Proposed Starchart Changes [Megathread]

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

How could DE have came up with such a radical decision when they have not even made the effort to promote their other game modes, and to make them more pleasing towards other players.

 

I say actually MAKE an effort to promote the other gametypes, spy 2.0 was a good step in the right direction. You guys know what the players in game want, we watch your STAFF actually play the game so theres no excuse in not being able to find a way to appease players and to convince them to go onto other nodes.

 

 

I do agree on reducing the node count thats fine, but an alert based system is a big no no for me

[Invalid_Infinity]

If they released Excalibur today people would have complained how he was "off". Complaining about art direction is a wonderful combination of nostalgia goggles and ignorance. 

 

You mean to tell me that if they started releasing more and more ridiculous frames you would be fine with it?

Excuse me for liking the original frames aesthetic far more than these messy new ones.

Don't pass off someone as being ignorant just because they do not approve of the current aesthetic direction of the game. 

[Invalid_Infinity]

It didn't seem set in stone at all...half of it was vague in the extreme, they wouldn't stop laughing enough to actually talk about it, and everything was "planned" or "proposed". Yes, it was a bad proposal. It was clearly a proposal though, and thinking otherwise was a feat of selective listening. 

When words come from the mouth of one of DE's staff we take it seriously. Anything else would be irresponsible. Even if it is a proposal we should state our opinions about it. Complaining about people disliking something is not the way to solve things.

[vaugahn]

You mean to tell me that if they started releasing more and more ridiculous frames you would be fine with it?

Excuse me for liking the original frames aesthetic far more than these messy new ones.

Don't pass off someone as being ignorant just because they do not approve of the current aesthetic direction of the game. 

 

Of course people wouldn't be fine with it if they started releasing ridiculous frames, but they haven't so that point is essentially moot.

 

The current aesthetic direction is the same as the initial one, unless you count graphics improvements. Current frames aren't any more or less odd-looking than the original set, they're just more detailed. And as we've seen with Excalibur, that's starting to change as well.

 

When words come from the mouth of one of DE's staff we take it seriously. Anything else would be irresponsible. Even if it is a proposal we should state our opinions about it. Complaining about people disliking something is not the way to solve things.

 

Are you saying you take everything DE says as 100% word of god? Because they joke around a lot on devstreams, and a lot of the stuff they share with us isn't finalized. Taking everything they say as set in stone isn't always the best idea.

 

Also, there's a difference between disliking something and what we did. If we just said we all disliked it and moved on that would have been one thing, but threatening to quit and the endless assertions that the game is going to die when (not if) this happens were not exactly helpful.

[KvotheTheArcane1]

It didn't seem set in stone at all...half of it was vague in the extreme, they wouldn't stop laughing enough to actually talk about it, and everything was "planned" or "proposed". Yes, it was a bad proposal. It was clearly a proposal though, and thinking otherwise was a feat of selective listening. 

That's how they are, mostly. Well, not that "goofy", but vague. Everything they say is extremely vague. See, I'd call what steve was doing "dodging, extremely unprofessional, and being a dumbass". The only feat of selective listening is claiming that it was a proposal BEFORE the 2nd livestream. Again, show me in the first livestream where they say it was just an idea being kicked around. Or a quote by them BEFORE the 2nd livestream, i.e. a post.

 

What DE did there (minus rebecca obviously) was an extremely huge dodge in an attempt to not answer (intentional or not). Maybe they were drunker than usual, or just really didn't want to talk about it, but either way the community went on what they heard.

 

 

Are you saying you take everything DE says as 100% word of god? Because they joke around a lot on devstreams, and a lot of the stuff they share with us isn't finalized. Taking everything they say as set in stone isn't always the best idea.

Obviously he means not literally EVERYTHING they say (don't try and strawman what he said), but when they talk about a feature, or answer a question in a somewhat serious manner, then yes, people will take what they say as what the future holds unless they say something otherwise.

[Urlan]

So let me get this straight, Vaughn, you think that since the Devstream 53, that is a response to this thread, said that the plan for the proposed Starchart changes was just an idea means that the thread that is a response to the original Devstream 52 where I might add, the 'rotating random missions like alerts but not quite' was a quote from DE Steve -where he explicitly said that this plan was being aimed for update 17- your stance is that people should be modifying their original  impression based on both the mocking of the response of to the very same thread by calling it a 'Doom Thread' and the apparent backpeddling from the community response that DE Rebecca warned in Devstream 52 would be coming in response to nuking the starchart. I find your reasoning or lack thereof to be disingenious or at the very least to be both inflammatory and fallacious.

 

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Both your argument on the point and that of the Hypernaut, should be -using your own logic- that the Devs are rethinking this plan and are looking towards trying to come to a reasonable compromise based on both internal (DE Rebecca) and community feedback. By this token, we should be looking forward to more information on the subject to both further understand what is intended versus the initial shock reveal of the starchart plan intended for update 17. While the topic was presented as set in stone both by DE Steve's body language and actual response to DE Rebecca's mention of the topic being hottly contested in meetings; the response to fan outcry has prompted official responses that are promising of the topic being under review or at least further thought and brainstorming. Because of the devs responding to community feedback, its too early to consider leaving the game as the starchart may be under further review.

---------

 

That, above,  is the postive aspect of what your points have been. The rest has been an almost nonstop stream of viritol at the community reponding to changes that the developers acknowledged that most veteran players would not like. You have accused others of lying while the very Devstream says the almost exact words; accused others of being 'chicken littles' while they listed their dispain for the idea, the purpose of the thread, and seem to be convinced of a strange time-dilated logic where events that come after should effect the stances of those that come before. Your posts come off as illogical, insulting, and worst of all, you do it rudely. I don't see any further value in discussion with your viewpoint on this topic.

[KvotheTheArcane1]

I'd also like to point out that DE said they'd work on a dev workshop-esque post about this. Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen anything on it. Now, if this was their only idea (which I bet it was) I fully understand why it's taking so long for them to make a post about.

[Invalid_Infinity]

Of course people wouldn't be fine with it if they started releasing ridiculous frames, but they haven't so that point is essentially moot.

 

The current aesthetic direction is the same as the initial one, unless you count graphics improvements. Current frames aren't any more or less odd-looking than the original set, they're just more detailed. And as we've seen with Excalibur, that's starting to change as well.

 

 

Are you saying you take everything DE says as 100% word of god? Because they joke around a lot on devstreams, and a lot of the stuff they share with us isn't finalized. Taking everything they say as set in stone isn't always the best idea.

 

Also, there's a difference between disliking something and what we did. If we just said we all disliked it and moved on that would have been one thing, but threatening to quit and the endless assertions that the game is going to die when (not if) this happens were not exactly helpful.

So limbo isn't ridiculous? 

 

I know what DE said isn't finalized. I do not like the direction they were taking with the changes. I think they could be doing something different instead of doing something they know will make many veteran players angry. 

 

Let me clarify one thing for you. To me, leaving is not a threat. I did not say that lightly. I meant it.

[motorfirebox]

Then I have to ask if they will have all of the mission types will be available at all times for all factions. If not then it is not improving anything at all. 

That's just nonsense. There are multiple issues with the current starchart. A step back on one issue does not equate to a step back on every issue.

 

 

When words come from the mouth of one of DE's staff we take it seriously. Anything else would be irresponsible. Even if it is a proposal we should state our opinions about it. Complaining about people disliking something is not the way to solve things.

People keep saying that, and they keep missing the point. Nobody—literally nobody that I've seen in this thread—has said that people should withhold their opinion just because it's a proposal rather than a finished, ready-to-ship feature. What has been said is that freaking out and leaping to conclusions isn't really an appropriate or useful response.

 

 

 

 

Also, people keep asking when it was made clear that the new starchart features weren't set in stone. You know when it was made clear to me? When they just talked about it, rather than showing it off and pointing out lots of specific details. The Devstream crew can't wait to spoil their upcoming stuff. If there's something coming up, they don't just discuss it for a few minutes at the end of a stream, they spend most of a stream talking about it and showing off concept art and basically acting like a bunch of kids on Christmas Eve who've peeked under the wrapping on their presents. I mean, for the love of Mike, look at how they handled Parkour 2.0. They spent almost all of 52 showing off, playing it, talking about further features that would be added, switching the feed to both recorded and live gameplay—they gave away everything!

 

And then, the very next stream, they told us that they'd scrapped almost everything in Parkour 2.0 and gone back to the drawing board! With new concept art and examples!

 

If there isn't any concept art, you can pretty much take it to the bank that almost everything DE discusses is still very much up in the air. Nothing's certain until it goes live, and even then it might get completely changed by a hotfix. It's been this way for 53 Devstreams. You'd think we'd get it by now.

Edited June 9, 2015 by motorfirebox

[vaugahn]

So let me get this straight, Vaughn, you think that since the Devstream 53, that is a response to this thread, said that the plan for the proposed Starchart changes was just an idea means that the thread that is a response to the original Devstream 52 where I might add, the 'rotating random missions like alerts but not quite' was a quote from DE Steve -where he explicitly said that this plan was being aimed for update 17- your stance is that people should be modifying their original  impression based on both the mocking of the response of to the very same thread by calling it a 'Doom Thread' and the apparent backpeddling from the community response that DE Rebecca warned in Devstream 52 would be coming in response to nuking the starchart. I find your reasoning or lack thereof to be disingenious or at the very least to be both inflammatory and fallacious.

 

I believe devstream 53 was a clarification of devstream 52. Devstream 52 wasn't exactly what I'd call informative - the information about the star chart rework wasn't the only thing that was made unclear due to people messing around, which I mentioned afterwards was something I found unprofessional. 

 

Due to that we got some incomplete information, and at this point the community panicked. That's understandable, nobody wants RNG in their star chart. The initial response was emphatic, and more than enough to get the point across to DE. The problem I have is that instead of taking the opportunity to get what we wanted out of the development process by talking about what was clearly an idea in its early stages (nothing about its presentation in either stream suggested "set in stone") we continued to panic. Beyond that, from what we heard in devstream 53 the fears that we wouldn't be able to access all content were proven totally false, as being able to access all content turned out to be a central requirement for any future star chart reworks.

 

I think why I'm unhappy with the way the community acted is because it's going to make DE think twice before sharing early development stuff with us. Anyone in a creative profession knows that for every good idea you have there are ten bad ones, and that those bad ones are part of the process. Now that we've proven we'll take those initial bad ideas as the word of god, talking about them starts to seem like a very bad idea.

 

Edit: oh, and just to address how people could tell that the idea in devstream 52 was in its early stages, go to 58-59 minutes in. Rebecca says they just started discussing the star chart change a week prior, which should give you a hint as to the state of that idea. 

Edited June 9, 2015 by vaugahn

[DraccoDoom]

 

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.

 

Wow and here I thought that splitchamber may be something that will break Warframe for me and I will quit it, but nope this, this sounds waaaay worse RNG on the type of planet and mission you can go on?? what the hell are they smoking there?

[Shehriazad]

Even if they just removed all the nodes that are the same mission type on the same tileset...it's gonna be win-win. 


I don't need 2 survivals and 2 defenses on the same freakin' tile. 


It would probably already reduce the map clutter by what...20-30%?    Then reduce it a bit further by removing missions from sub-par map tiles and make those special alert maps or something.
Add in regular keyless void missions....put it on a pretty new map design...TADAAAA maps 3.0 


At least that's how I imagine it.

[ValkyrWF]

Really, what needs to be changed is those repeated nodes (Triton, Seimeni, Sechura, etc.)

[Tsukinoki]

Even if they just removed all the nodes that are the same mission type on the same tileset...it's gonna be win-win. 

I don't need 2 survivals and 2 defenses on the same freakin' tile. 

And that is all fine, as long as it is "1 node per mission type per planet" and not "1 node per mission type per tile".

Otherwise getting some of the rarer resources would just be a pain.

Their original plan (that they haven't really expanded on) is the horrible thing.

Afterall:

Say you need plastids for your clan in larger amounts.

There was only one of the "20 nodes!" that offered plastids at the time and it was a low level exterminate mission.

You could either grind your heart out getting crap plastids drop without a chance for an endless node or a higher level node with more enemies, or you could just go "Oh well, I guess I wont play until an endless mission node with plastids appears when I can play"

And then all you can do is sit there and hope and pray that you will eventually get a node with an endless mode that will allow you to get plastids at a decent rate and that it appears during a time you can play.

Or worse: say you want to get a specific warframe.

Now you have to wait for that boss node to appear at a time you can ply.

Just like trying to get Nyx currently.

Think of that amount of grind and wait walls for every warframe in teh game.

Because that was what their initial idea for the maps was going to be.

And that is why people panicked.

I really, desperately hope that all they do is limit it to one node type per planet.

So that Saturn would only have one survival mission and one defense and stuff like that.

Because to limit it to "Only 20 nodes that randomly cycle to get the stuff you want" is a horrible idea.

[UrielColtan]

 

 

 

Tho, i dont approve of "if my toy is taken, ill rage quit" posts.

 

Treating normal mission select like some novelty "toy" and trivializing understandable response to the discarding of that, as some petty "ragequitting", is something I don't approve of.

Some people, like myself, have put a lot of money into this game and these customers displeased over a very radical decision that basically effects the entire core of how the game is played, should not be infantilized like that.

It seems the Greed-is-good(or god) aggressive marketing form the 80s onward to this generation has convinced certain people to think this is just fine and dandy to condescend in such a manner to customer/constiuent response to bad business moves, when its a valuable commodity we all need so we don't get screwed because of wrongheaded corporatist flowcharts saying that they don't have the "right stats". It can also help keep the company from shooting themselves in the foot as well

 

 

 

 

If they released Excalibur today people would have complained how he was "off". Complaining about art direction is a wonderful combination of nostalgia goggles and ignorance. 

 

 

There wasn't anything to take. None of those things were confirmed as even planned to happen. Also, nice job conflating balance and larger game design.

 

Excalibur looks sleek, symmetrical, and swift, like a space ninja should, frames like Chroma, not so much. I want to play as space ninjas, as intially adverstised and expressed in the ads and dev diaries, not hodgepodge creatures or literal clowns.

I'll tolerate current frames like Chroma or Limbo, but I prefer future frames to be more slick and ninja like, and not hulking hodgpodges, its getting into bulky space marine territory at that rate.

Secondly, Excalibur looks similar to Hayden Tenno's armor form and the protagonist of the original demo of Dark Sector, if anything Excalibur would have been easier for people to embrace.

Edited October 9, 2015 by UrielColtan