Please End Nightwaves

[Mephane]

11 hours ago, DebrisFlow said:

Nope, if you lose the umbra forma you lose it forever. In the intermission you get another one. So you end up with less and no way to catch up.

This is a separate issue imo - frankly, Umbra Forma were a mistake. The new polarity should just have been added to the regular pool applicable by regular Formas.

[BlackCat500]

I'm fine with nightwave as a way to introduce additional tiny bits of lore and gameplay elements into the game while also rewarding me. I also don't think nightwave would take quite as much time as everyone thinks if the challenges were just balanced. If there's a challenge to kill 3 fighters with a stolen crewship that I can do in the matter of 2 minutes, why are there other challenges like collecting 15k credit drops that happen at increments of 20-100 each that will take me forever. Why are there really fast timed capture challenges for a lot of points in the same reward category as hunting a lich for 3+ hours?

 

Rather than complaining about nightwave existing at all, because I value this way higher than alerts, I see these kinds of things as an issue. Forcing people to go out of their way for some underplayed content, sure, but do it in a fun way. You can skip stuff, but let's be honest - what is the point of having a challenge that 90% of the playerbase will skip out of spite or lack of time? One fortuna bounty, even the easiest ones, are probably worth ~5 minutes of playing, so 5-8 bounties is quite a lot for such a measely amount of points when there are a bunch of 7k challenges much easier and faster.

 

How about for next nightwave you just open a test server where everyone gets all challenges and let the testers decide?

[(PSN)reddragonhrcro]

It needs to be reworked or removed entirely. As much as I hate battle-passes at least I can say that some other games do a better job with them compared to WF.

For example Red Dead Online, you progress in it passively while doing what you want while in WF you have to go out of your way to do stuff that you have no intention to do or aren't currently in the mood for.

[Ceadeus]

8 hours ago, (PS4)GEN-Son_17 said:

I'm sorry OP but you're describing a zero issue. Before this virus, I averaged 60 hour work weeks. I had no issues reaching max rank in nightwave. You have months to earn these rewards by just playing the game. At rank 1, you can obtain more Nitain extracts than you'll ever need...which was the great whine of losing the old alerts. Why would DE miss an opportunity to combine more varied gameplay with easier to earn rewards? The anti-nightwave argument is incredibly weak in my opinion literally because it's against gameplay value. We even get stories and bosses out of it.

 

7 hours ago, Glisp said:

Nightwave is fine but some of the elite weeklies are just.... obnoxious... namely the Hydrolyst one. Unless you got some buddies to make a dedicated team, doing it is a pain in the butt. (unless you get really lucky with pubs or can solo... which rarely happens.)

And at least DE's battle pass is free. with many of the games, all the good battlepass stuff is locked behind a paywall. meanwhile the free versions are bloated with nothing but sprays, avatars, etc.

 

7 hours ago, rikimaru6811 said:

Dear OP,

Nightwave has helped me getting 30+ Nitains at once and almost all Warframe helmets, whereas, I wasn't able to hold even 3+ before and frequently missed out on Helmet alerts due to me being busy in the lab during weekdays.

I didn't really need the other stuff like fancy mods or Umbral Forma before, so me getting them as I rank up by playing other missions is just cherries on top of an already nice cake, now that they even allow me to catch up on missed Nightwave acts. Ever since the introduction of Nightwave, I don't have to stress myself out anymore because I know I can buy whatever alert items I desire from Nora's store (mostly Nitain, Helmets and Kuva now).

This also expands to other standings like Syndicates and other daily stuff. Not being to max them all out everyday? No biggie. A bit of this, a bit of that during weekends, it all adds up, no loss whatsoever. I can even complete Nightwave acts and Syndicate missions at the same time if the combination is right.

Kudos to DigitalExtremes for the massive improvements over the old alert system.

 

6 hours ago, (PS4)Delvayne said:

I agree the battlepass trend is gaming cancer, but I actually like nightwave.

It adds lore and is free. If you dont like it, dont use it, easy.

You're missing my point.  The problem is not with Warframe or its battlepass system specifically (Warframe's is probably the best but the best problem is still a problem), the problem is with that type of system becoming the norm.  If you only play 1 game then sure it's absolutely fine and the times are more than reasonable to complete them, but not a lot of people genuinely only play 1 game.  I can think of 7 different games I like to play that have a battlepass system just off the top of my head that I would like to get all the content I can for.  So even if you spend 1 hour a day for each one, that's still now 7 hours a day that you have to divide up on top of any other responsibilities you may have, that or you sacrifice your ability to play all the content even for the games you like.

That is why battlepasses are a problem, because this isn't an isolated trend, most new games that come out (as well as old ones) are using battlepasses, so that number of games you have to juggle just to keep up is going to grow and grow.  Games will be at each others throats trying to get you to invest your time instead of just your money like it used to be, games no longer just have to be good enough to catch your eye and make you buy them to be successful, they have to be good enough to make you completely ignore other games that are demanding your attention as well.  Battlepass culture doesn't just hurt players, it hurts any games that try to present content in this way (Warframe included) because it removes the ability to play at your own leisure; I can play Skyrim right this very moment nearly 10 years later and still have access to every single last bit of content that has ever been available to it, but many games are reaching a point where if you didn't play at their specific time for their specific amount of time required, then you're missing a good chunk if not the majority of their content made.  It's forcing people down this path of playing games not because they have any desire to, but just to keep up.  Again, Warframe's still probably the least offender for these cases, but that doesn't mean it's not at all or that it doesn't get caught in the mix of other games doing this to people.

Like I said, I've had to quit games already not because I don't enjoy those games, but because it became a question of "Which battlepass do I have to work on today?" and the burnout that brought made those games unenjoyable and more of a negative impact on my life than a fun hobby like they're supposed to be.

[Teljaxx]

7 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I don't think they're doing it out of greed or spite, either. Warframe's history of implementing some outright predatory monetisation systems only to HAVE to reverse them under public pressure (cash-only Catalysts, no cosmetic-only Prime Vault bundles, that one time they sold a Kubrow cosmetic lootbox), but I don't think avarice was ever the issue. Rather, it comes back to the "intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards" discussion. In my opinion, DE has consistently made the wrong call on this matter for years, and so initiated their own vicious circle. Warframe trains its player base to regard the game in purely transactional terms. It's a grind, none of us enjoy it, so "what's in it for me?" In other words, "Why should I play X once I have Y reward?" The answer of "because it's fun" never seems to enter into the calculation, and that's a direct result of DE prioritising extrinsic vs. intrinsic rewards.

DE seem to care about popularity metrics more than they care about actual popularity or player satisfaction. The goal seems to be to keep their daily/weekly/monthly concurrent player averages up. Get players to log in every day, and if not so then a few times a week, keep players from playing in long sessions, make the numbers look good. Every Live Service game will eventually burn out its players. A smart Live Service will let those players leave on good terms once they've had their fill, eager to return for the new major content release. A dumb Live Service will attempt to maintain a white-knuckle grip on every player, wringing every bit of playtime it can until players are so well past burnt out that they ragequit and never want to come back. The reason that both the forums and in-game is full of so many jaded veterans who seem to be completely unpleasable is exactly this: These are people who are burnt out and miserable, but still susceptible to the game's "sustainable rewards." So they keep playing even though they resent the experience, and it shows in their attitude.

Digital Extremes have built their business model on maintaining a constant high level of activity from every player, and I personally feel that's a mistake. Letting players lapse, letting players play less, letting players log in infrequently and so on is a GOOD thing. That way we can take breaks and come back without ever truly "leaving."

No matter how much you love doing something, you will eventually get tired of it. Eating the same food, watching the same TV series, or playing the same game all the time. And when that happens, the best thing you can to is just stop completely. The entire reason I still enjoy playing old games like Unreal Tournament, even though I have spent far more time on them than Warframe overall, is because I can play them when I want to. And more importantly, I don't have to play them when I don't want to. When I get tired of it, or I am just in the mood for something else, I can just walk away and completely forget about it for as long as I want, worry free.

But when you are held hostage by constant limited time rewards and new updates, you can't do that. Even if you don't play, even if you are willing to miss stuff, you still have that nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you really should be there. It keeps you from completely forgetting about the game, so you never really completely get away from it, and your enjoyment never gets refreshed.

Its like skipping a day of school, or work, when you really shouldn't. Even if you go off and so something super fun, you will never fully enjoy it, because you will be worrying about what you're missing the entire time.

8 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

This is true. When examined objectively, the entire F2P market isn't what it appears. F2P games are sold to us as free with the option of paying, when they're the exact opposite - they're paid games with the option of playing a free demo. You can get a lot of mileage out of playing the demo, sure, but the majority of the game is clearly designed for you to buy at least part of it. Sometimes things are straight-up paywalled, like Destiny's major expansions. Sometimes things are "grindwalled," in that they cost so much time to earn as to be unfeasible for most people with a life outside the game. In all cases, these games have a number of things that they really want you to buy. Warframe does this with Catalysts, Reactors, Forma and slots. Sure you COULD earn those. However, the massive discrepancy between the time cost of these items and their money cost makes it pretty clear that they're intended to be bought. A single Catalyst costs several levels of the finite Nightwave progression, or 20 Plat on the Market. A Forma costs grinding Void Relics and then a 23-hour build time, but I can get three for 35 Plat on the Market. I could build a Warframe Exilus slot out of two Forma, or I can buy one for 20 Plat on the Market straight-up. The intent here is clear.

When I say things like that, though, that's not necessarily a condemnation. F2P Live Services are the direct successor to old 90s and 2000s $15/month subscription MMOs. I used to play one of those and never really balked at the subscription fee because that was cheap relative to pretty much any other kind of entertainment. A trip to the movies would cost me the local equivalent of $10 just for that, so $15 for all my entertainment needs in a month? Sign me up. I think I've spent ~€600 on Warframe over the last three years, and I don't really feel bad about most of it. I'm not opposed to paying for my games. Quite the opposite - finally realising that F2P games are just paid games in disguise and treating them as such IS what finally allowed me to stay active in Warframe for extended periods of time. The grind for new stuff was really, REALLY burning me out. By contrast, buying the Corinth Prime and Titania Prime off Warframe.market made the game instantly more fun. See, "fun" doesn't come down just to what you do. It also comes down to what you can avoid doing. And if I can avoid grinding Void Relics, then I'm that much happier for it.

Most developers know that time is a currency just as valuable as money. Everything in a F2P MMO costs some of each. You can tell what developers want you to buy and what they want you to earn based on how those two currencies measure up against each other. I'm the sort of player who wouldn't mind plonking down for a monthly subscription with occasional DLCs. Now that I'm treating Warframe that way, the game's gotten a lot more fun.

This does make sense, and is why I have been willing to spend money on Warframe. If I had tried to play it 100% free, I would have quit out of frustration years ago. The word free is just part of the many, many manipulative tactics they use to get your money. No one ever thinks about how much they've spent on something free, because its free! Not until you start wondering why your bank account is a thousand dollars short, at least.

But, the problem is that, when the entire purpose of the game is to get stuff, buying that stuff instead defeats the whole purpose of playing the game. You can either play the game, and earn new things, or you can just buy them instantly, and not play the game at all. Luckily, Warframe has mostly had a good balance to this. Most things aren't too painful to earn in game, and the rest is reasonably priced enough to buy what you need without breaking the bank. And since different people enjoy different things, everyone can choose to play or buy whatever parts they want.

The problem is that, more recently, DE has been ruining this balance. More and more grinds are just too long to be reasonable, so you have to just buy what you want. But, there are also more and more situations, like Nightwave, where you can't skip the grind because there is no pay option.

Not to mention, the actual intrinsic reward of just playing the game and having fun seems to have been forgotten. Its rare that they add a new game mode that's actually worth playing for a long time, but they always have super long grinds to cover that fact up. Like Scarlet Spear, and Dog days. You could experience everything they had to offer in like 10~15 minutes, but DE expected us to play them over and over for weeks. I ended up missing out on most of the items these events offered, because it just wasn't worth the time spent to get them. And I kind of regret that, which has made me enjoy the whole game less.

Missing too many items, in a game about nothing but getting items, can very quickly snowball into ruining the entire experience. Whats the point of playing the game if you can't have that one awesome thing you really wanted?

[fr4gb4ll]

16 hours ago, AltairFerenc said:

not everyone has enought time and feels like a chore and fastens burnout time.

if you don't even have time to waste once in a while (in about a few months worth in the case of NW), why do you even bother to play at all?

seriously, getting to the first 30 ranks of a NW season is no problem at all even if you don't actively doing it.  and in case you feel any compulsion to do every single NW-challenge and therefore seeing this as 'chore', get some professional help.

comparing NW with some 'battlepass' crap is also a pretty low move - i do know many such battlepass systems currently working in games and i sure agree that those are anything but fun, but NW with all it's shortcomings isn't anywhere near that.

many things could be done to it to make it better, but that's no reason to remove it. also may i remind you of all the complains about the 'old' way we got those cosmetics and aura mods? they sure sounded often like what you wrote: " feely like a chore to always look at alerts in warframe and to hurry up to login just to get mod x, helmet y or nitain"... sorry to say but it's the same whinning we had then, just phrased a bit different. and then what would you suggest DE put in the new stuff like umbra forma, new mods and armor (which usually is story bond to the NW season)? maybe you want it for free since you just have time to log into the game and out again?

[xxswatelitexx]

I think Nightwave is fine bu they should change the way rewards work. 

Where you can either just level up the battlepass to get the reward, or use nightwave credits to buy the reward directly. ( once you reach the level you gain nothing  if that reward has been bought in advance ) 

[fr4gb4ll]

14 minutes ago, xxswatelitexx said:

I think Nightwave is fine bu they should change the way rewards work. 

Where you can either just level up the battlepass to get the reward, or use nightwave credits to buy the reward directly. ( once you reach the level you gain nothing  if that reward has been bought in advance ) 

sure, also a way to do it, but shall we bet that a lot of people would complain about not getting anything if they do that? also some would complain about not being able to buy more potatos than those who not bought some stuff in advance... just reading through the forum at any time given, i see complain post of people who would want everything for nothing just because they think it's unfair otherwise (and i'm not even pointing my finger at the OP who not really said this - yes i know i accused him/her in my post above but i meant it more 'in general')

what might help everyone (even the OP here) is that the seasons can be kind of 'replayed' if one missed them - it would also help those player who are only starting the game. surely DE saved all the data of even the daily NW challenges somewhere (couldn't be more than a few pages of text for an entire season). so let every player do the NW on their own pace... sure some of the NW challenges might be a bit troublesome when doing it this way (like the 'daytrader') but even that can be done.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

3 hours ago, Ceadeus said:

 

 

 

You're missing my point.  The problem is not with Warframe or its battlepass system specifically (Warframe's is probably the best but the best problem is still a problem), the problem is with that type of system becoming the norm.  If you only play 1 game then sure it's absolutely fine and the times are more than reasonable to complete them, but not a lot of people genuinely only play 1 game.  I can think of 7 different games I like to play that have a battlepass system just off the top of my head that I would like to get all the content I can for.  So even if you spend 1 hour a day for each one, that's still now 7 hours a day that you have to divide up on top of any other responsibilities you may have, that or you sacrifice your ability to play all the content even for the games you like.

That is why battlepasses are a problem, because this isn't an isolated trend, most new games that come out (as well as old ones) are using battlepasses, so that number of games you have to juggle just to keep up is going to grow and grow.  Games will be at each others throats trying to get you to invest your time instead of just your money like it used to be, games no longer just have to be good enough to catch your eye and make you buy them to be successful, they have to be good enough to make you completely ignore other games that are demanding your attention as well.  Battlepass culture doesn't just hurt players, it hurts any games that try to present content in this way (Warframe included) because it removes the ability to play at your own leisure; I can play Skyrim right this very moment nearly 10 years later and still have access to every single last bit of content that has ever been available to it, but many games are reaching a point where if you didn't play at their specific time for their specific amount of time required, then you're missing a good chunk if not the majority of their content made.  It's forcing people down this path of playing games not because they have any desire to, but just to keep up.  Again, Warframe's still probably the least offender for these cases, but that doesn't mean it's not at all or that it doesn't get caught in the mix of other games doing this to people.

Like I said, I've had to quit games already not because I don't enjoy those games, but because it became a question of "Which battlepass do I have to work on today?" and the burnout that brought made those games unenjoyable and more of a negative impact on my life than a fun hobby like they're supposed to be.

My apologies. I understand what you're saying now. I think the challenge with allowing past rewards to be purchased lies in DE's free to play honesty. There would be posts and complaints about this instantly, quickly drawing questions about "shady practices". One idea is to use ducats or something similar and have either Baro or Cephalon Samaris offer the missing items from each season and intermission. That would be a great way to have both systems. 

[Ceadeus]

1 hour ago, fr4gb4ll said:

if you don't even have time to waste once in a while (in about a few months worth in the case of NW), why do you even bother to play at all?

seriously, getting to the first 30 ranks of a NW season is no problem at all even if you don't actively doing it.  and in case you feel any compulsion to do every single NW-challenge and therefore seeing this as 'chore', get some professional help.

comparing NW with some 'battlepass' crap is also a pretty low move - i do know many such battlepass systems currently working in games and i sure agree that those are anything but fun, but NW with all it's shortcomings isn't anywhere near that.

many things could be done to it to make it better, but that's no reason to remove it. also may i remind you of all the complains about the 'old' way we got those cosmetics and aura mods? they sure sounded often like what you wrote: " feely like a chore to always look at alerts in warframe and to hurry up to login just to get mod x, helmet y or nitain"... sorry to say but it's the same whinning we had then, just phrased a bit different. and then what would you suggest DE put in the new stuff like umbra forma, new mods and armor (which usually is story bond to the NW season)? maybe you want it for free since you just have time to log into the game and out again?

Again, this isn't about any 1 battlepass individually, of course Warframe's is better than most games, but we're talking about being made to juggle several different games at once.  If all you're playing is Warframe, fine, then this post isn't about you and feel free to move on, this post is for the people who actually play multiple games that keep adding battlepasses that take more time away from playing games for genuine enjoyment and replace it with playing just to fill quotas.

Let me propose you this: Two games you really like both launch 1-day events on the same day, both of these events have rewards you'd really like to get, but you simply don't have enough time to play them both, so you simply won't be able to get both rewards, one of those games is going to lose out on having you play it and invest in it.  Now imagine if it's that same situation every single day.  Eventually you're going to get tired of missing out on content, but there's nothing you can do to fix that because you'll never get another chance to get that content again.  That's what battlepass culture is.  It's forcing players to pick and choose which games they can actually be bothered to invest in even if they want to play both games.

1 hour ago, fr4gb4ll said:

what might help everyone (even the OP here) is that the seasons can be kind of 'replayed' if one missed them

This is what needs to be happening, is companies need to be moving away from this time exclusive content and return to simply asking a price and giving the content for that price, no potential for loss of investment.  This idea of perpetual replayability is what sets things apart from battlepass culture, the whole point of the battlepass in most games (admittedly not Warframe) is to offer you a tiny amount of content for a vastly inflated price and convince you that it's worth it by making it time exclusive.  It's the same concept as Primed Chamber and how it really wasn't anything that special, yet people were willing to pay literal thousands of dollars for it simply because "It was exclusive".

[Ceadeus]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)GEN-Son_17 said:

My apologies. I understand what you're saying now. I think the challenge with allowing past rewards to be purchased lies in DE's free to play honesty. There would be posts and complaints about this instantly, quickly drawing questions about "shady practices". One idea is to use ducats or something similar and have either Baro or Cephalon Samaris offer the missing items from each season and intermission. That would be a great way to have both systems. 

The method of reintroduction is less important, as long as things can be permanently reacquired it allows people to be loyal customers to the games they actually enjoy because they're not being threatened with a loss of content if they take a break to play the hot new game or simply have a life outside the game.  I know DE just wants to use what's popular to try and boost interest, but they need to understand that in the long run it's going to put more strain on their playerbase than anything.  The more prevalent battlepasses become, the more careful people are going to get with what they actually bother to invest their time and money into, and while the free battlepass is a much more pro-player model that I praise DE for going with, it also means that when someone has to decide if they want to miss some free Warframe content or miss the content from a battlepass they paid for, Warframe is likely to take the back seat simply because the player doesn't want to throw away money, even if the other game isn't necessarily "better" than Warframe.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

1 minute ago, Ceadeus said:

The method of reintroduction is less important, as long as things can be permanently reacquired it allows people to be loyal customers to the games they actually enjoy because they're not being threatened with a loss of content if they take a break to play the hot new game or simply have a life outside the game.  I know DE just wants to use what's popular to try and boost interest, but they need to understand that in the long run it's going to put more strain on their playerbase than anything.  The more prevalent battlepasses become, the more careful people are going to get with what they actually bother to invest their time and money into, and while the free battlepass is a much more pro-player model that I praise DE for going with, it also means that when someone has to decide if they want to miss some free Warframe content or miss the content from a battlepass they paid for, Warframe is likely to take the back seat simply because the player doesn't want to throw away money, even if the other game isn't necessarily "better" than Warframe.

Good point. So, as long as the rewards are obtainable, both works can exist. 

I think you should send this to feedback. It's a great point and adds another level of play value. I do think including a reintroduction and housing system for the rewards needs to be included with the solution though. Besides my original examples, perhaps incorporating Nakak (Sp? The girl from Cetus that sells the floof) can work. She already has a system in place for slotting items to sell, it falls in line with that NPC's role, it gives the devs an already developed reference area to add to and, as you already mentioned, it allows all players to eventually collect the rewards through work.

[Ceadeus]

29 minutes ago, (PS4)GEN-Son_17 said:

I think you should send this to feedback.

This is feedback?

[xcrimsonlegendx]

Nightwave doesn't bother me at all and yeah I'm one of those people who juggles several games that all demand attention with challenges and bullS#&$. Warframe doesn't demand my time, I can come and do my nightwave whenever I want. Its always there waiting for me, even if you only do the bare minimum you can max it out. I just play an hour or two on Sunday nights and knock out the week so I don't have to worry about it.

Personally I like nightwave, I enjoy the story for what little we get and the rewards are nice.

[Tesseract7777]

If you are feeling burnt out because you are trying to do battlepass equivalents daily/weekly across several games at the same time, it's not the games faults that you are burnt out. 

Games have always offered dailies/weeklies since the beginning of MMO's, what is more recent is having to pay for them, something Warframe thankfully doesn't yet do. 

The game and Nightwave will be for you if you come back, take a break if you need, take a breather. I took a break for a long time. If the game is stressing you out more than anything, because of that innate fear of losing out on rewards (most of which are very repeatable or just cosmetics, again, that will likely return), then maybe you aren't enjoying it anymore and need to get some perspective. 

This sounds very much like a personal problem. 

P.S. 

I'm sure they will consider potential feedback ABOUT Nightwave, but after all the work they put into it, I think it's safe to say they are not going to remove it from the game because of a forum discussion. 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Tesseract7777

[AltairFerenc]

3 hours ago, fr4gb4ll said:

if you don't even have time to waste once in a while (in about a few months worth in the case of NW), why do you even bother to play at all?

bruh, I have 4hours of freetime, I want to play to enjoy things, nightwave forces me to do things I don't like or I'm not in the mood for just to get that 3 things from the rewards I actually want but all of those are in the end. Not every player is in a highscholl or youtuber/streamer, people have work and things to do around the house. The login system alredy forces you to play to get weapons and mods but at least not "forces" you to play modes you don't like or skip them to potentially miss out rewards.

3 hours ago, fr4gb4ll said:

many things could be done to it to make it better, but that's no reason to remove it

have I said that? 
NO
the dude asked for tl;dr and I gaved him one

 

3 hours ago, fr4gb4ll said:

and then what would you suggest DE put in the new stuff like umbra forma, new mods and armor (which usually is story bond to the NW season)?

umbra forma was in ralijack but incredobly low drop rate then removed it, it was just like legendary core but you could actually farm it. 
cosmetics? you know there's a thing called marked where you can use palt, or a million sindycates where you can farm for standing to get things. 
Or the different cashes in different mission could have them since all I got from any cash is either credit or useless mods.

[Tesseract7777]

6 minutes ago, AltairFerenc said:

bruh, I have 4hours of freetime, I want to play to enjoy things, nightwave forces me to do things I don't like or I'm not in the mood for just to get that 3 things from the rewards I actually want but all of those are in the end. Not every player is in a highscholl or youtuber/streamer, people have work and things to do around the house. The login system alredy forces you to play to get weapons and mods but at least not "forces" you to play modes you don't like or skip them to potentially miss out rewards.

No one forces you to do anything. 

You force yourself to do it, or feel forced, because you have given yourself a false sense of stress/need for shiny things in a video game that are largely cosmetic in nature.

Just... stop using that word. Even with quotes. It's just silly. The only forcing being done is in your own head. You have trapped yourself in a prison of your own mind because you are so stressed about not missing out on cosmetic pixels in a video game. 

Also, people have already explained how completely wrong you are when you try to make it sound like it is some insane amount of work to get to the rank 30 rewards, or somehow super annoying like you have to pay close attention and go out of your way to get the stuff. 

Nightwave acts last weeks and weeks. And most of the goals you will get accidentally just by playing. If you are not reaching the final goals you are almost not playing at all. I honestly don't even know what you are talking about. You aren't making sense. You don't need to be a youtube streamer to do Nightwave, it takes very, very little effort over a relatively long period of time...

Edited June 13, 2020 by Tesseract7777

[Ceadeus]

4 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

No one forces you to do anything. 

You force yourself to do it, or feel forced, because you have given yourself a false sense of stress/need for shiny things in a video game that are largely cosmetic in nature.

Just... stop using that word. Even with quotes. It's just silly. The only forcing being done is in your own head. You have trapped yourself in a prison of your own mind because you are so stressed about not missing out on cosmetic pixels in a video game. 

That's quite literally all that games are.  Absolutely nothing in a game has value ever, you only play it for enjoyment.  The case being made here is that it stops being enjoyable when it starts being a chore.

4 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Games have always offered dailies/weeklies since the beginning of MMO's, what is more recent is having to pay for them, something Warframe thankfully doesn't yet do. 

Daily and weekly challenges are perfectly fine.  The problem comes from the fact that they are tied to content that you then can't get if you don't perform those daily or weekly challenges right when they want you to perform them.  We've already been over several times how yes, Warframe's Nightwave is not the most demanding battlepass by far, but the fact still remains that it adds to the ever growing list of games that want you to perform some task (often things not related to what you'd actually like to do in the game) under threat of missing content.  It does not rectify the problem to say "It's just content, it's not a big deal to miss it." because the point is that we want to play these games, we want to get whatever content we can, but the growing amount of games demanding more time and the static amount of time people have available are quickly coming to clash.

You know what else fixes the problem besides telling yourself that games are pointless and you shouldn't value things in your hobbies?  Not having time limited content that makes people stress about their hobbies to begin with.  Nightwave could easily be presented as an alternative form of quest just like every other quest in the codex, simply activate it whenever you want and play through it for the defined rewards.  Attacking people for wanting to do away with a toxic trend that offers absolutely nothing at all to the benefit of the player is the only thing that's "silly".

4 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Also, people have already explained how completely wrong you are when you try to make it sound like it is some insane amount of work to get to the rank 30 rewards, or somehow super annoying like you have to pay close attention and go out of your way to get the stuff. 

Nightwave acts last weeks and weeks. And most of the goals you will get accidentally just by playing. If you are not reaching the final goals you are almost not playing at all. I honestly don't even know what you are talking about. You aren't making sense. You don't need to be a youtube streamer to do Nightwave, it takes very, very little effort over a relatively long period of time...

And for the god-knows-what-th time, yes, Warframe allots plenty of time to complete its challenges.  Every battlepass does.  But again, most people don't just play one game.  It's easy to find an hour to spare in a day, but how about 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7?  All for tasks you don't necessarily even want to do, but you want what's at the end of them for whatever remainder of time is left for you to actually play for your own enjoyment.  You said yourself, it doesn't matter, none of it does.  So why would you instead support this trend of pressuring players to grind for rewards or miss out rather than the method that's been used for decades of simply letting content exist for the players to reach at their own pace?

Your argument makes no sense.  You can't simultaneously acknowledge the pointless nature of videogames and also insist on backing practices that enforce them as if they're a job.  Not to mention, while cosmetics may not be the most important thing to you, for a lot of people that's a core draw of the game, and without that potential they likely wouldn't have any interest in it over games that do, so "they're just cosmetics" is nothing but a self-centered argument.

This entire discussion is about more than simply whether players do or don't like battlepasses, the hard fact of the matter is that battlepasses create a market where a person can only be bothered to play a few games before it negatively affects either their experience in other games or their general well being if they try to manage them all.  DE can make the greatest battlepass to date, but as long as the trend is to make fleeting content, it will still be in competition all the same, and instead of people simply playing multiple games when they feel like to get the permanently available content when they feel like, sales will be hurt by people not bothering to invest simply because they know they won't have the time.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Ceadeus

[Steel_Rook]

9 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

But when you are held hostage by constant limited time rewards and new updates, you can't do that. Even if you don't play, even if you are willing to miss stuff, you still have that nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you really should be there. It keeps you from completely forgetting about the game, so you never really completely get away from it, and your enjoyment never gets refreshed.

This is where the Princess Leiah line comes in. The harder games push us to keep coming back every day on a schedule, the more they force us to keep making that choice - "Should I just quit entirely?" After all, you can easily put yourself in a position where you've missed out on so much that it's really not worth coming back until the next Season Pass. And by that time, you might not feel like coming back at all. This is what Destiny did to me. I had fun with the first Season after it went Live, but burned myself out on it a little. I went to play other games when the next Season started and fell behind. By the time I was done and thinking about going back to Destiny, it was mid-season and way too late to get the big rewards out of it. I figure I'd just come back for the next seasons... And I just never did. I didn't really have a reason to quit that game - not a strong one, anyway. I just felt like doing other stuff, I fell behind and the FOMO of it demoralised me.

This is why I say that modern Live Service developers are "doing it wrong," and DE are not exception. They seem to be trying to keep players playing constantly with subversive, habit-forming mechanics and don't seem to want us to stop playing ever. All this does is burn veterans out and swap them out with new players. And while that might have worked 10 years ago when the MMO market was small and still growing, it's really not working out well these days. There aren't all that many "new players" for whom your game is their first MMO. Generally you're poaching burnt-out players from other MMOs, and there are only so many of those. And because more and more players have "grown up playing Live Services" as time goes on, more of them will be aware of just what I'm talking about. This is why I cite commercials. Back in the 60s and 80s those might have been effective, but I don't think anyone even watches them these days. You have DVR, you have AdBlock, and plenty of us no longer even watch TV for this precise reason. I have fond memories of TRYING to watch the History Channel... It would go into a 15-minute commercial break. I kill the audio, turn to the PC. Check the TV, still commercials. Check the TV, still commercials. Check the TV 45 minutes later, realise I was watching a show that I completely forgot about.

Point being, I agree with you. Design your game to let players leave when they're bored or burnt out. Ensure they leave on good terms, ensure they leave with fond memories and you ensure that those people will keep coming back. More than that, you ensure that these people will keep spending money on your DLC and your Microtransactions and so on. There's this mentality in Live Services that you have to "turn players into payers" by pressuring and extorting money. I feel quite the opposite. Make your players happy, and they will spend. I didn't spend money on Warframe because I hated the game, after all. By contrast, I haven't spent money on GTA Online, because I resent Rockstar and the game itself is pretty shoddy.

 

9 hours ago, Teljaxx said:

But, the problem is that, when the entire purpose of the game is to get stuff, buying that stuff instead defeats the whole purpose of playing the game. You can either play the game, and earn new things, or you can just buy them instantly, and not play the game at all. Luckily, Warframe has mostly had a good balance to this. Most things aren't too painful to earn in game, and the rest is reasonably priced enough to buy what you need without breaking the bank. And since different people enjoy different things, everyone can choose to play or buy whatever parts they want.

And this right here is the core issue with a lot of F2P games - there is no actual game, only monetisation. There's no fun, engaging gameplay to be had. There's only a grind for stuff, made deliberately tedious to make you buy it, instead. However, when you do buy it... Then what? There's still no fun gameplay, and now there's no progression, either. Earning stuff is dull, but buying stuff feels hollow. This is why I brought up GTA Online. That's a fun toy to the extent of driving around aimlessly an griefing other players, but there's no actual "game" to be found. You grind boring, tedious tasks for money that Rockstar would really rather you bought via Whale Cards. But suppose you buy said Whale Cards - then what? There's still no game, but now you have an Apache. Now you have a Jet Bike. Now you have a Yacht with no purpose. The monetisation here is just a symptom of a broader issue - a bad game.

You're right that Warframe does tend to strike a decent balance, because the core gameplay loop is intrinsically fun - at least, for me at this point. My concern, however, is that DE seem to be more focused on adding more grind than they are on expanding and improving the said core gameplay loop. Look at Liches - no novel gameplay (not even in the guessing game), just lots of grind. Look at Railjack - a TOKEN of novel gameplay, with lots of grind. But OK - these were both brand new systems so the bulk of the work went under the hood. OK, then what's the excuse for the Granum Void? There's no novel gameplay there AT ALL. It's Sanctuary Onslaught except on ONE map against ONE enemy type. And you have to grind this for literal hours just to get meaningful rewards out of it. DE claimed that they were finally going to have us earn a Warframe through a Quest... But they didn't. They gave us a blueprint, and we still had to grind for the parts, with low god damn drop rates.

You know what pisses me off the most about the Granum Void? I can't actually enjoy the new tileset. The benefit of having a new tileset is that it improves not just the core nodes, but all the other game modes which take place on them. Except I can't play any of these modes if I want the Granum Crowns. They don't drop on Lich missions, they don't drop on Crossfire missions and I need to play level 1-15 missions if I want the T1 Granum Void rewards. So not only is that boring and uninspired, it's actively undermining the new and genuinely good tileset redesign. Worse, it's encouraging me to optimise my grinding of it, which means running the same capture mission over and over again, disregarding the map and just going for the objectives. As a result, it's burning me out on the tileset before I can even enjoy it.

DE are so fixated on providing "extrinsic rewards" and keeping people playing through compulsion that they end up in exactly the problem you describe. The monetisation and progression systems undermine the core gameplay experience. I honestly wish they'd spend less time worrying about players having too much fun, earning too much fun and leaving as a result... For some reason.

[DebrisFlow]

11 hours ago, Mephane said:

23 hours ago, DebrisFlow said:

Nope, if you lose the umbra forma you lose it forever. In the intermission you get another one. So you end up with less and no way to catch up.

This is a separate issue imo - frankly, Umbra Forma were a mistake. The new polarity should just have been added to the regular pool applicable by regular Formas.

I think, on the other hand, that the umbra forma is the main NW issue. That's because is the only source of FOMO, as is it the only reward of which you need more than one, and with a painfully slow aquisition rate. Everything else is a cosmetic or a mod, of which you get one and you're done, so you can easly allow yourself to miss one NW and recover it in an intermission. FOMO and a required slavish dedication are the main issue of NW discussed in the OP, here i'm arguing that the UF is the driving cause. 

Given this, i agree with you that the introduction of the UF was a mistake. But now it is in the game and we have to deal with that. My solution? Limit the number of UF a player can have in total. And instead of acting like normal formas (once applied it's gone), give the possibility to swap them ad libitum between all your warframes and weapons.

[Mephane]

14 minutes ago, DebrisFlow said:

Given this, i agree with you that the introduction of the UF was a mistake. But now it is in the game and we have to deal with that. My solution? Limit the number of UF a player can have in total. And instead of acting like normal formas (once applied it's gone), give the possibility to swap them ad libitum between all your warframes and weapons.

That would make it worse - given their rarity, you want to save them up for when a build absolutely warrants it and you love playing that Warframe all the time. And whatever mechanism you are hinting at to swap the Umbra polarity between Warframes would surely end be costly - also even if cheap, it would be a massive hassle to swap them around each time you switch to a loadout with a different Warframe.

An easy solution that doesn't require outright removal would be to add a blueprint like the weapon exilus adapter blueprint for syndicate standing that requires similar components - 2 formas, argon crystal etc. This way they would become farmable, you could plan your builds around them, but there'd still be a significant investment to acquire them.

[Tesseract7777]

The only toxic behavior here are those of ya'll trying to make yourselves into a "victim" over free content and lobbing bombs at those who disagree. 

Like, oh no, a game slowly gates free content behind rewards to encourage me to play the game... what MONSTERS!!! Ya'll act like they are villiains playing some games with your head. No, they just are offering free content to encourage you to keep playing their game. This isn't some special, secret new evil trick, it's something games have been doing since forever. It's not manipulative in some secret "psychology" way, it's just the oldest trick in the book. Do stuff every day/week you build up rewards. It's as old as the hills. 

Ever played WoW? Long before battle pass existed for money in games, Wow was doing dailies, weeklies and similar. You have no idea what you are talking about. 

I've heard some ridiculous things on these forums, calling yourself a victim because DE has a free battlepass really ranks up there with the shockingly most ridiculous.

 

[Ceadeus]

On 2020-06-13 at 3:18 PM, Tesseract7777 said:

Like, oh no, a game slowly gates free content behind rewards to encourage me to play the game... what MONSTERS!!! Ya'll act like they are villiains playing some games with your head. No, they just are offering free content to encourage you to keep playing their game. This isn't some special, secret new evil trick, it's something games have been doing since forever. It's not manipulative in some secret "psychology" way, it's just the oldest trick in the book. Do stuff every day/week you build up rewards. It's as old as the hills. 

Ever played WoW? Long before battle pass existed for money in games, Wow was doing dailies, weeklies and similar. You have no idea what you are talking about. 

Again, WoW's dailies and weeklies were for non-unique, constantly reintroduced or alternatively acquirable content.  Not even remotely a similar comparison.  "WoW gave you a chance to earn some extra money and XP!" is not remotely the same as "Battlepasses twist your arm into playing the content on their terms or lose it forever with no method to get it again."

As has been said plenty of times now, this has nothing to do with how Warframe has personally handled their form of the battlepass, this has to do with the greater concepts of what a battlepass aims to do and the consequences it has on not only the gameplay loop of the game it belongs to but also any other games that could potentially vie for the same timeslot.

[Shifted]

Limited time content is bad.

DE, you're becoming what you swore not to be.
On top of that, you can't even keep up the schedule.
This is unhealthy for both the players (constant FOMO) and the developers (crunch)

Stop it. Make permanent content.

[Scar.brother.help.me]

If Nightwave had no limits to the number of recovered challenges that you've missed (let you scroll through all of them and choose to do the ones you want to do and skip the ones you don't like) - that would be a good way to play it. I and many players like me could just ignore it for a few weeks/months and then do the whole thing within a few days of hard NW farming all the way from 1 to 30.