Warframe's Game Modes Are Ancient

[CrownOfShadows]

Warframe's missions boil down to 2 basic types:

1. Type I: Rush (rescue, sabotage, capture, spy, exterminate, assassinate)
2. Type II: Sit in place for X amount of time (defense & mirror defense, survival, mobile defense, armageddon, cascade, hijack, excavation, netracells, interception, alchemy, flood)

While this is perhaps a little reductive in categorization, I want to illustrate the lack of imagination on display. It's not that these concepts are necessarily bad, but rather that they are implemented from a primitive viewpoint and haven't been significantly iterated on since their inception a decade ago. Simply put, they are all designed to be 5 minute (or less) episodes - they are not designed to be "fun" - they are designed to keep you busy. That is the fundamental starting point, the worldview, the design philosophy... and I submit it's the reason why missions do not feel engaging.

You may note that I didn't put disruption into the above categories, but this is because it doesn't fit well in either, although it is a bit of both. It's not because I believe it was designed under some other philosophy, I believe it was designed under the same premise as the others: 'what can we do to keep the player busy', not 'what can we do to make this fun.' (although it ended up being slightly more fun than the rest). Same category/philosophy is true for a couple other modes I didn't include like defection.

Now you might say that even game modes that are designed to be fun will keep players busy at the same time, and this is of course true, but my point is that the motivating force behind warframe's mission design does not seem to be enjoyment but occupation. This should change. If I had to pick one thing to promote the growth of warframe on a fundamental level, it would 100% be the mission designs. They are ancient, clunky, unimaginative.

How to make fun missions (imo):

Difficulty: engaging play requires difficulty. Difficulty in WF is a deep subject, but regardless this axiom remains true.

Complex Multi-Stage Story-Based Journeys with Mystery:

1. Longer missions. We have enough fire-and-forget missions. Unless you get rid of those then we don't too many more of them. Instead, for new content I'd suggest focusing on longer progressive story-designed missions. These don't need a ton of cutscenes, in fact they might not need any at all, but all the missions should be part of a greater whole, a story unfolding - a quest.
2. As a journey, it should have a natural ramp-up to a climax. The climax should most probably be a mini-boss, or else an unbelievable horde or some catastrophe. These should be randomized, so that the player does not know what they'll be up against exactly, preserving anticipation.
3. If possible, eliminate loading, but replace it with 'down-time'; a place for players to relax for a second and maybe swap loadouts before going on the next part of the journey. All of it should be continuous and natural. We should not be loading players into a defense and then an unrelated exterminate - we should be moving through an environment, on our way to something - the 'missions' in between should be 'discovered'. Think about it like a movie. It needs to be smooth - scene to scene, all in the same 'landscape'. The 'mission' should be a part of the environment, a part of it, not the whole.

We can briefly think about the Sorties and Archon hunts here. Aren't they doing some of this? No, they are forcing two throw-away missions that have no relevance or connection, followed by a boss fight. They aren't a journey, they're 3 independent missions that must be done in order. In Archon hunts there is some VO to try to rope them together, but the missions themselves are not special, they aren't doing anything, they don't lead into each other via gameplay, it's just old game modes slapped together. It's not a journey.

Yes, we want quality experiences, not just the same old modes smashed into new shapes, and not even new modes smashed into the same old mandatory time frames. Completely ditch all the worry about time and focus on experiences, missions that make us go 'wow', that fill us with a bit of wonder. It's better to scale the rewards to the mission than to cram missions into reward-table-times.

Yes, this is basically quests (with random elements) that are designed to be replayed. Randomize stories just the same as you would tilesets. (BTW with AI you could now create new stories on the fly... and also new events on the fly... that's the real gaming future, maybe get a head start on it rather than wait to copy someone else's, js)

Mechanics and Warframe-Specific Missions: There's a lot of room for new and fresh mission mechanics. One benefit of telling stories is that the stories themselves tend to generate interesting scenarios. If you look at the quests in warframe they are filled with unique mechanics not found anywhere else - because the story needed them.

One of the problems with difficulty is the massive amount of tools we have, but one possibility here would be to identify what warframes are good at what. You could, for example, have a category of mission designed for defense frames (Frost, Hydroid, Khora, Limbo, etc), and then only allow that category of frame for that mission type. This way you have a much narrower field to design for. Likewise you could have a nuke category (Mesa, Saryn, Equinox, etc) and design missions specifically to challenge nukers. A speedrun category. A support category, a stealth category. This is fairly simplistic but you could hybridize them further: Only nukers and defense categories are allowed for this mission, for example. Like randomization, this could help give players an excuse to play frames they might not otherwise engage with, and in the case of hybrid categories - it may open up more space for real teamwork. Further, it makes missions feel more unique. If only certain frames can do that mission, then that eliminates the 'i can take whatever I want because nothing matters' attitude that WF has encouraged for far too long (imo), even if it has to be artificially enforced by category (because we can't rebuild the roster into real categories).

NOT weekly. Please, no more weeklies. Time gates tend to suck, both in mission and out of it. Let players do these any time they want. If you need to make them longer to compensate, fine, as long as the quality is there to sustain it. I'd rather play two long quests a week on my own time than burst down the circuit, archon hunt, netracells and EDA on Monday.

Rewards: and lastly a note on rewards. I suggest halfway un-generalizing rewards. If you make quest-adjacent journeys then make each reward at the end unique rather than dishing out the same reward table structure for all of them. For example, perhaps one quest will award a guaranteed tau orange shard, and that is the only way to get that. Another type awards 3 regular emerald shards (the equivalent of a tau, but with more options), etc. Maybe both of those also have a random table of other smaller rewards that can be found in both - that's fine, but each should have a unique incentive. If you make all the rewards the same they won't feel special, and neither will the quests. Tying special rewards into the story/lore of each quest would be even better.

 

[chaotea]

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Difficulty: engaging play requires difficulty. Difficulty in WF is a deep subject, but regardless this axiom remains true.

Not sure i agree with this. Steel path is harder than regular missions, but unless its event specific or an alert, Steel path nodes are dead quite for matchmaking, but their regular counterparts generally are well populated. Those harder missions that are well populated arnt so because they are harder, but because the reward is more beneficial.

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Longer missions.

In general, most players prefer shorter missions. Very few people in a random matchmaking party stay for Rotation C for example. While I dont disagree about having some longer missions, I think Deep Archimedia is one such implementation, that covers harder content too. I also think that Duviri covers this. However these arnt majorly popular modes compared to shorter versions on offer. Very few people play Deep Archimedia more that once a week, or again after getting all the rewards for example.

Another thing you didnt list is 'open world bounty chains'. This is a longer mission, made up of small objectives tied together. There are alot of longer missions available, they just get overlooked by shorter missions.

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

If possible, eliminate loading, but replace it with 'down-time';

Novel Idea, and it is done with open world bounties and Demos' nechramech vaults. I dont however see it as a good use of resources to produce such a thing as you end up with very static maps that dont take advantage of the tile builder warframe has for its levels. The trade-off for loading is your randomised and often sprawling layouts.

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Yes, we want quality experiences, not just the same old modes smashed into new shapes, and not even new modes smashed into the same old mandatory time frames.

Player data would suggest the opposite is true, as quests dont tend to get replayed as much as regular missions. Now rewards are no doubt a part of this, but its important to remember what Warframe is as a game. The missions your asking for are very much like what is provided by Destiny. But its important to look at development cycles along side this. Everything has a cause and effect. Warframe thrives on modular content with a regular update cycle, possible mainly because of the modular nature of the game engine. Destiny provided alot of hand crafted, linked and storied missions, however these were updated once ever year or two, and had no modularity to them so you always played the same mission over and over. Quality comes at the expense of quantity.

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

and then only allow that category of frame for that mission type.

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

this could help give players an excuse to play frames they might not otherwise engage with

or frames they might not even own, alienating them from playing the mode at all. Part of what makes warframe great is the freedom of choice. you would have to do a Duviri here and give people access to frames they dont have somehow.

While im onboard for a few choice longer experiences, im actively against this idea. Maybe not a bad idea for a short mission type, but lets not force players to use a warframe they may not love for an extended period of time.

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

NOT weekly. Please, no more weeklies. Time gates tend to suck, both in mission and out of it.

So with this I 100% agree with everything you said, but I would still say that the weekly content restriction is a good thing, especially for longer form content. I do the Elite Dark Archimedia every week, I do Netracells 50% of the time, and Archon Hunts 20%. I used to do the more, but I got burned out from archons eventually.

Ascension came out very recently. It wasnt time gated, it was part of an event. I played it so much during the event that unless it comes up as an alert, I will probably never play the mode again.

I think any longer form, higher quality mission should be time gated. I think it should be made more special, more of an event. Something you sit down to play and prepare for a longer run. The time gate would help to make the mission more enjoyable.

4 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Rewards: and lastly a note on rewards. I suggest halfway un-generalizing rewards.

While I agree, you then went on to suggest several very general rewards. I think any longer missions should offer something like a cache of rewards, but not Tau shards or rivens. It would be better to offer a larger cache of rare materials. The kind of stuff that you dont need but that players of all levels would find useful. Pssibly something like Duviri, where you can select which rewards you would like to work towards. And similar to how Destinys raids have hidden bonus chests, the missions could have collectables off the main path that could offer small but stacking multipliers to these reward caches.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

So in brief, I feel like the desire for longer form content is interesting, its being approached without consideration for all the longer form content we do already have. And while I do understand the form that you are imagining for this content, I dont think that form is very warframe. Its a suggestion that doesnt want to build something new into warframe, but wants to make warframe be something it isnt.

[quxier]

1 hour ago, chaotea said:

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Longer missions.

In general, most players prefer shorter missions. Very few people in a random matchmaking party stay for Rotation C for example. While I dont disagree about having some longer missions, I think Deep Archimedia is one such implementation, that covers harder content too. I also think that Duviri covers this. However these arnt majorly popular modes compared to shorter versions on offer. Very few people play Deep Archimedia more that once a week, or again after getting all the rewards for example.

That's because of reward and failing longer session. E/DA at least give you rewards each of 3 rounds. Archon hunts or Sortie gives you nothing (some credits but that's nothing). And after you have done it once there is no reward.

Duviri up to 10 level gives you reason to play few rounds so people stays for some time.  Of course RGN (of team) can make it bad so some people exit.

1 hour ago, chaotea said:

Another thing you didnt list is 'open world bounty chains'. This is a longer mission, made up of small objectives tied together. There are alot of longer missions available, they just get overlooked by shorter missions.

I just hate them. Have N different mission slapped together. Pick only 1 set of gear. The best experience I've ever had. And with solo aspect (that I've been playing) it's even worse. You are basically forced to use specific frames if you are not good enough to cheese it.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Complex Multi-Stage Story-Based Journeys with Mystery:

So you spend 30 minutes because, lol, you have to and you get some useless gear? Nope.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

NOT weekly. Please, no more weeklies. Time gates tend to suck, both in mission and out of it. Let players do these any time they want. If you need to make them longer to compensate, fine, as long as the quality is there to sustain it. I'd rather play two long quests a week on my own time than burst down the circuit, archon hunt, netracells and EDA on Monday.

I partially agree. Weeklies with unique rewards like ARchons, netras, sp circuit or e/da are not great. You miss 1 week and you have to wait week(s) or you cannot catch up. Nighwave, Syndicates are fine.

5 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Yes, we want quality experiences, not just the same old modes smashed into new shapes, and not even new modes smashed into the same old mandatory time frames. Completely ditch all the worry about time and focus on experiences, missions that make us go 'wow', that fill us with a bit of wonder. It's better to scale the rewards to the mission than to cram missions into reward-table-times.

Those quality experiences takes time. A lot of time.  So instead of your e.g. 20-30 weapons, few (new) frames and other stuff you will get maybe 1 frame per year + 3 weapons. Sounds fun? Not for me.

Even quest written via DE aren't the best sometimes. Zariman were horrible. Jade's were at least very funny.

1 hour ago, chaotea said:

Ascension came out very recently. It wasnt time gated, it was part of an event. I played it so much during the event that unless it comes up as an alert, I will probably never play the mode again.

I've played it a lot during first week or so. I had lot of stuff from previous events so that helped. To be honest I liked first version Ascension. It incentivizes you to look for those small stuff to join them. Now you just look for sister's & go back & forth throwing Ionic charges. So after getting most of it I've stopped playing it too much. So only 1 part of it make me not play that mode.

On other hand I feel like you with Orphix event. I have been playing Rent-a-mech solo in first mission a lot. It was slow. Another thing is I don't like Mechs. They are slower & less fun than frames. So after month of daily missions when I've seen Mechs I hated it so much that I wouldn't touch Mechs with sticks for months. Sadly DE hasn't addressed that issue but just reduced number of arcanes you can buy...

 

[chaotea]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

I just hate them. Have N different mission slapped together. Pick only 1 set of gear. The best experience I've ever had. And with solo aspect (that I've been playing) it's even worse. You are basically forced to use specific frames if you are not good enough to cheese it.

True, but thats all we could really expect without warframe being a totally different game. And its true for any other game of a similar genre.

 

TBH, I concepted some longer gamemodes myself a while back, but my approach was different. (took a sec to find the link, check under the 'acquisition' subheading if interested)

 

So basically the idea for the hoard survival and bank heist were that you would have multi stage missions where you performance in earlier stages affects the ease and setting of later stages.

So something like that might be interesting for longer missions. They dont even need to be different game modes. Think 'Armageddon' game mode, but where turrets were permanent, but argazine was awarded in lower numbers based on performance so while enemy level goes up over time, you slowly build up defences.

Want Im interested isnt necessarily longer missions, or more unique missions, but missions that reward investment and make you feel more invested or give a sense of ownership. Thinking of something like Gears of Wars' survival mode. You put your def item in a spot of choice, the every round all players can spend credits creating def that inhibit or slow enemies. That was fun.

I dont need hand crafted 30-60 min mission experiences, because once ive dont it once, i just will try to get it done as soon a possible. What I want is for Warframe to play to its strengths, but have its gamemodes provide me with more sense of ownership and agency.

[CrownOfShadows]

2 hours ago, chaotea said:

Not sure i agree with this. Steel path is harder than regular missions, but unless its event specific or an alert, Steel path nodes are dead quite for matchmaking, but their regular counterparts generally are well populated. Those harder missions that are well populated arnt so because they are harder, but because the reward is more beneficial.

This is not my experience at all. SP is all anyone plays except for people who haven't unlocked it. Even Hydron is now as actively populated in the SP as it used to be pre-SP, something I honestly didn't think would ever happen. The old starchart is dead to us. The only time I ever play regular modes is during Prime releases when matchmaking tends to use that as a safer option for the general population, and nightmare missions which still have no SP variant. And events like Fomorian I guess, which also have no SP variant.

3 hours ago, chaotea said:

In general, most players prefer shorter missions. Very few people in a random matchmaking party stay for Rotation C for example. While I dont disagree about having some longer missions, I think Deep Archimedia is one such implementation, that covers harder content too. I also think that Duviri covers this. However these arnt majorly popular modes compared to shorter versions on offer. Very few people play Deep Archimedia more that once a week, or again after getting all the rewards for example.

This depends on the players. Some will be ready to stay, some will be ready to leave. Many things factor into this; schedules, interest, rewards. EDA is a quarter-step in the right direction, and is perhaps a signal that DE is leaning this direction. EDA's difficulty makes it the most enticing mode around anywhere. Of course everyone only plays EDA once a week - that's how it's designed. Duviri (not the Circuit) is in fact very close to this ideal - except there's no warframes.

3 hours ago, chaotea said:

Another thing you didnt list is 'open world bounty chains'. This is a longer mission, made up of small objectives tied together. There are alot of longer missions available, they just get overlooked by shorter missions.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

I just hate them. Have N different mission slapped together. Pick only 1 set of gear. The best experience I've ever had. And with solo aspect (that I've been playing) it's even worse. You are basically forced to use specific frames if you are not good enough to cheese it.

I agree with quixier here, these are pretty miserable. While on paper they might seem close to what I'm asking for, they are in reality very far from it, because they are simply repackaging the same old tired modes into a series with a little VO to rope them together. That's not what I'm looking for, I'm looking for a journey that feels unique.

3 hours ago, chaotea said:

Player data would suggest the opposite is true, as quests dont tend to get replayed as much as regular missions. Now rewards are no doubt a part of this, but its important to remember what Warframe is as a game. The missions your asking for are very much like what is provided by Destiny. But its important to look at development cycles along side this. Everything has a cause and effect. Warframe thrives on modular content with a regular update cycle, possible mainly because of the modular nature of the game engine. Destiny provided alot of hand crafted, linked and storied missions, however these were updated once ever year or two, and had no modularity to them so you always played the same mission over and over. Quality comes at the expense of quantity.

You can't possibly hold up our current quests and say 'see - nobody replays them, so nobody wants them'. That's like holding the Conclave up and saying 'see, everyone hates PvP'.

I agree rewards are part of why they aren't replayed - the rewards for replaying quests are laughable, but that isn't the biggest part - the biggest part is that they aren't designed for that. They are designed from the beginning to only be played once... which is fine, I'm okay with that. But the kind of quest I'm asking for is not like that. Both types can exist. I agree Destiny does a decent job of this, but I disagree very much that it means you can't have variety/modularity in combination with it. One does not come at the expense of the other, you just have design stories with some modularity in mind.

You say WF thrives on modular content with a regular update cycle, but that's not quite true. It thrives on regular NEW content with OLD modular content in the background, and even the new content is just old modes rehashed. The modes we play day in and day out while the new content (quests/events) is cooking are very, very old. Even tilesets have had multiple iterations, but the modes themselves are stagnant.

3 hours ago, chaotea said:

or frames they might not even own, alienating them from playing the mode at all. Part of what makes warframe great is the freedom of choice. you would have to do a Duviri here and give people access to frames they dont have somehow.

While im onboard for a few choice longer experiences, im actively against this idea. Maybe not a bad idea for a short mission type, but lets not force players to use a warframe they may not love for an extended period of time.

While I'm envisioning this as more of and end-game activity, sure, we can accommodate new players that way if you want.

As for using frames you don't like for an extended period of time - a few things: 1) you would otherwise never play it, right? So it gets you playing it. Maybe you warm up to it - this has been my experience many time. 2) Ideally there would be several to choose from, so if you don't like that one frame, fine, use another 3) Above that, there would ideally be several quests available to choose from, so you can just pick another quest. What's great about this is you can cater to niches that otherwise would get little love or frustrate other people. For example if you have a quest centered all around speed-running, then a Gauss or Volt player can have the time of their life. If you have a quest all about stealth, then the Ivara player can have the time of their life.... and it doesn't bother people. There aren't speed runners annoying nukers, there aren't nukers annoying defenders, etc.

3 hours ago, chaotea said:

I think any longer form, higher quality mission should be time gated. I think it should be made more special, more of an event. Something you sit down to play and prepare for a longer run. The time gate would help to make the mission more enjoyable.

I disagree, I submit that that's what events are for. I want high level, interesting quests to go on whenever I want. I don't want to spin my wheels doing nothing, playing dull modes, praying for Monday (or next quarter, or next year, or 3 years from now) to get the reset so I can finally start playing something I like again.

3 hours ago, chaotea said:

While I agree, you then went on to suggest several very general rewards. I think any longer missions should offer something like a cache of rewards, but not Tau shards or rivens. It would be better to offer a larger cache of rare materials. The kind of stuff that you dont need but that players of all levels would find useful. Pssibly something like Duviri, where you can select which rewards you would like to work towards. And similar to how Destinys raids have hidden bonus chests, the missions could have collectables off the main path that could offer small but stacking multipliers to these reward caches.

I disagree about caches - we have those in many missions and nobody slows down to do them, for many reasons. They aren't bad in concept, but they're very hard to do well. Collectibles are a little easier to implement and work better, I'd be ok with those.

I disagree about Tau shards (and shards in general) only because they are valuable in the moment. By the time any quests like this actually got developed and deployed, they would most certainly be ordinary and not enticing though. Rivens can now be acquired about a bajillion ways so I don't know that offering them is really great - it's not bad either though, they still hold value - especially if they happen to be automatically unveiled as an extra bonus or something.

I do agree about alternative rewards - for example if there were a handful of quests dedicated to replenishing supplies of Bile or other Helminth resources, that could be definitely be worth doing (especially if they then went in and balanced the Helminth costs against the quest rewards somewhat). Or a corpus quest that was a serious alternative to sitting in the Index for an hour or two.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

So you spend 30 minutes because, lol, you have to and you get some useless gear? Nope.

Rewards are their own subject, shards were just a handy example. DE can do better with these, but some of the things they could do would require dev time. Shards are still useful and sought after (I wouldn't call them useless), but their time as a meaningful reward is coming to an end. Rewards should scale with time spent (and difficulty). If you spend the equivalent of 3 full EDAs on a very high level quest - then you should get paid accordingly.

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Those quality experiences takes time. A lot of time.  So instead of your e.g. 20-30 weapons, few (new) frames and other stuff you will get maybe 1 frame per year + 3 weapons. Sounds fun? Not for me.

This is true. But I'm not asking for full cinematic quests either. This is honestly more about level and mission design than cinematics. And DE wastes a lot of time on stuff that has very limited life cycles. We can look at Kahl as an example. All that dev time could've been put into lasting, replayable experiences. I'm willing to bet that all the dev time spent on the upcoming atomicycles will have about as much life as the Kaithes. They design shortsightedly, spend resources shortsightedly.

One thing they could do is spend all their dev time on their content islands, like they do, but just do things that don't require too much level design. Then task the level design team to work on quests. Now I don't really know what percentage of total dev time goes into level design and tilesets, but I feel like they can easily get a few tilesets out per cycle if they were tasked with it. Sprinkle in some VO, some extra flair if there's time for it, voila, you can make a half a dozen new quests out of that at least. We could have 12 quests added every year. If they'd done that over several years already we'd be able to choose from 20-30 quests right now. The only thing you have to update over time is the rewards.

[chaotea]

4 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I agree with quixier here, these are pretty miserable. While on paper they might seem close to what I'm asking for, they are in reality very far from it, because they are simply repackaging the same old tired modes into a series with a little VO to rope them together. That's not what I'm looking for, I'm looking for a journey that feels unique.

The only thing I'd ask here is more description on what you want that isn't repeated content. What exactly would this longer mission consist of? What game mechanics would be part of it? Because as hard as I try, i cant think how to package any of that into a longer mission.

6 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

That's like holding the Conclave up and saying 'see, everyone hates PvP'.

Funny, because I would do that. Or at least I would hold up conclave and say: "This shows that the standard warframe gameplay isnt suited to PvP, and in order to make PvP more enjoyable, it would need us to do something less like warframe gameplay.

I have said to others that i'd be interested in a khal based PvP mode. Grineer vs grineer.

10 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

They are designed from the beginning to only be played once... which is fine, I'm okay with that. But the kind of quest I'm asking for is not like that. Both types can exist.

I have an issue with this, only in that this is what your asking for. It might not be what you mean to ask for, it might be an articulation issue, and I say this not to insult or anything, im genually interested in the discussion, but the way you have described you desired concept is that you want a quest type mission that can be played multiple times with evergreen rewards. To get what you want from this, it has to be fun, and bring people back no matter what the reward is. Otherwise it will only draw attention while the reward is present. Its also not going to be able to be 100% hand crafted, due to cost / benifit. So where do you see compromises happening?

15 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

You say WF thrives on modular content with a regular update cycle, but that's not quite true. It thrives on regular NEW content with OLD modular content in the background, and even the new content is just old modes rehashed. The modes we play day in and day out while the new content (quests/events) is cooking are very, very old. Even tilesets have had multiple iterations, but the modes themselves are stagnant.

I'd say first of all that what I said is exactly right. It relies on new modular content which meshes with old modular content because that's the beauty of modular content.

And you may be right on new content being old concepts with a twist, Ive concepted some different missions myself. So I'd ask you, what would a fresh mission look like to you. What objective do you have to propose that not like anything that is currently in the game, but doesnt remove from the core warframe experience? Because part of the reason most of the missions are so similar is that the Devs covered the core bases in their first set of missions.

Also, the gamemodes I play now are drastically different that the gamemodes I played 10 years ago. Sure, the core of it is the same, on paper. But every time I do an exterminate, and I use a different gun, or warframe, or on a different tileset, im playing a different version of the gamemode. That is the true nature of the modular nature of the game.

24 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

While I'm envisioning this as more of and end-game activity, sure, we can accommodate new players that way if you want.

Its not about new players. I know some MRL2s that dont have certain warframes because they dont like them or dont want to buy slots.

33 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

1) you would otherwise never play it, right? So it gets you playing it. Maybe you warm up to it - this has been my experience many time.

While potentially true, I would point out your own words on Duviri and people quitting because of RNG. While Ive often experienced the same thing, often with primes, where I'll revisit an old WF and enjoy it more (limbo and saryn), ive also found several I still didnt like (banshee and garuda). All im saying is it would be best not to bloat a mode we want people to play for longer timescales with elements that may detract from the experience.

36 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

2) Ideally there would be several to choose from, so if you don't like that one frame, fine, use another

I get that, but for example, personally Im a caster. I like caster frames. I dont really like tank frames. Just not my thing. If you had a long mission and one was tank only, I'd feel like i was playing it to get the reward, not because I found it fun. Especially if the reward was unique or rare in some way.

38 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

3) Above that, there would ideally be several quests available to choose from, so you can just pick another quest.

Yes, but you also said everything would have unique rewards, like an orange shard that no other long mission would give. Well if I really need that shard, im going to have to play that one mode. It also doesnt seem great that the entire team would be running the same frame type without synergy.

43 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I disagree, I submit that that's what events are for.

What event do you do every day?

44 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I want high level, interesting quests to go on whenever I want.

Thats fine, but a repayable quest will have mundane rewards. That or be super grindy. I dont feel the same as you on this, as I generally play WF and do my weeklys, then I play other stuff for the week. I like that I dont have to grind away at warframe all week. Though its fine if you do, im not judging that.

I will say however that without time gating and the better rewards that come from that, these missions will quickly become the very thing you want them not to be.

48 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I disagree about caches - we have those in many missions and nobody slows down to do them, for many reasons.

Different use of the word. Not actual caches ingame but a bundle of rewards given at mission completion.

49 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I disagree about Tau shards (and shards in general) only because they are valuable in the moment.

Part of why they are valuable is because of their scarcity. I remember when forma used to be treated with the same reverence. You cannot have such an item available as an evergreen reward in a replayable gamemode, as people will burn themselves out grinding them, and they will in turn become pointless.

52 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I do agree about alternative rewards - for example if there were a handful of quests dedicated to replenishing supplies of Bile or other Helminth resources, that could be definitely be worth doing (especially if they then went in and balanced the Helminth costs against the quest rewards somewhat). Or a corpus quest that was a serious alternative to sitting in the Index for an hour or two.

God I would play a 60min mission if it game me a health amount of bile resources for sure.

54 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

This is true. But I'm not asking for full cinematic quests either.

You dont need to. A non cinematic quest can take about 2-3 months work. A cinematic quest like second dream or The Sacrifice took 2-3 years.

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

All that dev time could've been put into lasting, replayable experiences.

It was. You can still replay kahl quests now. You may choose not to, but people may choose not to play these longer quests.

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

I'm willing to bet that all the dev time spent on the upcoming atomicycles will have about as much life as the Kaithes. They design shortsightedly, spend resources shortsightedly.

Atomicycles probably will, but to say that they design shortsightedly shows a clear lack of knowledge on the very processes and fundamentals of product design. Kaithes arnt just kaithes. Kaithes are part of Duviri. Kaithes arnt designed to be kaithes. Kaithes are designed to be part of the duviri package. Duviri wouldnt be as good without kaithes, and kaithes launched with dlc cosmetics, and its likely that the revenue from kaithe skins more than made up for their production costs, as im sure the atomicycle skins will.

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

One thing they could do is spend all their dev time on their content islands, like they do, but just do things that don't require too much level design. Then task the level design team to work on quests.

Not how design works. Does the level design team no how to rig animations? Do the write characters, record VO? do sound design? And can content islands be made without level design?

1 hour ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Sprinkle in some VO, some extra flair if there's time for it, voila, you can make a half a dozen new quests out of that at least. We could have 12 quests added every year. If they'd done that over several years already we'd be able to choose from 20-30 quests right now. The only thing you have to update over time is the rewards.

Again, very little idea how games are designed. I advise watching the double fine documenteries on the development of psyconauts. Very interesting look into a games development cycle, or their 'Amnesia fortnight' collections. But simply put, every department touches almost every aspect of the game. Many of the people who would be key for developing levels also work on developing weapons or warframes.

But even if not, this wouldnt get you what you want. This would get you the same tilesets, with the same missions, with no story. Because the level designers wouldnt be making new assets.

[quxier]

6 hours ago, chaotea said:

8 hours ago, quxier said:

I just hate them. Have N different mission slapped together. Pick only 1 set of gear. The best experience I've ever had. And with solo aspect (that I've been playing) it's even worse. You are basically forced to use specific frames if you are not good enough to cheese it.

True, but thats all we could really expect without warframe being a totally different game. And its true for any other game of a similar genre.

Do you mean that Open world is great place where Warframe can make interesting missions? Well... I think non open world makes them even better sometimes.

6 hours ago, chaotea said:

I dont need hand crafted 30-60 min mission experiences, because once ive dont it once, i just will try to get it done as soon a possible. What I want is for Warframe to play to its strengths, but have its gamemodes provide me with more sense of ownership and agency.

Similar. I like stories and I can "waste" hours in them. However if I need to repeat 30 minutes just to get 1 loot then it's something wrong.

And yeah, one point of agency, or maybe mastery as well, is that you can finish mission much faster or slower.

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

8 hours ago, quxier said:

I just hate them. Have N different mission slapped together. Pick only 1 set of gear. The best experience I've ever had. And with solo aspect (that I've been playing) it's even worse. You are basically forced to use specific frames if you are not good enough to cheese it.

I agree with quixier here, these are pretty miserable. While on paper they might seem close to what I'm asking for, they are in reality very far from it, because they are simply repackaging the same old tired modes into a series with a little VO to rope them together. That's not what I'm looking for, I'm looking for a journey that feels unique.

I bet we won't get that "journey" but more spend X time to get % chance at getting stuff.

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

8 hours ago, quxier said:

So you spend 30 minutes because, lol, you have to and you get some useless gear? Nope.

Rewards are their own subject, shards were just a handy example. DE can do better with these, but some of the things they could do would require dev time. Shards are still useful and sought after (I wouldn't call them useless), but their time as a meaningful reward is coming to an end. Rewards should scale with time spent (and difficulty). If you spend the equivalent of 3 full EDAs on a very high level quest - then you should get paid accordingly.

Rewards are integral part of game. So you spend 3x E/DA but you are not thinking about spending 10 minutes, failing, and getting NOTHING. Not to mention how DE likes to slap timegates nowadays. Imagine doing 2/3 of some mission to have some stuff and getting 0.

6 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

9 hours ago, quxier said:

Those quality experiences takes time. A lot of time.  So instead of your e.g. 20-30 weapons, few (new) frames and other stuff you will get maybe 1 frame per year + 3 weapons. Sounds fun? Not for me.

This is true. But I'm not asking for full cinematic quests either. This is honestly more about level and mission design than cinematics. And DE wastes a lot of time on stuff that has very limited life cycles. We can look at Kahl as an example. All that dev time could've been put into lasting, replayable experiences. I'm willing to bet that all the dev time spent on the upcoming atomicycles will have about as much life as the Kaithes. They design shortsightedly, spend resources shortsightedly.

One thing they could do is spend all their dev time on their content islands, like they do, but just do things that don't require too much level design. Then task the level design team to work on quests. Now I don't really know what percentage of total dev time goes into level design and tilesets, but I feel like they can easily get a few tilesets out per cycle if they were tasked with it. Sprinkle in some VO, some extra flair if there's time for it, voila, you can make a half a dozen new quests out of that at least. We could have 12 quests added every year. If they'd done that over several years already we'd be able to choose from 20-30 quests right now. The only thing you have to update over time is the rewards.

Even making them more 'replayble journey' will take from new gear. Even now we can get beatuifully crafted swords... that have same functionality as e.g. 50% others. We can have frame that have some issue and it won't be fixed... till their prime. I would seriously get nice toy than 'replayable thing' you want.

[CrownOfShadows]

18 hours ago, chaotea said:

The only thing I'd ask here is more description on what you want that isn't repeated content. What exactly would this longer mission consist of? What game mechanics would be part of it? Because as hard as I try, i cant think how to package any of that into a longer mission.

----

So I'd ask you, what would a fresh mission look like to you. What objective do you have to propose that not like anything that is currently in the game, but doesnt remove from the core warframe experience? Because part of the reason most of the missions are so similar is that the Devs covered the core bases in their first set of missions.

Yes this is where it gets complicated. How do you actually make something new. Well for starters, how about we just do something different. I mean, DE 'tries' with stuff like the mission types in the Zariman (of which cascade is decent) but they aren't thinking outside the box, they're strapped into formulaic mission design and they need to break out of it.

I personally feel like DE's level design (while aesthetically beautiful and ergonomically sound) is in many ways boxing them into certain content formats and mission types, and that's where I'd start. It can still be modular, and should be, but it can change significantly from the current template. Secondly I'd address the way missions and mission goals are presented to the player, and focus on putting more meaning into them and in being much more original in both concept and scope. Thirdly and maybe more importantly is how enemies are encountered, this needs to be more... thoughtful. Yes, no matter what content you have, we will always be shooting our way out of it, and yes, because of WF's design that will almost always be by the horde, but even with those restrictions things can be designed much better. Spam spawning enemies and just throwing them at the player non-stop is pretty lazy design. Granted, a lot of this involves difficulty and enemy AI and all manner of sub-disciplines, but it's important. And as mentioned previously, they definitely need to quit worrying about how much time the player is spending on missions and just focus on making them fun. Instead of 'how can we get the player to sit here for 5 minutes' it should be 'what would be cool to go do right now?'

For all of it's many flaws, the RJ missions (not taxijack) did a good job of this - dynamic environment, transitions to different styles of play, organic missions, lots of agency, etc, and my vision for quests is not terribly dissimilar from stuff like that just in a warframe-centric/story setting. Set up various goals and let the players decide when and how to do them, and maybe even make goals that are double or event triple deep in some of them so that there's some strategy about what to do when, break up the gameplay, do different things, different tasks, all in the same environment - an evolving mission, natural progression - not forced or timed progression. There's no real rush in RJ like there is in capture or exterminate because multiple things are being accomplished by multiple people at multiple locations and the mission's not over until everything's done. And even better some people have to help other people, that's great interaction even if it ended up being a little frustrating in RJ's case. If there was one example in existing WF for what I'm after with these quests RJ is it, but there are perhaps more meaningful examples in other games too. WF can learn something important about missions/levels from stuff like Helldivers, Titanfall, Borderlands, Destiny etc, but I don't necessarily like citing those because it's apples and oranges - WF's design is it's own, it's a tile-based horde shooter and not everything translates, and I don't want WF to just copy others, but there are valuable tenets of design that can be adapted in there for sure. Build organic and exciting missions, not tedium.

19 hours ago, chaotea said:

I have an issue with this, only in that this is what your asking for. It might not be what you mean to ask for, it might be an articulation issue, and I say this not to insult or anything, im genually interested in the discussion, but the way you have described you desired concept is that you want a quest type mission that can be played multiple times with evergreen rewards. To get what you want from this, it has to be fun, and bring people back no matter what the reward is. Otherwise it will only draw attention while the reward is present. Its also not going to be able to be 100% hand crafted, due to cost / benifit. So where do you see compromises happening?

The compromise is that you don't worry about new gear, new warframes, new tech, or not much, no cinematics unless there's time or interest for that. We're not building new open worlds here, we're not making massive story points. This is about taking our core gameplay and using it in new and more original ways. For that we do need custom tilesets - trying to get this to work in existing tilesets is not impossible but is more than likely doomed to immediate failure - and we need to address the other things mentioned above too like enemy encounters, mission goals and design, difficulty, time gates. Compare, for example, the New War to the quest to get vanilla Mirage (Hidden Messages) - massive, massive differences in dev time for those two 'quests'. They can slap that Mirage quest together in a week these days. But what if the Mirage quest happened in an entirely new tileset with interesting new mission types? How much dev time is that? Well it's hard to say, but it sure as fire is way, way less than what something like the New War would entail.

19 hours ago, chaotea said:

Also, the gamemodes I play now are drastically different that the gamemodes I played 10 years ago. Sure, the core of it is the same, on paper. But every time I do an exterminate, and I use a different gun, or warframe, or on a different tileset, im playing a different version of the gamemode. That is the true nature of the modular nature of the game.

Changing weapons and warframes and randomizing tiles increases variety but it does not change the mission design.

19 hours ago, chaotea said:

While potentially true, I would point out your own words on Duviri and people quitting because of RNG. While Ive often experienced the same thing, often with primes, where I'll revisit an old WF and enjoy it more (limbo and saryn), ive also found several I still didnt like (banshee and garuda). All im saying is it would be best not to bloat a mode we want people to play for longer timescales with elements that may detract from the experience.

I get that, but for example, personally Im a caster. I like caster frames. I dont really like tank frames. Just not my thing. If you had a long mission and one was tank only, I'd feel like i was playing it to get the reward, not because I found it fun. Especially if the reward was unique or rare in some way.

Not sure what you're referring to with Duviri, but I'd submit that RNG has been a very good thing for 'end game' players. It's been pretty brutal for new players though, and that's where the Circuit auto-pick is. The idea of categories is just an extra idea to help make missions feel more unique. I'd happily sacrifice it if I got everything else, but I do think it has good potential, especially for late game players who are basically looking for an excuse to invest in obscure/niche builds. It's a more focused type of RNG, narrowed, but the gameplay would ideally make up for that by catering to it, and even if they went for it I don't think they should make the majority like that, but rather have those as special interest types. Your point about categories being unappealing and locking certain rewards behind that is very solid however, that would need to be addressed, which kinda dovetails into...

19 hours ago, chaotea said:

Part of why they are valuable is because of their scarcity. I remember when forma used to be treated with the same reverence. You cannot have such an item available as an evergreen reward in a replayable gamemode, as people will burn themselves out grinding them, and they will in turn become pointless.

Hm, this is a halfway fair point. I wouldn't say you cannot have it, but rather if you have it you need to modulate it. What you're saying here is the entire reason DE relies on RNG so heavily I believe, and there's good logic behind it, and that's why they rotate everything. So we could have it, but likely DE would want to rotate it. This is also probably part of the reason there are 16 bajillion currencies in WF, because currency is another way to get around this issue. Just give currency for all these new quests and set up a rotating shop, that works too, but I personally don't like it as much, so I'd put some more thought into how to balance out rewards vs mission types, there's surely a satisfying way to accomplish both.

20 hours ago, chaotea said:

What event do you do every day?

We may be differing in our view of "event." If you count weeklies, then I've recently just been doing EDA and bailing, unless I'm really in the mood for WF regardless of how braindead it is in which case I'll typically do EDA and the Circuit and maybe, maybe some netracells or some build tinkering. I do the Circuit only because the enemy levels make it interesting and it feels slightly challenging especially if I pick non-meta gear. I don't do the Circuit for the rewards, at this point I have a stockpile of hundreds of unveiled rivens with little interest in opening them.

So the basic answer to your question would be "none", I don't do anything daily, I pop in once a week, do EDA and maybe another thing here or there and then leave. I haven't touched sorties in ... years? I think so, wow, and I rarely do arbis anymore, definitely avoid invasions like the plague unless they've got potatoes, and I mostly ignore NW as it just kinda ticks along on it's own just fine.

My view of "event" was more more like NW quests when they happen, Fomorian, Razerback, and longer cycle things like Dog Days and holiday related events, and also custom events when they happen like Scarlet Spear.

19 hours ago, chaotea said:

It was. You can still replay kahl quests now. You may choose not to, but people may choose not to play these longer quests.

Same as conclave and quest comment, you're pointing to a non-relevant example here. Kahl isn't warframes. On a broader point, in case that was what you were striving for, the time spent on Kahl indeed could've been great and much more replayable than it is, but Kahl is mostly a failure of design. They tried something new, but didn't commit to it. I don't mind them experimenting, but they didn't design for the long term here either. NGL, even though I don't mind them experimenting, it really kills me that all those Kahl tilesets, missions, mechanics, squad tech, AI, and all those Kahl cosmetics... SO much dev time - all of that could've been warframe quests and warframe quest reward pool. I'd also like to point out that Veilbreaker was not a main quest like the New War (even though they built off tech introduced there). How much dev time went into veilbreaker? Felt like 3 months? Idk, but it's pretty crazy what they built in that amount of time if you think about it, so the argument that there's just not enough dev resources to make lasting content falls flat to me, it's not about resources, it's about goals.

19 hours ago, chaotea said:

Atomicycles probably will, but to say that they design shortsightedly shows a clear lack of knowledge on the very processes and fundamentals of product design. Kaithes arnt just kaithes. Kaithes are part of Duviri. Kaithes arnt designed to be kaithes. Kaithes are designed to be part of the duviri package. Duviri wouldnt be as good without kaithes, and kaithes launched with dlc cosmetics, and its likely that the revenue from kaithe skins more than made up for their production costs, as im sure the atomicycle skins will.

Not how design works. Does the level design team no how to rig animations? Do the write characters, record VO? do sound design? And can content islands be made without level design?

Again, very little idea how games are designed. I advise watching the double fine documenteries on the development of psyconauts. Very interesting look into a games development cycle, or their 'Amnesia fortnight' collections. But simply put, every department touches almost every aspect of the game. Many of the people who would be key for developing levels also work on developing weapons or warframes.

Yes, kaithes are essential to Duviri's gameplay. Kaithes serve no role outside of Duviri. They are content island mechanics, nothing more. The same will be true of atomicycles. Sure, as part of the content island package, they do their part in generating revenue. But you seem to be conflating content island revenue with long term development of the 'base' game, which aren't really related.

As for game design, yes, there is a lot of interdisciplinary activity, and I do in fact have a very solid understanding of how development works, thanks. The sound design team does make a pass on levels after they are built or in their final stages. However I can assure you that the level design does not care about rigging, skinning and animating, and mission design doesn't care about that either unless it's new tech like Kahl. Rigging, skinning and animating team only cares about warframe (character) assets, and the mission designers and level designers don't have anything to do with that at any point. Different parts of game companies work on different things, and do so at different times, and they do not all necessarily overlap. Each department has their own marching orders, their own workloads and their own time frames and those change depending on what's being built. The real truth is that there is no "level design team", there are designers, 3d artists, VFX artists, sound designers, etc and those are a pool of resources that just move onto other things if there's no level design to do, so this is really a discussion about how much dev time is available to accomplish what and in what time frame, and interdisciplinary efforts are a result of that not a the other way around.

To us naive outsiders, who cannot possibly comment in any meaningful way about how resources are truly being allocated for what goals, the best we can do is say "I'd like more of that and less of this."

Well I'd like less Kahl, less Duviri, less romance (not trying to flame it before I see it but eh... I have doubts), less weeklies and instead more sustainable content involving quality repeatable quests, event overhauls and expansion, and more necramechs and RJ.

It's interesting because you can see DE is trying to think about sustainable content, and their answer to that has been things like the Circuit, Netracells and EDA. Those are not bad attempts, and they're okay, but they're rehashing game modes/mission types in all of them, that's my main point. And it's not like they aren't innovating in missions, alchemy is probably the case study, but it doesn't feel unique or interesting and it's a timed exercise like all of them. And yes, I realize that no matter what content comes out it will always at some point feel stale especially if it's spammed, BUT that's not an excuse for not deviating from the formula.

Just please stop putting us in missions like this where it's just waves of endless enemies for X amount of time with some meaningless objective and start putting us into engaging new experiences, doing interesting things that we care about with maximum player agency.

[chaotea]

On 2024-08-09 at 8:54 PM, quxier said:

Do you mean that Open world is great place where Warframe can make interesting missions? Well... I think non open world makes them even better sometimes.

I do not mean that at all. Best not to try to interpret a deeper meaning in my words, its leading you astray. What I'm saying is that any long form mission is still going to be built on the back of existing systems. Open world is the same. The only way to change this would be to create gameplay that is unlike anything warframe has done to date, and would be unsustainable for the studio as it would be an experience designed for non-live service games.

In other worlds, for clarity, Warframe is built on the back of a modular mission system. By this I mean that tile sets, enemies and difficulties can be swapped quickly and easily to accommodate most game modes. This allows for very efficient upscaling. Make a new game mode and it can be turned into 5-6 missions, each with different factions and environments, very quickly.

Creating a unique scenario for each mission would be very demanding for a studio that often creates multi use assets and mechanics.

[chaotea]

 

On 2024-08-09 at 3:14 PM, chaotea said:

The only thing I'd ask here is more description on what you want that isn't repeated content.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

....that's where I'd start. It can still be modular, and should be, but it can change significantly from the current template.

What would this significant change look like? How would it play, what existing systems would it interact with and what new ones would need to be made? What Im looking for here is more articulation on your part of the vision you have for these new missions. Paint a picture of it so to speak. Because if you cant envision what this new content would look like, your really not asking for anything new, your just saying you dont like what we currently have.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Secondly I'd address the way missions and mission goals are presented to the player, and focus on putting more meaning into them and in being much more original in both concept and scope.

Again, what does this mean to you beyond vague wording? How would you make the missions more narrativity interesting without bogging down the player (like old void vor).

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Thirdly and maybe more importantly is how enemies are encountered, this needs to be more... thoughtful.

Can you give examples of what you want from these encounters? How exactly should the be different.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

But what if the Mirage quest happened in an entirely new tileset with interesting new mission types? How much dev time is that? Well it's hard to say, but it sure as fire is way, way less than what something like the New War would entail.

Mirage quest probably took a few months to put together. The new war took years. For a new quest with new mission types and tilesets? 6-10 months most likely. More if its an entirely new mission and not a variant, and even more if the tileset doent use existing templates. Theres a reason we seen new tilesets so infrequently.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Changing weapons and warframes and randomizing tiles increases variety but it does not change the mission design.

An exterminate with pistols only and one with melee only are very different experiences. Everything is part of mission design, and missions need to be deigned to accommodate all the variables that can occur. This is a leading reason why so many missions often feel 'generic'.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

The idea of categories is just an extra idea to help make missions feel more unique. I'd happily sacrifice it if I got everything else, but I do think it has good potential, especially for late game players who are basically looking for an excuse to invest in obscure/niche builds.

I think doing it like Archon Hunts might be good. Offer particular frames a stat boost for that mission. That way you can still offer the choice and include players who dont have access to particular frames.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

What you're saying here is the entire reason DE relies on RNG so heavily I believe, and there's good logic behind it, and that's why they rotate everything.

Nope, different things. Baslically: RNG is used to pad out play time. This means every asset made will have a greater lifetime. Generally rewards are split into 2 sections (there are exceptions, but these generally hold true).

First, anything you can buy for plat that is able to be earned can be done so through RNG. This is because time = money. You pay through time, or you pay through money.

Second, anything that isnt purchasable is either not worth purchasing (and tends to be used to pad out RNG tables) or is valuable and restricted with time gate mechanics or something similar. Remember, scarcity breeds desirability.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

We may be differing in our view of "event."

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

My view of "event" was more more like NW quests when they happen, Fomorian, Razerback, and longer cycle things like Dog Days and holiday related events, and also custom events when they happen like Scarlet Spear.

That is exactly my interpretation of an 'event'. But you'll notice that everything you listed is timegated. The reason these events seem so special is because they arnt always available.

You said you wanted something that felt like an event, but you wanted it as an always present mission. But there is a reason why you didnt list anything like arbitrations. Scarcity breeds desirability.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Same as conclave and quest comment, you're pointing to a non-relevant example here. Kahl isn't warframes.

I'll stop you right there, this is the post i was replying to:

On 2024-08-09 at 1:57 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

This is true. But I'm not asking for full cinematic quests either. This is honestly more about level and mission design than cinematics. And DE wastes a lot of time on stuff that has very limited life cycles. We can look at Kahl as an example....

You brought up Kahl missions. You also bought up conclave and quests first, using them as an example, i just continued the example.

That aside, Kahl missions are, in effect, exactly what you are asking for. They are missions that have a much deeper connected narrative, where the objectives arnt copy pasted between missions, brand new tilesets purpose built for the mission and dramatic, out of the box thinking in terms of design. The only thing missing from what you asked for is the mission length.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

How much dev time went into veilbreaker? Felt like 3 months?

Not sure its that easy. Remember that the majority of the hard work for veilbreaker came about during the New War. Most of the assets, enemies, ect, where build for that. So it was more that they were getting more mileage on the stuff they already made. Also, I dont think it was a waste of time. Sure, i dont play it now, but I also dont really play infested derelict any more. These spaces arnt made to be forever, simply made to spend some time in. And Kahls missions were fun for a time.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

so the argument that there's just not enough dev resources to make lasting content falls flat to me, it's not about resources, it's about goals.

Thats not what the resources argument is about. They had the resources, and they made kahl stuff. That stuff served a purpose, but it wasnt a huge drain on resources either. 90% of the kahl missions was recycled assets. It was way cheaper than building new content. They didnt make new tilesets, only made a few new tiles for existing tilesets. No new enemies. A few new animations. No new weapons.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Yes, kaithes are essential to Duviri's gameplay. Kaithes serve no role outside of Duviri. They are content island mechanics, nothing more. The same will be true of atomicycles.

Yes, just as Kdrives are useless outside open world (and pretty much useless as transport next to skywing). These things arnt designed to be for everything, just to serve the needs of the missions they are created for.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

But you seem to be conflating content island revenue with long term development of the 'base' game, which aren't really related.

And what is it you want? You want new gamemodes that dont do anything new? You want development of the 'base' game, but what that development to be completely different from anything the base game offers, but not be like any of the other completely different gamemodes that are, as you put it 'not warframe'.

Just saying that you have been contradicting yourself constantly, its very hard to follow.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

As for game design, yes, there is a lot of interdisciplinary activity, and I do in fact have a very solid understanding of how development works, thanks.

Thats cool. Understand that from what you typed you gave the impression you didnt.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Different parts of game companies work on different things, and do so at different times, and they do not all necessarily overlap.

That depends very much on the studios. But even so, they do interact, and rework based on feedback. Defence maps arnt based around large rooms with empty space in the middle out of some lucky coincidence. Earth Grineer arnt in wooded camo due to could fortune. These elements are developed together. These things do overlap.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

The real truth is that there is no "level design team",

Not sure about DE specifically (Actually i did see a short interview with a level designer at tennocon where they talked about the design process of the murmur areas), but Level Designer is a job title. Level designers generally design white boxes before further interaction with other departments. Level designers tend to be more involved in the layout.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

To us naive outsiders, who cannot possibly comment in any meaningful way about how resources are truly being allocated for what goals, the best we can do is say "I'd like more of that and less of this.

I work in a similar field so i have a good guess on resource allocation. Its not total guesswork.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

It's interesting because you can see DE is trying to think about sustainable content, and their answer to that has been things like the Circuit, Netracells and EDA. Those are not bad attempts, and they're okay, but they're rehashing game modes/mission types in all of them, that's my main point. And it's not like they aren't innovating in missions, alchemy is probably the case study, but it doesn't feel unique or interesting and it's a timed exercise like all of them. And yes, I realize that no matter what content comes out it will always at some point feel stale especially if it's spammed, BUT that's not an excuse for not deviating from the formula.

Ok, but heres the main point. Everything they've done that deviates from the formula is the stuff you said you dont like as much (duviri, kahl, ect) while the stuff that if more 'standard' you enjoy more. You claim you want new stuff, but you dont look favourably on any of the new and different things you have, because they are too different.

This is why I was trying to get you to describe in detail an example of a mission you want. Because either you have an idea, but you're not doing well at articulating it, or you have no idea what you want. Either way, having a good crack at a detailed proposal will help give those thoughts form and solidify what you want form it.

That is, after all, what these forums are for. The presentation of idea and refinement through discussion.

On 2024-08-10 at 12:37 PM, CrownOfShadows said:

Just please stop putting us in missions like this where it's just waves of endless enemies for X amount of time with some meaningless objective and start putting us into engaging new experiences, doing interesting things that we care about with maximum player agency.

Ok, so the issue here is that that is the core warframe experience. Like Dynasty warriors. Doing it differently would be making warframe into a different game. But there already are different games. So why not play something different? And play Warframe when you want what warframe has to offer. I say this not as snark, but as someone who does this himself. I recently started playing 'The First Descendant.' It feels alot more like what your asking for, might be worth a go. Warframes no going anywhere.

I guess we all want warframe to be the best it can be. We love it. But we just need to be careful that in making it great, we dont try to make it something that is no longer warframe.

[quxier]

2 hours ago, chaotea said:

On 2024-08-09 at 9:54 PM, quxier said:

Do you mean that Open world is great place where Warframe can make interesting missions? Well... I think non open world makes them even better sometimes.

I do not mean that at all. Best not to try to interpret a deeper meaning in my words, its leading you astray. What I'm saying is that any long form mission is still going to be built on the back of existing systems. Open world is the same. The only way to change this would be to create gameplay that is unlike anything warframe has done to date, and would be unsustainable for the studio as it would be an experience designed for non-live service games.

In other worlds, for clarity, Warframe is built on the back of a modular mission system. By this I mean that tile sets, enemies and difficulties can be swapped quickly and easily to accommodate most game modes. This allows for very efficient upscaling. Make a new game mode and it can be turned into 5-6 missions, each with different factions and environments, very quickly.

Creating a unique scenario for each mission would be very demanding for a studio that often creates multi use assets and mechanics.

I was just confused. English is my 2nd language and I'm still confused from time to time. Thank you for explanation.

They can still use building blocks and modify start/end of blocks or just slightly modify blocks. Say you have killed target quickly. Enemies are afraid of you. They spawn +1 Eximus per player. Or if you were bad at killing the target they wouldn't be afraid and e.g. they forgotten locks the doors (worse security). Or you are taking time killing target and his Bro rescue him, leading to another mission with 2 targets.

So on and so forth. Above examples are not great but my point is that you can modify structure without loosing that "reusing blocks" feature.

For me above is not necessary. I would still hate that I cannot pick different gear. However it would still be possible to change missions without changing system too much.

[chaotea]

1 hour ago, quxier said:

I was just confused. English is my 2nd language and I'm still confused from time to time. Thank you for explanation.

All good. English is my first and its not always great :D

1 hour ago, quxier said:

So on and so forth. Above examples are not great but my point is that you can modify structure without loosing that "reusing blocks" feature.

Sure, i get that. Though they kind of did that with the missions turning into exterminates, and everyone hates that. The kind of do it with ship sabotages, using ice gives you a mini defence, fire is the extra button and time limit to escape. More like that would be good.

[quxier]

9 hours ago, chaotea said:

11 hours ago, quxier said:

So on and so forth. Above examples are not great but my point is that you can modify structure without loosing that "reusing blocks" feature.

Sure, i get that. Though they kind of did that with the missions turning into exterminates, and everyone hates that. The kind of do it with ship sabotages, using ice gives you a mini defence, fire is the extra button and time limit to escape. More like that would be good.

Everyone hates "turning into exterminate" because it ALWAYS happens after you finish main objective. In normal version at least. And it haven't happen in longer missions. So you are doing basically 2 missions for longer time. Spies (and your sabotage example) are more what I mean. Spies turns into exterminate ONLY if you fail to hack at least 1 console without alarms.

[CrownOfShadows]

12 hours ago, chaotea said:

What would this significant change look like? How would it play, what existing systems would it interact with and what new ones would need to be made? What Im looking for here is more articulation on your part of the vision you have for these new missions. Paint a picture of it so to speak. Because if you cant envision what this new content would look like, your really not asking for anything new, your just saying you dont like what we currently have.

Again, what does this mean to you beyond vague wording? How would you make the missions more narrativity interesting without bogging down the player (like old void vor).

Can you give examples of what you want from these encounters? How exactly should the be different.

This is why I was trying to get you to describe in detail an example of a mission you want. Because either you have an idea, but you're not doing well at articulating it, or you have no idea what you want. Either way, having a good crack at a detailed proposal will help give those thoughts form and solidify what you want form it.

I'll put together a more detailed scenario when I have time, but I hope you're not just asking for my creativity so you can punch holes in it, because I really hate that. Alas none of this will reach the ears of DE so it's ultimately wasted breath, but I'm happy to spend a little time on it for you if you're asking in good faith.

12 hours ago, chaotea said:

Mirage quest probably took a few months to put together. The new war took years. For a new quest with new mission types and tilesets? 6-10 months most likely. More if its an entirely new mission and not a variant, and even more if the tileset doent use existing templates. Theres a reason we seen new tilesets so infrequently.

There's no way that took months to build, even back then. Hidden Messages is just some VO / inbox messages, followed by treks to various planet nodes. It's a nothingburger of a quest. I'm not exaggerating for effect when I say that should take less than a week to do these days, in fact the mechanics could probably be built in one day.

12 hours ago, chaotea said:

An exterminate with pistols only and one with melee only are very different experiences. Everything is part of mission design, and missions need to be deigned to accommodate all the variables that can occur. This is a leading reason why so many missions often feel 'generic'.

Hm, you're avoiding the point here it seems. Sure that might make it play slightly differently, same way sortie/EDA/Circuit restrictions can make things slightly more interesting, but that doesn't affect the goal of the mission at all. The objective is always the same. Regardless of what you bring, the mission is the mission. I do however agree about your point about missions trying to accommodate too many things and as a result they end up becoming overly generic.

12 hours ago, chaotea said:

Remember, scarcity breeds desirability.

That is exactly my interpretation of an 'event'. But you'll notice that everything you listed is timegated. The reason these events seem so special is because they arnt always available.

While this is of course true, it's also part of the problem. I posit that time gates are ideal for events - as you say it makes them feel more special - but that they are terrible for people who just want to jump in and play some warframe. I fire up warframe - I love warframe - but guess what everything's timegated and I have nothing to do. This is why I'm suggesting quests - things players can go involve themselves in for extended periods of time. Now true to your point here, even with quests you'd want some kind of structure to help rarify them, but that can be achieved without timegates (when I build my scenario I'll try to include an example of this as well).

12 hours ago, chaotea said:

Ok, but heres the main point. Everything they've done that deviates from the formula is the stuff you said you dont like as much (duviri, kahl, ect) while the stuff that if more 'standard' you enjoy more. You claim you want new stuff, but you dont look favourably on any of the new and different things you have, because they are too different.

... and that is not warframes. They are experimenting, yes, but not with warframe content, or more specifically, not with warframe mission design, not in any kind of meaningful way.

12 hours ago, chaotea said:

Ok, so the issue here is that that is the core warframe experience. Like Dynasty warriors. Doing it differently would be making warframe into a different game. But there already are different games. So why not play something different? And play Warframe when you want what warframe has to offer. I say this not as snark, but as someone who does this himself. I recently started playing 'The First Descendant.' It feels alot more like what your asking for, might be worth a go. Warframes no going anywhere.

I guess we all want warframe to be the best it can be. We love it. But we just need to be careful that in making it great, we dont try to make it something that is no longer warframe.

I don't think DE should be so scared of doing new things. The primary reason is because they already have so much grind-a-thon content available, especially tied into the relic system, which is the core gameplay loop. None of that is going anywhere. People will always be playing that, and new content never affects that (in fact in energizes it). So why not try something new? People will engage with it if they like it. If they don't like it, whatever, just throw it on the stack of gameplay corpses. Like I said, I just want to be able to log on and play WF. I can log on, but if it's not monday or release week there's nothing to do, and there's really no reason why we have to enforce that sad state. I am actually prohibited from playing WF for more than a couple hours a week. Uh, how about no? Like why? How about I can play any time I feel like it? (And yes, I know, I can play any of the old grind any time I want yada yada - don't miss the point plz).

I just got back from a long break from WF. I have a robust game library - almost all of them are play-and-forget games, WF is one of the few live service games I play. Ok, well at this point I'm waiting for titles that haven't been released yet.

So I am now ready to play WF. So why can I not play warframe? Why is there nothing to do? Well... I guess there's dog days.... like c'mon son

[Feltal]

So what you're saying.... Is trials. 

 

You've literally described Trials except for the time gate part, they were daily. They had the uniqueness, the story, the unique reward pool, replayability. 

Edited August 14 by Feltal

[CrownOfShadows]

2 hours ago, Feltal said:

So what you're saying.... Is trials.

You've literally described Trials except for the time gate part, they were daily. They had the uniqueness, the story, the unique reward pool, replayability. 

Hm, maybe, idk that was before my time.

[Feltal]

2 minutes ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Hm, maybe, idk that was before my time.

Unfortunately some of us have been banging the drum for them to come back for 6 years. Nothing yet. 

[CrownOfShadows]

A quest-building scenario:

The larger structure:

1. Quests can be started by talking to syndicates in relays, and in Iron Wake. Certain
2. They come in two main varieties: solo and team. Teams are 2 or 3 players rather than 4. (While I'd love to accommodate up to 8, the difficulty naturally drops the more tenno are in play unless some truly spectacular mission design is on display, and I think that modes for 8 players are honestly much better suited to events, and that's where I'd put them)
3. Quests can be started at any time, but only one quest can be active at a time. It is however possible to have a solo quest and a team quest running at the same time (this is so that if you want to play but your team you were running isn't on you can still have something to do). Whether or not the entire team needs to be present to resume a team quest IDK, but since we're limiting it to 2-3 players I think that it's probably reasonable that they all be there.
4. Quests lock you in to playing them and cannot be paused, but some will have intermissions / checkpoints that allow you to save and exit to regular WF content. Quests can be resumed or abandoned via navigation. Abandoned quests offer consolation prizes based on progress. In team quests, a player disconnecting will not stop the quest, but they will need to be designed with failsafes so that mission goals can still be met.
5. Quests feature a tier system. The tier system is 1-4, with tier 1 aimed at newer players roughly MR10-20, tier 2 aimed at experienced players roughly MR20-MR30, tier 3 aimed at legendary players roughly L1+, and tier 4 aimed at master players L1+ and for whom want a challenge beyond that presented for the average legendary player.
6. Quests also feature a level system / unlocking system. As you finish a quest, if you then request another quest from the same source they will offer one that is longer, harder and that has better rewards. Levels for quests reset bi-weekly rather than weekly. Solo and team quests from the same source have different level trackers (thus you wouldn't be able to unlock a level 2 team quest by playing a level 1 solo, and vice versa)
7. Longer quests should have intermissions that allow for saving, as they will have to be done over long periods of time.
8. Quests further have a deviation mechanic, where to some extent it remember what quests you run the most, and the more those are run the more deviations in story and mode it will inject into it. It will also make sure not to present the same plot type one after another, and also make sure that if there is a boss that it is not the same boss as before.
9. Quest length is designed so that a level 1 quest can be accomplished in one session, which I'm guessing is something like 1-2 hours. A level 2 quest should take 3-4 hours (with 1-2 intermissions), and level 3 quests should take 4-6 hours (with 2-4 intermissions). Whether there is a cap on levels idk, but I don't believe it would be practical for people to do anything beyond a level 5 (12-14 hrs) in the span of a week, so for a bi-weekly reset I would think something like level 8 is probably the max humanly possible and probably not healthy, so I'd probably cap it around 6 or 7. There's a balance here between the thrill of getting very deep into very high level quests with great rewards and asking too much of completionist types who will want to get to the end of anything.
10. Some quest may feature choices which could determine story options ahead. This could be great for player agency and making quests feel more alive.

Basic quest story design.

1. When starting a quest, it builds a story out of modular story elements. We begin with a basic plot premise: revenge, adventure, journey, discovery, mystery, thriller, etc. We then decide on a setting, which will determine the dominant tile-set for this quest. After this we build an antagonist, which would ideally be somewhat modular themselves, and then we build a plot for this story based on the level of the quest. Higher levels will need longer and more complicated stories. I could list all the elements that could conceivably be used to build a plot, but that would take a lot of time and I think you get the idea. You use things like tragedy, revelation, relationship dynamics, political events, disasters, betrayal, etc. The only part of this that would be nice but not practical is VO, because synthesizers just aren't good enough for that even if we could pack them into a game, so story dialogue will have to be via text. We do however, have a pretty fantastic sidestep of this - the VO can be in a foreign language, of which WF has several, with translations to read, thus we can get some randomized VO but it doesn't strike the user as overly modular or repetitive.
2. Most importantly of all, the player is not informed about any of this; they don't know where the story is going (unlike every single type of repeatable mission currently in WF). I would however probably associate certain story types with certain characters, especially for niche things, so that if a player just happens to love stealth they can visit the person who offers those types of quests. Further, quest vendors may offer multiple types of level one quests, such as a war quest (high action), a mystery quest (slower based clue chasing), a savior quest (starts slow but has rising action to powerful climax). Then if the player is in the mood for more of that content, they can re-request a quest and that type will have a level 2 option.

Basic quest level design.

1. Level design needs to be connected to story to some degree. For example, let's say the story starts with a disaster. This type of story element requires a big space with lots of destruction - one big tile. Or maybe we start with a stealth mission and we need very tight tunnels with lots of sneaking and cameras, trip wires, etc. Some types of story elements don't need ultra-specialized environments though and any of several options could be used.
2. Levels should have multiple ways of accomplishing goals and focus heavily on tool use rather than mandated actions. We should have problems to solve not tasks to perform, wherever practical. What do I mean by this? As an example, let's say you need to find a way into an underground bunker, but the door is locked. If there are tools laying around to solve this problem with, we get to first search and then maybe choose (which is much more interesting and provides much more agency than plugging something into a console and waiting). Some tools might be a temporary heavy weapon (a mega welder, a massive crowbar thing, a mega plasma saw, a big drill, etc). There might also be consoles around to hack. There might also be secret ways in. There might also be a puzzle to solve. We might overhaul our gear wheel to be cool and fill it with cool tools for this very purpose. And so on. Then, maybe in another mission there's a big bridge we need to lower. If we find another plasma saw around it, then maybe there's something to cut with it. Tools can be used in multiple scenarios, that's the beauty of them. If we got really clever we could design around players collecting tools as they move through a quest. A well-designed obstacle is a pleasure to tackle not a chore.
3. Quest levels should be designed around engagements rather than places for enemies to pool in like water, so that warframes hit a wall of resistance rather than sweeping through tiles like a tidal wave (although some parts of a story might lean towards that, and it's probably fine while moving from one important story point to another). No everything should be cannon fodder. For example let's say we need to enter a facility and we decide we want to go through the front door. We should have a battle at the front, we shouldn't be able to just walk in. For these types of engagements to work we need a new type of enemy structure: waves of minions (the types of enemies we currently face) that support tougher opponents. We have to survive both the waves and the attacks of the tougher opponents. Once the tougher opponents are all eliminated THEN we can move in. This style is good for many reasons imo: it creates variety in pacing, it creates experiences, it encourages teamwork, it provides a sense of accomplishment and progress. In current missions, even in high level exterminates like EDA, people just fly through tiles, rushing to the end, groaning their way back if conditions aren't met. Force warframes to deal with problems instead of just running past them. This tactic is as old as gaming and it's a good one: beat the enemies, unlock progress. With extended engagements and high level enemies and/or other hazards, cover should (finally) become important, so part of the level design should include cover options.
4. Create some scenarios where a warframe really just cannot handle the enemy. Force a retreat. This can be especially useful when building up over time to a big boss - if the player had to run from it at first, was able to slowly engage with it before running, and then at last is able to face it. More importantly this puts fear and uncertainty back into players, which is imo a critical element in both engaging gameplay but also in effective storytelling. This can also be environmental: sometimes you just gotta bail. A reactor is overheating, lava is pouring in, an area is flooding with chemical waste, we're flying too close to the sun, etc.
5. Quests would ideally have special sections that allow for re-equipping especially if there are hints of unique mission elements ahead. This would not be a return to the orbiter, but a physical location like Teshin's cave, a place of safety where the player gets access to their arsenal. (these may also serve as checkpoints in case of disconnection). This is also great for pacing. For the ultra-hard sections this could be a useful tool as well, forcing a player to try many different things before finally finding a way to get past. (Warframes are tools when you think about it, and being to switch out and try a different tool can be great).
6. Tile sets should be moving towards goals. Each section of a quest should have a definite goal, and tiles can lead us to that, get us inside, and even lead us away to an evac. Let's say there's a facility we need to get into. Instead of just dropping us into the facility or at the entrance we should enter at distance and progressively work our way closer, overcoming obstacles and enemies. We can move through randomized tiles to get there, but ideally we should be able to see the goal in the distance, getting closer and closer. Admittedly, this depends on DE's tech, but UE5 has good solutions for this as an example. This is good because it endows the player with a sense of progress and a higher goal. It keeps the story clear in mind and avoids tedium. If it's not practical to see the goal (for example if we are burrowing deep into a hidden vault) then we can have packaged VO to remind us of our progress and ideally the environment itself should change as we get deeper (clever material use here can be leveraged to tremendous effect while still using randomized elements). It can be green and damp at the surface, or oxidized and blue, and as we get deeper it can become orange and red, blackened from burns, and have heat FX. This creates immersion and a sense of progress in a closed environment that might otherwise feel repetitive and bland. One important thing to keep in mind is warframe speed. Warframes can move very fast. You'll notice some of our current missions do have a little bit of a space where you're on approach or on an exit, but these are currently enclosed in the space of one tile, which a warframe can cross in a few leaps (especially with the parkour shard revolution), so we need to modernize these so they are real journeys in and out with longer tiles and/or more tiles dedicated to getting in and out of things. It can and should  take 15-30 minutes to get to the main goal of a quest segment, and more complicated quests might have multiple goals per segment, featuring long approaches and exits to each.
7. Quest tile sets should feature more ways of moving through content. Rather than a hallway filled with enemies every time, there should be options. For example if you're in a derelict space station and see tons of enemies in your path, maybe you drop down a level and see if it's as bad down there, maybe you find an airlock and run around in archwing outside looking for access further down, maybe you slip into ventilation, maybe you do something to create a distraction. Destructible and dynamic elements can lend themselves to this well. A linear line to the goal is boring and has no agency associated with it. It's basically 'run along this dotted path'. Instead, there should be many ways to go. Especially if you know the player is solo, you can feature different paths that even cross multiple tiles. Similar to the previous point, being able to see the other paths and to even cross back and forth to them would increase agency. On this note: shortcuts. Think about all the missions tiles we have. I can only think of one that has a shortcut (the grineer crack in the rocks with the road that loops around the long way). Shortcuts increase agency and I would add more of them.
8. And on a personal note I'd love a little more mood to be built into tile sets, especially with the new lighting tech. We now have the ability to move from dark areas to light areas, from smoky areas to clear ones, to highlight things with light, to hide things with darkness, etc, and those are powerful visual storytelling tools that could be further connected to story goals. With these tools you can create suspense, fear, exhilaration.
9. For some clarity on moving between major segments of a quest where a complete change of location is needed, I would avoid using the orbiter and lander completely. Instead I would just go straight into a load, or better yet have an organic load like the Zariman elevator, or possibly use the RJ to catch a cinematic rail to a planet where you perhaps sometimes do some activities in orbit before leaving and /or before making planetfall. Do not revert the player to their orbiter where they have access to everything except at intermissions, as this destroys the sense of the quest as a continuous story, and using navigation in the orbiter to progress a quest also is very destructive to immersion.

Hopefully this is enough to give you a strong sense of the vision for these quests. If you want extreme specifics on how levels would really look and work according to me, well at that point I'm modeling, texturing and lighting real levels, and sorry but you've got to pay me at that point, because that's real work. How is this visually different from our current levels? Well that depends on your imagination. If there are particular elements that aren't clear, I can try to expand on them descriptively, but I can only do so much to describe a picture before I actually have to paint it. To succinctly re-cap my level design philosophy:

1. Design around engagements and story elements.
2. Provide multiple paths and even multiple solutions, less linear. Changing and destructible environments can help with this by opening up new paths.
3. Feature tool usage and problem solving.
4. Better and longer journeys into and out of things.
5. Create scenarios where warframes actually cannot handle the enemy/environment, forcing them to cover or to retreat.
6. Design with an eye for progress, using things like distant goals getting nearer or changes in environment related to proximity of goal. Every mission should have a goal and the tile sets should organically lead to and from it.
7. Use lighting and FX as visual storytelling aids and as progress indicators.
8. Do not use orbiter and lander but provide more immersive story-based transitions when needed.