How to fix conclave

[OHKOBunny]

I'm not gonna fluff this up with fancy words and stuff; Conclave's in such a bad state right now that I need to get this point across as plainly as possible:

The way it is now is never going to work, and you (DE) is spending far too much time balancing it when it sees so little use. It's disheartening to me at least because I can tell the team that does it works really hard.. just noone's playing it.

The loadout based gameplay provides just too much to cover and it's not really that appealing to begin with. It works on some games, but not here.

The fix I have in mind is pretty basic and can be read off like bullet points:

• Normalize everything - if your keen on making it so tenno can sport their favorite weapons in PVP, turn them into basic weapons like rifles, burst rifles, ect. Make them into skins where all of the same type function the same.
• Give every Warframe one ability, or no abilities - another example of something that isn't working and requires too much team investment to balance. There's always going to be a meta and crushing it is as simple as removing warframe powers entirely from conclave. This double edged sword simultaneously does that while making PKs more satisfying and based in player skill rather than the multi-pronged rock paper scissors effect having 30+ different characters has on a team comp.If you want a MOBA, just make a MOBA like minigame.
• No loadouts, put weapons on the map - Sound familiar? This tried and true method of games past was a staple in team based strategy shooters like Halo and proved it's entertainment value in many a livingroom back when we all shared a TV. Goldeneye had this to some extent, as did Duke Nukem and Doom I believe? You can either have the weapons reskinned as things players have selected from their arsenal like a checklist, or just dedicate classic Warframe weapons like Lato, Skana, Grakata and the like as pikups. Some maps could have grineer weapons and ect. Just think older Halo installments for this, it's the best thing I can compare it to.
• Get rid of PVP mods - This was possibly the worst idea ever, since they aren't really balanced well enough to justify their existence. The people who conclave a lot will have an advantage. Unpopular opinion: The game should be 100% player skill and have nothing to do with how hard you grind syndicate rep. Just turn the PVP mods into PVE mods because some of them would be really fun in.. you know, the part of the game people play.

That's all I've got. Please do NOT merge this with other overhaul threads, and feel free to call me out if I'm wrong on anything/add your 2-plats to the post.

As an extra tidbit and at the very, very least, I want to say that the MK1 weapons are stupid and encourage smerfing. Balance attempt gone wrong, but I think this pretty much reinforces my statement on how bad PVP needs to be normalized. Conclave has the potential to be a fun time burner, but in it's current incarnation it's on a fast track to getting the Raid treatment. Probably wouldn't affect 90% of the playerbase, but I'd much rather see it overhauled and revived.

Edited April 13, 2018 by OHKOBunny
removed something I couldn't completely remember and might be wrong

[[DE]Grzegorz]

How to fix Conclave:

1. Scrap it

2. Start over with objective-based PvPvE Corpus vs Grineer with AI infested sprinkled in so even bad players can contribute and have fun

2.1 Don't dare to make it P2P lagfest as the current implementation

Edited April 13, 2018 by JuicyButthurt

[krc473]

1 hour ago, OHKOBunny said:

Normalize everything

If all weapons and frames were just cosmetic (aside from weapon types of course) that would be great. As an extention of this, you could have lodouts where you select the skins you want to use for each weapon type. You can pick which types you start with, but others can be picked up during the match (I do not want to start unarmed). In terms of aesthetics, some weapons look better with some frames, so in the name of "looking your best while we murder everyone" we would need cosmetic loadouts. 

 

Aside from the loadouts point, I agree. I mean, conclave basically needs a complete overhaul to be enjoyable (for me). The game modes just need to be more interesting too; as it stands, they are fairly plain and boring. DE needs to consider the question: "why would someone play PvP in OUR game, when they can get another free game that does it 100x better?"

 

Edited April 13, 2018 by krc473

[Stormdragon]

Your fix is basically pushing warframe pvp away from pve, which is an awful idea.

45 minutes ago, OHKOBunny said:

• Normalize everything - if your keen on making it so tenno can sport their favorite weapons in PVP, turn them into basic weapons like rifles, burst rifles, ect. Make them into skins where all of the same type function the same.

The huge variety between weapons in a single category would make a chanhe like this afford nothing but confuse players. "why is my soma prime shooting at the speed of a braton?", "My enemy's lex shooting as fast as a lato. Is he cheating?" are some of the questions that an inexperienced player could ask himself during a match before getting to understand how the game works. Players can currently use whatever they are already familiar with and avoid those and other possible questions.

45 minutes ago, OHKOBunny said:

• Give every Warframe one ability, or no abilities - another example of something that isn't working and requires too much team investment to balance. There's always going to be a meta and crushing it is as simple as removing warframe powers entirely from conclave. This double edged sword simultaneously does that while making PKs more satisfying and based in player skill rather than the multi-pronged rock paper scissors effect having 30+ different characters has on a team comp.If you want a MOBA, just make a MOBA like minigame.

Same as before, with the difference that if you want a hero shooter with powers, there are always games like overwatch and paladins waiting.

45 minutes ago, OHKOBunny said:

• No loadouts, put weapons on the map - Sound familiar? This tried and true method of games past was a staple in team based strategy shooters like Halo and proved it's entertainment value in many a livingroom back when we all shared a TV. Goldeneye had this to some extent, as did Duke Nukem and Doom I believe? You can either have the weapons reskinned as things players have selected from their arsenal like a checklist, or just dedicate classic Warframe weapons like Lato, Skana, Grakata and the like as pikups. Some maps could have grineer weapons and ect. Just think older Halo installments for this, it's the best thing I can compare it to.

Again, this is removing warframe from its own pvp, no point on trying to turn conclave into Toxikk, UT, Quake, etc.

54 minutes ago, OHKOBunny said:

Get rid of PVP mods - This was possibly the worst idea ever, since they aren't really balanced well enough to justify their existence. The people who conclave a lot will have an advantage. Unpopular opinion: The game should be 100% player skill and have nothing to do with how hard you grind syndicate rep. Just turn the PVP mods into PVE mods because some of them would be really fun in.. you know, the part of the game people play.

Modding is a core part of warframe that allows players to customize weapons to make them more comfortable to use, be it through making use of the full potential of their strenghts (and making their weaknesses even weaker) or trying to remove their weakness by toning down their strong points in exchange.

54 minutes ago, OHKOBunny said:

You also kinda broke this when you removed some mods from conclave because of balance issues but let people keep them. (????) Which is a habit I've seen a few times. Don't be afraid to literally remove stuff from inventories. If something's in an awkward place, don't let them keep it. You're handing them an advantage no one will ever have again.

Could you give examples of pvp mods that have been removed but players can still use? Otherwise this paragraph is nothing but a blatant exaggeration.

39 minutes ago, JuicyButthurt said:

How to fix Conclave:

1. Scrap it

It's fine, no need to scrap it.

39 minutes ago, JuicyButthurt said:

2. Start over with objective-based PvPvE Corpus vs Grineer with AI infested sprinkled in so even bad players can contribute and have fun

That could be neat for invasions 2.0, not for conclave. Otherwise i could get a CSGO mod that replaces terrorists with grineer and counterterrorists with corpus units and call it a day.

39 minutes ago, JuicyButthurt said:

2.1 Don't dare to make it P2P lagfest as the current implementation

We have had dedicated servers for well over a year now.

9 minutes ago, krc473 said:

"why would someone play PvP in OUR game, when they can get another free game that does it 100x better?"

Because none of the free games (nor paid ones) offer the same freedom of mobility and the ninja feel that warframe has, making conclave a unique experience. 

[krc473]

1 minute ago, Stormdragon said:

Because none of the free games (nor paid ones) offer the same freedom of mobility and the ninja feel that warframe has, making conclave a unique experience. 

I do not feel like a Ninja in PvP. I would far prefer a well developed PvP than "freedon of mobility". If DE made the PvP excellent, with only the ability to do a standard single jump I would not complain.

[Stormdragon]

3 minutes ago, krc473 said:

I do not feel like a Ninja in PvP.

As you pointed, YOU don't feel like a ninja in pvp, even tough it's the only part of the game where moving like a swiftly through the environment while being able to shoot precisely at enemies is still important since the whole PvE side of the game can be easily beaten by increasing our numbers, gathering meta squad, and playing like a crippled wizard who can only walk and cast his 4 powers in the right moment.

11 minutes ago, krc473 said:

I would far prefer a well developed PvP than "freedon of mobility"

Conclave mixes both, its main issue is being tied to a mainly pve game that offers an amazing power fantasy and is so easy that players become too afraid to get beaten or to lose that makes them call it garbage just because they don't even bother with trying anything that involves a challenge.

15 minutes ago, krc473 said:

If DE made the PvP excellent, with only the ability to do a standard single jump I would not complain.

DE used to work in the "Unreal" games back then, so it's not like there are no other pvp games co-developed by them with such characteristics.

[krc473]

11 minutes ago, Stormdragon said:

Conclave mixes both, its main issue is being tied to a mainly pve game that offers an amazing power fantasy and is so easy that players become too afraid to get beaten or to lose that makes them call it garbage just because they don't even bother with trying anything that involves a challenge.

I accept that there is a mix. But myself (and everyone I talk to) dislikes conclave. Freedom of movement in PvP lacks any benefit when the game modes themselves are sub-par. I play other primarily PvE games, with a PvP component and their PvP is great. In those, losing is fun. Because the PvP mode(s) are enjoyable. In Warframe, I do not enjoy PvP. Win or lose, I hate playing it. Many people seem to have a similar opinion to me. I do not know anyone that cares if they lose by a large margin in PvP. But they do not really enjoy it, regardless of whether or not they win. Personally, I far prefer the old concalve. I like being able to one hit people. I like people having the option to win by one-hitting me 50 times in a row. 

 

For me, and many others I know, Warframe PvP is so terrible that no one even cares to play it anymore. No one cares if they win or lose, it is about enjoyment, and Warframe's PvP is simply not enjoyable for myself and most others I know. (Note: I do not want to say everyone as I have not asked everyone's opinion)

Edited April 13, 2018 by krc473
Clarity

[OHKOBunny]

41 minutes ago, Stormdragon said:

It's fine, no need to scrap it.

It's practically unplayed so this is wrong.

Like I said, there really isn't any way they can improve upon the warframe model of PVP. It's always going to be a mess and breaking the meta will just push everyone onto the next (as it has in past)

22 minutes ago, Stormdragon said:

that players become too afraid to get beaten or to lose that makes them call it garbage just because they don't even bother with trying anything that involves a challenge.

this isn't fact, it's an assumption and it's also wrong. People aren't playing it because it's bad.

Kudos though, it takes guts to go up against the vast majority of players saying it's not in a good spot and proudly proclaim that it's fine as is, especially when there are a lot of underlying issues.

You also just kinda assume people are stupid. ""My enemy's lex shooting as fast as a lato. Is he cheating?"" is probably the worst point you tried to make as the base game allows such vast modding opportunities that weapons doing stuff that's different isn't an alien concept despite the varying levels of viability.

 

Basically, I wanna end on it and say if it was fine, it would be played. Reguardless of time of day it's almost always the same clusters of people playing or waiting a while for queue. It doesn't even matter if you think it is functionally integral, the fact of the matter is that people don't like it (most of the playerbase) so it either needs to be changed or scrapped. The whole "There are other games" argument doesn't stand up either because noone's gonna jump onto warfrme and go "Oh boy I can't wait to do some conclave". There's nothing wrong with mass simplifying it to the point where it's fun and serves it's intended purpose; a minigame. It doesn't have to be a spectacular and unique experience, especially well.. just look how that went this time.

[OHKOBunny]

55 minutes ago, Stormdragon said:

Could you give examples of pvp mods that have been removed but players can still use? Otherwise this paragraph is nothing but a blatant exaggeration.

I couldn't find the ones that boosts your stats with ONLY 1 type of weapon equipped as I forgot their names, so I'll remove that bit for now

[krc473]

3 minutes ago, OHKOBunny said:

I couldn't find the ones that boosts your stats with ONLY 1 type of weapon equipped as I forgot their names, so I'll remove that bit for now

Are you looking for mods like this?

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Grinloked

[OHKOBunny]

Just now, krc473 said:

Are you looking for mods like this?

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Grinloked

No, I distinctly remember mods like Sword Alone and ect. that made it so if you say, only brought a melee weapon in it would do more damage and give you more health.

[krc473]

22 minutes ago, OHKOBunny said:

I distinctly remember mods like Sword Alone and ect

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Sword_Alone?

DE have changed many of the mods to make them more "fair" on people that do not own them.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

2 hours ago, Stormdragon said:

It's fine, no need to scrap it.

Given that such threads exist, evidently not.

2 hours ago, Stormdragon said:

That could be neat for invasions 2.0, not for conclave. Otherwise i could get a CSGO mod that replaces terrorists with grineer and counterterrorists with corpus units and call it a day.

Titanfall*, which could ultimately appeal to much greater public than the current implementation.

2 hours ago, Stormdragon said:

We have had dedicated servers for well over a year now.

They exist along P2P matches and we all should know what matchmaking is like in this game.

[Stormdragon]

6 hours ago, OHKOBunny said:

It's practically unplayed so this is wrong.

Where are you pulling this data from? Is it based on the claims of reddit or in the ones from people around here in forums, perhaps from warframe related discord servers? I'm asking because, while many people makes claims like this, i've been able to  play pvp consistently anytime i've wanted,

Quote

Like I said, there really isn't any way they can improve upon the warframe model of PVP. It's always going to be a mess and breaking the meta will just push everyone onto the next (as it has in past)

Any activity is nothing but a mess while you're getting started on it, the ability to understand what you're doing comes with practice and experience, and a big part of the playerbase refuses to get these things in conclave because of reasons. This also makes them unable to see where is room for actual improvement and try to turn warframe pvp into what could be an entirely  different game that already exists.

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this isn't fact, it's an assumption and it's also wrong. People aren't playing it because it's bad.

Again, I've been able to consistently play at different times during thisnweek, so saying that "nobody is playing" is wrong, and saying that itt's because "conclave is bad" without providing an actual reason of why, is nothing but an echo chamber to which people starts joining as a paradigm at this point.

Quote

Kudos though, it takes guts to go up against the vast majority of players saying it's not in a good spot and proudly proclaim that it's fine as is, especially when there are a lot of underlying issues.

1) Being a majority =! Being right.

2) After getting experience to back up your claims, going against people who doesn't have it is easy, no matter if you're trying to change something or keep it like it is. As pointed before, this is nothing but another repeat from an echo chamber.

Quote

You also just kinda assume people are stupid. ""My enemy's lex shooting as fast as a lato. Is he cheating?"" is probably the worst point you tried to make as the base game allows such vast modding opportunities that weapons doing stuff that's different isn't an alien concept despite the varying levels of viability.

I never said stupid, I actually addressed it as inexperienced player without any kind of derogative term, so thanks for adding one in attempt to make a counter. Made it that way mainly because I've seen MR0 players with 1 hour in game jumping straight into NonRC lobbies with nothing but a skana/mk1-bo and asking "how do i get guns?".

Btw, when it comes to PvP people will make even the most stupid excuses to feel better about themselves in defeat, going from fallacies such as blaming the game and it's balance (which may be right but only for a few and very specific items, and even then player skill can beat unbalanced gear), to blame others of cheating in any way (macros, aimbots, whatever else i have no idea about).

You also contradict yourself by comparing that claim with the modding posibilities of PvE while failing to remember that you were the one asking for mods to be removed entirely from pvp, which removes the modding possibilities you named here.

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Basically, I wanna end on it and say if it was fine, it would be played. Reguardless of time of day it's almost always the same clusters of people playing or waiting a while for queue.

So again, I'm not sure what's your region, let alone your timezone, but it seems to me that conclave looks empty to many thanks to a few things, such as the lack of a server/match browser and people exploiting the matchmaking system to get standing easily without ever facing an actual conclave match.

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It doesn't even matter if you think it is functionally integral, the fact of the matter is that people don't like it (most of the playerbase) so it either needs to be changed or scrapped.

Again, it's not bad, it's mainly people telling others that it's bad and that they shouldn't even bother with it what's partly gimping the potential of conclave.

Quote

The whole "There are other games" argument doesn't stand up either because noone's gonna jump onto warfrme and go "Oh boy I can't wait to do some conclave".

I've seen some players like this, some of them have left the game after realizing how important it is to grind through the mind numbing PvE side of the game, some other shrug it off and buy stuff with platinum in order to avoid PvE as much as possible, and some others simply enjoy both parts of the game.

The "there are other games" argument actually applies: for an old school arena shooter with weapons scattered through the battlefield there is always quake, ut, toxikk, etc; for a hero shooter with one or 2 powers i can go play overwatch or paladins; for a generic fps shooter i have a lot of choices such as CoD, Battlefield, MoH, CSGO, R6, etc. But no other game has the 3D movement and fast paced action that warframe has to offer.

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There's nothing wrong with mass simplifying it to the point where it's fun and serves it's intended purpose; a minigame. It doesn't have to be a spectacular and unique experience, especially well.. just look how that went this time.

The thing is, fun is subjective, there are threads asking for conclave to become any of the genres named above without keeping in mind that warframe is none of them. We used to have a lot of people asking to DE for a pvp mode that didn't involve killing, DE gave us Lunaro and most of the same people who asked for it has forgotten about it.

I'd like however ask for a compromise here, mainly because there used to be a fun mode that was removed because people barely knew of it: Opticor Variant had all players with 1.0 mobility, 100HP, no powers, no passives no mods, only fashionframe and a modified opticor able to OHKO anything. Seeing this mode back along other variants (conclave events) perhaps rotating constantly with Cephalon Capture would be a really good addition, imo.

6 hours ago, JuicyButthurt said:

Given that such threads exist, evidently not.

So if i start spamming "pve is boring" threads, DE game suddenly is boring. What s nice logic there.

6 hours ago, JuicyButthurt said:

Titanfall*, which could ultimately appeal to much greater public than the current implementation.

And it's still an entirely different game, I'm sure people would not come to warframe to play titanfall or any other game, in fact, I'm sure that players who like the whole theme titanfall, can pay for it, and have a computer able to run it properly are actully in there, not here in warframe nor trying to turn titanfall into a wf clone.

6 hours ago, JuicyButthurt said:

They exist along P2P matches and we all should know what matchmaking is like in this game.

On my free time goofing around I've found servers even in oceania, however that's still tied to the availability of their owners, so i'm not gonna discuss that despite matchmaking prioritizing servers over p2p when looking for matches. Said that, this is exactly why we need a match/server browser.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

2 hours ago, Stormdragon said:

So if i start spamming "pve is boring" threads, DE game suddenly is boring. What s nice logic there.

Fair point, though PvE is boring ;)

I've thought it would be clear that it's primarily about arguments used in given thread rather than baseless circular logic statements but I'll keep it in mind to elaborate on next time.

2 hours ago, Stormdragon said:

And it's still an entirely different game, I'm sure people would not come to warframe to play titanfall or any other game, in fact, I'm sure that players who like the whole theme titanfall, can pay for it, and have a computer able to run it properly are actully in there, not here in warframe nor trying to turn titanfall into a wf clone.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", the current implementation of Conclave barely achieves anything new if we resort to reductionism.

The main appeal of Warframe (as far as I know) is the PvE coop power fantasy while conclave is secondary to that.

Giving players an easier to get into, more conventional mode could possibly make the part of the game more appealing.

2 hours ago, Stormdragon said:

Said that, this is exactly why we need a match/server browser.

Yep.

[Witchydragon]

This is basically just the variant modes.

Solution: Bring back variants.