There is no reason to play conclave, but there should be

[Kayvaan]

So I have given this much thought, weighing a lot of different points and thinking of how to articulate these points clearly while trying to be as succinct as I can. I think I'm ready to offer these thoughts to the community at large. I don't use the forums often so I'm not aware if this has been spoken about before, but I still think I'd like my thoughts to be heard and discussed. Okay, to the matter at hand. I tried to be succinct but this will run a little long, bare with me.

There is no reason to play Conclave.

Warframe is a looter/shooter/mmo hybrid, a "weird" and "experimental" game as the devs eloquently put it. While the aesthetic and core gameplay mechanics of Warframe set it apart, this game relies heavily on a grind and reward loop. It has a pretty damn good one too. The game is addictive as hell and they've done such a good job recently with quests and storywriting that it keeps your interest even beyond the addictive nature of the game and how ludicrously strong every frame makes you feel as a player (they're arguably too strong in a lot of cases). They've even added player trading without doing much harm to this grind/loot/grind loop that drives this game. 

Where this loop sees a substantial disconnect however is conclave. Conclave has been revised and rebalanced since its initial inception and I can honestly say that I love playing conclave. However despite this admiration for this game's PvP I haven't spent nearly as much time on it as I have in others. Why is that? 

Most conclave rewards are for use specifically in conclave. This helps keep these impossibly powerful PvE mods out of the conclave environment and maintains balance, something most people including myself will say is a good thing as no one wants something like Min/Max rage+defy Wukong in conclave for example. The symptom this creates however is a disconnect from the games core grind/loot loop. You can put hundreds of hours into conclave and it only makes your frames stronger in conclave, and doesn't enhance your performance in the PvE environment in any way. Spending your hard earned standing on Teshin's wares will not better equip you to run through that sortie, greatly alter your experience using your vectis in the plains of eidolon, or net you a new weapon you've been dying to use. Sure, you can get yourself a shiny new Excalibur or Volt... but there are already other methods to acquiring those. There is no built-in incentive to play conclave at all for a large majority of the player base. This makes conclave feel very isolated, more akin to a player made mod of the core game like the first iterations of Counterstrike or DotA, than a fully fleshed out game mode that is linked into the core draw of the game, getting loot for your ninja frames.

Another area where conclave lacks are events. We've had a few, but since that last one (Hearts and Arrows, which just got you a ship decoration... really?) was quite a long while ago. Even events like this get people charged up for conclave and they barely offer anything substantial. There aren't small events happening at regular intervals that offer a fresh alternative to the game.

How should this be addressed? should there be a new reward table offering new weapons or blueprints that rotates regularly? Should there be semi-regular events with exclusive rewards that can be used outside of conclave? Should conclave drop some current PvE mods? Should it have endo rewards that scale with your conclave performance? Should Teshin's  mods be overhauled or made available in PvE? I don't have the answers to these questions... 

What do you guys think? Do you agree with me? I think it is safe to say a lot of people feel conclave needs a little more love. I'd love to hear the thoughts of other players concerning this.

Lastly, if you read or even skimmed through this think short think piece, thank you for your time. 

Edited January 5, 2018 by Kayvaan

[(PSN)s3d_sas]

I skipped because I want to be first >_< 

edit: honestly if u want ppl to play conclave u have to do a major rework and they start of with the connection it should be a dedicated servers and then improve it afterwards 

Edited January 5, 2018 by (PS4)s3d_sas

[LSG501]

not going to work.... conclave has fundamental issues that need to be fixed before most of us will even consider playing it. 

Putting stuff only behind conclave will have a LOT of negative feedback, it was bad enough with the last 2 events that we had that only rewarded decorations for the ship so just imagine what it would be like if it was for stuff that affected MR standing etc. 

[krc473]

9 minutes ago, Kayvaan said:

How should this be addressed? should there be a new reward table offering new weapons or blueprints that rotates regularly? Should there be semi-regular events with exclusive rewards that can be used outside of conclave? Should conclave drop some current PvE mods? Should it have endo rewards that scale with your conclave performance? Should Teshin's  mods be overhauled or made available in PvE?

None of your suggestion work. Conclave needs a complete overhaul before people will play it. Why would I want to play the watered down version of the game in tiny maps, when I could just play the game? DE decided that "balanced for PvP" basically meant make every single thing weaker. 

 

Provided DE rework Conclave (completely) first, I would not be opposed to conclave events. Conclave can drop PvE mods, they come from the Weekly Challenges, as an example: Vengeful Revenant can be awarded from Conclave. They have attempted exxlusive loots in the past, but everyone did it the easy way. Because virtually no one wants to play conclave.

[K4RN4]

9 minutes ago, Kayvaan said:

How should this be addressed? should there be a new reward table offering new weapons or blueprints that rotates regularly? Should there be semi-regular events with exclusive rewards that can be used outside of conclave? Should conclave drop some current PvE mods? Should it have endo rewards that scale with your conclave performance?

Although I agree with you, that conclave should have some non-conclave rewards. Some people just don't want to play conclave (like me, I dislike pvp shooters overall), therefore it would not be great to have conclave events with exclusive rewards, that can be used in pve. 

[TARINunit9]

Noooooooooo

There should be NOTHING in PvE that is locked behind PvP. End of discussion. Conclave could be amazing (it's not) and I would still stand by this stance

[Darkvramp]

Conclave as it is now, sucks, it would require another rework before they connect it back to the rest of the game, but why would they do that if so little of the player base plays it?

[Phatose]

Rewards for conclave usable outside are already available via Teshin.  Rare stances, IIRC.

Having other hard to get things available through him would be OK, but nothing exclusive.  Exclusives mean players who hate PvP have to play it for PvE items.  Everybody loses when players a drawn into a game mode they don't want to be in.  PvE players are aggravated by being subject to PvP, and PvPers suddenly find themselves adrift in a sea of players who don't want to be there and don't care about anything beyond the minimum to get the exclusive rewards.

Beyond that, it's just not likely to ever be a popular game mode.  There is absolutely no shortage of PvP focused games, all of which execute better the Warframe.  I'd wage that if a person is playing Warframe, not Overwatch or the like, it's very likely they don't want to be playing PvP at all. 

Edited January 5, 2018 by Phatose

[Kinetos]

1, I won't play PvP ever under any circumstances so I oppose all suggestions for PvE usable loot that's exclusive to PvP. 

2, The way to make it more interesting is to make *it more interesting*. I mean, if it's fun, people will play it. If it is required for exclusive loot, people like me will still not play it, but some people will play it just enough to get the loot, but they'll be kicking and screaming the whole way. Do you want people like that or people who *love* PvP to be in your PvP matches? 

[AlphaPHENIX]

il y a 18 minutes, TARINunit9 a dit :

Noooooooooo

There should be NOTHING in PvE that is locked behind PvP. End of discussion. Conclave could be amazing (it's not) and I would still stand by this stance

3 words.

Everything is TRADABLE (with some exceptions, none of which affect Conclave)

[Kyryo]

Conclave should just be deleted. like all pvp in this galaxy.

[AlphaPHENIX]

il y a 36 minutes, Kayvaan a dit :

Should Teshin's  mods be overhauled or made available in PvE?

Trust me...at lot people get buthurt even over that when it's braught up...and those mods are moust likely not ever gona be ''meta'' unleas something like what happend with the Shield Disruption aura and Eidolons, before DE claimed it was a bug and fixed it, comes up...even then it would be temporary.

[TinySuperSalad]

If conclave put like capture the flag

or team A defend point from team B

Or deliver payload from point A to point B.

I know all these already exist from other games like Overwatch and World of Warcraft PVP but these kind of battlegrounds work.

Warframe can even make it so Team A defend VIP travelling from point 1 to point 2 while Team B assassinate VIP.

or team A sabotage target and Team B defend target.

or a arms race of exterminate x number of mobs while team A and team B able to target each other to slow them down.

[Kayvaan]

12 minutes ago, Phatose said:

Rewards for conclave usable outside are already available via Teshin.  Rare stances, IIRC.

There are no rare stance mods. All conclave stances are PvP- Only I am pretty sure.

As for what players want, it's my understanding that conclave was actually added because it was requested by a lot of players to begin with? If that is the case then clearly, people like conclave. They may not be a majority, but it was enough that they added it, then attempted to rework it, then added the ability to host servers as a way to minimize lag.

I think the mentality or stance of "no one wants to play conclave anyway" isn't at all an approach to improve it for the people who do want it and do enjoy it even as it is right now, because honestly I think there are a lot of people like me who think the mechanics of the core game are excellent for a pvp arena if it is given the proper amount of love and care. 

PvP is in DE's blood, they co-created one of the best series of arena shooters ever. I think they can easily "fix" conclave. It wouldn't take anything incredibly innovative imo

[Phatose]

4 minutes ago, Kayvaan said:

There are no rare stance mods. All conclave stances are PvP- Only I am pretty sure.

 

Vengeful Revenant, at the very least.

 

[Silentsintheday]

Warframe was never made with PvP in mind, PvP was an after thought whether because a major amount of people had shown interest in it or it was to compete with other similar games idk. The game is marketed and developed as a PvE type of game and most (possibly almost all) ppl come to play warframe for that PvE experience. The way conclave is right now is a side effect of adding PvP into a PvE focused game, this is true for as far as i know all games like this (Either being like warframe being PvE focused with some PvP or being PvP focused with little PvE). There is no game that comes to mind that has balanced between it's PvP and PvE, one of them is going to get neglected/ see less fixes/content/events etc etc. This is just the state of thing when combining the two, devs only have so much money, resources and time to make things, and they have picked to focus on the PvE

Edited January 5, 2018 by Silentsintheday
Fixed something I miss spoke

[Sziklamester]

I have no problem with the pvp things because the pvp can offer what the pve cannot is the human intelligence. The major problem with the game is balanced to grinding so the whole system is focused to pve and hardly can be balanced to pvp. Another major problem with the conclave and lunaro is the missing dedicated servers which needs in any normal game to work fluid.

The other problem is the dojos and obstacles not built around pvp and there are no fan created tournaments which could be interesting. For say I would like to watch a lunaro battle if in each teams have 10 person at least and have some decent map and stadiums. The archwing despite a pve content but it is also not popular because added later and in the execution failed.

The biggest issue basically the mentality of players and how DE made this game. From the beginning this meant pve and every other just came later. DE simply not were experienced enough how to implement these additional modes to the game without forcing or spoiling the gamers to play these mods. If the game released with all the content what we have now then probably it would be more polished now but not this happend. These can be good later but they need to rethink everything and how they could enjoy this. I wish they could make it better but it needs more funds.

Edited January 6, 2018 by Sziklamester

[xXHobbitXx]

conclave is just horrible, there is good reason no1 plays it.........end of discussion

[-Temp0-]

Playing conclave would've been way better for players that actually enjoy pvp it if it functioned like any other syndicate. Meaning if you could sell stuff, mainly cosmetics. This is the reason syndicates are "popular" so to speak and currently one of he best long-term ongoing systems in the game.

Цитата

There is no game that comes to mind that has balanced PvP and PvE

Dark souls.

Edited January 5, 2018 by -Temp0-

[Misgenesis]

I dont want anything to do with Conclave as long as the cramped maps and unlimited parkour exists.

[Kayvaan]

22 minutes ago, Phatose said:

Vengeful Revenant, at the very least.

Drops from Sentient drones and isn't exclusive to Conclave, but  I guess you're also right.

11 minutes ago, Silentsintheday said:

There is no game that comes to mind that has balanced PvP and PvE, one of them is going to get neglected/ see less fixes/content/events etc etc. This is just the state of thing when combining the two, devs only have so much money, resources and time to make things, and they have picked to focus on the PvE.

This is just plain incorrect. There are several games with relatively balancd PvE and PvP, with all do respect, you're just ignorant to that fact either because you don't play said games or have a different view of what "balanced" means. 

As an aside... Warframe's PvE isn't even balanced either... however having hilariously strong min/max builds and mod combinations isn't seen as a problem by the community because it doesn't necessarily directly affect other players PvE experience.

11 minutes ago, Sziklamester said:

I have no problem with the pvp things because the pvp can offer what the pve cannot is the human intelligence. The major problem with the game is balanced to grinding so the whole system is focused to pve and hardly can be balanced to pvp. Another major problem with the conclave and lunaro is the missing dedicated servers which needs in any normal game to work fluid.

The other problem is the dojos and obstacles not built around pvp and there are no fan created tournaments which could be interesting. For say I would like to watch a lunaro battle if in each teams have 10 person at least and have some decent map and stadiums. The archwing despite a pve content but it is also not popular because added later and in the execution failed.

The biggest issue basically the mentality of players and how DE made this game. From the beginning this meant pve and every other just came later. De simply not were experienced enough how to implement these additional modes to the game without forcing or spoiling the gamers to play these mods. If the game released with all the content what we have now then probably it would be more polished now but not this happend. These can be good later but they need to rethink everything and how they could enjoy this. I wish they could make it better but it needs more funds.

I agree with some of these points. While I think having dedicated servers would be absolutely amazing that would be the hardest investment for them to make, monetarily speaking.

For the community to hold their own events and have them be meaningful, conclave needs spectator mode. I know, there's already a couple giant threads about spectator mode, I won't get started on that, I'll only say that this is one of a few changes that would be easiest on their pocket. 

[Kayvaan]

12 minutes ago, -Temp0- said:

Playing conclave would've been way better for players that actually enjoy pvp it if it functioned like any other syndicate. Meaning if you could sell stuff, mainly cosmetics. This is the reason syndicates are "popular" so to speak and currently one of he best long-term ongoing systems in the game.

Dark souls.

Lets not talk about the hilarious images that come to mind when thinking of player invasions in Warframe... 

[Midrib]

No, forcing people to play Conclave to get new weapons or mods isn't going to get people to like Conclave and appreciate the gameplay, you will just get people mad. biggest example of that is the Tactical alert/Event that required PVP gameplay, even for a silly reward as a ship ornament people got riled up, because Conclave is just not fun to play. some people enjoy but, but clearly the majority don't. and that's why Conclave as a system needs to changed to fix the issue, and not just lock shiny new toys behind it.

Want to improve Conclave and push players to play it? Maybe provide servers that aren't terrible, perhaps consider introducing a soft stamina system so having fire fights isn't so frustrating because the one guy you're firing at is bullet jumping at mach speed with no consequence. just a few ideas from someone who really tried liking Conclave but it just doesn't work.

Edited January 6, 2018 by Midrib

[Kayvaan]

2 minutes ago, Midrib said:

No, forcing people to play Conclave to get new weapons or mods isn't going to get people to like Conclave and appreciate the gameplay, you will just get people mad. biggest example of that is the Tactical alert that required PVP gameplay, even for a silly reward as a ship ornament people got riled up, because Conclave is just not fun to play. some people enjoy but, but clearly the majority don't. and that's why Conclave as a system needs to changed to fix the issue, and not just lock shiny new toys behind it.

Want to improve Conclave and push players to play it? Maybe provide servers that aren't terrible, perhaps consider introducing a soft stamina system so having fire fights isn't so frustrating because the one guy you're firing at is bullet jumping at mach speed with no consequence. just a few ideas from someone who really tried liking Conclave but it just doesn't work.

You aren't forcing anyone to play conclave by locking rewards in it, you just make it so players who do like conclave are rewarded, and it gives more value to the game mode since most mods, ship blueprints, prime parts, etc are tradeable. So that person who hates PvP but has a ton of rare mods or plat that he acquired through trading rare mods and primes? He can just trade for the rewards he doesn't want to fight for himself. This is another reason why the rewards should be better and tradeable.

 

To preface the following, I am not being condescending at all with my next response so don't take it that way.

Yes it is hard shooting at a moving target... but have you considered that if he is running from you he is running into someone else he will not be able to properly avoid, or that he has just as difficult a time shooting at you while spamming bullet jump like a maniac? That just sounds like a frustration with the mechanics and not necessarily with the issue of how disjointed the game mode is as a whole in regards to what it offers as an alternative game mode.

 

[Frosthaven83]

So here's my problem with it. No matter how much polish a game like this puts in their pvp, there are other games out there that make pvp their sole focus. I already subscribe to pvp in other games, so whatever conclave offers I'll happily miss out on. That might sound a bit harsh, but that's where I stand on pve games that sort of also offer a side dish of pvp (especially gear-based pvp).

Love me some fighting games though :D

Edited January 6, 2018 by Frosthaven83