Conclave review

[Frilne]

I'll start by saying that Warframe is a wonderful game, I've been playing it for a while and I've never had any problems, the more I play it the more I like it, but I'm also a pvp lover and I think I'm not the only one. In my opinion the conclave needs to be revisited.

[Circle_of_Psi]

If you want to play PvP, go play CoD

[Genitive]

DE don't revisit pvp because it's just not popular enough to do so.

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

If you want to play PvP, go play CoD

If you don't want to talk about PvP, get out of the Conclave subforum.

[Circle_of_Psi]

15 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

If you don't want to talk about PvP, get out of the Conclave subforum.

[SneakyErvin]

30 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

If you don't want to talk about PvP, get out of the Conclave subforum.

I think it is important for everyone to voice their opinion regarding things that will impact everyone in the end. Since a rework of conclave would impact those that do not want it, because dev resources and time are in the end shared. So an rework to conclave would result in something on the PvE side being held back.

Just wanting to see PvP fans... or well conclave fans to be more specific, voice their opinion gives a scewed view, since likely the conclave fans wont say not to an idea to improve what they love. Meaning it will look like people only agree to change in that case, since those not fans of conclave wont have their voice heard.

edit: And the next step after keeping those people quiet is everyone forced out to do organized performance marching to the drumbeat of some glorious leader. No not really, but trying to keep a certain part of people quiet leads to thoughts going there. Kim-Jong Frame.

Edited May 9 by SneakyErvin

[PublikDomain]

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

I think it is important for everyone to voice their opinion regarding things that will impact everyone in the end. Since a rework of conclave would impact those that do not want it, because dev resources and time are in the end shared. So an rework to conclave would result in something on the PvE side being held back.

The same can be said about literally anything. Reworks to Liches would impact those that do not want it. Should DE shelve their work on new Liches and Sisters just because there are some who don't care about them? No. DE's resources are theirs, not ours. It's not on us to claim "those are my development hours you can't have any!"

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Just wanting to see PvP fans... or well conclave fans to be more specific, voice their opinion gives a scewed view, since likely the conclave fans wont say not to an idea to improve what they love. Meaning it will look like people only agree to change in that case, since those not fans of conclave wont have their voice heard.

Sure, people who don't like Conclave can give their feedback. What do they not like? How could something they like be created? but baby boo "gO pLAy cOd" retorts in the Conclave feedback subforum aren't feedback and aren't constructive. If "just go away" is your advice, lead by example and follow it yourself.

Edit: Bianca's comment below is a good example. Even though I disagree, there's at least something constructive that could come from that. Conclave does involve some minimal upkeep, yes. Is that upkeep enough to actually take away from other content? Would it be a bigger waste of time to completely remove it rather than to continue to leave it where it is? Are there things fixed in Conclave that could be worked on that are valuable to other parts of the game, like community-hosted dedicated servers? Could balance issues be resolved in a less costly and more stable way? Are there simple things that could be done to make Conclave valuable enough to justify its existing upkeep? There are plenty of constructive things that can come out of that. "Just go away"? Nothing.

Edited May 9 by PublikDomain

[BiancaRoughfin]

6 hours ago, Frilne said:

In my opinion the conclave needs to be revisited.

I agree, it should completely be revisited.

DE should completely remove Conclave or any form of PVP from the game, its a waste of time and resources to balance or fix Conclave related bugs when they could be working on something more important.

[Tachmag]

4 hours ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

If you want to play PvP, go play CoD

If you want to play PvE, go play Destiny. See how retarded that argument sounds?

[BansheeAndZephyrMarried]

17 hours ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

If you want to play PvP, go play CoD

That this is your response says so much about why some PVE players play Warframe.

Conclave players play Conclave because it's Warframe PVP- mechanics and speed that are not found anywhere but Warframe. But none of that matters to so many of PVE players like you, who seem to play Warframe because it's the only game that coddles you with braindead easy power fantasy.

Like I've said before though, I appreciate the tardbucks. It's easy catering to and making money off of idiots who actually want a casino rather than a videogame.

Nobody's taking away your jingling keys, babybrains. Just don't come puking into grownups' table in the corner when they're not bothering you.

[SneakyErvin]

22 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

The same can be said about literally anything. Reworks to Liches would impact those that do not want it. Should DE shelve their work on new Liches and Sisters just because there are some who don't care about them? No. DE's resources are theirs, not ours. It's not on us to claim "those are my development hours you can't have any!"

Nope, that isnt what I'm saying. They should base it on what the majority wants, hence why everyone should voice their opinion no matter the content discussed.

23 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Sure, people who don't like Conclave can give their feedback. What do they not like? How could something they like be created? but baby boo "gO pLAy cOd" retorts in the Conclave feedback subforum aren't feedback and aren't constructive. If "just go away" is your advice, lead by example and follow it yourself.

Edit: Bianca's comment below is a good example. Even though I disagree, there's at least something constructive that could come from that. Conclave does involve some minimal upkeep, yes. Is that upkeep enough to actually take away from other content? Would it be a bigger waste of time to completely remove it rather than to continue to leave it where it is? Are there things fixed in Conclave that could be worked on that are valuable to other parts of the game, like community-hosted dedicated servers? Could balance issues be resolved in a less costly and more stable way? Are there simple things that could be done to make Conclave valuable enough to justify its existing upkeep? There are plenty of constructive things that can come out of that. "Just go away"? Nothing.

I think "go play CoD" is a valid point to someone that wants PvP in WF, since PvP in WF will never be at an acceptable level for someone actually interested in PvP. DE will never implement what is needed. So telling someone to seek it elsewhere is telling them to not beat the dead horse.

I agree with you on questioning which is the best approach. And since it doesnt cost anything to leave it there as is without expectations is more beneficial than removing it, since removing it would require work being done to it, even if it is to just remove it from the game. While community-hosted servers might look like a solution, it really isnt. In order for there to be value in expanding conclave or any PvP idea in the game, it would have to be able to stand on its own legs and provide the community with what is needed i.e dedicated servers. Relying on players to do it just isnt viable, since there wont be a guarantee of enough, resulting in massively fluctuating PvP experience across the community across the world. 

Which really leaves PvP in a catch-22 situation, since in order to justify it being worked on it needs servers to support it for a good player experience, but since the reception and interest in it is so minimal it is hard to justify adding servers in order to justify reworking it. I mean, DE have been through several different itterations and modes for PvP activities and none have hit home really. At some point cutting losses and saying "well it clearly isnt for our community" is OK.

Also, if you are hellbent on constructiveness in feedback, the OP isnt exactly a shining example either, since zero ideas are brought up, just that PvP needs a revisit.

[PublikDomain]

27 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

Nope, that isnt what I'm saying. They should base it on what the majority wants, hence why everyone should voice their opinion no matter the content discussed.

Only the majority should get what they want - but everyone should voice their opinion? Why, so they can be ignored and dismissed by the "majority" that demands everything in the game be made solely for their enjoyment? If everyone should voice their opinion, which they should, it's because everyone is valuable and decisions can be made that benefit everyone - including those that hold minority opinions. The game isn't made just for you. It's not even made for just the majority. It never has been. It's made for all of us. Including the people that like Railjack, including the people that like Kahl, including the people that like Conclave.

32 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

Which really leaves PvP in a catch-22 situation, since in order to justify it being worked on it needs servers to support it for a good player experience, but since the reception and interest in it is so minimal it is hard to justify adding servers in order to justify reworking it. I mean, DE have been through several different itterations and modes for PvP activities and none have hit home really.

And there's an easy out to that catch-22: it doesn't cost much to make tweaks. If Conclave sucked and would also cost millions of dollars to make it work, then I'd agree with you! But the majority of the work has already been done. It was done before your Forum account even existed. Conclave sucks, but all the big work like dedicated servers and game logic and separate loadouts and mods has been done for at least eight years. With how much is already done it doesn't cost much in comparison to implement a better auto-balance or copy-paste Recruit Conditioning for some extra tiers or tweak damage numbers to make the mode feel better. Or, for example, if official dedicated were really that critically super-duper important (which they're not) then there is nothing stopping DE from dusting off an old server rack to put next to the existing Hub servers and hosting some of their own using the dedicated server software that they already wrote in 2016.

"It would take more time" - yes, so little you'd never even notice. Instead DE spends that time building rideable motorcycles to be used in one cinematic quest and then abandoned just like K-Drives and Kaithes and yet you don't hear a peep from the "muh development time" crowd. 🙄

[SneakyErvin]

1 minute ago, PublikDomain said:

Only the majority should get what they want - but everyone should voice their opinion? Why, so they can be ignored and dismissed by the "majority" that demands everything in the game be made solely for their enjoyment? If everyone should voice their opinion, which they should, it's because everyone is valuable and decisions can be made that benefit everyone - including those that hold minority opinions. The game isn't made just for you. It's not even made for just the majority. It never has been. It's made for all of us. Including the people that like Railjack, including the people that like Kahl, including the people that like Conclave.

No. I only said they should base it on the majority. That means there is still room to implement something a smaller part of the community wants. It depends on how small and the spread of opinions in general regarding the subject. If you have 0.5% interested in PvP and 15% against it and the rest indifferent, well then clearly there is no justification to rework it, because you only have an assured use of 0.5% of the playerbase in a reworked PvP setting. 15% would avoid it and the rest are either indifferent to the need for a rework or regarding if they'd consider playing it or not etc. Not everything is black or white.

14 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

And there's an easy out to that catch-22: it doesn't cost much to make tweaks. If Conclave sucked and would also cost millions of dollars to make it work, then I'd agree with you! But the majority of the work has already been done. It was done before your Forum account even existed. Conclave sucks, but all the big work like dedicated servers and game logic and separate loadouts and mods has been done for at least eight years. With how much is already done it doesn't cost much in comparison to implement a better auto-balance or copy-paste Recruit Conditioning for some extra tiers or tweak damage numbers to make the mode feel better. Or, for example, if official dedicated were really that critically super-duper important (which they're not) then there is nothing stopping DE from dusting off an old server rack to put next to the existing Hub servers and hosting some of their own using the dedicated server software that they already wrote in 2016.

"It would take more time" - yes, so little you'd never even notice. Instead DE spends that time building rideable motorcycles to be used in one cinematic quest and then abandoned just like K-Drives and Kaithes and yet you don't hear a peep from the "muh development time" crowd.

The catch-22 would still be there, since you would make tweaks for a very small portion of the playerbase after several tweaks and implementations that have already failed over the years. So it would still cost since they still havent added and tried the thing most needed, the servers. Those would be the foundation for a working mode, where people can quickly access stable game. 

And that you live under this imagination that "dusting off an old server rack" would be enough is hilarious. Are you oblivious to the international playerbase that is WF? Do you have no sense of quality or standard? Yes, lets have everyone outside of (and some within) the north americas play with horrible ping in PvP! Because that is always such a welcome and popular thing to do. The mode needs localized support to gain any traction across the community since the game is global.

So there are two options. DE investing in regional hosting options, DE setting up the possibility for clans/players to rent regional servers through those hosting options. But then also comes the question, why does PvP get this luxory when PvE still suffers host migrations and other connectivity based bullS#&$?

[PublikDomain]

5 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

That means there is still room to implement something a smaller part of the community wants.

  Great! Then wee-woo "muh majority" arguments can be dropped. Your majority doesn't matter, smaller parts of the community can still get the things they want. And even if you believe there's a die-hard 15% who'll break out in hives at the mere mention of Conclave and only 0.5% of players will surely play, that still leaves by your own made-up numbers 84.5% of the playerbase that might give it a try! Which actually makes sense when you look at how frequently a Corpus vs Grineer PvP mode is suggested. Plenty of people are open to it if it's good.

5 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

The catch-22 would still be there, since you would make tweaks for a very small portion of the playerbase after several tweaks and implementations that have already failed over the years.

The catch-22 is "Conclave is bad, so no one plays Conclave, so Conclave doesn't get updates, so Conclave is bad, so no one plays Conclave..."

The way out is to just update Conclave so it isn't as bad. The less bad it gets, the more people can play it, the more people will play it, the sooner the cycle can be broken. The cycle can be broken, and all that requires is development effort - effort which has largely already been completed. You're also making the assumption that any work done to Conclave will immediately fail no matter what, which is just silly. Why would it? There are many reasons people don't play Conclave. The matchmaking, the inability to get into a game, the clumsy interface, the balance, and so on. None of those things are unfixable. And if you fix something that is causing a problem, obviously it will be fixed and stop causing problems. Duh. If they get it right, they get it right, problem solved, and trying costs acorns.

And even if additional improvements still result in an unpopular mode, so what? The worst that happens is someone who isn't you might have some more fun in a mode you don't care about. Unacceptable!

5 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

So it would still cost since they still havent added and tried the thing most needed, the servers. Those would be the foundation for a working mode, where people can quickly access stable game. 

And we already have community-hosted dedicated servers that are just as good as the ones DE might rent. A server in rack A is no different from another server in rack B. It's just a server. Not only that, it's not even necessary. Conclave's been doing just fine on community servers for eight years! Why would they suddenly need official servers now? And if - godforbid - Conclave ever became large enough for official servers to actually be necessary, then the above catch-22 would have long since been broken and the justification for having official dedicated servers would be obvious.

5 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

And that you live under this imagination that "dusting off an old server rack" would be enough is hilarious. Are you oblivious to the international playerbase that is WF? Do you have no sense of quality or standard? Yes, lets have everyone outside of (and some within) the north americas play with horrible ping in PvP! Because that is always such a welcome and popular thing to do. The mode needs localized support to gain any traction across the community since the game is global.

You click a button on the launcher. That's it. That's all you need to do. Look, I'm now hosting a dedicated Conclave server on my PC:

Sadly, it's rather typical to see this idea that hosting a server is some massive undertaking. It's not. Hosting a dedicated Conclave server is quite literally just clicking a button. And DE already hosts servers all over the place for many different things, like the dedicated hub servers. They even do this in other regions, woooo spooky 👻👻👻. Or do you think that Relay instances just magically appear out of the ether? So if they wanted to host dedicated servers for Conclave - which again isn't even necessary - then there's nothing stopping them from doing so. It's the same whether that's in a closet in DE's offices in London, Ontario, or a PC in a dev's house, or in the same datacenters they already rent. It's nothing.

Edited May 10 by PublikDomain

[SneakyErvin]

19 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

  Great! Then wee-woo "muh majority" arguments can be dropped. Your majority doesn't matter, smaller parts of the community can still get the things they want. And even if you believe there's a die-hard 15% who'll break out in hives at the mere mention of Conclave and only 0.5% of players will surely play, that still leaves by your own made-up numbers 84.5% of the playerbase that might give it a try! Which actually makes sense when you look at how frequently a Corpus vs Grineer PvP mode is suggested. Plenty of people are open to it if it's good.

You really need to stop taking things literal. Those were examples, whatever could be applied to those percentages. However we know how few are active when it comes to conclave, out of the millions that go through the game each day it is barely a drop in the ocean. And that is after several itterations of PvP tried within the game.

19 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

The catch-22 is "Conclave is bad, so no one plays Conclave, so Conclave doesn't get updates, so Conclave is bad, so no one plays Conclave..."

The way out is to just update Conclave so it isn't as bad. The less bad it gets, the more people can play it, the more people will play it, the sooner the cycle can be broken. The cycle can be broken, and all that requires is development effort - effort which has largely already been completed. You're also making the assumption that any work done to Conclave will immediately fail no matter what, which is just silly. Why would it? There are many reasons people don't play Conclave. The matchmaking, the inability to get into a game, the clumsy interface, the balance, and so on. None of those things are unfixable. And if you fix something that is causing a problem, obviously it will be fixed and stop causing problems. Duh. If they get it right, they get it right, problem solved, and trying costs acorns.

And even if additional improvements still result in an unpopular mode, so what? The worst that happens is someone who isn't you might have some more fun in a mode you don't care about. Unacceptable!

No that is clearly not the catch-22 I mentioned. The catch-22 is that the mode needs servers, but the mode is not popular to justify servers. Because this is not some new thing that would be added (PvP I mean) to the game, it has been tried several times over already. If this was a brand new thing and DE had plans for it, adding servers to allow for them to really test it would be justified, but they have data of how little use PvP sees and have seen in the past throughout all the different approaches to it.

And what if? Because it has already been tried in order to try and make it more popular several times during these 11 years. There have been 3 (4 if we include Lunaro) different versions of PvP if we dont count every single conclave mode aswell over a time period of 11 years. At the same time with sit with several PvE modes practically untouched, modes that are the core, the bread and butter of the game in comparison to PvP. 4(!) development processes in 11 years. That is more than 1 try each 3 years. Which in reality was much more frequent than that, since they havent done anything to it over the last few years. And no I dont count frame fighter to this since that was a 1 person spare time passion project. I'm talking conclave, lunaro, solar conflicts and solar conflicts 2.0.

Some of it not part of the game anymore, so completely wasted resources and time in the end. Should such a thing really be repeated when clearly the interest isnt there?

19 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

And we already have community-hosted dedicated servers that are just as good as the ones DE might rent. A server in rack A is no different from another server in rack B. It's just a server. Not only that, it's not even necessary. Conclave's been doing just fine on community servers for eight years! Why would they suddenly need official servers now? And if - godforbid - Conclave ever became large enough for official servers to actually be necessary, then the above catch-22 would have long since been broken and the justification for having official dedicated servers would be obvious.

Those are simply not enough. People should be able to jump in at any time and have a reliable stable experience no matter the region or time of the day they decide to play. Why it would be needed? To actually get a playerbase larger than the population of my small appartment complex. The whole point is to make it wide enough so people actually play it, not to rework it for the handful of die hards that currently play it off and on. Justification for spending time and resources on it etc. There is currently a ridiculously low amount of people and servers for the mode. Someone else provided a list in another thread about this to try and show how well PvP did, what he managed to do was show the opposite.

19 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

You click a button on the launcher. That's it. That's all you need to do. Look, I'm now hosting a dedicated Conclave server on my PC:

Sadly, it's rather typical to see this idea that hosting a server is some massive undertaking. It's not. Hosting a dedicated Conclave server is quite literally just clicking a button. And DE already hosts servers all over the place for many different things, like the dedicated hub servers. They even do this in other regions, woooo spooky 👻👻👻. Or do you think that Relay instances just magically appear out of the ether? So if they wanted to host dedicated servers for Conclave - which again isn't even necessary - then there's nothing stopping them from doing so. It's the same whether that's in a closet in DE's offices in London, Ontario, or a PC in a dev's house, or in the same datacenters they already rent. It's nothing.

You dont get the problem. It isnt about how easy it is. It is about how reliable it is for a larger playerbase. People shouldnt have to sit there and either run peer-to-peer, or wait and wait and wait. They also shouldnt need to play on US servers from the EU or OZ etc. You completely miss the problem by saying DE already hosts servers for hubs. It does not help in a PvP situation where you want people to actually play it, since again, those servers are on one side of the massive ponds called the atlantic and the pacific, it is also on one side of that specific massive continent. No one really cares if their connection isnt spot on in a hub where jack squat happens, people do however care when their connection isnt spot on in a competative setting such as PvP, and even in a non-competative setting like PvE.

Then there is also the massive influx of players that simply cannot host, since they play on something that isnt a PC. Which would mean even more players trying to get onto those few dedicated player hosted servers if PvP somehow gets reworked successfully. Which increases the need for official dedicated servers even more. And unlike a proper dedicated setup, each player is only able to set up 1 match per physical PC iirc. While pure servers could handle several matches at once.

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, SneakyErvin said:

However we know how few are active when it comes to conclave, out of the millions that go through the game each day it is barely a drop in the ocean. And that is after several itterations of PvP tried within the game.

Yes, and as you've said "there is still room to implement something a smaller part of the community wants." A group being small or niche doesn't mean they shouldn't get anything. Being a majority or minority interest doesn't matter.

1 hour ago, SneakyErvin said:

No that is clearly not the catch-22 I mentioned. The catch-22 is that the mode needs servers, but the mode is not popular to justify servers.

But it has servers? It's had servers since 2016. Here is a leaderboard of Conclave servers: https://content.warframe.com/dynamic/dedServerStats.php

Spiedie has hosted 175,129 Conclave matches. MatNova has hosted 225,594 Conclave matches. That's a lot of matches!

So your catch-22 isn't even a catch-22. The mode needs dedicated servers, the mode already has dedicated servers, dedicated servers which have hosted a collective 1,278,928 Conclave matches, dedicated servers which are paid for by the community and cost DE nothing and need no further justification. What about free server hosting does DE need to justify?

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Those are simply not enough.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

It isnt about how easy it is. It is about how reliable it is for a larger playerbase.

Even though they've hosted over a million Conclave matches? What about that doesn't sound reliable? And what makes DE's hypothetical servers better than the already-proven community fleet? Does DE have some special CPUs no one else can get? Are they they only ones that can have a stable internet connection? What is it?

Like let's be clear: anyone can host a Conclave server on a spare PC. It's super easy. The minimum requirements are so low because it's not that big of a deal. Anyone can also rent a server from the same datacenter DE might use and host one there.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

People should be able to jump in at any time and have a reliable stable experience no matter the region or time of the day they decide to play.

And I agree! But the (non) lack of servers isn't what's preventing people from being able to jump in at any time. Here, look:

Spoiler

At a random time of the day, I clicked Conclave and got into a server. I landed in Beers & Blades, which is the one owned by MatNova that's run almost a quarter million games.

The (non) lack of servers isn't what's preventing me from getting into a game. Other issues are, like the opaque server browsing experience that makes it impossible to see where people are or the lack of bots to get games started when there really isn't anyone else around. And these issues are either minor nothings that already exist in the rest of the game (like an open squad count or bots or tweaking numbers) or major somethings DE has already done all of the major development work for (like dedicated servers or isolated balancing).

[SneakyErvin]

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Yes, and as you've said "there is still room to implement something a smaller part of the community wants." A group being small or niche doesn't mean they shouldn't get anything. Being a majority or minority interest doesn't matter.

Minority is one thing, a niche is another, and the niche should not get things because at that point it is just way to small. If it was cheaper or less time consuming to develop for the niche it wouldnt really be a problem, but that isnt the case since it takes as long to develop something for 1 personal as it does for 1000 really.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

But it has servers? It's had servers since 2016. Here is a leaderboard of Conclave servers: https://content.warframe.com/dynamic/dedServerStats.php

Spiedie has hosted 175,129 Conclave matches. MatNova has hosted 225,594 Conclave matches. That's a lot of matches!

So your catch-22 isn't even a catch-22. The mode needs dedicated servers, the mode already has dedicated servers, dedicated servers which have hosted a collective 1,278,928 Conclave matches, dedicated servers which are paid for by the community and cost DE nothing and need no further justification. What about free server hosting does DE need to justify?

Please get the point. The game doesnt have enough servers to host a large portions of the playerbase. Which is something it needs in order to justify reworking the content in order for more to play it. The list provided is extremely small. Each of those servers equal 1 single match at a time out of hundreds of thousands of concurrent players and millions of daily players. You have a list of what, 50 servers? That is support for 400 players at once across the whole globe. Which results in even lower server counts per region during "active" hours in that region. If 10000 people played, that would support 4% of the playerbase, but we have between 100-200k concurrent players when all platforms are accounted for, that means those 50 servers support less than half a percent of the active players, far less when you consider that the concurrent players mostly come from one region aswell depending on the time of the day.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Even though they've hosted over a million Conclave matches? What about that doesn't sound reliable? And what makes DE's hypothetical servers better than the already-proven community fleet? Does DE have some special CPUs no one else can get? Are they they only ones that can have a stable internet connection? What is it?

Like let's be clear: anyone can host a Conclave server on a spare PC. It's super easy. The minimum requirements are so low because it's not that big of a deal. Anyone can also rent a server from the same datacenter DE might use and host one there.

As mentioned above, it cannot provide enough spots for a larger activity. The number of matches hosted doesnt matter, since in the end it is the die hard people playing or having played the mode over and over, it doesnt mean a wide variety of players have been hosted by those servers. What makes DEs servers better is that they are sure to be maintained, monitored etc. And that they are there for the need of the players that want to play incase the mode would get a successful rework. Same deal why rented servers would be better, like those used in practically all shooters these days by clans (and private people).

Yes, and it doesnt matter when it isnt guaranteed to be active when someone wants to play in their region. As a northern european I would never touch conclave if there werent acceptably located servers within europe. Preferably swedish, norwegian, dutch or english/irish when it comes to location, and reluctantly german in a worst case scenario.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

And I agree! But the (non) lack of servers isn't what's preventing people from being able to jump in at any time. Here, look:

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

At a random time of the day, I clicked Conclave and got into a server. I landed in Beers & Blades, which is the one owned by MatNova that's run almost a quarter million games.

The (non) lack of servers isn't what's preventing me from getting into a game. Other issues are, like the opaque server browsing experience that makes it impossible to see where people are or the lack of bots to get games started when there really isn't anyone else around. And these issues are either minor nothings that already exist in the rest of the game (like an open squad count or bots or tweaking numbers) or major somethings DE has already done all of the major development work for (like dedicated servers or isolated balancing).

But it is a problem since there arent enough to go around if the idea is to make the mode populated to a point where it is justifiable to rework it. It isnt popular now, so anyone can get in since no one is pracitcally playing it. So obviously the current minimal amount of servers are enough for the activity the mode has now. How is that so freakin hard to grasp?

You also jumped onto a NA server during or prior to EU peak. So you'd either be an american jumping in at the middle of the day in that case, way off peak, or a european joining a server that would result in terrible ping for PvP. And since it was likely a saturday, it shows how little interest PvP has, since even at noon on a saturday no americans are interested in conclave on one of the most visited and highly rated servers available.

Edited May 12 by SneakyErvin

[PublikDomain]

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

If it was cheaper or less time consuming

And in this particular case, it is. DE isn't building anything from scratch. There's no new technology. There is no massive need for cinematics or new maps. It's things like showing where people are playing (we already have this on the starchart) or adding bots (we already have this in 99.999% of the game) or making adjustments to numbers (which are already isolated from PvE). In the scheme of things, it's quite cheap! And I think cheap changes for a small group is more than fine.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

The game doesnt have enough servers to host a large portions of the playerbase.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

As mentioned above, it cannot provide enough spots for a larger activity.

But it doesn't need to, because its activity is not large. A large portion of the playerbase does not currently play Conclave. And if that population ever became large, then DE hosting official servers to meet that high level of interest would obviously be justified.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

It isnt popular now, so anyone can get in since no one is pracitcally playing it. So obviously the current minimal amount of servers are enough for the activity the mode has now. How is that so freakin hard to grasp?

It's not hard to grasp! It's literally what I've been saying. Obviously the current minimal amount of servers are enough for the activity the mode has now.

What you're saying is "well if a bunch of people started playing, there wouldn't be enough servers!" And that's true!

But if a bunch of people suddenly started playing Conclave then it would suddenly make a lot of sense for DE to host some servers themselves!

A great recent example is the most recent Snowday Showdown event, which went just fine even with the higher-than-normal demand. Either the community fleet was enough to handle that load, or DE just hosted some of their own servers to meet demand, or there were no servers at all and the P2P did just fine.

[SneakyErvin]

22 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

And in this particular case, it is. DE isn't building anything from scratch. There's no new technology. There is no massive need for cinematics or new maps. It's things like showing where people are playing (we already have this on the starchart) or adding bots (we already have this in 99.999% of the game) or making adjustments to numbers (which are already isolated from PvE). In the scheme of things, it's quite cheap! And I think cheap changes for a small group is more than fine.

No, and please start using the context of a quote. It isnt cheaper since in the context of the quote is in relation to the amount of players something is created for. So it is still more resource heavy because of how few it would cater to. This would be done with the knowledge that a fraction of a fraction of the active playerbase is active in the content. It would also be done with the knowledge that they'e already failed at several itterations of PvP. Too many given the amount of years the game has been out.

In the end, all those changes could have had the resources spent on things more people would utilize.

22 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

But it doesn't need to, because its activity is not large. A large portion of the playerbase does not currently play Conclave. And if that population ever became large, then DE hosting official servers to meet that high level of interest would obviously be justified.

Hence the catch-22 which you dont seem to get. They've also... as I've repeated... given PvP in WF more than a fair chance with the amount of itterations over these 11 years in total. Meaning the next step would be to provide servers first to give it even a remote chance if they plan to rework, add or modify it again. If there are no plans to make it somewhat popular it is wasted resources, unless we talk of a passion project done because someone wants to on their spare time, like Frame Fighter and Shawzin for instance. As I said, 4 different tries to lure people over a period of 11 years (far less than 11 years really). That is alot to waste on something so fringe when core content goes untouched at the same time.

22 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

It's not hard to grasp! It's literally what I've been saying. Obviously the current minimal amount of servers are enough for the activity the mode has now.

What you're saying is "well if a bunch of people started playing, there wouldn't be enough servers!" And that's true!

But if a bunch of people suddenly started playing Conclave then it would suddenly make a lot of sense for DE to host some servers themselves!

A great recent example is the most recent Snowday Showdown event, which went just fine even with the higher-than-normal demand. Either the community fleet was enough to handle that load, or DE just hosted some of their own servers to meet demand, or there were no servers at all and the P2P did just fine.

Hence the catch-22 again. They cant rework it to be popular since they dont have the foundation incase they succeed, and if the goal isnt success it is wasted time and resources considering how few use the mode and continue using it after a rework. 

The last paragraph isnt a great recent example. Did you miss the complaints about it on the forums? People simply put up with it to get the goodies either with long queues (which was one of the complaints) or peer-to-peer (another complaint, lag issues), which just isnt sustainable if you are to attract people for the sake of PvP being PvP and not some dangly carrot. Not even the rewards for the tennobaum event were enough to get me into the mess.

So if the tennbaum S#&$e is your bar for standard I'm dont even wanna know what you consider below standard.

[PublikDomain]

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

They cant rework it to be popular since they dont have the foundation incase they succeed, and if the goal isnt success it is wasted time and resources considering how few use the mode and continue using it after a rework. 

So they can't rework it to be popular, because if it ever became popular they wouldn't have the foundation for success - which you're saying means having dedicated servers. Right?

But they have dedicated servers.

They've had the software to host dedicated servers for eight years.

So problem solved. If Conclave ever became a success they could rent some servers and spin them up using the exact same tools they already created that the community has already proven for eight years straight. And this would be fine and totally justified because if Conclave was ever popular enough to become successful it'd be a successful thing worth supporting in that way.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Meaning the next step would be to provide servers first to give it even a remote chance if they plan to rework, add or modify it again.

Why does this need to be the next step when it hasn't been needed for eight years?

Why are official dedicated servers needed before DE can add this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or any of the other little things that actually drive people away from Conclave or prevent them from being able to play?

Why is official dedicated servers where you're starting, when there's neither the need nor the demand for them right now and when they could be spun up in hours?

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Hence the catch-22 which you dont seem to get.

What I don't get is why what you're talking about is even a catch-22?

Edited May 13 by PublikDomain

[SneakyErvin]

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

So they can't rework it to be popular, because if it ever became popular they wouldn't have the foundation for success - which you're saying means having dedicated servers. Right?

But they have dedicated servers.

They've had the software to host dedicated servers for eight years.

So problem solved. If Conclave ever became a success they could rent some servers and spin them up using the exact same tools they already created that the community has already proven for eight years straight. And this would be fine and totally justified because if Conclave was ever popular enough to become successful it'd be a successful thing worth supporting in that way.

That doesnt matter, since it would yet again be a shot in the dark. Because it would be reworked with previous knowledge and statistic for the already low usage. The servers would need to already be there in order to give it a chance right out the door incase a rework happens. The only thing they have is the potential for dedicated servers which is not the same as having dedicated servers to offer the mode a fighting chance. So no, the problem isnt solved.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Why does this need to be the next step when it hasn't been needed for eight years?

Why are official dedicated servers needed before DE can add this:

Because it isnt viable to spend on such an extremely minor part of the community... again. Conclave has already had more tries and "QoL" additions than most core modes over the years.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Or this:

I thought we were talking PvP here, not arena PvE gameplay that is already available on Sedna...

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Or any of the other little things that actually drive people away from Conclave or prevent them from being able to play?

Why is official dedicated servers where you're starting, when there's neither the need nor the demand for them right now and when they could be spun up in hours?

Since it would cater to way too few people. All of this while "minor" are still big coding undertakings, which would take work time and resources away from the core part of the game. It isnt just copy and pasting in paint. I mean it is already S#&$ that we need to wait for consoles these days, imagine having to wait on PvE content aswell based on what could be considered a handful of player getting catered to. Yes that would clearly go over well with the community.

Because dedicated servers are the foundation for good PvP, and the idea is to improve it so more people will play it. Without dedicted servers to allow people to queue and play without massive wait times or fluctuating performance the mode will have no chance. As I pointed out to you earlier, the 50 servers on the list will only support 400 players out of hundreds of thousands at any given time of the day, less when you start considering regions. You'd need a massive amount of people willing to host servers in order for there to be any reasonable playerbase at all. That list is practically 50(!) willing people out of millions. And those 50 arent even all viable 24/7, since a guy from OZ, Asia, EU, Africa or even SA will likely not be willing to play on a NA hosted server, and the NA, SA, OZ, Asia or Africa players wont really be willing to play on a EU based server. Since we are playing a shooter here, where ping matters a whole #*!%ing lot. If this was something like WoW the issue between regions would be less impactful, but it isnt something like WoW.

It's like when I used to play WoW, DaoC, SWG, BF1942, BF Vietnam, C&C Renedage, Tribes and a few other games with my brother. I lived in Sweden, he lived in New Mexico US. All was fine when we played the tab target MMOs and similar games, it was utter and total S#&$e for the most part when we played the shooters, either for him when we joined EU based servers, or for me when we joined US servers.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

What I don't get is why what you're talking about is even a catch-22?

Because one thing is needed in order for something else, but the first thing also needs the second thing first.

Here since PvP has had several itterations already, the justification for another would be adding servers so the mode has a chance to survive and thrive with a rework, since it would allow more people to jump in and play with high standards and little wait time. However, since PvP has been so unsuccessful already across several itterations adding servers isnt justifiable in itself since there is little guarantee another itteration on PvP would make it successful anyways. Which means the thing justifying a rework isnt justified itself since the mode is in need of a rework to maybe become more successful. So catch-22, you need one for the other and you need the other before the one aswell.

edit: Though I will say this, since you dont seem to care if the mode becomes popular or not Catch-22 wont be seen by you. So we are practically more at the point of me saying that the mode overall has too few players to justify a rework, since so few people that the mode attracts are not an amount that should be even remotely catered to. Catch-22 come into it if you are at all hoping for PvP to actually succeed.

Edited May 14 by SneakyErvin

[PublikDomain]

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

The servers would need to already be there in order to give it a chance right out the door incase a rework happens. The only thing they have is the potential for dedicated servers which is not the same as having dedicated servers to offer the mode a fighting chance. So no, the problem isnt solved.

Why does DE need to spend a bunch of money ahead of time on empty official servers that aren't needed when they could instead slowly spin up servers over time if/when demand increases? Wouldn't the latter just make sense - in this game or any other? You've got your priorities wildly out of order.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Because it isnt viable to spend on such an extremely minor part of the community... again.

On 2024-05-10 at 8:13 AM, SneakyErvin said:

That means there is still room to implement something a smaller part of the community wants.

Pick one, lol. You've said it yourself: there's still room to implement something a smaller part of the community wants. Small changes for a small group is entirely viable.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

I thought we were talking PvP here, not arena PvE gameplay that is already available on Sedna...

Games can't start if there's no one in them. Bots would be a simple, cheap, already-implemented-elsewhere loss leader to get a few feet through the door. Plus it's cheap. We've already got bots in 99.999% of the rest of the game (the whole game is fighting bots), we've already got bots on hostile teams in Conclave-derivative modes like the Arena, Index, and Dog Days, and we've even got drop-in-drop-out logic in the Index. All of this work is already done.

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

All of this while "minor" are still big coding undertakings

Which of the examples I gave are big undertakings and most importantly why?

2 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Catch-22 come into it if you are at all hoping for PvP to actually succeed.

But if it succeeds then this will no longer be the case: "since so few people that the mode attracts are not an amount that should be even remotely catered to". If Conclave became successful - it would attract many people and in an amount that should be catered to. So where's the catch-22? "If it becomes popular, it would be too unpopular to be catered to"? But it'd be popular? How does that work?

[ExcaliburSpecter]

On 2024-05-09 at 1:11 PM, Circle_of_Psi said:

If you want to play PvP, go play CoD

🤡

[ExcaliburSpecter]

In my opinion conclave should have a toggle

Classic Conclave: the conclave as it is right now but with a majority of the bugs and exploits fixed alongside balance changes and more variety of warframes and weapons to choose from.

Conclave: (reworked) so this is more up to whatever the devs decide to do with it i wont pitch any ideas for it because I know they will get shot down by the type of people that say this:

On 2024-05-09 at 1:11 PM, Circle_of_Psi said:

If you want to play PvP, go play CoD

now bare in mind ofc the devs will most likely not even touch conclave but if they were to this would be the best way to approach it if they did decide to rework conclave, this way the current conclave community will be able to play the conclave classic (as it is now) and the people that enjoy PvP but don't like the current conclave right now they can play the reworked version which would be the new default conclave.

there have been a few good ideas for conclave from the people in the forums (although most have them have been shot down).

if you do desire to quote or comment on this reply be constructive and not just another angry gremlin because someone has a input on conclave as a whole.

[SneakyErvin]

20 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Why does DE need to spend a bunch of money ahead of time on empty official servers that aren't needed when they could instead slowly spin up servers over time if/when demand increases? Wouldn't the latter just make sense - in this game or any other? You've got your priorities wildly out of order.

In order to give it an actual fighting chance if a rework is to happen. Otherwise people will give up trying as they either face long queues or are forced to peer-to-peer. It is also a case of "what havent we tested yet?", where servers would be the answer. Like I said, conclave or well PvP as a whole have already gotten several chances, all of which have failed. Something big needs to change in order to give it yet another try.

20 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Pick one, lol. You've said it yourself: there's still room to implement something a smaller part of the community wants. Small changes for a small group is entirely viable.

Seems like you just argue to argue, since no one can be that dense or one-track minded. There are varying degrees of "small", it is one thing to design something for a smaller part, but a completely different thing to design something for a fraction of the community that is so small it is barely noticable. So there is no "Pick one".

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Games can't start if there's no one in them. Bots would be a simple, cheap, already-implemented-elsewhere loss leader to get a few feet through the door. Plus it's cheap. We've already got bots in 99.999% of the rest of the game (the whole game is fighting bots), we've already got bots on hostile teams in Conclave-derivative modes like the Arena, Index, and Dog Days, and we've even got drop-in-drop-out logic in the Index. All of this work is already done.

"Cheap", "already implemented" etc. are simply assumptions. Since they'd still need to actively code it into conclave and make it work with those seperate systems. Meaning that yet again we come back to the point where the time of coders for other things would be reduced in order to implement these changes to conclave for such a miniscule near non-exsistant part of the community. And content releases and improvements for the PvE core part of the game are already slow enough as it is.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Which of the examples I gave are big undertakings and most importantly why?

All of them. And because they'll halt PvE development at the same time. Many of the things that exsist elsewhere would not be as easy as to just "copy/paste", since conclave is a seperate system, so changes would need to be done as it is implemented, meaning the code would need to be looked through and changed to fit conclave specifically even if the foundation for the changes are there.

21 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

But if it succeeds then this will no longer be the case: "since so few people that the mode attracts are not an amount that should be even remotely catered to". If Conclave became successful - it would attract many people and in an amount that should be catered to. So where's the catch-22? "If it becomes popular, it would be too unpopular to be catered to"? But it'd be popular? How does that work?

The "ifs" doesnt matter. It is about the current, about what they know, about what can actually give it a chance in order to justify even considering reworking it in a fashion that would actually also attract people. Current too few people are active in the mode to justify any form of rework and it has failed several time over already aswell. And without the standard of easily available stable dedicated servers there is little chance attracting anyone interested in serious PvP.

As to the bolded part. Stop using "marks" as if someone said what you imply, since "marks" mean you actually quote someone word by word. No one has said or implied what you "quote" there, aside from you now, asking yourself 3 questions.

Plus if I were DE I wouldnt want to do some bandaid fixes to PvP and risk ending up looking like an amateur in "media" now that the eyes are very much on the company and the game with practically every major update. And if I was in "media" and they'd do some bandaid PvP fixes without an intent to allow it to grow I'd be like "but...why!?".