Nightwaves and Exclusive Timed Content

[RGFREEK]

Hi there,

I read in another post that DE had addressed on a stream, the fact that they don't like timed exclusive rewards, and that all rewards/weapons/frames, barring founders items, would be available in-game on some sort of basis.

Has there been any more news around this regarding Nightwave?

I started playing 3 years ago and I'm fine with grinding for things - it took almost this long for me to finish my Acolyte mod set and it felt great when I finally did it. Same with vaulted weapons/frames.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time for Warframe at the moment. This is how my life works - I'll have a month or two to binge, I spend a lot on platinum, I grind whatever I can and make as much progress as possible, and then I have to put it down for 3-4+ months.

Nightwaves is the first time I feel like I'm missing out on something and it's making me feel apprehensive about coming back at all.

I enjoy collecting things - I hit MR25 and leveled every weapon and frame I could as of late 2018 and I have always looked forward to coming back and having a bunch of new content to farm for, or story to progress. If I can't work towards 100% on a game at my own pace, chances are I won't play it.

I saw a comment on reddit saying the game "feels dead" at the moment due to being in-between "seasons" - that seems wrong. I can appreciate seasonal events but I would hate to see Warframe become so tied to its seasonal events that the player base is affected. DE has carefully constructed a treadmill that I enjoy running on - but it's a very finely tuned machine and the small details tend to make the difference.

I would have a stronger desire to come back to the game if I knew the following:

• Seasonal content was available on some sort of defined schedule - even if it's annually like some other events. This would signal that Warframe has been growing while I've been away and that it's always ready for me to come back and catch up on my path to 100% without any fear of missing event specific rewards. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
• The seasons/series completed in the past had a similar "meaningless number/diminishing returns" format or prestige system as forma as opposed to a completely unique or unobtainable/non-repeatable system.

If Series 1: The Wolf of Saturn Six is tied to February - May, then so be it. I wouldn't mind that.

Let's say I return to Warframe in February 2020. I assume there will be a new Series active during that time. It would be great if I could progress in both Series 1 (Wolf of Saturn Six) and whatever series is going on at that time in 2020. In this example Series 1 is always tied to the Series released around February-May. This would allow DE to recycle some content while expanding on the lore/story of that particular series and it turns into a periodical story line of sorts. We can expect more "Wolf of Saturn Six" related story every February-May

DE could create their very own Avengers arc by tying Nightwave Series together into a pinnacle event some time in the future.

Seasons could also become "replayable" as in, we would have the ability to start progress on them and work towards them at any time after their intermission period. This could get hairy to manage if they aren't tied to time periods like above, but does give us much greater freedom of choice.

Obviously I haven't taken the time to figure out the logistics, I think after a year or two, they would HAVE to be limited by time periods or risk fragmenting content too much.

As long as we aren't "locked" to an event and things are repeatable at some point, players will jump between them to farm for old rewards and to help returning/new players. The way it currently feels is locked to a specific one-time period, which seems restrictive.

I believe choice is one of the most important aspects of live games or games as a service and being able to play the game on my terms has always been something Warframe got right.

I know it's been stated and I'll just have to be patient, but I would love to see more discussion whether it be from the community, or DE, on this topic.

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

I think the keywords there are "exclusive" and "timed". They are against exclusive items, not necessarily "timed exclusive items". "Timed" assumes that they will return at some point, making them not really exclusive since all players will access them sooner or later.

This includes nightwave stuff. The timed exclusivity is meant as a reward for the players who were here during the actual content that was meant to give them its reward items, while others who didn't manage to do it or weren't warframe players at the time will have to wait before getting their hands on said content. But it's not like they won't be able to do so further down the line.

Then there's cosmetics. While DE tries to bring them back truth is they're not essential to the player experience, so unlike weapons there's less effort in bringing them back.

As for founder items, yes. Those are true exclusives, not timed ones. Only actual founders can get them, and the rest of the community will never see them even if decades pass.

Edited October 15, 2019 by (PS4)Hikuro-93

[Klaleara]

I don't like NIghtwave.  Hate that I have to spend 50-80% of my playtime on Nightwave, otherwise I might potentially never get the rewards.  I didn't even get to max out Nightwave, and I did Nightwave almost the entire time that I was able to play Warframe.  So, no infected operator for me.

[RGFREEK]

19 hours ago, Klaleara said:

I don't like NIghtwave.  Hate that I have to spend 50-80% of my playtime on Nightwave, otherwise I might potentially never get the rewards.  I didn't even get to max out Nightwave, and I did Nightwave almost the entire time that I was able to play Warframe.  So, no infected operator for me.

That's a bummer.

I haven't jumped back in to playing, but I did log in the other day and this was the gist I got, that finishing Nightwave might replace my normally scheduled catching up on story and weapons/frames if I want all of the cosmetics/rewards.

I can't say whether or not I dislike Nightwave since I haven't been a part of one - I really like the idea of it. I think every game benefits from more content and more ways to play, but there's diminishing returns with timed/seasonal events and especially if anything becomes exclusive as part of them.

I was hoping the forums would have something I missed.

I wish DE would address this in a more meaningful way than "we'll figure it out" because for people like me the only reason I started playing Warframe was because I saw a mountain to climb and now it's starting to feel like parts of that mountain are becoming exclusive based on if you had time to play during a specific event - I hate that feeling.

The haziness around completing an in-game collection of cosmetics has been enough for me to walk away from games in the past, as silly as that might seem to others.

I've consumed a lot of the content Warframe has to offer so it's kind of a big deal to me when I miss something completely. I think for new players they may realize they are in the middle of something, missing out on it (and previous events), and then ditch the game over it.

Cosmetics may not affect the game for some, but it does for me both from a general fashion frame standpoint and the collection/100% aspect. I understand that it doesn't affect actual gameplay, but when you're mowing down everything in sight with 10 forma'd frames and weapons the only difference is in how things look.

It feels like because I don't have time to play, as a cosmetic collector at least, I am being punished. It seems like this is becoming the norm in games and it's not entirely inclusive which bugs me.

Maybe I'm just getting older and have less time for them but it's sad to see the games I could always rely on start pulling content based on when you had time to play - even if it's just cosmetics. I think there are better and more unique ways to provide rewards and incentives around seasonal events while still including new/returning players.

[ExcaliburUmbra]

7 minutes ago, RGFREEK said:

It feels like because I don't have time to play, as a cosmetic collector at least, I am being punished. It seems like this is becoming the norm in games and it's not entirely inclusive which bugs me.

This has been a thing in Warframe for years though. Heck there are some cosmetics that I will probably never have access to due to not even being around during the time that they were available (like the Tethra’s Doom Quantum Emblem or Trials badges).

That being said, the devs have confirmed multiple times on streams that they are looking into bringing back older Nightwave rewards, and that the only true exclusives are the Founder items. So there may be hope yet if you’re patient.

[Xzorn]

Exclusive cosmetics should always be a thing in long term multiplayer games. Sorry if that's polarizing but that's how I feel.

This has always been a mistake from DE because it plays to the exact opposite concept of a long term game.

It's detrimental to player interest in new content since there is one constant to a game like Warframe that will always be true. Everything gets easier. When that's taken into account, why grind away to get any new items? By default they will be easier to get at a later point. You're essentially playing into their padded content scheme.

Furthermore there is no difference between a 6 year player and a 6 month player in this game. Loyalty to the company and it's community over time. the videos, the questions answered, the feedback, the bug reports, the literal content we helped make, word of mouth to bring new player or simply being a part of the community. None of that matters.

Oh and I was playing during Tethra's Doom. I missed out on the emblem. Oh well. Least that's how it should go.
Make more posts I'm sure DE will throw it out there and call it something else like they did with Rift Sigil and Excal Prime.

[Steel_Rook]

2 hours ago, Xzorn said:

It's detrimental to player interest in new content since there is one constant to a game like Warframe that will always be true. Everything gets easier. When that's taken into account, why grind away to get any new items? By default they will be easier to get at a later point. You're essentially playing into their padded content scheme.

Because you want it NOW, as opposed to weeks, months and sometimes even years later. You know why I buy my Forma for Plat even though I could earn it? Because it builds at a rate of 1 per 24 hours, and I use a hell of a lot more of it than that. I could simply Forma my stuff slower, but I don't feel like waiting. A long time ago when I first hit MR 14, I wanted a Supra Vandal. I could have waited Lord knows how long for Baro to sell it... Or I could just buy it off Warframe.market, which is what I did. Knowing that a reward will be easier later does very little to influence my motivation to earn or buy it. Unless I have it on good authority that it'll be made easier within the next few days, then it might as well not even matter because I'm not sitting around waiting for months for something I want in the present.

And if this sounds like "I want it, daddy! And I want it now!" that's exactly what it is. Yes, permanent exclusives do play on people's compulsions and coerce us into gameplay we don't enjoy and which will do permanent damage to our experience with the game, but timed exclusives do just about the same thing. I would be shocked and amazed if a significant number of people see a thing they want, but think to themselves "Nah, I'll pick it up in a couple of years." Sure, there are plenty of people who look at a thing and think "I don't really want it, but it's the only chance I can get it so I probably should..." Except that's a VERY unhealthy way to play video games. It's a one-way ticked to burnout, and I say this from experience. As the overall gaming population ages, you're going to start seeing a larger and larger population of old MMO veterans who've experienced burnout and learned to "let it go."

Far as I'm concerned, DE are right to not bank on permanent exclusives. Those offer a short-term push in "engagement," but the cost for that is burnout, sometimes permanently. Nightwave itself is "theoretically" a timed exclusive, but how long has it been now since Season 1? Have any of those items come back? That's already longer than a lot of people will even stick with the game in the first place. The entire system is built on psychological manipulation, on "fear of missing out," just like every other Season Pass. I mean, kudos on DE for not making us pay for it, but they brought all of the OTHER insidious Skinner box tricks with it.

I'll say what I've been saying since this whole thing started - let us play old Seasons at our discretion. They already cap at 30+30 so they're not all that abusable. World of Tanks - an actual P2W game - allows players to do that. Or did last I checked, though - Lord knows what they've come up with since.

[Velothed]

I missed the first Season of Nightwave, but I'm pretty sure most of the stuff will be available again, my guess would be around 1 year later, maybe more. I'd really like to have gotten the stuff, but I can wait.

I know, this is kinda off-topic, but after my mostly positive impression of Nightwave from the Intermission and the first few weeks of season 2, I really dislike the way it is handled.

It should encourage us to play the game, not do some very specific random stuff. The tipping point for me was seeing a friend whom I've just gotten to start playing Warframe almost burn himself out by only fixating on Nightwave. He didn't progress, he did not do the quests at that time, he spent the time he could invest into videogames simply grinding out Nightwave. It's one thing if a vet that has done everything grinds for 3 months for the same stuff, it's horrible gamedesign imo if a new player with tons of content in front of him keeps grinding the same bs.

It's skinner-boxing to a degree I'm not used to from DE. While Destiny 2 for example is an absolute cluster#*!% of addictionmechanics, the Seasonpass they have is way better designed imo. You progress by gaining exp. You get exp pretty consistently by playing the game. The more you play, the faster you get through the Seasonpass. Of course that would not work the same way in warframe, everyone would just grind without end in ESO/Hydron. I'm not sure what the best way would be, but I'd actually be up for tying it to playtime, of course with a lot of checks and bounds so people don't do 48h shifts during the first week and stop playing for the rest of the season. Daily/weekly caps should work. I'd honestly wish for stuff like focus and syndicate standing to move into a similar direction. Exp econemy in Warframe is broken. I'm not sure it would be feasable to fix. I'm not sure it really has to be fixed. Too many things are tied into it though. If we keep getting reasons to grind exp, ESO/Hydron will soon be the only thing people do.

Sorry, I've gone way off topic...

Just had to get that of my chest.

[Xzorn]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

-snip-

 

There are a few tangents here from what I said. The obvious being I said cosmetics.

The other are multipart situations and I'll try to discuss what, why and how they can be different with the repercussions or results.

• Buying something for Plat in just about every case results in losing play time.
• Now the question becomes. Is that play time something you'd value or not? In many cases of new content my personal answer would be No. However in a better setting it would be less a measurement of boredom and more just time Vs plat.
• This is where a flaw in DE's more recent design develops as there's little to no actual re-play value to their content. It's repetitive but holds no player interest outside that specific item the player wants. It's bait in other words.
• Now we use Supra Vandal again as a item. If it was not a Baro item but instead given as part of a dynamic game type far surpassing the current grade of content Warframe has that most players would enjoy playing anyways while also awarding other goodies and even better not rewarding duplicates in order to preserve that mission's re-play value. If this was standard trend would you still be so quick to buy it? You wait a few months yet you might end up playing that mission anyways for actual fun.
• Another is I mentioned a game designed for long term play. Long term play means long term play. Off and on, constant. doesn't matter. I've played going 7 years. Not the whole 7 years and I buy very little. I actually haven't played much in a year and I haven't miss out on anything either. Event exclusive items take all of 30 minutes and they're up for weeks. Even if you did somehow miss that window the above situation is far superior as a catch up method to anything Warframe currently offers.
• Lastly the rush conditions already exist in the game and has gotten worse. Be it to own or to stock up and sell. Putting a time window on pretty much anything results in this which is why DE should be re-introducing the items as permanent parts of the game with new content like they used to and not rotational time gates like now. The Unhealthy method you mentioned is only something of recent design. Cicero Crisis was long ago yet the mission is in the game and the mods drop from Vor. Specter of Liberty also a permanent part of the game and so are the rewards. Gravidius, same deal. It's only since Shadow Debt that DE started this time window crap.

Nightwave itself is just ripping off seasons and leagues from ARPG games but in an awful way. Doing it right would be after a season the game mechanic of that season gets implemented as a permanent part of the game along with tangent accessibility for everything that season had to offer. Which is exactly what DE used to do with Events. Why don't they do it now? Probably that unhealthy hurry-up-it's-time-to-get-it thing you spoke of aka Baiting. Everything is on DE's time now. From Void Fissure rotations to unvaults, Fractures, Acolytes, Kuva Siphons, Eidolons, Bounties. Damn near everything and that wasn't always the case.

There was a time you could just sit down and play Warframe when you want and do the mission you want for the reward you want.
P.S I don't even build or buy Forma. That's how stale this game has become for me because it has no long term design anymore.

[-CdG-Piggles-]

On 2019-10-16 at 4:32 AM, Klaleara said:

I don't like NIghtwave.  Hate that I have to spend 50-80% of my playtime on Nightwave, otherwise I might potentially never get the rewards.  I didn't even get to max out Nightwave, and I did Nightwave almost the entire time that I was able to play Warframe.  So, no infected operator for me.

I don't understand how you can spend so much time doing only your nightwave and not have it maxed. I spent 3 days (roughly 1 full 24 hour day of grinding) to max it out at the very end of nightwave from rank 3 to rank 30 (and then passively to 40/50 ish.) 

[Kouden]

i finished the Emissary in 1 week from rank 4 on, without having to sacrifice time for other game content. Saying that someone spends 50-80% of their playtime only with Nightwave is a bit exaggerated. Unless you dont do anything else ingame in between except waiting for the daily challenges to reset.

But i fully agree that they should make an annual plan for the series to return as seasons, so each Series would be 2 months wich gives the players more than enough time to max out their ranks needes for the rewards they wanna get. But make the Nightwave credits universial so they can be used in any series to purchase the cred offerings 😎

[EinheriarJudith]

i want to like nightwave but i cant. i dont like achievement still objectives. it wants me to play in a way i do not want to. i skip nightwave.

[Steel_Rook]

21 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Now we use Supra Vandal again as a item. If it was not a Baro item but instead given as part of a dynamic game type far surpassing the current grade of content Warframe has that most players would enjoy playing anyways while also awarding other goodies and even better not rewarding duplicates in order to preserve that mission's re-play value. If this was standard trend would you still be so quick to buy it? You wait a few months yet you might end up playing that mission anyways for actual fun.

Please understand that I don't mean to be rude, but you're moving the goal posts here. Obviously if I enjoy playing an event then I'm unlikely to buy the rewards for it as soon as the event comes out because I'm going to be playing it and for quite a while with the knowledge that I'm likely to get what I want that way. That wasn't the point we were discussing, however. What I was addressing was the distinction between a permanent exclusive and a temporary exclusive. Say I've chosen to play the event that gives me a Supra Vandal and for whatever reason I wasn't able to get one by the time it expired. I now have two choices - wait 6 months for the event to come around again and get that last piece, or buy that last piece from people selling it on the Market. In this situation, I'm absolutely going to buy it.

Now imagine the alternative situation. I tried to earn the Supra Vandal, failed to do so and the event is over forever. I'm never, ever going to be able to attain the weapon again. In this case, I'm... Also going to buy it. I might have to pay more for it likely because scalpers will be trying to take advantage of whales like myself, but my stupidity goes only so far. I'm not going to pay an awful lot of money for a thing even if I really want it because I don't have infinite income. I didn't buy the Atlas Prime Access Pack, for instance, because only the $80 variety actually had the titular Atlas in it, and #*!% that. If I want Atlas, I can buy him a lot cheaper on Warframe.market, plus it doesn't hurt to try and earn a few pieces, maybe cut down the price a little. To go back to the Supra Vandal, I would buy it whether it's going away forever or for a few months, because I want to have it now. Both temporary and permanent exclusivity have the same effect on my desire to spend money on a video game, except the latter also breeds resentment in me.

Where this gets a little murkier is with permanently exclusive items that I don't actually want. Say DE reversed their decision and decided to award Excalibur Prime from some new event, but only for two months and he's never coming back. We swear this time. I don't like Excalibur - never had, bought Atlas with real money starting out so I wouldn't have to play Excalibur. Would knowing that this is my only chance to get Excalibur Prime ever and if I don't act now I'm going to miss out make me more likely to grind for him or pay for him? This is where I go against the game and say "no." Yes, I'm fully aware that most people would say "Yes!" because most people value exclusivity. I've been playing MMOs for 15 years now, however. I've been through all the gatcha schemes, the psychological manipulation, the manufactured scarcity, the Skinner boxes, etc. My experience has taught me to assign value to items only if they have actual use to me, be it practical, aesthetic or personal. In other words, I will stubbornly refuse to allow game developers to force value on me, and insist on assigning personal value of my own. It's why I don't buy into the notion that grinding longer makes an item more valuable. No, it makes the item cost more.

To go back to Excalibur Prime - him being exclusive carries no value to me. Him being an item few people have, a status symbol, an exclusive I'm never going to be able to own if I don't get it right now - none of this has any value to me because Excalibur himself has no value to me. Rather, he has very little value to me, so I'm willing to pay a very small cost in time, effort or indeed money. The development team has a vested interest in convincing me that Excalibur Prime has high value because they've worked to artificially increase his value, but that's value TO THEM. He still has very little value TO ME, and most of that value comes from the "might as well" mentality which brought me Chroma Prime. I don't like Chroma, but I got his Prime variant anyway because I might as well plug that hole in the Profile. People who believe in marketing and advertising have historically told me that this "goes against human nature," that we're naturally predisposed to want what our peers want and what the TV tells us we should want. However, I grew up in an ad-saturated space. I grew up in a compulsion-saturated space. I bought into all of the types of hype at one point or another in my life, and was burned for it in almost all cases. After all this time, I've been burned enough to simply not be affected any more.

And while this may be aberrant behaviour, I'd argue that it grows increasingly less aberrant as time goes on. The longer MMOs exist, the more old-school MMO veterans will grow jaded and resistant to the hype and the FOMO and the peer pressure because we've been there. While younger players start gaming all the time, the average age of older players is constantly increasing and the proportion of old farts grows at a steady pace. It's why lootboxes are under such scrutiny - because those of us who've been complaining about them for over a decade are finally starting to reach critical mass. And though children entering the gaming space might be more malleable and more subject to the standard advertising psychological warfare... They're also growing up in a FAR more ad-saturated world than I did back in the 80s and 90s, and as a result growing more resistant to at an ever younger age. This is off-topic, but I'm personally predicting a crash on the side of marketing in the not-too-distant future. TV channels run 10-minute commercial breaks, ads are so prevalent online that browsing without an adblocker is now horrifying and all the time online advertisers pay less and less. People are being overexposed to exploitative marketing gimmicks, and more are growing resistant. Permanent exclusivity is nothing more than yet another marketing gimmick, the "Call now! Only available in limited stock!" of the 90s telemarketer nonsense.

Long story short, I don't think permanent exclusivity offers enough monetary return to justify the bad blood it generates. DE themselves seem to realise this, as they've been releasing more and more previously exclusive items in general rotation. Pretty much every rare item I check out on the Wiki has an entry to the effect of "This used to only be available between X and Y date from Z activity, but now drops from UVW activities." I'm generally opposed to timed events in the first place because I find them to be little more than graspingly manipulative, but they're the lesser evil in this case. At least items will come back eventually, and those of us who don't want to wait can (and will) still buy them with money. I see no added value from making items permanently exclusive. There's obviously no added value whatsoever for the consumer, but I don't see much for the supplier, either. Wasting development resources on items that most players won't get to play with rarely makes economic sense, even in a sucker economy.

 

21 hours ago, Xzorn said:

Nightwave itself is just ripping off seasons and leagues from ARPG games but in an awful way. Doing it right would be after a season the game mechanic of that season gets implemented as a permanent part of the game along with tangent accessibility for everything that season had to offer. Which is exactly what DE used to do with Events. Why don't they do it now? Probably that unhealthy hurry-up-it's-time-to-get-it thing you spoke of aka Baiting. Everything is on DE's time now. From Void Fissure rotations to unvaults, Fractures, Acolytes, Kuva Siphons, Eidolons, Bounties. Damn near everything and that wasn't always the case.

On this we agree. Nightwave is a naked attempt to recapture the same "fear of missing out" which makes your standard-issue Battle Pass so popular that every damn modern game now has to have one. In my admittedly speculative opinion, game publishers have smelled the decline of lootboxes with looming legislation and general overwhelming bad PR, so they're moving onto the next psychologically manipulative insidious monetisation system that hasn't been over-exposed yet, and that just happens to be the Battle Pass. It targets different psychological vulnerabilities but is still no less compulsive or habit-forming. However, it "looks nicer" from a PR perspective because it's not loot boxes, it's deterministic and it's "fair."

I'm cynical and jaded. I can't help but look at the gaming industry over the last 20 years and mentally start connecting the dots. In 90s and early 2000s, we had the serialised games which released a sequel that you "had" to buy every year. That's when Call of Duty was the king of video games, and what Fifa does to this day. It's when Assassin's Creed died by churning out derivative underdeveloped sequels. Somewhere around that time developers smelled the demise of this approach, so they looked to the old long-running MMOs of the 90s. Then, all games started becoming slow, plodding and grindy - an excuse to keep charging people a monthly subscription. That's when you started seeing Skinner box design really come into its own, with systems purpose-designed to prey on people's psychology and keep them raiding even when the rewards stopped. This is how we arrived at the MMO bubble of the late 2000s, early 2010 when everything was an MMO even if it had no reason to be. Eventually that bubble burst, a bunch of MMOs shut down, a bunch of companies went out of business and the market slowly moved onto the F2P. It's like MMOs, except they removed the cost of entry such that players would get into the addictive habit-forming loop faster. F2P MMOs are where loot boxes first started, at the time more as a habit-forming mechanic more so than a gambling one. Like a Pavlovian dog, you keep salivating when the prospect of a reward is given to you, even though the odds are set so low that you won't actually get it.

Then developers slowly started to realise that it was the random reward aspect that people were addicted to, and that they could slowly pair down their games to just that one aspect. We arrive at yesterday, when online casinos themed after video game properties comprise the majority of the video game market to the point where actual gaming and gambling regulation is being considered. The gambling bubble is right now as we speak approaching bursting times, so smart developers are divesting from it, and moving onto the next fad - the Battle Pass. All the compulsion of early 2000s MMOs WITH the monthly subscription of early 2000s MMOs, just with the specific bookkeeping of it switched around. I guess it's been long enough since Everquest, City of Heroes, or World of Warcraft were in the news that the industry is ready to take another stab at it again. The simple fact of the matter is that modern video games are a monetisation model with a game draped over it.

When I saw the Battle Pass in Warframe, my response was initial outrage followed by pretty quick resigned disappointment because this is just the world we live in now. We need to actively fight with our own entertainment to keep it out of our heads. The unfortunate result of this - and I mean unfortunate for the industry - is this is breeding an entire generation of children forced to develop the mental fortitude to resist manipulation from an early age. what happens when they grow up already sick of this S#&$?

[Xzorn]

35 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Part 1

The point was the move the goalpost. That's what DE has been doing over time. My examples of Event items being permanent parts of the game, fissures, eidolons, all the now time gated content in the game was not present before. Indeed the only Event item that never returned in the history of Warframe is Primed Chamber. How things have returned is the difference though which is essentially me moving the goal post back to where it was before with my examples.

I'm not sure if it was purposeful or not by using Excal Prime but I still want to make sure on this. I said Cosmetics. Not items and in just about every way Excal Umbra is Excal Prime. There is only a cosmetic difference and the goofy Transference thing which makes the two worse or better under different situations and a player with Prime having to use 3 Umbra Forma to get Excal Prime into shape. DE gave everyone that Founder's exclusive item minus the Cosmetic factor.

Not sure how Founders feel about that. I had my own reasons for not buying Founders but my stance is still Cosmetics.

 

45 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Part 2

Yea most games with items or RPG elements have resorted to exploiting addictive behavior. It's sad but I fear RPG games in general have and will suffer even more before it's over. What was once intended as a dynamic measure of game content and rewards is being turned into a monster. As a player of D&D for 30 years. I really hate watching.

I also noticed the same trend with MMOs. I supposed EQ was the first to go dark with Plains of Power. It was the first expansion introduced where you could not increase your characters level to the new max or get exclusive abilities without the expansion. Most gear had become bind-on-pickup meaning you had to go to the new content to get it where the game previously had a thriving market of trading raid items and rare drops to anyone who could afford them. Then of course WoW did it 2 years later and the entire scheme became mainstream. Double dipping monthly frees and expansions just because they could.

If Nightwave where to be done right. It would be a progressive story event that branches out into a new mechanic as the season progresses which afterwards is added to the game. Players not present for that season of Nightwave might miss out on some story aspects to a degree but they will still have the new mechanic, enemies or whatever else was added during that period along with the rewards. Umbra Forma... ugh. Don't even get me started on that Primed Bait. That might just be the worse part right now.

[Steel_Rook]

22 hours ago, Xzorn said:

I'm not sure if it was purposeful or not by using Excal Prime but I still want to make sure on this. I said Cosmetics. Not items and in just about every way Excal Umbra is Excal Prime. There is only a cosmetic difference and the goofy Transference thing which makes the two worse or better under different situations and a player with Prime having to use 3 Umbra Forma to get Excal Prime into shape. DE gave everyone that Founder's exclusive item minus the Cosmetic factor.

I picked Excalibur Prime off memory because I'm not that up on Founder-exclusive items and knew he was one. And making a distinction between "items" and "cosmetics" is a fair point, no question there. Unfortunately - and I know this is an unpopular opinion so fair warning - Warframe is all but entirely Pay-to-Win. You don't HAVE to, but you CAN buy damn near everything from Warframes to guns to Mods to Arcanes to everything in-between. I own the likes of Adaptation, Arcane Guardian and Arcane Grace not because I'm good enough or persistent enough to earn them "the right way," but rather because the game kept giving me 75% off on Platinum and trading exists. In a purely philosophical sense, cosmetics and the pursuit thereof, be it through gameplay or RMT, is entirely separate from the pursuit of gameplay-affecting items. Because of Warframe's approach to economy aka "everything is for sale," there is no practical distinction between them.

Ultimately, this is a video game where nothing truly matter because none of it affects the real world. Whether you're buying an item because you like the look of the shiny gold metal or because you like the look of the shiny gold criticals, it ultimately comes down to how much you want the thing and how much the thing costs. value - cost = worth It's a simple calculation I've been relying on for a decade now, and it applies equally to the cosmetic toys I want because they look cool and to the power boosts I want because they allow me to fight better. Within the context of how motivated players are to work towards earning or put money towards buying a thing of value, both types of things go through the same general mentality. The reason we typically draw a stark distinction between "items" and "cosmetics" is because selling items generally tends to undermine core gameplay mechanics while selling cosmetics generally doesn't... But Warframe selling both at roughly equal cost blurs that line significantly.

I may be losing the plot and overfocusing on semantics, however. My apologies. All I was trying to get at was that the sort of people who are likely to grind the hardest and pay the most are the sort of people who wouldn't have the patience to wait. Whether an item we want will be back in 6 months, 6 years or never again is immaterial in our decision on whether to grind or buy, because our decision is driven by the above-mentioned "worth" calculation. What value do I place on this item, what would it cost me to have it, is that worth it to me. If yes, grind/buy. If not, I don't care regardless. Temporary exclusives offer almost as much FOMO as permanent exclusives, but have the added benefit of both recycling that FOMO when they come back around and recycling the content itself, which is not cost-less to make. DE seem to have realised this, which is why they've invested so hard in the Prime Vault, 6-month events, Baro Ki'Teer, etc. No content is ever permanently going to go away, but "you better get it now, because it might be months or years until you see it again!"

 

23 hours ago, Xzorn said:

If Nightwave where to be done right. It would be a progressive story event that branches out into a new mechanic as the season progresses which afterwards is added to the game. Players not present for that season of Nightwave might miss out on some story aspects to a degree but they will still have the new mechanic, enemies or whatever else was added during that period along with the rewards. Umbra Forma... ugh. Don't even get me started on that Primed Bait. That might just be the worse part right now.

If I may be extra cynical for a moment, I feel Nightwave was "done right" from the perspective of psychological warfare against the playerbase. I'm being deliberately hyperbolic, obviously, but hear me out. Yes, I too would much rather see Nightwave Seasons introduced as they are now, then returned into general rotation same as Ghouls or Fissues, or even the way World of Tanks does it where you can pick which "Season equivalent" you're working towards from everything that's already come out. That right there would solve the fear of missing out the same as what happened with the Opticore Vandal. Sure, whales like myself would still rush to have it, but people who were for any reason not playing at the time could still have it later without having to wait years. However, the FOMO IS the point. Nightwave IS a Season Pass and so inherits all the insidious psychologically manipulative, habit-forming aspects of it. It's designed to make you feel pressured into logging in every week if not every day and fearful to start playing anything else full time because you'll start missing out. No, you don't HAVE to and those of us who've been around MMOs for a decade or two might have the mental fortitude to rebuff the compulsion with this reasoning, but I see it as self-evident that said compulsion is the point.

Umbral Forma is just the most obvious evidence of this. My guess is someone at DE looked at the Nightwave offerings - sigils, sprays, some basic cosmetics - and worried that there was nothing everyone would be afraid of missing out on, nothing that wasn't a matter of taste. So they dropped Umbral Forma in there, offering overt power creep if you play nice and log in every week and make the game part of your daily routine. It absolutely IS Primal Bait, no question there. As the sort of whale at whom this bait is targeted, that and that alone is the only - literally the only - reason I bothered with Nightwave. I had Umbral Vitality, Umbral Fiber and Umbral Intensify that I wanted to put on Inaros, so I needed at least two of those forma. Now we're about due for an Inaros Prime at some point soon-ish, meaning I get to LOSE those Umbral Forma and have to earn a new pair from somewhere in order to come back to status quo.

The reason I was so upset at Nightwave when it first came out is because it was a very obvious monetisation / retention model cribbed from the latest Fortnite fad, yet it was sold to us as everything but that. "No, we're adding it because Alerts suck!" "No, we're adding it as a vehicle for story!" "No, we're adding it to reduce randomness." No, you're adding it because you wanted to have a Battle Pass of your own. Honestly, it reminds me of the time Overkill Studios decided to add loot boxes to their game, ostensibly because CS go had them so what's the worst that can happen, right? Granted, this is a lot less egregious because it's not loot boxes and it's not paywalled, but let's not kid ourselves here. The Battle Pass is the successor to loot boxes, now that loot boxes are poison. Season 2 tempered my disappointment greatly because it genuinely feels like DE are willing to work with the community, so I AM giving them the benefit of a doubt, but Season 1 still pisses me off even today.

[(PSN)Shimauma23]

On 2019-10-17 at 4:07 PM, -CdG-Piggles- said:

I don't understand how you can spend so much time doing only your nightwave and not have it maxed. I spent 3 days (roughly 1 full 24 hour day of grinding) to max it out at the very end of nightwave from rank 3 to rank 30 (and then passively to 40/50 ish.) 

If you haven't progressed to the endgame where you can one-shot everything it can indeed be difficult and time-consuming to finish Nightwave.  When Nightwave 1 came out I had opened up Jupiter.  I got caught up in the FOMO and spent my time grinding through Nightwave missions, unable to do half of them because I hadn't progressed far enough in the game to do the ones that paid well, or didn't have the resources (I did spend three forma, but didn't get any kind of credit because I spent them on my ghost dojo before they made it clear you had to spend it on frames/weapons.  Thanks DE.  I don't have much forma, so that scoring three from Nightwave is one of the better rewards; I haven't even attempted that Nightwave forma challenge again, since it's just too expensive at this point.)  I think I'd only reached Uranus by the time it ended (love that tileset, by the way.) 

I wasn't able to finish Nightwave 1.  I didn't even come close to finishing Nightwave intermission.  I did finish Nightwave 2, but I feel burned out enough on the grind that I've barely played since.  I only just finished War Within, and have yet to get together all the pieces to build anything prime, both things that probably would have happened long ago if I hadn't been grinding Nightwave.  But, oh, gotta get those free slots!  Gotta get those rare mods for weapons I don't have!  Can't do the 7000 point payoff missions this week, better grind the 3000 point ones; thank goodness the ayatan one showed up, I'm sitting on twenty of those by now, that's always a delight.

If you're not an endgame player yet, Nightwave can be a real slog.