Nightwave, Or How Change Can Be Chaotic

“Sharing is caring” sounds like the worst way to start off a blog post about practically anything, but that goes awfully well with what the motive behind the latest major update for Warframe has had its player base indulging in.

Act 01 : Echoes of Brevity

• Evolving Hoards

• Last Wednesday, the 26th of March, Warframe saw its first complete overhaul of the in-game Daily Alert system in all 6 years of the game’s current life cycle. Before, Daily Alerts would each be frequent, randomly generated time-gated instances of specific mission types that would reward anything between crafting resources to mods, to essential upgrades such as Orokin Reactors and Catalysts, to even Warframe and weapon component blueprints and cosmetics.

• For six years, Tenno of varying levels of experience have had to remain content with the fact that international time zones were one of the three final bosses of the game, and I was honestly unfazed by that revelation for all my few hundred hours of playtime. I have some incredible people as friends both in-game and in real life, and some of us have seen both the best and worst aspects of Warframe up close and very personal. A vital resource alert would be conveyed between us and attempted if possible, and we’d always pass the banter around in case we just so happened to spot a lone Orokin Cell being the alert reward for 2 rounds of Archwing Interception (Tower defense in deep space, while wearing jetpacks augmented for FTL travel, is a bonkers concept, but trust me it isn’t implemented even remotely as well).

• The release of Nightwave marked the start of a brand new era for Warframe, one where the promise remains to improve upon the new player experience and bolster retention metrics for both newcomers and veterans alike. To explain briefly, Nightwave is a system that replaces the much loved (/s) Daily Alerts, and brings the more sought after alert rewards under one purchase tab, to be obtained using a new form of seasonal currency. This new currency, named Wolf Credits after the first Episode of the Nightwave system – The Wolf of Saturn Six, can be obtained by completing various daily and weekly activities specified under a seasonal ladder. Warframe’s public team have referred to this system as a free Battle Pass, whereas it seems to resemble seasonal challenge leagues ladders in various online ARPGs. Regardless, players can redeem points gathered through these activities to rank up their seasonal ranks and obtain tier rewards, that include cosmetics, equipment slots, augment mods, and bundles of 50 Wolf Credits.

• The entire system is governed by a cryptic new NPC, Nora Night, who sounds like a lovely little nod to The Warriors. Nora offers two kinds of rewards – the main, tiered rewards, and Wolf Credit rewards. The latter of the two comprises all of the rewards from the retired Daily Alert pool, minus the uncommon crafting resources and currency. The objective seems to be to streamline the prime aspects of Warframe’s community focused chase grinds for maximum efficiency. And while that sounds good on paper, the reality of the situation is arguably more volatile than even the most polarising design choices we’ve seen so far.

• The Daily Alert system was and will forever remain the single greatest helping hand in the game for new players when it comes to farming crafting and upgrade resources. While Nightwave offers a dearth of guaranteed resources to all players, the lack of uncommon resources slows down the new player progression significantly in that it forces them to stick to their starter frame for at least the first five planets. Whereas before, players could target farm the Rhino Warframe from the second planet in the progression path, wait for a 300x Plastid Bundle alert, a Control Module alert, and start crafting Rhino immediately after, Nightwave removes that simplification aspect of the game in favor of patience or player interaction (Ask for a taxi to Saturn and the Orokin Void on region or recruit chat).

• Warframe’s Creative Director, Steve Sinclair, has gone on record to clarify that a main Nightwave Series will operate on a 10 week cycle, with additional lore Episodes added after the initial Episode to improve on the chase grind as more time goes by. Here’s to hoping they improve on all fronts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading through part 1, “Evolving Hoards”. Tune in next week for “Overpowered Together”, part 2 of this 3 part opinion piece on what is possibly the most game-changing update in Warframe’s recent history.