Nightmare Mission Rework

[VenomousValentine]

So nightmare missions are in a bad way. Nobody really cares about them once they have the mods unless it's for nightwave.
I have a way to fix this, to make it available to new players, and also a challenge for end game players.

Now, for a second we have to talk about world of warcraft. I hate that game. I was forced to play it (mostly through legion) for years because of my friends. But despite my hatred there were a few things I thought were cool concepts. One of those, being mythic plus. For those who haven't played WoW let me explain.

So the way mythic plus works, is at the start of the week you get a key. The key tells you to do a random dungeon and depending on how fast you do it, your key will upgrade one to three tiers. The key will then tell you to do a different dungeon, but harder based on your key rank, with added modifiers such as enemies leaving poop on the floor that hurts, or they explode when they die and hurt you, More enemies, when an enemy dies it pulses an aura that make nearby enemies stronger, etc. things like that.
So what you do is you keep upgrading your key as much as you can until it gets so hard you physically cannot do it anymore with your available gear.
You get rewards at the end of each dungeon based on your key tier, and at the end of the week you get a bundle of rewards based on your key tier.

Now that the explanation of how it works in wow is out of the way, let me explain how I think it should work in warframe.

Make nightmare missions a syndicate with their own currency, maybe with steel meridian in a similar vein to how arbitration is to hexis with vitus essence.
Key at the start of the week, rank 0. It gives you a random node on the star chart, and tells you what level it starts at.
If it is not an endless mission, the faster you do it, the more your key upgrades, from one to three tiers.
If it is an endless mission, it upgrades 1 tier per rotation, up to 5 maximum.
Every key tier adds 10 levels to the enemies, and every three tiers adds a new modifier (such as the existing energy leech, no shield mode, etc, with new additions similar to the ones in WoW)
At the end of each mission you get normal nightmare mod rewards and some of the new currency, not a lot, maybe like 1 to 5 per key tier.
At the end of the week, you get a message in your inbox with currency equal to 10 times your key tier, with bonus goodies such as credits, endo, kuva, a veiled riven, etc.

Edited February 19, 2020 by VenomousValentine

[Shmoogles]

An issue with this is the difference between the WoW and warframe mechanics, in warframe we have plenty of stealth mechanics to just ignore enemies and make a dash to the end, with a rather simple run and gun game play, compared to WoW which requires a 5 man group, a tank to soak damage, healers to keep people alive, boss mechanics you have to actually deal with rather than out range and shoot the weak point. I'm not saying warframe is a bad game, but the mythic plus style gameplay probably wouldnt go down too well when Loki just beyblades through the level without being seen once

[VenomousValentine]

Existing Modifiers that could be used for nightmare 2.0
Cold: Reduced Shields, and spots that slow
Heat: Areas of the map that damage you
Magnetic: Bubbles of magnetic energy that pull you in and leech energy
Radiation: Areas that do damage and enable friendly fire
Energy Leech: Constant energy drain
Low Gravity: Low Gravity
Health Vampire: Constant health drain, Killing enemies replenishes
Timer: Missions are timed
Death Detonation: Enemies Explode and Damage you when they die
Eximus Stronghold: More eximus enemies

Existing Modifiers for mythic plus in wow, that could be easily Co-Opted into Warframe
Teeming: More enemy reinforcements
Raging: Enemies do more damage at lower health (30% health or lower)
Bolstering: When enemies die, nearby enemies gain damage and resistance
Necrotic: Enemies apply a DOT and reduce healing when they hit you
Skittish: Taunting is less effective (Things like nyx, loki decoy, Saryn Molt, Rumblers, etc)
Volcanic: Enemies spout fire plumes beneath you that deal damage
Explosive: Same as death detonation but more extreme
Quaking: Allies will occasionally emit a shockwave that damages and stuns other allies
Grevious: When allies are below 90% health, they slowly lose health, increasing over time, until healed.

 

[VenomousValentine]

11 minutes ago, Shmoogles said:

An issue with this is the difference between the WoW and warframe mechanics, in warframe we have plenty of stealth mechanics to just ignore enemies and make a dash to the end, with a rather simple run and gun game play, compared to WoW which requires a 5 man group, a tank to soak damage, healers to keep people alive, boss mechanics you have to actually deal with rather than out range and shoot the weak point. I'm not saying warframe is a bad game, but the mythic plus style gameplay probably wouldnt go down too well when Loki just beyblades through the level without being seen once

That's why it would need some changes that makes it harder for them.

[Shmoogles]

2 hours ago, VenomousValentine said:

Existing Modifiers that could be used for nightmare 2.0
Cold: Reduced Shields, and spots that slow
Heat: Areas of the map that damage you
Magnetic: Bubbles of magnetic energy that pull you in and leech energy
Radiation: Areas that do damage and enable friendly fire
Energy Leech: Constant energy drain
Low Gravity: Low Gravity
Health Vampire: Constant health drain, Killing enemies replenishes
Timer: Missions are timed
Death Detonation: Enemies Explode and Damage you when they die
Eximus Stronghold: More eximus enemies

Existing Modifiers for mythic plus in wow, that could be easily Co-Opted into Warframe
Teeming: More enemy reinforcements
Raging: Enemies do more damage at lower health (30% health or lower)
Bolstering: When enemies die, nearby enemies gain damage and resistance
Necrotic: Enemies apply a DOT and reduce healing when they hit you
Skittish: Taunting is less effective (Things like nyx, loki decoy, Saryn Molt, Rumblers, etc)
Volcanic: Enemies spout fire plumes beneath you that deal damage
Explosive: Same as death detonation but more extreme
Quaking: Allies will occasionally emit a shockwave that damages and stuns other allies
Grevious: When allies are below 90% health, they slowly lose health, increasing over time, until healed.

 

Replace Explosive, we dont need 2 of basically the same, instead make it so every enemy has the Nox death effect, but more dangerous and longer lasting, making maps with narrow corridors more dangerous to just run and gun, encouraging CC and displacement abilities, or dragging enemies into better position to kill.

For Skittish, rather than enemies ignoring aggro drawing abilities, they have a detection radius for invisible players, and wont be fooled by you turning invisible when in combat, countering the invis spam frames, while not making invisibility useless, you just have to be careful of spacing, and paying attention to enemy radar.

Necrotic can probably be changed since a tonne of frames dont care much about healing thanks to massive health pools and an abundance of healing, it could carry with it a slow down mechanic, starting weak but the more hits you take bigger the speed penalty, forcing you to stop in cover for a few moments, or use some form of defensive ability (volt shield, frost 4 augment, Nezha guarding halo, harrow ult).

[VenomousValentine]

Bump

[Neuroszima]

Maybe a debuff that you/fellow tenno can't be invisible? Or that certain damage type vs. enemies doesn't work? Enemies can't be taunted at all? (protection from lets say, Octavia Mallet that way) (I know that you said less effective, but it still would be a bit too vague, like "how less effective")

Edited February 20, 2020 by Neuroszima

[VenomousValentine]

6 minutes ago, Neuroszima said:

Maybe a debuff that you/fellow tenno can't be invisible? Or that certain damage type vs. enemies doesn't work? Enemies can't be taunted at all? (protection from lets say, Octavia Mallet that way) (I know that you said less effective, but it still would be a bit too vague, like "how less effective")

Agreed with that.

[Aadi880]

Replace all status procs applied on enemies from guns to become impact procs.

Enemies are crit immune.

The true nightmare!

[Petroklos]

I overall like this idea, and think that DE should move forward doing this type of rework/newContent Updates, reusing old stuff brought up to today's Warframe and tied/imbued with stuff they've learned and added to the game over the years. It would be decent filler content, while we're waiting for them to finish the newer stuff (and hopefully give them the time and confidence to finish finish them, before launching them).

Three changes I'd want to your idea:
Bring up the difficulty of all Nightmare Missions to 40~45 (where most high level Start Chart Planets cap out, with exception of two Sedna Nodes) and bring down the Level increase to +5/Mission (last Nightmare Mission of the bunch would be 40~45 + 5*16 = 120~125Lvl). Having all Planets be equally hard, gives a bit of a reason to revisit older Tilesets, without doing it just because they're the Easy ones.
Make the Nightmare Missions reset on the Daily Reset and not every 8 hours as it currently is. With Rewards that scale based on total completion, 3 rotations a day will cause the "I have to schedule my life around Warframe's clocks" issue again, and we don't need that.
I like the idea of scaling rewards based on how well you did the mission, be it Speedrun or Endurance, but we should allow for the (now made daily) Nightmare Missions to be replayed if that becomes a thing. Missing the best Speedrun reward by a second will be infuriating, if you can't try again. If you can try again, it will be a provocation to do so. Obviously doing the same Nightmare Mission again and again, won't give more Nightmare Credits nor will it increase your weekly haul if you don't improve said Mission's results.

As for rewards, introduce a new batch of Nightmare Mods for the End-of-Mission droptable, and a set of Rewards similar to that of Arbitrations (Cosmetics, Kuva+Endo, New Mods, maybe Weapons or a Warframe) and it should be a decent addition.

Finally, as for the Nightmare Modifiers, I'd split them to "Nuisance" (Easy), "Significant" (Medium), "Severe" (Hard), and roll a "Nuisance" Modifier for every Nightmare Node at start of a day. A few (5?) completed Nightmare Nodes later, all remaining Nodes would roll for a "Significant" Modifier, on top of their existing "Nuisance" one, and after an additional equal amount of completed Nightmare Nodes, all remaining Nodes would roll for a "Severe" Modifier, on top of their existing "Significant" and "Severe" ones.

We could even enhance this, by including the Positive Modifiers of the Disruption Game Mode, on top of the Negative ones. Or by granting the missions a +25/50/75% Affinity/Credit/Mod/Resource/ResourceDrop Boost, like Endless Relic Missions on crack.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Petroklos

[Maj-Cero]

I doubt they still have old data but I was watching some old alpha footage on YouTube and that stuff actually looked like a "Nightmare" compared to today.

Imagine Nightmare being the old version with old UI. Doesn't sound fun at all! Lol

[DarthIronclad]

For me I have an idea of having nightmare mission tired...with all missions at the same level per tier

For rewards,they will be still be grouped depending on the planets just like now. To avoid reward dilution.

I will have 4 tiers

Easy(40-50),Normal(60-70),Hard(80-90) and Master(100-110)

Missions will reset daily.

To access higher difficulties, completing a node on easy will unlock normal mode,completing normal mode will unlock hard,and so on.

Higher difficulties will have more modifiers,with existing ones,sortie ones and brand new ones like the one suggested from the replies here.

There may be unique spy vaults, prison complexes for rescue missions and sabotage objectives,they will prob be harder than what is in the game now too,and more can be silently added too every now and then.(Can be sneaked in with hotfixes too)

 

 

Rewards based on difficulty:

Easy: 1 PA/PV lith relic

          1 Easy tier nightmare mod 

          Chance for a frame Chassis

          Chance for BP/parts for easy tier weapon

Normal: 1 PA/PV Meso relic

              1 Normal tier nightmare mod

               Chance for frame Neuroptics

               Chance for BP/parts for Normal tier weapon

Hard:      1 PA/PV Neo relic

               1 Hard tier nightmare mod

               Chance for frame Systems

               Chance for BP/parts for Hard tier weapon

               200-300 Kuva

               1 Riven Silver

 

Master:   1 PA/PV Axi relic

               1 Master tier nightmare mod

               Chance for frame Blueprint

               Chance for BP/parts for Master tier weapon

               400-500 Kuva

               2 Riven Silver

    

    

 

 

Easy tier nightmare mods will be the one we currently have,for the rest of the difficulties,there will be brand new ones.

Weapon parts and BPs will be tradeable, with weapons changing every PV. Past weapons will return every now and then.  

Completing missions will give tokens,based on difficulty,1 for easy,2 for normal,3 for hard and 4 for master.

Tokens can be traded in with a vendor for rewards you can get from the nightmare missions. This is made as a way for one to get the stuff they want if they are having bad luck with the RNG gods. Kuva and some cosmetics will also be in the store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by DarthIronclad

[VenomousValentine]

On 2020-02-26 at 6:46 AM, DarthIronclad said:

For me I have an idea of having nightmare mission tired...with all missions at the same level per tier

For rewards,they will be still be grouped depending on the planets just like now. To avoid reward dilution.

I will have 4 tiers

Easy(40-50),Normal(60-70),Hard(80-90) and Master(100-110)

Missions will reset daily.

To access higher difficulties, completing a node on easy will unlock normal mode,completing normal mode will unlock hard,and so on.

Higher difficulties will have more modifiers,with existing ones,sortie ones and brand new ones like the one suggested from the replies here.

There may be unique spy vaults, prison complexes for rescue missions and sabotage objectives,they will prob be harder than what is in the game now too,and more can be silently added too every now and then.(Can be sneaked in with hotfixes too)

 

 

Rewards based on difficulty:

Easy: 1 PA/PV lith relic

          1 Easy tier nightmare mod 

          Chance for a frame Chassis

          Chance for BP/parts for easy tier weapon

Normal: 1 PA/PV Meso relic

              1 Normal tier nightmare mod

               Chance for frame Neuroptics

               Chance for BP/parts for Normal tier weapon

Hard:      1 PA/PV Neo relic

               1 Hard tier nightmare mod

               Chance for frame Systems

               Chance for BP/parts for Hard tier weapon

               200-300 Kuva

               1 Riven Silver

 

Master:   1 PA/PV Axi relic

               1 Master tier nightmare mod

               Chance for frame Blueprint

               Chance for BP/parts for Master tier weapon

               400-500 Kuva

               2 Riven Silver

    

    

 

 

Easy tier nightmare mods will be the one we currently have,for the rest of the difficulties,there will be brand new ones.

Weapon parts and BPs will be tradeable, with weapons changing every PV. Past weapons will return every now and then.  

Completing missions will give tokens,based on difficulty,1 for easy,2 for normal,3 for hard and 4 for master.

Tokens can be traded in with a vendor for rewards you can get from the nightmare missions. This is made as a way for one to get the stuff they want if they are having bad luck with the RNG gods. Kuva and some cosmetics will also be in the store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sir i do not like your rewards, nor the fact you think it should stop scaling at 110.