Anyone else think we need Bounties 2.0?

[Brucely]

So there's a lot of content locked behind Fortuna and Cetus standing grind. Problem is, I would much rather do Arbitrations or Sortie or something else, but GAH I need to get to the content that's locked behind solaris standing. But then, man oh man, getting through that grind with bounties, the main source of standing, gets tedious and unfun very quickly, for the following reasons:

1. Mission pacing is off (length of missions, time spent in combat, difficulty/intensity of combat).

2. Combat "arenas/terrain" are too flat/simplistic (Ironically, Plains does this better than Orb Vallis).

3. Lack of consequential open world choices.

4. Enemy AI isn't quite adapted enough to the open world.

These four reasons are fairly interlinked, some more so than others, so I'm going to talk about them like that.

 

Enemy AI & Combat Arenas/Terrain

Now, I know Warframe's enemy AI is fairly limited in terms of how much technical resources they can allot to huge mobs. But, some more behavior variety in the enemy AI will make bounties more interesting than "stay in this area while enemies line up to be shot down like dominos" over and over again. The simple single file death march thing is fine in corridor tile sets, because many end up taking cover around a corner or box, but ho'boy is it a bummer in the open world, especially on super flat areas where there is no cover for them.

It makes things too easy. Spread them out laterally, give them more defensive behaviors like portable cover. Heck, would it be too much (I honestly don't know) to give them some more strategic behaviors, like setting up impromptu machine gun nests with deployable cover and backup and so on? On this point, I think the Plains is better because there are some enemy times and turrets that can definitely #*!% you if you don't immediately take care of them (lookin' at you, mortar turret up on the high hill). Maybe Vallis could use a unit who calls in orbital strikes and air support by visible targeting laser (gamey telegraphing).

A particular issue I have with enemy AI is how they spawn in on Orb Vallis. On the plains, it's done fairly alright I think. The drop ships are okay, the drop pods (loud and epic) are even better. I think the Vallis take on drop pods is the enemies that get "beamed" down. It needs something else, effects wise. The sound is cool, but then visually, they just boop in. Grineer pods emit a lot of smoke, maybe corpus in the vallis could have individual beams that come down and some bright particle FX that DE loves so much so that they don't just boop in.

A big problem with enemy spawns on open world bounties in general is that they often happen too far away from where players/objectives are. It makes the AI feel very unaggressive and too easy. Give them some more fast and exciting ways to spawn in, as if they are actually aggressively attacking. Have an aircraft zip overhead and just drop a troop carrier that slams onto the ground and they come pouring out. Or, instead of individual, give them a large squad drop pod with a turret on top of it. S#&$, give the corpus k-drives as well.

Now, another thing that contributes to enemy AI issues is the terrain they have available to them. On the plains, many bases/static objectives are on hills or in valleys, which is great. You're king of the hill or you're in the kill box. In Orb Vallis, I feel like most of the bounty objectives I get are on flat roads or one-directional slopes of terrain. And it's just... less interesting as enemies have less routes to attack.

 

Lack of Choice

Speaking of routes to attack, one of the classic features of an open world game is being offered more than one way to approach an objective, and there are real consequences to how you approach and objective. Part of designing multiple approaches to an objective is designing more varied terrain and narrative context.

For example, when doing a spy mission, you can go in quiet and sneaky through the basement filled with traps, and without setting off alarms to get the best mod/component drops possible. OR, you can do it smash and grab style, go in through the front door, blow up everyone, instead of mods/components, get bonus credits (like up to half mil) or resources and bonus xp/standing for sending a message to the corpus/grineer. But then, smash and grab puts them on high alert for the rest of the bounty, while spy keeps alert level low and maybe disables orbital strikes or turns some robotic enemies into allies or something.

Another example, raiding an enemy base, you can go in through the trap-riddled basement and attack from within the base, or you can raid it D-Day style, from land or air, running up a hill or a beach that has cover while mortars and turret fire rain down on you. Or maybe your cell can split up. Two go in via basement to take over turrets or unlock gates while the others wait for the right moment to attack or stop a HVT from escaping when the gates open.

Another example, there's a robotics plant and then there's an airfield. You can only attack one or the other, and which one you take down determines what kind of enemies you will face in the bounty's final stage. OR, the cell splits into two man teams and they try to take them both down at the same time.

There are so many other possibilities, which is a central tenant of open world gaming. Right now though, we only have choice of difficulty, which rewards and how much standing, and how long the mission is. Then it's Point A to B to C etc.

 

Pacing

Pacing is where all these issues sorta come together. Pace isn't measured as much as it's felt, and how it feels is influenced by intensity/difficulty and actual duration. Enemies spawn in far away and too slowly and they're often walking in a straight line across a wide opening. It's a chore to have to go to them, only to evaporate them in seconds, and then have to do that over and over again is just the very definition of tedium, stuff you do without having to put much effort in but it's a chore regardless. Since they barely have to focus on the mission, their minds wander and they become very aware of time, which makes the pace feel sooooo slooooow. It gets even worse when you have to rinse-repeat for 5 stages. Maybe 5 stages would feel much faster if things were more intense/interesting, but god right now it drags, and with no other option for a decent amount of standing, you have no choice but to do it over and over again. I think it would be much better if we had the option of doing Tier 5 bounties with 3 stages, rather than 5. With only three stages, you could go for quality over quantity. A short yet difficult bounty, maybe with higher objective thresholds (kill 40 enemies instead of 25).

 

[Alcatraz]

16 minutes ago, Brucely said:

But then, man oh man, getting through that grind with bounties, the main source of standing, gets tedious and unfun very quickly

While I can't disagree with you for the rest of your post, I can tell you that if you think doing bounties is the main and or best way to gain standing, you clearly need to investigate other avenues.

Fishing in Plains is by far the best way of gaining standing no matter what. Go out at night to the little pond at Twin Horns on the map, and fish for Mortis Lungfish until you gain enough ranks to get rare fish from same pond or even Murkray from the Ocean. Murkray are probably the best fish for standing overall since they spawn day and night and once you get enough of everything else to craft the baits, you'll hit max rank in no time at all. Fish enough to hit the cap each day and you're golden.

For Orb Vallis, you should do conservation. Doesn't take you long if you have your archwing deployer already, to fly from location to location. You might need to do a few bounties first to get enough standing to grab your first echo lure, but once you do, you'll be jumping right up there. Even faster if you can locate someone with Kubrodon echo lure. You'll be able to cap with those in about 10 minutes or less. Depends on your mastery.

Mining can be top notch too, but it takes too long to find deposits to mine.

Bounties have standing as a supplemental addition to the rewards you get, the rewards are the main thing from bounties you want and if you're after relics, parts, or mods, the standing is a great bonus to have on the side, if you're needing standing as well. But it is not the most efficient way to gain standing. I have already went over the best way.

 

[Swagernator22663]

More like warframe 2.0 ...

[Brucely]

3 hours ago, Alcatraz said:

While I can't disagree with you for the rest of your post, I can tell you that if you think doing bounties is the main and or best way to gain standing, you clearly need to investigate other avenues.

You're right, there are other, probably more efficient ways to gain standing. I've done plenty of fishing and my cetus stuff is maxed out. Haven't done much of the conservation or fishing in Vallis becaaauuuuse..... those things are not what I play Warframe for. While those things are great to have as ways to break up the rhythm, the main draw is the action-centered gameplay, and it needs to be good. And the action on the open world maps is not...good, not even as good as the action in the closed tilesets.

I mean, this is connected to the issue with how much DE expands content. With open worlds, they really started to venture out from the core gameplay experience which Warframe started with. Not that that's a bad thing. They just need to do it well. Bounties need to be done better, to really utilize game mechanics that define "open world" games.

Just a thought.

[Monolake]

yes bounties are bad (I havent met anyone who liked doing them more than few times) and need a redesign