Vaulting relics is inherently predatory

[AnnoyedArkham]

So I want a new warframe, but I don’t want to pay real money for it. The community would say I don’t have to, that I can just farm for anything I want…but that’s a lie. I want a prime, and that means cracking relics. But there is no way whatsoever to control what relics you get from missions, so I’d have to spend weeks farming relics to hopefully get the ones I need…except I want Garuda Prime, who is vaulted.

So cracking relics is literally a no-go. I simply can’t do that. Yeah I could buy the relics for platinum, but that’s just spending plat to gamble, much more efficient to just buy the plans directly. But that still requires me to farm platinum.

“Well that’s easy, just crack relics and trade what you get.”

Easy enough to say when you’re sitting on ten thousand relics acquired over the course of a decade and can specifically target relics with valuable stuff in them. But as a new player I have whatever random relics I happen to get. And those are, surprise, full of worthless junk nobody wants. So I could spend weeks farming worthless relics nobody wants so I can spend more weeks farming worthless prime parts nobody wants and then spends a few more weeks begging people to buy that junk for 1 plat each in trade chat…or I could just pay DE $20 and call it a day.

I don’t care what any of the fanboys say, monetization in Warframe is no better than The First Descendant. Not even a little bit. And Relic vaulting is the reason. Stop that. There should be a relic VENDER, not a relic VAULT.

[Anonymouse7611]

Full disclosure: I'm a fanboi.

Ok, beyond that, I must ask, "Why Garuda Prime?"  If you just want a new warframe and you want to play Garuda, why not just get and play Garuda?

I think your underlying premise, that players are entitled to prime warframes or weapons, is faulty.  Primes are clearly part of the DE monetization strategy. They release primes so that players have something new and shiny to desire and hopefully they're willing to pay real money for it, but if not they have a fairly generous amount of time to farm for the relics->blueprints before they are vaulted.  Vaulting, isn't primarily designed to screw over players, but rather it's intended to prevent diluting the drop pool due to the introduction of new primes/relics.  If there were no vaultings, and new relics drop from the usual places, then the chance of getting the relic you want (whatever relic that is) would decrease more and more as each new relic is added to the drop table.

It used to be that vaulted relics would reappear over time as open-world bounty rewards when they're unvaulted, but lately, they seem to only appear in prime resurgence. That's good if you're after one of the older primes, but if you want a prime that was recently vaulted, then you're sort of screwed.  But Garuda Prime was released in March of 2022 and entered the vault in January of 2024.  That's a long time.  It's just unfortunate that you joined after Garuda entered the vault, but regular Garuda is just as good. She just requires a couple extra forma to be as good as Garuda Prime. 

If you really must have a Garuda Prime, don't buy relics.  Buy blueprints.  A full set will cost you around 80 plat, otherwise you will have to wait until her relics appear in prime resurgence.

[AnnoyedArkham]

1 hour ago, Anonymouse7611 said:

Full disclosure: I'm a fanboi.

Ok, beyond that, I must ask, "Why Garuda Prime?"  If you just want a new warframe and you want to play Garuda, why not just get and play Garuda?

I think your underlying premise, that players are entitled to prime warframes or weapons, is faulty.  Primes are clearly part of the DE monetization strategy. They release primes so that players have something new and shiny to desire and hopefully they're willing to pay real money for it, but if not they have a fairly generous amount of time to farm for the relics->blueprints before they are vaulted.  Vaulting, isn't primarily designed to screw over players, but rather it's intended to prevent diluting the drop pool due to the introduction of new primes/relics.  If there were no vaultings, and new relics drop from the usual places, then the chance of getting the relic you want (whatever relic that is) would decrease more and more as each new relic is added to the drop table.

It used to be that vaulted relics would reappear over time as open-world bounty rewards when they're unvaulted, but lately, they seem to only appear in prime resurgence. That's good if you're after one of the older primes, but if you want a prime that was recently vaulted, then you're sort of screwed.  But Garuda Prime was released in March of 2022 and entered the vault in January of 2024.  That's a long time.  It's just unfortunate that you joined after Garuda entered the vault, but regular Garuda is just as good. She just requires a couple extra forma to be as good as Garuda Prime. 

If you really must have a Garuda Prime, don't buy relics.  Buy blueprints.  A full set will cost you around 80 plat, otherwise you will have to wait until her relics appear in prime resurgence.

Full disclosure: I have OCD. Like actual OCD, not Millennial/Gen Z “neurodivergence is trendy” OCD. Among other conditions.

What this means is I have to have things nice and ordered, and in the case of a random collection of…basically anything…there has to be an overarching theme behind it. I know basically nothing about Garuda outside of getting vague vampire vibes. Likewise, I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about how Voruna plays, her viability, her builds, or what type of content she’s geared for. But vague werewolf vibes, so she’s on the list. Same goes for the ghost (Dagath), the zombie (Xaku), the wight (Revenant), and the two monster pirates (Sevagoth and Hydroid), among others. Starting to see the theme? 

So that’s the why of the actual frame. As for insisting on the prime version…I don’t want to have to replace her later if I get attached. That can be pretty hard to do. Likewise my brain won’t tolerate duplicates, I only get ONE Hydroid, and ONE Sevagoth, and ONE Garuda, so on and so forth. If the primes are just straight up better, even if only aesthetically, I want the one I’m going to actually keep. And if I know going in that I’m just going to replace it later I don’t want to waste the resources upgrading it. So, to begin, I’m prioritizing frames that already have prime versions over those that don’t.
 

[dwqrf]

il y a 41 minutes, AnnoyedArkham a dit :

Full disclosure: I have OCD. Like actual OCD, not Millennial/Gen Z “neurodivergence is trendy” OCD. Among other conditions.

What this means is I have to have things nice and ordered, and in the case of a random collection of…basically anything…there has to be an overarching theme behind it. I know basically nothing about Garuda outside of getting vague vampire vibes. Likewise, I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about how Voruna plays, her viability, her builds, or what type of content she’s geared for. But vague werewolf vibes, so she’s on the list. Same goes for the ghost (Dagath), the zombie (Xaku), the wight (Revenant), and the two monster pirates (Sevagoth and Hydroid), among others. Starting to see the theme? 

So that’s the why of the actual frame. As for insisting on the prime version…I don’t want to have to replace her later if I get attached. That can be pretty hard to do. Likewise my brain won’t tolerate duplicates, I only get ONE Hydroid, and ONE Sevagoth, and ONE Garuda, so on and so forth. If the primes are just straight up better, even if only aesthetically, I want the one I’m going to actually keep. And if I know going in that I’m just going to replace it later I don’t want to waste the resources upgrading it. So, to begin, I’m prioritizing frames that already have prime versions over those that don’t.
 

My dear friend. I really like you and I'm speaking from my heart. Personnaly, I love Warframe. Now, I don't wan't to scare you away but :

I know a fair share about Warframe.

And if there is something quite unique about Warframe, it's that it isn't straight. It's a bit chaotic, messy, unorganized, not clear, unbalanced, bubly and alive, and with a lot of exceptions and weird systems and rules, which are for a lot of people strange interactions they will not think of or use willingly.

The vaulted relics for example, is a too complexe system which could be just "Garuda Prime Relics" instead of Neo G256 , but it's not, for the sake of complexity and rngs layers. Sometimes, such systems get revamped for something more streamlined, but that's for failling systems and not popular enough systems like the relic systems we have actually ; as it's already a better version of what we had before.

I really want you to love the game like I do ;

But you might not find the order or the reasons you are looking for ;

But I wish you be able to bend your OCD in a calm manner to enjoy a little bit of virtual chaos, which you will then slowly bend as straight as you can with your will and experience.

Eventually, it makes more sense with the big picture.

[Alpha545]

14 hours ago, AnnoyedArkham said:

“Well that’s easy, just crack relics and trade what you get.”

Easy enough to say when you’re sitting on ten thousand relics acquired over the course of a decade and can specifically target relics with valuable stuff in them. But as a new player I have whatever random relics I happen to get. And those are, surprise, full of worthless junk nobody wants. So I could spend weeks farming worthless relics nobody wants so I can spend more weeks farming worthless prime parts nobody wants and then spends a few more weeks begging people to buy that junk for 1 plat each in trade chat…or I could just pay DE $20 and call it a day.

It's not just prime parts that can get you plat. Some mods also sell for a fair bit, like the Drift mods from Lua that require no investment (besides getting there in the story and the time to farm them, and it's really not that bad of a farm once you learn the challenge rooms).
I try to sell most mods that are 3 plat or more on Warframe Market and the Drift mods are often worth much more, same with corrupted mods from Deimos' vaults (though they do cost keys, and are not to be confused with Deimos' isolation vaults) or the mods you get from Nightmare missions (which can be done without a resource investment).

Speaking of Warframe Market: use that instead of trade chat, it's so much more convenient and once you get a feel for it no Prime will be out of your reach.

Is vaulting primes predatory? Perhaps, but the benefit of Warframe is that plat is more accessible than you'd think and the trading system does a LOT to smooth things over.
Obviously it's still going to be a farm, but not one of weeks and there doesn't need to be any sitting in the orbiter wasting your time in trade chat. I did that for way longer than I should have.

(Also, it may be cheaper to piece together a set by buying individual parts than to buy a full set, but I didn't tell you that :p)

[MerlintheAgeless]

On 2024-09-04 at 10:31 AM, AnnoyedArkham said:

Easy enough to say when you’re sitting on ten thousand relics acquired over the course of a decade and can specifically target relics with valuable stuff in them. But as a new player I have whatever random relics I happen to get. And those are, surprise, full of worthless junk nobody wants.

Then don't farm Plat with Relics. There are plenty of other plat farms in the game. Farm for some rare mods like the Corrupted Mods from Deimos, or the Drift Mods from Lua, or hunt Caches, or farm Spy. You can sell Arcanes from Mirror Defense on Mars, Conjunction Survival on Lua, or farm Standing with the Quills or LD for those Arcanes. Buy NW Auras then sell during off-weeks. There are so many different plat farms, if you don't want to run Relics, then don't.

[TomBartle]

my man, you're barely mastery rank 11, all those ideas of "only one of it, only this, the best that, i will get too attached, etc etc etc" they will slowly fade away as you continue to play, give it some time, and besides you kind of still need to farm the plastic versions of each frame because you still need that mastery rank experience to level up your account

[TomBartle]

On 2024-09-05 at 1:37 AM, Alpha545 said:

(Also, it may be cheaper to piece together a set by buying individual parts than to buy a full set, but I didn't tell you that :p)

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

 

DON'T SHARE THE SECRET OF TRADING

[BurstDaVoir]

On 2024-09-04 at 4:33 PM, AnnoyedArkham said:

(I don’t want to have to replace her later if I get attached. That can be pretty hard to do. Likewise my brain won’t tolerate duplicates, I only get ONE Hydroid, and ONE Sevagoth, and ONE Garuda, so on and so forth. If the primes are just straight up better, even if only aesthetically, I want the one I’m going to actually keep. And if I know going in that I’m just going to replace it later I don’t want to waste the resources upgrading it. So, to begin, I’m prioritizing frames that already have prime versions over those that don’t.)

This might be hard to hear but thats not a good idea and could sightly hurt your progression. You not only need the basic version for MR but as well for Helminth. I personally don't think vaulting relics is predatory not only for diluting rewards pool but you can say that about everything in the game that requires time to grind for that you can just pay to get in a second from another player. Even if relics were all available(disregarding diluting the reward pools), you would still need to grind heavily for them. I would argue that you could get primes faster by just trading other items for plat and then buy it cheap from some random vet that has extras in ther inventory. 

[Xsoskeleton]

The fact that you can still put effort to obtain some gears albeit taking ages or chaotic route seems to fly over the perpetually unhappy mass when other games literally blocking you off limited time content if not locked behind paywall cuz "nuh-uh, u didnt play when it was available". You can still farm and trade other stuffs to get the plat for obtaining the part u need. Sure, its monetization still, but the fact u can interact with warframe's monetization without actually touching your real money is something you shouldn't forget nor take as granted.

It's pretty rare for games to value the time you spend gaming more than for the sake of consuming their product, in Warframe u can get something in return to keep upgrading your experience if u want to interact with others (engage in ingame trading). Paid currency being tradable meant someone's buying platinum pack can make several other players happy more than just their own self too thanks to trading system.