Conclave Rework ideas - Following the Universal Medallion change

[AJman14]

Forum Mod, can you move this to Feedback? Thanks.

 

With the "chain yank" change to the universal medallions, I think Conclave could use a major rework. I had seen it's in the works, so I thought I would share some ideas I had...

1. First off, the current Conclave is horribly controlled by the toxic gate-keepers, those that have one build for conclave. The unbalanced setups. How to fix that? Ranking system. Have a ranking system based on your team wins or losses. Put players against a similar skill-level. Those that have an unbalanced build will fight against themselves, and those that are just starting will fight among the new players.

While this would seem to divide the few players left in conclave, it would introduce a way to not be "Owned" every time you spawn, therefore making Conclave much more enjoyable.

2. Another thing that should be considered is giving everyone equal equipment. PVE items should not reflect what you have in PVP. It's the same idea as the change to the universal medallion. If you're going to remove PVE progression affecting PVP, you may also need to also remove PVE equipment progression from PVP. Here's the problem, DE: PVE will always affect PVP, making the universal medallion change a moot point!

No matter where the line is drawn, it will upset players on both sides. However, most players are PVE. Try to keep that in mind when reworking PVP.

3. Something along the lines of the last two statements: You could have a mode where you pit player squads against each other. Whoever out-survives a Survival, defends the most waves in a Defense, the fastest to Exterminate the enemies, the most conduits completed in Disruption... Make the Leaderboards an actual challenge, with PVP standing and rewards! The true end-game is out-performing our own kind for the top! Has it not always been the case? Think about it. It has always been the true challenge. Defending the most waves in a T4 Tower, the best Kuva Survival, the longest-lasting ESO, and now the best squad in Arbitration! What about getting points against another squad while doing our best in our mission? This is what's fun. This is the best form of PVP. Make it official.

Please reply, and let me know your thoughts.

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by AJman14

[(PSN)nekokujo]

I appreciate what you’re saying. Conclave definitely needs to be looked at, but none of your changes will matter if players can’t reliably get a match within a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, heavier focus on ranking will actually only exacerbate the problem. They need to figure out some way for people to earn the reputation asynchronously.

Edited September 11, 2019 by (PS4)nekokujo

[AJman14]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)nekokujo said:

I appreciate what you’re saying. Conclave definitely needs to be looked at, but none of your changes will matter if you can’t reliably get a match within a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, heavier focus on ranking will actually only exacerbate the problem. They need to figure out some way for people to earn the reputation asynchronously.

Thing is, I would love Conclave if I was against players that aren't toxic 1-build gate-keepers. If there was a ranking system, I feel like many more people would play, as they would have a chance to actually have an equal fight.

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

To me Warframe needs some PVP that PVE players want to play...Conclave has been up and down the gambit on what they should do and what should happen...but, it'll never draw in a massive PVP crowds playing other PVP games nor make any converts from the Warframe PVE pool to justify any kind of upgrades where the game mode doesn't die on the vine...They need a some mode where the massive PVE base would be willing to participate in it and actually have fun while receiving rewards worth it to participate in...

Racing is supposed to be coming so we'll see how it goes...

I like number 3...PVE players would fight the AI while trying to outscore or simply survive longer than the other guy..but..that means Survival should ramp right into 130 and higher level units as fast as possible because nobody wants to stay an hour to get at that level..

Lastly I'd give the player base UI and assets from Conclave for their dojo's new obstacle courses and let them come up with PVP maps that could be showcased on Youtube or in Primetime videos when covering clans...

 

Just a side note of shooting the breeze on this last part of my post... so nobody has a cow over it...

Narrator: (They had a cow over it)

I haven't wanted to play a PVP game since Fall of Cybertron...and that was a total blast...but, I had fun watching Squads: Space Crew mod..and this is just an observation..but PVP where one player is in control of a monstrous hunter and everyone else is running and hiding while trying to accomplish something...I would play that...and I hate PVP...

Edited September 11, 2019 by (PS4)FriendSharkey

[Lazarow]

This should be in feedback not general discussion. 

On the topic I am done with conclave got my syandana and the mods I wanted I did this around last year in the current state and have givven up on this mode, I do like seeing it be crowded but I dont see it happening as warframe is mostly a PPVE game and DE are strugling to give us content that the community asks for and conclave is not a priority

[peterc3]

31 minutes ago, AJman14 said:

2. Another thing that should be considered is giving everyone equal equipment.

If this were to happen, there is zero connection to Warframe. At that point, the myriad Grineer vs. Corpus ideas are infinitely better because there is no expectation of your favorite weapon or frame being in the mode.

33 minutes ago, AJman14 said:

You could have a mode where you pit player squads against each other.

Connecting the PvE experience and the PvP experience so as to reward the most meta setup is the most toxic PvP idea out there. This would be disastrous.

[AJman14]

5 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

If this were to happen, there is zero connection to Warframe. At that point, the myriad Grineer vs. Corpus ideas are infinitely better because there is no expectation of your favorite weapon or frame being in the mode.

Connecting the PvE experience and the PvP experience so as to reward the most meta setup is the most toxic PvP idea out there. This would be disastrous.

Maybe I should've been more clear on 2. Everything should be available. If one player has, say, Nezha unlocked in PVP due to their PVE progression, but a new player doesn't, it's literally the opposite of what DE wants, according to the change they made with the Universal Medallions.

My point in 3 was to have another PVP-ish mode. The Leaderboards have been in-game for the longest time, but who even looks at them? This would give a good reason for players to actually challenge themselves to get the better build and ultimately the best squad. This, too, could have a ranking system, so the "meta" builds won't crush the newer players.

[peterc3]

10 minutes ago, AJman14 said:

Maybe I should've been more clear on 2. Everything should be available. If one player has, say, Nezha unlocked in PVP due to their PVE progression, but a new player doesn't, it's literally the opposite of what DE wants, according to the change they made with the Universal Medallions.

If a player doesn't have access to X frame in PvE and is suddenly given it in PvP, how do you think they'll do vs. people who play with that frame daily? Let's be real, here. Every single player will then pick the easiest frame to either ignore the absurd damage other frames can do or can do absurd damage.

Now add in a ranking system. I wouldn't touch current Conclave in a million years. This would put it somewhere around the heat death of the universe in terms of interest.

14 minutes ago, AJman14 said:

My point in 3 was to have another PVP-ish mode. The Leaderboards have been in-game for the longest time, but who even looks at them? This would give a good reason for players to actually challenge themselves to get the better build and ultimately the best squad. This, too, could have a ranking system, so the "meta" builds won't crush the newer players.

I can mathematically tell you the best squad. Within moments of this being added, the meta will be known and widespread. Anyone attempting to challenge The Meta will be labeled garbage and harassed. That doesn't even count the "unearned" hate players would get.

Now add in e-peen points. The US EPA would invade Canada and declare DE's HQ a superfund site for the amount of toxic garbage they would be dealing with.

[Kontrollo]

57 minutes ago, AJman14 said:

Thing is, I would love Conclave if I was against players that aren't toxic 1-build gate-keepers. If there was a ranking system, I feel like many more people would play, as they would have a chance to actually have an equal fight.

Can you elaborate on what these one-builds are? I see a fair number of weapons being used. I do agree there are some things that really need to be looked at, but somehow I feel like the highlighted part is not conducive to an actual discussion, and it's not feedback, either.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Kontrollo
wording

[nslay]

Tenno Nexus Wars, only with Grineer, Infested, Corpus and Corrupted units. Our Warframes play a dual role as hero and builder unit. We build spawning waypoints for the various Warframe units with a unit of resource we accrue at even increments. We earn additional resources from the spawning waypoints we built.

So the way it works is you build units to counter the other player's units by using both knowledge about the game's damage system as well as psychology. When the other player's units destroys your Nexus (kind of like the defense target in Warframe), you lose and vice versa.

Never seen Nexus Wars? Here's what it looks like:

Spoiler

 

 

[AJman14]

6 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

If a player doesn't have access to X frame in PvE and is suddenly given it in PvP, how do you think they'll do vs. people who play with that frame daily? Let's be real, here. Every single player will then pick the easiest frame to either ignore the absurd damage other frames can do or can do absurd damage.

Now add in a ranking system. I wouldn't touch current Conclave in a million years. This would put it somewhere around the heat death of the universe in terms of interest.

I can mathematically tell you the best squad. Within moments of this being added, the meta will be known and widespread. Anyone attempting to challenge The Meta will be labeled garbage and harassed. That doesn't even count the "unearned" hate players would get.

Now add in e-peen points. The US EPA would invade Canada and declare DE's HQ a superfund site for the amount of toxic garbage they would be dealing with.

Well that's one way to put it. I didn't say only the very best squad would get anything. Sheesh. People would get rewards for playing, not just from winning. Why is there a Leaderboard? Oh that's right.. to show who's at the top.

 

3 minutes ago, Kontrollo said:

Can you elaborate on what these one-builds are? I see a fair number of weapons being used. I do agree there are some things that really need be looked at, but somehow I feel like the highlighted part is not conducive to an actual discussion, and it's not even feedback.

I'm not sure what I meant, exactly. I think I was trying to say the people that dominate the rounds with just a Skiajati or Arca Plasmor. A ranking system would push them up, allowing other players to have more fun than dying all the time.

[Kontrollo]

1 minute ago, AJman14 said:

I'm not sure what I meant, exactly. I think I was trying to say the people that dominate the rounds with just a Skiajati or Arca Plasmor. A ranking system would push them up, allowing other players to have more fun than dying all the time.

That's called skill-based matchmaking, and I agree and can fully get behind that. Actually, it already came up in feedback threads back in 2015. Sadly, the only thing that was implemented was Recruit Conditioning. While I do think it helps a bit, it also has a few problems, like hard separation of the player pool, and its reliance on the Syndicate rank alone. So it's really more of a band-aid.

But please refrain from characterisations like what I highlighted before. It really doesn't help, and the recent witch hunt was bad enough already.

[(PSN)Hopper_Orouk]

The reason conclave is unplayable is people not needing it

There's nothing there for me, no long term rewards, nothing to farm and nothing to help my warframe journey 

[peterc3]

5 minutes ago, AJman14 said:

Oh that's right.. to show who's at the top.

And there is not a single reward beyond being at whatever point on the leaderboard. You start tying actual rewards to it and people are going to turn into salt golems.

I simply can't imagine smurfing in a F2P game with theoretically every single piece of equipment available would happen. Spoiler: I know for a fact it will happen. So no, people will not only face those of a similar skill level. Those only dipping their toes in will be heavily outmatched at every single level and the only people who are left are the same people who play Conclave now.

The level of work required to put this together would be better spent shoveling cash into an incinerator because the efforts would be 100000% wasted.

[S.Dust]

Someone show me these toxic gate keepers cause I have not met them while actually playing conclave, probably because there are none.

Weapons are balanced for conclave I've seen people rek with the mk1 bo and basic braton. It's all aim at the end of the day while some snipers and beam weapons are annoying that's about it. I wont say I'm against having a mode that gives everyone the same loadout.

That last suggestion just sounds like fighting AI which I think is what no conclave player is looking for or else they could go play the rest of warframe. I mean that last suggestion could be achieved by putting a leader board on star chart nodes.

Edited September 12, 2019 by S.Dust

[AJman14]

6 hours ago, Kontrollo said:

That's called skill-based matchmaking, and I agree and can fully get behind that. Actually, it already came up in feedback threads back in 2015. Sadly, the only thing that was implemented was Recruit Conditioning. While I do think it helps a bit, it also has a few problems, like hard separation of the player pool, and its reliance on the Syndicate rank alone. So it's really more of a band-aid.

But please refrain from characterisations like what I highlighted before. It really doesn't help, and the recent witch hunt was bad enough already.

You're right. Sorry about that.

5 hours ago, peterc3 said:

And there is not a single reward beyond being at whatever point on the leaderboard. You start tying actual rewards to it and people are going to turn into salt golems.

I simply can't imagine smurfing in a F2P game with theoretically every single piece of equipment available would happen. Spoiler: I know for a fact it will happen. So no, people will not only face those of a similar skill level. Those only dipping their toes in will be heavily outmatched at every single level and the only people who are left are the same people who play Conclave now.

The level of work required to put this together would be better spent shoveling cash into an incinerator because the efforts would be 100000% wasted.

Thanks for your opinion, but I kindly disagree. There are 100 ways it could be implemented, and many of those would be able to please the majority of the players.

[trst]

No amount of reworks to conclave would fix the primary reason so many people refuse to play it: it being a PvP mode.

Nobody comes into Warframe to play PvP and very little effort put into the main game even translates into one's performance in PvP as most mods come from the mode itself and the changes to damage, mobility, and mod mechanics make for a very jarring transition. As well there is nothing in the main game to train one's aim against actual players.

Also unless the mode suddenly becomes remotely popular a more in-dept (or any) matchmaking or ranking system is likely to do more harm than good for people who do want to play it needing to wait even longer to find people within their ranges.

And making conclave into some pseudo competitive PvE system would have the same faults and end up being FAR more meta restricted than the current Conclave system ever could be.

[AJman14]

1 hour ago, trst said:

No amount of reworks to conclave would fix the primary reason so many people refuse to play it: it being a PvP mode.

Most people don't play it because they go in there, get hit with the most meta PVP equipment and players, and get a distaste for the mode. I loved it when we all had the same equipment in the previous PVP events. Nobody had superior equipment, and it was actually skill-based.

1 hour ago, trst said:

And making conclave into some pseudo competitive PvE system would have the same faults and end up being FAR more meta restricted than the current Conclave system ever could be.

Well as a different mode, but that's exactly right! It could be the end-game content the players have been asking for! This is exactly what a lot of "veterans" want. An actual reason to stay longer, fight harder, and get the best build/squad together.

[trst]

7 minutes ago, AJman14 said:

Most people don't play it because they go in there, get hit with the most meta PVP equipment and players, and get a distaste for the mode. I loved it when we all had the same equipment in the previous PVP events. Nobody had superior equipment, and it was actually skill-based.

Well as a different mode, but that's exactly right! It could be the end-game content the players have been asking for! This is exactly what a lot of "veterans" want. An actual reason to stay longer, fight harder, and get the best build/squad together.

That exact encounter pretty much sums up first-time experiences with every single type of PvP game there is. Except the difference between a PvP game and conclave is that it's optional side content to the main PvE game that people are actually playing for. People don't get the game for PvP thus they don't have to like it.

Also anyone is capable of getting the same meta equipment just by putting in the minimum effort required to get weeklies done, and even without said equipment the mode is still skill based.

And how can encountering meta players in Conclave be a bad thing while encountering it in competitive PvE is good? If someone feels Conclave is impossible because of the meta then they would find a PvE variant also impossible all while someone who wants to go all out with min-maxing should be embracing any Conclave meta. In-fact a meta based PvE mode would be worse for anyone who dislikes the meta due to how much more equipment there is to grind out when compared to the limited options available in Conclave.

[RX-3DR]

3 is viable with proper balancing. Cut down, make it harder and less effective to employ easy play builds. Then throw in some disruptions teams can deploy against the other team. You'll see a ton of easy wins when you Radiation proc a blind nuker until people learn to actually play the game with their eyes open. Only problem is the upkeep in maintaining it is a lot harder since you need to be very proactive in addressing any combination that can break the challenge.

[Voltage]

12 hours ago, peterc3 said:

And there is not a single reward beyond being at whatever point on the leaderboard. You start tying actual rewards to it and people are going to turn into salt golems.

You don't see many complaints about the Gold Skull Kills Event badge do you? How many people even know what it is or care?

l feel like cosmetics for leaderboard placement is healthy, and competitive PvE content really helps DE balance the game.  

For Conclave to actually matter, it either needs every player have the same equipment (like the snowball fight or Quick Steel), or it needs to be competitive PvE objectives.

12 hours ago, peterc3 said:

I simply can't imagine smurfing in a F2P game

You can't stop smurfing in any PvP environment. I have seen Conclave alts that use Recruit Conditioning to have easy match wipes. It's a problem that you can never fix.

All in all, I would rather DE not spend resources on Conclave personally due to how much work existing PvE modes need.

[LSG501]

If I'm being completely honest.. and this is coming from someone who likes PvP in things like UT and quake...

• It has no impact on the main PvE part of the game, as we've just seen conclave 'is separate' from the rest of the game and is being kept that way.
• It already has very little dev time spent on it
• It has had no real improvements to fix the game mode in the time I've been playing this game so it still continues to have the exact same issues from when I started playing...
• We've had new 'content' added that could have been linked to conclave standing but wasn't, such as ventkids, which got it's own independent syndicate instead, and warframe fighter
• Due to matchmaking experienced players can 'rig the system' to be put with less experienced players and totally dominate them putting the newbies off
• Very few people actually play it, unless you're in 1 or 2 zones you might never even see another player...
• The actual standing seems pretty poor, and last I checked (could be wrong on this) you can't even get standing outside of public matches...
• A lot of players are already complaining about the time between PvE updates... taking time to improve a part of the game that has 1-2% of the players will seem like a waste of resources to many
• If I want to play PvP there are far better options out there because they were designed with PvP in mind rather than essentially being a bolt on to a PvE game.
• There isn't even an AI option for you to practice and/or get standing without all the 'negatives' from being in public groups... clearly they can do AI in PvP because that was basically what Dog Days event was. 
• Even if it's changed the odds are people won't bother with PvP, majority of players came to warframe for the PvE game modes.
• edit: In PvE, even if you're the worst player in the game you can still have fun and will always see some sort of progress or a way to improve after each mission.  You don't have to 'git gud' to have fun in PvE, unlike in PvP.

 

If you look at things from a completely unbiased and subjective viewpoint it's in just as bad, if not worse, state than raids.  If it was me running the game, I'd remove the game mode and put the rewards into an 'end game' content store which is then linked to things like arbitrations, onslaught, disruption, sorties etc... along with higher levels. 

Why would I do this... honestly it would take less work making the store (it's already in game code) and linking it to the 'end game' modes than it would to fix conclave... it would also have the secondary benefit of a clear 'end game' for players.

edit: if DE wanted to be kind to the conclave players they could throw that into the 'end game' modes too.

Edited September 12, 2019 by LSG501

[(XBOX)Hyperion Rexx]

Tbh, there were were two things I was surprised at with the medallion change.

First, how quickly Steve caved in response to a Twitter message from ONE GUY.

Second, how short sighted that one guy was.  Given the very low drop chance of a medallion it would probably take months of grinding to get enough to rank up.  If someone was using them to rank conclave (not a given btw, many players would use them to rank other "useful" syndicates) it may encourage some to actually play the game mode to speed the process up.  And let's be real, they should be jumping at the chance of getting even a handful of new players in there.

The whole situation smacks of a tight little cabal of players wanting to keep the mode to themselves.  As it stands new players get kerb stomped into oblivion which puts them off ever going back.

And don't come at me with the argument they had to rank up the hard way.  I had to rank up cetus by spending days on end fishing to now see those mats drop like confetti.  DE have consistently made grinds easier.  Why not for conclave too? 

[LSG501]

1 minute ago, (XB1)Hyperion Rexx said:

The whole situation smacks of a tight little cabal of players wanting to keep the mode to themselves.  As it stands new players get kerb stomped into oblivion which puts them off ever going back.

I've said in another thread the 'cynical' side of me questioned if the motive is more about being able to milk the 'newbies' for their own standing.  If 'newbies' can get standing elsewhere they wouldn't be able do that.

 

5 minutes ago, (XB1)Hyperion Rexx said:

First, how quickly Steve caved in response to a Twitter message from ONE GUY.

Supposedly that one guy is only rank 3 on conclave (If I could be bothered with conclave I could get there in 2 days...)... but then DE have been focusing on the newbie experience of late.

[SneakyErvin]

I dont think there is much that can be done for conclave, not to justify resources spent on it anyways. WF is a PvE game, people play it mainly for that. The few that do play conclave arent exactly the target group when it comes to development time and resources. They already tried several different PvP modes and they've all failed for one reason or another. Do they really need to try a 5th time? You'd think they'd get it by now that the vast majority of players in WF have no interest for PvP in this game.

When I wanna PvP I actually play games designed for PvP. I dont wish to have it injected into every game I play. This whole idea that every game must have PvP is a plague as big as the idea that every PvP game must have BR.