Huge game changing idea - Broken weapons

[Cerikus]

So I just got an idea thanks to the Empyrean update! What I love about it are the ship components. That IS a breakthrough, The literal game-changer. You have the cheap basic and the MK 1 and 2 that you can build in a dojo, but THEN you have three "houses" of components that are in 3 different qualities that are randomized. What an amazing concept! So many possibilities and a great incentive to play. 

Here comes the idea. 
Do this, but to a big selection of the primaries, secondaries and melee weapons in the game. Kuva weapons are similar to my idea and are a step in the right direction, but the acquisition is kinda tedious and it's not deep and good enough. 

What would happen is that the weapons we have now would be proclaimed the basic versions, but then there would be other NEW types.. maybe each house could be focusing on different stats (status, crit, raw dmg, etc.) and the stats would be randomized in some range.

Now, where do you get the "broken weapons" that you need to repair, if you want to use them? Everywhere. You want corpus weapon, do corpus missions, You want broken Zaw parts? Go to plains. Etc. This would mean that every mission would reward at least one weapon. (Guess what.. almost everything would be rewarding us with something! What a great change)

You need to repair it.. Well then you repair it with all the resources we already have stockpiles of, plus there would be such a drastic change in resource usage that the drop tables could be equally drastically increased, which would be amazing because currently we get almost nothing in each mission. This would allow us to get a lot of new weapons every time we do something and we could just go through it and build the things that we would prefer. 

This imho sustainable loop would be: play whatever you want -> get resources and broken weapons -> invest into a weapon you want to repair -> enjoy -> next weapon 

There would be a new resource (similar to Dirac) we would get by scraping broken weapons. The purpose of this resource would be as payment for valence transfer! You could do two things. Either extract all your formas and catalyst from your old weapons to your new ones for some moderate amount or you could literally duplicate all of that to the new one, but the price would be extremely large.

I am NOT saying that all of that would be some kind of endgame, but it would most definitely be an amazing system that would make playing even the easiest mission on Earth rewarding and worth doing.

Important notes:
-You get MR only once. If you already mastered Skana, you don't get MR for Skana of house Lavan and vice versa.
-There could NEVER be a possibility of trading these, it would just become something even more horrible than a riven trading is and nobody wants that.
-I know that it would devalue a lot of weapons, but to be honest.. whatever.. there is already a lot of completely useless weapons and not everything has to be powerful.
-If player wants a certain weapon, he can just get it the "old way" and if he eventually gets the better random version, he can just transfer his upgrades with valnece transfer.
-Also,I do not see it as a problem if a player never touches a basic Lex, because he got the upgraded version before it. He get the MR and can be happy, that he has a superior version

One last thing. Warframe is f2p, so there has to be monetization of course. Don't worry DE, I got you covered. You can easily sell repair drones and the new resource for plat the same way you sell Dirac and repair drones for Railjack. It would be easily monetizable 😉 Also .. more weapons -> more slots needed -> more slots bought

We are happy, DE's happy. 

Please this is just a wild idea I got. If you have any idea how to improve it or you see some flaw in it, please tell me. Maybe we can refine it together into something, that DE can actually use.

EDIT 1: I would call the new resource a Fermi.
EDIT 2: You obviously cannot put rivens on these weapons.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Cerikus

[Space0ddity]

ok sounds really grindy no thanks

[Aldain]

OH GOD NO.

The balance of weapons in this game is shaky as is, this isn't like Borderlands or Diablo where the game is built based on huge piles of variable stats.

They can barely keep the game from snapping in half with static weapons, I don't even want to imagine how utterly pathetic everything will wind up if you get a random weapon that has 200% the base damage that you can then slot a Riven into for 400% more damage on top of that.

[Viges]

I actually thought it's a parody at first

[Renegade343]

28 minutes ago, Aldain said:

The balance of weapons in this game is shaky as is, this isn't like Borderlands or Diablo where the game is built based on huge piles of variable stats.

Funny thing with Borderlands: Guns in the same family, type, and level (e.g.: Level 13 Maliwan SMGs) have relatively small variance between each other, at least with white and green rarity. So it's not that big a problem in terms of RNG screwing you over.

[Aldain]

1 minute ago, Renegade343 said:

Funny thing with Borderlands: Guns in the same family, type, and level (e.g.: Level 13 Maliwan SMGs) have relatively small variance between each other, at least with white and green rarity. So it's not that big a problem in terms of RNG screwing you over.

Huh, I never really noticed, too much loot flying at my head to even notice the difference.

Borderlands is something I always wanted to do more research on, especially in terms of how with all the variables it managed to be semi balanced, though I'd imagine the level system is a core reason since it can compare the levels and decide what is stronger or weaker pretty easily.

...I also was the only one of my friends who favored Dahl weapons so I never was lacking loot.

[Cerikus]

1 hour ago, Space0ddity said:

ok sounds really grindy no thanks

well it would not be something that you would actively try to get, it would be just a bi product of normal playthrough

[Cerikus]

1 hour ago, Aldain said:

OH GOD NO.

The balance of weapons in this game is shaky as is, this isn't like Borderlands or Diablo where the game is built based on huge piles of variable stats.

They can barely keep the game from snapping in half with static weapons, I don't even want to imagine how utterly pathetic everything will wind up if you get a random weapon that has 200% the base damage that you can then slot a Riven into for 400% more damage on top of that.

well, you wouldn't be able to use rivens on these weapons and of course they couldn't be a massive upgrade like 200% dmg 

but yeah you are right, that they barely keep the balance, but it wouldn't be impossible to do I think..

[Mints]

2 hours ago, Cerikus said:

Do this, but to a big selection of the primaries, secondaries and melee weapons in the game.

So basically the exact same thing as Forge blueprints except even more annoying?

[WindigoTG]

Efff no.

One of the reasons I play this game is because it doesn't have this randomized weapon BS.

You get a weapon, you have a weapon, and it's up to you to mod it to be the best weapon you can make.

If kuva weapons and railjack parts won't be an isolated incidents and this cancer spreads throughout the game, then it probably will be my que to go and find something better to do with my life.

[kapn655321]

Repairing a weapon as a resource sink is a non-issue to long time players, but a crippling burden on new players.
They've gotta have all the new shinies we old timers get, but they're going to break their own backsides to do it, and feel miserable.
Miserable and resentful of yet another new, "Pay your way out of it is all," mechanic this year. ...been a lot of those lately.
Mixed feelings.

However, the idea you mentioned with the different schools having different attributes.. that peaks my interest.

[Xymos]

I agree but needs some tweaks

Let's not forget how WF mods worked before

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

2 hours ago, Viges said:

I actually thought it's a parody at first

I thought it was a parody and stopped reading about halfway through... is this guy serious?

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

34 minutes ago, Xymos said:

I agree but needs some tweaks

Let's not forget how WF mods worked before

Oh dear god please no

 

[Xymos]

47 minutes ago, (XB1)ECCHO SIERRA said:

Oh dear god please no

 

yessssssss

[(PSN)Herrwann69]

Prime, Wraith, Vandal, Prisma, Kuva.

[Vyra]

no thnx

kbye

[Megalomaniakaal]

Kitguns? No?

[vegetosayajin]

4 hours ago, Xymos said:

I agree but needs some tweaks

Let's not forget how WF mods worked before

I will save this! Thank you for sharing.

[(XBOX)Demon Intellect]

I'd honestly quit the game. 

[KittySkin]

Ill quit the game if that happens. One thing I loved aboit warframe was the lack of RNG stats.

I dont even use rivens because I hate them for that, if they start using this kind of mechanics, I will quit the game witjout any kind of hesitation.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

yeah... no. bad enough that you have to build some weapons in order to make others. people aren't loving the broken weapon system for Railjack from what I've seen, so if anything, they need to ease up on that.

[Tsukinoki]

Last I checked there is around 388 weapons, so please tell me: How stupid would the drop tables have to be to support this?

I mean you're looking at a ridiculously small chance to get what you want, especially since that number would be multiplied by 3 so we would actually have 1164 possible base drops (and mind you this isn't counting any Zaw/Kitgun parts beyond the main weapon part.  Adding in house variant kitgun grips or loaders would bloat this number even more).  Then you have the stat variance where only high rolls would be worth it.

So please tell me: Where are you going to shove another 1164 drops into this game where things have more than a 0.0001% chance to drop?

This is basically lich weaponry all over again except that you have such a S#&$ty chance of getting what you want that its closer to winning a lottery.
Want a skana variant?  Good luck!  Just keep grinding enemies until the 0.001% chance randomly hits skana!  And then hope that it has stats that are barely better than the base version or whatever version you have or you're just SOL and have to grind for another 0.001% chance!

Really the only saving grace for lich weaponry is that there are only 13, and TBH the bonus damage doesn't matter all that much in the end outside of super min-maxing.
Here though?  Yeah good luck.

And comparing it to Railjack is even more laughable.
As a matter of fact there are 2 enemy types in railjack that drop weapons/components.  Crewships and elite Outriders (minelayers).
Crewships drop Levan and Vidar weaponry, and Elite Outriders drop Zekti weaponry and components.
Further a given proxima can only drop a certain MK.  For example Earth only drops MK1, Saturn MK2 and Veil MK3.
This makes getting the weapons and components rather easy and you know what you're going to get from each one.
The only ones in the air are the Vidar and Levan components which largely come from mission completion, albiet rarely (2% for a given component).
Everything here has a fairly concise drop location and the number of components and weapons is limited.  There are 3 component types, and 5 weapon types that can drop, for a total of 9 component/house mixes and 15 weapon/house mixes at a given MK level, and each proxima drops only a single MK level.  And each enemy has only a portion of that.  Elite minelayers have 8 drops: 3 zekti components, 5 zekti weapons.  Crewships have 10 drops: 5 levan weapons and 5 vidar weapons, and the mission itself has 6 drops: 3 Levan and 3 Vidar components.

Compare this to your idea of adding 1164 drops into the game for people to grind for.
Yeah...good luck putting those anywhere with decent drop chances.|
You say "oh you'll get a weapon per mission!" and I just have to say "Good luck to even doing that!  Let alone getting the weapon/house you want!"

EDIT:
I just want to address the gameplay loop you forsee:

9 hours ago, Cerikus said:

This imho sustainable loop would be: play whatever you want -> get resources and broken weapons -> invest into a weapon you want to repair -> enjoy -> next weapon

You're missing one huge step here that is its own loop:
Run mission where weapon you want has stupidly low chance of dropping -> Don't get weapon -> Run mission where weapon you want has stupidly low chance of dropping -> Repeat for next dozen or so hours to hope for one drop of the weapon you want -> check to see if its the right house/stat level -> restart the entire loop because the chances that it is are so astronomically low that of course it isn't
???????
Get the weapon and house with the right stat values that its a small upgrade 
Finally have a chance to enjoy that weapon as you look at the next hundred hour grind for a the next weapon you want to get!

Edited December 18, 2019 by Tsukinoki

[Erwes]

Listen...I'm a dark souls fan so that speaks to me, but in Warframe ? it's quite too different to be some actual meaningful mechanic. If the opens worlds were more like actual open world (more immersive so for example to be able to access our arsenal and stuff, ect...) there could be a meaning but it should be really well thought out to not make it frustrating. 

But as you can see with the recent updates those last few years, the focus is in more grind, so more missions loops focus so no time for that...

Also you're right in a sense that there is others types of player in Warframe that really likes the game for different aspects than the grind (I really like the sandbox aspect and the lore) but it's quite a majority that are searching for those "contents" so it seems normal that it's where De is targeting their "content".... It's a vicious circle...

So the issue is bigger than that. There is a lot of possibilities for the game that would awesome (if they can make it works to begin with) and I have seen quite a few here but there is no way now that De changes their business plan for a minority that want "actual cool things"... 

Even if I think that they lost some players and make it less attractive for newcomers...