Please do not cave on Nightwave.

[Steel_Rook]

10 minutes ago, (PS4)BenHeisennberg said:

I actually like this a fair bit more.  Sorry about that, I misunderstood the part about the cap.

No worries, just making sure we're on the same page. It's very easy to lose track of who's saying what in large discussions like these.

 

23 minutes ago, (PS4)BenHeisennberg said:

And I agree with certain improvements to it, sure.  The issue I've been responding to over the last couple of pages is when it appears to me that someone's biggest complaint with Nightwave is the idea that time limited events are predatory and part of a nefarious plot by the video game industry.  I support the introduction of special events and related rewards, I'm supportive of a system where people have content that changes over the course of time so we never truly run out of it, and I will continue to support that.  Anyone who disagrees on the basis that they don't play the game much, well, doesn't play the game much.  They got ten weeks to take part in it, they don't need to be catered to.  And anyone who disagrees on the basis that an event in a video game affects their mental wellbeing needs to see a therapist, not the feedback forums.

I think a lot of what you're seeing is the loudest, most extreme voices saying very reductive things filtering through. Many people - when engaged in conversation - are revealed to have more nuanced and measured opinions, with extreme emotions reserved for just a few isolated and specific issues. For instance, my issues with Nightwave Season 1 was the hard schedule. "You do this much work per week, every week for 10 weeks, or you don't get rewarded." Obviously there's quite a bit of leeway in that - you don't need to do EVERYTHING. But the feeling was the same. If I miss too much work, I'm put so far behind that I can physically never catch up. Well, the Recovery system takes care of that by letting me replay missed challenges, so that's one major drawback off the table.

But don't get me wrong - I don't like limited-time events. It always makes me ask a simple question: "But why can't you leave that active all year 'round, though?" The answer is usually hype and artificial scarcity. You want your players to feel like they have a rare opportunity, and so play to capitalise on it. In a black-and-white world that would be BAD!!! but in reality I recognise the necessity for this sort of player motivation in a F2P game. I'm willing to meet the game half-way as long as the time is lenient enough and the event not too annoying. As I said, Nightwave Season 1 definitely pissed me off, but I was willing to give DE the benefit of a doubt that they'd stumbled over backwards into what seemed like a predatory design, rather than intentionally designed it that way. Like with the Kubrow slot machine, how we used the system isn't how they intended it to be used. Nightwave Season 2 tells me that this was likely the case. When given the chance to rectify, they've worked a lot of the more exploitative aspects out of the system and left us with more game-design-sided things to discuss.

The point I was trying to drive at was that ignoring feedback is never a good idea - even if it's angry screaming feedback. At the same time, though, you always want to make your own decisions based on that feedback. I don't expect DE will just remove all the "hard" challenges until we're left with "push button, receive bacon," so to speak. They have been removing some of the more annoying ones in response to feedback, this is true, but I'd argue they had good reason to remove the challenges they did. Even if it was whiny entitled complaints that got us there, that was still a positive change. And mind you, they've replaced them with fairly decent ones, like fighting Thumpers. I have issues with Thumpers themselves, but that's entirely unrelated to using them as a challenge.

Long story short, I don't think DE are just knee-jerking to remove things people complain about. Rather, they seem to be deliberately weeding out the challenges people seem to hate and replacing them with others which seem more popular, or at least less unpopular. Other challenges that people complain about - stuff like Bullet Jumps - those I don't see going away. Yes, some people dislike them but there are arguments to be made for their inclusion. Specifically, busywork challenges are a good fit for simple Dailies. And some of the complaints might be addressed not by removing challenges, but rather by giving players more options to stick to JUST the challenges they like. I might be overly naive in this regard, but I tend to feel that each individual player should be in charge of their own experience to at least a some significant extent.

 

1 hour ago, (PS4)BenHeisennberg said:

It would certainly invite criticism, but literally everything does.  A cap at the current available standing per week, but with optional combat related challenges for those who don't want to do the more boring challenges (i.e. k drives or flowers) or haven't reached the Profit Taker yet in that syndicate, actually plays into an idea we discussed on page 2 I think it was.  That would be an excellent system. 

Also, don't get me wrong, I agree with the introduction of the catch up mechanic.  That's a good addition to Nightwave.  My original post was with regards to the deluge of complaints on the forum and the subreddit regarding almost every single individual challenge. 

That's what I had in mind, yes - a cap of 43 500 as we have now, just with more Weeklies, Elite Weeklies and potentially some Super Elite Weekly more difficult challenges. You also make a good point about splitting challenges along "type." I'd say broad categories can include Combat activities, Exploration actitives and maybe Crafting activities. Combat would be kills counters, assassionations, world bosses, specific missions, etc. Exploration would be the likes of catching fish, mining rocks, maybe finding world bosses like Thumpers. Crafting challenges are... Generally not popular. Not a lot of people liked socketing Sculptures or using Forma or Guilding items. The best argument I've seen for them was "they aren't that bad." And they aren't, but I feel DE can do better.

When it comes to the Recovery mechanic, I REALLY want to see some kind of reroll option for it. Maybe reroll one Recovered Challenge per day? Being stuck with three challenges you CAN'T do is unlikely, but being stuck with three of them you deliberately skipped isn't. The list of Recovered Challenges already seems to only update once a day (ran one yesterday, never got another Recovered Challenged before Monday). In fact, I might have to refactor my previous recover proposal to apply solely to Recovered challenges. Let me reroll one of those per day, picked from the pool of everything I've missed that isn't already on the list of Recovered Challenges. Maybe a way to see the full list could be nice.

But like I said, these are design-level issues. Nightwave Season 2 is very solid so far and makes me feel good about playing at my own pace. I still have issues with it and proposals about it, but I think it's a definite improvement which genuinely makes me look forward to Season 3.

[Steel_Rook]

46 minutes ago, Somi_xD said:

This over Daily Standing Caps for all syndicates. (Even if i dislike those Caps - but there are not many other solutions for Warframe)
This daily Cap BS is really annoying, and it's forcing you to get daily into the game.
There are days i don't want(or don't have the time) to play warframe, because i play or do something else.

Weekly Stading Caps would ease up, so many things for many players.

Hmm... You know what? I'd be OK with that. In fact, I'll gladly take a Weekly Syndicate Standing Cap over a Daily one. Means I could binge for a few days if I wanted to, or space it out at my discretion. That's probably worth a thread of its own, but I like it 🙂

[Somi_xD]

vor 19 Minuten schrieb Steel_Rook:

Hmm... You know what? I'd be OK with that. In fact, I'll gladly take a Weekly Syndicate Standing Cap over a Daily one. Means I could binge for a few days if I wanted to, or space it out at my discretion. That's probably worth a thread of its own, but I like it 🙂

Exactly.
Yeah, this probably needs a thread on its own, if you really wanna put attention to it.

[Gofretko]

Hell, I'd vote for a monthly cap. My work is quite interesting and very often distracts me from games (nice irony isn't it?). And my desire to play comes in periodical bursts. It's not a daily ritual by any means.

I'm very not okay with DE sheep-herding us to do stuff daily or miss out. Me and my wife have returned from a long pause about a month ago (we quit just before Fortuna landed) and the way Warframe tries to strongarm us to login daily is quickly burning us out again.

Sad. No game developer likes giving the players a choice, it seems; and before some smartass says "you have a choice, don't play", this is not about that. We love the game, like 90% of it. Again though, the way the game wants you to play so as to not miss out is mentally draining.

[StarHunter234]

I have to agree with Gofretko. Warframe had always had grind but before i had the feeling that you can grind at your own pace, not so with nightwave. I have a life and cant play every day and sometimes not every week forcing me to log on and do the challages too often is burning me out, along with the fact the some challages take away from my limited game time that i want to spend on onder warframe content. Best soluiton would honestly be montly cap of Nightwave standing and the option to tailor which challanges i actually want to do from a pool of them for each type (weekly/elite). I think that allowing people to have  a choice will reduce frustration and not make the game feel like haveing another job and will allow people who have busy real life to catch up better then the current system. It will still requre people to put in the work and time to complete the same amout of challages to earn standing but they can do it when they are free and while doing warframe contet that is enjoyable for them. And i dont see why some people seem resistant to the idea.

And before someone says you "want it to be easy" i can complete most of the challges without difficulty, but not every week and forcing me to unfun and tedious busy work is burning me out and im sure im not the only one. Difficulty is not the problem forcing people to do tedious time consuming things every day/week when they potentially have a busy real life or maybe just want to take a small break from the game so that they dont get burned out is the problem.

Edited August 5, 2019 by StarHunter234