Countering Rushers Constructively

[Lorane_Airwing]

Sorry, but you're still going in circles. Once again you end your post with 'that there's really no carrot to slow down, take your time or explore' but there are TONS of reasons to loot everything in warframe. They're just not meaningful to you anymore because you found/farmed/spent/crafted them already. The same will be true of anything else except maybe XP.

 

Don't get me wrong. I would love more stuff to find and I think we definitely need to improve the exploration aspect with some equivalent to treasure chests. I'm not arguing AGAINST stuff to find.

 

I'm arguing that it would not solve the problems of rushing being so easy and so effective and so detrimental to the play experience of anyone not rushing.

VKhaun does have a point, many people in the game already have what they want. I don't play often because there simply isn't anything for me to grind towards yet. Unlike when i first joined and though having huge amount of weapons was cool. As he said earlier, players generally don't care for much late game besides affinity. Credits are abundant resources can be gathered by drone (except oxium), and there is generally no need to go public beyond defenses. Rushing is valid because there really is little reason to explore due to rushing being faster to farm. Allowing players to filter together through their own speed lets rushers find people they like to do long repeat grinds with, and lets exploration/stealth players to find each other as the mission goes on.

 

 

 

People rushing aren't the problem. And your idea pretty much kills the co-op feeling and benefit of the game. 

The problem mainly is that enemies aren't quite a big force to go against and thus it's easy to just run past them. If there was a line up of shield lancers then I bet a rusher would be well toasted, but no, there's no formations, no enemy squads, enemies can't lock you in a room to fight them (sort of). Enemies need mechanics to deal with the jumping rabbits we are instead of just upping their power level or put a bandaid fix for rushers. 

Co-op is already killed besides defenses and events. Have you run any of the less popular nodes of the system? If anything they are either rusher filled or you been the occasional person running through it. Yes teamwork is a focus it's what makes this a co-op shooter/mmo thing. However warframe seems to not compensate for various people having different play styles. Letting people go when they want to solves a lot of issues with a split player base warframe already has, no more worries about holding back the group or being too fast for the group. Even more so there is no teamwork between nodes anyway. As soon as you leave a node unless it's an alert it's likely your not going ot have the same group rushing or not.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Lorane_Airwing

[zombisa]

First off, this is only ideas, thoughts and musing on game design methods and mechanics that would allow different play styles to co-exist. Right now rushing is an issue because it mingles with other peoples slower or more careful play styles. instead of allowing players the option to use any style of play DE has chosen to punish rushing. We can't truly blame them for doing so, there is no shame is being disappointed that all of the work you've put into your game is being run past, and inclusions to the game that counter rushing can be expected (lights, sensor doors, corpus doors/camera ). After all, some of us love to look for the secret little treasure rooms in tile sets that would be passed up easily if you are rushing. Hidden things like these rooms prove DE really does put a lot of love into their maps and want people to explore them.

 

 

Deterring rushing is probably a hard thing to accomplish. As much as I understand many rushers rush because they simply want the end mission reward. Older players with hoards of credits and resources that simply want to get that helmet blueprint from an alert for example. In this post I will try to list possible methods of constructively aiding and countering rushing at the same time.

 

 

Firstly, extraction changes: Right now the bane of both rushers and players is the "players waiting to extract 1/4" dialog that comes over the screen when someone wishes to leave the mission, forcing other players to either ignore them (survival) or to get to extraction earlier than they wanted to or forcefully extract ( 3/4 players waiting one person wants to explore ). To fix each player will now have their own 10 second extraction timer. If a player has reached the exit it will show a message "A player is extracting", after 10 seconds he or she will leave the mission and free up a spot for another player to join( as normal only if the objective is not completed ). This change would allow rushers to rush without forcing other players to conform to their play style. As well it would allow players who wish to stay and explore the mission to do so without worry of holding their team back from extraction.

 

 

Secondly, enemy focus and stealth changes. Enemies need to be changed slightly so that each player is detected individually. Just because one tenno is present does not mean there are always four there. Players rushing can than run in guns blazing without other players being bothered that their stealth has been broken. This would also allow players to act as distractions when DE begins their work on stealth 1.0 allowing stealth focused players to play how they wish. The only issue i am unsure how to solve is ship alert status and lock-downs. Alert status could possibly be changed so that enemies will be "pulled" from further rooms to confront the most active tenno meaning stealth players would only need to worry about troops moving towards the player and not patrolling troops, possibly a stealth bonus as they are not paying attention to those particular tenno?

 

 

Thirdly, give hidden rooms more treasure. Lockers are really nice to see even more so for new players that need credits and resources, but why not include common and uncommon mods? Possibly even a rare drop of a few select mods? Allow some more incentive to explore maps and dig deep into the level design, and be rewarded for finding that craftily hidden room a level designer probably put hours into! kind of like the voids obstacle courses except a little less in the reward department due to being easier to find and having multiple per map.

 

 

fourthly, allow more level branches, orokin derelict captures are very good examples of levels like this. The levels branch have hidden paths that aren't along the main path to the objective allowing inquisitive players to explore and collect hidden mods and resources, possibly even find secrets like hints for up comming events *wink wink nudge nudge* what could be better for both roleplayers and exploration focused players than finding secret grineer plans. or a map of the corpus trade routes pinned up in some kind of grineer war room!

 

 

Fifthly, and probably optionally, treasure room drops are shared, like corrupted mods. Players exploring the map will share be able to share their loot with other players when the mission ends as long as the player is present when the item is found. Rushers likely having no focus on exploration still benefit, though much less than a player that helps explore and find all the hidden rooms of a level, and as detailed in the first point they will not be a detriment to their teams extraction by exploring.

 

 

Sixthly, and again optionally. This is more of a stealth 1.0 thing, but having treasure rooms only opened by unalerted soldiers would be interesting. As players focusing on stealth wouldn't be bothered by players going in guns blazing this could be possible!

 

 

 

 

My last words on this simply have to do with mission compatibility. Missions such as assassination, defense, possibly survival, are hard to mix with giving an exploration based focus as well as stealth bonuses for players wishing to stay out of enemy focus.

 

Survival has it's own issue of people not paying attention to air supplies instead exploring the map, possibly adding hidden O2 containers into treasure rooms, or being able to activate life support valves hidden in the level? Again, allowing players to leave when they have had their fill be it past 5 minutes or past 2 hours, would at least help some player frustration.

 

Assassinate has always had a problem with rushers killing the boss before other players have even reached him. One possible idea would be to have the boss in a separate section of the level, a sort of "boss door" built into the tile set? not allowing the rusher to progress to the boss without the others? It seems a bit cheap though like the co-op doors.

 

Defense/interception/mobile defense already has a kind of one man extraction built into the gamemode, and has a larger issue with players preferring to door hero instead of defending the pod. Though my post doesn't cover door heroing, i guess it can be considered a form of rushing as it irritates other players? I'm unsure how to work on this one.

 

Spy, exterminate, deception, and capture all fit well with the above outline allowing rushing players to do what they want and reward players more if they explore and stealth through the mission.

 

Lastly there is rescue, While defending the hostage is the most important part of the mission, giving him a gun and rushing to the exit is now possible, the AI is competent and the mission is a lot more fun than it used to be. However a rescue target can only survival for so long. I am also unsure how the new forced stealth section will affect the mission... It doesn't seem to be fitting of the "ninja sandbox" DE seems to be going for in warframe, forcing a player to do a specific style of gameplay does not open the door for either creativity or sandbox play. Instead allowing players to choose their own super cyborg space ninja path should be a major focus, and if anything is what i am trying to get across through this post.

 

 

TL; DR: Let players extract on their own, make stealth based on each player and not the squad, make treasure rooms more rewarding, and share the loot between players still in the mission so we can raid levels for stuff. Finally implementing ideas is hard sometimes.

 

 

Thoughts, and ideas?

Some good stuff right here. I'm always up for more diversity in gameplay style, enemy behavior and different mechanics. +1

[(PSN)ariaandkia]

Personally?  The way to get around rushers would be to be more like L4D or Dota and such.

 

A huge amount of the fun comes not from the gathering of items and rewards but from the actual gameplay.  The problem really is that the levels are not fun to do after a while.  Long survival and defense are somewhat "fun," but even then...

 

DE has made the game to really revolve around gathering loot and leveling up gear.   However, once you've done that, what else is left?  Gather more loot and gear?

 

In order to encourage exploration, DE needs to make exploration fulfilling.  This can be very difficult to do.

 

Examples of fulfilling:  FF14:ARR (Yes, I'm talking about that game yet again) dungeons.

 

After bosses, you get a chance at the more major rewards (rare armor); however, checking side areas can also give good loot-this isn't guaranteed, you might only end up with potions and you might not even get the loot yourself (due to the loot "roll" system (FF14:ARR has one of the better roll systems) rather than the loot "copy" system that warframe has).  Yet, this can be rewarding because you generally know where the loot will be.  So you can decide whether you want to go to these side areas or not.

 

But that is the key here, the side areas are rewarding/fulfilling.

 

There are other games that manage this by making other rewards - little hidden cameos/easter eggs as one example, bonuses for area completion, enjoyable exploration/combat, etc.

 

Warframe has one of the better movement systems in games out.  However, the combat is still far from perfect and honestly gets repetitive after doing the same mission 5 times in a row.  Or doing what is essentially the same mission 20 times in a row or more.

[Zephyric_Reaper]

 

Co-op is already killed besides defenses and events. Have you run any of the less popular nodes of the system? If anything they are either rusher filled or you been the occasional person running through it. Yes teamwork is a focus it's what makes this a co-op shooter/mmo thing. However warframe seems to not compensate for various people having different play styles. Letting people go when they want to solves a lot of issues with a split player base warframe already has, no more worries about holding back the group or being too fast for the group. Even more so there is no teamwork between nodes anyway. As soon as you leave a node unless it's an alert it's likely your not going ot have the same group rushing or not.

 

 

I'd think not. I go to plenty nodes with people, however, they all have a purpose, like getting t3 keys, exp farming, resource farming, ect. There is little to no incentive to play -any- node but rather there is to play some special nodes via alerts, particular mod drops and so on. 

Warframe is as much as co-op as it is solo. It's just that solo is hard and co-op is easy. In L4D it was the same, as soon as I finished a chapter, everybody left, it's just that missions there are much larger and more often than not people would quit mid-mission but it wasn't an issue because of the bots. The thing with L4D is that you NEEDED teammates to escape some mechanics and...well, as much as I liked playing with friends, I loathed playing with brain-dead pugs. 

Take spy for example. There are two paths both with datamasses in their way. I say, "Lets split in two" All the people ignore me and I just end up taking the other path, I then meet a co-op door and ping it, say that someone should come and what not but after.....5 minutes? They all come jumping about following the same dude that rushed ahead and all pretty much brain-dead. . . These weren't some scrubs either, MR rank 4-7. 

 

If you put such co-op demanding missions, although as cool as it sounds, you'll soon see in the recruit channel "LF T3 EXT, MR 8+" to say an example. It WILL happen eventually, when the game gets hard enough but it will be sooner than ever when you make it co-op intensive because bad teammates=instant loss (of revives). 

On the other hand, if you make it all individual people will feel LESS likely to cooperate. I've met some wonderful people through missions, I tend to run support frames to low tier missions when I level up weapons to help the squad I'm in. Some noobies then grow up and turn into powerful allies/friends. And it's FUN. If you want individuality then pick solo. If you complain that solo is too hard then THAT is the issue, not co-op. 

[Axterix13]

VKhaun does have a point, many people in the game already have what they want. I don't play often because there simply isn't anything for me to grind towards yet. Unlike when i first joined and though having huge amount of weapons was cool. As he said earlier, players generally don't care for much late game besides affinity. Credits are abundant resources can be gathered by drone (except oxium), and there is generally no need to go public beyond defenses. Rushing is valid because there really is little reason to explore due to rushing being faster to farm. Allowing players to filter together through their own speed lets rushers find people they like to do long repeat grinds with, and lets exploration/stealth players to find each other as the mission goes on.

Credits aren't that abundant compared to demand.  Not outside of the Void anyway.  Fusing mods takes a lot of credits.  As do certain blueprints and making stuff.  I've blown about 14 million, and I'm not fusing everything I can, nor do I bother to transmute.  And a chunk of money came from the old Infestation (20-30k vs 10k), Void missions rewarding keys (lots of T3 Void missions), and Invasion (50k vs 25-35k) rewards.  So it'll take newer players longer to reach that point.  And even those that are there, they still like to keep accumulating things like credits.

 

Also worth noting that you should be looking at a long term solution.  You can't really worry about all the players that have plenty of stuff already.  That's water under the bridge.  It is the players not at that point you're more interested in.  If you shift the focus a bit, that will shift things long term.  Right now, I run the occasional set of Alad V runs for Neural Sensors.  But what if it was actually worth opening lockers to try and get those on Jupiter?  Such a thing might (and probably would) require adjustments in cost.  Something that takes one sensor now would likely need to take three or more.  But it could be done.  And we do have recipes that use more, like Kamas (5 neural sensors each) or Primes with their Orokin Cell use.  Likewise, you could chop the credit rewards for void missions in half, or even a third, and distribute that to the lockers instead.  Which means that if you went to the Void with Master Thief, you could make more than you do now per key, or you could choose to go fast like we do currently, and make less.  Though that reduction in end reward should only happen for the Void.  Others are low enough ;)

Edited March 24, 2014 by Axterix13

[Lorane_Airwing]

I've met some wonderful people through missions, I tend to run support frames to low tier missions when I level up weapons to help the squad I'm in. Some noobies then grow up and turn into powerful allies/friends. And it's FUN.

When it comes to co-op I feel new players are absolutely great for this. Running low level missions to help new players is something I used to do before I took an extended break. The other issue with warframe that you're right about, there really is no downside to working alone, but i feel many players would reject co-op only traps or enemies that can kill you like left4dead, we've already seen the outrage at lightning traps after all. While i know the internet is always slow to accept new things, I am uncertain on how accepting players would be of smoker or jockey like enemies.

 

 

 

Credits aren't that abundant compared to demand.  Not outside of the Void anyway.  Fusing mods takes a lot of credits.  As do certain blueprints and making stuff.  I've blown about 14 million, and I'm not fusing everything I can, nor do I bother to transmute.  And a chunk of money came from the old Infestation (20-30k vs 10k), Void missions rewarding keys (lots of T3 Void missions), and Invasion (50k vs 25-35k) rewards.  So it'll take newer players longer to reach that point.  And even those that are there, they still like to keep accumulating things like credits.

 

Also worth noting that you should be looking at a long term solution.  You can't really worry about all the players that have plenty of stuff already.  That's water under the bridge.  It is the players not at that point you're more interested in.  If you shift the focus a bit, that will shift things long term.  Right now, I run the occasional set of Alad V runs for Neural Sensors.  But what if it was actually worth opening lockers to try and get those on Jupiter?  Such a thing might (and probably would) require adjustments in cost.  Something that takes one sensor now would likely need to take three or more.  But it could be done.  And we do have recipes that use more, like Kamas (5 neural sensors each) or Primes with their Orokin Cell use.  Likewise, you could chop the credit rewards for void missions in half, or even a third, and distribute that to the lockers instead.  Which means that if you went to the Void with Master Thief, you could make more than you do now per key, or you could choose to go fast like we do currently, and make less.  Though that reduction in end reward should only happen for the Void.  Others are low enough ;)

Sadly I'm uncertain on credit rewards for lockers, even if we could make 10-15K on lockers alone i doubt it would curb rushing all too much. It's the difference between seeing a reward on the horizon and not seeing a reward until the mission is over ( alerts/invasions VS void drops ). It's the difference between players looting lockers and grinding a boss for rare resources, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Back when jackal dropped control moduals players would rush and farm to get one instead of spending time in the lockers of the mission and getting 3-4 a mission.

 

Saturn levels are another good example, it is possible to get 2-3 orokin cells a mission yet the advice many players give is to farm Ruk. There needs to be a way to draw focus off single likely drops onto the many smaller drops of loot rooms and secret treasure stashes hidden on tiles. Possibly guaranteed rares, Possibly the purple blueprint orbs being added to containers giving large credit caches instead of a tiny number at the bottom of the screen. Something that is not only good, but feels good both aesthetically and game play wise, YOU found that loot room and got that big reward not some rng god deciding!

[Myocarde]

It'll be more convenient to just make a better group finder interface, make it looking more mmo-like, where you could just set your run options as "speed run", "container resource farm", "endless endless defense", so people would get grouped with like-minded individuals for the sake of these random runs.

Optionally, role settings or certain class/frame requirements (as comments, maybe).

[LukeAura]

 Something that is not only good, but feels good both aesthetically and game play wise, YOU found that loot room and got that big reward not some rng god deciding!

This. 

Just this. 

RNG is a kick in the teeth to people who put in the extra effort to explore. Giving better rewards, and less RNG interference off the beaten path will help a lot.

No one wants to reach that hidden room up in the rafters of some galleon and get a heaping load of nanospores.

[Lorane_Airwing]

This. 

Just this. 

RNG is a kick in the teeth to people who put in the extra effort to explore. Giving better rewards, and less RNG interference off the beaten path will help a lot.

No one wants to reach that hidden room up in the rafters of some galleon and get a heaping load of nanospores.

Guaranteed rare drops, large credit drops, or large affinity drops. At least one of those should be per locker of a treasure room, anything to make hidden lockers worth reaching and raiding. Slowing down rushers by making slower game play much more rewarding and less rng dependent. I'll be updating the OP at some point to add all the ideas and changes that have been mentioned before.

[Axterix13]

 

Sadly I'm uncertain on credit rewards for lockers, even if we could make 10-15K on lockers alone i doubt it would curb rushing all too much. It's the difference between seeing a reward on the horizon and not seeing a reward until the mission is over ( alerts/invasions VS void drops ). It's the difference between players looting lockers and grinding a boss for rare resources, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Back when jackal dropped control moduals players would rush and farm to get one instead of spending time in the lockers of the mission and getting 3-4 a mission.

 

Saturn levels are another good example, it is possible to get 2-3 orokin cells a mission yet the advice many players give is to farm Ruk. There needs to be a way to draw focus off single likely drops onto the many smaller drops of loot rooms and secret treasure stashes hidden on tiles. Possibly guaranteed rares, Possibly the purple blueprint orbs being added to containers giving large credit caches instead of a tiny number at the bottom of the screen. Something that is not only good, but feels good both aesthetically and game play wise, YOU found that loot room and got that big reward not some rng god deciding!

It'd do more than you'd think, credit-wise.  Lots of people don't have many credits.  And even people that have them like seeing a bigger number.  Beyond that, it is about more than just credits, but also mats and the occasional mod.  They could even put some exclusive ones in there as rares (the damage/status event mods, for example).  Will there still be rushers?  Sure.  When the goal is the end goal, you'll see it.  I don't think that's a problem.  You shouldn't feel forced to open every container.  But with greater incentive, more people will slow down.  Especially if they can come up with a solution so players aren't facing trivialized enemies so often.

 

As to Saturn, while it is possible to get 2-3 cells in a mission, the far more typical number to get is 0.  Farming Ruk works because it is on Saturn (so you can still bust those containers on the way) and he'll more reliably get you what you need.  And you only really go if you need one or two (and I personally never have).  You're far better off doing a survival, MD, or Defense, ideally with a Nekros along.  That's why the shift needs to happen.  Containers should be a more reliable source of the mats than the mobs.  If I'm farming for Cells, on Saturn, I should pick Ruk... and open up every container I see along the way.  I should want to use Master Thief, Thief's Wit, and so on.  But currently, I don't.  Because containers, and especially lockers, aren't worth it.  That said, when running Alad V, I do break every container I come across on the path.  Gotten a few neural sensors that way, though far fewer than I've gotten from Alad V.  Sufficiently so that I know going out of my way to find more would not be worth my time.

 

Also, as to finding of loot rooms, that does have a few issues.  First, in its own way, it encourages a form of rushing.  Everyone going all over the map trying to find said room.  Seen that plenty when in groups looking for the Void loot rooms.  Second, a lot of it comes down to memorization.  Once you know that room A has a loot area/trigger, that's what you go looking for.  The room on ODs with the big vines, for example, typically has an electrified water room if you jump across the lower area by the stairs.  That room has a bunch of lockers, plus containers.  From those containers, you'll almost always find one mod.  Finding that room isn't effort for me, because I know where it is.  In the void, there is the big, long room with 2 globes on the ceiling.  There's a pressure plate in the lower middle.  Hit that and one of the two globes opens, revealing 6 containers you can shoot, which will drop loot.  Again, I know it is there, so I do it.  No real discovery, just rolling on the RNG.  And third, it is still RNG.  That decides if you get one, which one you get, and what is in it.  Typically, in a Void, I get common junk.  Feels nice when you do get something good though.

 

You can't really have guaranteed rares though, unless the odds of having a loot room is low.  In which case, people won't bother to look.  Personally, I'd rather have it be more common and random.  Though it would be cool if they had a "golden locker" which could randomly be spawned inside those rooms, and those would have guaranteed good stuff.  That way, people get excited when they see said special locker.

 

But anyway, what it all amounts to is that people need carrots to look for stuff.  That means containers need to be more rewarding in general.  They should be the main source of something people need (rare mats), as well as a major source of their credits, and possibly some mods.  Ideally, lockers should be more rewarding than breakables, and containers off the beaten path more rewarding than those on it.  And ones in secret little room (like loot rooms), more rewarding still.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Axterix13

[Taranis49]

When it comes to co-op I feel new players are absolutely great for this. Running low level missions to help new players is something I used to do before I took an extended break. The other issue with warframe that you're right about, there really is no downside to working alone, but i feel many players would reject co-op only traps or enemies that can kill you like left4dead, we've already seen the outrage at lightning traps after all. While i know the internet is always slow to accept new things, I am uncertain on how accepting players would be of smoker or jockey like enemies.

 

 

 

Sadly I'm uncertain on credit rewards for lockers, even if we could make 10-15K on lockers alone i doubt it would curb rushing all too much. It's the difference between seeing a reward on the horizon and not seeing a reward until the mission is over ( alerts/invasions VS void drops ). It's the difference between players looting lockers and grinding a boss for rare resources, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Back when jackal dropped control moduals players would rush and farm to get one instead of spending time in the lockers of the mission and getting 3-4 a mission.

 

Saturn levels are another good example, it is possible to get 2-3 orokin cells a mission yet the advice many players give is to farm Ruk. There needs to be a way to draw focus off single likely drops onto the many smaller drops of loot rooms and secret treasure stashes hidden on tiles. Possibly guaranteed rares, Possibly the purple blueprint orbs being added to containers giving large credit caches instead of a tiny number at the bottom of the screen. Something that is not only good, but feels good both aesthetically and game play wise, YOU found that loot room and got that big reward not some rng god deciding!

 

Bump the credit rewards for lockers (or even just certain lockers) even higher, then. As I discussed, part of the issue is the fact that there's currently diminishing returns on time investment vs. reward when it comes to exploration. I covered this with the aforementioned Control Module example. Trying to justify exploration there is a classic Sunk Cost fallacy (it's also a good example of why you shouldn't accept anecdotal evidence at face value).

 

The fact is that exploration and looting every container was (and likely still is) far more likely to yield no rare resources despite taking several times longer than simply rushing the mission. The actual math showed as much, which is apparently why nobody's tried contesting it - the odds were 97.5% you'd get no rares from a container back then, assuming you got any resources from it at all. Considering that even mook enemies had (and likely still have) identical resource drop chances as containers, there was (and still apparently is) literally no logical reason to seek out containers.

 

This holds true for credits too. To restate the point, T3 Cap for example can be completed within five minutes when rushed and provides a minimum of about 25k credits solely for completion, even if searching every nook and cranny with Master Thief equipped yielded an amount equal to the completion reward, the issue is that it'll still take three or four times as long to do so - for exploration to actually be competitive, it needs to atleast provide an equal (or greater) reward relative to that time investment vs. rushing.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Taranis49

[(PSN)ariaandkia]

As above stated, it is reward vs cost (time).

 

Thus why I suggested the "node" thing where finding multiple nodes would increase the gains.

 

But now that I think about it, my post should be revised a little.

 

Here is my revised idea:

 

Give bonuses for exploration as well.  Various maps could have various switches of sorts in little hidden corners.  Activating these switches could not only unlock groups of containers but also could "give" larger affinity bundles and credit bundles and resource bundles and such that would give the players some minor bonuses based on how many were collected by the player.  For example, 1 collection might only give 1 affinity/credit or 0.5 resources.  2 would give 2 affinity/credit or 1 resources, 3 could give 4/1.5, 4 could give 8/2, 5 could give 16/2.5, 6 could give 32/3, etc.

 

There could be as many as say 15 (about 16k credits/affinity from the final switch or 7.5 resources from the final switch-that means that the player could expect around 32k credits/affinity or 15 resources from hitting all the switches) of these switches on a map and while the containers that are unlocked would be fairly fixed, the locations of the switches within the rooms could be random. (0.5 would mean 0~1 with a 50% chance of either).   The actual number could depend on both map size and map level (more difficult means higher chance of a switch room, larger map means more chances of a switch room).  However, that isn't much reward for doing all that work...  Thus...

 

Each node could be activated once per player (though the containers would only be unlocked once)-however, if multiple players are in the room, one player activating would activate it for all players in the room.  In addition, upon activation, for every player within the room of the switch, the people the switch activated for gain a bonus where the number of resources/affinity/credits that they are granted is multiplied by the number of players currently in the room (and if playing on solo setting, give them a x2 bonus regardless-this means that playing solo would give a x2 bonus while playing while playing with a group would give a x1~4 bonus).

So if 1 player activates a switch (the switch should be made to only be activated on purpose) with only him in the room, he gets x1.

If another player goes and activates the switch with player 1 still in the room, he gets x2

if two more players jump into the room before players 1 leaves, and one of them activates the switch, the remaining two both get x4 from that switch.

 

These switches would be in random places within the rooms with those unlockable containers-including places that would require some parkour to reach or places hidden from the sight of someone who isn't checking around.  But if the party is working together, only one player would need to reach the location.

 

That being said, if all four work together, they could get as much as 128k credits/affinity or 60 resources from hitting all the switches together while a solo player would see as much as 64k or 30.

 

While the resources would be random, out of 60 sets, likely one or two would be rare resources.

 

As an additional bonuses, players in a party (not solo mode) could get bonuses based on their "chain"-how many switches in a row were activated with all players present (excluding players still in the loading queue or having just spawned within the past 20 seconds (the player could still count for multiplier reasons if they are loaded in far enough and in the same room as the switch)).  Each chain would give +0.01x (+1%) credit/affinity and +0.1x resources.  The final switch of the map would always give +0.5x (for 1.5 times the credit/affinity of the final switch) and +2x (for 3 times the resources of the final switch)

 

In addition, at extraction, having all the players "activate" all of the switches in the map would give various additional bonuses depending on how many switches there were.  These bonuses would encourage players to stick together.  To encourage players, there could be messages like: All switches appear to have been activated.

 

If there was only say 5, the bonus might be something minor. (5 would be mostly for missions with very few rooms-like possibly defense)

 

10, the bonus might be something moderately useful. (10 would likely be the bulk of what people would see and would be for missions with a reasonable amount of rooms-like survival or extermination.

 

15, the bonus might be something major.  (15 would be more for the larger missions such as mobile defense, capture)

 

What bonuses could exist?

For 5: (5~9)

The mission counts as two missions for stat reasons (it would still only count as one mission for end rewards) (example of usefulness: people that are trying to raise their success rate on their mission score or people that are trying to do invasions/outbreaks).

The affinity bonus and credit bonus for that mission is multiplied by x1.2 (this would be after boosters)

The resources gained for that mission is multiplied by x1.1 (after boosters)

 

 

For 10: (10~14)

The mission counts as three missions for stat reasons (instant outbreak completion)

The affinity bonus and credit bonus for that mission is multiplied by x1.5 after boosters(potentially giving the player up to about 50k just from the switches alone assuming 14 switches).

The resources gained for that mission is multiplied by x1.5 after boosters.

If the mission was an alert, nightmare, assassination, or a tower/derelict mission (non-defense, non-survival), the player gets twice the reward (in the case of tower/derelict/assassination/nightmare, it would be an extra roll, not a copy). This would not include corrupted mods.

If the mission was a survival mission, the player gets an additional reward of each tier that they reached.  (so if they lasted 20 minutes, they'd get a second 5, 10, 15, 20 minute roll).  This would be increased based on how many hours they spent in the mission.  So if they were in for less than an hour, they'd get at most 1 set of bonus rolls (if they only reached 10 minutes, they'd only get 5 and 10 minute bonus rolls).  If they reached 1 hour, they'd get 2 sets of bonus rolls. If they reached 2 hours, they'd get 4 sets of bonus rolls, and so on.

 

For 15:

The mission counts as five missions for stat reasons (instant completion of an invasion if an invasion ever had 15 switches)

The affinity bonus and credit bonuses for that mission is multiplied by x2

The resources gained for that mission is multiplied by x2 after boosters.

If the mission was an alert, nightmare, assassination, or a tower/derelict mission (non-defense, non-survival), the player gets three times the reward (in the case of tower/derelict/assassination/nightmare, it would be two extra rolls, not copies).

In the case of corrupted mods, the player gets one extra corrupted mod roll.

If the mission was a survival mission, the player gets an additional rewards of each tier that they reached.  (so if they lasted 20 minutes, they'd get a second 5, 10, 15, 20 minute roll).  This would be increased based on how many hours they spent in the mission.  So if they were in for less than an hour, they'd get at most 1 set of bonus rolls (if they only reached 10 minutes, they'd only get 5 and 10 minute bonus rolls).  If they reached 1 hour, they'd get 2 sets of bonus rolls. If they reached 2 hours, they'd get 4 sets of bonus rolls, and so on.  (Same as For 10).

 

 

 

This would mean that for gathering affinity, credits, or resources, the switches could potentially give MORE than finishing the mission.  In fact, if all the players activated the switches together, it would essentially be guaranteed that the switches would give more than just finishing the mission.  Now, the issue becomes what happens when someone joins in late?  Wouldn't that encourage rushing the mission objective and then exploring?   And in a sense, yes, it would.  But at the same time, it would still encourage exploring after the objective was complete.  To make this a bit more manageable...  Make the assassination target room open with a switch.  Obviously that would require a bit of a logic setup so that the switch would be easier to reach than other switches, but it would encourage players to wait for everyone before engaging the assassination target.

 

=

 

That would give players a much bigger reason to stay around and look for hidden nodes (exploration) as well as to try to help other players reach those hidden nodes.

 

Now, if you look at the math, my suggestion would potentially make exploration give hundreds of thousands of credits in a single run and potentially well over 100 rare resources.  That may seem like an absurdly high amount, especially if oxium is included in the drop list on corpus missions.

 

However, if you think about it, in a single defense run, you easily pick up 100s of resources anyways.  Same with survival.  Thus, the resources part would be about the same as running defense/survival-a large part of why people run those missions).  The only advantage you'd be seeing would be the potential oxium-of which you can likely easily get about the same amount running missions like Kappa (PC) or mimas? (PS4).

 

As for the hundreds of thousands of credits, yes, that is a tad high, I'll admit, but that would be assuming that everyone is working together and exploring.  I think that would be a fairly low price to pay as it would encourage exploring and teamwork over rushing.  In addition, with the added time needed, the high amount of credits ends up not being so high (since it would easily take you 2 or more times longer to finish the mission).  It would also encourage slowing down even on alerts (despite the fixed rewards) due to the credit bonuses occurring after boosters (meaning that the credit reward for alerts would also get boosted-encouraging players to explore even alerts).

 

=

 

The biggest issue would be afkers.  They could potentially cost a party a great deal of problems.  This could be solved by making it so that if you are afk for over a certain amount of time, the game calculates you differently for the purposes of the bonus calculations.  This could be denoted by a visible "afk" marker on the player (maybe even an audio/visual notice (like a party chat message or a 'player is now afk' audio cue) once they've reached a certain amount of inactive time (possibly even allow players to set it themselves) (and they would count as afk for about 20 seconds after the afk marker goes away-meaning that they wouldn't get the bonuses even if they are in the same room (example of when this would happen: movement powers)).  In addition, if the afkers was not in a room while a switch was being activated,  would not get the rewards for activating a switch, but would have it counted as being activated and would count as being in the room for bonus and chaining reasons!  This means that while the party can benefit from the afker, the afker gets less benefits from the party (unless the party actively brings you along), thus giving people incentives to not leech but participate.

 

Obviously, if you are dead, you'd be out of the picture even if you were afk.

 

But wouldn't that encourage macros?  Possibly, but anyone using a macro at that point would be a griefer or troll rather than an afker.  And I'm sure that you could report them for that considering it is a section of support and there is a report player function.  In addition, macros tend to do the same sets of actions over and over again, even with a randomization.  That means that players could record macro users in action and send video reports of the player using a macro to grief. In addition, if they are using a macro, it would generally be fairly easy to trick the macro into suiciding the character, thus taking them out of the picture.

 

Unfortunately, I have no solution for active griefers other than to report them.

Edited March 25, 2014 by (PS4)ariaandkia

[Lorane_Airwing]

 

-snip-

 

 

Amazing post with a lot of good ideas, but also some minor flaws. Namely switch activation. You are right about the rushing being encouraged. However I feel many players would not wait for other players to help receive their switch bonus, and instead activate it and rush to the next one like we already see with co-op doors. As long as the bonus only grows with more players activating it than there is less of an issue. If we were to a switch behind a large parkour section and all four players reached said switch than the loot would gain a multiplier like you mentioned. Meaning all players must work to gain the best reward. If the party is less than completely full it simply needs 1 less person to reach maximum reward ( so incomplete groups and solo players can get the rewards ). Basically I'm thinking this would be like the void and derelicts obstacle course room, if one player does it it becomes open but if all the players reach t it slowly grows in bonuses per player, though the last part currently isn't in game.

 

While people will rush the switches there will at least be no issues of people not waiting and frustrated players yelling at each other or straight up "lol 2 slow" trolling when it comes to these rooms. As even the slowest or least experienced player gets a reward, but the whole team benefits if they help him to learn and do the section to increase the locked rooms resources.

 

I'm unsure how de would feel about increasing how many missions a single mission finishes in invasions... It seems like something they are adamant on keeping the way it is. As tedious as it often becomes, even more so after the reward nerf.

[Zephyric_Reaper]

When it comes to co-op I feel new players are absolutely great for this. Running low level missions to help new players is something I used to do before I took an extended break. The other issue with warframe that you're right about, there really is no downside to working alone, but i feel many players would reject co-op only traps or enemies that can kill you like left4dead, we've already seen the outrage at lightning traps after all. While i know the internet is always slow to accept new things, I am uncertain on how accepting players would be of smoker or jockey like enemies.

 

 

I am still unsure about the future of co-op in this game. However, I saw around of your concern on reward vs. effort. I think farcry 3 does a good job on this. Exploration can usually net you collectibles, hidden loot and achievement-specific guns. Also, it gives you different exp depending on how you kill mobs. (Stealth kill, stealth take down, headshot, ect) I think warframe could do with more "collectibles" aside from scanner despite how short-lived it can be. However, this would help co-op play since 4 players hunting is better than 1. 

[(PSN)ariaandkia]

Amazing post with a lot of good ideas, but also some minor flaws. Namely switch activation. You are right about the rushing being encouraged. However I feel many players would not wait for other players to help receive their switch bonus, and instead activate it and rush to the next one like we already see with co-op doors. As long as the bonus only grows with more players activating it than there is less of an issue. If we were to a switch behind a large parkour section and all four players reached said switch than the loot would gain a multiplier like you mentioned. Meaning all players must work to gain the best reward. If the party is less than completely full it simply needs 1 less person to reach maximum reward ( so incomplete groups and solo players can get the rewards ). Basically I'm thinking this would be like the void and derelicts obstacle course room, if one player does it it becomes open but if all the players reach t it slowly grows in bonuses per player, though the last part currently isn't in game.

 

While people will rush the switches there will at least be no issues of people not waiting and frustrated players yelling at each other or straight up "lol 2 slow" trolling when it comes to these rooms. As even the slowest or least experienced player gets a reward, but the whole team benefits if they help him to learn and do the section to increase the locked rooms resources.

 

I'm unsure how de would feel about increasing how many missions a single mission finishes in invasions... It seems like something they are adamant on keeping the way it is. As tedious as it often becomes, even more so after the reward nerf.

 

Well, that is why as I said, add in a multiplier based on the number of people in the room at the time so if all four are there.

 

Each node could be activated once per player (though the containers would only be unlocked once)-however, if multiple players are in the room, one player activating would activate it for all players in the room.  In addition, upon activation, for every player within the room of the switch, the people the switch activated for gain a bonus where the number of resources/affinity/credits that they are granted is multiplied by the number of players currently in the room (and if playing on solo setting, give them a x2 bonus regardless-this means that playing solo would give a x2 bonus while playing while playing with a group would give a x1~4 bonus).

So if 1 player activates a switch (the switch should be made to only be activated on purpose) with only him in the room, he gets x1.

If another player goes and activates the switch with player 1 still in the room, he gets x2

if two more players jump into the room before players 1 leaves, and one of them activates the switch, the remaining two both get x4 from that switch. 

 

And why I mentioned:

 

As an additional bonuses, players in a party (not solo mode) could get bonuses based on their "chain"-how many switches in a row were activated with all players present (excluding players still in the loading queue or having just spawned within the past 20 seconds (the player could still count for multiplier reasons if they are loaded in far enough and in the same room as the switch)).  Each chain would give +0.01x (+1%) credit/affinity and +0.1x resources.  The final switch of the map would always give +0.5x (for 1.5 times the credit/affinity of the final switch) and +2x (for 3 times the resources of the final switch)

 In addition, at extraction, having all the players "activate" all of the switches in the map would give various additional bonuses depending on how many switches there were.  These bonuses would encourage players to stick together.  To encourage players, there could be messages like: All switches appear to have been activated.

 

Those are to reduce rushing and encourage making sure all players are together.

 

As additions though to further reduce rushing:

 

If the player is not solo, then in order for the switch to count for the bonus growth:

a) The switch must have been already activated (this means people after any rushers would still get benefits)

b) There must be more than one player in the room unless: The player is solo or all party members are afk (going back to the afk idea).

 

and

 

If all non-afk players in the party are present in the area (not just the room but the area) of the switch, the multiplier is increased by +1x (essentially the solo player idea I had-I wanted to keep it only for solo players to encourage rushers to solo, but meh).  So 1/1 player = 2x resources.   2/2 players = 3x resources.  3/3 players = 4x resources.  4/4 players = 5x resources.

 

In addition, if one of the players in the area is under rank 2, the bonuses are increased by +0.5x .

 

That should really encourage players to work together (aside from griefers) since the rewards for the nodes would be potentially much higher than the end mission rewards if everyone were to work together.  This would also help curb people out of running survival and defense for materials and affinity.   Due to the major bonuses for finding all the nodes would be based on the entire party having found them, that would encourage players to wait for their allies instead of rushing to extraction.

 

 

As for the invasion missions and outbreaks...    Consider in that it would take the players LONGER to do the mission than simply rushing them.  This would encourage players to not rush but explore in even those missions.  I think it should be a compromise that DE should (key word there being should) be willing to make in order to get players to work together and not rush since every player would have to have activated the switches (In other words, at least be in the same room) or have been afk upon switch activation.

Edited March 25, 2014 by (PS4)ariaandkia