Can we make modular weapons more.... modular?

[Betsill]

I feel  like this has to have been brought up before, but I really think we should have the ability to swap parts on zaws, kitguns, and future versions of this system at any time. I've  been  playing this  game since 2013 and i've actually still yet to build a zaw or kitgun. The reason is that it's just to much investment and it doesn't do the exact thing you would expect from a "modular" weapon design. You would think that the ability to choose weapon parts would encourage creativity, but currently it doesn't. I feel like I have to look up the best builds to make the best use of my time, since once I build a weapon THAT'S IT! If i don't like it for some reason I have to start the rep, resource, and foundry time grind all over again from scratch just to replace a single part in my build. Since mastery is tied to one part, it further makes "creativity" feel like a complete waste of time. I would so much rather grind to build all the parts and then mix and match them to my hearts content. If  someone me that  has  put thousands  of  hours  into  this   game  won't  touch  this  time sink,  then  why  would the average   player? I can't  see  a downside to  this  change.  

[DreisterDino]

I agree, it would make the system much more interesting and fun.

I would definetly buy and build all parts there are if i could switch them out.

It would be fine ofc if there is some minor cost associated with switching a part.

 

Edit: I still havent build all Zaws from Hok because i dont bother, and the weird feeling that you can "make mistakes" and waste a lot of time and ressources is annoying. And the best thing about this, for hte most part, you have to gild the weapon first and maybe put at least 1 or 2 forma in it to really see if it performs like you wanted it to perform. If not, well your bad, grind all the ressources and the standing again, gild a weapon again, put forma in it again and pray that it does what you want it to do that time.

 

Edit2: Its not even about crafting the best weapon possible sometimes, but even if i want to build just a fun weapon, thats a huge time investment. And if i end up thinking "no, if only i did use a different link this would be performing like i imagined" and only have to switch 1 part, i am not gonna do that (i have done that one one zaw btw). I would farm the stuff for that 1 part i need for sure, but when you need lots of fish, gems or alloys, standing, time for gilding and so on....naaah.

Edited November 25, 2018 by DreisterDino

[IntheCoconut]

Yeah, they really shouldn't consume the blueprints once built. It takes enough grinding to buy and build them once, in my opinion.

[Voltage]

The intent of Kitguns, Zaws, and the modular weapon system is experimentation. You can preview part combinations to view possible stat outcomes, but you theory craft outside of the game as well using tools available:

https://semlar.com/kitcalc
https://semlar.com/zawcalc

I understand why this is a request, but it would be way too easy if you only had to craft a single version of each part and are presented with unlimited possibilities. I don't see the need to change the current system, especially with how forgiving Fortuna makes it to craft Kitguns.

[Kalvorax]

Just now, Voltage said:

I understand why this is a request, but it would be way too easy if you only had to craft a single version of each part and are presented with unlimited possibilities. I don't see the need to change the current system, especially with how forgiving Fortuna makes it to craft Kitguns.

not if we have to level it up each time....and MAYBE lose forma when we change the part that gives MR.

[DreisterDino]

vor 4 Minuten schrieb Voltage:

The intent of Kitguns, Zaws, and the modular weapon system is experimentation. You can preview part combinations to view possible stat outcomes, but you theory craft outside of the game as well using tools available:

https://semlar.com/kitcalc
https://semlar.com/zawcalc

I understand why this is a request, but it would be way too easy if you only had to craft a single version of each part and are presented with unlimited possibilities. I don't see the need to change the current system, especially with how forgiving Fortuna makes it to craft Kitguns.

The thing is, its not always about the stats only. Sometimes its about the general feeling of the weapon aswell.

Yes if i want to build the best weapon possible, i just see what other people have done or calculate and build it.

 

But since it costs so much ressources and time, the reality is that there is not much creativity because 90% of the parts arent used at all.

For Zaw-links: Its basically vargeet jai II or vargeet II jai or the other good one all the time, no one who wants to build a good zaw would "waste" time and ressources on other parts.

Edited November 25, 2018 by DreisterDino

[Voltage]

Just now, Kalvorax said:

not if we have to level it up each time....and MAYBE lose forma when we change the part that gives MR.

Affinity gain is the least grindy part of the Zaw/Kitgun system. If you are losing Forma while changing parts, it would be in your interest to just build a second weapon with a different combination. With the current system, the preview system, and the third party tools available, I would not like to make it even easier to create these weapons. The grind from Plains of Eidolon to Orb Vallis was reduced so heavily, Pax Arcane Enhancements aren't even blueprints. The investment into modular weapons is very low as it is.

[TARINunit9]

This could theoretically make sense for Kitguns, since they're glorified power tools and it is possible in real life to disassemble and customize them. This does not really make sense for Zaws due to a concept called forge-welding. Once you hand your Zaw parts over to Hok, he's not just tieing them together with string, he's forging them together

[Kalvorax]

10 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Affinity gain is the least grindy part of the Zaw/Kitgun system. If you are losing Forma while changing parts, it would be in your interest to just build a second weapon with a different combination. With the current system, the preview system, and the third party tools available, I would not like to make it even easier to create these weapons. The grind from Plains of Eidolon to Orb Vallis was reduced so heavily, Pax Arcane Enhancements aren't even blueprints. The investment into modular weapons is very low as it is.

mmm good point...makes me wish we could use the simulacrum to make zaws and kitguns to test out there.

yes i know we have previews and such....but there IS a difference between paper and actual tests.

[BiancaRoughfin]

32 minutes ago, Betsill said:

I've  been  playing this  game since 2013 and i've actually still yet to build a zaw or kitgun.

Until you have tried it out, i dont see any reasons you should complain. If you actually play since 2013, resources shouldnt be a problem.

33 minutes ago, Betsill said:

The reason is that it's just to much investment and it doesn't do the exact thing you would expect from a "modular" weapon design.

Being Modular doesnt always mean you can tear it down any time you want and rebuild it.

35 minutes ago, Betsill said:

You would think that the ability to choose weapon parts would encourage creativity, but currently it doesn't.

And even if it was modular as you wanted, it wouldnt bring the creativity you want as people would still always use whats most optimal or Meta.
I for example use a Crit based Zaw Dagger, because Zaws gave me the opportunity to create a Dagger that is reliable on End-game and doesnt depend on Finishers. Still everyone else i see using a Zaw is often using a Polearm Kripath with stupid Spin2Win builds.

37 minutes ago, Betsill said:

I feel like I have to look up the best builds to make the best use of my time, since once I build a weapon THAT'S IT!

I dont think doing some researches for Warframe stuff hurts, some community members even made Zaw assemblage much easier with some guide suites that lets you preview how they will perform.

44 minutes ago, Betsill said:

If  someone me that  has  put thousands  of  hours  into  this   game  won't  touch  this  time sink,  then  why  would the average   player? I can't  see  a downside to  this  change.  

I play since 04/05/2013, i have all the Zaws and all the AMPs with some duplicates for different combinations of Prisma/Brace. I dont see why it should be a problem in a game based around grinding.

[MasterBurik]

1 hour ago, TARINunit9 said:

This could theoretically make sense for Kitguns, since they're glorified power tools and it is possible in real life to disassemble and customize them. This does not really make sense for Zaws due to a concept called forge-welding. Once you hand your Zaw parts over to Hok, he's not just tieing them together with string, he's forging them together

Kitgun modularity depends on how they mechanically function. That being said, both Zaws and Kitguns have a part that would make sense to be swappable: Links and Loaders.

Edited November 25, 2018 by MasterBurik

[SaiTatter]

Agreed they should make blueprints reusable and the ability to switch parts on an already created zaw.

[16Bitman]

It was originally planned to work this way, that's why there's this whole gilding system in the game.

At some point before releasse DE scrapped the option to take your ungilded weapons apart again but left ranking it up twice to gain mastery in.

[Lakais]

Now I would see this working if we had the option to "break down" a modular weapon to it's base components, for a price. And maybe as an added limitation, only if it isn't gilded. This would give some sense to the gilding process. As before you are trying it out, finding the way you like it. And once you gild it the weapon gets "locked in" fully. 

But we must also consider the other reasons at play. Have you considered that this is deliberate? DE likely learned a bit from before and have deliberately made these to be resource and time sinks. To give incentives to play this content and stick around. They have stated that they'd like to do something about the MOUNTAINS of basic resources veterans are sitting on and have learned enough to basically avoid this problem with the Cetus and Fortuna resources by making sure that there are sinks in place early on. 

There might also be some technical, under the hood reasons why we can't do this. Maybe the engine or the database that tracks these things doesn't want to play nice with people switching these things around and DE have decided to avoid these issues by simply not giving us the option. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Lakais

[SenariousNex]

Never make a mistake of looking up builds, when people say something is best they will be wrong 90% of the time in warframe, because there are just too many possibilities. 

[Oreades]

what I would personally love to see is 

1. Ditch the Gilding system as it is redundant* and doesn't add anything to the game save for shifting the MR grind from lvling a weapon to 30 to leveling a weapon to ~the high 50s, I could say 60 but I'm sure the XP curve doesn't quite go that high even tho you are leveling it to 30 twice. 
2. Increase the rep cost for all of the Component weapons to reflect the fact that the system is now actually Modular not a whole bunch I think I figured at one point that it would be maybe 1-2k per component blueprint to offset the total cost of a Zaw. Which seems fair because you're now going to be spending less rep buying duplicate sub-components. Leave some lower Standing "Starter" Zaw components so people can play around sooner out of the gate. 
3. >>>>>Make the system actually modular<<<<<,

Just treat whatever the MR component is as "the weapon" as far as weapon slots and MR are concerned and treat everything else like you would Mods, cause that's functionally what they are anyhow. just give them their own special slot like Arcanes. That way people don't have to buy duplicate components, however for the sake of convenience they are encouraged to buy duplicate components.

For example if you want to use two different configurations with the same (whatever the MR component is) you can either continually swap around the sub components OR buy a second (whatever the MR component is) to build up two separate variants. 

 

*You literally can't get any more committed to a configuration than you do when you click to assemble the initial build. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Oreades

[clxrffdman]

I have a potential solution

Give players ability to take zaws apart 

Refund potato and give 200,000 credit fee for each disassemble

Zaw/kitgun must be regilded after each disassembly

Edit: maybe also tax resources additionally with credits? Highest tier upgraded gems, cetus wisps for zaws, specific conservation tags woth kitguns?

Edited November 25, 2018 by clxrffdman

[Betsill]

2 hours ago, DreisterDino said:

I agree, it would make the system much more interesting and fun.

I would definetly buy and build all parts there are if i could switch them out.

It would be fine ofc if there is some minor cost associated with switching a part.

 

Edit: I still havent build all Zaws from Hok because i dont bother, and the weird feeling that you can "make mistakes" and waste a lot of time and ressources is annoying. And the best thing about this, for hte most part, you have to gild the weapon first and maybe put at least 1 or 2 forma in it to really see if it performs like you wanted it to perform. If not, well your bad, grind all the ressources and the standing again, gild a weapon again, put forma in it again and pray that it does what you want it to do that time.

 

Edit2: Its not even about crafting the best weapon possible sometimes, but even if i want to build just a fun weapon, thats a huge time investment. And if i end up thinking "no, if only i did use a different link this would be performing like i imagined" and only have to switch 1 part, i am not gonna do that (i have done that one one zaw btw). I would farm the stuff for that 1 part i need for sure, but when you need lots of fish, gems or alloys, standing, time for gilding and so on....naaah.

These are my feels as well. I would build all the parts if I knew that they weren't one time "try out".

[Betsill]

33 minutes ago, clxrffdman said:

I have a potential solution

Give players ability to take zaws apart 

Refund potato and give 200,000 credit fee for each disassemble

Zaw/kitgun must be regilded after each disassembly

Edit: maybe also tax resources additionally with credits? Highest tier upgraded gems, cetus wisps for zaws, specific conservation tags woth kitguns?

That seems a little awkward. Why not just have everything tied to the "weapon" part. That way you can swap everything around, but everything is the same for the main component. Similar to how the lower receiver is considered the "weapon" by the ATF in U.S.A. and you can change everything else on it as you wish. If there was a cost to mixing weapons, i think it would be best to leave it as a modest standing costs to mod the weapons at their corresponding weapon smiths.

[Deathwing980]

Honestly every combination and configuration of the weapons you have what.

11 blades (including the Plague star)
16 links
10 grips...

there's what... 11x16x10 = 1600+160=1760 possible combinations or so.

at 2 Weapon slots per 12 plat.

1760/2 = 880 weapon slot purchases x 12 plat = 10,560 Platinum just for the ZAW's alone.... Factor now that into your Secondary weapons configuring and your MOTE configurations.

Holy sales Digital Extremes (no wonder you guys did it this way).

Smart on their part, harsh on our part, if only there was a way to trial the combinations to see which one fits your style.

Edit: now don't go jumping down my throat or anything, I have been around this game for a long time so i have seen many changes, still people will complain about something, though you can purchase the weapon slots and whatnot just by going through Relic trading (hell it's how i got most of my weapon slots in the game plus my riven slots).

that 10,000 platinum can come by fairly quickly provided you don't spend it on cosmetics.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Deathwing980

[Betsill]

3 minutes ago, Deathwing980 said:

Honestly every combination and configuration of the weapons you have what.

11 blades (including the Plague star)
16 links
10 grips...

there's what... 11x16x10 = 1600+160=1760 possible combinations or so.

at 2 Weapon slots per 12 plat.

1760/2 = 880 weapon slot purchases x 12 plat = 10,560 Platinum just for the ZAW's alone.... Factor now that into your Secondary weapons configuring and your MOTE configurations.

Holy sales Digital Extremes (no wonder you guys did it this way).

Smart on their part, harsh on our part, if only there was a way to trial the combinations to see which one fits your style.

The big problem with your math is that it doesn't work that way. In my case I would have bought all 11 blades if they were modular, same with the kit guns. But because of how little I get for the investment I haven't bought any. I know quite a few people who are the same or stopped after their first one because it was way too much investment of not just time and resources, but also the huge amount of research you need to do to even begin finding out what you should build. 

[IntheCoconut]

50 minutes ago, Deathwing980 said:

Honestly every combination and configuration of the weapons you have what.

11 blades (including the Plague star)
16 links
10 grips...

there's what... 11x16x10 = 1600+160=1760 possible combinations or so.

at 2 Weapon slots per 12 plat.

1760/2 = 880 weapon slot purchases x 12 plat = 10,560 Platinum just for the ZAW's alone.... Factor now that into your Secondary weapons configuring and your MOTE configurations.

Holy sales Digital Extremes (no wonder you guys did it this way).

Smart on their part, harsh on our part, if only there was a way to trial the combinations to see which one fits your style.

Edit: now don't go jumping down my throat or anything, I have been around this game for a long time so i have seen many changes, still people will complain about something, though you can purchase the weapon slots and whatnot just by going through Relic trading (hell it's how i got most of my weapon slots in the game plus my riven slots).

that 10,000 platinum can come by fairly quickly provided you don't spend it on cosmetics.

I'd like to know, on average, how many Zaws people currently have. Maybe some people out there have made more than 5, but I honestly don't see that being too common. I have one Zaw. I'd love to make another but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I could see DE charging 3 slots for 1 fully assembled Zaw (1 slot for each component) if it were truly modular the way the OP is suggesting.

[-AiLuoLi-]

When they first talked about Zaws being modular, I thought we could craft 1 of each part then mix and match straight from arsenal.

I've never been so disappointed when I found out I have to build a zaw>get it to 30>gild>get it to 30 over and over again until I found one that I like...

I've only crafted 1 zaw since release because why even bother?

[Veridian]

14 hours ago, DreisterDino said:

I agree, it would make the system much more interesting and fun.

I would definetly buy and build all parts there are if i could switch them out.

It would be fine ofc if there is some minor cost associated with switching a part.

 

Edit: I still havent build all Zaws from Hok because i dont bother, and the weird feeling that you can "make mistakes" and waste a lot of time and ressources is annoying. And the best thing about this, for hte most part, you have to gild the weapon first and maybe put at least 1 or 2 forma in it to really see if it performs like you wanted it to perform. If not, well your bad, grind all the ressources and the standing again, gild a weapon again, put forma in it again and pray that it does what you want it to do that time. 

 

Edit2: Its not even about crafting the best weapon possible sometimes, but even if i want to build just a fun weapon, thats a huge time investment. And if i end up thinking "no, if only i did use a different link this would be performing like i imagined" and only have to switch 1 part, i am not gonna do that (i have done that one one zaw btw). I would farm the stuff for that 1 part i need for sure, but when you need lots of fish, gems or alloys, standing, time for gilding and so on....naaah.

While I agree with all of this, making the parts interchangeable will run the risk of turning all other melee weapons obsolete.

Perhaps a testing before gilding could be a way.

[Eisdschungel]

Zaws are modular so that we can experiment. I love fast Co Status weapons and built a zaw like that with full Status. Yes id like to Test with with a Bit less Status and more crit.  But i wont even bother to get all the stuff needed just to Change some dangly Bits in my weapon for more crit.,Not talking about paying for a slot.

The System is Not Really experimenting, its following what a Youtube says is best 90% of the time. Yes i researched all parts to Build what i Think is ideal for me. But thats a one time activity and far away from real experimenting. 

vor 3 Minuten schrieb Ver1dian:

While I agree with all of this, making the parts interchangeable will run the risk of turning all other melee weapons obsolete.

Already happened. You can find minmaxed zaw builds for pretty much every weapon class on the internet.  Giving People the Choice to adapt their weapon to their own playstyle would just widen the zaw meta. The ideal powercreeps are already well know