Informer Event: Suggestions (For Next Time If Too Late For This Time Maybe?)

[Cr4p]

A couple of suggestions (ok, so it turned into a wall of text, sorry) which, might be useful for this (hopefully but maybe already too late to make any changes) or possibly future similar events.

 

Please note this isn't supposed to be more of the pointless hatred unhelpful "this sucks" type of stuff already found in a lot of other threads, but some hopefully constructive criticism and suggestions. Overall I like the event, had fun with the small amount of it I had time to participate in and look forward to future events. These are just some things that could be adjusted/changed to maybe reduce frustration and make more people happy (although we all know you'll never please everyone :) ).

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1. Share event kills among coop groups

Having the kills count only for the individual getting the kill causes a few problems.

 

Not sharing kills turns this into a competition among people playing in the same game which can end up encouraging less then cooperative tendencies, causing irritation and frustration. 

Some examples I've already encountered:

I. Having some members of the group leaving others to deal with all map objectives/other enemies while they speed through killing all the event things etc.

 

II. People preferring to play the event alone rather than in a group (either to ensure they get all the event kills for themselves or just to avoid the type of problem people mentioned in I.).

 

III. Some of the Warframes have a spectacularly unfair advantage at getting the event kills before anyone else.

As one example, Ember's world on fire with a maxed stretch mod murders these things before most people (including the ember themself) even see them. I played with 3 friends who were all ember and I was a Saryn and it was quite literally 90% of the event kills between the 3 embers with a tiny handful for myself, since they just ran around with WoF constantly on. Playing 2 people with a friend who was playing Ash while I was on my Saryn had a similar issue where I could always beat him to the kill with Miasma, sometimes getting multiple event kills in one go or even getting them by accident without realizing they were there.

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You could alternatively encourage playing in groups by having more of the event targets spawn for more players (this does not seem to be the case currently, or at least it does not seem to be a a significant increase increase in spawn, however this is just based on personal observations so apologies if it already works this way and I've just had bad luck). However this of course doesn't really solve the issue of competition among people in the group or the risk of having people run off and just do the event kills.

 

I understand sharing kills could be abused, by, for example,

A. having one person do all the work with 3 afks so they can boost their numbers,

or

B. people going afk to let others unwillingly do the work for them,

but problem B. is an issue in the game in general, and for problem A., it's a coop game, so if someone is willing to carry their teammates, ultimately people aren't really losing out except because parts of this are being made into a competition, so if you have a group of 4 people doing rotations carrying each other to get kills, it gives them an (arguably unfair) advantage (although honestly, its supposed to be coop, so I personally have a hard time getting angry about it).

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2. Make the criteria for receiving exclusive content/rewards that can only be gained from these events a flat target instead of unfair, heavily weighted competitions.

I'm not terribly worried about the mod prize, since as far as I understand (some assumption on my part), the mod will be available later through other means (see below) but I personally really dislike, and have seen a lot of discontent on these forums in regard to, the clan competition aspect.

 

The problems here are that

I. The statue, although I'm assuming its just a cosmetic thing, is something exclusive that can only be gained through this event by a very, very small percentage of the participants, making it something people want, but which a vast majority of people/clans have no hope of obtaining right from the outset, The mods are basically (again as I understand it) just early/easier access to something that will be available later. The statue is basically something you are putting out there and telling probably 90% of the clans, you will never have this, nyah nyah ;) This being a PVE Coop game, a lot (notice I didn't say majority before 300 of you reply saying "I LIKE PVP/COMPETITION") of the people playing it likely are not looking for competition or even dislike it. Seems strange to have events that run the risk of alienating huge sections of your target market. =)

 

II. It again encourages some less than PVE/Coop friendly tendencies/feelings.

Actually had clan members asking if/suggesting we could kick people from the clan so that we could have less members to fit into the smaller bracket, and causes friction within clans about people not "pulling their weight" or some people doing "all the work" etc. Not really the spirit I'm guessing you want to inspire.

 

III. It causes people to give up on the idea of ever obtaining these prizes right from the start which causes them to ignore/loss interest in the event, or at least a large percentage of it.

When you are competing against clans 10 times the size of your own (which is an actual situation in all of the brackets), it's not really a "competition" since the clans on the lower end of the brackets have very little hope of beating out the clans on the top end, which causes disappointment and the grumbling you see on the forums about the event rather than the "wheee this was fun" I'm guessing you want to see. =)

 

IV. It encourages more abandoning of small clans for big ones. Why stay in a small clan instead of a big one when you get easy, quick access to everything in a big clan and are at a constant disadvantage in everything in small one?

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I'd suggest steering clear of "exclusive" rewards in general. Easier/earlier access to things and stuff like that is good, and you should definitely make it clear if something is exclusive or not (see next item) to avoid for example all of the whining that accompanied the Frost Prime blueprint, but teasing players with stuff the majority have no hope of getting right from the start.

 

Barring that, for the exclusive stuff, make it a flat target, like with the snipeton (rather than a blind, and heavily unfair, competition) (although these could be adjusted for clan size).

For example, shadow clans get the statue if the clan manages a total of 500 of the event kills between all the members (or whatever, I'm just using a random number as an example). This avoids the "we'll never possible win, so why bother" mentality that seems to plague this event, and provides people with a concrete goal for the clan to work towards together rather than the current very opaque (we have no clue what other clans in our brackets are "scoring" ) and unbalanced/unfair competition.

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3. Add a higher, secondary individual target/goal that people can aim for so they can personally get their prize even if the community as a whole fails.

The current low 20 kill goal for the snipetron and lack of any hope of achieving any of the higher rewards has resulted in a large number of people getting their 20 kills and calling it quits.

 

This is extremely unfair to those people who are out there doing 800 kills or whatever on their own if the community as a whole fails. I think the whole vaguely threatening "we will riot if we don't get our prize" thing I've been seeing on the forums is pretty ridiculous, childish and self-entitled, but I do understand the frustration of people who are doing the work to try and help ensure the community goal is reached while a bunch of others around them are going "got my 20 kills, not doing no more".

 

I have no suggestions for or idea of what would be fair/reasonable for specific numbers, but again just for example, something like, if the community goal of 100% killed is reached, everyone with 20 or more kills receives the reward, but if the community goal is not reached those with 500 (random example number, please no one miss the point entirely and take issue with the number) or more kills receive the prize anyway as an award from the lotus for their distinguished service to the entire community (even works out storywise, we only managed to get away with a small percentage of the prizes, so they go to the biggest contributors).

 

This makes it so that the people who are contributing a lot are rewarded no matter what AND encourages more people to participate more so they can ensure they get their prize, even if those other jerks are slackers, contributing more to the community goal as a by-product =) Redirecting self-interest towards community benefit and reducing at least some of the potential pool of whiners/complainers (although I'm sure someone will find something else to complain about) ;)

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4. Make it clear that the top X rewards, like the mod this time, are just early guaranteed access to the item and not exclusive (or if they are exclusive, make that clear).

I'm just assuming you guys are not going through the trouble of making a mod and having it implemented in the games of every player just to only ever give it to 100 people, and that therefore the mod will be available through other means later, just later and/or rarer/harder to get, but there's a whoooooole bunch of people on the forums and in game who don't seem to think so, so a very clear statement one way or the other (although it maybe steals some of the "magic/appeal" of the prize) would go a long way to alleviating some of the whining/panic (or at least give the rest of us something we can point people to when they inevitably don't read the explanation and assume they must spend 72 hours doing nothing but farming warframe kills to gain the mod and their minds explode in the forum of irrational hate-filled forum posts ;) ).

 

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Anyway, just my two cents and some hopefully useful suggestions. As stated above, I enjoy the event, I enjoy the game, and while I'm human and not likely to enjoy or agree with every single choice you guy make with the game, I am enjoying it enough to have put in 500 hours and a chunk of money, so if my wording seems off or harsh or whatever, please be assured this is meant to be constructive in addition to conveying my own personal thoughts/reactions and not just pointless whining/ENDLESS RAGE/doomsaying etc. Also sorry for the probably endless stream of typos, supposed to be working instead of typing up the magna carte for a video game, so forgive me if I don't bother proofreading ;)

 

Keep up the good work, looking forward to all the new stuff you guys keep introducing. （●＾o＾●）

Edited July 7, 2013 by Cr4p

[Nicodemus666]

Quote all, nice recap.

[Lumireaver]

Didn't get a chance to say so earlier, but you're a genius and you've said everything I would have said, and you've done so better than I would have said it. Hats off to you, hope DE reads this.

[Grinbringer]

I had the same feedback about this event working against the supposed co-op spirit of this game. You wrote this and much more in addition. All are good points for devs to consider.

 

One other thing I want to mention is how tedious this event was. Enemies were the same. Environments were the same. Goal was very basic: shoot as many balloons as you can (more grind). Consider not narrowing things as much down for next events. And consider making goals or the ways to achieve goals more varied. Look at your own hacking minigame: the principle is simple and always the same, but there are very many combinations.

 

But the event was nice in general. Rewards exceeded expectations (potato, free weapon slot, bp). Something special to do to mix things up for a change. The progress bar stirred some emotions. Some people despaired that it's impossible to get 100% in time, others went on motivation spree. It's wasn't specifically mentioned that progress bar was tied to total kills, that was interesting too.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Grinbringer

[General-Griffin]

I think the clan thing should be exclusive as it's a trophy but I think they should split the clans up in to brackets depending on the  amount of players. Change material costs and requirements to suit specific group sizes, that way when you have clan competitions you only go against clans of your own size and for each different bracket there is a chance to get the bracket trophy but in different shades or  different materials. This would allow clans of all sizes to fairly compete and win a dojo trophy in their bracket.

 

I think it would be cool to have a great hall with a number of relics and trophies a clan has earned to really show an almost legitimate history. 

[Toran]

Great post and suggestions.

 

I'm supporting all points, especially the first one. In a coop game playing solo shouldn't be the the community's best option to achieve an event's goal! And playing with others shouldn't be a penalty but a boost.

[Taranis49]

I hate quoting myself again, but I'm kinda tired and it works well enough... Apologize in advance, since it's going to pretty long.

 

"The event in general kinda leads me to believe that DE don't understand people.

 

As has been mentioned multiple times by others, it doesn't encourage teamwork in the slightest, if for no other reason than the standard to get the additional rewards is explicitly to perform better than X number of people - right off the bat, that makes it competitive, not cooperative - the two are mutually exclusive:

 

Any reward as such should be awarded based solely on your own performance, not on how well (or poorly) someone else performs. When I received my expert marksmanship badge in basic it was based solely on the fact that I hit 38 out of 40 targets, It didn't matter that someone else happened to hit 39 or 40 (and I was no less proud of the thing even though it's not considered a particularly big deal in the Army), just like the people who didn't do as well didn't suddenly lose theirs as long as they hit the minimum number of targets, the only difference is that their badges didn't look as good... and there's not many organizations that promote teamwork more than the Army does.

 

By contrast, this is more like coming across ten starving bums in a train car, dangling a steak in front them and telling them that only one can get it before locking the door."

 

I've been taught to never mistake incompetence for malice, but this makes it somewhat difficult since anybody with a brain had to know that encouraging players "not to stop after 20 for better rewards!" was a pointless exercise unless they had the entire weekend to devote to the event. To go back to the bums in the train car example; when you come back and they're all picking their teeth up off the floor after determining which one of them gets the steak dinner, yeah, you can go to each of the losers and say they could've won if they'd only fought harder, but it's going to ring pretty hollow: You knew damn well beforehand that nine of those bums weren't going to eat that night.

 

It doesn't help that the spawns during typical play were somewhat random, you could run a mission once and get 6 drones in it, sometimes you could get 20 or 30. This is excluding that there apparently were exploits, if the leaderboard thread is to be believed.

 

Many of the OP's suggestions here are sound. The tiering system they used for clans was quite simply broken. If a clan had 101 members, it was pushed into a tier with clans ten times its size where it could not succeed. This approach (like much of the event) struck me as being shamelessly lazy, requiring an average number of kills per clan member would've been far more equitable.

 

Actually plan and think about what you're looking to accomplish with an event in advance, I can tell that neither was really present here. The hodgepodge mess of "cooperation" and "competition" accomplished neither and has bred quite a bit of resentment among some people who went well beyond what was needed for the basic reward and contributed to pushing the bar to 100%, while at the same time receiving nothing extra for the invested hours of work than the people who did the bare minimum.

 

Fish or cut bait. Make it one or the other, encourage either cooperation or competition for an event, not both.

 

This leads to the biggest problem, after a while the event was basically work. While I could be alone (and I know I'm not, based on other posts around the forum), this event was the single most tedious experience I've ever had playing the game. The Fusion Moas were atleast interesting and shot back.

 

The next time you plan an event like this, take the time to actually plan it out, I'd rather an event be late if it means it's actually decent and, god forbid, fun than get one like this.