Tactic Selections - Putting A Stop To Macro Farming, Rng And Grind Walls

[Azawarau]

Without credible evidence aside from simple math?

 

 

Enemy has 10k HP

 

You hit 40k on one

 

I hit 8k on every 5

 

You kill one with your 40k and i kill 5 with mine

 

This is ignoring stun and side effects

 

Theres nothing else that needs to be said here

 

Also you never said how guns are a major factor in survivability in end game

 

Im not saying that guns are bad but by comparison of DPS theyre bad on paper and even worse in practice compared to powers

 

That combined with enemies who have the potential to kill quickly and take large amounts of damge has created a game where power spam is norm. Its not unusual at all to hide and spam 4

 

Then theres the argument of force

 

Well i certainly like being forced to sit while Excali,Rhino,Mesa,Ash,Saryn,Mirage kill everything

 

I have a blast when Nova makes enemies move at a crawling pace as well

 

Thats 7 frames im forced to avoid playing as or with otherwise im forced to do near nothing

 

And all i get from you is trash talk and FUD in return

 

And also the name Bill comes from Bill O'Reilly

 

If you know who that is then youll understand why i use his name

Edited January 26, 2015 by Azawarau

[AlphaHorseman]

Without credible evidence aside from simple math?

 

Enemy has 10k HP

 

You hit 40k on one

 

I hit 8k on every 5

 

You kill one with your 40k and i kill 5 with mine

 

This is ignoring stun and side effects

 

Theres nothing else that needs to be said here

 

Also you never said how guns are a major factor in survivability in end game

 

Im not saying that guns are bad but by comparison of DPS theyre bad on paper and even worse in practice compared to powers

 

That combined with enemies who have the potential to kill quickly and take large amounts of damge has created a game where power spam is norm. Its not unusual at all to hide and spam 4

 

Then theres the argument of force

 

Well i certainly like being forced to sit while Excali,Rhino,Mesa,Ash,Saryn,Mirage kill everything

 

I have a blast when Nova makes enemies move at a crawling pace as well

 

Thats 7 frames im forced to avoid playing as or with otherwise im forced to do near nothing

 

And all i get from you is trash talk and FUD in return

 

And also the name Bill comes from Bill O'Reilly

 

If you know who that is then youll understand why i use his name

 

I hate to break it to you, but 8k dmg on a target that has 10k life isn't going to kill it. 40k with the gun does though. But, if said power has CC/Utility, you now have an opportunity to finish the job. Power gave you the opportunity, now guns/powers can be used to seize it.

 

Neither do all players use those frames the same, just letting you know. Their play style would dictate how they use those frames. You can always talk it out with the team before you enter a mission to see how you guys want to play together. There, problem solved. Nerfing those frames isn't a solution just because you don't like how they are played.

 

Now that that's over with, for the sake of this thread, get back on topic.

 

I advocate for solutions that help to grow the game, improve it, and expand on existing content. That way we see not only the expansion of the game, but the increase of it's depth and help to ensure that encounters with enemies are not just bullet sponges, but have mechanics that make encounters interesting and dynamic.

[(XBOX)Lorewalker1022]

Ok so I guess to make my point as clear as possible without adding further fuel to the fire is this......if we thought about this the other way around wouldn't a lot of players or at least some of the players be quite upset that DE made it so that they can no longer ability spam? We all play this game and find it enjoyable for different reasons. Any argument on this post FOR getting rid of the ability to ult spam for example still fails to address the question " what about the players who actually enjoy it?". Do we just not give 2 cents about them? Or do we just say screw it those guys can find another game to play. Once again I simply advocate you play your game and let others play it the way they want. And if you can only find a few like-minded players well that sounds more like a you problem than anything else

[(XBOX)Lorewalker1022]

Also if anybody is having a hard time finding a game where players don't ability spam then doesn't that further prove that the are more players who enjoy or at the very least use ability spam so how are you going to suggest to get rid of something most people already like using?

[Jax_Cavalera]

Also if anybody is having a hard time finding a game where players don't ability spam then doesn't that further prove that the are more players who enjoy or at the very least use ability spam so how are you going to suggest to get rid of something most people already like using?

 

I believe that what those who wish to see abilities nerfed are trying to say is that currently, the game is designed in such a way that it rewards players for killing masses of enemies in quick succession.

 

They are likely acting on the assumption that once abilities are nerfed, DE will then alter the game to suit the new dynamic that this creates in how players approach Warframe.

 

Once I realised that this was the underlying issue, the intended goal of the topic grew to a point where I expressed a belief that DE need to firstly alter their content so that it no longer rewards players for this type of behavior any better than other tactics and game play approaches.

 

aka : Tactic Selections (a concept that I am wanting to workshop in this topic so that it can provide DE with a quality solution that is the combination of all the feedback being posted by us.)

 

 

In the scenario where DE make changes first, players will at least have the freedom of choice to enjoy using any game play approach or tactic in missions without having to worry about getting left behind because they are not using the most efficient tactic.

 

 

A lot of the other discussion about weapons vs abilities and ways to improve specific frames to avoid their reliance on 1 dominant ability in spam form are good to have as well though are likely closer related to balancing out the game once the underlying problem as previously mentioned has been addressed.

 

 

To me, (and others may feel the same way) unless you first get rid of the cause to a problem, treatments are only going to buy you time and long term will eventuate as being a more costly approach than simply finding the cause and eliminating it completely.

 

An unrelated example and there would be a lot more :

 

Instead of finding a Cure for Cancer, imagine if we knew exactly what caused it and then developed a way to completely eliminate the possibility for people to ever get Cancer in the first place.  Think how many more lives would be saved, how much money could be saved and how many resources it would allow mankind to reallocate to different tasks.

 

 

Instead of calling a plumber in to fix a leaking tap each time it gets over-tightened you replace the tap mechanism with a flip mix handle so it no longer can be over tightened.  This completely eliminates the need to call a plumber, saves a ton of water and keeps costs down.

 

The 2nd example may be easier to relate to the context of this game but oh well both are pretty much saying the same thing so I'll leave them in there.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[Twilight5007]

The frames wouldn't even matter anymore if we're not supposed to be using the abilities frequently, and fluidly with our weapons.

 

Honestly I'd love to see a scaling ability frame that had no need for a weapon myself. The game has every other archetype with the different weapons and frame abilities covering an archer, warrior, and rogue. Why not have a frame that can kill and scale purely off of it's abilities with a mage archetype, Maybe give it a "weapon" for each of it's abilities to allow you to add mods and customize the abilities. Just make them like deconstructor where only that frame can use it.

 

Or maybe I like playing mages too much and it's starting to bleed into other genres of games. 

[geninrising]

I believe that what those who wish to see abilities nerfed are trying to say is that currently, the game is designed in such a way that it rewards players for killing masses of enemies in quick succession.

 

They are likely acting on the assumption that once abilities are nerfed, DE will then alter the game to suit the new dynamic that this creates in how players approach Warframe.

 

Once I realised that this was the underlying issue, the intended goal of the topic grew to a point where I expressed a belief that DE need to firstly alter their content so that it no longer rewards players for this type of behavior any better than other tactics and game play approaches.

 

aka : Tactic Selections (a concept that I am wanting to workshop in this topic so that it can provide DE with a quality solution that is the combination of all the feedback being posted by us.)

 

 

In the scenario where DE make changes first, players will at least have the freedom of choice to enjoy using any game play approach or tactic in missions without having to worry about getting left behind because they are not using the most efficient tactic.

 

 

A lot of the other discussion about weapons vs abilities and ways to improve specific frames to avoid their reliance on 1 dominant ability in spam form are good to have as well though are likely closer related to balancing out the game once the underlying problem as previously mentioned has been addressed.

 

 

To me, (and others may feel the same way) unless you first get rid of the cause to a problem, treatments are only going to buy you time and long term will eventuate as being a more costly approach than simply finding the cause and eliminating it completely.

 

An unrelated example and there would be a lot more :

 

Instead of finding a Cure for Cancer, imagine if we knew exactly what caused it and then developed a way to completely eliminate the possibility for people to ever get Cancer in the first place.  Think how many more lives would be saved, how much money could be saved and how many resources it would allow mankind to reallocate to different tasks.

 

 

Instead of calling a plumber in to fix a leaking tap each time it gets over-tightened you replace the tap mechanism with a flip mix handle so it no longer can be over tightened.  This completely eliminates the need to call a plumber, saves a ton of water and keeps costs down.

 

The 2nd example may be easier to relate to the context of this game but oh well both are pretty much saying the same thing so I'll leave them in there.

+1 man in a nutshell. Concise and completely accurate!

[Soul.Fire]

Ive been on topic

 

Youre not actually answering anything still though

 

Let me ask you a question

 

Whats wrong with nerfing anything?

No, actually he's answered pretty much everything you've said, you're just not listening. The problem with your reasoning, all of it mind you, is the Random Number/Reward Generator. That forces you to do over a hundred of the same bloody mission in order to get the one thing you need out of all the crap, half-assed pseudo-rewards the game throws at you in the meantime, and then you wonder why people get fed up and 4-spam/speed-run through missions. By the time you actually get the thing you need, you're so &!$$ed that you start your weapon/frame/gear/whatever building in your foundry and immediately quit playing. But then you have another problem, where you don't like leaving your friends out so you agree to help them grind the thing you just worked your ! off to get, and the evil, vicious cycle starts all over again. By this point all of you are too tired for words, and all you want to do is mindlessly slaughter everything, so what do you do? You find an easy mission and proceed to annihilate everything in your path. It's therapeutic and it makes the sadistic RNG hurt a very tiny bit less. As to your question of what's wrong with nerfing anything, everything is wrong with it. You nerf one thing and then before you know it you nerf another and another and another, its a domino effect and pretty soon you end up with a mediocre game with mediocre weapons with mediocre abilities with mediocre characters with idiotically overpowered enemies that aren't fun and that can slaughter you if they so much as see your little finger, and then everyone quits playing because really, who wants an exercise in futility? No, I think new mission modes, and intelligent usage of the team/squad controls would go a long way to making everybody happy, and those who want to spam can play with those who want to spam, those who want to stealth can play with those who want to stealth and so on. You also apparently have the impression that those who spam only spam, and never do anything else and never listen to their teammates but that is not the case, it's not the case at all. We're perfectly willing to play ball, we're willing to try anything the team wants, that's why most of us are playing WarFrame to begin with, because we can do anything here, we're not stuck with an idiotic Call of Duty play style that makes weapons and skills useless. When I want to spam, I join a spam squad, when I want to stealth and just plain never be seen, I join a stealth squad. And if I want to go through a map like a hurricane and slaughter things like there's no tomorrow I want to do it without a severe and ultimately stupid power handicap. I don't want to deplete my energy to zero when I press 4, I don't want to go down to half if I press 3, I want to be able to spam 1 and 2 infinitely, I want my AOE to hit everything in sight and even some that aren't, and I don't want to have to stop in the middle of a huge mob of enemies that could each kill me with one hit to pop an energy restore, that's just unfair and mean-spirited to wish on anyone. You, Sir, are not the only player in the game, and until the mile-high, 10-mile-thick RNG wall that forces us to do a million missions for one thing that's actually useful goes away, spamming will be necessary. Some people legitimately can't afford to spend cash on virtual items, therefore we are left to grind, hence the skill spamming. If us finding a way to get through grinding as fast as possible so we can finally relax and play just to have fun bothers you that much then maybe you should take a step back, a break from the game, or do things the way we do it and grind a boltor prime, from scratch, by yourself without spending one platinum, without getting frustrated and skill spamming/rushing/coptering through a mission, then come back and tell me how well it worked. Oh, and you aren't allowed to use an end-game build either, you have to use a generic, all-purpose build that is good at things but no master of anything. I'm sick to death of this nerf=balance-everything needs to be harder to get-if skills work properly they're too powerful-if anyone can get it then it's too easy to get-reasoning. It makes things not fun, it makes the game completely imbalanced and rigged so badly against the players in the long run that even low-level missions would become impossible with time when you factor in all the ability nerfs combined with the unfair enemy buffs and advantages. That's already been done on Orokin Derelict missions with the mutalist MOAs, the damned things spawn up to 10 per wave on ODD after wave 12, more on ODS after 5 minutes, you can't kill them all immediately no matter how good your CC is, and they all carry around either a glob of unfairly overpowered goo, a cloud of insects that the Devil himself couldn't see through or an energy drain aura that leaves you defenseless and bouncing around the map like a pinball, all the while being poisoned, zapped and slapped by infested ancients, crawlers and chargers, just to name a few. And if you happen to play a frame with 600 hp or less, you will literally end up bleeding out in less than 10 seconds of that abuse, even Rhino is defenseless after a short 10 to 15 seconds and he's a damned tank! No, we don't need anymore bs nerfs, what we need is a drop table that doesn't hate us and want to see us fail, actual end game enemies that make sense for end game that are challenging rather than just cheap insta-kills on frames, and new mission types that are interesting and give interesting rewards for our trouble.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Soul.Fire

[Azawarau]

-Rant-

Now this is way off topic

 

If rewards are an issue then that can be changed

 

You cant honestly defend him when hes saying guns out DPS powers

 

On paper and in practice thats a ridiculous statement

[AlphaHorseman]

 

No, actually he's answered pretty much everything you've said, you're just not listening. The problem with your reasoning, all of it mind you, is the Random Number/Reward Generator. That forces you to do over a hundred of the same bloody mission in order to get the one thing you need out of all the crap, half-assed pseudo-rewards the game throws at you in the meantime, and then you wonder why people get fed up and 4-spam/speed-run through missions. By the time you actually get the thing you need, you're so &!$$ed that you start your weapon/frame/gear/whatever building in your foundry and immediately quit playing. But then you have another problem, where you don't like leaving your friends out so you agree to help them grind the thing you just worked your ! off to get, and the evil, vicious cycle starts all over again. By this point all of you are too tired for words, and all you want to do is mindlessly slaughter everything, so what do you do? You find an easy mission and proceed to annihilate everything in your path. It's therapeutic and it makes the sadistic RNG hurt a very tiny bit less. As to your question of what's wrong with nerfing anything, everything is wrong with it. You nerf one thing and then before you know it you nerf another and another and another, its a domino effect and pretty soon you end up with a mediocre game with mediocre weapons with mediocre abilities with mediocre characters with idiotically overpowered enemies that aren't fun and that can slaughter you if they so much as see your little finger, and then everyone quits playing because really, who wants an exercise in futility? No, I think new mission modes, and intelligent usage of the team/squad controls would go a long way to making everybody happy, and those who want to spam can play with those who want to spam, those who want to stealth can play with those who want to stealth and so on. You also apparently have the impression that those who spam only spam, and never do anything else and never listen to their teammates but that is not the case, it's not the case at all. We're perfectly willing to play ball, we're willing to try anything the team wants, that's why most of us are playing WarFrame to begin with, because we can do anything here, we're not stuck with an idiotic Call of Duty play style that makes weapons and skills useless. When I want to spam, I join a spam squad, when I want to stealth and just plain never be seen, I join a stealth squad. And if I want to go through a map like a hurricane and slaughter things like there's no tomorrow I want to do it without a severe and ultimately stupid power handicap. I don't want to deplete my energy to zero when I press 4, I don't want to go down to half if I press 3, I want to be able to spam 1 and 2 infinitely, I want my AOE to hit everything in sight and even some that aren't, and I don't want to have to stop in the middle of a huge mob of enemies that could each kill me with one hit to pop an energy restore, that's just unfair and mean-spirited to wish on anyone. You, Sir, are not the only player in the game, and until the mile-high, 10-mile-thick RNG wall that forces us to do a million missions for one thing that's actually useful goes away, spamming will be necessary. Some people legitimately can't afford to spend cash on virtual items, therefore we are left to grind, hence the skill spamming. If us finding a way to get through grinding as fast as possible so we can finally relax and play just to have fun bothers you that much then maybe you should take a step back, a break from the game, or do things the way we do it and grind a boltor prime, from scratch, by yourself without spending one platinum, without getting frustrated and skill spamming/rushing/coptering through a mission, then come back and tell me how well it worked. Oh, and you aren't allowed to use an end-game build either, you have to use a generic, all-purpose build that is good at things but no master of anything. I'm sick to death of this nerf=balance-everything needs to be harder to get-if skills work properly they're too powerful-if anyone can get it then it's too easy to get-reasoning. It makes things not fun, it makes the game completely imbalanced and rigged so badly against the players in the long run that even low-level missions would become impossible with time when you factor in all the ability nerfs combined with the unfair enemy buffs and advantages. That's already been done on Orokin Derelict missions with the mutalist MOAs, the damned things spawn up to 10 per wave on ODD after wave 12, more on ODS after 5 minutes, you can't kill them all immediately no matter how good your CC is, and they all carry around either a glob of unfairly overpowered goo, a cloud of insects that the Devil himself couldn't see through or an energy drain aura that leaves you defenseless and bouncing around the map like a pinball, all the while being poisoned, zapped and slapped by infested ancients, crawlers and chargers, just to name a few. And if you happen to play a frame with 600 hp or less, you will literally end up bleeding out in less than 10 seconds of that abuse, even Rhino is defenseless after a short 10 to 15 seconds and he's a damned tank! No, we don't need anymore bs nerfs, what we need is a drop table that doesn't hate us and want to see us fail, actual end game enemies that make sense for end game that are challenging rather than just cheap insta-kills on frames, and new mission types that are interesting and give interesting rewards for our trouble.

 

Thank you, you understand. Thank you so much for that.

 

Now this is way off topic

 

If rewards are an issue then that can be changed

 

You cant honestly defend him when hes saying guns out DPS powers

 

On paper and in practice thats a ridiculous statement

They're right on topic. They're giving you the reasoning why people do these things.

 

And coming from the guy that believes that a power that does 8k damage is going to kill a target (or even 5) with 10k health? Yeah no, that was stupid. "Simple math" right?

 

Guns actually do out DPS powers per target, I gave you the examples, you just refuse to believe simple math in front of your face that actually makes sense.

 

Saying a power that deals 8k damage can kill a target with 10k HP is a ridiculous statement, so don't try and say I'm being ridiculous when in all cases my math was right.

[Soul.Fire]

Now this is way off topic

 

If rewards are an issue then that can be changed

 

You cant honestly defend him when hes saying guns out DPS powers

 

On paper and in practice thats a ridiculous statement

Guns do though. A skill is a one hit wonder, a gun is a multiple hit spew of death, only if you use a bow or sniper rifle is that actually not the case. I use the boltor prime, so yeah, it kills much faster than any power I've ever used, maybe not all at once, but a lot faster regardless.

 

And it wasn't a rant, it was the truth. Clearly you have not recently played an ODD past 15 waves. And I still dare you to grind a boltor prime that way. It's how I got it, and trust me, it wasn't especially fun, just a big pain in the tush which had me spamming every skill on every frame I owned at the time, and they weren't many and not overly powerful either.

 

The point is, the skill spamming would, if not completely go away, certainly be cut down if the drop tables were completely reworked. I definitely agree with Jax as well, that different/new enemies as opposed to slightly tweaked versions of old ones, plus new mission types with specific rewards for each type and objective would also fix a lot of things. Regardless, nerfs are never the answer.

[Soul.Fire]

Thank you, you understand. Thank you so much for that.

 

They're right on topic. They're giving you the reasoning why people do these things.

 

And coming from the guy that believes that a power that does 8k damage is going to kill a target (or even 5) with 10k health? Yeah no, that was stupid. "Simple math" right?

 

Guns actually do out DPS powers per target, I gave you the examples, you just refuse to believe simple math in front of your face that actually makes sense.

 

Saying a power that deals 8k damage can kill a target with 10k HP is a ridiculous statement, so don't try and say I'm being ridiculous when in all cases my math was right.

The funny thing is that most frame powers, even ults, don't actually do all that much damage to begin with. The only two that I can honestly say count as an insta-kill against almost anything are Excalibur's Radial Javelin and Ash's Blade Storm, and even if you build them to do maximum damage with a bunch of corrupted mods they will still easily become glass cannons and one-hit wonders. The rest sure you get a bonus damage out of your gun with the skill but you still have to mop up what was strong enough to ignore the skill in the first place. Frost's Avalanche in particular is a bit too pathetic, which is sad because he'd be one of my favorite frames to play, since he's already probably my ultimate favorite to look at. Another very bizarre thing I actually noticed, particularly with Frost Prime, is if you use Ice Wave and are standing inside Snow Globe, Ice Wave will get trapped and travel up the inside of the globe rather than exiting and it won't hit anything even if they happen to be standing right there, half in/half out. It's a bit of an insult when you consider that any bomb they hit the globe with from outside will still knock you over and any grenade they toss at the globe doesn't bounce off the outside but actually lands inside and you rarely see it before it explodes and, again, knocks you over.

 

I do kinda hope tho that DE takes a look at their drop tables, especially for rotation-based missions like defenses, survivals and excavations. The Void in particular could use an overhaul in that area, the drop table there is atrocious. I don't think tho that tweaking the Nightmare missions would be such a good idea, they already give a very significant debuff, and while it's fun to do them once in a while for kicks, I don't think I'd want to do too many of them at once. My first inclination is to go with the first person who suggested missions with maybe two or three objectives, and rewarding people specifically for how well they stealth through a mission. One thing I like to do every now and then is take my Mag Prime and attempt to do a spy mission without having to kill anything and without being seen by anything. I don't make it very often, but that doesn't stop me from trying, and it's really quite fun. If we had mission types like that, that would be epic :3

Edited January 27, 2015 by Soul.Fire

[Jax_Cavalera]

The point about weapons vs powers is very situational for both perspectives.  This is why you won't run a T4S with nothing but abilities and unranked crappy weapons.  You need the weapons.

 

It is also why you wouldn't run that same T4S with just amazing weapons, you need the abilities.

 

Not all abilities fit the mould and not all weapons are ideal for the situation.

 

Some weapons can take you a good distance on their own though and the same can be said for some abilities (provided you bring energy restores with you).

 

Demanding nerfs is not the answer and from what we have now seen done to Mag, it only hurts players that have been enjoying that frame.  Mags' Pull now only drags enemies 5m at best towards her.  That skill use to be the only thing keeping Mag a contender.  Shield Polarize and respective Augment just got nerfed officially 2 or 3 updates ago and so what are we left with?

 

Well as it stands we find playing Mag now will result in failure or very slow and painful grinding because DE never adjusted how bad the RNG and Grind Walls are when they rolled out each nerf.  They appear to not be interested in changing the way the game rewards players per mission and instead simply want to make the grind walls and rng as bad as possible to encourage plat sales without driving the bulk of players away from the game.

 

 

This thread of feedback needs to focus the solution and be a voice to DE to let them know this approach is NOT okay and that they need to change their approach if they want to improve gameplay and maintain playerbase growth instead of growing a little and then losing a chunk that enjoyed 1 specific frame the most (repeated).

 

I'll update the OP soon with the current state of Tactic Selections based on the feedback provided by everyone so far to enable us to directly discuss and further refine the message we are sending to DE so they can hopefully Get it.

 

We are tired of one approach being more rewarding than another, an we want variety in this game. If we want to use just weapons, we should be able to and there shouldn't be any benefit in doing so to complete a mission as all missions will reward balanced XP based on statistic data of how long it takes players to complete the given mission using specific tactics.

 

It would be cool if the XP values were dynamic as well so that they can auto-balance based on how much data they are taking in.  DE could release new content and not have to worry s much about balance as the game would auto balance itself.

 

Most of the statistic gathering processes are in place already with the Leaderboard infrastructure so it would be entirely possible with with minimal effort DE could fix soooo many things and really turn the game around.

 

The only people this would hurt are the macro farmers who are absolutely LOVING the way DE are handling things so far.  The harder DE make it to achieve a goal via Grind and RNG, the more money Macro Farmers can make by letting their scripts handle the boring monotonous work that any human would have given up on trying to achieve long ago.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Had one idea for a Tactic Option which would probably have the weakest XP rewards due to it being the easiest to complete and that's :

 

Free for All : You can complete the mission using any and all tactics but the completions could be time restricted so you need to accomplish them within a specific time frame AKA Speed Run Tactic.

 

Or something like this where players are free to still run some wild combo builds for the enjoyment of being absolutely destructive terminators above and beyond the normal grasps of balance.

 

I feel that allowing players to run the missions using a combo of ability spam and weapons in conjunction is one thing that might be overlooked or difficult to introduce into the mix.

 

What are other peoples thoughts on this?  Do we need a hybrid Tactic that lets us free-play using everything at once all in the same mission.. Stealth, Ability Spam, Primaries and Side-arms, Run and Gun, Style Kills, Air Supremacy (rarely letting your frame touch the ground mostly wall ran etc)

 

Or should each tactic be kept separate? 

 

What Tactics should be available for each mission type?

[Soul.Fire]

Had one idea for a Tactic Option which would probably have the weakest XP rewards due to it being the easiest to complete and that's :

 

Free for All : You can complete the mission using any and all tactics but the completions could be time restricted so you need to accomplish them within a specific time frame AKA Speed Run Tactic.

 

Or something like this where players are free to still run some wild combo builds for the enjoyment of being absolutely destructive terminators above and beyond the normal grasps of balance.

 

I feel that allowing players to run the missions using a combo of ability spam and weapons in conjunction is one thing that might be overlooked or difficult to introduce into the mix.

 

What are other peoples thoughts on this?  Do we need a hybrid Tactic that lets us free-play using everything at once all in the same mission.. Stealth, Ability Spam, Primaries and Side-arms, Run and Gun, Style Kills, Air Supremacy (rarely letting your frame touch the ground mostly wall ran etc)

 

Or should each tactic be kept separate? 

 

What Tactics should be available for each mission type?

I think free play type missions would be necessary, because sometimes if you've had a hard day it's fun to just blow everything up or just slash it to bits. I definitely don't think they should all be that way, but we definitely need some type of free play where any tactic and any skill goes. They just need to be interspersed with other types of missions that require more thought and planning.

[Jax_Cavalera]

I think free play type missions would be necessary, because sometimes if you've had a hard day it's fun to just blow everything up or just slash it to bits. I definitely don't think they should all be that way, but we definitely need some type of free play where any tactic and any skill goes. They just need to be interspersed with other types of missions that require more thought and planning.

 

I suppose because of how wide spread the deployed tactics and gameplay for this might be, it could be hard to determine a fair XP yield for this approach.

 

I thought of a few things related to this :

 

1.  Use this Tactic Option as the "General Default Tactic" and it has a locked in XP yield which all other tactics are benchmarked against to determine rise/fall in XP Multipliers however this has an issue.  Depending on how users complete the mission it may take a short time or long time so XP Multipliers could easily be manipulated.

 

2.  To fix the problem in #1 XP for this type of mission would be rewarded based on current statistics DE have for each node since right now each node is being completed by players with a Free-For-All approach.  This would allow DE to easily determine just how much XP they are anticipating players are able to gain from the completion of any given node.

 

 

3.  By creating a completion time-limit based on the average time it takes a player to currently complete the mission, the Tactic Reliance for Free for All would begin to go down as duration timer instead of a percentage and the rewarded XP would be based on what percentage of the timer is left.

 

 

DE may see Stephano currently and decide that logically with 3/4 points captured it should be taking 5 minutes for a wave to be completed and based on this going beyond 5 minutes would begin to see a reduction from their pre-determined Max Experience Points per Rotation.

 

They may also note that currently players are able to get around 50, 000 XP from a single Rotation in Stephano and decide that this seems a little bloated so they might reduce the XP Cap per Rotation to 10k.  This won't be a problem though necessarily so long as they improve how much Rep a player obtains per Experience Point obtained so it is closer to    2 XP = 1 REP

 

Or they re-work the cost of all Syndicate related content.

 

I think syndicates are a problem in their own right as they are a major Grind Wall waiting to happen the moment this is added in if XP to Rep ratios are not adjusted to suit.

 

End Game to me means :

 

-  You work hard to obtain it

 

-  It is something that injects replay-ability back into the rest of the game again

 

-  It is reserved for those who have reached End Game ONLY  -  no trading end game rewards to players who are not at the same level of completion.  End Game  to  End Game  Trading only.  (Mastery Rank Locked??)

 

 

Essentially it should be reasonable to play a mission and not see a guy that started 1 week ago playing Warframe running around with Syndicate Tier weapons and frame ability augments.  Being able to obtain all that Warframe has to offer a base level player within a 1 week timeframe seems too fast.  I'm not quite as proprietary about Prime Gear and Rare Mods as I am about something DE claimed was meant to be End Game Tier such is the case with Syndicates.

 

 

So maybe having lower Rep values wouldn't be such a bad thing.. IF

 

1.  Trading Rep rewards were locked to players either on the same ranking with at least 1 syndicate as the item you are wanting to trade with them.

 

OR

 

2.  Trading Rep rewards were locked to player Mastery Rank though that may just boost further grinding so the first option might actually be reasonable enough.

 

If you can make it to final tier on any of the syndicates you are able to then receive end tier syndicate gear from other players of the same ranking with their own syndicate.

 

If your highest tier with a syndicate is 2, then you can only trade or receive tier 2 syndicate offerings etc..

 

 

Thoughts, would this alleviate the issue or would this simply p%$$ you off getting rep at a lower rate and then being locked to trading it with other players who have unlocked the same tier or higher with their own syndicate?

 

Would this make Syndicates more End Game again or just another painful grind wall for us to all try find a quick way to circumvent?

[AlphaHorseman]

This is all optional, right? Meaning that players can choose to do these things for the better rewards, rather than forced to play through every mission through tactics.

[Jax_Cavalera]

This is all optional, right? Meaning that players can choose to do these things for the better rewards, rather than forced to play through every mission through tactics.

 

Yeah so it would basically be a way of allowing players to just get in there and kill a ton of stuff using everything they have got with no rules other than get the job done however you can.

 

So it would maybe be an unlockable reward for completing all Tactic Options on a Node, you can then complete the node using the Free For All option. (FFA)

 

FFA option would still need some level of reward but as it has the opportunity to beat it faster than any other Tactic, it is likely to yield the lowest XP per run with the fastest possible time achievable per run.

 

 

I then went on to consider how Rep might be handed out theoretically in this new context of Tactic Selections to try and determine the best way of handling that.  In the end I kind of wound up feeling like I would be ok with Slower Rep Gains and having rewards locked so you can only trade them with other players that have at least One syndicate ranked to the same tier as the item you are wanting to trade.

 

It would be a little hard though considering how far gone Rep is now with current players owning almost everything it has to offer currently.  Might also be a backlash from players that don't want to wait for new Syndicate Rewards with slower Rep Gains and are happy to not have End Game Rewards.

 

In that scenario, it could simply be that they establish a system where you gain 1 Rep point for every 2 XP points you earn from a run.

 

It really is all just ideas and thoughts on this stuff as it's the aspect of the concept that has had the least work done fleshing it out more.

 

Keen to hear thoughts of others on all of this stuff.

[geninrising]

Hmm on FFA, I would make that the normal setting rather than unlockable because players running through the first time need to use everything at their disposal to complete said missions. By locking them into completing them every other way it would generate a large amount of dissatisfaction amongst newer players that do not yet have the uber powerful guns/mods.

 

Additionally I think that rep gains from affinity should only scale better than currently through tactics use. Otherwise the p42w farm stays the same

 

For example a player can get 50k exp per round of Draco- that translates to 5k rep currently

If in example exp scaled down to 10k per round then it would be 5k rep in the new iteration.

 

Reputation scaling in that manner universally would not deter the behavior at all.

Edited January 28, 2015 by geninrising

[Jax_Cavalera]

Hmm on FFA, I would make that the normal setting rather than unlockable because players running through the first time need to use everything at their disposal to complete said missions. By locking them into completing them every other way it would generate a large amount of dissatisfaction amongst newer players that do not yet have the uber powerful guns/mods.

 

Additionally I think that rep gains from affinity should only scale better than currently through tactics use. Otherwise the p42w farm stays the same

 

For example a player can get 50k exp per round of Draco- that translates to 5k rep currently

If in example exp scaled down to 10k per round then it would be 5k rep in the new iteration.

 

Reputation scaling in that manner universally would not deter the behavior at all.

 

Yes all good points indeed.  We want players new to a node to give it a go using everything they have got first and then they can use dedicated tactics for higher gains that makes more sense.

 

See.. this is why I need all you guys here to help flesh this stuff out I overlook some seemingly obvious things haha.

 

 

What are your thoughts on the idea of the timer for the FFA run?

 

Should it just be a flat rate of XP per completion of the node in FFA mode with no timer or reductions from the XP/Rep value (provided you can successfully complete the mission) but with an even lower reward rate than the tactical options?

 

e.g.

If Timed, Draco might be 20k xp and 2k rep per run base  but the longer you take to complete the mission the more those values reduce so if you take over 5 minutes to complete each Rotation with a time of 7.5 minutes you would be getting 10k xp and 1k rep etc (I think that maths is right )

 

OR it is just a flat rate of 10k xp and 1k rep per run with no timers take as long as you wish.

 

 

 

The concept of the timer being to work as a trade-off, so if a player is wanting resources from a map they will likely want to keep running in FFA mode as long as possible to get maximum kills etc but in doing so they would walk away without getting very much XP or Rep from the run.  In contrast Tactical Options may not have timers so the players can stay as long as they want but need to rely on the chosen tactic to obtain all the drops.

 

hmm u know that won't really stop people from trashing Draco if there is an Abilities Only Mode for it since you could really milk that to the full 4 rotations without a single change.  You would get 100% of the XP and Rep at a higher rating than FFA plus a ton of drops.

 

 

Obvious fix would be to not offer Abilities Only on Heavy Spam maps as a Tactical Option so if you want to do ability spamming you have to run FFA and face reduced XP and Rep with the risk of no reward for that rotation .. or get reasonable XP and Rep but average resources.

 

 

 

Worth saying that the XP and Rep values I listed for Draco are just for the example, I dont' know what the averages are normally for that map or what DE originally thought they would be.

 

 

Had this other thought,

 

When you get a head shot whilst sliding or a stealth melee kill whilst not being invisible you could get bonus XP

 

There are probably other challenging moves or ninja stunts you could do like wall running head shot kill etc and we could catalogue a list f those as well if people think that'd be a good idea to include.

 

 

 

TL:DR

 

1.  Timer on FFA so taking too long cuts down XP, Rep rewards per Rotation and going over the max time by 50% means you do not get the Rotation Reward.

 

So if it's green till 5 minutes.. and you go over that point by 2.5 more minutes it turns Red for that Rotation.   Players can choose to endless farm FFA for resources with minimal to no real XP/Rep or farm in FFA mode for base avg XP and Rep with some resources and the Rotation Rewards.

 

good or bad?

 

 

2.  What Tactics should be included for each game mode?

 

-  Defense

-  Mobile Defense

-  Interception

-  Survival

-  Spy

-  Excavation

-  Sabotage : Void

-  Sabotage : Corpus Core

-  Sabotage : Grinneer Toxin Plant

-  Exterminate

-  Deception

-  Capture

-  Hijack

-  Assassination - could be difficult as each boss lends to unique tactics better than others and some tactics trivialize them completely and would be left out so you can only use those via FFA mode.

 

 

3.  Should we have Bonus XP for super Ninja Moves like Melee Stealth Uncloaked or Wall Running Head Shot etc?

Edited January 29, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[geninrising]

1. No honestly in a FFA setting there should be no benefit for speed running(make that it's own Tactic for varieties sake)

FFA should be just that everyone does things how they want to by any means they choose. That way newer players are not upset at a loss of exp if they need to be more careful or decide to try stealth for example.

 

2. Let me get back to you. Will update this post periodically and simply post update notices via new posts linked to this one.

 

3. Absolutely the more ninja the action the better ^^ This I feel might very well push diversity and reinforce doing really cool things.

[Jax_Cavalera]

1.  Fair point, I guess if the XP from the FFA mode is the lowest by a reasonable quantity then players after resources would normally run FFA Mode and players wanting to get experience points and Rep would be doing the Tactics.

 

2.  Looking forward to see what you come up with for those.. also if you can think of any game modes I missed just let me know as well.  I felt that in some cases the same mission for different factions is completed in a unique manner..  such as with Void Sabotage (more like an assassination really) vs Corpus Sabotage (destroy the core and get out in time)

 

I have also not considered Archwing at all because :

 

A.  It is still very new

B.  I almost never play it as is the case with a majority of the players.

C.  When I was playing it, a lot of these problems weren't as bad.. though give it time and I'm sure the same issues will creep over since it is a carbon copy of normal warframe except that you can fly.

 

 

3.  Nice glad to know you're on board for those.  If you have ideas for more of these Ninja Bonus XP Moves just list them off too xD

[AlphaHorseman]

I'm in agreement!

 

1. FFA has to be first, for the sake of completion and getting through everything without the penalties surprising you.

 

2. Phew, it'll be interesting to think of those.

 

3. YEP!

[Jax_Cavalera]

1.  Agreed yeah it's definitely the most balanced way to approach things especially for newer players to the game.

 

2.  Can't wait to see what you come up with for these as well.  It would be cool to have multiplayer ones and solo ones but that might be unfair on players who can only do solo due to connectivity issues.  I was thinking of ones where a player spots and must remain stealthed for the mission and another player snipes marked targets from range.   Would be cool but yeah issue is the solo vs multi which is a fair and reasonable thing.

 

3.  Coolness and as I mentioned to Gen, if you got any ideas for more of these as well just let us all know so we can compile a good list :)

[Jax_Cavalera]

Ok so I have a few Tactic ideas and Bonus XP Ninja Move Ideas to bring to the table. We need a name for the bonus XP Ninja Moves and Style Kills doesn't really cover it as it normally means sliding as you get a kill.

How about Skill Kills ?

Okay so moving along here are some I had in mind :

- Defense

☆ Abilities Only

☆ Primary Weapons Only

☆ Secondary Weapons Only

☆ Melee Only

☆ Headshots

☆ Executions (Knockdown Enemies then Kill with Primary or Secondary)

☆ Finishers (Similar to Executions but using Melee Only)

☆ Impalers (Pin killed enemies to walls etc.) Radial Javalin doesn't count.

☆ Stun Kills (Enemy must be stunned at the time of death)

☆ Untouchable (Pod must not take any damage..xp is lost per rotation based on damage taken by the pod)

☆ Demolition (Explosive Kills Only Includes things like a charged Nova Antimatter Drop...must be shot at least once to count)

☆ Camping (Weapons Only - Defend keeping 15m distance from the pod)

☆ Close Combat (Weapons Only - Defend staying within 15m of the pod)

** in both Camping and Close Combat, players can break distance rules when 2 or less enemies a left alive for the wave without getting an XP reduction **

Skill Kill Ideas

1. Wall Running Headshot

2. Uncloaked Stealth Melee Kill

3. Falling Firearm Kill (excludes continuous Fire weapons like syanoid gammacor and blast weapons like Angstrum) Must be from a height greater than 2m (normal jump height)

4. Headshot Speed Kill (5 enemies Abilities Don't Count)

5. Shishkabob Kill (Kill 5 enemies with a single Arrow,Bolt or Punchthrough Bullet)

6. Accuracy Bonus (unload a full clip of rounds without any bullet missing - excludes single shot clip weapons like Bows and AoE Weapons like Ogris)

Edited January 31, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera