Missions Have No Depth. Here's How To Fix It.

[Paprika]

You can also sabotage the room by knocking out the lights, shutting off the power, locking them in, turning off life support, or any number of things.

I really, really, really want light/dark behavior mechanisms. Maybe have them not see you in the dark. If at a distance, Radial blind can aggro when it's dark, leading to path-changing for stealth. 

 

Also, I support the implementation of this idea. It wouldn't be an issue for the whole layout to be randomly generated. The only other criteria being added to the random generator is the mandatory inclusion of certain rooms and facilities. Also, sabotaging the ship could change the mission mode, to something like https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/102611-game-mode-suggestion-just-run/page-2#entry1182787.

 

All in all, dynamic missions are welcome.

[Azure_Kytia]

These are some really nice ideas.

 

[Boatsniper]

Almost 100 up-votes, over 1,100 views, and over 50 replies.

 

I think it may or may not be time to update the OP at some point...

[TuxPenguino]

This is the 31st centry or more... lol   Its called intel. The lotus has survived this long and she cannot tell what the inside of a ship looks like, or where they have the artifacts?! Really bro... Intelligence. The Foundation war and logistics. 

 

 

 

Not that hard to explain.

[Eidolon_Slayer]

Maybe this can be used for certain locations where the lotus cannot find out about. OR BETTER YET! A NEW TYPE OF MISSION! RECONNAISSANCE STEALTH OR FAIL!

[Boatsniper]

This is the 31st centry or more... lol   Its called intel. The lotus has survived this long and she cannot tell what the inside of a ship looks like, or where they have the artifacts?! Really bro... Intelligence. The Foundation war and logistics. 

 

 

 

Not that hard to explain.

And by that same logic, you should be detected the moment you set foot on the ship.

Technology counters technology. Not that hard to explain.

[Kachocalvo]

Almost 100 up-votes, over 1,100 views, and over 50 replies.

 

I think it may or may not be time to update the OP at some point...

 

100 people likes your ideas, only 1 liked mine... I feel misplaced ;)

[Volume]

To be fair it always looked to me like the Tenno hijacked some escape pod or something. It's not like their ships are little boxes that they strap into the back of.

 

 

So you would rather have the missions stay as they are? We all know this cannot happen if Warframe wants to survive long term.

Another problem the game has is its semi-photorealistic graphics/aesthetics. Sure, it looks nice, but does it make sense for an Ogris to leave the environment completely undamaged? Nothing in the environment is interactive. How many times have you walked into a new room with a big reactor or structure and thought "I want to do something to that," then realizing you can't? It's happened to me a hundred times, and it gets more depressing each time I think of it.

 

This is very hard to do with procedurely generated levels. It's not like it's the Red Faction engine or something.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Volume

[Boatsniper]

To be fair it always looked to me like the Tenno hijacked some escape pod or something. It's not like their ships are little boxes that they strap into the back of.

 

 

 

This is very hard to do with procedurely generated levels. It's not like it's the Red Faction engine or something.

It doesn't need to be. The most that I'm asking is for simple, *mostly* non-intrusive destructibility. The only intrusive part would be cover falling apart when it gets shot enough times. The non-intrusive part would be exploding panels and bulkheads on the walls/ceiling/floor. Imagine running through a hallway as Ember with World on Fire active. The aforementioned panels would burst in an explosion of fire as you pass them. This alone would add a lot of satisfaction to using said abilities. Since it's also non-intrusive (aka, Client-Sided) it can be turned off for lower end machines without affecting gameplay.

[Kachocalvo]

Mmm, he's got a point (but not the one stated, difficulty can always be overcome). Due to matchmaking system, if people with not powerful enough machines refuse to turn down destructible enviroment, it would cause more lag problems. The same goes when you are client of a not-so-good-lagged host, it would turn lag problems even worse.

 

It would be nice, but host selection should be improved to allow it work in full potencial.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Kachocalvo

[Killerkarpfen]

Alternative? What i said is that the game you are describing sounds cool, but to my understanding is a game totally different from Warframe, only with the same looks and weapons. Game mechanic and playingstyles would be different. I would love to play that game, but it's not this one.

Nailed it here.

In short, the existing maps need an expansion with some form of depth at some point in the future.

As stated on the livestream the older sets will eventually get replaced. If you are a level designer, send me your resume and help out then!

[Boatsniper]

Nailed it here.

You wouldn't happen to know of a game like that would you? Because the closest one I can think of is Warframe, and that doesn't come nearly close enough.

 

What I'm saying is that there will most likely never be a game with diverse and satisfying combat coupled with missions that have interactive and dynamic elements which call for a change in play style every now and again. People can still run-and-gun, blasting all the Grineer or Corpus or Infested they want, or (key point here) they can experiment with the levels and change certain aspects of it to provide a real sense of engagement and depth. The closest thing you have to this are Sabotage missions. You destroy the power core and BAM. Darkness surrounds you with the occasional compromised ship integrity countdown. The darkness changes the level to a relatively significant degree compared to every other mission. You then have to live with the change until the mission is over.

 

Warframe is still in beta (or is supposed to be anyway). Changes can still be made. Depth like this would give Warframe a brand new definition of itself, further separating the game from every other third-person-shooter on the market. Think about that for a moment or two.

As stated on the livestream the older sets will eventually get replaced. If you are a level designer, send me your resume and help out then!

If it was possible (and you aren't being sarcastic), I would love to help out. Sadly, since I'm still in high school, I can only provide general feedback and critique. However, all feedback and critique is free of charge.

 

Huh. I'm kind of surprised I completely missed your comment by a full day. It happens, I guess.

[Boatsniper]

OP has been updated for Update 10. Go take a look at it.

[Kinjeto]

What do I mean by "Depth"? To answer that question, let's look at a standard Raid Mission on a Corpus Ship, beginning to end.

 

You enter the ship through a vent, Lotus chats your ear off (please shut up), your minimap boots up, conveniently showing you exactly where to go, and you rush to the objective, killing everything on your way there (if you feel like it). As soon as you have the "artifact", you then rush to extraction which is conveniently marked on your minimap as well, killing everything on the way as well.

 

Now, what seems to be the problem here? Well, I'll tell you with a neatly organized list:

 

- How do I know exactly where the artifact/objective is, as well as the entire ship layout? I break into the ship, and I magically know where everything is.

- What is the point of every room? Why can't I hack the room's systems and start a lockdown, or a quarantine, or shut off the lights?

- Why should I go exploring? I'm not rewarded for it and there's nothing to find.

- Where are all the ship's vital systems? Where is the life support? Where is the engine room? Where is the bridge? Where is the security room? Where's the armory? Where's the cargo bay? Where's the reactor? Where's... I think you get the idea.

- Why do the enemies not care if their artifact is suddenly gone (provided I was not detected)? This also applies to Sabotage and Capture missions.

- Why is extraction so out-of-place? It always seems that the ship actually accommodates the Tenno spaceships, which makes no sense.

 

Do you get the idea? Good. Now how do we go about addressing these issues? Well I'm glad you asked. Let's go through the same mission, but with added complexity and depth. Wall of text incoming.

 

You enter the ship through the same vent, Lotus chats you ear off (again), your minimap boots up, but this time, it give you an error. "Ship layout unknown". With no way to rush to the artifact, you must explore the ship for a place to download the map. You stumble across a computer terminal and you attempt to access it. It asks for identification information. This is where it gets interesting, if you have a Cipher, you can hack it once and get access to its contents, OR you can acquire the ID Info from one of the crewmen walking about the ship. If you are spotted AND detected trying to get the information, good luck finding your map. Now you now have access to the terminal. From there, you can download the complete layout of the ship. However, the terminal also provides controls for lockdown, quarantine, nearby security cameras, and power, among other things. You minimap can now display the layout of the ship, along with locations for control panels and computer terminals for each room you enter, but you still don't know where the artifact is. By pressing 'M', the minimap expands and gives you a full 3D view of the ship with icons for important rooms. From here, you can mark up personal and squad waypoints to areas that look interesting. You can go take out the main reactor, or raid the cargo hold, or take out the life support systems, or attack the bridge. If you're in a squad, you can split up to cover more ground or stay as a group, which might be safer. If you're playing solo, stealth is suddenly a viable option.

 

At this point, what do you do? Where do you go? Now those are great questions. You can now mess with everything on the ship. For the sake of this scenario, you attack the bridge. It's close-by, and it could provide all the information you'd need to complete the mission. Naturally, the bridge is full of Corpus mooks, but these are high-ranking Commanders and Lieutenants. Skilled fighters and tough enemies, and don't forget about the Captain. He's a strong son-of-a-gun. You can get to the bridge in a few ways: Walking right in, going in through the vents, or teleporting in just to name a few. You can also sabotage the room by knocking out the lights, shutting off the power, locking them in, turning off life support, or any number of things.

 

So you take out the bridge and you access the ship's computer. You also salvaged some codes from the Captain's corpse. From here, you can finally find the artifact, but why stop there? You have complete control over the ship now, so why not have a bit of fun with it? Take it into Grineer space, or turn on the self-destruct systems, or permanently disable life support, or turn off the gravity plating, or turn the robots to your side, or... yeah. Just go to town.

 

You find the artifact, grab it, and run toward extraction, which is in the shuttle bay (makes more sense than having a built-in Tenno extraction point).

 

I guess I could also touch on the Corpus Ship tileset as well, since I used it for the example. It uses Alpha assets (

) and has not been expanded on nor changed since then. It needs work. A lot of work. The Grineer Asteroid Base needs a rework as well.

 

EDIT: Now with developer feedback (conveniently located on exactly the 4th page)!

 

UPDATE 10 EDIT: I swear Digital Extremes tried to implement some of the ideas presented in this topic. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic; or paranoid.

 

With the addition of Nav Coordinates, players now have some reason to explore and find as many chances to find them as possible. It's a step in the right direction, but the drop rate for them is toodamnlow.png to be nothing other than tedious. Well, it's all a tedious grind-fest in the end, but I digress.

 

Replacing Raid with Survival was a mistake. A big one. It should be painfully obvious common sense to not remove anything this major from the game and replace it with something that can be insanely confusing for new players. Sure, there's the "argument" that Raid and Capture are "too similar", but that is only because the missions aren't fleshed out yet, and you're already making these big decisions? Remember in Arid Fear when players had to capture a target that could run and fight back? This is the defining element between the two. An artifact can't fight back. Capture targets can. Why you didn't incorporate this is far beyond me. Were you too busy making Prime weapons? Why not have both Survival and Raid? Why replace them?

 

PvP, or as I call it, Pv-appeasement. Did you learn anything from History class? An Appeasement Policy helped start World War II. It didn't work 55 years ago, it doesn't work now. You said yourself that PvP will never be the focus of Warframe, but here we are with Conclaves just because people wouldn't stop making topics about it. Put your foot down and just say "NO". God, I feel like I'm talking to 9-year-olds.

 

The Orokin Derelict tileset looks great. Lots of places to explore. And then you run into an instant-kill electrical field that came from nowhere. That is a big no-no. There should be no such thing as instant death. Ever. That is called "punishing for exploration", which is a horrible gameplay practice. Save those cheap game mechanics for unfair platformers where they belong. The gauntlet room is buggier than a rainforest. They all reside on the forest floor (the big vine-slide thing you go down if you fall). What made you think that was a good idea? Just make that a teleport trigger and boom, bugs eliminated. I had to attempt the mission 4 times before I could complete it because I got stuck. You also led everyone to believe that you would replace Jupiter with this tileset, but that didn't happen, now did it? Any other broken promises you would like to confess?

 

Let's talk about Nekros for a bit. I haven't even gotten to fight the new Golem yet (which I heard was rather unsatisfying) and I can already tell that getting the frame without paying is going to be neigh impossible, worse than getting the Vauban parts from Alerts. His powers are fairly standard. Soul Punch is basically a chance for an instant kill because of the ragdoll falling into a bottomless pit or getting stuck somewhere. Fear is basically a sloppy mash-up of Excalibur's Radial Blind and Nyx's Chaos, which just makes things harder to kill. Desecrate is bad idea, but let me tell you why; it's a power that promotes farming, and only farming. Farming =/= Fun. Farming = Skinner Box. Skinner Box = lazy design and poor moral philosophy. Shadows of the Dead seems rather fun to be honest, and it's the first power that actually summons mooks to fight for/with you. Unfortunately, I can see a lot of bugs coming from this knowing how Digital Extremes likes to rush things. Overall, not a good frame, but not horribly sub-par either, and definitely not worth farming or buying.

 

Now onto the subject of the "new" Stamina system. I'll be honest here, from a balance perspective, the old system allowed for basically infinite slide-sprinting if you know how to efficiently. This is what rushers use all the time. However, nerfing base stamina regeneration into the ground is not how to solve the problem. You need to give players a reason to slow down. The Nav Coordinates aided that a bit, but clearly not well enough. How can you properly address this issue? I'll give you a hint: You just read it.

 

I have no relevant opinion on scarves, but I will address what people are saying on them. Scarves are cosmetic, and only cosmetic. Paying only Platinum for them makes sense. It's like sentinel parts. People are just being unreasonable about it because "they came up with the idea", not the developers (to my knowledge). Unfortunately, the scarves don't 'flow' too well. Their physics are a bit all over the place.

 

After taking all of the changes and additions presented in Update 10, it has become blindingly obvious to me that Digital Extremes has no god damn idea of what to do with Warframe. Broken promises, Skinner Box reliance, nasty Power Creep, avoidance of fixing huge and persistent bugs and glitches, outdated content, unaddressed performance issues, brain-dead AI, stiff and clunky UI, and to top it all off, blocking out crucial community feedback, all point to this assumption.

 

You are going to have a different opinion than mine. I fully understand that. Go ahead and let me know what you have in mind. You may think I'm being too harsh. I will tell you that I am a cynical bastard. The world isn't made sunshine and rainbows.

 

"Some" parting words: Wisdom and Intelligence are two different things that people often get confused. Intelligence is, for example, knowing how to make a game (coding, animation, models, etc.). Wisdom is knowing how to make a good game (gameplay, level design, bugs, etc). People can have one, both, or neither of the two, but Wisdom is the most important to have. Adolph Hitler was an intelligent man, but he had the wisdom of a rock, which led to his ultimate demise. Digital Extremes is a group of intelligent game developers who know how to make a game. Unfortunately, they lack some crucial wisdom to make a good and enjoyable game. This is where the community comes in. We can provide all of the feedback and ideas needed to make this game fantastic, but it's up to the developers to act on those ideas or to ignore them.

 

TL;DR: Repeat after me: "I have no attention span, patience, or respect for people who have taken time out of their day to write long and in-depth responses for a game I care about."

 

I'm agreeing with the option of using Cyphers. Great opportunity there. Potential other game mode. Better to have a random tile crop up in the generator every now and then that involves hacking in the higher level areas that reveals the map, opens a door -- Impedding progress? Not really You agreed to play with players multiple players and play in the ONLINE status.

If Nekros produced health, ammo and energy it could work. Not mods or materials. Yes I can agree with this.

New stamina system currently breaks a lot of the other frames. Not very well implemented yet. Stamina should be a third system like Power Mods and Defense Mods. Unless the 'stealth system' is implemented. 1000s of posts have been put about the rushing facet. I feel in its current state with the frames that have low stamina they cannot keep up. Which is only going to isolate the playing even more. But that is fine. Just means I'll be playing more with my clan and the people on my friends list and discarding people who run head.

As for the PvP it is a start. It is a appeasing 'an audience' that is fine. But you're just going to be adding more work load. That is fine as well if you can 'handle it'. Surprised that Warframe didn't have an event to open the Concave "system" as well.

Everything in bold Im agreeing with.

Edited September 14, 2013 by Kinjeto

[Boatsniper]

I'm agreeing with the option of using Cyphers. Great opportunity there. Potential other game mode. Better to have a random tile crop up in the generator every now and then that involves hacking in the higher level areas that reveals the map, opens a door -- Impedding progress? Not really You agreed to play with players multiple players and play in the ONLINE status.

If Nekros produced health, ammo and energy it could work. Not mods or materials. Yes I can agree with this.

New stamina system currently breaks a lot of the other frames. Not very well implemented yet. Stamina should be a third system like Power Mods and Defense Mods. Unless the 'stealth system' is implemented. 1000s of posts have been put about the rushing facet. I feel in its current state with the frames that have low stamina they cannot keep up. Which is only going to isolate the playing even more. But that is fine. Just means I'll be playing more with my clan and the people on my friends list and discarding people who run head.

As for the PvP it is a start. It is a appeasing 'an audience' that is fine. But you're just going to be adding more work load. That is fine as well if you can 'handle it'. Surprised that Warframe didn't have an event to open the Concave "system" as well.

Everything in bold Im agreeing with.

Pro tip: Never quote the whole OP (or any large post in general). It adds a lot of unnecessary page-stretch.

 

Apparently, as of 10.0.3, the stamina system has been re-buffed (haven't tried it out yet), so that whole segment is meaningless now. That is a good thing.

 

An event involving the Concave? Dear God. It would be like Arid Fear but ten times worse.

[CloseToFar]

Before this can happen, the mapping system (both for making levels and the one the player can use) need to be dramatically updated. Even if it's just enabling 'M' to give you a full screen map showing where everything is, and (not or) zooming your minimap. HUD improvements need to be made too, such as box-indication of who is who when they are out of view. We use the keyboard for typing, but cannot see who is where on the map or even by looking around, it defeats the purpose of saying 'over here'. Also, waypoints need to be color coded to the player to match the Party Status slideout. Otherwise you end up with 4 of the same damn color waypoints.

[Boatsniper]

OP updated again. Added a segment on the new Golem.

[Ferriwind]

Yes. I don't need an objective marker. I'd rather have an intuitive map as well as the following.

 

I want multiple entrance and extraction points and for materials to be picked up by one member. There's really no point to having 4 players to mark a waypoint and all go collect the mats and ammo. Your receiving of the materials depends on completing the mission anyway.

 

Multiple entrances and extraction points. Hell yes, some strategy and risk and convenience when choosing where to spawn in the missions. Then at the end, vote on an extraction point and meet there, after you get the map of course.

 

And of course, better enemies and no endless respawn of trash mobs.

 

-----------------

The truth is... regarding maps... it feels like I'm just experiencing a pure algorithm. I'm recognizing the dead ends and the next destination without using the objective marker anymore. It's tedious and boring.

 

Yes! You have the beautiful visuals!

Neutral! You have randomly generated maps! But there's no real vision behind it. It's just an algorithm and a quickly dulling process of gameplay.

 

I have but two choices to make when I play a mission. WHEN do I want to extract, or do I want to ABORT this mission and sacrifice exp and loot. Other than that, it's have I enough dps with this loadout to clear this mission.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Stygi

[blackraver]

Your update 10 complaints I feel is nitpicking.

[Boatsniper]

Your update 10 complaints I feel is nitpicking.

I'm a cynical bastard. What else is new?

 

---

 

I put Update 10 Feedback in a spoiler tab to prevent eye-sores.

[Hayden11121]

Love it.

 

Make it happen DE.

[Destro6677]

I agree with everything except making the map unavailable if you are detected before you can plug the ID in.

 

That could potentially ruin someone's day if they let off a shot to actually kill the enemy or missed the stealth attack.

 

As always, balance between stealth and gears of warframe.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Destro6677

[Eraiez]

This idea would be a good single-player game. However, i see warframe as an mmo pve. Sure, more depth to a mission would be nice, but a lot of other mmo's don't give warframe's mission variability.  Frankly, i'm quite happy with what it is now. A few improvements wouldn't hurt, but i wouldn't be playing warframe if any other mmo gave as much mission choices as warframe does. Quite a few of your points give the feeling of a single-player game. Having to go through all the trouble to get a mini-map? I get your point, but getting into multiplayer and starting off with finding a mini-map is kind of tedious, especially if you're not one for stealth. And it would get even harder if you're paired up with low-levels/trolls. Imagine trying to kill for your minimap and someone goes in all gung-ho. Yeah, Goodluck with your minimap. And add to that the fact that trying to get to extraction without a minimap WITH trolls/low levels. Surely, i'm telling you, you'd have to have enough patience to just laugh at RNG with this.

 

Missions of "Kill 10 grineer scorch" anyone?

[SanityRobot]

Survival was a pretty good step in the right direction.

 

It removed one of the game modes that was basically a clone of another one, while adding a fast paced and frantic new game mode.

[NakiCoTony]

UPDATE 10 EDIT:

 

After taking all of the changes and additions presented in Update 10, it has become blindingly obvious to me that Digital Extremes has no god damn idea of what to do with Warframe. Broken promises, Skinner Box reliance, nasty Power Creep, avoidance of fixing huge and persistent bugs and glitches, outdated content, unaddressed performance issues, brain-dead AI, stiff and clunky UI, and to top it all off, blocking out crucial community feedback, all point to this assumption.

 

I would say they are testing the waters with this patch.

I haven't got the chance to test U10 this weekend, but from the community response and the update logs it seems that it was rushed. // We are still in beta though

 

As for the "depth" we share some of the key ideas regarding the future of this game. :)