Some potentially working endgame.

[lukinu_u]

A lot of people are looking for endgame in the game and is not as easy at it may sound, but I think I got something relatively simple to implement that could work.
So first, let's point out what are the problem of all the endgame (or at least diffucult gamemodes) attempts we got so far :

• As hard or interesting they may seems in the beginning, they all finish cheesed and not hard anymore.
• In most of case, it's about endless run rather than actual difficulty on a set mission, meaning you have to wait sometime 30-40 minutes before getting the difficulty you are looking for (only old Trials did that well).
• It's generally about kill as much and as fast as possible, rather than interesting objetctives (Trials did that greatly too, especially Jordas Verdict).
• They generally contain exclusive reward, so some people complain about being forced playing to get it, and the difficulty is scaled down.

Here, the main problem for me is the fact everything is cheesed to easy, and why.
Basically, what make the game in generally so easy is fact once you get a working setup you can use it everywhere without any restrictions, and as all "high level content" is about killing stuff without restrictions about what you chose, the most efficient setup is almost always the same, or at least rely on the same kind of stuff : area nuke build or insane single target damage buff, and as some gears do this better than other, for pure efficiency there is no reason to play other ones.

To avoid this, my idea is about using a ton of randomly generated restrictions (and maybe buffs ?) to force players thinking differently and theory craft with stuff they usually don't.
At the end it will be cheesed like everything in the game but the idea is to have restrictions for each mission that make the way of cheesing totally different each time, meaning a big part of the difficulty is to adapt your loadout to the current requirements.

Before explained more in details the restriction system, I will rapidely explain what type of mission I imagine to better give the context.
Basically something 10-15 minutes long if everything is understood and done correctly, in multiple parts :

• Entrance : Entering in the room and go to the defense objective, haven't though much about this part but it don't need to be that intersting.
• Defending : a randomly selected defense phase, generally the part where you will have to kill stuff the most. Could be mobile defense, adapted interception/infested salvage, hijack. Not more that 3-4 minutes if done perfecty.
• Puzzle : a randomly selected puzzle from a few we have, at best make it modular so it's not exactly the same everytime. Could include spy, first LoR step, plates of second LoR step, simplified JV boss inside puzzle, and few new ones.
• Boss : Just a regular boss, at high level.

The mission is supposed to be real endgame and therefore, the difficulty (and restrictions) are balanced for people owning everything, meaning you may not complete the restrictions depending on your current progression.
To make it more accessible if necessary, the mission can be split into 3 difficulty, with increasing enemy difficulty and restrictions, something like enemy level at 75-100-150 and respectively 25%-50%-100% of the restrictions, (100% the restriction mean the total number of restriction at difficulty 3).

Now for the restrictions, they are split in category and mutliple of them on each category are there for each mission. These are just exemples and more could be added for variety.
The average percentage of restriction for each category will be shown in brackets :
 

• Warframe restriction : x Warframe is not usable (about 70% of them).
   
• Weapon restriction : x weapon is not usable, (about 80% of them, for each category).
   
• Elemental status : x elemental status won't work (about 60% of them).
   
• Elemental damages : x elemental damage will deal 0 damages, status still work (about 30% of them).
   
• Warframe conditions (20% of them) :
  • No armor.
  • Shield don't recharge.
  • Power strength/duration/range/efficiency is halved (one of them).
  • Critical damages are halved.
  • Common/Uncommon/Rare mods are not usable (one of them).
  • Madurai/Vazarin/Naramon/Zenurik/Unairu/Umbra mods are not usable (1-2 of them).
  • Power 1/2/3/4 is not usable (one of them).
  • Power get a 10s/15s/15s/30s cooldown, respectively for each 4 powers.
  • Warframe/weapons variants are not usable (Prime, Wraith, Vandal, etc...).
  • Faction only weapons (Tenno, Grineer, Corpus only because infested and sentient don't' have enough).
  • No transference energy.
     
• Enemies conditions (20% of them) :
  • Critical damages heal enemies.
  • Status effect proc on enemies has 50% chances to affect you instead.
  • Each hit on alarmed enemies will increase their armor by 10%.
  • Alarmed enemies get +500% damages.
     
• Environnemental conditions (20% of them) :
  • Staying on the ground drain health/energy/shield (one of them).
  • Low Gravity.
  • Wall latch randomly affect you with a status effect.
  • Damages recieved in air/on the ground are doubled (one of them).
  • Damages dealt in air/on the ground are halved (one of them).
     

I think a weekly/bi-weekly reset cycle for this type of mission would work well. It would let people the time to adapt their build to the situation and craft stuff they are missing for less frustration, while still encourage people to own everything.
About the reward I think stuff we can get elsewhere but still valuable would be the best option : Forma packs, big amount of endo, refined relics packs, etc... and maybe rarely Umbra forma for the 3rd diffculty unless they want to keep it for Nightwave.

Let me know if you have anything you would change there, or have idea for interesting mission conditions !

Edited July 25, 2019 by lukinu_u
Corrected a few spelling mistakes.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

Still not seeing a reason to subject myself to this. Those rewards are nice, but not that nice

Besides, what happens when it decides that only Nova, Titania, Vauban, Ember, Zephyr, Mag are allowed, no Madurai mods, no Rare Mods (and what does a Primed mod count as?), Power cooldowns, The only weapons you are allowed to use are the ones with <10% crit and status chance, Toxin/Slash/Viral/Gas/Corrosive procs don't work, Radiation/Corrosive/Toxin damage does nothing, Alarmed enemies deal 500% damage, Damage dealt on the ground is halved, the defense objective is the new Jupiter one (and you aren't allowed to fail any consoles), the puzzle is LoR stage 2, and the Boss is Kela de Thaym.

Only the most try-hardiest of try-hards would be able to complete that. No one would have fun. You would have failed run after failed run, with players getting more and more frustrated.

The key problems I'm seeing are

1. All augments are rare mods, all crit and status builds require rare mods, most warframe builds require rare mods, most stances are rare mods. Alternatively, most auras are uncommon mods, so removing that makes all warframes weaker.
2. All weapons need base damage mods unless you use Chroma, and all base damage mods are Madurai. Remove both of those, and it becomes impossible to kill enemies over level 20. All elemental builds that focus on status use 2-4 Madurai elementals; all elemental builds focused on raw damage use 2-4 Naramon elementals. Removing either kills the build. All warframe survivabilty mods (health/shields/armor, Adaptation, Quick Thinking, etc. are Vazarin. Removing all of these will get most frames killed, especially at high level.
3. Allowing procs to have a 50% chance to affect the user only encourages trolling. You will have the guy who goes in with a fast, high-status weapon built for radiation so that he can then kill all of his teammates and prevent them from reviving each other. This is not viable.
4. The rewards could be good, but players have to be offered either something exclusive, or an excessive quantity of non-exclusive rewards, to do something exceptionally aggravating. 20k Kuva, 50k Endo, 3 built Forma, 5 Refined relics (one guaranteed Axi), 2.5 million credits, etc., or exclusive new items/systems with some commensurate level of power.

 

TL;DR: Potentially interesting idea, but likely too aggravating for most players, thus making it exceptionally unlikely for DE to implement in a way that would draw players to it.

Edited July 25, 2019 by -AoN-CanoLathra-
Wrong mathematical sign.

[xZeromusx]

The problem I expect the game runs into is that creating content that can be run by a solo player becomes steam rolled by a party, even when there is increased enemy spawn. But developing content that is difficult for a party can sometimes be impossible, mechanics wise, for a solo player.

However, you know what I love about Warframe? It doesn't really seem to have an "end game" like most games out there. Think about it. World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14, you usually start in a beginner area, and you're a pitiful little low level noob with a knicked up sword, a wooden shield, and some shoddy armor, and then you have to cut your way through hordes of peons that slowly increase in difficulty as you put notches on your experience bar and constantly replace your gear in the process. Then you reach their "end game" and you've acquired the fancy weapon and the fancy armor, and you've put enough experience notches behind you to finally face down the big bad guy... In the current expansion. Then the new expansion comes out, your gear is now "so last expansion" and you now repeat that same "noob" experience of again cutting your way through hordes of peons to grind out more experience notches because the level cap rose and you're now only considered "mid level" again. Most games have what is called a gear and level treadmill. You work and run your a** off for levels and gear that is only considered "end game" temporarily, until the new "end game" gets released.

Warframe is the most amazing game in my book because it doesn't do this. Yeah, we have MR, and that can unlock new weapons and gear, but player skill is more important, and can carry a player from Mercury to the Void with nothing but Excalibur, Lato, Braton, and Skana. "End game" in Warframe merely comes down to piling on mission augments, but is that really "end game" in any realistic sense, or is Warframe great because everything is just essentially the same game, and merely a matter of player ability?

I like your idea. More difficulty augments on top of the difficulty augments we already have in the game such as with Nightmare, Sortie, and Arbitration is not a bad thing. But I simply can't see call it "end game" content when all it boils down to is that it's the same "beginning game" with some added rules involved. It's more or less just "New Game +". I think that's what I find so great about Warframe.

Edited July 25, 2019 by xZeromusx

[lukinu_u]

il y a 4 minutes, -AoN-CanoLathra- a dit :

Only the most try-hardiest of try-hards would be able to complete that. No one would have fun. You would have failed run after failed run, with players getting more and more frustrated.

That's exacty the point. This is not meant to be finished by everyone (at least not at difficulty 3), and this is also the reason reward would be stuff we always need but wouldn't be too sad about missing from a time limited mission (forma, endo, relics, etc...).
Call it "endgame" is not necessarily right, but that's some kind of difficult content that would be interesting to see in my opinion. Some setup being too difficult is definitely not an issue and honestly, I would love to try the one you mentionned (despite being very unlikely to happen).
 

il y a 13 minutes, -AoN-CanoLathra- a dit :

1. All augments are rare mods, all crit and status builds require rare mods, most warframe builds require rare mods, most stances are rare mods. Alternatively, most auras are uncommon mods, so removing that makes all warframes weaker.

Yeah, maybe exclude augments, aura and stance from the mod raririty restriction. Sounds ok for the crit/status however.
 

il y a 15 minutes, -AoN-CanoLathra- a dit :

2. All weapons need base damage mods unless you use Chroma, and all base damage mods are Madurai. Remove both of those, and it becomes impossible to kill enemies over level 20. All elemental builds that focus on status use 2-4 Madurai elementals; all elemental builds focused on raw damage use 2-4 Naramon elementals. Removing either kills the build. All warframe survivabilty mods (health/shields/armor, Adaptation, Quick Thinking, etc. are Vazarin. Removing all of these will get most frames killed, especially at high level.

Weapons are stronger with damages mods, but they don't need them, you just get a x0.37 damage multiplier + a free slot, not a big deal. Also there are alternatives to Chroma for damages buff such as Mirage, Rhino, Saryn, Volt, all elemental frames (with 1st augment), Banshee, Harrow, etc...
As for sor survivability, it would encourage relying on CC and/or operator rather than tanking.
However I agree weapons has too much madurai mods and it would need some changes. Maybe put different polarity restriction for warframe, primary, secondary and melee when that modifier is on, to make it more manageable.
 

il y a 25 minutes, -AoN-CanoLathra- a dit :

3. Allowing procs to have a 50% chance to affect the user only encourages trolling. You will have the guy who goes in with a fast, high-status weapon built for radiation so that he can then kill all of his teammates and prevent them from reviving each other. This is not viable.

With this kind of difficulty, you would just don't play with people that could troll this way. I mean, do you play Eidolon hunt with a Vauban spamming bumper or a Frost putting snowball to prevent you from shooting the Synovia ? Of course there are some risks but if it's difficult enough, players would avoid trolling because they actually want to win.
 

il y a 28 minutes, -AoN-CanoLathra- a dit :

4. The rewards could be good, but players have to be offered either something exclusive, or an excessive quantity of non-exclusive rewards, to do something exceptionally aggravating. 20k Kuva, 50k Endo, 3 built Forma, 5 Refined relics (one guaranteed Axi), 2.5 million credits, etc., or exclusive new items/systems with some commensurate level of power.

Considering it's not meant to be finished by everyone, exclusive reward is a big no. It would just put a lot of frustration there, rather than rewarding you for finishing it.
So yeah, big amount of Kuva, Endo, Forma or relics sounds ok to me, and making the mission reset bi-weekly (and getting the reward 1 time like sorties) would actually allow for bigger reward without making it an efficient way of farming these all the time.

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

I actually would like something along these lines. I think, perhaps with appropriate cap on number of conditions or exclude certain conditions from being selected together to prevent them from making a mission unbeatable, it's a good idea. 

Sadly, this is what I had hoped Onslaught and Arbitrations were going to be but they took the route of encouraging exclusively dps oriented play rather than encouraging the single most ingrained mechanic of Warframe's entire existence: Swapping loadouts. Content that encourages using different gear rather than just 1 loadout forever is much appreciated.

I don't think all content needs to be easily accessible by most players. Most players in MMOs don't actually participate in Raid content yet those games have fully fleshed out high level content not doable by a large portion of the player base. That was the raids here, until they had to go, for good reason though.