A Fix For Void Drops: The Void Merchant/token System

[Wurdyburd]

It seems that the community's frustration with the drop tables in the void waxes and wanes here on the forums, but never completely disappears. Many have called for change over the year, and some for longer. But as long as DE intends to keep adding new prime equipment, the drop tables will get more and more saturated, until nobody can find anything, or we end up with Tower 5, 6, or 7 keys.

Such an aimless trajectory needs to be fixed now, lest it continue to become a greater and greater problem, and it becomes ever more difficult to sit down and balance what we've got.

 

And so, I propose a new mechanic: the Void Merchant, and Void Token system.

[i first explained this here, but have chosen to expand on it, and it was rather toxic there: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/316017-drop-tables-how-much-longer-will-you-ignore-them-sheldon/page-2#entry3574196]

 

Many players find that the Void Trading system does not serve them well enough; many parts are so painfully common that nobody wants them. Only the rarest parts are worth anything, and they are sold for platinum rather than traded. Players end up accumulating dozens of parts that have no use except to be sold for credits.

 

Enter the Looters.

From a lore perspective: the Looters are a minor/supporting faction, similar to the Red Veil or yet-to-be-active Oracles of Saturn, who consist of a rag-tag collection of thieves, rogue scientists, and splinter cell agents, who have pooled their resources and acquired the technology to enter the Void [this can be the faction that Nef Anyo sells warframe cryopods to]. Whereas the Grineer make a spectacle of their invasions, attempting to march armies through the gate, the Looters are much more subtle, sending a small number of operatives in at a time, similar to how the Tenno operate. Once there, they quickly move stealthily through the tower, grabbing up as many prime parts as they can find, and bring them back to their base.

The Looters then give the acquired parts to the Analysts, scientists who break down Orokin technology piece by piece to try and understand it, and perhaps reconstruct it into new, more powerful Void technology.

However, the Analysts can always use more raw parts.

 

With this new system, Tenno will be able to sell Orokin technology to the Analysts to deconstruct into basic parts, and form a Void Token. Tokens will take up to 5 prime parts to make, or less based on the rarity of the part, all from a single tower to create Exterminate Tokens, Survival Tokens, etc. Players will be able to sell their Void Tokens to Void Merchant operatives, in exchange for specific prime parts. More easily found parts can be sold for a single token, while less common ones could be sold for 3. The rarest of parts would be sold for 5 tokens, or even more.

This prevents players from farming hour-long survival or 60-wave defence and then funnelling their parts into Capture Tokens, or other mission types that reward fewer parts.

Labelling parts with rarity will also help the Void Trading system, as it helps to clear any doubt about whether a part is truly worth the platinum being asked for it.

Void Tokens however, will remain untradeable, for a reason I will reveal momentarily.

 

This system presents a cap on how much endless grinding they'll be required to do to reach the point where they can obtain the item they seek. Should they not find the sought item after a certain amount of runs, they can simply combine their findings into a token, and buy the part from the Merchants. Players who can't afford to spend an endless amount of hours playing the game, and who can't afford to buy platinum, can still, eventually, be rewarded with the prime weapon they truly want. More importantly though, players who fall prey to the dastardly whimsy of RNG can still find some comfort in knowing that their time is ultimately beneficial to their goal. Even so, such a system would require as much [or little] as 60 runs without success of finding the desired items to build a weapon that requires 2-3 parts, but that work would feel worth something.

 

Now begs the question: how does this benefit DE?

Currently there's only two sources of income for DE that involves prime equipment: Prime Access, and the platinum bought in order to trade to other players for their prime parts. Prime parts can be sold for as little as a single plat, or be involved in ridiculous ripoffs selling them for 50, or 100, or 200 plat, particularly if they're a recently released item. Many players who aren't inclined to drop $50-145 on Prime Access may still end up spending lots of platinum on prime parts, that may not be worth as much plat as is being spent, or worse for DE, may be worth more than is being spent.

With the Void Token system, Digital Extremes can offer Void Tokens from their marketplace for a reasonable price. Players who don't trust the Prime Trading system, or simply don't wish to spend hours attempting to snap up any offer for rare parts that comes along, can buy enough tokens to effectively purchase the prime weapon they desire. What's more, if a player is so near to their goal, but doesn't have the time or patience to grind the 5, 10, or 15 extra runs needed to build their remaining couple of tokens, they may be inclined to drop a few dollars on what amounts to a fraction of the total weapon's price, and avoid the hassle.

 

This system also has some other minor benefits, aside from DE's business interests and player satisfaction overall.

The Looters can be a great source of lore, events, missions and content:

-Perhaps the Looters have discovered some secrets of the Orokin in their ventures? More importantly, perhaps they're willing to share their knowledge?

-New event! The Looters have discovered a cache of rare Orokin technology, but it's heavily guarded by the Corrupted. They need the Tenno's help to gather and escape with the technology, and are willing to part with some of it upon completion. [survival Type]

-A new mission where the Looters have broken their portal technology, and require the Tenno to infiltrate Grineer nodes and Steal the Key[the old artifact capture mission], Hijack the Torsion Beam Generator [hijack mission], and Obtain the Algorithms [spy mission] in order to get the Looters operational again.

-Rewards can consist of unique weapons created by the Analysts that has no non-prime variant [like how the Dakra Prime are] created from reverse-engineering Orokin technology.

-On the introduction of the Proxy Wars system, the Looters will be a faction you can align yourself to. Doing so will make you lose favour with the Lotus, as if you had joined the Corpus or the Grineer, since the Lotus disapproves of the Looter's invasions into the Void to steal the sacred artefacts. Similar to how joining the Corpus or the Grineer would grant you access to faction-specific technology and weapons, joining the Looters will grant you rarer keys, Analyst Weaponry, rare prime parts, and Orokin Catalysts and Reactors.

 

So in total: player satisfaction, additional DE income, introduction of more lore, and significantly more gameplay.

Any thoughts? Issues? Any input will be taken seriously, as I very much would like this system to be perfected and introduced.

 

Edit: I made this in the wrong section of the forums, if a mod could move it to the proper location, it would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Wurdyburd

[RyojinOrion]

Yeah, this isn't a new idea around here...

[Wurdyburd]

Yeah, this isn't a new idea around here...

 

It's not, no, but to my knowledge the previous suggestions were all that we receive tokens instead of parts [rather than turning parts into tokens]. They also didn't offer any way for Digital Extremes to profit from the change or otherwise make it worth their while to work on it [since DE currently uses most of it's resources on new content, that will generate income, where fixing the drop tables won't really offer much returns]. We've also implemented many new systems and mission types since then, including new factions, that this system will benefit from.

So yes, while not new, hopefully better. 

Edited September 27, 2014 by Wurdyburd

[JohnProdman]

The void isn't being fixed because it isn't broken.

 

Do you people not understand that Warframe makes money by convincing players to pay to remove the grind?

 

Your idea would fail as a replacement.

Edited September 27, 2014 by JohnProdman

[Wurdyburd]

The void isn't being fixed because it isn't broken.

Do you people not understand that Warframe makes money by convincing players to pay to remove the grind?

Your idea would fail as a replacement.

I actually addressed that already? I understand my concept is long, but here it is again:

 

Now begs the question: how does this benefit DE?

Currently there's only two sources of income for DE that involves prime equipment: Prime Access, and the platinum bought in order to trade to other players for their prime parts. Prime parts can be sold for as little as a single plat, or be involved in ridiculous ripoffs selling them for 50, or 100, or 200 plat, particularly if they're a recently released item. Many players who aren't inclined to drop $50-145 on Prime Access may still end up spending lots of platinum on prime parts, that may not be worth as much plat as is being spent, or worse for DE, may be worth more than is being spent.

With the Void Token system, Digital Extremes can offer Void Tokens from their marketplace for a reasonable price. Players who don't trust the Prime Trading system, or simply don't wish to spend hours attempting to snap up any offer for rare parts that comes along, can buy enough tokens to effectively purchase the prime weapon they desire. What's more, if a player is so near to their goal, but doesn't have the time or patience to grind the 5, 10, or 15 extra runs needed to build their remaining couple of tokens, they may be inclined to drop a few dollars on what amounts to a fraction of the total weapon's price, and avoid the hassle.

 

As it is right now, other than selling platinum to players who use it to buy rare parts from other players, there's no way to buy prime equipment that has already passed out of Prime Access. Players are fickle and the actual value of rare parts is vague as it is, so it's entirely possible that DE is making less money on prime trading than it's worth. Not to mention, sure DE gets like 50 plat from a rare-part trade, but that income is entirely dependant on how many rare parts are found in-game, which as the community points out, isn't many. Selling Void Tokens to everyone and anyone means they have consistent income with the stock to keep up with the demand.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Wurdyburd

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

The void isn't being fixed because it isn't broken.

 

Do you people not understand that Warframe makes money by convincing players to pay to remove the grind?

 

Your idea would fail as a replacement.

I'm other words:

DE feeds off the grind of Warframe. This system makes prime parts easier to get. This means fewer people will dump cash.

Which means DE won't make a good income.

Companies function to support themselves. The consumer is only thought about if it is necessary or convenient.

[Judgebanks]

Having to do boring sub level 30 missions is not fun. Might as well be doing appollodorus farming at that point.

[vaugahn]

The problem I have with a token system is that players will inevitably farm up a bazillion tokens, and when new primes come out they'll get them all straight away and then complain about how little content there is.

 

Unless void tokens are a decaying resource, which let's be honest would be a pretty crappy situation, I can't see a way to prevent that. 

[(PSN)IIIDevoidIII]

Moved to a more appropriate section.

[(PSN)SancticuS]

A better solution would be to add transmutation for void parts. That way you can combine unwanted parts for a credit cost and try your luck again. It would be a lot better and funner solution than selling parts nobody wants for 2500 credits.

[Temmron]

You would have to put a restriction of how many tokens you can hold/trade in over a month or you need to lock of new content stuff for the first few weeks/month of of the void merchant so people dont yell at how few content there is afer a new release

[Amazerath]

I'm other words:

DE feeds off the grind of Warframe. This system makes prime parts easier to get. This means fewer people will dump cash.

Which means DE won't make a good income.

Companies function to support themselves. The consumer is only thought about if it is necessary or convenient.

 

Grinding is ok. Nobody who plays Warframe should have a problem with grinding because that's basically what the game is all about. However, I don't think frustrating players with unfair layers RNG is the best way to make them feel like spending more money on a game. And I also don't think unfair RNG makes people want to play the game more often.

 

I will spend money on any and every cool cosmetic they release. But I won't spend money on RNG. That is simply not an aspect of the game that I wish to support.

[Wurdyburd]

I'm other words:

DE feeds off the grind of Warframe. This system makes prime parts easier to get. This means fewer people will dump cash.

Which means DE won't make a good income.

Companies function to support themselves. The consumer is only thought about if it is necessary or convenient.

This is why I suspect DE has ignored all token systems before; it would decrease the amount of time players spent on the game, and players would spend less money. Inversely though, players are more willing to spend money the more accessible the paid content is. Demanding straight-up that players spend the money or farm for days annoys people. But players who are asked to spend a little, along with rewarding them for farming for days, wouldn't frustrate players as much, especially new players who leave the game without spending anything once they see what a monotonous grind the void is.

 

Having to do boring sub level 30 missions is not fun. Might as well be doing appollodorus farming at that point.

I assume you mean the Tower I missions? The same missions where 4 of the new prime parts drop from?

People are going to be grinding there anyway, and yes, they aren't as fun as more difficult content. This repetition of boring content drains people, they get bored, and stop playing, which is the opposite of what DE wants players to do. The more they play, the higher the chance they might spend something.

 

The problem I have with a token system is that players will inevitably farm up a bazillion tokens, and when new primes come out they'll get them all straight away and then complain about how little content there is.

Unless void tokens are a decaying resource, which let's be honest would be a pretty crappy situation, I can't see a way to prevent that. 

Thank you for the input, I hadn't considered that. The options I can come up with immediately is:

-New content will be date-locked, and any tokens created before the date of new-content release cannot be used on them. Still promotes DE's silly farming, but there's still the goal available, and you can still use your tokens on older content.

 

A better solution would be to add transmutation for void parts. That way you can combine unwanted parts for a credit cost and try your luck again. It would be a lot better and funner solution than selling parts nobody wants for 2500 credits.

I'm not sure what transmutation you've been using, but the community hates transmutation. It isn't fun for anybody, and you end up pouring tons of resources into a system that spits in your face and kicks you in the shins for your efforts. Unless DE was to make a balanced transmutation system for mods, everyone would hate that solution, and let's be honest, DE's just going to slap their infamous 0.2% chance of dropping onto the rare drops in that transmutation system too.

Gambling is 'fun' and addictive because it makes you think you have a chance of winning. The belief that transmutation will ever be rewarding stops after the first billion credits, let alone the dozen billions some players have spent.

 

You would have to put a restriction of how many tokens you can hold/trade in over a month or you need to lock of new content stuff for the first few weeks/month of of the void merchant so people dont yell at how few content there is afer a new release

This is still susceptible to Vaugahn's point that players will pre-emptively farm tokens and then use them to immediately gain anything new that comes out, which would crash Prime Trading and more importantly DE, crash Prime Access. The date-locked tokens suggestion may work to remedy this, or DE can simply boost the number of tokens needed for rare parts through the roof. It'll be frustrating to aim for a goal that high, but at the very least there will BE a goal, compared to the current system which frustrates players because there's no end in sight to their efforts.

[BraverLeech37]

poof there goes my plat income so no thank I like it the way it is