Nightmare 2.0

[Magnus]

You can find my other work here.

Nightmare as it is now (or was, since it's currently removed) is not very good. The only two modifiers to present an additional challenge were No Shield and Energy Drain, but are far too harsh for a more proper challenge when everything is selected randomly. Because of the random selection, people abort if they just get a modifier they don't want, like Energy Vampire, because it's such a tremendous pain in comparison to Vampire/Timed.

Meanwhile, Low Gravity wasn't very impacting, and Vampire/Timed Mode were almost identical in gameplay because no matter what, you had a gratuitous amount of time to gain more health/time. And when a Nightmare Alert comes into play, people will often take a Warframe that's much more health/defense focused, such as Rhino or Inaros, to negate the very point of it.

A good game to base a new system for Nightmare off of is Halo who have put out many challenge based modifiers over the years, many of which can easily be adapted to Warframe. However, a challenge does deserve a reward as well but you will be selecting which modifiers you take.

Depending on the modifier, and number of modifiers, you'll be awarded additional rewards. The higher you go, the more worth it. As an example... 1 point nets you one nightmare mod, 2 points nets you a lith relic, three points nets you another nightmare mod. So if you were to use Stoic and Fog of War (suggestions below), you'd get two nightmare mods and a lith relic.

Throw in enough modifiers at once and you can earn a large collection of relics, and perhaps fusion cores and the initial two nightmare mods as well.

These modifiers can also be used to improve the variance of Sorties' modifiers.

To prevent the system from being abusable on lower level planets, certain modifiers will only be available on higher level planets. The harder ones. This will block players from farming Axi Relics on Earth.

---------- Modifiers

• Stoic
  Enemies are immune to CC.
  Two points.
  -
• Sharpened Reflexes
  Enemy melee damage is increased.
  One point.
  -
• Butterfingers
  Enemies throw grenades much more often.
  One point.
  -
• Fog of War
  Player radar is disabled, the objective is only shown on HUD by a marker at each next door.
  One point.
  -
• Thunderstorm
  Increase the number of higher ranking enemies: Corpus Techs, Bursas, Bombards, Heavy Gunners, Commanders, Ancients, Boilers and the like.
  Three points.
  -
• Reinforcements
  Double the total enemy spawns.
  One point.
  -
• Shield Sapper
  Player shields do not recharge. Successful melee attacks recharge your shields.
  Two points.
  -
• Don't Miss
  Ammo is spent twice as fast: one shot will take two bullets.
  One point.
  -
• Darkness
  The level is now much darker, making it harder to see anything.
  One point.
  -
• One Chance
  No revives.
  Four points.
  -
• Malfunction
  The HUD is disabled, including the crosshair.
  Two points.
  -
• Home Field Advantage
  Augmented armor for Grineer and Infested, augmented shields for Corpus.
  Two points.
  -
• Low Battery
  Only a quarter of your total energy.
  One point.
  -
• Balance
  Enemy level is increased.
  Three points.
  -
• Old School
  Grineer use old diaologue and stick closer to the walls while in some type of formation that clearly isn't alpha.
  Zero points.
  -
• Low Gravity
  Float like a butterfly.
  Zero points.

----------- Rewards
This is an example of how the rewards would play out, nothing set in stone. Completing a mission with every modifier on gets you everything here, all at once.

1. Nightmare Mod
2. Lith Relic
3. U5 Fusion Core
4. Lith Relic
5. U5 Fusion Core
   -
6. Nightmare Mod
7. Litch Relic
8. U5 Fusion Core
9. Meso Relic
10. U5 Fusion Core
    -
11. Nightmare Mod
12. R5 Fusion Core
13. Meso Relic
14. R5 Fusion Core
15. Meso Relic
    -
16. R5 Fusion Core
17. Neo Relic
18. Neo Relic
19. Neo Relic
20. Neo Relic
    -
21. R5 Fusion Core
22. Axi Relic
23. Axi Relic
24. Axi Relic
25. Axi Relic

----------
Keep in mind, these are just examples and suggestions. It could also work out better or worse in some way. If you have suggestions, feel free to add them.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Extraxi

[AdunSaveMe]

I dislike the idea of just adding random cheesy modifiers to enemies that increase resistance or increase health or increase damage. It's bad enough that sorties rely almost entirely on doing that, we don't need it for nightmare missions as well. If it's going to have modifiers, it needs to be things that are interesting and challenging, rather than things that increase numbers or add gimmicky debuffs or are ripped straight from Halo.

[rawr1254]

All this sounds very good. Just some of the condition names may need some touch ups. Some of the names dont make sense considering the condition ie Drought

[Hemmo67]

do we really have to turn nightmare missions into sorties?

[Magnus]

5 minutes ago, Hemmo67 said:

do we really have to turn nightmare missions into sorties?

Why not make them harder, or remove the point to aborting them? And bring more reason out to do them more often?

All this sounds very good. Just some of the condition names may need some touch ups. Some of the names dont make sense considering the condition ie Drought

Thanks, I actually changed that one but not the name. It was something else before.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Extraxi

[Hemmo67]

Just now, Extraxi said:

Why not make them harder, or remove the point to aborting them? And bring more reason out to do them more often?

first we need damage and scaling 3.0 because making more mission types needing cheese to complete is just going to be nuisance to both new players and those who do not want to spam bladestorm 24/7 to clear them

[Magnus]

1 minute ago, Hemmo67 said:

first we need damage and scaling 3.0 because making more mission types needing cheese to complete is just going to be nuisance to both new players and those who do not want to spam bladestorm 24/7 to clear them

It's not mission types, however. Nightmare has always been an optional extra mode that rewards a nightmare mod that, now, players just wait until are either on alert, or would spam low level missions. It was dead in the water before it was abruptly removed for SC3.

Being that it's optional, no one's forcing you, or anyone else, to do them repeatedly. It's an additional reward for a much higher challenge. In other words, it's for people who want to play smart against tougher odds while actually getting more rewards for it.

[IceColdHawk]

Looks awesome with me. More challenging content for better loot? Oh dayum i'm waiting for that already for 3 years!

28 minutes ago, Extraxi said:

Balance
Enemy level is increased.
Three points.

Calling this balance made me chuckle tho.

23 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

I dislike the idea of just adding random cheesy modifiers to enemies that increase resistance or increase health or increase damage. It's bad enough that sorties rely almost entirely on doing that, we don't need it for nightmare missions as well. If it's going to have modifiers, it needs to be things that are interesting and challenging, rather than things that increase numbers or add gimmicky debuffs or are ripped straight from Halo.

Feel free to give some "interesting" and "challenging" examples.

Edited July 17, 2016 by IceColdHawk

[Magnus]

Moved some points around. Shield Sapper is pretty easy to take advantage of ultimately with the right gear.

[phazefox]

really liking the overall idea, some of the modifiers could use tweaking, and i personally think the reward list is too big, i'd contract it A LOT, have rewards repeat themselves a lot less, and keep axi relic gains on 2 at max, now i'm not saying each reward should take more points, just that the whole list shouldn't require every single modifier to reach the final reward, this also doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to use all modifiers if you wanted, 'cus really who doesn't like going bat$hit; insane sometimes?.

regarding the idea of making them harder than sorties, i think that's a bad idea; now don't get me wrong, i'm not saying they shouldn't be hard, they should, it's just i personally think difficulty levels should go nightmare < sorties < trials, it's just how i think things would fit better.

oh also, regarding the "home field advantage" modifier, only boss infested have armor (including the juggernauts), so it'd be pretty weird to suddenly armor them all up if it's their "home field" thing, i think it'd be better if the infested had increased health.

Edited July 18, 2016 by phazefox