Proposed Starchart Changes [Megathread]

[RoboDoge]

can someone point to the part of the Devstream where it is said that players won't be able to choose which mission they're running?

 

I remember DESteve saying that there was/is talk about keys that will offer special nodes in the star chart to get specific rewards, which I thought hinted at the decrease of RNG.  I don't recall DESteve saying that nodes will be random mission types.

Problem will arise when you have to build those keys, and you need to farm specific resources for them. And node with that resource is Spy missions.

 

 

You didnt think this through, did you?

[Spindle99]

Pruning is a good idea but this level of pruning is an incredibly bad idea, they are imo going to greatly damage this game and how many people want to play it.

 

I really hope they put more thought into this.

[AM-Bunny]

can someone point to the part of the Devstream where it is said that players won't be able to choose which mission they're running?

 

[Valiant]

if I understood it correctly, I'm not entirely keen on the whole build keys for your mission thing. Mainly because it sounds like I'll have to take to recruiting channel and keep sending out adverts, waiting for someone to join me who may have a common interest.

 

Apart from that... I actually look forward to seeing a populated star chart again and meeting more players.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Naith

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

So, it seems that the new starchart will trade choice for player count. To some degree, this is a good thing--no one needed Uranus Deception 3 or Phobos Mobile Defense 4.

However, a reduction to 20 nodes is alarming, and not just because of farming:

Reason 1: Less interest from new players:

When I started, making it to all the planets and bosses was the goal for me and my friends, and most of the other newbies we played with. The old starchart had a clear form of progression that left mystery behind the far away nodes of Ceres and Pluto. Now, it seems that quests will make up that entire form of progression, and in their current state or any forseeable state in the near future, they aren't going to be able to. This is going to leave new players jumping in, finishing the first two-four quests, and then saying "what now?" And the best answer they're going to get is "get better gear", but it will likely be before they've really become interested in the game. Moreover, what will they do while waiting for parts to build, which in almost every quest is something that happens? If the answer is "pick one of the three nodes that's suitable for their level" new players are going to get bored of the game quickly.

Reason 2: Less options

One thing that's helpful for Warframe is the amount of variety in options. I often become bored of different parts of the game at different times (I haven't played a Void mission in months, probably), but there are still tons of other options for me to enjoy. Once again, the difference between Phobos MD1 and Phobos MD4 doesn't warrant having all of them, but what happens when I want to play a MD on Ceres and there's only one on Phobos? What happens if I'd like to play Rescue in the Phobos tileset, or Sabotage in the Asteroid one, or Hive on Eris, and those aren't available to me? "When there are too many choices, there are no choices," is true, but there are also no choices when there are actually, literally, no choices.

Anther solution

The first thing that I would do is reduce the number of nodes on mid-level planets. For some reason, the planets like Phobos, Sedna, Uranus, and Mars have lots of nodes despite being in stages of the game with less player concentration. I would give Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune about 10 nodes each, instead of the 20+ they have now. I would also scrap Sedna, and add the Asteroid missions in place of duplicate missions on other planets. We've now removed more than 60 nodes.

Then, some of the extremely bloated higher level planets would also get this reduction. Eris would have about 12 nodes instead of the 29 or so it does now, Ceres would have 12 instead of 24, and Europa would have 12 instead of about 22. We've now removed another 40 or so nodes.

At this point, we've cut out about 1/3 of the nodes in the game. But we're also going to make a couple more changes:

The Void won't have a special tileset anymore. Instead, people can use keys in normal missions to access Void missions of similar level and the same mission type. That removes about 28 more nodes, and incentivises having people play star chart missions of all levels more.

We're also going to restructure some of the rewards to continue getting people to play different missions. T4 keys will appear in Extermination missions. Resource packs will come from Mobile Defense missions. I'm assuming Deception's getting a rework, as is Sabotage, so any rewards planned for those will come from those mission types. Non-endless missions will also spawn 3 medallions, which will convert to those of a faction of your choice.

Finally, two missions in each low level planet will not be static: one will be a random nightmare mission on that tile and one will be a random mission at higher levels (35-40), both offering better rewards. This is so that higher level players have interest in playing star chart missions. While some may argue that level 40 shouldn't be considered high, it should be a goal of DE to work on the game so that those levels push the limits of high level players (and hense make scaling unnecessary). But I digress. Although there was a lot of talk about rewards, the purpose of these wasn't to make rewards easier to get, but rather to make playing certain mission types be something other than a self-imposed delay on player progression.

This is definitely not the only way to make changes, but it's designed specifically to keep the points I mentioned above in mind while getting people to play more missions. I fear DE's changes may not do that.

In Conclusion

We obviously don't know everything about this proposed rework; not by a long shot. Perhaps they've already considered this, and all this writing has no purpose (which would be a great thing). But I fear that DE is going to swing the pendulum from "too many nodes that don't matter" to "not enough nodes for variety" or worse, "not enough nodes for variety thanks to this month's RNG". Moreover, they're going to leave new players with a huge question mark as to what to do. This is not one of the rage posts you anticipated, or at least I don't believe it to be so; it is a serious request to think about your goal of 20 nodes, whether you're too focused on it, and if you aren't seeing the other problems you'll create in the process.

[(PSN)ElZilcho]

Maybe the feature wasnt there when you weae playing, but nowdays you can 'buy' missions from contract broker or something. It will cost offshore account money, but its much less than the offshore account money you get when you succeed.

 

They added that sometime after we were already tired of the game's BS. Actually, I'm not sure they ever updated the console version, contrary to many promises that it would receive good support this time.

 

I did say all sorts of problems.

 

Even if there was a way to buy contracts from the very start, it's still far more annoying than simply having a mission select.

 

I'm actually greatly in favor of having more random objectives in non-endless missions. I like it when Lotus tells us to swich objectives and wish it didn't seem to always be to exterminate (of course, I want it to count as completing both the original and new mission types for rewards) and I would really like it if there were more situations like the old Hyena pack where bosses can show up in any room, just to change things up.

 

However, I want to be able to select those missions intentionally. If my newb buddy needs some polymer bundles and we can't get an endless mission on the right planet to get them, it's going to start the process of removing Warframe from our regular gaming. Basically, each time we need to find a way to kill time hoping for the mission we want to be available it becomes less likely we ever come back.

Edited May 8, 2015 by (PS4)ElZilcho

[Cynaris]

The reality of the situation is, you get the play the same tileset under a different node-name with the same gametype multiple times, and that's it. It's only an illusion of variety.

The only thing this allows is to fragment the playerbase completely.

 

Nodes are dead. Desolated. Nobody touches them. Zero. Nada. Players trying to advance can't do crap, because their frame is not good enough to solo, and there is nobody to team with, unless we are talking about 30minute wait times at BEST.

 

Shrinking the starchart is needed. No other way around it.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Cynaris

[Tain_OSkoom]

The 20 nodes may be one node per game mode:

 

• Assassination
• Capture
• Crossfire
• Deception
• Defense
• Excavation
• Exterminate
• Hijack
• Hive
• Interception
• Invasion
• Mobile Defense
• Rescue
• Sabotage
• Spy
• Survival
• Trial
• Cephalon Capture
• Deathmatch
• Team deathmatch

   

   

 

There will probably be a difficulty dropdown. Leave blank to randomize.

• Easy [1-20]
• Less Easy [20-40]
• Normal [40-60]
• Abnormal [60+]

   

   

 

 

Maybe they'll have a tileset dropdown, too. Leave blank to randomize.

• Galleon
• Asteroid
• Shipyard
• Jungle
• Desert
• Corpus transport
• Gas city
• Frozen wasteland
• Infested ship
• Tower
• Infested tower
• Archwing asteroid field
• Archwing fomorian
• Archwing corpus transport

   

   

 

 

And one or more factions populating the mission. Leave blank(s) for random.

• Grineer
• Corpus
• Infested
• Corrupted
• Sentient

   

   

Edited May 8, 2015 by Tain_OSkoom

[Feallike]

1. The new players won't know anything about the old star chart so to them it's normal. I mean this system is in so many games that it doesn't seem to be that bad in a new players aspect. Also we have yet to see what the DE can do with 3 nodes.

 

In all seriousness we have only 14 nodes ATM just copy/pastes on different planets making up 200.

 

2. Referring to point one we only have 14 nodes you just think the idea of 200 vs 20 is bad though it is really not that bad. 14 nodes copy/pasted into 200 is much more boring then 20 nodes.

 

Also does 20 nodes mean 20 mission types???  o.o 

 

Though we have yet to see what the DE does with resources, if resources are changed so that planet that are limited to extermination can't be farmed decently for neuroids that is understandable I would be mad to Neuroids have a horrible drop rate. Though if resources are dependent on something else with a drop buff then I will be overjoyed!

[mrhat.lf]

I kind of see the starchart being like this. Excuse my crappy art skills, but you can see what I'm trying to convey.

 

[DSpite]

Unlocking nodes where there is no one on is a pain. Nothing else.

 

Being made to "unlock" places and then calling it "progression" is wrong. This is no different from having to make new characters in Guild Wars 2 visit EVERY location with EVERY character to get some unlocks. It's fun the first time, slightly tolerable the second, and it's mind numbing annoying the third time, but at least there is ALWAYS players around. Having one or two nodes to unlock and them being Mobile Defense or Survival and having to do it solo? It's not "fun" or "progression".

 

I have never met anyone saying "but I really like to run mission X on tileset Y". These would be a minority anyway, and having a minority dictate a mechanic that basically slows the rest of the player base actually teaming up, is NOT a valid reason to keep that many nodes.

 

Also, all DE would have to do for "mission and tileset variety" is to allow other types of missions to pop us as another layer like they do now with Alerts and Syndicate missions on normal modes where clicking the node show ALL available missions on that node.

[Kaiservadin]

But how will extractors work on the new system ?

[Nihongo_Hetakusou]

This is easily one of the worst possible things you could ever do, DE. Removing player choice from a game is almost never a good thing, and in this case is an extremely bad idea. If you did this, I would immediately uninstall this game, and I've spent lots of money and time on this game, and probably will spend more, provided this doesn't happen. I know the reason behind this is probably because you guys don't like us farming, but deal with it. Farming is a symptom of a problem that you, the developers, have created, and getting rid of a symptom does not cure an illness. It just hides it. If you want to stop farming, maybe it's time to address the half-baked drop/RNG system you've been relying on in this game for far too long. That aside, please do not remove choosing the mission type you want. I'm fine with condensing the star chart, one node per mission type per planet would be enough, or just even selecting the mission type you want to do on the planet rather than having 'nodes', and player quests are a good idea as well, but please don't remove choice from this game. That is deplorable. A player should always get to choose how s/he plays, within reason of course (excessive trolling is bad, m'kay). That is what a game is for. I cannot condone any change that removes player choices from the game without adding just as much if not more choices.

[MagPrime]

I agree but this is more of a feedback topic then G.D.

[NovusNova]

In a totally understandable course of action, the remarks and thoughts on the star chart discussions are coming in.

 

Some things worth mentioning - the discussions on air are real-time and candid, the planning is still happening, and the finality exists only in philosophy that 'we want to solve the filler nodes, increase immersion, and appeal to intrinsic/extrinsic goals'.

 

To speak to that philosophy with reference from Steve's notes:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CD3rp_yWEAELtfq.jpg:large

 

And the source of it all:

https://youtu.be/j7QVemHYKn4?t=57m40s

 

If it's not obvious from that time stamp - if the only way to achieve this philosophy is to eliminate the freedom of choice we currently have, some of us here take issue with that - which is why we continue to discuss.

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/454260-thanks-for-watching-devstream-52/page-3

[Nihongo_Hetakusou]

I agree but this is more of a feedback topic then G.D.

It's not feedback because this mechanic doesn't exist yet.

[MagPrime]

It's not feedback because this mechanic doesn't exist yet.

It's feedback on a possible mechanic and how it'll affect the game.

 

With the way you've worded your original post, what are we supposed to discuss?  You're addressing DE directly. 

[Kaiservadin]

I agree but this is more of a feedback topic then G.D.

DE should of explain or show how the next starchart will look before deciding with it.

[(PSN)jwernecke]

Actually they said very clearly that they can see that 10-15 nodes get played while 200 remain "like a ghost town".  Too many choices doesn't make anything better.  People end up 'choosing' 1 thing and never using anything else because its too hard to decide.  The destruction of the void is going to have an impact on the rest of the solar system....

[(PSN)jwernecke]

DE should of explain or show how the next starchart will look before deciding with it.

If de put every change they were ever going to make to a vote the game would still be the skill trees, and no parkour thing it was long ago.  They have to go off of raw data and community feedback to make the decision for the masses.

[[DE]Danielle]

Merging Star-Chart threads into a Megathread!

[(XBOX)George Dooby]

Limiting player choice of mission types is crazy. How could anyone want that? If you need to play with people that badly all the time form a damn team on your own

[MagPrime]

I agree but this is more of a feedback topic then G.D.

My bad, for some reason when I click on the thread link, it took me straight to MysticShimmers post, instead of the OP.

 

I'm sorry!

 

;~;

[Kaiservadin]

Hopefully DE will show what it will look like before its release so all this hate will go away.

[Zeranov]

Interesting how many players fail to see that said variety is only an illusion. As said before it's mostly copypasta and I have a hard time bringing friends into this game because no wants to crunch through all those nodes to get somewhere.

 

And isn't the most part of the players running void or standard farm missions anyway? Playing about 3-4 nodes at all?

 

The only thing where I see the S#&$storm coming is that said farmers can't farm anymore with the efficiency they used to have because of the timed and random nature of the new nodes. But I bet they can farm (because there will always be a loot cave) but they will have to adapt to a new spot like every week or so... really devastating.

 

For all not so hardcore members of the Tenno I think the new chart will make things faster, cleaner and more accessible with a bit of reason for everyday play.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Zeranov