Alert Mission Overhauling

[matrixEXO]

What that needs to be overhauled is the rewards. Right now, rewards are based upon a computer generated effect that has nothing to do with a player. The change is to have any and all Alert missions to RNG an item (or nothing, keeping most of the current features around).

 

The reason for this change is simple. Nobody wants to stay up all night for an Alert mission with that they want to pop up. So, to counteract that, anyone can do any Alert mission (or even farm the missions 24/7) and get the item they want, through effort-made RNG. It's the same as killing monsters in Diablo and hoping to get good loot, you made an effort into killing a monster so you want to see something in return, even if it's extra gold or uncommon loot.

 

How it works is simple. Any Alert mission done will roll a RNG, giving players anything within the Alert pool. This includes credits, resources, skin blueprints, weapon blueprints and frame blueprints. Additionally, a random ? Alert will pop up an average of once every 12 hours. This ? Alert guarantees a skin/weapon/frame/potato blueprint but is generally having the mobs +10 levels higher than the sector's max mob level as the base.

 

 

Thoughts? Suggestions to improve this suggestion?

Edited May 19, 2013 by matrixEXO

[SouthBi4ch]

this way will be to easy to acquire rare stuff and ppl will log in whenever theres an alert and then log out....much better will be that token idea because u have to work to obtain something and that is much more rewarding

[Argoms]

this way will be to easy to acquire rare stuff and ppl will log in whenever theres an alert and then log out....much better will be that token idea because u have to work to obtain something and that is much more rewarding

So randomly getting an item is more work than reliably going towards it? 

[SouthBi4ch]

i was talking about that token idea(every ? alert give a token and lets say a reactor bp costs 50 tokens)

[matrixEXO]

this way will be to easy to acquire rare stuff and ppl will log in whenever theres an alert and then log out....much better will be that token idea because u have to work to obtain something and that is much more rewarding

Rates are not set in stone for me. They can set it that 55% of the chance is credits, 30% is resources and the rest is in the blueprints. If you read right, potatoes are not included in normal Alert farms.

 

Also, I read the token idea and felt that even though it's a good idea, it has it's weaknesses. As you said, people will log in whenever there is an alert then log out. This is a weakness of your token idea as well.

 

Another one is that it might take too long for CASUAL players (people with life to live) to get anything out of it. It's still going to be a ridiculous struggle for casual players to get some things that hardcore players would be able to do in just 1 day straight.

 

The idea of this design is a fair design that stretches over to all people. Everybody has a chance to get something, it's just how "lucky" you are in the RNG and how many times you do the RNG. Obviously, farming more means more chances but it doesn't degrade casual players from being able to get something they want because they need to take 1 month (minus working days off 1 month) to farm the tokens.

Edited May 19, 2013 by matrixEXO

[matrixEXO]

Bump, no one else?

[Argoms]

Going to copypaste my OP from My thread about this, since that one seems to have died down :P

 

As I keep saying, the alerts system isn't good as it is. It really does more harm than good.

 

The current alert system creates opportunities for disappointment purely because you were living your life and not waiting for alerts 24/7. Now, don't start saying how you shouldn't feel entitled to that alert reward because it was a gift  and not a right, or how you should just support the developer. The point is, at the time that you realized you missed the alert, you had one of two reactions:

"Oh, didn't matter much to me anyway."

"Damnit, missed another <item> alert!"

 

You were either disappointed or indifferent. If you didn't care, then you wouldn't have bought it from the market anyway. If you did care, would you really get out your credit card and buy some plat? Judging by complaint threads that pop up almost every time a rare alert comes up, the reaction is more likely to complain about how it didn't feel fair, or that you were busy at the time. Does this help anyone?

 

A system that gives out rare/market-only items doesn't have to create the feeling that you missed something important that you could've gotten if you hadn't done something. The current system promotes letting the alerts run everything if you want to avoid this feeling. To the people who say not to let it because it will have a negative impact on your life- Why should it reward this sort of behavior?

 

If you want to make the system random, it should be random in a way that doesn't create a feeling of responsibility for the player. There are people trying to justify calling home and getting someone to do the alert for you, ffs.

 

 

***

 

Overall, DE needs to decide what they want to do with alerts. Is it a gift system, or a method of introducing new content? Making it do both frustrates sides that think it does either.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Argoms

[matrixEXO]

Overall, DE needs to decide what they want to do with alerts. Is it a gift system, or a method of introducing new content? Making it do both frustrates sides that think it does either.

Agreed.

[Effusion-]

As I said in one of the other threads, I think the main problem with the alert system is its presentation.  Currently it feels like you're supposed to constantly monitor twitter and jump into the game when a good alert comes up.  The other way of looking at it though is that by letting you see the reward before you complete the mission the system is actually saving you time.  One way to do this is to have the ? item displayed in the game instead of making people check twitter/nexus.  Maybe have the item randomly generated per player, but still display what it is beforehand.

 

I do think they need to get rid of the credit only alerts though, they're pointless.  If an alert isn't going to give out a blueprint or relic it should at least make it give out a mod or component.

[matrixEXO]

As I said in one of the other threads, I think the main problem with the alert system is its presentation.  Currently it feels like you're supposed to constantly monitor twitter and jump into the game when a good alert comes up.  The other way of looking at it though is that by letting you see the reward before you complete the mission the system is actually saving you time.  One way to do this is to have the ? item displayed in the game instead of making people check twitter/nexus.  Maybe have the item randomly generated per player, but still display what it is beforehand.

 

I do think they need to get rid of the credit only alerts though, they're pointless.  If an alert isn't going to give out a blueprint or relic it should at least make it give out a mod or component.

Credits-only Alerts are still important for people trying to "farm" credits fast. You know how bad the new Market mark-up are, so getting a weapon that is now 75 means more farming than before if not for the Alerts. It has it's place, just that it should not be as frequent as right now.

 

Also, I agree that the current Alert system fails at functionality. Presentation-wise, it succeeded. But at it's core aspect, functionality, it breaks down. As you said, we are all just watching Alerts for a reward. And if your suggested idea of hiding rewards with "?" symbol and rewarding player based on personal generation is not going to work as well as you think it should. People are still going to watch the Alert for more "?" Alerts only. Opening Alerts to free-farming by anyone and getting a reward (whether it's more credits or mats or BP) is more rewarding and would solve the "Imma watch Twitter until something I wants come my way" issue. Of course, chance rate of each has to be individually tweaked for such a thing to work well, meaning more testing and feedback.

[DissLusive]

Credit only alerts are fine Imo.  They need to add some substance or more story to the alerts as right now they are just treated as a blueprint/mod grab bag.  The alerts should eventually contribute to some sort of storyline so that players feel like they are participating on a larger scale when they come together to complete them.  Otherwise they may as well scrap alerts and make the items drop during regular missions. In the future the success or failure of the playerbase completing the alerts could steer the direction of what technology the Tenno acquire, or maybe even cause systems to fall back into the hands of the other factions.  Anyway probably lots of good ideas out there, good topic.

[NotaCobra]

How about;

You don't look at the twitter

You just run alerts when they're available.

 

Hey look at that!

You get every single drop!

It's RNG, but that's okay, because after a while, you will eventually get everything!

 

Isn't it amazing!

 

 

Seriously, looking at what you've missed does nothing but make you annoyed, if you only look at alerts when you can do something about it, you never miss them, because you're always getting them

Then it's just a matter of chance whether you get something good or not.

[matrixEXO]

Seriously, looking at what you've missed does nothing but make you annoyed, if you only look at alerts when you can do something about it, you never miss them, because you're always getting them

Then it's just a matter of chance whether you get something good or not.

Agreed. But it will still make some people rage that they missed a ? Alert. Not as much as knowing what you get if you did it though.

Edited May 20, 2013 by matrixEXO