The New Mod System Needs Some Serious Tweaking

[Madotsuki]

First off, let me start by saying Mod 2.0 is a vastly improved mod system. As a mod system, it allows us to upgrade our mods directly instead of having to farm more and relying completely on RNG to get a better one. Sure the higher leveled fusion costs are kinda absurd at the moment (it supposedly takes 1000+ of the same mod and a million credits to upgrade to level 10) but it's a step in the right direction. For the mod system.

It is NOT, however, a better upgrade system. I don't mind having to refarm some stuff, and neither should anyone since this is a beta and we already expected a reset somewhere along the line. But having all weapon and warframe progression based entirely on RNG is just bad game design. At the very least, leveling up a warframe or weapon should give some kind of passive bonus. I've been playing since the start of the update and i STILL haven't found a goddamn shield mod. It's not even about "wanting to be on godmode" or any of that BS that dev fanboys and elitists keep accusing people who complain about the new mod system of. It's about having a solid sense of progression whenever i play a mission. Before U7, I can be certain that by getting 2 more levels I'll be able to get the next shield upgrade, or fire rate upgrade. It gives me a solid goal that i can work towards, and I can feel that i am accomplishing something. Now, I have little to no motivation to keep playing the game because for all i know it'll be another month of grinding Mercury before i even get one basic shield mod. It's all fine and well for the lucky few who get all the mods they wanted on the first friggin' day, but for those that aren't so lucky, the game quickly loses its attraction because there is no certain reward system. The game needs a carrot-on-a-stick, not the promise of having a chance to get a carrot, but might get a rotten apple instead or even nothing at all.

A simple solution is, simply, to give gear a slight passive bonus whenever you level it up. For example, giving 5 shields and health, and 3.33 max power per level up. By the time you reach rank 30, you'd have 150 extra shields and 150 extra health, and 100 extra max power, which isn't exactly overpowered is it? As a counter-balance, health and shield mods should be nerfed to half its current effectiveness, and only affect the base health/shields/power of the Warframe, ignoring the passive bonuses. This doesn't give Warframes more health or shields than they currently do. Here's some math: Under my proposed system, a frame with 100 health will get 150 extra from leveling up, which adds up to 250. A rank 5 vitality mod gives 150% health buff, which adds up to 150. Combined, they give 400 health. Under the current mod system, a rank 5 vitality mod gives 300% health buff, which adding to the base health is also 400 health.

In addition, as it currently stands, Rare 10 fusion cores are completely useless compared to Rare 1s, and so on for every other tier of fusion cores, due to cost not balancing with fusion efficiency. If i remember right, a Rare 10 gives twice the fusion power of a Rare 1, but has 10 times the cost. Why would I want to use a Rare 10 when i can use 2 Rare 1s at a much lower credit cost? Plus, playing high leveled areas also don't neccessarily give better rewards than a lower leveled area, since the drop rate is still the same, it still depends completely on RNG, and the cash reward is the same. Excluding the boss levels which drop BPs, as it stands now the game encourages farming Mercury and Venus forever instead of playing Ceres/Eris/Pluto. Back before U7, high leveled enemies dropped high leveled gear. If you wanted better mods, you HAD to play harder levels. You don't just get a Rank 25 multishot off a level 3 Grineer Lancer. As of U7, all enemies drop the same base unupgraded mods anyway. Why should I play any Earth mission more than once aside from Vay Hek when I can get the same rewards on Mercury at a much lower difficulty and a faster time? Hell, playing high leveled areas may even be a DISADVANTAGE as theoretically it gives a higher chance of dropping Rank 10 fusion cores, which right now sucks compared to Rank 1s, which drop more on low level areas.

An easy way of fixing this would be to allow high leveled enemies to drop pre-upgraded mods, and also have a higher mission reward credit amount. If i got 2500 credits from each Earth mission, which quite frankly usually takes more than twice the time to complete compared to a Mercury mission, then I'd have an incentive to play Earth instead of speedrunning M Prime over and over and over. It also helps balance the fusion costs at higher levels. And of course, please fix those fusion core fusion costs.

To sum it up, I would highly reccommend at least giving gear a small passive buff to stats per level up to reduce the reliance on RNG and give players more of a sense of achievement, and to improve the rewards for harder missions to motivate players to play the harder missions instead of speedrunning easier ones. And also fix the fusion core fusion costs, seriously.

[CY13ERPUNK]

+1

OP well said

[CharlieTheGunner]

The new mod system and the lack of passives is the main reason why I barely play anymore.

[Nokturnal]

People have been suggesting this passive bonus since Update 7 went live and I'm all on board.

Though personally I think Shield/HP/BasicDmg mods should just be removed, because it would allow DE to know exactly how strong each frame and weapon is at lvl 30. (Aka how much shields and hp they have and how much dmg they deal) allowing them to design content that's challenging for that shield and hp max. With the current system if you try to design harder hitting content, people could have 100 shields or they could have 700 shields, you never really know. Though the highest dps a weapon can get is pretty easy to calculate in the current system, I still don't think we should be forced to slot basic dmg mods though, I want to feel like my weapons are progressing each time they level rather than each time I stick a new mod in them.

[xenapan]

Actually the new mods are ALL rank 1-5. Rank 5-10 mods are OLD mods which got converted to fusion cores. Easiest way to check is just go into your mods list keep the sorting by recent, then scroll down till you see fusion cores. all of them should have 5 notches on the left instead of 10. ONce you see no more upgradable mods you should see all the cores past that point have 10 notches.

Another thing. Pre update 7, all the passive stat gain nodes were based on the warframe. So realistically it shouldnt be a static passive stat gain even if it was implemented that way.

[Narog-1]

+1 am getting tired of devs not even saying if they like the u7, maybe they go all arrogant and they just never change the progression system

[Nokturnal]

+1 am getting tired of devs not even saying if they like the u7, maybe they go all arrogant and they just never change the progression system

They've been extremely hush hush since the update hit. The lack of communication is really getting annoying.

The only thing I saw Steve post on for example in the last few days was on the Open Beta Trailer.

So they're obviously reading the forums, just aren't giving us some feedback or open discussion.

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Edited March 26, 2013 by Nokturnal

[Brasten]

The problem is PAX East. Instead of being able to be at the offices to actually with fallout from a major revision to the game, they were all mostly prepping and exhibiting at PAX. Bad, bad timing. Combined with commitments on advertising and Steam launch, U7 landed in just the wrong time for all parties.

I'm still giving them till Friday get stuff rolling on clean-up. Likely they won't be back in form until Wednesday, convention recovery is always such a ordeal. Bet at least half the staff is going to come down sick, and then get the other half ill as well. Although communication needs to start soon, very soon. And not PR spun communication like BioWare does.

I did say in chat to DE_Steve during the opening few hours that it's the Players who say if system is good or not. Well, a week later the verdic is a rather resounding "meh, needs to be much better". I know the Warframe team was/is very proud of the Mods2.0 solution, but I think perhaps that sense of pride is premature. You get to feel real pride if what you make survives the gauntlet of your community testers. Mods2.0 hasn't.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Brasten

[Soulie]

I'd rather have RNG back. Made things more exciting.

[antimab-EGT-]

I have no problems so far, but I see your point!

Hope they rebalance the system abit.

[CharlieTheGunner]

I have no problems so far, but I see your point!

Hope they rebalance the system abit.

And bring back the passives

[JerryMouse13]

This is actually one of the best posts I've seen on the forums in awhile. I personally tried grinding higher level missions for a while only to be disapointed as I continuously gathered ability cards for frames I didn't have.

Having higher lvl enemies drop higher rank common mods would not only offer incintive to run higher levels again, but also reduce the amount of time spent grinding to obtain additional high rank mods of the same type.

[RoninTetsuro]

They've been extremely hush hush since the update hit. The lack of communication is really getting annoying.

The only thing I saw Steve post on for example in the last few days was on the Open Beta Trailer.

So they're obviously reading the forums, just aren't giving us some feedback or open discussion.

----

Actually, Steve posted in the reddit WF sub that Fusion prices and Fusion core sell prices in particular will be worked on and changed after they finish up at PAX.

[[DE]Rebecca]

The problem is PAX East. Instead of being able to be at the offices to actually with fallout from a major revision to the game, they were all mostly prepping and exhibiting at PAX. Bad, bad timing. Combined with commitments on advertising and Steam launch, U7 landed in just the wrong time for all parties.

I'm still giving them till Friday get stuff rolling on clean-up. Likely they won't be back in form until Wednesday, convention recovery is always such a ordeal. Bet at least half the staff is going to come down sick, and then get the other half ill as well. Although communication needs to start soon, very soon. And not PR spun communication like BioWare does.

I did say in chat to DE_Steve during the opening few hours that it's the Players who say if system is good or not. Well, a week later the verdic is a rather resounding "meh, needs to be much better". I know the Warframe team was/is very proud of the Mods2.0 solution, but I think perhaps that sense of pride is premature. You get to feel real pride if what you make survives the gauntlet of your community testers. Mods2.0 hasn't.

Bad bad timing indeed. Not that that's ever an excuse, though.

We have a livestream tomorrow that will touch on the new System and clear up a lot of the uncertainty surrounding the way it works.

However, the issues in this thread aren't about uncertainty, they are about unhappiness.

I see "no Shield Mods" popping up all over the place, so this is on the top of the list to be reviewed by the team.

As for:

Before U7, I can be certain that by getting 2 more levels I'll be able to get the next shield upgrade, or fire rate upgrade. It gives me a solid goal that i can work towards, and I can feel that i am accomplishing something. Now, I have little to no motivation to keep playing the game because for all i know it'll be another month of grinding Mercury before i even get one basic shield mod.

The fact that as a player you feel unmotivated is a big alarm for me! For full disclosure, I missed the release of Update 7 as I was away, and now I'm returning to a different system and a different community. I've been following from the sidelines, and now can continue getting all the concerns addressed.

Contructive feedback never falls on deaf ears (or eyes) in our forums!

Now excuse me while I go into a post-PAX coma ;).

[Smith0rz]

Ty and welcome back Rebecca. We did alright without you but you guys were certainly missed. Atleast we had Steve with us, he was very possitive and supportive of us.

TY DE team :)

[RawGritz]

Ty and welcome back Rebecca. We did alright without you but you guys were certainly missed. Atleast we had Steve with us, he was very possitive and supportive of us.

TY DE team :)

"RawGritz likes this!"

[Apsalus]

The fact that as a player you feel unmotivated is a big alarm for me!

Volt was already the weakest solo Frame, pre-U7 and now I feel completely impotent using it in missions above about level 10. I'm playing out of apathy now, waiting for my Rhino to finish building in a couple more days, hoping to get some mods out of Mercury and Saturn. Maybe I can even get a potato for him if an alert pops up at a reasonable hour.

I've been trying pubbing more, as a result of U7, but tonight I've only been able to compete about half of the missions that I've started because the game has hung so many times.

Now excuse me while I go into a post-PAX coma ;).

Take care.