Allow Polarity swap for Exilus slot

[MetalGrayFox]

I am not sure why this is not allowed, considering Exilus Warframe slots do not use any special type of forma. Could this be updated to allow polarity swapping please?

Same should apply to weapon exilus polarities to be honest. Most of the time the pre-set polarity in weapon exilus is not the one you want for that slot but I digress.

[Xaero]

I'm sure they will just add Exilus Forma in future.

[z3us32610]

I was asking that they put an exilus forma and/or a weapon exilus forma in the Scarlet Spear rewards instead of the stance forma. I think that being able to out any exilus mod in your warframe and weapon would be far more useful than a stance forma.

[Birdframe_Prime]

I genuinely don't understand where this becomes necessary. Wanted, yes, but necessary, no.

It's just one more, meaningless, 'I just want to stop Forma grinding' excuse.

[Berzerkules]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

I genuinely don't understand where this becomes necessary. Wanted, yes, but necessary, no.

It's just one more, meaningless, 'I just want to stop Forma grinding' excuse.

It's not necessary. Forma is not necessary. Potatoes are not necessary. You could probably run the majority of the star chart with an unmodded frame. 

It would probably be a welcome qol change to the majority of players though. I don't see it happening since the majority of weapon exilus slots seem to purposely be the wrong polarity for the weapon. Pretty obvious forma and plat sink imo. 

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, Berzerkules said:

Forma is not necessary. Potatoes are not necessary. You could probably run the majority of the star chart with an unmodded frame.

Exactly.

DE actually came out and stated right back in the same year I started playing that they balance each weapon and frame around how they perform at level 30, and that mods are what allow us to scale higher. Forma is an invented system where the goal is to ensure that every frame, weapon and companion is only capable of reaching a form of 'ideal' state of modding with it.

Why? Because it's a monetisation function. You can feed in Plat to go faster, or you can feed in time to get this for free. The balance between those things is one of many such situations where DE balance time vs money to keep the actual monetisation of Warframe juuuuust on the side of fair.

And whenever this comes up, this whole 'universal polarity' debate, you have to ask not about what is convenient, or quality-of-life, for the player, it's always about what incentive DE would have for the change.

Some changes in this game are genuinely based on DE saying 'you know what? that's something we can do, it's a good idea'. And others are not changed because 'the change will create a net deficit to us'.

You can see over time how much DE changes frames, their abilities, weapons and their functions, introduces new mods, new mechanics, everything. Remember when Vauban was changed? They gave us all precisely 3 Forma. Why? Because on average they had the data to say that everyone with a Vauban would have the inclination to either change their build or put a full build on him, and the average amount of Forma used would be 3 per player. On some that would be enough, but on others they might need 4 or even 5, and they make that time or money investment. Every rework they expect us to re-Forma. Every change they expect us to spend multiple Forma on changing our build to take advantage of that change.

And it's a steady stream of income.

But. With a Universal polarity? Never again. A player grinds a few of those and that's it. No matter the change, the worst they'll ever have to do is save up an Umbral forma (which are not available to buy anyway), to put on a build for those mods if they want.

Reworks and change over time is a steady source of income for DE in the form of Forma. The more things they introduce into the game to make that not necessary, the less their income is over time, because players simply stop needing to do that.

I genuinely think that Aura and Stance Forma was a mistake, although I can see why DE actually did it, both because they were planning on changing most of the powerful Auras and Stances (and allow for more build diversity with the others), and because they were willing to take that hit on the monetisation because Auras and Stances are barely, if ever for some players, something that gets changed even after reworks.

[Berzerkules]

2 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

-snip-

I genuinely think that Aura and Stance Forma was a mistake, although I can see why DE actually did it, both because they were planning on changing most of the powerful Auras and Stances (and allow for more build diversity with the others), and because they were willing to take that hit on the monetisation because Auras and Stances are barely, if ever for some players, something that gets changed even after reworks.

I think that we pretty much agree on most points. 

I see how aura forma still benefits DE and players though. It cost 4 forma to make one, 80 plat each, or 150 plat for 3.  If you were to buy the forma bundles and craft 3 aura forma with it, cost would be 140 plat and 3 days wait. Pretty much the same cost as an aura forma bundle. It's still a plat sink but without the seemingly unnecessary wasted time that leads to burn out. We also wouldn't have to forma the aura slot multiple times to test builds or if we change out minds. Both players and DE win. Stance forma is kind of a nonissue since I don't see many people using it and it cost 1 forma to make. Break even for both sides where players feel like they were given something. 

Now, if we had universal forma, with the same 4 forma crafting requirement and similar market price, a basic 3 forma build with an aura forma becomes 16 forma build. DE wins because we just sank more forma/plat into our frames. Meanwhile the players feel like they got something. We have something we were asking for and now have the illusion of build diversity.  we will also save time if we choose to change builds later. Won't have to go back and forma over and already polarized mod slots. That always sucks. It feels like you wasted time, especially if you do so because frames were reworked or the game was updated and your build is no longer viable or meta. 

I think we got a little off topic. I'm all for being able to swap the exilus mod slot polarity though. Makes no sense that you can't. You can swap the already existing polarities on prime frames/weapons as long as you forma it once. Throw us a bone DE. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Berzerkules

[Birdframe_Prime]

8 hours ago, Berzerkules said:

DE wins because we just sank more forma/plat into our frames.

Only on that outside edge of players though, because what build do you have (outside of the Umbral ones) that costs more than five or six polarity slots? And who says that a Universal polarity would even include the Umbral? I don't think it would...

In point of argument, that actually brings me to the point I was trying to make:

8 hours ago, Berzerkules said:

I'm all for being able to swap the exilus mod slot polarity though. Makes no sense that you can't.

Outside of those Umbral builds, what one are you even using that needs you to even change the Exilus polarity? If it's blank, leave it blank. If it's not, then change it to blank. There is not a single frame that you can build that you can't just put on another polarity on the base 8 that won't free up 9-12 points on the Exilus for anything and everything you want.

The only scenario where you need that slot polarised is if you're doing Umbral builds, and in that case the thing you're missing isn't a universal Exilus, it's an Umbral Forma, which are scarce specifically to limit us into making choices like polarising the Exilus so that we can use a specific mod there.

[MetalGrayFox]

9 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

what one are you even using that needs you to even change the Exilus polarity?

This is not the point I was trying to make, my point is it's another slot with no special forma polarities. Once you unlock it with an adapter, it should be treated as a 9th mod slot for the sake of polarity swapping. Sure it can only use certain mods. These follow the same polarities as your standard mod slots though. 

Appreciate the breakdown in price/cost and reasons why it won't be done, that's not really gonna stop me from asking for it. I'm a player looking for quality of life updates,  don't mind me for asking for it on these forums. Don't worry I already know there's like a 0.8% chance of this happening, but I am a Warframe player so those odds seem good to me 😉

[Birdframe_Prime]

59 minutes ago, MetalGrayFox said:

This is not the point I was trying to make

Ahhhhh...

Fair enough. But also no, because programming spaghetti.

This one I do remember DE bringing up when Polarity Swapping was first introduced, and it was noted back then that players wanted to re-polarise the Aura slot using this mechanic, to make the builds easier to manage (because they could always put in an extra Forma to make their build have more points and then just Swap that polarity in and out with that extra-Forma'd slot, and we would never have needed the Aura Forma). The only way that the Evolution Engine can make a mod slot only accept specific mods (like the Exilus or the Aura does) is to separate it from the base types of mod slots, make it a new type. And that immediately negates polarity swapping because it's no longer the same category of slot. Apparently they tried it, and it didn't work without suddenly letting players put regular mods in the Aura and vice-versa.

At least, that's how DE explained it at the time. It probably still applies, with bells on, since the Exilus is now a third type of slot.