Weekly Archon Shard standing cost is pretty bad

[wickedcourage]

The stated goal of the Archon Shard move was to "make them more accessible". Every bit of the choice however seems to go against the stated intent.

• Time to Acquire
  There are two problems here: days and time to acquire. While I happen to really like Warframe, the real life friends I play with only play one night a week. We couldn't do the Kahl missions together (sadly) but we'd hang around for 15 minutes on comms chatting while we got them done after we finished playing together for the night. This is a problem now since half the squad can't get the extra shard (non-rng guaranteed and of known color) in one night we play. I happen to be L3 because I am a collector, and I like getting THE STUFF. Most of my friends are not. Hence while we have played a couple years now, the majority are not high enough MR to cash in the rep to get the shard in one night. Additionally if you did the kahl missions enough, you could get them done in 12-15 minutes, with an additional 5-10 or so if you didn't get all the tags or had to do one of the side-bosses. Now it takes 30k rep (which at their MR they cannot do in one night) and a lot more grinding than 15 mins. This is definitely not improving accessiblity. TLDR summary: Kahl would take 12-15 minutes if you were good at those missions. We would do it in one night. Due to rep caps most folks can't do it in one night anymore, and it takes a lot more than 12-15 mins to do.
   
• Difficulty Curve
  The shard acquisition curve is weird now: It used to be 1 guaranteed shard if you just put in the time (run kahl through once carefully — guaranteed get shard). 1 challenging shard (Archon Hunt - not long, has a higher gear check than kahl who has none). You added netracells which now have consumed much of our playtime together (it's an hour a week gone every week just grinding this mission, largely because the spawns in netracells are too low and we spend most of our time waiting for things to get in the circle). By moving the guaranteed shard to rep, people can get it, but any portion of the population that isn't MR 28 or higher and doesn't have a few hours over multiple nights can't. So what was a quick guaranteed shard, now becomes much more difficult to get making archon hunts oddly the easiest. For folks with kids or previous job/commitments, this is definitely not improving accessibility.
   
• Cavia vs. Kahl
  Look, I get that Kahl wasn't super popular (I happened to like 2/3 of the missions, but I get that this isn't a widely shared view) but New War comes before Whispers. So in terms of accessibility, it's easier to acquire. So this isn't improving accessibility.

So while I don't advocate for reversing the change and sending it back to the Chipper store (this is one solution, but maybe not the preferred one), something should be done about this. Figure out how long it takes to get the Cavia rep to match kahl run times, and realize that by setting the rep cost above a certain point, some people can't get this done in a week anymore. Please, please, please consider making it 10-15k rep. That is about the same as the previous mission investment, and will cause people to burn out less just GRINDING bounties every week (and with a limit cap of 1 on the shard there is no way to abuse a lower cost). This would make them at least equally accessible (even if it's not more accessible as stated in the goals).

On a completely personal note (so take this as you will, or discard it): I have guildies getting frustrated and giving up feeling like they are being unfairly targeted by this change, and this is not the feeling I want in Warframe. It should be "HECK YEAH" or "WOOHOO! THIS IS RAD AND I FEEL AWESOME!" (as it is much of the time) but the slow and constant grind on netracells each week, and now this is really killing morale.

Thanks for listening.

PS.  Complete aside, but In terms of just story we know archon shards come from narmer/sentient archons ... why does Bird 3 (whom I love) have them? I'm just curious. Thanks.

Edited March 27 by wickedcourage

[NovaLP]

19 hours ago, wickedcourage said:

Please, please, please consider making it 10-15k rep.

They can keep it at 30k but as a cost in Voca so it doesn't interfere with the daily cap. And also change bounties to the superior token system that they apperantly activly chose to not implement again. I have no idea why, but players don't complain so prob don't expect any changes.
DE should've just copied Zariman in every single way and the Archon Shard could've been something like the weekly Kuva from the Zariman for Pinions but... ye

[quxier]

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

 TLDR summary: Kahl would take 12-15 minutes if you were good at those missions. and it takes a lot more than 12-15 mins to do.

It takes much more time if you don't know what to do OR bounties are bad. Let's say 5 rank bounty would need 6 runs. Each taking 5 minute, it would yield  30k standing. Now you are 4 player, you can get medalions. You can probably find 1-3 standing. That's even 32k standing per 20 minutes. That's not lot more. I bet some people can get it even faster.

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

you were good at those missions. We would do it in one night. Due to rep caps most folks can't do it in one night anymore,

I feel like we need 2-3 day cap instead of daily. So you can grind e.g. 90k standing per 3 days instead of 30k per day (at MR 28 afair).

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

Difficulty Curve
 So what was a quick guaranteed shard, now becomes much more difficult to get making archon hunts oddly the easiest.

Archon being easy... with team. Cavia bounties aren't hard.

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

For folks with kids or previous job/commitments, this is definitely not improving accessibility.

In general case I think it's improvement. You no longer farm one slow Kahl. You can get endo, credits, arcanes (for Loid trading), mods, level your gear etc. You can always get vocas, even doing normal missions (air support!). I was even farming 2 new weapons, 2 frames (1 for helminth) and I still get some standing.

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

something should be done about this. Figure out how long it takes to get the Cavia rep to match kahl run times, and realize that by setting the rep cost above a certain point, some people can't get this done in a week anymore.

Standing can be high, I get it. However 99% of players that play Cavia missions CAN get it in a week. You can get 20k standing in Monday and bank 5 Vocas in Sunday. Done. 30k per week.

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

the slow and constant grind on netracells each week

Netracels at least give you chance to get 5 shards per week. It's far from perfect (it was changed) but at the beginning it was just slow Kahl and Archons.

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

On a completely personal note (so take this as you will, or discard it): I have guildies getting frustrated and giving up feeling like they are being unfairly targeted by this change, and this is not the feeling I want in Warframe. It should be "HECK YEAH" or "WOOHOO! THIS IS RAD AND I FEEL AWESOME!" (as it is much of the time) but the slow and constant grind on netracells each week, and now this is really killing morale.

Archon shards have been bad. Time gate 2 shards where you may need even 5 PER FRAMe - it's bad. Whatever they are doing is making it not so common. We have fused shards now, so we need more normal shards. It's still "ugh, time gate slow content".

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

PS.  Complete aside, but In terms of just story we know archon shards come from narmer/sentient archons ... why does Bird 3 (whom I love) have them? I'm just curious. Thanks.

Afair Albrecht had been experimenting on Shards.That's why we have fused shards. Kahl finding random shards is same valid reason as Bird finding it.

 

[0_The_F00l]

I partially agree with the OP ,

It's already a weekly item , so the standing is kinda not the main issue , 

I personally don't have a problem with it , it's maybe 20 minutes of grind if you know what to do or have stockpiled the voca in advance.

For those of lower MR it may be out of reach if they only play once a week. 

Then again , I don't think it is an intended reward for players under a certain level of experience.

[PrimedLaundrySauce]

Kahl was way better, I did every kahl mission and got the shard in like 10min. You can really only beat kahl in time with super optimized bounties and teams which is just a royal pain in the ass to get together when a good bounty is even available. I understand that people dont like kahl much but I dont see how people can enjoy running 30min of bounties instead when the bounties arent even that fun either.

[PollexMessier]

I don't understand why they "moved" it, instead of just leaving the one in Kahl's shop and adding this new one on top of it.... or why they even thought it was necessary to begin with.

But what's one extra shard a week for the handful of people psychotic enough to do every god damn weekly, every single week? It's not like anyone's gonna max out shards by the time they come up with their next multi-year grind scheme.

[RyllusPurple]

Ntm they punished the people who do like kahl missions. No Gorvak/ Avex blueprint to replace the shard.

[Oraxin]

I truthfully don't understand why this is a problem. I would rather do 2 days of bounties than 1 khal mission. 

[sunderthefirmament]

13 hours ago, PrimedLaundrySauce said:

Kahl was way better, I did every kahl mission and got the shard in like 10min. You can really only beat kahl in time with super optimized bounties and teams which is just a royal pain in the ass to get together when a good bounty is even available. I understand that people dont like kahl much but I dont see how people can enjoy running 30min of bounties instead when the bounties arent even that fun either.

For me, a big reason why I'm thankful for this change is that Kahl content doesn't connect with our arsenals.  I don't get to trot out my latest favorite weapon or frame when playing Kahl content.  The variety that the arsenal contains helps keep the game fresh.  Furthermore, there are a wider range of missions on offer through Sanctum Anatomica than Kahl has.  The variety of our arsenals and the broader range of content helps me feel empowered as a player to choose what I want to engage with.

 

Choice also comes into play.  Kahl offers no meaningful weapon choices apart from some random ones on 2/3 of his missions.  He also offers no choice in terms of mission type.  If you hate Sneaky Sabotage, tough.  You had* to do it if you wanted the shard and you wanted the mission to rotate.  Now, if I find Alchemy and Mirror Defense really awful to play, I can just do the mission modes that I like.  It's a massive improvement.

 

*_{It feels soooooo good to talk about Kahl in the past tense.  Bye, Kahl!  You and your shallow, tedious chores won't be missed!}

[MrDugan]

On 2024-03-28 at 3:03 PM, NovaLP said:

They can keep it at 30k but as a cost in Voca so it doesn't interfere with the daily cap. And also change bounties to the superior token system that they apperantly activly chose to not implement again. I have no idea why, but players don't complain so prob don't expect any changes.
DE should've just copied Zariman in every single way and the Archon Shard could've been something like the weekly Kuva from the Zariman for Pinions but... ye

I actually don't have an issue with the standing cost for shards.  That's probably because I'm max rank, so I can get the standing in a single day.  But I would absolutely welcome a change that made shards cost voca instead of standing.  5 Echo Voca would actually be harder for me to get than just 30k standing, despite being worth less than half that standing.  And it would mean either running the highest tier bounties, or...  Engaging with the map and finding all the voca to farm the echos, and also chasing down gruzzlings for the potential drop of echo voca there.  It would increase content engagement to have these be traded for echo voca rather than standing itself.  

[maaleru]

There is no lore reason to give shards to Kavia instead of Kahl. Am I wrong?

 

 

 

[quxier]

 

34 minutes ago, maaleru said:

There is no lore reason to give shards to Kavia instead of Kahl. Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong:

23 hours ago, quxier said:

On 2024-03-27 at 11:59 PM, wickedcourage said:

PS.  Complete aside, but In terms of just story we know archon shards come from narmer/sentient archons ... why does Bird 3 (whom I love) have them? I'm just curious. Thanks.

Afair Albrecht had been experimenting on Shards.That's why we have fused shards. Kahl finding random shards is same valid reason as Bird finding it.