Rng 1, Goodwill 0

[notionphil]

Despite an inspiring push by Oxium, the first skill-based farmable resource in the game - RNG content lock is back and stronger than ever.

 

DE, we get it. We know that content must be restricted otherwise 1) no one would plat purchase it and 2) we'd instantly consume the content and ask for 'moar'. This is understandable and a necessary facet of MMO design that we can nod knowingly at, and pretend it was never said.

 

However, why default to the lowest common denominator of restriction, layer upon layer of pure numerical chance?

 

Stances: ~20 mods added to the already diluted pool. The number of reasonable suggestions put forth on your own forums is staggering

Make them rewards for specific missions.

Make them alert rewards

Make them rewards for challenging melee achievements (kill a boss with all melee, etc)

Make them rewards for mastering X weapons of their type.

Make a token resource we can farm and exchange

Make them craftable via specific recipes in the Transmutation

 

And this new thinly-veiled-multi-layered-RNG-grind for a chance at the correct Hydroid part - why? Run ~30 missions, RNG depending, to even get a chance to run Vay Hek, for another weighted(?) RNG chance at the drop you want. So basically best case scenario you're looking at 100 missions to farm Hydroid.

 

Ok, if that's the magic number, make it the magic number. Let us farm 33 missions, collecting an item that drops every time we kill the Protector with the right element (skill/plan based!), and then guarantee a part of Hydroid that we don't have as a Vay Hek drop.

You want us to play? Reward us with consistent progress towards a goal. Not only for being lucky.

 

DE, we players can feel the difference between 'hard to obtain' content and being held over a barrel. There's a reason many players won't touch Nexon games with a 10-foot-pole, after playing a single one.

 

With every decision, you're writing Warframe's legacy. It's not just in the spectacular combos and particle effects - it's also, arguably moreso, in how you treat your players and the world you've created.

Edited April 10, 2014 by notionphil

[superdk90]

+1

1000% agree

[immolator1001]

Hey so are you complaining about Nekros? No? Because it's the same thing.

[LukeAura]

Ok, if that's the magic number, make it the magic number. Let us farm 33 missions, collecting an item that drops every time we kill the Protector with the right element, and then guarantee a part of Hydroid that we don't have as a Vay Hek drop.

And the more I have to say to that is 'why'? 

What makes Hydroid such a fantastic frame he even needs 30x more runs than any other? His skills all seem fairly standard. And his stats fairly balanced.

Zephyr brought with her something entirely unique, massive aerial capabilities. That made sense to put somewhere special.

Nekros has the -best- farming skill in the game, as well as a pretty unique design. And he fit in with the derelict theme.

But Hydroid? Is Puddling really that unique and powerful of an ability it deserves more grind than either of them? And what ties him to Hek any ways? Pirates and Politicians don't exactly mix.

 

 

Hey so are you complaining about Nekros? No? Because it's the same thing.

Certainly not. 

Nekros was nowhere near as rng laden, and arbitrarily block by overly specified grind, as this is. 

 

[se05239]

Oxium should still have a buff in drop amounts, or lower the amount required in blueprints, cause it is a ridiculous resource to farm anyway. Being based upon how lucky you are, you can end up with lots or absolutely nothing.. 

 

And I agree. This is the most extreme level of RNG and grind DE has implemented into the game so far. They raise their bar each update, it feels like.

[notionphil]

Hey so are you complaining about Nekros? No? Because it's the same thing.

 

I have, yes. But this is a different level. Reg nav coords drop everywhere. I am OK with that.

 

Specific grind - Only 5 Golem Nav coords are needed to run Lephantis. That can be farmed in 2-3 missions.

 

We're looking at 26 missions just to attempt a boss run.

[XRAY0128]

Hey so are you complaining about Nekros? No? Because it's the same thing.

At least for Nekros you just have two layers, and the item drops anywhere.

This, you have to farm a specific area for a specific rare enemy that has a good chance of being immune to your attacks just gor a chance of getting a chance to getthe key for the boss.

[RahuHordika]

Don't forget that you need 4 specific types of beacons, with different levels of rarity, yeah that's right we got rarity thrown into the mix.

[KazeNoKoe]

 

Ok, if that's the magic number, make it the magic number. Let us farm 33 missions, collecting an item that drops every time we kill the Protector with the right element (skill/plan based!), and then guarantee a part of Hydroid that we don't have as a Vay Hek drop.

 

 

This is impossible. Four players will generally need different parts, so someone is going to get a duplicate. I'm surprised by how often I see this kind of request, considering how obvious it is that it can't be implemented.

 

There is no way to make the current system better, it needs to be scrapped. Either they let us unlock the mods, weapons, frames and mission keys with a randomness-free system (spending coins, doing a fixed amount of work... anything that scales with effort and risk and is predictable) or we'll keep grinding for nothing. Even a 50% chance can fail 10 times straight. Indeed we know for sure it WILL happen since the player base is so big. Why should that unlucky player experiment that amount of grief? There's no way to defend this garbage.

[liavalenth]

Hey so are you complaining about Nekros? No? Because it's the same thing.

Nekros is a problem and people did complain, however the difference between a minimum 26 missions for 1 chance at the part compared to a minimum 2 missions for 1 chance at the part is rather difference.

 

Nekros;

1) do mission breaking all barrels/opening all containers and have a decent chance of getting 5 nav coordinates. If fail try again, I have never gotten less than 2 in a mission so that's 3 max with 1 average.

2) create key (1 minute). Run OD missions. I have never run an OD mission without getting at least 1 Golem Nav Coordinate, but average over 2. So that's 5 max with 2 average (more if I would play less ODD to do missions with more containers).

3) lets check our count: max 8 missions, average 3, minimum 2 and you can run to have a chance to get Nekros.

 

Hydroid

1) Do missions 26 times. Hope the person spawns and drops what you need. Max times: unknown, Min times: 26

2) lets check that's 26 missions minimum, we will assume only 1.5x that maximum, so 39 for this argument, because I am feeling generous.

 

So comparing the minimum Hydroid farm of 26 to the maximum Nekros farm of 8. These numbers could be wrong, but not by much, and if anything Hydroid is more likely to be much higher.

 

 

This is impossible. Four players will generally need different parts, so someone is going to get a duplicate. I'm surprised by how often I see this kind of request, considering how obvious it is that it can't be implemented.

They could implement it if they gave different items to each person.

Edited April 10, 2014 by liavalenth

[notionphil]

This is impossible. Four players will generally need different parts, so someone is going to get a duplicate. I'm surprised by how often I see this kind of request, considering how obvious it is that it can't be implemented.

 

Um...

 

The part will be a different reward for each person.

 

If you have systems, you don't get systems. Once you have a complete frame, the cycle starts again.

[immolator1001]

You guys are saying this now, but when Nekros came out and keys took an hour and we didn't know where the navs dropped it was harder. Give them time to tweak it jeez. In an hour I was able to get 80% of the stuff for a vay hek key. Once I get one I'll find 3 other people with keys and run with them.

And don't complain about the elemental damage you have 3 weapons as a sentinel. You can get every element in your load out.

Ps use Nekros. You'll get 1-3 beacons.

Edited April 10, 2014 by immolator1001

[KazeNoKoe]

Um...

 

The part will be a different reward for each person.

 

If you have systems, you don't get systems. Once you have a complete frame, the cycle starts again.

 

If the game has to look at my inventory to decide what it should give me then there's no point having such a system at all. Give me money and let me buy what I want. Make the monetary reward predictable and make it scale with risk. They'll still get platinum, they even manage to sell skanas ffs

[CosyPigeon]

100% Agree with OP. Locking up core game play mechanics behind RNG is ridiculous. What's next? You need a mod to be able to sprint or jump? Hell we're pretty close to that all ready. 

[notionphil]

You guys are saying this now, but when Nekros came out and keys took an hour and we didn't know where the navs dropped it was harder. Give them time to tweak it jeez. In an hour I was able to get 80% of the stuff for a vay hek key. Once I get one I'll find 3 other people with keys and run with them.

Ps use Nekros.

 

Wait for what? How would they 'tweak' the process without feedback, like this post?

 

The OP is not a rant or an emotional tirade, it's a critique of design decisions that I believe are harmful to the game. Sure, there may be a way to speed up the process (though unless you're doing missions in 2m each, I don't see how you could get a key/hr), but that's not the point.

 

The point is that RNG grind is an incredibly frustrating way to separate players from content, and it's not necessary. There are plenty of other ways to lock content, many of which aren't significantly more development intensive than RNG.

[notionphil]

If the game has to look at my inventory to decide what it should give me then there's no point having such a system at all

 

The point is, they want you to perform an action X times before you get a reward.

 

You know when you play a game and it says "kill 10 snakes to get a reward"?

 

Same thing. Except "kill Vay Hek 3 times to get Hydroid". And times = parts.

Edited April 10, 2014 by notionphil

[DoomFruit]

You guys are saying this now, but when Nekros came out and keys took an hour and we didn't know where the navs dropped it was harder. Give them time to tweak it jeez. In an hour I was able to get 80% of the stuff for a vay hek key. Once I get one I'll find 3 other people with keys and run with them.

And don't complain about the elemental damage you have 3 weapons as a sentinel. You can get every element in your load out.

Ps use Nekros. You'll get 1-3 beacons.

So,  that's 1h 15 min to get a *chance* at the part you want. And relying on a sentinel to do any real damage to one high-level enemy (when there could be plenty of others around) is not going to be easy.

 

The point is, they want you to perform an action X times before you get a reward.

 

You know when you play a game and it says "kill 10 snakes to get a reward"?

 

Same thing. Except "kill Vay Hek 3 times to get Hydroid". And times = parts.

Except it's not kill "Vay Hek 3 times". It's "kill Vay Hek 3 times in an absolute best case scenario, probably more like 10 times when you take RNG into account".

[notionphil]

 

Except it's not kill "Vay Hek 3 times". It's "kill Vay Hek 3 times in an absolute best case scenario, probably more like 10 times when you take RNG into account".

 

You missed the point i was replying to....we're talking abt if Vay Hek was changed to drop only what you needed.

[KazeNoKoe]

The point is, they want you to perform an action X times before you get a reward.

 

You know when you play a game and it says "kill 10 snakes to get a reward"?

 

Same thing. Except "kill Vay Hek 3 times to get Hydroid". And times = parts.

 

Sure, I understand what you're saying. I just don't see the value of such a convoluted system when all it boils down to is that you get what you want rather than what the RNG gods want. If that's the direction we need to go (which is what we're agreeing on), then a system like DOA2 (small monetary income + monetary mission reward, then buy whatever you want) or something similar (easy mission tokens, normal mission tokens, hard mission tokens having different value and being used to buy stuff) is much simpler, much less prone to bugs and more to the point. I'm not really disagreeing with you.

 

edit: what I'm sure about is that the current system needs to die in a fire.

Edited April 10, 2014 by KazeNoKoe

[notionphil]

Sure, I understand what you're saying. I just don't see the value of such a convoluted system when all it boils down to is that you get what you want rather than what the RNG gods want. If that's the direction we need to go (which is what we're agreeing on), then a system like DOA2 (small monetary income + monetary mission reward, then buy whatever you want) or something similar (easy mission tokens, normal mission tokens, hard mission tokens having different value and being used to buy stuff) is much simpler, much less prone to bugs and more to the point. I'm not really disagreeing with you.

 

I understand your point but the key distinction is this. DE wants us to run different content.

 

So what would stop you from running Pluto forever, stacking up X hard mission tokens and then using those to buy Hydroid. Every vet would have had hydroid last night bc we'd be overflowing with hard mission tokens.

 

They could instead make more specific tokens, which would essentially be what my suggestion equates to. You could essentially say I'm proposing Vay Hek Tokens.

[KazeNoKoe]

I understand your point but the key distinction is this. DE wants us to run different content.

 

So what would stop you from running Pluto forever, stacking up X hard mission tokens and then using those to buy Hydroid. Every vet would have had hydroid last night bc we'd be overflowing with hard mission tokens.

 

They could instead make more specific tokens, which would essentially be what my suggestion equates to. You could essentially say I'm proposing Vay Hek Tokens.

 

Well if they do want that then I guess your system is what we need. It's a strange thing to want, it's not what every other F2P maker is doing. Usually they're fine with vets always running the highest level content.

[notionphil]

Well if they do want that then I guess your system is what we need. It's a strange thing to want, it's not what every other F2P maker is doing. Usually they're fine with vets always running the highest level content.

 

Sure, but vets won't ever spend plat it if we already have the tokens sitting around for everything. It's just how WF's system is built. Plat is currently the RNG safety valve. It's getting out of hand.

 

There are token-system solutions for this, but they're as complicated/more complicated than a simple nerf to RNG.

 

EX: hydroid takes 10 tokens and 1 hydroid BP, which has a 100% drop rate. Also remember, resources are 'tokens' in their own way.

[XRAY0128]

Edit : oops, misunderstood, sorry.

Edited April 10, 2014 by XRAY0128

[Volt_Cruelerz]

When I saw this update, I figured release would have like three stance mods total. Each could be equipped to any melee and would give different combos depending on what kind of weapon it is. One would be the default that EVERY melee weapon comes with. The other two would be rare drops. Instead, we got two dozen rare mods that can only be used on a particular weapon type.

[se05239]

When I saw this update, I figured release would have like three stance mods total. Each could be equipped to any melee and would give different combos depending on what kind of weapon it is. One would be the default that EVERY melee weapon comes with. The other two would be rare drops. Instead, we got two dozen rare mods that can only be used on a particular weapon type.

 

Yeah, cause the freaking drop tables weren't overcrowded enough with ability mods or anything..