Why Eidolon hunts shouldn't have a Time Gate.

[SquireAngel]

So, Eidolon hunting has a few issues that make it really irksome to get into and continue grinding in. Because of the night/day time gating, this puts a limit on the amount of time that a player can access the content. Because of the limitation, there is a moderate amount of toxicity that has grown around it, and an elitist group that does not welcome newcomers, making it difficult for the less experienced players to reliably find groups to be inundated into the whole hunting process. 

Eidolon hunts are a fairly unique experience in the game, and to be able to run them requires already being fairly deep into the game to have the right equipment to tackle them. Because of the want of the playerbase to maximize gains from the hunts, many of the players already stacked will not allow a lower player to join them. The 5x3 meta has strangled out the leisure to allow lesser experienced players to tag along and grow. 

 

Because of the time gate and the perceived  need to maximize gains, there is also the common view that if you don't start within a certain time frame at the very beginning, then hunting as a whole for that night cycle isn't even worth the effort. This means playing the game or being distracted for the initial 5-10 minutes drastically reduces one's ability to get into a group that night cycle as well. 

 

I want to say that there being a 'natural' night day cycle isn't a bad thing for the bounty or free roam modes and the eidolons should still spawn on them, but I do believe that there should still be a separate bounty ALWAYS available for eidolons, making it so that the previously mentioned issues can be alleviated. There aren't any real down sides to having it open separately as far as I can see.

[Hixlysss]

I too support the "Always available eidolon bounty" idea.

[peterc3]

4 minutes ago, SquireAngel said:

There aren't any real down sides to having it open separately as far as I can see.

Besides an infinite ability to farm Eidolons without any threat of time?

Either the cycle stays or DE comes up with a max number of runs per daily reset, undoubtedly less than most people can comfortably run.

[Lazarow]

Hunting eidlons during day doesnt support the lore of them since they only come at nigth. But I too dont like the timegate. Maybe have regular eidoilon shards to summon it or force it out even during the day

[Zelmen]

This sounds like a few things.

• Can't look at the nav console (or just at the star chart both have the time) that says when night is going to be
• Upset there is clicks in an online game
• Upset they can't get R5 grace arcane

There is 40ish minutes of night time. For a new player that is more than enough time to work there way into the mix. Think my worst tridolon was 30 min when I started. I can pug Tridolons from Konzu and still get 2-3 in a night with all sorts of bad combos and under geared players. Yeah if you want to do 5x3 of the start it going to be a rough ride. The 5x3/ 6x3 players can be toxic but they also state must have x captures. Let them do their thing and you do yours.

Adding more time to their spawn will only hurt the market, burn people out because they can farm it longer and avoid other content.

For most people, after you get the arcane they want will not return. Best they could do is 1-2 any time bounties for those players will limited access but opening it up doesn't seem a good direction.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Zelmen

[ReaverKane]

I think there's a possible compromise between people that don't have the time availability to wait for night time in cetus, and not breaking the lore by having them spawn on day time, or making them too available:

A single DAILY Alert/Syndicate mission, that gives Quills standing straight up as it's main reward, and does one of two things:

1. Just takes you (and squad) into a mission that is just PoE with starting time set to early night, then you can hunt Teralyst or do the full Tridolon once a day without worrying about the time of day in the Plains.
2. Takes you into a mission that spawns a single daily randomized Eidolon (including Ropalolist) set in the appropriate map at the appropriate time.

Either option would award Quills Standing plus the normal rewards from killing the boss.

[BiancaRoughfin]

11 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Besides an infinite ability to farm Eidolons without any threat of time?

Either the cycle stays or DE comes up with a max number of runs per daily reset, undoubtedly less than most people can comfortably run.

This and the fact that there are enough players crying on the forums complaining the game`s Market is broke for being too saturated. Imagine with people being able to endlessly farm for rare Arcanes?

[Regenerating_Degenerate]

Could just allow us to use different sized shards to summon each eidolon during the day? Idk

[Hixlysss]

To those saying "Lore reasons", I mean...we could explain it as that group just being fast forwarded to night time. If you wanna complain about the lore well...how many times do we kill the same boss?

And for the whole 'infinite farming', eh...technically it already is infinite, there is just a cool down. Which I'm fine with. So, here is a compromise. There are what...3 eidolon bounties? Teralyst, Tera and Gauntalyst, and then Terry, Gary, and Harry. So let's just...have these bounties always available, you can do the bottom tier 5 times, second tier...4, top tier 3 times before it cools down for say...an hour and a half. That would give someone...like 12 runs with a hour and a half cool down for the next run. Of course these numbers could be adjusted by DE to fit the needs, something like 2 per bounty with a 2 hour cool down would be...fair. But IMO the cool down should never be more than 2 hours, never less than an hour.

[(XBOX)Duke DEFCON]

SquireAngel says, 

"and an elitist group that does not welcome newcomers, making it difficult for the less experienced players to reliably find groups to be inundated into the whole hunting process. " 

Then Zelmen says,

"This sounds like a few things. Can't look at the nav console (or just at the star chart both have the time) that says when night is going to be. Upset there is clicks in an online game. Upset they can't get R5 grace arcane"

Which is a completely elitist response and basically proves SquireAngels point.

I'm a new player and have to agree completely with SquireAngel. The time gating is just not new player friendly at all. Usually you get elitists that are entirely carrying you trying to hurry you up or doing the job themselves entirely. Thanks for the carry and all, but you learn nothing from that. The extreme opposite happens too, where nobody knows what the heck they're doing. There is no happy medium with Eidalon hunts. I don't think it's entirely that Eidalons are too difficult, but that it's just hard to remember if it's day or night when you're trying to do your sorties, faction dailies and leveling up frames. 

It would not be hard to do. Make a bounty available 24h a day, but half the rewards. The Tridalon can remain a night only event.

Oh, one last thought. Operator mode needs expanded to be more useful than just for Eidalon hunts. I really struggle to see the point of leveling up an operator by hunting Eidalons Just so I can get better at hunting Eidalons.

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by (XB1)Taz Deduction

[GibsonPrime]

2 hours ago, SquireAngel said:

This means playing the game or being distracted for the initial 5-10 minutes drastically reduces one's ability to get into a group that night cycle as well. 

The issue here is it being tied to real time.  I'm also not a fan of this.

A mission with a "current night cycle duration" countdown would be nice.  Not sure if it would be better as a "once per real 24-hrs" alongside the current system, or, replaces it and it coolsdown "current day cycle duration" after extraction (has a lot of downsides like being "stuck" with your squad, no banking drops between bounty pickups so connection/host migration issues would be a problem, people bailing out mid way etc.  Would also need to let you respawn terry after terry or harry).

Wouldn't do anything to change those wanting to maximise their runs though.  As long as it's limited, this will happen.  If it's not limited, you get rare arcanes not being so rare.

Edited September 4, 2019 by GibsonPrime

[Andy.]

Tbh if this happend then they shouldnt drop Arcanes anymore.
Arcanes are a nice to have thing for players who either run them often/put time into them or for those who bought them with plat.
If they are there 24/7 they arent something special aynmore.(And you would just kill the whole arcane market)

[(XBOX)Duke DEFCON]

35 minutes ago, --Q--Andy said:

Tbh if this happend then they shouldnt drop Arcanes anymore.
Arcanes are a nice to have thing for players who either run them often/put time into them or for those who bought them with plat.
If they are there 24/7 they arent something special aynmore.(And you would just kill the whole arcane market)

No, you just make them twice as rare to drop, since they're available twice as much. And the ones you get from bounty completion, just award that until they reach their reputation cap, and stop giving completion rewards. Easy fixes.

[ZarTham]

I really don't understand this mind set.

If DE makes Eidolons spawnable, they will become trivial (as if they weren't already), drop rates cut in half, and then you'll see players complaining about the reduced drop rates.

As for the Elitists mindset, you have that many issues with Recruit Chat? Then why are you even in a clan? For the memes?

It's not hard for new players, it just requires patience from them, you do realise that new players have plenty of stuff to do before an eidolon fight, if they go un-prepared to an eidolon fight they should get schooled, sorry but that's how it is, and the fight isn't that hard, sure they won't be doing 5x3, 1x3 is doable in the time one has and it's a nice achievement for starters.

There will always be elitists and meta players in every game... There are clans to avoid that.

[TheGreenFellow]

The day/night cycle thing is the biggest reason I don't bother much with Eidolons except when I need another Riven transmuter.

[beaker_redux]

6 hours ago, Lazarow said:

Hunting eidlons during day doesnt support the lore of them since they only come at nigth. But I too dont like the timegate. Maybe have regular eidoilon shards to summon it or force it out even during the day

I dont think the OP was suggesting that the always available mission take place during the day.  I *think* it was assumed that if you started it, that mission would take place during a night environment and have its own separate one hour timer.   Again, I’m drawing inferences here. 

 

While that might seem weird, we already have such a day/night overlap with regular earth and Cetus. 

I would support such an idea.  As to a cap? Why?  Right now there are some players who hunt eidiolons every minute of night.  Let them burn down the house farming them all the time.  I doubt many would.  Everyone needs a break.  Doing the same thing every day for 12 hours straight gets old (can I get an amen from the kuva Hunters?). 

 

And if if they did, so what? I don’t perceive any unfair advantage from doing so. 

 

Just my thoughts. 

Edited September 4, 2019 by beaker_redux

[SquireAngel]

So, I'll address several issues at once

8 hours ago, Zelmen said:

This sounds like a few things.

• Can't look at the nav console (or just at the star chart both have the time) that says when night is going to be
• Upset there is clicks in an online game
• Upset they can't get R5 grace arcane

There is 40ish minutes of night time. For a new player that is more than enough time to work there way into the mix. Think my worst tridolon was 30 min when I started. I can pug Tridolons from Konzu and still get 2-3 in a night with all sorts of bad combos and under geared players. Yeah if you want to do 5x3 of the start it going to be a rough ride. The 5x3/ 6x3 players can be toxic but they also state must have x captures. Let them do their thing and you do yours.

Adding more time to their spawn will only hurt the market, burn people out because they can farm it longer and avoid other content.

For most people, after you get the arcane they want will not return. Best they could do is 1-2 any time bounties for those players will limited access but opening it up doesn't seem a good direction.

You raise several points at once, so I'll try to address them in order of presentation. 
Ignoring the completely ignorant statements rather than trying to see the logic, your first 'prod' raises something resembling a point. No, I do not watch the navigation menu for the exact time I should start farming the night cycle. I work a full time job, run a fledging clan with lower ranks that require aid frequently, play games other than Warframe frequently, volunteer at a few locations, and generally have a life away from the computer. There is plenty of content in Warframe that isn't Eidolon hunting, and I choose to enjoy it in the wide breadth it comes in. 

As for the 40ish minutes to night time, the majority of experienced Eidolon hunters have either found a group previously, or chosen to skip the current rotation in favor of finding a group next time. This leaves a very small pool of players who have decent experience to run a single 1x3 group. As for the arcane position, you require 10 to get an r3, and you don't get that in a single run. 

The rest I have chosen to passover because there are other points similar or entirely the same to adress. 

8 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

This and the fact that there are enough players crying on the forums complaining the game`s Market is broke for being too saturated. Imagine with people being able to endlessly farm for rare Arcanes?

8 hours ago, peterc3 said:

Besides an infinite ability to farm Eidolons without any threat of time?

Either the cycle stays or DE comes up with a max number of runs per daily reset, undoubtedly less than most people can comfortably run.

Admittedly there would be an influx in the market, but the obtainability of rare arcanes would spike dramatically to the point every newbie would be sporting r3 rare arcanes. However, the supply of arcanes is already a steady flow, so the price drop would not be to the extreme you make it out to be. At worst, I see those that sell for like, 300p dropping to 200. That's still a decent pay in considering the demand isn't high enough to drive prices up, and those willing to farm r3 sets to sell usually set prices because they're rarer themselves. Many players dont even play with arcanes, much less r3's, which is why the market isn't exactly on fire. They do sell well for certain sets on occasion, but the market crash you imply isn't likely based on current trends and already available supply. 

4 hours ago, ZarTham said:

I really don't understand this mind set.

If DE makes Eidolons spawnable, they will become trivial (as if they weren't already), drop rates cut in half, and then you'll see players complaining about the reduced drop rates.

As for the Elitists mindset, you have that many issues with Recruit Chat? Then why are you even in a clan? For the memes?

It's not hard for new players, it just requires patience from them, you do realise that new players have plenty of stuff to do before an eidolon fight, if they go un-prepared to an eidolon fight they should get schooled, sorry but that's how it is, and the fight isn't that hard, sure they won't be doing 5x3, 1x3 is doable in the time one has and it's a nice achievement for starters.

There will always be elitists and meta players in every game... There are clans to avoid that.

You seem to have little to no experience on the lower end of Eidolon hunts. Either you don't hunt often or you're part of the group that hunts with Madarai maxed out already. While both of those are perfectly fine, the parties in particular are the newbies that haven't hunted and those who can't simply wait idle for every window that comes about. You raise the point of clans, but not every clan has a community that is large enough to have multiple groups at various stages of experience to run the hunt religiously. 

As for the difficulty, there is literally nothing that changes difficulty wise in the fights if they become more available, and it sounds incredibly ignorant to raise this as a point in general. The points that newer players have plenty to do before the fight is moot; the very purpose of restriction lift is to allow those ready to fight to do so more often. The timegating also makes it more difficult to find a reliable group at a leisurely pace to teach them so they can join groups that aren't teaching, because everyone tries to get the most out of the window its available. As for the point on Elitists and meta players, I don't raise a point against them existing, I say that those who fall into those group do not welcome newer players to teach, and if they allow them in the group, its usually as a carry where they learn nothing. I'm not saying that they should have to stop and help every newbie or that it's bad to have elitist players in certain content, I'm saying that it hurts breaking into the content as a whole. 

Going further on my own thoughts, I have to say that the benefits far outweigh what little in negatives there are for the restrictions being lifted. The ease of access makes the task of breaking into hunts for newer players, or even simply players newer to the content, much easier, as it relieves the pressure to maximize what time you have and would allow people to 'get ahead' faster, allowing those willing to properly teach newer players the content. While the Eidolons shouldn't be opened up to every player regardless of progress, it should be available to all players who have progressed to the point of accessing it. Furthermore, on the topic of the arcane market, this is not something that makes up the backbone of the trade economy, and has a fairly stable demand that hasn't altered much without something else being introduced to influence it (think Hildryn's release for the shield arcanes). The only significant alteration there has been to the Arcane market was the move from Raids to Eidolon hunts, and that was ages ago. Hell, even if the Arcane market does take a hit or DE wants to maintain current supply levels, you can copy Raids within the respect of putting a cooldown on the arcane payouts. 

[Bioness]

10 hours ago, (XB1)Taz Deduction said:

 
Oh, one last thought. Operator mode needs expanded to be more useful than just for Eidalon hunts. I really struggle to see the point of leveling up an operator by hunting Eidalons Just so I can get better at hunting Eidalons.

 

Operators are really useful and in some cases required for high level (100+) play. Arbitration is a mode where knowing how to use your Operator will stop 99% of deaths.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Bioness

[SquireAngel]

8 hours ago, Bioness said:

Operators are really useful and in some cases required for high level (100+) play. Arbitration is a mode where knowing how to use your Operator will stop 99% of deaths.

I think he thinks Operators aren't fleshed out cause he doesn't have trees unlocked and way bound.

[ZarTham]

16 hours ago, SquireAngel said:

ou seem to have little to no experience on the lower end of Eidolon hunts.

You know what? You're right, I really don't have much experience on tridolon hunt, as I have only recently started hunting them, wanna know what I am doing on the meantime? Getting my other warframes ready for it, getting my builds ready, I can't do 3x3 or 5x3 like many parties do, 1x3 or 2x3 suits me very well for starters as I am still learning, even had 1x3 runs that were so S#&$ty that when we noticed it was day time already and the eidolon had escaped, I have been rejected and schooled plenty of times, even for other non eidolon related stuff, I also had public runs where people were friendly enough to give me instructions while we were hunting, did I complained it was too difficult, or that I was being rejected? No, I started working on that goal. This topic is about eidolon hunt, but it also applies to other things on WF.

 

16 hours ago, SquireAngel said:

You raise the point of clans, but not every clan has a community that is large enough to have multiple groups at various stages of experience to run the hunt religiously. 

But that's what clans are for!!! People keep complaining about DE not making clans appealing nor interesting, when that's the job of the players, our job, not DE's, if you join a clan because memes are fun, then it's on you when no one from that clan is available to help you and you should find another one. Actually you don't even need a clan, just find some folks from your time zone and start organizing hunts with them.

 

16 hours ago, SquireAngel said:

As for the difficulty, there is literally nothing that changes difficulty wise in the fights if they become more available, and it sounds incredibly ignorant to raise this as a point in general.

What I meant with difficulty was that people can't expect to get from 8 to 80 in an instant, if you fail your hunt today or even if you can't find a party, try again later or even tomorrow, or better yet, instead of spamming recruit chat with LF Tridolon until the timer runs out, start working on building a squad for consistent hunts, hence why I said it requires patience from them.

Understand that, this is my mindset, I come from games where you'd have to wait 1 hour for the boss to spawn, no trackers, not a single beam of light pointing towards the boss location, and it was pvp, that meant that, sometimes our party would be unlucky that another party had found the boss already and we could either PK them to try to get the boss for ourselves or wait 1 hour again to hunt it, rinse and repeat. It was hard and that's what made it fun, it was hard and we had to rely on each other, we had to organize ourselves.

I see where you're trying to get, and I get your point, you say that this time gate is an issue, but I simply don't agree with you. I reinforce that new players should get in a clan that can help them, find people that can help them, instead of just being around Recruit Chat spamming LF Tridolon until the timer runs out. But my mindset might not apply to WF and maybe DE should just start handling players the eidolons on a silver plate. Even with a very S#&$ty public squad people can do 1x3, now if players expect to do 4x3 or even 5x3, then they should know what's to be expected from them.

Edited September 5, 2019 by ZarTham

[BethTheBean]

* There are plenty of videos explaining the Eidolon hunts, amps, arcanes, and builds. That's how I learned, as I prefer going into a new type of mode with some knowledge of what I'm supposed to do.

* Grind the tiny blue-***** at night, for their cores and now another dye grind. Trade those cores in for Quills standing, to obtain that improved core BP.

* When you feel that you're ready, grind out (PuG) the one-eidolon bounty. You have all night to do it.

It's fairly easy to level an amp. For me, I solo defense missions with specters and pets. Bring Umbra is nice, but the warframe and the weapons won't level so bring maxed ones.

 

[Renegade343]

22 hours ago, Lazarow said:

Hunting eidlons during day doesnt support the lore of them since they only come at nigth. But I too dont like the timegate. Maybe have regular eidoilon shards to summon it or force it out even during the day

I mean, the only reason they come out at night was just given as 'more powerful, now keep finding the glass fragments', and I'm starting to question that with the appearance of the Ropalolyst.

Besides, if they just hide in lakes at daytime, why not Operator Sharkwing the fight?

[JefTheReaper]

Honestly the easier solution would just be to cut the Eidolon's shields to just 1/3de of their power (because its a dumb gimmick for the Operator's beam power) and cut their armor strength in half.
It takes WAY to much effort to take a Eidolon down with just a non specialized build and exploits.

We are led to believe that the Tenno killed the Sentients by the hundreds during the old war and that they were quickly turning the tide.
Meanwhile these Eidolon's are just hollow husks of what they used to be yet we can't even damage them properly or fight them without wasting 30 min of our life.

Leave alone they are immune to Warframe powers, so how were Warframes considered the best weapons against Sentients if they can't even scratch them with their powers?

The main Warframe appeal for me in the past was that you could quickly start up a game with random other players who don't even know what to do, with a frame and weapons purely build for just fun and the lolz, and you would do a 5-10 minutes match and get a reward.
THAT, was fun.

Today if you want a 3% chance on something you want, you need to go through 30 minutes in a single match with people who have specialized builds for that type of match, then fall asleep due to boredom, slip up once and fail the entire thing.

 

I mean just make everything easier and faster, that will keep it fun.

I have been playing this for a few years now and I don't care for "endgame" I just want "fun".
And currently fun is very hard to find.

 

(and to those who want to say "its to balance the bosses", making bosses bullet sponges and immune to all powers is not balancing.
Just give them a healthbar, armor and shields on a reasonable level so that even a new player can defeat them, but also give them a max damage cap so that veteran's can't one shot their limbs or shields.

this will keep giving the impression that these bosses are "so powerful" that they can withstand a blow from a Veteran that can wipe out a entire grineer army with a single gunshot, but not that godlike that a new player can't join into the fun and fight them too)

Also cutting the mission time down to reasonable amounts so you don't need to waste the entire cetus night time to fight just a single match.

Edited September 6, 2019 by JefTheReaper

[Isokaze_BestKaze]

Hello. Relatively new player here. I reached my 100 days of playing a few days ago.

When I was completely unprepared, I tried some tridolons and failed horribly.

Then I searched for the mechanics, and started occasionally farming Teralyst which is frankly easy.

I leveled a bunch of different frames to have more option as to which one to bring in Eidolon, tried different build and made an antiEidolon Rubico.

Then I crafted 111 amp and later 223. Frankly it was way easier than building a Zaw. The ressources are easy to get after killing a few Doma Thumper.

And I recently did my first 3x3 while playing Harrow with a team of experienced players I found on recruitment chat. I occasionally do a 1x3 with random PU and that works well enough.

Frankly I rarely had a very bad experience with Tridolon besides a few "waaaait drones aren't charged !" moments. I play Harrow and besides the few unbalanced team I always find at least one Chroma and one Volt with me.

 

In short, didn't find any elitist like you mention there. I never asked to be part of a 5x3 either since I know I'm not geared for it. But even the occasional 1x3 is enough to get max Quills standing pretty fast and I think the current time gate is okay. 50 minutes every 2 hours gives enough occasion to do a Tridolon or two or three once a day even for meh gear like mine (half leveled Madurai, 223 amp, 1 forma Harrow, no Riven Rubico, mostly play with PU)

Edited September 6, 2019 by Isokaze_BestKaze

[PrismaCat]

"moderate amount of toxicity"

that is a "moderate" amount of bull. i've replied to join a "casual 3x3" and been told to kill myself because i tried to explain to the group that i had no way i knew of how to gather 8 lures an charge 2 by the time hydrolist's first limb breaks.

like what? i know thats a extreme case with somone who had no idea how the fight works but still, every time i group for this S#&$ i get too stressed to do it because of the absurd amount of intolerance people have for the slightest mistake, lures bugged and didnt spawn? "fk you" vombs arent where they normally are and you cant get a lure charged in 30 seconds? "reee" its just too stressful to deal with. id rather just buy my arcanes with plat :l

Edited September 7, 2019 by PrismaCat