Improving Archon Shards system with Archon Crystals

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

Welp, I'm just worried about the "skipping" situation, I'm fine with what I get, and it does seem like an improvement but the players that do skip, most likely for a better chance at red taus may grow irritable unless it's the 100% drop for their red rotation so say the 60-80%  and they don't get it well...  I just feel like they'll be more upset with Archon hunts.

I do think the new pity system is a step in the right direction however and am excited to try it

and if all goes well then hopefully we can see further improvements to Archon shards and there Hunts later down the road. 

[PublikDomain]

44 minutes ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

and if all goes well then hopefully we can see further improvements to Archon shards and there Hunts later down the road. 

That's my hope as well. The pity system is a step in the right direction, and moves the argument past the apparent hurdle of "the game should be fair". Now that the results of the RNG will be more fair, and minimum progress will be guaranteed, all that's left is refinement. There are issues with Shards beyond just the RNG, like the new skipping problem, and hopefully those can be addressed too.

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

12 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

There are issues with Shards beyond just the RNG, like the new skipping problem, and hopefully those can be addressed too.

I heard an interesting take on the 20% aspect being, that maybe the 20% increase should be per shard color instead of an additive roll-over bonus to the next shard. What do you think? 🤔   

[(XBOX)Shodian]

14 hours ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

Welp, I'm just worried about the "skipping" situation, I'm fine with what I get, and it does seem like an improvement but the players that do skip, most likely for a better chance at red taus may grow irritable unless it's the 100% drop for their red rotation so say the 60-80%  and they don't get it well...  I just feel like they'll be more upset with Archon hunts

Honestly that's more of a them problem. If that's how they want to play then more power to them.

 

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

I heard an interesting take on the 20% aspect being, that maybe the 20% increase should be per shard color instead of an additive roll-over bonus to the next shard. What do you think? 🤔   

Counter-intuitively I think that'd actually hurt players looking for only one Shard color in the long run. The current simulations people are posting show that it's better to do Hunts you don't want to increase the chances for the ones you do want. With split pity you couldn't do that, and a Tau Shard of a given color would just be a 7.5-week average. With pity being global I think you can game that down quit a bit. But I don't think that really matters one way or the other, because there'd still be a reason to skip content. With color cycling there'd never be a reason to skip, which is better for retention and engagement and so on, and means having the pity be per color wouldn't be necessary.

[PublikDomain]

On 2023-01-29 at 9:22 AM, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

I heard an interesting take on the 20% aspect being, that maybe the 20% increase should be per shard color instead of an additive roll-over bonus to the next shard. What do you think? 🤔   

Ok, well now that's how it works. lol

A minor change but it does cover up the potential problem with the pity system. All that's left now is addressing the other issues like config support and adding a use for regulars. Since all improving that could possibly do is increase engagement and retention, hopefully it's not as much of a battle to get those addressed.

[Hodor_Roe]

I mostly agree with this idea, with one exception. I feel that this fails to address my greatest problem with the Archon Shard system, that being the ludicrous time gating of the system. 2 shards a week that can only be in one frame is simply not ok. IMO DE should either allow players to grind for more Shards (perhaps behind a legit difficult mechanic) or slot shards into multiple warframes (perhaps with an upfront resource cost)

[PublikDomain]

20 minutes ago, Hodor_Roe said:

I mostly agree with this idea, with one exception. I feel that this fails to address my greatest problem with the Archon Shard system, that being the ludicrous time gating of the system. 2 shards a week that can only be in one frame is simply not ok. IMO DE should either allow players to grind for more Shards (perhaps behind a legit difficult mechanic) or slot shards into multiple warframes (perhaps with an upfront resource cost)

Well, mostly. It does reduce the average time gating by quite a lot, from the current 1 Tau per 5 weeks or pity's 1 Tau every 2.5 weeks down to around 1 Tau per week. Whether or not that's enough is going to be down to personal opinion, but when a regular already takes a half a week to acquire I don't see anything particularly wrong with adding another half a week to unlock the remaining power. That lines up with other escalating upgrade costs like with Arcanes and mod fusion and Intrinsics and Focus and so on so it's not all that unusual to see.

That said, you're right that there aren't any mentions about other ways to acquire Shards. The doors are totally open for it, but what form it takes isn't as much of a concern to me. Maybe as a Raid reward or something, idk.

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

12 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Ok, well now that's how it works. lol

A minor change but it does cover up the potential problem with the pity system. All that's left now is addressing the other issues like config support and adding a use for regulars. Since all improving that could possibly do is increase engagement and retention, hopefully it's not as much of a battle to get those addressed.

Haha😄 ok then.

And on regulars, I have one thought as to what DE could do it's not what we were going for but it's the simplest implementation of something similar I can think of.

For fusing/upgrading regulars what if we just stacked them one on top of another?  So, you'd have a red then put another red on top of it to increase its stats. 

[PublikDomain]

12 hours ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

Haha😄 ok then.

And on regulars, I have one thought as to what DE could do it's not what we were going for but it's the simplest implementation of something similar I can think of.

For fusing/upgrading regulars what if we just stacked them one on top of another?  So, you'd have a red then put another red on top of it to increase its stats. 

That's where the Crystals idea ended up :P If you're already crafting Shards together into an intermediate item to support configs then there's no real need to have Taus in the first place, since you can do the same by just stacking whatever number of regulars instead like we do with Arcanes. Instead of taking out a regular to fuse it with another regular and then reinstall it, why not just install it on top? Either way it's the same number of total Shards.

[PublikDomain]

I wanted to briefly mention (and bump this thread) that a lot of the acquisition/longevity problems Shards have are also applicable to Duviri's Incarnon Evolutions:

1. Not all Shard colors Incarnon Evolutions are equally valuable. Some players will find more use from some colors evolutions over others.
2. Shards Incarnon Evolutions will experience drop dilution if new Shards evolutions are added. Each new Archon and colored Shard set of Incarnon Adapters DE might add in the future will add an extra week to the rotations. This is about to happen with the Echoes of Duviri update, which is going to add another 5 adapters and extend the 6-week rotation to a 7-week rotation.
3. Shards Incarnon Evolutions are finite content. A Warframe Weapon can only hold a finite number of Shards be upgraded once, and there are a finite number of Warframes weapons to evolve. You will eventually run out of places you'll want to put your Shards evolutions, and will eventually run out of places you can put your Shards evolutions.

These issues can all be solved similarly to Shards:

• By making Incarnon Adapters generic, the rotation no longer matters. You get an adapter, and you put it on the weapon you want. DE can add 1,000 new adapters and the rotation wouldn't be extended or changed, because there'd be no rotation. This would also solve the potential issue of players not having a reason to play the Circuit once they have all of the adapters for that rotation, which will happen in as little as 3 rotations (and anyone keeping up is already on rotation 2).
• By adding a way to sell unwanted Incarnon Adapters to turn in for Standing or other rewards, there would always be a pay-out for doing the Circuit every week. Even if you had more adapters than places to install them, you'd still be able to convert them into something valuable.

Just like with Shards, these issues of finite content and long rotation dilution are entirely solvable without much fuss and could make the experience much nicer for players. It's unfortunate that DE is repeating the same mistakes and are opting to put them off until they inevitably become a problem later. Just like with player apathy towards Archon Hunts and Kahl content, the Circuit is on track to meet the same fate.

Edited July 13, 2023 by PublikDomain

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

Man, khal missions I remember those...

 

I like this generic adapter idea 🙂👍.  At the very least there could be generic primary, secondary, and melee adapters.

 

But I wonder if DE is doing the long rotations to incentivize the "pay to skip" 🥲🤌💰🫲DE ) adapters I heard about. 

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

@PublikDomain 😮! Dude/Dudette they added shard fusion. Only into new colors I think and I didn't hear anything about creating Tau's. But the UI there so that's a start.

But I had an idea about how Tau fusion could work with what DE has currently.  

You take two reds and a resource what resource?  "Tau essence"  and boom Tau forged Crimson shard. But where do we get this resource some high-level sentient enemy or other, or maybe the quills could sell it I don't know.

[PublikDomain]

20 hours ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

@PublikDomain 😮! Dude/Dudette they added shard fusion. Only into new colors I think and I didn't hear anything about creating Tau's. But the UI there so that's a start.

But I had an idea about how Tau fusion could work with what DE has currently.  

You take two reds and a resource what resource?  "Tau essence"  and boom Tau forged Crimson shard. But where do we get this resource some high-level sentient enemy or other, or maybe the quills could sell it I don't know.

Yep, it's a small step in a better direction. Hoping they take it further but we'll see.

As for the thread as a whole, DE's new addition of fusion for three new colors is still compatible with Archon Crystals so nothing in the OP needs to be adjusted. Aside from that they're just not very ideal... The new fused colors don't address any of the issues outlined in the OP which remain a problem, adding a bunch of new colors without first addressing things like the high Bile cost to unslot and the config incompatibility will only make the process feel even worse, and while it sidesteps the need to add new colors to the weekly rotations it instead introduces a brand new problem: any new base color they add will require a bunch of combination colors to be added at the same time for fusion with the other base colors. Adding a new Archon with idk a White Shard will now need to add colors like Pink, Cyan, and Tan, which will only make it harder to add new Archons in the future.

Edited November 26, 2023 by PublikDomain

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

On 2023-11-25 at 10:02 PM, PublikDomain said:

Yep, it's a small step in a better direction. Hoping they take it further but we'll see.

As for the thread as a whole, DE's new addition of fusion for three new colors is still compatible with Archon Crystals so nothing in the OP needs to be adjusted. Aside from that they're just not very ideal... The new fused colors don't address any of the issues outlined in the OP which remain a problem, adding a bunch of new colors without first addressing things like the high Bile cost to unslot and the config incompatibility will only make the process feel even worse, and while it sidesteps the need to add new colors to the weekly rotations it instead introduces a brand new problem: any new base color they add will require a bunch of combination colors to be added at the same time for fusion with the other base colors. Adding a new Archon with idk a White Shard will now need to add colors like Pink, Cyan, and Tan, which will only make it harder to add new Archons in the future.

Idk, I kinda like the color fusion system. We just need enough ways to get shards in our/the games lifetime to in joy it.

As for bile cost if we could just combine the shards into our desired Crystals and have the cost cut to 1 in/out of a frame (per Crystal, per con fig) it would be so bad.

[PublikDomain]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

Idk, I kinda like the color fusion system. We just need enough ways to get shards in our/the games lifetime to in joy it.

One of the perks of maining only a small handful of frames :P I got Shards out the wazoo and nowhere to put them.

3 hours ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

As for bile cost if we could just combine the shards into our desired Crystals and have the cost cut to 1 in/out of a frame (per Crystal, per con fig) it would be so bad.

Maybe a workable alternative would be to let up to 5 of each color Shard be bound to a frame, with free swapping between bound Shards and resource costs only when you want to unbound one entirely. That wouldn't require as much additional work as Crystals and would get roughly the same result. It'd probably be cheaper in the long run too if you wanted a lot of configs with only minor differences.

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

19 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Maybe a workable alternative would be to let up to 5 of each color Shard be bound to a frame, with free swapping between bound Shards and resource costs only when you want to unbound one entirely. That wouldn't require as much additional work as Crystals and would get roughly the same result. It'd probably be cheaper in the long run too if you wanted a lot of configs with only minor differences.

Q: 1, would each bound shard (of the 5) share slots (between frames) like mods/arcanes or do we need duplicates?

Q: 2, do you think DE could add shard configs from the Hemilth chair then? By adding a A,B,C, tabs maybe? 

[(PSN)Phoenixs_Ashes17]

Y'all familiar with the Crystal system of Diablo 3?  There are tiers of Crystals and multitudes of types.  I propose something similar for Warframe.  

 

I'd like to see more types of Shards.  More colors of them that each do different things and more tiers of them.  More ways to get them and a Shard crafting system.

[PublikDomain]

19 hours ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

Q: 1, would each bound shard (of the 5) share slots (between frames) like mods/arcanes or do we need duplicates?

Q: 2, do you think DE could add shard configs from the Hemilth chair then? By adding a A,B,C, tabs maybe? 

You'd still need duplicates, but I guess you'd need less of them total?

Say you want a 5-red Strength Crystal and a 5-green Toxin crystal and a 2-red/3-green Strength/Toxin Crystal. One of the downsides of Crystals would be that you'd need 7 total reds and 8 total greens to make your three unique Crystals that you can swap between.

Instead you could install up to 5 reds and 5 greens into your frame's total pool, and then pick whatever combination of 5 greens and reds you want for that frame from that pool. On Config A you could use all 5 of your reds and on Config C you could use 2 of your reds and 3 of your greens.

The former (Crystals) would be a bit cooler IMO and would be faster to swap around within your builds since you don't need to pick each Shard/stat individually. You could also move them between Prime/regular frames or share them at the same time if you keep multiple frames without having to pay the troll toll, since the Crystal is tied to the frame type (like an Arcane Helmet) and not a specific instance of the frame.

The latter (a Shard pool per frame) would be a little less cool IMO, and you would need to pay to remove all of those Shards when you wanted to replace your base frame for its Prime, but it wouldn't require as many Shards total nor as many new systems/menus and would be a little bit more straightforward.

The pros and cons here really depend on how many total Shards we're able to earn and how much it costs to unequip them. If we can get a bunch then needing duplicates to make Crystals isn't a big deal, and if Bile costs are reduced/changed to be more reasonable then uninstalling potentially dozens of Shards at once wouldn't be a big deal either.

As for configs, ideally any improvement is just shoved into your modding page next to Arcanes. We've got plenty of room on the existing config menu to make use of and it's where we do all of our other config stuff, so we really ought to do this config stuff there too. Really Helminth shouldn't be involved for Shard management at all, much for the same reasons the Foundry isn't involved in Arcane management anymore: because it was so slow and annoying.

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

On 2023-11-30 at 10:45 AM, PublikDomain said:

You'd still need duplicates, but I guess you'd need less of them total?

Say you want a 5-red Strength Crystal and a 5-green Toxin crystal and a 2-red/3-green Strength/Toxin Crystal. One of the downsides of Crystals would be that you'd need 7 total reds and 8 total greens to make your three unique Crystals that you can swap between.

Instead you could install up to 5 reds and 5 greens into your frame's total pool, and then pick whatever combination of 5 greens and reds you want for that frame from that pool. On Config A you could use all 5 of your reds and on Config C you could use 2 of your reds and 3 of your greens.

The former (Crystals) would be a bit cooler IMO and would be faster to swap around within your builds since you don't need to pick each Shard/stat individually. You could also move them between Prime/regular frames or share them at the same time if you keep multiple frames without having to pay the troll toll, since the Crystal is tied to the frame type (like an Arcane Helmet) and not a specific instance of the frame.

The latter (a Shard pool per frame) would be a little less cool IMO, and you would need to pay to remove all of those Shards when you wanted to replace your base frame for its Prime, but it wouldn't require as many Shards total nor as many new systems/menus and would be a little bit more straightforward.

The pros and cons here really depend on how many total Shards we're able to earn and how much it costs to unequip them. If we can get a bunch then needing duplicates to make Crystals isn't a big deal, and if Bile costs are reduced/changed to be more reasonable then uninstalling potentially dozens of Shards at once wouldn't be a big deal either.

As for configs, ideally any improvement is just shoved into your modding page next to Arcanes. We've got plenty of room on the existing config menu to make use of and it's where we do all of our other config stuff, so we really ought to do this config stuff there too. Really Helminth shouldn't be involved for Shard management at all, much for the same reasons the Foundry isn't involved in Arcane management anymore: because it was so slow and annoying.

K, so if I'm getting this right, the idea here is that frames can pool 5 of each color shard then equip them in A, B, C configs.

  however, we do need duplicate shards to fill each frames pool if I'm understanding correctly. 

 

I know you said the configs aspect should be in the modding screen however I was thinking that we would create 3+ configs at the chair that corresponded to the configs we have for that frame, so config B in the modding screen would also be config B for shards in the chair.

[PublikDomain]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

K, so if I'm getting this right, the idea here is that frames can pool 5 of each color shard then equip them in A, B, C configs.

  however, we do need duplicate shards to fill each frames pool if I'm understanding correctly. 

Correct. There are pros, but that's the big con.

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

I know you said the configs aspect should be in the modding screen however I was thinking that we would create 3+ configs at the chair that corresponded to the configs we have for that frame, so config B in the modding screen would also be config B for shards in the chair.

Which is essentially what we have for the current Shards and for other Helminth things like picking new abilities. It's nice that it's thematic but I can't help but feel that it slows down the modding process quite a bit. If the transition were fast then it'd be fine, but it's just my preference for anything build related to happen within the Arsenal.

Simple example to illustrate my concerns, let's say you're trying to make a build for Ash and you want to hit at least 43% Strength to make Seeking Shuriken strip 100% of enemy armor. Say you add Intensify for 30% and want to get the last few percent with a Shard. Right now you have to back out of the mod config, click the Shards button in the root menu, transition to the chair and wait for the menu to switch to Shards, slot your Shard, then get up from the chair and walk back to the Arsenal, then re-open the modding window. If you later decide to go with Umbral Intensify and don't need that Shard anymore now you've gotta do that all over again. It's a lot of menus and transitions and walking just to move some stats around!

If Shards are just in there next to Arcanes, this example scenario gets a lot faster. You drag in Intensify to a Mod slot, click a Shard slot and pick a Red Tau for Strength, and you're done. If you later decide you want to use Umbral Intensify, you drag it in to replace Intensify and then right click (or the equivalent on consoles) on the Shard slot to clear it out just like you would on an Arcane and you're done. Initially fusing/extracting Shards on your frame could still be done at Helminth, but the day-to-day modding experience would be a lot smoother.

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

11 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Which is essentially what we have for the current Shards and for other Helminth things like picking new abilities. It's nice that it's thematic but I can't help but feel that it slows down the modding process quite a bit. If the transition were fast then it'd be fine, but it's just my preference for anything build related to happen within the Arsenal.

Simple example to illustrate my concerns, let's say you're trying to make a build for Ash and you want to hit at least 43% Strength to make Seeking Shuriken strip 100% of enemy armor. Say you add Intensify for 30% and want to get the last few percent with a Shard. Right now you have to back out of the mod config, click the Shards button in the root menu, transition to the chair and wait for the menu to switch to Shards, slot your Shard, then get up from the chair and walk back to the Arsenal, then re-open the modding window. If you later decide to go with Umbral Intensify and don't need that Shard anymore now you've gotta do that all over again. It's a lot of menus and transitions and walking just to move some stats around!

If Shards are just in there next to Arcanes, this example scenario gets a lot faster. You drag in Intensify to a Mod slot, click a Shard slot and pick a Red Tau for Strength, and you're done. If you later decide you want to use Umbral Intensify, you drag it in to replace Intensify and then right click (or the equivalent on consoles) on the Shard slot to clear it out just like you would on an Arcane and you're done. Initially fusing/extracting Shards on your frame could still be done at Helminth, but the day-to-day modding experience would be a lot smoother.

Riight, gotcha. 

So, it would be like clicking the "shard icon" then I'm imagining the inventory Ui opening up like when we craft a weapon that needs another weapon, but we're choosing shards to slot from that frames pool instead. 

[PublikDomain]

40 minutes ago, (XBOX)DragonMan 2700 said:

Riight, gotcha. 

So, it would be like clicking the "shard icon" then I'm imagining the inventory Ui opening up like when we craft a weapon that needs another weapon, but we're choosing shards to slot from that frames pool instead. 

Yeah, honestly it's the same as in the OP:

But instead of one "Empty Archon Crystal Slot" that you click there'd be 5 individual "Empty Archon Shard Slot". Clicking it would open the generic inventory menu same as Arcanes, selecting items in crafting like you mention, etc. Again same as the OP:

But instead of a bunch of mixed Crystals you've crafted, it'd just show a list of all the individual Shards you've got added. Selecting one would then pop up the existing "pick a stat" page you see currently while at Helminth, and once you pick your stat you'd be back in the modding window.

[(XBOX)DragonMan 2700]

Sounds good hope this happens in game now. 🐲👍

[PublikDomain]

So now that I've got the new Shard Segment installed, I can highlight one of the problems described in the OP with a very real example!

This is my Prisma Gorgon. It is my silly haha snake gun that turns people to rocks and then poisons them. It deals pure Toxin and has since Primary Blight was added. I did not make this build for these new Shards!

And here is my Yareli now that I have some of the new Emerald Shards:

Cool, Toxin on my gun means more damage and a ton of healing!

But owo what's this?

I also have a Cold-based build with basically the exact same format, so instead of being a silly haha snake rock gun it's a silly haha ice rock gun. They're both fine builds and which I use was just based on my current preference.

But now if I ever want to mix things up and switch from my Toxin build to my Cold build, what about my Shards? They don't work for Cold procs. I'm now down two Shards that don't do anything with my other builds. If I want to put my Shards back to the two Azure Taus that were there before to get back my passive Healing and Max Health, I have to spend 2/3rds of my Bile just to change my gun without incurring a handicap. If I get tired of my Cold build and want to switch back to Toxin, I have to spend another 2/3rds of my Bile just to go back.

And what if I decide that the Gorgon isn't cool anymore and want to use a different primary on my Yareli? Am I forevermore locked into Toxin-only weapons lest I lose the value of these rare, expensive items?

And what if I decide that I liked my old Azure shards more than these new Emeralds? Maybe these effects are bugged, or they don't do what they say on the card, and I want to go back? Oops they're permanently fused into Emeralds. I can just go get more Azures Taus, right? It's only gonna take me a few months of effort.

It's just like.... old Arcanes were incredibly onerous to use, being slow and expensive to install and uninstall, incompatible with configs, etc. and were changed for exactly those reasons. Now Arcanes are easy to swap and easy to manage and work with our configs and not against them. They allow for experimentation and can now even be upcycled into new Arcanes we don't have yet. Why do Shards* need to ignore those lessons?

With a system like the suggested Archon Crystals and a better Shard Fusion system none of this would be a problem. If I didn't want to use Toxin buffs on my Yareli I'd just equip a Yareli Crystal with different stats - for free! It'd be two or three clicks just like it is for Arcanes. If I didn't want my Tau Emeralds anymore I'd just break them back down into their Tau Ambers and Azures. It'd be simple, fast, and painless.

Edited December 27, 2023 by PublikDomain