It's time Forma was Reviewed

[Drasiel]

Since forma was introduced in update 8 (May 23rd 2013) 7 years ago the method for obtaining forma and the time for building it have remained the same while the need for forma has ballooned exponentially.

Just this year alone we have had the added forma costs of:

• 65 forma to master 13 lich weapons
• 1 forma per weapon for weapon exilus and often an additional forma to fix the native polarity

and we already have the burden of the following:

• 41 forma to build every room in the dojo once
• 69 (nice) forma for weapons
• 5 forma to master the paracesis
• 4 forma per aura forma
• 1 forma for djin
• 2 forma per exilus adapter
• 1 forma per greater lens

Then there is the forma for completing weapons and warframe builds on top of that. Not everyone is going to build or forma everything but we now have:

• 70 warframes
• 388 weapons
• 24 companions
• 17 sentinel weapons
• 5 archwings
• 19 archweapons
• 23 modular weapons
• 7 kdrive/moa

Forma needs more locations where it can be found, drastically reduced craft times or both. The game has gotten bigger with more and more items and forma sinks. It's time forma was given a good hard look.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Drasiel
forgot the paracesis

[GnarlsDarkley]

Here's a secret. But don't tell anyone.

Spoiler

35p for 3 built ones in the market

 

[Drasiel]

2 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

Here's a secret. But don't tell anyone.

  Reveal hidden contents

35p for 3 built ones in the market

 

assuming you built everything only added one forma to every item in game, mastered all lich weapons and paracesis, built all dojo rooms and only ever built one lens, one aura forma, one exilus adapter, and one weapon exilus adapter that would be about 8656 plat or about or about 417 canadian dollars without a coupon.

[(PSN)Quantaminum]

Honestly, I think a lot of items shouldn't require forma at all to craft.

I can roll with Paracesis requiring 5 formas, because it is an important story-related weapon. Lich weapons, on the other hand, are just a bunch of random weapons with tweaked numbers.

I don't mind putting 6+ formas in weapons/warframes I enjoy, only to use them at their full (meme) potential, however being forced to put formas in weapons I don't intend to use after leveling is just bad and a waste of formas. Feels like a (bad) attempt to extend the Lich Update longevity.

[(XBOX)I semideum]

27 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

Since forma was introduced in update 8 (May 23rd 2013) 7 years ago the method for obtaining forma and the time for building it have remained the same while the need for forma has ballooned exponentially.

Just this year alone we have had the added forma costs of:

• 65 forma to master 13 lich weapons
• 1 forma per weapon for weapon exilus and often an additional forma to fix the native polarity

and we already have the burden of the following:

• 41 forma to build every room in the dojo once
• 69 (nice) forma for weapons
• 5 forma to master the paracesis
• 4 forma per aura forma
• 1 forma for djin
• 2 forma per exilus adapter
• 1 forma per greater lens

Then there is the forma for completing weapons and warframe builds on top of that. Not everyone is going to build or forma everything but we now have:

• 70 warframes
• 388 weapons
• 24 companions
• 17 sentinel weapons
• 5 archwings
• 19 archweapons
• 23 modular weapons
• 7 kdrive/moa

Forma needs more locations where it can be found, drastically reduced craft times or both. The game has gotten bigger with more and more items and forma sinks. It's time forma was given a good hard look.

I've been saying for the longest that we should at the very least have to ability to craft in bundles. If I've got 25 forma and want to craft all and wait the 24hrs then I'd be cool with that. Or maybe limit it to 5 at a time Idk but yes it's pretty annoying and mostly where all my plat goes. 

[Keiyadan]

Well i have to say i have no problems getting forma and they pile up well i see that for a new player it looks like alot but to be fair noone should say i have to grind now 1000 formas so i have them when i need them the point is if you need them you can easyly get them it is all a point of patience like a forma a day keeps the mountain away that you want to have.

 

i mean it is like my point with railjack to max out all 5 trees i will have to do in the worst case do 1200 mission form now so i would not do them in a chain i do some here some there and do other stuff

Edited January 2, 2020 by Keiyadan

[Rawbeard]

you are overthinking this.

[taiiat]

should the Timegating on Forma be reduced? probably. is it likely to happen since Forma is the primary source of income for the game other than Prime Access? not really.

[Drasiel]

17 minutes ago, Keiyadan said:

Well i have to say i have no problems getting forma and they pile up well i see that for a new player it looks like alot but to be fair noone should say i have to grind now 1000 formas so i have them when i need them the point is if you need them you can easyly get them it is all a point of patience like a forma a day keeps the mountain away that you want to have.

 

i mean it is like my point with railjack to max out all 5 trees i will have to do in the worst case do 1200 mission form now so i would not do them in a chain i do some here some there and do other stuff

I've been playing since u7. I can never keep enough forma built anymore. Exilus, lich weapons, rivens all demand additional forma to use and when completing the build on one weapon can take 5 days worth of waiting just for forma to finish building it becomes rapidly frustrating. 

 

20 minutes ago, Rawbeard said:

you are overthinking this.

Even without the hard numbers it's easy enough to see our necessary forma investments have more than tripled.

[Keiyadan]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb Drasiel:

I've been playing since u7. I can never keep enough forma built anymore. Exilus, lich weapons, rivens all demand additional forma to use and when completing the build on one weapon can take 5 days worth of waiting just for forma to finish building it becomes rapidly frustrating. 

well i play since 3. Januar 2014  that is what now let me look ~u10 if i remember it right and im sitting on 150 forma and im not even realy farming them and i not realy have buyed alot of them most of them are build by me or some of them i found just build because of rare containers i found

Edited January 2, 2020 by Keiyadan

[(PSN)ErydisTheLucario]

There is not 70 warframes, thats absolutely ridiculous, there are only 42.

[Keiyadan]

vor 4 Minuten schrieb (PS4)ErydisTheLucario:

There is not 70 warframes, thats absolutely ridiculous, there are only 42.

well you get 70 if you count every prime, non prime and umbra version as a seperate one

Edited January 2, 2020 by Keiyadan

[(PSN)ErydisTheLucario]

1 minute ago, Keiyadan said:

well you get 70 if you count every prime non prime and umbra version as a seperate one

I assumed we weren't lol, my bad.

[Drasiel]

21 minutes ago, Keiyadan said:

well i play since 3. Januar 2014  that is what now let me look ~u10 if i remember it right and im sitting on 150 forma and im not even realy farming them and i not realy have buyed alot of them most of them are build by me or some of them i found just build because of rare containers i found

And yet I am actively farming them and building them daily even through the mobile app so I don't lose as much time in between. Clearly our forma usage diverges due to our play habits. 

 

12 minutes ago, (PS4)ErydisTheLucario said:

I assumed we weren't lol, my bad.

Normally I don't forma the vanilla frames but considering it can be years before new frames are primed if you really like a frame it's an additional forma sink while you wait for the "better" version. What could alleviate that is if frames had a similar mechanic to lich weapons where if you wanted you could consume the frame and transfer the forma. 

[Keiyadan]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Drasiel:

And yet I am actively farming them and building them daily even through the mobile app so I don't lose as much time in between. Clearly our forma usage diverges due to our play habits. 

that is maybe it there is only one way i just remebert that you can hope for that The plague star will come back soon and farm build formas there

[Rawbeard]

36 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

the hard numbers

those numbers are messing you up. you are overthinking this. relax. forma is fine

[Jiminez_Burial]

27 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

I've been playing since u7. I can never keep enough forma built anymore. Exilus, lich weapons, rivens all demand additional forma to use and when completing the build on one weapon can take 5 days worth of waiting just for forma to finish building it becomes rapidly frustrating. 

I've been playing since the same time and I've never had to, or felt I had to farm forma nor have I purchased any.  I've min-maxed every piece of unique gear (Primes, Prismas, Mara, Wraith, Vandal etc, even ones I don't use), have min-maxed every Warframe and then the Prime variant of each, have put the 5 forma into every +10 rank item apart from 3 Kuva Weapons I don't have.  I have min-maxed 3 of my Archwings and 5 Archwing Weapons.  I have 6 forma in each of my Kavats and Kubrows as well as around 10 forma between my sentinels, and I have have even put 3 forma into my K-Drive for goodness sake.  I've built a fully kitted out Dojo (1 of each lab, all of the halls, 6 large gardens, 2 small gardens, 2 duel rooms, 3 inspiration halls, 3 elevators, 3 obstacle courses, a trophy room, Crimson Branch, observatory and a dry dock, 30-40 reactors and 20-30 connectors) 95% purely with my own resources (I think maybe 3 forma were contributed by someone else really early on).  And I'm currently sitting on 75 built forma.

And honestly if you're waiting for forma to build before you're able to install any in new gear then there was almost definitely times where you had a forma bp and just didn't bother crafting it.  Forma is fine where it is and to move it into more areas as a reward would only serve to annoy many of us who see a forma reward as the equivalent of a 5,000 credit cache reward.

[gluih]

1. There probably is a huge difference in perception between new players and veterans, where veterans, who did their homework and built a forma every day for the last who knows how many years, are now sitting on a huge pile, that they have no idea what to do with and for new players the point, where they can bank up some forma is nowhere near in sight.

2. I would like the time to build a forma to be reduced slightly, so you can actually build a forma every day and don't lose at least a few seconds or even more if you aren't online or using the app at the right time. Something between 5 minutes and 1 hour.

3. I think removing forma from build requirements would be a good thing. This would help new players a lot of catch up.

4. Maybe a few forma blueprints and built forma could be added to the early progression in some way. This would be done in a way, that is not worth the time for a veteran. This way new players could get their foundry busy with forma production earlier and also have some to actually use without worrying as much, that they might want to save it for a better weapon/ warframe.

[gluih]

59 minutes ago, Keiyadan said:

well i play since 3. Januar 2014  that is what now let me look ~u10 if i remember it right and im sitting on 150 forma and im not even realy farming them and i not realy have buyed alot of them most of them are build by me or some of them i found just build because of rare containers i found

 

26 minutes ago, Rawbeard said:

those numbers are messing you up. you are overthinking this. relax. forma is fine

 

13 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

I've been playing since the same time and I've never had to, or felt I had to farm forma nor have I purchased any.  I've min-maxed every piece of unique gear (Primes, Prismas, Mara, Wraith, Vandal etc, even ones I don't use), have min-maxed every Warframe and then the Prime variant of each, have put the 5 forma into every +10 rank item apart from 3 Kuva Weapons I don't have.  I have min-maxed 3 of my Archwings and 5 Archwing Weapons.  I have 6 forma in each of my Kavats and Kubrows as well as around 10 forma between my sentinels, and I have have even put 3 forma into my K-Drive for goodness sake.  I've built a fully kitted out Dojo (1 of each lab, all of the halls, 6 large gardens, 2 small gardens, 2 duel rooms, 3 inspiration halls, 3 elevators, 3 obstacle courses, a trophy room, Crimson Branch, observatory and a dry dock, 30-40 reactors and 20-30 connectors) 95% purely with my own resources (I think maybe 3 forma were contributed by someone else really early on).  And I'm currently sitting on 75 built forma.

And honestly if you're waiting for forma to build before you're able to install any in new gear then there was almost definitely times where you had a forma bp and just didn't bother crafting it.  Forma is fine where it is and to move it into more areas as a reward would only serve to annoy many of us who see a forma reward as the equivalent of a 5,000 credit cache reward.

Do you think it's reasonable to expect new players to finance the game for the "veterans"? That just isn't a good long term solution.

[Faulcun]

1 hour ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

I've been playing since the same time and I've never had to, or felt I had to farm forma nor have I purchased any.  I've min-maxed every piece of unique gear (Primes, Prismas, Mara, Wraith, Vandal etc, even ones I don't use), have min-maxed every Warframe and then the Prime variant of each, have put the 5 forma into every +10 rank item apart from 3 Kuva Weapons I don't have.  I have min-maxed 3 of my Archwings and 5 Archwing Weapons.  I have 6 forma in each of my Kavats and Kubrows as well as around 10 forma between my sentinels, and I have have even put 3 forma into my K-Drive for goodness sake.  I've built a fully kitted out Dojo (1 of each lab, all of the halls, 6 large gardens, 2 small gardens, 2 duel rooms, 3 inspiration halls, 3 elevators, 3 obstacle courses, a trophy room, Crimson Branch, observatory and a dry dock, 30-40 reactors and 20-30 connectors) 95% purely with my own resources (I think maybe 3 forma were contributed by someone else really early on).  And I'm currently sitting on 75 built forma.

And honestly if you're waiting for forma to build before you're able to install any in new gear then there was almost definitely times where you had a forma bp and just didn't bother crafting it.  Forma is fine where it is and to move it into more areas as a reward would only serve to annoy many of us who see a forma reward as the equivalent of a 5,000 credit cache reward.

before these kuva weapons, i was sitting on 100+ bps, and maintained 30 built forma. Any veteran knows where the majority of them came from.

The old tower keys didnt give you a choice of reward, but you could farm the crap out of the endless missions. You got what you got, and running 1hr+ survivals on T3/T4 keys would reward you with a handful of forma on 1 key.

That system has changed now to the new relic system. Granted you have a choice in the reward, but between the need for ducats, and prime parts for anybody who isnt a veteran... forma can easily be passed up for the rarer items.

At the very least, I think forma should be in nightwave rewards alongside the reactors and catalysts.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Faulcun

[Jiminez_Burial]

49 minutes ago, gluih said:

Do you think it's reasonable to expect new players to finance the game for the "veterans"? That just isn't a good long term solution.

And do you think it's reasonable for people to want absolutely everything min-maxed the moment they realise what a forma is and what it does?  No, getting all that gear is (and should be) a long term goal.  What I was saying was that not only can I keep up with content releases while never having to dedicate any time towards obtaining forma (so surely someone who farms for it specifically can earn more than enough), but I can fund all the forma required for a clan of (currently) 30 people.  In regards to the dojo, a veteran is funding the entire clan side of the game for 29 other people.  The only thing change I would see as reasonable regarding forma would be to reduce the build time by 5-10 minutes, but that's getting pedantic.

[Jiminez_Burial]

4 minutes ago, Faulcun said:

before these kuva weapons, i was sitting on 100+ bps, and maintained 30 built forma. Any veteran knows where the majority of them came from.

The old tower keys didnt give you a choice of reward, but you could farm the crap out of the endless missions. You got what you got, and running 1hr+ survivals on T3/T4 keys would reward you with a handful of forma on 1 key.

Maybe that's where you got them from but I never ran too many defence/survival keys let alone running them for an hour at a time (I just got bored).  Whereas some people ran a key the moment they got one, at the time the relics were introduced I have over 400 keys that I hadn't used with the majority of them being the endless missions.  And again I never specifically farmed the keys either.  I can also judge the forma requirement from less of a Veterans perspective because I have started multiple alternate accounts (most being MR 20+).  People are just impatient in regards to obtaining things.

[gluih]

5 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

And do you think it's reasonable for people to want absolutely everything min-maxed the moment they realise what a forma is and what it does?

No, that would be ridiculous.
My question on the other hand is something, that is way closer to something, that is actually happening in the game. I don't know how you do it, but I got to the point, where I never pay anything for the game and if I need platinum, I just sell a vaulted warframe set. Whenever I did pay anything in the past, it wasn't because I had to, but because I felt like the fun I had while playing actually was worth paying for it. And of course it would have been for cosmetics. Right now the only way to get money out of someone like me is to make an amazing prime accessory pack. I don't know what your estimation is, but I would expect quite a lot of players to be in a similar situation and I don't know if the prime accessories, that those players buy are enough to keep the game running.

5 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

No, getting all that gear is (and should be) a long term goal.  What I was saying was that not only can I keep up with content releases while never having to dedicate any time towards obtaining forma (so surely someone who farms for it specifically can earn more than enough), but I can fund all the forma required for a clan of (currently) 30 people.  In regards to the dojo, a veteran is funding the entire clan side of the game for 29 other people.  The only thing change I would see as reasonable regarding forma would be to reduce the build time by 5-10 minutes, but that's getting pedantic.

Yes no veteran is going to have a problem with forma. That doesn't address the issue, that new players aren't in the same situation. How much time do you think is reasonable for a new player to catch up? How many years(because that's what we are talking about here) should it take a new player to get to the point, where they can just max out everything without worrying about their resources?

13 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

I can also judge the forma requirement from less of a Veterans perspective because I have started multiple alternate accounts (most being MR 20+).  People are just impatient in regards to obtaining things.

Are you actually getting and maxing out every single warframe and most of the good/ fun weapons on those accounts? You do realize, that your investment and patience are going to be very different, when not playing your main account?

[Jiminez_Burial]

33 minutes ago, gluih said:

Yes no veteran is going to have a problem with forma. That doesn't address the issue, that new players aren't in the same situation. How much time do you think is reasonable for a new player to catch up? How many years(because that's what we are talking about here) should it take a new player to get to the point, where they can just max out everything without worrying about their resources?

Considering the game has been out for 7 years, I would say around 15-18 months would be a reasonable period of time to go from newbie to someone who doesn't really have to worry about their resources.  And to "max out everything" is a stupid way to go about things.  I only max everything I do because I have nothing else in the game to do (less so with the launch of RJ).  No a more realistic goal would be to min-max a few of each weapon type (Rifles, Snipers, Glaives, Long Swords, Heavy Blades etc) with one for raw performance and some others for entertainment value.  Of course a completionist is going to require far more time than someone of a standard persuasion (someone who wants all of the practically distinct options available to them) in order to reach their goals.

41 minutes ago, gluih said:

Are you actually getting and maxing out every single warframe and most of the good/ fun weapons on those accounts? You do realize, that your investment and patience are going to be very different, when not playing your main account?

Yeah, I'm looking at those alternate accounts as I would my primary account in every way other than cosmetics.  I min-max and never sell the unique items and I keep all the weapons that interest me.  As I said in the above paragraph, I started these accounts because I ran out of stuff to do on my main so of course I'm not going to have an impatient mindset just because they're alt accounts.  The goal of them was to have something else to do, so why would I not do everything on them?

[gluih]

3 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

Considering the game has been out for 7 years, I would say around 15-18 months would be a reasonable period of time to go from newbie to someone who doesn't really have to worry about their resources.  And to "max out everything" is a stupid way to go about things.  I only max everything I do because I have nothing else in the game to do (less so with the launch of RJ).  No a more realistic goal would be to min-max a few of each weapon type (Rifles, Snipers, Glaives, Long Swords, Heavy Blades etc) with one for raw performance and some others for entertainment value.  Of course a completionist is going to require far more time than someone of a standard persuasion (someone who wants all of the practically distinct options available to them) in order to reach their goals.

Sounds like we can agree on what a realistic goal is. I would argue, that you should be able to get to a point, where you have a good build for all warframes and most weapons you would want to use, within one year. Of course that depends on how much you are playing and when exactly you think you are at a satisfying point. It would be interesting to see a detailed calculation with a list of all the warframes and weapons, that would be used, along with how many forma would be required to max each of them out. I honestly don't care enough about this to actually make such a list. We could then see how something like removing forma from the blueprints would affect the situation.

3 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

Yeah, I'm looking at those alternate accounts as I would my primary account in every way other than cosmetics.  I min-max and never sell the unique items and I keep all the weapons that interest me.  As I said in the above paragraph, I started these accounts because I ran out of stuff to do on my main so of course I'm not going to have an impatient mindset just because they're alt accounts.  The goal of them was to have something else to do, so why would I not do everything on them?

My point was just, that it is very easy for you to tell a new player to be patient, when you know what it takes to get through this situation and you can always go back to your main for new content or if you feel like doing endgame stuff. Good to hear, that we are on the same page here.