Better way to obtaining Ephemeras

[Lazarow]

As you all may know Digital Extremes implemented a new cosmetic Attachement for warframes which leave a trail of particle effects as you move around with your warframe. Ephemers add a little extra to your warframe from giving out flames, making grass appear, bleeding effect and so on. Ephemeras act as an end-game cosmetics mainly for veteran players who have been playing the game for year/s and so the cosmetics shows their dedication to the game. My opinion(which may differ from your own) is that they did a huge mistake in implementing them as RNG drops from end-game gamemodes. This is very bad in the case where end-game players have to revisit content they had already been to and had completed, having them at 1% or 3% at rotation C on modes such as Arbitration and Elite Sanctuary Onslaught it is a real time waster if the person who is playing has already gotten all mods and weapon parts and is just going to those gamemodes for that ephemera with hoping those few percents of drop get triggered. Elite Sanctuary Onslaught takes about 20 minutes to reach rotation C, and Arbitrations usually takes about 40 minutes or more that is a lot of time spent, and if the ephemera doesnt drop then that time has been fully wasted and the end-game player gets left with nothing.

My suggestion and possible solution to eliminate RNG from Ephemeras:

Blazing Step

The Warframe leaves flaming footprints in its wake.

Obtained from Elite Sanctuary Onslaught rotation C (1.01%).

-For this Ephemera my suggestion is to give it in Simaris offerings. With adding this to Simaris also a new item that I call Ephemera Fragment and costs 50,000 standing. To craft the Ephemera one would require 10 Ephemera Fragment as well as 50,000 standing for the blueprint for Blazing Step. The 10 Ephemera Fragments would replace the 1 Vitus Essence in the crafting requirements. To take the Ephemera's spot in the Elite sanctuary Onslaught drop table would be an Ephemera Fragment or nothing at all. With this way of obtaining the player can pick to go on Elite Sanctuary Onslaught in hopes of getting the Ephemera Fratgment or just focus on Simaris standing in the ways its obtained.

Seeding Step

The Warframe leaves grassy footprints in its wake.

Obtained from Arbitrations rotation C (2%).

-For this one have it be for 20 Vitus Essence in Arbitrations offerings just like the Bleeding Body Ephemera.

Freezing Step

The Warframe leaves icicles of ice as footprints its wake.

Obtained from the Exploiter Orb (3%).

-Have this Ephemera be in Vox Solaris offerings for 50 Lazulite Toroids. 50 Lazulite Toroids is more than enough to prove you have spent some time into the events and for which you should be rewarded properly .

Shocking Step

The Warframe leaves footprints with electricity in its wake.

Obtained from the Exploiter Orb (3%).

-Same goes here as for the Freezing Step, 50 Lazulite Toroids in Vox Solaris offerings.

Bleeding BodyEdit

The Warframe body sheds blood.

Obtained from Arbitration Honors for 20 Vitus Essence.

-This is the only Ephemera with a fair way to be obtained. To get 20 Vitus essence one must spent hours into doing Arbitrations, calculated into Survival mission time in arbitration its 3 hours and 20 minutes which is not little time and also requires 1 Vitus essence to make which add about 10 more minutes spent on arbitration, on top of that time spent one must gather 10,000 Kuva to craft it. This ephemera is balanced as it takes time to get it, but it makes it good as it is not RNG based since Vitus essence is a guarantee form each Arbitration rotation.

Smoking Body

The Warframe body emits smoke.

Obtained from Shadow Stalker (5%).

-This one I could not think of a way to remove from the RNG table as having it remain in Shadow Stalker drop is most logical due to no other places in warframe have a theme to fit such item. Its drop chance could be better to about 10% but that may come to be too common to some players.

 

Reference link: https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Ephemera

[Melanholic7]

agree with everything except grass one, it shouldnt cost same as this S#&$y blood, its very good and must be like 50 vitus things. imho. 

[Vitamin.Ex]

I agree. The drop rates are stupid low and the amount of grind needed to obtain them is on a whole new level of boring. The blood effect is the only one that is reasonable. The Exploiter fight was so bugged for the first week it was added that I didn't even bother trying to farm it because most fights would end with us trapped behind the doors and forced to quit out, yet that fight is the only way to get them.

I have no problem with a normal level of grind, but trying to get something with a 1% drop chance can take hundreds and hundreds of runs. It's just not a reward worth the effort. Cosmetics shouldn't be more difficult to obtain than some of the best mods in the game. Mods give us power and are easy to get, a cosmetic gives us a dumb effect and are damn near impossible to get. DE really has it backwards.

[Raskol]

7 minutes ago, Vitamin.Ex said:

have no problem with a normal level of grind, but trying to get something with a 1% drop chance can take hundreds and hundreds of runs

Grind? wheres the grind in 1% every 20 min (8 waves in ESO takes about that long)

It is ONLY 20min x100 = 33.3h XD

and its not certain u gonna get it...

[--Excalibur--Umbra--]

75 runs in eso zone 8 basically 27.5 hours wasted on nothing but useless relics and it's between 20 to 22 minutes depending on squad connection and solo it's near 21.

This either has to become tradable or a little bit easier to obtain at 1% zone 8 there is no incentive for veterans since the drops are either useless or worth a little plat.

Keep in mind that unlike arbitrations the ESO is aabc and then recycle the arbitration abc and stays at c till you decide to leave and there are recource drops and endo, worth it in the long run.

I did 93 rot c's to get the seeding one. 

31 exploiter orbs to get the freezing and shocking, got lucky with these 2 tbh.

Stalker 12 spawns got nothing but dread or mods so far since the update 

Edited March 25, 2019 by --Excalibur--Umbra--

[Vitamin.Ex]

1 minute ago, --Excalibur--Umbra-- said:

This either has to become tradable or a little bit easier to obtain at 1% zone 8 there is no incentive for veterans since the drops are either useless or worth a little plat.

This 100%!

It should be tradable so those who have several and have no use for the spares can make a bit of profit while helping others obtain it without the headache.

[Graavarg]

Already commented this in another thread, but to recap: I have now done 44 Exploiter runs. Not a single ephemera, maybe 10 articulas (who cares), 170 Lazulite toroids (used an additional 6 for Hildryn) and an insane amount of Fortuna loot. I have used different frames, I have solo'ed, I have speed farmed, chill farmed and PUG farmed. I have no idea how much time I spent on the Exploiter, and I do not want to know.

If ephemera is supposed to be linked to veterancy or achievement, the game definitely considers me a "non-veteran".

Even if it is only a cosmetic I can't help feeling that something is decidedly "off" with this. Partly this is due to the unfortunate description by DE, linking this RNG lottery drop to "veterancy" when it is anything but. Currently the only ephemera connected to some sort of veterancy is the "Bleeding Body", since getting your hands on 20 Vitus Essence takes at least some skill. All the others are simply just chance, and nothing but chance, and that is how I am going to look at ephemera from now on. Something you get if you are lucky, and not if you are unlucky. Nothing more, nothing less. And while I have been unlucky with the Exploiter, I got 2 Grass ephemera on my 1st long arbitration run after they became available (from 18 excavators = 7 C-rotation drops).

Funnily I also came up with a price of 50 Lazulite toroids (which is an insane 600000 standing). It truly would be an insane price, but on the other hand peace of mind is priceless.

This insane ephemera farm (which is on me, since there has been no real need other than my "want", can't blame DE) have already detracted too much from the game, so I have put it aside. The new Nightwave "story-based" mission system is truly good and the booster weekends has brought a lot of players online. And the Exploiter Orb is one of the best boss fights so far, if not the best one. But doing run after run after run for small-chance cosmetic drops became so insane it almost soured the whole fight. Better to do something else.

[Voltage]

I hope it doesn't change at all in acquisition as I find it cool that it is RNG drops in older game modes over the last year. Sure, I totally get that it's frustrating to farm. However, progressive grind is better suited for variable cosmetics, or ones with more impact. These are simple and optional walking effects.

If you want to obtain these, you just need to play until you get lucky. If the game continues changing how things are obtained to make it easier weeks or months after release, there won't be any incentive to farm anything when it comes out because you know the value of said item will diminish at an annoying rate.

[Graavarg]

14 minutes ago, Voltage said:

I hope it doesn't change at all in acquisition as I find it cool that it is RNG drops in older game modes over the last year.

...

If you want to obtain these, you just need to play until you get lucky.

That might feel ok at first glance, as there are lots of such stuff in Warframe. Of course this would also entail that ephemera is described as "RNG lottery items for the lucky", since they have absolutely nothing to do with veterancy or skill.

However, if you think about implementing the same kind of mechanic for ALL equally unimpactful, free cosmetic items in the game it becomes quite easy to see that this is not a good way to go. Imagine having to farm helmet blueprints with a 1-3% drop chance from high level boss fights. After all, there is no logic to only "walking effects" being RNG lottery-based.

Additionally you can buy most other cosmetic items (for credits or plat), why not these? If all it is down to is luck...

Edited March 24, 2019 by Graavarg

[S.Dust]

Personally I think the devs should pull a tri force heros and lock each one behind a stupidly hard goal like the den of trials

What I mean is lock one behind like 100 waves of ESO and another is locked behind like 5 hours of a survival mission that starts at like lvl 150. They could make a room called trials where you would go to start the challenge needed to get them. So each challenge would be stupidly hard and when I say stupidly hard I want to make it clear I mean that as in you should have to fail like 100 times before you even get close but in exchange when you do pull it off your reward is guaranteed.

[Fishyflakes]

I think this suggestion is very fitting and I honestly would not mind the Stalker ephemera still being RNG.

All the ephemeras fit in you suggested syndicate stores!

[thewhalechan]

Tried farming the blazing one over the weekend, doing nothing but ESO. About 30 ESO later I am fed up with it. This is unreasonable, you have to spend 20+ minutes for a chance, there is no point in staying after round 8, heck you better off leaving because: 1. it gets hard, 2. noone stays with you, if they even with you at this point and 3. the rotation starts again from 0.

You are forced to go saryn, volt etc., because those are the only viable frames for when everyone leaves at rounds 2 or 4. With saryn at least you can solo up to 8 w/o breaking a sweat and dont worry about not enough enemies spawning.

Why are the rotations reset? I mean if I wanted to farm rot A rewards, I would leave after round 4 and repeat, those who stay after that want something from rot B and C. This needs to change, not just for the ephemera, but in general. You could so something like arbies do, AABC and C untill you leave, or if you really don't want to give out the rot C rewards that much, at least do alternating B and C. AABCBCBC.... and people might stay beyond 8. Also if we are here, rewards wise....relics are okayish...but synthetic shard that gives 5000 focus points....? You can get 220k from a tridolon and its about the same time if you are rather new to eidolon hunting and even less if you know the drill. Even the terralyst alone drops a 25k focus shard and thats waaay easier.

At this point I'd rather have to get 100 tokens from rotC ESO for a certain reward, than go into a game and toss a coin for 1% chance. On avarage the result will be the same, but on the way you get a sense of progress, unlike this RNG one. And that is avarage....imagine if it drops on 150th run for example...its 45 hours of ESO? Is that really reasonable?

And as a last chance if you think you do want to RNG, at least move the arbies and ESO one to G3 and zanuka and be in line with the stalker one.

Edited March 24, 2019 by thewhalechan

[HexOmega111x]

Il y a 21 heures, AwkwardLazarow a dit :

My suggestion and possible solution to eliminate RNG from Ephemeras

Looks cool, I have to admit but even like that, some will be easier to aquire than others. They will still not represent your global progress in the game. 

And at some point, if they want to add more ephemeras, they will have no other choice than make them obtainable via the same principle. They will never have any significant value. 

[ArchPhaeton]

1 hour ago, HexOmega111x said:

Looks cool, I have to admit but even like that, some will be easier to aquire than others. They will still not represent your global progress in the game. 

And at some point, if they want to add more ephemeras, they will have no other choice than make them obtainable via the same principle. They will never have any significant value. 

Hardly anything in this game shows the player's progress. Even hoarding and maxing a lot of gear doesn't mean you've played extensively as it can be done quickly with the right tools at the right places. Back in the day I remember MR20+ players that knew nothing outside of (old) Draco or similar nodes.

No, these things don't have any significant value, as nothing in a videogame really does. Let's face it, WF is a game for people that like hoarding and collecting things - extremely low drop rate rewards are the perfect bait to keep this playerbase running, and the replies here are proof of that.

While i can play perfectly with a years old arsenal, that's not the point of the game at all. It relies a lot on player's obsession of obtaining X item, getting the newest thing, completing their gear progress list, or keeping up with whatever the latest dps meta is.

As an old player it pains me to see that old promise of reducing the grind has fallen into the Void. However I can understand to a certain degree why devs do this - if you got what you wanted relatively easy, you would lose interest more quickly (This has a lot of philosophical background, feel free to look up about desire) and they want us to keep playing, the main pretext for these absurd rates (while not as absurd as korean mmo rates) is that the stuff isn't critical for gameplay. On top of that, players constantly whining for new content/endgame/something to do also pushes them into coming up with something to keep us busy. New game content isnt something you put in the microwave and serve several times a day, it all takes a lot of time and development.

There comes a time when you gotta decide if sticking to such repetitive and unrewarding tasks is actually worth your life time. I myself find it harder to do with every big update like Fortuna and Cetus - the amount of time you need to invest to "clear" everything is tyrannical, even for someone used to the crushing pressure and oppressive darkness of grinding.

For the record I support OP's initiative - make relevant stuff progress based, and add to that ridiculous rng little things that sweeten your game every once in a while. Hardcore players will eventually get tired of everything, regardless of what they implement.

[HexOmega111x]

il y a 5 minutes, ArchPhaeton a dit :

make relevant stuff progress based, and add to that ridiculous rng little things that sweeten your game every once in a while.

I support the OP initiative too but the problem I see is that there is no actual content that can be used to make those new cosmetics worth the time you should spend to get them. I think that DE missed the opportunity to introduce a new reward mechanic along with these ephemeras. 

[Steel_Rook]

Personally, I despise RNG loot and see it as the cost of doing business in an MMO. However, I'm always going to push for an alternative deterministic way of attaining every RNG-locked item, even if that ends up boiling down to "spend money." While I don't necessarily agree with the OP's proposed acquisition methods, I'm definitely in agreement with the spirit of the proposal. Put these things into vendors for some kind of cost, even if it has to be a high cost. Random rewards always end up feeling like a slot machine, which for me personally is a huge turnoff. Yeah, there's the constant "draw" to keep hitting the lever, but there's also no intrinsic sense of progress. Great, I did this activity 10 times and got jack S#&$. I might as well not have bothered even logging in today. To me, that's extremely demotivational.

[Knight_Ex]

1 hour ago, Ploobie said:

Agreed. The sense of reward in this game is totally skewed. I have around 400 Lazulite Toroids, which means I have spent an insane amount of time on the Exploiter Orb, and I still haven't gotten the Freezing Step Ephemera. By the way, my team mates actually got the Freezing Step Ephemera during one run, but it didn't drop for me. So great. You can spend HUNDREDS of hours farming for something that is next to impossible to get, then on top of that you have to worry about the game glitching out on you if the item actually does drop. Rework your rewards, DE! This was the problem with Diablo 3 at the beginning. You would spend a ton of time playing the game and you would get very little return on that investment. I should not have to spend several weeks, playing at least 12 hours a day, only to never receive what I'm going after. Just because it's a free to play game that doesn't mean that it should be ridiculous RNG that keeps players from getting where they want to be.

 

And yet people have gotten them in the first 3-4 tries, welcome to RNG, it won't change, these are cosmetic rewards, you don't need to have them, DE has no thoughts on changing how Empherea's are earned.

[Unicornu]

I fully agree with those ways and i think the seeding one needs to cost much more vitus essence. There is literally no charm to just keep their RNG but also add ways to use those points, currencies we are getting aka arbitration or simaris. What is the point of having more than 100 vitus essence and literally all the other drops from arbitration if i have nothing to do with it and with length of arbitration mission it is just frustrating to end up with just bunch of endos after 60 excavation digs or 1 hour of survival. If i knew i have a chance but also i do not get all essence for nothing i would be more happy to spend the time in those missions but now after a week of grinding i'm just done and i choose to forget there is something like ephemeras in this game.   

And looking that is just cosmetic it is not like we gonna ruin something with it. So keep the RNG and add also purchasable option for currencies mission they drop from. More happy players.

Edited March 27, 2019 by Unicornu

[(PSN)fmazanatti]

As a player that farmed 99.5% of all dropable stuff (the remaining .5% being bought - I'm talking about you, Vengeful Revenant), I'm not going to farm for ephemeras - drop chances are too low to justify going back to grind arbitration and EOS, sorry. 

Adding insult to injury, after getting the blueprint, I still have to farm a systems part and invest 1 million credits, really? Credits are a bit excessive but not an actual problem, having to farm a part after selling several in the past (as they were useless after you build the frame) isn't great at all. Smoking Body looks pretty cool and unreachable right now 😑

[(PSN)Zero_029]

Stalker's Smoking Body Ephemera should be purchased by turning in 20 Dread Blueprints to Red Veil or a Shady Merchant hidden on the Relays.

[pook-pook]

Great suggestions!!