (12y-12*38=X).
Green line - every 12 weeks increasing amount of released Primed Warframes (12y-12*22=X).
Orange line - every 12 weeks increasing amount of all released Warframes (12y/2-12*60=X) 

So if you decide to polarize only Prime Warframes, you will get a sustainable number of Umbral Formas on Nightwave Season 132. Which would take 26 years.
Or if you decide to polarize only normal Warframes, that would Nightwave Season 228. Which would take 44 years.
And polarization of every version of Warframes is literally unreachable. And it only counts if you use it once per Warframe. We will grind until retirement and I don't envy the ones that will accidently polarize their Kraken.

Although, I am not believe that it is the case. There definitely will be some way to farm Umbral Forma more easily. But that not justifies situation. As your hard work now, would be discarded in future.

P.S. The second worst is wolf cred economy. One obvious thing is that Orokin Catalyst and Reactor costs of two weeks grind with some residue, when Gifts Of The Lotus have same frequency but they require only 1 mission to complete. And the thing that you don’t know which items coming next to trade list would for most of us end up not rationalizing well our reserves. And the thing that we limited to time period not helping. The rest you name it.

Edited March 6, 2019 by IciclePunk

[MartinVole]

The problem with long survival missions isn't the fact it is long, it is long and at the mercy of RNG. Even with an optimal built team, you can still just hit bad luck and not get the life support drops you need.

[LeaserResael]

I think most of the issues would be resolved if you made each week's challenges stay active for as long as the season lasts. So anyone can start and complete them even if they joined mid-season. The problem with the 60 minutes ones would be mostly solved if you had up to 10 weeks instead of just one week.

Basically like most battle passes where each week has new challenges added but the previous ones remain active too.

[Enikuo]

Like

• The idea of a reward track to progressively unlock rewards

• More story and new characters

• Challenges that you can progress passively in normal play (examples: Kill 500 eximus, Kill 150 enemies with heat damage)

• New story and the idea of a rogue disc jockey handing out hints to direct the “heroes”

• The fact that you’re using the radio in the ship for a real game feature

 

Dislike

• Removal of alerts - I used them from credits and endo and much prefer them over other, “better” options because they gave me variety

• Time-limited rewards

• “Use it or lose it” event currencies

• Too few daily and weekly missions to choose something appealing

• A system that directs/dominates my game time, crowding out personal plans/goals

• No catch up mechanics to accommodate real life or allow a break to avoid burnout

• Cosmetic rewards being out of reach - I’m not a good player, I buy plat (and tennogen) and then trade the plat to hardcore/better players who have the time/skills to farm up way more in-game rewards than me. I have been happy with that arrangement and I hope the players I trade with have too. I dislike the game moving in a direction of making cosmetics exclusive to high end players.

• Not understanding why I’m listening or responding to Nora at all - I feel like I missed an important intro

• The 65% estimate of needed standing being weighted around Elite missions without way more dailies and regular weeklies to make up the difference if you can’t/don’t do Elite missions.

 

Loathe, entirely

• Cringey “Badass” comments

• That Ayatan challenge - I don’t do sorties or arbitrations and had just turned in all of my ayatans for endo a few days prior

 

I don’t care about the slots, potatoes, and noggles - I buy those with plat. Anything I would care about is at the end of the track and I know that making myself grind it out would make me resent the game. I’ve seen this same kind of system in many other games - I don’t need to “give it a try” to know I won’t like it this time either. So, I’m sitting this one out and will see what happens in the next Nightwave. Hope the feedback helps.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Enikuo

[WingZeroPrime33]

I do like the Nightwave missions but I think you should offer wolf cred more often in the tiers like in addition to the other rewards.  Or they could be offered when you capture the Nightwave mini bosses.  Maybe you could offer 1 cred per 1000 standing in addition to other creds.

Another issue I was wondering about if the 60% of completed missions to clear all 30 tiers included the elite 5000 missions.  Because I can't do them since I am about only about half way though the star chart.  I do not think any new users like seeing rewards they know they will never get.  By the time we get to that level these rewards will be gone.

On that Ayatan mission, I turned all the Ayatan Sculptures a few days before Nightwave launched.

Edited March 6, 2019 by (NSW)WingZero33
Forgot about the Ayatan

[(NSW)Sk0rp1on]

Keeping it short, here’s 2 ideas to balance things between new and veteran players:

1: Give nightwave points for things like opening a junction or node, something that ONLY new players can do. This would be open all the time like convict capture.

2: A “handicap” multiplier like in golf for new players. Hard to determine what “new” means but maybe a figure that combines mastery rank with how many nodes are open so you don’t punish someone who just did a million survival missions to power level their MR.

That’s it! (And thanks. I do not envy your job at times like this, which is probably all the time)