Retaking Origin - A Suggestion For A Perpetual Endgame

[Tyroki]

Awesome idea :O

[Phaenur]

How would you balance the counter so it still doesn't end as "farming for farming's sake", when the only opposing thing is a gradually decay rate? Territorial end game is good in PvP but when you only have PvE. Particularly because in PvP, the battles are unpredictable, like a few opposing guilds can join forces to plan a stealth raid and regain a territory. Those unpredictable factors are some of the main thrills that makes territorial game feature so exciting. With a simple counter, it would just like, "ok, after this mission, I'll be contributing 0.2% to the progression rate, so we can capture this planet to get new weapons".

 

I'll address this point, because I think your dojo idea stands on its own (and makes room for even more interesting gameplay - sure, they're hidden now but when the reinforcements surge in they might not stay that way).

 

I hadn't really thought this part through in my original post, so thanks for bringing it up.  I think this is where DiabolusUrsus's idea really shines.  If the alerts are given precedence over normal missions when it comes to actually taking over a planetoid, then this problem is less central.  Expanding on this, I'd even suggest a Tenno influence penalty (assuming my system as described in the OP) if too few of the online players carry out the alert.  This has multiple benefits - one, it gives alert missions high priority and encourages everyone to participate; two, it makes expanding your territory access much more important than just grinding because the penalty doesn't care if you're in another mission or can't reach the target yet when it calculates the players online; three, it encourages team play in alerts because you never know when another might pop up mid-mission and having a team makes things go much faster; and four, it fits the concept of the alert as a high-priority objective that could seriously alter the battle.

 

On top of that, I'd actually like to resurrect Diabolus's idea of locking down access to nodes.  It might be tricky to program, but it would essentially be a Defense alert mission, starting from the boss's location and working backwards.  The success condition here would be some number of waves completed between the entire community over a long-duration alert - note that you can seriously improve your standing in a sector by clearing this objective, but you also stand to lose not just regular mission access but also space for alerts (and remember, the only thing that matters for failing alert missions is not having enough people online succeed, regardless of whether they can get there), and losing several consecutive defense missions in contested space would really hurt.  Thus, incentive for people to participate, to explore, to cooperate, and to coordinate.

 

That said, I could really see this being "un-fun."  Penalties of any sort usually are.  There would need to be at least some sort of forewarning, or maybe an Operation-style popup that could be seen even by players who couldn't get the alert, that would incentivize players to push for the objective and join in.  Heck, when the fMOA event occurred my friends and I hadn't even reached Europa, but we linked up and blitzed into it despite being underlevelled just to help out (and not because we knew about the reward).  The point is, we've seen that sort of global alert work before, and it definitely motivates people - especially when there's loot involved.

[Caliocerion]

Pretty good, would be better if it was in 13 font double spaced.

[DiabolusUrsus]

It's nice to see that my idea of territory loss wasn't all that off the wall after all. I hadn't thought about tying that in to actual defense alerts, though, and I have to say that such a refinement does make it that much more appealing. In terms of introducing a popup notification for when objectives like that appear, why not use Lotus? She's supposed to be the one providing intel to the people in missions, and I can't see it being all that difficult to let her pipe in on the UI, considering the system bosses already do that. When the Alert appears, have her contact all players online and all players that log in during the Alert duration with a simple call to arms.

[Hauteclere]

Wow.

 

50 reps, 393 views...

 

I think it could use more. 

 

Bump~.

[wgrant]

+1 everyone should read this.

It addresses both DE's problem of endgame content and players tearing through new content. It's endgame that's auto-refreshing.

[matrixEXO]

I like this design. Reminded me of some other game that had this sort of system but in a different functional design all-together. I would love to see this in-game since it not only makes boss fights much more influential to the game but also all parts of the sector being a viable go-to place for anything from helping people boost the Tenno's influence in the sector to completely removing points off enemy influence.

[Pyromite]

This idea is a must

[Lumireaver]

Having Lotus chime in to report on the status of the system war during regular missions would be pretty sweet. I could imagine her saying something along the lines of, "An emergency just cropped up. The Corpus have secured a Rubedo cache on Sedna. Tenno, when you're done here, see to it that they can't bring it home." 

[MaNs1nH0]

DE what are you waiting for? THIS IS IT!

[Mr.Kaeron]

Brilliant + 1

 

[MusicGamer]

...Okay, with suggestions like this, you should be working for DE by now.  :D This is brilliant!  

 

+1

[Cytobel]

An amazing thought.  +1'd. 

 

BTW, didn't wade through ALL of these replies yet but I think Rescue Alert missions might be a decent path to acquire schematics for Warframe and components.  Not very fond of the bullet-catchers as is, and I'd like to see either better AI or a reward appropriate to the annoyance.  Perhaps a rescue / artifact recovery model.

 

I'd send you a Clan invite for this, but 1) I'm sure you already have one, and 2) I don't know what side of the world you're on, thus making coordinated runs slightly more difficult.

If no to my first point, contact me about joining Primoris Vir.  We'd love to have you, and I wouldn't mind a few of your friends being brought along as well.  As to the second point, I don't care about sleep scheduals.  I don't have a sleep schedual, so I'm usually up whenever.

 

Also, we're a small clan.  We don't usually recruit outside of RL friends either, but I'm prepared to make the occasional exception.

 

Edit:  I'd like your thoughts on https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/59842-small-unit-tactics-an-answer-to-higher-difficulty/#entry623869

If you have the time.

Edited June 8, 2013 by Cytobel

[Xan-Diesel]

That said, I could really see this being "un-fun."  Penalties of any sort usually are.

99.9% of the time I'd agree with you, here. Before they stopped developing (and updating/contributing/running events, etc) Mass Effect 3's multi-player, they had a couple really cool things going on. One of them was a penalty for failing a weekend global event. It was usually straight forward. I can't think of an exact example, but it was something like "Over the course of the event, escort 10,000 drones to their objectives". If we failed, the next week any time you ran into a drone escort it would take 50% longer to accomplish. Something like that was pretty cool because it was a direct, traceable repercussion that added a slight challenge without being a face-palm extinction event. Maybe Digital Extremes could make it work, too.

[Phaenur]

Having Lotus chime in to report on the status of the system war during regular missions would be pretty sweet. I could imagine her saying something along the lines of, "An emergency just cropped up. The Corpus have secured a Rubedo cache on Sedna. Tenno, when you're done here, see to it that they can't bring it home." 

 

People keep saying DE should hire me.  Meanwhile, I think they've found their new screenwriter right here.

 

Unfortunately, that brings up the Issue of the Day here - rushing.  I'm going to kind-of-sort-of derail my own thread with this, but I hope it'll work out in the end.  Now, hearing this sort of alarm puts time pressure on the player.  There are many other upsides to it, from more variety in Lotus chatter to simple "Oh wait, there's an alert now?" communication, but even though alerts last from half an hour up to a full day players are going to almost immediately break for the exits of whatever mission they're already in.  As the game stands right now, this wonderful idea for mid-mission heads-ups will promote the same sort of behavior that today's slide-jump change indicates DE wants to eradicate.  So I'll propose, like many others here, that we instead offer greater incentives for staying in the mission - exploration bonuses, more lockers with more resource rewards, maybe hidden rooms or rare-drop blueprints - anything, really.  The point here is to make it actually interesting when players hear the alerts go out, especially early in a mission.  Stick around and hunt for resources, or blitz the place and hope to make it up through the alert itself and the sector conquest rewards down the line.  I for one would be very interested in seeing what sort of player behavior emerges from this sort of dilemma.

[Falseangel17]

I think missions should offer different rewards than just credits. For completing missions you could get a certain bp, or a chance at a void key. Better yet, some missions grantee that you will get a certain resource as a reward for completion. Or if no drops or bps, at least give us something to use our credits on, so that way we can use them instead of just letting them go to waste. Im pretty sure I have at least 1.5 million of them just collecting dust right now.

[BoompigXD]

*Reads the Great Wall of Texta*

 

*Upvotes because this is an awesome idea*

[Psychotoxin]

WHY CAN`T I BUMP MORE THAN ONCE?!?!?!

this is an awesome idea. Phaenur - you are a new god! and may the RNG Gods give us a lucky roll, so that DE sees this, and puts it in game without hesitation...

[Cytobel]

People keep saying DE should hire me.  Meanwhile, I think they've found their new screenwriter right here.

 

Unfortunately, that brings up the Issue of the Day here - rushing.  I'm going to kind-of-sort-of derail my own thread with this, but I hope it'll work out in the end.  Now, hearing this sort of alarm puts time pressure on the player.  There are many other upsides to it, from more variety in Lotus chatter to simple "Oh wait, there's an alert now?" communication, but even though alerts last from half an hour up to a full day players are going to almost immediately break for the exits of whatever mission they're already in.  As the game stands right now, this wonderful idea for mid-mission heads-ups will promote the same sort of behavior that today's slide-jump change indicates DE wants to eradicate.  So I'll propose, like many others here, that we instead offer greater incentives for staying in the mission - exploration bonuses, more lockers with more resource rewards, maybe hidden rooms or rare-drop blueprints - anything, really.  The point here is to make it actually interesting when players hear the alerts go out, especially early in a mission.  Stick around and hunt for resources, or blitz the place and hope to make it up through the alert itself and the sector conquest rewards down the line.  I for one would be very interested in seeing what sort of player behavior emerges from this sort of dilemma.

I've said it before in vent with friends: loot rooms need loot.  Mods, bp's, and materials are an excellent incentive to wander through a mission area looking in each nook and cranny.  I haven't been as thorough at searching an area as I have been in Tower once I realized mods drop from containers.

[tkemptonx]

I greatly like this idea. With some tweeks and such I could see this going a long way to improve a portion of gameplay. This needs to be looked at by DE.

[Khaell]

When i was born, that's what i dreamed for!

Edited June 9, 2013 by Khaell

[DiabolusUrsus]

Looks as though improvements are developing nicely for an already excellent idea. The next time DE holds a Q&A session, we should all ask them if they have seen this thread, and if they haven't, why they aren't reading it as soon as possible. I keep hoping to see a dev drop a little comment here to show that they've seen it.

Addressing the earlier mention of rushers... yes, it'd be nice to see a larger portion of the player base shift towards exploration, completionism and simply adopting a pace that is friendlier to newer players (I can't tell you how many times I got left completely behind by groups of decked out warframes when I was just starting out... it's not fun to be surrounded and focus-fired because your team isn't there.) but slide-jump exploit aside, a few more measures need to be taken. Why? Because a large portion of progress in this game is centered around grinding. You want credits? Grind. You want a new weapon or dojo room? Grind. You want a new Warframe? Grind. Making it so that I'm less likely to tell my friends "Just health and creds..." when I open a locker is a good first step, but people who are looking for something specific are going to continue to rush missions. Why? Because rushing makes grinding more efficient.
 

What I'm getting at is that no matter what you do to try to coerce people into cooperating, you'll still get this.

The people who will rush, will rush. If you introduce rushing penalties, or incentives for not rushing, you'll get people who move arduously slow with relation to how quickly everyone else wants to move. (Note that there is a difference between not being able to keep up and refusing to do so.) People, being the devious little blighters that they are, will even probably develop exploits centered around rushing penalties. The best way to eradicate rushing detracting from game experience is simply to make it easier for people who want to move quickly to group up with people who want to take things a bit more slowly. The system as it stands now is if you want to go at your own pace, find a group of friends to party with. I'm at a loss for suggesting an effective new system, but I'm sure somebody can think of something.

To sum things up and bring them back on topic: Don't worry too much about solving the rushing problem that may or may not be exacerbated by implementing Phaenur's endgame system through alerts of which the player community are actively notified. Just get working on implementing the system as is, and don't waste time trying to herd players into a "preferable" mindset when they approach the game.

[Hipolipolopigus]

Applaud.gif

[Dieson]

inspired by what has been said so far in this thread and specifically by DiabolusUrsus...

DiabolusUrsus, on 03 Jun 2013 - 12:06 AM, said:

Ideally, implementing the OP's brilliant system for an end-game will allow the existing planetary system missions to be modified to feel more like territory expansion (less of the copy-pastaed objectives, and a more unique setup for each mission) with a persistent focus on working your way up to a confrontation with the system boss. As it is now, the boss throws you a few taunts as you work your way closer to the final arena, but it would be great to see the mission progression give the impression that the boss is actively working against you.

I was thinking of something i'm calling sub sector mission hubs, the way I initially see them would be something similar to the "systems" as we have them now but instead of encompassing an entire planet/moon it would be a specific area on a planet surface / Asteroid facility / Large scale carrier sized millitary craft or civilian mass transport vessels.

Such sub sectors would be opened up for a limited time through maybe Alerts! or perhaps as a follow up to having beaten a system boss, offering missions specific to whatever enviroment is present.

Planet Surface could be any of the currently available missions, maybe even combining some mission types.

Asteroid facilities could focus more on Raid, Sabotage, Assassination, Spying

Ship based missions could be Rescue, Assassination, Capture and Extermination.

Also instead of having the solar system as our mission selection map we would have a zoomed in detailed view of the planetary surface / Asteroid facility / Ship model with appropriate location placed mission select icons.

Just a thought :)

 

Edited June 10, 2013 by Dieson

[Dieson]

Had yet another thought.
(amazing how that works eh? ^_^)

Instead of killing the system boss to open up for the sub sector, turn it the other way around and make what is now the system boss mission in to the key mission that opens the sector.

Once in the sector you then have to complete some location / lore / boss relevant missions, some being optional, others mandatory, the sectors would be open for only a "small" window of time, somewhat akin to the current Alert system, except they would be open for hours instead of minutes, again depending on how many optional and/or mandatory missions there are to complete before you can access the boss fight.

Failing the boss fight would mean a negative impact on the Tenno standing / reputation / readiness / influence level in that particular system and would shut down sub sector access for a time after which players will again gain access to the Sector Key Mission to attempt reopening the sub sector, failing this would reset the lock out timer.

While in the sub sector, completing the Optional missions could give random buffs or have a random effect on the final boss mission, for instance, reduced number of opponents before the actual boss fight, a enviromental hazard that affects npcs and players but the boss more so than the players, giving them a slight advantage during the fight.

Buffs could be something along the line of increased HP or Shields, perhaps an mission only innate HP or Energy regen that stacks with whichever artifact you or your team might bring along, maybe even boosted shields that slowly regenerate even while fired upon.

Ignoring the optional missions would have no effect on the boss mission, but failing them would mean that the boss and the regular npcs in the boss mission would get buffs instead of the players, making it harder to complete the mission. The optional missions are also one attempt only, meaning failing or quitting them locks them away untill the next time the sub sector becomes available.

This will ofc require more advanced behavior and fight mechanics for the buffs to actually matter unlike the current system where most bosses are mostly just tougher versions of regular enemy npcs.