Being the Stalker at Tennocon?

[EmptyDevil]

2 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

The Core gameplay does lack challenge, and that's a problem.

 

However, allowing invasions will do absolutely nothing whatsoever to fix that, and will merely introduce the new problem of newbie players getting harassed through PvP invasions from toxic veterans.

It definitely does lack challenge, and it is a severe problem. I was genuinely let down by Nox as a new enemy unit. Hopefully, the Corpus Spider Proxies and Grineer Ghouls have some mechanics to fix this problem.

Invasions is a tricky but possible thing. Biggest negative i can see against it is that it is PVP, and by being PVP, people would be against its implementation regardless of whether it is optional or not.

If there is one thing I've learned with this community it is mostly about 'me! me! me!' when it comes to content. 

[HUNDarkTemplar]

40 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

Yeah, about Dark Souls...

 

- Getting invaded is optional. You can run without Ember/Humanity or play offline with no problem or penalty. This, if you're playing online and Embered up, you're expecting a potential fight. What people seem to be advocating for here would not merely be equivalent to Dark Souls, it would be more hostile.

- In Dark Souls, if you get invaded while using rubbish gear, you can switch to a good PvP weapon in seconds. In warframe, you cannot change weapons in a mission. 

- In addition to the lack of ability to switch weapons, Warframe's weapon stats vary wildly compared to Dark Souls gear. In Dark Souls, skill matters more. In Warframe, if you're caught with weak weapons, the invader will have a massive advantage.

 

Insisting that it will 'be like Dark Souls' is at best disingenuous.

Man, If You'd see this Stalker was severly nerfed. Caught with bad weapons? If you are not againts an mr 2 who has no modded weapon, then you one hit the player stalker with a modded weapon. In conclave, You got balance things, different mods and balanced abilities, in PvE You have weapons, which deal damages in 10-100k ranges, A player and the stalker as We seen has 1-3k hp ( counting the shield too ), no matter what weapon You use, you literally burst down other players in PvE. Just try to remember a radiation sortie, when the Excalibur ult came and fckin killed you. Also, If this gets released I am pretty sure, Stalker wouldnt be able to interact with many things, so He could not troll and grief. 

[BornWithTeeth]

48 minutes ago, EmptyDevil said:

It definitely does lack challenge, and it is a severe problem. I was genuinely let down by Nox as a new enemy unit. Hopefully, the Corpus Spider Proxies and Grineer Ghouls have some mechanics to fix this problem.

Invasions is a tricky but possible thing. Biggest negative i can see against it is that it is PVP, and by being PVP, people would be against its implementation regardless of whether it is optional or not.

If there is one thing I've learned with this community it is mostly about 'me! me! me!' when it comes to content. 

The biggest negative is not merely that it is PvP. The biggest negative is that all of the most vocal supporters of the idea are very clear about what they want from it, and what they want is to harass new players and sabotage missions.

 

You and I agree on the issue of gameplay challenge, we've spoken about it, but giving the worst parts of the community free license to drive newbies out of the game is not how to fix that. It would be like trying to use a bandaid to reattach a severed leg, and also the bandaid is soaked in Hep B.

Edited July 11, 2017 by BornWithTeeth

[MuscleVictor]

I was there on ground floor, you should've seen the bloodthrist in the whole crowd's faces (mine included). Only read a few pages in and skipped to this page, but a few notes:

• Stalker could most certainly interact with objectives like rescue cells and instantly hacking doors, but picking up the datamass was bugged. Plays the animation, but simply leaves it on the floor.
• Stalker could also destroy objectives like excavators and cryopods, but you're all probably aware of this by now.
• This particular stalker won the PVP conclave round at the end of the event to become stalker, so it's safe to assume that they're really good. That being said, they still lost out on more than one occasion, and not necessarily even to meta builds or team comps.

After saying that, I can see why a lot of people would want to play as stalker and 'deliver justice', but I would only accept it being implemented in the game under the following conditions:

• As mentioned earlier in the thread, it must be opt-in, disabled by default.
• Being able to play as the stalker is a mastery-locked function, preferably something relatively high like MR20 for example.
• Earning the privilege of playing as stalker must be earned/farmed through a long-term means, for example exchanging 125k syndicate points for a 'stalker key' (highly unlikely), or finding a stalker medallion as a super-rare spawn in syndicate missions only.
• By playing as the stalker once, you are forced to opt-in to being invaded until you are defeated by a player once.
• Since stalker only marks a single target in the squad, it shouldn't matter whether the entire squad is opt-in or not, however players who have not opted into the system cannot harm or be harmed by the player stalker.
• Stalker must also not be able to interact with mission objectives in any way, including spawning inside spy/rescue rooms, damaging targets etc.
• Stalker has 120 seconds to defeat the target, which shouldn't take that long since the room's on lockdown anyways.

There are probably a lot of aspects I'm missing from this short list, but if DE plans on implementing this as a feature at any point, they must take extreme care in ensuring they do not alienate their PvE playerbase.

[Lakais]

I have to agree on this mode being questionable. I see the cheeky fun in it, but it's a thing that is night impossible to get right. And when these things go wrong, even little, its spectacularly so and with immense toxic fallout. For such a thing to exist in the game a checklist of limitations longer then your arm has to be put in place to ensure it is being used for it's intended purpose. 

For example the argument that the Stalker is there to attack only one player is objectively false when a player gets put behind the controls. An AI Stalker can't choose what it attacks, a person can. You could deliberately choose to attack other players before going for your target. How to fix this, maybe you only do 30% damage to anyone that is not your target? So basically attacking anyone BUT your target is pointless. Also an attack timer. Once an Invading Stalker spawns they have a relatively short timer with which to kill your target. Ensuring that you can't just d**k about with people. You're there to do a job, get on with it. 

Invaders causing a mission failure could be bypassed by establishing windows of opportunity. A mission can only be invaded when certain conditions haven't been triggered. For Rescue missions, once the Holding area room has been opened up, no more Stalker. Defenses are out of the question unless the Invader can't damage the objective but even then there's the issue of the spawning masses. MD's however are only available until the first objective has been triggered. In Spy missions, Stalker can't invade in the times between a Spy room being opened and the intel being hacked. And so forth, each mission type with it's own limitation. 

Lastly, ensuring that the right people get to do it. I imagine it should be something similar to the Guides of The Lotus. Handpicked group of players who have proven themselves levelheaded and honorable with a zero tolerance policy for unnecessary griefing. Improper implementation would do orders of magnitude more harm to the general community and reputation of the game then good in providing a fraction of the playerbase a "for the lulz" gimmick because they don't like Conclave but still want to fight a player. Players with the "Need the Salt" mentality are not meant for this

[BornWithTeeth]

I mean, you want to see this concept, but with potential avenues for toxic harassment removed? You want to see it done as pure PvP challenge?

 

- It works purely as an opt-in/opt-out system, accessed via the options menu.
 People who don't want to do PvP don't have to. If you can only have fun when you are forcing yourself into someone else's experience to mess with their leisure time against their explicit wishes, then that's the definition of griefing, and I will remind you that the model which folks seem to want to emulate (Dark Souls) is also invasion-optional. If the objection to this is that everyone will opt out and invaders won't get to have any fun, then that surely means that the majority of people genuinely do not like the idea? If it is such an amazing idea, then it won't be ruined by having the option to not engage in it, right? 

      There is an additional consideration here, and it is the information gap. Effectively, the person who chooses to invade as the Stalker always knows they're going for PvP, because after all, they are the one initiating it. Making it an opt-in mode means that potential targets will remember to stay alert and have at least one weapon on them capable of messing up the Stalker. In other words, making it opt-in means that it will be a fight. That's what you want, correct? Sudden PvP in an otherwise PvE mission?

- The player-controlled Stalker has a better drop table if defeated, one which doesn't feature Dread or Heavy Impact at all.
 Then again, if you want to have people more open to opting in, give them a carrot. Make the player-controlled Stalker have a pretty great drop table, maybe even have the table include stuff that AI Stalker doesn't drop.

- Players are available as targets under the following conditions: They are opted in for invasions, they have a Stalker mark, and they are eligible to do Sortie missions. These conditions are also the requirement for playing as the Stalker in this mode.
 Pretty self-explanatory, really. If players are able for Sortie, they should be able to defend themselves from Stalker.

- While in mission, the player-controlled Stalker cannot affect anything other than Tenno. The Stalker cannot interact with mission objectives or mission enemies, cannot enter Spy vaults or Rescue prisons. They are there strictly to attack players.
 Again, you're not there to harass people and sabotage missions. You're there to murder player Tenno.

- The Stalker has three minutes to kill their target or they have failed.
 Three minutes is plenty of time for a tense cat and mouse fight, but also means that the player-controlled Stalker can't just hang around annoying everyone and ruin their mission that way. 

- Mission and target selection is double-blind. What this means is that the target Tenno and anyone else in their squad can see that the Stalker is player-controlled, but they cannot see the username of the controlling player. Conversely, the Stalker has no control over who they target, and when they spawn into the mission, they cannot see the usernames of anyone in the target squad.
  What this means is that people cannot pull screencaps to identify either their attackers or the defenders and proceed to engage in stupid naming and shaming, or direct abuse at them via inbox message, or let it spill out onto the forums or the subreddit. Otherwise, well. You know that it would happen.

 

If it seems that I have a remarkably low opinion of people, that's because I do, and unfortunately, this thread has only proven me correct.

Edited July 11, 2017 by BornWithTeeth

[(PSN)Oreic-Reynier]

If I could be a Sunbro I'd say absolutely. 

Edited July 11, 2017 by (PS4)Oreic-Reynier

[WrathAscending]

Why not just add a PVP mode where one player controls the Stalker and the rest of the players have to survive the assault? Groups of 5, Stalker chosen at random from the player pool, can't be Stalker again until you've been stalked yourself four times.

People who want to go PVP as the Stalker get the opportunity, PVE players remain unaffected by it.

[Dama73]

2 hours ago, WrathAscending said:

People who want to go PVP as the Stalker get the opportunity, PVE players remain unaffected by it.

 

This, If this is a purely optional thing that we have to set in order for it to allow a player controlled stalker to pop into a mission then thats all well and good, let the PvP players fight each other as far as I'm concerned and let us PvE players run our missions as usual.

But I swear the moment a Player controlled Stalker drops into one of my missions after I've set it to not allow, they are getting reported.

[low1991]

On 7/9/2017 at 11:49 AM, The_Stalker said:

Because this has been something people have been discussing for a long long time and to see this means maybe there is a chance?  Honestly even if it isn't I'm still happy that this was shown even if it was for fun.

Now i wonder if will there be a Public mode where it's PvE (no 5th player, ie stalker, but a default AI-stalker). This can be abuse to harass players if not implemented with 'actual' care.

[-YoRHa-]

DE confirmed Stalker mode will be added to the game in primetime 173. They will make it optional though, so those that don't want to be stalked, won't be. They will talk about it more in the next devstream.

[AuroraSonicBoom]

58 minutes ago, -YoRHa- said:

DE confirmed Stalker mode will be added to the game in primetime 173. They will make it optional though, so those that don't want to be stalked, won't be. They will talk about it more in the next devstream.

No, they haven't. They said the complete opposite.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/158936797?t=16m01s

They're probably adding something along the same lines, but they're NOT letting people play as the Stalker, or invade other player's missions without their consent.

The only problem now is that PvP players will ask for a reward for playing as or beating a PC invader, and if it's anything that changes one's stats even remotely it's going to put PvE players at a disadvantage. Because let's be honest: DE being a company developing a game at whose core lies the acquisition of virtual items dropped from enemies, it's unlikely that they would not just throw at least some cosmetic rewards on a PC Stalker or target.

The problem with that is that the line keeping PvE players from having to engage into PvP to reap all the PvE affecting rewards becomes really thin at that point, even thinner than conclave mods have already whittled it down into, and with Reb having revealed that they didn't even inform the playerbase that a PC Stalker could force themselves into their mission during Tennocon my trust in DE regarding keeping the two game modes separate has dramatically sunken.

Edited July 14, 2017 by AuroraSonicBoom

[-YoRHa-]

2 minutes ago, AuroraSonicBoom said:

No, they haven't. They said the complete opposite.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/158936797?t=16m01s

They're probably adding something along the same lines, but they're NOT letting people play as the Stalker, or invade other player's missions without their consent.

No, they did not say the complete opposite. This is what was said in that clip:

Reb: We are probably adding-- well, i'm getting real time-- someone is watching us that happens to work at DE, and the devstream we're going to talk about this. We don't want people to feel threatened by players at all times in their PVE missions, which is why we're not adding it to PVE raw. But you'll see what we're planning. So it's not like we're going to suddenly let anyone join anyone, and do this to anyone. We understand there is a lot of excitement for it, us included. So it'd be a shame to waste this feature, but it would also be careless to add it without any consensus, consent to participate in a stalking-style program, so stay tuned that is what the devstream is for.

To me, that suggests that DE does not want to throw away the work that went into making the Stalker mode and plan to make use of it. I also did not say anything that suggested a lack of consent, neither has DE.

27 minutes ago, AuroraSonicBoom said:

The only problem now is that PvP players will ask for a reward for playing as or beating a PC invader, and if it's anything that changes one's stats even remotely it's going to put PvE players at a disadvantage. Because let's be honest: DE being a company developing a game at whose core lies the acquisition of virtual items dropped from enemies, it's unlikely that they would not just throw at least some cosmetic rewards on a PC Stalker or target.

The problem with that is that the line keeping PvE players from having to engage into PvP to reap all the PvE affecting rewards becomes really thin at that point, even thinner than conclave mods have already whittled it down into, and with Reb having revealed that they didn't even inform the playerbase that a PC Stalker could force themselves into their mission during Tennocon my trust in DE regarding keeping the two game modes separate has dramatically sunken.

We'll wait and see what they do in the next devstream. Rewards are usually always the carrot on a stick for players, so they probably will add some nice perks.

[Domesticon]

Honestly I find the complaining about this stupid and overdramatic. All DE needs to do is remove the mission sabotaging aspects of this. (Killing Defense target, triggering spy vaults, activating survival capsules, etc.) and the threat is minimal, because as I will remind EVERYONE, you do not actually DIE when Stalker kills you, instead you go into bleedout, and then all your teammates can just run to you and revive you, and again, even if they don't, you aren't just outright dead, because we have these handy little REVIVES, which you get FOUR of, meaning you in all likelyhood will be totally fine, which also means people need to calm the hell down and enjoy an actually threatening Stalker.

[(PSN)horridhal]

11 minutes ago, Domesticon said:

as I will remind EVERYONE, you do not actually DIE when Stalker kills you, instead you go into bleedout, and then all your teammates can just run to you and revive you, and again, even if they don't, you aren't just outright dead, because we have these handy little REVIVES, which you get FOUR of, meaning you in all likelyhood will be totally fine, which also means people need to calm the hell down and enjoy an actually threatening Stalker.

Again, not everyone wants PvP in what is, almost entirely, a PvE game.  Just because you don't care about playing against other players, or want to, or whatever, doesn't mean everyone else does.

[WrathAscending]

Bluntly put, I have supported DE financially to this point because PVP was at least ostensibly separated from the PVE-only game that was initially marketed. I have no interest whatsoever in PVP and do not play first or third-person shooter games where that is an element.

If they add this feature at all I will be reconsidering how much I want to play the game and how much more money I want to give them. If, as is suggested, there is no opt-out mechanic, I will simply quit.

[(PSN)Dark-TailedFox]

On 7/9/2017 at 6:44 AM, BornWithTeeth said:

Yes. Everyone is. Every single time that I have ever, ever, ever seen anything like this proposed, the tone has not been "What a thrill! What a challenge! The most dangerous game, one's fellow player!"

The tone has been "Yeah! I'm gonna spawn in and automatically win, to punish those filthy scrubs! I wanna ruin everyone's day!"

 

The message is clear. People who want this system are not even the slightest bit interested in a genuine PvP challenge. They want a God mode griefing engine.

Not exactly god mode considering Rebecca even used it and the first thing that happened was Valkyr popped hysteria (total immunity unlike pvp version), excaliboy popped swish swish, and despite her not even trying to attack them she still went down pretty damn fast.

Plus, she even went into Megan's defense and didn't even drop the pod's health as much as normal stalker would've in a third the shots she took, so I'm pretty sure the only "griefing" is gonna take place in spies (maybe, does normal stalker trigger alarms?) and interceptions at worst. Maybe survivals but you can just race to extraction or leave when they show up and rip that satisfaction away from them. Bosses get downed in a second unless they have health gate immunity so that's hardly a concept to even use.

[Brasten]

On 7/11/2017 at 2:35 AM, MuscleVictor said:

I was there on ground floor, you should've seen the bloodthrist in the whole crowd's faces (mine included). Only read a few pages in and skipped to this page, but a few notes:

• Stalker could most certainly interact with objectives like rescue cells and instantly hacking doors, but picking up the datamass was bugged. Plays the animation, but simply leaves it on the floor.
• Stalker could also destroy objectives like excavators and cryopods, but you're all probably aware of this by now.
• This particular stalker won the PVP conclave round at the end of the event to become stalker, so it's safe to assume that they're really good. That being said, they still lost out on more than one occasion, and not necessarily even to meta builds or team comps.

After saying that, I can see why a lot of people would want to play as stalker and 'deliver justice', but I would only accept it being implemented in the game under the following conditions:

• As mentioned earlier in the thread, it must be opt-in, disabled by default.
• Being able to play as the stalker is a mastery-locked function, preferably something relatively high like MR20 for example.
• Earning the privilege of playing as stalker must be earned/farmed through a long-term means, for example exchanging 125k syndicate points for a 'stalker key' (highly unlikely), or finding a stalker medallion as a super-rare spawn in syndicate missions only.
• By playing as the stalker once, you are forced to opt-in to being invaded until you are defeated by a player once.
• Since stalker only marks a single target in the squad, it shouldn't matter whether the entire squad is opt-in or not, however players who have not opted into the system cannot harm or be harmed by the player stalker.
• Stalker must also not be able to interact with mission objectives in any way, including spawning inside spy/rescue rooms, damaging targets etc.
• Stalker has 120 seconds to defeat the target, which shouldn't take that long since the room's on lockdown anyways.

There are probably a lot of aspects I'm missing from this short list, but if DE plans on implementing this as a feature at any point, they must take extreme care in ensuring they do not alienate their PvE playerbase.

But would such a limited mod really be of interest to anyone besides people who fantasize about "role playing" as the Stalker. It most certainly won't satisfy the vocal minority that wants to go Umbra and nuke "Care Bear" (to borrow and EVE-Online term) PvE players.

Why not just make it a special Conclave mode at that point, a Dead by Daylight or Evolve micro-clone. Like how Lunaro is a Rocket League micro-clone. And like those modes have 0 interaction with the PvE systems. Just a different way to gain Conclave standing and rewards.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Brasten

[Xaero]

8 hours ago, WrathAscending said:

Bluntly put, I have supported DE financially to this point because PVP was at least ostensibly separated from the PVE-only game that was initially marketed. I have no interest whatsoever in PVP and do not play first or third-person shooter games where that is an element.

If they add this feature at all I will be reconsidering how much I want to play the game and how much more money I want to give them. If, as is suggested, there is no opt-out mechanic, I will simply quit.

Will you even know it's a player and not a high-quality AI bot?

[WrathAscending]

It's immaterial whether a given Stalker appearance is a player or an AI. I object to being forced into mandatory PVP, and we will know it has been implemented because patch notes will indicate that to be the case.

[Xaero]

2 minutes ago, WrathAscending said:

It's immaterial whether a given Stalker appearance is a player or an AI. I object to being forced into mandatory PVP, and we will know it has been implemented because patch notes will indicate that to be the case.

Well you could consider leaving because of radiation procs that allow attacking teammates. Stalker gameplay and common gameplay will have enough differences to not make it feel like PvP.

[UrielColtan]

Some boring people don't like Dark Souls invasions I see. Some people need to fess up and stop using "harass new players" as a scapegoat for fear of their own egos being bruised, as if there are not already measures against repetetive invasions of the same person or opting out measures anyway, Not like a new player is going to be any better against regular AI controlled god mode Stalker either way though. So what next? Invocations of "think of the children"? We need more inflated excuses for "no fun zone"

Edited July 14, 2017 by UrielColtan

[WrathAscending]

Just now, Ksaero said:

Well you could consider leaving because of radiation procs that allow attacking teammates. Stalker gameplay and common gameplay will have enough differences to not make it feel like PvP.

I already do Radiation sorties solo because I ran into too many players who thought it was hilarious to turn the mission into TPK central.

And whether it "feels" like PVP or Conclave again doesn't matter. It will be a mechanic whereby another player can, at their discretion rather than mine (at least according to DE's vision at this point) enter my PVE game for the sole and explicit purpose of engaging in PVP play with a reward on offer to them should they succeed.

At minimum it should be opt-in only. At minimum. Ideally it wouldn't even be implemented at all and should be confined to a PVP mode for Conclave.

[WrathAscending]

Just now, UrielColtan said:

Some boring people don't like Dark Souls invasions I see. Some people need to fess up and stop using "harass new players" as a scapegoat for fear of their own egos being bruised, as if there are not already measures against repetetive invasions of the same person or opting out measures anyway, Not like a new player is going to be any better againt regular AI controlled god mode Stalker either way though. So what next? Invocations of "think of the children"?

Some boring people decided to support Warframe as Founders because it was marketed as a PVE-only game and have a long memory of how badly PVP content has gone in this game when it collides with PVE content. Like the whole Solar Rails debacle.

If people want to do PVP, Conclave is there for them. That is is so poorly populated speaks volumes as to how well-implemented PVP content is in Warframe and how much the general player base wants to do with it. Forcing PVP down the throats of people who do everything in their power to avoid it- and this accounts for the vast and overwhelming majority of Warframe players- is not a good idea.

[Xaero]

2 minutes ago, WrathAscending said:

I already do Radiation sorties solo because I ran into too many players who thought it was hilarious to turn the mission into TPK central.

And whether it "feels" like PVP or Conclave again doesn't matter. It will be a mechanic whereby another player can, at their discretion rather than mine (at least according to DE's vision at this point) enter my PVE game for the sole and explicit purpose of engaging in PVP play with a reward on offer to them should they succeed.

At minimum it should be opt-in only. At minimum. Ideally it wouldn't even be implemented at all and should be confined to a PVP mode for Conclave.

So, you despise the very idea of possibility of one player attacking another. I don't find it reasonable enough to abandon this game mode though. Hope DE doesn't.