Forma & Mastery Rank Dev Workshop

[iFlu]

il y a 50 minutes, [DE]Marcus a dit :

Tenno,

When we first introduced Forma years ago, Warframe was a much smaller game. We had fewer weapons, fewer Warframes, and way fewer Mods. As players continue their Forma journey, there’s often discussions on doing a Quality of Life (QOL) pass to the way things work with our favourite Golden Puzzle Piece. We’ve a bit of QOL changes in development, and this workshop details out how Forma will soon work on Warframes, Archwings, and Necramechs. 

We want your Mastery Rank to be considered when using Forma to establish a baseline power level for your playable characters!

What does that mean?

If a Mastery Rank 30 player uses a Forma, they won’t have to re-unlock any Abilities (or their Ranks) on a given item! Yes, they’ll still need to level the gear itself to apply another Forma, but the Abilities are no longer locked depending on your Mastery Rank! This achieves our goal of keeping Forma essential to build customization, but allowing players with higher Mastery Ranks a more convenient experience. 

Right now using a Forma on a Warframe (or Archwing/Necramech) requires you to start from 0 when it comes to Abilities you can use. Furthermore, you only get the first Rank of your First ability. Take Valkyr for instance. You install a Forma, and you’re back to only casting unranked Ripline!

Our change will make it so your Mastery Rank impacts how much you have unlocked by default on Forma use.

For instance, a Mastery Rank 10 player would have all abilities unlocked, albeit not at their full strength! 

This ranking process is something players already experience in game - you know by the time you’ve levelled your Valkyr on Hydron to 10, you unlock Hysteria. We are making your Mastery Rank ‘match’ those milestones, so to speak, with the end goal being a Mastery Rank 30 player can use Forma without ever having to be locked out of Abilities. Simply put, the higher your Mastery Rank, the higher the baseline of your gear when using Forma. 

Expect this change in a future Update. 

Does this also apply to the stats of the Warframe (health, armor, shield) ?

[MrWrightPlays]

So the wording of the post might be hinting at this, but a clearer answer would be nice: Will this apply to brand new frames that we've just built, or will this only apply after the first forma?

[Wyrmius_Prime]

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

When we first introduced Forma years ago, Warframe was a much smaller game. We had fewer weapons, fewer Warframes, and way fewer Mods. As players continue their Forma journey, there’s often discussions on doing a Quality of Life (QOL) pass to the way things work with our favourite Golden Puzzle Piece. We’ve a bit of QOL changes in development, and this workshop details out how Forma will soon work on Warframes, Archwings, and Necramechs. 

The only actual QoL change we need is to massively reduce the build time. All the needed reasons for that are already given right there.

[DrinkingRock]

This is cool QoL, especially for casual players, but I don’t see this changing much for those at the endgame.

Anyone with the Helminth can put Thermal Sunder or Rest on the 1 slot and power/stealth level in a few minutes already, so I only see this shaving off a minute in most cases, only being super useful for things like mechs.

[XacKflash]

Thanks for the Welcome Change! ,

But still not fully implement the "Less Grinding" perspective you mentioned you are targeting in your Devstream 😄

Currently a lot of items require multiple Forma to reach full potential, so the issue is having to go the routine of Ranking up from 0 to 30, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeaaatedly, with very dedicated mission/equipment and most probably with boosters to get through this hurdle, which is not usually entirely feasible through public matchmaking to get to 100% efficiency.

So most of the veterans "if not all" , are very ready to take the challenge of procuring or using their trading gains to procure an item that could lessen this tiresome cycle, there are quite a few way to approach this and I think most are positively welcome by a majority, I'll be mentioning some just for example;

->Item that can add multiple Polarities at time of use > Which reduces amount of Level Up Cycle times.

->Item that can be used to add Polarity at Frame/Gear Lvl 0 with the cost of increasing required XP to full.
-i.e. item adds polarity and stacks the Level up cycle, So I use 3 times ,  and instead of doing 3 cycles of leveling up, its all stacked in one cycle, So at least its a progressive rank up for ONE time , as am finished with all the polarities I need , and with the MR System you are planning to implement this will be a massive QoL.

-And finally of course an item or service [Like an orbiter upgrade Build-Up from foundry OR Available at certain Rank/Favor from an NPC/Outlet] that ultimately Bypasses the whole "Must Level Up Again" Routine.

Thank for the Hard Work 👍🏽 & We are looking forward for our thoughts to be addressed by you in the future 😅

 

[actuallyVile]

1 hour ago, [DE]Marcus said:

If a Mastery Rank 30 player uses a Forma, they won’t have to re-unlock any Abilities (or their Ranks) on a given item! Yes, they’ll still need to level the gear itself to apply another Forma

Stop the leveling too for MR30+, we're wasting so many hours just to get a piece of gear into an enjoyable state, it's madness, especially with the amount of gear you've already done that with at MR30. If you want us to spend more time in the game, give us meaningful (long term) content.

1 hour ago, -Damocles- said:

What about Leg 1 Ranks? What do we get?

Headache, regret.

[XacKflash]

19 minutes ago, SteveCutler said:

Could you please let us stack polarities in the same slot? If we Forma a slot with a V polarity, and then Forma the same slot later with a D polarity, it should end up as V+D. Any V mod or D mod should be compatible in the slot. This change would be a massive enhancement to player convenience and build diversity, without losing you Forma sales as Forma would still be needed for each desired polarity. It might even increase your Forma sales as people would be able to use more builds.

Hmm Nice!, never thought of that, we currently have couple of universal type formas, so this should not be a farfetched request 👍🏽

[hidden41]

Good changes but i don't think these are enough. Leveling the same item from Rank 0 to max, over and over again is boring, unfun. I would appriciate a better solution to get rid of leveling process. And, i know using forma and re-leveling items is one of the main time sinks of warframe and a big impact on income because of boosters, even have impact on matchmakin for nodes but still, leveling items sucks up all of my soul, burns me out super fast.

Game needs new, better, enjoying and future proof ingame loops, time sinks in my opinion.

[VisionAndVoice]

1 hour ago, -Damocles- said:

What about Leg 1 Ranks? What do we get?

 

[--ZuZu--]

Yes! I like it, this is going to release a bit pain that is to level a Frame

[Danielw8]

These changes only will be good for warframes with exalted blades/mesa/scaling nuke... for harrow atlas trinity ash loki doesnt change anything and doesnt change anything about how we get affinity

[Finedaible]

Does this mean wfs and mechs will also have full attributes for a MR30 player?

[SirWumpyFlump]

Interesting change. I like it!

[DragoonStorm1]

1 hour ago, BR31 said:

"When we first introduced Forma years ago, Warframe was a much smaller game. We had fewer weapons, fewer Warframes, and way fewer Mods. "

Ngl. you got me in the first half.

Thanks for a little qol feature, but after i read the first sentence - i thought it would be about addressing the forma income-spending rate.

Other than lua method, 24 hours 1 craft , or once in 2 years PS - you don't have that many options other than buying it .
And an active player easily spends 10-20x weekly .
But probably the biggest problem for me -> no stance for exalted weapons+ not enough capacity with the max forma on non-kuva weapons.

I agree on every count.

But I also am excited for this little QoL change.
 

[kulow]

Can still remember the old way, where you rly had to start all over from 0 again, with no mod capacity at all.. only points you got were the aura ones or with the stance.

I personaly can't see the benefit of this, since everyone + big tech is using things like ESO and whatnot to get the lvling process done asap.

But hey.. if there would be no other, more pressing things that need to be done, put some effort into this.. maybe this will bring us some NEW WAR improvements or something

[LillyRaccune]

Universal Polarity or Stacking Polarity would be a nice QoL update. I feel like five formas builds my configuration into a box. I can't experiment with it at all after that!

[RAZORLIGHT]

finally, now give us another way to farm forma or decrease the build time to 1 hour.

[(PSN)OmegaSlayer]

Allow legendary masters to play Sorties and ESO with this new system

[quxier]

1 hour ago, DrinkingRock said:

This is cool QoL, especially for casual players, but I don’t see this changing much for those at the endgame.

Anyone with the Helminth can put Thermal Sunder or Rest on the 1 slot and power/stealth level in a few minutes already, so I only see this shaving off a minute in most cases, only being super useful for things like mechs.

Anyone can play ESO, with group or using other method that level you quickly. However not everyone does this.

There are lot of players between casual player and "endgamer". I can see it being useful.

[TheLexiConArtist]

2 hours ago, [DE]Marcus said:

Tenno,

When we first introduced Forma years ago, Warframe was a much smaller game. We had fewer weapons, fewer Warframes, and way fewer Mods.

Yes, finally you acknowledge it's outdated, please finally revisit polarisation--

2 hours ago, [DE]Marcus said:

If a Mastery Rank 30 player uses a Forma, they won’t have to re-unlock any Abilities (or their Ranks) on a given item! Yes, they’ll still need to level the gear itself to apply another Forma, but the Abilities are no longer locked depending on your Mastery Rank! This achieves our goal of keeping Forma essential to build customization, but allowing players with higher Mastery Ranks a more convenient experience. 

No, this is not what we needed. This doesn't solve any problem at all.

This here is the minor-est of minor conveniences. What we need is a rework that serves to make polarised items flexible again. Cross-polarity penalties have to go one way or the other, at least, because our modding economy is much more demanding than it originally was. As polarities became increasingly necessary, they went from "adds flexibility" to "restricts flexibility".

 

As it stands, I will get almost no functionality out of this change because the system disinclines me from investing many Forma - I don't want to waste investments with later changes and new mods, I don't want to starve myself out of trying different builds because I needed all the slots restrictively polarised to permit and perfect one build.

I've said it for years and I'll say it again here: Let us unlock polarities as a pool ON THE ITEM from which we can ASSIGN TO SLOTS at will, instead of polarising slots directly.
This can still keep the 'exclusivity' of the special-slots, it's a matter of tracking them as singular polarity unlocks per special-slot separately from the pool of multiple-of-each polarities we're building up for normal slots - or don't track unlock options on those slots at all and give us Exilus Universal Forma to finish the set of Aura and Stance Formas.

[(PSN)Tomplexthis]

3 hours ago, [DE]Marcus said:

Tenno,

When we first introduced Forma years ago, Warframe was a much smaller game. We had fewer weapons, fewer Warframes, and way fewer Mods. As players continue their Forma journey, there’s often discussions on doing a Quality of Life (QOL) pass to the way things work with our favourite Golden Puzzle Piece. We’ve a bit of QOL changes in development, and this workshop details out how Forma will soon work on Warframes, Archwings, and Necramechs. 

We want your Mastery Rank to be considered when using Forma to establish a baseline power level for your playable characters!

What does that mean?

If a Mastery Rank 30 player uses a Forma, they won’t have to re-unlock any Abilities (or their Ranks) on a given item! Yes, they’ll still need to level the gear itself to apply another Forma, but the Abilities are no longer locked depending on your Mastery Rank! This achieves our goal of keeping Forma essential to build customization, but allowing players with higher Mastery Ranks a more convenient experience. 

Right now using a Forma on a Warframe (or Archwing/Necramech) requires you to start from 0 when it comes to Abilities you can use. Furthermore, you only get the first Rank of your First ability. Take Valkyr for instance. You install a Forma, and you’re back to only casting unranked Ripline!

Our change will make it so your Mastery Rank impacts how much you have unlocked by default on Forma use.

For instance, a Mastery Rank 10 player would have all abilities unlocked, albeit not at their full strength! 

This ranking process is something players already experience in game - you know by the time you’ve levelled your Valkyr on Hydron to 10, you unlock Hysteria. We are making your Mastery Rank ‘match’ those milestones, so to speak, with the end goal being a Mastery Rank 30 player can use Forma without ever having to be locked out of Abilities. Simply put, the higher your Mastery Rank, the higher the baseline of your gear when using Forma. 

Expect this change in a future Update. 

i like to take a look at the insanity of 5 forma grind per lich weapon though. 24/23 hours per forma. 

its madness, thanks for this QoL touch though.

[(PSN)Tomplexthis]

4 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Yes, finally you acknowledge it's outdated, please finally revisit polarisation--

No, this is not what we needed. This doesn't solve any problem at all.

This here is the minor-est of minor conveniences. What we need is a rework that serves to make polarised items flexible again. Cross-polarity penalties have to go one way or the other, at least, because our modding economy is much more demanding than it originally was. As polarities became increasingly necessary, they went from "adds flexibility" to "restricts flexibility".

 

As it stands, I will get almost no functionality out of this change because the system disinclines me from investing many Forma - I don't want to waste investments with later changes and new mods, I don't want to starve myself out of trying different builds because I needed all the slots restrictively polarised to permit and perfect one build.

I've said it for years and I'll say it again here: Let us unlock polarities as a pool ON THE ITEM from which we can ASSIGN TO SLOTS at will, instead of polarising slots directly.
This can still keep the 'exclusivity' of the special-slots, it's a matter of tracking them as singular polarity unlocks per special-slot separately from the pool of multiple-of-each polarities we're building up for normal slots - or don't track unlock options on those slots at all and give us Exilus Universal Forma to finish the set of Aura and Stance Formas.

what if forma was changed to be omni forma? where when you polarize ANY slot, it becomes all polarities?

this changes the restrictive nature of forma, to allow any forma you use, to be any polarity you want. 

this makes polarizing better. with the restiction on aura = aura, stance = stance, umbra for umbra.

A Regular forma should be omni polarity. all forma, for anything. it just opens up the system a ton.

[TheLexiConArtist]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Tomplexthis said:

what if forma was changed to be omni forma? where when you polarize ANY slot, it becomes all polarities?

this changes the restrictive nature of forma, to allow any forma you use, to be any polarity you want. 

this makes polarizing better. with the restiction on aura = aura, stance = stance, umbra for umbra.

A Regular forma should be omni polarity. all forma, for anything. it just opens up the system a ton.

Business/economy issues. It makes each Forma far more valuable and in turn require generally far fewer to be used (many of which are bought).

The 'umbra factor' is also a large problem with any kind of 'OmniForma suggestion for standard slots. Either you have the same problem where Umbra polarities are restrictive by being in conflict with normal (even if uni-polarity) unlocks, or the Omni unlock includes Umbral in which case you then have to choose between making Umbra Forma itself redundant (always use Omnis instead) or requiring them in the craft of an Omni Forma despite their limited nature, even for items which can't use (or on which the player wouldn't want to use) Umbral polarity mods.

 

Shifting to a 'pool on the item, assign freely to slots' model keeps all the current Forma investments relevant, integrates seamlessly with Umbra polarities - they're just another pool of X unlocked assignments - and only makes Forma more flexible to use which encourages them to be used (and bought) more than the current restrictions, while keeping their individual value unchanged.

[NI7SUM]

Also theres an old issue then its never been approached, the common frame to prime frame migration, when u have a fully minmaxed frame w lots of forma, umbra forma aura forma, potato & exilus. Lots of time & resources invested. Then the prime variant comes, its an absolutely waste and absolutely boring doit all again 4 a prime skin. A mechanic like prime exaltation would be sweet, to carry all the investment to the prime frame, can be profited by DE with a superrare item like a prime transmutator or something. I really dream to a thing like this exist when sevagoth prime arrives in a distant future. That will be a Qol improvement

[CuChulainnWD]

34 minutes ago, (PSN)Tomplexthis said:

what if forma was changed to be omni forma? where when you polarize ANY slot, it becomes all polarities?

this changes the restrictive nature of forma, to allow any forma you use, to be any polarity you want. 

this makes polarizing better. with the restiction on aura = aura, stance = stance, umbra for umbra.

A Regular forma should be omni polarity. all forma, for anything. it just opens up the system a ton.

In principle, I would agree with you, however that would make polarities redundant,. DE also needs to make money, hence the forma for sale. That said, I could see them perhaps offering an omni forma to say Legendary rank players. This would help drive people to go for Legendary rank, and still make the moola on the journey to it.

I could also see allowing fully formed frames (Health, energy and Shield) to the legendary players as well, again an insensitive to play the game and make Legendary rank. They could also allow Legendary ranks to do Sorties (and other rank locked mission types) on R0 formaed frames.