Several ideas for Conclave

[WisdomOfTheWoods]

I don't know if someone has said any or all of these ideas before (and likely someone has), but its better to just risk repeating. Playing conclave for some time, I pondered the problems conclave might have as of where it stands:

*PvP in a PvE world: It is inherently more difficult to balance a player versus player mode, compared to a player versus environment mode. While employees at DE have given a formidable effort to balancing, there are still cases such as the telos boltlace or saryn and staticor.

*The Conclave is a ghost town: for the most part, the conclave has no steady stream of traffic.

*A game will not start unless there are two people: Waiting in a lobby with nothing to do might be testy on player patience.

*The Conclave is formidable for new players: There is a high learning curve for people entering the conclave.

*Standing for the conclave is mainly earned from kills

As a result of these problems, it is very hard for new players to earn conclave standing, as what few players who show up are oftentimes veterans who wont give any good opportunity for new players to establish themselves in conclave or gain any real standing in the conclave. With these problems being considered, I thought of possible solutions:

*To draw in players, perhaps create NPC stand-ins players can skirmish with, for either low standing, or even just amusement.

*General standing aside from the conclave missions could award players more participation standing. While it would not make sense to overshadow the process of getting standing from kills, it would be good to give newer players an opportunity to gain more standing.

*Perhaps non-conclave-specific rewards for lower ranks.

*A possibility of making frames overall tankier, so as to limit the cases where a player can be whittled down or one-shot with over-preforming guns.

[(PSN)Xx-Ribbium-xX]

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

*PvP in a PvE world: It is inherently more difficult to balance a player versus player mode, compared to a player versus environment mode. While employees at DE have given a formidable effort to balancing, there are still cases such as the telos boltlace or saryn and staticor.

It wasn't difficult for them to balance conclave up until chains of harrow, from that point on DE has let conclave degenerate by allowing their pve mechanical changes into conclave without proper testing. 

A recent example is melee 3.0 breaking every melee weapon with a 100% block effectiveness. In reality DE has yet again left another mode to rot.

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

*The Conclave is a ghost town: for the most part, the conclave has no steady stream of traffic.

Thats due to the community giving up on DE ever balancing the mode ever again, toxic players who hate any pvp experience just shutting down any meantion of it and people who only play for standing gain. 

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

 

*A game will not start unless there are two people: Waiting in a lobby with nothing to do might be testy on player patience.

Well what do most new players do when waiting on people to play with them on most of the starchart nodes that literally nobody plays? More than half of the star chart is in a similar place. Just take your phone out and wait for 5 minutes or less and if miraculously that doesnt work then check if youre actually in a public lobby.

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

*The Conclave is formidable for new players: There is a high learning curve for people entering the conclave.

Thats why recruit conditioning is a thing. Though that needs to kick players above mr 5 out by default in my opinion.

 

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

*Standing for the conclave is mainly earned from kills

As a result of these problems, it is very hard for new players to earn conclave standing, as what few players who show up are oftentimes veterans who wont give any good opportunity for new players to establish themselves in conclave or gain any real standing in the conclave. With these problems being considered, I thought of possible solutions:

*To draw in players, perhaps create NPC stand-ins players can skirmish with, for either low standing, or even just amusement.

 

Its a pvp mode. Killing players is the primary objective in 2/4 modes, the other two being a compromise mode nobody liked and the other being a capture the flag mode where killing people was barely necessary.

Its for that reason both of those modes are actually almost never played at all by players who like pvp. Only by those wanting to farm standing 

Npcs in conclave would just make conclave like the index or rathum. If players want a free trial for what npcs will be like in conclave go play the index solo and see the disappointment presented. 

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

*General standing aside from the conclave missions could award players more participation standing. While it would not make sense to overshadow the process of getting standing from kills, it would be good to give newer players an opportunity to gain more standing.

They already get participation standing in games, even a bonus amount if its their first game of the day. I personally see nothing wrong with rewarding players for doing the thing they play the mode for.

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

*Perhaps non-conclave-specific rewards for lower ranks.

At the end of a match you can be awarded anything from 600 salvage to a forma blueprint. I dont see anything else new players will want or need

 

5 hours ago, Artimessheed said:

*A possibility of making frames overall tankier, so as to limit the cases where a player can be whittled down or one-shot with over-preforming guns.

Not sure if you have played conclave recently but due to shield gating you can no longer be 1 shot (unless its a headshot) and even then if that bothers you then play nidus. Yes conclave has some broken weapons but if you want that to change start posting about those instead of trying to overhaul the entire mode. 

[WisdomOfTheWoods]

On 2020-05-02 at 7:09 AM, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

Thats due to the community giving up on DE ever balancing the mode ever again, toxic players who hate any pvp experience just shutting down any meantion of it and people who only play for standing gain. 

I hope we can both agree there will be a minimum amount of toxicity with any PvP game/gamemode anywhere, thanks to human nature. However, the changes I am presenting, I feel were not properly elaborated on to the context of why I said these things. The point of the changes is to lower toxicity in the conclave by having the game-mode less damming for newer players or casuals, while trying to keep the feel of competitive PvP in the conclave.

On 2020-05-02 at 7:09 AM, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

Well what do most new players do when waiting on people to play with them on most of the starchart nodes that literally nobody plays? More than half of the star chart is in a similar place. Just take your phone out and wait for 5 minutes or less and if miraculously that doesnt work then check if youre actually in a public lobby.

There is a major difference between the less-played star chart and conclave in this regard. Firstly, someone doesn't HAVE to play in a group or with another person in the star chart, like they would have to in conclave. Secondly, there are enough helpful players/clans to the point that if a new player wanted to get spores/plastcids ahead of time for something like rhino, they would be almost immediately answered (in the cases I've seen). Thirdly, like you had mentioned that there are only two modes for "proper" PvP, this should mean players who want to try out PvP shouldn't have a problem as its essentially content provided by two mission choices.

On 2020-05-02 at 7:09 AM, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

Thats why recruit conditioning is a thing. Though that needs to kick players above mr 5 out by default in my opinion.

Recruit conditioning is... a stopgap at best. Using MR to filter with recruit conditioning is a recipe for disaster, as smurfing can easily be applied here, as well as high-MR players who only know the PvE experience are at a loss. It might as well be handled with conclave rank at this point. The only tangible case of recruit conditioning I've seen to date is out of the conclave discord, where experienced players acting as something of an umbrella for newer players. Rookie hazing is bad to the point that anyone who wants to play conclave outside of just farming the standing has to go to places like the conclave discord (which ironically I joined only because there were no other good WF discords, since Folren's got shut down).

On 2020-05-02 at 7:09 AM, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

Its a pvp mode. Killing players is the primary objective in 2/4 modes, the other two being a compromise mode nobody liked and the other being a capture the flag mode where killing people was barely necessary.

Its for that reason both of those modes are actually almost never played at all by players who like pvp. Only by those wanting to farm standing 

Npcs in conclave would just make conclave like the index or rathum. If players want a free trial for what npcs will be like in conclave go play the index solo and see the disappointment presented. 

Agree that CTF is pretty useless as a game in itself, and lunario is unloved/underdeveloped to the point of obsolescence (and that either are ever played as of rn for standing). However I cannot agree with the third point. Please understand that I meant the WARFRAME specters, and the combat in Index/Rathum goes by the PvE rules (mods, scaling enemies, no limitation on weapons, so on and so forth). Imagine trying to fight in the index with no mods on, against enemies that are just as powerful as you. Also, the main reason for the specters to begin with, is to draw more people into the conclave for something they know is always there, players or no players. As the draw causes more players to like-mindedly play conclave because of the specters, they will fill up servers for conclave instinctually, thus making a more consistent flow of players. The conclave simply doesn't perpetuate itself, in its current state.

On 2020-05-02 at 7:09 AM, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

They already get participation standing in games, even a bonus amount if its their first game of the day. I personally see nothing wrong with rewarding players for doing the thing they play the mode for.

Of course it would make sense to reward kills in the conclave. However, because in it's current state its only player versus player, and without any other changes to water down the power gap, obtaining kills for newer players is nigh impossible, unless it is against other new players. However, especially in FFA conclave, there is going to be that one person who mows down the rest, using newer players as a means of conclave point farming. Balancing the gains to at least favor players who participate but cannot kill, will most likely make the use of meta strategies in order to eke out kills less viable, dulling the toxicity.

On 2020-05-02 at 7:09 AM, (PS4)Xx-Ribbium-xX said:

Not sure if you have played conclave recently but due to shield gating you can no longer be 1 shot (unless its a headshot) and even then if that bothers you then play nidus. Yes conclave has some broken weapons but if you want that to change start posting about those instead of trying to overhaul the entire mode. 

The point of scaling up frame health is to make combat less of either a "kill em with an aoe weapon" or "snipe em with a two-hitter vectis/rubico." Yes, I've played with shield gating, but while it prevents a vectis user from OHKing everyone, it would be better to just beef up the frames so that a person would be able to survive at least one headshot when the shields are gone. It also limits the power of AoE/explosives in general to have the frames be tankier, allowing for such weapons to actually be made viable in the conclave, while not allowing them to be overpowered when not nerfed to oblivion. Shield-gating is a good addition to conclave, but it is a stopgap that doesn't help with ignis wraith users, and it doesn't limit nearly enough the stopping power of a person who can kill players before they even have time to react. In my personal experience, it is better to buff some game mechanics than to nerf others. An "overhaul" as you call it, is sorely needed in order to revive the conclave.

[Tyreaus]

On 2020-05-01 at 11:36 PM, Artimessheed said:

*To draw in players, perhaps create NPC stand-ins players can skirmish with, for either low standing, or even just amusement.

One thing that's been done that might be helping is having PvP augments affect PvE. I believe the Rumbled augment is waddling onto the trading market now. That's enticing people to play the mode a fair bit more than before.

I don't disagree with NPC stand-ins, at least to make the modes look more populated and to give players something to let off steam without alt+f4-ing. They don't have to have any real major impact on the game. Just something to exist in a match that would otherwise look and feel empty and serve as something to vent on / feel a modicum of progress.

On 2020-05-01 at 11:36 PM, Artimessheed said:

*Perhaps non-conclave-specific rewards for lower ranks.

Conclave needs a boosts to its non-specific rewards in general to make up for the time spent. Any player looking at Conclave's rewards is going to wonder why they don't just play any relic fissure or other starchart node. Things like forma, kuva, reactant, general resources, etc. at respectable drop-rates can go a long way to balancing that out and making it seem a lot less like a time waste, even if it's such a resource hodge-podge that you'd be better off going to PvE for any specific resource.

On 2020-05-01 at 11:36 PM, Artimessheed said:

*A possibility of making frames overall tankier, so as to limit the cases where a player can be whittled down or one-shot with over-preforming guns.

I would say a lower TTK with a faster respawn timer would be more effective.

Like many non-spectator shooter games, Conclave basically has three states: alive (neutral), dead (negative), and succeeding (getting kills, in Conclave's case - a positive). More survivability means more time in the "alive" state, but that's neutral so it doesn't really factor, and it comes at the cost of the "success" state because enemies are harder to kill. Even if you don't die as often, it's not fun if dying is about the only impact you have on a match.

On the other hand, if you make players less tanky, their time spent in the dead and succeeding states goes up. Lowering the respawn timer means, despite more deaths, less time (per death) is spent actually dead. Alive time goes down, success time goes up, and dead time probably stays about the same (depending on specific values). Increase match limits to compensate and, tada, there's a little more emphasis on making progress. I.e., the player's a lot less likely to be just dying.

It's the same sort of principle as "don't nerf x, just buff everything else" that gets thrown about in PvE, but unlike PvE, it can be done with a single value.

(That also affects standing gain if it's still allocated to kills, btw)

[WisdomOfTheWoods]

On 2020-05-03 at 5:13 PM, Tyreaus said:

I would say a lower TTK with a faster respawn timer would be more effective.

Like many non-spectator shooter games, Conclave basically has three states: alive (neutral), dead (negative), and succeeding (getting kills, in Conclave's case - a positive). More survivability means more time in the "alive" state, but that's neutral so it doesn't really factor, and it comes at the cost of the "success" state because enemies are harder to kill. Even if you don't die as often, it's not fun if dying is about the only impact you have on a match.

On the other hand, if you make players less tanky, their time spent in the dead and succeeding states goes up. Lowering the respawn timer means, despite more deaths, less time (per death) is spent actually dead. Alive time goes down, success time goes up, and dead time probably stays about the same (depending on specific values). Increase match limits to compensate and, tada, there's a little more emphasis on making progress. I.e., the player's a lot less likely to be just dying.

It's the same sort of principle as "don't nerf x, just buff everything else" that gets thrown about in PvE, but unlike PvE, it can be done with a single value.

(That also affects standing gain if it's still allocated to kills, btw)

Interesting ideas. I would like to mention though the firerate, accuracy, and overall damage factors. If frames were made to have less health, high-accuracy guns like the ignis wraith would be more powerful to the point it could lockdown someone without having to worry about counter-attacking. Shield gating would have to stay, as the point of weapons like the vectis prime would be WAY too overpowered then. It would be problematic if you could bodyshot with a rubico twice and kill a target, or hold down the ignis flamethrower for only a second or two and be able to kill people. However I agree that the downtime needs to be nerfed some. 

Overall, I would say we want to make it harder for those streak-players, as the goal of this. However I am honestly unsure the best way to go about it (buffing/nerfing singular weapons is a stopgap, as players will simply go to the next best weapon which ends up as the new meta. The point is to dull the "Best weapon"'s capabilities.)

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, Artimessheed said:

ignis wraith would be more powerful to the point it could lockdown someone without having to worry about counter-attacking

Ignis Wraith specifically has range to consider. Speaking of before shield gating, the issue I found was that a number of non-sniper, ranged weapons with an average player's aim didn't deal sufficient damage to take out an Ignis user before said Ignis user could close the gap. A lower TTK does, however, mean they have to close that gap quicker, as they're at an even greater disadvantage further out - it emphasizes the Ignis's natural shortcoming. With a higher TTK, on the other hand, that Ignis user can just dilly-dally up to their opponent, tank a few shots that mean a lot less (as it's a lower percent of their total health), and use their tools to greater efficacy in their ideal range.

In theory, at least. I haven't actually encountered an Ignis player while I wasn't using a sniper in a while, so I admit I may be off-base.

That's just one example, though, and it's entirely possible the balancing of certain weapons may need to be tweaked - though if they'd need to be tweaked after those changes, they'd probably need to be tweaked now.

1 hour ago, Artimessheed said:

harder for those streak-players

Do you mean people who go on massive kill-streaks and dominate an entire lobby? If so, I think that's a different issue altogether. That's something where you might want to add in damage reduction values based on a match's KDR to give the less skilled players a boost - or elements like that.

[VoadorHolandes]

Think the game itself is the problem. Excessive mobility. Nothing - except for changing everything - can fix it. It's worse, far worse than UT ever was. Conclave is enjoyable at lower levels, but eventually it degrades into matches in which one player has 90% accuracy and the rest; 5%? Competitive games with a skill slope steeper than the everest never succeed.

[(PSN)MYKK678]

Honestly cant see PVP making any sense in the game going forward, either thematically or for long-term enjoyment. Conclave should be reworked into something entirely different. Just because PVP works in one game or is the main mode in some, doesn't mean it will or should in Warframe. Its ok to have 2 seperate games to enjoy 2 seperate aspects of Online Play. Just rework it into a challenge mode or timed mission mode. They've talked of reworking old missions so the enemy levels / difficulty can be increased, Conclave 2.0

[Rubbertubtub01]

22 hours ago, (PS4)MYKK678 said:

Honestly cant see PVP making any sense in the game going forward, either thematically or for long-term enjoyment. Conclave should be reworked into something entirely different. Just because PVP works in one game or is the main mode in some, doesn't mean it will or should in Warframe. Its ok to have 2 seperate games to enjoy 2 seperate aspects of Online Play. Just rework it into a challenge mode or timed mission mode. They've talked of reworking old missions so the enemy levels / difficulty can be increased, Conclave 2.0

Nah

[Tachmag]

On 2020-05-06 at 12:48 AM, (PS4)MYKK678 said:

Honestly cant see PVP making any sense in the game going forward, either thematically or for long-term enjoyment. Conclave should be reworked into something entirely different. Just because PVP works in one game or is the main mode in some, doesn't mean it will or should in Warframe. Its ok to have 2 seperate games to enjoy 2 seperate aspects of Online Play. Just rework it into a challenge mode or timed mission mode. They've talked of reworking old missions so the enemy levels / difficulty can be increased, Conclave 2.0

Or, check this idea out: they create that bland time attack S#&$ WITHOUT touching Conclave. Or does your floppy disk not have room for both gamemodes? 

 

[(PSN)MYKK678]

10 hours ago, Tachmag said:

Or, check this idea out: they create that bland time attack S#&$ WITHOUT touching Conclave. Or does your floppy disk not have room for both gamemodes? 

 

.........floppy disk? Right. Anyway yeah the suggestion was to replace a near-death game mode with a different one, not pile on another system. Im not sure how seperating the 2 would be a solution to the title of the thread.

[(PSN)grimilan1899]

Make conclave big by doing it in game mode .in the game u choose with the tenno or against ! so u can actuali play with your real gear items .

i dont like to start all over again after 6 years of playing .

i worked hard to geth whare i am , so make gameplay in conclave worth for me aswel .

[(NSW)Katsuro]

make celestial syandana permanent even if its for 100p per week as a option.