The Segregation of Content, and Why Multitasking Kicks Butt

[Rhino-netlost]

Hello. I'm an amateur game designer, but more importantly right now, I'm a Warframe endgame player. Sometimes, I try and get High Voltage or Shell Shock from Naeglar on Eris so that I can sell it for a tidy chunk of change. Sometimes, I even notice that an alert has occurred on that very same node - Kuva, or a Void Fissure. Always, I try and multitask. I want it all! I could potentially open a relic AND get 50 platinum in my wallet, too?! At times, I'll even be able to complete some Nightwave during the mission, or even open a veiled riven! Freaking awesome!

However, something like that perfect storm only happens when the stars align. That's because almost everything is painfully exclusive. If you want to get Sanic Speed Guy, you gotta grind THIS node. Condition Overload is always on THESE nodes. Earth and Venus have some rare dog eggs and Beast/Companion mods... But you have got to be on Earth or Venus for the chance.

I mean, you know, it's fine; some resources are exclusive to certain section and challenges. That's how a game is balanced. Yet, by the time an endgame player wants to grind for rare stuff like Kuva and Relics, he's not gonna care about resources or mods. He has Platinum and 1000 hours of accidentally picking up tens of thousands of Alloy Plates and Ferrite.

So, what is it that I want? Well, I want to open up my hundreds of relics that I've neglected to open (due to opening relics being exclusive to relic alerts!) so that I can personally purchase Baro Ki'Teer stuff and maybe even complete a full Prime weapon/frame. I want to get infinity and a half Rivens every day so that I can gamble Kuva and magically turn my Mutalist Cernos into a crit weapon or something crazy. I want to grind Mastery, therefore, I want all the weapon parts available beneath my fingertips - that means Invasion rewards and more, like the stuff from Elite Sanctuary Onslaught. I want to grind Focus Points, I need Endo, I wanna kill my Lich, I wanna fight bosses for their drops, I want Maroo's weekly Ayatan Treasures, and Standing for every faction, and sometimes even rare resources like Toroids, Atmos Systems, Vitus Essence, certain mods, and the like.

That is the content that I want to do right now. And that is why I am also torn. I want to be shooting guys for so much more than just a few hundred Kuva a pop. I could be doing missions that a freaking newbie couldn't do that a high-level Tenno should've graduated from literal years ago. My time on this Earth is precious, and when I see that I could be doing Naeglar with Kuva and there's a Nightwave thing that's asking specifically for that, I am very happy.

But I'm only happy about it because the time I've already spent on Warframe is so bloody much, and I have so much more I could be doing instead with my life.

I have a .txt file on my hard drive detailing the best places to go to grind certain things. If I have a resource booster, I can check my personal guide for what to do with it, and then I know what I want to be grinding for - say, Kuva and Cetus Wisps, since I've got an Amp on my wishlist. So, best places for Kuva? Do the alerts, then do Survival or something, and hope my Smeeta Kavat manages to RNG some extra Kuva for me.

Importantly, this file has alerted me to the fact that almost everything is segregated. The best place for Endo is that Grineer Arena, the best place for Credits is the Index and Profit-Taker, some of the best places for new Relics include Void Capture and Lua Disruption, to open Relics you want Capture Void Fissures and the best Affinity comes from Elite Sanctuary Onslaught or Exterminate missions with stealth melee. The only thing that I consider more optimal and multitask-y than most are Excavation Void Fissures. That's because I still need to grind for the Sibear, I always want to grind for locked Relics, and I always want to grind for opening Relics - Excavation is relatively very fast to complete, too, especially for the variety of rewards it gives out.

In summary? Multitasking is terribly limited. But it feels so good to grind everything all at once. Otherwise, the act of grinding is so horrendous to me, I would actually prefer to just wait until I get a good opportunity to multitask, and then maybe spend time on Warframe again.At least 1/10th of my time on Warframe has been spent totally AFK, because I'm either just reading up on how to grind less while in Trade chat, or I'm waiting for opportunities to grind more efficiently.

So, I propose a new system, one that might work out very well with Hard Mode being in the works. Something to tie things together. Something to give the challenge-seekers what they want. Something that lessens the grind, yet still manages to give everybody tons more gameplay content.

Mission Mods, quite similar to Path of Exile's Maps system. Slot them into your Landing Craft, and they modify the next mission node you go into, if valid. Perhaps we could even have Mission Mod Loadouts! Quests to get rare Mission Mods! All sorts of cool stuff like that! (Just please don't get the snarky idea to make us grind for these damn things, too.)

So, after slotting Mission Mods into your Landing Craft, you burden yourself with a greater challenge - like making enemies drop Index points instead of regular materials to debuff you like mad, or having Grineer Arena enemies casually spawning in, or enemies spawn at ridiculous rates but can't drop resources like in Sanctuary Onslaught, or the Dragon Key and Sortie restrictions themselves, or encountering Kuva Siphons and the Grustrag 3 and the Wolf of Saturn Six and the Zanuka Hunter all in one mission, or having Proxima enemies swooping in from the sky to rain death, or forcing an Archwing segment into the map...

...And then you'll get the drops related to those bits of content in a fraction of the time. The only catch would be exponentially greater enemy levels for every extra Mission Mod you equip. They might even break out of crowd control faster, or there are multiple objectives to complete. Whatever - the point is, I want all the content, all at once. And I would have to earn this content-blend of rewards.

Also, I'm a challenge junkie. I play fighting games when I'm bored to death of Warframe. Having to click on heads while I bounce around like a rubber ninja is what I want out of Warframe, not merely just seeing big numbers pop up. I'm sure there are loads of endgame players complaining about having nothing to use their god-tier Amprex rivens on, complaining that they don't want the rewards of Arbitrations anymore, complaining that their accumulated power has finally left them empty and wanting. They'd be in a similar situation to mine.

If we had more reasons to actually consider using our many speedrun techs and stealth strategies...
If we had more reasons to look at our radars beyond simply seeing where to go next...
If we had more reasons to put our game knowledge to the ultimate test, putting into practice what we know of how to fight every enemy...

...Then I would consider Warframe a true miracle of gaming. Right now, though, it's merely a timesink MMO, caused by the utterly excessive segregation of content.

It could be so much more than just a mere time investment.

Spoiler

tbh the greatest 'content-blend' I want is the ability to properly fight the enemy on my K-Drive in every mission. Why can't I shoot Infested from my hoverboard, do a flip for an energy blast to kill everything around me, and then come to a stop by kickflipping the board away and directly at an Ancient Healer? Jeez.

K-Drives are the ULTIMATE example of terrible content segregation. This is truly the greatest sin of all time AAAAAH

 

[krc473]

14 minutes ago, Rhino-netlost said:

The only catch would be exponentially greater enemy levels for every extra Mission Mod you equip.

"Exponentially greater" suggests that newer players will be completely excluded from the system. Poor mods and such. The people that can benefit the most should be allowed to profit from the system right? From an endgame perspective, I don't really thing "exponentially greater" is going to be an issue - we have buffs and DPS abilities, we have CC and healing frames. It may work better to just give single use items that allow bonuses from a mission rather than increasing levels.

 

Multi-tasking would be good. But DE likes everything to be its own little island. What you are describing sounds like it would require DE to re-balance a lot of stuff and adjust things. DE has shown that they like to take the easier route previously, so I don't think anything is going to change. It is hard to integrate lots of content.

[Lightel03]

This new "Mission mod" idea sounds like a neat idea, though the whole multitasking bit seems like it goes against what DE wants to do, since after all this is an MMO.

But when considering the inclusion of Hard Mode maybe some other version of this could be done, where you add certain modifiers to further increase resource drops.

 

[Rhino-netlost]

13 minutes ago, krc473 said:

"Exponentially greater" suggests that newer players will be completely excluded from the system.

Yes. Exactly. I am looking for endgame content. I am looking for a rewarding Hard Mode. More importantly, I don't want to do the grunt work that my MR 5 friend has already trivialized with his mere Volt for the exact same damn rewards - there's so much more I can do. Perhaps that sounds elitist at first, but it is something that I really do feel is rightly earned after having built up an arsenal of endless Energy sources and nuclear-powered rocket launchers.

I actually greatly respect what DE has done to try and tie newbie players in with veteran players. Negative loops to maintain balance and power are seen in tons and tons of beginner-friendly multiplayer games. It's why Formas reset your weapon's level, encouraging you to play lower level content, ie. play with the newbies. (Doesn't really work in practice; everyone farms Grineer Ship Defense missions instead)

So, taking this advice in mind, I now think it would be appropriate if Mission Mods and/or Hard Mode instead nerfed your Warframe into the dirt. You would then be able to fight alongside your newbie friends without utterly overpowering everything before they get a chance to touch the enemy. In exchange, you would gain better rewards than your newbie allies, separate from their own reward tables.

I like this a lot more. Thank you for reminding me of this part of the game.

7 minutes ago, krc473 said:

It may work better to just give single use items that allow bonuses from a mission rather than increasing levels.

There are already the Stalker / Zanuka / Grustrag / Saturn Six beacons. They're extremely limited, but extremely desirable for anyone looking to squeeze out a whole 1 mediocre, outclassed weapon out of them for their MR 29 goal. There is a demand for beacons like these. So this could theoretically work, but it would be more limited than modifying a map before you join in the first place. Programs have limits.

26 minutes ago, krc473 said:

Multi-tasking would be good. But DE likes everything to be its own little island. What you are describing sounds like it would require DE to re-balance a lot of stuff and adjust things. DE has shown that they like to take the easier route previously, so I don't think anything is going to change. It is hard to integrate lots of content.

Multitasking feels absolutely incredible; it's great.

I think DE putting everything into its own little island is a bit of a cowardly move on their part. It's playing it safe design-wise, it's easy to bugtest, and it adds more time to the game.

This would indeed require a lot of balancing and thought. There will always be some combos that are better than others, something quicker, stronger, better. I very much trust that DE is good with numbers and loot balancing, because so far, I actually can't recall any sort of extremely broken farming method in any of their updates - besides Ivara's Noise Arrow completely breaking Interception missions, I guess.

Integrating crazy and exotic Mission Mods for a content-blender would indeed be a challenge. In my opinion, it would be a very rewarding challenge for DE to work through.

DE has an absolutely massive amount of content that they want players to engage in. However, a massive issue is the fact that many players simply don't care to play them.

Spoiler

The x5 Tridolon grind isn't for everybody, and if you don't want to grind through all of Solaris for weeks just to get Hildryn organically, you can always purchase her with Plat. My newbie friend has already given up on Khora and Xiphos after looking at their droprates and the utter lack of anything else their missions truly offer, for example. The earliest he can get a job is in 3 years when he finally turns 16; in the meantime, he just wants to grind relics for Plat to get them instead.

Compared to actually developing new assets, enemy designs, environment designs, and more, a content-blender like the Mission Mods I've proposed would recycle tons of old content in new and novel ways, exposing everybody to the content that they've elected to ignore in favor of the boring-but-practical endgame content, ie. Kuva totally overpowers Earth tileset missions. Seriously, I still notice new things on Earth due to how rare the tileset is to encounter.

I would be more than happy to fight a hundred Zanuka Hunters on the Plains of Eidolon before taking down a wild Hydrolyst if it meant finally getting a regular Detron and a nice Arcane.

[SenorClipClop]

Did you really need to use the word "segregated"?

[Chu-Chu]

Im all on board for having map modifiers Mission Modifiers in the game, as I have suggested this in a few places before myself. Cooking up your own challenge and getting rewards to boot is a great way to satisfy many on the "how hard the game should be" spectrum.

I hope this does get somewhere!