Nora Nightwave + conclave

[ArturiGames]

Hello developers! I`m Artur, and i play in your game Warframe. I want say you idea about Nightwaves and conclave. I think, if you add in nighwave a quests with conclave, conclave can get more online and popularity. For example "kill 5/10 players in conclave" "Play 3 games in conclave" and more.

[(XBOX)GameGhost123]

1 hour ago, ArturiGames said:

Hello developers! I`m Artur, and i play in your game Warframe. I want say you idea about Nightwaves and conclave. I think, if you add in nighwave a quests with conclave, conclave can get more online and popularity. For example "kill 5/10 players in conclave" "Play 3 games in conclave" and more.

I agree. Its a great idea.  

[Jorak_Falconstar]

1 hour ago, ArturiGames said:

Hello developers! I`m Artur, and i play in your game Warframe. I want say you idea about Nightwaves and conclave. I think, if you add in nighwave a quests with conclave, conclave can get more online and popularity. For example "kill 5/10 players in conclave" "Play 3 games in conclave" and more.

Conclave is dead.  

Your beating a dead horse.

 

[Pakaku]

So... what happens if nobody plays Conclave, how do you pass your nightwave challenge? The playerbase isn't big enough to be reliable.

[drnlmza]

There are already frequent complaints about the existing Nightwave acts. Adding "Forced to play PvP" to the list will likely lead to epic levels of whining and gnashing of teeth. And while that may well be amusing to watch, I doubt it will be helpful to players' views on Conclave.

[thetdw2000]

I just don't see what's so objectionable about people having to play one 10 minute round where they might not win. Is it really that damaging to your ego that you're not good the second you start playing PvP? Especially since if there were some kind of nightwave challenge associated with it you'd see a lot of players of lower skill levels all together which would make newer players have an easier time getting used to conclave.

[Tyreaus]

The people who want to play PvP are, likely, already playing PvP. Or trying to. This is primarily looping in the people who don't want to play PvP. So there's two ways I see this going, assuming they don't skip it.

One, you have missions to play games. Players hop into the mode, run around in a circle through their missions, and quit as soon as they're done. You've populated the mode, technically, but you may as well have populated it with bots for what you get. At least bots would fight back.

Two, you have missions to get kills. Players not wanting to play the mode get frustrated at their inability to get the mission done (in a timely manner or otherwise) and ramp up toxicity via cheap setups or bad language. They're not having fun and they're likely ruining the fun for everyone else but the sadists. That pretty much nullifies any popularity benefit it might otherwise gain.

(Small asides: the first can be people just farming in some deserted server, which practically nullifies their contribution; this second already happens to a lesser degree with how standing gain is handed out. Some food for thought.)

Neither are great. You get a boost on-paper metrics that say how many Conclave players there are per day. But in reality, either the new people there are idling, or they're making the entire experience as miserable as they are.

If you want to boost actual player metrics, you'd be better looking at things like putting a Conclave tab on the Nav screen, re-adding variant modes so players can more readily hop in, and fixing things like players being stuck with only a melee if they don't set up their loadout first (because not everyone has someone to tell them to do that). Advertise and make the experience smooth.

[thetdw2000]

34 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

The people who want to play PvP are, likely, already playing PvP. Or trying to. This is primarily looping in the people who don't want to play PvP. So there's two ways I see this going, assuming they don't skip it.

One, you have missions to play games. Players hop into the mode, run around in a circle through their missions, and quit as soon as they're done. You've populated the mode, technically, but you may as well have populated it with bots for what you get. At least bots would fight back.

Two, you have missions to get kills. Players not wanting to play the mode get frustrated at their inability to get the mission done (in a timely manner or otherwise) and ramp up toxicity via cheap setups or bad language. They're not having fun and they're likely ruining the fun for everyone else but the sadists. That pretty much nullifies any popularity benefit it might otherwise gain.

(Small asides: the first can be people just farming in some deserted server, which practically nullifies their contribution; this second already happens to a lesser degree with how standing gain is handed out. Some food for thought.)

Neither are great. You get a boost on-paper metrics that say how many Conclave players there are per day. But in reality, either the new people there are idling, or they're making the entire experience as miserable as they are.

If you want to boost actual player metrics, you'd be better looking at things like putting a Conclave tab on the Nav screen, re-adding variant modes so players can more readily hop in, and fixing things like players being stuck with only a melee if they don't set up their loadout first (because not everyone has someone to tell them to do that). Advertise and make the experience smooth.

I think the main reasons players don't want to play conclave are

• lack of awareness of the gamemode
• low player numbers and limited playerbase

The purpose of such a challenge is mostly to get that foot in the door, to make people play a round and think "huh, this actually isn't so bad." And if they hate it, so be it, but at least they tried it. Right now the experience most players have now with conclave is a loading screen, or a server with a single other player with 400 ping. A sudden influx of players who are incentivized to stick around till the end of the round will at least give you someone to play against.

And if they don't like it they can skip it, just like I skip all the nightwave challenges I despise like bounty hunting or medallion hunting. It's just one challenge.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, thetdw2000 said:

I think the main reasons players don't want to play conclave are

• lack of awareness of the gamemode
• low player numbers and limited playerbase

The main reason players don't want to play Conclave is that Conclave isn't Warframe. Warframe is a horde shooter game focused on grinding. Conclave is, in the majority of respects, the antithesis of that description. If someone wants to read a sci-fi novel, you're not likely to catch their interest by offering a true crime romance. Compared to that, everything else—from playerbase size to awareness to the many, many issues in the mode itself—is secondary.

There's not much one can do about that. But let's also not kid ourselves into thinking the main issue is something else.

55 minutes ago, thetdw2000 said:

The purpose of such a challenge is mostly to get that foot in the door, to make people play a round and think "huh, this actually isn't so bad."

The bold is the catch-22 of this idea. It works if that's the impression players get. If they get the opposite impression, or find it's even worse than their expectations—especially if caused by the outcomes I outlined—the whole thing backfires. Doubly so if some extant players leave because of those aforementioned outcomes: that can cancel out any benefit, if not do damage.

1 hour ago, thetdw2000 said:

And if they don't like it they can skip it, just like I skip all the nightwave challenges I despise like bounty hunting or medallion hunting. It's just one challenge.

Up until someone needs to catch up and faces 3 Conclave Nightwave challenges. OP already lists two, and there are four modes.

[thetdw2000]

18 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

The main reason players don't want to play Conclave is that Conclave isn't Warframe. Warframe is a horde shooter game focused on grinding. Conclave is, in the majority of respects, the antithesis of that description.

No, Warframe is a third person shooter action platformer with high mobility. The fact that you're shooting hordes of enemies is irrelevant to the core gameplay systems. The only area where that's relevant is in balancing abilities since obviously the pvp nature of conclave means you can't just have AOE cc every 5 seconds.

But by your logic Half Life Deathmatch, Halo's multiplayer, Quake's, any multiplayer version of a pve game shouldn't exist. Hell you might as well say TF2's Mann vs Machine mode shouldn't exist because TF2 is a team based pvp game and a horde shooter is the antithesis of that. Conclave is just taking the mechanics of Warframe and making them into a pvp gamemode. Yes, there will be people who resist and don't want to play pvp no matter what, but I imagine there's a sizable minority of the playerbase who would play pvp if the barrier for entry were lowered.

24 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

The bold is the catch-22 of this idea. It works if that's the impression players get. If they get the opposite impression, or find it's even worse than their expectations—especially if caused by the outcomes I outlined—the whole thing backfires.

How? If it "backfires" the outcome is the same as if they never played conclave at all: they will continue to not play conclave. However, there is a small chance that someone would go from not playing conclave to playing conclave.

25 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Doubly so if some extant players leave because of those aforementioned outcomes: that can cancel out any benefit, if not do damage.

Don't see this happening, if anything it would make extant players stay because it'd be easier to find a match, and there'd be plenty of fresh meat to change things up. Worst case scenario they go back to whatever they were already doing.

 

26 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Up until someone needs to catch up and faces 3 Conclave Nightwave challenges. OP already lists two, and there are four modes.

That's why the DE should only implement one conclave related challenge, like how there is only one profit taker or one eidolon hydrolyst challenge, and it shouldn't be based on performance (this doubles as protection against cheating and/or cheesing the challenge since there's no reason to do so if you get it merely for completing the round). I don't agree with OP's other proposal of a "get 5/10 kills" challenge.

[Tyreaus]

30 minutes ago, thetdw2000 said:

No, Warframe is a third person shooter action platformer with high mobility.

It's that as well, but Conclave is nevertheless majority opposite to PvE Warframe, especially in terms of audience draw. That is, the people into PvE Warframe are the sorts who like blowing up hordes of enemies, grinding, upgrading, a power fantasy. Conclave lacks those things. They might share some elements, and therefore, have some cross-over. But there's a lot that draws people into Warframe that Conclave doesn't have.

33 minutes ago, thetdw2000 said:

But by your logic Half Life Deathmatch, Halo's multiplayer, Quake's, any multiplayer version of a pve game shouldn't exist.

I ask you not put words in my mouth. I never said Conclave shouldn't exist. To the best of my recollection, I've never advocated for such. And the logic doesn't entail that, either. What I'm saying is that your audience for Conclave and your audience for Warframe don't overlap well, due to the volume and substance of differences between them, and that's the main reason people by-and-large don't play Conclave. That's it. No judgement or call to action.

35 minutes ago, thetdw2000 said:

How? If it "backfires" the outcome is the same as if they never played conclave at all: they will continue to not play conclave. However, there is a small chance that someone would go from not playing conclave to playing conclave.

I outlined how in my initial post. To summarize: people idling in matches and people increasing toxicity. As stated, that can lead to people leaving, and Conclave's reputation worsening, so that people who might otherwise try it are dissuaded because of its problematic state.

38 minutes ago, thetdw2000 said:

Don't see this happening, if anything it would make extant players stay because it'd be easier to find a match, and there'd be plenty of fresh meat to change things up. Worst case scenario they go back to whatever they were already doing.

If I'm playing matches full of people autohotkeying circle-strafe scripts and abusing whatever broken weapon of the decade is, I'd be out. The recent "stare into the sun" ephemera helped push me out of my most recent foray. Conversely, during that foray, I actually had few issues finding matches via cross play. I think I was in an empty lobby maybe twice over a week or two, and that was due to the other lobby I'd come from being full. So mileage may vary.

Regardless, we should give an honest look at this proposal compared to its alternatives and ask if the potential downsides, however plausible, are even necessary. For example, let's agree lack of awareness is an issue—I think that's uncontroversial. Sure, we could stuff this into a Nightwave task to raise awareness. _{At least when RNG is in our favour and the task comes up in the first place.} Or we can slap Conclave into its own tab on the nav screen, and / or paste it on the top of the Steel Path tab like ESO in the syndicates tab. You know, along the lines of what the end of my initial post suggested instead. Even if the odds of risk are small, the latter path avoids that risk entirely, and dodges 97-99% of any blowback this might cause.

In a similar vein, when this has been brought up before, a common addendum has been to make Conclave tasks alternative to PvE tasks. So if you don't like a Conclave / PvE Nightwave task, you flip to the other one to do that instead. That might not be as sure-fire as not putting it in Nightwave altogether, because someone will miss the "switch" button, but you can't foolproof everything and it still skirts around most of the concerns. Indeed, depending on how the tasks are laid out, it might be better, since you're not beholden to RNG to pull up that one Conclave task, so you can always have Conclave advertised there.

Of course, as the meme goes: "Both? Both. Both is good." Those aren't exclusive avenues. They mix pretty well, in fact.

So we have to ask: what benefits are we getting by putting it in Nightwave with no alternative? It seems, compared to the above, all it does is loop in the set of people who don't want to play but feel obligated to 100% Nightwave. The others would either skip regardless because "ew PvP" or play from the enhanced exposure, i.e. sans a feeling of necessity. Neither would be swayed by needing to do it. And those aforementioned "people who don't want to play but feel obligated to" are the ones my initial post talks about. They're the ones likely to be toxic or do AFK strats. That's not a statement of a problem, but a statement of the result. And that's a result carrying a good amount of negative feedback in its wake—storms, sociological or meteorological, don't care a lot about sensibility or logic. So, in all, it seems you get to suffer with a fair bit of backlash and complaining and groaning and the like, and for that, you get players who, best case, would be better replaced with bots. Worst case, they up the toxicity by a good bit. When alternatives seem pretty equitable and avoid the fuss, that doesn't seem worth it.

43 minutes ago, thetdw2000 said:

That's why the DE should only implement one conclave related challenge, like how there is only one profit taker or one eidolon hydrolyst challenge, and it shouldn't be based on performance (this doubles as protection against cheating and/or cheesing the challenge since there's no reason to do so if you get it merely for completing the round). I don't agree with OP's other proposal of a "get 5/10 kills" challenge.

Agreed. And when I wrote my initial post, I was going to note that the first "AFK" situation is the better outcome of this. I don't think either outcome is great, but at least the one person going AFK doesn't wreck the entire lobby.

[(XBOX)GameGhost123]

23 hours ago, ArturiGames said:

Hello developers! I`m Artur, and i play in your game Warframe. I want say you idea about Nightwaves and conclave. I think, if you add in nighwave a quests with conclave, conclave can get more online and popularity. For example "kill 5/10 players in conclave" "Play 3 games in conclave" and more.

So put simply its a great idea.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise 👍

[SpicyDinosaur]

On 2023-01-30 at 4:24 AM, Jorak_Falconstar said:

Conclave is dead.  

Your beating a dead horse.

 

Crossplay actually solved this to some degree. So you are beating a dead meme.

 

As for the suggestion, I don't really want people in Conclave that don't want to be there. They sometimes become toxic in the process and decide to use tactics that make everyone else playing miserable. Most of the conclave community is friendly and doesn't exploit things that have an overwhelming advantage, so having toxic people funneled into the game mode just because they absolutely must finish the weekly NW (even though you don't have to at all to complete the first 30 ranks) sounds like a bad idea.

 

People generally don't like Conclave if they are particularly bothered by losing. There's a lot of those people in this game because of how easy it is to win at PvE.

 

Basically, as much as I would personally like this, I think it is a bad idea.

[at35z]

People who avoid the conclave do so because they hate PvP Warframe. The core game design is fine for PvE but I really hate PvP games that function like Warframe does — As in, not everyone starts from equal grounds at the beginning of matches. People have a different selection of equipment, different mods that you have to farm separately and because the playerbase is so low you inevitably are going to get matched against people with better gear than yours. Now, of course, if you're "gud" then ofc you can win anyway but unless they truly balance it to be fair, remove Conclave mods and give everyone the same equipment at the beginning of matches, I don't really see myself enjoying it all that much.

If they used a CS:GO like system, as in everyone has like a store in-match to get things for a set amount of points, or weapons could be found on the map or something, it would be a lot more fair imo. But then it would be even further from the core game, so I'm not sure there's a good solution.

However, when there was the snowball fight event, a lot of people enjoyed that and I think it mostly has to do with it being fair (as in everyone just had snowballs).

[thetdw2000]

27 minutes ago, at35z said:

People who avoid the conclave do so because they hate PvP Warframe. The core game design is fine for PvE but I really hate PvP games that function like Warframe does — As in, not everyone starts from equal grounds at the beginning of matches. People have a different selection of equipment, different mods that you have to farm separately and because the playerbase is so low you inevitably are going to get matched against people with better gear than yours. Now, of course, if you're "gud" then ofc you can win anyway but unless they truly balance it to be fair, remove Conclave mods and give everyone the same equipment at the beginning of matches, I don't really see myself enjoying it all that much.

If they used a CS:GO like system, as in everyone has like a store in-match to get things for a set amount of points, or weapons could be found on the map or something, it would be a lot more fair imo. But then it would be even further from the core game, so I'm not sure there's a good solution.

However, when there was the snowball fight event, a lot of people enjoyed that and I think it mostly has to do with it being fair (as in everyone just had snowballs).

Conclave mods aren't overpowered like PvE mods, they're tradeoffs that sacrifice one stat for another. The only direct upgrade mods don't actually work until you disable Recruit Conditioning, and even then aren't necessarily that much of a game changer. Plus a lot of conclave mods are actually available through Sentient drops and Nightwave.

Sure you start off with different gear, but a braton is a braton and the weapons have been balanced in conclave so they aren't just direct upgrades - most "meta" gear in PvE (zaws, kitguns, kuva/tenet weapons) is banned and what's left is (mostly) easily attainable and doesn't give you any advantage over starting equipment. Consider the braton family: the mk-1 is the most accurate and has the highest damage, with the others merely differing in fire rate, damage distribution, total damage, reload speed, recoil, magazine size, and accuracy. Are there imbalances? Sure, but that's the case with all PvP games. More experienced players don't get better gear, they get different gear.

I'd actually argue the reverse is true: people don't want to play PvP because they can't just gearcheck their way through everything - they have to have skill to succeed at conclave and there's a good chance of losing, compared to the 99% mission completion rate they're used to.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, thetdw2000 said:

Conclave mods [are] ... tradeoffs that sacrifice one stat for another. The only direct upgrade mods don't actually work until you disable Recruit Conditioning, and even then aren't necessarily that much of a game changer.

Stance mods. Minimap-highlight-on-hit mods (e.g. Night Stalker). Holster buff mods. Follow Through.

1 hour ago, thetdw2000 said:

the weapons have been balanced in conclave so they aren't just direct upgrades

Paris family (Mk1 is 127, regular is 156, primed is 168), off the top of my head.

It's also simply perception. It doesn't matter how much you espouse that it's fair and balanced if it doesn't feel like it is. Snipers like the Snipetron or Vectis are prime examples: you don't see the reload disadvantage of the former, or the recoil of the latter. There's no damage recaps to showcase all those on-paper numbers. And copying the equipment is a 12-24+ hour ordeal (assuming the other didn't skin and rename the weapon to make identification, esp. for new players, that much harder). The player only perceives getting one-tapped. Similar goes throughout the Conclave weapons list: many weapons have much higher DPS values, carrying drawbacks elsewhere _{often with recoil - assuming you don't just neg recoil with holster buff mods} that is invisible to other players.

1 hour ago, thetdw2000 said:

I'd actually argue the reverse is true: people don't want to play PvP because they can't just gearcheck their way through everything - they have to have skill to succeed at conclave and there's a good chance of losing, compared to the 99% mission completion rate they're used to.

I'd argue it's closer to a function of both. People will undertake unfair, difficult, or atypical things if they're at least perceived as worthwhile. Exercise is a prime example. Thing is, it's 200 standing at the bottom, maybe 1,000-2,000 for an average match (incl. challenges), and then 50,000 (once a week) for winning matches. If you're at the bottom, it's well over 14,000 10-minute matches—97 days of playtime. (That's how many games I'd have to play at that rate, and I'm at the final Conclave rank with everything below bought and paid for.) That amount of time is then coupled with the imbalance perception, the increased difficulty and intensity, the differences from PvE, and—not yet mentioned—the time not spent on PvE endeavors and items. Independent of gameplay styles, you can't farm Void Traces or Prime Warframes by playing Conclave. For a lot of people, those costs for that timespan is not worth the reward gained. _{An even larger amount likely don't find it worthwhile without an affinity booster, severely curtailing their playtime.} Ergo, we see many threads trying to adjust the formula: this tries to make it more worthwhile by tying in Nightwave, other threads try to increase base standing gain, others still seek to lower the difficulty, intensity, and unfamiliarity through PvEvP, Battle Royale, or variant modes.

2 hours ago, at35z said:

If they used a CS:GO like system, as in everyone has like a store in-match to get things for a set amount of points, or weapons could be found on the map or something, it would be a lot more fair imo. But then it would be even further from the core game, so I'm not sure there's a good solution.

However, when there was the snowball fight event, a lot of people enjoyed that and I think it mostly has to do with it being fair (as in everyone just had snowballs).

I wager a big part is also accessibility plus simplicity. You click a button and go, no loadouts to sort or mods to equip. That might deviate from the core game, but does so in a way that is a breath of fresh air: we have to worry about loadouts and modding in PvE all the time, so not having to worry about that becomes a blessing. Not all changes are bad.

Personally, I'd be a fan of more arena-style gameplay with weapon drops in lieu of ammo. Nevermind fairness, it enables showcasing even higher skill: a capability to diversify, on the fly at that. Being great at just sniping may not cut it if you're stuck with a shotgun.

[gioMisterio]

This is a great idea to bring more traffic and interest to the Conclave, even if some people won't like it, well losing some Nightwave standing due to dislike toward challenge itself isn't a big deal, I don't do Profit-Taker and Sorties for example and don't feel slighted in any way reward-wise

[SpicyDinosaur]

On 2023-02-04 at 11:36 AM, at35z said:

ople have a different selection of equipment, different mods that you have to farm separately and because the playerbase is so low you inevitably are going to get matched against people with better gear than yours.

People often use mk-1 weapons in conclave because the stat distribution is better for the game mode. Define "better."

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2023-01-30 at 7:28 AM, ArturiGames said:

I think, if you add in nighwave a quests with conclave, conclave can get more online and popularity. For example "kill 5/10 players in conclave" "Play 3 games in conclave" and more.

That seems too much. Conclave sucks and most regions have nobody playing it.

One game typically needs a 15-30 minute wait in matchmaking. Once you start most opponents quit before the end of the match, so it can't be complete a game.

I'd just have "start a conclave match: 7000 creds". It would still be a poor challenge though, and often slower even than the "get all caches in 3 sabotage missions" ones.

[----Legacy----]

9 minutes ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

I'd just have "start a conclave match: 7000 creds". It would still be a poor challenge though, and often slower even than the "get all caches in 3 sabotage missions" ones.

Not if they make it work like all conclave challenges where progress is only rewarded after the match ends and quitting mid match means you have to start over.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2023-02-08 at 11:18 PM, ----Legacy---- said:

On 2023-02-08 at 11:07 PM, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

I'd just have "start a conclave match: 7000 creds". It would still be a poor challenge though, and often slower even than the "get all caches in 3 sabotage missions" ones.

Not if they make it work like all conclave challenges where progress is only rewarded after the match ends and quitting mid match means you have to start over

That's why I said "start" you should get 7000 creds just for waiting in the lobby long enough to get a match, and it should pop the second the match starts.

[----Legacy----]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

That's why I said "start" you should get 7000 creds just for waiting in the lobby long enough to get a match, and it should pop the second the match starts.

At that point might as well make an "interact with the conclave console" challenge instead. 

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

52 minutes ago, ----Legacy---- said:

2 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

That's why I said "start" you should get 7000 creds just for waiting in the lobby long enough to get a match, and it should pop the second the match starts.

At that point might as well make an "interact with the conclave console" challenge instead

All the challenges should take the same time. Getting one conclave match takes about the same amount of time as opening 4 vaults or 10 nightmare mission, but you should have to wait long enough to get a match started.

Then it might even get enough people matchmaking for the wait times to come down.

[----Legacy----]

18 minutes ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

All the challenges should take the same time.

This is just a player made rule, not sure where else could this idea have come from when that's already not the case across tasks of the same type.

18 minutes ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

Getting one conclave match takes about the same amount of time as opening 4 vaults or 10 nightmare mission, but you should have to wait long enough to get a match started.

Then it might even get enough people matchmaking for the wait times to come down.

Since the idea is to get people playing, giving the challenge just for loading in a lobby even if they leave 1 frame later without partaking in the match just defeats said purpose

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

20 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

21 hours ago, (XBOX)KayAitch said:

All the challenges should take the same time.

This is just a player made rule, not sure where else could this idea have come from when that's already not the case across tasks of the same type

Yes. Challenges being reasonably similar amounts of time is something players want, it clearly isn't a design rule. I can do 3 capture missions in about 8 mins, and most of that is loading screens, I really can't do 6 perfect animal captures as quick.

But NW always overturns and has poor rewards post rank 30, so most players skip the slow challenges.

If the conclave challenge takes ages relative to PvE challenges players just won't bother.

20 hours ago, ----Legacy---- said:

Since the idea is to get people playing, giving the challenge just for loading in a lobby even if they leave 1 frame later without partaking in the match just defeats said purpose

Honestly, yes. The challenge would just be to get players in the matchmaking. Once in conclave it would be up to the game mode to keep them engaged.

If conclave can't keep them engaged after they've queued for a mission? That would be conclave's problem.