Some Scarlet Spear numbers and speculation based on Devstream 140

[LithiumRose]

DISCLAIMER: The numbers and subsequent analysis thereof are based on what was shown in Devstream 140, and therefore speculative and subject to change. I make no authoritative claims about anything ever.

I'm stuck at home, bored, and off this week, so I went back to Devstream 140 to see if I could glean any more information. And I did!

To recap, the ground portion of Scarlet Spear has Tenno incapacitating Sentient Condrix units and scanning them with Oplink devices to derive kill codes, which are then uploaded to teams on the space side. The more oplinks deployed (one per Tenno), the faster the scan goes. The ground mission is endless, with scaling levels and rewards the longer you go. We didn't see much of the space side, so we don't have as much information about how things work on that side of things.

On stream, Rebb completed two Condrix scans, for a total of 45 points. Watching slowly, it appears each Condrix provides 3 kill codes, one at 33% scan progress, one at 66%, and one at 100%. On the first Condrix, each kill code increased her score by 5, for 15 points. On the second, each code was worth 10 points, for 30 total and 45 cumulative.

Based on that, I am speculating that each additional Condrix in a single run is worth 15 points more than the previous one, or a cumulative +5 per kill code. Under that scaling system, three Condrices(?) would give 90 total points, four 150, five 225, and so on.

After the ground portion, we can see that points earned in mission translate 1:1 to Scarlet Credits. Rebb had 60 before the ground mission, earned 45 points, and had 105 afterwards.

We also know the (again, subject to change) costs of some of the items in Little Duck's store:

Rank 5 common arcanes (Tempo, Consequence, Momentum, Ice, Nullifier, Velocity) - 250 Scarlet Credits (or 6 Condrices in one run)
Rank 5 uncommon arcanes (Velocity was the only one shown) - 500 Scarlet Credits (8 Condrices in one run)
Clan Sigils (2 out of 3, didn't see the other one's price) - 1000 Scarlet Credits (12 Condrices in one run)
Basmu Blueprint - 2000 Scarlet Credits (16 Condrices in one run)
Ceti Lacera Blueprint - 3000 Scarlet Credits (20 Condrices in one run)
Stance Forma Blueprint - 5000 Scarlet Credits (26 Condrices in one run!)

We don't yet have any examples of the costs of rarer arcanes, but if they follow the same pattern as the ones shown, I'd think rares would be 1000 Scarlet Credits each and legendaries 2000. Again, this is all subject to change and is not final, but I found it interesting enough to be worth sharing.

[(NSW)Sniperfox47]

The fact that worthless stance aura cost more than the Ceti Lacera is indication enough that those prices and scaling are not final. Stance aura don't fix the problem with stances that makes people only use specific ones, and that issue is not that the slots are polarized wrong. Most stances are just not worth using because a different stance is objectively better.

 

Honestly the rest of this seems reasonable, although I expect there will be a cap on the credits per condrix. ABCCCCCC... seems the most likely to me, but who knows.

[Foo_Prime]

8 minutes ago, (NSW)Sniperfox47 said:

although I expect there will be a cap on the credits per condrix. ABCCCCCC... seems the most likely to me, but who knows.

This^^

I would be extremely surprised if Condrix points scaled forever. No reward in WF scales like that.

/Foo

Edited March 19, 2020 by Foo_Prime

[Ikyr0]

Edit

Edited March 19, 2020 by Ikyr0

[(NSW)Sniperfox47]

Just now, Ikyr0 said:

Those prices make me sad. You need 21 arcanes to max one out. Wtf.

To be fair, arcanes are supposed to be rare late game items. This isn't supposed to be a way to quickly acquire and max every arcane or else they'd immediately lose their value.

[Ikyr0]

Just now, (NSW)Sniperfox47 said:

To be fair, arcanes are supposed to be rare late game items. This isn't supposed to be a way to quickly acquire and max every arcane or else they'd immediately lose their value.

I missed that he wrote rank 5. I retract what I said, it's not too bad.

[LithiumRose]

21 minutes ago, (NSW)Sniperfox47 said:

The fact that worthless stance aura cost more than the Ceti Lacera is indication enough that those prices and scaling are not final. Stance aura don't fix the problem with stances that makes people only use specific ones, and that issue is not that the slots are polarized wrong. Most stances are just not worth using because a different stance is objectively better.

Honestly, Stance Forma seems to me like something you slap on your very favorite melee just because and then forget about it. I might farm one or two, but it's not a priority for me.

22 minutes ago, (NSW)Sniperfox47 said:

Honestly the rest of this seems reasonable, although I expect there will be a cap on the credits per condrix. ABCCCCCC... seems the most likely to me, but who knows.

 

14 minutes ago, Foo_Prime said:

I would be extremely surprised if Condrix points scaled forever. No reward in WF scales like that.

That makes a lot of sense. Under infinite scaling it would be way too easy to knock off rank 5 arcanes.

[Miser_able]

27 minutes ago, (NSW)Sniperfox47 said:

 worthless stance aura 

It may seem worthless to you, but it is something I've seen requested ever since aura forma were introduced, so apparently there are those who care. 

[(NSW)Sniperfox47]

3 minutes ago, Miser_able said:

It may seem worthless to you, but it is something I've seen requested ever since aura forma were introduced, so apparently there are those who care. 

I mean worthless in a objective sense. It does not exist to solve a problem in the game.

Aura forma are at least useful because there are concievable situations where you may want to use a different Aura for loot radar or a different enemy type, especially now that CP has is no longer objectively the best option in organized groups.

On the other hand all that aura forma give you the option of doing is making a weapon objectively worse. You now have the option to switch out to a stance with slower attacks, attacks that don't have as good innate proc chances, or that have worse damage modifiers on them.

[Foo_Prime]

4 minutes ago, Miser_able said:

It may seem worthless to you, but it is something I've seen requested ever since aura forma were introduced, so apparently there are those who care. 

I don't believe you need more than a couple of these. If you do, there's something wrong with you.

They should forget about the TOTALLY WORTHLESS stance formas and instead give us something valuable like, Umbral formas.

I find none of these rewards interesting. I'll farm the BPs, and then forget about it. I can't even imagine (according to history) how buggy this whole thing is gonna be. Good thing, I don't need any of the arcanes. But, imagine if an Umbral forma was a reward in Scarlet. It would be the most farmed event in the history of WF, by far.

/Foo

[(PSN)robotwars7]

22 minutes ago, Miser_able said:

It may seem worthless to you, but it is something I've seen requested ever since aura forma were introduced, so apparently there are those who care. 

even from an economic standpoint, Stance Forma makes no sense:

let's say for example you want to use a Stance forma on a weapon because you prefer stance X over stance Y. you can either spend 4 Forma to then make a stance forma (taking other build costs and crafting time into account, and if you have less than 4 formas you need to wait 24 hours for each one you need to be crafted), to then put on that stance forma and be able to use Stance X, which you prefer.

or you can use 1 forma to polarize the stance slot to the polarity of Stance X, and cut out the middleman entirely. you only have to wait 24 hours for that one forma to craft, assuming you don't have it already and aren't willing to purchase Forma with platinum at any point.

literally the ONLY advantage with Stance Forma is being able to switch stances on the fly without it affecting mod costs, but even then, there's no reason to spend 4 Formas when you can achieve the exact same result by spending one. DE need to either rethink the build costs or give this new Stance Forma a unique benefit that makes it worthwhile, because right now I don't see anybody buying these with event currency, especially when you consider that Arcanes and unique weapons are also on the table, and players are only going to run the event for so long until they inevitably get burnt out (which WILL happen).

[Foo_Prime]

In the latest Prime Time, they had an issue with drivers installation and started the stream via a mobile phone and then switched to the normal stream once the issue resolved.

During that phone stream, Rebecca said: "Are you guys prepared for Scarlet Spear? Do you even know how to prepare for it?"

I can't figure out what this preparation is all about. From what I saw in the Devstream, there's nothing that links Scarlet to any resources or anything else that is obtainable now.

What do you think she meant?

(I wish I could link the part where she said the above quote but, DE uploaded on youtube only the normal part of the Prime Time and not the cellphone part)

/Foo

[(PSN)Onder6099]

3 hours ago, Foo_Prime said:

In the latest Prime Time, they had an issue with drivers installation and started the stream via a mobile phone and then switched to the normal stream once the issue resolved.

During that phone stream, Rebecca said: "Are you guys prepared for Scarlet Spear? Do you even know how to prepare for it?"

I can't figure out what this preparation is all about. From what I saw in the Devstream, there's nothing that links Scarlet to any resources or anything else that is obtainable now.

What do you think she meant?

(I wish I could link the part where she said the above quote but, DE uploaded on youtube only the normal part of the Prime Time and not the cellphone part)

/Foo

The whole mission rely on RJ, what I understand 7 players + 1 RJ owner. How many RJ can withstand attacks of Sentient ships? According to my experince, 4-5 missions per day during  2 months, it´s around 25% of whole playerbase and I´m affraid it´s not enought to let Scarlet begin.

[Chicken-Biryani]

What DE can do is to give rank 5 arcanes. Make the price as horrendous as they want to be. (As if it's not gonna be horrendous even for rank 1s.) I would be more inclined to grind if I know I would get rank 5 at the end of it, however long it takes. 

[tzadquiel]

9 hours ago, Foo_Prime said:

In the latest Prime Time, they had an issue with drivers installation and started the stream via a mobile phone and then switched to the normal stream once the issue resolved.

During that phone stream, Rebecca said: "Are you guys prepared for Scarlet Spear? Do you even know how to prepare for it?"

I can't figure out what this preparation is all about. From what I saw in the Devstream, there's nothing that links Scarlet to any resources or anything else that is obtainable now.

What do you think she meant?

(I wish I could link the part where she said the above quote but, DE uploaded on youtube only the normal part of the Prime Time and not the cellphone part)

/Foo

you can prep the resources you see in the shop on devstream 140. 

I saw some copernics etc 

 

[0_The_F00l]

They did say the beacons would have a persistent health pool. And since enemies would scale it will get harder so getting an ABCCC setup would make sense from a grind perspective. 

As to the rewards, I am sure some people would like the stance forma but I personally feel it's a waste. 

With the melee rework they made all stances viable (kinda) but it also made most stances pointless and lack uniqueness. 

Barring a few that have forced procs and unique effects (and one would just stick to these) there is no reason to switch stances and so no reason to waste a forma for the stances. 

As a matter of fact, you could just use 2 forma to change the regular mod polarities and still be able to shift between stances without problems - you will get less mod capacity but does it matter if you can fit all your mods anyway? 

[(NSW)Sniperfox47]

16 hours ago, (PS4)Onder6099 said:

The whole mission rely on RJ, what I understand 7 players + 1 RJ owner. How many RJ can withstand attacks of Sentient ships? According to my experince, 4-5 missions per day during  2 months, it´s around 25% of whole playerbase and I´m affraid it´s not enought to let Scarlet begin.

The earth and ground missions aren't directly connected as a single session. When you get killcodes they'll go to a random space crew as shown on the devstream.

 

So it's two separate missions.

•One's a 1-4 players on Earth. The more people who are doing this mission, the faster the other mission goes so this one is incentivized from an event perspective. That's good since most people still don't have their Railjack.

•The other is 2-4 players on Railjack, although it looks *much" easier with more players since it relies on handling multiple objectives at once (one person inside the sentient ship defending the relay, one person on the Railjack defending a satellite).

[DrivaMain]

17 hours ago, Nehra96 said:

What DE can do is to give rank 5 arcanes. Make the price as horrendous as they want to be. (As if it's not gonna be horrendous even for rank 1s.) I would be more inclined to grind if I know I would get rank 5 at the end of it, however long it takes. 

Unlikely. They want you to grind 21 rank 0s with a horrendous price so they can gate you long enough so you can’t max your Grace, Energize, Barrier or they will lose their value in the community market thus making lose revenue.

[(NSW)Sniperfox47]

Just now, DrivaMain said:

Unlikely. They want you to grind 21 rank 0s with a horrendous price so they can gate you long enough so you can’t max your Grace, Energize, Barrier or they will lose their value in the community market thus making lose revenue.

Not sure where you get that they'll lose revenue. Trading with plat doesn't make them plat, since that plat is just bouncing around the player economy still.

 

They make money by *removing* that plat from the in-game economy, things like skin purchases. Otherwise the plat just shuffles around from person to person trading goods without any reason to buy new platinum.

[(PSN)Onder6099]

9 hours ago, (NSW)Sniperfox47 said:

The earth and ground missions aren't directly connected as a single session. When you get killcodes they'll go to a random space crew as shown on the devstream.

 

So it's two separate missions.

•One's a 1-4 players on Earth. The more people who are doing this mission, the faster the other mission goes so this one is incentivized from an event perspective. That's good since most people still don't have their Railjack.

•The other is 2-4 players on Railjack, although it looks *much" easier with more players since it relies on handling multiple objectives at once (one person inside the sentient ship defending the relay, one person on the Railjack defending a satellite).

Maybe, but the mission success still rely on RJ. Let’s take a look how I, as a RJ owner will play Scarlet: because  Event Leaderboards were removed I will get everything what I need, 7 new Arcanes, few Stance formas, exclusives and then I will stop which also means I will cut off players, without or with weak RJ not using it, from possibility to get rewards and I’m afraid I will not be the only one.

[(NSW)Sniperfox47]

16 hours ago, (PS4)Onder6099 said:

Maybe, but the mission success still rely on RJ. Let’s take a look how I, as a RJ owner will play Scarlet: because  Event Leaderboards were removed I will get everything what I need, 7 new Arcanes, few Stance formas, exclusives and then I will stop which also means I will cut off players, without or with weak RJ not using it, from possibility to get rewards and I’m afraid I will not be the only one.

You've got that totally backwards. Railjack crews are reliant on ground crews.

The ground crew can just run the mission over and over. They don't need to wait for the Railjack teams to do anything. They're not at all reliant on Railjack teams to do the event.

Railjack teams on the other hand need to wait for ground crews which means if all the ground teama stop playing the Railjack players are screwed. But then the Railjack players can just play the ground mission so it's fine.