Nightwave + alerts removal feedback

[Cute_Arsonist]

I really like the system and those tasks as they are, but I got one wish and that is: More dailies per day.
Maybe even Elite Dailies that give 2k standing

[Geraion]

2 minutes ago, Altitis said:

The 60 min survival challenges last week were no good. Too long in one sitting.

This week's 5 sorties is no good as well, because there's only 7 sorties (8 if you're very careful with times) total anyways.

I wasn't a fan of the 10 syndicate missions either - the problem there is syndicate missions aren't the greatest for anything other than rep, and after a point you have more rep than you know what to do with pretty easily.

If I had to list ideals:

1) Goals should be doable in a single session

2) Goals should not require any long missions (I'd cap out at 20-30 min in a mission), and shouldn't have a case of spending 30 min and then failing and having to start over.

3) Goals should be parallel to activities people already want to do. (Good example: last week's single sortie was great, it encourages people to engage with them and they're rewarding on their own. This week's plethora of goals for resource gathering on the plains get people to do that, and those activities provide materials for new gear in addition to nightwave)

It's a challenge though. If it wasn't challenging then it should be called something else, like 'task' 'chore' etc. Don't do a task if you don't want to do them, I don't.

Edited March 11, 2019 by Geraion

[Kyrosiris]

On 2019-03-04 at 3:47 PM, [DE]Bear said:

For some of these Elite challenges, we were attempting to speak to the endurance runners, but it seems we may have missed the mark - if you liked it, or didn't like it, comment below. In the end, we wanted to make a series of challenges that spoke to every type of player, but we do not want to do so at the cost of enjoyment overall.

Literally all y'all had to do was add "cumulatively" to those challenges. This doesn't impact people that want to endurance run it, but makes it approachable to the rest of the community.

Then again, y'all are also doggedly sticking to the "you only need about 60% to get rank 30" line when that is mathematically not true unless you count not-guaranteed convict rep gains, so I don't know why I'm bothering.

[(NSW)Zibiibodel]

3 minutes ago, Geraion said:

Look, I get you, but there has to be some sense of accomplishment offered to those who want more challenge that takes more time... We all have to be welcome here.

But there IS a reward for doing challenges for longer and on harder difficulties. Better loot. Restricting unique rewards like Umbra Forma to people who need to also be wanting to, in a given week, FISH, MINE, Eido Hunt, do FIVE sorties, or spend 1-2hrs standing around waiting for a timer to pass in an easy 60 minute survival, is not good gameplay. A lot of people, myself included, usually aim for a few specific things in a given week to do and this is saying that doing such is no longer a valid playstyle if you want to meet their 'vision' of the game.

[MartinVole]

I'd think buffing special boss encounters initially than letting them be rare for the first half. Been playing a lot in hopes of seeing the Wolf once, and it feels like as weeks go by, the chance hasn't increased at all. I know it was stated that his spawn rate will increase, but this feels abysmal starting off.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

Love nightwave! How bout making sculptures for kuva... Having nora give us x amount of missions per week to recover these kuva sculptures then allowing us the option to change them into her for kuva, wolf creds, or nightwave standing.

Also love the long survival challenges, also add long defenses and maybe arbitrations for extra nightwave standing.

[Geraion]

Just now, (NSW)Zibiibodel said:

But there IS a reward for doing challenges for longer and on harder difficulties. Better loot. Restricting unique rewards like Umbra Forma to people who need to also be wanting to, in a given week, FISH, MINE, Eido Hunt, do FIVE sorties, or spend 1-2hrs standing around waiting for a timer to pass in an easy 60 minute survival, is not good gameplay. A lot of people, myself included, usually aim for a few specific things in a given week to do and this is saying that doing such is no longer a valid playstyle if you want to meet their 'vision' of the game.

I don't know which survival you've been doing to sit around 60 minutes...unless you were carried. There is no extra reward from Nightwave that rewards 1 1hr run of surv over 2x 30 mins, which I'm saying there absolutely should be if cumulative runs count for completion.

[mrEkli]

7 minutes ago, (XB1)im stylin tho said:

I can see why people who don't have arbitration unlocked would hate the ayatan sculpture challenge or people who don't like endurance runs would hate the 60 minute. 

This just goes to the fact that we should have "OR" challenges. Players could choose or that to get the same reward. Maybe put credits attached to these too instead of just standing.

[Showerwalker]

a recent post i made, thought i'd share it here:

remove the rep system, spend more time in making the challenges (timed and with rotations still), and make them just straight up reward items or w-creds (multi choice). that way you either get the item you want or the creds to buy it.  that itself solves the pay-to-sleep of old alerts, but without the stupid rep grind. repetitive purchase (umbra forma, sigil, kuva) can be simply prevented by adding stock count. play as much as you want, get only what you need, no more pay to sleep, best of both world.

[Geraion]

Just now, (NSW)mrEkli said:

This just goes to the fact that we should have "OR" challenges. Players could choose or that to get the same reward. Maybe put credits attached to these too instead of just standing.

No. Scaling for survivals would make it much, much less attractive to actually do the challenge part of 1hr in one go rather than 2x30. Most people can easily do 30 mins on their own or in a ragtag pug, 1hr takes a little bit of pre-planning to work out. Not getting rewarded for that is just sh*ting on those who want to do it for a better reward, which they rightfully should get.

[(NSW)EDarkness]

Just now, Geraion said:

No. Scaling for survivals would make it much, much less attractive to actually do the challenge part of 1hr in one go rather than 2x30. Most people can easily do 30 mins on their own or in a ragtag pug, 1hr takes a little bit of pre-planning to work out. Not getting rewarded for that is just sh*ting on those who want to do it for a better reward, which they rightfully should get.

But wouldn't the option be there for folks who want to knock it out in one go?  The challenge is still there.  The question is whether the reward justifies that?  The system could reward those who do it in one go, but I do think it sets the whole thing up to be even more complicated than it already is.  I'm not sure what they could do to separate that.

[John_Steak729]

I'm liking the Nightwave series so far. Just that i hope to be able to reach 30 because im not capable of the elite ones as of now. Also as we rank up in the series, i expect that the challenges will give more reputation/more challenges available and increase in difficulty.

[movix2001]

1. Week 3 is a disaster, because it shouldnt force anyone to go and farm things they already have like drift mods or gems

2. Its probably an unpopular opinion but this 1h kuva survival was very fun to me and my friends coz we usually dont have any motivation to do this long runs so one long elite every week wouldnt hurt anyone

3. While you are doing quests for mission types like ESO please think about players that want to go for rotation C coz now everyone leaves at wave 3...

4. Elites should be challenging at least a little bit so my simple propositon is giving restricted mission types like earlier mensioned kuva survival without using syphons

5. Few challenges that were fun to my

 -1h kuva survival

 -hydrolyst (what about a speedrun challenge to kill him in less than 25minutes)

 -PoE bountys coz it was good to go back on plains

 -all dailys

[Qamelion]

I'm a veteran of the game and I had lots of fun with Nightwave so far! The challanges gave me the opportunity to improve my builds and to play missions that I have forgotten about that they exist. (Endurance runs, bounties and many other missions). Please don't change anything! It's finally a challange and it makes a lot fun!
Love you DE and thank you for that!

Edited March 11, 2019 by Qamelion

[Geraion]

1 minute ago, (NSW)EDarkness said:

But wouldn't the option be there for folks who want to knock it out in one go?  The challenge is still there.  The question is whether the reward justifies that?  The system could reward those who do it in one go, but I do think it sets the whole thing up to be even more complicated than it already is.  I'm not sure what they could do to separate that.

And it would be a downright worthless option because it's not rewarded. Bragging rights aren't a reward. Let's say they get 500 extra rep, that's half of a daily, and almost 4x as much as a group of convicts, just a little extra. Would that really be too much extra to give for the added difficulty over just doing mindless repeats? Is that what you want to tell me? Because as a casual player, I think that sucks.

[ZedrinBot]

The bounty objectives were a bit annoying as they encourage you to do low level bounties only. I feel like a good change would be requiring just completing bounty objectives instead--this way a high tier, 5-step bounty would count to 5 ticks.
There could be more required (like 20 total) but it at least would incentivize doing whatever tier you want instead of encouraging the smaller ones.

I also like the idea of making time-limited missions be cumulative. "Spend 60 total minutes in survival missions" is a lot better for people who only can play in short bursts.

One thing that's also missing now with the old alert system gone is rewards for mundane resources. Maybe some nightwave objectives could offer a few small bonus credits or resources upon completion. Not all of them, mind you, but it might be a good way to fill in that small void.

"Complete X nightmare missions" is one I haven't seen yet that'd be good to implement.

One large issue I have personally, Nightwave is a very passive system. I like its ideas and the fact that it doesn't require you to be on at 4am and use trackers to make sure you get all catalyst / forma / reactor alerts. I think it's a vast improvement, despite what dissenters may say--however it also doesn't add much by way of variety to the existing game and doesn't specifically prompt you to go into certain missions (like sorties do).

Old school alerts were at least good at that--it was a prompt to do a mission you might not normally consider. That's been the big complaint I've seen from the dissenters, and they do have a small point there. Bringing something similar to that might not be a bad idea, and I have two ideas that might be good compromises.

One small idea might be for each week to feature a special modifier to certain missions or targets, with ties to that week's Nightwave objectives. There might be some bonus rewards, special reward pools, or things like that, but it'd basically incentivize doing these special missions instead of just doing whatever. Maybe completing it gives you a small bit of bonus standing or has higher fugitive spawn rates--and maybe there's some extra enemy types or modifiers that make it marginally more difficult. Doing em would also complete Nightwave objectives up front (though you could grind em for added resources or minor rewards).

Alternatively, you could even make very "generic" alerts that only offer credits or mundane resources again, but now with the added bonus of helping complete Nightwave objectives. This would be way simpler and would emulate the older system without putting valuable rewards in a random, time-limited drop table that you have to monitor like a hawk. (There's not a lot of credit sources late game so making decent credit rewards would be kinda nice. I'm SO sick of relying on the Index for money.) And since they're mundane, there could always just be a small handful available.

Edited March 11, 2019 by ZedrinBot

[v1ld_wf]

4 minutes ago, Geraion said:

No. Scaling for survivals would make it much, much less attractive to actually do the challenge part of 1hr in one go rather than 2x30. Most people can easily do 30 mins on their own or in a ragtag pug, 1hr takes a little bit of pre-planning to work out. Not getting rewarded for that is just sh*ting on those who want to do it for a better reward, which they rightfully should get. 

So hand out "I did Kuva Survival for 1 hour" t-shirts, don't tie it to getting the items that alerts delivered.

One large part of the discussion here is conflating two very distinct needs, both of which are important:

1. How do I get the stuff that alerts gave me selectively, at my own time, cheaply?
2. How do I get more challenging missions with unique rewards?

We have one system that supposedly started as a cure for 1 but has long since left that goal behind, mutated into an attempt at 2, and adds a bunch of behavior modification mission types on top to further muddy the waters.

The behavior mod missions are also a large part of the problem: get the player to do all the things they weren't doing.  Possibly because they had their own motivations for not doing them?  Like OV - I have no interest in doing a rep grind there right now, not least because I'm on the Switch and I'll wait for a couple more perf/stability patches thank you very much.  I did last week's PoE grind because it aligned with me finally doing the horrible Cetus rep grinds to build a 223 amp, but have no such motivation to do OV this week.

The missions need to stop being so prescriptive.  Or directly tie into rewards so I can evaluate and decide whether I wish to put up with doing something I consider unfun because the reward is worth it:

1. 5 sorties for a reactor.
2. 60 min Kuva survival with my grandparents for a catalyst.
3. 8 OV bounties for 50 Nitain (trying to establish a good relative price for Nitain shows the current setup as horribly broken)

One potato a week is about what we were at before, time problems and all.  I don't see that happening anymore.  It's market time for those in the new world if you need to buy Nitain too.

[(PSN)VaNiDgE]

How about you choose the type of weeklies and dailies you want to do. So that those who dont want to play in a team or don't want to do a 1 hour survival will have other options

Example like say you can only do 5 weeklies, but you have have 10 choices and once you have completed 5 the other are locked away. 

[(NSW)EDarkness]

2 minutes ago, Geraion said:

And it would be a downright worthless option because it's not rewarded. Bragging rights aren't a reward. Let's say they get 500 extra rep, that's half of a daily, and almost 4x as much as a group of convicts, just a little extra. Would that really be too much extra to give for the added difficulty over just doing mindless repeats? Is that what you want to tell me? Because as a casual player, I think that sucks.

I won't lie, I have no real solutions for what to do to make that stuff "rewarding".  Doing it for the reward and not for the fun just this whole system in a nutshell...in my opinion.  I've done much of the "challenges" in this Nightwave thing because I felt I had to in order to get the reward instead of because it was fun.  The situation is by making those activities give a ton of extra rep just causes folks to feel like they have to do it and if they aren't doing it, then they're missing out.  Which leads to people feeling like they can't get anywhere because not doing it means they're falling behind.  Giving a bonus for doing it in one go versus doing it cumulatively adds extra math that needs to be explained in some way.

In the end, I feel like someone is gonna be left disappointed.  I'm not sure how everyone could win.  I'll have to think on that a bit more.

[Geraion]

1 minute ago, (NSW)v1ld said:

So hand out "I did Kuva Survival for 1 hour" t-shirts, don't tie it to getting the items that alerts delivered.

One large part of the discussion here is conflating two very distinct needs, both of which are important:

1. How do I get the stuff that alerts gave me selectively, at my own time, cheaply?
2. How do I get more challenging missions with unique rewards?

People are doing the missions for rep to get the rewards at the tiers, and to a lesser extent, wolf cred, they can and should be rewarded from other things than more challenge, because the people doing the hard challenges most likely don't need the wolf cred for anything other than extra forma/potatos...maybe.

[Geraion]

1 minute ago, (NSW)EDarkness said:

I won't lie, I have no real solutions for what to do to make that stuff "rewarding".  Doing it for the reward and not for the fun just this whole system in a nutshell...in my opinion.  I've done much of the "challenges" in this Nightwave thing because I felt I had to in order to get the reward instead of because it was fun.  The situation is by making those activities give a ton of extra rep just causes folks to feel like they have to do it and if they aren't doing it, then they're missing out.  Which leads to people feeling like they can't get anywhere because not doing it means they're falling behind.  Giving a bonus for doing it in one go versus doing it cumulatively adds extra math that needs to be explained in some way.

In the end, I feel like someone is gonna be left disappointed.  I'm not sure how everyone could win.  I'll have to think on that a bit more.

Some people like the hunt for the special rewards and putting in the time, as well as the reward in itself. The hunt, as well as the proverbial kill, should not be seperate.

[SneakyErvin]

The play with friends/clan members was an annoying part imo. I dont think it fits into some "elite" variable at all, it just makes it tedious and feels forced. So that part can happily go away.

I did enjoy the tridolon hunt, the 60min survivals and the elites that are running this current week. I see no problem with having 60 min survivals or 12 rotations worth of other endless missions as the elite weekly tasks. You should probably consider not using defection though, since it is buggy and can lead to failure due to bugged out defectors simply getting stuck and killed.

I do not think that the endless missions should be cumultive as some have suggested, it would pretty much render the whole "elite" idea pointless. I could see a "complete 3 defense missions" as a regular weekly though, but elites should have something extra too them, like full 60 minutes in one sitting kinda survivals or 60 waves of defense i.e 12 rotations.

Also please consider not using Arbitrations in Nightwave, too much trouble with people dying and forcing host migrations. It would be really bad if you somehow place these into the elite tier before host migration issues are solved. I can see them used in weeklies, something like "complete 3 arbitration missions", which gives you alot of wiggle room because you only need to stay for rotation A, which has less issues with people dying and migrating.

edit: Oh and turn bounty related Nightwave missions into something based on number of bounty stages complete, so the highest type of bounty can be a more productive one than running the lowest and quickest snoozefest bounty over and over. Make it 20 stages instead of 5 completed bounties or something like that.

Edited March 12, 2019 by SneakyErvin

[(PSN)ShikiAoi]

Keep the clan challenges

[(XBOX)HammerfellChick]

I really like that Nightwave is kind of pushing us to do things that maybe we don't normally do, getting out of our comfort zone. My bigger issue is that I have never encountered the Wolf of Saturn Six yet and considering that he drops multiple pieces of one weapon, this does not bode well for my chances of getting it.

Being forced to team up is not great because it forces a certain type of gameplay people may not want or as was mentioned, like with clans, they may not have access to.

[Alighierian]

As far as the challenges go, I'm actually not even against having a mix of 'casual - medium - veteran' levels of challenges/tasks. The store also has potential, but it likewise has issues.

The way I see it, Nightwave is a failure if you see it as a replacement for alerts. Because it isn't. Gear requirements and such aside, because the wolf credits are limited, you are forced to only buy certain things. As a new player, for example, you'll need a bucketload of nitain. 180 to be exact. Even if you managed to complete the missions and such, that still means you'd have to spend (180/5)x15= 540 wolf creds (or the future equivalents) just to buy the nitain. That leaves you with practically nothing to get other things from the store.

With alerts, you missed things because it's essentially a recurring timed exclusive. With the current Nightwave store you miss things because you're forced to pick other things.

Now, the idea to replace alerts with a store where you can buy whatever from the 'alert pool' isn't a bad idea at all. It simply needs refinement so it's actually worth using instead of just being a pain in the exhaust port.

There are a few ways the primary annoyances could be circumvented, without actually making them easier to get time investment-wise.

- Bring back alerts, but in the form of currency source: The alert store would list things like it already does, preferably with all the alt helmets in stock, but a limited selection can still work. Alert series levels could be the same as they are now: a collection of various items, from somewhat common to cosmetics to highly unique items like umbral forma. The alerts themselves, however, would be with regular intervals (30m, 1h, whatever fits, as long as it's not too spread out). They would be the primary source of alert store currency but in low amounts/alert. Alert store levels would have chunks of it, as it does now.

- Make the alert store a 'contract board': In essence, you'd remove nearly all items from the alert store. Instead, you have contracts for missions with set rewards. Think of it as picking which alert you want to do. To do these contracts you'd have to purchase the details with normal credits, with costs scaling to rewards and mission level. Single use only, even if you fail it. There can even be a cooldown on a contract for, say, a forma, so you can get one from an alert, but if you want to get more, you'll have to wait. Items like nitain would have a short cooldown, depending on how many you get per contract. You could use the series level system for either unlocking higher tiers of alert contracts (more items / shorter cooldowns / lower purchase costs / etc), or just use it as a mini-event people can work towards, with missions as we have now. The rewards for that can be pretty similar to what WoS6 has: cosmetics / forma packs / unique decorations / sigils / etc.