Devstream #127 / Nightwave Elite challenges + Social gameplay

[Kilsety]

I've been one of the complainers in a certain way, not much but this one in particular hits home for me, so for different reasons than other users. I think I know a couple answers and don't feel like it should be taken with disgust as much as you guys in the studio might have. I'll just put bullet points down for reasons why, though I don't know if you see it the same way I do with all the feedback versus a lone tenno operative. I have a couple ideas possibly, as well, that I'm interested in seeing whether anyone supports on the forums. Forgive Captain Obvious here, as he's taken over parts of my post. If you wish to skip around, read bold text and then post your feedback or any ideas you have yourself. I'm a terribly wordy typer sometimes, I know.

 

• You still have 1 type of player (likely the minority) that don't have a supportive social crew of players to play with, and another type where - most of the time - they do (likely majority, but..)
• Not everyone plays at the same pace. You know, someone playing an Excal spamming EB, versus the Inaros that can't keep up without a Zaw, or a Volt that needs to make everyone keep up with their mapclear/speed, or the individuals that end up normally falling behind because they do not play powercreep playstyles or just have lesser modding. I think this is the primary reason why you'd see it in clans or small groups of friends but not much else other than strong hints at why Recruiting can be trash to deal with. You get these vet-styled players that have done everything and maybe don't think it means anything to try that much harder for standing when a public queue can accomplish the same thing, especially one that includes adding another player and it's identical to just having a friend or clanmate around. This seems like an easy, *extremely* useful thing to focus around for this content or other content in a different way
• An easy (not lazy! or more importantly, important) "Do-it-yourself" button being applied to something that can possibly be better arranged through the game for the same utility. I have small and big ideas for that type of problem solving but I don't think that's what you want because it's way more effort than Nightwave tweaks itself.
• They (we, many people) want something more concrete for social growth, yes, but also something that says ELITE to be something ELITE without it being just a tutorial challenge on how to do bigger content or just about doing said content at all (i.e. Bring someone who knows / Do the same as you normally would but with a catch / Do the hardest single-task in the game)
• Calling it Elite sounds like a joke about how people act on the game... It's a funny joke, at least. And agreeable.  I need a floof.

TL;DR = People disagree with it as a requirement. For some tangible reasons that are hard-coded into the game or personality-driven, in my opinion.

 

So I think the main focus should be on an alternative system that encourages socialization without it being heavy on rewards/incentivizing it. That is obviously 100% the reason you put this into Nightwave, and I am totally for it being this way. It's just the first and last part of the above that really sink the entire concept. It's not the game, it's the players. Outside of that, I thought of some solutions to what exists, though I'm trying to keep the ideas to a minimum unless they're more opinionated because I don't want to even influence something I know nothing about when it comes to the effort to implement it.

 

1. Monthly/Series-long Elite "Nightwave" challenges with BIG Nightwave Standing that can be repeated for less standing (up to a point). Up and front, just dump a fair amount of Standing on players for a full Half-series or Series-length of time to complete an X/X challenge that is - very literally - as ELITE as you want it to be as developers. Make it so they can knock it out in a day or two. Make it so it requires a week minimum. Whatever you want, what you can tie into the game easy-as-eggs, or straight-up anything you think of doing. Include the friend challenges. But make it so it's a large lump-sum for the first reward output (First time, Every 3 times, etc.) and a lesser amount for every time after (but enough for it to be worth it. E.G. +20,000 Profit-Taker 3/3, +2500 per 3/3 after, with Friends (Max. 5 times total).
2. Tag certain Challenges as "With a Friend/Clanmate/Alliance Member allowed" for bonus standing. Really strong idea here. I think you plan on doing this anyway, though.
3. (Challenging) Add Elites that require something other than time limits to get it, but require squad coordination, for "With a Friend/Ally/Clanmate." By time limit I mean "Kill profit taker in 2 seconds or fail. 60 minutes - not 56m09s - or fail. Wave 30 No Damage, or fail." types of challenges. None of that I think, for "With a Friend." A healthier example would be Ally Heals / Kavat or kubrow revives / Bonus Ally Damage (buffing) / Killing N within X timeframe Using only ___ (gun/frame/melee/any), and possibly as a multi-phased challenge that increases per completed segment. With a Friend, of course. A small amount of coordination might only apply to people who already have someone/people around on the regular, but it's more interesting discussion if you put out the right clauses for the mission/challenge itself. I think this could still encourage true social interaction with objectivity still in mind if things are aligned fairly.
4. Squad-limited "With a Friend/Stranger" counterbalance challenges. What if you have to do it with only 2 people?.. Random person? Too sortie/arbitration-like?.. Coordination in a time of need.. Very useful way of having a solid discussion that both feel input are weighed in on, and possibly find someone like-minded for.
5. "Secret" unlisted Nightwave challenges that are like Kuria related to socializing, regularly updated/tweaked so they can't be abused. Including to Nightwave that's the opposite of [DE]KickBot might be really fun. Actions like 'Adding someone' - after/during a specific mission that'll open up the clause/reward trigger. Let it be seen in Nightwave if completed, have Nora specialty lines for it that are generic ("Well, aren't you just a slice of HomemadeDessert. Keep. It. Up."). I don't know how well that'll function performance-wise, whether it should be solely chat based or account credentials, or what you think is valuable but please ask the Community team about it since they're the ones that deal with good and bad social behavior. I think it'd stomp the crap out of a lot of negative stuff by having this game give recognition for it in a fun way.

These are easy affinity-level challenges normally so that doesn't sound cohesive to Nightwave itself, but it's a really good place to throw it into the game I think. And it might actually be possible to encourage clan recruiting or joining of clans to complete these Nightwaves if they are apparent throughout an entire Series forever, almost like a Sortie clan or something specific like that (Clans don't have explicit needs yet - like Railack-only - but that'd be *very* healthy). I like this idea, and others will too if it's obvious and then spreads into other content as a trend. Just needs support from various places for it to work or stay. Give people reasons to recruit or create, or have a regular squad, and perhaps overhaul/implement parts of that into clans themselves with someodd benefit (I think you want this and are already working on it). Enough for another post entirely.

 

Socialization that's more stable and humbling seems hard but is possible. When Fortuna dropped, I don't know if we were all blessed with awe at this amazing new place or what, but as frustrating and semi-lackluster (given the drive/interest of the player) rewards from bounties were, I thought there was a lot of stable and healthy interactions with people for whether we stay or go, or which bounty to take next. As stupidly limited as that sounds specifically for social gameplay, that is without *any* preformed  grouping, all in public, and zero included discussions of the content or just selfishly being wowed by your surroundings or what we were doing. i think part of it was freshness but I experienced a very decent thing compared to what I see now. Prior to Fortuna and after, I could queue things anywhere and experience something similar (mostly endless, sometimes sortie/kuva), so obviously something changed.  Big time. I have zero ability to fathom what players want to do to talk. There could have been an economic upset that caused that outside of the game for all I know. It's impossible for me to see anything going on with this but if it's related to Warframe, it's somewhere in that realm of time.

 

Well, I have faith in Nora. A lot of faith. It's not so dark unless she's sitting on a rogue asteroid at the edges of our system alone. This isn't a big deal for Nightwave, the complaints, but there's something going on there that I'm sad about seeing devs revolting towards. I don't think it's your fault, and I hope the feedback wasn't that insane. Hopefully some good ideas are here for everyone.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Kilsety
Changed title

[Kilsety]

OK this is longer than I anticipated, very worried it'll be skipped by readers.. If you stop by please just take a look.

 

E: I didn't do well explaining any logical reasoning behind some things. I had also read some stuff online and remember some discussions in-game as well, so I had a clearer/different perspective on Nightwave and this suggestion than just popping up on the forums and feeling like a write-up might help.

1. Monthly/Series-long - This is an attempt to free up the stress of trying to complete With a Friend/Clanmate/etc. challenges, and incentivize them more heavily. Point amount is not anything but roughly what I think you'd get from that many phases of Elite Weekly, minus some, so it's nothing to miss out on or can't be avoided for R30 Nightwave. It also helps to preserve the initial idea without gutting it immediately. Nothing's inherently awful, just new, and some people like it.
2. With A Friend/Clanmate/etc. Bonus Standing - An alternative to #1 or current system, or additive so that it encourages more activity behind clans in a regular way. If applied to things outside of exclusive content (bossing or daily tasks like Sortie), such as Kill/Invasion/MissionType challenges, it should be safe.
3. (Challenging to tweak Nightwave for) Elites that are more Elite -  Just a more thorough way of including that extra standing for people who can do the harder content or require larger portions of endless. It wasn't meant to be exclusively boss-related, or anything, but I think it's better than Profit-Taker x3. You can't heal 3,000,000 damage or something without having enemies that deal 3,000,000 total, so it leans in favor of harder content always.
4. Squad-limited challenges - This is to add more variety to the same thing, or add it on top, almost like another modifier to a challenge (which is yet another option the devs have). It's meant to force strategy without a lot of individual or squad pressure. Some people spend an hour trying to discuss 5 or 6 dragon key runs or what to use in Arbitrations. This should make that easier, or at least teach a good habit if included regularly.
5. I just thought it'd be a cool way of perking up players for common decency, while adding to Nora some extra room for personality. It's an entirely different approach to a narrator in the game that I haven't seen done before in any game, and she's perfect for it.

 

I think everything in Nightwave needs to be new-player friendly or tutorial-like to teach others what you can do (the truest thing I've picked up from this content). I don't mind less standing from some stuff if it means players can do a larger variety of stuff that takes less time. If weeklies and so on were already more obviously related to the Phases of story/etc. I wouldn't have suggested some ideas. Right now it looks safe to have persistent challenges all Series long.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Kilsety

[Steel_Rook]

There's a reason MMOs have slowly moved away from mandating "socialisation" through team size locks, and you really aren't going to turn the clock back on this one. It's simply more profitable to create a game with the option of socialisation without turning that into a mandatory aspect of gameplay. The more heavy-handed you are about it, the more ways people find around the system and - crucially - the less social the experience becomes. You are never going to force social interaction on people who don't want it. The most you're going to accomplish is forcing a disinterested, irritated interaction done to tick a box.

If you want the game to be more social, how about we get rid of "Solo Only" quests and allow teaming on all of them? Maybe I want to jump in and help a friend with the Tomb Guardian during Sands of Inaros. Maybe I want to help my unprepared friend fight the zillions of Sentients during the Second Dream finale. Years ago, World of Tanks' version of Nightwave (Campaigns) had missions which required a specific squad (be a scout on a squad with to SPGs, for instance), and those were by far the least popular. Wargaming's solution was simple: make the missions soloable, but simply allow squad-mates' kills/spots/damage/etc. to contribute to YOUR progression towards the mission.

That's all that's really needed for Nightwave to be more sociable. Rather than having us literally kill-steal each other on, say, Eximus kills, simply have Eximus kills from anyone on the team count. Make Blast and Gas kills from anyone on the team count, make glide kills from anyone count. If you're too worried about people being "carried," then have "with friends" missions simply require for instance three times the Gas kills, but count kills from anyone on the team. A solo player can still finish it, but doing it on a team would be much faster and easier.

You sort of glossed over what I'm saying, but then went straight back to "challenges which can ONLY be done with a team, but by circumstance rather than by explicit condition," which is just as bad regardless of how you phrase it. If you want to encourage teaming, reward teaming. Penalising solo play is exactly the wrong way to go about it. You want to make me feel like I WANT to team with friends, rather than feeling like I'm being PREVENTED form playing unless I do so.

[Ecnemalas]

I quite like your ideas! You are right, socialization is important. At the same time there are people in the Forum who look at the single players with almost disgust and dare to say that team challenges are for our own good and will help us in real life. Or openly complain that because of those challenges they had to carry new players. And that makes socializing and asking for help a little harder for some.

I am a solo only player with 675 in-game hours, and nothing will change my mind about it. My rig and Net connection is weak, does it mean I am not supposed to play a great game? No. I don't want to socialize online, so I am a recluse? Also no. The game gets older and players with it. Many, including me, are pretty well functioning, working adults. We don't need additional online human connection, we want to have a break and we want to have fun.

That being said, this is a game playable in a team, and it has a dev that wants it to be played that way. I am adamantly against the "with friends" challenges purely because in their current state they do not rely on skills. If I am able to do "5 sorties in a week" task solo for 5k standing, why am I deprived of the "1 sortie with a friend" prize? I do not envy the players being carried, I skipped a lot of tasks on my own, but it was my choice. I am also not saying team players don't deserve a prize. I don't want DE giving me candy, I want fair treatment. I am against players being locked out of something due to variables independent of them.

I would be probably OK with the idea number 2, as long as the difference in points is not too big, but number 3 is the most appealing. Make something infinitely easier as a team, but still doable solo. Like kill X enemies in  one level 40+ survival, where solo players have much slower spawn rate, so they have to go longer. Or simply catch lots of fish in a small amount of time. Let the team players have easy spoils, and let the solo Tenno strategize and fight if they wish to do so. You will convince some to try playing in a squad without offending the others.

So for those of you who are in the toaster league with me, those who were burned by community, those who simply stop to look at Warframe mission sky, I hope we can get some acknowledgement, but for all of us players, I hope for many successful challenges in Season 2.

[Rogunz]

If you still have challengers that require a "friend" or give you bonus standing for it you are still forcing fake social gameplay that doesn't add anything to the game. You aren't going to actually keep that person you grabbed from recruit chat on your friends list since you are only adding them for the challenge and playing with them for a single mission.

Elite challenges that require more coordination is a good idea as long as the objectives can't be failed by one person like the no life support challenge. There isn't any reason to tack with a friend on them though, people will be incentivized to set up squads for them but many other players will have the ability to solo them and should be allowed to do it.

I can't see any way that social secret challenges won't be abused, either someone will complete it by accident and everyone else will be able to game it or it will change too often and people will just spam social actions because they don't want to miss out on a chunk of rep.

[Kilsety]

The reason I posted the stress on strategy is to get people into discussing things. I generally have a better conversation, more sway in it or more agreeable reciprocation on both sides when it's fewer people so I was sure to include that for the extra challenge of Elite. I don't think it's fake social interaction if it's meaningful; people meet eachother through effort all the time on video games and definitely end up staying friends if it's a necessity.

 

I tried avoiding suggesting someone being added for X months or older vs. newer clanmates for a number of reasons, but that also made sense to me. *That* would be fake socialization. I think a lot of ideas can be applied to all platforms equally but some might never work on consoles for all I know, nor for PC at times (I have only known the PC community but all 4 matter).

 

@Rogunz The social easter eggs are just supposed to be small things. You wouldn't be able to type out "I love your Syandana" 50 times for 100 standing each time (less than a fugitive capture set, or whatever comes next) because it wouldn't allow it. They could tweak the trigger list just like KickBot in region chat. Including actions within the game rather than chat, or solely actions, is just something that sounds hard to add unless they find it to be something that important is all. This requires massive coordination and possibly a weird amount of code for what it does, but it's definitely something the Community Team leads would need to have people sit-in on public matches for to know what to add, what's excessive, what's stupid, what's common, or whatever they feel is right. I definitely don't think it's abusable to give people 100 standing if they randomly add someone. It triggers something in the human brain where you feel better after doing something that was already good, and games are supposed to generate smiles at some point or else they're failing. This is something very cool I think they should take seriously.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Kilsety

[Kilsety]

I vote for a lone Nora smooch sound through the microphone if they do something like that. Could easily make it so it's based on how many Series you've completed so it requires her to know you better.. Mmm, this is sounding like a "Sims" take on Warframe dialogue and relationships.. That's not what I mean.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Kilsety

[Kilsety]

Thinking about Nora again..