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

[Jax_Cavalera]

This is the crux of quite few ideas on the matter. So we have been talking and the most well received idea is to not focus on spammers and instead focus on ways to make it MORE rewarding to play in another way than mindlessly spamming 4...check this out

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/381628-warframe-development-difficulty-expansion/#entry4210958

The first concept about an adjustable difficulty setting sounds good in theory till you find players maximizing their builds to crush the enemies so they can GRIND for rare gear to sell for plat. Since the reward is still obtained via grinding players will not change their approach to the game..just their technique in how speed grinding is performed.

Concept 2 is pretty much the same as Concept 1 but aims to strike better balance and also hit every aspect of the game including procs..removing / limiting copter speeds etc whilst the issue remains.. it is still players up against RNG/Grind Walls so I don't see this resulting in achieving anything but slowing player progress even further as our goal is still to grind.

To get out of the grind mentality we would first need to picture what we would do instead if we gave players Every weapon, frame and mod instantly. How could we keep them interested in Warframe in that scenario?

Answers to that question will hold the true solutions to the issue. Goals that would interest players when they have all the gear we currently need to grind for.

Of cause I am not saying remove the grind all together but a dependance on JUST GRINDING would be resolved so grind walls and RNG could be heavily reduced.

Same can be said for Gate Crash and although the OP says that isolating handycaps to individual player loadout effectiveness and individual bonus reward multipliers based on lowest difficulty setting on a squad member.. you seriiusly would still get the new player to ramp up their difficulty along with 2 of the other players and let 1 player kill everything for them no-handicap.

Why? Because xp is gained faster if you leach than kill and also on the highest difficulty handicap it is unlikely you would get through the mission very fast anyway so speed running this way would break what it is trying to achieve.

And all it would be achieving is slowing down further how long it takes to grind as well as pushing players to find new ways to grind with max handicap settings. This does not fix the issue.

I see there are lots of players tired with the current system and it is great to know this isn't the only thread trying to resolve the problem. I think I will update my OP to reflect current findings so discussion can move forwards based on the question :

How would you keep players interested in Warframe if they had access to everything we currently grind for (frames, weapons, mods) from the moment they start playing?

[AlphaHorseman]

The reason people and DE are bothered by the spamming of abilities has nothing to do with the enemy difficulty actually.

 

The reason it bother the MAJORITY of people that oppose p42w is the fact that it is abusing a broken gating mechanic that no longer serves to balance and keep power use in check. Therefore anyone can run around constantly using the most powerful abilities in the game without a detrimental balancing factor.

 

Powers were designed to use in specific situations to resolve said issue IF you had the energy to do so. It was not meant to be used constantly and unfortunately it became such a wide spread occurrence that it became obvious that it was abuse.

 

Now we are at a pivotal point in the evolution of said occurrences where it is possible to maintain an infinite power supply with or without the original necessary element of said occurrence, Trinity. Please note that it is not Trinities fault all this has occurred, It is the energy gating mechanic that DE themselves ALLOWED to be exploited with bad design decisions(efficiency and energy restores).

 

To be fair though they were good ideas but only if the energy pool had been more limited, however if they had gone that route then anyone that did not use efficiency in build would be screwed(as compared to other players). So what they decided to do was give you the ability to mod either for more energy or more efficiency, but then they did not put an either/or clause into the build mechanics. Thus people got tons of energy and tons of efficiency.

 

Then came another blunder at a chance to help this mechanism succeed, DE implemented casting time as a more profound element, then in the same turn of events released Natural Talent. So they added a negative to #4 nukes and it's solution simultaneously, good job DE.

 

The last straw and what made DE finally acknowledge the exploitation of said energy system was Viver. People blatantly abusing said mechanic for long amounts of time to get around a certain amount of time gating on syndicate rewards.

 

People found a way to be both lazy and rewarded for doing so. That is the crux of the p42w defense couched in the argument of  "freedom of choice and implementation of their STRATEGY is synergy and obviously the devs think we should be allowed to play this way".

 

In short DE themselves have caused this by not nipping it in the bud and even by releasing mods that allow us to go even further with it often.

At this point the only thing that can save us from this is a complete rework of the energy gating mechanic to ensure that all of our content is not trivialized.

 

The problem with this is many fold however due to how enemies have evolved already to cope with our damage in both weapons and powers.

There is a long row to hoe on this one, I just hope they get around to it soon as no one should be able to 30 a weapon in a single run without breaking a sweat. If the devs wanted that they would just increase affinity gains by a ton and be done with it rather than allow people to abuse a mechanic that they know is broken.

 

Normally exploiting is a ban-able offense but when 80% of the population is doing it they have to re-invent the wheel to fix it or they will have no customers at all.(guestimate based on the fact that people generally take the path of least resistance like water when faced with an obstacle) 

I'm sorry, are you DE? Apparently you know why they do what they do?

 

The mechanic isn't broken, high efficiency is a way some people build. Some people go for it, some people don't. It depends on the players themselves and the missions they're going into. Without a detrimental balancing factor? If you go full efficiency, you lose 60% of your duration if you max Fleeting, or 50% if you go Fleeting and near max Streamline. How the heck is that not a balancing factor? Not to mention a player could add in a duration mod to try and help offset this, and even maxed out Continuity or Constitution doesn't do that. In tandem they could, but you use up 2 slots to try and offset the detriment of Fleeting. Only other mod that can actually offset this without being a Corrupted mod is Primed Continuity, of which not everyone has, and is a Vay Hek of a lot harder to rank 9 to fully offset a near max Fleeting. Max out Fleeting, and even that mod couldn't do it. Your other option is Narrow Minded, of which also gives you a detriment as a balancing factor. SO you lose not only duration, but to shore it up, you use Narrow Minded to try and offset it, but you lose Range as well. 

 

If you use regular mods, you can't fully offset Fleeting, or if you do it'll cost you 2 slots that could've been used for QoL mods or Duration mods. If you actually try using Corrupted Mods, you lose Range in exchange for Duration. You could slap stretch on there, but here you go, using 2 mod slots AGAIN to try and offset ONE detriment! SO PLEASE, ENOUGH WITH THE NO BALANCING FACTOR!

 

Powers were designed to allow players to use them, not to be dictated by another players "reasoning" to use in a certain situation. However a person builds their frames dictates the availability, use, and effectiveness of their powers. How they function fundamentally can't be changed, but that too is a limiting factor.

 

You can do the exact same with ammo, shields, and health with the restores. It isn't practical to just stand in one spot for a time and spam health restores, until someone somewhere gets into a situation where that is an avenue that actually works. Same thing happened with the first iteration of Syndicates. The META became spamming powers because of how much Rep we had to farm in order to get to actually valuable amounts of rep. DE fixed that with the increased speed of rep gain and removed their LoS changes to Trinity, Mag, and Excal. Some people continued to spam powers, some didn't and went back to playing how they wanted to play because the system wasn't so oppressive anymore.

 

They didn't make it an either/or option because that defeats the whole purpose of an extensive modification system, like how we have in the game. What's the point of an extensive modification system if you can't EXTENSIVELY MODIFY something? DE gives us the frames as the Template, an outline, a Canvas, and says to us "Make your art and masterpiece" and we are given the tools to do so. They don't tell us "Use only these colors, don't use that brush, and you can only color this part" because that isn't how the system is, nor should it be.

 

That wasn't a blunder, it allows you customization. You slotting in Natural Talent means you're trying to make up for a singular flaw that doesn't even affect the actual affect of the power, but rather its annoyingly long time to cast. Sure, you gain the ability to shoot off your powers faster, but you also lose that slot for the sole purpose of trying to shore up one of the lacks in a power. You gain something, you lose something, that's how it works.

 

People did that because it was hell for them to try and Rep Farm. Not many did it before because we weren't forced into a corner with a system that demanded so much of us. We got maybe a couple hundred points per mission, when the cost to max out a syndicate was literally over hundreds of thousands.

 

In short DE gives us the tools, and we decide what we want to do with them. Nobody needs to "save us" from anything, your choice whether to use those tools or not, nobody said you had to, nobody said you couldn't. You, on the other hand, can't tell someone else they have to use these tools. "To ensure all of our content is not trivialized"? Haha, are you KIDDING ME?! MY BOLTOR PRIME, PARIS PRIME, DREAD, and EVERYTHING ELSE in my arsenal I've built for end-game can "trivialize" anything in the map, void or otherwise. Barring Endless content and bosses, I can sweep the floor with the bodies of my enemies by raising my bow and strumming it like Carlos Santana.

 

"Broken mechanic" blah blah blah, you realize I can "break" any enemy in the game, barring endless and bosses, with a gun or a weapon? It has nothing to do with leveling a thing, though people do farm for levels, it's just how we've built our gear. A side note of endless is to help people level, it's an option for them to use. Why shouldn't they be able to do that? Huh? Because it isn't how you think it should be? Believe it or not, bucko, we all have the option to level our things how we wish, endless is an avenue we can take, and it's usually the faster option because you can stay in one mission and fight enemies to help your guns along.

 

You guess, you have no proof nor factual information. So don't try and flaunt it as such in later responses or anywhere else.

 

Actually this would only be incentive to commit fully to a power spam build  and use energy restores and or trinity because the ults would be more powerful than they are now. IT's nothing at this point to drop 4 restores right quick then hit the ult. Expensive yeah but totally doable. in addition a well built trinity would score 2 vamps in seconds and let you hit ult np no matter the cost of ultimates.

 

The problem is the way in which ultimates use a static pool of energy, I say static because we have so many methods of just generating infinite energy that it trivializes the entire energy mechanic. Now unfortunately DE has further empowered said players by releasing more mods that support spam even more.

 

An entire rework needs to be completed on the energy system so that it is not possible to exploit said energy loophole that Steve condemned use of.

You can pump your gun full of ammo with the amount of ammo that drops on the floor, and ammo restores. 

 

This is the crux of quite few ideas on the matter. So we have been talking and the most well received idea is to not focus on spammers and instead focus on ways to make it MORE rewarding to play in another way than mindlessly spamming 4...check this out

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/381628-warframe-development-difficulty-expansion/#entry4210958

Is that Mecha's thread?

 

Of course I still support any change in our current system to prevent this "exploit"(DESteves words not mine, although I totally agree ^^)

 

Again, with the DESteves words. We already smashed that point out of the water. Actions speak louder than words. So why release mods like Primed Continuity, Primed Flow, and have a Primed Streamline coming? Because, DE is doing things through their actions, and that's giving us enemies like Eximi, Healers, and Nullifiers, but also giving us Primed Streamline, Primed Flow, and others. They're giving us the tools, and giving us enemies that can challenge the use of these tools. They aren't, however, whacking the players themselves. Nor should they.

[Azawarau]

I'm sorry, are you DE? Apparently you know why they do what they do?

 

The mechanic isn't broken

"Our ‘press 4 to win’ ultimates are metered primarily by the supply of energy. Finding an energy loophole means that Homer’s drinking bird can play the game for you. That is not team synergy. That is just broken."

 

Again, with the DESteves words. We already smashed that point out of the water. Actions speak louder than words. So why release mods like Primed Continuity, Primed Flow, and have a Primed Streamline coming? Because, DE is doing things through their actions, and that's giving us enemies like Eximi, Healers, and Nullifiers, but also giving us Primed Streamline, Primed Flow, and others. They're giving us the tools, and giving us enemies that can challenge the use of these tools. They aren't, however, whacking the players themselves. Nor should they.

"This fall, starting with Excalibur, we’ve begun to take a hard look at these ‘X-Ray AOE’ abilities and wonder if we can bring more elements of skill back in. That’s the short answer to ‘why the hell is DE messing with us’. Homer’s drinking bird should not play the game for you."

 

 

I'm sorry, are you DE? Apparently you know why they do what they do?

 

Theyre working on a solution

 

Be careful what you say

[Jax_Cavalera]

The tactics you mention are still better than the ones we have as prevalent now.

In Stephano if you have 1 loki rocketing each objective over and over again I suspect it would kill mobs even faster if not just as quick as the excaliber approach.

Edit : I can see a derail in progress with personal attacks being highlighted so please guys let's all be civil. I don't think Geninrising was trying to be a DE representative but just express where he felt they were heading with things.

Also I can understand how their post could be taken that way so I do understand why you would get annoyed as some people do like to speak as if they are the voice of DE even when they are not representatives in any official capacity and that bugs me too.

Let's give eachother the benifit of the doubt that we are all just talking based on personal observations only so the discussion can move forwards positively without us getting distracted from the focus (OP Edit 1).

I think this is what Azawarau was trying to convey as well though it may not have come across this way but in any case let's not lose focus on the Topic by getting into who knows better what DE are really thinking.

We really do need to look at ways of keeping player interest under the context of there being no grind walls to obtain gear. Fix underlying goals in the game so they aren't to grind against RNG and you will be on the right track to boycotting this behaviour.

Im not saying we actually remove grind walls from the game.. just approach ideas from a scenario where they were removed.

We only farm to beat the Grind Walls so having everything from the start no grinding needed, what gameplay changes would you make to keep players interested? What goals could you add to the game that would encourage players to customise a handfull of the weapons only instead of maxing everything to 30 and then leaving it to go cold on the bench?

Edited January 15, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[AlphaHorseman]

"Our ‘press 4 to win’ ultimates are metered primarily by the supply of energy. Finding an energy loophole means that Homer’s drinking bird can play the game for you. That is not team synergy. That is just broken."

 

"This fall, starting with Excalibur, we’ve begun to take a hard look at these ‘X-Ray AOE’ abilities and wonder if we can bring more elements of skill back in. That’s the short answer to ‘why the hell is DE messing with us’. Homer’s drinking bird should not play the game for you."

 

 

 

Theyre working on a solution

 

Be careful what you say

Yep, don't have powers available at our discretion: Releases Primed Continuity, Primed Flow, with Primed Streamline on the way (i think, gotta check who did the data mine)

 

They're working on a solution, yeah, I know. Some solutions are already here, Eximi that debunk AoE damage skills, strengthen allies, and even drain energy, and Infested Healers, and Nullifiers. They're giving us enemies that these skills don't work well on, rather than whacking the entire community with ability nerfs.

 

Be careful how you interpret.

[Jax_Cavalera]

So a few ideas I have off the top of my head would be ways of rewarding players for using the full potential of their warframes :

 

1. Squad vs Squad  :  

Both squads are given 5 random sub-missions   (10 headshots, 5 style kills etc..) and they compete to see who gets a higher score with bonus points being awarded for each of the sub-missions you complete and time to complete the mission being factored in as well.

 

2. Enemies that provide real competition :

The spector concept where they are not invincible to our abilities but also have 4 of their own abilities.  These enemies would need to be taken down using skill and a healthy combination of ability use as well as weapon accuracy and agility.

 

3. Visible Leader boards for each Node :

If we could see the current "high scores" at a glance for each node in the game and there were a benefit to being in the top 5 on those lists such as an affinity boost, credit boost or you get a reactor or catalyst, this would inspire players to stick with 1 good loadout and optimize it to get to the top on a node leader board.

 

Once awarded the reward, you hold the spot for 1 day based on the daily login reward timer.  There could even be a cooldown of 2 days before you can try for that nodes' leaderboard again.

 

4. Adding resource drops and XP gain to PvP missions :

Would need to have a balance on the XP so players can't just take it in turns killing eachother.. perhaps it could be that all players start with 25k XP up for grabs and each time you kill them, you get a portion of that till it is all gone or a cooldown between frequency of killing the player..

 

Only get XP for the first time you kill them inside of a 60 second timeframe so subsequent kills would need to be spaced out a little, which in normal gameplay circumstances they are.  It would be abnormal for the player to speed run back to the enemy that just killed them and die within 1 minute including the delay between re spawns.

 

5. Award Mastery to Re-Formaing :

I think mastering a weapon is not about getting it to rank 30 but about customizing it and so players should be able to earn more mastery by re-formaing their loadout up to 6 times?

 

This would reward players who are actually customizing their gear instead of pushing to grind constant mastery fodder and would reduce how frequently DE need to release new weapons that do pretty much the same thing as existing weapons.  Mk1 Bo, Bo , Bo Prime  O.O

 

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

 

As I consider each of these ideas in the context of you already having maxed weapons and frames with every mod you can get in the game at your disposal, a lot of these ideas are pretty bad/pointless and would not address the underlying issues so I will try again with some better ones below :

 

 

Possible Reward Criteria :

 

-  Must perform some kind of beneficial function to the player

 

-  Allow the player to get exposure and recognition for their performance  (further enhance leaderboards)

 

-  Reward that enables a player to Speed Invite 5 new clan members so they automatically get a dojo key instead of having to build one.

 

-  Rewards that are cosmetic or would not directly give a player an in-mission advantage over other players.

 

Dojo Reactor Room Bonus (so they can build extra rooms without having to construct additional Reactors)  Wouldn't let them get any direct bonus over other players but would allow them to fit in a room like the PvP Dual Room or the Shooting Gallery when it is added or the Obstacle Course room etc.. so their clan members can train harder to perform better in missions.

 

 

 

So I'm drawing inspiration from games that don't rely on grinding as the root draw card for player enjoyment and managed to keep players around for a long time with minimal content additions compared to Warframe which add new content every week or 2.  Games like Q3A, CStrike, BF3/4 etc...

 

These games are all about pushing your abilities as a user to the max and then being able to climb in rank on leaderboards.  It sounds so simple really and yet this on its own is enough to keep these titles alive and still played for many years (over 10 in the case of Quake 3 Arena.. now known as Quake Live)

 

Maybe the critical difference between these games and Warframe is that they all rely on PvP, though Q3 and Cstrike were actually really fun even with bots so that' can't be all there is to it.

 

Just playing to win and beat increasingly harder enemies was enough of a reward for those games, no grinding required.

 

Do you think Warframe would survive if it didn't have grinding or would it sink?  Could this be improved if the PvP aspect and AI intelligence/types of enemies were more like real human warframe players?

Edited January 15, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[oinkah]

I think the right way to approach this question would be to look for examples in other games. What other co-op PvE games have infinite replayability without resorting to grind?

I can only think of Left-4-dead, Payday the heist and maybe Killing Floor.

But I haven't played any of them, so I can't tell what makes them work.

Edited January 15, 2015 by oinkah

[Jax_Cavalera]

I think the right way to approach this question would be to look for examples in other games. What other co-op PvE games have infinite replayability without resorting to grind?

I can only think of Left-4-dead, Payday the heist and maybe Killing Floor.

But I haven't played any of them, so I can't tell what makes them work.

 

Yes those are more modern examples and sadly I also have never tried any of those games to know for certain what makes them work.  I do hear that Payday gets a lot of enjoyment from overcoming the challenge as a team and outsmarting the enemy.  I know in warframe.. the enemy are usually that dumb anyone who can press 1 key on their keyboard can "outsmart" them as they all walk in a straight line towards their goals so some dynamic path finding wouldn't go a stray as a starting point yes.

 

Perhaps others who have played these games can provide more insight.

[0x1F44C]

I see this whole argument as players wanting other players to play like they do.  If you don't like having an Excalibur in your party spamming Radial Javelin (I'm not one of these people), then what's stopping you from leaving?  That little number in the stats page that means absolutely nothing?

 

There really isn't any more to it than this...

[geninrising]

I think the right way to approach this question would be to look for examples in other games. What other co-op PvE games have infinite replayability without resorting to grind?

I can only think of Left-4-dead, Payday the heist and maybe Killing Floor.

But I haven't played any of them, so I can't tell what makes them work.

The problem with implementing these types of systems into the game as they are primarily skill focused while Warframe is primarily gear focused which currently negates the necessity for skill unless you enter into infinite content which the game cannot be balanced for otherwise the rest of the game would become trivialized even more than currently.

[geninrising]

We really do need to look at ways of keeping player interest under the context of there being no grind walls to obtain gear. Fix underlying goals in the game so they aren't to grind against RNG and you will be on the right track to boycotting this behaviour.

Im not saying we actually remove grind walls from the game.. just approach ideas from a scenario where they were removed.

We only farm to beat the Grind Walls so having everything from the start no grinding needed, what gameplay changes would you make to keep players interested? What goals could you add to the game that would encourage players to customise a handfull of the weapons only instead of maxing everything to 30 and then leaving it to go cold on the bench?

This is not really possible as the game is built around acquisition of rewards rather than skill being it's own reward.

 

Unfortunately unless the game takes a sharp turn towards skill focus the gear and getting it will always be it's primary focus, thus necessitating massive grind and RNG walls that we are forced to overcome. Honestly this whole problem stems from DE's decision to tie reputation gains to affinity in any way. Reputation spawned the proliferation of the p42w issue that was previously rarely utilized to this extent.

 

Again that is reward acquisition driving players towards that style even if it goes against their preference.

 

So we have incentive to play that way, what we need now is incentive to NOT play that way so that things are equalized across the board since a large group of our playerbase would be angry at it's removal due to the loss of their rewards or maybe they just prefer to play pressing a single button over and over again.

[RealPandemonium]

The problem with implementing these types of systems into the game as they are primarily skill focused while Warframe is primarily gear focused which currently negates the necessity for skill unless you enter into infinite content which the game cannot be balanced for otherwise the rest of the game would become trivialized even more than currently.

Warframe becomes skill-focused when you take away all the overpowered/lazy options.  That's why we need to tone everything down so that difficulty and power levels can be tuned in small steps rather than the crazy disparity we have now in terms of difficulty levels (grineer vs other factions, star map vs void/alerts/etc) and power availability to the player (mod feast or famine gear checks.)

[Azawarau]

I think the right way to approach this question would be to look for examples in other games. What other co-op PvE games have infinite replayability without resorting to grind?

I can only think of Left-4-dead, Payday the heist and maybe Killing Floor.

But I haven't played any of them, so I can't tell what makes them work.

Its only a grind if you make it one at the moment

 

Mastery fodder means nothing since mastery has near no value after 10

 

The worst is grinding up certain mods but in most cases those mods arent even needed to play to end game

 

They give something for the hardcore players to do

[Jax_Cavalera]

Warframe becomes skill-focused when you take away all the overpowered/lazy options.  That's why we need to tone everything down so that difficulty and power levels can be tuned in small steps rather than the crazy disparity we have now in terms of difficulty levels (grineer vs other factions, star map vs void/alerts/etc) and power availability to the player (mod feast or famine gear checks.)

That is true it does become skill focused in that context and to make that work the grind walls would also need to vanish commensurate to nerfs. Then at a certain point new gameplay focuses and rewards can beging to get introduced.

Its only a grind if you make it one at the moment

 

Mastery fodder means nothing since mastery has near no value after 10

 

The worst is grinding up certain mods but in most cases those mods arent even needed to play to end game

 

They give something for the hardcore players to do

I thought Mastery gives you extra Rep per day. A lot of the mod grjnding of late has been related to the Primed mods.

I think that a player who grinds for rep and mastery will be making more platinum from syanoid gammacore trades than someone who does not so it may not be necessary to grind..

though refusing to grind will only hurt your ability to advance and obtain all the gear currently availabk etc.

[geninrising]

The thing no one likes to hear is that grind is necessary for DE. It's how they make their money and even if we make the grind more fun, efficiency will win out. So without sweeping changes to the energy system or the way powers themselves can clear a room, players will naturally gravitate to the EASIEST way to complete said grind.

 

Unfortunately people do not regularly pay DE because they love to support them(I'm sure some do) they pay for the plat to get what they want thus skipping the grind.

 

Hard work vs pay a little bit? Pay every time.

 

Hard work vs power spam? Power spam every time.

This is an unfortunate truth and not really something we can alleviate through feedback because it is a core design element of WF and all systems are based on it. I have started a thread that would allow us to put in hard work to alleviate some of the problems of RNG but grinding itself is immutable in WF.

 

Get people to pay by making them frustrated. It's a common tactic in all f2p games and it's the reason why they make millions per year.

[Azawarau]

That is true it does become skill focused in that context and to make that work the grind walls would also need to vanish commensurate to nerfs. Then at a certain point new gameplay focuses and rewards can beging to get introduced.

I thought Mastery gives you extra Rep per day. A lot of the mod grjnding of late has been related to the Primed mods.

I think that a player who grinds for rep and mastery will be making more platinum from syanoid gammacore trades than someone who does not so it may not be necessary to grind..

though refusing to grind will only hurt your ability to advance and obtain all the gear currently availabk etc.

Ah thats right. Forgot about that bit

 

Though given the rep is capped anyways that doesnt make too terribly large a difference over small leaps in level

[UrbanShade]

Firstly, sorry for my poor english.

Im MR17 right now, and i have 36k of standing available per day. If im will play normally - it will take 5-6 hours to take it all.

You can ask - why u want to take all 36k? Im will answer - because i have opportunity, this will give me Synoid Gammacor every 3rd day, and i can exchange it in trade for platinum, mods or anything what i need. 

Its practically not interesting to spend 4-5 hours to grind my reputation, so im choosed the most efficient way - Saryn or Excal with maxed power/efficiency build. Why? Because its most efficient and fast. I can farm all my rep in ~hour, and then return to more interesting ingame activities, where i can change my build for my favs, Excal and Saryn, and play the way, how its comfort, like using Molt, Contagion, Blind or other abilities, or im going to Void, or im going to pure melee, or makin build with utilising Rush, Quick Rest or other "Bad" mods,  basicaly im doing things, what im enjoy. 

So, imho, problem with 4 spam - the way, how standing is earned.

I can offer little, but kinda powerfull solution - make a standing obtainable via syndicate daylies only.

How to balance it? Same way, as it is now, practically.

MR2 will have 2 syndicate alerts, MR10 - 10 alerts, MR18 - 18 alerts, etc.

Each alert will provide 2k rep per run, or will have different values, but like 1k, 2k and 3k rewards equal to 2k 2k 2k, i mean if u have 36k cap per day, all your alerts will have sum of standing for 36k. And alerts should be kinda different, im tired of 3-4 captures per 2 syndicates in my dailiyes.

Each gametype will be introduced by this way, so it will be really interesting, what will kinda force u to play all kind of mission, not only interception/defence for highest affinity.

Sorry for grammar or syntax mistakes.

[Jax_Cavalera]

That is actually a really good approach at reducing the grind for syndicate from it just being a rush task. Simply put your idea would be :

- Remove Rep from kills and boost how much is guaranteed per Syndicate mission you complete.

I think as your MR goes up, the rep multiplier for a run goes up.

The thing that stands out to me though would be that players will still be speed xp grinding to boost their MR so it would really just split earning Rep up from gaining Mastery via ability spam.

You know if DE introduced a subscription option at a reasonable price point, they could provide X plat to subscribers per month and they might get to choose 1 cosmetic bonus from the market for free per month as well, they would get 1 free rush per month in their foundry plus the 5 Speed Clan Invites that come with a built Clan Key.

I think that would take care of the income problem without earning money by pi##!$g off your community with sensless grinding on top on RNG or would definitely be a step in the right direction.

From what I have read thiugh DE are not financially struggling so perhaps they have enough of a budget to start floating changes away from a grind or pay structure.

What alternatives are there? How do non grind based games that are F2P entice players to spend?

- Cosmetic Purchases

- Access to Extra Maps

- Admin control over some map settings

- Extended limits on how many contacts players can have in their lists

- A second ticket into monthly lotto when players make a purchase and the lotto works by a random player being chosen from those who entered and wins something cool like an above mentioned reward.

- Half research / build times / swift travel

One advantage that regular Pay to play games have is that no one blinks twice when those using the Free version have less access to features that enhance gameplay experience but in Free to Play..I suspect DE couldn't do this and not get backlash from free to players unless they explained why they were making the changes and got a community vote :

1. More grind walls and slower gameplay to encourage plat purchases

2. Content like nodes and other special features only unlocked for the duration of your Premium Membership.

Both have drawbacks but if we do hqve a problem with grind walls ruining gameplay as the direct cause of ability spam then the cause needs to be addressed somehow.

While we have to grind we will always find ways to spam to bypass the walls and only newer players who don't know how will be buying platinum till they realise there is an alternative way to get through the grind walls.

Once the walls become so big that we can no longer get through them without paying to win I think we will see a mass exit from the game as no one wants to spend 10 hours trying to get something that they were getting in 1 hour. The quality of gameplay as abilities are nerfed further and grind walls increased will only make this worse.

So here is the summary of the problem :

- Need to get rid of grind walls

- Need to consider other viable ways DE can earn money than from frustrated players.

- Need to introduce new goals and improve game mechanics so they reward skill and focus away from grindwalls.

- Consider what goals and rewards could DE introduce that do not have a grind mechanic as their underlying principle.

All of this is difficult to address in a single topic due to the categorization methods in the forum but trying to break it down into individual topics has proven to not work either as the issues are all connected and need to be discussed in that context.

[ShadowBroker316]

Firstly, sorry for my poor english.

Im MR17 right now, and i have 36k of standing available per day. If im will play normally - it will take 5-6 hours to take it all.

You can ask - why u want to take all 36k? Im will answer - because i have opportunity, this will give me Synoid Gammacor every 3rd day, and i can exchange it in trade for platinum, mods or anything what i need. 

Its practically not interesting to spend 4-5 hours to grind my reputation, so im choosed the most efficient way - Saryn or Excal with maxed power/efficiency build. Why? Because its most efficient and fast. I can farm all my rep in ~hour, and then return to more interesting ingame activities, where i can change my build for my favs, Excal and Saryn, and play the way, how its comfort, like using Molt, Contagion, Blind or other abilities, or im going to Void, or im going to pure melee, or makin build with utilising Rush, Quick Rest or other "Bad" mods,  basicaly im doing things, what im enjoy. 

So, imho, problem with 4 spam - the way, how standing is earned.

I can offer little, but kinda powerfull solution - make a standing obtainable via syndicate daylies only.

How to balance it? Same way, as it is now, practically.

MR2 will have 2 syndicate alerts, MR10 - 10 alerts, MR18 - 18 alerts, etc.

Each alert will provide 2k rep per run, or will have different values, but like 1k, 2k and 3k rewards equal to 2k 2k 2k, i mean if u have 36k cap per day, all your alerts will have sum of standing for 36k. And alerts should be kinda different, im tired of 3-4 captures per 2 syndicates in my dailiyes.

Each gametype will be introduced by this way, so it will be really interesting, what will kinda force u to play all kind of mission, not only interception/defence for highest affinity.

Sorry for grammar or syntax mistakes.

 

On the assumption that the average player is farming rep for two allied syndicates, that currently equals to 6 missions per day. An MR18 player would therefore have 36 alerts to complete on a daily basis. If mission types and structure are the same, then this is simply an enormous amount of time to be able to complete this DAILY (some missions can take up to 20 minutes if you're being thorough and trying to find medallions*) and I do not have the privilege to play Warframe all day long as I have job and obviously many other players do too. Additionally, the Medallion system would have to change also, since many of these alerts would have medallion drops. 

 

That is actually a really good approach at reducing the grind for syndicate from it just being a rush task. Simply put your idea would be :

- Remove Rep from kills and boost how much is guaranteed per Syndicate mission you complete.

I think as your MR goes up, the rep multiplier for a run goes up.

The thing that stands out to me though would be that players will still be speed xp grinding to boost their MR so it would really just split earning Rep up from gaining Mastery via ability spam.

You know if DE introduced a subscription option at a reasonable price point, they could provide X plat to subscribers per month and they might get to choose 1 cosmetic bonus from the market for free per month as well, they would get 1 free rush per month in their foundry plus the 5 Speed Clan Invites that come with a built Clan Key.

I think that would take care of the income problem without earning money by pi##!$g off your community with sensless grinding on top on RNG or would definitely be a step in the right direction.

From what I have read thiugh DE are not financially struggling so perhaps they have enough of a budget to start floating changes away from a grind or pay structure.

What alternatives are there? How do non grind based games that are F2P entice players to spend?

- Cosmetic Purchases

- Access to Extra Maps

- Admin control over some map settings

- Extended limits on how many contacts players can have in their lists

- A second ticket into monthly lotto when players make a purchase and the lotto works by a random player being chosen from those who entered and wins something cool like an above mentioned reward.

- Half research / build times / swift travel

One advantage that regular Pay to play games have is that no one blinks twice when those using the Free version have less access to features that enhance gameplay experience but in Free to Play..I suspect DE couldn't do this and not get backlash from free to players unless they explained why they were making the changes and got a community vote :

1. More grind walls and slower gameplay to encourage plat purchases

2. Content like nodes and other special features only unlocked for the duration of your Premium Membership.

Both have drawbacks but if we do hqve a problem with grind walls ruining gameplay as the direct cause of ability spam then the cause needs to be addressed somehow.

While we have to grind we will always find ways to spam to bypass the walls and only newer players who don't know how will be buying platinum till they realise there is an alternative way to get through the grind walls.

Once the walls become so big that we can no longer get through them without paying to win I think we will see a mass exit from the game as no one wants to spend 10 hours trying to get something that they were getting in 1 hour. The quality of gameplay as abilities are nerfed further and grind walls increased will only make this worse.

So here is the summary of the problem :

- Need to get rid of grind walls

- Need to consider other viable ways DE can earn money than from frustrated players.

- Need to introduce new goals and improve game mechanics so they reward skill and focus away from grindwalls.

- Consider what goals and rewards could DE introduce that do not have a grind mechanic as their underlying principle.

All of this is difficult to address in a single topic due to the categorization methods in the forum but trying to break it down into individual topics has proven to not work either as the issues are all connected and need to be discussed in that context.

 

I think a mandatory subscription model COULD work quite well, though introducing this would mean that a rebalancing of Platinum prices and market item prices would also be needed. This would have a pretty significant impact on the RNG and item acquisition basically. 

 

I started playing this game because I quite like Sci-Fi genre games (like Mass Effect). The game starts off quite well, with a decent story and some character progression, but pretty much after Vors Prize there is simply very little story and it mostly just feels like a bit of white noise. 

 

Herein lies the problem. The game is fun to play. But the reason its fun is simply because of the gameplay mechanics and items. Naturally, my interest in the story fizzled some and my focus shifted to mostly frame and item acquisition. This requires farming, so therefore I had to derive farming builds.

 

Most my builds are oriented towards basically doing the most amount of damage to minimize the amount of time it takes to complete a mission, because I KNOW that I will likely need to complete it quite a few times before I get what I came for. This is no different to say, World of Warcraft, where indeed there is a brutal RNG but in World of Warcraft you really do need people to carry out different roles in a quest, otherwise that quest cannot be completed.

 

If you want more varied play style, more strategy, and basically less button bashing then perhaps the combat system needs to be reworked. I don't know what that system would look like, but it could based on a kind of class system i.e. this would change it from currently basically SUPPORT & OFFENSE to perhaps TANKING, HEALING, CROWD CONTROL, DAMAGE and w/e else  you can think of. 

 

All I am saying is that: I could take almost ANY Warframe with an optimized Soma Prime and some ammo restores and complete whatever mission. Equally, I could take Mag on a Corpus mission with Energy restores (and they aren't even really needed) and shield polarise and pull/crush the whole way through the mission. There is no skill in that, other than your ability to dodge bullets and melee jump your way through tileset obstacles. 

 

Making a change to the combat system which does really differentiate between frames and their roles (and perhaps even weapons they can equip) would MASSIVELY change the way that missions would be played. I can think of several dozens of scenarios for all mission types where the kinds of duties and responsibilities that each player would have would mean that it would no longer be about who had the highest % dmg dealt at extract from spamming an ability or 8 forma boltor prime or w/e. 

 

NB: The above is just my opinion, so don't freak out when you read it. 

 

[oinkah]

Wow, topics of this thread sure get changed often. First power spam, countering grind and now income source.

Anyway, I still want to address second part of the thread, making gameplay more worthwhile.

 

Like I stated before, problem is repetitiveness. Player who wants affinity goes to Cerberus and plays through same mission every time. Different frame and weapon combinations help a little, but it's barely noticeable. Player who comes to Cerberus knows what to expect.

 

I suggest adding random events that break the monotony. Things that could happen during the mission:

 

* Jackal / Hyena / Raptor / Ambluas / Lynx arrives

* Life support gets cut off (temporary)

* Existing antenna gets destroyed

* New antenna gets deployed

* Corpus spaceship lands and becomes part of the map

* Part of the map gets destroyed

* Infested / Grineer invade for few waves

* Random objective appears for extra rewards   (capture target arrives, excavation drill lands)

* Corpus reinforce captured antenna   (deploy stationary turrets, shields, EMP / nullifier fields, teleporters for quicker respawn)

* Random fires / cryogenic malfunctions (temporary)

* Corpus try to bribe players to fail / end mission early.

 

These events would appear randomly. Sometimes few could appear simultaneously. The idea is to make mission less predictable, discourage cookie cutter builds and keep players on their toes. Somewhat similar to current assassins.

I wouldn't tamper with frame stats and powers like Nightmare mode, but anything that affects enemies and environment is okay.

[ZayTM]

Ability spam is the result of several problems all conglomerating as one thing; to tackle it as simply "enemies are too boring" would be fallacious.

Enemies are boring and simple because we kill them too fast. Even if they had good A.I. and powerful tools, we'd still nuke them instantly with our horrendously powerful guns and powers.
 

But we can't just nerf things and bring them into line to give the A.I. time to shine because then enemy spawns and scaling would be way too high.
 

And we can't reduce enemy spawns because it would result in drop rates and exp gains being reduced.

The only way to fix this problem would be a holistic approach. Enemy/weapon/power balances would have to be overhauled to let enemies last longer, enemy spawns would have to be reduced so that we don't get overwhelmed, the drop rates and affinity gains would have to be increased to accomodate, and then on top of that the A.I. would have to be given interesting tools and tactics.

It's doable, certainly, but it can't just be viewed as a single problem like "Tenno are OP" or "People spam because they are greedy" or "Enemies are too squishy".

People should feel powerful, but they should feel challenged as well. And they should be rewarded for being challenged.

Edited January 16, 2015 by ZayTM

[Jax_Cavalera]

As a link to y9ur post

I get the limited time to play factor so a multiplier would resolve this instead of higher MR players having to run more missions. It wouldn't fix the MR grind issue but perhaps other things can.

My biggest fear is that DE would take the requests for more variety and paced gameplay removing powerful weapons and frame abilities..without reducing the grind walls commensurate to the changes.

That would be the nail in the coffin for Warframe if that happened though. So based on logic prevailing, your idea of frames and weapons with specific roles does hold some water.

The only time it may hurt gameplay is in solo mode where you can't rely on other frame abilities. I know that technically a frame on their own should not be able to go as far as 4 working together except there are genuine players who have such poor internet connections solo is their only option.

I have played a few games that limit players in this way and whilst it does work to an extent, most players choose the class with the highest DPS so often that's all the variety you get. Healers and uber DPS class leaving the rest to be as rare as a legendary fusion core.

The reason for this is that the game relies on grinding to progress and get things just like Warframe and so players all want to smash the grind walls ASAP. Sadly all the work and effort put into the weaker, lower DPS classes is only appreciated by a minority of the community. Of those who do choose a lower DPS class, usually they are rejected from parties or squads to make room for higher DPS class players to move in so the group can progress quicker. It's cruel I agree and I can also understand their reasoning for being so ruthless as they just want to beat the grind and rng as quickly as possible.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[Jax_Cavalera]

Wow, topics of this thread sure get changed often. First power spam, countering grind and now income source.

Anyway, I still want to address second part of the thread, making gameplay more worthwhile.

Like I stated before, problem is repetitiveness. Player who wants affinity goes to Cerberus and plays through same mission every time. Different frame and weapon combinations help a little, but it's barely noticeable. Player who comes to Cerberus knows what to expect.

I suggest adding random events that break the monotony. Things that could happen during the mission:

* Jackal / Hyena / Raptor / Ambluas / Lynx arrives

* Life support gets cut off (temporary)

* Existing antenna gets destroyed

* New antenna gets deployed

* Corpus spaceship lands and becomes part of the map

* Part of the map gets destroyed

* Infested / Grineer invade for few waves

* Random objective appears for extra rewards (capture target arrives, excavation drill lands)

* Corpus reinforce captured antenna (deploy stationary turrets, shields, EMP / nullifier fields, teleporters for quicker respawn)

* Random fires / cryogenic malfunctions (temporary)

* Corpus try to bribe players to fail / end mission early.

These events would appear randomly. Sometimes few could appear simultaneously. The idea is to make mission less predictable, discourage cookie cutter builds and keep players on their toes. Somewhat similar to current assassins.

I wouldn't tamper with frame stats and powers like Nightmare mode, but anything that affects enemies and environment is okay.

This would be awesome to see worked in as part of the Nightmare system firstly to trial it and if it goes well, the rest of the game too. It would be especially fun and an improvement when the following changes were made : quote below

Ability spam is the result of several problems all conglomerating as one thing; to tackle it as simply "enemies are too boring" would be fallacious.

Enemies are boring and simple because we kill them too fast. Even if they had good A.I. and powerful tools, we'd still nuke them instantly with our horrendously powerful guns and powers.

But we can't just nerf things and bring them into line to give the A.I. time to shine because then enemy spawns and scaling would be way too high.

And we can't reduce enemy spawns because it would result in drop rates and exp gains being reduced.

The only way to fix this problem would be a holistic approach. Enemy/weapon/power balances would have to be overhauled to let enemies last longer, enemy spawns would have to be reduced so that we don't get overwhelmed, the drop rates and affinity gains would have to be increased to accomodate, and then on top of that the A.I. would have to be given interesting tools and tactics.

It's doable, certainly, but it can't just be viewed as a single problem like "Tenno are OP" or "People spam because they are greedy" or "Enemies are too squishy".

People should feel powerful, but they should feel challenged as well. And they should be rewarded for being challenged.

Yes this is where I believe the first step to the solution is set. We first reduce power and grind equally till grind and RNG are no longer our enemies.

Then we look at ways to replace grind completely so DE can still earn revenue without frustrating the players into buying platinum.

Subscription model seems a good approach there.

Once grind is removed players have less incentive to spam kill enemies and so there will be an increase in variety of gameplay styles. Rewarding players for various gameplay styles differently could also be a thing.

If the squad spends 90% of a mission in 2 adjacent rooms they get rewards for "holding the fort"

If the squad spends that time in separate rooms they might get a different reward for completing it as "Ultimate Scouts"

If they stick together as they move around the map the reward is unique again and labeled "Rogue Destroyers" or something.

Based on how you beat the map and what label your approach earns.. determines which reward you get. So to get all possible rewards you would have to try every approach and win.

This would still be grind sure but not RNG grind. Squads could even choose what approach they want to try for when they start a mission. Depending on the mission as to how many varieties there would be. Stealth could be one.. Recon with 1 stealthed marking targets and a sniper long range picking them off could be another. Some would require squads but could be also tailored to work for solo mode as well.

Once the game is in this stage I believe ability spam would not be an issue any more..or less of an issue worst case scenario and players would be taking the time to enjoy all that Warframe has to offer instead of room camping spamming. Whilst still giving them the option to play this way as well but only getting the same reward each time they win.

Getting variety in rewards requires variety in gameplay approaches.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Jax_Cavalera

[Vallerian]

Game. Needs. Cooldowns.

 

Game has evolved since beta, we can't keep clinging to our ability spam under the impression that it makes gameplay more fast paced. Yeah, we grind faster, but I don't think thats what most players mean by fast paced.

There was a very well written thread some time ago about how we don't need smarter AI, we just need better stupid enemies because in our current system, enemies almost never have a chance to retaliate against us. It doesn't matter how incredibly cool a unit is in concept, if we just spam our Warframe abilities on it, it'll be a CC-locked bullet sponge just like everything else.

[AlphaHorseman]

Game. Needs. Cooldowns.

 

Game has evolved since beta, we can't keep clinging to our ability spam under the impression that it makes gameplay more fast paced. Yeah, we grind faster, but I don't think thats what most players mean by fast paced.

There was a very well written thread some time ago about how we don't need smarter AI, we just need better stupid enemies because in our current system, enemies almost never have a chance to retaliate against us. It doesn't matter how incredibly cool a unit is in concept, if we just spam our Warframe abilities on it, it'll be a CC-locked bullet sponge just like everything else.

HAHAHA No. We had cooldowns, they were horrible, not to mention ruined the pace of the game.

 

If you don't want to use your powers, just don't use them. Go have your fun playing it as a shooter, and let the rest of us have our fun playing how we want to play.

Edited January 17, 2015 by AlphaHorseman