Discussion and Feedback on Hard Mode shown on devstream

[Galuf]

It is a slipery slope, it split players and a ton of them, especially in kuva lich missions really need help. They can't farm most missions alone.

[Vit0Corleone]

1 minute ago, AuroraSonicBoom said:

confirmation that DE regards enemy level as challenge

I don't think this is the case.

It's just that it's a easy way to give us something. Which is a whole lot more than what we currently have, which is nothing.

If I had to guess, implementing difficulty levels on the star chart is pretty easy for them, so shouldn't have much impact on the devs, whereas more complicated ways to bring difficulty, would.

Maybe we get something different in the future. I hope so. For now, I'm just happy to have something different to do 🙂

 

[Van.de_drift]

Just upping the level of the enemies won't  make the starchart much harder. The bigger problem is enemy AI. The reality is that enemies in warframe are very very dumb. I'd suggest watching partner videos where they explains that in the greater detail.

[General-Pacman]

Just now, Vit0Corleone said:

It's just that it's a easy way to give us something. Which is a whole lot more than what we currently have, which is nothing.

 

THIS!

This is exactly why the hard mode they are about to introduce is a good idea. It's a relatively fast and cheap way of introducing a level of difficulty that has been asked for ages.

Im all in for a gamemode that introduces difficulty with things other than higher enemy levels, but heck, this is a lot better than what we have now.

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, (PS4)LeBlingKing said:

Here's the thing I'm worried about. Difficulty, in this instance, seems to be more level-based than it is actually gameplay-based.

Because DE neither wants to, nor remembers how to make skill-based difficulty, only grind-based difficulty. I've trodden this ground many times, and rather than copy-paste it for the sixth time I'll just give a thumbs up to @(XB1)ShonFr0st for beating me to the punch

BUT

1 hour ago, (PS4)LeBlingKing said:

For example:

• Higher-level Capture missions could have players Capture more than one VIP from across the map. You know how in Spy missions that if you lose all 3 data terminals, you lose the mission? Something like that.
• Higher-level Exterminate missions will have a lot more miniboss-type enemies thrown around when a certain percentage of enemies is killed (like a Lynx or Hyena(s) in a Corpus mission)
• Higher-level Defense missions could have you defend several objectives at the same time (imagine a gamemode where there's a platoon of civilians that the Tenno are going to try and defend)
• Higher-level Mobile Defense missions could act like Disruption where during time thresholds (3 minute defense, every 1 minute, for example), there's a Demolisher or Demolyst (i forget the name) that takes huge chunks out of the terminal's health

Just food for thought.

These are actually kinda cool, just to add variety

(Though the Capture one is actually how it used to be a long time ago. It was changed in... early 2017 I think)

Edited May 8, 2020 by TARINunit9

[Nichivo]

I could not be more excited. Anything that removes time getting to a challenge, will be a breath of fresh air. Best Dev stream In ages. 

You can skip hardmode if it isn't your thing. For those of you that think it will segregate the players base, that isn't likely since most of us endurance runners, are also solo artists, because not having anyone around to help adds to the thrill.

[AuroraSonicBoom]

2 minutes ago, Vit0Corleone said:

It's just that it's a easy way to give us something.🙂

They literally say multiple times in the stream that players "can do it if they want better challenge", paraphrasing of course. They do consider EHP and raw damage output a challenge. Either way, I'm happy for you, and as long as no significant rewards like special gear, mods or significantly higher drop chances for prime drops and the like, I won't have anything against it. This 'something' that's given to us is just nothing I would care for. Now if they had just increased enemy tankiness without the damage output, then I'd be slightly more interested.

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, akrid45 said:

these are basically kuva lich missions without the lich 

That was my clanmate's first reaction too

[Zimzala]

9 hours ago, Van.de_drift said:

-snip-

Lots of people agree, for the type of difficulty they want.

Lots of players have wanted this addition for a long time.

None of the options are mutually exclusive.

Some of the enemy AI already exists and we kill them before they have a chance to use it, for example, as is mentioned even here.

I am of the opinion better/smarter enemies is not a bad thing, but it is at this point a horde fantasy much of the time, so enemy AI is not really going to do it either, it's going to have to be a combination of things, as discussed on the forums as well, like enemies taking certain combos to kill while others take another combo, in the same group, to make the players have a challenge, at least until they learn the patterns.

There is no one way, because there are many interpretations for 'difficult'...it is going to take a number of things and several revisions, IMO...no easy button...but they have to start someplace...

[SneakyErvin]

1 hour ago, akrid45 said:

really DE again just increasing enemy levels = more challenging? 

Honestly u have so many different enemy types u could add into the missions to make it more challenging like the ghouls or rathuum enemies or index enemies abilities etc.. and yet you once again go back to just increasing enemy level and calling it a day. 

Even adding some modifiers like for example enemies throwing nades a lot more frequent and do more damage or something to make things more interesting would be nice but nope.  

these are basically kuva lich missions without the lich 

i really hope i'm wrong and that there is something different than just increasing enemy level when the mode comes out but if not then i'm pretty disappointed 

don't get me wrong i already know that challenge in warframe is a lost cause but them doing this just shows that they aren't listening and just doing the same old mistakes

don't get me wrong it's a step in the right direction but u would think they would have learned by now that just increasing enemy level isn't enough 

DE releases the very exact thing people have been asking for the most for a long long time and you go and make a post like this?

Sure I'd like to see more added than just higher levels, but I wouldnt go and crap on DE when they actually release one of those things that have been asked for the most. It is one of those things people want since it is a quick and easy way to actually give us more interesting content, even if it is just higher levels of the same. It is one giant step in the right direction.

[Danielw8]

Hey DE can we have hard mode also in arbitration? playing against lvl 200 base enemies with double resources in the mission ? 

[Van.de_drift]

Just now, Zimzala said:

Lots of people agree, for the type of difficulty they want.

Lots of players have wanted this addition for a long time.

None of the options are mutually exclusive.

Some of the enemy AI already exists and we kill them before they have a chance to use it, for example, as is mentioned even here.

I am of the opinion better/smarter enemies is not a bad thing, but it is at this point a horde fantasy much of the time, so enemy AI is not really going to do it either, it's going to have to be a combination of things, as discussed on the forums as well, like enemies taking certain combos to kill while others take another combo, in the same group, to make the players have a challenge, at least until they learn the patterns.

There is no one way, because there are many interpretations for 'difficult'...it is going to take a number of things and several revisions, IMO...no easy button...but they have to start someplace...

Yeah, I agree with that. If we want to keep that power fantasy horde looter shooter feel, the enemies can't be super smart, BUT that doesn't mean they can't be intelligent. For me difficulty is when im struggling to complete something be that in a squad or solo. For example in Destiny 2 last week was my 1st time to solo the pit of heresy dungeon. I've felt that it was a challenge, cause i couldn't just blow thru the enemies in a sec(boss fight), the game tested my survivablilty skills(the third encounter), as well as my manuverability skills(the second encounter). The thing about warframe it that we have too much survivability. I personally refuse to use adaptation for that reason. It just trivializes an already easy game too much, but that's a diffrent problem.

[Jarriaga]

26 minutes ago, Van.de_drift said:

Just upping the level of the enemies won't  make the starchart much harder. The bigger problem is enemy AI. The reality is that enemies in warframe are very very dumb. I'd suggest watching one of ashisogi's videos where he explains that in the greater detail. The title is "WF Real Talk - Enemies Are Too Stupid" and "DE Scott vs Simulacurum" (I'm not linking since I'm not sure if that'd break the rules)

What is the smartest AI in the world going to do against a wide-area nuke that ignores cover, like Maim? What is the smartest Grineer going to do against Limbo stasis? 

Dumb AI is only part of the problem. There is absolutely nothing they can do other than attempt to wore us out in numbers and stats as long as some Warframes remain with their abilities as they are, and I doubt many players would support such big nerfs.

Higher enemy stats is at least a starting point until someone designs enemies that can counter Equinox, Saryn, and Mesa. I don't have the slightest idea on what to do to those frames other than nerf them to the ground so the AI can then do something about them. Do you have a different solution for them? Because I'm sure this is something DE ask themselves as well with no answer in sight.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Jarriaga

[Zimzala]

My concern is still the rewards.

If they introduce more power, then the hamster wheel will last only until the players get those rewards and the torches and pitchforks will come back out...

I stand by the idea of making these modes more around getting rare things more easily and in larger quantities, over increasing the player level power with new items.

If you start the progression-power-loop again, we will just be right back where we started in a week, IMO.

It's not an easy nut to crack, for any live game.

 

44 minutes ago, JCDenton63 said:

if they added battle royale

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nice one.

[SneakyErvin]

I just hope they scale the rewards accordingly aswell as insert some special rewards aswell only obtainable in +50 and +100 missions. I'm looking forward to +100 kuva missions rewarding 2x or 3x the kuva of a normal one.

I also hope we wont get a bunch of wha-wha-wha and have it nerfed a week after it is released. 

"After receiving much sal... uhm feedback we've decided to reduce the level increase options from +50/100 down to +5/10. We'll monitor future feedback and may make further adjustments down the line".

One week later

"After further review of the feedback we've decided to reduce the +5/10 to -50/100".

 

[Amazerath]

47 minutes ago, Danielw8 said:

Nice info

When nightmare, sorties, arbitration came out was a real challenge in that moment ?

Nightmare wasn't really challenging aside from one or two of the modifiers. I remember the energy drain one was particularly harsh because there was no counter to it back then and our warframe roster was much smaller.

Sorties were kind of tough in the beginning because there were less ridiculously powerful weapons compared to what we have today. High level Elite Lancers were completely unbalanced and would very easily kill you with bleed procs alone. Also, the mission modifiers were a lot more powerful back then. Today you can cancel or ignore most, if not all of them.

Arbitration was never challenging in my opinion. One or two days after release I learned to kill the drones quickly and safely using the operator and that just made everything incredibly simple.

The thing is, each of these game modes were fun when they released. But they all got old and also ended up having reward problems. And while DE did try to make adjustments in some situations, I feel like they were mostly minor tweaks that never managed to make these game modes feel fresh again. And the rewards are also not good for the most part.

[Kaotyke]

1 hour ago, Danielw8 said:

 

Nice info

When nightmare, sorties, arbitration came out was a real challenge in that moment ?

Nightmare kinda was. The debuff was random instead of shown to your face. We even had Friendly Fire. But... 

Sorties were the kinda category. Depended on the modifiers, Deep Fog on Lag Earth was the wrist.

Arbitration with it's permanent deth. It was a risk if you used certain frames but the fact that you died and that was it, you had to wait the team or be kicked by the timer and if you were the host...

[(PSN)TONI__RIBEIRO]

Not all mission types were created equal, i really don't want to do archwing missions and other types that i dislike,  i do want this hard mode on survivals which i really like, but adding mastery to "all nodes" and having to redo all the star chart again is... let's just say ...a joke right? 

[Genitive]

57 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

What is the smartest AI in the world going to do against a wide-area nuke that ignores cover, like Maim? What is the smartest Grineer going to do against Limbo stasis? 

Dumb AI is only part of the problem. There is absolutely nothing they can do other than attempt to wore us out in numbers and stats as long as some Warframes remain with their abilities as they are, and I doubt many players would support such big nerfs.

Higher enemy stats is at least a starting point until someone designs enemies that can counter Equinox, Saryn, and Mesa. I don't have the slightest idea on what to do to those frames other than nerf them to the ground so the AI can then do something about them. Do you have a different solution for them? Because I'm sure this is something DE ask themselves as well with no answer in sight.

Instead of talking about vague "better AI" we could talk about specifics that could make a difference between normal and hard-mode enemies. For instance, standard units could get new moves or weapons that they use only in these higher difficulties. 

Enemies could get a variety of new grenade types, heavies would get a charge attack instead of slam, etc. 

[Brey223]

As someone who shrieked like a school girl who just got asked out to prom I can’t wait for hard mode and “nightmare” difficulties. If new players want to play these modes they need to get to the point that the players are who have wanted these harder modes. 

[Autongnosis]

Il y a 3 heures, Kaotyke a dit :

The rewards will never be good enough.

I don't care. I just wanna play a fun mission Vs not fodder enemies without investing time I don't have, for once, in almost 6 years. 

[DrivaMain]

The better reward for both worlds is you get the same rewards from other missions, but you get more. So casuals aren’t “forced” to grind in hard mode because they can get it from somewhere else. 
 

Say for example level 5 Earth Mission rewards 5000 credits. Level 100 Hard mode earth will reward 100.000 Credits. Casuals can just go to the index if they don’t want to challenge themselves in hard mode if they want credits.

[Nichivo]

25 minutes ago, (PS4)TONI__RIBEIRO said:

Not all mission types were created equal, i really don't want to do archwing missions and other types that i dislike,  i do want this hard mode on survivals which i really like, but adding mastery to "all nodes" and having to redo all the star chart again is... let's just say ...a joke right? 

I could care less about mastery, but you can bet I will solo the entire star chart the day these changes come out. Twice if there are two tiers of difficulty. I just hope it applies to the archwing missions, and eventually the railjack nodes also, because I enjoy both of those, and welcome increased difficulty on them.

[MouadSaqui]

3 hours ago, (PS4)LeBlingKing said:

Heyo.

First off, I would like to say that the idea of a Hard Mode Starchart is amazing, and I thank DE for finally taking that idea into consideration.

Here's the thing I'm worried about. Difficulty, in this instance, seems to be more level-based than it is actually gameplay-based.

Sure, it's a lot easier to slap 50 levels on a Lancer and call it a day, but we're talking about a game where Tenno could one-shot the kneecaps off of an open-world Sentient ZOMBIE that's TEN FEET TALL.

Instead, I was wondering if the objectives themselves could also be scaled.

For example:

• Higher-level Capture missions could have players Capture more than one VIP from across the map. You know how in Spy missions that if you lose all 3 data terminals, you lose the mission? Something like that.
• Higher-level Exterminate missions will have a lot more miniboss-type enemies thrown around when a certain percentage of enemies is killed (like a Lynx or Hyena(s) in a Corpus mission)
• Higher-level Defense missions could have you defend several objectives at the same time (imagine a gamemode where there's a platoon of civilians that the Tenno are going to try and defend)
• Higher-level Mobile Defense missions could act like Disruption where during time thresholds (3 minute defense, every 1 minute, for example), there's a Demolisher or Demolyst (i forget the name) that takes huge chunks out of the terminal's health

Just food for thought.

I like the Idea of Mini bosses that spawn randomly during missions, kinda like Liches, jus take a basic enemy scale it to x2.5 size, and make it green or red or whatever, and give it more ways to shoot ! that would be cool !

[TehBoozinCrew]

On the latest Devstream DE showed off a basic mockup and discussed what a "hard mode" of the game might be and look like. In short, expect enemy starting levels to be 50+ from base at "hard", and 100+ from base at "ultra hard". Sounds well enough for a quick and dirty way of getting higher level enemies to the players faster than running an endless mission for an hour. But what about the rewards for doing such missions?

What if the rewards for running “hard” and “ultra hard” missions were not quantitative increases, or single grab and done items, but qualitative benefits? Well, it would certainly help ensure the resource economy in this game doesn’t get even further exasperated, and that's its not just a one and done content island. But you might be wondering, how do you qualitatively increase mission rewards? 

Well, I can't answer that for every mission type. But many mission types operate on an AABC type reward rotation, and I’ll pose this question: What if “hard” mode ran on an ABC rotation instead? Rotation B and C rewards are often the most enticing or valuable, so why not let them appear more often. As well, why not have “ultra hard” run a BC rotation instead? Just like that we’ve qualitatively increased the reward pool without quantitatively giving out more rewards. 

So how might this work with relics, if they get “hard” and “ultra hard” options as well?  They dont follow typical reward pools rules. 

One option that comes to mind for me is that when selecting your relic reward at the end game screen/selection screen, what if an additional unvaulted relic was randomly rolled alongside all the available options? So a solo player would see their reward from their chosen key, as well as a single randomized reward from all unvaulted keys. A team of four would see all four of their rewards from each of their respective keys plus an additional roll. While we’re at it why not make “ultra hard” give two additional rolls to choose from. This would give players a broader quantity of items to choose from as their reward, without just giving out additional rewards. 

I dont promise that these ideas are perfect by any means, and I'm sure there are better qualitative reward solutions out there, but I hope they can help illustrate what qualitative reward increases might be like, and that quantitative or unique rewards don't need to be the end all be all regarding difficulty rewards scaling. 
 

Edited May 9, 2020 by TehBoozinCrew