Request for DE: regarding Conclave match making

[Nox-Inruptio]

I'd like to request that DE consider filling in Conclave matches with NPC warframes for Annihilation, team vs. team, and capture modes, much like how Index is run currently.  Warframes used as Solar Rail Guardians seem to have the most complete AI, so they'd make logical choices (this would be of course while continuing with the normal restrictions of Conclave game play). Ideally scaling in difficulty as Conclave rank increases.  Allow for a small window of time for other players to join the game, but reset everyone's health, energy etc. to avoid late comers having an unfair advantage (or disadvantage).

Basically, after a reasonable amount of time (I'm thinking a minute or two tops), let a solo player get started on a match so that Conclave faction can actually be earned.  As it stands now, and I can only speak for myself here, I've spent up to 15 minutes waiting a match, and still had nothing to show to for it.  I'd like to work on Conclave faction, it's just not practical unless you've got a friend that's willing to trade off who's "winning" this round, which defeats the spirit of it.  I've capped out in ever other faction (no not at the same time), but I'm a completionist, I really want to earn everything from Conclave also - it's got some pretty spiffy stuff, and well... Captura scenes! 😄 

[Felsagger]

I don't mind any form of PvP but for those we need dedicated servers and if there is enough return of investments in such implementation. We have Teshin game play, the drifter, tenno, the corpus and of course the grineer. There's a lot to be done on PvP. 

Warframes makes things a bit harder due to the play style. Right now the PvP needs to evolve. The initial state is not an attractive for the players. I am in favor for anything that is PvP related with the right implementation. 

[Yamazuki]

It's entirely possible to be highly into pvp, but not want any of it on Warframe. I've played tens of thousands of pvp matches across multiple genres. However, when I want to pvp, I want real pvp. Dead pvp where your main option is playing against the same people on repeat, isn't actual pvp to me. Neither is waiting a long time for guaranteed wins.

It makes absolutely no sense to trash "pve players" simply because one chooses to "pvp" on Warframe. I could just as easily say anyone doing this are doing so because they're incompetent at any pvp game with a competitive player base. Being good in a class no one else even attends isn't an accomplishment.

[Felsagger]

20 minutes ago, Yamazuki said:

It's entirely possible to be highly into pvp, but not want any of it on Warframe. I've played tens of thousands of pvp matches across multiple genres. However, when I want to pvp, I want real pvp. Dead pvp where your main option is playing against the same people on repeat, isn't actual pvp to me. Neither is waiting a long time for guaranteed wins.

It is plausible saying that PvP needs a rework. 

Of course it needs a rework and dedicated servers. PvP can happen here properly after what we saw with Corpus, Teshin, Tenno, Drifter, Grineer. There's a lot of choices with what we where shown in the quest.  

I do understand that Teshin game play is exquisite for PvP matches. There are a lot of room for improvements in PvP too. There's room for everybody. 

20 minutes ago, Yamazuki said:

It makes absolutely no sense to trash "pve players" simply because one chooses to "pvp" on Warframe. I could just as easily say anyone doing this are doing so because they're incompetent at any pvp game with a competitive player base. Being good in a class no one else even attends isn't an accomplishment.

You came here with another intention, you are conversing unlike him. It's different. 

He came in distributing heat. He's getting heat back in return. If he's not interested why he post with the obvious intention of starting an argument? 

Simple. 

[SignalWarden]

I still think that Conclave should refocus to be PvPvE. The broad scope of Warframes makes direct PvP impossible to balance, especially with no real community behind it. I think if they gave us dungeon like courses, where two teams have to rush through, hit certain objectives and then defeat a boss, it could be interesting. Maybe put some cyphers in so the first team that hits one activates a challenge mode on the other team, and they can reach a cypher to turn it off. 

They could use the existing death mark enemies to pad out the challenge pool. Hell, people could donate their Lich or Sister to it in exchange for conclave points and then those enemies can end up in the boss pool. Give organized teams in the same clan some clan trophies for hitting leader boards and do some soft, limited marketing tournaments letting the streamers carry it. Put in a spectator mode too, so people can host and stream their own stuff. 

 

[SheikaVoid]

22 minutes ago, SignalWarden said:

I still think that Conclave should refocus to be PvPvE. The broad scope of Warframes makes direct PvP impossible to balance, especially with no real community behind it. I think if they gave us dungeon like courses, where two teams have to rush through, hit certain objectives and then defeat a boss, it could be interesting. Maybe put some cyphers in so the first team that hits one activates a challenge mode on the other team, and they can reach a cypher to turn it off. 

They could use the existing death mark enemies to pad out the challenge pool. Hell, people could donate their Lich or Sister to it in exchange for conclave points and then those enemies can end up in the boss pool. Give organized teams in the same clan some clan trophies for hitting leader boards and do some soft, limited marketing tournaments letting the streamers carry it. Put in a spectator mode too, so people can host and stream their own stuff. 

 

I love the idea, but I don't agree that direct PvP is impossible to balance, as it has been balanced in the past.  For example, prior to the PoE update, Conclave was in an excellent place in terms of balance.  

Furthermore, the size of the Conclave community is larger than you might initially assume: not that the size of a community dictates the ability of a developer to balance its game's features anyway.

[SignalWarden]

3 minutes ago, SheikaVoid said:

I love the idea, but I don't agree that direct PvP is impossible to balance, as it has been balanced in the past.  For example, prior to the PoE update, Conclave was in an excellent place in terms of balance.  

Furthermore, the size of the Conclave community is larger than you might initially assume: not that the size of a community dictates the ability of a developer to balance its game's features anyway.

I should reword. It's possible to balance, but it's not useful to do so when there are constantly frames being released and reworked, especially with the ability to subsume powers in place. I think there would have to be much heavier focus on PvP to justify the constant monitoring, testing and tweaking needed to keep it fair and balanced from patch to patch. 

As to the size of the conclave community, I know it's decent, but as a percentage of the playerbase it's pretty tiny. I think it can be grown, but that comes back to my original point. Any player that comes in fresh with only a couple of warframes, getting dunked on by people with meta builds and no way to counter act it will leave. Plus conclave needs a big shot in the arm to get players in now and reduce queue times. I think focusing on releasing a mode with a much lower barrier for success would lend itself to that. 

[SheikaVoid]

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

I should reword. It's possible to balance, but it's not useful to do so when there are constantly frames being released and reworked, especially with the ability to subsume powers in place. I think there would have to be much heavier focus on PvP to justify the constant monitoring, testing and tweaking needed to keep it fair and balanced from patch to patch. 

As to the size of the conclave community, I know it's decent, but as a percentage of the playerbase it's pretty tiny. I think it can be grown, but that comes back to my original point. Any player that comes in fresh with only a couple of warframes, getting dunked on by people with meta builds and no way to counter act it will leave. Plus conclave needs a big shot in the arm to get players in now and reduce queue times. I think focusing on releasing a mode with a much lower barrier for success would lend itself to that. 

Oh, well, in that case, I don't disagree whatsoever.  I've long been an advocate for PvPvE in Warframe.  It works well in Destiny, and it'd work well here.

[Stormdragon]

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

I should reword. It's possible to balance, but it's not useful to do so when there are constantly frames being released and reworked,

This is so wrong. Neither revenant nor any of the warframes released after him have been reworked for conclave, so we're talking of over 3 years without any new frame being rebalanced for conclave.

Hell, we've even lost a few to their reworks, namely Vauban, Ember, and Wukong.

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

especially with the ability to subsume powers in place.

Subsumed powers don't apply to conclave loadouts.

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

I think there would have to be much heavier focus on PvP to justify the constant monitoring, testing and tweaking needed to keep it fair and balanced from patch to patch. 

It isn't needed, a single staff member working a couple of hours per week in conclave balance and/or bugfixing would be enough to slowly catch up with the ongoing issues since all of these have been documented and reported by the community right after these started, so all that's needed is for DE to actually do something about these issues based on community feedback (like they used to do at some point)

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

As to the size of the conclave community

Community size is kinda besides the point since it's basically which side of the community has more players shouting "muh dev resources" at DE when they should take care of the game as a whole regardless (featurecreep keeps DE constantly all over DE, and that's an issue that they should fix somehow).

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

I think it can be grown,

Yeah, but for that to happen, the mode needs some maintenance and bugfixing. Otherwise new players will either be stomped by cowards who abuse bugged gear in  recruit conditioning (and refuse to rank up past RC because even with bugged gear they can't do anything against the players out of it) to keep players away from the mode, then jump out of RC expecting more fair matches only to be stomped by the actually good players.

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

I think focusing on releasing a mode with a much lower barrier for success would lend itself to that.

Something like the old Opticor Variant (basically everyone has a frame with no powers, no passives, no shields, only 100HP wielding an Opticor Vandal with 3 shots/mag, infinite ammo, and  enough dmg to instakill anything) would be nice since players wouldn't have to worry about setups and could use whatever looks better for them instead.

Some seasonal events like Snowday Showdown (team deathmatch with snowballs), Hearts & Arrows (Paris only free for all), or Quick Steel (special stance Nikana + modified Hikou free for all) were great to attract a more casual group of players back in the day.

But hey! The amount of drama spilled by a very small but awfully loud group of toxic players who only think of themselves and disregarded the opinion of players who legit enjoyed the event was enough for DE to not bring those back in years, and i guess it's safe to assume this is gonna be another year without either of the pvp events anyways.

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

 

1 hour ago, SignalWarden said:

 

 

 

[----Legacy----]

1 hour ago, SheikaVoid said:

Oh, well, in that case, I don't disagree whatsoever.  I've long been an advocate for PvPvE in Warframe.  It works well in Destiny, and it'd work well here.

It works in destiny because, afaik, they keep the same balance for both PvE and PvP so mixing things up is easy. In warframe we'd start by having to use PvP balance which means lowering enemy levels to a reasonable point for our power to remain great by comparison to theirs, but also being locked away from using a huge part of our gear for not being rebalanced for PvP.

Removing the invasion part of Destiny's PvPvE so we can use all of our PvE gear basically removes any interaction between the teams in the match, so different teams might as well be on completely different lobbies, competing for leaderboards, thing that we already have in the game and is called ESO, which gameplaywise is just another PvE mode.

[SignalWarden]

15 minutes ago, Stormdragon said:

This is so wrong. Neither revenant nor any of the warframes released after him have been reworked for conclave, so we're talking of over 3 years without any new frame being rebalanced for conclave.

I don't see how that relates to what I said. If there was a conclave with heave community focus that balance would matter and they would have to adjust that balance. It would take real dev time. Any multiplayer game with constant new releases has to deal with that balance in PvP. Most games can handle it if it's their focus. Others suffer the fate of the meta and it becomes a painful experience for newer players to enter. As you said, you lost frames to conclave, which wasn't a big deal because unfortunately, there just aren't that many conclave players in comparison to the rest of the game. You grow that segment and it will matter a lot. 

[Stormdragon]

2 minutes ago, SignalWarden said:

If there was a conclave with heave community focus that balance would matter and they would have to adjust that balance. It would take real dev time. Any multiplayer game with constant new releases has to deal with that balance in PvP

The whole point is that DE hasn't been keeping up with the task for years, so Revenant and none of the frames released after him have gone through that rebalance process.

 

4 minutes ago, SignalWarden said:

there just aren't that many conclave players in comparison to the rest of the game. You grow that segment and it will matter a lot. 

Yes, but this segment of the community won't magically grow from night to day, especially when we see social media (twitter, reddit, facebook, content creators, some of the wf related discord servers -like RSB-, forums, in game public chats, etc) constantly talking down to the mode and its players to prevent others from giving it a shot.

[SheikaVoid]

"Conclave can't receive attention from DE, it's fundamentally broken, and doesn't deserve dev time.  Taking that dev time will ruin the base game"

Wait, you mean the base game hasn't been ruined already?

[SignalWarden]

8 minutes ago, Stormdragon said:

The whole point is that DE hasn't been keeping up with the task for years, so Revenant and none of the frames released after him have gone through that rebalance process.

I agree with that, which is why I suggest PvPvE. They could keep balance around PvE but you're still directly competing with other players. You can directly affect their play and vice versa, but you are given specific tools to do that without sacrificing the PvE tools you spent years grinding out. 

[Stormdragon]

2 minutes ago, SignalWarden said:

I agree with that, which is why I suggest PvPvE. They could keep balance around PvE but you're still directly competing with other players. You can directly affect their play and vice versa, but you are given specific tools to do that without sacrificing the PvE tools you spent years grinding out. 

I'm legit curious about how would you implement PvPvE without removing PvP aspects from the mode and keeping PvE's lack of balance while at it.

[SheikaVoid]

48 minutes ago, Stormdragon said:

I'm legit curious about how would you implement PvPvE without removing PvP aspects from the mode and keeping PvE's lack of balance while at it.

It might be worthwhile to incorporate limited time "rifts" that allow a a player to enter the world of the enemy squad as a specter, perhaps with a nerfed loadout, or maybe in "Stalker mode". 

Just an idea, though.  I'd much rather see proper PvP, in the form of either revived Conclave or a dedicated invasion-style (a-la Dark Souls) mode where one can invade the missions of marked players.

Another idea for a direct effect on the enemy squad could be the activation of debuffs or enemy spawn waves, but the gameplay therein would remain entirely PvE.

[SignalWarden]

2 hours ago, Stormdragon said:

I'm legit curious about how would you implement PvPvE without removing PvP aspects from the mode and keeping PvE's lack of balance while at it.

I don't know that you could completely preserve PvP if you're trying to maximize balance. You'd probably want to implement specific zones with windows for combat, and then introduce a host of other ways the two teams can interact throughout an engagement. 

I would personally keep pure PvP as is, but not really worry about balancing it, let it be broken and let the players figure out meta for it as a fun side mode, but put the balancing and development effort into a PvPvE. I don't feel that Warframe was ever made with PvP in mind and shouldn't be even remotely balanced around direct PvP. 

That is purely my opinion though. I don't expect it to be everyone's. 

[Stormdragon]

19 hours ago, SignalWarden said:

I don't know that you could completely preserve PvP if you're trying to maximize balance.

What? The whole point of maximizing balance is to preserve pvp. When the environment is balanced, matches take place with all players on a similar ground so the difference is made by skill.

19 hours ago, SignalWarden said:

You'd probably want to implement specific zones with windows for combat, and then introduce a host of other ways the two teams can interact throughout an engagement. 

Yeah, afaik that's pretty much how that Destiny 2 mode that's always referenced for PvPvE works.

19 hours ago, SignalWarden said:

I would personally keep pure PvP as is, but not really worry about balancing it, let it be broken and let the players figure out meta for it as a fun side mode.

On one hand, we already had that ages ago before the conclave rework, and even though there were players who played it evading warframe powers and dumb overpowered builds, there were also players constantly figuring out gimicky builds to get an easy way defeating enemies while staying safe (Iron Skin Rhino, Punchthrough weapons were able to shoot across the whole freightline map, troll setups like pre-nerf QT+rage, provoked + undying will, half ranked reflex guard would protect you from anything, etc)

We also had solar rail conflicts which were closer to a PvPvE experience since defender team had specters defending the rail, but one of its biggest flaws was exactly that: it used PvE's lack of balance.

On the other hand:

On 2022-01-04 at 2:09 PM, SignalWarden said:

Any player that comes in fresh with only a couple of warframes, getting dunked on by people with meta builds and no way to counter act it will leave

That's the main reason why PvP requires balance, this way a player can jump in with unmodded started gear and still have a chance against a fully built L1 player as long as both have similar skills, and even beat them if the high mastery rank player isn't as skilled as the new one.

19 hours ago, SignalWarden said:

put the balancing and development effort into a PvPvE.

At that point you're still rebalancing the game for a specific game mode; why not use that balance in more places, like the usual arena pvp modes you'd like to see unbalanced?

19 hours ago, SignalWarden said:

I don't feel that Warframe was ever made with PvP in mind and shouldn't be even remotely balanced around direct PvP. 

I guess a magnifying glass isn't needed to tell that warframe isn't balanced around direct pvp, and that nobody is asking for warframe to be balanced around direct pvp either.

However, i won't deny that warframe has gone so damn deep into the powercreep area that a balance overhaul for the game as a whole is needed if DE wants to ever be able to add challenging content to the game. Otherwise they'll be stuck with warframe being known as a game where even the hardest pve content can be beaten while watching movies while their only way to challenge the playerbase is literally removing our arsenal -especially warframes- from the equation.

 

[Tyreaus]

On 2022-01-04 at 9:09 AM, SignalWarden said:

it's not useful to do so when there are constantly frames being released and reworked

There's ways to get around it, like borrowing the ability cards of old and allowing Warframes to - effectively - be skins for PvP players. Same with limiting weapons or weapon behaviours (rifles, pistols, shotguns, etc.) and granting players Conclave versions of those weapons off the bat, so players are able to hop in and go without PvE farming particular weapons. Curtail the scope, basically.

[Kontrollo]

42 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

There's ways to get around it, like borrowing the ability cards of old and allowing Warframes to - effectively - be skins for PvP players. Same with limiting weapons or weapon behaviours (rifles, pistols, shotguns, etc.) and granting players Conclave versions of those weapons off the bat, so players are able to hop in and go without PvE farming particular weapons. Curtail the scope, basically.

Ironically, they removed Opticor Variant which was basically that. And they never brought back the mini events, either. Which were basically that, too.