Why the next open world will not be successful

[IllumiMahdi]

...unless you implement player engagement into it!

We should have 1-2 hours of solid foundation for the new open world.

What I mean by this is that the design should be that we take part in building up the community. When PoE hit, we didn't know of it, the whole place was built and all we could do was grind to grind some more. It is frankly, an awful system. The new open world should not be a copy paste of PoE, it should reward players without frustrating RNG. 

The new open world should have 1-2 hours of build up, you protect civilians and gather resources to create an eventual prosperous community. After you do this, you can say "Wow, I built this place". After the 1-2 hours, it should become server-based like PoE. We, as players, don't want a big empty area, we would rather have a small area packed with things to do. It would be amazing to have some enclosed areas rather than a big open space so you can have variety in navigation. This results in player immersion, going through icy forests with sunlight peeking in through the trees. Reward exploration! (As in, if a player finds a cave or a structure with loot, they should get a blueprint out of it).

Make specific spots for resource farming! This is part of the reason why PoE died so quickly. All of the drops you got couldn't be farmed specifically whereas the core game had solid locations to farm resources. This results in players communicating to find good spots.

Do not make it a big enemy area. Include friendly animals to harvest resources via stealth or full gunfire. Each has their advantages, however it would be great to have some cool stealth gameplay (crouching through bushes to sneak up onto an animal to harvest resources). This also create an opportunity for varied fields rather than having the PoE effect where everything feels same-y.

Make a quest system! We should find people hiding in the open world area and tell them to seek shelter in the community YOU built. These people hiding should be blacksmiths, mages, etc. to give you new gear. Players can find them and help others to find them. They can give you hunting gear and certain consumables that will make resource gathering easier, or increase frequency in animals. These people can also give you quests to hunt animals for them, or kill enemies for you to get "x" resources in return. You could place drills that last for an hour and after finished provide you with gems and minerals (which you can also farm manually). Instead of leaving everything for an individual to do, set up systems to make farming less tiresome. 

As mentioned just then, set up systems for easier farming! We could farm and build mineral extractors to place in the open world, instead of having a bounty guy, have multiple people offering different things so you don't get burned out due to RNG. Not to toot my own horn, but this is an example of good level design. You wanna push the open world review to an 8 or a 9? Include these things! Bounties are boring and monotonous, resulting in RNG rewards that mostly are not useful. Quests can be monotonous, but the RNG rewards are gone and the only RNG is the quest the NPC will provide. These quests can be gather "x" amount of "y" plants, cut down "x" amount of trees, skin "x" animals, kill "x" amount of "y", slay "x" to get "x" resources/blueprints/crafting components/items to make farming easier! 

Farming doesn't need to be monotonous repetition until you get the RNG reward you want, it can be a mission that may be difficult, but guarantees your reward. 

If you read all of this, I thank you very much and I would love to read your comments and criticisms. I hope someone from DE sees this and revamps mission design for the new open world.

EDIT: Wow, thanks for all the support! DE, think systematic progression! We should be able to have things done offscreen (more than just foundry building) so when we come back, we have resources, we don't need to farm every time we go on and just enjoy the game. Thanks everyone who is giving me critiques, telling me what is right and what is wrong and I definitely did fail to mention what I really wanted was intelligent AI and a lot more player socialization, rather than join a mission, finish and leave squad.

EDIT2: It appears DE is looking to copy+paste PoE but make it "bigger". Let's fight back against this and make meaningful gameplay elements take place!

Someone else linked these videos, I think they are very relevant to what we are discussing:

Spoiler

 

NOTE: "Quests" are not the same as traditional Warframe Quests! These are my version of revamped bounties.

Edited February 24, 2018 by IllumiMahdi

[FrostedMike]

Sounds funny.

How many resources DE need to make this kind of system? I do agree on some parts like spots for gathering resources, but the rest doesn't seems to make sense from the amount of stuff you need to program to make it happen. You're talking about years of development, DE have a few months.

[Pyradus]

I can already see the next Plains of Venus expansion. Venus Wisp, Venus Fish, Venus Town where you must grind an entirely new reputation to max level all over again! Oh boy, I can't wait!!!

[Kyoresh]

2 minutes ago, CapnToaster said:

Venus Wisp, Venus Fish, Venus Town

 

Venus Hills...

[IllumiMahdi]

Just now, FrostedMike said:

Sounds funny.

How many resources DE need to make this kind of system? I do agree on some parts like spots for gathering resources, but the rest doesn't seems to make sense from the amount of stuff you need to program to make it happen. You're talking about years of development, DE have a few months.

Definitely incorporating resources from PoE in meaningful ways would help. Animals can basically be reskins of kavats/kubrows but less aggressive. DE doesn't need to only have a few months, even taking a year to do this would be amazing. 

[IllumiMahdi]

3 minutes ago, CapnToaster said:

I can already see the next Plains of Venus expansion. Venus Wisp, Venus Fish, Venus Town where you must grind an entirely new reputation to max level all over again! Oh boy, I can't wait!!!

Exactly what I wish they would avoid. :P

[Atekron]

no thank you, too confusing and convoluted, current open maps are fine, just make rewards meaningful, bugs at minimum, fix archiving, add skyscrapers with robo-spiders and we're fine

Edited February 12, 2018 by Atekron

[Marine027]

How about no more of this? I am honest i am fine with new content, but PoE felt forced, another game jumping on the "Open World" bandwagon, i am sick and tired honestly of games trying ot announce it as big game changer or as big feature of the gaem while in reallity most ends up big empty places with nothing to explore, i rather have more fleshed out Quest and more backstory, bigger Lore, more information to the World we play in.

I mean look at things like the Nidus Quest, a overhyped overpowered frame, i not like him simply becasue of copy paste powers which overshadow the orginals in most ways, but main point is his Quest, no Info on him, a Index rush, and the faction who is immune ot the infestation seems just forgotten now, not even a specific mission type implented like in the Quest itself.

It felt like a waste of time but PoE, feels even more wasted, not much Story, and yes we get more surely but the plains itself, if walked or flyed over them once and done all you are done with it, missions are also repetetive but atleast map changes mostly, plains and bountys, tedious walking, annyoing enemys, battle ships *coughs* and not much variety, i have more variety in endless missions and i not even like those also much.

Speaking of variety, could we stop including new Grineer content and just recolour them? Kuva, Nightwatch, Drekar, etc. Same for Corpus in Archwing.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Marine027

[HellVOps]

PoE and probably the next Venus area feel like sperate parts that are connected to one main whole that is Warframe and not "integrated" seamlessly into it.

[IllumiMahdi]

1 minute ago, Atekron said:

no thank you, too confusing and convoluted, current open maps are fine, just make rewards meaningful, bugs at minimum, fix archiving, add skyscrapers with robo-spiders and we're fine

If it's like that, we are repeating the same Warframe loop. Grind for RNG, finally get it, never play that mission again. 

[IllumiMahdi]

Just now, Marine027 said:

How about no more of this? I am honest i am fine with new content, but PoE felt forced, another game jumping on the "Open World" bandwagon, i am sick and tired honestly of games trying ot announce it as big game changer or as big feature of the gaem while in reallity most ends up big empty palces with nothing to explore, i rather have more fleshed out Quest and more backstory, bigger Lore, more information to the World we play in.

I mean look at things like the Nidus Quest, a overhyped overpowered frame, i not like him simply becasue of copy paste pwoers which ofershadwo the orginals in most ways, but main point is his Quest, no Info on him, a Index rush, and the faction who is immune ot the infecioin seems just forgotten now, not even a specific mission type implented like in the Quest itself.

It felt like a waste of time but PoE, feels even more wasted, not much Story, and yes we get more surely but the plaisn itself, if walked or flyed over them once and done all once you are done with it, missions are also repetetive but atleast map changes mostly, plains and bountys, tedious walking, annyoing enemys, battle ships *coughs* and not much variety, i have more variety in endless missions and i not even like those also much.

We can't avoid them making a new open world. They are trying to mimic the success of PoE. And if you read what I wrote, this would be a meaningful lore expansion where YOU are involved in the lore. They aren't a big game changer, but with good rewards and quests, it could become something meaningful. I 100% agree with you, but this is how it is so we should steer the ship in the right direction. :D

[IllumiMahdi]

2 minutes ago, HellVOps said:

PoE and probably the next Venus area feel like sperate parts that are connected to one main whole that is Warframe and not "integrated" seamlessly into it.

And the way to do that is making resources come frequently and have characters you care about. These resources can then finally be used in weapons and such, as PoE resources came too little too late. If the characters appeared more often, sort of like Baro and had stuff you could do for exclusive items, it would be great!

[OoKeNnEtHoO]

As much as I like the whole "players help build the area" concept, don't forget that this is an mmo, ya?

In mmos, unlike single player games, content needs to be made available to all.

You can't have DE design a whole system for us to build stuff then after just 2 hours or however long this build up event is, gate it from the new players that join later on and they will never experience this building gameplay mechanic DE made.

If you make it like any mmo then that will mean everytime we enter the place, we need spend 2 whole hours playing a building phase unless you make it a quest and gate the rest of the content after the quest which could also lead to less people (who have cleared the quest) helping to build the buildings.

[IllumiMahdi]

1 minute ago, OoKeNnEtHoO said:

As much as I like the whole "players help build the area" concept, don't forget that this is an mmo, ya?

In mmos, unlike single player games, content needs to be made available to all.

You can't have DE design a whole system for us to build stuff then after just 2 hours or however long this build up event is, gate it from the new players that join later on and they will never experience this building gameplay mechanic DE made.

If you make it like any mmo then that will mean everytime we enter the place, we need spend 2 whole hours playing a building phase unless you make it a quest and gate the rest of the content after the quest which could also lead to less people (who have cleared the quest) helping to build the buildings.

Thank you for this. Indepth response that isn't super subjective, great points too. 

Agreed. I think it should be more like make multiple players contributing to building shops and such (like Metal Gear's nuke disarmament event). So people contribute 100 of "x" resource until the requirement is met to make the community work for the rewards. Just a suggestion though! :D

[artemisfortune]

26 minutes ago, IllumiMahdi said:

We can't avoid them making a new open world. They are trying to mimic the success of PoE. And if you read what I wrote, this would be a meaningful lore expansion where YOU are involved in the lore. They aren't a big game changer, but with good rewards and quests, it could become something meaningful. I 100% agree with you, but this is how it is so we should steer the ship in the right direction. :D

"success" They had initial success, but numbers have stagnated like everything else in this game. It's all shallow, surface level grind.

[IllumiMahdi]

4 minutes ago, Pent_ said:

"success" They had initial success, but numbers have stagnated like everything else in this game. It's all shallow, surface level grind.

Agreed. Which is why they need to innovate. Note, I said mimic, I highly doubt they will be successful.

Edited February 12, 2018 by IllumiMahdi

[Atekron]

9 minutes ago, Pent_ said:

"success" They had initial success, but numbers have stagnated like everything else in this game. It's all shallow, surface level grind.

hmm... I would say like every game, POE was very successful, then, when novelty wash away, player count did drop, but still remain larger than before, go to steam statistic and you will see similar pattern in almost every game

[artemisfortune]

8 minutes ago, IllumiMahdi said:

Agreed. Which is why they need to innovate. Note, I said mimic, I highly doubt they will be successful.

I quoted the wrong person, sorry man.

[Man_In_Suitcase]

Since the next open world is gonna be Corpus related, the only way it could fail is if there's no Moa racing to bet on...

[kgabor]

Would be great to be able to get blueprints by exploring, they would have to be scattered in random places though, otherwise it would lose value as everyone could just watch a video or something and powerfarm them. If the next open world would award exploring, it could have a progression system similar to some survival games.

Base building and excavator building? Something the way Rust did it? I would like that.

[FrostedMike]

19 hours ago, IllumiMahdi said:

Definitely incorporating resources from PoE in meaningful ways would help. Animals can basically be reskins of kavats/kubrows but less aggressive. DE doesn't need to only have a few months, even taking a year to do this would be amazing. 

Probubly I didn't explain myself:
Those 1-2 hours of build up for each player takes A LOT of preperation and thought. Even if you build this place as a community and the NPC are based on the community actions, you still need to make every possible outcome, make sure there are no bugs, after this build up you need to still fix bugs on daily basis, etc.
As I understood your suggestion, this is not something the whole community see, every player build for himself. This is even worse: A player build his own envirnment and DE servers need to keep it. There are millions of players in the game so millions of environemnts for DE servers to remember and up keep. This is not including fixing bugs for EACH environment.

Edited February 13, 2018 by FrostedMike

[Jim22]

19 hours ago, CapnToaster said:

I can already see the next Plains of Venus expansion. Venus Wisp, Venus Fish, Venus Town where you must grind an entirely new reputation to max level all over again! Oh boy, I can't wait!!!

Of course that's fun ;(

 

[saradonin]

I don't think build up thing is really needed or worth the time and resources needed for development. 

What it needs is integration with the rest of the game, because right now we have 4 completely different and disjunctive games:
1. Warframe, space-ninja-demi-gods game we know.
2. Archwing, flying in space game like we played on arcade machines back in 90's.
3. Conclave, unnecessary wannabe-pvp game that will never be able to compete with real pvp games.
4. Plains of Eidolon, "hey, let's try that open map everyone else does" game.
and these 4 games have barely any connection with each other.

Edited February 13, 2018 by saradonin

[DissentWomble]

Personally I think POE is as good as it can be for the 1st kind of its map especially on a newbie friendly node like earth. The only addition I'd add for next version is more like Zeldas Breath of the wild kind of mobs like its Golem, Lynels or Hinoxes. No factions, but just existing creatures of its planet just to add variation to what you're fighting against. 

[Hypernaut1]

It's going to be a different map with the same gameplay. This is Warframe. 

We may get some lore tidbits here and there, hot don't hype yourself up. It's a map to run around and kill things ... Like we've been doing for years 

Edited February 13, 2018 by Hypernaut1