Some Suggested Balance Changes

[crowbarzero]

1. Results of the most recent change to syndicate rep have tanked rep gains. I know some people were able to grind up to the 4th rank out there but currently these are some of the results I have been getting and the numbers I'm running. Also making some assumptions based on data collected from the wiki.

 

Assuption: 5k for 1st, 22k for 2nd, 44k for 3rd, 88k for 4th, 176k for 5th. Total of 330k rep needed to max out a faction WITHOUT getting any rewards from them.

 

Assuming player wants the following rewards: 25k for large team restore BP, 75k for all 3 wpn mods, 7 frame mods for 175000. Grand total of 275000 for rewards.

 

Total rep needed: 505000

 

Current missions gains: vary drastically but a quick 4-5min mission I have seen as little as 40-50, and as much as 500 by a wave 10 or 15 (both doing the majority of the damage and kills). Later probably consuming about 25min or so. The later translating to roughly 1200 rep an hour. Currently have an affinity booster from getting the prime access for nyx stuffs & armor. *Edit: Also all 3 weapons I've been using have been leveling pieces so my conclave should be on the lower end. Also lowest I've gotten was 32 from a nightmare run w/conclaive 567.

 

Total hours to optain all rewards from a single faction from pure mission gameplay: 420.83

 

Arguement that this is for endgame content is invalid for the following reasons: Using many of these mods from the factions while the gains look pretty goood in general, I would still fall back on the soma, boltor p, boar p, brakk for my endgame play regardless if I had all of these. Warframe mods are general add abit of flavor instead of optimizing power/range/efficency/shields/health/etc. By the time you have spent 420hrs on the game you probably have one or more of the above weapons and using one of you suboptimal weapons that got abit of a boost from a mod looks kinda underwealming.

 

Estimate 630hrs to max 2 BFF factions. Another 630 to undo all that, and a bunch more to raise the remaining syndicates to their max. Most of the highest lv players have a total play time of 800-100hrs in the game. I would expect they would at least be able to finish all the syndicates by the time they reach 800hrs.

 

2. Archwing mod drop rate:

-Currently horrendous and I've spent a good chunk of time trying to farm a few of these and only got 2 useful ones out of it. If I wanted to get them all I feel I would have to neglect the rest of warframe to play archwing missions. So I don't play them anymore. I feel alot of effort was invested into this but the players will not play it because getting some basic mods to try missions vs (for example) lv 20 enemies is a huge pita. Again some people may have found better methods for farming these than I have but it's still very difficult. Getting kubrow mods wasn't nearly this painful (as the comparison was made before in other posts).

 

Edits:

3. The loss of baal-europa as a MD. Halikar from the reviews is not as good as the glaive p (maybe even less than kestra) but similar to kestra that instead of knocking down has a disarm affect, requires 500 oxium when most defense missions nowdays I've seen up to 6 drop. At least before it was around 30 and after several runs you could get a new distiller at 150. But 500 @.@

 

 

(more to post but have to run)

 

-----Non U15 changes I'd like to see:

-Valkyr: Current set up regarding hysteria and warcry usage. I love using this frame but I believe the duration on hysteria should be reduced 3/4th of what it is currently while increasing the duration of warcry by x1.5 or so. Also increasing valk's innate stamina regen and the previously mentioned changes would focus players on using hysteria when they need a temporary 'Get me out of trouble' button & relying on melee weapons boosted by warcry and better stamina management/inate regen instead of the current; hysteria the entire mission with near godmode-ing. In theory I believe this should allow her abit more potential when she's sporting max mods for end game content. Or maybe that good increase in stamina regen in the prime version when you release it (hopefully soon, as I love playing valk on occasion and probably abit more once I get used to the directional attacks which are pretty cool).

Edited October 29, 2014 by crowbarzero

[DiabolusUrsus]

I think that the biggest flaw with Syndicate gameplay is that standing gain slows down when you use maxed gear. If it's supposed to be endgame, why does it cater to players working on new equipment? The syndicate missions make things go much more quickly, but they're just more of the same. There's a lot of potential here, but DE needs to finish baking the idea.