Shared Affinity System Discourages Helping Teammates

[(PSN)DrGrib]

New player here. Been playing pretty intensely for a couple months. I worked my way up to using Saryn on Hydron to help out my teammates in a mission to level up for MR. But now that I'm here, I've discovered an ugly truth: if I go all out and cast spores on everything with the good Saryn build I've created, I kill too much and have my affinity gain on my equipped weapon penalized. I then have to run 2 or 3 runs of Hydron instead of one. If I instead hold back and let my teammates kill most of the enemies and only cast spores once per wave at the end of the wave, I can level up a weapon to 20 and max it out in a single run with bonus experience.

This is not good. I'm being penalized for being a helpful teammate and playing the game to the best of my abilities and rewarded when I lazily jump around and act like I'm doing something while actually doing nothing except casting a single spore per wave. I think this need some serious rethinking so players aren't penalized for playing the game to the best of their abilities and helping their teammates as much as possible and rewarded for being lazy and taking advantage of your teammates. The incentives are exactly backward.

[(NSW)Gamma83]

i wouldn't call spore spamming "playing to the best of one's ability" xD
any saryn/frost or any other warframe with AOE ability can do that easily

usually you have to play with what you want to level up.
Personally for hydron and such i don't use abilities , i mostly use naramon affinity + combo counter branch  + a melee weapon.

even if the weapon itself is rank 0 and only can equip 3 to 4 mods , it's usually enough to one shot about anything in those kind of mission once the combo counter set in.
Doing so makes me level up about everything quickly personally.
And 90% of the time i do more kill than every players in my squad by double the amount simply by using only a melee weapon and moving around quickly. (sometime even more kills than the 3 others players combined (but then again i play on switch, saryn spore spam is less of a thing there , though i still sometime kill more than saryn spammers)


But more importantly : 
If doing an ability would level up everything else evenly , there would be no need for squad hydron or any other things, any old saryn would simply go to the sanctuary and one shot everything until everything is rank 30....
I know because i do that for friends sometime, i don't get any affinity from it , but everyone else gets everything rank 30 in a few minutes if i kill everything with saryn (yeah saryn a bit too OP)
Same goes for finisher sneak kill on adaro, it allows players to lv up melee weapons and warframe very quickly but not primary and secondary.

[(PSN)DrGrib]

10 minutes ago, (NSW)Gamma83 said:

i wouldn't call spore spamming "playing to the best of one's ability" xD

If "ability" in Warframe means "collecting the right mods and building a frame in a way that maximizes kills per second", I think it certainly is what many people would call playing to the best of your ability. It's not easy to get Saryn. You have to play through the entire star chart and farm her from the boss in Sedna. At the end of it, you are rewarded with a powerful frame. I'd argue this is the main path to success in Warframe. If you work hard to get those rewards and then are penalized when using them to level up, it makes the game less fun.

If you are expected to just muzzle your Saryn you have worked so hard to build and instead just use crap weapons to level MR like you are a fresh Excalibur, it kind of defeats the purpose of what makes the game rewarding and fun to play. There should be a way to level MR that is actually fun and uses the fun abilities instead of having you running around slashing crap like you don't have them.

[(NSW)Gamma83]

il y a 8 minutes, (PSN)DrGrib a dit :

If "ability" in Warframe means "collecting the right mods and building a frame in a way that maximizes kills per second", I think it certainly is what many people would call playing to the best of your ability. It's not easy to get Saryn. You have to play through the entire star chart and farm her from the boss in Sedna. At the end of it, you are rewarded with a powerful frame. I'd argue this is the main path to success in Warframe. If you work hard to get those rewards and then are penalized when using them to level up, it makes the game less fun.

If you are expected to just muzzle your Saryn you have worked so hard to build and instead just use crap weapons to level MR like you are a fresh Excalibur, it kind of defeats the purpose of what makes the game rewarding and fun to play.

well , i personally think saryn is rather easy to get....but i digress.
The game is done this way , it's not called "MASTERY" for no reason.
You can't expect to have "mastered" something to max rank without actually using it , that wouldn't make much sense (yet for some weapons you can still do that anyway without using it)

and once again, if that were to be the case , any player would simply AOE ability spam solo in sanctuary onslaught and no one would actually play anything else to rank up their equipment.
They would only be using saryn solo in sanctuary...And that's all , all the way to Mastery rank 30 without actually using any of the weapons they would have "mastered".
It would be fatal for an online game wouldn't it that most players would simply solo.
I don't know about you, but i highly doubt other players would find it to be "ok" to be able to rush to mastery rank 30 without actually using any weapons.

[(PSN)DrGrib]

7 minutes ago, (NSW)Gamma83 said:

The game is done this way , it's not called "MASTERY" for no reason.
You can't expect to have "mastered" something to max rank without actually using it , that wouldn't make much sense (yet for some weapons you can still do that anyway without using it)

Yes, but let's get real: this is a facetious formality. If you *really* want to "master" something as fast as possible, you go to Hydron and lazily let your teammates kill crap until it is rank 20. Currently, the fastest way to "master" a weapon is to equip it, let your teammates kill everything, and never even pull its trigger. Everyone knows this.

Sure, if you want to role play like you are actually "mastering" a weapon, you could go shoot stuff with it. But you are going 10-30 times slower than just soaking up shared affinity from your teammates and you are wasting your own time. I know the difference. My jaw dropped the first time I decided to go public on Helene and saw how many hours I had wasted trying to actually "master" weapons by using them myself solo as a new player on the planets before Saturn.

Most of these weapons are so bad, you would never use them and they are merely fodder for MR, not something you are actually "mastering". So what I am suggesting is that we consider a path to gaining MR that lets you do what is actually fun in the game instead of regressing back to using useless weapons or taking advantage of your teammates.

[(NSW)Gamma83]

il y a 6 minutes, (PSN)DrGrib a dit :

Yes, but let's get real: this is a facetious formality. If you *really* want to "master" something as fast as possible, you go to Hydron and lazily let your teammates kill crap until it is rank 20. Currently, the fastest way to "master" a weapon is to equip it, let your teammates kill everything, and never even pull its trigger. Everyone knows this.

Sure, if you want to role play like you are actually "mastering" a weapon, you could go shoot stuff with it. But you are going 10-30 times slower than just soaking up shared affinity from your teammates and you are wasting your own time. I know the difference. My jaw dropped the first time I decided to go public on Helene and saw how many hours I had wasted trying to actually "master" weapons by using them myself as a new player on the planets before Saturn.

Most of these weapons are so bad, you would never use them and they are merely fodder for MR, not something you are actually "mastering". So what I am suggesting is that we consider a path to gaining MR that lets you do what is actually fun in the game instead of regressing back to using useless weapons or taking advantage of your teammates.

actually no , the fastest way is to do the kills yourself....
you only get a parts of your teamates affinity gains. If you get your own affinity gain it's even faster.
Hence the naramon melee kills.
You don't get much only if you rely solely on your abilities.
(and even faster with stealth kill but it's more of a equinox or ivara or loki thing on solo)

but then again , it wasn't about roleplay and once again you didn't read the huge problem that would come up if abilities would actually spread affinity evenly to all your equipment.
There would be no more squad at all for affinity grind , excepts only with friends or among people that can't solo yet.

[(PSN)DrGrib]

9 minutes ago, (NSW)Gamma83 said:

actually no , the fastest way is to do the kills yourself....
you only get a parts of your teamates affinity gains. If you get your own affinity gain it's even faster.
Hence the naramon melee kills.

I don't have a single point of focus in Naramon yet as a new player and most even newer players won't even know what you are talking about. That is way too late in the game to try to generalize as a feasible way to build MR. Without Naramon, the math on this is simple: you kill it yourself with the weapon, you get 50% affinity to the weapon; you let your teammate kill it (with anything, including abilities), you get 75% affinity to the weapon if it is all you have equipped. So, no, for new players, it is definitely not faster to kill it yourself.

Quote

There would be no more squad at all for affinity grind , excepts only with friends or among people that can't solo yet.

Here is a simple mathematical fix that would still make it rewarding to be in public squads: give the 75% affinity on your single equipped weapon to you AND your teammates when you kill something in a team with shared affinity active. Done. Now no one has to be lazy and it doesn't matter who kills it. Everyone can attack with full force and not hold back.

The solution needs some thought on how you level frames but I think it is a step in the right direction. Maybe only apply it when you have a level 30 frame.

[baldy117]

i did like 3 to 4 railjack missions and i maxed out my freshly build gear to 30

[(NSW)Gamma83]

 

il y a 8 minutes, (PSN)DrGrib a dit :

I don't have a single point of focus in Naramon yet as a new player and most even new players won't even know what you are talking about. That is way too late in the game to try to generalize as a feasible way to build MR. Without Naramon, the math on this is simple: you kill it yourself with the weapon, you get 50% affinity to the weapon; you let your teammate kill it (with anything, including abilities), you get 75% affinity to the weapon. So, no, for new players, it is definitely not faster to kill it yourself.

Here is a simple mathematical fix that would still make it rewarding to be in public squads: give the 75% experience to you AND your teammates when you kill something in a team with shared affinity active. Done. Now no one has to be lazy and it doesn't matter who kills it. Everyone can attack with full force and not hold back.

naramon only increase it , it's not mandatory by any means , killing with a melee weapons (or any aoe weapons) would still net you way more affinity than leeching.
Also it doesn't solve the problem , soloing would still be doable.
and if the "evenly distributed affinity" is only a squad thing (even if there's no reason that would be the case) , people would simply spam their 4th abilities and afk , such gameplay , much wow.
You don't even have to use spore with saryn , simply max range and efficiency and spam the ult ability every 3 seconds , the defense round is done in a few minutes....
there's already enough afk players as is in hydron.
i highly doubt that's what the devs intend to have as a futur for warframe.

But then again that's my opinion 
 

il y a 6 minutes, baldy117 a dit :

i did like 3 to 4 railjack missions and i maxed out my freshly build gear to 30

Yea railjack missions makes good affinity gain.
Though personally i'am more into steel path stealth or melee kill.
(considering i play on console and that no one plays railjack almost there xD )

[(PSN)DrGrib]

1 minute ago, (NSW)Gamma83 said:

naramon only increase it , it's not mandatory by any means , killing with a melee weapons (or any aoe weapons) would still net you way more affinity than leeching.

Dude. *What* are you talking about. 50% is less than 75%. Explain the math to me here if you think I am getting it wrong. Leeching most definitely is the fastest way, especially without Naramon.

[(NSW)Gamma83]

 

il y a 17 minutes, (PSN)DrGrib a dit :

Dude. *What* are you talking about. 50% is less than 75%. Explain the math to me here if you think I am getting it wrong. Leeching most definitely is the fastest way, especially without Naramon.

it's actually a percentage of a percentage so it's doesn't work like you think it does and gives a bit less than you think it does, though affinity from party member does gives quiet an amount it's still less than actually doing the killing yourself.
But it's a bit late (living in france) and i'am about to go to sleep.
Eitherway , killing yourself more things net you more affinity actually (and yes even more the case with naramon , though it's not mandatory)
Also it makes the waves obviously quicker instead of leeching and increase the ratio time/affinity.

Though yea even if killing the enemies gives more exp (especially with naramon), the way affinity works on warframe does create a tendancy on leeching from some players, but i think extending that to abilities spam would make it even more the case as every players would simply ability spam be it solo or in squad and the 3 others would simply afk.
(and your dear saryn would be nerfed to the ground as well by the nerf hammer if that was a thing)

but once again, i was mostly stating how big a problem would it be for warframe as an online game and for it's mastery ranking if abilities kill would spread to weapons.
 we got a different opinion on that matter, maybe because i played longer, but i was mostly stating my point of view and sharing what problems it would cause.

Have a good evening.

[Wyrmius_Prime]

The affinity share system is complete crap and rewards leeching instead of actually playing the game. It has needed a rework for a long time but nothing has changed in the past 7 years.

[DrivaMain]

Affinity distribution needs to be removed. Any kill should grant 100% affinity to everything you bring in the arsenal. It forces you to use your fodder items to kill or you can just leech.

[(PSN)DrGrib]

40 minutes ago, (NSW)Gamma83 said:

it's actually a percentage of a percentage so it's doesn't work like you think it does and gives a bit less than you think it does, though affinity from party member does gives quiet an amount it's still less than actually doing the killing yourself.

You have yet to demonstrate the math for this. If a Grineer is 100 affinity, and I kill it with my weapon, 50% goes to the weapon and 50% to the frame, for a total of 50 affinity to the weapon. If my teammate kills the Grineer with anything, including an ability, 75% goes to the weapon if it is the only one I have equipped and 25% goes to the frame, for a total of 75 affinity to the weapon. Again, if I am getting the math wrong, explain it to me, using numbers.

I get that you have other concerns about how things *might* go if this wasn't the system and I do have a different opinion. I think that forcing people to choose between leeching, doing tedious stealth kills, or getting affinity slower is a bad setup and that even the simple change I suggested would be better.

But on the math, what you are saying appears to just be factually incorrect.

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

For anyone who cares, here's the "general rule" via the wiki: https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Affinity#Acquisition

I'm just tossing numbers here, not arguing.

From what I see here's how it works with teammates, Using Saryn leveling a Braton as an example:
If Sayrn does nothing but use abilities, Braton will gain 0 Affinity playing solo. If there are other teammates, Saryn would gain the sum total affinity for her Braton that teammates within sharing range, and likewise they'd get all the Spore-triggered affinity.

If Saryn uses said Braton to kill things, Sayrn gets up to 75% of the affinity from her kills going towards her Braton in addition to squad affinity sharing. The remaining 25% of her Braton kill affinity goes to Saryn.

[(PSN)DrGrib]

18 hours ago, TheSixOfDiamonds said:

If Saryn uses said Braton to kill things, Sayrn gets up to 75% of the affinity from her kills going towards her Braton in addition to squad affinity sharing. The remaining 25% of her Braton kill affinity goes to Saryn.

I'm not arguing either, but again, the math from the very article you linked says otherwise:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kill an enemy with a weapon. Half of the Affinity goes to the Warframe and half to the killing weapon.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So only 50% goes to the Braton if Saryn kills with it. Then if a teammate makes a kill with anything:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Be near an allied Tenno when they kill an enemy. When within 50 meters of an ally (200 meters while using a Fosfor, 250 meters in Landscape missions) when they kill an enemy, you gain the same total Affinity, distributed according to the general rule specified above.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And the general rule it is referencing is:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
all Affinity gained uses the split according to the general rule: 25% of the amount goes to your Warframe and 75% of the amount is divided evenly among all equipped weapons (18.75% each for four weapons while Arch-gun is summoned through Archgun Deployer, 25% each for three, 37.5% each for two, or the full 75% if only one is equipped).
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meaning 75% goes to the Braton if Saryn's teammate kills that enemy instead of Saryn killing with it if it is the only weapon she has equipped.

Which is exactly what I have been saying this whole thread.

[Drachnyn]

I would love it if i could level my weapons quickly myself as saryn in ESO. The arguement of then suddenly no one uses mr fodder weapons anymore doesnt hold because that's not what people are doing right now either, be it with leeching affinity in hydron/ESO or doing gian point runs.

[(PSN)DrGrib]

So I've been searching pretty intensely for solutions to this situation in the current system, trying to find ways to get MR efficiently without taking advantage of my teammates. The best solution I've found is a neutral Nova (0% slow on m-prime via a full Overextended + a full Intensify). This softens the enemies up so it is easier to kill them with crap weapons. Then, apparently, affinity from kills caused by a chain reaction of explosions from a single kill on an m-primed enemy go to the weapon that started the chain (50% of course). I can usually get some kills off even with a crap weapon and get a decent amount of affinity on it while still helping the team. I've successfully gotten crap weapons to 20 in a single 15 wave Hydron run with this method.

I'm still disappointed that there is no efficient way to do this with any random frame or at least high damage frames like Saryn and Mesa but at least there is a narrow path to get affinity on weapons efficiently without taking advantage of your teammates.

[(NSW)BalticBarbarian]

Does nobody here think that just running 15-20 waves of Hydron over and over again is not the intended way to play this game to begin with? It is, indeed, an efficient way for gaining MR (and that's why we all use it), but that's not the intended way of doing so.

Especially for newer players, there's so much of the game you could explore outside Hydron! Go play the actual game!

As for the shared affinity - I suspect it was intended to counteract higher-level players (or trolls) hogging all the kills in a mission. With it, all the teammates get (more or less) the same amount of affinity from a mission, no matter who does the actual killing - as long as the squad sticks together - so one player doing all the kills does not disadvantage other players.

The whole idea of Hydron (or ESO, or Gian Point) farming is us abusing affinity farming: take a small tileset (so that everyone stays within affinity range) with higher-level enemies and kill them in a squad. The whole point is not about gaining affinity from the kills you do - the point is to gain affinity from kills your teammates do! And if you insist on doing all the kills throughout the mission, you're not really helping your teammates - you're just making the process even more boring for them.

As far as loadouts are concerned: take ANY frame with some basic survivability mods and equip ANY two weapons. Make the third weapon something that can actually do damage: in case teammates leave and you need to finish next 5 waves solo (this weapon should have a focus lens). Then go into the mission and try to only use the first two weapons. Assume other players will be doing the same (if not - more affinity for you!). Will that make the missions take a bit longer? Sure! But everyone will actually be playing the game rather than falling asleep while a Saryn is doing all the nuking!

P.S.: for bonus points, use all 3 fodder weapon and have your archgun as the emergency damage dealer - that way you're levelling 3 fodder weapons at the same time.