Suggestion to DE by an old fool, on the topic of endgame.

[ZectorV1]

I'll make this short, so give it a thought ey? I sincerely miss my endgame, and the 5 minute interruptions in survivals are really jarring and break up the flow of the gameplay. I also miss the void having a purpose. Here's the suggestion. I'm no master of game balance but consider this for a moment, would it be so terrible if void traces were used to open relics instead of upgrading them? I realize that adds sort of another layer of grind, other than if you wanted the rarest drop anyway, but hear me out. Maybe the void could have void traces added to the resources table? So you could do long runs again without a menu shoved in your face every 5 minutes. This would essentially make relics loot boxes, but they're ALREADY loot boxes, you just have to work to open them. Give it a thought ey? Even if you disagree with that, maybe look at an endgame again in general? Thanks. 

[peterc3]

So let people get what they want, right when they want it? The game would be dead.

[rune_me]

I would just like to have something ala Path of Exile where we as players can modify a mission node. Of course whatever let us do that would be farmable, so it would add more grind, but hey, we're used to that by now. 

Imagine something like the Nightmare modifiers, and sortie modifiers, but many more of them, increasing the level of the node, making enemies cause elemental damage, boosting their health, etc, and you could add them yourself. And for every "negative" effect there could be a benefit as well: affinity booster for that mission, better drop chances, higher chance to drop relics, whatever. That way you could stack it all together for a truely insane endgame worthy experience, but you'd also get much better rewards for it.

[Chipputer]

1 hour ago, peterc3 said:

So let people get what they want, right when they want it? The game would be dead.

"Open with void traces."

You'd have to farm them and you have a cap based on your MR. This would simply let you save up traces and open a bunch of relics all at once rather than opening them one at a time, per mission. In the end it's going to make the time to open relics... about the exact same.

[JalakBali]

This has nothing on endgame and more about speed of farming prime parts. It also wouldn't change much, assuming it would take 100 traces to open a relic outside of a mission. You'd still have to run fissures to get the traces and then you open a relic with no added chance of drop tables from 3 other players. It would be very slightly more convenient for solo players but not regular players.

[ZectorV1]

On 2/3/2018 at 7:30 PM, JalakBali said:

This has nothing on endgame and more about speed of farming prime parts. It also wouldn't change much, assuming it would take 100 traces to open a relic outside of a mission. You'd still have to run fissures to get the traces and then you open a relic with no added chance of drop tables from 3 other players. It would be very slightly more convenient for solo players but not regular players.

Long runs are an endgame for many people. Menus prompts ruin the flow.

[A-Midnight-Shanking]

How will this impact the aspect of sharing relics? Will players be able to pool their chances for an item anymore, or is it now relegated to your own relic?

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

Sorry but that idea would just shift relic farming back to the void, the old Void doesn't exist they would have to double the relative difficulty of the void to make this practical from their timesink driven point of view. which would immediately remove impetus to do fissure which is something they expressly don't want to do.

I'll make 2 observations; one about relics and one about "endgame"

The problem with relics isn't really the fissure missions; it's the underlying mechanics. Relics are loot boxes you pay for in time. So essentially no type of effort really matters when it comes to relics; you get a random reward whether you farmed fissures quickly or took your time. While most people don't even think about this while they mindlessly collect traces and open relics hoping to "finally get that item" subconsciously it has a huge impact on how they perceived the game. And eventually, as you grind endless fissures, yo begin to get bored and discouraged and eventually complain about the drop rate, not about the fact that nothing you do really directly contributes to you receiving that reward. This is why only the most OCD Skinner box addicted player can get behind relic farming and maintain it, they have just the reward to make it worthwhile, their "effort" is translating to the types of rewards they are getting. But eventually most people get bored when subconsciously they realize it's a rigged system and it's design to make sure you don't get exactly the item you want when you want it. It's intentionally designed for you to spend more time the more valuable the reward.

My only suggestion to this is create a system which rewards effort over mere time. For example, I feel a way to improve the relic experience is to use void traces and allow you to refine for a specific item. So once you hit Radiance level you can either open it up regularly or keep adding traces and increasing the chance at a drop for a specific item you chose. Once you chose you are locked to that reward and you must keep adding void traces until a certain amount of traces fully charges the relic. I had the idea of going to Barro and paying him in ducats to unlock the item for you, but you could also make it that you can only open this relic with a party comprised of relics which are fully charged. The fissure mission to unlock this maxed out relic would have to be a higher level mission and/or require a higher amount of traces. I would say this is a perfect place to add a little RNG into the mix and have it so every time you hit a round there is a chance the relic opens or it fails to open and you have run through another round of collecting traces to try and open it again, this time with even harder enemies. Make this happen on a per relic basis so the entire party will have to decide whether they want to keep going to open them all or leave since more than likely one or more relics won't open right away.

Now to endgame. Warframe has an endgame, it's just not one that people like to acknowledge. And I'm not talking about Fashionframe. The official DE endgame for Warframe is raids and sorties. I know alot of you hear this and immediately refute this assertion but if you pay attention to what DE does, how they manage and maintain the mechanics of the game and the fact they don't consider endless wave to be a viable endgame there is no other conclusion to arrive at. And they are going to be removing raids, which leaves sorties (and quite possibly Dark Sector if they decide to bring it back to replace raids, doubtful as this would have been in the announcement) as the only true DE approved endgame. Now I agree that this isn't really the type of "endgame" a 5 year old game should have at this point but that is what they have done.

The fundamental issue here is that content takes effort. You need people working for months, maybe even years, designing, testing and implementing any type of content in a game. Then there is the added difficulty of creating content for veteran players who know how to exploit almost every aspect of the underlying mechanics, which means whatever you make better be really challenging or else you defeat the whole purpose of "endgame content." DE doesn't have the manpower to devote this type of effort to make the type of endgame content most people expect at this point. It comes as a consequence of them being a small dev house and not having the type of financial backing which can justify this type of investment. Then again this small size is also the reason why DE largely managed to avoid the type of monetization pitfalls alot of other game house has fallen into.

I certainly don't envy their position and I am not saying for the amount of resources they have they don't make the best product they can manage. But being objective they are playing above their weight class and they will either need to invest in a larger workforce, many of whom will have to be dedicate solely towards working on core aspects of the game, while other work on new content, or else more and more these QA and balance issuea will come at the forefront as more regular gamers play warframes and will be super critical as to the presentation and content and less loyal to DE as a company. And history has shown that trying to chase a rigid schedule of constant new content updates to satiate veteran players is a zero sum game, no company has managed to accomplish this. My only idea is that DE needs to switch focus away from currated content and create a more player controlled endgame experience. Whether that incorporates more PvP elements(yes I know a taboo in this game) or create a Clan V Clan system which is based around PvE is up for debate. I know probably most players prefer not to have PvP be the focus of the game at all, but from a content point of view PvP is the perfect endgame. I myself would love to see a player driven endgame system which uses clans and darksectors to allow clans and alliances to fight over and control the starchart. Maybe not in direct PvP battles, but maybe using the existing invasion system and clans offering rewards to players who fight invasions on their behalf.

My point is the only way the game will continue to be enticing to veteran players is if they use their experience and seniority to engage in unique activities that newer players don't have access to yet. I feel moving more towards player driven systems as the endgame would help alleviate the constant content grind creation DE has to subject themselves to or else face vets abandoning the game.

[ZectorV1]

13 minutes ago, (PS4)HurricaneHugo76 said:

Sorry but that idea would just shift relic farming back to the void, the old Void doesn't exist they would have to double the relative difficulty of the void to make this practical from their timesink driven point of view. which would immediately remove impetus to do fissure which is something they expressly don't want to do.

I'll make 2 observations; one about relics and one about "endgame"

The problem with relics isn't really the fissure missions; it's the underlying mechanics. Relics are loot boxes you pay for in time. So essentially no type of effort really matters when it comes to relics; you get a random reward whether you farmed fissures quickly or took your time. While most people don't even think about this while they mindlessly collect traces and open relics hoping to "finally get that item" subconsciously it has a huge impact on how they perceived the game. And eventually, as you grind endless fissures, yo begin to get bored and discouraged and eventually complain about the drop rate, not about the fact that nothing you do really directly contributes to you receiving that reward. This is why only the most OCD Skinner box addicted player can get behind relic farming and maintain it, they have just the reward to make it worthwhile, their "effort" is translating to the types of rewards they are getting. But eventually most people get bored when subconsciously they realize it's a rigged system and it's design to make sure you don't get exactly the item you want when you want it. It's intentionally designed for you to spend more time the more valuable the reward.

My only suggestion to this is create a system which rewards effort over mere time. For example, I feel a way to improve the relic experience is to use void traces and allow you to refine for a specific item. So once you hit Radiance level you can either open it up regularly or keep adding traces and increasing the chance at a drop for a specific item you chose. Once you chose you are locked to that reward and you must keep adding void traces until a certain amount of traces fully charges the relic. I had the idea of going to Barro and paying him in ducats to unlock the item for you, but you could also make it that you can only open this relic with a party comprised of relics which are fully charged. The fissure mission to unlock this maxed out relic would have to be a higher level mission and/or require a higher amount of traces. I would say this is a perfect place to add a little RNG into the mix and have it so every time you hit a round there is a chance the relic opens or it fails to open and you have run through another round of collecting traces to try and open it again, this time with even harder enemies. Make this happen on a per relic basis so the entire party will have to decide whether they want to keep going to open them all or leave since more than likely one or more relics won't open right away.

Now to endgame. Warframe has an endgame, it's just not one that people like to acknowledge. And I'm not talking about Fashionframe. The official DE endgame for Warframe is raids and sorties. I know alot of you hear this and immediately refute this assertion but if you pay attention to what DE does, how they manage and maintain the mechanics of the game and the fact they don't consider endless wave to be a viable endgame there is no other conclusion to arrive at. And they are going to be removing raids, which leaves sorties (and quite possibly Dark Sector if they decide to bring it back to replace raids, doubtful as this would have been in the announcement) as the only true DE approved endgame. Now I agree that this isn't really the type of "endgame" a 5 year old game should have at this point but that is what they have done.

The fundamental issue here is that content takes effort. You need people working for months, maybe even years, designing, testing and implementing any type of content in a game. Then there is the added difficulty of creating content for veteran players who know how to exploit almost every aspect of the underlying mechanics, which means whatever you make better be really challenging or else you defeat the whole purpose of "endgame content." DE doesn't have the manpower to devote this type of effort to make the type of endgame content most people expect at this point. It comes as a consequence of them being a small dev house and not having the type of financial backing which can justify this type of investment. Then again this small size is also the reason why DE largely managed to avoid the type of monetization pitfalls alot of other game house has fallen into.

I certainly don't envy their position and I am not saying for the amount of resources they have they don't make the best product they can manage. But being objective they are playing above their weight class and they will either need to invest in a larger workforce, many of whom will have to be dedicate solely towards working on core aspects of the game, while other work on new content, or else more and more these QA and balance issuea will come at the forefront as more regular gamers play warframes and will be super critical as to the presentation and content and less loyal to DE as a company. And history has shown that trying to chase a rigid schedule of constant new content updates to satiate veteran players is a zero sum game, no company has managed to accomplish this. My only idea is that DE needs to switch focus away from currated content and create a more player controlled endgame experience. Whether that incorporates more PvP elements(yes I know a taboo in this game) or create a Clan V Clan system which is based around PvE is up for debate. I know probably most players prefer not to have PvP be the focus of the game at all, but from a content point of view PvP is the perfect endgame. I myself would love to see a player driven endgame system which uses clans and darksectors to allow clans and alliances to fight over and control the starchart. Maybe not in direct PvP battles, but maybe using the existing invasion system and clans offering rewards to players who fight invasions on their behalf.

My point is the only way the game will continue to be enticing to veteran players is if they use their experience and seniority to engage in unique activities that newer players don't have access to yet. I feel moving more towards player driven systems as the endgame would help alleviate the constant content grind creation DE has to subject themselves to or else face vets abandoning the game.

this seems ridiculous to only comment on one point as that entire thing was very well thought out, but the sorties are once a day and the raids are being taken out of the game. 

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

26 minutes ago, Zectorcop said:

this seems ridiculous to only comment on one point as that entire thing was very well thought out, but the sorties are once a day and the raids are being taken out of the game. 

Yeah I mentioned raids were being removed. I also didn't want to make my post even longer by going into a detail analysis about why raids and sorties aren't seen as an endgame by vet players. I will only say the issue with sorties and raid come from the fact that players have a markedly different idea what constitute the core aspect of Warframe as a game than the devs do. I will just say this stems from the fact that the devs allowed endless wave mechanics to be exploited by veteran players as a placeholder for endgame content. But weirdly while they allowed vets to use endless waves as a form of endgame they fundamentally thought no one actually liked it and they truly feel sorties and raids is the type of content that best demonstrates the upper limit end of the game.

Edited February 8, 2018 by (PS4)HurricaneHugo76

[ZectorV1]

1 hour ago, (PS4)HurricaneHugo76 said:

Yeah I mentioned raids were being removed. I also didn't want to make my post even longer by going into a detail analysis about why raids and sorties aren't seen as an endgame by vet players. I will only say the issue with sorties and raid come from the fact that players have a markedly different idea what constitute the core aspect of Warframe as a game than the devs do. I will just say this stems from the fact that the devs allowed endless wave mechanics to be exploited by veteran players as a placeholder for endgame content. But weirdly while they allowed vets to use endless waves as a form of endgame they fundamentally thought no one actually liked it and they truly feel sorties and raids is the type of content that best demonstrates the upper limit end of the game.

game design is hard and whatever. Thats exactly my issue though as a (running on) 5 year vet. I really enjoyed the challenge from trying to last for hours in the game's mechanics just at ridiculous levels. nowadays if i want to get anywhere near the same rewards i gotta have a menu shoved in my face every 5 minutes, or go for no real rewards in a game that is getting more and more grind every single update. thats my fundamental issue with an "Endgame" or lack thereof. Hell, even raids dont help you at all unless you REALLY want arcanes(trading for plat doesn't count as thats a community function). in that sense sorties are the only endgame that actually helps you gain something worthwhile and has satisfying and challenging missions...sometimes. And even then its only once a day. Im by no means saying that i want to be able to run sorties forever and get all the rewards i could dream of, thats far too powerful. Its just incredibly frustrating that the relic system could theoretically get you what you need in a few hours, but realistically the rng is so relentless that at this point, after all these years, i dont find all the work fun because my efforts do not at all justify the risk of an in game STILL random, though skewed,  loot box on top of a grind on top of a grind, that requires grinding to open. Its jarring and weird for new players, and its tedious for old ones. But man, im willing to overlook all of that if i can just have my endless runs just give me SOMETHING to help, which is why i suggested to give me void traces from the void. I love challenging myself in long runs i just dont like feeling like ive been shafted when my only drops that mean anything there literally decay over time. For years that was a rewarding and challenging way to play. I guess i still feel the phantom limb from it sorta speak. 

Edited February 9, 2018 by Zectorcop

[Kimimoto]

This really won't change much besides shoving everyone into the Void again, and it doesn't really solve the problem with Endgame. Endless Kuva makes a lot more sense to implement.

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

2 minutes ago, Zectorcop said:

game design in hard and whatever. Thats exactly my issue though as a (running on) 5 year vet. I really enjoyed the challenge from trying to last for hours in the game's mechanics just at ridiculous levels. nowadays if i want to get anywhere near the same rewards i gotta have a menu shoved in my face every 5 minutes, or go for no real rewards in a game that is getting more and more grind every single update. thats my fundemntal issue with an "Endgame" or lack thereof. Hell, even raids dont help you at all unless you REALLY want arcanes(trading for plat doesnt count as thats a community function). in that sense sorties are the only endgame that actually helps you gain something worthwhile and has satisfying and challenging missions...sometimes. And even then its only once a day. Im by no means saying that i want to be able to run sorties forever and get all the rewards i could dream of, thats far too powerful. Its just incredibly frustrating that the relic system could theoretically get you what you need in a few hours, but realistically the rng is so relentless that at this point, after all these years, i dont find all the work fun because my efforts do not at all justify the risk of an in game STILL random, though skewed,  loot box on top of a grind on top of a grind, that requires grinding to open. Its jarring and weird for new players, and its tedious for old ones. But man, im willing to overlook all of that if i can just have my endless runs just give me SOMETHING to help, which is why i suggested to give me void traces from the void. I love challenging myself in long runs i just dont like feeling like ive been shafted when my only drops that mean anything there literally decay over time. For years that was a rewarding and challenging way to play. I guess i still feel the phantom limb from it sorta speak. 

LOL, Well I have played this gave for over 2 years, probably almost 3. I started out on PC and moved over to PS4. I will tell you I had a completely different perception of endless waves.

I remember the very first time I hit 60 minutes on a Void T4 Survival. I will admit that first time was one of the very few times I ever truly FELT OP in the game and made me feel like I had finally made it to the top tier of the game. But I also remember that shortly after that point I realized that most people merely did AFK farming and that there was no real "challenge" going that long. That and I inherently realize there is no fundamental difference between running 3 missions for 20 minutes of one long mission for 60 minutes in terms of drop chances. I also realized that people gravitated towards this because once you hit the void there was truly nothing to do. This was before Raids and Sorties and Operators and Amps/Zaws. I always wondered when DE was going to release some content specifically geared to players who cleared the starchart and only endlessly ran void farms.

Now strangely enough, when they released the Law of Retribution I was immediately happy and I was one of the first in my clan to beat the Raid on PC when it came out. Me and my clanmates did it within 3-4 days of it's release. I thought the raid was a fabulous event, and I thought it was one of the only true coop levels DE ever designed. But within a few days I started realizing that arcanes, the rewards, just weren't that special enough for me to run the endless amounts would need to to have a chance at getting enough of the ones you wanted to make the whole endeavor. That and my relationship to the clan I was playing with eroded and I could never find the types of players I felt comfortable playing raids with.

 

So I completely understand why people don't like raids because the arcanes were largely seen a spointless and a waste of time. But I felt it was sad that DE never tried bolstering raids and sorties by sprinkling better rewards in the pool.  I feel that is fundamentally what the issue here is.

[ZectorV1]

1 hour ago, (PS4)HurricaneHugo76 said:

LOL, Well I have played this gave for over 2 years, probably almost 3. I started out on PC and moved over to PS4. I will tell you I had a completely different perception of endless waves.

I remember the very first time I hit 60 minutes on a Void T4 Survival. I will admit that first time was one of the very few times I ever truly FELT OP in the game and made me feel like I had finally made it to the top tier of the game. But I also remember that shortly after that point I realized that most people merely did AFK farming and that there was no real "challenge" going that long. That and I inherently realize there is no fundamental difference between running 3 missions for 20 minutes of one long mission for 60 minutes in terms of drop chances. I also realized that people gravitated towards this because once you hit the void there was truly nothing to do. This was before Raids and Sorties and Operators and Amps/Zaws. I always wondered when DE was going to release some content specifically geared to players who cleared the starchart and only endlessly ran void farms.

Now strangely enough, when they released the Law of Retribution I was immediately happy and I was one of the first in my clan to beat the Raid on PC when it came out. Me and my clanmates did it within 3-4 days of it's release. I thought the raid was a fabulous event, and I thought it was one of the only true coop levels DE ever designed. But within a few days I started realizing that arcanes, the rewards, just weren't that special enough for me to run the endless amounts would need to to have a chance at getting enough of the ones you wanted to make the whole endeavor. That and my relationship to the clan I was playing with eroded and I could never find the types of players I felt comfortable playing raids with.

 

So I completely understand why people don't like raids because the arcanes were largely seen a spointless and a waste of time. But I felt it was sad that DE never tried bolstering raids and sorties by sprinkling better rewards in the pool.  I feel that is fundamentally what the issue here is.

see the challenge debate on long runs is an interesting one because it assumes that you have to essentially afk farm everything, which i never did, nor ran into anyone who ever did in the 3 or so years it was the thing to be doing. twas a shocking amount of people actually playing the game, or i was just incredibly lucky.

Either way i honestly just want some sort of value out of playing the actual core game at a high level without a menu prompt breaking my action to a screeching halt every 5 minutes. Most people will never see enemy units over lv 200 these days, and you're sure as hell not encouraged to try. I would have honestly loved to have an alternative to endless void farms, hell thats all i did for years. BUT, i enjoyed it a lot. They took it away and theres nothing to take it's place. I mean, its still there as a shell of its former self. You honestly get more reward out of doing endless on any other faction. Every other faction spans multiple planets and has better drops in addition to having the prime farming dispersed out there. The void faction is the most challenging and most varied, and the only reward you get out of it thats worth anything is a decaying resource. The way we get primes now is an entirely separate issue on a overall boring starchart.

I just want SOME reason to challenge myself in some way, and not get absolutely nothing out of it in a game thats 90% grind. I wouldnt even care if you had to use relics in the exact same way as you do now, id just like to be able to farm void traces in the void so we can at least get SOMETHING out of the hardest content in the game, at least something that doesn't have half lives.

 

Whats fundamentally the issue here, for me, is that i feel punished for playing the game to it's full extent, and now i feel like a bored god that can flick anything away with a single finger. My options today if i actually want anything of value are low level missions, or (using the argument that raids still existed), push a cart and solve some puzzles. That sucks.                                                                                                                                                                

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

See that is where I see something different. Where you saw the only real bit of challenge taken away from you I see something that was never meant to be the true challenge and that DE misled alot of older players that the end result of their effort was going to translate to something meaningful down the road. when in fact they never really thought out the consequence of allowing players to break the game with endless waves of extremely high level mobs.

This right here is the core of the problem now between veteran players and new players and the conversations surrounding mechanical adjustment and "endgame" content. This all really exposes how far out on a limb DE has gone with all the changes and addition they capriciously made to the game for the sake of enticing new players. I feel they have gone of such a tangent in terms of certain content that it will be ner next to impossible to resolve this all back to one cohesive experience without removing core aspects of the game.

For example, and this is pure conjecture and my personal observation, but I feel what DE is really trying to do is replace Warframes with Operators and replace endless wave grinds with factional grinding. This simplifies the game alot in terms of development and allows them more control over item acquisition and lets them fine tune the grind as they see fit. Eventually they will buff operators to the point where people will not want to play warframes anymore and they can drop the entire content from the game. And say the meant to do it all along.