Spectre Of Liberty Event And Events And Missions In General

[Dasorine]

To start with I have to say its nice to see updates to mission types the wardens give new motives and tactics to the rescue mission type.

 

However the big failing in this is the event. 

 

At what point does making players grind the same mission repeatedly make an "event"?

 

This event essentially comes down to "Grind nereid in neptune 12+ times for a syndana" with very little backstory or such to make it even the least bit entertaining past the first mission and no real reason to run any of the other versions of the mission outside of not having them unlocked.

 

Previous events have contained elements of grinding but with something more to it, for example grinding the components to run a core mission in the previous event. This one just seems... rushed and not thought through.

 

Heck it could have been so much more involving with the simple addition of 1 mission and a change of concept.

 

Instead of having to gain 100 points by rescuing people repeatedly you could have had it so you gain the badge by rescuing a hostage at each of the new planets and once you have rescued each person you can then run a "boss" mission involving all the rescued people for an entertaining finale. 

 

This would still show of the new rescue 2.0 while not just resulting in a tedious grind of the same mission.

 

And this sort of extends to all missions in general and is the reason why basically my entire clan no longer plays, eventually the game comes down to grinding the same content repeatedly with no real investment in the story of the game or such.

 

Beyond the occasional mission where you get attack by the stalker or his friends or the mission type randomly changes (which is always a breath of fresh air in a long session of play) you basically just read the mission type and very little changes between maps/mob types/frames used with only assassination missions really ever being "interesting".

 

This is why I would ask you to consider something along the lines of a composite or story mission type, these would be missions that involve multiple types of objective (which could be randomized) that involve at least some semblance of a story to draw people in.

 

For example lets take the first mission in the game: Terminus on mercury, a simple exterminate to get players introduced to the game after the tutorial.

 

If this became a "composite" mission this is how I could see one iteration of it being:

 

Firstly change it to "Assault" mission type.

 

First objective: Exterminate X amount of Grineer on the ship.

 

Lotus pops up explaining how this Grineer ship has become a threat and your tasked with neutralizing the threat.

 

On objective complete game rolls and comes up with new objective: Sabotage Target

 

Lotus pops up requesting you neutralize the ship entirely by sabotaging the target but alerts that Grineer reinforcements have arrived and are boarding the ship.

 

On objective complete game rolls once more and comes up with a final objective: Assassinate

 

Lotus pops up explaining how a Grineer leader (mini-boss/leader mob to random assassination boss appearance) has arrived to retake the damaged ship and that your final task is to remove him before leaving.

 

This could involve heading to a new ship in a similar fashion to invasion missions but doesn't necessarily require it. 

 

 

So this mission has gone from a simple kill x and leave mission to a fairly complex mission with a clear story as to what and why your doing things and has you doing a variety of tasks. 

 

Granted possible doing this for the first/every mission would not be the best idea having the presence of these sorts of missions would help alleviate some level of feeling like a grind, specially if each objective was rolled randomly and if you could extend tile sets to include changing environments (later ones could involve moving from space stations to landing on planet tilesets etc)

 

This is the sort of thing that I think would take this game from being a fun little third person shooting game to something a lot more involving and entertaining.

 

 

 

[Fo0otsteps]

Spectres of liberty is as much an event as Oxium Espionage or survival weekend was.

Meaning that it is NOT an event.

It's simply a mini operation to introduce a new mechanic with a neat reward to it.

There will surely be a much bigger event in u13

Edited May 4, 2014 by Fo0otsteps

[Frostosti]

this was not event. Just something to get players test the new mission type.

[Dasorine]

yep but mini-operation or event, either way its not good design, simply promoting grinding of new content for small rewards is not a good way to showcase such content.

 

At best people grind it in the most efficient way possible not really taking in the new content, at worse people feel forced to grind the new content in a way that makes them actually dislike it/bored of it.

 

New content/changes are meant to feel new and exciting, purposefully making it so people rapidly do the content actively removes the feeling of newness and excitement from it making it feel no different to the old content.

[Cryp2Nite]

yep but mini-operation or event, either way its not good design, simply promoting grinding of new content for small rewards is not a good way to showcase such content.

 

At best people grind it in the most efficient way possible not really taking in the new content, at worse people feel forced to grind the new content in a way that makes them actually dislike it/bored of it.

 

New content/changes are meant to feel new and exciting, purposefully making it so people rapidly do the content actively removes the feeling of newness and excitement from it making it feel no different to the old content.

 +1

[Fo0otsteps]

yep but mini-operation or event, either way its not good design, simply promoting grinding of new content for small rewards is not a good way to showcase such content.

 

At best people grind it in the most efficient way possible not really taking in the new content, at worse people feel forced to grind the new content in a way that makes them actually dislike it/bored of it.

 

New content/changes are meant to feel new and exciting, purposefully making it so people rapidly do the content actively removes the feeling of newness and excitement from it making it feel no different to the old content.

Rescue 2.0 is far from it's final iteration. At its current state it's simply a beta test of how people like it, and is surely subject to change. Tying in a whole event with complex lore and such is too much work for a simple test. With SoL DE is simply saying "test our new game mode enough and you get a cool scarf! ". By doing this people will want to run it and get strong opinions on the pros and cons and give feedback.

[Dasorine]

well they have tried to tie in some lore with the inclusion of the faction your helping so going 1 step further and putting out a single additional mission involving them wouldn't have been a huge amount of work.

 

As for testing it out lots if they wanted to do that a much simpler way would be to simply have the syndana as a random reward upon completion of said mission type while its at its 2.0 iteration.

 

This would ensure people play the new variant plenty without making them feel forced. Either way what your saying their trying to do and what they actually have done doesn't match up much at all.

[Fo0otsteps]

well they have tried to tie in some lore with the inclusion of the faction your helping so going 1 step further and putting out a single additional mission involving them wouldn't have been a huge amount of work.

 

As for testing it out lots if they wanted to do that a much simpler way would be to simply have the syndana as a random reward upon completion of said mission type while its at its 2.0 iteration.

 

This would ensure people play the new variant plenty without making them feel forced. Either way what your saying their trying to do and what they actually have done doesn't match up much at all.

Players have screamed enough at DE about RNG rewards, the last thing they need to do is add more of it. Even now the player isn't forced to play it, a syandana is not a game changing thing

 

RESCUE 2.0 IS HERE!

To pave the way for this overhaul, we’d like to invite everyone to participate in Specters of Liberty to try out the changes, help us work out the kinks and earn some sweet rewards for your efforts. Have fun and let us know what you think.

 

I don't want this to sound the wrong way but what did i say that doesn't match up?

[Dasorine]

Well for one you said that them trying to tie lore to it would be too much work yet there's quite evidently some lore trying to make its presence felt in it.

 

And while they have said they want people to participate and try out the changes this doesn't specifically state or even hint at the fact that this is not a final iteration or even a particular "test" promotion, any new content would have kinks to work out yet not every change will have a mini-op like this to promote people doing it repeatedly in fact by making a little operation of it, it makes it feel more like a definite change as they went to the effort to make the SoL for it.

 

And either way its still poor design overall for an operation regardless of the intent and trying to pass it of as a way to get testers for it doesn't change that fact.

[Airwolfen]

And either way its still poor design overall for an operation regardless of the intent and trying to pass it of as a way to get testers for it doesn't change that fact.

 

Trying to pass it off? Really? They have been VERY open about the fact that this is just a test. better even. know you are playing a game set up as a beta, not a full release, right? everything they do generates feedback. And it is what they use to improve. And setting rewards generates even more feedback.

 

Even now you are testing the game with every bit of gameplay you do. That is why they call this a open beta. Have fun testing the game and please help them improve. Reward or no reward, lore or no lore.

 

EDIT: Makes me think from before operation sling stone. back then lore was a damn luxury. And people were happy with every shred of lore they were given as it showed lore was being worked on.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Airwolfen

[Dasorine]

The moment you but time limited content in certain people will feel forced, the moment you put lore and events into something it becomes more than just a simple "test".

 

Using "Its beta" as an excuse is just that, an excuse. Yes Im aware the game is still very much in development and that everything they will be doing will generally be a test to them.

 

This feedback is me saying this is not the right way to go about doing these tests nor a good way for them to go about doing operations in a game that while considered beta is still technically released with paid content in it.

 

This is not a closed beta where everyone playing will know that they are there just to test, this isn't even an open beta where a lot of people will be acknowledging that this is a test run to clean up things for release, this is a released game that a good portion of players won't see as a beta at all regardless of how clear the company tries to make it known that its beta, specially those players that have paid money and such and you cannot excuse bad design as "test and beta content" in those circumstances.

[Fo0otsteps]

The moment you but time limited content in certain people will feel forced, the moment you put lore and events into something it becomes more than just a simple "test".

 

Using "Its beta" as an excuse is just that, an excuse. Yes Im aware the game is still very much in development and that everything they will be doing will generally be a test to them.

 

This feedback is me saying this is not the right way to go about doing these tests nor a good way for them to go about doing operations in a game that while considered beta is still technically released with paid content in it.

 

This is not a closed beta where everyone playing will know that they are there just to test, this isn't even an open beta where a lot of people will be acknowledging that this is a test run to clean up things for release, this is a released game that a good portion of players won't see as a beta at all regardless of how clear the company tries to make it known that its beta, specially those players that have paid money and such and you cannot excuse bad design as "test and beta content" in those circumstances.

Offering limited content is not forcing, it's promoting. Sony doesn't force you to buy their TVs when they bundle a DVD player on sale, they are promoting them. Both are nice, both are optional.

De isn't doing adding a lot of lore or function to SoL because it's not meant to be anything more than a test. The Red Veil will surely get a lot more lore once proxy wars are released. At this point there are added as a bare explanation to why you are saving prisoners.

 

"It's beta" is an excuse, but a valid one. Like it or not, Closed or open,at the time of your post,  warframe is a beta. "everything is subject to change" means that rescue 2.0 is subject to change as much as any other part of the game. Warframe is in a long beta period because there is a lot of work to be done for it to be considered a final release where patches would only include minor changes, a new weapon and bug fixes. 

 

You are not buying a finished product, you are funding the development of one. When you bought prime access, nobody promised you a finished game, assuming it is against all signs that is isn't is NOT DE's fault. So until DE says that Warframe is entering a finished state, bad design will be passed out as a test and beta content

[Dasorine]

See this why I don't understand why people think "its a beta" is a valid excuse.

 

When you excuse something by saying "its just a beta" your essentially saying "Ok you did something bad/not good but thats ok because you may or may not change it in the future"

 

This is a bad attitude to have as a beta tester and its a bad way to give feedback to someone developing a game.

 

If something is bad or at least not good, telling them IS THE ENTIRE POINT, not excusing it. The sooner they get the feedback on such content the sooner they can start working up a solution. Excusing them due to beta is giving them no feedback at all.

 

And sorry but the moment you allow someone to pay for content in your game and release it to the public, regardless of whether its still in development or whether you explicitly state that paying doesnt guarantee things, there are still things you need to consider and uphold, the trend of releasing as paid alpha/beta is fairly new and as such many people still seem to consider it ok to run practices that would normally be used for unpaid beta tests etc which sort of doesn't fly in the new format.

[Tarille]

Well...

 

There's 2 sides to how this was implemented:

 

Side A:

 

- It's not very fun to be given a task that is "Run this specific mission type X times"

- It's not very involving to have so little involvement in any kind of story (Who are these new faction? Why do we know their motives? How do we know their operatives are captured? - No, Lotus being omniscient would not be an adequate answer)

- It feels as though it could have been taken further, with missions involving the new faction and/or the hostages saved being part of it (Heck, you get the Syandana which according to the email is one of the highest honours for someone who's not part of the faction)

 

Side B:

 

- It's nice that new content and rewards aren't tied to RNG as so many previous things were.

- It's nice that they have content where the rewards are better at higher difficulties (In the sense that the low level missions only gave 1 point per task while the higher level ones gave 3 points per task) - This is something to strive for, since more difficult content SHOULD be more rewarding due to the effort it requires.

- It's free stuff for a trivial task - Grind out ~10 missions and get a free badge and Syandana. Meanwhile, lots of people are testing out the new mission thus allowing for lots of feedback in a short amount of time (Especially needed for something like Rescue, which I dare say most people would've rather ignored if there wasn't rewards for participating, even with new Rescue 2.0 changes being revealed)

 

I definitely feel that the missions could have done with a bit more story to entice into playing more (I literally played rescue until I got the 100 points and haven't touched it since... There's just no reason to especially when Survival is still one of if not the most rewarding gametype and there's no story to any others to compensate)

 

But there are some positive points about how they've introduced this new Rescue 2.0, things that should also get feedback as well as the negatives (Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool and very useful to development - Not everything needs to be negative reinforcement (AKA: Complaints))

[Fo0otsteps]

I absolutely agree that bad content should be pointed out.

Where i disagree is that Beta status doesn't excuse you for flawed content. I would NOT excuse DICE for publishing a flawed BF4 because that is a product that is stated to be finished and tested. They clearly tell you that and you have full right to blame them if they do not deliver.

 

Where as with warframe DE clearly tells you that it is in development, meaning that flaws are likely to be found and everything is subject to change.

Assuming that warframe is a finished product just because "charging money for finished content is a trend" and not reading the sign OPEN BETA in the login screen and countless other places is just ignorance of the player's side.  

 

When you invest money in the game that means that you like it and would like to give some appreciation to the developers. You do not have the right to complain about bad content saying "i paid money DE fix this now" because DE never promised you that new content will be glitch free and good

[Dasorine]

At no point have I stated I believe this game to be a finished product, what I stated is that using the "open to the public and sell paid content" model requires certain things that a normal beta process doesn't.

 

Also being a beta/in development still does NOT excuse flawed designs etc, being in a beta/development means that when such things pop up they need to be told openly and honestly what you feel about such content so that they can work to correct it.

 

What your suggesting to do is basically every time something comes in or happens that you don't feel is as good as it should be is to shut up and accept it because its "beta" and its subject to change (which doesn't mean it WILL change)

 

Whether you paid or not.

 

The point with the paying thing is that there will be a large amount of people who have seen this advertised on steam, have downloaded and seen the paid shop, they may or may not have paid for anything but to them this game seems like its fully released even if its still undergoing development and changes. This means that some people will expect even test changes and such to still work towards making a fun and interesting game.

 

And regardless of how many times you put "beta" on something there are things that will happen and ways people will think.

 

Anyway i've had enough of arguing that giving feedback is about giving feedback and not just ignoring something "BECAUSE ITS BETA"

 

I've put my feedback in here, I thought this "operation" regardless of intent was poorly thought out and that missions in general are missing something to make them truly good.

 

If your thoughts on my feedback are "Meh its beta I don't care how badly thought out things are or what your suggestions are" then good for you, but if your not going to post anything even remotely constructive in a feedback thread with feedback thats on a feedback forum for a game in development where developers actively want feedback, then please don't post anything at all.