Idea for a challenge mode - what do you think?

[Traumtulpe]

I have two issues that I believe could be alleviated with a new challenge mode (see below):

1. The game is too easy. Using good equippment, you can't tell the difference between lvl 5 missions, and the Steel Path. And I don't have the time (or patience) to wait until I get to level 9999 - and even if I did, I'd like them to scale higher than that.
2. DE's balancing is off. Way off. There is stuff that kills 9999's in one hit, and there's stuff that couldn't kill one in 30 minutes. I'm not sure what they balance around (level 60 Infested or something?), but it doesn't seem to have any relevance to how players play the game.

So how about a mission handpicked by DE, changing every week, where players can set the enemy level to whatever they like (far beyond 9999 even)? Then add a leaderboard for the top 10 highest levels cleared (only one entry per player). A sortie lenght survival without life support for example - there needs to be a requirement to kill enemies within a timelimit.

This could provide players a place to test out their equippment, which already far exceeds available enemy levels - while at the same time give DE some data on balance. No more of this "it's popular, nerf it by 50%" nonsense. They'll get to see what is OP and what isn't.

Thoughts? Better ideas are also welcome.

[Voltage]

This would be neat but the major issue is that in order for the mode to not end up like ESO, placement has to have some value behind it for encouragement and engagement. The problem is this playerbase can't handle when a minority are rewarded for being better at Warframe whether that's through knowledge, ability, or gear.

[Traumtulpe]

12 minutes ago, Voltage said:

The problem is this playerbase can't handle when a minority are rewarded for being better at Warframe whether that's through knowledge, ability, or gear.

No, I didn't mention any rewards. Sure, you could slap some Steel Essence on there so people aren't wasting their time, but I think it would be fine just as a challenge.

I mean, if you'd give me the option to set enemy level to 20000 and just play around with that, I'd do it right now.

[(PSN)Ex0gamer0203]

I love this idea mainly because of the competitive aspect. I know there are already things that have leaderboards like survival and K-Drive races, but I feel like people don't even look at those or care to be on them.

[(PSN)Lollybomb]

The people already dealing with level 9999 enemies won't notice a change if you make them 20,000, or even 2,000,000,000.  They're already sporting loadouts that scale perfectly with the enemies.  On top of that, the people doing things like this are the extreme minority of players.  It just doesn't seem like the kind of thing to dedicate development to.

[Merrcenary]

2 часа назад, Traumtulpe сказал:

So how about a mission handpicked by DE

KEKW  good luck. they can't even keep up with NW and you want them to handpick missions

[peterc3]

2 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

it doesn't seem to have any relevance to how players play the game.

This is a big assumption people make that should instead be a wake up call.

You're mistaking your own experience with the game is the default and the one that DE should cater to, multiplied by however many players there are.

DE has all the data. What if you just don't like the results?

[(NSW)Greybones]

Handpicked missions might be interesting, but it does seem some effort is required that personally i’d like to see spent in Nightwave. Honestly I’d rather just see a single mission that starts at 9999 and reduces the effectiveness of everything a player may use to turn off enemies and/or otherwise bypass the health and damage system. Really break a player, and maybe finally the players looking to take their most powerful stuff to a fight and lose will do just that, and they can start exploring other build options

[Traumtulpe]

4 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

DE has all the data. What if you just don't like the results?

If DE wants to balance around level 60 Infested with randomized loadouts, they are welcome to do so. I'll log in when the next 5 hour quest is ready, can't take much longer than 2 years.

Just now, (NSW)Greybones said:

I’d rather just see a single mission that starts at 9999 and reduces the effectiveness of everything a player may use to turn off enemies and/or otherwise bypass the health and damage system.

Sounds fun.

[(NSW)Greybones]

4 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

Sounds fun.

Doesn’t even need a reward because there’s no real expectation for a player to live in the build 24/7, and rewards would just make people complain. 🤔 The more I think about it the more I wouldn’t mind trying it myself out of curiosity

[Voltage]

13 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

This is a big assumption people make that should instead be a wake up call.

You're mistaking your own experience with the game is the default and the one that DE should cater to, multiplied by however many players there are.

DE has all the data. What if you just don't like the results?

Sure, players can really only assume things that requires internal data that we cannot see. However, there are countless responses and cases of players leaving or watching their friends leave because the game makes little effort to make your gear matter, and we see this especially with how isolated Necramechs are as well as the entire New War quest.

Warframe does not lack the tools to make perpetual gameplay or the capacity to house missions that make your arsenal matter, it lacks the development attention to make that so.

[(NSW)Greybones]

20 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Sure, players can really only assume things that requires internal data that we cannot see. However, there are countless responses and cases of players leaving or watching their friends leave because the game makes little effort to make your gear matter, and we see this especially with how isolated Necramechs are as well as the entire New War quest.

Warframe does not lack the tools to make perpetual gameplay or the capacity to house missions that make your arsenal matter, it lacks the development attention to make that so.

I sometimes find it odd that “Gear mattering” doesn’t mean “Makes the player super powerful”.

Like, in any game that I can think of that has levels and gear upgrades, the most powerful of gear makes the game easier. That was part of the incentive of playing towards it. Is there something else at play in Warframe?

[Traumtulpe]

29 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Like, in any game that I can think of that has levels and gear upgrades, the most powerful of gear makes the game easier. That was part of the incentive of playing towards it. Is there something else at play in Warframe?

Games usually give you an opportunity to use that gear you earned. Warframe just tells you "your new weapon does 50x the enemies health in damage instead of 20x".

[(NSW)Greybones]

6 minutes ago, Traumtulpe said:

Games usually give you an opportunity to use that gear you earned. Warframe just tells you "your new weapon does 50x the enemies health in damage instead of 20x".

It’s a perception thing? Easy is easy as far as I’m concerned (unless it’s like, Very Super Easy, which isn’t a difficulty level I often choose, personally, but no judgement), but it sounds like there’s some sort of gradient?

[quxier]

4 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

A sortie lenght survival without life support for example - there needs to be a requirement to kill enemies within a timelimit.

Some tilesets has horrible enemy spawn. I remember playing defense on new Corpus ship tileset and it took me, afair, 1/2 hour.... probably 5 waves.

I wouldn't go that route.

After life support there is steady health drain. Maybe this could be used?

 

4 hours ago, Traumtulpe said:

where players can set the enemy level to whatever they like (far beyond 9999 even)?

Just mission selection with something like:

- enemy level

- enemy additional armor/hp/shield/speed/damage

- player's health/shield/energy/damage

With some reward scaling would be better imho.

Recently I started playing ARbis' Survi but that's only 1 mission. If I could select more of such (like in above text) it would be good for me.

[XAN3MK]

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

Warframe does not lack the tools to make perpetual gameplay or the capacity to house missions that make your arsenal matter, it lacks the development attention to make that so.

This is why I'm baffled that after all this time, we don't have a mapping/map making system in Warframe akin to Path of Exile. Warframe has a lot of modifiers - Steel Path, Arbitrations, Sortie modifiers, Nightmare modifiers, different mission types etc. Just let the players combine different mission types, bonuses and maluses, with the idea being a balancing act between the latter two. You can have the bonuses and maluses be tiered, so more severe maluses would need to be picked up if too many benefits are stacked in the player's favor.

Ex: Steel Path Kuva Survival, with a void fissure going on, but because you've combined so many favorable mission types (that lead to simultaneous resource farming/relic cracking), you have to deal with  No Shields, Reduced Energy and Electromagnetic Anomalies. DE reserve the right to determine how many or to what degree can the bonuses and maluses be stacked (in case they lead to excessive simultaneous rewards).

Sure, this kind of system would likely be daunting undertaking, but it leads to a potentially very evergreen system that is both healthy for the game and allows for easy expansion. Due to the interactivity between all the different modifiers, DE adding a handful of new bonuses or maluses is all of a sudden a fairly big update and bump in potential content.

 

When all is said and done, DE will just have to curate and monitor the overall system, the players themselves will be creating their challenging/endgame content. 

[vanaukas]

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

Sure, players can really only assume things that requires internal data that we cannot see. However, there are countless responses and cases of players leaving or watching their friends leave because the game makes little effort to make your gear matter, and we see this especially with how isolated Necramechs are as well as the entire New War quest.

Warframe does not lack the tools to make perpetual gameplay or the capacity to house missions that make your arsenal matter, it lacks the development attention to make that so.

We also have countless responses and cases of players leaving or watching their freinds leave because the game is "too hard" sometimes, like in New War.

[(NSW)Greybones]

3 minutes ago, XAN3MK said:

When all is said and done, DE will just have to curate and monitor the overall system, the players themselves will be creating their challenging/endgame content. 

I don’t think this is a thing that players will want; if a player is looking for challenging content, they want the game to force them into it, because the option to not be challenged has a very strong pull

[XAN3MK]

4 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

I don’t think this is a thing that players will want; if a player is looking for challenging content, they want the game to force them into it, because the option to not be challenged has a very strong pull

While that is true and has always been true, the incentives outlined in the above example should lead to a substantial amount of players participating in the content. If you could run Steel Path Kuva Survival Void Fissure and simultaneously farm Steel Essences, Kuva and crack relics while having to deal with some severe maluses for the privilege, I imagine quite a few players will find that enticing, even if only for the novelty of it. Not to mention, due to the different permutations, it'd be a fairly robust system, leading to different squad compositions depending on the maluses.

Yes, such system does not force the challenge on the players, but if you dangle a juice enough carrot at the end of the stick, players will chase it. It's why this works in aRPGs like PoE - if you reward the players for stacking the odds against them, they'll tackle the content for that privilege. In Warframe's case, it doesn't even need exclusive rewards, just sufficient rewards to make it worthwhile to the players.

In my mind, a robust and customizable system like this makes for a great framework that can be easily (relatively speaking) maintained and expanded on. Every new modifier, enemy type or mission mode that will potentially be added to the game will just expand the amount of content a system like this provides. The only culprit is DE's spaghetti code and whether the engine can support having multiple different modifiers running in the same time. If the answer to that is yes, I don't see why a framework like this would not be worth the development resources - it is literally evergreen content that is always relevant, while providing a substantial amount of challenge and engagement for those who seek it.    

[(NSW)Greybones]

11 minutes ago, XAN3MK said:

While that is true and has always been true, the incentives outlined in the above example should lead to a substantial amount of players participating in the content. If you could run Steel Path Kuva Survival Void Fissure and simultaneously farm Steel Essences, Kuva and crack relics while having to deal with some severe maluses for the privilege, I imagine quite a few players will find that enticing, even if only for the novelty of it. Not to mention, due to the different permutations, it'd be a fairly robust system, leading to different squad compositions depending on the maluses.

Yes, such system does not force the challenge on the players, but if you dangle a juice enough carrot at the end of the stick, players will chase it. It's why this works in aRPGs like PoE - if you reward the players for stacking the odds against them, they'll tackle the content for that privilege. In Warframe's case, it doesn't even need exclusive rewards, just sufficient rewards to make it worthwhile to the players.

In my mind, a robust and customizable system like this makes for a great framework that can be easily (relatively speaking) maintained and expanded on. Every new modifier, enemy type or mission mode that will potentially be added to the game will just expand the amount of content a system like this provides. The only culprit is DE's spaghetti code and whether the engine can support having multiple different modifiers running in the same time. If the answer to that is yes, I don't see why a framework like this would not be worth the development resources - it is literally evergreen content that is always relevant, while providing a substantial amount of challenge and engagement for those who seek it.    

One of the weird parts about a suggestion like this is when players (example) equip something to increase their damage, and then increase the amount of health an enemy has.

Like, why not just not bother with the damage and health increase then? Is the expectation that players constantly limit their builds like this?

edit: Also, it’d have to be a pretty juicy carrot; being bored isn’t doing the job of incentivising any sort of change

[XAN3MK]

3 minutes ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

One of the weird parts about a suggestion like this is when players (example) equip something to increase their damage, and then increase the amount of health an enemy has.

Like, why not just not bother with the damage and health increase then? Is the expectation that players constantly limit their builds like this?

Yes, the former is the game presenting a challenge that scales to your capabilities/power or even demands that you bring power to tackle it at a reasonable level, while the latter requires that you gimp yourself for the content to present challenge, while it'd be trivial if tackled in optimal manner.

Warframe has the issue of the player's potential power being grossly blown out of proportion and far, FAR out scaling any content present in the game. Most games that attempt to challenge the player will give you just enough power to overcome the next tier of challenge, with only excessive degree of min-maxing having the potential to trivialize it or even have content that demands min-maxing for you to have reasonable chance to get through it.

An example that comes to mind is Alatreon from MHW: Iceborne. That fight came with multiple stipulations for success. You needed to deal 1) sufficient amount of 2) adequate elemental damage to their head or you'd not be able to survive the Escaton Judgement at the end of their transitional phase + you'd need to break a horn to prevent Alatreon from changing element (you'd start the fight with fire weapon vs his ice form or vice verse - no horn break => changing element AKA the elements are now the same and you can't reduce the potency of the next Escaton Judgement). Since Alatreon has two horns, you can only prevent an elemental transition twice, which means you have about 6 phases before an unavoidable death. All of this on a monster with very varied moveset, with a lot of moves that can easily one-two shot a player with an average gear. What this meant is that the game demanded that you kit yourself out in the best available gear to that point, have an optimized build that can reliable pass the DPS checks and posses mechanical knowledge and skill to pull of the required strategy to keep the fight manageable.

tl;dr Yes, the former approach feels holistic/intended, while the later feels artificial.

 

** The long example was not necessary, but I find it a good example for content that is tailored to provide a formidable challenge for the player while demanding of them to be adequately geared and have good mechanical understanding of the game to pull off the fight. In contrast, in Warframe, the player's power curve is so far above all and any available content in the game, that we could go through the proverbial Warframe 2, 3 and 4 without ever needing to upgrade our equipment, hence the demands for holistic approach to challenge - either DE provides it or DE provides a system/framework for the players to tailor the challenge.

Ofc, Warframe also suffers from a larger appeal, meaning it attracts a larger spectrum of players - from people who find the trivial fights in TNW challenging to those who sleepwalked through those fights. DE allowing the player power curve to go so far out of hand puts them in difficult position - how should they gauge the content and what should be considered a baseline for challenging content.

[(NSW)Greybones]

27 minutes ago, XAN3MK said:

Yes, the former is the game presenting a challenge that scales to your capabilities/power or even demands that you bring power to tackle it at a reasonable level, while the latter requires that you gimp yourself for the content to present challenge, while it'd be trivial if tackled in optimal manner.

Warframe has the issue of the player's potential power being grossly blown out of proportion and far, FAR out scaling any content present in the game. Most games that attempt to challenge the player will give you just enough power to overcome the next tier of challenge, with only excessive degree of min-maxing having the potential to trivialize it or even have content that demands min-maxing for you to have reasonable chance to get through it.

An example that comes to mind is Alatreon from MHW: Iceborne. That fight came with multiple stipulations for success. You needed to deal 1) sufficient amount of 2) adequate elemental damage to their head or you'd not be able to survive the Escaton Judgement at the end of their transitional phase + you'd need to break a horn to prevent Alatreon from changing element (you'd start the fight with fire weapon vs his ice form or vice verse - no horn break => changing element AKA the elements are now the same and you can't reduce the potency of the next Escaton Judgement). Since Alatreon has two horns, you can only prevent an elemental transition twice, which means you have about 6 phases before an unavoidable death. All of this on a monster with very varied moveset, with a lot of moves that can easily one-two shot a player with an average gear. What this meant is that the game demanded that you kit yourself out in the best available gear to that point, have an optimized build that can reliable pass the DPS checks and posses mechanical knowledge and skill to pull of the required strategy to keep the fight manageable.

tl;dr Yes, the former approach feels holistic/intended, while the later feels artificial.

 

** The long example was not necessary, but I find it a good example for content that is tailored to provide a formidable challenge for the player while demanding of them to be adequately geared and have good mechanical understanding of the game to pull off the fight. In contrast, in Warframe, the player's power curve is so far above all and any available content in the game, that we could go through the proverbial Warframe 2, 3 and 4 without ever needing to upgrade our equipment, hence the demands for holistic approach to challenge - either DE provides it or DE provides a system/framework for the players to tailor the challenge.

Ofc, Warframe also suffers from a larger appeal, meaning it attracts a larger spectrum of players - from people who find the trivial fights in TNW challenging to those who sleepwalked through those fights. DE allowing the player power curve to go so far out of hand puts them in difficult position - how should they gauge the content and what should be considered a baseline for challenging content.

In Warframe’s case, I think you mean the first has the build carry the player, and the second has the player carry the build. This isn’t even an unknown concept; the oh-so-scary Darksouls is played with the loadout carrying the player for a huge amount. [usually] The point of progressing in any game with a progression system based around levels or gear is to rely on our bigger numbers and gear more and more

People spent hundreds if not thousands of hours in builds that carried them through fights with very little requirement of the player to carry the build. I would suspect even those who want a challenge now often did the same, wanting to rely on their gear more and more; and then at some point in time they got bored of relying on their gear. As long as gear is important, even those players will just go through the same motions to reach the end goal of relying on what they equip, and as long as what they equip makes the fight easier, they’ll be happy until the boredom sets in and the cycle of wanting the game to change for them begins anew yet again

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, vanaukas said:

We also have countless responses and cases of players leaving or watching their freinds leave because the game is "too hard" sometimes, like in New War.

It's almost like the game's balance is #*!%ed on both ends lol.

[vanaukas]

7 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

It's almost like the game's balance is #*!%ed on both ends lol.

Nah, it's because the game has been so dumbed down that those players got used to it. There wasn't any difficulty on New War unless you had some kind of disability or physical impairment to do it.

[(PSN)Richtel79]

This would be another game mode that is rarely played! If you look at how little steelpath is played by people