Harvester: Polite Feedback Post Livestream; Detron As Single Drop Is A Reasonable Request

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

Before I start, I just want to point out a few things:

- This is NOT a complain/whining thread; after Livestream I decided to get some numbers for being able to give a real feedback. I'm here to propose things and show the current status of this matter

- I do think Harvester is a cool addition and Detron should be a rare weapon, at least more than all the others obtainable on the market

- I've played a lot hunting for it, after Livestream I counted 159 Corpus missions(82 invasions), but I'm pretty sure I lost a few of them; before the Livestream I really think I'm over 500, but for this feedback I'll just consider the 159(not only but at least mainly).

- I DON'T WANT THE WEAPON RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW: even if Detron is the only thing left to aquire, I'd be more than happy to hunt for it and do a lot of work, but in a reasonable way. Don't put in my mouth words that are not mine: again, I'm not frustrated cause I wanted Detron as soon as it was released in a uber easy way.

That said, here's my feedback.

After the Livestream we know that invasions trigger the Harvester, is not totally clear exactly how but probably battle pays are the key(thanks Steve, not sure you were supposed to say that); I then decided to run 100 invasion missions and see how things are working.

Since the invasion on Sedna ended before I could reach 100 runs(72 done), I decided to count in the 10 runs on Jupiter invasion and the other Corpus missions I made, waiting for a new invasion.

Runs: 159(82 Invasions)

Harvester spawn: 1

Active marks(battle pays or 5 missions for Grineer): 3(2 before Sedna battle pay in case the end of the invasion is required)

I am assuming that I had 3 marks left since from January I received 8 battle pays and I had targeting me 5 Harvester spawn(6 with yesterday one).

Between the previous Harvester spawn there were probably around 200 missions, I'm not counting those here just cause I don't know the exact number, but remember that there's more that the numbers above.

Now, spawn rate for me for this last encounter is: 1/159(without counting missions before LS), which means 0.63%.

I know in the end it's RNG, but this consider that I didn't get the spawn at run 159, it was at run 122, the point was not to make how long it takes to have a spawn, cause I could have it at first mission, the point was how many spawns you can get in a certain number of missions.

I know spawn rate is for sure higher than 0.63, but due to RNG even a 2.5% spawn rate can tramute in 1%, 0%, 3%...; so, before you start, I'm not saying that spawn rate is below 1%, it's just RNG, we're quite used to that now.

Now the main problem: drops; it's safe to say that not all the parts have the same drop chance, even if we don't know the details. BP is clearly the most common, speculation says barrell comes next.

I have to consider at this point my full experience with Harvester: 11 encounters, 6 on me; the final loot is 4 BPs. Nothing other that that.

We're again in the RNG area, so it's just pure luck, I could have gotten all the parts in 3 runs or it's possible I won't get them all until 40 encounters.

You have to say that this is quite insane: not only the spawn chance is low(which I respect somehow, this weapon has to be rare and the Harvester is a revenge-like boss, I'm fine with it), but the main problem is that drop rate is not sure and does not prevent you from getting the same item over and over.

This is not the Void, where at least you have a defined misssion to play and then you pray RNG gods: this is the Harvester, 50% of the hard part is to get it spawn and as you can see above it can take 100 runs or more if we make an average.

I have to say it probably works well for new players, since they have lots of things to do and they'll get it eventually sometimes and if not they may get one or two parts so when they start to look for it they don't start from 0.

New players are important and I understand when you release something thinking about them.

But. There's a lot of veterans as well, players like me that have everything the game can offer and that don't leave the game cause they really enjoy it and they like to wait every wednesday for new contents and updates. That's me at least, but I'm not alone for sure.

Detron is now the only thing I have to get, and since it seems to be quite powerful, I'm ok with it being rare and difficult to aquire, but you have to consider that you're not offering a hard-end-game or long way to get it: you're offering a uber grind-rng based time which clearly doesn't work for old players.

I'd be more than happy to have a hunt similar to Nekros one that could keep me occupied for a month even, something really challenging, but at the same time something which end is clear and procedure is clear as well, not 100% RNG based(80% neither, since triggering is actually not RNG).

I know you’re reading a lot of angry complaints and are maybe tired of that, but please consider you might have done something wrong.

I don’t get irate when there’s a mistery, as you said in the Livestream, I get irate when I see that mistery is only one small brick in the RNG wall you’re offering us; and don’t take this like an offense, I’m really a huge fan of this game, I gave you money and I’ll keep on supporting it and seeing it growing.

Now, before I get too long(like if I haven’t already), let me propose 2 solutions that I find reasonable but at the same time won’t alter the mechanics you’ve chosen for the Harvester. This is why there’s only 2 suggestions and I’ve not listed things like putting parts in the Invasions rewards or clan tech, even if I like them.

1. The most reasonable one: let us get Detron as a single drop; nothing or the weapon, as it is for the Stalker. Let’s say also BP as a 30% chance to be dropped, if you want to keep it very hard. Consider again, that not all the players are hunting for that, currently 90% of the ppl that are is made of guys who have nothing left to get, so even with a solution like that you probably won’t see Detron on each loadout before months and months(Detrons, Detrons everywhere)

2. If you really can’t give us in single part(but please try to have a good reason if you can’t and possibly tell us!): make impossible to get the same part again; make impossible to get 4 BPs on 11 spawn, if I already have a part I can get only the remaining two or nothing. Drop chances don’t have to be equal, I’m fine with a 50%nothing, 30% uncommon, 20% rare, but at least don’t make us collect useless part for this specific weapon.

At the moment it could really need thousands of runs to get the full weapon; consider also that the players that are starting to have it now have done most of the work(2 of 3 parts) before 11.6, when spawn chances seemed to be higher than now(may be just an impression, but we have almost 100% feedback about that). So please, don’t think things are good now only cause a few players are starting to get the weapon.

I really hope you read this and change something regarding this!

Thanks for the attention and sorry if I've been too long.

To community: please add feedback if you want, but do not complain, whine, rage or insult. The topic in general discussion is good for that, this is made with another purpose so do not pollute it, thanks!

Edited January 14, 2014 by siralextraffo

[.Talia.]

I have been hunting the harvester since the Detron was made avaliable for us, and have been doing just that since then.

So far i have encountered it 9 times, all prior to 11.6

From that 9 encounters i have 2 Blueprints and 2 Receivers.

In that time my Quit Rate % went from 1% to 18%

I have done countless invasions, countless boss runs.
All i have to say is: This is not fun.

As a founder and a veteran, i give this OP my +1

[Twixer]

I completely agree with you as to how it SHOULD remain rare, but it should also be reasonable. That's something that a lot of people keep jumping at; that people just want it easily.

I'm one of those people who's invested a lot of time in this. And before people start throwing stuff at me, I don't mind working for something...WORKING for something. Not depending entirely on luck. 

What I mean is, I want to get more of a "promise" by doing this. It doesn't have to be a specific criteria (like doing 100 missions similar to the Brakk) since I'm fine with getting it from the Harvester, but there's too many things that factor out of the Harvester that it just becomes a headache and an extreme chore. 

So yeah, I'm supporting you on this. 

[Trowicia]

What's being done here is having a doggy biscuit dangled over our heads then raised higher just as we jump for it.

 

(People became much more aware of how to get the Harvester to spawn with/without devs word, and allegedly encounter rate gets run down into the ground.)

 

People should feel lucky to even ENCOUNTER the Harvester once.

[IIJetfireII]

i support the topic as well,i havent met harvester since 11.6., it nearly tells me to sell detron bp since harvester doesnt spawn till now, or just makes me either wait, whether there will be a fix for this or not.( just expressing the painful feeling ever since i encountered before 11.5, when i first met harvester in alert and didnt drop anything, after going for farming for detron second time it appeared in alert on someone else and got bp. till now........nothing, no spawns at all despite helping grineer ).

Edited January 14, 2014 by IIRodimusprimeII

[Phantasmo]

I agree, specially because as you move closer to current end of game, you also grow tired of doing the same missions again and again (lack of content) so trying to farm a random event like Harvester which has a random drop it's quite boring/frustrating.

[SALE94]

I support you i am only in middle too rank 9 but i have most of  guns i want in this game, that i find fun.

i dont realy run for all mastery  etc i sold many i didnt like.

I play since august last year and i pretty mutch know that this is biggest pain in wf yet.

 

I also played aloot with Cm Czarok and 2 other guys and with you so i know how hard you try and still hit a wall.

 

Detron is  the 1 of guns i fight since gradivus.

 

Also you are right parts before 11.6 were not all bp since i did got bp and barell in 1 encounter.

 

That leaves nerfed like spawn.

Edited January 14, 2014 by SALE94

[-10no-Nameless]

I support the topic. Have done more then 100 runs on Corpus missions... No luck with harvester.

[Gigaus]

Didn't you know, DE is backed by Nuffle, so RNG has to trump reasonability and constants. Next we're going to get a boss where you kill him and there's a X% he gets right back up, with X>75.  

 

Joking aside, the fact that A. the Harvester has suck a low spawn rate, yet the Stalker, who doesn't drop anything relevant, lets be honest, has such a high one, and B. what amounts to a sawed off shotgun [That's what shotgun pistols are, near abouts] requires multiple parts AND a BP to produce is absurd, especially considering it's counterpart is 10x better. High level rare items should be matters of skill, not matters of luck. It's silly that the best stuff in the game can be obtained by pure luck, instead of hard work. As it stands, you could [though unlikely] fight the Harvester 4 times in a day, and get all the parts you need....More likely, you could spend three months trying to get even one part, and have no luck. Kinda off topic; I still don't have a Hornet Strike mod....After purposefully grinding for one for over five months...It's unlikely, but still very much in the realm of possibility. RNG is great for less significant details; for more relevant or major ones, it shouldn't be the deciding factor.

 

Either bump up the spawn rate of the Harvester, or make the Detron a single BP drop, or both. And please stop playing this childish game of obfuscating boss info; just come out and tell us how the system works with stuff like this right off the bat. It's not cool or hip or whatever, it wasn't when you did it with the Stalker, it's not now when you did it with the Harvester, and it won't be with your next RNG boss-- It's aggravating.

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

Didn't you know, DE is backed by Nuffle, so RNG has to trump reasonability and constants. Next we're going to get a boss where you kill him and there's a X% he gets right back up, with X>75.  

 

Joking aside, the fact that A. the Harvester has suck a low spawn rate, yet the Stalker, who doesn't drop anything relevant, lets be honest, has such a high one, and B. what amounts to a sawed off shotgun [That's what shotgun pistols are, near abouts] requires multiple parts AND a BP to produce is absurd, especially considering it's counterpart is 10x better. High level rare items should be matters of skill, not matters of luck. It's silly that the best stuff in the game can be obtained by pure luck, instead of hard work. As it stands, you could [though unlikely] fight the Harvester 4 times in a day, and get all the parts you need....More likely, you could spend three months trying to get even one part, and have no luck. Kinda off topic; I still don't have a Hornet Strike mod....After purposefully grinding for one for over five months...It's unlikely, but still very much in the realm of possibility. RNG is great for less significant details; for more relevant or major ones, it shouldn't be the deciding factor.

 

Either bump up the spawn rate of the Harvester, or make the Detron a single BP drop, or both. And please stop playing this childish game of obfuscating boss info; just come out and tell us how the system works with stuff like this right off the bat. It's not cool or hip or whatever, it wasn't when you did it with the Stalker, it's not now when you did it with the Harvester, and it won't be with your next RNG boss-- It's aggravating.

This made me think of another aspect: Harvester is ridicously easy to kill.

If DE want to keep Detron hard to get, they could easily make it less luck based and more skill related; if Harvester is harder to kill it becomes actually a challenge and it makes absolutely sense since you're trying to obtain a end game weapon.

 

Of course it doesn't need to be impossible to kill in group, but I'd appreciate it to be it to be harder if one of the 2 suggestions are taken into consideration; at the moment I've heard of no one dying because of the Harvester, maybe read of one or two, but I'm not sure.

 

This always considering that we don't want it to swap from a new-players-only-friendly to veterans-only-friendly, but I'm pretty sure a good balance can be obtained.

[SALE94]

I can give you hornet strike got bunch of them my nick in game is same as here.

Edited January 14, 2014 by SALE94

[arche]

I swear... this harvester thing... is pushing me to "I'm leaving this game" state

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

I swear... this harvester thing... is pushing me to "I'm leaving this game" state

I hope things will change, especially cause there's really no need to do big things, just some small adjustment, Harvester idea is good an Detron one as well, it has just to be made reasonable, which I'm sure doesn't take that much!

[JJStorm]

Even though I finally got the Detron, I do not feel a sense of accomplishment from it. I have run least 300+ mission try to get all the parts, in the end I felt worn/burn out instead of excitement.

 

The RNG Walls have to be teared down!

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

Even though I finally got the Detron, I do not feel a sense of accomplishment from it. I have run least 300+ mission try to get all the parts, in the end I felt worn/burn out instead of excitement.

 

The RNG Walls have to be teared down!

YEs, the generated frustration plus knowing that you could have to do hundreds of missions is so high that maybe ruin obtaining it in the end.

 

Even if, of course, I still don't know and at this rate I won't know for a while!:P

[spacedkadet]

+1

 

I have everything I can get bar the detron. I encountered the harvester only twice and both times before he had the detron.

 I have tried to antagonise him to spawn but he will not. 

 

This is not fun end-game. I would like a chance to actually achieve/earn this weapon without first killing myself with rage.

 

Lee.

[jscar]

Even though I finally got the Detron, I do not feel a sense of accomplishment from it. I have run least 300+ mission try to get all the parts, in the end I felt worn/burn out instead of excitement.

 

The RNG Walls have to be teared down!

 

Absolutely agreed, same thing here.

 

Instead of "YAY, I HAVE IT" my feelings are like "omg, finally, no more pointless repetetive frustration, i can enjoy this game again"

 

DE really should make something with all this RNG and grinding thing. I want to enjoy the game and challenges it makes to my skill. But not to my random luck.

Edited January 14, 2014 by jscar

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

Lol glad also the lucky(and cursed)players have posted here!:D

[Zyion]

I think the easiest method would be to just have it so that the Detron and Brakk parts can appear as invasion rewards, and then have the Harvester compliment that. And there should be a Grineer equivalent to the Harvester (maybe a big spiky Roller that breaths fire and bleeds acid?). This way it won't matter which side you choose to support, you can still get either weapon from the event.

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

I think the easiest method would be to just have it so that the Detron and Brakk parts can appear as invasion rewards, and then have the Harvester compliment that. And there should be a Grineer equivalent to the Harvester (maybe a big spiky Roller that breaths fire and bleeds acid?). This way it won't matter which side you choose to support, you can still get either weapon from the event.

Well, including Brakk would be a big change and would lead to open discussions about exclusive weapons and so on.

Also I think it may take a while to put in a new boss, considering Harvester has just been introduced.

As I said in the first topic, I do like the invasion rewards idea, but I think it would be a little bit on our side, not so balanced between our desires and DE ideas, that's why I tried to suggest things that I find in the middle, everyone would be satisfied in the end...

[Brynslustafir]

Over 270 runs here. Only have the Detron BP. 

[Czarok]

As much as I'm glad that there is now something "challenging" and tangible to work towards I really don't think rng layered on rng is the way to go about it. Nobody wants it to be easy or even have it right now, but there needs to be some insurance to it. If neither it being a single bp or no repeat parts is good enough, something I've been advocating since the start is making the harvester appear for certain after a set number (moderately large) of runs. Grinding 10 hours not to see a spawn that 80% of the time drops nothing is insane, and it shouldn't happen. Anything that can take this long to complete shouldn't be under a wall of pure rng; there should be some surefire (long, difficult) way of obtaining it. The rng ruins the value of the item. Some people will get it the first one or two times they see harvester, and it doesn't mean the same as compared to the people who have been putting full-time job hours into farming the thing, or god forbid the person that actually gets truly unlucky and never even finishes the thing.

 

The harvester encounter is fun, my heart was pounding the first few times. The prospect of a rare encounter dropping a rare item is fun too. The mystery around the harvester and the detron was fun. All up until the reality of what it would take to farm it was realized. I want some things that are truly difficult to obtain, and will take significant work to do so. For such a thing to mean something it needs to be obtainable without being purely rng reliant; difficult but grindable. For a lot of people (myself included) the hunt for the Detron is one of the last few things there are for us to do. I know the Detron is the way it is because it's not supposed to be easy to obtain, and none of the people grinding their butts off for it want that, but there is really no excuse for getting absolutely nothing with the hours people are putting in. Just my thoughts.

[Voidflow]

The funny thing is, Detron is like Dera, a common gun for Corpus Crewmen.

 

It makes actually no sense why Harvester should drop it. An item that is required for dojo research as a drop would make more sense. Someone here on forums called it "Plasma Technology". A single item paired with dojo research would be fair.

 

Or BP and all parts dropped by Crewmen with Detron in the hand ...

 

But RNG behind RNG is not fun. I did many runs and had a couple visits by Stalker ... and this is it. No Harvester so far. As corpus supporter from dilemma event, I lost interest some how ... Its not just a grind, no its beyond that ... I have no words sorry.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Voidflow

[_bizzle_]

So,
Since the "Hotfix"!! I didn't have a Harvester encounter. I didn't even see him attacking other people. I did about 800 Corpus Missions after Harvester was released. Maybe 600 Invasion-Runs all together. I nearly killed the same number Corpus as Infested.. and I played months before Infested were moved to Derelict (Leveled nearly everything on Xini, Cyath -> Do I have to say more?). Harvester spawned for me like 8-9 times. Including spawns for other people 12. I got 3 Detron BP (4 if not crashed once) and 2 Receivers.

I tried again today to spawn him by doing Invasion-Missions. Did 25. Then I tried spawning him on Xini. Nothing. I'm done for now. Maybe the spawn-rate is broken since Hotfix I don't know... It's senseless trying it anymore. I'm really pissed off. Grinding that much and getting nothing for that effort makes you wanna quit the game... Games are supposed to be structured like this -> DO MORE -> GET MORE. Warframe is like that -> Be Lucky -> Be Lucky Again -> Get something... Really DE? I'll take a break until something is done about this...

[Sir_Alex_Traffo]

As much as I'm glad that there is now something "challenging" and tangible to work towards I really don't think rng layered on rng is the way to go about it. Nobody wants it to be easy or even have it right now, but there needs to be some insurance to it. If neither it being a single bp or no repeat parts is good enough, something I've been advocating since the start is making the harvester appear for certain after a set number (moderately large) of runs. Grinding 10 hours not to see a spawn that 80% of the time drops nothing is insane, and it shouldn't happen. Anything that can take this long to complete shouldn't be under a wall of pure rng; there should be some surefire (long, difficult) way of obtaining it. The rng ruins the value of the item. Some people will get it the first one or two times they see harvester, and it doesn't mean the same as compared to the people who have been putting full-time job hours into farming the thing, or god forbid the person that actually gets truly unlucky and never even finishes the thing.

 

The harvester encounter is fun, my heart was pounding the first few times. The prospect of a rare encounter dropping a rare item is fun too. The mystery around the harvester and the detron was fun. All up until the reality of what it would take to farm it was realized. I want some things that are truly difficult to obtain, and will take significant work to do so. For such a thing to mean something it needs to be obtainable without being purely rng reliant; difficult but grindable. For a lot of people (myself included) the hunt for the Detron is one of the last few things there are for us to do. I know the Detron is the way it is because it's not supposed to be easy to obtain, and none of the people grinding their butts off for it want that, but there is really no excuse for getting absolutely nothing with the hours people are putting in. Just my thoughts.

Exactly my thoughts!