FOMO is Powerful, but at a Cost

[(PSN)FurryZenJustice]

While relevant to Nightwave, this is an issue that extends more generally. There are all sorts of games that used timed events, especially MMOs that use FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as a motivator. Even pre-order bonuses fall into this kind of pressure. Inducing people into behavior because they fear they might miss out on something comes at a cost, though.

I think for a lot of people who were used to a relative lack of FOMO in Warframe, the idea of more of it in Warframe is kind of disheartening. Until I got all the Acolyte mods I had the same feeling about them. I felt obliged to change my schedule in order to play, which was especially grating because it was during the holidays. Thankfully most other events -- e.g. Ghouls, Fomorian, Razorback -- happen regularly enough that I don't worry about them. If I don't have time, I know I'll have another chance in a few weeks. But Nightwave, Exploiter, and Plaguestar have less frequent schedules and we don't even know about Nightwave and Exploiter yet. This is probably something that could be addressed somewhat by simply letting us know when they think we'll have another opportunity for the current season's Nightwave rewards and the frequency of Exploiter Orb.

Over the last 10 years or so, as the game designers have leveraged FOMO as a mechanic more and more, especially in F2P games, gambling games, and forever games. I think this is leading to a backlash against the mechanic as people are feeling manipulated -- certainly there are a lot of games that used that mechanic that left a bad taste in my mouth.

And so, one of the things I loved about Warframe is their general lack of FOMO as a game mechanic. I know that I can build things on my schedule. I can do the quests on my schedule. I can move onto the next challenge on my schedule. It's not that there isn't a place for events and FOMO, as a mechanic, but overuse is sure to drive me, and from what I've read, a lot of other people away over time. And lead to a general resentment of the game that people might not even be able to place. They'll just remember that Warframe left them with a negative impression; play sessions just won't be as enjoyable. But, I think underlying all that will be the increased reliance on FOMO as a game mechanic. And I don't think DE is that company, and I don't think they intend this to be FOMO content, but they haven't communicated enough to let us know that we will have the opportunity to get the items we want on our schedule. So there's this slow build-up of resentment. This is solvable. They just need to communicate with us.

Edited March 25, 2019 by (PS4)FurryZenJustice

[Skaleek]

What's "FOMO"?

[Educated_Beast]

I think he means fear of loss.  

It is the technique high pressure salesmen use to get you to buy now without thinking.  

We only have limited supply...

Act now before they are gone.. 

Etc.

 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Educated_Beast

[Ultimatesoup]

il y a 2 minutes, Skaleek a dit :

What's "FOMO"?

Fear Of Missing Out I'd say

[Skaleek]

Oh ok, cool.

[Steel_Rook]

I'm in general agreement. Nightwave is FOMO personified, and I strongly suspect that it's going to cause issues and tension down the road. Heavy-handed "incentive" systems like these do work, in that they get people into the game grinding away and bumping the numbers. However, the high pressure they create has a pretty steep cost - namely, burnout. When you drive people with negative reinforcement, you push them closer and closer to the edge of breaking. And once a player breaks, the result cascades pretty quickly. Generally speaking, happy players are more tolerant of issues with the game, be they bugs, design flaws or time sinks. Players who break tend to break HARD, meaning they lose patience for just about ALL of it, and Nightwave is VERY prone to this. There's a fine line between feeling like you're making progress and being forced to realise that you are simply not going to be able to get everything you want. I hit that realisation pretty early on - about the first week or so - and that killed my enthusiasm all but entirely.

I'd like to offer that old Star Wars quote - the harder you squeeze, the more players will slip through your fingers. Paraphrased, of course. I don't know if DE straight-up intended this, but Nightwave's design puts players on schedule. It gives us homework, chores, a job - a minimum amount of work we have to put into the game per week, every week, or else we fall behind. And when we do fall behind for whatever reason, that pressure increases. Now we have to work even harder just to break even. And when we inevitably fall behind even then... Well, let's just say that it doesn't feel very good. That's the feeling the game is threatening us with - work, or you'll feel bad. Frankly, I have enough stress in my life. I don't need more of it from my games.

If Warframe wants to have its own little Battle Pass, then fine. But I find myself increasingly disinterested in bothering with it. And considering most of what I used to do was random Alerts which don't exist any more, that's doing bad things for my motivation.

[Serafim_94]

1 час назад, (PS4)FurryZenJustice сказал:

I think for a lot of people who were used to a relative lack of FOMO in Warframe

"Relative lack"? I guess you are new enough to not remember how dual-stat elementals were literally unobtainable if you missed their respective events. And how much were they worth in plat. Every time event-weapon came, it was utterly unabtainable as well after it was done. Hell, it still is to a degree - go get Zylock.

Umbral forma is literally nothing. It's not necessary (unlike, say, dual-stat elementals) by any stretch of imagination. It's a nice vanity item to slap on Inaros or something, more for memes than actual performance boost. Because we are already OPAF. If I'll skip it, I won't drop a single tear.

[SordidDreams]

3 hours ago, (PS4)FurryZenJustice said:

I don't think DE is that company, and I don't think they intend this to be FOMO content, but they haven't communicated enough to let us know that we will have the opportunity to get the items we want on our schedule. So there's this slow build-up of resentment. This is solvable. They just need to communicate with us.

If by "the items" you mean Nightwave rewards, we won't have the opportunity to get them on our schedule. That's the whole point. Yeah, eventually they might be back via Baro or a re-run of the NW episode, but they'll still be time-limited. AFAIK there's never been a time-limited item in WF that later became obtainable anytime. DE absolutely does intend to make FOMO content and has been doing that for a very long time.

[Hobie-wan]

The whole point of Nightwave was to alleviate FOMO. Before, you had to run the phone app or be lucky to catch nitain and alert stuff. Now you have a sliding time to work toward getting those items that would only be available for an hour here and there at random times.

[LuckyCharm]

Warframe has always had FOMO as you put it, it's always had events where you have to do them or miss out (used to be permanently till they decided to re-release event content >.<)  and it was even worse than the nightwave thing since sometimes you only had a week or weekend to do them in or miss out on the items, for the next year or more. Its never been the sort of game where you can get everything at any time. Take acolyte mods for example.. we werent told they were gonna come back, and originally they werent going to but DE saw that so many people wanted them that they felt it necessary to bring them back. And even now people rush out to farm the acolytes when they come back because the mods wont be available after that for the next 6+ months. 

Nightwave is just the most recent of these trends, its just worse because of the huuuge grind you have to do for weeks and weeks just to get the item you want

[(PSN)FurryZenJustice]

My point want to say that your can get everything when you want to, but the best majority of items seem to be available. I was actually surprised that Hildryn was event locked. I'd say 90+% of all MR-ed items are not event locked. And neither are a similar number of mods. That's a ton of stuff that's available all the time.

I've been playing about 18 months and I've gotten multiple chances at all the recurring events.

The issue I've seen with NW that differs slightly from other recurring events is that the effort too complete it is so much higher to get all the rewards with the exception of the acolytes, but even with those if your desperate enough everything is purchasable with plat.

I think that it helps immensely when DE every clearly communicates when things you might miss will come back. I think that's an area where they could do better on the Night Wave and Exploiter Orb content.

[HC217]

6 hours ago, Serafim_94 said:

"Relative lack"? I guess you are new enough to not remember how dual-stat elementals were literally unobtainable if you missed their respective events. And how much were they worth in plat. Every time event-weapon came, it was utterly unabtainable as well after it was done. Hell, it still is to a degree - go get Zylock.

Umbral forma is literally nothing. It's not necessary (unlike, say, dual-stat elementals) by any stretch of imagination. It's a nice vanity item to slap on Inaros or something, more for memes than actual performance boost. Because we are already OPAF. If I'll skip it, I won't drop a single tear.

dual-stat elementals were only good for levelling weapons back when mastery didn't give minimum mod points. they were worth a lot, people wanted them for collections, sure, but very skippable.

[NezuHimeSama]

2 hours ago, HC217 said:

dual-stat elementals were only good for levelling weapons back when mastery didn't give minimum mod points. they were worth a lot, people wanted them for collections, sure, but very skippable.

They were also 100% essential for the broken 100% status builds, but... Status wasn't all that meta at the time, because of their rarity.

It was a bad look for WF, though, and the game has generally been moving away from that direction, but the way Nightwave is paced, it's not just fomo, it's a grind capped daily-chore fomo. Very bad mix.

With previous events, it was like being rewarded for supporting the game at that time; go and log in, play for a bit, get your stuff, and feel good about having been part of the event with your new toys. They'll probably be back, but half the time, the event weapons weren't even that good. It was just mastery fodder.

Now, it's log in the majority of days, do your daily chores, and then #*!% off.  Every daily chore missed is a missed opportunity. Miss too many, and you don't get the big prize at the end. All the previous events were pretty lightly paced, save a few nasty ones here and there.

[Cephalycion]

FOMO has always been in the game, whether you like it or not.

Excalibur Prime (Founders only)

Ignis Wraith (Clan restricted)

Dex Items (Once a year)

Every single event weapon

Every single event mod

The entire void relic system (Vaulting and Unvaulting)

So on...

[HC217]

1 hour ago, NezuHimeSama said:

They were also 100% essential for the broken 100% status builds, but... Status wasn't all that meta at the time, because of their rarity.

It was a bad look for WF, though, and the game has generally been moving away from that direction, but the way Nightwave is paced, it's not just fomo, it's a grind capped daily-chore fomo. Very bad mix.

With previous events, it was like being rewarded for supporting the game at that time; go and log in, play for a bit, get your stuff, and feel good about having been part of the event with your new toys. They'll probably be back, but half the time, the event weapons weren't even that good. It was just mastery fodder.

Now, it's log in the majority of days, do your daily chores, and then #*!% off.  Every daily chore missed is a missed opportunity. Miss too many, and you don't get the big prize at the end. All the previous events were pretty lightly paced, save a few nasty ones here and there.

100% status builds were and are overrated but alright.

agreed on nightwave, but i'd still rather that than the old system. need stweaks for sure, but i don't miss pay2sleep

[NezuHimeSama]

idk, I was using strun wraith to kill grineer carriers from a distance on rank 5 bounties back when POE landed. It was more effective than any damage-centric build.

Cold+Corrosive is a great mix of armor stripping and crowd control.

[Teridax68]

As someone who has played literal thousands of hours of Warframe, I have this to say: I play the most, and also enjoy myself the most, when I'm allowed to set my own pace. The moment the game pushes me to grind under a time limit, I do the thing, then I drop the game for a little while and do something else instead. This isn't because I dislike the game (quite the opposite), but because the game has pushed me to play on a schedule that wasn't ideal for me, and put pressure on me that I felt was neither useful nor necessary: when this happens, I don't get as much enjoyment from gameplay I've fatigued on, so I switch things up a little until I can go back to enjoying the game.

Point being, while I may not speak for everyone, FOMO-inducing time limits in Warframe tend to not work for me, because in the end they end up reducing my total playtime. What's more, every time that sort of mistake gets repeated, some part of me gets increasingly annoyed with Warframe: I think the game is genuinely great, but I also think the game's been running on a lot of player goodwill, namely because of the expectation that it will fix its problems over time. When those problems not only don't get fixed, but at times get worsened (i.e. with DE implementing even grindier content), that goodwill is reduced. I will likely stick with Warframe for much longer, bar some catastrophic design decision, but there are increasingly many accounts of players who have given up on the game far sooner, or who were simply put off by the pressure to grind before they could sink their teeth in.

With this in mind, I think it would be to DE's benefit, in addition to ours, if DE removed the time-limited component to Nightwave, as it could increase playtime overall, and increase goodwill instead of reducing it. One of the detrimental effects to the event that many players have reported is that Nightwave induces paralysis: because some of its "challenges" expect the player to have accumulated some sort of resource, which said tasks then expect the player to spend, so many players have now opted to stop progressing entirely, out of fear that the next week of Nightwave will make them redo something they've already done. I've already encountered this problem numerous times: there was that 5 Ayatan Sculpture challenge that dropped a literal hour after I got done putting stars in all my Anasas, then that mining challenge in the Vallis after I had gone on a multi-day gem mining bender, then the Forma and gilding "challenge" that forced me to waste resources on items I had already crafted/Forma'd. Thus, not only is Nightwave's current time-limited content likely to be reducing overall playtime due to FOMO-induced burnout, it is also likely to be reducing total playtime by pressuring players to not play the game unless there's a Nightwave challenge for it.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning is that FOMO was the very reason why Alerts were removed in the first place. Many players hated having to constantly keep an eye on the alert screen or some tracker, for fear of missing out on an item, and it was especially irritating to miss an item because one was unable to play then for whichever reason. This problem persists in Nightwave, particularly for challenges that depend on playing every instance of time- and numbers-limited missions (e.g. the 5 Sortie challenge), and so exclusively because of how the challenges disappear after a time limit, just like Alerts.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Teridax68

[NezuHimeSama]

You're definitely not alone in that. I tend to drop games altogether when they get too demanding.

Warframe won't be spared that, just as those that came before it were not spared.

[DebrisFlow]

2 hours ago, Cephalycion said:

FOMO has always been in the game, whether you like it or not.

Excalibur Prime (Founders only)

Ignis Wraith (Clan restricted)

Dex Items (Once a year)

Every single event weapon

Every single event mod

The entire void relic system (Vaulting and Unvaulting)

So on..

But now there is a significant difference in the Nightwave reward, this time the umbra forma is a consumable, not a single item. If you miss a event weapon/mod and you take it on the next event you're on par with other players because you only need one and that item. With the possibility of stacking u-formas players fear that missing NW series will create a gap between  who have many of them and who couldn't stay up with the game each week of their life. This time the FOMO is targeting the fear of staying behind forever. A clear statement from DE on whether the specific-event u-formas will be ubtainable/purchasable in alternative ways, to stay on par, would be a honest move.

[Ultimatesoup]

il y a 48 minutes, DebrisFlow a dit :

But now there is a significant difference in the Nightwave reward, this time the umbra forma is a consumable, not a single item. If you miss a event weapon/mod and you take it on the next event you're on par with other players because you only need one and that item. With the possibility of stacking u-formas players fear that missing NW series will create a gap between  who have many of them and who couldn't stay up with the game each week of their life. This time the FOMO is targeting the fear of staying behind forever. A clear statement from DE on whether the specific-event u-formas will be ubtainable/purchasable in alternative ways, to stay on par, would be a honest move.

I'd say the significant difference is that Nightwave forces you to do stuff that you just do once and get over with because it is boring/has no good rewards for weeks.

For events you just do the mission(s) for the required number of times and that's it. Grindwave took that to stratospheric levels.

[QueenKharn]

3 hours ago, HC217 said:

100% status builds were and are overrated but alright.

agreed on nightwave, but i'd still rather that than the old system. need stweaks for sure, but i don't miss pay2sleep

Tell that to Condition Overload.

[Xarteros]

12 hours ago, SordidDreams said:

AFAIK there's never been a time-limited item in WF that later became obtainable anytime. DE absolutely does intend to make FOMO content and has been doing that for a very long time.

Well, heaps of stuff has actually come back to be permanently obtainable at any time (not event-locked). You can get some of the dual stat mods from Corrupted Vor, you can get Boar and Gorgon blueprints from enemies etc.

It looks like DE is actually trying to make everything available, albeit with an 'exclusivity period' to reward players getting it the first time around. A lot of the previously exclusive content has become very easily available, if you're trying to get it. The only thing that is truly exclusive is founder gear, but that's a whole different can of worms that DE refuses to open.

I just hope that they do 'reruns' of the Nightwave missions, or allow players to choose which 'reward track' they want their Nightwave standing to go into.

[(PSN)FurryZenJustice]

5 hours ago, Cephalycion said:

FOMO has always been in the game, whether you like it or not.

Excalibur Prime (Founders only)

Ignis Wraith (Clan restricted)

Dex Items (Once a year)

Every single event weapon

Every single event mod

The entire void relic system (Vaulting and Unvaulting)

So on...

Ignis Wraith is now a Baro item, FYI.

Most of the event weapons and mods are recurring, so for me, it's FOMO for now instead of forever. For most of them I just have to wait a month.

That said, that's my reaction. I'm not saying FOMO game been part of the game, but it's been limited.

In terms of the void relic system, the fact that relics stick around and you don't have to have them yourself and the fact that they stuck around for months means it never bothered me as much. As it is, I'm only missing two primes and one in pretty much guaranteed. But for others, I could see that as a pain.

[Teljaxx]

Warframe has almost always been set up in such a way that not playing simply meant that you weren't making progress, but you weren't losing progress either. If you didn't get something now, you didn't lose your chance forever, you would just get it later. I recently took almost a year off, only coming back for a couple days for the Pyrus Project, and I felt like I had not missed a thing. Even though The Sacrifice and Fortuna had come out, along with a couple new Warframes, and of course a couple prime access packs as well, it was all there waiting for me to get into it whenever I wanted to. Even though I hadn't been there from the very beginning of any of those parts, it didn't matter, I could still enjoy it all the same.

But If I were to take a break like that now, with Nightwave around, I would miss out on all kinds of stuff. If each season is about ten weeks long, I would miss around 4~5 whole seasons in that time. And when I came back, unless I timed it just right and started at the very beginning of a season, I might miss most of that one too.

Sure, Warframe has always had time limited events. Things like the Pyrus Project, Buried Debts, and tactical alerts. But, they are much smaller in scope than Nightwave. They only last a week or two, you can usually get all the rewards in a couple days with a lot of effort, and they offer far fewer items. So even if you miss it, you don't miss too much stuff overall. They also don't usually have any kind of progress cap. So if you want to grind super hard all at once, and get the rewards super fast, you can. Or you can take your time and space it out over the whole event. And they are temporary. There are large gaps between them where you don't have to worry about missing any time limited rewards.

The combination of both having a time limit, and a progress cap is what makes Nightwave so stressful. You have very little choice in how fast you get through it. You can't rush ahead to give yourself a buffer, and if you fall behind, you may never be able to catch up. Being able to play events like this at your own pace is a big part of what actually makes them enjoyable, and not stressful. But Nightwave doesn't allow for that.

I have made many other posts about how Nightwave's biggest problem is that it doesn't allow for enough player choice. DE is trying to force everyone to play it exactly the same way as everyone else, no matter what. Everyone gets the same challenges, regardless of skill. Everyone gets the same items in the same order as they rank up, regardless of desire. And everyone has to go at the same pace, regardless of capability. That is why so many people are frustrated by it. it is impossible for one single permutation to satisfy every single individual in a group of millions.

The other source of stress is how uncertain so much about Nightwave is. We don't know exactly how long it will last. We don't know just how many challenges we can safely miss without falling too far behind. We don't know how, when, or even if anything we miss will be available later. A little bit of uncertainty can be exciting, like with random loot drops. But this kind of uncertainty usually just creates paranoia and despair. "I've probably already missed too much." "I'm never going to manage to get what I want." "I should just give up now, and stop wasting my time." Etc. These are not the kind of thoughts you want your players to be having.

[Swamarian]

13 hours ago, Hobie-wan said:

The whole point of Nightwave was to alleviate FOMO. Before, you had to run the phone app or be lucky to catch nitain and alert stuff. Now you have a sliding time to work toward getting those items that would only be available for an hour here and there at random times.

Nitain alerts happened several times a day. If you hadn't unlocked most of the planets, you might not be able to run a given alert for it, but one would come along that you could run. Ditto aura mods, helmets, or Vaubon pieces. Also, for the auras, you had vets running those missions, increasing the supply. How many veterans are going to buy an aura to give away under the new system? Not that many.

I also have a clanmate who wants to up his Valis standing. He feels he has to do Nightwave because so much stuff's locked behind it, rather than what he wants to do. That doesn't help the game long term.

(And Corrosive Projection's now going for 30-40 plat. I don't think that's a good thing.)