Its time to remove affinity range - in every gamemode

[DreisterDino]

I think the affinity range limitations dont have any reason to be in the game anymore.

In my opinion, it has no benefits and only reduces the fun in public groups.

 

Railjack made me notice that it is a lot more fun to play with randoms if affinity range is unlimited and you dont have to care about staying together.

I guess the "staying together" part might come up as a benefit for this system but lets be real:

• the players who ignore their squad will continue to do so even if you ask them to stay together in most cases
• also, should we even tell other players to not explore the map and find ayatans for example while other players do other stuff?
• yes, Fosfor Blau/Rahd exists and i actually spam them when i level stuff. But imo thats just a poor bandaid which takes your ressources and forces you to keep track of another timed "ability" on top of all the other stuff thats going on. Finally, people still manage to even leave the increased affinity range..

 

The fact that we now have a "normal" survival mission with affinity range and a "railjack" survival without affinity range shows that there is no justification for this system in 2021 anymore. The Railjack Version becomes the exact same mission after the beginning, still affinity range is handled differently (i know that most likely they are unable to code it in a different way, but that doesnt invalidates my point i think).

 

I am just sick of trying to stay in affinity range with everyone when leveling stuff.

The process is slow enough already, i dont think we need this extra-hurdle.

And i dont want to tell my squadmates to stay together, in my experience either players want to stay together, or they dont - but a system like this doesnt change their behaviour.

 

What do you guys think?

 

Edit: Leeching and co-op gameplay has come up in this discussion as a reason to not remove affinity range because it would allow/increase leeching and remove co-op aspects. In theory this might be true in some cases, but as a general statement its wrong in my opinion. We have to consider all gamemodes in Warframe, not only Survival. A few examples have been discussed in this topic already. In many cases, the current situation with leeching and cooperative gameplay is worse with affinity range then it would be without:

• Defense/ESO: First of all, these missions are often used for leveling and with the restrictions of affinity range in combination with the way affinity works in general in Warframe, leeching behaviours are even encouraged. I guess everyone knows how the reality looks like: You have 1 or 2 nuke frames in your squad and 2 or 3 players with nothing to contribute, so in many cases players stand around doing nothing. If those players would be at least allowed to run around the map without punishments due to affinity range, they could clean up the remaining mobs the nuke doesnt kill. They would be contributing to the team instead of being forced to stand in the middle doing nothing if they want affinity.
• Interception/Spy: In missions like these, the players actually have to spread out, its part of the mission design. At the same time, affinity range punishes them for doing what they are suppossed to do.
• Orokin Vaults/Kuva Missions: There are many missions which make us find something on the map, either rooms (Orokin Vaults, Silver Grove) or objectives (Syphons, Simaris targets) or loot (Syndicate Medaillons, Ayatans). In each case, spreading out is way more cooperative and fun for each player and the way you want to play the mission in most cases.

 

Besides that, i think that if the goal of affinity range was to prevent leeching and increase teamplay, this system failed to achieve this anyway.

 

Complaints about this are nothing new, and if you look at the missions in which leeching is most common (Defense, ESO), infinite affinity range wouldn't make this worse. The players who want to leech are doing it already and affinity range doesnt stop them. In all other missions, players who are leeching most likely dont do it for affinity but for the end of mission rewards, so a change to affinity range will have no effect on this aswell.

[Uhkretor]

6 minutes ago, DreisterDino said:

What do you guys think?

... That your definition of "Remove" and "Unlimited" were merged somewhere during your current lifetime up until now.

[Tesseract7777]

I strongly disagree. 

Affinity range is one of the only carrots that actually encourages Tenno to stay roughly near each other when doing stuff like Survival, etc. 

It would just make the game more anti-coop, as we could all run off to completely different corners of the map and share xp, playing together but alone. 

What's the fun of playing with random Tenno if your idea of playing with random Tenno is to be so far apart that you aren't interacting with them? 

[Terroriced]

I really want affinity range restrictions gone in Sanctuary Onslaught since we are always in a single room anyway.

[Jarriaga]

I don't think it's healthy for the game to incentivize even more "In a group but solo" situations.

[PublikDomain]

16 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

I strongly disagree. 

Affinity range is one of the only carrots that actually encourages Tenno to stay roughly near each other when doing stuff like Survival, etc. 

It would just make the game more anti-coop, as we could all run off to completely different corners of the map and share xp, playing together but alone. 

What's the fun of playing with random Tenno if your idea of playing with random Tenno is to be so far apart that you aren't interacting with them? 

But Affinity Range is only a factor if people are leveling gear. If you're not leveling anything then the one and only incentive to stick around goes away. And even if you do stay within Affinity Range, it's not like the game actually incentivizes or requires cooperation. There aren't any combo kills or double-team attacks or enemies that require two players to defeat. We're already "playing together but alone" and it's been that way for years. Not sure if anything would really change in that respect, and it'd mean could explore the map even if your teammates wanted to go camp in a sewer.

Edit: Or more to my point, if changing the game's "playing together but alone" thing is desirable (I think that it is) then addressing that through actual gameplay mechanics and design would be far preferable to relying on a weak punishment for being too far away.

[(PSN)Unstar]

If you want DE to see this, you'll want to move it to the Feedback forums; they don't look here.

As much as I dislike Affinity Range, it does serve a good purpose.  Railjack is a specific game mode where splitting up is actually beneficial to the group, so it makes sense to not have it there.  But most other game modes it's one of the only reasons to keep a group together.  Though on that note, there's probably a decent argument to be made for making Affinity Range infinite during Defense, Interception, Defection, and Disruption, since during these missions there's a distinct strategic advantage to players splitting up rather than clustering in one spot.

But be careful: if Affinity Range was infinite, Trinity would be OP!      ; )

[DreisterDino]

vor 18 Minuten schrieb Tesseract7777:

What's the fun of playing with random Tenno if your idea of playing with random Tenno is to be so far apart that you aren't interacting with them? 

Thats not my idea of playing public, i like staying together (although there are exceptions).

My point is that people will run away if they feel like it, and the limited affinity range wont stop them. Thats my experience in 4 years of Warframe.

 

And regarding the exceptions:

• if you play Harrow/Nidus for example its annoying if the other players are nuking everything left and right and you cannot get your Frame going. But going somewhere where you can get kills punishes both you and your teammates in regards of affinity.
• everyone has certain frames he doesnt like to play with in a Squad: I for example hate Khora because the ragdolldome makes killing enemies with weapons pretty annoying. Same as above - i could go somewhere else so both Khora and me can do what we are supposed to do, but we get punished for it. I dont want to stand inside the dome doing nothing watching Khora doing everything just to be able to level my stuff.

 

vor 23 Minuten schrieb (XBOX)TyeGoo:

I'm curious how Warframe abilities based on affinity range would work, if they'd remove that and change it to normal ranges, or forget about it and we have endless range abilities xD (I think it's only a few though)

didnt think about this, but either let the ability scale with Power Range or make it a set range with the same value it had before i'd say.

[trst]

Absolutely not.

What you'll end up with is leeches being able to keep themselves completely safe in some dead-end room while still getting full affinity (which is already encouraged by the affinity system) and players splitting up spawns in survival-like modes which both makes the mission and loot gathering harder. Even if both of these already happen all you would accomplish is further encouraging these behaviors. And if it isn't present in Corpus RJ survivals then it should be put in there for the survival portion.

Meanwhile those who do care for getting team affinity only need to stay within said range which can be increased with those gear items and through Vazarin's focus tree. And going away from your squad to get pickups is the players own choice and even then doing so in survival missions is potentially harming your own mission and team due to you splitting spawns.

[(PSN)Adometro]

I think the point is to influence a team to stay close together.  Or to prevent things like a guy hiding in a vent at start of mission to siphon XP from a group.

Use the smoke signals from Cetus if it's an issue.  They are cheap, last 2 minutes and triple the affinity range.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

The reason is for you to not run off 1300m ahead of the group and still get benefits of shared affinity. There is a reason.

[Tesseract7777]

1 hour ago, PublikDomain said:

But Affinity Range is only a factor if people are leveling gear. If you're not leveling anything then the one and only incentive to stick around goes away. And even if you do stay within Affinity Range, it's not like the game actually incentivizes or requires cooperation. There aren't any combo kills or double-team attacks or enemies that require two players to defeat. We're already "playing together but alone" and it's been that way for years. Not sure if anything would really change in that respect, and it'd mean could explore the map even if your teammates wanted to go camp in a sewer.

Edit: Or more to my point, if changing the game's "playing together but alone" thing is desirable (I think that it is) then addressing that through actual gameplay mechanics and design would be far preferable to relying on a weak punishment for being too far away.

I understand what you are saying, that's why I agree with your last bit. Maybe more mechanics would be great. More carrots, as it were. As you said when you aren't leveling gear there is no benefit to it. And far too often the game is easy enough that we don't need each others powers or synergies to help us out. 

[(XBOX)The Neko Otaku]

You could always use the flares from cetus to extend the range, funnfact they also extend trins bless range

[(PSN)robotwars7]

there are many benefits to staying together: easier to find drops, easier to fend off groups, revives are quicker etc.  unfortunately many players don't realize this and will insist on being "hallway heroes" no matter what; the only thing that *might* stop them is knowing they get less affinity, but even that isn't enough to resist the temptation of a faraway hallway full of enemies.. who will then down that player with no hope of revives because they decided to rush a group of Napalms without evading or usign any defensive abilities they might have.

it's for the same reason we have Standing caps: you guys can't control yourselves, so the game has to do it for you. boo me for it if you want, that's the cold hard truth.

[PublikDomain]

2 hours ago, trst said:

What you'll end up with is leeches being able to keep themselves completely safe in some dead-end room while still getting full affinity (which is already encouraged by the affinity system) and players splitting up spawns in survival-like modes which both makes the mission and loot gathering harder. Even if both of these already happen all you would accomplish is further encouraging these behaviors. And if it isn't present in Corpus RJ survivals then it should be put in there for the survival portion.

Yeah but players that want to leech can already play Limbo and wait around with complete impunity. You don't even have to sit in a dead end. And leeching being encouraged by the Affinity system is a problem that still needs addressing as it is. And the issue with loot is addressed in Railjack with shared loot pickups, so if that were expanded to regular modes too then there'd be no problems. If someone runs off and starts killing enemies or looting other rooms... great! More loot and Affinity for the whole team. That'd be much better than the systems we have now, where if someone runs off all that loot and Affinity is lost to the rest of the party. Yeah, there'd be an issue with leeching, but the issues with leeching already exist and already need solutions. Leeching would be better addressed with improved AFK detection/reporting, not relying on the ineffective systems we've got.

[trst]

27 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Yeah but players that want to leech can already play Limbo and wait around with complete impunity. You don't even have to sit in a dead end. And leeching being encouraged by the Affinity system is a problem that still needs addressing as it is. And the issue with loot is addressed in Railjack with shared loot pickups, so if that were expanded to regular modes too then there'd be no problems. If someone runs off and starts killing enemies or looting other rooms... great! More loot and Affinity for the whole team. That'd be much better than the systems we have now, where if someone runs off all that loot and Affinity is lost to the rest of the party. Yeah, there'd be an issue with leeching, but the issues with leeching already exist and already need solutions. Leeching would be better addressed with improved AFK detection/reporting, not relying on the ineffective systems we've got.

Making those issues worse with an unnecessary change that would almost exclusively benefit those who cause said issues isn't going to help much of anything. And the last thing we need is more systems encouraging leeching and hallway heroes. As not all, if not most, players appreciate having to deal with either.

Affinity range exists to try to solve a problem. Removing it should only be considered after, not before, said problem is solved with a different method.

[DrivaMain]

3 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

It would just make the game more anti-coop, as we could all run off to completely different corners of the map and share xp, playing together but alone. 

Wait, CO-OP exist in Warframe? I thought the gameplay is just 4 players doing their own thing and ignore each other. Making affinity range infinite wouldn't make the game "anti-COOP" than it already is

[YUNoJump]

I can understand the arguments for removing it, but if they did remove it then I'd like for them to replace it with a similar incentive for teamplay. There are lots of good reasons to incentivise a squad sticking together, both for gameplay reasons and just for promoting a cooperative culture within the game.

[PublikDomain]

38 minutes ago, trst said:

Making those issues worse with an unnecessary change that would almost exclusively benefit those who cause said issues isn't going to help much of anything. And the last thing we need is more systems encouraging leeching and hallway heroes. As not all, if not most, players appreciate having to deal with either.

Affinity range exists to try to solve a problem. Removing it should only be considered after, not before, said problem is solved with a different method.

I think regular players would benefit the most, actually. You'd no longer lose out on Affinity or have to chase after loot whenever teammates run off, which they already do regardless of Affinity Range. Leeches would benefit, sure, but so would regular players who don't leech. And passing on mechanics that can improve your experience to spite leeches that don't matter doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, especially when those leeches need to be addressed anyways since the existing systems fail to do anything. Really, the last thing we need is to give up out of fear that leeching and hallways heroes would be encouraged when the systems already encourage leeching and hallway heroes.

[ZeroX4]

4 hours ago, DreisterDino said:

I think the affinity range limitations dont have any reason to be in the game anymore.

In my opinion, it has no benefits and only reduces the fun in public groups.

 

Railjack made me notice that it is a lot more fun to play with randoms if affinity range is unlimited and you dont have to care about staying together.

I guess the "staying together" part might come up as a benefit for this system but lets be real:

• the players who ignore their squad will continue to do so even if you ask them to stay together in most cases
• also, should we even tell other players to not explore the map and find ayatans for example while other players do other stuff?
• yes, Fosfor Blau/Rahd exists and i actually spam them when i level stuff. But imo thats just a poor bandaid which takes your ressources and forces you to keep track of another timed "ability" on top of all the other stuff thats going on. Finally, people still manage to even leave the increased affinity range..

 

The fact that we now have a "normal" survival mission with affinity range and a "railjack" survival without affinity range shows that there is no justification for this system in 2021 anymore. The Railjack Version becomes the exact same mission after the beginning, still affinity range is handled differently (i know that most likely they are unable to code it in a different way, but that doesnt invalidates my point i think).

 

I am just sick of trying to stay in affinity range with everyone when leveling stuff.

The process is slow enough already, i dont think we need this extra-hurdle.

And i dont want to tell my squadmates to stay together, in my experience either players want to stay together, or they dont - but a system like this doesnt change their behaviour.

 

What do you guys think?

Look you are game developer
And you stand before a serious choice

Option A - Create system where ppl will at least feel semi-forced to play 2gether
Option B - Remove that system because someone cant form a pre made squad and he dont get as much exp as if Option A didnt exist

For a moment dont think like a player think like a game developer

I for example will always venture trough map but i understand how it can get frustrating for others
On other hand if i wish my squad be in my range i would go to recruit chat and get ppl who understand that idea

I do get that RJ proves unlimited range is cool
But let me present you Option C

Option C - We have bigger than other icon for it in upper right which with each separated tenno turns into darker red and always displays -##% EXP

For example if you are in range of 3 tenno you see 100% exp
When you are close to 2 and 1 is separated it turns light red and you see -25% exp 
on 1 in range and 2 separated icon turns solid red and you see -50% exp and if you are separated form everyone you see -75% exp where that icon turns dark red

Of course numbers are made up they could be different but imagine how would that work on imagination of other players and how that would encourage them to stick 2gether


 

[Voltage]

While Affinity Range isn't a great mechanic, this topic to me sounds like the old request for self-revive  (which we now have). It ultimately further kills co-op in this game and makes it even more mind-numbing. Likewise, more changes like this further devalue proper team composition.

I much rather DE work on more mechanics and changes that encourage people to play in a group and make co-op important.

Removing Affinity Range isn't a good change right now, but maybe this would be better suited once DE makes co-op play important enough to not need this mechanic.

Lowering the bar further and further for players is honestly part of what hollows out the experience Warframe offers and leaves many invested players bored between updates that overshadow the previous ones.

[Drachnyn]

We already have maps where the affinity range becomes annoying even without someone hiding away somewhere or with a big speed difference: the big corpus interception maps like outpost and ship (which is btw still the most garbage defense map ever created and should be removed asap). Just spreading out 4 people over the 4 points puts you out of range.

[Tesseract7777]

29 minutes ago, Voltage said:

While Affinity Range isn't a great mechanic, this topic to me sounds like the old request for self-revive  (which we now have). It ultimately further kills co-op in this game and makes it even more mind-numbing. Likewise, more changes like this further devalue proper team composition.

I much rather DE work on more mechanics and changes that encourage people to play in a group and make co-op important.

Removing Affinity Range isn't a good change right now, but maybe this would be better suited once DE makes co-op play important enough to not need this mechanic.

Lowering the bar further and further for players is honestly part of what hollows out the experience Warframe offers and leaves many invested players bored between updates that overshadow the previous ones.

I kept trying to think of how to explain it, but I feel similarly. 

I am worried this would have similar results to the self-revive... and I don't like how that changed gameplay. 

[RichardKam]

.......so that I can just AFK at the start of my mission and leech affinity when you guys finish? 

No.

[Drachnyn]

I feel like removing affinity range in railjack was closely related to making all pickups shared, which was a great change honestly. Pub fissure survival is so annoying with pickups not being shared.

I dont understand people who in a questionable attempt to inconvenience leechers will take on any and all inconveniences themselves. If someone is leeching, report and move on. Dont try to prevent the game from becoming better for people who play normally.