TaureTavari

I'm in the process of generating ideas for some of these issues. Others I'll be talking about are the 6 Syndicates, Cephalon Simaris, Focus and then other issues.

PS - Apologies, but the 'page' function was breaking the thread. This is the first of a series of ideas that I think would be good to implement into Warframe. These all concern the grind - the rate of progression through various branches of the game, and the limitations placed on newer players when trying to 'catch up' in the ever growing world of Warframe. To preface, it is a common understanding that Warframe is a compilation of content islands; or perhaps more kindly put - a multi-faceted gem. It has its many sides, and they all reflect various qualities the game has, but it doesn't do a stellar job of combining them OR revisiting old content and re-incorporating it into the current state of affairs. The unfortunate result of this is isolated areas of the game for which the rewards do not match the time required to obtain them, save for only those that wish to collect everything even if it no longer has meaning. Some examples of this include, but are not limited to: - Prime Warframes that are easier to obtain than their base versions. - Tenet and Lich Weapons being obtainable very early in game, and overshadowing a vast majority of weapons. - Open-world Syndicates providing outdated gear with time-gated progression paths. - Duviri / Open-worlds / Railjack all providing little-to-no progression outside of their isolated fields. This is all known, and it is all often mentioned, with the occasional idea tossed around about how to solve the issue (but often such ideas are half-considered and cause further issues to arise). One has to incorporate without making other, older parts of the game obsolete. An example of this would be: - Introducing Railjack Void Fissures. They did not make normal Void Fissures obsolete by becoming more efficient, but they were not immediately irrelevant due to also providing unique rewards (the Tenet Melees, Epitaph and Sevagoth) - however, once those limited rewards were obtained, the mode becomes inefficient compared to regular Void Fissures. It meant that new RJ content wasn't completely isolated from the base game, but also failed to make itself totally relevant by still being an inefficient alternative to the pre-existing version. Who runs Railjack for relic cracking? Mad men. I try to view Warframe from the eyes of a new player. That is a struggle, as I have been playing this game since 2013, and I am somewhat out-of-touch with my younger self that had to struggle his way through the grind. When new content appears now, it is there ready for me to tackle, it's not some distant thing that I will reach in the future. It's a cake for me to gorge on until I feel sick of it, and then I wait a little while and go back to it. It's what allows me to understand the purpose of time-gating content - new content - because if not, I would eat myself to death or until there is no cake left and then I will be disappointed when I feel like taking another bite and finding that I already had it all. Sometimes it's good for someone to tell you that "You have been playing for over an hour. Please don't forget to take a break." However, when I look back at all this game has, and how frustrated I had been in the past when I was ready to do more, grind more, have more, only to be stopped by the terrible Wall of Time-Gating... I see a daunting experience for new players. I remember making checklists, calculating how many days it would take to obtain something I wanted if I maxed out my grind each day, how awful it felt to know that it would be weeks until I can get just that one thing, only because the game won't let me obtain it any faster. Almost all of Warframe has these issues, from crafting, to Syndicates, to limited alerts, to Mastery capped daily Focus / Standing amounts etc. -- do I think it should all be done away with? No, and goodness have mercy on anyone that attempts to remove such huge parts of the sacred spaghetti code. Eternalism would have a field day as our present reality unfolds and tears itself apart as the spaghetti monster explodes. So... the solutions I have in mind are as follows (at last, we get to the meat of it). Open-world Event rotations Not Plague Star, or Thermia Fractures or Ghouls. Rather, a rotational event for each of the Open-world locations, likely on a bi-weekly basis (that is, once per two weeks NOT twice per week, as some people believe). During this event, for its duration, rewards for that particular Open-world location will be increased and the gating mechanics reduced / removed. Such things would perhaps occur on a 4-day weekend basis (to account somewhat for the schedules of the working adult, and that not all people have their weekends off) - i.e. Friday - Monday. Plains of Eidolon - We have seen a step forward with Deimos and Zariman regarding syndicates, and using resources rather than standing as bounty rewards - this allows for stockpiling, such as that doing bounties after reaching the daily standing cap no longer is 'wasteful'. Cetus suffers in that not only can one not stockpile, but the standing rewards from completing bounties are drastically reduced when compared to the likes of Deimos Bounties - one can max their daily standing in two bounties quite easily in Deimos, yet would have to complete roughly 3x as many in Plains with no option to stockpile (excluding Fish and Gems). Reward changes would include: Double Standing rewards from Bounties. 1 Additional Reward per completed bounty (excluding the bonus reward from additional objectives. I.e. Maximum of 2 bonus rewards, one guaranteed). Double Fish obtained from Fishing. Double Gems/Minerals obtained from Mining. Daily Standing Cap for Ostron raised to 132,000. Daily Standing Cap for Quills raised to Current Standing Cap (32,500) Double Sentient Cores from Sentients on Plains of Eidolon only No changes to Arcane drops +1 Additional reward drops from Eidolons, exclusive drop table including mods, Articula and Sigil. +1 Additional Eidolon Shard drops from Eidolons, the highest of their drops (i.e. Brilliant / Radiant) Now, it is important to not only suggest such things, but also to explain them. For example, we need to understand what can be accomplished as a result of these changes, and what risks they entail. Firstly, it's relevant to mention that Plains of Eidolon is 'old' content. For what it includes, we have Zaws, Arcanes (Warframe and Operator), Operator Amps, Decorations, some Companion related things, and most recently Companion mods; the majority of this is superceded by other things. If we consider the Daily Standing Cap of the newer player, the limitations placed on them are significant, despite that they have the most to obtain. A lot of which I would argue is not worth the investment, because it does not serve the purpose it once did. Amps, arcanes and companion mods (which are new) are still relevant, but the rest is... well, not. Should it thus be such a sacrifice of time to obtain it? Not in my opinion. The proposed changes reduce time-gating, most especially for the newer player. It means a person can, if they choose to grind it (as one must still put the effort in), obtain 132,000 standing in a day. Therefore, over a 4-day event, they can obtain 528,000 standing. It would not be for another 2 months that such a thing is possible. It takes 240,000 Standing to reach Rank 5 in Ostron and Quills. There is subsequently almost 2,000,000 Standing required to obtain all items (possibly more, I didn't add it all up) in just Ostron. If we consider a new person grinding only to obtain the relevant things like Arcanes or tools, or weapons - they're looking at about over 800,000 Standing. This gives such players a leg-up. New players still have to grind, they still have to obtain the standing and the materials to rank up; but what they don't have is such an absurd wait time until they can start tackling the content they want to. To actually get things - waiting for weeks and weeks and weeks (don't forget they have a small standing cap per day) just to obtain one thing. But also, it doesn't make the standing gain unlimited, so that they can completely obliterate it all in one go. As for why the Quills Standing Cap is limited to 32,500. This change eliminates the barrier between new and old players temporarily, allowing for new players to gain a boosted rate of progression in Quills, but also preventing there being some upset in the Quills Arcane Economy. Old players with a stockpile of thousands upon thousands of cores won't have the opportunity to spend 500k on Arcanes and rapidly selling them for Plat on the market, thus utterly demolishing the economy for those Arcanes... admittedly, it's not a huge economy, but the less upset the better. This change was not considered for Zaw Arcanes because of how niche they are and how far less used also. Regarding Double Gems/Minerals and Fish, if it is considered to be potential overkill for those with boosters (thus x4 resources, and x8 with Charm) then disable interactivity with market purchased boosters such as that the two cannot combine, but rather override one another. Orb Vallis - In very much the same position as Plains of Eidolon. Reward changes would include: Double Debt-Bonds from Bounties. 1 Additional Reward per completed bounty (excluding the bonus reward from additional objectives). Double Fish obtained from Fishing. Double Gems/Minerals obtained from Mining. Daily Standing Cap for Ostron raised to 132,000. Daily Standing Cap for Vox Solaris raised to Current Standing Cap (32,500) Double Toroids from Orb Mothers. +1 Additional reward drops from Orb Moths, exclusive drop table including Articula, Sigil, Captura, Hildryn parts and Ephemera with adjusted drop chances). Daily Standing Cap for Ventkids raised to 132,000. Double Standing bonuses from K-Drive Combos and Races. Again, Vox Solaris remains capped due to the prevalence of Arcanes and the potential upset to the Arcane market (which could both profit and hinder new players and old). The previous comment on resource boosters applies once more. Deimos. Now, Deimos and the Necralisk suffer less from the aforementioned issues, and as such do not require quite so many changes - however, one must still consider the limitations on players and just how much standing is required in this syndicate. Reward changes would include: Double Fish obtained from Fishing. Double Gems/Minerals obtained from Mining. Daily Standing Cap for Entrati raised to 132,000. 1 Additional Reward per completed bounty (excluding the bonus reward from additional objectives). 1 Additional Reward per Isolation Vault bounty. 1-3 Grandmother Tokens awarded per full bounty completion including Bonus Objectives (3 at Steel Path). Daily Standing Cap for Necraloid raised to 70,000. Zariman. Whilst the Zariman is not an open-world zone, I have included it thus because its syndicate operates on very much the same premise as each of the open-worlds, and that is the system under scrutiny at the moment. Zariman is similar to Deimos both in how players obtain their standing, but also in the ability to stock-pile quite comfortably, and is rather forgiving in its grind. It is also the newest of the lot, and is also locked behind completing the New War. It is, as such, going to need a slightly different approach; as those that have come this far are no longer 'new' players. Reward changes would include: +1 Void Quills per completed Bounty (not per Ravenous Void Angel). +1 Void Plume per Void Angel killed. 1 Additional Reward per completed bounty mission (note, standard missions queued from the Star Map will not drop additional rewards). Daily Standing Cap raised to Current Standing Cap (32,500). Of course, Zariman does not get quite so drastic changes during it's 4-day event. This is because all of the Zariman vendors fall under one syndicate, meaning it's very difficult to balance the Arcane economy and the need for new players to not have such gated progression. However, it's also because Zariman requires quite a significant degree of progress in the game to reach, and is also not old content - much of what it offers is still very relevant, such as its Arcanes and incarnon weapons. As such, the standing change during the event (once per 2 months, for only 4 days) merely reduces that divide between the limitations placed on low MR players and higher MR players allowing for decent progress regardless. Now, there is another consideration. Even if this system were a good idea, can it be implemented? Well, only the spaghetti gods know, and Spaghetti Sinclair is busy elsewhere, so we rely on the unnamed deities to understand the code and crack it. However, an alternative solution is thus: Much in the vein of other timed events, such as Plague Star, the creation of new 'event specific' syndicates with separate standing ranks and vendor pools remains a possibility. To give a more detailed example: For 4 days, in Plains of Eidolon, there is a new Ostron Syndicate (let's just call it the Unum for now), which has 1 Rank, and a daily standing cap of 132,000. Within this syndicate contains rewards from the Ostron and Quills vendors, excluding certain items such as Arcanes - likewise for Zariman, Solaris or Entrati. The new event syndicates would pool vendor items that are obtainable exclusively through active playing during the event, and enable players to obtain those otherwise difficult to acquire items that could take weeks to get. It would be a time-limited opportunity to negate aspects of time-gated grind from the base syndicates, but excluding some of the items that could upset economy. So, we've managed to address one problem. Time-gated content is only part of the issue that restricts newer players from truly experiencing Warframe. The other aforementioned concerns I'd like to address in the future, though likely to little avail. It may be that content islands, outdated gear and gamemodes, and other issues are never to be resolved... but I already have ideas. It just takes a long time to write them down, as you can see. I hope people read this thread with serious consideration, especially DE. For all the 'ideas' people have, it's understandable that one might wish to sigh and say "oh, this again"... but I try to consider not only the impacts on the players, new and old, but also on the game and how it might impact its engagement. I think this suggestion is, whilst hardly original, a good medium between enabling new players to progress quicker through the ever expanding world (galaxy) of Warframe, but also not allowing it to be abused, nor negating the need for a reasonable degree of effort and time investment to truly complete it. Many thanks, and kind regards.