"wait X Days For Your New Toy" Is Going To Cost You Players

[Blyr]

The system that requires you to wait so many days to finish a frame, or so many days (mandatory, unrushable) dojo research -- it's costing you players. It doesn't encourage people to spend time playing the game, or longevity; it encourages the mindset of "build your frame for 3 days, and go play another game until it's done".

 

That's the entire problem in itself. For someone who has no slots, and no interest in any other frames (or that has all of the frames), they're going to sit around the first day, grow bored waiting for their new toy, and find something else to play until the frame, weapon, or research finishes.. except, they may not come back at all. They'd go play another game and forget about warframe, because who wants to wait a week at a time to be able to play the game?

 

It's the same issue a lot of games had with "stamina", where you couldn't play the game after X amount of time. It was to prevent bots farming.. but a lot of players just stopped playing. I understand that plat rushing gives people an incentive to buy plat and keep the game going, but several days is ridiculous. I also understand the dojo content wasn't meant to be rushed and access so quickly -- the delay is understandable.. but you have players like myself, who have exhausted the void content, with nothing left to do but wait the several days at a time for the lab research to finish. I've gone back to playing other games, and now other MMO's, just to kill time while I wait. This is a bad thing, because unlike other players, or even newer players, I have an investment in the game; they don't.

 

You are essentially *encouraging* people to not play the game, along with the alert system, which  is a very bad thing.

 

Suggestion:

In game goals/achievements, with tangible rewards. "Kill 10,000 grineer" "Get 5,000 headshots", etc. which leads into a second suggestion (which would also make you exorbitant amounts of money):

 

Cosmetics.

 

People like to stand out, and be unique. They like to customize their avatar. They like status items. Give them a long term goal with a cosmetic reward: It won't imbalance the game, and it gives your players something to do while waiting inbetween several days for building/researching items (at the least).

 

Hats for frames (not alternate helmets), unique skins that apply to all primary rifles, with another goal having unique skins that apply to all primary shotguns, or primary bows; something goofy like an ice cream cone for rifles, and a popsicle for shotguns. Goofy things, cool things, just something that people would genuinely want to work towards.

 

(This is also an idea that will make you exorbitant amounts of money, if you decide to sell cosmetics as well.. just not the achievement ones, as that'd defeat the purpose of the achievements and long term goals.)

 

I know people are going to say "NO MORE GRINDING GAWD" but guess what? That's all there is to do in a game like this. Grinding is the core of PVE games. Hardcore PVE players are burning through the content so fast, because there's so little grind to the game, that it's sad. You add massive grind? You give players like myself something to actually do that we can't burn through in a week, that doesn't require "sit on your hands and start at a countdown time for 60 days".

 

I fully acknowledge that this game is in beta, and that things are going to change: that's why I'm posting feedback with a suggestion to help DE out.

[alchemistjkt]

if the act of building a frame or wep makes you want to quit playing this game... good riddance.

that said, having larger goals than what we have now would be a nice addition to the game, and it would increase the longevity of warframe.

[Zakalwe]

Goofy things

 

something goofy like an ice cream cone for rifles, and a popsicle for shotguns

 

Hats for frames

 

Some of the worst ideas I've read for WF so far.

[tatcher]

I agree. + 1

[Xoxile]

Sounds pretty legit but...

"Goofy" stuff like ice cream cone guns don't fit in the Warframe universe. Sure there were the bunny ears during Easter, but that wasn't just off the wall ridiculous.

Also the thing I've been hearing a lot is if it's buyable in the market then it's not worth farming for, but everything in the market is over priced. This is kinda starting to annoy me. Don't know how that would flow for these kind of people.

[Feldgrep]

We're space ninjas. Why are there ice cream hats mentioned? No skins at all. Maybe another couple of sets of color pallets that are unlocked only by achievement?

[Sirabot]

Giving everyone everything gives no future incentive to play. So your entire post is moot due to the redundancy of said issue. That should have been common sense. And the new items might as well be cosmetic items as I doubt they'll be any "better" than any of the weapons currently available. Forgive me for being direct but this whole post just sounds like a whine in that you personally and perhaps a few people you know are impatient and want the dojo weapons "Now now now".

 

And cosmetic items will come in time, it's been said, over and over again by DE.

[Story4]

I want a throwable banana for a glaive skin. Take that Regor!

[SoulEchelon]

I have no real qualms with waiting for certain things to be finished crafting. Having the option to play something else until it's finished is strictly up to the player. It's not going to hurt their business - infact, removing the wait WILL do exactly that. How?

 

1. People will fly through most weapons and frames even faster than they are now.

2. Removing the wait also removes one of the ways DE makes money - Rushing equipment.

 

Problem is, people are simply impatient. Instant Gratification reigns supreme in this generation of gamers sadly. But as for me, I'm quite happy and fine waiting for something to finish....

 

Though I will add, that the later R&D weapons will tally up to a ton of time needed to craft them. Their components themselves need to be crafted, and since you can't craft multiples of one component, that's upwards to 10 consecutive 12 hour crafts and then one 24 hour craft. 6 days for a weapon? Miiight be too much...

Edited June 2, 2013 by SoulEchelon

[Blyr]

I wonder how many people just read the title and replied to that >.>

 

I'm not saying to remove the wait from the game. I'm saying tone it down (the dojo wait time is honestly ridiculous. I understand the reasoning for it, but still) and give us a true long term goal that we can achieve while the 5 day research - 1 day part craft - 3 day weapon craft cycle is going on. This is to help player retention, not give everyone everything on a silver platter.

 

Also, joke weapons are very popular. Giant eggs and bunny ears don't fit the universe either, they're there for laughs; it was just an idea off the top of my head, not something I'd kill to see implemented.

[alchemistjkt]

I'm not saying to remove the wait from the game. I'm saying tone it down (the dojo wait time is honestly ridiculous. I understand the reasoning for it, but still) and give us a true long term goal that we can achieve while the 5 day research - 1 day part craft - 3 day weapon craft cycle is going on. This is to help player retention, not give everyone everything on a silver platter.

if during the building of these day(s) long builds you choose to stop playing because the build time is just too damn high (oh memes... where would we be without you)... too bad, ill see ya around bro.

[Sibris]

Heh, and as usual the peons don't read the entirety of a post and only cherry pick certain parts to suit them.

 

I don't see anywhere in this entire post where Blyr is asking to remove wait times, asking for instant gratification. Which by the way, most of you don't even know the meaning of, you're just regurgitating a phrase you heard DE Steve say. He's suggesting more grind content be added as something to do while waiting on builds.

 

As for the hats and stuff, even I can see that it was an *example* Things like custom Frame or Weapon skins would go down very nice.

 

I know for one, I would love to have a secondary goal while waiting for builds. such as Kill 10k Grineer for X reward. Something akin to Borderlands 2 Badass challenges would be really good. But instead of tokens for stats gained, it would be as mentioned, a new skin or even something like a longer looking barrel or a new scope to add a little flare to a weapons look.

 

 

Don't worry too much about the flack you're getting for this post, Blyr. Some people are just incapable of comprehension. 

[Blyr]

if during the building of these day(s) long builds you choose to stop playing because the build time is just too damn high (oh memes... where would we be without you)... too bad, ill see ya around bro.

"Hm, 3 days to research the dojo. I literally have nothing else to do, but wait for the dojo. Think I'll go play Path of Exile." I then get hooked into path of exile, and forget about warframe. 

 

I don't know how to make it any simpler than I already have: encouraging people to not play your game is bad, mmkay

 

I didn't say I was leaving. I'm giving DE feedback, because they are losing players (this is not a "if" scenario, this is actually happening, this very minute) due to people realizing the current system encourages them to not play the game and so they play other games instead. They then put more time and invest into other games than warframe and don't come back.

[Deathwing980]

Haven't stopped playing warframe and i have all the frames so far short of the Frost Prime... Have not purchased them with Platnum, so 3 days Plus 12 hours per build of the parts... Have yet to leave warframes game becuase its fun to play with friends.

don't know where your friends are, but mine are still playing and so long as two or three of us are playing together, warframe will still be played.

[vieuxchat]

"Hm, 3 days to research the dojo. I literally have nothing else to do, but wait for the dojo. Think I'll go play Path of Exile." I then get hooked into path of exile, and forget about warframe. 

 

I don't know how to make it any simpler than I already have: encouraging people to not play your game is bad, mmkay

 

I didn't say I was leaving. I'm giving DE feedback, because they are losing players (this is not a "if" scenario, this is actually happening, this very minute) due to people realizing the current system encourages them to not play the game and so they play other games instead. They then put more time and invest into other games than warframe and don't come back.

Why don't you play the game while you research something ?

Gather mats for your next research, get some BP for your clanmates (as one day we'll be able to trade them), get more credits to buy more weapons (after all they get the snipetron out of the market, so you don't know if all the weapons will stay there forever. I buy every BP I can from th emarket, just in case)

Get rare mats for forma and potatoes.

Find new players and help them. For me, that last one is the most entertaining in fact.

[dragonslayer146]

"Hm, 3 days to research the dojo. I literally have nothing else to do, but wait for the dojo. Think I'll go play Path of Exile." I then get hooked into path of exile, and forget about warframe. 

 

I don't know how to make it any simpler than I already have: encouraging people to not play your game is bad, mmkay

 

I didn't say I was leaving. I'm giving DE feedback, because they are losing players (this is not a "if" scenario, this is actually happening, this very minute) due to people realizing the current system encourages them to not play the game and so they play other games instead. They then put more time and invest into other games than warframe and don't come back.

I see your point in this post and I'm not gonna criticize what you think about this game, everyone is entitled to their opinion.  I actually like the system that DE has in place.  It allows me to go and do other things in the game while I wait for a frame or weapon or research to complete.  I usually practice stealth runs (which I still cannot do extremely well), farm for resources, level weapons and frames that I plan to use in the future, do alerts, etc.  I never get bored with the game.  That's just me though.

[Sibris]

Why don't you play the game while you research something ?

Gather mats for your next research, get some BP for your clanmates (as one day we'll be able to trade them), get more credits to buy more weapons (after all they get the snipetron out of the market, so you don't know if all the weapons will stay there forever. I buy every BP I can from th emarket, just in case)

Get rare mats for forma and potatoes.

Find new players and help them. For me, that last one is the most entertaining in fact.

 

Because all this has been done.

 

I'm in the same clan, and I can say this. 90% of our time is spent helping new players and clan members because everything else has been done (done TWICE in my case since I reset) There is little else left in the way of self progression now.

 

This is the whole point of Blyrs post. Adding content that you can work at when you literally have nothing left to do. Yes, running with friends, and helping clan members is a good thing, but when it comes down to it, people need personal goals, Something to do when not helping others, which is what the current end game is at the moment.

 

EDIT* Had my comment merged with your quote. Doh.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Sibris

[Blyr]

Haven't stopped playing warframe and i have all the frames so far short of the Frost Prime... Have not purchased them with Platnum, so 3 days Plus 12 hours per build of the parts... Have yet to leave warframes game becuase its fun to play with friends.

don't know where your friends are, but mine are still playing and so long as two or three of us are playing together, warframe will still be played.

Clan research takes 3 days minimum for the first item in the tech tree. You need multiple of that item, plus 3 days minimum to research the next weapon. It takes 6 days of research to get the first weapon in the corpus tech tree, and 9 days to get the first gun.  (3d fieldron. 3d prova. 3d supra)

 

The Supra requires 10 fieldron. 12h per fieldron. So, 2 per day if you're ontop of things. 10/2 = 5 days (minimum) for the supra. The supra itself requires 24h to build. (1d). Total time to build the supra: 15 days. Half a month to build 1 gun.

 

Why don't you play the game while you research something ?

Gather mats for your next research, get some BP for your clanmates (as one day we'll be able to trade them), get more credits to buy more weapons (after all they get the snipetron out of the market, so you don't know if all the weapons will stay there forever. I buy every BP I can from th emarket, just in case)

Get rare mats for forma and potatoes.

Find new players and help them. For me, that last one is the most entertaining in fact.

I already have max mats for all the research; I have over 1 million credits and almost every weapon in the game. I also have enough mats to make every forma bp I have, and I don't have a use for any additional potatos. Literally, there is nothing to do in the game for me, other than wait. My suggestion is to give us something to do. Give players who have it all and who have done it all, something to do. That's what I'm asking for.

[vieuxchat]

So, in fact your problem isn't the waiting but the lack of new things to do.

I can't imagine how many hours you've sink into the game : I'm at nearly 300 hours and still missing some frames and weapons, barely starting to help new players.

I think you need some kind of player-chosen challenge added to the game. Maybe you'll have a lot of things to do whith the next big things to come : player-created content.

 

Remember you said that in the forst post : "The system that requires you to wait so many days to finish a frame, or so many days (mandatory, unrushable) dojo research -- it's costing you players". So I think we were discussing the fact you have to wait while researching.

Edited June 2, 2013 by vieuxchat

[Blyr]

 

So, in fact your problem isn't the waiting but the lack of new things to do.

I can't imagine how many hours you've sink into the game : I'm at nearly 300 hours and still missing some frames and weapons, barely starting to help new players.

I think you need some kind of player-chosen challenge added to the game. Maybe you'll have a lot of things to do whith the next big things to come : player-created content.

 

Remember you said that in the forst post : "The system that requires you to wait so many days to finish a frame, or so many days (mandatory, unrushable) dojo research -- it's costing you players". So I think we were discussing the fact you have to wait while researching.

It *is* the waiting, because I'm waiting for new guns to play with.. the "things to do" = the new guns and new content they released.. which I can't access, without waiting an exorbitant amount of time, lol

 

That was the entirety of my suggestion, though. Give players something to do.

 

Suggestion:

In game goals/achievements, with tangible rewards. "Kill 10,000 grineer" "Get 5,000 headshots", etc. which leads into a second suggestion (which would also make you exorbitant amounts of money):

Edited June 2, 2013 by Blyr

[Lumdalumlum]

Dude. Somethings aren't suppose to be fast. For my case, i always have weapons that aren't max rank. So while making another new weapon. I always have another weapon for me to try and grind to max rank. So the waiting is ok to me. Well it makes it 'exciting' 

[Xoxile]

Dude. Somethings aren't suppose to be fast. For my case, i always have weapons that aren't max rank. So while making another new weapon. I always have another weapon for me to try and grind to max rank. So the waiting is ok to me. Well it makes it 'exciting'

You bring up a good point actually. Even for the people that have maxed everything they did put in polarization as a time sink.

[Hauteclere]

Heh, and as usual the peons don't read the entirety of a post and only cherry pick certain parts to suit them.

 

I don't see anywhere in this entire post where Blyr is asking to remove wait times, asking for instant gratification. Which by the way, most of you don't even know the meaning of, you're just regurgitating a phrase you heard DE Steve say. He's suggesting more grind content be added as something to do while waiting on builds.

 

As for the hats and stuff, even I can see that it was an *example* Things like custom Frame or Weapon skins would go down very nice.

 

I know for one, I would love to have a secondary goal while waiting for builds. such as Kill 10k Grineer for X reward. Something akin to Borderlands 2 Badass challenges would be really good. But instead of tokens for stats gained, it would be as mentioned, a new skin or even something like a longer looking barrel or a new scope to add a little flare to a weapons look.

 

 

Don't worry too much about the flack you're getting for this post, Blyr. Some people are just incapable of comprehension. 

 

So I was reading this post with growing interest, and wanted to see what the other players were saying. The reason this post is quoted is because it actually almost made me physically feel better.

 

I will be off topic for only a couple more lines:

People, please READ things before you reply to them.  You will seem a lot more intelligent and worth listening to if you actually read what is put in front of you. 

 

I started feeling really annoyed for the OP about this until Sibris posted. People were missing the point for all the crap they didn't read, twisted around, and scanned over. 

 

This is a good idea. I support it. 

 

I don't mind waiting days for something to be finished being built either, but I do like the idea of having more variety to what I can do while I'm waiting even if I've done everything twice. More variety means more replay value, people. This is essentially what this idea being considered would open the door to. 

 

REPLAY VALUE NOT 'INSTANT GRATIFICATION'.

 

Maybe he didn't say so in a way that'd apparently allow the average person (which terrifies me frankly.) to notice, but its not like he convoluted his meaning to the point where it's not there.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Hauteclere

[Dako_Shark]

Heh, and as usual the peons don't read the entirety of a post and only cherry pick certain parts to suit them.

I don't see anywhere in this entire post where Blyr is asking to remove wait times, asking for instant gratification. Which by the way, most of you don't even know the meaning of, you're just regurgitating a phrase you heard DE Steve say. He's suggesting more grind content be added as something to do while waiting on builds.

As for the hats and stuff, even I can see that it was an *example* Things like custom Frame or Weapon skins would go down very nice.

I know for one, I would love to have a secondary goal while waiting for builds. such as Kill 10k Grineer for X reward. Something akin to Borderlands 2 Badass challenges would be really good. But instead of tokens for stats gained, it would be as mentioned, a new skin or even something like a longer looking barrel or a new scope to add a little flare to a weapons look.

Don't worry too much about the flack you're getting for this post, Blyr. Some people are just incapable of comprehension.

It's also partly because of how it was worded. The whole first three paragraphs of Blyr's post don't even hint at anything about the grinding. There is a very subtle, I stress 'very', subtle hinting at that he wants more things to do while he waits. This is the internet, most people don't know about reading between the lines. It doesn't actually state anywhere in the first half of the post that he was talking about adding more grinding until the end, and even then it's worded in such that it doesn't sound like a suggestion and more like whining. No offense to you Blyr.

So it's not so much people aren't reading, that IS part of the reason, but it's also that Blyr could have worded it a bit better. Also the title isn't helping.

=====

As for the main post. Just, no, to hats. I don't care if they're being just used as an example or not but, no. This isn't TF2 and no one wants it to turn into it. I do agree that there should be more helmet designs and skins but those will come in due time.

I do like the achievement stuff, it'd give people something to aim for. Some skins or small things would be pretty awesome to unlock doing that, maybe a slightly grineer styled helm or skin for killing 50,000 grineer. It's a long term goal but it'd give you something to aim for.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Dako_Shark

[alchemistjkt]

im all for new things to the game, new goals, new customization options (new helm, looks, other, etc), so dont assume in against anything like that. but...

the way i see it, ive got just shy of 230h ingame atm, got every frame save for frost prime (need helm >.<) and every wep save for the clan tech weapons (made them all via foundry). as far as i know the clan tech weps are suppose to be late-end game content, as such they should take time, and while the current "time for the sake of time" system is a little derp, its what we have to work with atm and i dont think DE will change anytime soon. now we get to the real root of the problem... my time as opposed to yours and how money plays into it.

ive got every wep and frame at 30 (well... you know), so all i have left in warframe is to wait for clan tech to get done (almost done with grineer and infested tech, little bit left on corpus).... right? maybe, and maybe not. probably the biggest hook to keep people in the game is to have a group of friends who like/want to play together... if you dont have that, well, there is your first problem.

another issue is that warframe really does not have all that much content atm. lets be honest, grind is all there is... simple as that. weapon lvl grind, frame lvl grind, mod framing, there is nothing else to keep you here. but perhaps thats only just another small part of the overall issue here. if you can not just play the game for the fun of shooting/slashing enemies into little bits and pieces, then perhaps it is best you go do something else while this game evolves a bit. lets not forget that it is still beta...

but i digress... lets get back to the main topic that i see here... time/money.

with my time in warframe, ive hit mastery rank 9 (almost 10 lol), so there is not much more i can do there, all i have left is clan stuff... but lets look at a newbie... like, a fresh newbie, never played warframe before.

newbie comes in and sees a load of weps, multiple planets with multiple missions, clans all over the place (spammin chat... hate the damn spam) dozen or so frames and just an in general fun game to play. so, this newbie does a couple of missions and either..

a. stays with the game a bit, and learns what its really about

b. leaves the game because he cant figure out how to jump (tutorial, but thats another topic)

if the newbie stays, he will likely join a clan soon after starting and start working on some of the clan tech stuff right off the bat. from there he either goes hardcore with the game, or takes a more casual play style.

the more hardcore players (myself included) run into the "build time 50000h" problem more than a casual player simply because we run through content as fast as we can... but again, with the lack of content, there is not much that can be done atm. as such, the more "well played" members of the community tend to burn out... and either quit playing ro go do other things and come back from time to time.

casual players will not have as many issues with build time as they will the mats to make things, and that plays into the instant gratification a bit, due to them wanting to have "this awesome thing" but not spend the time to get it... and boom, plat gets used.

truth of the matter is this... newbies/casual player coming to the game are more worthwhile to DE than older/hardcore players. new people = new income, new people willing to shell out a couple bucks as opposed to the jaded 150+h players that dont want to spend more/any money on a game with so many bugs and so little content. might be a bit cruel to say it like that, but thats the bottom line.

they want to keep newbies here, but more importantly they want the newbies money... and the current system is made in such a way to keep newbies here and keep em spending money to try new things, or get slots or even frames. the "time for the sake of time" system (that i hate btw) is there just to &!$$ in the eye of everyone that hates to wait (instant gratification crowd), and make them want to speed things up with plat... and that in turn means them spending more money.

will DE change a system that works well at getting them money? doubtful... very very doubtful. but thats not to say that DE is heartless and only after money... though that is closer to the truth than many people would be willing to admit. perhaps they can be convinced to lower the build time on some things (feildron for example, they really need to lower the time on that), but im sure most build times (frames for the most part) will stay the same, its artificial game extension, but its really the only option open to them until they add boat loads of more content.

tl;dr

DE likes money

the current system makes DE good money

newbies = more money

older players = less money

current system is a newbie hook, not so much a hardcore player hook

new goals = good

removing the wait = no, not gonna happen

altering the wait times = maybe, but i really dont see much point past some of the new mats getting a drop in time

hats = fire, please stand in some

im not a peon...i prefer "mildly annoying gamer with a pension for pissing on peoples parades".

Edited June 2, 2013 by alchemistjkt