Focus lense system is a broken and an anti fun system!

[Ahrimansiah]

Ok i will start with some of positives sides this game have compared to almost all other MMO and online games!
 one of the things that i LOVE about warframe is how easy, fun AND rewarding it is to farm most of things u want! the game instead of forcing you to do hours, days and weeks of farming just for a single item instead it make it easy to get items u want and reward you well BUT putt ALOT of cool things that u want to farm on table so it will make u busy for hours, days, weeks and months (for most items!) and i LOVED this system!

But ONE exception exist! and its lvling up ur operator which is done by Focus lense system which is an stupid system design! not only it force you to main one loadout (warframe and weapons) but its also painfully slow and force you to play limited mods which are best for gaining affinity!

I dont understand such GRIND FEST system when operator is not the MAIN gameplay and is simply an utility addon for ur warframe! not to mention that farming ur amps and operator's cosmetic take u already enough time and have their own liner method (killing sentinels in POE again again and again) but my BIGGEST PROBLEM is how Lenses works! they force you to focus on one weapon set and one frame! (ofcourse if u dont wana grind even more for more lenses to make the better version to add on a new frame or spend a MASSIVE amount of plat to make a second loadout with lenses)

I love to play with different warframes and weapon loadouts on different missions, and i have MANY but this system is forcing me to pick only 1 and always play with that!

Why cant we have operator lvling up its focus by its own usage just like other warframe equipment (and ofcourse less nightmarish grindy)? or at least make lenses attach to our operator's AMP (and ofcourse again less grindy) if none of this then AT LEAST make lenses like mods!!! so once i got it i can attach it to different warframes and weapons whenever i want instead of permanent attachment for one!

Edited December 17, 2018 by Ahrimansiah

[Xzorn]

Well, the Focus system wasn't originally designed for Operators.

It's original concept was " To give players a sense of progression when they're weapons are maxed " or similar was said by the Devs before Focus was added.

Focus was later revamped to incorporate majority of it's purpose to the new Operator mode thereby making it about 75% pointless progression that doesn't get used outside Eidolon hunts. Currently Focus is a mix of two, possibly three half baked ideas none of which has a fully defined purpose or truly accomplish it's original goal.

I never personally had a problem with the Lens mechanic though I can see when starting out that options are limited. I do have a serious problem with the Convergence mechanic though and I think a lot of players do but DE refuses to remove it. Convergence itself and a lack of alternative Affinity options is what makes Focus feel like a grind rather than a natural progression you get as you play since the values between normal play and grinding are so drastically different.

If I do one mission of Focus grinding I'll get more than I will for an entire day of normal play which kinda says there's something very wrong and sadly this also extends to Credit gains through normal Play Vs a single match of The Index. Forcing us to perform a specific task over and over instead of playing how we want.

[GnarlsDarkley]

1 hour ago, Ahrimansiah said:

not only it force you to main one loadout (warframe and weapons) but its also painfully slow and force you to play limited mods which are best for gaining affinity!

You have to use specific loadouts but that's it. You can't complain if you are doing it wrong though! It's like saying "damn my Loki can't oneshot large groups with his abilities". It's not his kit. Or with Rhino: "Spy missions are too hard because enemies always see me"

1 hour ago, Ahrimansiah said:

but my BIGGEST PROBLEM is how Lenses works! they force you to focus on one weapon set and one frame!

Absolutely not!

There is a large variety (Saryn, Volt, Equinox, Rhino, Nova, Trinity etc). Weapons are also completely free to pick. You just haven't thought of a way you could like it!

1 hour ago, Ahrimansiah said:

(ofcourse if u dont wana grind even more for more lenses to make the better version to add on a new frame or spend a MASSIVE amount of plat to make a second loadout with lenses)

Before PoE last year November the only way to get new lenses was Sorties! So 1 chance a day to get small lenses. Also no Eidolon lenses existed!

1 hour ago, Ahrimansiah said:

I dont understand such GRIND FEST system when operator is not the MAIN gameplay and is simply an utility addon for ur warframe!

Then don't do it. Like you said: it's not the main gameplay. Just leave it be if you don't have fun with it! It helps ofc but is by far mandatory.

 

Here are three tips, so I'm not just nagging:

1. Put your lens on dps frames (Volt, Saryn, Equinox) and play ESO (2 or 3 runs should get you 360k Focus)
2. Put your lens on any Melee weapon (and play support in ESO Trinity, Rhino, Nova etc) (one run gives you 360k if the dps doesn't suck!)
3. Use your lenses on Banshee/Scoliac or Equinox/any hard hitting melee with range (Polearms) and do Adaro runs.

at point 2 (this was after 6 Zones)

 

at point 3 (1 run Adaro each, also forgot Naramon passive on Banshee)

Edited December 17, 2018 by GnarlsDarkley

[Birdframe_Prime]

So that you might understand a little about the decisions and why the limitations are so heavy on the Focus system, a little bit of numbers for you:

By the time Focus was first released, the player base was well known for min-maxing everything, to the point where even to this day we can max a weapon in ten minutes and a Warframe in twenty. This produces millions of Affinity per hour.

Focus is a capped system, you can reach the end of it, and it's actually surprisingly small; less than 60million Focus to cap out all five Schools and the Capacity. This is after the actual overall capacity and total was reduced by removing individual School Capacity so you didn't have to re-level your Capacity for each one in turn, and when all of the actual nodes were reduced in cost meaning that in late 2017 the Focus system was about 35% less to grind for (in short it was closer to 85million before).

The daily capacity has gone up from 100k to 250k base, with people at MR26 now able to get 400k with their Rank Bonus.

All of this has taken something DE intended to take months, even though it's a capped system, right down to the point where players can (using Eidolon hunts) actually reduce it to about two months.

The reason is that, if you use the most effective farming means (one of the ones listed above, the Banshee Silence method with Naramon, a Booster, two Eidolon Lenses and the Stealth Multiplier that you can maintain with her over an Extermination mission) it's possible to complete Focus in a little over 44 Hours.

Now, imagine if DE had put in the system, meant to take months because the player base does hang around for years on average, and just marathoned it on Twitch because they hadn't put in a daily cap.

This is the single reason for all the heavy limitations; it's supposed to take a long time.

That said, if it had been me, I would have let it tie in to the way we play already, create the Focus Schools like a Mod table, where your Capacity has a cap and needs to be managed to get the best Abilities in and create Builds for your Operator. Where you have the ability to Polarise (like a Forma) a slot and equip more Abilities, but only up to the number of slots you have for them. This would have let the Operator abilities be a lot more potent, and have far more energy efficiency and far less drawbacks to using them, because you could never have used all of them at once. It would also allow DE to release more of them as Quests like The New War happen.

But that dream, sadly, is not to happen. DE wanted a system you could finish, making your Operator stronger physically but limiting them by which school they equip, not which abilities they want to use from those schools.

tl;dr

Because players could have easily blitzed Focus in only a couple of days if the system was not limited so heavily, DE have put all the limitations in place to make it only possible to do over months.

From another perspective, remember, this is your Player Character. The one that starts off at Level 1 in any other RPG and levels up slowly while you can grind gear and mod it however you want in the mean time to get through content. DE have simply given us our slow-levelling character in mid-game instead of immediately.

[Ahrimansiah]

yo do realize

13 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

You have to use specific loadouts but that's it. You can't complain if you are doing it wrong though! It's like saying "damn my Loki can't oneshot large groups with his abilities". It's not his kit. Or with Rhino: "Spy missions are too hard because enemies always see me"

Absolutely not!

There is a large variety (Saryn, Volt, Equinox, Rhino, Nova, Trinity etc). Weapons are also completely free to pick. You just haven't thought of a way you could like it!

Before PoE last year November the only way to get new lenses was Sorties! So 1 chance a day to get small lenses. Also no Eidolon lenses existed!

Then don't do it. Like you said: it's not the main gameplay. Just leave it be if you don't have fun with it! It helps ofc but is by far mandatory.

 

Here are three tips, so I'm not just nagging:

1. Put your lens on dps frames (Volt, Saryn, Equinox) and play ESO (2 or 3 runs should get you 360k Focus)
2. Put your lens on any Melee weapon (and play support in ESO Trinity, Rhino, Nova etc) (one run gives you 360k if the dps doesn't suck!)
3. Use your lenses on Banshee/Scoliac or Equinox/any hard hitting melee with range (Polearms) and do Adaro runs.

at point 2 (this was after 6 Zones)

 

at point 3 (1 run Adaro each, also forgot Naramon passive on Banshee)

yo do realize that u have to upgrade lenses and then add it to warframe and at least 1 weapon in order to get enough affinity to start with right?
and u do realize that if i have like 6-10 warframe and i want to play with them all i have to do ALL THE MENTIONED above for EACH of the separately! because if i dont then i have to only focus to play with 1 warframe and 1 weapons!

and now, DO YOU REALIZE how much grind or plat it will actually take to have multi warframe loadout with decent lense?!!! i dont care if u want to defend this mechanism with your life but this is way stupid grind! there is no reason behind it and no fun in it to upgrade and  ATTACH an stupid item to a piece of armor/armor which CANNOT be reused ever again and play with THAT armor/weapon in order to upgrade something else which is an utility! the damn thing require u the host item to be even max level! so i cannot even add it to a new frame and use it as an excuse to levelup both frame and focus!

this stupid design is both anti fun for player and anti cash for company! if they would add some form of Focus boost in shop it would have sold far better than this lenses!

before u start about grind, as i said before Grind use to be fun and rewarding on other aspects of this game! and not all players have 24h free to grind and play! when we are talking about a grind subject we should put casual players as our reference!

[Ahrimansiah]

@Birdframe_Prime

there are far better way and creative ways to keep the grind and playing alive instead of forcing grinding for days without even enjoying it a bit! as i said they could do the same system but at least make it a separate item instead of making it an attachment for each part and item! that way i could enjoy my reguler play by switching my frames and weapons and do my regular fun/missions an updating my focus in same time!

ALL that was needed to be done was to make lenses work like mods instead of permanent attachments! EVERYTHING else could have stay the same!

[GnarlsDarkley]

1 minute ago, Ahrimansiah said:

that u have to upgrade lenses

wrong. it just takes +1 ESO run. It's only a difference of 1% Affinity from small to Eidolon.

2 minutes ago, Ahrimansiah said:

i have like 6-10 warframe and i want to play with them all

That is totally your fault. One car in GTA online is more than enough. But we tend to want all garages full and modded to full extent. Just give it time. I have all my gear lenses. ALL! And you know what? I still have more lenses I could use...

Do you want some? I'll gladly give you about 15 to 20 Narmon lenses. None of my lenses were bought. I got some good plat from selling them as well.

7 minutes ago, Ahrimansiah said:

because if i dont then i have to only focus to play with 1 warframe and 1 weapons!

I have 5 Equinox and 5 Guandao one with each School..because why not? I have enough lenses and gear. 

You just started (17th November). Don't rush and you don't get burned out like a firend who quit after 2 month and MR24.

16 minutes ago, Ahrimansiah said:

and now, DO YOU REALIZE how much grind or plat it will actually take to have multi warframe loadout with decent lense?!!!

0 plat. The grind...dunno, never payed attention. It came one by one. ESO didn't exist so I wasn't grinding that hard.

Again: you just want it NAO!

18 minutes ago, Ahrimansiah said:

i dont care if u want to defend this mechanism with your life but this is way stupid grind!

I don't defend it. Just saying your approach maybe isn't the correct one.

18 minutes ago, Ahrimansiah said:

there is no reason behind it and no fun in it to upgrade and  ATTACH an stupid item to a piece of armor/armor which CANNOT be reused ever again and play with THAT armor/weapon in order to upgrade something else which is an utility

Why do you want it then? You don't miss out anything...for energy refresh you can always use pizzas

20 minutes ago, Ahrimansiah said:

not all players have 24h free to grind and play!

I am playing about 2 or 3hr per day. 

Although you are very aggressive I again offer you some of my Naramon lenses. Grind some Focus of it and use its passive to get the rest faster.

Or refuse and rant more. I don't think DE will change much or any of it. This topic is way too old

[Birdframe_Prime]

5 hours ago, Ahrimansiah said:

ALL that was needed to be done was to make lenses work like mods instead of permanent attachments! EVERYTHING else could have stay the same!

Then where would be the incentive to ever get more?

Once you had two Eidolon Lenses of each kind, you wouldn't need any more, ever. You could keep swapping them around whenever it was convenient, and that is clearly what they aren't supposed to be for. You don't get that with anything else you put on your Warframe apart from Mods and Arcanes, but even with those, aspects of them are permanent, like when you rank them up, they stay ranked up and you can't de-rank them again (which anyone who, back in the day, maxed out a Life Strike will tell you is desirable to some, or more modern players with just Narrow Minded, Blind Rage and Overextended).

Much like how an Exilus Adapter is a permanent upgrade to a warframe, as is a Reactor, and a Catalyst for weapons, this is a single flat upgrade that allows you to gain a new type of Affinity.

The incentive is that when you get a new frame to use, you need to re-grind what you had before.

Again, there are better ways, you're not wrong, but considering that DE have actually fully reworked the Focus Schools, costings and so on already, and that you can use several techniques to gain your max Affinity per day in under 20 minutes, plus the approximately 100k Focus for a Tri-dolon hunt up to 4 times per night cycle, doubling or even tripling your gains (I do know a person that has the time to play more consistently and was able to run three night cycles in a day's play, regularly, meaning that he was earning an extra 1.2 million per day on average)...

Considering all that, it's unlikely that they're ever going to actually change up the Lens system because they actually want it to be this limiting.

[Birdframe_Prime]

4 hours ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

wrong. it just takes +1 ESO run. It's only a difference of 1% Affinity from small to Eidolon.

Actually, there's more than that. Under the effects of Convergence orbs (or the first part of ESO waves, which is the same thing), the difference between the lenses goes from 1.25% / 1.75% / 2.25% up to 10% / 14% / 18%.

This means that, if you look at Affinity gains in context, you're earning 80% more Affinity just from the lens you equip.

Eidolon Lenses do matter. 

You could think of it as a Free Booster even, as the gains from two equipped to a Melee and a Warframe, with Naramon's 45% boost to the Melee gains, will actually give you a little more Affinity than a Booster you paid Plat for. Although, with the Booster that's double your double, soooo... both is good, I like both ^^

[Elementalos]

19 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Considering all that, it's unlikely that they're ever going to actually change up the Lens system because they actually want it to be this limiting.

Yeah and I'm sure Zephyr is exactly where DE wants it to be too. Doesn't make arguing for changes a bad idea. Plus it's not like DE hasn't changed their mind about systems before (just look at Serration).

On 2018-12-17 at 1:00 AM, Birdframe_Prime said:

Because players could have easily blitzed Focus in only a couple of days if the system was not limited so heavily, DE have put all the limitations in place to make it only possible to do over months

I think you do a good job highlighting why the system as is is such a mess right here though. DE was (according to you) worried about min-maxing players blitzing through the system so they designed it to be limited.

But instead of designing a system that was resistant to min-maxed farming, they designed a system that more or less demands it. It's not only possible, but incredibly easy for a casual player to take weeks or even months to gain a single ability in a focus tree, because the amount of focus affinity you gain from typical play is almost negligible.

You fixate on why the daily cap is important but the daily cap isn't really the issue. You talk about players with specific groups farming eidolons with the right lenses being able to plow through the trees in a couple days even with the limitations the system has and that's exactly the problem, because if you aren't playing that way the game is going to try to starve you out of the system.

You mention players being able to max out brand new equipment in ten to twenty minutes. Imagine if DE decided they wanted to adjust affinity gain as a result, but instead of nerfing high level grineer endless stuff (or whatever's popular right now) they left them the same and just made every other mission in the game give virtually none. That's basically how focus affinity is balanced right now.

On top of that, new players are dropped into the system with little explanation of what their initial choices even mean and the game doesn't provide much of an opportunity for correcting those choices after the fact, nor really provide any clear avenues for progressing that system unless the player just happened to be pretty invested in PoE content ahead of time.

And you really want to argue that all of that is good?

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by Elementalos

[9-Breaker]

Try spending your time accordingly, 3k hours and I'm still not maxed on my focus too. Take it slow once in a while...ya know? (Friendly guide: go for zenurik school for the safest journey to all an all focus mastery.)

Edited December 17, 2018 by 9-Breaker

[zoobmer]

I feel like the focus system is DE fundamentally misunderstanding their own game. I like the idea that I'll always have some progression; but the way it's set up right now, you either have to deliberately focus farm to the point of tedium, or you'll never get enough forcus so it feels like progress. farming focus is not intrinsically rewarding; it's an extrinsic reward that requires you to completely ignore intrinsic rewards if you actually want enough of it for it to have any use.

DE doesn't want people maxing it too soon; yet they made it so the only way it's useful is if you deliberately ignore all entertainment value of the game just to max it as fast as humanly possible.

[(PSN)teacup775]

19 hours ago, Ahrimansiah said:

I love to play with different warframes and weapon loadouts on different missions, and i have MANY but this system is forcing me to pick only 1 and always play with that!

The system was a bit of an add on as others have mentioned, but here is a cheap and liberating way to deal with focus.

Put a cheap lens on whatever so you can unlock the school, then use Eidelon shards to level a school.

This does require running Eidelons but it is by far much less hassle, cost and constraining than fitting lenses on.  

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by (PS4)teacup775