Additional Nightwave credit rewards are not an incentive, as is.

[Hobie-wan]

3 hours ago, (XB1)Hyperion Rexx said:

I'll do them all except the k drive races as they don't show up on my map and searching for a tiny bit of graffiti on a rock in the ov is painfull. 

Once you have a real board (not the starter freebie) the active races will show on the big map when you're on your board. Not sure how you bring it up on XB, but whatever does the same as holding M on PC where you can see the warm/cold timer down in the corner of the screen.

[Teljaxx]

In General, Nightwave is terrible at motivating people to keep playing.

Alerts were the primary "sustainable content" that this game offered. Even though they ended up being fairly lacking, due to having basically never been updated since the game started, they still offered more to do than Nightwave. Alerts offered a constant rotation of both goals and gameplay to keep things fresh, while Nightwave offers a larger pool of goals, but nothing in terms of fresh gameplay. Its not surprising that the complaints of content droughts have gotten even worse lately, since DE removed the main system meant to keep people playing, and replaced it with one that fails miserably at the same thing.

Instead, Nightwave basically tries to bribe people into going back and playing all the same, inevitably stale content over and over again. But, this only really works if the goals are worth it. And personally, the only thing of any value I have gotten out of Nightwave is Catalysts and Reactors. Everything else has been a disappointment. Basically the only reason I am as far through the ranks as I am is by accident. The challenges are pointless by themselves, and the rewards aren't ever worth it.

[sinnae]

2 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

In General, Nightwave is terrible at motivating people to keep playing.

Alerts were the primary "sustainable content" that this game offered. Even though they ended up being fairly lacking, due to having basically never been updated since the game started, they still offered more to do than Nightwave. Alerts offered a constant rotation of both goals and gameplay to keep things fresh, while Nightwave offers a larger pool of goals, but nothing in terms of fresh gameplay. Its not surprising that the complaints of content droughts have gotten even worse lately, since DE removed the main system meant to keep people playing, and replaced it with one that fails miserably at the same thing.

Instead, Nightwave basically tries to bribe people into going back and playing all the same, inevitably stale content over and over again. But, this only really works if the goals are worth it. And personally, the only thing of any value I have gotten out of Nightwave is Catalysts and Reactors. Everything else has been a disappointment. Basically the only reason I am as far through the ranks as I am is by accident. The challenges are pointless by themselves, and the rewards aren't ever worth it.

I don't understand this sentiment. Nightwave is an improvement over Alerts in almost every way. Alerts held you hostage to its schedule, and if you were working or asleep, then no reward for you. With Nightwave, you can log in once a week and finish all the challenges at once (except for the one Sortie challenge) or play a little every day. And overall you have access to more nitain and other rewards.

[TenebraeAeterna]

I don't really think that it's supposed to incentivize people into pushing beyond completion...it's simply a drizzle of icing on the cake for those who want something else on the offerings list.

[YUNoJump]

9 hours ago, sinnae said:

15 per rank is more than you get from levels 0-30, which averages out to 13 creds per rank. People really just don't pay attention, do they.

Yeah but you’re getting other rewards during that time. Also when you get Creds in those ranks it’s a big pile so you can usually buy something straight away.

[Chroia]

Consider:
At 15 credits per prestige rank, Nitain costs 1 rank, Auras cost 2, cosmetics cost 3, gear (and Kuva) cost 4 and potatoes cost 5.

Given that (I think) most NW acts take 20-30 minutes (Note: Exceptions, like 'socket Ayatans' and '3 captures' - exist), depending on the specific act and your luck, that's a minimum of 1 hour per rank.

That's not terrible for a non-vet.

But, speaking for myself, as a longtime player who's currently rank 31, I am absolutely not going an inch out of my way to accrue more ranks.

On the other hand, it's an eternal problem: What can you offer that a vet'll always need? (Kuva can fit that bill, depending on the player. Not everyone bothers with rivens.)
Personally, I'd love Forma from the NW store, but that's just me.

[Teljaxx]

6 hours ago, sinnae said:

I don't understand this sentiment. Nightwave is an improvement over Alerts in almost every way. Alerts held you hostage to its schedule, and if you were working or asleep, then no reward for you. With Nightwave, you can log in once a week and finish all the challenges at once (except for the one Sortie challenge) or play a little every day. And overall you have access to more nitain and other rewards.

And once you finish all the challenges for that week, what then? What does Nightwave offer for you to do? Nothing. Only offering a couple hours of stuff to do per week is not sustainable content.

People that complain about alerts always act like they only ever popped up once in a blue moon. But they were actually always available, 24-7. There were pretty much always 2~4 alerts available all day every day. Sure, the rewards were mostly basic things like credits and common resources. But the reward pool was one of the main things that never got updated, and should have. And, just because you ignored most of those rewards, doesn't mean that the missions themselves didn't exist.

Plus, alerts actually did offer much more than Nightwave in terms of rewards. Do an alert, get a reward, every time. But with Nightwave, you have to do multiple challenges to get even a single rank. And, you can only get up to four ranks/rewards per week, if you do every challenge. Alerts had no limitations like that. You could easily get four rewards from alerts in a single hour, let alone however many you could get over an entire week.

The only reason you see Nightwave as better is because you like its up to date rewards better than the extremely outdated alert rewards. But, because Nightwave relies entirely on its rewards to offer anything at all, if you don't like those rewards, like me, then it offers nothing at all. Alerts, at the very least, offered some extra missions to do, even if you didn't really care about the specific reward.

[sinnae]

No, someone did the math on Alerts vs. Nightwave on Reddit - we get way more nitain nowadays. And I didn't say anything about sustainable content. I just said Nightwave is an improvement over Alerts in every regard, which is objectively true. It's just the same sh*t but on our own schedule.

What to do when Nightwave is over for the week? ...go do other things. You're allowed to go do other things, I promise.

[YUNoJump]

20 minutes ago, Teljaxx said:

People that complain about alerts always act like they only ever popped up once in a blue moon. But they were actually always available, 24-7. There were pretty much always 2~4 alerts available all day every day. Sure, the rewards were mostly basic things like credits and common resources. But the reward pool was one of the main things that never got updated, and should have. And, just because you ignored most of those rewards, doesn't mean that the missions themselves didn't exist.

Plus, alerts actually did offer much more than Nightwave in terms of rewards. Do an alert, get a reward, every time. But with Nightwave, you have to do multiple challenges to get even a single rank. And, you can only get up to four ranks/rewards per week, if you do every challenge. Alerts had no limitations like that. You could easily get four rewards from alerts in a single hour, let alone however many you could get over an entire week.

That’s assuming that any given Alert reward is actually useful to a player, 90% of the stuff that dropped from Alerts was completely useless to have a duplicate of. The worst part about the Alerts system was waiting for a few specific things to show up. It could take months/years to get a specific drop you needed, something like the last Vauban part or an Alert weapon. And it was completely random when they’d appear; for instance, it took 11 MONTHS before the Zephyr Tengu Helmet appeared in an Alert for the first time.

There’s also the fact that even if an Alert appeared for something you wanted while you were able to play, there was a pretty good chance that it could appear on a node you had no access to. That meant that you had to rely on taxis from other players just to get the part you need, which I don’t think should be considered a good feature.

The fact that they gave credits or Endo/Fusion Cores sometimes wasn’t really worth mentioning, considering how small the amounts were, and the fact that there were (and still are) plenty of better ways to get those resources. 

[Teljaxx]

34 minutes ago, YUNoJump said:

That’s assuming that any given Alert reward is actually useful to a player, 90% of the stuff that dropped from Alerts was completely useless to have a duplicate of. The worst part about the Alerts system was waiting for a few specific things to show up. It could take months/years to get a specific drop you needed, something like the last Vauban part or an Alert weapon. And it was completely random when they’d appear; for instance, it took 11 MONTHS before the Zephyr Tengu Helmet appeared in an Alert for the first time.

There’s also the fact that even if an Alert appeared for something you wanted while you were able to play, there was a pretty good chance that it could appear on a node you had no access to. That meant that you had to rely on taxis from other players just to get the part you need, which I don’t think should be considered a good feature.

The fact that they gave credits or Endo/Fusion Cores sometimes wasn’t really worth mentioning, considering how small the amounts were, and the fact that there were (and still are) plenty of better ways to get those resources. 

This is why, a I said, alerts desperately needed to be updated, not removed. They had basically never been updated since the very beginning of the game, so of course there were problems. Their rewards especially were completely outdated. All DE ever did was add a couple new to the pool every once in a while, mostly helmets, which only served to make things worse by diluting it even further.

Though really, the specific rewards that alerts and Nightwave offer don't actually matter, because different people want different things. You like Nightwave's rewards, I don't. The main problem is that Nightwave doesn't actually offer anything new to do, while alerts did. So alerts still had value beyond their rewards, and Nightwave doesn't. That's why OP was complaining that after rank 30, there is no reason to do Nightwave anymore. The challenges themselves aren't really entertaining, so doing them without the promise of a worthwhile reward is pointless. And after rank 30, the rewards are worthless. So what does Nightwave offer at that point? Nothing.

[YUNoJump]

26 minutes ago, Teljaxx said:

This is why, a I said, alerts desperately needed to be updated, not removed. They had basically never been updated since the very beginning of the game, so of course there were problems. Their rewards especially were completely outdated. All DE ever did was add a couple new to the pool every once in a while, mostly helmets, which only served to make things worse by diluting it even further.

How could Alerts possibly be “updated” in any way that resolved the biggest issues with them, without just completely changing them into something else? The core of Alerts, ie randomly occurring single-use missions, was also the core problem. An ideal solution is to remove the “randomly occurring” part of the system, which is exactly what we got with Nightwave; a token store so that you don’t really have to wait for items you want outside of just earning currency.

29 minutes ago, Teljaxx said:

Though really, the specific rewards that alerts and Nightwave offer don't actually matter, because different people want different things. You like Nightwave's rewards, I don't. The main problem is that Nightwave doesn't actually offer anything new to do, while alerts did. So alerts still had value beyond their rewards, and Nightwave doesn't. That's why OP was complaining that after rank 30, there is no reason to do Nightwave anymore. The challenges themselves aren't really entertaining, so doing them without the promise of a worthwhile reward is pointless. And after rank 30, the rewards are worthless. So what does Nightwave offer at that point? Nothing.

Nightwave doesn’t explicitly offer new things to do, but how did Alerts offer that? They were literally just normal missions with a reward tacked on the end. Nightwave at least encourages players to do things they don’t normally do. Additionally, even if you personally don’t like the rewards (a lot of people clearly DO like the rewards so your point is a bit moot here), the Rank rewards are items you wouldn’t get at all with Alerts.

What value does an Alert offer if you have all the items you need from any given Alert? The credit and Endo rewards were garbage, some normal starchart missions gave more, and now we have the Index or Rathuum which are far better.

I agree that Nightwave is lacklustre after Rank 30, but I don’t think the problem there is with the entire Nightwave system. DE just needs to increase the >30 rank rewards.

[Steel_Rook]

22 hours ago, giefalias said:

Presumably the mechanic was implemented to serve as motivation to keep doing the weekly Nightwave missions, even though one has already "completed" it.
So, I tried looking at the event as an isolated reward and had to scratch my head for bit.
I highly doubt that a lot of players, who has already gotten all of the "standard" rewards, will digest the following list of tasks to earn 45 additional credits:

A couple of points here. First of all, I'd argue you presume wrong. I see the 15 Credits per level not as incentive, but as recognition. It's there so you can still get SOMETHING for doing Nightwave challenges. I mean, people swear up-and-down about how effective Nightwave is at getting them back in the game, so it makes sense to retain some kind of perpetual reward. At the same time, however, I doubt the vast majority of people already have all of the rewards. As such, tying something big and unique at Rank 30+30 or what have you is not a good idea. You balance the game around the median, not the outliers.

Secondly, why do you assert that people would be doing the following tasks for 45 credits? Specifically, why do you assume people wouldn't be doing those things because they like doing those things? During Nightwave Season 1, plenty of people hurled insults at me because they LOVED spending 60 minutes on Kuva Survival with friends never using Life Support and apparently Nightwave justified their preference. Granted, 30 minutes on Kuva Survival with no other stipulations isn't quite as extreme (which is why I like it much better), but still. Not everyone plays video games due to Skinner Box conditioning, you know. Some people just like the progression system AS a progression system. Hell, now that I know I can't miss out on Nightwave challenges even if I fall behind, I kind of want to see if I can get them all done by the end of the season.

 

15 hours ago, sinnae said:

I don't understand this sentiment. Nightwave is an improvement over Alerts in almost every way. Alerts held you hostage to its schedule, and if you were working or asleep, then no reward for you. With Nightwave, you can log in once a week and finish all the challenges at once (except for the one Sortie challenge) or play a little every day. And overall you have access to more nitain and other rewards.

Alerts had no "schedule," that's the thing. Not beyond the Gambler's Fallacy. Alerts also made it a LOT easier to grab everything they offered in bulk, aside from Catalysts/Reactors. Nightwave may be more consistent, but everything in that store is SUBSTANTIALLY more expensive in every way.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Steel_Rook

[Teljaxx]

6 hours ago, YUNoJump said:

How could Alerts possibly be “updated” in any way that resolved the biggest issues with them, without just completely changing them into something else? The core of Alerts, ie randomly occurring single-use missions, was also the core problem. An ideal solution is to remove the “randomly occurring” part of the system, which is exactly what we got with Nightwave; a token store so that you don’t really have to wait for items you want outside of just earning currency.

Nightwave doesn’t explicitly offer new things to do, but how did Alerts offer that? They were literally just normal missions with a reward tacked on the end. Nightwave at least encourages players to do things they don’t normally do. Additionally, even if you personally don’t like the rewards (a lot of people clearly DO like the rewards so your point is a bit moot here), the Rank rewards are items you wouldn’t get at all with Alerts.

What value does an Alert offer if you have all the items you need from any given Alert? The credit and Endo rewards were garbage, some normal starchart missions gave more, and now we have the Index or Rathuum which are far better.

I agree that Nightwave is lacklustre after Rank 30, but I don’t think the problem there is with the entire Nightwave system. DE just needs to increase the >30 rank rewards.

Alerts should have been updated by adding Nightwave alongside them. Not by removing them and replacing them with Nightwave. They could have set things up so that you could either get the rewards for "free" by getting lucky with alerts, or you could pay some Nightwave creds to get exactly what you wanted. They could have even had some other crossovers between the two, like alerts offering Nightwave creds, or standing as a reward. Plus, having both Nightwave and alerts to keep people playing between updates would have been far more sustainable than just one or the other. Everyone want's more stuff to do, right?

Nightwave could also use way more challenges overall. Having the same ones repeat multiple times in a single season is a big part of why they aren't fun to do. Even though alerts were the same mission types you could do anywhere, the randomization they had is what kept them fresh. But Nightwave challenges are always the same. Alerts managed to hold my interest for six years, but I am already tired of all of Nightwave's challenges after only two seasons.

I know I'm getting a bit off topic here. But Nightwave has so many deeper issues that simply increasing the rank 30+ rewards won't really help anything. You could get 50 creds and 10,000 kuva every rank, and it still wouldn't be good enough.

[giefalias]

On 2019-09-02 at 3:34 PM, (PS4)drpunk-yo said:

Why, if it doesn't motivate you, would you presume it's for motivation? 

Because I don't presume to know exactly what is intended, by subjective interpretation alone?

[Velothed]

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Not everyone plays video games due to Skinner Box conditioning, you know. Some people just like the progression system AS a progression system.

I wish I could like your comment multiple times.

This is basically the essence of soooo many complaints in the feedback session.

Many people just don't enjoy the game in itself but are still playing because they enjoy getting stuff.

I never understood that mentality and therefore have no idea what to say to those people, but I feel like there has to be a better use of their time, something where they enjoy both the process and the result.

[giefalias]

5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

1. I see the 15 Credits per level not as incentive, but as recognition. It's there so you can still get SOMETHING for doing Nightwave challenges. I mean, people swear up-and-down about how effective Nightwave is at getting them back in the game, so it makes sense to retain some kind of perpetual reward.

2. At the same time, however, I doubt the vast majority of people already have all of the rewards. As such, tying something big and unique at Rank 30+30 or what have you is not a good idea. You balance the game around the median, not the outliers.

3.Secondly, why do you assert that people would be doing the following tasks for 45 credits? Specifically, why do you assume people wouldn't be doing those things because they like doing those things? 

4. Not everyone plays video games due to Skinner Box conditioning, you know. Some people just like the progression system AS a progression system.

5. Hell, now that I know I can't miss out on Nightwave challenges even if I fall behind, I kind of want to see if I can get them all done by the end of the season.

1.
 But if there's no incentive, why do it? I guess you mean that the recognition would then serve as incentive?  And the SOMETHING you then get can't really net you anything.
I don't doubt that the Nightwave event is great at helping players back to the game but I do doubt that it's the perpetual mechanic which serves that purpose.

2.
Couldn't agree more, which is why I never suggested, nor imagined, anything big or unique being rewarded. I do also believe that there's ample room to play with, between the current "perpetual" reward and the big and unique ones, to perhaps come up with something else.

3.
As I stated in the OP, I was looking at it as an isolated reward. The Nightwave event schedule presented me with some tasks and rewards, and this is the result.
I would actually assume people to like doing some of the stuff, I do so myself. I just don't see how I would even consider the guidelines of the tasks for the recognition of 45 credits.

4. That analogy is a bit of a caricature, in my opinion. I believe we're all conditioned by subjective stimuli, so at least we agree on that 🙂 
And just for the record, I'm nowhere near a Thorndyke-inspired-puzzle-box-player myself...

5. Well, the "catch-up" feature is awesome, no debating there 🙂

[YUNoJump]

15 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

Alerts should have been updated by adding Nightwave alongside them. Not by removing them and replacing them with Nightwave. They could have set things up so that you could either get the rewards for "free" by getting lucky with alerts, or you could pay some Nightwave creds to get exactly what you wanted. They could have even had some other crossovers between the two, like alerts offering Nightwave creds, or standing as a reward. Plus, having both Nightwave and alerts to keep people playing between updates would have been far more sustainable than just one or the other. Everyone want's more stuff to do, right?

I still don't get this idea that Alerts were ever something that people did for enjoyment outside of just getting the drops. They weren't special missions; they were completely normal missions with a reward tacked on the end. On top of that, 90% of the time any available Alerts would only be able to occupy maybe 5-10 minutes of time. The only way to make them work as an extra thing to pass time with would be to give them some really good reward, but what could possibly be put there that can't already be gained from other, better sources? I could appreciate the idea of random missions going past with different crazy modifiers or something on them, but nothing similar to Alerts other than that.

NW and Alerts wouldn't work well together. You can't rely on an Alert to appear that has an item you need, so unless you're content with just sitting around praying for the right Alert, then you might as well keep using the Cred Store. Sure you'd get a few lucky items, but it would also carry FOMO as you see Alerts go past with items you've already bought with Cred. It'd be encouraging the player to take boring paths; you could either sit around dealing with terrible RNG, or you could bypass that system with currency that you could use on better things.

16 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

Nightwave could also use way more challenges overall. Having the same ones repeat multiple times in a single season is a big part of why they aren't fun to do. Even though alerts were the same mission types you could do anywhere, the randomization they had is what kept them fresh. But Nightwave challenges are always the same. Alerts managed to hold my interest for six years, but I am already tired of all of Nightwave's challenges after only two seasons.

I know I'm getting a bit off topic here. But Nightwave has so many deeper issues that simply increasing the rank 30+ rewards won't really help anything. You could get 50 creds and 10,000 kuva every rank, and it still wouldn't be good enough.

I can definitely agree with this. Repeating challenges suck, and challenges which are just a pay-gate (use Formas, socket Ayatans, transmute Mods, gild a modular item etc) should also go. Some of the more monotonous challenges could also be reworked to be less of a grind and more of a "check out this thing you don't normally think about". That's probably for a different thread though.

[Steel_Rook]

On 2019-09-03 at 7:45 PM, giefalias said:

But if there's no incentive, why do it?

The events ARE the incentive, though - at least that's how Nightwave was sold to us when it first arrived. It was supposed to be a more fun, more engaging version of Alerts. Because if all DE wanted to accomplish was a DETERMINISTIC version of Alerts, they could have implemented a Nightwave-like store, but rewarded Nightwave-like credits directly from the old Alerts. But ultimately, that's a question players need to ask themselves, rather than the game. Why am I doing this? What am I getting out of it? Is it worth my time? Rewards aren't the only incentive. I run Spy missions not because of any particular reward, but because I like Spy missions. The same goes for Defection, actually. I run missions on Jupiter predominantly because I like the tileset. I do stuff for all manner of subjective reasons.

I think you're looking at Nightwave "prestige level" rewards a bit opposite to their design. Nightwave is the Warframe Battle Pass, and the Battle Pass design is finite. You grind your levels, you get your rewards, you're "done" with the season and wait for the next season to end. Under standard conditions, you'd stop earning rewards altogether once you hit level 30. Because DE don't want to leave players without a way to engage with the system, however, they keep offering perpetual rewards, but they're deliberately tuned very low. The goal of these "prestige level" rewards isn't to actually be worth the effort, but rather to acknowledge the effort in some way. Mostly, they're there to prevent people who were going to do Nightwave stuff anyway from feeling like they're wasting their time.

If you look at the events and see stuff you don't particularly enjoy doing, then look at the rewards and see stuff you don't particularly want to have... Then do the sensible thing and don't do it. It's what I've done with a lot of Warframe's content. I look at Arbitrations, ESO, Conclave and think "Yeah... I can do without that in my life."

 

On 2019-09-03 at 7:45 PM, giefalias said:

That analogy is a bit of a caricature, in my opinion. I believe we're all conditioned by subjective stimuli, so at least we agree on that 🙂

It's a question of scope. Yes, we form mental shorthand habits as a means of dealing with the complexities of a chaotic-seeming world, but ideally we want to form habits which are in some way useful. Psychological conditioning such as in Pavlovian Dogs or Skinner Pigeons, however, is subversive - it hijacks the brain's reward system in order to push subjects into inherently unrewarding activities. In more "videogamey" terms, it's a way to trick you into thinking that you're having fun because all of the usual signs are there, when you actually aren't. It's a way of getting you to keep playing a game long after you've stopped enjoying it, and the long-term consequences of that are severe.

The longer I hang around MMO forums, the more clear it becomes that people in general simply don't recognise their own burnout. Time and again I see people who talk like they're completely burnt out and really should stop playing the game, but they keep on doing it and having a miserable time. And they'll blame everything else BUT their own burnout. The game has changed for the worse, other players have changed for the worse, developers have changed for the worse, there isn't enough content, there isn't enough challenge, there isn't enough depth, there isn't enough complexity, "it's just not the same." Look at the response The Division 2 got. All of of the people burnt out on The Division 1 but playing it out of habit moved onto the new game and started talking about being unable to recapture the fun they WEREN'T HAVING in the prequel.

Everything has a price. Conditioning your playerbase to keep coming back not out of affinity but out of compulsion does work, but it takes a toll on the playerbase. It generates ill will and short tempers, and it causes people to ragequit swearing to never touch the game again, rather than taking breaks looking forward to the next major release. "The tighter you squeeze, the more people will slip through your fingers." At the tail end of it, this sort of design leads to exactly what we're seeing right now - perfectly good content is cast aside because nobody actually enjoys actually playing the game unless they're being paid to play it. I have to imagine this sucks for the developers, too, who put effort and creativity designing what they thought was a fun activity, only to be met with "This sucks. The whole game sucks. Pay me!"

This isn't new, obviously, but MMO communities behave like drug addicts. Nobody cares about the substance of what's being offered. All anyone cares about is the next psychological "fix," the next "high." Sometimes I get the impression people would push a button repeatedly, if it generated Umbral Forma or an Ephemera or Rivens or whatever the game tells them is rare and valuable. That's bad for the game and bad for the players.

[(PSN)Paholanani_X]

There was Kuva in it one week

[Steel_Rook]

On 2019-09-03 at 6:41 PM, Vethalon said:

Many people just don't enjoy the game in itself but are still playing because they enjoy getting stuff. I never understood that mentality and therefore have no idea what to say to those people, but I feel like there has to be a better use of their time, something where they enjoy both the process and the result.

Over the years, I've started to think of this behaviour within the context of addiction. I don't know that it IS that, but a lot of the same circumstances apply to both. And I do, in fact, speak from experience. I played City of Heroes for 8 years, playing nearly every day, sinking thousands of hours into it. Every single thing I've criticised in this thread, I criticise because I've been there. I remember the time when I was REALLY sick of the game, but kept telling myself that getting my Scrapper to level 32 and unlocking the Head Splitter attack would be worth it! I can just taste it! Yeah, it wasn't. I got the attack, played around with it, then immediately looked to level 33 so I could put slots in it. I remember being sick to my teeth of the game, but I kept playing it anyway because progression is slow and you need to put in those hours. I'd listen to music, play the TV in the background. Then eventually I started tabbing out of the game to check the forums, etc. But I still "loved" playing that game. Even though actually logging into it for the first time in the day felt like pulling teeth.

Then 2012 came around, the game's end was announced... And I just stopped playing it. Entirely. It was still a habit, so I kept wanting to go back and play it. But after a month or two once I'd broken that habit is when I started to fully grasp the state I'd been in. For easily the last 3-4 years of that, I hadn't really enjoyed the game, but I was playing it for the habit. I'd come back from work, sit down and just play, because that was my daily routine. There was so much else I wanted to do, but I played City of Heroes, instead. And it's a good game - don't get me wrong. It got brought back as a community server recently and it's still damn fun to play... But I can never play it like I used to back in the day.

Rewards and progression can offer what seems to be "sustainable" content, but they do so at a price. A playerbase made up of people who feel compelled to be here even when they'd rather not be is a bitter, unpleasable player base which eventually turns on its own suppliers. I've been trying to raise awareness about habit-forming psychology, appointment mechanics and burnout wherever I can, in the hopes that maybe someone can learn from my own mistakes and hopefully not repeat them.

[Velothed]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

 

I didn't want to say it, because a lot of people get really defensive when you point out that they are addicted and deny it. The only kind of addiction I have experience with is nicotine, but I'm not in denial about it, I am fully aware that I'm addicted. This is basically what I meant when I said I don't know how to talk with addicted people who are in denial, especially if I don't know them personally.

I've been thinking about this a lot, especially since Steve talked about intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards in the devstream and the comment "that ship has long sailed for warframe" really made me sad, because it's kinda true. A new gamemode or quest can be as intrinsicly rewarding as it wants, in the end it's the extrinsic rewards that determine if people will play it or not.

We enjoyed games before they had progression systems, why did they become the essence of a game instead of a nice bonus on the side?

The way it looks right now, warframe would die in a matter of days if new stuff was simply added to players inventories instead of them having to grind for it.

In my eyes a progression system should be a way to help you decide with what content to engage next, not dictate what you do.

For me it works most of the time:

I could either do some fissures for that one Prime Weapon I don't have yet, or simply for Forma/Ducats.

Or I could do some Profit Taker fights, because I enjoy them.

Or I could get some kuva, I still have a few rivens I'd like to reroll some more.

Or I could play some Disruptions, because they are fun.

Or I could fight some Eidolons, still got some stuff I want from the Quills.

 

But I never feel like "I want this thing right now and I will grind that one mission until I have it!"

[Steel_Rook]

58 minutes ago, Vethalon said:

But I never feel like "I want this thing right now and I will grind that one mission until I have it!"

Well, to be fair Warframe does have a few of those. While I'm always going to see the "It'll get better at MR14!" mentality as a sign of burnout, there have been a few times when pushing through grind really HAS improved Warframe for me. Just getting weapons I don't despise was a big one for me starting out. I wanted a "machinegun" and the closest I had was the Gorgon... Which is quite terrible, locked behind MR3 and only drops off of Grineer Heavy Gunners. Getting my Medi-Ray was a big one as it offered some amount of health regen, as was getting Rhino - the first Warframe I didn't hate. Atmospheric Archguns were another big one, since it finally gave me my HMG - the Imerator Vandal 🙂 But again, I realise that grinding for these things through content I dislike was NOT a healthy way of playing Warframe, largely because I ended up burning out shortly afterwards anyway. Part of the reason I've spent as much money on Warframe as I have, though, is precisely this - I recognise that the process of farming for something like Khora or grinding for something like Arcane Grace would deal permanent, fatal damage to my experience.

 

1 hour ago, Vethalon said:

I've been thinking about this a lot, especially since Steve talked about intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards in the devstream and the comment "that ship has long sailed for warframe" really made me sad, because it's kinda true. A new gamemode or quest can be as intrinsicly rewarding as it wants, in the end it's the extrinsic rewards that determine if people will play it or not.

Yeah, that mentality concerns me as well. I see player after player ask something to the tune of "Why should I do Activity X if I don't get anything for it?" apparently unaware of the implications of it. It seems to be a wide-spread mentality within the Warframe community, but I personally blame DE themselves for fostering it. They built a progression system driven entirely by reward bottlenecks, where only a single mission type is worth playing at any given time and anything new requires whatever the latest resource is. It's their progression system which leaves 90% of the game's content desolate and underused. Ultimately, it's their progression system which burns people out from the inside, producing a community comprised to a disproportionate extent of people who genuinely don't enjoy the game and play it as a Cookie Clicker.

The ship hasn't sailed on intrinsic rewards - they're the ones who've over-focused on rewards and left the core gameplay loop reductive to the point of being hollow. How long have the basic mission types remained in broadly the same state they're in now? That is to say, how long have they consisted of "go to objective / go to exit?" They've had the opportunity to lean into gameplay complexity for years now, yet they chose to keep cranking out guns and Warframes and "things to earn" while leaving old content to rot. Sure, Free Roam maps are a major milestone as is Empyrean, but legacy content constitutes the overwhelming majority of what people COULD be doing. Except most of it isn't worth doing due to a variety of design issues, from low level enemies to the reward structure to how mission types rotate.

Payday 2 managed to stay "fresh" for five years despite its scripted, hard-coded content simply by making all of the heists worth playing at all levels all of the time. There wasn't a time when I'd open Crime.net for a minute and NOT see a node that made me think "Oh, hey! I haven't done that in a while!" You know what I haven't done in a while? Anything on Earth. Aything on Mars. Anything on Jupiter. I'd like to, but what would be the point in fighting level 4 enemies? There's a lot DE can do, from difficulty settings to more complex objectives to balance changes and more to make their own game more compelling. Instead, they're consistently taking the easy route of just releasing more grind for more fluff, and to hell with legacy content. Literally, in the case of Disruption since that overrode a number of preexisting nodes.

[Velothed]

59 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Just getting weapons I don't despise was a big one for me starting out.

I was lucky couse I loved the Boltor and used it for a long time, I also enjoyed playing Excal, even though he didn't have his Exalted blade back then.

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

grinding for something like Arcane Grace

I don't have any good arcanes yet, even though I have almost everything else, precisely because I don't really enjoy Eidolons, at least in a group, way to chaotic for me. I'll probably get them as soon as I feel confident to do Tridolon solo, so far I can solo Terry in about 8min, we'll see when I feel like trying the others XD

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

but I personally blame DE themselves for fostering it

I think they do too, they seemed to have recognised this, but it's now at the essence of Warframe and I don't think they could change it if they tried.

I also get the feeling, that it's their core motivator to produce new mechanics, which I can understand as a programmer myself, Warframe is still a passion project, 50% is for the players and 50% is for the devs to try their hand at new things. I actually kinda like that about warframe, it's ever changing, pretty much any other game stays more or less the same but gets more polished over time, while warframe is this living, changing, undefineable thing.

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

You know what I haven't done in a while? Anything on Earth. Aything on Mars. Anything on Jupiter. I'd like to, but what would be the point in fighting level 4 enemies? There's a lot DE can do, from difficulty settings to more complex objectives to balance changes and more to make their own game more compelling.

Interestingly enough, I still visit often, but yeah beeing able to fight higher level enemies on those nodes would be nice. The problem here is, that they don't want to divide the playerbase, thing is, through the progression, there couldn't be a bigger divide between a new excal with a skana and an absolutely bonkers op vet. I like to run missions with newer players, but I have to make special loadouts for that so I don't have to constantly worry that If I sneeze the whole map dies.

[Educated_Beast]

On 2019-09-02 at 7:24 AM, WhiteMarker said:

All these challenges are insanely easy to do. I see no reason why someone wouldn't do them. And let's face it, if someone was rank 30 before the current week, they can do these challenges with ease.
The Kuva Survival can't be knocked down. You have to "wait" 30 minutes. Index takes a bit of time too. Everything else can be done in such a short amount of time, it's not even funny...

It's called time. 

I have a limited amount for playing and would rather earn the new frame / guns.  The frame dropped reasonably fast, I've completed over 600 terminals (usually do 40 waves which is 160 terminals) and haven't seen one of those stupid guns yet.  I like distruption, but it's getting old forcing me on same planet / infested. 

Why run through a to-do list when all the credit rewards are useless (well, already own / have stack of) and stuck on new content drops?  

No thanks

[Steel_Rook]

9 hours ago, Vethalon said:

I was lucky couse I loved the Boltor and used it for a long time, I also enjoyed playing Excal, even though he didn't have his Exalted blade back then.

I'm a machinegunne at heart. I gravitate towards heavy armour, heavy weapons and "hold your ground" style abilities. Warframe does have plenty of gear which does this, it's just it takes quite a while to actually get. Sure, getting something like a Soma or a Rhino for the first time might not seem much in retrospect atop coming on 2000 hours, but it damn near killed the game for me when I was first starting out. The new player experience in this game is DIABOLICALLY BAD between the impenetrable setting, the gobbledygook names for everything, the "meat insect" aesthetic and the unique gameplay mechanics. Sticking around for the 10 or so hours it took me to get to MR3 and grab a Gorgon was not easy when I didn't care about anything in the game yet.

I'm of the opinion that Warframe needs to start players with a full arsenal of crappy weapons from across the various classes. Give me a terrible giant hammer, give me a terrible LMG with a large magazine, give me a terrible heavy pistol and a terrible pump shotgun. As long as I have a weapon I enjoy using, I don't mind working towards obtaining a version of it which doesn't suck ass. I LOVE the Gorgon to this day, and own both a Gorgon Wrait and a Prisma Gorgon. Still my favourite weapon on sheer concept alone. The game's WAY too stingy with gear to start, leading to exactly these kinds of "No, seriously! Grind for 20 hours and the game gets better!" moments. Because it does, and it really shouldn't work that way. Maybe with the "new new player experience" some day.

 

9 hours ago, Vethalon said:

I don't have any good arcanes yet, even though I have almost everything else, precisely because I don't really enjoy Eidolons, at least in a group, way to chaotic for me. I'll probably get them as soon as I feel confident to do Tridolon solo, so far I can solo Terry in about 8min, we'll see when I feel like trying the others XD

I'm a whale. I bought my Arcane Grace from Warframe Market for 1700 Plat. The game kept insisting on giving me 75% off after 75% off, figured I might as well use it. I've actually done that to quite a few aspects of the game. I've bought a LOT of Catalysts and Forma and Lenses and such - more than I rightly should. Because honestly, I can afford it with all the discounts and I'd rather play the game with my favourite toys than grind the game to get them, burn myself out and not get to enjoy them. I fully realise that this very behaviour is what encourages such monetisation practices, but...

 

9 hours ago, Vethalon said:

I also get the feeling, that it's their core motivator to produce new mechanics, which I can understand as a programmer myself, Warframe is still a passion project, 50% is for the players and 50% is for the devs to try their hand at new things. I actually kinda like that about warframe, it's ever changing, pretty much any other game stays more or less the same but gets more polished over time, while warframe is this living, changing, undefineable thing.

Well, most Live Services / MMOs change drastically over time... But yeah, Warframe's evolution is on an entirely different level. Major redesigns to fundamental systems, major changes to overall balance, additions which transplant gameplay from entirely different genres, and more. I'm glad DE have the balls to try out new stuff like this, and frankly wish they'd go farther. The game's balance is currently heavily undermined by a series of core mechanics from damage buff stacking to armour scaling to a lack of structure in enemy design and more. I want to see them take a hatchet to the status quo and push major changes because frankly, the game can use some of that. They've pushed Empyrean as the first step, so we'll see.

And while Warframe may forever remain "that grinding game," this doesn't excuse DE's straight-up laziness when it comes to mission design. Warframe's recent additions have been impressive from a technical standpoint, from the seamless integration of Archwing mechanics in a semi-open world to the parkour-focused redesign of Jupiter and more. However, the fundamental gameplay design at the core of it all is still reductively simplistic. Go to location, kill thing, repeat until you're told to leave. The game already supports a number of more complex mechanics and indeed has a number of more complex game modes. It CAN do better. DE just need to let go of their "Space Ninja Diablo" mission design and actually craft their missions to match their OWN game.

Sure, many people will still stay addicted to the loot treadmill, but I'd argue that compelling gameplay will give reason to many others to stick around for the sake of the moment-to-moment experience.

 

9 hours ago, Vethalon said:

Interestingly enough, I still visit often, but yeah beeing able to fight higher level enemies on those nodes would be nice. The problem here is, that they don't want to divide the playerbase, thing is, through the progression, there couldn't be a bigger divide between a new excal with a skana and an absolutely bonkers op vet. I like to run missions with newer players, but I have to make special loadouts for that so I don't have to constantly worry that If I sneeze the whole map dies.

I don't see it as dividing the player base, though. You're always going to have the option of matchmaking into lower-level missions. It's just I wish there were an easier way to get a 30-40 mission on Earth than to hope the Kuva Fortress swings by when I feel like playing. A LOT of Warframe's content is locked up into planetary nodes, yet the game's level and reward structure means that only about three or four major locations are worth visiting. It leaves some pretty swanky tilesets largely unused because they turn up on low-level planets. Opening up all of the content to an end-game player, rather than pushing us into whatever is the current newest bit of content to the exclusion of everything else would help stave off burnout. At least it does for me.