Affinity, Hydron and new players.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

To open this thread I will make a simple statement. “The current affinity system is flawed because it results in farming Hydron.”

 

To begin the thread I want to address that I recently got a friend into warframe, I’ve done this with a few friends over the years and it’s always fascinating to see how people engage with the game.

He’s started playing during the Tennocon affinity booster, but is unaware that his affinity is being boosted. He has even commented on how nice it feels that things are levelling up so quickly. I simply do not have the heart to tell him why, or that it will end soon.

 

I hope we can all agree that farming Hydron is bad, and hopefully it was an unintentional outcome of the affinity system.

 

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of how this might be adjusted, and I’ll admit it’s a struggle to come up with any ideas at all.

A simple solution, in my opinion, would be to flatten the affinity curve. Leave the peak of affinity as it is, but raise the floor of affinity by as much as 50%

Particularly around the Venus, Earth and Mars planets. Ramp up affinity gradually to make Hydron less of an outlier.

It is simply an idea that I think would greatly benefit new players.

 

Alternatively, double the affinity bonus on dark sector missions. They are advertised as having bonus affinity, but all they are ever used for is low level credit farming.

 

I don't think any single node has any right taking up as much play time as Hydron has, without a change to the affinity system, I cannot see this changing.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

I can't figure out how to get rid of the blue 😞

[GnarlsDarkley]

8 minutes ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

“The current affinity system is flawed because it results in farming Hydron.”

And here you are already wrong.

Hydron is one of the worst Level Spots right now.

 

To clarify before someone misinterprets my post:

I'm only speaking in terms of dedicated Level Spots. Ofc sth like a Capture yields way less...

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

3 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

And here you are already wrong.

Hydron is one of the worst Level Spots right now.

 

To clarify before someone misinterprets my post:

I'm only speaking in terms of dedicated Level Spots. Ofc sth like a Capture yields way less...

I may be wrong on numbers, but does that change the fact that literally thousands of people are farming Hydron right now? No.
I never said it was the best, I said it results in people farming it.
Every time I queue into Hydron I always get 4 people fast, there isn't any other node like that in the game.

[GnarlsDarkley]

1 minute ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

I never said it was the best, I said it results in people farming it.

And that is thanks to threads like this.

People in general are stupid af. They don't like to think for themselves. They read Hydron is best and boom, never think otherwise.

You can see this trend with other aspects as well when they try copying builds and still fail e.g.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

1 minute ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

And that is thanks to threads like this.

People in general are stupid af. They don't like to think for themselves. They read Hydron is best and boom, never think otherwise.

You can see this trend with other aspects as well when they try copying builds and still fail e.g.

My perspective is a result of this behaviour, not the cause of it.
You can do 10 waves on hydron and leave with 15-20 levels, 30 with a booster.

Where else can you max a warframe in 7 minutes?

(that doesn't involve a specific warframe.)

[KitMeHarder]

18 minutes ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

My perspective is a result of this behaviour, not the cause of it.
You can do 10 waves on hydron and leave with 15-20 levels, 30 with a booster.

Where else can you max a warframe in 7 minutes?

Back when Hydron was good (wasn't even good back then, Helene was better) I leveled quite a lot of things. 

With a booster, only one weapon equipped, and letting my teammates do all the killing to maximize the affinity gain; I could literally perfectly (barely) get said weapon to rank 30. So there is no way in hell you're taking a Warframe from 0 to 30 in 10 waves. I don't even think frames like Gara, or Mirage (when the Staticor was massively powerful) could do that. Let alone over half the roster. 

If you're leveling a frame you're going to one of these places now.

• Sanctuary Onslaught
• Adaro w/ Equinox slave
• Adaro w/ Skiajati and a prayer
• Steel Path Grineer Survival

I'd love to be corrected, but without video evidence I'm not buying it.

[YUNoJump]

An affinity farming node like Hydron (or whatever other node is the best affinity farm) is always going to exist, because no matter what you change there will always be a "best" place to farm affinity, even if every node works. The only way to force people to stop using farming nodes would be to put something crazy in place like a daily affinity cap or a bonus based on going to different nodes over time; but farming affinity is about speed, so people would absolutely RIOT at the idea of limiting affinity gain over time.

The alternative solution is to embrace the fact that there will always be a farming node and make unique gamemodes around it. That's how you get stuff like Sanctuary Onslaught, which is far from a perfect solution, but is at least an idea on how to get people playing a unique gamemode for affinity rather than just the same endless mission for hours on end.

I think the biggest problem with Affinity right now is how its shared; it encourages leeching. If I want to level Companion gear or a weapon that isn't good enough to keep up with my level of content, the only way to level is to go to a lower-level zone and have a boring time in exchange for less affinity, or unequip as much as possible and level my gear entirely using assist Affinity from other players killing stuff. The solution to this is to look at how Affinity is spread out between items, probably flattening it out so that every kill you make assists all your other gear in some way. For example, Warframe kills should give Affinity to all other gear, so that players are at least encouraged to throw out abilities when their weapons are bad.

[TheLexiConArtist]

32 minutes ago, YUNoJump said:

I think the biggest problem with Affinity right now is how its shared; it encourages leeching. If I want to level Companion gear or a weapon that isn't good enough to keep up with my level of content, the only way to level is to go to a lower-level zone and have a boring time in exchange for less affinity, or unequip as much as possible and level my gear entirely using assist Affinity from other players killing stuff. 

There's always Spy speedrunning. Works for everything you can carry in a standard mission, doesn't need the items to get kills, and you don't leech off others, it's all solo friendly. Hell, you can even level your Amps as long as you kiddo out to actually do the vault console hacks.

It's not Hydron/equivalent, but it's decently functional (especially if boosted), and you're actually playing something. I never go matchmade with anything I haven't personally used/levelled to max rank at least once. People might be surprised what gear they'd find out they like the feel of, if they actually tried to use things instead of passively getting them levelled by others and dumping it off as fodder.

[-Kittens-]

1 hour ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

To open this thread I will make a simple statement. “The current affinity system is flawed because it results in farming Hydron.”

 

To begin the thread I want to address that I recently got a friend into warframe, I’ve done this with a few friends over the years and it’s always fascinating to see how people engage with the game.

He’s started playing during the Tennocon affinity booster, but is unaware that his affinity is being boosted. He has even commented on how nice it feels that things are levelling up so quickly. I simply do not have the heart to tell him why, or that it will end soon.

 

I hope we can all agree that farming Hydron is bad, and hopefully it was an unintentional outcome of the affinity system.

 

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of how this might be adjusted, and I’ll admit it’s a struggle to come up with any ideas at all.

A simple solution, in my opinion, would be to flatten the affinity curve. Leave the peak of affinity as it is, but raise the floor of affinity by as much as 50%

Particularly around the Venus, Earth and Mars planets. Ramp up affinity gradually to make Hydron less of an outlier.

It is simply an idea that I think would greatly benefit new players.

 

Alternatively, double the affinity bonus on dark sector missions. They are advertised as having bonus affinity, but all they are ever used for is low level credit farming.

 

I don't think any single node has any right taking up as much play time as Hydron has, without a change to the affinity system, I cannot see this changing.

What If I told you ESO exists.

[Twilight-Knight]

I don't get this post, what is it say exactly about farming affinity at Hydron is flawed ?

 

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

6 minutes ago, Twilight-Knight said:

I don't get this post, what is it say exactly about farming affinity at Hydron is flawed ?

 

The argument I’m making is that farming a single node for affinity probably wasn’t what the devs had in mind when they designed the affinity system.

I’m suggesting affinity be raised across the board except in the most high end activities, so there is less discrepancy. So it doesn’t take as long to level up weapons on lower level nodes. So there is less reason to farm affinity.

[IamLoco]

People will always find a sweet spot, no matter how they change it.

Hydron is mediocre at best, but it´s the common place to go and therefore you can usually find a full squad in seconds.

SO is way better and you could run any survival or defense mission as long as you have enough players.

The problem is not Hydron, the problem is the shared affinity system that makes us clump together and leech off each other.

[Twilight-Knight]

Yes it might not what the devs had in mind origionally when created it. But then I still don't get this

6 minutes ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

So it doesn’t take as long to level up weapons on lower level nodes. So there is less reason to farm affinity.

What are you trying to say ? Other nodes should be having attention ? Hydron is the most popular affinity farm even we all know simaris's sanctuary give better affinity, or sometime with eximus stronghold from event is fastest without nukers.

Or you saying that from the begining we should have nodes that give goods affinity on the way to new junction ? need less farming affinity mechanically ?

[Lutesque]

3 hours ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of how this might be adjusted, and I’ll admit it’s a struggle to come up with any ideas at all.

A simple solution,

Let DE worry about that....

The purpose of Feedback is to describe the game as it currently is... Not to try and fix it.

3 hours ago, _R_o_g_u_e_ said:

I can't figure out how to get rid of the blue 😞

In Soviet Russia.... Blue get rid of You 😮 !!!

3 hours ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

And here you are already wrong.

Hydron is one of the worst Level Spots right now.

Nobody is saying that it's good...

Just that people default to it when they want Affinity.

3 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

So there is no way in hell you're taking a Warframe from 0 to 30 in 10 waves.

You actually can.... You just have get kills with that Warframe...

Not easy to do with only 1 or 2 Rank 0 Abilities 😞

3 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

I'd love to be corrected, but without video evidence I'm not buying it.

I wouldn't buy it even with Video Evidence... It has to work for me in my game for me to believe it. Other wise... I don't budge.

1 hour ago, Twilight-Knight said:

I don't get this post, what is it say exactly about farming affinity at Hydron is flawed ?

 

Nothing.... It's not the location that's the problem... it's the process of Farming Affinity that's the problem.

1 hour ago, IamLoco said:

The problem is not Hydron, the problem is the shared affinity system that makes us clump together and leech off each other.

Indeed !!!

 

[DrivaMain]

3 hours ago, KitMeHarder said:

• Sanctuary Onslaught
• Adaro w/ Equinox slave
• Adaro w/ Skiajati and a prayer
• Steel Path Grineer Survival

Add Gian Point to the list. It's the best stress free solo farming spot.

[(NSW)Kirbys-Epic-Yarn]

Yeah I personally think they just need to get rid of mr all together. It’s really makes grinding feel really feel like a chore and it creates elitistm amongst other player. Mr makes your items feel like mr fodder rather then the item feeling like it has an value in of itself. But hey I’m trying to get to mr 24 so I’m a hypocrite about this so lol. 

[KitMeHarder]

6 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

Add Gian Point to the list.

It's good, but it's not competitive. If the DPS frame leaves ESO early and my weapon is only like rank 23 and sucks at stealth killing, I'll go to Gain to finish it off. But with a frame you only get 25% of the affinity, so I'd rather go solo SP Adaro or Ophelia.

[oohshiny]

On 2020-08-07 at 6:10 PM, (NSW)JJA209 said:

Yeah I personally think they just need to get rid of mr all together.

How else do you suggest items/quests etc be progression-gated? "Hours played" would be a worse replacement.

[(NSW)Kirbys-Epic-Yarn]

12 minutes ago, oohshiny said:

How else do you suggest items/quests etc be progression-gated? "Hours played" would be a worse replacement.

No progression gates at all lol 

[Nakti]

Maybe quest-gates. For lower MR story progression somehow correlates with MR and overall game progression. However, quests are quite messy now and can be completed in random order, which would result in ability to open something strong before something weaker.

If there weren't taxis, resource lock would also be good, but devs would need to revisit and change craft requirements for early frames and weapons.

[Lutesque]

On 2020-08-19 at 2:56 AM, (NSW)JJA209 said:

No progression gates at all lol 

I like the way you think 🙂

 

[(NSW)Kirbys-Epic-Yarn]

1 hour ago, Lutesque said:

I like the way you think 🙂

 

Haha yeah. I just hate them because they slow the game down way too much. If someone is prepared to progress then their should be no time gate that prevents them from doing so.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

45 minutes ago, (NSW)JJA209 said:

Haha yeah. I just hate them because they slow the game down way too much. If someone is prepared to progress then their should be no time gate that prevents them from doing so.

So keep syndicates as they are, but remove daily standing cap?

[dwqrf]

Farming XP is overrated. Once you reach max Mastery/Focus by exclusively squatting XP spots, and as a dedicated player, you decide to keep grinding for codex, ephemeras, and arcanes, you start to realize you should have started with those instead of camping a stupid XP spot granting nothing. Maybe it would have taken longer to level up each piece of gear, but it would have taken less in game time to get close to the end of the game.

Cross-farming is the key. Any Fissure defense is better than Hydron. Normal Taveuni is better than Hydron, and even better if it's a requiem run. Orokin Derelict Defense/Survival is better than Hydron if you don't have Mesa/Octavia. Hell, even Defection are better than Hydron if you don't have Harrow.

"But Affinity is so hard to get there". Nope, it's not; it's the same if you kill enemies.
"But people are spread out of affinity range". Vazarin is a little range boost, and anyone can build Fosfor for a sweet +200m affinity range.

There is plenty of ways to farm affinity, and farming affinity is the easiest part of the game. It drops everywhere, whatever you do.