The problem with bite-sized “arcade style” type gameplay

[Ghigog]

Onslaught has been described as a "bite-sized arcade style type gameplay" mode by developers, and changes and fixes are being implemented to keep this definition. In this topic I'd like to talk about why this is a bad idea.

Everything in warframe is "bite-sized". Sorties take 10/20 minutes, Eidolons take even less, missions required for relic and kuva farming taking even less. The infamous "end-game" issue that keeps being brought up is because veterans want more reasons to stay IN the game longer. At the moment, "endless" runs are not effective because of lack of rewards and broken scaling. It is as if staying for 20 minutes and then leaving is part of the design. What I can't understand is, why? Why do you prefer players to only spend 20 minutes playing between each game?

I understand there's probably some game-theory jargon that can explain a player's attention span psychology, but the simple fact of the matter is that there is no alternative. If someone's attention span is longer than 20 minutes, they have nowhere else to turn to (and, therefore, quit the game after playing a sortie every day). Some people may say that the option is still there; you can resist in survival missions over 20 minutes if you want, and all that. But there's no incentive to do so, it would just be for fun. Frankly, I feel like an idiot for doing so, as it would be MUCH more efficient to simply stick to the intended 20 minute-run.

Now, Onslaught was thought to be changing this pattern, but it seems that this is not the case anymore. I can't figure out why, other than maybe there is no confidence in being able to endlessly scale content. But this issue must be addressed, as we can already see tragic high end-level players storming through the first 20 waves of onslaught with no problem, reducing mid level players to simply stand back and watch. The answer is not to nerf, but to give a place for these high end level players to play; how about letting them have ANOTHER 20 waves of onslaught, harder, and with better rewards?

What I guess I'm saying is, stop seeing onslaught as simply one of your other 20-minute game modes, and start seeing it as a TRULY ENDLESS game mode that it was clearly meant to be from the start. The reducing efficiency and increasing scaling is great; makes it harder to stay in the game. But give us a reason to challenge ourselves; us veterans are bored because our tools can surpass any challenge you throw at us. So give us more challenges; give us more reasons to play. Reward us for having fun.

[den2k]

Well, I actually found it too frigging long. It's attrition instead of excitement. IMHO every round should last less and have more spawns. Long missions are boring because they're repetitive... also many players don't want long missions as real life constrains can make them unplayable. Spending 20 minutes to capture thingies like manu MOBA before battlig for example is plain stupid and timewasting.

[tarfeef101]

Yes. Please. It originally sounded great. I know they don't like giving us more for more work, so here's a compromise::

don't change the reward items. after each full 8 round cycle, simply adjust the drop rates. make relics/endo a bit less common, and the parts a bit more. that way we have a reason to go longer

Also don't cap enemy levels, or decrease spawns at all. saw some mentions of stuff like that in the patch notes.

[tarfeef101]

1 minute ago, den2k said:

Well, I actually found it too frigging long. It's attrition instead of excitement. IMHO every round should last less and have more spawns. Long missions are boring because they're repetitive... also many players don't want long missions as real life constrains can make them unplayable. Spending 20 minutes to capture thingies like manu MOBA before battlig for example is plain stupid and timewasting.

but YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!!

you can still leave at 20, or play other things too, and not miss out on any content! so don't try to dissuade devs from catering to both audiences, it just makes it worse for people like me and OP at no benefit to you

[Ghigog]

8 minutes ago, den2k said:

Well, I actually found it too frigging long. It's attrition instead of excitement. IMHO every round should last less and have more spawns. Long missions are boring because they're repetitive... also many players don't want long missions as real life constrains can make them unplayable. Spending 20 minutes to capture thingies like manu MOBA before battlig for example is plain stupid and timewasting.

I understand what you mean; and your opinion is incredibly valid. However, you have a plethora of other game modes that satisfy this quick - fix type of playstyle. Players who would rather be rewarded for spending hours and hours in a raid don't have any where to play.

In this case, long missions wouldn't be boring because the difficulty would keep increasing. You'd always have to adapt to the new tilesets, forced to begin again each round. Again, real life constraints are real issues; but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be an area that is free of these constraints. Maybe on a weekend these players will find more time to play these game modes. Other games deal with these issues with no problem; Warframe seems to want to confine everything to a maximum of 20 minutes.

Also, as the previous poster said, you can leave before 20 minutes. Anyone staying longer will probably have a pre-made squad.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Ghigog

[den2k]

Oh yes of course I would like a long lasting kind of mission, sometimes I too have several hours and playing a long mission feels more rewarding than a bunch of brief ones. Just I don't think Onslaught would be the right mission mode for it as it rapidly begins to be boring.

Big dungeons to complete, explore and exponge would be much funnier for long plays for example - think a dungeon crawling Skyrim style but on steroids, like Labyrinthian for example, that seamlessly integrates Spy, Caches, Sabotage, Assassinations, Exterminations, Defense and Onslaught, all of them missable and that depend on the path taken... now that's a 2-4 hour I would gladly invest in the game!

[Raspberry]

3 hours ago, den2k said:

Oh yes of course I would like a long lasting kind of mission, sometimes I too have several hours and playing a long mission feels more rewarding than a bunch of brief ones. Just I don't think Onslaught would be the right mission mode for it as it rapidly begins to be boring.

Big dungeons to complete, explore and exponge would be much funnier for long plays for example - think a dungeon crawling Skyrim style but on steroids, like Labyrinthian for example, that seamlessly integrates Spy, Caches, Sabotage, Assassinations, Exterminations, Defense and Onslaught, all of them missable and that depend on the path taken... now that's a 2-4 hour I would gladly invest in the game!

We already hoped this would be the case for PoE, but we're instead teleporting between objectives with no sense of mystery as to how to make progress on "bounties". What's a bounty without any investigative steps? We're given a set number of stages, so we're obviously gonna know we'll fail to find that missing Orokin relic in the first 4 stages in a row, only to conveniently "find" it in the last of the three Grineer caches in the last stage (all we see are random resources, though, and we don't actually see an Anasa sculpture tucked inside the cache).

[MiMiren]

What makes you think that DE or the majority of the player base would play a TRULY ENDLESS mode.