The Relic System needs to be improved like Yesterday

[(XBOX)KnightSlayer411]

Every time a new prime drops, you have three options:

1- Buy it from the Prime Access

2- Buy from other players

3- Farm it

And the third one is the focus of this topic.

I know really well that because Warframe is a completely free to play game, it needs a way to keep players sink into the game as much playtime as possible, but the declarations of DE Steve about HE wanting to lower the grind in the game makes me think that what I'm going to say is worth the shot.

Now, the relic system as it is right now it's nothing more than a vicious circle.

How so you may ask?

Here are the steps to follow in order to grind for a new Prime Frame/Weapon:

1- You get the relics by farming the missions with bad drop chances for said relics or by getting them in relic packs from the market or the sindycates, both with bad drop tables.

The thing is, you will at most get 1 to 3 of the new relics. So that's a lot of time spent for almost nothing

2- If the prime part you're looking for is part of the Uncommon or Rare type, you're going to need to Refine that relic into a Radiant Relic. You can do this by using Void Traces, but in order to get Void Traces, you'll need to farm Void Fissures.

That would be ok, if not because of the miserable amount of Void Traces you get per Void Fissure. You will (at most and VERY RARELY) get 40 Void Traces, but guess what, you need 100 (one hundred) Void Traces in order to refine to Radiant just ONE RELIC and this takes us to step three.

3-Now that you did all that in order to have ONE Radiant Relic, you head to recruit chat, you find other players with the same Radiant Relic as you and then you run a mission.

You would think that all the efforts you made in order to create the ONLY Radiant Relic you have will pay off and by being with three other people the chances of getting the prime part you need are high or at least decent.

But no, you'll crack the relic and almost all the time you'll be in the situation where, even though all your teamates had a radiant relic, non of you got the Uncommon or Rare part and INSTEAD, all of you get a Common part, even though the Radiant Class makes it seem like it's barely impossible to get a common drop.

The worst part is that this happens all the time, it is not a rare scenario, it is not a bug, this is how it is and it's absurd.

This takes us to step 4.

4- After your disappointment, you clear your head and decide to just keep trying but surprise, after all that farm, you realize that you only got ONE relic and that ALSO you're out of Void Traces. So you need to do steps 1 and 2 all over again.

But let's think that you have a couple more relics, oh but you don't have enough Void Traces and you need to run Void Fissures again and again because the amount of Void Traces dropped are so MISERABLE that you need to do it a lot of times. Just to refine the relic and don't get the part you need, even though you went through all that to refine it.

So, this makes suggest four (4) different options in order to make this system at least a bit decent, obviously not applying all four, just one of them:

1- Increase (or fix) the Prime Parts drop tables

2- Decrease the required amount of Void Traces to refine a relic to Radiant

3- Increase the Void Traces drop per fissure by a considerable amount

4- Increase Void Traces drop and new relics drop chance

Again, I know this is a free game, but this is something the community has been complaining about for far to long and I think it's time to put some work into this system and let's be honest, this is a really bad vicious cycle.

Oh and let me clarify, if you dislike my post, let's make clear that this is directed to Digital Extremes Development Team, not you, angry random player.

You can post you opinion but please, respect others opinions too.

Pd: I'm saying this from a FULL SQUAD perspective, for the people who think I'm a solo player.

Edited July 9, 2019 by (XB1)DavidRyder 74

[marelooke]

The addition of additional layers of RNG on top of the already existing layers of RNG has been a complaint about the Void 2.0 since its inception (as it has been with Riven mods, for that matter). And it's been ignored ever since. Given how people have now acclimated to it I expect exactly nothing to happen to improve it anytime soon, unfortunately.

[(XBOX)KnightSlayer411]

2 minutes ago, marelooke said:

The addition of additional layers of RNG on top of the already existing layers of RNG has been a complaint about the Void 2.0 since its inception (as it has been with Riven mods, for that matter). And it's been ignored ever since. Given how people have now acclimated to it I expect exactly nothing to happen to improve it anytime soon, unfortunately.

Well I don't know, all the things I saw at the Tennocon livestream gave me hopes.

Hopefully they will understand that this amount of grind will make a lot of players leave the game.

 

[Grahark]

Axi L4's for Loki Prime. NEver recieved a single on. Multiple HOURS in Mot or Marduk. Pretty salty bout it. I just wanted the helmet lol

[NekroArts]

Maybe for unvaulting since it's short, but for new releases I'll have to say nay. In terms of the vaulting schedule, players have bountiful time to farm the new primes. Cross-referencing the Warframe release dates to the Prime Vault (wiki links) shows the newest will be around for about 2 years until it gets to the point where the "need to get them asap" is more understandable.

[Tiltskillet]

Meh, I feel like the relic system works well enough for me.   I get everything within 2-4 weeks.  I suppose it's not good for people who want everything quickly or have limited gametime...but that's kind of the point. That's a lot of what makes buying access or trading for parts remotely appealing.

[GinKenshin]

9 hours ago, (XB1)DavidRyder 74 said:

Well I don't know, all the things I saw at the Tennocon livestream gave me hopes.

Hopefully they will understand that this amount of grind will make a lot of players leave the game.

 

Leave the game? All I see is people getting the new prime’s faster, new primes market prices cuts in half after the first week of introduction and, personally, me getting the new primes in a span of a week 

  There’s nothing really complicated here. Yes, it’s a lot of Rng, but you have control over things to make it easier, like: 

1- stocking up on traces before the new PA

2- maxing the syndicate standing to get free relics 

3- getting as much medallions so you can exchange them for more relics 

4- get a decent amount of plat before the PA, then wait a couple of weeks after the PA and buy everything you need/couldn’t farm

  You can give arguments and state what’s already known as much as you want, this is still far better than the old system when to comes to getting what you want. If you’ve played during that time then you should know that 

Edited July 8, 2019 by GinKenshin

[GuiJay]

17 hours ago, (XB1)DavidRyder 74 said:

4- After your disappointment, you clear your head and decide to just keep trying but surprise, after all that farm, you realize that you only got ONE relic and that ALSO you're out of Void Traces. So you need to do steps 1 and 2 all over again.

You know what I would do? I would expand the current relic/fissure system to the actual relic farming itself;

Whenever you play a mission that drops a relic, you enter a "relic selection" screen where 3 or 4 different relics are offered - maybe one per player? And you can select one of them. It doesn't ENTIRELY get rid of the RNG, but it gives you some control over it / increases your chance of getting what you want. I think those 2 last points are important as, personally, I REALLY enjoy the feeling of "control" the relic system gives (even if it's quite RNG-influenced.)

Edit: Oh, and for Trace farming, I'd make it so you can transform a relic into extra void traces instead of getting the reward. Maybe an amount related to the relic's rarity. I.E. Lith would be worth less than Axi. Again, just more choices to the player.

Edited July 8, 2019 by GuiJay

[Sepharoth]

Well, the relic system absolutely does not take into account solo play at all. If you play solo, it is just a nightmare to try and get any prime items. If you play in a group, you have an opportunity to choose what item you want to from any of the relics taken into the mission so the more people in the mission, the better. But if you play solo, you don't any choice at all. You get whatever rng says you get. And for me, 80% of the time, I get the forma blueprint ( I know these are highly sought after but when this is about all you get, it gets frustrating ).Either there needs to be less items in a relic or a much better and easier way to get prime items. Or at least if you play solo, rng gives you 2 items from each relic to choose from instead of just one.

I think a barter system would be another idea. Just get rid of the relics altogether but keep the void traces. And then use the void traces to barter for the items we want to. Only make the void traces available in more missions that way we can earn them by playing the entire game and not just one aspect of it. I mean, technically we are already getting the prime items for free so a barter system wouldn't change that. Would certainly take the rng out the equation and let us choose what we want when we want it. Could also reduce the grind a bit and be a little more fair to all players as well.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Sepharoth

[Avienas]

14 hours ago, GuiJay said:

You know what I would do? I would expand the current relic/fissure system to the actual relic farming itself;

Whenever you play a mission that drops a relic, you enter a "relic selection" screen where 3 or 4 different relics are offered - maybe one per player? And you can select one of them. It doesn't ENTIRELY get rid of the RNG, but it gives you some control over it / increases your chance of getting what you want. I think those 2 last points are important as, personally, I REALLY enjoy the feeling of "control" the relic system gives (even if it's quite RNG-influenced.)

Edit: Oh, and for Trace farming, I'd make it so you can transform a relic into extra void traces instead of getting the reward. Maybe an amount related to the relic's rarity. I.E. Lith would be worth less than Axi. Again, just more choices to the player.

I have ranted these 2 points so many times over these past few months ingame and more recently in the forums. I dont need to actually look at the game coding to know how INSANELY EASY it would be for them to adjust the functions, especially when most of it could just use existing code for the most part, copy n Paste/Replace and adjust likely only several bits to get it right:

 

1. The current roll system on relics could easily be dumped back down to standard rotation style for how you got prime parts aka regular rotation reward like bits how void keys work, cept it would just have some bonus reward pop up on the rotation end and only that reward instead of a list of what each player rolled. If they wanted to rush it or how i declared so many times before on what the relic opening system should work, be completely standalone so a player gets a choice of 3 rolls on their item (with duplicates present of course) so it can be done solo. FURTHER tuning could be done so instead of relying on rotations to put in a new relic, they could have it once a player hits 10 reactants, they get a portal to show up near them where they interact to then choose what part choice they yank from the mini-void portal, then they move to the relic choice screen to pick and continue. Might be broken i guess, but they could easily adjust reactant drop rate, plus it would remove hiccups like people screwing up excavation fissures by low ranked or brain dead idiot players not waiting on the reactants wasting a whole rotation. Could easily be easily delay-locked where one can not get new reactants until a rotation transition occurs for example after that person opened a relic during the current rotation phase.
2. Honestly this one is more easier for them to do, just let us sell relics and let it dispense void traces based on the tier of the relic plus throw in additional traces based on its refinement level(such as a person hoarding relics in ESO or profit taker want to get rid of some excess radiants.

That first point might require a bit more work then i stated, but its kind of been a long run on things. Two things i know with any game in general that if not adhered, usually is what ruins a game. First being making a game`s grind in any form to be fun or it could ruin the experience and Second being keep anything Gacha-like to fair levels. The Prime part hunt setup for relics may not be actual gacha, but it basically is with how many hoops you jump thru to Earn the currency, roll the dice, hope you get what you want and repeat the process if you did not, Because we all know how CERTAIN games will get utterly ruined by a effective wall of bad RNG-sus.

Not saying those 2 things would be the absolute downfall of warframe, but i feel like when a game`s grinding just turns into a aggravating burnout, then it could easily cause players to abandon ship for more simplistic games that will give players that continuous rewarding feeling to curb them from burning out on playing said game.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Avienas

[(PSN)Mono-Pop]

Relic farming is perfect and I would like it to stay as is.

[Avienas]

1 hour ago, Sepharoth said:

Well, the relic system absolutely does not take into account solo play at all. If you play solo, it is just a nightmare to try and get any prime items. If you play in a group, you have an opportunity to choose what item you want to from any of the relics taken into the mission so the more people in the mission, the better. But if you play solo, you don't any choice at all. You get whatever rng says you get. And for me, 80% of the time, I get the forma blueprint ( I know these are highly sought after but when this is about all you get, it gets frustrating ).Either there needs to be less items in a relic or a much better and easier way to get prime items. Or at least if you play solo, rng gives you 2 items from each relic to choose from instead of just one.

I think a barter system would be another idea. Just get rid of the relics altogether but keep the void traces. And then use the void traces to barter for the items we want to. Only make the void traces available in more missions that way we can earn them by playing the entire game and not just one aspect of it. I mean, technically we are already getting the prime items for free so a barter system wouldn't change that. Would certainly take the rng out the equation and let us choose what we want when we want it. Could also reduce the grind a bit and be a little more fair to all players as well.

To be more precise it does not take into account that well for any group with 1~3 players in it only, Mainly in the form that if you do not have a full group, your going to FEEL that sting that one more person could of gave you better odds on picking up X item, like forma when your forma farming, part hunting specific ones or just good old ducat farming. Old void key system had its faults, but if when relics came into existence, simply opened up and gave us whatever showed up on our relic without showing what other players got, then i feel like the frustration would be less, especially if we did not have that useful friendship is magic boon to stick our hands in some other player`s roll to get a copy of something we wanted more of.

If i had to do a useful comparison: Its like the whole Lootboxes on normandy beach joke. Where the notion of being able to see what someone else got can miffle someone a bit, but also make that massive addicting appeal if you can toss your chest away that contained a squirtgun and yoink a copy of the shiny new sniper rifle from someone else`s chest. Sure, we arent paying money for loot boxes or what not, but it creates that same feeling where you want to drag 3 meat-sacks on EVERY fissure run ya do, even if they are low ranked newbies, just so that you can get 3 more rolls on the wheel of relic chance, so you aren`t stuck with just one dice roll each time.

If the, maybe if we had a full party when we were opening relics possibility did not exist before, i am sure the complains would be more towards other ways the relic system could be more effective in earning stuff, like maybe make longer rounds be more rewarding then just a bonus relic every say 4th/5thish round that public players i can rarely see wanting to go further then 2 to 3 usually.

But maybe its all in my head and i am just a unlucky player despite being a MR27 who usually has to take several hours just to get the new prime set goodies and find it rather difficult to mass obtain many relics to hopefully open them and sell them for a good deal of platinum before the values of say a new prime set drops from 200~350 on average all the way to 50 before even a week has passed on the PS4 side of warframe.~

Edited July 9, 2019 by Avienas

[Yxivi]

Y'all seem to forget that they're trying to sell those Prime stuff, ofc the "free way" to obtain it should be difficult (and yes, I mean frustrating) so it wouldn't compete with their potential sales.

[GuiJay]

16 minutes ago, Yxivi said:

Y'all seem to forget that they're trying to sell those Prime stuff, ofc the "free way" to obtain it should be difficult (and yes, I mean frustrating) so it wouldn't compete with their potential sales.

I wonder how large the "Swayed by difficulty to acquire relics" target demographic is. Most people I know will either:

A) Farm the relic until victory or rage through sheer obstinacy.

B) Buy the new shiny thing because they need it now / can't be bothered with the unnecessary farm.

Do you, yourself, fall in the third category of:

C) Will attempt to farm until defeat and resort to buying instead?

Personally I only ever buy the "X Access" packs if I need the plats and I don't get a coupon (50% or better) while it's running, since the plat price for these access is somewhere between a 20% and a 50% coupon.

[(PSN)Mono-Pop]

Personally I farm relics for like a week, an hour or two every day.

If I can’t finish the prime by then I’ll buy whatever parts I’m missing from clan mates.

Easy, GG, covergirl.

[TeaHawk]

Quote

1- Increase (or fix) the Prime Parts drop tables

This.

Sometimes it feels statistically broken to me. I think we don't have the real numbers shown.

[GuiJay]

4 minutes ago, TeaHawk said:

Sometimes it feels statistically broken to me. I think we don't have the real numbers shown. 

That's just the nature of stats... they only make sense when you look at large samples. You run 20 fissures and only get commons? That's a TINY sample. Run 1,000 and tell me what it looks like then.

[TeaHawk]

Just now, GuiJay said:

That's just the nature of stats... they only make sense when you look at large samples. You run 20 fissures and only get commons? That's a TINY sample. Run 1,000 and tell me what it looks like then.

Well. It's starts to work than you're about 55 sample length. And it was the case. Basicly you have same probability for drops in a whole set of relics. Hence you may group them in one sample and then reach 100+ sample size easily. It's already enough to have some widely approximate nonetheless correct evaluations.

[(PSN)cooper_m22]

I miss the old key system. I know it was more RNG but for a solo player like me it was a lot less grind.

[GuiJay]

16 minutes ago, (PS4)cooper_m22 said:

I miss the old key system. I know it was more RNG but for a solo player like me it was a lot less grind. 

Quick question out of curiosity; is there any reason you play the fissure missions solo only? Or don't try to get a rad-share group going?

[xMarvin732]

13 hours ago, Sepharoth said:

Well, the relic system absolutely does not take into account solo play at all. If you play solo, it is just a nightmare to try and get any prime items. If you play in a group, you have an opportunity to choose what item you want to from any of the relics taken into the mission so the more people in the mission, the better. But if you play solo, you don't any choice at all. You get whatever rng says you get. And for me, 80% of the time, I get the forma blueprint ( I know these are highly sought after but when this is about all you get, it gets frustrating ).Either there needs to be less items in a relic or a much better and easier way to get prime items. Or at least if you play solo, rng gives you 2 items from each relic to choose from instead of just one.

". But if you play solo, you don't any choice at all."
You just answered your own point. 

"Or at least if you play solo, rng gives you 2 items from each relic to choose from instead of just one."
Bad change, nobody would run relics with teams anymore when you can use one relic to get two of the 6 parts in a relic.

[(XBOX)KnightSlayer411]

On 2019-07-07 at 10:56 PM, Grahark said:

Axi L4's for Loki Prime. NEver recieved a single on. Multiple HOURS in Mot or Marduk. Pretty salty bout it. I just wanted the helmet lol

You know what's worse, when they put a rare or uncommon drop in a rare relic like AXI, sometimes I don't know what the devs who make this drops think about

Edited July 9, 2019 by (XB1)DavidRyder 74

[(XBOX)KnightSlayer411]

14 hours ago, Yxivi said:

Y'all seem to forget that they're trying to sell those Prime stuff, ofc the "free way" to obtain it should be difficult (and yes, I mean frustrating) so it wouldn't compete with their potential sales.

Read the beginning of my post my man, I know it's a free game but I also remember what Steve said about lowering the indecent grind

[(XBOX)KnightSlayer411]

On 2019-07-08 at 5:13 AM, GuiJay said:

You know what I would do? I would expand the current relic/fissure system to the actual relic farming itself;

Whenever you play a mission that drops a relic, you enter a "relic selection" screen where 3 or 4 different relics are offered - maybe one per player? And you can select one of them. It doesn't ENTIRELY get rid of the RNG, but it gives you some control over it / increases your chance of getting what you want. I think those 2 last points are important as, personally, I REALLY enjoy the feeling of "control" the relic system gives (even if it's quite RNG-influenced.)

Edit: Oh, and for Trace farming, I'd make it so you can transform a relic into extra void traces instead of getting the reward. Maybe an amount related to the relic's rarity. I.E. Lith would be worth less than Axi. Again, just more choices to the player.

That relic conversion into void traces is BRILLIANT

You should actually summit it with its own post.

 

[(XBOX)KnightSlayer411]

15 hours ago, (PS4)Mono-Pop said:

Relic farming is perfect and I would like it to stay as is.

Well..... It's hard to do, but I was the one who wrote about respect other people's opinions so I won't say anything about what you just said.......