(X-Post) The Only Viable PVP: Corpus VS Grineer

[PlagueViper]

This post was previously made on the "General Discussion" Forums, and due to several recommendations from commenters, I'm re-posting it here so it's in a more relevant sub.

Hello, I don't post here much, and this is more of a fun fantastical idea than anything I ever expect to see implemented in Warframe in its lifetime, but I have been mulling it over in my head and I figure it's something worth at least throwing out there into the void.

Okay, so we know Conclave isn't exactly, well, played... and there's a lot of reasons for that, right? Right! Well, do I have a neat little idea for you! It's called "Corpus VS Grineer"! See, there's so many issues with Conclave and I personally believe that the very nature of Warframes themselves prevents Warframe VS Warframe combat from ever being fun for anybody but the best 1% of players, so I figure we scrap it altogether and make the struggle one where you play as Corpus or Grineer in a struggle against one another.

You could hold onto the current conclave game-modes and easily interconnect many of the existing conclave maps with those of the PvE tile-sets already existing within the game, and you could also recycle a large portion of the enemy designs already in the game. No, you don't have to make new frames, or even a mod-system, because having isolated PVP rewards that only applied to PVP, while maintaining an open-season, bring-literally-anything style of conclave just doesn't work, you have to flip the script. You would have an isolated PVP system, where you were given by the game all of the options of what you can play, while the rewards would be derived from invasions.

It could be as simple as:

Corpus Units                       Grineer Units                        Unit Role

Prodman                               Flameblade                           Melee, Fast but Low-Health

Crewman                              Lancer                                  Base Unit, Reliable but not Special

Sniper Crewman                  Ballista                                  Long-range Sniper

Tech                                     Heavy Gunner/Bombard       Heavy Unit, Slow but Tanky and Powerful

Attack Drone                        Hellion                                  Base Unit, but Capable of Vertical Play and getting up in spots where no one else can. 

And that's it, having predetermined classes would solve the balance and movement issues present with letting players bring in their warframes. All of a sudden DE can just set the balance and make tweaks as necessary without having to worry about "Oh gosh, now we released a new weapon that kicks a** thanks to power-creep. Guess PVP will just be even more broken now" because you will be playing set characters with set weapons and damage numbers. "Nuenu," you ask, "But what about rewards? What about netcode? What about hit registration? What about player count? What about DE staff not having the time for this? What about the fact that nobody asked for this? What about Infested, huh?"

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Rewards:
Obviously DE could do whatever they wanted, but what if, I tells ya, what if they just made the rewards invasion rewards. Easy as pie, win 3 games and you get double the rewards from just running the invasion. For the weapon parts, win 1 or 2 games and that's enough. All of a sudden, you've created a huge incentive for players who like PVP to play. If that's not enough, add some form of player rewards. Win a game? You can reroll your daily login reward (for something equivalent), or you can choose between some orokin cells or an argon crystal. Don't add more new stuff to grind, just add more interesting and fun ways to grind the stuff we already have.

Netcode and Hit Registration:
Oh lord, I don't know. If DE has the resources to make Conclave happen in the first place, and they've hired outside 3rd parties once (albeit to handle chat moderation, nothing on this scale), they can do it again. As it is, they already have an alright system in place, and I imagine that less frantic/mobile/ability-spammy things like Grineer and Corpus would be much easier to bring to a desired level.

Player Count:

Introducing rewards people give a crap about and fixing a lot of the glaring issues with the Conclave is likely more than enough to create a strong boost of players now. People don't play Conclave because there's no reason to do so, since the rewards are isolated to stay in the Conclave, and it's not fun since the majority of Conclave Vets are so insane they'll smack you in two faster than you can say "German words are really long." Something more balanced and casual would fix those problems.

DE Doesn't Have Time for This:

Sure they do. They made Conclave in the first place, and most all of the resources they'd need (outside of improved net-code and getting the players actually INSIDE the grineer/corpus) are there. They have the models, the maps, the guns, the numbers. Things would need to be retooled, sure, but if DE hired a 3rd party to handle a lot of the code-based issues, then I have strong doubts that DE would have to spend an unrealistic amount of time on something like this.

Nobody Asked for This:
Nobody asked for Lunaro, and nobody asked for Plains of Eidolon, but one was a success, and one was not. People complain about the game having bad/no real PVP all the time. If something like this was actually created, and the rewards were good, then maybe it would be a success, and maybe it wouldn't.

What About Infested?

Make them PVE content, with the same rewards as before but you're forced to play as the side they are fighting in whatever invasion it might be they're in. At a very minimum, if DE wanted to experiment with players playing as grineer and corpus, they could dip their toes in by having players play against Infested in PVE. You could even get creative, letting players take the reigns of a Nightwatch squad tasked with clearing Infested on a blacked-out Grineer ship intended to be refurbished and put back into circulation. You could let your hearts go wild with it, honestly.

Isn't this just creating more content, instead of fixing the PVP we already have?
Yeah, but in my honest opinion, there's no way to save it without a massive overhaul. My insane and highly impractical/unlikely idea is what I'd rather see in the Conclaves place, or at least alongside it. At a minimum, it could be an alternative way to make invasions less horrifically painful to farm out by giving the players extra options.

Other Concerns Expressed in the Previous Post:

"I want to play Warframes, because the game is called Warframe"

Sure, but after 1000's of hours, I'm sure many players would be more than happy to have leisure time shooting each other as the very same enemies they've taken time to slaughter. Also, enjoy your unbalanced conclave while we all enjoy our balanced, refreshing mode. The entire point of my argument for something like this is that Warframes are meant to be overpowered, and since they are all overpowered in different ways it's fundamentally impossible to balance them (+ the literal 100's of weapons) for PVP. That's the whole point of this suggestion. Warframes don't work, I say try something new.

"We don't really develop emotional ties to the enemy factions"

Sure, but we develop ties to the head members of the factions. I imagine the players would be more motivated to try out the gamemode if they had something as simple as Vay Hek yelling "Don't let these Corpus dogs win! Kill them!" Or maybe Nef Anyo saying "Give unto the void, a Grineer sacrifice!" Maybe I'm crazy, but that sounds pretty neat to me.

"Nobody Joins Warframe for the PVP"

 Sure, but most people aren't drawn to Warframe for the quests, either, but things like the Second Dream and The Sacrifice are spectacular. Just because it's not a draw doesn't mean people won't be interested in playing it. Also, people don't play PVP because of its current state, so it's kind of a moot point.

"You're downplaying the difficulty of actually making this happen, it will require lots of work that we can't foresee behind our gaming keyboards"

I'm sure that people said the same thing to optimists when Plains of Eidolon was first announced, and now we have something as good as Fortuna. DE, when they want to, can make even crazier ideas turn into something special. One commenter mentioned having to make new animations and all of that, but Grineer and Corpus already have animations, even if they aren't designed for our use, it certainly can't be very difficult to just use those or remake them. DE doesn't have to create any new designs of any sort, because everything I have suggested is already in the game, so... I mean, you may have to retool numbers on guns for the sake of balance, but all the resources are right there.

"I don't want to play a reskinned CS:GO/Quake/Destiny 2 PVP/ Generic 3rd Person Shooter"

Sure, but there's so many twists DE can make on this. A class-based, Grineer VS Corpus shooter where you actually use the Grineer and Corpus abilities against one another would be extremely fun. Even without extra twists or extremely inspired game-play designs, there's nothing wrong with a fun, well-designed PVP Mode that players of all ranks can easily enjoy. If you disagree, look at a game like Tetris. It's as simple as a game gets, make lines out of a bunch of falling tetrominos, but it remains relevant today. Maybe that's a bad example, but it's the first one I thought of.

 

 

TL;DR I'm a crazy MR26 wretch that thinks that DE should make a Star Wars Battlefront-esque Grineer Vs Corpus PVP mode.

Edited April 3, 2019 by Nuenu

[Loza03]

The only problem I really see IS the difficulty of implementing it, as player and enemy animations are different beasts held to different standards. They could be jerry-rigged, but given how... iffy Conclave is right now, it'd probably be a pretty big risk and not very attractive.

But... it's also not like it's an insurmountable task, or one that couldn't have workarounds. I mean... it's not like we don't have an extensive customisation system that could be used to recreate enemy colour schemes. Even if they require some new models helmets, it could quite easily be implemented as a part of the reward system.

I do think that current conclave is pretty fun on its own, but I also recognise how niche it is, and that a Grineer vs Corpus mode would be more attractive to more people. I've even had a few ideas for classes using the above mentioned system of 'Warframes standing in for Grineer and Corpus'.

Manic: Ash, featuring his teleport and a modified Bladestorm that plays the animation on a single target. Uses Venka.

Shield Osprey: Hildryn, shrunk down to half size like Razorwing and in a permanent Aegis Storm with greatly increased speed and max height.. Has a nerfed balefire and her Haven ability.

Bombard: Rhino featuring Navigator and a nerfed stomp, equipped with Ogris.. Navigator mimics the homing rockets in a more balanced way and stomp is their ground slam attack.

Tech: Vauban, sporting a Supra, a specialised minelayer mine that adds shields (more efficiently than the 'Shield Osprey' but stationary), as well as a bounce grenade (mostly there to give it two abilities for a level playing field. 'Shield Osprey's second is flight).

 

I dunno, those are my ideas.

[Engilore]

to be fair i think the same way but DE it's not going to implement this today neither in the next 5 years they have a very schematic route to follow that somehow will be adding open worlds for every planet of the game and add railjack to it. but i was searching around some modding tools from SWBF2 add maybe change some textures from the infantry and the vehicles and we could have the pvp grineer vs corpus we deserved.however we should have a very amount of people that is willing to lose their time modding the game to make this become a reality. if you ask me i could be that person 

[SevenLetterKWord]

On 2019-04-03 at 10:53 AM, Nuenu said:

TL;DR I'm a crazy MR26 wretch that thinks that DE should make a Star Wars Battlefront-esque Grineer Vs Corpus PVP mode.

What a novel idea.

On 2019-04-03 at 10:53 AM, Nuenu said:

All of a sudden DE can just set the balance and make tweaks as necessary without having to worry about "Oh gosh, now we released a new weapon that kicks a** thanks to power-creep. Guess PVP will just be even more broken now" because you will be playing set characters with set weapons and damage numbers.

This is a fake concern. Conclave has its own balancing independent of PvE values.

On 2019-04-03 at 10:53 AM, Nuenu said:

nobody asked for Plains of Eidolon

really
nobody asked for open-world warframe
are you sure tho

On 2019-04-03 at 10:53 AM, Nuenu said:

Yeah, but in my honest opinion, there's no way to save it without a massive overhaul.

I'm skeptical that your three-hours experience in a very complex environment qualifies you to make such bold statements.

Spoiler

 

On 2019-04-03 at 10:53 AM, Nuenu said:

The entire point of my argument for something like this is that Warframes are meant to be overpowered, and since they are all overpowered in different ways it's fundamentally impossible to balance them (+ the literal 100's of weapons) for PVP. That's the whole point of this suggestion. Warframes don't work, I say try something new.

But like... where's the supporting reasoning? What particular Warframe do you think is overpowered?
Or do you truly think they all are? Saying that "they are all overpowered in different ways"... doesn't that really just mean they're equal and diverse?

On 2019-04-03 at 10:53 AM, Nuenu said:

"We don't really develop emotional ties to the enemy factions"

It's an action game, not a dating simulator, yeah? Sounds like an empty counterargument.

[Drejzer]

As The Official Protector of Infested Rights¹ I demand an Infested Faction to be included in this thread.

Spoiler

1) Self proclaimed

On a serious note, wouldn't removing Warframes from Warframe... kinda miss the point? Of course, that would have It's charm and all... but it wouldn't really be Warframe. Sure it would be set in Warframe Universe be part of the franchise, but it would feel like a completely separate game.

In my opinion, Warframe would lend itself really well to MOBA-like PVP, basically Rail Conflicts given more love, brought up to speed with current mechanics...

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

4 hours ago, Drejzer said:

As The Official Protector of Infested Rights¹ I demand an Infested Faction to be included in this thread.

  Reveal hidden contents

1) Self proclaimed

On a serious note, wouldn't removing Warframes from Warframe... kinda miss the point? Of course, that would have It's charm and all... but it wouldn't really be Warframe. Sure it would be set in Warframe Universe be part of the franchise, but it would feel like a completely separate game.

In my opinion, Warframe would lend itself really well to MOBA-like PVP, basically Rail Conflicts given more love, brought up to speed with current mechanics...

Please don't mention Rail Conflicts in threads that are not specifically about them. People tend to have really negative perceptions of the old wars for some reason.

[UrdarBrunnr9]

A problem I see with this is that in the entire rest of the game we play as either our operators, or our operators using transference to control something else (such as our warframes).

Although to fix this the "lore" of the mode could be that we are mind controlling them with transference or something.

[Okami_Amaterasu]

While I wouldn't mind this, some balancing towards certain weapons like Ignis, Staticor and Simulors etc. and some ability adjustments (hello soulpunch 1 shot combo) could go a long way to making Conclave a bit more enjoyable for everyone, vets and newer players alike. I don't think the movement is really an issue either...