Helminth Mastery Rank "Gatekeeping"

[HelmetTooTight]

Recently, it was announced that the Helminth Mastery Rank requirement would be reduced from 15 to 8. Now, personally I'm MR27, so this change really doesn't affect me. I'm not going to call for a reversion to MR15, because quite frankly it doesn't make a difference to me, and I don't really understand why it would make a difference for you if you're MR15+.

As a matter of consistency, it seems that MR8 is not an unreasonable requirement. That is the highest required mastery rank for all Warframes (Banshee Prime, Oberon Prime, and Mirage Prime), and since Helminth closely relates to Warframe, I don't really see an issue here.  You could argue that MR15 is the highest requirement for all weapons (e.g. Kuva Bramma and other Lich weapons), but I find it doubtful that a nerfed Rhino Roar is really comparable in terms of raw power. I'd also point out that the Helminth system will likely be part of the selling/advertising point for Heart of Deimos, and accessibility sells (DE is a company after all).

Anyone care to share their opinions (civilly) on this matter?

[war_framer_2017]

I thought MR15 is arguably high for such a huge meta update. But MR8 is way too low.

 

MR8 me would absolutely be confused and somehow #*!% up a couple times trying to use this complicated system and then use it only when some meta requires it. Let alone use the helminth system and sustain my already low resources (at MR8) at the same time.

 

I think, for a final and fair decision, is to bring the required MR up to the average mastery rank of all players. Its range is probably MR11-13. It'd be still confusing but at that point players establish an understanding of what warframe works and consists of.

 

Edit: I posted this in general discussion. How did it end up as a reply in someone else's post??

[-QueenUnicorn-]

I think the main issue from the couple of posts that I have read as of today is that most people are more worried about overloading new players with new mechanics around mr 8 with no real introduction. You also have to remember that around MR 8 players are also being introduced to mechanics like Focus, Rivens, Kuva, Rail Jack, and so much more. In my opinion its almost overloading these players with so much to do and no direction on what to do. Thats why spacing out the mechanics based on MR could slow down the introduction of new mechanics and prevent the sense of being overloaded with no direction. Now anyone above MR 8-15 wont have this issue. For me its more that it seems to give the newer players too much freedom with little to no direction. If the helmith system was isolated from the rest of the game the MR lowering would not be a problem. Its just MR 8 is a bad MR because of how many other mechanics are introduced at that time

 

[Firetempest]

They may lower MR. But I doubt lower MR (new) players will have the resources for it.

Many of the original complaints seem to be from the meta only low MR players who have farmed for years and just refuse to advance MR out of principal.

[Luciole77]

The new system probally or maybe will not that important...all lists of skills do not impress me at all. Mr 15 is too high...why not 12 same from sindicate weapons? Mr8 in general are very fresh players...

[Aldain]

25 minutes ago, HelmetTooTight said:

Anyone care to share their opinions (civilly) on this matter?

8 is too low and it should likely be 10 or 12 at most.

Anything else I have to say won't be civil on the matter, so I'll stop there.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

Should've been the incentive to reach MR 30, the ability to alter warframes. 

[kgabor]

20 minutes ago, war_framer_2017 said:

Edit: I posted this in general discussion. How did it end up as a reply in someone else's post??

I guess the mods are starting to merge these threads into a megathread, maybe.

Or maybe they are just trolling you.

 

[(PSN)The_Verethragna]

Personally, I think it should be both.

Rank 8 to start on the Helminth and being able to add Helminth-specific abilities to Frames, and Rank 15 to start Subsuming.

You'd ease newer players into it without overloading them while reserving the higher ranked stuff more for  "endgame."

[Gabbynaru]

You can now make a Helminth frame before you can equip the non-prime Akbolto. That should put into perspective how low the new requirements truly are.

MR15 was a fine requirement, especially since DE said during Tennocon that the system is not aimed at new players.

[Cpl_Facehugger]

29 minutes ago, HelmetTooTight said:

 

As a matter of consistency, it seems that MR8 is not an unreasonable requirement. That is the highest required mastery rank for all Warframes (Banshee Prime, Oberon Prime, and Mirage Prime), and since Helminth closely relates to Warframe, I don't really see an issue here.

The issue is that the Helminth system involves a lot of resources going by what DE's told us, including having spare frames to feed to the plant, and MR8 players generally need those resources to progress in all the other systems we already have. MR8 is basically right around the time most new players complete TSD, at which point they're hit with a bunch of new systems to learn, many of which require their attention and resources. Low MR players are likely to get sucked into the morass of the Helminth system and let their participation in the other systems (eg operators/amps, syndicates, etc) suffer, which will be a problem if DE decides to gate any content behind the skipped content. New War will probably be pretty painful for people who have neither a decent amp nor paracesis, for example. 

 

[(PSN)CommanderC2121]

11 minutes ago, (PS4)The_Verethragna said:

Personally, I think it should be both.

Rank 8 to start on the Helminth and being able to add Helminth-specific abilities to Frames, and Rank 15 to start Subsuming.

You'd ease newer players into it without overloading them while reserving the higher ranked stuff more for  "endgame."

Id say this would be the best option. Then you can still get some reward for resching m8 and allowing use of the helminth room, but at mr15 youll generally have enough of an idea how frames work, or how to learn about how work, that you can now reasonably change abilities in a manner that isnt just random chance. 

[-Krism-]

13 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

Should've been the incentive to reach MR 30, the ability to alter warframes. 

MR 30 for nerfed abilities? & knowing how DE works & how they handled previous "balancing" issues, they're going to be heavily nerfed

[AlphaPHENIX]

19 minutes ago, HelmetTooTight said:

Now, personally I'm MR27, so this change really doesn't affect me.
...
and I don't really understand why it would make a difference for you if you're MR15+.

It does make a difference, if you are mentor player trying to get your friend in, or any other newbie.

I am currently dealing with a friend who still hasn't figured out MR at all, last I checked. Past Mars Junction, got enough ducats for Ki'teer's colour palete in a rush, a total embaresment on the new Jackal, still learning to sprint; all of this before MR1.

Seeing their experience, I am convinced that all of this ''DE keeps making stuff for new players, to get new players'' that people keep mentioning, is having the exact opposite efects.
I don't have much faith in my friend sticking around for longer then another 2 weeks, hek they hardly even play that often. They are playing less then the burnt out guy who is tired of playing, and they just started! Granted, maybe shooters just aren't for them. I honestly don't know what else they play other then League of Legends...But still, it ain't looking good.

[lukinu_u]

Honestly, I think mastery lock for game mechanics shouldn't be a thing at all.
I understand for weapons because the lock encourage players to craft weaker weapons first, but for game mechanics like this, they are generally tied to a quest and already locked behind "difficult content" which already place a gate for less experienced player :

• Lich are not necessarily easy to kill
• Focus require, well... focus
• Railjack require a huge resource investement as long as archwings
• Etc...

I think complexe new game mechanics shouldn't be locked behind MR, but simply be aviabled and intuitively shown as "you can do it if you want but it's not for you yet...", so the player feel the need to progress to get the necessary power/resources rather than frustratingly being locked by the fake barrier MR is.
Also, it would be much more rewarding for tryharders that still want to try the thing even if the game tell them they don't have the level yet, because they can achieve this content even if they aren't supposed to.

[AegisSiege]

Well they said on Tenno Live that this system was not for new players, and in the workshop that it is for very experienced players. 
The problem is that Mastery Rank doesn't necessarily equal Experience.
However MR 8 is way to low for this. I think 15 was chosen originally as that is the point at which you unlock the final Mastery Locked Weapons. With this change they are letting people mess with Warframe powers before they can get their hands on 50+ weapons, most of which aren't even that great.
Also are people who are only MR 8 even going to have the resources to throw into this?

[Tesseract7777]

In my opinion, how they should do it is instead of basing it on mastery rank, they should do it based on warframe mastery completion. 

Kind of like you need to complete the map for arby's. 

You need to have mastered a vanilla OR prime copy of each warframe once before you can have access to warframe customization. 

This was why I supported a high mastery requirement to begin with. You should not be doing this if you haven't mastered all the frames yet. 

That would even lock me out as I am behind on frames. And I would be totally okay with that. 

[DrivaMain]

Funny thing is DE considers MR 8 players as a whole "Experienced Players". Yeah right, most MR 8-11s I met can't even hunt a Teralyst casually. I would rather they bump it to MR 12 because that's when most of the available gear is enough to engage on "late game" content.

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

At MR8, someone can start subsuming Warframes before they can wield a Sancti Tigris, or craft the Paracesis. That just feels wrong, progression wise.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

MR has nothing to do with experience or game progression. If DE wanted it to be for experience players than having finished the Nidus quest and Umbra quest should be the prerequisite not MR < 8. 

[-CdG-Zilchy]

16 minutes ago, Ailia_Grimm said:

MR 30 for nerfed abilities? & knowing how DE works & how they handled previous "balancing" issues, they're going to be heavily nerfed

Most likely but hey, I'd prefer that to reaching MR 30 and reverting to prestige ranks lol 

[Grey_Star_Rival_Defender]

Oh and one other thing. It feels like the nerfs to abilities are really a smokescreen so DE can lower the MR requirement for the Helminth, rather than the other way around. Can't have a new "experienced" player running around with roar, so there's no reason to work hard to get roar as someone whose practically completed everything.

[Hypernaut1]

i dont agree with the change from an armchair developer standpoint, but ultimately, i don't see why i should care that much. If a player is too inexperienced, they won't be able to use the system. If they are experienced, they have the option to use it. Whats the big deal? DE already gave their reasoning too. They felt that resource requirement was enough of a time and experience gate. That is a good explanation. 

That said- i predict more raging when people find out the resource requirements. I know no one will listen, but instead of raging, maybe some of you should just wait for several hot fixes and adjustments before diving headfirst into this horrible update. 

[Cpl_Facehugger]

7 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

If a player is too inexperienced, they won't be able to use the system.

The danger here is an inexperienced player dumping tons of resources into an endgame system like Helminth, getting little-nothing to show for it, and then ragequitting.

[(PSN)Luck-Traves98]

52 minutes ago, (XB1)YoungGunn82 said:

MR has nothing to do with experience or game progression. If DE wanted it to be for experience players than having finished the Nidus quest and Umbra quest should be the prerequisite not MR < 8. 

I think what your saying is actually really good, I'm MR 16 and still dont really know what to do with this system but, having it locked behind  the umbra and Nidus quest sounds ok to me, if not maybe like The profit taker? being you rank up that faction to the max and you get a quest for it, i mean, that way at least you kinda had time to get to it, me personally think MR15 is NOT high, its really ok MR and adding the completion of Umbra and Nidus quest, would be fine in my opinion, i havent completed the nidus quest, idont even know how to get it but I still think it would be fine. Cause MR8, is way too #*!%ing low, my brother plays the game casually and is mr 9, has been a year at least, why? cause he found a frame and gun he liked and sticked to those, while earning plat for slots, and primes for himself, and i can tell you he doesnt have the resources to even attempt putting an ability into another warframe without going broke.