Alerts Should Be Meaningful And/or Drive World Building

[Rajko]

It occurred to me today that I don't do alerts anymore.

 

Because they aren't differentiated from normal missions, and the rewards are dwarfed by other mission types, alert missions are ignorable almost as soon as a new player can reach past venus (your mileage may vary).

 

I think alerts would be much, much better if they were a reliable way to score even a tiny amount of rare resources (like 1 neurode), and if they would feature mission types that aren't accessible from the solar map.  These mission types could be anything, as long as they feel different from what you can normally access.  

 

The lovely thing about alerts is that progression, not grind, is the key to accessing more of them (by unlocking more and more of the zones). 

 

Neurodes, Neural Sensors, Gallium, etc, could all be wholly removed from the drop tables of regions (except for bosses, that was a nice touch) and instead be regularly featured on alert missions, freeing up the crowded drop tables (which rarely offer up these gems anyway), injecting relevance into alerts, and taking some of the RNG aspect out of crafting.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rajko]

For the world building, a little bit of flavor from the various factions tethered to the alerts would make them much more desirable to play.

 

Perhaps alerts against the Grineer might feature transmissions from Ruk, Hek, Vor, etc, or a boosted chance for the Grustrag Three to pop by for a visit?

 

Even if it's not very specific, a little fist shaking and tongue waggle from the faction notables is hugely entertaining, and DE does a fantastic job at these (see just about every event ever since the roving english tutors hit the Origin System with a vengeance.)

 

If alert missions offered a chance to try something a little different, listen to amusing lines from our favorite opposition leaders, and collect resources without the randomness, alerts might be some of the most enjoyable content yet.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Rajko

[emaralez87]

just +1

little more good droprate for rare resources or XP bonus or... you know... "suspecious shipment" drive would be good

[alif3]

ya I agree I really only get around to alerts when there are special rewards but I have all the weapons they drop and helms and auras, 

extra resources and 1.5 or double xp would be really great and would be a nice incentive for people to do alerts +1

[DSpite]

I was actually thinking about this today.

 

I would not want like, twice the stuff, but some tweak to make them slightly better value for money would be great, and not because I'm after drops, but because when I queue up it would be far more likely to get into groups, rather then many times being solo. Only time a team fills fast is when mods/auras/bp's drop.

[Rajko]

That's a great point, if you try to join an alert and wait for a team to fill up, it can take a long time. 

[Tsukinoki]

The biggest issue I have with your suggestion is the last paragraph:

Neurodes, Neural Sensors, Gallium, etc, could all be wholly removed from the drop tables of regions (except for bosses, that was a nice touch) and instead be regularly featured on alert missions, freeing up the crowded drop tables (which rarely offer up these gems anyway), injecting relevance into alerts, and taking some of the RNG aspect out of crafting.

And solely because I have seen new players get bolted by the G3.
Without a boss on Earth OR Eris(which are the *only* regions that neurodes drop in) they would have to wait for a random alert to appear on a low level planet in order to make the bolt remover.
Further that would utterly screw over anyone who needs to make a weapons with neurodes.
Instead of being able to just farm for them on Earth in a somewhat timely manner they would need to be online 24/7 in order to even have a hope that a neurode alert would appear in an area that they can get to.

And considering how many weapon BPs require neurodes that is a horrible idea.

Neural sensors dropping on jupiter only is bad enough, but then if they had to be taxied through the boss fight multiple times in order to get it that would be even worse, rather than them being able to just grind out the first node on Jupiter a few times in order to get what they needed.

EDIT:
The other issue with this is orokin cells.
Cells are annoying enough already, and everyone can agree to that.
I dont want to have to run Ruk or Kril for 4+ hours in order to get the cells needed for prime gear.

So how exactly does it take any of the RNG out of crafting?
Instead of being able to go: "I run this mission a few times I'll have the 3 neurodes I need"
It becomes: "I get the alert app set up, then I dont do anything that could take any of my time for next 24 hours and hope that a neurode alert comes up before I have to go to bed for work/school in the morning.  If it doesn't I'll have to do the same thing tomorrow and the day after and the day after...."

I dont see how that could possibly be better...

Edited June 30, 2014 by Tsukinoki

[Rajko]

I'd envision retooled alerts with rare resource rewards to be almost continually accessible, rather than the scattershot few up at time that it is now.

 

I'm not suggesting it takes all of the RNG out of crafting, just eases it up a bit where it comes to the very random rare resources.  I don't think Warframe as is could manage with zero grind for resource gathering.

 

I did also mention leaving the rare resources on boss loot tables, as that's the least RNG-grinding method to get them at the moment.

 

OOC, but Cells are pretty easy to get farming in any tier of the void.  I don't know if I'd say it's balanced or fair to new players, but cells aren't as difficult to farm up overall.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Rajko

[Tsukinoki]

@Rajko
When I brought up the Orokin Cells I was under the impression that removing them from all but boss tables would also remove them from the void, as even Vor isn't really a boss as you can Mind Control him and other effects which normal bosses are immune against.
So that would limit the availability to get OCs from 2 bosses in the game, and both of them are an annoying slog to fight for the most part.

And even with the alerts being more consistently available its still hoping that the neurode alert (which would then be available *only* from alerts as there are no bosses on the planets that drop it) appears on a node that you have unlocked, and for the lower level players they are also hoping that it appears on a node that is low enough level for them to be able to complete.
And again there are plenty of weapons that depend on neurodes, and it would basically cut off any chance for new players to get a new weapon until well after Earth.

Also brings up the issue of needing a neurode, but the only alerts are high level, long wave defenses for them and you need say 5 of them.
At that point it would be either:
A) do the long 10-15(Never seen an alert defense lower than 10 waves) wave alert defenses for the neurodes and hope there are enough to get the 5 you need
B) wait and hope that a faster mission type appears, or one on a lower level

I still dont really a benefit from this or how it would make things better to remove the rare resources from the normal drop tables.

I can agree with making alerts more worth-while and have a bit of flavor to them, but I think limiting the rarer resources to them would just unnecissarily punish lower level players too much.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Tsukinoki

[Rajko]

Good point.  In my head, I was imagining removing them from enemy actor drops, and hadn't considered that might also include the rewards in the Void, which DE had said somewhere recently would expand to x2, x3 etc cells, instead of one.

 

I suppose if the developer needs to keep resources rare, all I could really suggest is extracting the gaining of resources from RNG in any way possible, however that could be accomplished.

 

The only reason it doesn't matter for the lower types is that the RNG throws them out constantly.  

 

Even an NPC outpost on these Tenno stations that trades them for credits might might be ok.  As long as low-chance RNG isn't backing it.

 

Although adding a small packet of rare resources reliably to Alerts, and making sure that Alert missions are more available, doesn't go very far to solving the RNG madness with crafting, it would make alerts more attractive, and hopefully more dev time would come along to diversify the Alert system.

 

In the end, I'd like to see a crafting experience where 100 players could set about making a task, and have a reasonable expectation that however long it takes one player to complete the crafting, is about the normal length.  Scavenging parts from your enemies when Tenno are effectively demi-gods shouldn't feel like endless nights of bad luck at the roulette table.

 

Not to get too sidetracked, though, main point being that the Alerts themselves deserve a chance to shine as slightly less accessible, special requests that the Lotus (or Darvo) really want to see sorted out quick.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Rajko