Warframe Shouldn't Be A Farming Simulator

[Barbzilla]

Oh man, this would actually be a really good idea. I'd like to second the idea of a free weekly warframe. That would no doubt encourage people to buy new warframes, since the main reason I don't want to fork over real money on one right now is because I simply have no idea if I'll like what I'm getting or not.

I'm glad you liked the idea, perhaps I should start a topic with a poll on it about the concept. How do you feel about the price point though?

[Beeman]

I'm actually quite fond of a steep grind, so long as it's entertaining. I haven't really gotten into gear or material farming yet in Warframe, though...but if bosses are at all interesting or somewhat dynamic, then there shouldn't be much of a problem.

I mean, games like Monster Hunter, vindictus, Raiderz, TERA and so on all have very entertaining and compelling fights. Granted, those examples are all ancient fantasy settings, but you can still have compelling boss scenarios in in a sci-fi game. Look at various Star Wars games or Mass Effect. Just takes a bit of creativity...and time to develop such content, that is >_>

But like I said, so long as fighting these bosses and running certain missions repeatedly is entertaining, the grind doesn't feel like such a grind at all and can actually be quite fulfilling.

[Zeally]

Honestly, I'm quite content with the game in its current state. It think the weapons so far, feel as if thier is a tier set in place, mostly becuase of the player level dictating what weapons are avialable to you.

On the other hand, the warframes feel far from that, and it seems sort of chaotic. Polishing the current warframes up by balance, possibly giving them a tiered acquisition like the weapons have, and maybe decreasing how much things cost resource wise, then ramping them up as the progression in each tier rises might be a much better format for players to follow.

The warframes could do with a better description of intended play style as well.

[Davante]

Gamers will always try to get the "best" stuff as quickly as possible no matter how the devs turn it about. Thats MMO's for you.

[Jerkops]

I came to the forum after a bit of playtime today to post this exact same subject. I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking that the gameplay of Warframe could be seriously improved by reducing or removing the loot aspect.

I don't mind having to wait a little bit longer to get the recipes and materials I need to craft things for free. I get it, that's part of the free to play model which makes the game work. What I don't like is having to search through each level for crates and lockers so I can get the stuff I need to craft my next weapon. It takes a lot away from the style and feel of the game. I'm supposed to be this super-elite spaceninja, but evertime I loot a locker I feel like a hobo rifling through a trash can for empty bottles. Sometimes when I get the "+32 Rubedo" popup message at the bottom of the screen I get this ridiculous mental image of my guy frantically stuffing chunks of rock into the pockets of his spaceninja pants.

But you can't just complain about problems without having solutions, so here's an idea. Instead of having certain loot items drop within a level, make it so you are rewarded at the end of the level with either the items themselves on a semi-random basis, or some kind of credit or currency that you can use to buy items that drop from that map; for instance, completing a mission in the Venus map would give you "Venus chips," with which you could buy alloy plates, circuits and polymer bundles at prices that coincide with their current drop rates. You could even make the end-of-mission rewards somehow performance-based to give people motivation to use teamwork. For instance, everyone gets better rewards if no one is downed, or if you complete the mission in a certain timeframe, or your squad's average accuracy or melee kills are above a certain threshhold.

All things considered, Warframe is a great game with a ton of potential, but this one aspect of it just sticks out to me as something that is fundamentally flawed. Looting lockers and barrels takes away from the stealthy, elite-commando feel that I think the developers are going for - and that they for the most part have done a great job of getting across. The priority of each mission should be getting in, completing the objective, and getting out as quickly as possible, like a ninja or special forces operator. Instead I find myself racing around empty corridors to make sure I didn't miss that shiny rock that will get me 1/100th of the way closer to a new gun.

[Beeman]

I feel like I'm playing borderlands or half-life when I go breaking boxes and rifling through lockers and I don't mind that one bit.

It is kinda odd to see crazy space ninjas doing so, but I tend to think it's more quaint than anything.

[Azure_Kytia]

I've personally seen no issue with it. The best way to help out your fellow Tenno is to steal the resources from enemy factions that could then use said resources to make bad things that kill Tenno.

We're doing everyone a favour by breaking those crates. You wouldn't want to see an Alloy Plated MOA just waltzing around, would you? Because that would be very, very bad.

[Mak_Gohae]

It takes a lot away from the style and feel of the game. I'm supposed to be this super-elite spaceninja, but evertime I loot a locker I feel like a hobo rifling through a trash can for empty bottles..

The storyline of the whole game is about Orokin technology and people stealing it and taking it from each other. Rifling though stuff for materials is part of the story.

[AngryNarwhal]

i guess if you already have everything unlocked, are very lucky, and have nothing but time on your hands it only takes a week of tedious boring bullcrap to get a warframe, but unfortunately I have i life. and this isnt just some equipment we are talking about here, this is the games equivelent of a class system, so if you want to play the game in a specific way or style, or want to fill a role in a team you need to jump through these hoops.

[Azure_Kytia]

Actually, I got a WarFrame (Frost) over the course of five days. Not five days as in, playing non stop. Five real days. Just logging in, doing a mission here and there, doing Exta two or three times a day. In no way are you expected or even required to play the game constantly to get what you need within a reasonable time frame.

If it's just not happening, the RNG Gods are against ye.

[AngryNarwhal]

If it's just not happening, the RNG Gods are against ye.

i think we may have found the source of all this argueing, people like me have been actively fighting lady luck, while others are getting magic farie gold thrown in their laps every ten seconds. i think at the very least less random chance should be involved in this stuff.

[Jerkops]

The storyline of the whole game is about Orokin technology and people stealing it and taking it from each other. Rifling though stuff for materials is part of the story.

That makes sense when the Tenno steal ships and technology en masse from the other factions. I can also understand bosses dropping valuable things that you need to crafting - the control module that drops from Hyena is a specific example that seems reasonable to me. But if you're telling me there's a valid "story" reason for Corpus Crewmember #58734 to keep 17 units of alloy plate in his gym locker, that's stretching it.

[Mak_Gohae]

That makes sense when the Tenno steal ships and technology en masse from the other factions. I can also understand bosses dropping valuable things that you need to crafting - the control module that drops from Hyena is a specific example that seems reasonable to me. But if you're telling me there's a valid "story" reason for Corpus Crewmember #58734 to keep 17 units of alloy plate in his gym locker, that's stretching it.

How?

Boss has rare items while thugs has common items.

That seems fine.

[neKroMancer]

Lore-wise, why would Jackal drop Rhino's blueprints?

I think if we combined RPG element into the current loot system. Most bosses have absolutely NO REASON to possess frames' blueprints as their personal effect. The Lotus should be the one who have these blueprints. I think bosses should drop vital components instaed of blueprints. Let player earns BPs through gameplay instead.

This is my old idea, posted somewhere long ago. Combining gameplay, lore, and achievement system into loot system.

Blueprints should be earned through gameplay, with achievable and certain goals. These BPs can be earned through in-game actions that are associated with the nature of frame. Play stealthy and melee-orinted to earn Ash BPs. Support your team to get Trinity's. Cast often to get Mag. Tie these earning with achievements in oreder to make players feel that they're not wasting their time with uncertainty.

Example : Ash blueprints.

Fulfill three achievements to earn helmet BP.

- See no evil : Shoot 100 security cameras.

- Taste this! : jump kick at least two enemies in a row for 20 times.

- Death from above : Jump smash kill 100 enemies.

Three more for chasiss BP.

- OHK : charge melee kill 200 enemies.

- Wall lover : Wallrun for 1500 meter in total.

- Solo artist : Survive soloplay without using revive in map with difficulty 2 or above for 5 times.

Three for system BP.

- Walls have eyes : Kill 50 enemies while wallrunning.

- Bon voyage : Received least damage during online for 20 games.

- Slasher : Get highest melee kill during online.

When you complete set of objectives specific to these part, Lotus gives you blueprint as a unique item that can't be sold (you don't want more than one anyway) and player goes killing bosses for components. Sugarcoating farming with achievements and gameplay instead of depends on RNG.

[Mak_Gohae]

Lore-wise, why would Jackal drop Rhino's blueprints?

I think if we combined RPG element into the current loot system. Most bosses have absolutely NO REASON to possess frames' blueprints as their personal effect. The Lotus should be the one who have these blueprints. I think bosses should drop vital components instaed of blueprints. Let player earns BPs through gameplay instead.

The Jackal is guarding those BPs.

Dont think of them as having them in their back pocket or something like that. Think of them as being somewhere in the place where he is chilling, you are breaking into enemy bases and ships to take them down. Why wouldnt high level people have some of that stuff?

And i had that same challenge idea but for mats. In alert missions if you achieve some of those goals you get a certain number of mats at the end of the mission.

[Nightchills]

I understand the need for making things difficult to acquire for the sake of encouraging people to spend REAL money in the game, but so far about 90% of what I've done in this game is farm for materials and blueprints JUST because I want one warframe that's not one of the three default ones. I've been scrambling like mad for the Ember Warframe ever since I first fought the boss on Saturn, but I still don't have it because of all the Rubedo I'm farming. I actually intended on buying the Ember helmet as soon as I got the Warframe the hard and free way, but I've almost given up on working toward it at this point, which if you look at this way has actually robbed you of a potential sale. It doesn't help that I've already played in almost every world at this point and still haven't unlocked a second warframe. I've got to at least be finished with 60% of the game by now. It's sort of crazy.

Maybe I should put it into perspective just how much farming goes on in this game in its current state....

To get the Ember Warframe you must buy the blueprint in the store, which costs 25,000 credits (and it's one of the cheapest warframe blueprints to get). Where I'm at right now in the game, I can afford this without much trouble, but early on this will require a bit of time. Not really complaining about the price, though, I think it's a good price.

When you finally buy the blueprint, you'll then see all of the parts it needs. (the Chassis, the Helmet, the Systems, and the Orokin Cell). These materials can't be bought, traded for, or even found. You have to construct them, but before you can do that you need to find their blueprints (excluding the Orokin Cell, which is just a rare random drop). These specific blueprints only drop from the Saturn boss, and only drop RARELY.

Here's where it starts getting insane. This boss has an extremely rare chance of dropping any of these items, usually dropping some really common random material you have no need for at that point. When it finally does drop the item you need, you of course need to finish the mission, come back, fight the boss again, and hope you get the next item in your list. Sometimes, however, you get the same blueprint more than once... multiple times... in a row... which is just pointlessly annoying.

After you finally farm the boss enough for these blueprints (took me about three days of farming for them, though not straight through obviously), you need to find the materials to construct these pieces. The easiest piece, the chassis, has only three types of materials to find. Even so, you'll probably be doing at least a dozen or more missions before you get the right materials for it, assuming you've unlocked the right areas where you can find those materials. After you collect them, it costs 15,000 credits to construct and takes 12 hours to finish building.

The chassis, the helmet, and the systems all require 4 types of materials to build. Just listing off the helmet's requirements, you need to find 150 alloy plates, 1 Neural Sensor, 150 Polymer Bundles, and 500 Rubedo. The first three materials are sorta rare, but not as painful to farm for as the blueprints themselves. The bad part, though, is that the areas of the game that actually drop these materials are spread out among multiple systems, meaning that all of your farming time is going to be spent getting one, MAYBE two kinds of materials at a time.

Rubedo is located on two planets in the game (I think?). It's listed as an "uncommon" material, which might be a bit of an understatement. Even when you go to planets that supposedly have this material, you can go through entire missions without ever encountering one piece of it. When you do finally get a Rubedo drop, you'll get somewhere around 10 or 20 pieces, the maximum being 30 (if you're extremely lucky). The Chassis needed 300 pieces of Rubedo, and the Helmet needs 500 (800 total), and on average (if you encounter it at all) you'll get maybe 2 or 3 drops of Rubedo in one mission... meaning roughly 40 pieces of the crap, if you get any at all.

Once you have all of the required materials, the helmet and systems cost 15,000 credits each to build and take 12 hours to complete.

Once those are finally constructed, you can build the Ember warframe at last. It will then cost you 25,000 credits to craft the warframe, which you'll most likely have enough money for after the dozens of missions you've completed, and it takes 3 days to finish. By then you've most likely already fought on every planet in the game and have little room left to explore with your new warframe.

In all, after you build the thing, you have spent 105,000 in-game credits, probably spent a week's worth of game time farming materials, and waited a total of four and a half days for everything to finish building.

I can relate to you post in some ways how ever what is realy comes down to is and this is just MIO but, You don't want to work for better gear. I blame WoW for this kinda of thinking with all their hand outs how ever. I belive the crafting system is great You have to work for better gear I just wish you couldn't buy them out right from the store. I also agree with some of the other post there should be a way to test out the warframe to see if it want to want to invest your time in. I spent a fair amout of time working for the ASH suit only to find out that I liked Loki way better. Its hit in miss and there is still alot of improvements coming.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Nightchills

[TheDudeMachine]

I don't think the grinding is bad at all in this game. It takes about 5 hours to farm materials for a weapon, maybe 2 days to farm for a warframe. That's assuming you have nothing to start out with. As you play the game more, you will just coincidentally have enough material to craft most weapons.

As far as the warframe blueprints are concerned, I know that can be hit or miss depending on RNG. In my experience, I have tons of extra warframe blueprints lying around, far more than I will ever need. I had to farm for Ash a little bit, maybe 20 runs or so. Still, that's not bad.

If you want grinding, go play Vindictus. Now THAT'S some hardcore grinding. Some of the upper level gear will take about 3 months to grind for, just for one set of armor, on an average of 5 hours play per day. It's ridiculous.

[Zyfe3rX]

I don't think the grinding is bad at all in this game. It takes about 5 hours to farm materials for a weapon, maybe 2 days to farm for a warframe. That's assuming you have nothing to start out with. As you play the game more, you will just coincidentally have enough material to craft most weapons.

As far as the warframe blueprints are concerned, I know that can be hit or miss depending on RNG. In my experience, I have tons of extra warframe blueprints lying around, far more than I will ever need. I had to farm for Ash a little bit, maybe 20 runs or so. Still, that's not bad.

If you want grinding, go play Vindictus. Now THAT'S some hardcore grinding. Some of the upper level gear will take about 3 months to grind for, just for one set of armor, on an average of 5 hours play per day. It's ridiculous.

em... dont think so, Rubedo - Earth and Pluto... Alloy plates - Venus, since EVERYTHING is made of these materials, i cant agree with your statement, sorry :P

[TheDudeMachine]

I always have at least 1,000 spare alloy and rubedo lying around.

[Yurt]

em... dont think so, Rubedo - Earth and Pluto... Alloy plates - Venus, since EVERYTHING is made of these materials, i cant agree with your statement, sorry :P

Yes I agree, I think every enemy should drop at minimum 200 rubedo and 100 alloy plates. Then maybe we can actually play the game looking for mods instead of playing the game looking for materials. But on the other hand mod drops are pretty low too.. so 1 out of 5 enemies should drop mods and every other mod drop should be a dual blue mod. Once I finally have amassed all that I can and maxed out every frame and weapon I will be able to play the game.

[Azure_Kytia]

Yes I agree, I think every enemy should drop at minimum 200 rubedo and 100 alloy plates. Then maybe we can actually play the game looking for mods instead of playing the game looking for materials. But on the other hand mod drops are pretty low too.. so 1 out of 5 enemies should drop mods and every other mod drop should be a dual blue mod. Once I finally have amassed all that I can and maxed out every frame and weapon I will be able to play the game.

...For all of an hour, then you've gotten everything you ever really need, lose interest, and stop playing. Mods drop at a pretty consistent rate as it is. In regards to farming for Alloy Plate and Rubedo, 100/200 is a pretty obscene suggestion. I've built three WarFrames so far and I must say the material collection hasn't been at all as bad as you make it sound. I find materials drop most commonly from containers and infested missions, so, stay away from Defense missions, try Infested Maps with other game modes. There is enough variation in pretty much each and every planet system that you shouldn't get bored, even when looking for materials.

[neKroMancer]

Yes I agree, I think every enemy should drop at minimum 200 rubedo and 100 alloy plates. Then maybe we can actually play the game looking for mods instead of playing the game looking for materials. But on the other hand mod drops are pretty low too.. so 1 out of 5 enemies should drop mods and every other mod drop should be a dual blue mod. Once I finally have amassed all that I can and maxed out every frame and weapon I will be able to play the game.

Either my sarcastometer isn't functioning or you're making an outrageous proposal.

While I do agree that grinding isn't exactly well sugarcoated in Warframe, it's still a part of the game just like great many RPGs in the market. Do you ask for a zod rune when you start playing D2 in the first day? Player can enjoy the game even with non-max frame without high-spec mods equipped.

Farming's purpose is to prolong life of content and buy time for developer to make new shiny toys for all of us to enjoy. Taking it out of the game entirely isn't an option.

[Spinner187]

In my Experience, this game isn't a "farming" game as OP proclaims.

3/4 of my time of on this game was exploring, leveling my gear, getting mods, Etc. Which took a good amount of time.

It wasn't until I max out TWO frames, is when I started "farming". Since this is beta, no can actually speculated what the end game going to be like in the final release(or level cap)

For those who are casually players, "farming" is far from our minds.

For hardcore players who spend alot more time on this game, its a feature to keep you guys interested.

But this is just my opinion.

Edited February 26, 2013 by Spinner187

[Rivy]

^I agree, but it does turn into farming if you are not playing with a frame you enjoy (because initial selection isn't clear on how important that choice is, and there are only 3 to choose from). Once I get all the materials for my Ember I will enjoy the game a lot more. Right now playing to get stuff feels like a chore for me.

[AngryNarwhal]

Blueprints should be earned through gameplay, with achievable and certain goals. These BPs can be earned through in-game actions that are associated with the nature of frame. Play stealthy and melee-orinted to earn Ash BPs. Support your team to get Trinity's. Cast often to get Mag. Tie these earning with achievements in oreder to make players feel that they're not wasting their time with uncertainty.

THEN A BUNCH OF SMART THINGS ABOUT ACHIEVEMENTS

yes this X100

this is one of the smartest ways around the problem ive heard so far. naturaly i think it needs some balencing but it removes a huge chunk of the anoying random system that caused this arguement to begin with. Perhaps it should still be linked with the bosses though, like one of the achievements could be beating the respective one for the frame.

Edited February 27, 2013 by AngryNarwhal