Things that should be fixed/reworked/removed

[NotAlaska]

Preface

Having spent nearly a thousand hours in this game - as reported by Steam - I've acquired a sort of long list of complaints that I'd like to see addressed in future updates. I'm not going to address any of the glaring balance issues, but this is more of a list of Things That Make It Difficult For Me To Recommend The Game To Other People; core game play, features, and mechanics that I think could be changed, tweaked, or removed altogether. This isn't by any means a plea to address game balance, although I will certainly make the case, but this is something of a face lift that I think the game as a whole needs. My intention is to push some issues to the forefront of stuff that should be fixed before we start adding in more new things.

Things that need a change

• Remove Rivens
  • Issue: This could easily be argued as one of Cephalon Samodeus's biggest mistakes. These over-glorified band-aid mods don't add anything to the game other than a crutch for poor scaling. Players and enemies in this game scale about the same rate as they did in Borderlands: we scale linearly (or maybe even log linear) while enemies fall onto a seemingly exponential curve. Rivens address this issue artificially by adding a slight boost to match the value of where enemies at higher levels are at, but even this is a limited boost and the issue still remains.
  • Suggestion: As this is my aforementioned plea to address game balance, I think enemies should be put on a linear progression and that certain weapon and frame values should be adjusted accordingly. I'll likely make a post about what specifically in the future at some point. (I list this as a suggestion rather than a solution as I know that I'll be met with resistance on this, and likely some other points as well)
• Remove Platinum
  • Issue: Plat is an overpowered god resource that takes a lot of the main focus out of the game.
    • Don't have enough slots for frames? Buy more for plat
    • Don't want to grind out a weapon? Buy it for plat
    • Need a bigger box for some purple bandages? Extend it with platinum
    • Is the on-ship EZ Bake oven taking too long? Insert plat
    • I think you see the pattern here... It's not even that this reinforces a pay2win mindset, it's that it's often the case that we can pay2skipthegame (looking at you Khora...)
  • Solution: For things that should be paid content just cut out the middle man and charge us money for it, for the rest let's take out the easy street and make it feel like we earned it.
    • Things that could be paid content: Deluxe skins, Prime/Prime Vault access, cosmetics* (*this one I'll be addressing again later with my gripes with the Foundry)
    • Things that should not be paid content: Our backpack and the things that fit in it.
  • Alternative: If we're hellbent on keeping this resource we should certainly limit its scope and let it be farmable in some fashion, such as it can only be used to craft certain things: cosmetics for example.
• Inventory/Loadout Changes
  • Issue: Why is our inventory locked behind a paywall? This is honestly worse than Bungie considering locking players behind a DLC paywall or if Nexon took Maplestory and told us "Want to play some other class than the one you started with on this region? That'll be $20USD." 
  • Solution: If we're willing to grind it, we should be allowed to keep it. I don't know of a good and justifiable reason that our inventory is limited to 2 warframe slots and I've forgotten how many starting weapon slots we get but I remember it's equally as pitiful. Same thing with the available slots for loadouts as well. I advocate for the bottomless backpack, or at the very least give us a module or some other in-game thing that we can make to extend our inventory.
• Changes to the Relic System
  • Issue: These things are basically necessary lootboxes, er... loot cabbages. We get one by some means (through our lord and savior RNGeezus), acquire a key to open them (by the blessing of our LaS), and RNG willing we get the thing we want out of it. There's three layers of RNG we need to get through before we can actually get anything out of it.
  • Solution: I want to try and simplify this as much as possible so an alternative system would be as follows:
    • 1. Acquire the relic (RNG layer 1)
    • 2. Fissures now become a farm for void traces (determined by a drop chance, so RNG layer 2)
    • 3. Refining the relic is how we acquire the parts that would normally drop from cracking it (not RNG dependent, you worked for it so you earned it)
      • If we want we can turn this into a sort of minigame like we have with mining and fishing. The better the refinement, the better the thing that pops out.
  • Now through this system this could mean that refinement is a bit more expensive, but I don't think that would be entirely necessary. As it currently stands traces are just uncommon enough for this to still work without needing to tweak any drop chances. This wouldn't hardly change fissure missions either, other than removing the required amount to open them.
• Booster Acquisition Changes
  • Issue: Farming gets boring and tedious, sometimes I wish it'd go by just a bit faster.
  • Suggestion: Let's make boosters of all kinds a little more common, like adding it as a reward for arbitrations or elite sanctuary onslaught as an idea.
• Melee 3.0 Rework Considerations
  • Idea: With the melee re-rework delayed until next year (presumably until Railjack) I'd like to put in a couple ideas that I think would help towards improving the melee system
  • Suggestion:
    • Channeling/Combo Counter: As it stands these systems are redundant. Combining them together would be something like you build up your channeling energy as you do damage with your melee weapon, and push a button to enter that sort of Ultimate State for a period of time. When not in use the channeling would simply decay over time so as to avoid the issues that come with a reservoir of superpower that doesn't decay. This would remove the burden of consuming the warframe's energy and streamline the use of melee weapons in general into a single intuitive system, all this with only a couple mods being affected (ie. Blood Rush and the like that depend on the combo counter, which could be reworked to be dependent on the amount currently channeled).
    • Quick Melee: The thing that bothers me about quick melee is the lack of being able to use the full combo of any particular stance mod. So as a possible rework I'd like to see either stance mods including a quick melee combo, or at least the ability to use charged attacks through quick melee.
• Piloting the Orbiter
  • Idea: I'm sure this has been considered for Railjack at some point, but even before that I'd like the ability to just take control of the orbiter and cruise around a planet.
  • Suggestion: It doesn't need to be at the level of No Man Sky (please, that took an interesting concept and made it very not interesting). Just some simple steering controls that let us navigate from node to node on any given planet, with the option to auto-pilot to any node. Not only visually better, but would also make use of these little one-and-done structures called Junctions. From junctions we could travel to any of the unlocked junctions we have on our Rail system, thus keeping navigation from being too tedious. 
  • As an aside to this, I'd also like to see the physical interior of our Orbiter change depending on which ship we're currently using. I can only suspend so much disbelief that the interiors of the Xiphos, Mantis, Scimitar, Liset, and Loading Screen Prime all look exactly the same.
• Foundry Changes
  • Idea: This section is going to be a mixture of things that I like to see changed and things that I have issues with at a core level. When I call the Foundry a Coin-Operated EZ Bake oven I'm less than half joking.
  • Suggestion/Solution:
    • Cosmetics: All of them should be craftable. I fully accept that Cosmetics of certain types (prime/deluxe) being paid content is viable, I don't mind that and even I'm willing to shill out a little bit if they're nice enough. What I mean for this is stuff that isn't of that nature, like the basic bundles and other stuff that Baro "Baby Face" Ki'Teer doesn't sell. In a game where we can farm everything, I think literally everything should be farmable even if we keep platinum as a farmable resource.
    • Wait time/Credit requirement: Ditch these. The wait times are long and arbitrary and it makes no sense that we're presumably paying Ordis money to be able to craft our things. By extension this also eliminates the need for inserting even more money into our EZ Bake to make it go faster.
    • Argon: Not a big deal, but I'd like an upgrade module for the Foundry that extends the life of argon crystals.
• Core Game Changes and Suggestions
  • The game itself can be fun, but after a while it gets tedious and boring due to its nature. To be honest I hated playing this game for my first 50 hours until I got past The Second Dream quest. I was only really motivated to catch up to my friends who had much more time and experience. I think the game could benefit from adding in some small changes to each mode to liven them up and make each experience a little more unique than the last. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a formula, but allowing different outputs of said formula is what I'm suggesting.
  • Suggestions:
    • Mobile Defense: Adding in enemies that drop data keys or a system to hack the console every once in a while to reduce the time remaining.
    • Exterminate: Adding in points that we need to defend while counting towards the murder quota.
    • Survival: Changing life support to say time remaining instead of a percentage, and adding optional events that let us reduce the time between awards by helping the tenno operative hurry the heck up.
    • Infested Salvage: Having more than one node on the star map, each one being slightly different than the rest. Having one with a single terminal to defend that all three vaporizers need to be active in order to be maximally efficient for example.
    • Capture: Having a random event in which we need to defend the capture target from being rescued.
    • Spy: Including a mission that is a single terminal that requires some level of team work to hack but is perfectly soloable (thinking in terms of PAYDAY).
    • Hijack: This one is hard to suggest something that won't pad out the mission time, so for now I'll say Hijack is fine. Maybe this could be a mission where there's resources needed for crafting cosmetics?
    • Interception: Changing up how many points of contest there are given a certain tile. In addition the fewer the points, the bigger the area they span.
    • Sabotage: This one is fine. This mode has enough variation between each of the different tilesets and objectives that in general I think it's fine.
    • Defense: I'd say interspersing some kind of random challenge waves that produce bonus rewards would be nice for this. Would certainly break up the monotony of the mode.
    • Rescue: Is fine.
    • Excavation: This one needs a fix more than a face lift, by that I mean let us manually call down extractors instead of accidentally stubbing our toe on the call area and potentially wasting one. 
    • Assassination: Is also fine, but I feel there should be some sort of boss rush mode maybe?
• Archwing Maintenance 
  • Archwing gets its own section apart from the core game suggestions as this needs a massive rework. They need to be fixed mechanically before I can really suggest edits to their modes.
  • Issue: Archwings are clunky and awkward to control in general. They feel like seasick boats that are magnetized to every wall in any given area.
  • Solution:
    • Change "bonking" (ie. that thing that Titania did if she barely even touched a wall) so that it only occurs when you collide near perpendicularly with a surface and doesn't deactivate the speed boost if it's not a proper bonk.
      • For those less scrapes and impacts they should still bump you back off the wall and damage you, but not cancel your speed boost or other actions.
    • Changing momentum/movement in such a way that Archwings feel more like Archwings and not Archrockets. 
      • This is what I mean about it being boat-like in nature, the movement is nowhere near as fluid as normal warframe movement. Reworking movement to being more akin to something like a hummingbird instead of like an eagle's dare might even take care of that apparent magnetism towards every surface in arms' reach. 
• ESC menu suggestions
  • Idea: The current escape/pause menu has a lot of underutilized space between the buttons and the image of the player.
  • Suggestion: Why not put something in that dead space such as Mastery Rank info or current syndicate standing info, and different info depending on which submenu we're in, or if we're in Cetus or Fortuna we can get current standing info.

In conclusion...

If you've managed to read your entire way through all of this, hello! Welcome to the end of my long list of complaints. I feel it's important for me to say I wouldn't have spent so much time in this game if I felt like it wasn't worth the chance. The game as it stands is okay at best, but it could certainly be much better. I'm by no means saying that I feel these changes are owed to me and other players who've spent any amount of time in this game, but voicing my opinion on things that could be improved to better the experience of new and veteran players. With some friends of mine getting into Warframe through the Switch version I've found it hard to recommend the game to them because of these things that I've listed above and sometimes I find myself telling them to "Be prepare for..." instead of "Look forward to..." yknow? Here's hoping for a positive and fruitful future.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Im sorry I stopped taking the post seriously and skipped straight to making this comment the moment you said that they should remove platinum, the premium currency that people buy and what keeps Warframe and DE afloat.

If you really wanted the game to be shut down you didn’t have to make this big giant post and hide that opinion within it.

[peterc3]

19 minutes ago, NotAlaska said:

Remove Platinum

• Issue: Plat is an overpowered god resource that takes a lot of the main focus out of the game.
  • Don't have enough slots for frames? Buy more for plat
  • Don't want to grind out a weapon? Buy it for plat
  • Need a bigger box for some purple bandages? Extend it with platinum
  • Is the on-ship EZ Bake oven taking too long? Insert plat
  • I think you see the pattern here... It's not even that this reinforces a pay2win mindset, it's that it's often the case that we can pay2skipthegame (looking at you Khora...)
• Solution: For things that should be paid content just cut out the middle man and charge us money for it, for the rest let's take out the easy street and make it feel like we earned it.
  • Things that could be paid content: Deluxe skins, Prime/Prime Vault access, cosmetics* (*this one I'll be addressing again later with my gripes with the Foundry)
  • Things that should not be paid content: Our backpack and the things that fit in it.
• Alternative: If we're hellbent on keeping this resource we should certainly limit its scope and let it be farmable in some fashion, such as it can only be used to craft certain things: cosmetics for example.

This is pure, unadulterated, insanity.

Farming Plat in game? What? Also, nothing currently being sold for Plat would be available in-game without paying money. Full stop. Nothing would make it into the game and go from Plat to in-game resources.

22 minutes ago, NotAlaska said:

Survival: Changing life support to say time remaining instead of a percentage, and adding optional events that let us reduce the time between awards by helping the tenno operative hurry the heck up.

The only thing that lets Survival reward anything is that you spent time there. Less time means less rewards, not the same or more.

23 minutes ago, NotAlaska said:

Booster Acquisition Changes

• Issue: Farming gets boring and tedious, sometimes I wish it'd go by just a bit faster.
• Suggestion: Let's make boosters of all kinds a little more common, like adding it as a reward for arbitrations or elite sanctuary onslaught as an idea.

You want easy access to a booster? Buy it.

Now I see the gist of this wall of text. You want this F2P game to act like it is not F2P. Not happening. You spent nothing to play this game, you shouldn't expect to be given anything in return. or do you feel like DE owes you their time for free?

[AndouRaiton]

15 minutes ago, NotAlaska said:

Exterminate: Adding in points that we need to defend while counting towards the murder quota.

NO. i play exterminate to slaughter enemies whilst not worrying about anything else; DON'T RUIN IT like ESO/SO and survival with stupid micro-managing and 'side quests'.

16 minutes ago, NotAlaska said:

Capture: Having a random event in which we need to defend the capture target from being rescued.

They already have it that if you complete it too fast it changes to an exterminate mission so no need for this.

As mentioned above; PLAT stays as it's DE's primary source of income.

I like the relic system idea as i hate having to spend 10+ radiant relics and still not get the piece.

I'm probably the only one that enjoys archwing movement in normal archwing missions although i do agree that it feels clunky at times.

I might agree with the "Everything should be farmable" thing including cosmetics BUT; if the operator suits were any indication; they will be expensive as all hell and might make me say no anyway.

Instead of removing rivens i would rework them, but again most people can't agree on what to do as they don't want to "Ruin the META".

For melee 3.0; quick attack now switches you to melee instantly and allows you to perform combos; firing (i.e. the channel button) will quick-fire with you're primary or secondary. Also, there was an indication of a type of "Devil-Trigger" like mechanic being in the work to replace channeling.

I also agree that i prefer the "Bottomless bag" type of inventory; as it's currently the reason i haven't been playing much this past week; i have weapons and frames built and ready but can't use them as i have no slots.

Boosters are fine now with the daily log-in changes; i normally get a booster every 2 or 3 days.

As for piloting the orbitor; maybe later when railjack comes out as they did mention that the "RailJack" ship can be used to replace the Liset.

As for the Esc menu; i think that would just make it look uglier and more clunky then useful, but to each their own i guess.

Overall, some "nice-ish" suggestions, but some are pretty bad.

[NotAlaska]

I should clarify my intent behind my "Remove Plat" section, based on responses so far. I fully understand it's how they're keeping the lights on, but the issue that I have with plat is how pervasive the reach of platinum is into the game. It doesn't feel like a perk of giving DE money to help them support the game, with how it currently stands it feels like a necessity and a more preferable alternative than some aspects of the game. A comrade in discord had the same issues as everyone who replied, and further made the point that one doesn't have to use plat either. I gave them the same clarification as well, but here's the thing: it is unrealistic to have everyone conform to "if you don't like it, then don't use it" in this regard as it effectively handicaps you and minimizes your experience.

One key example is the inventory. I like having multiple different builds for multiple uses, but if I don't pay the price (whether if I can't afford it for any reason or if I don't like buying currency) I get two frames and I'm told eight weapon slots. Is that enough? I firmly believe not.

Another key example is basic stuff, from mastery fodder to actually useful gear. Let's look at Khora's grind, did any of you enjoy that? After spending ten hours on it and RNG allowing me three chassis blueprints I can certainly say I did not. What about the grind to get Hema or Nidus? All people have to do is be patient and wait about a month or two in order to acquire these things if they don't want to spend the plat. What about easier grinds like Twin Gremlins, Equinox, or Mesa? I myself haven't even seen a single component for the gremlins having spent a fair amount of time on Exta, and I know I'm not the only one who's had that issue. There's more examples, but I don't want to beat a dead horse.

I'll fully concede that the proposed alternative would not sensibly work, but what I want people to ask themselves is if they're ok with having to spend it on things that either should be given to the player from the get-go or could be more obtainable given a few tweaks to the system. I'm not asking for Free, I'm only asking for More Accessible.

2 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Im sorry I stopped taking the post seriously and skipped straight to making this comment the moment you said that they should remove platinum, the premium currency that people buy and what keeps Warframe and DE afloat.

If you really wanted the game to be shut down you didn’t have to make this big giant post and hide that opinion within it.

Should have read to the bottom, mate. I'm hoping my clarification actually makes it more clear about what I meant and I apologize for the miscommunication.

2 hours ago, peterc3 said:

Now I see the gist of this wall of text. You want this F2P game to act like it is not F2P. Not happening. You spent nothing to play this game, you shouldn't expect to be given anything in return. or do you feel like DE owes you their time for free?

Do you? Honestly truly? Based on your response I don't think you do, and I spent far from nothing. What I spent was time, and comparatively speaking to other games I enjoy I spent a lot of it, and I've also spent money on a game that we accept as free. A lot more than I am willing to admit in a public place. Granted I'm no Founder, but I've certainly paid more than what that Grandmaster Pack was worth. Even in spite of all this I feel nothing is owed to me, as I originally said. I devoted my time and energy to this game and this company entirely of my own accord, and with the experiences I've had and shared with others I feel there are changes that need to be made. This game is not perfect, but it can always be better. That was the gist of this wall of text: the hope of taking what we have and making something more of it. I'm hoping my above clarification clears up the miscommunication I have given you as well.

2 hours ago, peterc3 said:

The only thing that lets Survival reward anything is that you spent time there. Less time means less rewards, not the same or more.

Then what if we changed it so that instead of only patiently waiting for a timer to tick past a designated time keeping up the life support percentage, we were more involved with the process of the Tenno operative and his excursion. Like if we had to go to an area to draw heat away to a certain area of the map, or if we had to disable security so they could access an area. Something more than being paid to wait, and like we have in Fortuna a bonus should we complete the extra objective. I dread doing survival as it amounts to little more than: enter map, hover life support, wait until everyone is ready to leave, leave with a couple relics of parts that will be sold for ducats (RNG willing). What I'd like to see for survival in a fast paced active game is a mode that amounts to more than just waiting.

 

3 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

I might agree with the "Everything should be farmable" thing including cosmetics BUT; if the operator suits were any indication; they will be expensive as all hell and might make me say no anyway.

I forgot that Tennogen existed so I imagine should those become farmable I'm inclined to agree.

 

3 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

NO. i play exterminate to slaughter enemies whilst not worrying about anything else; DON'T RUIN IT like ESO/SO and survival with stupid micro-managing and 'side quests'.

Ok yeah that's fair I didn't think about that.

 

3 hours ago, AndouRaiton said:

For melee 3.0; quick attack now switches you to melee instantly and allows you to perform combos; firing (i.e. the channel button) will quick-fire with you're primary or secondary. Also, there was an indication of a type of "Devil-Trigger" like mechanic being in the work to replace channeling.

I remember them talking about that during... I think it was one of the streams during the spring or summer, but as we've gotten the most recent update as the rework is being delayed until next year I wanted to reinforce this.

[peterc3]

22 minutes ago, NotAlaska said:

but the issue that I have with plat is how pervasive the reach of platinum is into the game.

The game is free.

23 minutes ago, NotAlaska said:

It doesn't feel like a perk of giving DE money to help them support the game

The game costs literally nothing to download and play. I really don't think you understand what that means.

[NotAlaska]

56 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

The game is free.

Your point? Just because it is free does not mean it is exempt from feedback or criticism, nor does it mean that the game is somehow magically free from having issues. Let's look at Maplestory 2: I can experience perhaps the worst hit detection I've seen in a video game, but it's free. Does the fact it's free minimize the fact it's an issue? Certainly not.

 

57 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

The game costs literally nothing to download and play. I really don't think you understand what that means.

The game costs nothing to download and trial, assuming you have an internet plan without a data cap. In order to play the game one will have to spend time in the game, and if they like it they might feel like investing a little more. Sounds to me like there was a cost already. Now let's come back to my issue with the inventory and for the sake of this argument let's compare the inventory of a "free" player and a player who has bought extra space. What's the difference? Short answer: size. Turns out if you want something even close to a reasonable space for just warframes you'll need to purchase those. Well that doesn't sound very free... and it shouldn't, because it's not. I'm hoping you now understand the concept of an investment as you seemed to have been unclear on that.

This whole argument of "but it's free D:" is flawed and invalid even if we only argued by principle alone, because the experience that a player gets for free is only proportional to the experience of a player who pays for the full experience of the game. Sure they won't charge you up front to download and install the game, they'll just charge you later when you want to experience beyond your first two frames or even feel like going beyond MR7 or 8 for that matter.

[Irmdall]

Either you have patience and farm for plat / trade for it or you buy it. Tell me a F2P game that works with your "vision" of a F2P that does as well as Warframe. I'll wait

[Fallen_Echo]

Im not sure where i should start listing the enourmous amounts of problems with your suggestions...i gotta get home to type this all down.

[(XBOX)Unrivaled20]

If they removed rivens now, many people would stop playing warframe as much. If they removed platinum DE wouldn't make as much money. That's all I had to read about this post to know it was a troll topic

[Cephalycion]

While I can see the good intention behind your suggestions I think some of your suggested solutions would either:

1. Cripple the game's economy and create a mass exodus of players

2. Ruin the veterans' power fantasy and create a mass exodus of players

You get the point. I think this post is starting to go in the direction of "Plat farming should not be mandatory" than anything. Which in a sense, I agree with.

However, this ain't it chief.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Cephalycion

[(XBOX)Nightseid]

I feel like your biggest issue with PLAT is because you are a PC player and not a console player.

You have nothing special to spend your plat on, aside from stuff you can grind for free. I feel this is why an auction house won't work... on pc.

An AH would work better for consoles because console players can spend plat on tennogen items, which is only obtainable via plat - making plat on console much more valuable than on PC.

[Fallen_Echo]

Okay im back at my computer so its time to list the problems.

12 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Remove Rivens

Instead of treating the wound behind the bandaid you suggest an ampution. Removing rivens is nothing else but a laziest way to fix the problem.

You could have suggested base stat based rework, actively and automatically changing system or rework of the disposition system but instead you gone with the lazy mode what will most possibly could kill the entire economy we have.

12 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Remove Platinum

Apart from killing the entire economy for good this will be the first and final nail in the games coffin.

You may have not noticed it yet but a large bunch of the payer players dont buy tennogen fashion for the simple reason that when they look at the prices they think its too expensive. Platinum exists for the sole purpose as all premium currencies, when you use it you dont see $, € or whatever currency you pay but a resource you have.

Making it farmable or removing it at this stage of the game is pure stupidity.

12 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Inventory/Loadout Changes

This is the combination of timegate and plat sink for DE. The total cost of getting slots for 300 weapons and all frames is currently 2540 platinum what means that each player atleast once in their life has to get 50$ worth of plat.

I dont think we really need it but in all honesty i dont think that its that huge cost for getting pretty much everything ingame.

12 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Changes to the Relic System

While i like this idea you need to know that the reason it exists in this form is to timegate content up and slightly push people towards PA and PA is DE's second biggest money source.

12 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Booster Acquisition Changes

Timegates to increase content lenght. It sounds harsh but we should be happy that we can get a booster from the login reward already because it can cut all content duration into half.

12 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Foundry Changes

Lets see, we have a timegate with the incetive to spend more plat instead of wait, a resource sink for a pretty common resource and finally a reason for players to log in every day with the long wait times.

No i dont think DE would ever get rid of these.

 

 

Now the only thing in the whole list i can fully support is this:

12 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Core Game Changes and Suggestions

I NEED THIS NOW.

Seriously anything to spice up the gameplay.

 

[Tyreaus]

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Remove Rivens

The problem you mention doesn't match the solution. The original intent of Rivens was to bring less-used, less-powerful weapons up to a point they could be used (and, if the player likes the weapon itself, preferred) in end-game content like Sorties. It might not be the most successful currently, but removing it doesn't achieve that goal.

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Remove Platinum

Your main solution turns the game into a bog-standard F2P model. I feel pretty comfortable saying one of the bigger draws to Warframe is that you can get just about anything without paying a cent—cosmetics included.

Making it a farmable resource, on the other hand, neuters player capability to choose their grind. If you like Spy missions, you can grind those, sell the rarer mods like Covert Lethality to other players for Plat, and spend that Plat getting something whose grind you don't like. Khora, for example. It just makes it so that if you want Plat, you have to grind a specific thing (mode, level, or whatever else), rather than X rare-ish thing of your choosing.

Your main gripe seems to revolve around:

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Inventory/Loadout Changes

But this doesn't require fussing with the premium currency at all, since you have a solution dedicated for it. (One that's always going to be in contention because it's inconvenient but still a major Plat sink, and MMO economies require premium currency sinks)

Remember that a large point of the game is a farming simulator. Paying plat for the majority of the things you mentioned is, in effect, paying not to play the game.

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Changes to the Relic System

Prime items would very likely become far too prevalent if we were allowed to choose rewards, which means much less incentive to buy Prime Access packs (which, turns out, is a form of alternate Platinum you suggested). We grind a bunch of traces, get around 15 relics, and that's it, we have an AkVasto. 5 relics and we have anything else.

On the other hand, keeping the RNG associated with the opening process (with traces used to skew numbers) and moving the opening process to the Orbiter just removes the ability for players to group up and share rewards. It doesn't seem it'd change anything with regards to "RNG on RNG"—certainly nothing that couldn't be changed with the current "open it in the mission" system. That's just taking out an aspect of the game that isn't mentioned as a problem.

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Booster Acquisition Changes

For very high-level, end-game content like Arbitrations: eh, I don't see why not, we have 3-day ones in Sorties already and they drop from relic openings often enough. I don't think ESO needs it with the Focus and refined relics it provides, but it could be a good draw for Arbitrations.

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Melee 3.0 Rework Considerations

I recall DE mentioning working around an "exalted state" sort of thing as an alternative to channeling. I'm not sure on the status on that, but it's something they've considered.

As far as I know, quick melee will be instant-swapping to the equipped melee weapon, so you'll be able to use full combos much faster.

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Piloting the Orbiter

That's probably pretty overkill and I imagine there will be a non-null number of people asking for a fast-travel system that would render the entire thing moot. It doesn't seem worth the trouble.

Different interiors are another thing, but ideally, we should have a divorce between an Orbiter's cosmetics and its functionality before we get that far. I have seen mention people don't like the two being married as it is, and that's only affecting the loading screen. If it affected the interior, well...

13 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Foundry Changes

I can agree with an Argon-storage augment. Hell, I can agree with having another room tucked away somewhere / somehow that serves as a little looting shelf, showing us how many of each resource and the weapons we have at a glance (like our inventory system, but with in-game visuals). The rest, however, is a huge cut to revenue. Taking your idea as a whole, I have to ask: what would we spend money on if all cosmetics are craftable (some already are) and inventory slots are free and unlimited? Prime access, whose prices would have to be inflated to unreasonable levels to make up that loss? That's a legitimate question.

Also, we have an answer for why Ordis needs credits:

"Tenno, if left unattended, might spend the majority of their earned resources constructing new weaponry instead of managing "less essential" tasks, such as LIFE SUPPORT. While I cannot speak for Cephalon Ordis, it is conceivable that Ordis allocates acquired credits to managing other trivial areas unrelated to slaughter, such as Liset fuel cells, breathable atmosphere, etc."

(In truth: we pay credits for the same reason we pay oxium or any other resource. It's part of the farm, part of the game.)

14 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Core Game Changes and Suggestions

I think Exterminate needs no new beef. It may be bog-standard, but it is the standard in games like these.

In terms of Spy, I might suggest making it that tripping the alarms doesn't trigger remote deletion, but requires the player hack the console and defend it from enemies who want to delete it—at least if you're looking for something more action-y. It'd give player 4 a reason to hang around and rush to a busted hack (moreso if there's a portable that has to be slotted into the terminal ala mobile defense) and, so long as hacking the console is the fastest way to go, stealth remains optimal.

(Personally I think Spy as is does what it sets out to do, the only real problem being that player 4 has nothing to do. I don't think it needs that much of an overhaul, but it could still get one.)

Other suggestions seem...okay, I guess? Part of the problem and monotony of things like Defense is in enemy capabilities and Warframe abilities. A challenge wave doesn't make much of a difference if everything's dead before you can even see it due to a high STR Volt, for example. Not saying spicing it up wouldn't hurt, but you might end up putting a lot of effort into something that doesn't make a lot of difference because of other elements.

14 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

Archwing Maintenance 

Can't suggest much in part due to not 100% getting what you're talking about.

14 hours ago, NotAlaska said:

ESC menu suggestions

Doesn't seem like it'd hurt and would be easy enough to do.

---

As others mentioned: main gripe with the feedback is surrounding Platinum. Making something like that more accessible really shifts the financial landscape for DE. Think of the entire playerbase on a number line, from 0 to X, and a magical "accessibility" line drawn somewhere in the middle. People above the line would spend money for Plat, people below wouldn't. The more accessible and easy it is to get Plat-related items in this game, the higher that line goes, not just because there's less incentive but also because other things have to be made more expensive to compensate (see, e.g., Prime Access). That creates a cycle, since more expensive = less popular. Vicious circles like that murder financial viability. That murders games.

Would it be nice? Sure. I'd love if I could play this free game and get everything for much less grind. But we can't have that for free. Something will be sacrificed. Donations alone don't cut it. And, really, what we have is pretty good. Other games might lock cosmetics behind paywalls, but here, I can grind out Covert Lethality mods and pretty up my Equinox as much as I like without spending a cent.

Make of this what you will, though.

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

Made it to remove Platinum and then you just hit TL;DR...I'm sure it's a great essay...of nope...

[0_The_F00l]

Not sure how much thought and understanding of economics was put when creating this post. 

It's your opinion to have I guess. 

Will disagree with your points, specifically the stuff about no more Plat.