Fissure missions bring together players with different capabilities but their gameplay doesn't really support it.

[schilds]

Fissures are probably one of the most popular game modes that bring together players with vastly different capabilities, and they need to be designed to support as fun gameplay as possible for everyone in the mission. People play them because the rewards (prime parts) factor heavily into a player's calculus when choosing something to play, not necessarily because they're the most fun.

Even though they are not strictly a cross-game/mission system, they heavily influence the gameplay experience of all players, just as systems such as melee, guns, frames, railjack, status, focus, eximus, etc. do. All of those have been reworked for the long term health of the game. Fissures also need a redesign.

There need to be ways to level the playing field, or at least guarantee sufficient activity for every player in a squad. Just off the top of my head:

• I have another thread where I suggest that players can bring in loadouts and adopt another loadout.
  • Maybe a gear item that lets players drop in an arsenal with a pre-configured set of equipment that other players can use (if they want).
• Player specific nemeses who are at the player's level and only target that player.
• Player specific objectives (that other players can't interfere with) so everyone has something to do.
• Tiers of optional sub-objectives of increasing difficulty that players only interact with if they want to (maybe for a chance at more traces or maybe higher tier rewards corresponding to difficulty, e.g. kuva or whatever) - failing them does not fail the whole mission.
• Encourage players to take in level-appropriate loadouts (assuming its even possble to assess that ...) for additional rewards.
• Objectives (or sub-objectives) that are less oriented to kill rate.
• The fissure's energy debuffs players (to a flat level corresponding to the mission level), to get rid of the debuff they need to do something.

I'm sure other people can come up with better ideas, but the main point is the fissure structure and reward system puts all players into the same pool (which is something that I think should be kept) and so their in-mission design needs (more than other game modes) to carefully consider how to support fun gameplay for four players with potentially vastly different capabilities.

[fo3nixz]

raid fissure?

[schilds]

34 minutes ago, fo3nixz said:

raid fissure?

I think the issue is that DE has deliberately set up fissures so they don't split the playerbase. If you create a separate tier of fissures for higher level players (e.g. even just Steel Path fissures), then a lot of us will move to those and never look back. Before doing that, it would be nice to find solutions that keep players together.

[schilds]

It probably wouldn't hurt DE to read some text books or other literature on education, and how teachers design group activities and lessons for a diverse set of students of differing capabilities :-P.

[Leqesai]

Why do you think fissures need this wacky overhaul instead of other mission types?

Fissures are not expected to have complexity. They are a type of mission that requires loads upon loads of repetition. Layers of complexity like you're describing would go over very poorly with the community. Fissures are easy, they're mostly fast, and they have a cost of entry.

We don't need arbitrary sub missions, penalties, and other distractions making the missions take longer to complete.

[schilds]

1 hour ago, Leqesai said:

Why do you think fissures need this wacky overhaul instead of other mission types?

As explained (e.g. in the title) they are a mission type designed to push players of different capabilities together. Hence their gameplay should also be designed to be fun¹ for the types of squads that will form.

What other mission types do that? The occasional alert or invasion, maybe. Operations, maybe. Most other methods of matching players to appropriate content separate out players (Steel Path, Arbis, Boss fights, etc).

All the rest of your concerns are just a matter of balancing and tweaking timings, drop rates, etc.

Quote

We don't need

Who is "we"? Most players? Some players? New players? Old players? Traders? Casuals? Hardcore? Maybe just you?

 

1. Fun is a foreign concept to many people, I know.

[Grommile]

7 minutes ago, schilds said:

What other mission types do that?

Anything with Lith or Meso relics in the drop table?

 

[schilds]

2 minutes ago, Grommile said:

Anything with Lith or Meso relics in the drop table?

I think that's a valid point. Bounties too.

That said, Steel Path mission rewards are the same as the regular starchart. So even with those (except bounties) there is a mechanism to split players up.

[Leqesai]

16 minutes ago, schilds said:

As explained (e.g. in the title) they are a mission type designed to push players of different capabilities together. Hence their gameplay should also be designed to be fun¹ for the types of squads that will form.

What other mission types do that? The occasional alert or invasion, maybe. Operations, maybe. Most other methods of matching players to appropriate content separate out players (Steel Path, Arbis, Boss fights, etc).

All the rest of your concerns are just a matter of balancing and tweaking timings, drop rates, etc.

Who is "we"? Most players? Some players? New players? Old players? Traders? Casuals? Hardcore? Maybe just you?

 

1. Fun is a foreign concept to many people, I know.

My point is, the suggestions you've got here being isolated to fissures makes no sense. Fissures are early game content. They should not be more time consuming. If you want to make fissures more complex then higher tiers with different rules would be the obvious solution (like the raid fissures already suggested).

Also, I don't think it is really a fair argument to bring up "fun" because it is wildly subjective. Just because you, or I, don't find something fun doesn't mean the thing isn't fun for a majority of players. Until you are able to poll the entire pool of players to determine efficacy of "fun" with regard to specific mission types it is a fragile argument.

[schilds]

30 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

My point is, the suggestions you've got here being isolated to fissures makes no sense.

They don't have to be isolated to fissures. Fissure missions are just an obvious place for *some* mechanism (doesn't have to be my suggestions) that reduce the types of frictions that arise due to differing capabilities within a team.

30 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Fissures are early game content

No they're not? The *missions* they modify might be early game (many of them are low level and can only be found on the regular starchart  - though I just recalled that there are railjack fissures :-P) but prime crafting/farming (i.e. the point of fissures) is not specifically an early game activity. New primes that come out are designed to attract *all* players.

The prime system is designed to attract all players, and fissures are designed to put them in the same missions.

30 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Also, I don't think it is really a fair argument to bring up "fun" because it is wildly subjective.

Oh dear, I'm talking about *fun* in a game. How unfair of me. That said, your point that DE needs to consider the whole pool of players is valid. I agree I don't have the data. I merely have anecdotes. Maybe DE do have the data and it tells them there isn't a problem. Fair enough. However, it is incorrect to assume that there are *no* principles (or at least, rules of thumb) that apply, such as:

• too easy and it is boring
• too hard and it is frustrating
• cooperation is a learned behaviour and often requires explicit mechanisms (and training of participants :P) to be effective (decrease the risk of failure)

Sure, "easy" and "hard" are relative to each player, but there is a whole field of literature and research (mostly related to Education/Teaching, but I don't see why it wouldn't apply here) that shows that matching the difficulty of an activity to the capabilities of each person has a real and significant effect on engagement.

 

Also, not everything in my list of suggestions makes missions more complicated (for the player, not the dev who has to implement it :-P). A drop in portable arsenal gear item that allows players to try out someone else's pre-configured loadout/equipment wouldn't make missions any more complicated.

[Leqesai]

6 minutes ago, schilds said:

No they're not? The *missions* they modify might be early game (many of them are low level and can only be found on the regular starchart  - though I just recalled that there are railjack fissures :-P) but prime crafting/farming (i.e. the point of fissures) is not specifically an early game activity. New primes that come out are designed to attract *all* players.

Fissures are early game though. Yes they modify missions and make them more difficult but fissures are something accessible very early on and cap out at enemy levels lower than sortie. Sortie, at this stage of the game's development, is mid-game. So by my thinking if fissures are less difficult than sorties, and sorties are representative of mid-game, then they are pre-midgame content. 

Personally I find fissures pretty enjoyable, as a MR32 player. They're super easy and I think that's exactly how they should be given how much farming for ducats and whatnot players are expected to do. If fissure missions were on par with, say, void storm veil proxima missions I would never bother with them. I only ever do veil proxima void storms when I am corrupted key farming because they are so slow and difficult compared to the regular fissure missions (not saying they're hard, I'm saying they're hard relative to the piss-easy regular fissure missions). 

Way I figure it we already have complex fissures in void storms.

[schilds]

29 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Fissures are early game though. Yes they modify missions and make them more difficult but fissures are something accessible very early on and cap out at enemy levels lower than sortie

I think you're missing the point. They are currently implemented in early game content, but prime farming is not (strictly) an early game activity. Prime farming is an ongoing activity for players of all levels.

[Leqesai]

25 minutes ago, schilds said:

I think you're missing the point. They are currently implemented in early game content, but prime farming is not (strictly) an early game activity. Prime farming is an ongoing activity for players of all levels.

No I got that for sure. And as a MR32 player who regularly does the fissures I'm just throwing my two cents in. They're easy and I like them easy because farming ducats and whatnot is monotonous. I don't want to have to engage in fissures if I don't have to. That doesn't change the fact that relic fissures are early game. Requiem fissures are mid game and void fissures scale into the late game. There is "difficulty" already present if people want it and there is also complexity if people want it. 

Now, whether or not your suggestions would be viable across the general scope of the game may be a more worthwhile discussion. But specifically related to fissures doesn't really make much sense to me. 

[schilds]

7 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

here is "difficulty" already present if people want it

This mostly isn't true unless you don't care what parts you get (e.g ducats). The tier is related to the level of relic and the parts you're farming for, not something players select for ease or challenge. Requiem fissures are not even for prime parts.

Besides, this is not just about late game players. Early game players have no choice but regular starchart fissures. They are stuck with late game players pubbing what you call "early game" missions.

Just in case: of course they can pre-make groups or go solo, but so can late game players, and in any case this is a design discussion, not a "what can a player do in-game if they don't like the current meta" discussion :-P.

[Leqesai]

2 minutes ago, schilds said:

This isn't true unless you don't care what parts you get (e.g ducats). The tier is related to the level of relic and the parts you're farming for, not something players select for ease or challenge.

Which is why I return to relic farming is an early game activity. I get what you're saying about it forcing late game players into early game content but making the relic missions harder so the late game players have more fun with dificult missions is not really something I find compelling.

I don't want to spend time running hard missions if I'm trying to unlock new prime stuff. I want to run fast missions. Maybe since I've played loads and loads of missions but I don't really find arbitrary bumps in the road engaging or fun. Faming is a chore and at this point in the game I'd rather just farm as quick/efficiently as possible so I can return to fashion frame.

[schilds]

15 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

but making the relic missions harder so the late game players have more fun with dificult missions

Maybe we've been speaking past each other. This is less about making missions harder or slower¹ (though it's true some suggested mechanisms may do so) than about addressing issues arising from having players with different capabilities in the same mission. If there is a mechanism that addresses those frictions without changing mission pacing, I would have no problem with that (probably :-P).

 

1. I actually do go play railjack fissures sometimes! ;-)

[edit] I just realised (because I'm doing the NW challenge) that Dragon Keys are already one such mechanism. I can go pub orokin vaults on the regular starchart with 4 dragon keys on (though maybe I should try it on SP).

[Leqesai]

4 hours ago, schilds said:

Maybe we've been speaking past each other. This is less about making missions harder or slower¹ (though it's true some suggested mechanisms may do so) than about addressing issues arising from having players with different capabilities in the same mission. If there is a mechanism that addresses those frictions without changing mission pacing, I would have no problem with that (probably :-P).

 

1. I actually do go play railjack fissures sometimes! ;-)

[edit] I just realised (because I'm doing the NW challenge) that Dragon Keys are already one such mechanism. I can go pub orokin vaults on the regular starchart with 4 dragon keys on (though maybe I should try it on SP).

I guess I just don't see the issue of random pairing in fissure missions. Are you saying that the late game players feel disinclined to play these missions because they don't like being paired with less prepared players?

Or are you saying lower rank players don't like playing with higher rank players? I guess I'm just confused as to what issue exists in fissure missions where random pairing occurs separate from any other mission type.

[schilds]

3 hours ago, Leqesai said:

I guess I just don't see the issue of random pairing in fissure missions. Are you saying that the late game players feel disinclined to play these missions because they don't like being paired with less prepared players?

Or are you saying lower rank players don't like playing with higher rank players? I guess I'm just confused as to what issue exists in fissure missions where random pairing occurs separate from any other mission type.

There are lots of players who want to interact with stuff in the game.  When another player comes in and does everything, they have nothing to interact with. They do not find walking through an empty map to be an engaging gameplay experience. That doesn't necessarily mean pairings between lower and higher level players, though obviously that's a pairing that is more likely to produce such a result. While mission difficulty is not the main point, it's also not unrelated.

The main point is that everyone should have something to do. Especially in a game mode designed to funnel players together. That's what prime farming and fissures are designed to do, which is why I've brought them up specifically. This is not an issue "separate from other mission types". Of course it's not limited to fissures, but fissures are a (if not the) main point of contact between players of different capabilities in Warframe¹. Hence there should be greater consideration for issues arising from co-op play in the design of fissure missions, than in a random starchart mission.

 

1. In fact, a common complaint from newer players about regular missions on the starchart is that they can't find other players doing them. The design of Warframe (and its starchart) results in splitting the playerbase, even within groups of players of around the same level. Other games have only a few entry points into matchmaking. That said, this is a whole other issue and not the topic of this discussion, which is that in one of the main "funnels" that Warframe *does* have, there is insufficient consideration given to the co-op experience.

[Lutesque]

11 hours ago, schilds said:

Fissures also need a redesign.

Nope.... Fissures either need to drop more Reactant or to remove Reactant Entirely...

11 hours ago, schilds said:

Tiers of optional sub-objectives of increasing difficulty that players only interact with if they want to (maybe for a chance at more traces or maybe higher tier rewards corresponding to difficulty, e.g. kuva or whatever) - failing them does not fail the whole mission.

Here we go again....

11 hours ago, schilds said:

Objectives (or sub-objectives) that are less oriented to kill rate.

Or Killing at All....

11 hours ago, schilds said:

The fissure's energy debuffs players (to a flat level corresponding to the mission level), to get rid of the debuff they need to do something.

Why ? 🧐

Haven't we suffered enough already ?

11 hours ago, schilds said:

I'm sure other people can come up with better ideas,

Unfortunately that's the problem with this Whole Topic.... There's more Ideas than there is Feedback.... 👀

 

[--END--Rikutatis]

I agree with the OP's sentiment that relic fissures bringing players from wildly different progression stages all together into low level missions is HIGHLY problematic. Honestly, this has always been one of the things that irked me the most about this game, ever since I first started playing. For high level players it's boring af to spam lvl 10 missions, quite frankly I'd say that's very insulting as a game design. A looter/progression game that forces you to fight entry level enemies no matter how far you are is just beyond stupid. Then for beginner players who are at a more appropriate level in those missions, more often than not they end up matched with fully decked veterans and just struggle to keep up and unable to do anything in the mission with zero kills as they limp along to the exit. It's just a horrible situation all around.

I personally do Voidstorms whenever I can (like this week's Nightwave to crack 10 relics for example, I did voidstorms). But most of the time you don't find lobbies in Voidstorms as easily (and thus gets screwed in less reward choices), plus when new primes come out, in order to do rad shares (which is pretty much mandatory if you want to keep your mental sanity in the grind), you're forced into recruit chat and regular fissures. 

Honestly, I just think DE should scrap the whole relic fissure thing and do something else that accounts for progression stages. Or at least make Voidstorm as fast as regular fissures, so that vets start using them more and players naturally split between both modes. 

[Leqesai]

6 hours ago, schilds said:

There are lots of players who want to interact with stuff in the game.  When another player comes in and does everything, they have nothing to interact with. They do not find walking through an empty map to be an engaging gameplay experience. That doesn't necessarily mean pairings between lower and higher level players, though obviously that's a pairing that is more likely to produce such a result. While mission difficulty is not the main point, it's also not unrelated.

The main point is that everyone should have something to do. Especially in a game mode designed to funnel players together. That's what prime farming and fissures are designed to do, which is why I've brought them up specifically. This is not an issue "separate from other mission types". Of course it's not limited to fissures, but fissures are a (if not the) main point of contact between players of different capabilities in Warframe¹. Hence there should be greater consideration for issues arising from co-op play in the design of fissure missions, than in a random starchart mission.

 

1. In fact, a common complaint from newer players about regular missions on the starchart is that they can't find other players doing them. The design of Warframe (and its starchart) results in splitting the playerbase, even within groups of players of around the same level. Other games have only a few entry points into matchmaking. That said, this is a whole other issue and not the topic of this discussion, which is that in one of the main "funnels" that Warframe *does* have, there is insufficient consideration given to the co-op experience.

Ahh this cleared things up nicely. I see what you are getting at now. 

[NezuHimeSama]

I think this is all missing the point of fissures entirely. It's something for early players to participate in to get access to the same content that will still be relevant late-game, with marketable rewards, so that everyone has some way of interacting with the larger metagame, not a way to bring players of every gear level into one mission, and give them all an equal challenge. DE has played around a lot with "bringing high level and low level players together", and it always works about the same as every other time, which is why it's not a mainstay.

Warframe is too diverse of a game to nerf everyone into the ground for the sake of "having fun". If you don't like getting carried in pubs, play solo, or play with friends. If you like getting carried, get carried. Let the player set the game. Warframe is a casual experience top to bottom, easy to get into, but with a lot of legroom to "get good", with no major pressure to do so.

 

Of course, with the recent focus on gating content behind escalating linear codex missions, I guess "everyone deserves to have fun" is increasingly off the table. Maybe DE will burn Warframe to the ground just like SEGA did with Phantasy Star. It's certainly been trending that way lately.

[schilds]

On 2022-06-02 at 11:36 AM, NezuHimeSama said:

If you don't like getting carried in pubs, play solo, or play with friends. If you like getting carried, get carried.

There is a "players helping players" sub forum for player advice, thanks.

 

On 2022-06-02 at 11:36 AM, NezuHimeSama said:

I think this is all missing the point of fissures entirely. It's something for early players to participate in to get access to the same content that will still be relevant late-game, with marketable rewards, so that everyone has some way of interacting with the larger metagame, not a way to bring players of every gear level into one mission, and give them all an equal challenge. DE has played around a lot with "bringing high level and low level players together", and it always works about the same as every other time, which is why it's not a mainstay.

There is *what they are designed for* and then there is *what they do*. I am talking about *what they do*. What they do is funnel the entire playerbase into a small set of missions (in contrast to the rest of the starchart which splits the playerbase). That means squads will end up composed of players with vastly differing capabilities, whether or not the game mode is designed for it, and it appears to me that you agree that they are *not* designed for it.

[NezuHimeSama]

They aren't designed to provide "unique challenges for every level of player", because they're mindless farm missions and that would be annoying AF, and not engaging when you do it for the 3188219th time

[schilds]

1 minute ago, NezuHimeSama said:

unique challenges for every level of player

Ok ... and what has this to do with my thread?

Perhaps you should read the title and other posts in the thread?