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MR is the only 'easy to see' indicator for experience in this game. You can't blame people for using the most accessible piece of information to make an assumption of a player's skill level. I'm not saying it is correct but the ones who assume MR relates to skill are just as bad as the ones who whine about them assuming it. Though you can blame DE for not making the earlier mastery tests test skill or build strength properly.

Once scaling is fixed and made reasonable we can get actual endgame. Until then it will be cheese vs cheese.

Added a placeholder beneficial effect for tier 2 instability. Why would you need more mod slots on a face-tank frame? Most frames that have to decide between an ability or survivability mod are ones that make use of abilities often. Sure, Inaros could use one of the sentient slots for Equilibrium but that would be pretty pointless. Using all current mod-slots (and arcanes) can already give you an un-killable frame so providing a debuff to yourself doesn't really make sense for something that would only be slightly useful.

If DE's intentions are to make my concept a fully fleshed out way of increasing frame power, a gauge of some sort with management like you suggested would definitely make it a more refined mechanic. But I feel like the idea of using what is essentially a 'cooldown' would only work if this was DE's plan for increasing frame power. As something intended to be optional, I feel that like that would push it too hard or be more effort than it is worth on DE's part. As for affecting mainly 'ability' based frames, well yeah, abilities are generally what frames are used for. Face-tank frames like Inaros or Nidus work perfectly fine with 0 ability affecting mods, and frames that focus on abilities would gain more benefit from using a system like this, so it only makes sense they have a bigger drawback. If something like this is DE's plan then they would need an 'operator friendly' way of increasing frame power, basically my idea but using void energy to 'overclock' a frame. Which would actually be pretty neat for non-primes to be sentient buffed and primes to be void buffed. Would give people a reason to keep standard frames and would work with the lore a bit more.

@_H-XXII_I appreciate the lengthy response and understand what you are saying with how my *current* debuffs (relying on rng and essentially CC for the player) might not be received well by some of the community. But your idea of using dragon key debuffs as a 'basis' of what I should come up with for the instability tiers would just allow free power to be gained. Even if you lost 99.9% of your EHP, that doesn't matter when you can just use a Rhino and gain every benefit without any real downside. Obviously that is just a very specific situation but even running with all 4 keys equipped solo, I can still complete a mission within a reasonable time. But my main reasoning against those sorts of debuffs is that reducing overall damage or survivability would contradict the point of granting more power. Negating the use of some/all abilities completely and transference are the only ones that would make some sense lore-wise and I could see transference prevention working as a higher tier debuff so I will keep that in mind. Locking out a specific type of weapon would have no reasoning behind it. The main issue stopping me from just coming up with some negligible, but 'reliable' debuffs, is that infusing Sentient energy into a Void energy powered thing can't just be a simple as 'you are a little weaker all the time in this specific area' having RNG debuffs suits the 'overclocking' idea as when you push something past its limits, there will always be unexpected results. Of course, I am still giving this some thought each day and might come up with reliable yet 'logical' debuffs as alternatives to my current ones, I just need something that would actually be a meaningful detriment. As a final note, would you say it would be better if, instead of being based on RNG completely, an instability event would only occur (with a % chance) when casting an ability and also every time you use transference? That way the instability events would only occur when a player makes them happen. I could see that being a good middle-ground. I will add that to the OP as edit 5.

Trying to read all that text is not very easy with that image, I would consider typing it out yourself. I would help but I can't really read it that well. I do like the idea of a Kubrow frame to go along with a Kavat frame (I'm assuming that's what your concept is about) and he looks alright, sort of reminds me of Mesa prime.

While you can do what you want, if you want a concept to actually get attention you will likely need to present more of it than a sentence or two. Come up with some ideas for abilities and a passive and what the frame could do while small or large instead of 'just some buffs.' Lets just hope that if DE do take this idea, they don't make a purple boss.

New mechanic: Sentient Instability. My (as far as I know) original idea for a new mechanic. Probably won't get much attention here but maybe this index will come back to life.

Added some extra effects to tiers and provided information on possible beneficial effects from instability tiers. @GnarlsDarkley @_H-XXII_ Sorry to ping you both but seeing as you are the only 2 to have given feedback or a response along with showing some interest in the idea, I would appreciate your input on the added benefits from instability tiers.

Difficulty in Warframe will be impossible to properly implement until all the damage and/or scaling reworks are mostly finalized. At the moment the only difficulty you can experience in Warframe is when you intentionally gimp yourself or forget to change your loadout for the mission because you have so many tools to use to minimize your chance of failing a mission. Though I think the implementation of adaptation just made balancing the game way harder than it needed to be.

1. Yes they are a nuisance, but they exist for a reason, to act as some sort of prevention for complete power-creep. Getting frustrated using the system is actually good because that means the trade-off is significant enough to stop players from using it in situations where they don't want the added risk/nuisance. 2. There are many things that exist in this game that people don't and are not willing to use because they don't provide any meaningful benefit. Sure, maybe if this was added 60% of people would only ever get Tier 1, 10% would try higher tiers and 30% would never touch the system. But for those that do, they could find something they can mess around with for hours. 3. In terms of how Warframe's current design is pretty much solely based on power-creep, yes you are right in that it doesn't mesh well. Yet last I heard DE were looking at ways to reduce or stop power-creep and the only way is with a trade-off. I couldn't say I can some up with any other idea's at the moment that would act as a reasonable deterrents and be "lore-considering" drawback. I am open to suggestions to change my concept if I had something to work with and have some other ideas but they could be used to troll allies (i.e high sentient instability creates a nullifier wave.)

It wouldn't be the same as instant death as allies can protect/save you and some abilities (like frost's globe) only de-activate when a nullifier touches them. The point is knowing what you're risking by using the system. Every build is still completely viable with the current amount of mod slots available and the point of my idea is to make it so if you really want to push your build or try something completely new you have the option. It could also give players another goal to work for in terms of maxing out the slots, even if they aren't going to be used. It is intended to be an optional thing to work for and not necessary for anything.

What is it? The idea is that with the new war, we will be able to fuse/augment/amalgamate sentient 'power' into our frames in order to grant more mod slot(s) with a drawback called 'Sentient instability' a new stat that can cause problems (and benefits) of varying effect for you. The game is gaining more and more mods, so why not add a balanced and fair way to grant more power. How exactly, this ability would be gained would depend on what's done with, and after, the new war. The mechanics. Augmenting a frame with a sentient mod slot wouldn't cause any problems on it's own. It would only cause problems when a mod is used in the slot allowing for much greater build diversity between configurations. Depending if it is an augment, exilus, power-affecting mod, survivability or utility mod would change how significant the drawback would be and Umbral mods cannot be used while a mod is in a sentient slot. A sentient slot cannot be given to Umbral-esque frames (if more are added in the future) and possibly Prime Warframes (more info in EDIT 4.) My idea consists of adding up to 4 new mod slots but using all 4 would cause an extremely high chance of really bad things happening quite often. It is also possible that prime frames could not be given a slot, using a mod in the slot would reduce it's rank by 1-2 and that primed mods could also not be used but they are for DE to determine. --EDIT 2-- Mods in these slots would not drain mod capacity, increasing the ‘reward’ gained for using higher tier mods. Sentient instability This would be a percentage shown in the UI somewhere on the stat window going all the way up to 90%. As placeholder/WIP values and effects I will present them below and every tier can have the previous tier happen but only one instability event will happen at any given moment. Each tier and the percentage will increase the frequency and chance of any instability event happening. Swapping from operator back to frame gives an increased chance of an instability event occurring. --EDIT 1-- For example, base time between events is 120 seconds, each % reduces time by 1 second and when the event “rolls” it has the same % chance of happening as total instability. I.e. with 5% every 20-115 seconds there is a 5% chance an event occurring: --EDIT 5-- As an alternative to happening within certain time intervals, instead, instability percentage could directly correlate to the chance of an event happening upon using any ability. So with 25% instability, every time you use an ability there is a 25% chance of an event from the appropriate tiers happening. An event would either always happen or have an extremely high chance of happening when using transference. Tier 1: 1-10% - Your frame becomes disoriented, causes a short stagger and/or your frame trips over. Tier 2: 11-25% - De-activate and lock a random ability for 2-3 seconds or cause an un-blockable magnetic proc (Sentient proc?) Tier 3: 26-45% - Both issues from tier 2 at the same time with a stagger. Tier 4: 46-70% - Your frame is temporarily disabled due fighting the sentient energy. Lasts 5-10 seconds and prevents transference (has a 'struggle' mechanic where spamming ends it faster.) Emits a 10-20 meter pulse every 2 seconds that damages and mildly staggers enemies while the event is occurring. Tier 5: 71-90% - The sentient energy erupts causing a large shock-wave that deals high damage and knocks down/back nearby enemies. As it is Sentient energy; your frame collapses, all abilities are deactivated, all shields are drained and leaves health at 50 or 5% of maximum. Lasts 6 seconds under any circumstances (unless downed.) --EDIT 3-- Beneficial effects - WIP. After some thought, making it so each tier of instability grants a beneficial effect, such as something similar to Adaptation (but prevents the mod from being used for balancing purposes,) would fit as Sentients have natural abilities. Each tier could either just have the 1 benefit or provide some/every benefit from previous tiers. Tier 1: Provides no benefits. Tier 2: When using an ability, there is a 20% chance half of the energy cost is recovered Tier 3: When damage is taken, there is a 10-15% chance a homing projectile is fired at the attacker or a nearby enemy dealing light damage and disarming or staggering them. Tier 4: Provides innate 'Adaptation' to damage types for the rest of the mission (but prevents use of the mod.) Each hit grants 1% resistance and stacks up to 70% or total instability percentage. Tier 5: Grants a new bleed out state (overrides custom bleed outs like Inaros') where upon taking lethal damage your frame becomes enveloped in Sentient energy appearing ethereal (like Vomvalysts) allowing slow movement, gun fire and melee but preventing ability use OR Grants a sentient energy attack instead. Killing enemies fills up a meter and once full, your frame's health is restored to 60%. Whether allies can revive you or not is undecided. --EDIT 4-- As a way to make non-primed frames more appealing and also fit with the lore a bit more, it could also be possible that these beneficial effects (or even Sentient slots) cannot be given to Prime Warframes and non-primed frames could get a cosmetic effect given to them to show ally players you have instability active based on the tier. How Sentient instability is calculated (WIP/placeholder values.) Each sentient slot used will multiply the total instability granted from all slots added together. Mod ranks are irrelevant to how much instability they grant. 1 slot used is x1, 2 slots used is x2, 3 slots used is x3.5 and anything used in the 4th slot will instantly set instability to 90%. Exilus mods (excluding drift mods) - 4% Drift mods - 6% Augment and utility mods - 9% Survivability mods - 10% Ability affecting mods - 13% Corrupted mods - 17% As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. --EDIT 6-- Credit to @_H-XXII_

I did have an affinity booster but I had 3 stacks of cat buff for at least 90 seconds

I don't see why you think any random player on the forums could do anything for you, or that DE would come to the forums for a support ticket related issue when the person who 'assisted' you followed procedure. I shouldn't need to say this again but I guess I will... Answer as many as you can and hope for the best. That's the only help any player on these forums can give you.