Creating A Reason To Rank Up

[Wotca]

Here is a fact for you that more successful developers already know "Exclusive Content is good for individuals it is bad for communities", every successful game in the industry is successful because of the strength of its community. Things like exclusive content are toxic to community it dives off new players and keeps returning players away because they feel like they have "missed to much". This is why every successful game limits exclusive content to cosmetics or convenience type items. 

 

I'm assuming that you've read some pretty credible evidence since you've presented this as fact.  I'd be very interested to read up on this.  Could you point me to where you got your information?  I would be very grateful.

[DreManX23]

Yes I would like to have some motive as to why i shouldn't just stick with my fav excal and not try anyone else. I pesonally would like to have some specieal things for each mastery rank you go up. Such as a mele or primary or a decal or color pallet or a synad or some decor so people know that you are something special and should be valued. Not just some punk with a boltor p ya know. Because personally anyone can buy plat and get the good weapons early on and say they are a good player because of their kill weapons. I would like ranking up to mean something.

The extra faction is a good idea except I do play alot of solo unless its farming or void.

Dreman

[Wolfssenger]

How does a stronger gun help anyone? The issue isn't the guns, we can already do 40+min T4 survivals and frankly you can probably manage that without hitting MR8. There will always be new guns, but just having arbitrarily strong guns at high MR is just silly. The big important thing here to is that weapons keep a degree of parity. An MR6 gun shouldn't directly and always outclass an MR0 or 2 gun, they generally do but they don't have to. Guns like the original Latron even if MR0 and antique is still a decent all around gun. All of these various prime weapons, many with low MR's are still viable and the concept of all of those weapons just being invalidated because "oh yeah he got the MR10 SuperSoma" is just for lack of a better word stupid.

I don't mind grinding, I have hundreds of Paragon levels in D3. I've played Warframe for hundreds of hours and will continue to do so. But you know what? I've never really played Witch Doctor in D3 it just never appealed to me, yet I've still played the game for countless hours and enjoy the game. By having people able to specialize there characters, people will do so. I really like a few warframes but frankly just flat out dislike others, I can't stand the play style of Frost and the concept of having to build and level it to 30 just so I can get that extra bit of MR to do something relevant is just repulsive. I also don't care much for Dual Wielded melee, its just not to my tastes, I've tried a few like the Dual Ichor but it still just wasn't my cup of tea.

Just because I don't want to play literally EVERYTHING doesn't mean I don't play the grind, or am not beyond the grind. There is a difference between grinding and collecting. I'll grind all damn day if I have the free time, but i will not buy the machete wraith no matter how many ducates it is just to level that piece of trash as mastery fodder, because I am not a collector.

What Warframe needs in that regard for "bittervets" is better, harder, content thats ACTUALLY REWARDING. Sure we can go to 40+ in surivals, but why? Why not just leave at 15 or 20 based off the rotation rewards you need. They need to put more incentives into staying on Sechura/similar for more than just 5 waves.

A great example with D3 was they added greater rifts, these were INFINITELY scaling random dungeons that had decent rewards dropped on clearing it. Once you cleared the dungeon you either upgraded it to a higher difficulty key or cashed in the completed key for another reward (which scaled based on how many difficulty levels you took the key up). Another aspect of note is that these greater rifts were timed meaning you couldn't just "out sustain them" you had to be efficiently and effectively killing everything. Adding into this timed aspect they used it as there ladder system so people could "compete" for faster and higher clear times giving them a leader board.

Something like an endless tower + leaderboard is what you should be looking at, not a bigger gun because you hit MR29. Oh and telling people to leave, just because they disagree with you is pretty S#&$ty and bad for the game... just sayin.

If you read my post correctly, I didn't say I wanted them to be way stronger, i said at or slightly above( which after some thought, is not the case) the current god tier so people can use something other than the boltor p, Paris p, opticor, etc. For tryhard challenging missions.

Also if you correctly read my responses you should have realized that was not the reason I said that, it was because

1. He disliked a core mechanic of the game

And

2. He failed to make any real point in pages of text other than he doesn't like to grind.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

So you want to increase the grind? Both for all players and through mastery?

Yeah no

The moment mastery becomes more tangible past MR 8 is the moment mastery becomes a determining factor when getting invited.

[Konnivar]

Most of the "Exclusive" event weapons were never intended to remain exclusive, but DE also don't want to devalue the time that players spent on earning said reward.  The same kind of system should be used in the Mastery system, something that rewards players for their time in a meaningful way while not alienating new players.

 

The only true "Exclusive" non cosmetic items are as follows:

 

Exalibur Prime, Skana Prime, Lato Prime, Braton Vandal, and Lato Vandal

 

These are things that DE has explicitly stated in the past will never be available again.

 

In the past DE have said that they intend on recirculating in some way; we saw that this past week where Baro Ki'Teer offered the Wraith Machete and Prova Vandal. In addition to the tactical alert that recirculated the Strun Wraith.  A lot of people were upset at those choices, but I was happy to see them recirculated in a meaningful way, they didn't simply turn it into a blueprint that I could buy at any time.

 

The founders pack is different from event weapons in that people spent money on them (myself included) and no small sum at that.  That does not mean that I would be opposed to DE releasing a Limited time pack (1 week at the most) that included the founders exclusive content at the highest tier and offered some of the prime access exclusive accessories as well (at an appropriate price).

 

 

Mastery rank needs to have a purpose but shouldn't give high mastery rank players a huge advantage over new players, as easy as it is to create meaning by MR capping weapons and warframes there is definitely a better way to do this.

 

The focus system was supposed to address this, but as stated in many devstreams the system has been cannibalized many times.  One way they could add meaning other than additional load out slots, extractors, and syndicate gain would be to add small bonuses that have utility and aren't overpowered.  The Forma solution linked above is a good suggestion in line with the current bonuses, but should have a cap around MR 15,  and at MR 15 some new bonus should make up for that loss.  Small time saving convenience things are in the right line for Mastery Rank bonuses.  There should be enough bonuses that a Mastery Rank Progression list should be part of the interface and numerous rewards should be listed for each rank.

 

As stated in the devstreams, the Sentients are going to be specifically designed for veteran players to give those of us with nuclear weapons something challenging.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Konnivar

[Wolfssenger]

Most of the "Exclusive" event weapons were never intended to remain exclusive, but DE also don't want to devalue the time that players spent on earning said reward. The same kind of system should be used in the Mastery system, something that rewards players for their time in a meaningful way while not alienating new players.

The only true "Exclusive" non cosmetic items are as follows:

Exalibur Prime, Skana Prime, Lato Prime, Braton Vandal, and Lato Vandal

These are things that DE has explicitly stated in the past will never be available again.

In the past DE have said that they intend on recirculating in some way; we saw that this past week where Baro Ki'Teer offered the Wraith Machete and Prova Vandal. In addition to the tactical alert that recirculated the Strun Wraith. A lot of people were upset at those choices, but I was happy to see them recirculated in a meaningful way, they didn't simply turn it into a blueprint that I could buy at any time.

The founders pack is different from event weapons in that people spent money on them (myself included) and no small sum at that. That does not mean that I would be opposed to DE releasing a Limited time pack (1 week at the most) that included the founders exclusive content at the highest tier and offered some of the prime access exclusive accessories as well (at an appropriate price).

Mastery rank needs to have a purpose but shouldn't give high mastery rank players a huge advantage over new players, as easy as it is to create meaning by MR capping weapons and warframes there is definitely a better way to do this.

The focus system was supposed to address this, but as stated in many devstreams the system has been cannibalized many times. One way they could add meaning other than additional load out slots, extractors, and syndicate gain would be to add small bonuses that have utility and aren't overpowered. The Forma solution linked above is a good suggestion in line with the current bonuses, but should have a cap around MR 15, and at MR 15 some new bonus should make up for that loss. Small time saving convenience things are in the right line for Mastery Rank bonuses. There should be enough bonuses that a Mastery Rank Progression list should be part of the interface and numerous rewards should be listed for each rank.

As stated in the devstreams, the Sentients are going to be specifically designed for veteran players to give those of us with nuclear weapons something challenging.

That's comforting to hear, but people keep misunderstanding me, these new weapons would belong in the god tier, the same strength as current meta weapons, simply offering more options and playstyles

[Wolfssenger]

It won't fix everything, but it fixes a lot of it.

It's a good incentive and a neat idea butb altogether lacks substance to be an overall quality solution.

[AlphaHorseman]

This wouldn't be a bad system, but I'm pretty sure DE will not be touching the primes.

What would make you believe so?

[Wolfssenger]

What would make you believe so?

Because prime weapons and event weapons have never had a mastery gate. Not that it isn't possible just unlikely for DE to do so.

[WereFowl]

I'd like there to be a reason and benefit to ranking up, but it shouldn't screw over new players or lock too much content away from them.

 

Maybe give players weapon slots after they pass rank 10? Like 1 slot per rank.

 

I don't think that would be too unfair as you'd have to be playing for a while anyway to get ot rank 10 and weapon slots are always appreciated.

[AlphaHorseman]

Because prime weapons and event weapons have never had a mastery gate. Not that it isn't possible just unlikely for DE to do so.

I hope they do, though. Thus we get a better sense of progression on weapons, as now players can see that the Primes are better than their regular counterparts, not only because they're shinier, but because of the stats and higher Mastery requirements to do so.

[Wolfssenger]

I'd like there to be a reason and benefit to ranking up, but it shouldn't screw over new players or lock too much content away from them.

Maybe give players weapon slots after they pass rank 10? Like 1 slot per rank.

I don't think that would be too unfair as you'd have to be playing for a while anyway to get ot rank 10 and weapon slots are always appreciated.

It's not locking anything away from any new players, i don't see the problem with having to put time and effort into something to unlock new options and playstyles.

Also not to rain on your parade but i HIGHLY doubt DE would lift a pay wall.

[Wolfssenger]

I hope they do, though. Thus we get a better sense of progression on weapons, as now players can see that the Primes are better than their regular counterparts, not only because they're shinier, but because of the stats and higher Mastery requirements to do so.

As would I, but DE isn't going to do anything too far against their norms unless there is a huge uproar of which we are sorely lacking, hence why i try to keep things relatively close to something DE would most likely choose to do, such as adding more things to adress problems rather than rework core mechanics that would compromise the game and ccommunity opinion.

[ProfessorZero]

I have no problem with games that some grind and RNG, it is necessary in all games to make them good, what is open to debate if how much RNG and how much GRIND is necessary.

 

How ever telling people to "go play another game" because they don't agree with your opinion or shoot your down your idea for just being poorly conceived is just childish. I offered a differing opinion, bringing up real concerns of players have expressed over the years on the forms when threads like this appear in the past. However your option of not address any of them in context of your idea is to toss out platitude like "Life is not fair" are cop-out answer. How about this before you cook up a idea use the forum search tool and read what other people have purposed on the subject and how the community has reacted.

 

I like your self am a "veteran player", there literally are only 5-10 "exclusive items" outside of the founder pack that I do not have. On a personal level I don't have a problem with exclusive items as long as it is done correctly, Warframe has failed spectacularly in this department. This is mainly do to their efforts of keeping a small but extremely vocal minority appeased, as long as this behavior is happing the game is going to suffer. 

Pardon me as I spew some "entitled founder" nonsense. (source for everything below is warframe wiki:) http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Mastery_Rank 

 

MR 8 means you have obtained 16% of the games available Mastery points. You can do that without buying or building any weapons besides your stater weapons, and without using all the frames necessary. There are about 1 million Mastery points available with star chart nodes, frames, weapons, archwings, and pets (kubrows/sent). 

 

Now let us first acknowledge that this game isn't CS:GO, besides sheer number of weapons alone, the categories of weapons is far more extensive, as well as oddball (panthera-for example). Not all weapons are obtainable from the onset, and even if mastery rank was non-existent things like Clan-Tech weapons and Primes provide a certain level of "gating" natively, minimal, but existent. So we aren't going to have a system where all weapons are obtainable or can be used before a certain point. 

 

Now DE claims to want to have MR 30 before the game is "complete" which would require around 2.25 Mil Mastery points, this means that MR 8 rests somewhere around 7% of total content when the game is available. Now in nearly no game where content is gated before you reach a certain level or obtain the requisite stats is everything "useable/obtainable" at 7% game completion. So right now we can see that warframe is actually strange in the regard that you can, barring stop-gaps like RNG and Resources. 

 

Now recently I've started caring about MR, and power leveled from MR14 to MR16, which takes 150,000 Mastery Points, almost the 160,000 MP it takes to get from MR0 to MR8. I used an affinity booster, and it took me about 10 days. double that for those who don't have affinity boosters and we have 20 days for a standard player using the fastest method like I did, namely Draco. This means any player can reasonably get to MR 8 in around 10 days, assuming an average of 2.5 weapons maxed per day, exluding any frames or pets. (I ranked up 3 frames, 2 sentinels, and an assortment of weapons). Thats like 4 draco runs a day, or less depending on how you stack your weapons when you level (fully equipped vs 1 weapon). 

 

Now I'm not saying we gate frames, they are like "classes" for lack of a better word, but weapons certainly could be gated with minimal effect on any novice user. As long as the weapons available to them were at least worth 33% more MP than they needed to rank up they would never want for options and could still provide something to strive for. In fact it would mean the only limiting option was crafting materials, something that already limits a new player.

 

 

Assuming that the Focus system is something that DE still plans to implement we are going to eventually see top of the line buffs go to those who have already invested time into MR ranking anyways, what are you guys going to do then? You can't say that its unreachable, because frankly its not that hard, just tedious. You really can't reasonably claim that the system needs to be toned down, because until you hit about MR 12 you haven't dipped that heavily into all the game has to offer. 

 

now just for fun I've done a sample for you of an MR 8 player. 

The player "Emerate" has ranked up 8 frames, out of 32 available, hes completed 30 weapons, out of the 222 in this game, ranked up 2 companions out of the 12, has 1 archwing, and has completed 69 nodes out of the 252 available. So MR8, sorry, Emerate has experienced a chunk of this game, but by no means what could be considered a majority of any category. That player shouldn't be able to dive into the hardest content in this game, nor should he have access to the heaviest hitting weaponry. 

 

Now Mister Raven_Face has put forth that maybe MR shouldn't be tied to weapons. I agree, it should probably be tied to total affinity gained over time, that would be a superior system in my mind, with a hefty bonus given to the initial ranking up of weapons/first time playing on nodes. 

[Roachester]

I'm all for ridiculously hard boss fights, but restricting that sort of stuff to one's mastery rank is an awful idea. Nobody should have to be forced to max out a bunch of weapons and Warframes they don't even want to use just to gain access to certain parts of the game. In order for something like that to work out, the entire MR system would need a pretty hefty overhaul.

 

Frankly, I'd be content if they just added a few MR-restricted cosmetic items/skins, and maybe a few more weapons. 

Edited July 29, 2015 by Roachester

[DreManX23]

I'm all for ridiculously hard boss fights, but restricting that sort of stuff to one's mastery rank is an awful idea. Nobody should have to be forced to max out a bunch of weapons and Warframes they don't even want to use just to gain access to certain parts of the game. In order for something like that to work out, the entire MR system would need a pretty hefty overhaul.

 

Frankly, I'd be content if they just added a few MR-restricted cosmetic items/skins, and maybe a few more weapons. 

Yes I beleive that this would be terrible idea to restrict bosses but on the other hand that would mean something. like if someone had a nova that would mean he or she was pretty high on the MR list. Because they would need to be a high enough mastery to get there. Also I like the way the current mastery is working however I do belive we should have a few more weapons locked primarily primes and some of the more tanky weapons of the game. And skins that would work out I believe to be very good so that some one with a certain skin would get to say hey I am a mastery rank whatever and show off their cool looks.

Idk just my oppinon

Dreman

[Wolfssenger]

I'm all for ridiculously hard boss fights, but restricting that sort of stuff to one's mastery rank is an awful idea. Nobody should have to be forced to max out a bunch of weapons and Warframes they don't even want to use just to gain access to certain parts of the game. In order for something like that to work out, the entire MR system would need a pretty hefty overhaul.

Frankly, I'd be content if they just added a few MR-restricted cosmetic items/skins, and maybe a few more weapons.

After mulling it over I'd have to agree, let me edit that

I'm all for ridiculously hard boss fights, but restricting that sort of stuff to one's mastery rank is an awful idea. Nobody should have to be forced to max out a bunch of weapons and Warframes they don't even want to use just to gain access to certain parts of the game. In order for something like that to work out, the entire MR system would need a pretty hefty overhaul.

Frankly, I'd be content if they just added a few MR-restricted cosmetic items/skins, and maybe a few more weapons.

After mulling it over I'd have to agree, let me edit that

[Eyeless]

You linked me this thread in another thread trying to give ideas to alleviate the tedium of Mastery / Forma grind, I posted my original reply there and I'm putting it here as well out of respect, since a thread needs feedback to thrive: 

 

 

I don't mean any offense, but this doesn't do much but give us another carrot on a stick to run after, and nothing to alleviate the monotony of Weapon / Mastery grind. 

 

We're still going to need to run a lot of frames and weapons we don't want to, through an agonizingly slow XP race that is only lessened by Draco and / or affinity boosters, while stomaching the redundant modding system and it's mandatory damage mods and meta element combos. 

 

While your proposal incentivizes players to grind and chug along it doesn't alleviate any of it. It just gives us one more wall to hurdle, another step in the gear power creep. It's not radical, it's more of the same, unfortunately. 

[Wolfssenger]

You linked me this thread in another thread trying to give ideas to alleviate the tedium of Mastery / Forma grind, I posted my original reply there and I'm putting it here as well out of respect, since a thread needs feedback to thrive:

I don't mean any offense, but this doesn't do much but give us another carrot on a stick to run after, and nothing to alleviate the monotony of Weapon / Mastery grind.

We're still going to need to run a lot of frames and weapons we don't want to, through an agonizingly slow XP race that is only lessened by Draco and / or affinity boosters, while stomaching the redundant modding system and it's mandatory damage mods and meta element combos.

While your proposal incentivizes players to grind and chug along it doesn't alleviate any of it. It just gives us one more wall to hurdle, another step in the gear power creep. It's not radical, it's more of the same, unfortunately.

I understand your points, but at the same time, you brought up an entire plethora of problems. This isn't meant to change the mastery system, just give it a purpose( incentive) once there is a reason to rank up, then we could shift focus to make it engaging wouldn't you agree?

And with all due respect, a handful of those problems are completely independent of the mastery system.

[Eyeless]

I understand your points, but at the same time, you brought up an entire plethora of problems. This isn't meant to change the mastery system, just give it a purpose( incentive) once there is a reason to rank up, then we could shift focus to make it engaging wouldn't you agree?

And with all due respect, a handful of those problems are completely independent of the mastery system.

 

You make a fair point in turn with that reply, and so I understand what you're getting at. What exactly would these umbra weapons entail that set them apart from the usual stuff though? More polarities? Syndicate esque-procs? 

 

That's fair, I did go a little off-kilter with dragging forma into your own thread, but it was only because I view it all as part of the same boat. Take weapons, level them, relevel them to make them powerful if you do (or don't) like them, all while waiting for the next best thing. It's easy to get me rambling on that lately, so I apologize! 

[Wolfssenger]

You make a fair point in turn with that reply, and so I understand what you're getting at. What exactly would these umbra weapons entail that set them apart from the usual stuff though? More polarities? Syndicate esque-procs?

That's fair, I did go a little off-kilter with dragging forma into your own thread, but it was only because I view it all as part of the same boat. Take weapons, level them, relevel them to make them powerful if you do (or don't) like them, all while waiting for the next best thing. It's easy to get me rambling on that lately, so I apologize!

They could be akin to prime weapons(since prime weapons are exclusively tenno origin weapons)

They could use it to bring weapons that didn't hit the mark into the viable or god tier, the hind, vulkar, lecta, and tetra all come to mind. It could also introduce new weapons of that tier.

The goal overall is: award people that work towards mastery more viable playstyles/weapon variety.

[Wolfssenger]

Yes I beleive that this would be terrible idea to restrict bosses but on the other hand that would mean something. like if someone had a nova that would mean he or she was pretty high on the MR list. Because they would need to be a high enough mastery to get there. Also I like the way the current mastery is working however I do belive we should have a few more weapons locked primarily primes and some of the more tanky weapons of the game. And skins that would work out I believe to be very good so that some one with a certain skin would get to say hey I am a mastery rank whatever and show off their cool looks.

Idk just my oppinon

Dreman

Yeah, I edited that out after some thought.

[Rorgal_Sina]

We shouldn't be wanting to rank up.

 

WE SHOULD BE RANKING UP ALONG THE WAY OF OUR JOURNEY.

 

THERE IS NO JOURNEY.

[Wolfssenger]

We shouldn't be wanting to rank up.

 

WE SHOULD BE RANKING UP ALONG THE WAY OF OUR JOURNEY.

 

THERE IS NO JOURNEY.

I can't be sure what you mean by this.

[(PSN)inuyasha279]

Extra trades and more standing is all the incentive I need.