Holokey drops are still a complete joke.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

The last probably 10 veil void storms I've run I haven't gotten a single holokey drop.  Not one.  37.5% drop chance and they haven't dropped once in nearly a dozen missions.  I have gotten 10 total.  Ever.  

You know what HAS dropped?  Oberon parts.  I have like 100 full sets of Oberon parts from when they used to have a reasonable drop location.  For no reason at all you moved them from being a newbie friendly drop that made them easily accessible.  Except there is a reason.  To further dilute an already unrewarding drop table.  With an average pub group or solo, void storms take forever compared to nearly any other mission type and yet the only reward that drops from them that matters to me in the slightest is the endo.  I would have included holokeys in that, but they apparently aren't in the drop table.  Running endless amounts of void storms, getting a trickle of prime parts and endo and getting absolutely nothing else that matters in the slightest just for an apparently non-existent chance at holokeys is not fun.  It's garbage.  

I am beyond frustrated and tired with the RNG getting more and more layered and drops getting so much worse.  Why can't you just make literally anything feel actually rewarding?  What would be so wrong with void storms actually guaranteeing a drop?  They could be a guaranteed drop at the same amount as the RNG drop and it would still take plenty of time to get enough to buy a single weapon.  Not to mention either having to wait for the right weapon to show up or having to buy multiple weapons for fusing.  There's more than enough grind in the system as is without having atrocious RNG on top of it so that you literally make ZERO progress for hours on end.  Because I've made zero progress on this.  Over multiple hours I have run missions hoping to get 1/4th of the thing I need to buy a single weapon that is also covered in varying layers of RNG and made no progress.  The hollow keys I have I got from before the changes were made.

The drop rate is awful.  For as long as the mission takes, the drop rate needs to at least partially guarantee some progress.  You do this with every single new system.  It's Necramech mods all over again, with awful drop rates on something that takes forever.  Stop disrespecting your players' time with this insane idea that making no progress is a good way to make people grind.

[krc473]

49 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

The drop rate is awful.  For as long as the mission takes, the drop rate needs to at least partially guarantee some progress.

What mission types are you doing? Exterminate is the only one I can actually recommend - with acceptable gear it is fairly quick. This might be quite biased as I mostly do them, but exterminate and spy missions give a good hit rate. My last three out of four exterminates dropped the keys (overall about 70% have).

 

I do think it might be better to increase the chance though. Even have it on a seperate drop - say, keep the 37.5% drop chance, but add an additional (independent) drop that has a higher chance and gives a quarter or half the keys.

[Graavarg]

35 minutes ago, krc473 said:

Even have it on a seperate drop - say, keep the 37.5% drop chance...

I agree, a 37.5% dice roll for each possible single Holokey drop is a H*LL of a lot better than the current system. Putting an hour into doing Void storms and not getting a single key is a good example of a really sh*tty game experience.

And the thing is that getting double the expected amount during the next hour will NOT erase or compensate for that bad feeling, even if the player then reaches that magical mean 37.5% drop amount.

A game component that generates more bad feeling and more ill will and frustration than positive vibes should simply be changed into something better. The current drop system is completely unnecessary, since there are several ways to implement more rewarding drop systems with the same drop rate over time.

[Tsoe]

well i guess they made sis forced to drop them for a reason , you can have 4 in a row each time , maybe tenet mele weapons are not suposed to be ez to get?

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

50 minutes ago, krc473 said:

What mission types are you doing? Exterminate is the only one I can actually recommend - with acceptable gear it is fairly quick.

It's not that I'm having trouble completing the missions, they're just involved and a lot of pub crews have AFK players in them and soloing means you do it all yourself.  You also can't really control what type of mission the storm picks.  I'm running whatever happens to be available.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

7 minutes ago, Tsoe said:

maybe tenet mele weapons are not suposed to be ez to get?

I don't mean to be hostile here, but I've been encountering this mentality of "boring, tedious gameplay is part of the challenge." a LOT lately and it's starting to become a sore spot.

There is a massive difference between tedious and challenging.  Making no progress because RNG says no for hours on end isn't challenging.  It isn't anything but garbage.  Locking the tenet melee weapons behind this many layers of trash is awful and needs to be changed.  The changes to liches and sisters were already awful enough.  They really need to stop making everything this horrible slog.

[krc473]

16 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

It's not that I'm having trouble completing the missions, they're just involved and a lot of pub crews have AFK players in them and soloing means you do it all yourself.  You also can't really control what type of mission the storm picks.  I'm running whatever happens to be available.

You may have more luck picking and choosing what you do. Perhaps it is a PC specific thing, but I find it much more efficient to run exterminations - solo or otherwise.

26 minutes ago, Graavarg said:

I agree, a 37.5% dice roll for each possible single Holokey drop is a H*LL of a lot better than the current system. Putting an hour into doing Void storms and not getting a single key is a good example of a really sh*tty game experience.

This is not what I was suggesting. We have 37.5% chance to get the current drops, then an additional 50% chance for bonus keys. Perhaps using the bonus (white) objective - it really serves no purpose most of the time.

[Tsoe]

40 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

I don't mean to be hostile here, but I've been encountering this mentality of "boring, tedious gameplay is part of the challenge." a LOT lately and it's starting to become a sore spot.

There is a massive difference between tedious and challenging.  Making no progress because RNG says no for hours on end isn't challenging.  It isn't anything but garbage.  Locking the tenet melee weapons behind this many layers of trash is awful and needs to be changed.  The changes to liches and sisters were already awful enough.  They really need to stop making everything this horrible slog.

tenet and kuva are the strongest weapon that you cannot buy and are totaly free...

aside that yu have tone of weapons  i mean like  more than 150..

i want Tenet livia , i have like 4 key to be honest so yeah it gonna take time , but aside that i have plenty of stuff i did not finished in the game yet

 

also maybe the new war will bring other way to get them

a lot of things can be aquired really fast

so i dont wanna be rude (in fact i would like but i cant , i dont wanna be banned)

 

i still like to have something to look forward you know and having some really strong weapon not being so ez to get , dont gonna kill yu unless yu re a cry baby

 

its also only 4 mele weapons not like the other tenet weapons were hard to get lol

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

5 minutes ago, Tsoe said:

so i dont wanna be rude (in fact i would like but i cant

Miss me with it.  You're just here to make the same tired dev defenses as usual.

[Tsoe]

42 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

Miss me with it.  You're just here to make the same tired dev defenses as usual.

you re so wrong i am usually the one to complain

[Wyrmius_Prime]

Can't say I personally had any trouble with them. Even if you spent 30 missions just to get a single weapon, it ultimately doesn't take long when Skirmishes can be completed in less than 4 minutes each. The Corpus missions aren't even worth doing. The more frustrating thing honestly is the fact that you can only buy a single weapon of each type per shop rotation. It's going to take several weeks of waiting just to max out your favorite weapon or to min-max all of them if you are into that.

[quxier]

36 minutes ago, Tsoe said:

tenet and kuva are the strongest weapon that you cannot buy and are totaly free...

aside that yu have tone of weapons  i mean like  more than 150..

i want Tenet livia , i have like 4 key to be honest so yeah it gonna take time , but aside that i have plenty of stuff i did not finished in the game yet

 

also maybe the new war will bring other way to get them

a lot of things can be aquired really fast

so i dont wanna be rude (in fact i would like but i cant , i dont wanna be banned)

 

i still like to have something to look forward you know and having some really strong weapon not being so ez to get , dont gonna kill yu unless yu re a cry baby

There is much more weapons but huge part of them is not worth the effort. If someone has all weapons they need then not getting holos for a NEW weapon is bad.

Quote

its also only 4 mele weapons not like the other tenet weapons were hard to get lol

I get pretty good RJ (for solo it's horrible first steps) I've beaten 1 or 2 Liches. I heard about hounds and Sisters' weapons. I've looked at wiki... and I haven't bothered to touch Sisters.

[Schwitzer]

RNG for a Void Storm on a decent mission. 

RNG for Holokeys to drop at all (but most likely more bloody useless Sevagoth parts).

RNG vendor for element and stats (seems weighted towards low values too).

Shop items bad? Come back in a few days for more disappointment. 

Just increasing the drop quantity fundamentally misses what is so frustrating with this drawn out, unrewarding game loop.

[Tsoe]

aside that  admit Rng can drive yu crazy , wut would be the trick to make a weapon hard to get without rng since we have so much power that we can cheeze allmost all the content.

 

i also would really like rewards hidden by a skill wall and not rng

 

like crazy parkour stuff with all frames power desactivated or dark soul like fight 1vs1 with some wicked boss

[Jarriaga]

On 2021-09-18 at 6:18 PM, Tsoe said:

well i guess they made sis forced to drop them for a reason , you can have 4 in a row each time , maybe tenet mele weapons are not suposed to be ez to get?

If only they had told people to hold off on farming Sisters months ago and not after they were already done farming them because they had the weapons they wanted at +60 and the ephemera.

But no.

And of top of that, they are not giving you back the Holokeys you would have earned based on the number of Sisters you've killed. Literally, they are punishing you for playing their latest update and launch.

[Tsoe]

17 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

If only they had told people to hold off on farming Sisters months ago and not after they were already done farming them because they had the weapons they wanted at +60 and the ephemera.

But no.

And of top of that, they are not giving you back the Holokeys you would have earned based on the number of Sisters you've killed. Literally, they are punishing you for playing their latest update and launch.

yeah.... they should have game some kind of compensation , even 20key or lets would have been good

i really love the idea of getting coin/money each rng mission that allow you to get something you want at some point , it give the feeling that your time is not totaly wasted

 

i wouldnt say no for something similar for lichs but , for sure if they do it , they should give some special thing to players who farming them for so long now

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

22 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

If only they had told people to hold off on farming Sisters months ago and not after they were already done farming them because they had the weapons they wanted at +60 and the ephemera.

But no.

And of top of that, they are not giving you back the Holokeys you would have earned based on the number of Sisters you've killed. Literally, they are punishing you for playing their latest update and launch.

They do this every time.  I've run one sister, just long enough to see that the Tenet Diplos special attack doesn't work on like 40% of the enemies in the game because they have the wrong hitbox shape.  I hate the new DR, I don't like the sister larva grind, the RJ mission feels tacked on and pointless for anything other than making it take a tiny bit longer.  That's one of the issues with bad grind.  What should be an exciting mission culminating your hunt feels tacked on and superfluous because you're grinding through the same exact content that's been out for years (star chart missions.  yay.) and just want it to end so you can get the weapon.  It doesn't feel big, or even final because there's hours of the same thing left as you try to grind for more through the exact same process.  It feels like a hassle that only serves to extend the hunt.  

So I'm not really touching them because just like with bounties and isovaults and the entirety of RJ and a dozen other systems they're eventually going to make it not so unbearably awful and I'll just do it then.

[Schwitzer]

Adding a pittance of Holokeys to Sisters is nice if you haven't already farmed dozens of them and acquired all the weapons and ephemera. 

There is a sense of DE 'punishing' early adopters by improving systems after the dedicated have finished with them. Some sort of retroactive reimbursement would surely be doable. But no, if you engaged early you miss out.

[sunderthefirmament]

2 hours ago, Schwitzer said:

Adding a pittance of Holokeys to Sisters is nice if you haven't already farmed dozens of them and acquired all the weapons and ephemera. 

There is a sense of DE 'punishing' early adopters by improving systems after the dedicated have finished with them. Some sort of retroactive reimbursement would surely be doable. But no, if you engaged early you miss out.

But if you wait too long to engage with the content it will probably have been broken by a subsequent patch that addresses or adds something else.  And because it's not the new hotness, it will take a while for it to get fixed... if it ever does.

 

Back to the issue at hand- if DE put a guaranteed key on every Void Storm at Neo or above, I would probably try to max out a tenet melee weapon or two.  As it stands, I ground out the keys, grabbed whatever Glast had in stock, and maxed it out for MR.  None of the weapons are particularly interesting, and the grind left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Jackdarsan]

It is a joke but the bigger problem i see is almost everyone rushed to collect them as soon as they came out. 

Burnt out over the crappy drop rates. Collected the 4 weapons. 

Now there's this holokey that no one will ever want to farm again and have no use for. 

So I just feel bad for any new comers that will need to farm this and see how little interest there is in the community. 

The only upside is i made like 40mill credits trying to farm the 120 keys, so that was a nice bonus.  

[Graavarg]

I don't think there is anything wrong with the actual missions, they are easy enough to solo with the right equipment and the drops are overall right-out generous. The Void Storm missions also goes smoother and quicker with a dedicated team, underlining that Warframe somewhere at it's core is still a co-op game.

However, it is when you have no need anymore for any of the other drops and all you want is Corrupted Holokeys that the design flaw pops into focus.  The "digital" all-or-nothing approach to Corrupted Holokeys driven by randomness results in two "negative" things:

- First of all, the probability itself (37.5%) ensures that on average every player will have approx. two "fails" for every "win". That is, on average, a double amount of "negative experience" compared to a "positive experience". This is further enhanced by the time you have to put into the missions (and by the player-driven problems in PUBs).

- Secondly, the randomness approach also ensures that the actual drop frequency for players will be distributed on both sides of the average, so that for every player having a little more luck there is another player having the same amount of extra "un-luck". The cold, hard math also ensures that some players will get Corrupted Holokeys only every 10th mission, and that some will get Corrupted Holokeys only every 20th mission. While the fraction of players experiencing this "extreme un-luck" gets smaller the larger the unluckiness gets, it's still there. Try telling someone experiencing such "unluckiness" that it isn't a problem, because it only happens to a small amount of players...

DE now has added another way to get Corrupted Holokeys (one per Sister killed in the final mission), but that has no bearing on the Corrupted Holokey drop system in Void Storms. Switching to doing 10 Sisters after experiencing "statistical unluckiness" in Void Storms hardly removes or compensates for that horrifying experience.

While some argue that it is the overall drop rate that should be increased I think the drop rate is pretty much ok. The problem is the all-or-nothing randomness approach, a problem that gets more ugly the less you need any of the other drops. And that problem gets into all-out insane territory when you consider that DE actually thinks we are going to be farming multiple copies of these four weapons in order to max them out.

[Teridax68]

I agree with this, the current state of holokey farming is still awful, and the minor change on Sisters does nothing for the people who've already done that part of the grind.

It needs to be made clear that, when it comes to grinding, there are two ways of implementing progress towards a goal:

1. Progress towards the goal is reliable, but slower than other modes of progression. Affinity-based progression is one example of this kind of progression.
2. Progress towards the goal is unreliable, but each instance of progression is faster than alternatives. Rotation drop tables are one example of this kind of progression.

Each of these individually are used to create grind loops that last a certain amount of time (and can take a long time), but are also, in theory at least, proportioned so that the player doesn't feel like they're spending too much time without making meaningful progress. The problem with holokey drops in Void Storms is that it uses both at the same time: not only is progress unreliable, but even if one were to obtain holokeys reliably, it would still be slow. This double whammy is what makes the grind feel so bad still, and if that is to change, then either holokeys need to drop reliably from Void Storms, or what drops should be enough to progress significantly towards a Tenet weapon. The fact that one can currently grind for hours without making any real progress towards a single weapon is nuts.

[DoomFruit]

13 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

But if you wait too long to engage with the content it will probably have been broken by a subsequent patch that addresses or adds something else.  And because it's not the new hotness, it will take a while for it to get fixed... if it ever does.

Then just keep leaving it alone until it actually works.

[JackFraust]

As it is, it takes a minimum of 4 veil missions per weapon to get enough holokeys (that's 16 missions to get enough for one of each weapon, with successive drops) and since there's a 37.5% chance of getting holokeys, it'll take about 42 missions to get just enough for the mastery completion alone. Now, like other tenet weapons, these 4 weapons can also be upgraded through fusion. meaning, it can take up to 3 to 4 times the 40 holokeys needed to buy more copies in order to max the damage output of one of the specific weapons (depending on luck and elemental preference).

4 weapons x 40 holokeys = 160 holokeys per set

160 holokeys x (3 to 4) copies per weapon for fusion = 480 to 640 holokeys needed to max all weapons' stats

480 to 640 total holokeys / 10 holokeys per veil mission = 48 to 64 veil missions with holokeys reward

48 to 64 veil missions + [48 to 64 / 62.5% chance of not getting holokeys] = 124.8 to 166.4 total veil missions needed to max out all 4 weapons

Now, my math may be wrong, but if it isn't, no one is gonna want to run 100 to 200 railjack missions to farm for 4 weapons. Even if they made holokeys drop 100% of the time, that's still dozens of missions at the least and with weapons cycling over a period of 4 days, it could take weeks, possibly even months (depending on what damage bonus one wants on the weapons) to farm for these 4 weapons. I understand DE wants to stretch out content to make it last, but there is a limit to how far they stretch something until it breaks the gamer's interest.

[Hardwood]

With all of the ridiculously slow farms in this game I am continually baffled why this is the one everyone obsesses over.

I don't care about Tenet melee weapons but I got all four without even thinking about it while doing the much slower, much more awful railjack farms.

I get that some insane people feel the need to max the meaningless elemental buff on those bad weapons, but it still doesn't take that long compared to really awful stuff like Deimos vaults.