Pay to Play - Pay to Win

[Area_Of_Effect]

It happened recently while I was grinding for materials for the new Railjack game-mode. I found myself frustrated that after so many hours spent farming, despite finally clearing the Veil, finding the anomaly, then farming again, I still did not have the materials needed to repair the MK III parts I found. I can't even farm the veil with my own RJ, I did all of this on Public.

Thus, I told myself I'd buy a repair drone, only to realize afterwards what I had done. It's 50 plat. No big deal for most players, but that's not what made me pissed off at not only myself, but the game and DE. I've bought items for platinum before many times, but this time was different.

I've spent plat because I was too excited to wait for something to build in the foundry. I've spent plat because I thought the new prime Warframe (or an old one that was vaulted) looked cool and I wanted to get it instead of looking for relics; same for weapons. I've spent plat to get the riven that I wanted instead of hoping for the unlikely scenario that I'll get one in Sortie then hope to unveil the right one. I've done all of these without issue. What I've never done before until now, is pay to use a part I found in the game because it felt like the materials to build it were not dropping. It pissed me off entirely. 

I didn't buy a repair drone because I thought this part was cool, or vaulted, or I was excited, or because the build time was too long... I bought a repair drone just so I could be able to play the game. Just so I could use my own Railjack. 50 plat is no big deal, but the fact that this became my thought process; the fact that this is what grinding for so many hours made me think was what I had to do just to play the game, disgusts me.

Only after I bought this thing and used it on a part, (probably not even in the top 20 best drops of its kind) I realized I offered up money and bowed my head just so I can play and experience the new game-mode, advance, and use my own stuff. 

 

Disclaimer: I already know I'll receive a lot of slack for this from some of the player base so let me clarify something.

I have no problem with 'spending' plat or putting money into the game. What pissed me off was the reasoning behind it in this instance. 

Edited December 31, 2019 by Area_Of_Effect

[SpicyDinosaur]

How does this relate to your subject title though?

[Area_Of_Effect]

13 minutes ago, SpicyDinosaur said:

How does this relate to your subject title though?

Great question. It doesn't. 🙂

i just needed a title and it had to be something that wasn't triggering. When I think of something I'll change it. In fact... This is what I wanted the title to be. Check this out.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Area_Of_Effect

[SpicyDinosaur]

21 minutes ago, Area_Of_Effect said:

Great question. It doesn't. 🙂

i just needed a title and it had to be something that wasn't triggering. When I think of something I'll change it. In fact... This is what I wanted the title to be. Check this out.

Fair enough

[Mikaer88]

This is why I don't play RJ because of this kind of BS mechanic.

[844448]

I'm questioning your play style since the loot is scattered out there and you would have enough from preparing your railjack on earth if you loot the whole sector after doing the mission

[Volinus7]

Well, you should have known that Warframe is a mix of high fructose syrup, pRNGs, Habbo and skinner boxes. 

[Danjal777]

I'm gonna level with you here man, you don't even remotely have to buy these things.  You can literally research MkIII gear in your dojo.  Yes it takes time, but this update was never meant for you max it and shelve it in a week.  Building the Railjack alone takes a week.  Researching the teirs of equipment is another week.  Where you are failing is the reliance on the equipment and not on the avionics.  You need a good Hyperstrike, Hull Weave, and Bulkhead.   Boom.  Done and ready for the Veil.  With these three mods you will only be damaged significantly by the Crewships, which a Tenno is the best weapon to take those out. 

I bought four repair drones the first week it was out and build some MkII stuff because I was being impatient.  That was dumb and impulsive...but it happened and I moved on.  They have actually adressed the predatory nature of these things and plan to do something about them in the near future. 

[(PSN)ErydisTheLucario]

Warframe is not pay to win, I don't see why everyone keeps saying it is. Its on you for buying that repair drone, you don't need to, you just got impatient, it happens to everyone. But pay to win in this game just isn't something that happens, it doesn't inhibit others ability to play, and all it does it make you a better team mate, nothing more, we all more or less have the same stuff in the end. And the resources...bro I hate to break it to you, but if resources are a problem (like they were for me recently) then odds are you are not refining the materials you get after each mission. I think its stupid that we need to do that, but it is what it is...and what it is right now sucks. All this summed up...you got impatient and didn't now how materials are acquired through refinement, so you dropped plat on a drone. Nothin big, but it doesnt make it pay to win, if anything its pay to skip wait time.

Edited January 1, 2020 by (PS4)ErydisTheLucario

[Area_Of_Effect]

6 hours ago, 844448 said:

I'm questioning your play style since the loot is scattered out there and you would have enough from preparing your railjack on earth if you loot the whole sector after doing the mission

I've done just as you mentioned. The issue with that is, to truly farm the area I'd end up doing 45mins to 1hr long runs per mission solo. About 30-40 minutes if I get a squad willing to stay. Even with that, the yields on earth are maybe around 1K with this method. 1K per hour from flying around a huge map slashing and shooting rocks.. exhilarating.. Which means I'd take, at minimum 17 hours solo to afford just one MK III weapon's repair. Even if using the more favourable 30minutes estimate.... That's 8.5hrs for one part. Repeat that for side turrets, shields, engines, reactor, and we're looking at a total minimum time of 42.5hrs to afford to repair one of each part at MK III. Now we have to factor in the numerous hours we also have to spend looking for those MK III parts in the Veil at a <2% drop rate plus RNG on the stats on those drops. All of this is still ignoring the fact that you'll probably buy your dojo research weapons to at least get pass Saturn and into the Veil if you hope to use your own ship at all instead of joining someone else's squad... Without Plat, we're probably talking 70 straight hours minimum to get our Railjacks up to par. 🤷🏾‍♂️

[Area_Of_Effect]

1 hour ago, Danjal777 said:

I'm gonna level with you here man, you don't even remotely have to buy these things.  You can literally research MkIII gear in your dojo.  Yes it takes time, but this update was never meant for you max it and shelve it in a week.  Building the Railjack alone takes a week.  Researching the teirs of equipment is another week.  Where you are failing is the reliance on the equipment and not on the avionics.  You need a good Hyperstrike, Hull Weave, and Bulkhead.   Boom.  Done and ready for the Veil.  With these three mods you will only be damaged significantly by the Crewships, which a Tenno is the best weapon to take those out. 

I bought four repair drones the first week it was out and build some MkII stuff because I was being impatient.  That was dumb and impulsive...but it happened and I moved on.  They have actually adressed the predatory nature of these things and plan to do something about them in the near future. 

I spent most of my time in pubs farming, so I actually have acquired what we could call the 'mandatory' avionics. I'm still missing some on the same tier as the Black Hole ability, but I'm covered for the most part. I don't want to dismiss your point, and I'm glad you're quite civil, but even with those avionics, it doesn't matter if they enemies don't die. As for the dojo stuff, that's what I'm using with Hyperstrike, and the issue persists. The veils enemies heal so I won't even discuss how that went, but Saturn feels doable to a certain extent.

I figured that they'd prefer if we didn't finish this in a week, but at the same time, there wasn't much there. The only reason we couldn't finish this in a week was because of the resource barrier. I'm not even trying to be OP an going around blowing up everything in the Veil. I like the challenge of having to chase them down sometimes, but the weapons I need to do that are either wayyy too expensive or 50plat..

[Area_Of_Effect]

1 hour ago, (PS4)ErydisTheLucario said:

Warframe is not pay to win, I don't see why everyone keeps saying it is. Its on you for buying that repair drone, you don't need to, you just got impatient, it happens to everyone. But pay to win in this game just isn't something that happens, it doesn't inhibit others ability to play, and all it does it make you a better team mate, nothing more, we all more or less have the same stuff in the end. And the resources...bro I hate to break it to you, but if resources are a problem (like they were for me recently) then odds are you are not refining the materials you get after each mission. I think its stupid that we need to do that, but it is what it is...and what it is right now sucks. All this summed up...you got impatient and didn't now how materials are acquired through refinement, so you dropped plat on a drone. Nothin big, but it doesnt make it pay to win, if anything its pay to skip wait time.

I feel like some of what I said was glossed over.. but please let me address a few things. Firstly, I'd love if it were only pay to skip, but that's not the issue here. Rn it's 'pay to use this now' or go through the resource sink. Secondly, yes, I know what refining is. I don't get why it's assumed that I don't, especially since refining does not give you Titanium, which is the most expensive resource sink for parts. It's not used for revolite or missiles or flux, ect. Either way, I use the feature consistently after each mission. Thirdly, I can't grasp how me buying a drone after dozens of hours of farming, and then still lacking raw materials for repair, is somehow me being "impatient". 

"Pay to skip" is having the materials available and skipping the 12 hour wait time. That's totally fine.

"Pay to Play" is when the materials aren't reasonably available to the point that repairing multiple parts is so absurd you cave in and literally pay the game to fix it for you. This is not okay. I do hope to see a change.

Edited January 1, 2020 by Area_Of_Effect

[844448]

54 minutes ago, Area_Of_Effect said:

I've done just as you mentioned. The issue with that is, to truly farm the area I'd end up doing 45mins to 1hr long runs per mission solo. About 30-40 minutes if I get a squad willing to stay. Even with that, the yields on earth are maybe around 1K with this method. 1K per hour from flying around a huge map slashing and shooting rocks.. exhilarating.. Which means I'd take, at minimum 17 hours solo to afford just one MK III weapon's repair. Even if using the more favourable 30minutes estimate.... That's 8.5hrs for one part. Repeat that for side turrets, shields, engines, reactor, and we're looking at a total minimum time of 42.5hrs to afford to repair one of each part at MK III. Now we have to factor in the numerous hours we also have to spend looking for those MK III parts in the Veil at a <2% drop rate plus RNG on the stats on those drops. All of this is still ignoring the fact that you'll probably buy your dojo research weapons to at least get pass Saturn and into the Veil if you hope to use your own ship at all instead of joining someone else's squad... Without Plat, we're probably talking 70 straight hours minimum to get our Railjacks up to par. 🤷🏾‍♂️

45 minutes for 1k? I don't think you've looked hard enough because I can net 2k to 3k in that time and it's just flying at posit cluster, the first mission on earth

[Keiyadan]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb Area_Of_Effect:

I have no problem with 'spending' plat or putting money into the game. What pissed me off was the reasoning behind it in this instance. 

well as i see your point i only can say my RJ was doing fine as i reached the veil maybe because i had loot luck since i farmt ressitence gear first and it took me some time to get there or whatever i never saw myself in need of buying a repair drone just to get my railjack rdy

Edited January 1, 2020 by Keiyadan

[Area_Of_Effect]

7 hours ago, 844448 said:

45 minutes for 1k? I don't think you've looked hard enough because I can net 2k to 3k in that time and it's just flying at posit cluster, the first mission on earth

I'll take your word for it. Haven't seen similar results. Even with your results though, it's still a long af time for basic materials you need. 

[Area_Of_Effect]

6 hours ago, Keiyadan said:

well as i see your point i only can say my RJ was doing fine as i reached the veil maybe because i had loot luck since i farmt ressitence gear first and it took me some time to get there or whatever i never saw myself in need of buying a repair drone just to get my railjack rdy

Loot luck? I envy you. I remember getting excited when I first started getting MK 2 and 3 parts and collecting a bunch, scrapping some, ect. Only to find out after checking stats that a lot of them were weaker than what I got from the Clan. 

[(PSN)ErydisTheLucario]

8 hours ago, Area_Of_Effect said:

I feel like some of what I said was glossed over.. but please let me address a few things. Firstly, I'd love if it were only pay to skip, but that's not the issue here. Rn it's 'pay to use this now' or go through the resource sink. Secondly, yes, I know what refining is. I don't get why it's assumed that I don't, especially since refining does not give you Titanium, which is the most expensive resource sink for parts. It's not used for revolite or missiles or flux, ect. Either way, I use the feature consistently after each mission. Thirdly, I can't grasp how me buying a drone after dozens of hours of farming, and then still lacking raw materials for repair, is somehow me being "impatient". 

"Pay to skip" is having the materials available and skipping the 12 hour wait time. That's totally fine.

"Pay to Play" is when the materials aren't reasonably available to the point that repairing multiple parts is so absurd you cave in and literally pay the game to fix it for you. This is not okay. I do hope to see a change.

Plain and simple guy, you got impatient, didn't want to farm, and bought a drone, impatient. Now brother, I had the same problem last week regarding titanium, and I didn't feel the need to buy a drone. All I did was finish missions, and scavenge all the asteroids I could to get titanium, its not difficult, just time consuming. Pay to skip and pay to use this now are essentially still saying the same thing, once again, I fail to see how this equates to pay to win. Nobody forced you to buy a drone, you were just impatient. Farming titanium isn't hard, and again, nobody forced you to buy a drone to do it. I'm sorry guy, but this all just looks like you couldn't be bothered to farm resources after each RJ mission and bought a drone to speed things up. Its not a bad thing bviously, its just not pay to win, but I do agree its pay to skip. Which again, nobody is forcing you to do, and again I kind of agree that it still needs a change...among other things in RJ.

[o0Despair0o]

And that's just one more reason I'm not going to touch RJ until DE fix their sh*t.

 

I worked my butt off yesterday to get the 5 eidolon shards with those useless randoms required for the paracesis (since, from what I've read, you need that thing to trigger the quest from that anomaly thing) and sold tons of prime parts I wanted to keep just to be able to craft that damn sword.

Now I need to wait for DE to make this nonsense Railjack playable (also adding NPC crews because I don't trust people to do their damn job on my ship) so that I can farm this stupid anomaly thing.

 

This Shedu better be frickin worth it.

[Area_Of_Effect]

14 hours ago, o0Despair0o said:

And that's just one more reason I'm not going to touch RJ until DE fix their sh*t.

 

I worked my butt off yesterday to get the 5 eidolon shards with those useless randoms required for the paracesis (since, from what I've read, you need that thing to trigger the quest from that anomaly thing) and sold tons of prime parts I wanted to keep just to be able to craft that damn sword.

Now I need to wait for DE to make this nonsense Railjack playable (also adding NPC crews because I don't trust people to do their damn job on my ship) so that I can farm this stupid anomaly thing.

 

This Shedu better be frickin worth it.

The Shedu is a cool weapon in terms of looks, infinite ammo and it's AOE reload blast, but in terms of damage it's not winning any rewards without a riven. It definitely is a capable weapon, but don't expect to be stunned. You'll probably still like it though. It's a cool weapon as I said.

As for the quest... I'm sorry to say, but it may have been better to just watch it on YouTube instead of giving your primes to baro. It's pretty much a long cutscene so no rush really unless they tell us later that "Erra" triggers some new Railjack content or starts the New War.

Sorry you had to take on this stress. I feel you.