Mission Tiers for All Missions

[(PSN)Crixus044]

Hello Everyone,

This may be a long post, so a TL:DR and spoilers will be posted below.

Introduction and reasoning (AKA bitter vet moaning)

Spoiler

 

I have been playing the game for a while, and I have been seeing a growing disconnect between types of communities here, specifically veterans and advancing players. This divide has been mainly on the content of warframe. Some players want harder content, while others are ok with the current levels. Alongside this, players ask for buffs and nerfs, yet disagreements are made, because player experience (thus their opinion) varies with their content. A normal level player would ask for a nerf that a high level player says is not needed. Reason is because there is no clear goal in the game. Warframe does technically have an endgame. Endgame is basically the term for the goal of the game. Basically, what the player is striving towards. Our endgame currently sits at high level index, elite onslaught, sorties, and trials (Coming back SoonTM right?) Now this is a fine example, but players currently are feeling way too powerful for these levels. Mostly, players asking for harder content are the old vets, the players who have maxed all their mods, have more than enough resources to maximize a weapon within a day, and then see no point in doing anything since everything is far too low for them, so they get off.

It's because of this, a small but growing community called the  "endgame community" or endurance community grew for players looking to use their maxed out builds to fight enemies that would at least offer them a little bit of resistance. These players take their frames 3-4 hours into endless missions to fight enemies into the 500s and sometimes all the way up to the 2k levels solo, while groups can make their way all the way up to level cap, which is 9999, or 10099 for eximus. Reason why this community is relatively small and usually put aside is because of the requirements this community hold to be a part of. Most missions take hours to get to the levels they want to fight. This time requirement is a major put-off for those that don't really see the point. "Why does it take 3 hours to have fun, when I could spend that time grinding out my mastery? I'm just getting the same rewards I get from a 1 hour mission or even 20 minutes. I can have fun in lower levels too, so I see no point." Because of this, builds have suffered, since the performance quota on normal content is really really low. I have personally made a team combo that can complete a t3 corpus sortie survival with nothing but bullet jumps. Yep, bullet jumps. With this build suffering comes a decrease in satisfaction and with it, obscurity of goals and endgame. Thus, while the endurance community is right to say that maxed out build comps with sweat skills need at least 3 hours to get interesting, players don't see the point of going that far, and thus their experiences and opinions are pushed aside.

 

A lot of players are capable of late game endurance runs, they just see no point. "Why put another forma? My build works just fine." yet, when it comes to topics of skill or how easy the game is, it;s usually in reference to the game being too easy. People usually complain because they see that their full potential can't be reached with satisfaction or reason. Enemy levels honestly fix so much of this. Our DPS frames are capable of killing enemies far tougher than current content and our tanks are capable of foes far more dangerous than the limits of most missions. I suggest that each mission has multiple options for starting levels, determined by mastery rank. The higher the mastery rank, stopping at maybe 15, the more level options you can get. The higher level options have a higher payroll and higher chance at getting better missions rewards and resources.

Specifics (Subject to differences):

Mastery Rank 0-5: Base Missions Level
Mastery Rank 5-10: +50% Base Mission Level
Mastery Rank 10-15: Double Base Mission Level
Masert Rank 15+: Base 150 Mission Levels

For the rewards, I was thinking of an adjustment to reward weights and resource chances similar to relic refinement. Now, whether this applies to enemy drop chance or not is up to you, but my intent was for this to be for mission rewards only.

We talk about fighting easy enemies. We've been fighting the same enemy levels for years, yet in terms of power, we've increased tenfold. Multi forma synergized coordinated builds with an increase in skill over our years. How can we expect the same joy against an enemy we have surpassed many years ago? I go by this saying. "Power increase with static levels is power creep. Power increase with level increase is progression." It's because of this, we must give more options for mission levels.

TL:DR?

• Give each mission options to pick a specific starting level, depending on mastery rank.
• Each higher option gives more chance of getting rarer items similar to relic refinement.
• *Bitter vet complaining and whining*
• More of my whining lol

Thank you for reading.

 

[BaIthazar]

I feel like the option to play different versions of the same mission will only worsen the issue of people not finding squads for early to mid game missions

[--END--Rikutatis]

2 hours ago, BaIthazar said:

I feel like the option to play different versions of the same mission will only worsen the issue of people not finding squads for early to mid game missions

I think that issue is better than the one we currently have, which is vets pressing one button and clearing early to mid game missions, leaving new players with nothing to do but follow them along and then coming to the forums and complaining and asking for nerfs of AoE frames. 

[BaIthazar]

4 minutes ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

I think that issue is better than the one we currently have, which is vets pressing one button and clearing early to mid game missions, leaving new players with nothing to do but follow them along and then coming to the forums and complaining and asking for nerfs of AoE frames. 

I have helped out a lot of new players and most of them agree they'd rather get carried through an interception mission with nothing to do than have to solo it because the node is empty.

any exterminate, sabotage, capture, or similar missions are easily doable solo early to mid game, but mid game the defense, survival, and interception missions become increasingly more difficult or even downright impossible for new players to solo.

[peterc3]

10 hours ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

Mastery Rank 0-5: Base Missions Level
Mastery Rank 5-10: +50% Base Mission Level
Mastery Rank 10-15: Double Base Mission Level
Masert Rank 15+: Base 150 Mission Levels

How would the game be improved by essentially creating 4 separate versions of the same star chart?

10 hours ago, (PS4)Crixus044 said:

Each higher option gives more chance of getting rarer items similar to relic refinement.

More/better rewards implies a greater risk. Your suggested plan has no more risk than normal, so there's no reason to ask for better rewards.

[(PSN)Crixus044]

5 hours ago, BaIthazar said:

I have helped out a lot of new players and most of them agree they'd rather get carried through an interception mission with nothing to do than have to solo it because the node is empty.

any exterminate, sabotage, capture, or similar missions are easily doable solo early to mid game, but mid game the defense, survival, and interception missions become increasingly more difficult or even downright impossible for new players to solo.

Which is why it's an option. You can choose to play the easier version of the node if you want. Once you get to MR 5, you should have a pretty decent frame and weapon setup. You can have all nodes unlocked, and with that, mission levels would be up to optional 60 base on your hardest nodes. Uranus would be up to around level 45 base. This is around the same levels as first sorties but without sortie restrictions, which players around 5-10 MR are normally able to do.

If you can't do it solo, get a squad. That'd the idea. It's there for you. I remember when i was MR 8 i was doing (getting hardcore carried lol)1 hour survivals with a squad of clanmates. I'd do Caracol up to 30 waves which is around level 45-50. And this was back in 2015, when our MR 8 power was FAR lower than MR 8 today.

 New players can always ask for help if they can't do that, which is the idea. A harder node that you can't just steamroll roll. It's an optional challenge to prepare you for the future. It's not mandatory, but rewarding. I never really had an issue finding a random squad for any mission. That problem went away around when the void was changed. 

[(PSN)Crixus044]

On 2018-07-04 at 12:58 PM, peterc3 said:

How would the game be improved by essentially creating 4 separate versions of the same star chart?

More/better rewards implies a greater risk. Your suggested plan has no more risk than normal, so there's no reason to ask for better rewards.

It's not to simply create 4 different versions of the star chart. It's to pick your own levels. If you want to do the normal levels just to get the normal rewards, that's fine. If you're looking for something in the mission and think you can handle the harder levels, go for it. An endgame player looking for some long endurance run can have a mission start at level 150 so that he could get to the levels he wants to get to faster. A regular player looking for some better rewards in a defense can choose to pick the harder version so that he could get a better chance at the reward. A beginner who wants to push himself to progress faster and get some experience in the higher level missions like sorties, index, and onslaught and test his metal in a harder version of the mission he does.That's the risk. You want a rare mod/relic? Take the risk of doing a level 150 defense for a better chance at that relic.