Nightwave Rework - How Nightwaves can make Warframe better by telling stories

[Oreades]

9 minutes ago, KroneVanguard said:

I'm downloading a different FtP game right now. 🖕 The whole point massively failed. And I won't return if they don't fix this piece of 💩 uninteresting Nightwave.

And I'm sure a bunch of people left the game over Alerts, people are going to leave the game for any number of reasons, not limited to and including "some times ya just need a break". I hope your new game is entertaining and maybe possibly you end up coming back to Warframe at some point in the future regardless of changes to Nightwave. 

 

5 minutes ago, DariusMcSwag said:

I agree it would be nice to have multiple full narrated story quests in Nightwave, but this concept is not reliant on it. The Story Acts could easily be variants on already existing mission types, with some context text helping to drive the narrative forward. I will mockup this to show what I mean. Ideally the main story beats would be available in the Nightwave index, like how it works now, so that people who missed out on that Season could still get the story. I also don't imagine these missions to be brand new ones, but missions similar to how you excavate for the Archwing blueprints in The Archwing Quest (not the best example, but it was the first one to come to mind).

All that really does is switch up the mission announcer and the mission announcements would need to be generalized as so that they could be largely (not entirely) reused throughout Nightwave seasons. Which is going to be pretty hit or miss, I mean you already have people asking to mute Nora, not that they didn't ask to mute lotus. 

Personally the mission announcer never really bothered me I just kinda mentally filtered them out after a while. With the exception of the Rapadapalapolyst monologue(s) which got really old reeeealy fast. To the point that even tho I actually kinda enjoyed the boss fight (once I'd gotten all the not always well conveyed mechanics down) I had to stop playing the mission because I just couldn't take another set of Lotus ramblings. 

So at least for myself personally it's either going to be something that I stop paying attention to or something that drives me insane. YMMV?

 

5 minutes ago, DariusMcSwag said:

Sorties work the same way, as do Sanctuary Onslaught, Arbitrations, Invasions, Syndicate Missions, Fissures, etc. The difference between those and this concept is that the Daily and Weekly Missions will be varied, and would hopefully include ties to the previously mentioned mission types. Unlike a traditional Quest or the previous examples, you would be able to select the type of mission that you want to do.

Lets say you login to Warframe and you check Nightwave, the Weekly Missions include an Exterminate, a Spy, a Syndicate Interception, Free Roam POE, Derelict Defense, and a Nightmare Hive. The Daily available for today is a Lith Fissure Capture. You are looking for Mutagen Samples to fund the research of the Hema for your Clan, so you choose Derelict Defense (in this situation, you do not need a key for this mission). When you select it, text appears to the side of the mission saying what the mission is, any modifiers on it, and how it connects to the overarching story.

Thank you for this feedback, all criticism helps to refine the concept. If you have any more suggestions, please post them. No concept can be perfect right out of the gate, and if the concept is just not for you, its good to know why.

Trick example, no one should ever farm for Hema Mutagen, jk but no really don't lol. 

srsly tho I'm trying to piece together an better idea of what you're aiming for. 

So, for the daily you just have to do one mission from a list of possible options?

• What happens when the option for what you feel like doing isn't in that list? 
• How do they tie in the VA in such a way that any selection from that list makes sense thematically for the "quest line"? 

If they are just tied together by a blurb of text on the side of the missions, I'll pretty much guarantee I will pay exactly zero attention to that. Unless it's voiced over I'm probably not going to notice it at all. Plus now I'm running my daily Sortie which is already a set of missions I might not really be in the mood for plus the Nightwave daily which is a selection of missions I very well might not be in the mood for either?

For me the reason that (most of but not all of) the Nightwave missions work is because I can accomplish the bulk of them in any mission type and at my own pace. Going from your Lith example, in the current system if I get a "Do 3 Capture missions" weekly, I can and have said "ya know I haven't run any fissures in a while" and gone to hit up some Capture Fissures. While I am obligated to preform a Capture mission in that instance, I am able to multi task it as I see fit. 

Theoretically DE could implement a selection mechanic now without making any other changes to Nightwave but you can bank on the fact that the playerbase at large is just going to pick the "easiest" mission on the list. Pretty much anything vs a capture mission and capture mission is going to be selected the majority of the time. 

 

The best thing people can do for Nightwave IMHO is to pace themselves, not that I'm a shining example of that as I'm usually done with all the Nightwave missions within a few hours of them being updated. With the exception of Syndicate Missions which I will spread out over the week or a Sortie Mission if I've already completed the Sortie that day but just because I physically can't do that.

[DariusMcSwag]

1 minute ago, KroneVanguard said:

I think it's good. It's entertaining. For what can count my opinion...

Everyones opinion matters, and your feedback is appreciated 🙂 especially from someone who has lost interest in the game.

[DariusMcSwag]

3 minutes ago, Oreades said:

srsly tho I'm trying to piece together an better idea of what you're aiming for. 

So, for the daily you just have to do one mission from a list of possible options?

• What happens when the option for what you feel like doing isn't in that list? 
• How do they tie in the VA in such a way that any selection from that list makes sense thematically for the "quest line"? 

If they are just tied together by a blurb of text on the side of the missions, I'll pretty much guarantee I will pay exactly zero attention to that. Unless it's voiced over I'm probably not going to notice it at all. Plus now I'm running my daily Sortie which is already a set of missions I might not really be in the mood for plus the Nightwave daily which is a selection of missions I very well might not be in the mood for either?

For me the reason that (most of but not all of) the Nightwave missions work is because I can accomplish the bulk of them in any mission type and at my own pace. Going from your Lith example, in the current system if I get a "Do 3 Capture missions" weekly, I can and have said "ya know I haven't run any fissures in a while" and gone to hit up some Capture Fissures. While I am obligated to preform a Capture mission in that instance, I am able to multi task it as I see fit. 

Theoretically DE could implement a selection mechanic now without making any other changes to Nightwave but you can bank on the fact that the playerbase at large is just going to pick the "easiest" mission on the list. Pretty much anything vs a capture mission and capture mission is going to be selected the majority of the time. 

 

The best thing people can do for Nightwave IMHO is to pace themselves, not that I'm a shining example of that as I'm usually done with all the Nightwave missions within a few hours of them being updated. With the exception of Syndicate Missions which I will spread out over the week or a Sortie Mission if I've already completed the Sortie that day but just because I physically can't do that.

Take a look at the mockup, hopefully it answers some of your questions. It could either be VA or just plain text, which I admit some people will just glance over, but the goal is to make seemingly unconnected events connected in some way or another. They could be more broad, as in instead of doing a specific Capture mission, you could do a Fissure Capture or a Syndicate Capture, the only requirement is that its a capture. I appreciate that you like to do things at your own pace, so I'll take that into consideration.

In a way it kind of feels like a choose your own adventure book, where you get to pick the routes that you want to take. I actually really like the idea of not having the Daily/Weekly Acts be specific missions and instead have them be mission types. That could help make it feel like you are paving your own path.

Thanks for the feedback

[DariusMcSwag]

42 minutes ago, DariusMcSwag said:

Take a look at the mockup, hopefully it answers some of your questions. It could either be VA or just plain text, which I admit some people will just glance over, but the goal is to make seemingly unconnected events connected in some way or another. They could be more broad, as in instead of doing a specific Capture mission, you could do a Fissure Capture or a Syndicate Capture, the only requirement is that its a capture. I appreciate that you like to do things at your own pace, so I'll take that into consideration.

In a way it kind of feels like a choose your own adventure book, where you get to pick the routes that you want to take. I actually really like the idea of not having the Daily/Weekly Acts be specific missions and instead have them be mission types. That could help make it feel like you are paving your own path.

Thanks for the feedback

I've added a secondary mockup to show how you could use any mission for a Nightwave Requirement. Let me know what you think and I hope you like it.

[Tahata]

Awesome ideas! I too thought Nightwave would be more story focused than it is and would love to see more meaning put into Nightwave like what you have suggested😃

[DariusMcSwag]

5 minutes ago, Tahata said:

Awesome ideas! I too thought Nightwave would be more story focused than it is and would love to see more meaning put into Nightwave like what you have suggested😃

Thank you for your support! 😊 If you have any suggestions/concerns, please feel free to tell us

[(PSN)RWalls91]

On 2019-07-16 at 7:41 PM, DariusMcSwag said:

Part 2 - The Rewards That YOU Want

 

Now I know a lot of you are eager to hear how the rewards will work with this new Nightwave, and one of my biggest problems with Nightwave is that you get a lot of rewards that you don't want. Some of my clanmates really like the glyphs and the cosmetics, but personally I couldn't care less about them. However, I liked the idea of purchasing the resources that you wanted in the Cred Offerings, because each player wants/needs something different. So for this new Nightwave, all of the rewards that would have been unlocked by tiers will be in the Cred Offerings store.

To go along with this, all of the Acts (Daily, Weekly, and Story) reward Creds for the Cred Offerings. This way, you choose the rewards that YOU want, and you can skip on the things that you don't. Certain items, like the Emissary Operator Skin, can only be purchased once, but items like Warframe Slots can be purchased multiple times as long as you have the creds for them.

To help incentivize players to play the Story Acts, you could make it so that certain items, like the Emissary Operator Skin, are locked behind a certain amount of Story Acts. This would make it similar to how Syndicates work with their higher end rewards, but without having to sacrifice resources to rank up.

Reading this part alone made me go 'yes!' and 'this guy gets it'.

Definitely agree on slots being easier to get for new players, especially younger players who will be relying solely on the F2P model. Me and my clan mates are interested in the umbral forma, and I personally wouldn't mind the sentinel attachments, but that's about it.

I have nothing I want or need from the cred offerings. I'll probably just stockpile more catalysts (like I need those either). The problem is the rewards are pretty underwhelming, and to the feeling that you HAVE to do it, instead of by choice isn't fun; it's tedious.

Your suggestion, especially in regards to rewards is the best thing I've seen yet.

[DariusMcSwag]

4 minutes ago, (PS4)RWalls91 said:

Reading this part alone made me go 'yes!' and 'this guy gets it'.

Definitely agree on slots being easier to get for new players, especially younger players who will be relying solely on the F2P model. Me and my clan mates are interested in the umbral forma, and I personally wouldn't mind the sentinel attachments, but that's about it.

I have nothing I want or need from the cred offerings. I'll probably just stockpile more catalysts (like I need those either). The problem is the rewards are pretty underwhelming, and to the feeling that you HAVE to do it, instead of by choice isn't fun; it's tedious.

Your suggestion, especially in regards to rewards is the best thing I've seen yet.

Thank you for your support 😊 it felt like the rewards were the sole focus, so we wanted to change that to something that benefits everyone. Let me know if you have any suggestions for this, constructive feedback is always appreciated!

[Oreades]

8 hours ago, (PS4)RWalls91 said:

Reading this part alone made me go 'yes!' and 'this guy gets it'.

Definitely agree on slots being easier to get for new players, especially younger players who will be relying solely on the F2P model. Me and my clan mates are interested in the umbral forma, and I personally wouldn't mind the sentinel attachments, but that's about it.

I have nothing I want or need from the cred offerings. I'll probably just stockpile more catalysts (like I need those either). The problem is the rewards are pretty underwhelming, and to the feeling that you HAVE to do it, instead of by choice isn't fun; it's tedious.

Your suggestion, especially in regards to rewards is the best thing I've seen yet.

There's nothing I want in the credit offerings either, the only thing this changes about that is it makes some of them a mandatory purchase. Sure I could avoid getting that stupid little statue of Arlo (that could have seriously used a texture to make it look like a statue, like come on DE) but when I buy the mods for those weapons that I don't really want... I'm going to feel like I'm obligated to buy them for the sake of "maybe at some point in the future they're gonna be good, maybe. 

Locking the "desirable" (subjective) stuff behind essentially syndicate tiers and now you've created another problem. 

You're trusting the player base at large to be able to manage their credits while they level up their Arlo Standing or whatever. When the Wisp alt helmet rolled around there where plenty of threads with people angry that they had assumed it wasn't coming back so they'd spent their credits the previous week. Clearly the intelligent thing to do was to hold your credits until the final week but you can't count on players to do the intelligent thing especially if there is something that they perceive that they NEED now. Imagine how tweaked players would be if they got to the end and couldn't afford the Emissary Operator Outfit cause they blew all their credits on forma. 

Which means for the bulk of the offerings the only safe way to do it is exactly how they are doing it right now, get to point X and get Y reward in addition to whatever credits you've received. Which puts us right back in the boat we're in with a fixed reward track because that's the safest way to get people the big rewards. Cause you can bet your bottom dollar that if DE let players manage their credits themselves with respect to rewards somewhere out there someone will buy a ton of Arlo Statues for the memes and then whine on the forums that they couldn't afford the Emissary Outfit (the thing they actually wanted) and because of that Nightwave was the worst thing ever~. 

 

DE could very easily break down the total number of Nightwave credits possible because they know how many missions are going to roll around in total from start to finish. They could also break down a Nightwave credit per mission, which might make the missions feel more rewarding over all because then you are at least working towards a store item at all times. However now people are going to feel obligated to play each and every Nightwave mission because it has a credit value tied to it, so if they want the most out of the store that's the way you gotta go. That said it likely wouldn't solve the issue of "I just can't afford (insert item) this week" but it would probably maybe come close. 

I do like the idea of more staple items having a fixed supply throughout the course of Nightwave. Which would maybe make DE feel a bit more relaxed about adding things like Umbra Forma or Warframe Slots to the store if players could only buy say two or three and then they where "sold out" for that player for the rest of Nightwave. Tho what you would probably see isn't an increase in Nightwave Prizes on the reward track, you'd probably see DE stretching those prizes out EG instead of the Sentinel slots and other consumables you'd see them piecemeal out the Emissary Outfit over the course of the full event instead of just getting all five(?) pieces as one reward. Which will ultimately lead to complaints from people who got "most" of the Emissary Outfit but missed the (insert near to last or last piece) which is it's own little kettle of fish. 

You're never going to make everyone happy, the best course of action is the course of action that causes the least "damage" 

Edited July 18, 2019 by Oreades

[DariusMcSwag]

3 minutes ago, Oreades said:

There's nothing I want in the credit offerings either, the only thing this changes about that is it makes some of them a mandatory purchase. Sure I could avoid getting that stupid little statue of Arlo (that could have seriously used a texture to make it look like a statue, like come on DE) but when I buy the mods for those weapons that I don't really want... I'm going to feel like I'm obligated to buy them for the sake of "maybe at some point in the future they're gonna be good, maybe. 

Locking the "desirable" (subjective) stuff behind essentially syndicate tiers and now you've created another problem. 

It all comes down to what you as a player want/need. By adding the reward tiers to the Cred Offerings table, I imagine that like traditional Nightwave you can purchase everything that would have been in those lists if you do ~60% of the Nightwave missions. DE originally set out with that goal in mind, so that mentality should stay with this concept. I will update the concept to reflect this, as it was not made clear.

11 minutes ago, Oreades said:

You're trusting the player base at large to be able to manage their credits while they level up their Arlo Standing or whatever. When the Wisp alt helmet rolled around there where plenty of threads with people angry that they had assumed it wasn't coming back so they'd spent their credits the previous week. Clearly the intelligent thing to do was to hold your credits until the final week but you can't count on players to do the intelligent thing especially if there is something that they perceive that they NEED now. Imagine how tweaked players would be if they got to the end and couldn't afford the Emissary Operator Outfit cause they blew all their credits on forma.

With this concept, the Cred Offerings would not change from week to week. I think that having all of the potential resources and rewards would help give players a goal to work towards, and that way it doesn't feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you.

14 minutes ago, Oreades said:

Which means for the bulk of the offerings the only safe way to do it is exactly how they are doing it right now, get to point X and get Y reward in addition to whatever credits you've received. Which puts us right back in the boat we're in with a fixed reward track because that's the safest way to get people the big rewards. Cause you can bet your bottom dollar that if DE let players manage their credits themselves with respect to rewards somewhere out there someone will buy a ton of Arlo Statues for the memes and then whine on the forums that they couldn't afford the Emissary Outfit (the thing they actually wanted) and because of that Nightwave was the worst thing ever~. 

Unfortunately I can't do anything to prevent that, other than have some of the rewards that are cosmetic have a fixed amount of availability. Also items like the Emissary Operator Skin would include the entire bundle, not separate pieces. That wouldn't be fun.

16 minutes ago, Oreades said:

DE could very easily break down the total number of Nightwave credits possible because they know how many missions are going to roll around in total from start to finish. They could also break down a Nightwave credit per mission, which might make the missions feel more rewarding over all because then you are at least working towards a store item at all times. However now people are going to feel obligated to play each and every Nightwave mission because it has a credit value tied to it, so if they want the most out of the store that's the way you gotta go. That said it likely wouldn't solve the issue of "I just can't afford (insert item) this week" but it would probably maybe come close. 

I do like the idea of more staple items having a fixed supply throughout the course of Nightwave. Which would maybe make DE feel a bit more relaxed about adding things like Umbra Forma or Warframe Slots to the store if players could only buy say two or three and then they where "sold out" for that player for the rest of Nightwave. Tho what you would probably see isn't an increase in Nightwave Prizes on the reward track, you'd probably see DE stretching those prizes out EG instead of the Sentinel slots and other consumables you'd see them piecemeal out the Emissary Outfit over the course of the full event instead of just getting all five(?) pieces as one reward. Which will ultimately lead to complaints from people who got "most" of the Emissary Outfit but missed the (insert near to last or last piece) which is it's own little kettle of fish. 

You're never going to make everyone happy, the best course of action is the course of action that causes the least "damage" 

The goal for this concept is that you don't have to do every single Nightwave Act, but by adding a value to them it would encourage players to complete as many Acts as they can. Rewards and how they would work in this system is still an ongoing discussion, but the idea still remains that if you do ~60% of the Nightwave Acts, you will get all of the rewards that would have been available as if it were on a track. The biggest change is that players get to decide what rewards they want to pursue and how they want to use their time. If you really need kuva one week, you can set your goal on doing enough Acts to buy the kuva bundle with Creds, and then ignore the rest of Nightwave for that week if that's your choice.

Thank you as always for the feedback, it helps to better the concept.

[DariusMcSwag]

On 2019-07-16 at 1:41 PM, DariusMcSwag said:

To further this concept, modifiers could be applied to the mission types to help give them variety. Lets say for this Capture example, a requirement for it to count towards Nightwave is to "Complete the Capture in under 5 minutes." This would help give the missions more challenge, while still being accessible to all types of players. Other modifiers could be; Defense - Don't let the Defense Target take damage, Exterminate - Use only Warframe Powers, Spy - Complete the mission without being detected, etc. This is still a work in progress, but the challenges should be accessible to New and Old players alike, unlike the "Defeat the Profit Taker" challenge.

Ive added a portion to the concept that addresses the different level of challenge for Daily, Weekly, and Elite Weekly missions. This is just an example of how they could differ from normal missions. Nothing too concrete yet.

[BloodRavenCap]

Oreades, I don't think I can agree with you.

I think, If we use the system Darius proposes, we could make players receive free cosmetics for completing some missions. Yeah, of course, management is the name of the game here, but rules could be made less strict, I think.

And, at the same time, I still think this concept is miles better than what we have now. I don't even bother with this NightWave anymore, because the stuff I want is behind a wall of grind and list of things that I don't want. 

I don't need any cosmetics, I just want my potatoes, formas and some story-related missions.

Also, I like this system more because it isn't tied up to anything else in the game. Now a lot of people might be screwed because they didn't bother with improving Fortuna rep and can't take on Profit-Taker. But if we make set of missions accessible from NightWave menu, even if the mission is hard, you could make some matchmaking, so high MR players can drag everyone else through the toughest battles.

Right now system is still not really player-friendly. Yes, it makes some people play more, yes, it's a band-aid to keep player base consistent. And because of this, it feels like blatant manipulation for people to login everyday, even if they are sick and tired of doing the same stuff. What if I got everything I wanted from the invasions missions? Why would I need to repeat them? But if we have unique missions, at least you could complete them faster and get new lore at the same time.

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by BloodRavenCap

[DariusMcSwag]

2 hours ago, BloodRavenCap said:

And, at the same time, I still think this concept is miles better than what we have now. I don't even bother with this NightWave anymore, because the stuff I want is behind a wall of grind and list of things that I don't want. 

I don't need any cosmetics, I just want my potatoes, formas and some story-related missions.

Also, I like this system more because it isn't tied up to anything else in the game. Now a lot of people might be screwed because they didn't bother with improving Fortuna rep and can't take on Profit-Taker. But if we make set of missions accessible from NightWave menu, even if the mission is hard, you could make some matchmaking, so high MR players can drag everyone else through the toughest battles.

Right now system is still not really player-friendly. Yes, it makes some people play more, yes, it's a band-aid to keep player base consistent. And because of this, it feels like blatant manipulation for people to login everyday, even if they are sick and tired of doing the same stuff. What if I got everything I wanted from the invasions missions? Why would I need to repeat them? But if we have unique missions, at least you could complete them faster and get new lore at the same time.

 

Thank you for your feedback! All of Nightwave's content, including the challenges, should be accessible to everyone. One complaint that I hear often is how newer players don't even know what the Profit Taker is, which can be spoilery in its own right.

The draw to playing Nightwave should be that it is first and foremost fun, and offers something new to Warframe.

If you have any suggestions on how to improve this concept, please let me know, and thanks again for the support.