On The Divide Between Playstyles And Game Events

[Seox]

This is a snippet of an idea that I think might be interesting to play with, and it certainly couldn't hurt to get it out there.

 

There are a number of issues that have been brought up between the two primary groups of players in warframe - casuals and more intense players - and their ability to participate in the event. 

 

Some of the concerns for casuals are that these events often ask for large investments of time and the rewards are arbitrarily placed in certain point brackets. Sometimes someone might want only the pistol mod but be required to put in 100 points worth - the maximum - when they can't contribute the time.

 

On the flip side, we don't want to compromise the larger goals and depth that hardcore players might get out of the event. I'm wondering if an event could be made that might allow you to put in as much or as little effort as you like without an "all or nothing" level of reward.

 

For instance, maybe an event where sets of three bosses each drop a piece of a key which needs to be made in the foundry. When made, the player can attempt a relatively challenging mission that's based around the average level of the bosses for a reward that has been predetermined and enumerated. This way, a player with less time could SPECIFICALLY go after the mod he or she wants without having to obtain all of them, better capitalizing on their time. Similarly, hardcore players would be free to obtain all of the items.

 

It's not necessarily foolproof, but an idea that doesn't compromise either playstyle.

[commuter]

I completely agree with what you are saying, being able to focus for a particular mod sounds great for those that can't give the time. 

[EetNotErn]

Large investment of time? It takes less than 3 hours to get 100 points. Even if the event ended later tonight, that's one hour per day.

[Ganpot]

Large investment of time? It takes less than 3 hours to get 100 points. Even if the event ended later tonight, that's one hour per day.

 

That's assuming you always run with a full group of 4.  If you can only run solo (which a lot of people have to do because of matchmaking issues), then it takes 25 hours at 5 minutes a mission (which is being extremely generous, considering the alert missions are not up all the time and sometimes assign secondary objectives).  A solo player generates 1/16 of the amount of points for the same amount of effort.  That is absurd. 

[Seox]

Large investment of time? It takes less than 3 hours to get 100 points. Even if the event ended later tonight, that's one hour per day.

 

I had no problems getting 100 points. While 3 hours in two days might be easy for you to obtain, that isn't always true for all players.

 

The strong point about an event like this is that it doesn't prevent players like you or me from going all out and getting every reward, it just allows people with less time to feel that they don't spend extra time "earning" things they don't even really want just to get what they're really after. It's win-win, so there's really no reason to complain.

 

To address a potential counterpoint, I'm wholly expecting people to say something like "But the rare rewards are meant to be rare and hard to obtain." It'd be easy to compensate for this - for instance, in the example I gave in the OP, the harder bosses that drop the key components for a more difficult event mission might be the ones that you earn a rarer mod from.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Seox

[TheHeraldXII]

I agree with this, it's what they did for the artifact raid missions, sorta. A lot of people complained that there was no reason to continue after getting the artifacts however. It's a weird thing to strike a balance with, if there's easy access to the things you want, people will complain that the event was too short, if there isn't then it's too grindy.

The Fomorian event was a good example of a balance between the two now that I think about it. 25-40 mission over a weekend with a team to get the maximum reward is probably where it should be set. Expecially, if like the Fomorians, the missions are less than 10 minutes a pop. 3-4 hours of gameplay over the whole weekend isn't exactly grindalicious.

Edit: I found Fomorian missions took 7 minutes on average, which is what I'm basing that logic on.

Edited August 12, 2013 by TheHeraldXII

[Seox]

I agree with this, it's what they did for the artifact raid missions, sorta. A lot of people complained that there was no reason to continue after getting the artifacts however. It's a whard thing to strike a balance with, if there's easy access to the things you want, people will complain that the event was too short, if there isn't then it's too grindy.

The Fomorian event was a good example of a balance between the two now that I think about it. 25-40 mission over a weekend with a team to get the maximum reward is probably where it should be set. Expecially, if like the Fomorians, the missions are less than 10 minutes a pop. 3-4 hours of gameplay over the whole weekend isn't exactly grindalicious.

Edit: I found Fomorian missions took 7 minutes on average, which is what I'm basing that logic on.

 

When I started typing this up, the artifact raid missions occurred to me too. You're right, it is along a similar line of thought.

 

I'm with you on the next bit, too; Too easy and it doesn't allow enough room on the top end for players who want to go kick the event's &#!. Like I said in the OP, the idea isn't really meant to be a specific event to implement and everything would be subject to tweaking - I just wanted to talk about a paradigm for an event that might better suit all playstyles equally.