Proposed Starchart Changes [Megathread]

[KvotheTheArcane1]

As far as I see, the changes are about one thing, ensuring new players dont have to grind through every node in the solar system - because most new players quit before they ever finish doing it.

 

The aim is to allow new players to finish the nodes quicker and easier and thereby incentivise them to play the game instead of quitting the game before they finally finish unlocking the solar system.

I doubt the length of the star map is the cause. I'd blame it more on the RNG and grindiness.

[(PSN)thehoocodfather]

I doubt the length of the star map is the cause. I'd blame it more on the RNG and grindiness.

 

 

200 nodes to complete missions on before you can finish unlocking the solar system - thats a lot of grind just to finish unlocking just one section of the game. 

[DJ_Redwire]

From what I gather based on what's been said by Steve, they want to make it more of an experience. The star chart right now could be a spreadsheet you click on and it wouldn't make any functional difference, it seems like they want to make it more interactive and more interesting to progress along.

 

As it stands, I'm a firm believer there much less destructive and controversial ways of achieving that goal. 

[vaugahn]

As it stands, I'm a firm believer there much less destructive and controversial ways of achieving that goal. 

 

Well, we all know the star chart isn't in a great place right now. Massive mission and reward redundancies, lack of meaningful progression, lack of rewards in general, that kind of thing. And it wasn't helped by UI 2.0, which removed what little sense of progression we had to begin with. 

 

Something definitely needs to happen, the question is what.

 

And we don't really know what their plan is yet, so it's a bit hard to tell.

[Spindle99]

At the end of the day I get the impression that this is more of a developer getting bored and wanting to experiment rather than what is best for the game and players they have, a dev should never knowingly add something they know their players are going to hate.  Having a successful game can be really limiting, because players like what you made and don't want you to fiddle with the core of it too much.

 

Could this new starmap be good?  Sure, could it be absolutely horrible and cause mass quitting? Yes.   Even the devs aren't sure how it would be received, a game of this size and importance to the company should not be something they take huge gambles with.  This new starmap with 20 nodes is a huge gamble.

 

Wanna see a great developer with a ton of money making what they think is the best thing ever made?  Look at Destiny, now look how all those amazing developers fell on their face cause the players said no.

 

The good thing about having a popular game is it makes a lot of money, the bad thing is you can't do whatever you want anymore.  You have to take your players into account, cause if you don't you might alienate the people that keep everyone employed.

 

It's also incredibly dangerous to think that players will just stick with the game no matter what, they quit something else to come to Warframe.  That can happen again.

 

They could easily do what they are suggesting and still keep a lot of choice, they could offer 20 primary nodes with sweeteners and 20 secondary nodes for instance (maybe make the secondary nodes unlocked via master rank or something).

[(PSN)CaptainKennway_]

 

New Starchart

• Hoping to appear in U17

• 300 nodes are being condensed to 20 nodes

• There may be time-based instances, such as Vor appearing temporarily, dropping different things each time

• Similar to Alerts, but hopefully not something that punishes players for sleeping

• There will be some removal of player choice - you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want, whenever you want; hopefully this will be better for the game overall

• Re-viewing player made quests again and designing the starchart so that these will be able to fit into it; hopefully this will be the answer to players that resent the removal of choice

 

This is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. WHY would you want to limit players' choice to such an extent? I would understand reducing the number of nodes so that each planet has only one mission type so there wouldn't be multiple instances of the same missions on one planet. Since all planets will most likely get different and unique looks eventually this would make sense and it wouldn't isolate so many players trying to clear the star chart.

 

Randomly dropping into a random mission on a random planet should be a feature for those who just wish to have a random challenge and not a mandatory dice roll for those who wish to play a defence mission on Jupiter or a mobile defense on Kappa.

 

I know it's too early to start complaining since we know so little but I want to throw it out there for DE to see - limiting player choice so much is not going to work well in your favour.                          

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

200 nodes to complete missions on before you can finish unlocking the solar system - thats a lot of grind just to finish unlocking just one section of the game.

IMO, what made unlocking the starchart painful wasn't the node count by itself. It was that:

1. Planets had the exact same mission multiple times (I think Uranus had to have had like 5 Spy missions in Starchart 1.0).

2. Outside of assassination missions, there was no purpose presented. I knew I had to kill Grineer/Corpus/Infested, but why these enemies? Why are they so important considering the overall scheme of things?

3. The enemies were almost completely static. I'd seen almost every enemy I'd face by the time I finished Earth, when I had expected and hoped for more variation and special enemies by the end of the starchart. The old one looked good, it looked mysterious, but all that mystery evaporated when I realized I'd seen every challenge already.

4. Too many missions were the same regardless of tilesets. There are some exceptions: when Earth got its new tileset while I was mid-way through finishing it, Sabotage was different between what I'd experienced on the old (asteroid base) Earth, the ships on Mercury, and on Venus. But I'd already seen every variation of Sabotage, and it had more variations than any other mission type.

5. Ghost nodes. I played with friends most of the time, but when I didn't it wasn't fun to be alone.

The current plan would fix #5 (in the most drastic way possible). If playing the actual missions themselves is the grind, there's a giant problem. If players don't want to play your node once, that's a problem. But it wasn't the count that was the problem; it was the sameness and purposelessness of each one. But from what I've heard so far, this wouldn't change that. Warframe has always relied on its items for a draw, but without interesting missions to play them on it becomes much harder to keep people interested. This, as it currently sounds, would make it even harder to find an interesting variety of missions.

[Yastin]

At last! A sign from on high! Fellow tenno, your goats may be stabled, for now... RNGesus has yet to judge us unworthy in his possible coming rapture! Thanks for the link, Gale!

[Axeroix]

Im just worrried about 2 Things grind and farm

if farming frames is still permanently possible then thats fine but right now it seems everyframe is going to be as random a Nyx

lvling frames looks like it will be even less engaging and longwinded with the proposed changes and thats baaaad seeing as its not that fun right now anyways

[(PSN)thehoocodfather]

The primary issue is the resources.

 

If missions and resources are random, then how will people set out to get the resources they need.   

[Dawn11715]

so, for me this is how starchart 2.0 would work fair and supperior to the old one:

There are 20 to 30 random nodes with single rewards that are shown even in survivels (you see the 3 rewards for each rotation, after getting them drops might be random again) or multiple random rewards, that i can CHOOSE from at the end of the mission.

This is very important because the new star-chart brings up a new layer of RNG (what you want might not even be available ore just on a node you dont want to play) and therefore its important to remove an RNG wall from another point. Important: every planets missions varie in difficulty so even if you seek high level enemys you can choose from all tile sets.

 Also: If theirs one thing i want  in high quantity's and only one or two Missions where I can get it I would theroticly be forced to do this missions over and over again (the exact opposite of what we want to achieve) 

To solve this all of the 20 to 30 notes need to rotate in a very short time interval (<30 maybe even <15) and after completing a node it will disappear like alerts and Syndicate missions. They might even glow in a red light on the starchart a few secounds before disapearing (not all nodes should vanish at the same time)

 

Thats how I think it would work: putting the RNG-wall on another place instead of creating a new one while creating the feel of an dynamic world

and actively fighting repetitiveness. 

[Spindle99]

Should this not be an officially made topic?  I'm not 100% sure what they mean by a dev workshop but I assumed it would be the devs or rebecca posting exactly what they plan to do with it and try to work it out based on feedback.

[weezedog]

It has to be done right. If people can't login and do what they like to do they won't play. Ask anyone if they like Vauban style alerts, where what they want is only randomly available at a random/weird hour once a month (if that). If most rare mods start turning into that kind of system, I think you are going to have a lot of angry players.

I agree that the starchart needs pruned down a bit, but you still need to have every mission type for every faction. Which is probably less than 25 missions. Then you need about 3 level tiers for each, Tier 1 is levels 1-15, tier 2 is levels 15-30, and tier 3 is level 30+. That would be around 75 missions. Now figure out a way to spread all the different resources over those and you should be good to go.

[TheMightyKuzulu]

If we are thrown into random missions, how will we prepare? Certain mission types are better with certain frames and gear.

 

(Sorry if this has been addressed, I've been outta the loop for a few weeks now)

[(XBOX)LordPuck]

The primary issue is the resources.

 

If missions and resources are random, then how will people set out to get the resources they need.   

Ive seen several nice resource concepts recently. One of which was spotlighted recently.

 

It has to be done right. If people can't login and do what they like to do they won't play. Ask anyone if they like Vauban style alerts, where what they want is only randomly available at a random/weird hour once a month (if that). If most rare mods start turning into that kind of system, I think you are going to have a lot of angry players.

I agree that the starchart needs pruned down a bit, but you still need to have every mission type for every faction. Which is probably less than 25 missions. Then you need about 3 level tiers for each, Tier 1 is levels 1-15, tier 2 is levels 15-30, and tier 3 is level 30+. That would be around 75 missions. Now figure out a way to spread all the different resources over those and you should be good to go.

 

Why have 75 tiles when you can simply have 4 choices iin MM? Yes you will need them but not need to see them until game.

This becomes a filter. You can choose the faction and GT you want but not the map in "Public" games.

 

1) Grineer

2) Corpus

3) Infested

4) Any

 

 

Didnt get the quote. MM would fill squad as now but not launch until all ready.

Or 3mins

Edited May 10, 2015 by (XB1)LordPuck

[Psychus]

Intentionally? They won't. Unintentionally? They may, and by the explanations we have right now, it's not as unlikely as you believe. It's also something other games have made the mistake of doing, so it's not completely out of left field either.

I'm looking for worst case scenarios so DE's fully aware not to do them.

Which is why I said if it becomes such a problem that people start actually quitting it'd be reverted. 

You forget that (as I've said before) it's a business. However, what's more important than that is that the devs have a true passion for the game. They want it to be fun, they want it to succeed. I'm all for reminding them to be careful with changes, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette yennno? As I've said in previous posts, players make bad choices. And in the warframe community, we have. Time and time again we've shouted the devs down on some seriously stupid things. 

 

You're a ps4 player, and unless you're a transfer, you haven't been around very long. I've personally watched every livestream since I started playing, which was around update 6? There's a lot of things that have been talked about in livestreams that have turned out completely different from the original idea. And they were great! Melee 2.0 is my favorite example of this. Their idea was just holding your melee weapon in hand and swinging it about. Look what that evolved into.  This is why they sometimes hate doing the livestreams. They come up with some interesting sounding ideas and the "community" ( mind you, this is the forumgoing/streamwatching part, which is a minority, mind you) takes this idea and just runs away with the worst possible scenario, preaching it as if it's a fact.  

 

I sat down and read steve's tweets not too long ago and the way he's talking I don't think the big bad boogity end times are coming like everyone seems to think. He's for more fun, more stuff to do. That's Steve talking, the head honcho for warframe. He wants the game to feel alive, and I'm with him on this one. maybe this way the game will feel alive. 

 

[ChameleonDude]

Just another case of DE falling out of touch. Yes, the star chart definitely needed condensing... but not even having room for one of everything is ridiculous. I never thought I'd be saying this, but I'm just about done here. Not had any interesting content in ages (raids limit those of us who prefer to play solo/with a small group of friends), while the other changes are just hurting the game for me (Ember rework, more grind than ever before and now this). I do, however, find it amusing that the star chart needs to be cut down so much due to too much meaningless choice and empty nodes; while we have a ton of useless weapons,even a few frames, and more being added with no end in sight. I like the choice, but let's face it - most of those aren't going to compete.

 

I know DE needs to keep things fresh and exciting, but this isn't the fun game I once knew. Everything used to be at least half-viable, I could just jump in and do what I wanted without feeling punished for not doing X, Y or Z. Now we're getting ridiculous grind walls, gimmicky additions to the game and now we're even being told what to play and how to play it. Warframe has definitely lost the vibe it once had.

 

This year of quality has taken more away than it's given, at least for me. How about we actually see some of those systems proposed oh so long ago which would add some quality to the game? Focus would even add a platform on which to balance things, without gimmicky augment mods, which are rarely worth the mod slot as it is!

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

Which is why I said if it becomes such a problem that people start actually quitting it'd be reverted. 

You forget that (as I've said before) it's a business. However, what's more important than that is that the devs have a true passion for the game. They want it to be fun, they want it to succeed. I'm all for reminding them to be careful with changes, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette yennno? As I've said in previous posts, players make bad choices. And in the warframe community, we have. Time and time again we've shouted the devs down on some seriously stupid things. 

 

You're a ps4 player, and unless you're a transfer, you haven't been around very long. I've personally watched every livestream since I started playing, which was around update 6? There's a lot of things that have been talked about in livestreams that have turned out completely different from the original idea. And they were great! Melee 2.0 is my favorite example of this. Their idea was just holding your melee weapon in hand and swinging it about. Look what that evolved into.  This is why they sometimes hate doing the livestreams. They come up with some interesting sounding ideas and the "community" ( mind you, this is the forumgoing/streamwatching part, which is a minority, mind you) takes this idea and just runs away with the worst possible scenario, preaching it as if it's a fact.  

 

I sat down and read steve's tweets not too long ago and the way he's talking I don't think the big bad boogity end times are coming like everyone seems to think. He's for more fun, more stuff to do. That's Steve talking, the head honcho for warframe. He wants the game to feel alive, and I'm with him on this one. maybe this way the game will feel alive.

Why would I stay silent in an ongoing discussion? Why would I want DE to waste resources on an imperfect system they end up needing to revert?

Melee 2.0 came directly from the Forums, by the way. It is exactly the same as Zamboni's suggestion, save that the cards are part of the mod system and not the upgrade system he wanted.

I'm aware Steve's talking about a vague concept. But as it stands right now, it seems that he wants DE to live up to its name, as it often does, by jumping from one extreme to the other. The manifesto has great concepts; but it's entirely focused on problems with the current starchart. It doesn't mention things to keep the same. And when I hear him say limiting player choice will be a good thing, I worry that it will be exactly what DE's said it will be as of now, a reduction from 300 pointless, redundant missions to 20 limited, restrictive missions.

I can't think of a game that I've enjoyed so much that I would play despite not being able to choose what mission/level I play when I want. I can think of maybe two off the top of my head, and neither are Warframe. I simply couldn't see myself enjoying more than 3 missions available at any one time. So I hope they explain what they're thinking more if I'm completely wrong, and that they reconsider if I'm not.

[Tatann]

"you will no longer be able to select whichever mission type you want"

Nice way to kill warframes/weapons specialized for some mission types, everyone will pick a "can do all" loadout

As an example, I like bows for Extermination cause you only have a 100 enemies to kill, but if I end up in a defense/survival, I will surely regret taking that bow to kill thousands of enemies

[taiiat]

here's how it basically sums up to me.

 

 

 

i can expect to end up annoyed when 'Crafting' Missions because that will likely result in 'hang on 60 seconds i need to craft another [insert insignificant Mission here].

 

hopefully it won't be that way, and i can infact just choose to do what i'm in the mood for...

...

but they said we won't be able to, which i would not be thrilled with. if i'm currently right this minute in the mood to play N Mission 6 times, great. if i suddenly decide i'm in the mood for something else, well, i want to do that now.

if i can't, i won't be impressed. that is an important facet in Warframe for me - supporting a wide variety of Playstyles and preferences.

yes, i do often play fairly Random Missions. that doesn't mean i actually want Random Missions without the capability to choose something in particular.

 

if it is like Payday (since i've seen mentions that Payday 2 has a somewhat similar system to what's being proposed - it isn't a perfect match but it's similar):

and i can decide to do whatever i'm in the mood for while having an 'ongoing world' to represent more activity, by all means.

i just still want to be able to do whatever i'm currently in the mood for. which makes sense to me, for Players to be able to do what they will currently have the most enjoyment doing.

 

- - - - - 

 

so that's all i want. i see the idea of the Solar Map being some sort of 'huge Alert system' to give more of a connected feeling. and i like that.

but i only have one condition, that i can still choose to do whatever i might currently be in the mood for, without the game telling me i'm not allowed to do what i'm currently in the mood for.

 

and that condition has a sub indented plea - i don't want to have to use my Foundry for this. it slows down use of the game, which has me frustrated just thinking about it, let alone actually having to use it.

 

basically, i want to still be able to choose the Tileset i'm playing on, Faction i'm fighting against (i'm not asking to be able to dump Grineer into a Corpus Mission or anything), what Level Range i'll be playing at, Et Cetera.

the Solar Map as it stands lets me do this. for the most part, we have two Tileset variants of most Game Modes on each Planet. 

ex. - if i want to play a Defense Mission, a Planet will often have more than one Defense on that Planet, and i can choose what Tileset i'm in the mood for. (that generally being a Tileset for the Planet of that... Planet, and a Tileset for Spacecraft/Asteroid Base above that planet).

 

 

i've probably basically repeated myself several times in this post, but sobeit. as long as i retain the aforementioned sort of capability, then this restructuring of the Solar Map - i welcome it with open arms.

[woah_dude]

i get the idea behind changing starchart and a desire to consolidate/unite player base in a more compact and engaging space/environment, what i am afraid will happen though that nothing of grindwalls will change and in fact will get even worse: 

 

 

Want to farm neurals sensors ? -> craft a key from 5k alloy plates (i know no one cares about them, but u should consider noobs as well) , 3 k nano spores and 4 gallium.  

 

 

Want to get Frost Frame? Wait for an alert which rotates every 12 hours and if u can't "fit in", well, tough luck bro. 

 

 

Want to level Warframe/Formaed weapon? Too bad, Draco is removed from the game, either craft a key (use the void key) or buy affinity booster and play the mission 15 times over and over again. 

 

 

DE Releases a new matryoshka style weapon (we heard u like pistols, so we put pistols inside ur pistol, to get another pistol, well u get the idea), "oh-oh, there is no alert or a node available for the parts u want or need, come back another time !" 

 

 

Not to mention that the current reward system for a vast majority of starchart to put it lightly "sucks balls" and some nodes could be removed altogether, caz they are a snooze fest essentially, with terrible rewards. 

 

 

I play a syndicate mission and complete a perfect spy run - i don't get S#&amp;&#036; as a reward, caz "reasons", i do a random Excavation alert with a RNG based reward, i don't get anything from the digs besides cryotic; i am thinking about making some fast creds - Treasury ship appears once in 2 weeks and even with boosters this is nothing to write home about, since Dark Sector exists. 

 

 

I also share concern with other players, who think Dark Sector might get removed altogether and we will not get compensated for it by any means, leaving insane credit sinks that we already have in place and making the fusing/trading/crafting even more expensive and time consuming. 

[Chroia]

Insert standard disclaimers 'Unfounded theorycraft', 'opinion' et al.

 

Have not read this thread.
As such, I'll near-certainly be repeating stuff that's been said.
I can live with that.

 

Edit: ^@(*%ing scripts.

Forum scripts just ate the last 20 minutes of typing. Hope I didn't forget anything.

I really don't bloody like the forum's editor.  >_<

 

I'll say this once this post: Warframe doesn't have 'working towards a goal'.

<Insert obligatory Top Hat and Monocle

>

Aside from clearing the Star Chart, everything else is subject to RNG. There is no progress.

You got something, or you didn't.

In specific cases (read: resources) you may need a total of X of something, and have gotten Y of it (where Y<X), which could be construed as 'progress', if you squint at it.

After 6 shots of tequila.

Maybe.

Edit: In fairness, this is not completely true, as - theoretically - any mission you complete gives you credits and fusion fodder, which is making progress towards maxing your mandatory mods... But that fact gets lost in the glacial rate-of-acquisition for fodder for newbs (vs. 'vets' gaining ~10-20 R5 cores per 30 Excavators in Triton) on the one hand, and the fact that there are so many credit sinks for a new player that you don't even realize that you've gained credits - since they all leave as fast as they arrive.

Faster, actually.

</Edit>

 

FWIW:
I'm all for reducing the number of nodes. I've been suggesting it, intermittently, for a while now.
For a new player, clearing the Star Chart can be hard.
Enemies scale in tankiness (and damage) much faster than your mod collection, and - given the power/log distribution-ness of the activity takes place in a concentrated number of nodes, finding company to do anything else... is uncommon. So yeah, it can be seriously hard.

That said...
~58:00 minutes into Devstream 52, Rebecca talks about how - when condensing 300 nodes into 20, you lose some of your ability to say 'Okay, now I'm going to farm a Frost Chassis' or 'Okay, now I'm going to do a Grineer Spy 2.0 mission'... Not touching on the actual argument yet, let's take a look at the examples.
What kinds of "progress" can a player hope to make in a given play session?

• Clearing the Star Chart, to gain access to alerts, resources(, frames). (e.g. Control Modules to build any-and-all frames. If you don't know that they drop like Nano Spores (weeell, almost) in the Void, you may end up spending tens of hours just trying to get to Europa.)
• Collect a mission-specific reward.
  This encompasses any boss-drop, any Void mission drop, any Spy 2.0 reward, any endless reward (Survival/Excavation, Interception, Defense, DS (e.g. Life Strike)).
  Of the 11 common game-modes (Capture • Deception • Defense • Excavation • Exterminate • Hijack • Interception • Mobile Defense • Rescue • Spy • Survival), fully half of them offer nothing but a trifling amount of experience and credits. (Note that I'm ignoring Earth Sabotage. It's 1 node.)
• • Capture - Offers the occasional Health Restore. And by 'occasional', I mean ~1.5k hours in, I've gotten a grand total of 4, I think. More-or-less on par with Handspring, now that I think of it. Yay?
  • Deception - Nada.
  • Defense - Endless. Some otherwise-even-harder-to-get mods.
  • Excavation - Survival alternative. See Survival, Defense.
  • Exterminate - Nada.
  • Hijack - Nada.
  • Interception - Endless. See Defense.
  • MD - Nada.
  • Rescue - Specter blueprints, as of Rescue 2.0. How useful those are is an entirely different question, but personally? I wouldn't even notice if they'd been removed. And that's before the introduction of Syndicate specters.
  • Spy - Fire and Ice dual-stat mods, as well as a smattering of hard-to-get mods, split into a few (3) distinct reward pools.
  • Survival - Endless, stacking rewards, good set of powerful, hard-to-get mods (if you can last long enough and are lucky enough to get them).
  • Dark Sector - Endless. See Survival, with unique rewards. (Not sure which aside from Life Strike and some channeling mods. It's been a while since I've played Dark Sectors with any kind of frequency.
    Since ICE, in fact. So, what? 8 months, now? Edit: A post in the Sep 12 CHT seems to indicate that yes, near exactly 8 months. But that's a whole other issue.)
• Collect a specific resource. (And God help you if it's a rare one.)
  a.k.a. Nekros/Hydroid assemblyline slaughter in an endless of your choice, or
  the endless, repeated, bossruns. (If I see that cat Alad V / Sargas Ruk ONE MORE TIME~~~!)
• Affinity to rank up a weapon/frame/companion/Syndicate.
  (Note that I'm ignoring Syndicate alerts, since they're completely divorced from the Star Chart.)

With the exception of 'mission rewards', where your extrinsic motivation is to complete them as fast as possible (so that you can have another go as soon as possible, because who knows how many more you'll need until "R"NG finally decides to grace you) (and even then YMMV, given Defense's 'rewards by spawns' vs. 'rewards by time'), every single one of those avenues rewards the most efficient, low-risk systematic assemblyline slaughter the player can manage.
Affinity Stealth Multipliers help with / mitigate one of those... and it's the one that depends on (preferably) an Invisibility-capable frame, and certainly having enough damage to OHKO your target (mandatory - or it breaks your streak). Which goes back to mods vs. scaling - i.e. very limited viability for newer, not-yet-established players.
(Affinity is also the only resource almost completely unaffected by "R"NG. Go anywhere, do anything, you will always get some affinity... In other words, ASMs do nothing to help with the grind.)
tl;dr - this is not Warframe motivating players to play the game. If you're not going to change it, don't be surprised when Vivers/E Gates happen.

 

 

Now, back to the rewards:

 

Affinity: While there's a 'best' option, all the available options are close enough - at a casual glance - to allow player choice.

Don't like Interception? Go do an Excavation. Or an MD. etc.

Condensing: What you're doing is (at least probably/potentially) directly limiting a player's option to express preference. e.g. You're not going to go do a Capture for exp, no matter what.

(And this is touched on by Steve's ~1:04:00 "I'm &!$$ed off, I used to have my node, I was comfortable with that..." etc.)

What will this change bring that will compensate for this?

 

Resources: Similar to affinity, there are 'best' options/setups, but - being RNG, it's all a crap-shoot.

That said, you still have several options at your disposal: a flavor of Endless or bossruns.

Condensing: See affinity.

 

Mission rewards: Mission rewards are tied to game-modes. This is true.

But it still leaves the player several choices of different gameplay experiences.

I can't, off the top of my head, bring to mind any reward pool that's available in only one tileset. Everything (iirc) comes with several choices of faction and tileset (and in the case of Survival/Excavation, even game mode).

Condensing:

- Different options for accessing a reward pool? You mad?

- You're looking for an X, but no nodes that have that pool are available? Sucks to be you.

(Also, compounding RNG on RNG. Because that is always joyously received.

Roll for reward. Did you get the one you wanted? <-- Is a mission with that pool even available? (<--- Do you know that that reward's from a specific pool - so as to look for it to begin with?) )

 

 

'For really advanced players, I think the solution will be mission crafting'  -- Not verbatim, DE Steve.

You're at least partially missing the point.

Yes, that helps player choice for content for "advanced" players... but what about newer players trying to get their hands on a Serration Ammo mutation, Life Strike, Fire/Ice dual-stat, (base) frame part...?

 

Timestamp ~1:02:00 and on, Rebecca's question is actually two different questions.

One is play-content, which Steve addressed.

The other is the tied rewards-to-gametype, and this he didn't at all.

To use Rebecca's example - How many of the people running their umpth T2Def key of the day are doing it because of the game-mode/tileset/etc., and how many for - say - a Fang Handle (because they really really want to rank up with Red Veil already  >_<' ).

 

~1:05:00

"But hopefully players will be able to solve that riddle daily/weekly, and figure out 'what is the most efficient for what I'm looking for that day?' rather than 'this is the most efficient thing I've been running for the last 3 months"  -- DE Scott

If nothing else but the Star Chart changes, this isn't a riddle to solve. It's a hierarchical elimination.

There is a player's preferred choice. If it's available, he'll take it.

If not, he'll take the next most-preferred option.

 

And, in cases with a reward tied to a pool (Assassination, DS, Spy) - even that isn't an option.

Either there's a node offering what you want - or there isn't.

I think that was everything.

Maybe.

 

 

tl;dr - The only benefit I see in this is making it easier for 'not-powerful-enough-to-solo' players to unlock nodes.

If nothing else changes with this, how is this change actively beneficial in any other context?

Edited May 10, 2015 by Chroia

[x_Soulframe_x]

My friend has jumped the gun and quit the game because of this. He'll probably come back though. He thinks DE will refund his money spent on plat if the company dies. Yeah... No. DE's gonna hold on to our money they need it, thats probably why they let themselves be bought.

[Mazen2013]

https://i.imgur.com/qFcEP3t.png

 

We all know the problems, the proposed solution from DE and the issues Rebecca had.

But I think there can be a solution that incorporates DE's solution without the problems:

 

What are the player's choices sorted in descending order of importance.

 

* rewards

* difficulty

* mission type

* enemy faction

* map environment

 

If the rewards are not what I need, I won't do it. Next is the difficulty, if it is too hard, there is no way I can do it. Next are mission type, enemy faction and map environment which have a secondary nature. 

 

So if we try to keep these choices and still implement DE's system it could look like this:

 

* 1 node for every mission type

* every reward is always available once, categorized into difficulty tiers and shift through the nodes every 30mins

* difficulty is adjustable (and influences reward tiers of the mission)

* enemy faction & map environment change every 20mins

 

 

This way you will always have the choice of reward. It will switch things up cause the reward will change position every 30mins. Difficulty is tied to rewards, rare rewards at high difficulties. Mission type, enemy faction and map environment will also vary to switch things up even more. Less nodes and no dead nodes.

 

 

EDIT: Simplified example: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19FvR7JQA-JzdtpFy057-kfwLDu9NzwWY_O-HoenY0MQ/edit?usp=sharing

Edited May 10, 2015 by Mazen2013

[gunsmoke77]

take away my players choice then blow up viod = uninstall next game hello,

what is going on at D.e HQ i ask my self this type thought in game is like the stuff E.A / ubisoft pull on us players 

i love the game but when all fails i move on next game