(Added Q&A) These Time Gates actually could have great potential

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

Making a Pile of Weekly Missions

As of right now, the time gates on archon hunts feel kind of bad to me because i only have 3 missions to do before i have nothing to do for the rest of the week (being a vet or long time player that i am), and i need so many archon shards that it feels like it will take forever before i can get them all, however; i just started thinking that this may be a good thing.

I dont know if this is DE's plan or not, but i just started to realize that if i still need these shards all the way to DE's next update, and in that update they release a new weekly mission with goodies that make you want to play for them like these archon shards do, then all of sudden we would have 2 weekly mission types that pull us back to the game each week. The Archon hunt (which is technically 3 missions) and this new weekly mission.

Imagine if those 2 missions last till the next next update, and then DE releases another. Now we have 3 weekly missions. See where im going with this? It slowly starts essentially creating veteran content that vet players will never be able to get enough of. Something that kind of always gets asked for, and DE is always trying to fulfil.

I think that could be really good for the game's health amongst vets, as we'll finally always have something to do instead having a small bit and then having to wait 3-6months for something else to do.

If this is what DE is doing, Right on! If not and time gates where only being used to stretch content instead of being made to pile up on top of each other, well heres the idea!

__________________

Q & A created off of feedback

 

Isn't it Better to just have a bunch of missions you can start whenever instead of time gates?

I think so but if you want a game that gives you something to do all the time (which is what warframe tries to be) then we cant have missions that we can just play to the end whenever. Its not currently possible to deliever 3 to 6months worth of consistent content like that without time gates or doing something extremely repetivie. Thus why grind based games exist.

Game devs trying to release story based game level content where missions dont feel repetitive take YEARS to create only maybe 24-48 hours worth content (lasting players maybe 2 weeks to a month denpending on how active they are)

Till the day its possible to create non reptitive content that can last for 6months for the next update, the best we have are time gates or insane amounts of repitition for games made to always have something to do like Warframe. 

What if I miss a week due to life events?

The worry here is that youll have to wait for those time gates to do missions, meaning you can go inactive long enough to where it is impossible to catch up to the players who kept playing every week. DE can do things like giving people a supply of keys that stack up to maybe 3, allowing players to catch up by 3 weeks, but still eventually after you miss so much you will still fall behind.

My only answer to this is that it is not a big problem if you look at it from a full perspective of the situation. All being behind truly means is that the player who is further ahead of you will run out of things to do, before you do. 

I hear time and time again of older players telling newer players who are behind to essentially "Slow down and smell the roses" (especially when a newer player is trying to use platinum to rush a warframe build) because once you catch up to the vets, youll have nothing to do for a long time. Vets forever suffer from a constant drought of content, making some vets have to leave in search of something new while they wait 6 months for only an hour's worth of content. It leads older players to sort of envy newer players

Which is why i dont think being behind is that much of a real issue. Smell those roses because it gets cold at the end. New players or players who are behind will run around having plenty to do while you start feeling that boredom of having done everything

[(PSN)IdoThea]

There's already Kahl weekly missions.

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Frost_Nephilim said:

I dont know if this is DE's plan or not, but i just started to realize that if i still need these shards all the way to DE's next update, and in that update they release a new weekly mission with goodies that make you want to play for them like these archon shards do, then all of sudden we would have 2 weekly mission types that pull us back to the game each week. The Archon hunt (which is technically 3 missions) and this new weekly mission.

Imagine if those 2 missions last till the next next update, and then DE releases another. Now we have 3 weekly missions. See where im going with this? It slowly starts essentially creating veteran content that vet players will never be able to get enough of. Something that kind of always gets asked for, and DE is always trying to fulfil.

the inverse of that is ending up with many of these and so a lot of Players simply not being able to complete them all within the time requirement which then forces them to be losing out due to it being restricted like that.

 

versus like the 'normal' Content where you just play it whenever you decide you want to and as much or as little as you want, and you're making progress no matter how consistent you are as a Player. and importantly, your progress is also based on yourself, which in my experience People tend to not have any complaints with. even Players that don't play that regularly don't have much to complain about there as the game will always be ready anytime they want to play, including if their Schedule shifts around and they play in bursts or just once in a while.
basically without any artificial restrictions, Content is pretty fair for everyone, nobody has to ever feel like they're being forced to miss something.

 

the biggest losers in some sort of restricted system, are Players who play in bursts. they may play for an entire Day or two, then not login for a couple Weeks, or something like that. People like that double lose out. they miss the Timers they weren't logged in for, plus the time they are logged in for, they cannot make use of that time due to the Timer restricting them from doing so.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

36 minutes ago, taiiat said:

the inverse of that is ending up with many of these and so a lot of Players simply not being able to complete them all within the time requirement which then forces them to be losing out due to it being restricted like that.

 

versus like the 'normal' Content where you just play it whenever you decide you want to and as much or as little as you want, and you're making progress no matter how consistent you are as a Player. and importantly, your progress is also based on yourself, which in my experience People tend to not have any complaints with. even Players that don't play that regularly don't have much to complain about there as the game will always be ready anytime they want to play, including if their Schedule shifts around and they play in bursts or just once in a while.
basically without any artificial restrictions, Content is pretty fair for everyone, nobody has to ever feel like they're being forced to miss something.

 

the biggest losers in some sort of restricted system, are Players who play in bursts. they may play for an entire Day or two, then not login for a couple Weeks, or something like that. People like that double lose out. they miss the Timers they weren't logged in for, plus the time they are logged in for, they cannot make use of that time due to the Timer restricting them from doing so.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I saw you saying that, i was going to suggest and afk farm where it acts as a way to help players keep up who either just dont feel like doing the missions or go offline for long periods. Like you can task your crew members, liches, and khal or whatever to go hunt shards for you and what not. Arm them, increase their chances of success or reduce the time it takes for them to find shards with resources. Little things like that. It would be slower but will keep you up for when you have time to play.

It would come with other limits though of course, its a grind based game after all so if youre inactive you should expect to be behind on things. Its not like a Resident evil game where the game isnt going anywhere. So like after a while that player will have to start putting in work again to keep up. 

(Or the missions can pile up like nightwave, and it gets reset after a while)

And plus being behind is not a big deal, goal is having things to do which someone who is behind will still have. Its like seeing every movie, verses having 30 movies to check out cause youre behind like, you have plenty of entertainment which is usually bliss. Much to do and explore

(And yes, i know you like just having everything completed, i still cant offer you anything. I just dont think warframe should be that type of game, neither does DE seem to want it. So idk how to help.)

Thats funny though, literally thought of you. Was going to post it later in another post

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

52 minutes ago, (PSN)IdoThea said:

There's already Kahl weekly missions.

Not sure if you understood whats being said here? Not looking for more ways to get archon shards?

[(PSN)Pablogamer585]

This could indeed be neat.
If things such as Khal's missions keep on going forever instead of being some sort of "event" that will last only as long as the Narmer Empire did in The New War*, that is.
^{*Kinda cringe to build such a "powerful" empire just to be defeated in under 3 hours.}

Getting an slowly-increasing amount of content for us veterans with nothing (new) to do is always welcome.
Now then, there shouldn't be too many of these, as taiiat mentions, for this could lead to players missing buncha' them, but, we already have two:

• Archon Hunts - Which imo need quite a lot of changes.
• Veilbreaker missions - Which I find super fun and entertained.

Maybe 2-3 more weekly special missions could be enough.
Just for sharing a random idea, these could be on each Open World, so there's something to do there, or in Railjack as well.
Or even on both, since I haven't forgotten about Railjack landing in Fortuna for its original showcase, though, we never got that. That Squad Link won't use itself either!

Spoiler

Every update, I go to Fortuna, and I sit by the pond near the Orokin Excavation site to talk to the Black Orb of Ponder about what Warframe has gotten with that update.
She was introduced 4 years ago, and yet has remained sunk for that time, so I keep her company to prevent her from getting sad.

hace 15 minutos, taiiat dijo:

The inverse of that is ending up with many of these and so a lot of Players simply not being able to complete them all within the time requirement which then forces them to be losing out due to it being restricted like that.

Counterpoint:
That is exactly old Events that many players did not get to play like the Tubemen of Regor. And they aren't coming back either.
But, some events are recurrent, so could be these missions, though for longer periods of time.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

8 minutes ago, (PSN)Pablogamer585 said:

This could indeed be neat.
If things such as Khal's missions keep on going forever instead of being some sort of "event" that will last only as long as the Narmer Empire did in The New War*, that is.
^{*Kinda cringe to build such a "powerful" empire just to be defeated in under 3 hours.}

Getting an slowly-increasing amount of content for us veterans with nothing (new) to do is always welcome.
Now then, there shouldn't be too many of these, as taiiat mentions, for this could lead to players missing buncha' them, but, we already have two:

• Archon Hunts - Which imo need quite a lot of changes.
• Veilbreaker missions - Which I find super fun and entertained.

Maybe 2-3 more weekly special missions could be enough.
Just for sharing a random idea, these could be on each Open World, so there's something to do there, or in Railjack as well.
Or even on both, since I haven't forgotten about Railjack landing in Fortuna for its original showcase, though, we never got that. That Squad Link won't use itself either!

I like that! I was also thinking they could reset on different days, so that way you wont feel as forced to get them all done the same day

Or maybe DE could give us weekly keys that week can stack up on for players who missed weeks, but eventually the keys decay or something

[Teoarrk]

Theres already Clem and Maroo every week. Those two could be pulled back into relevancy before you add anything else.

[taiiat]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Pablogamer585 said:

Counterpoint:
That is exactly old Events that many players did not get to play like the Tubemen of Regor. And they aren't coming back either.
But, some events are recurrent, so could be these missions, though for longer periods of time.

and i'm still unhappy about that. and i was even there for all of them!

it's 'criminal' that so many of those very significant to the Lore backstory Events, are just missing from the game and leaving anyone newer to just be confused. the Rewards from those Events could have been Exclusive (temporarily, as most of them were exactly that in the long term), but the Events themselves shouldn't have just disappeared. if they handled them like Quests that you replay rather than being global that would have been okay too. 

but they shouldn't have just vanished.

[Frendh]

Don't add more FOMO content.

[CrownOfShadows]

Yeah I agree there's some potential here, but I also agree with the detractors.

If you have too many weekly time-gates, people will get overwhelmed. Finding the right balance will be really hard/impossible because different people play different amounts. For example, I would want at least 14 weekly events, 2 for every day, before I felt a comfortable level of saturation, but most people aren't going to want that much, and would miss out on a lot. Others might want twice that, and I'd be overwhelmed.

I'd prefer self-starting stuff, like quests or missions, that way people could play on their own schedule, and still keep themselves busy.

I don't mind weekly things, and supercharging them would help the emptiness for sure, but I feel like they'd start to feel oppressive about the same time as they filled the void.

SO then the question becomes: what if you have so many weekly events that nobody can possibly keep up, and everyone just has to pick and choose? I think that's probably the best way of handling it - supersaturation. An endless fountain. FOMO would fade because you'd have endless opportunities. But wow you would need a LOT of weekly events, and they would all have to be 'evergreen' to some extent, and also unique enough from each other that it doesn't feel like running the same thing over and over. What would we need to keep busy, like 4 per day at the minimum? That's 28 a week. To really over-saturate them you'd probably want more, like 10 or even 15 a day? Hmm, idk. Some days I'd only play 1 or 2, others maybe 15. Yeah I think the main worry here would be that they'd stop feeling unique. How can we possibly create enough rewards - that's like 28 different shard systems or something, and they'd all have to last years. Or 14 or 7 shard systems if 2-3 of the missions yielded the same reward (like Archons/Kahl), or shared resources. BUT, we could bring in RJ and archwing and necramechs, and kavats and kubrows and sentinels and hounds and operators and k-drives, make expanded systems for those :)

It's an interesting take on end-game content. Weirdly, this actually seems like the sort of end-game DE would be most inclined to pursue, lol, they do love their time gates. Could build resonances between them though, and categories. And could also introduce unlockable events, like complete 2-3 of a certain type and a new one unlocks, or whole chains of unlocks.

[CrownOfShadows]

On 2022-09-22 at 9:03 AM, taiiat said:

the biggest losers in some sort of restricted system, are Players who play in bursts. they may play for an entire Day or two, then not login for a couple Weeks, or something like that. People like that double lose out. they miss the Timers they weren't logged in for, plus the time they are logged in for, they cannot make use of that time due to the Timer restricting them from doing so.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is a great point

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

7 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

If you have too many weekly time-gates, people will get overwhelmed

This is the idea and is good. I mean i dont see new players list having loads of things to do as a complaint, even if theyre massively behind everyone. If anything being overwhelmed i see gets listed as 1 of the many positives of warframe, theyre excited that theres so much to explore, to see, to do

Like if you asked me would i rather turn on a game i havent played in along time to just have a days worth of new content verses years? New abilities and warframes to unlock, builds to test, quest to experience?

Sign me up for the overwhelm of experiences

7 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I'd prefer self-starting stuff, like quests or missions, that way people could play on their own schedule, and still keep themselves busy

Id like this too but realistically DE cant make this stuff last longer than a day or 2 with only 3-6months to make it all. No game developer can do that, as quest that arent repetitive like story based games take YEARS to create, and even after those years its only a couple weeks worth of content. Much less if the player has a lot of free time on their hands.

DE wants their game to be something that players can always turn on and enjoy, so far i think time gates may just be the best option for that. They could use grind but being told you have to grind for those entire weeks verses just doing 1 to 3 missions a week i think might be more painful.

7 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

SO then the question becomes: what if you have so many weekly events that nobody can possibly keep up, and everyone just has to pick and choose?

Like i said before, its okay to be behind. Theres no need to rush just so you can have nothing to do again. Just enjoy your own progression just like new players do.

This isnt like nightwave where the rewards are leaving, youd need to catch up then. Here though, not so much, quest, cosmetics, missions, whatever it is you want will always be here

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

8 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

But wow you would need a LOT of weekly events, and they would all have to be 'evergreen' to some extent, and also unique enough from each other that it doesn't feel like running the same thing over and over. What would we need to keep busy, like 4 per day at the minimum? That's 28 a week.

Oh and this, DE might have to do what theyre already doing which is sort of make the mission in parts like sortie. 

 

As for rewards i can think of plenty. Theres so many cool combatitive moves and upgrades DE can add to this game. We are pretty godlike right now but theres quite a bit of room for more.

Rewards can be extra quest and special warframes too