On Prebuilt Squadplay

[CrownOfShadows]

In this latest devstream they mentioned that they reintroduced the key system for the Abyss of Dagath as a way to test whether players would organize groups.

Two things: first, that is a poor way to test that because it was not communicated at all, secondly if you want prebuilt squads (for things like raids) you need to have content that requires specific warframes, not content that requires keys or items.

There's a world of difference between saying you must have X, Y & Z gear wheel items in your squad and saying you must have a healer, dps, tank in your squad (or when it comes to WF other things). Gear items are just a checkbox to fill out, and people would generally rather solo that if possible than deal with the hassle of organizing a group. One is about complicating the entry to the mission, the other is about complicating the actual gameplay. One of those things is a genuine difficulty lever, the other is only frustrating.

I'm not against prebuilt squadplay, although it does tend to create elitism and thus toxicity, but on the other hand can introduce some really meaningful gameplay if done well. I think that some things that should seriously be considered for any content that requires specific squad setups are...

1. A squad finder or lobby system. Trying to organize squads via recruit chat is hard enough even when everyone is trying to bring the same thing (relics). There needs to be an automated system to help players form squads, and the more complicated the mission and/or the mission requirements the more this is true.
2. Clarity about what is needed. You need to tell players what they need (and why) before they try to find a group. Sooner or later it comes down to experience vs newcomer, but you still need to be clear about what is expected. This is still a problem for tridolons. Players doing them for the first few times have no clue wtf is going on because it's never explained to them anywhere. I'm not saying provide a tutorial for complicated content - and there is some real magic to letting players figure out how to solve things on their own, but you need to prep newcomers to some degree when it comes to complicated missions otherwise it just creates frustration. With the tridolon example, communicating to players that they need madurai, healing, how to use lures and how many are needed for each, how to take the shards to spawn the next one and where.... are all things that should be in the game as advance knowledge. IMO the best way to do this is to introduce each needed element to the player and show how it is used before demanding they use it. That way, when a player queues up for a mission that requires specific things, they have already been trained on how to operate and what is needed. They might not have the experience to do it efficiently, but at least they have some idea what to do.

Lastly, let me talk about design space for squadplay.

Warframe is not designed for it. Every frame is designed to be self-sufficient (especially in modern WF) and any warframe can solo any content. HOWEVER, I think there is still a great space for squad interaction, and instead of fixing frames to be squad dependent you can fix enemies and/or environments to demand it. As I see it, this takes 6 possible forms in WF:

1. Juicers (Wisp, Citrine, Harrow)
2. DPS (Mesa, Saryn, etc etc)
3. DR (Citrine, Baruuk, Styanax, Rhino, etc)
4. CC (Khora, Hydroid, etc)
5. Invisibility (Ivara, Loki, Octavia, etc)
6. Safe Space (Limbo, Frost)

Content can be designed to cater to all of these categories, and then compounded so that specific squad setups are needed, with each frame contributing it's specialty. There might be raid sections that require invisibility, for example, or that require great DR, or great DPS, or their might be environmental cataclysms that require safe spaces, etc. I would note that it's important no single squad member failing at their job bring the mission to it's end as well - rather that there be other but more difficult ways of dealing with any challenge. For example, if you need to get through the invisibility section but your Loki is out of energy - perhaps there's a long way around. Stuff like that.

[Pakaku]

Sounds more like making excuses to me... a basic extermination mission is hardly squad-worthy. All this experiment accomplished is convincing me to just solo it, and I don't feel very motivated to even do that.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Pakaku