Syndicates Aren't Helping, But Slowly Burning Players.

[Hybridon]

DE, please hear me out, syndicates need rebalancing, and it can't take as long as dojo pricing took (a whole update, months of waiting to be honest).

While I applaud the idea, and enjoy how you fit in lore and a "bigger meaning" towards syndicates, the pricing is going to drive some people mad. Not only that, you are pushing content away from us, by dangling it in front of us, but making it so hard to achieve, that soon some people will just leave, when the system was supposed to actually make long term players stick around and help develop even further the game, because the player base is actually the biggest responsible for warframes long term life.

I love warframe, hence my 1400 hours, and more than double of that on Steam, cause in game only counts the mission hours. I spend time building up ideas, or even just playing with cosmetics. But at the same time I want to feel like Im building up towards something, and all that the rep system made me feel at this point is that all my work is for nearly nothing.

If a player wants all sigils and items that a single syndicate has to offer (Im excluding keys and specters on this calculation), its a total of 659.000 reputation, along with the credits and resources you have to sacrifice. Most people dont know the best way to grind rep, while I have seen people gaining 15-20k in an hour (using a booster), even after Viver got "fixed", most people dont actually know how to do that, etc. If we take into consideration somebody without a booster, and gaining 5k per hour (and at least for me its hard to gain 5k per day, because I get bored of going into Viver and mashing 2, instead of you know, having fun), that means around 132 hours to get all the rewards, that means grinding non-stop on the same kind of mission for 132 hours. Sorry, but this seems way off the chart. Then add in what certain sacrifices that are needed (specific void piece), it goes out of proportion.

Dont get me wrong, Im ok with the sacrifices, even the catalyst/reactors (even though I think they should be rank 5 sacrifice), but the thing is, to achieve a new rank, we sacrifice reputation along, so what is already a grind, becomes even deeper and heavier. Did i mention the fact that you want to add further stuff, and that usually you dont actually have consistency in pricing? You have added stuff at higher costs because it was the new flashy thing, and im ok with it, but at the current state of things DE, how about we sit down and have a mature dialogue?

Enough rambling, lets get into solutions!

1 - REP RANKING:

Current rep need to achieve a new rank is good imho. Its a long term goal, that obviously hardcore gamers will end up brushing through, we cant "fix" that. Thats 240k to reach level 5, thats a hard goal and that makes it so that people like me, that like to play different frames, experiment different tactics and play a variety of missions can get there in a month, even more. Its a long term goal, but feasible.

What needs a change is rep waste. By that I mean:

a) Once you reach the ranks rep goal, for example rank 1 is 5k, anything extra continues to pile on. Once you pay the sacrifice, you have that rep saved up, instead of completely losing it. Its especially needed in cases like a rank 4, that needs Bo Prime Handle. You will be grinding to get keys, then grinding to get the part, and you can be achieving rep while surprise, playing something different, eve if its towards a goal. That way the rep doesnt go to waste.

b) Once you level up, you lose rep. Thats the worst, when I reached rank 2 I was keen to spend the 5k I had on a new sigil, or even the specters... but I got reset to 0. Thats the worst slap in the face. Let us keep the rep so we can spend it. What that made me do is now Im not using rep even on sigils, cause I want to spend as less as possible to get the rewards that actually matter for gameplay.

 

This is a good way into adding other rewards at nice prices, that arent like OH MY GOD I NEED IT, but can be useful if we arent losing our rep every time we rank.

 

2 - ITEM PRICING:

Dont get me wrong again. I agree with long term goals. But you have hinted that you are going to add even more content. You made this content trade able, but then you add them at such ludicrous prices, that when a person finished buying the current content, there will be so much more added just to there syndicate, that to have even a chance at buying a bit of the rest will be almost impossible.

I agree that getting everything has to be something only people that invested much more time and effort should get, but you are locking out exactly the biggest portion of your player base, the ones that play religiously, but cant afford to play 5-8 hours every day, non stop grinding.

 

My idea would be:

a) 1 X Specter - 500 rep. (add single specter packs)

 

b) 5 X Specter - 1500 rep.

 

c) 5 X Tower 4 key - 1500 rep.
 

d) Sigils - same pricing they have now, but add in more rep gain if you use them, according to pricing, ofc.

e) Weapon and frame augments - 15k rep

f) Large Restores - 25k

This would reduce total pricing of what you only need to buy once, to around 310k. Along with the 240k you already gain from raking up, that would cut down a lot of the costs, and make it so that people will actually spend on sigils, specters and keys as they gain rep, as it wouldnt be a "burden" towards achieving that max rank.

Also helps out a lot on having more people trading, and when new stuff gets implemented, theres a chance players will have finished off ranking at least there syndicates.

Current state of the game incentives you to only rank up and buy augments once you reach rank 5, and dont care that much about the rest. Specters are 1 use only, meaning that once you deployed it, you cant re-use, while mods are reusable, and restores also are reusable. Cosmetics are just, well, cosmetics, meaning that what matters are in truth, augments and restores. Keys are farmable, so "wasting rep" is a true thing, especially when you lose all your rep when you rank up, and to get the augment... you need to rank up.

3) REP GAIN:

 

Current system seems correct, the more you kill while using that factions sigil, the better rep you get. But we have no alternatives to actually incentive players into getting deep into the whole lore of syndicates. Like you are helping out that syndicate, and as you help more and more, you earn rep quicker with them.

My idea is that, similar to daily rewards, if you support that syndicate every day, you get passive rep bonuses. Meaning on day one, after completing the 3 missions, you gained the aprox. 1k rep the alerts give you. After around day 5 (doing syndicate missions), you get a 10% rep multiplier on any mission while using the syndicates sigil. After 10 days straight, 20%, and so forth. The more you fight for your syndicate, the more rep you get. Numbers need balance, but this incentives playing everyday for your syndicate.

4) REWARDS:

 

Again DE, rewards have to be worth it. While I like the weapons with there small buffs, and the AOE effects you get, when filling in the gauge, etc, theres a lot of imbalance.

You took away 2 slots from frames, so that people could use more the powers, and still experiment with more vast mod builds. Now we have 1 augment, but we all know there will be more augments for each power, meaning that at some point if a person gets all 4 for a frame, and wants to use all 4, you are using up half the mod space. Not only that, certain augments are useless, and are badly thinked out.

Saryn, Volt, Frost and Ember add the element towards a friend. Most basic elements deal to little damage to enemies, and along with that in the middle of battle its really hard to keep aiming at friends and buffing them. While other augments, like Ashs Smokebomb are easier and much more helpful towards team play.

Not only that, Frosts Freeze today is underwhelming, then you add an augment that is also underwhelming, you have 2 problems to fix. Frosts subpar power, and the fact that people will only get the augment to complete the mod collection, 99% of Frost players wont use it over a mod that benefits maybe even all 4 of his powers, like Intensify for example.

My idea is once you get a frame to balance, balance out his augments along, so that its appealing. And when you guys talked about augments on the stream, at some point I thought it was something we would buy from the syndicates and that it would be kind of implemented to your frame, not another mod that doesnt really create build diversity. I truly think that this system needs a bit of a revisit. Before it becomes a problem like Helmets with stats where (and still are). :)

 

To sum up, the current system is a nice start, but it needs changes quickly (preferably until next week. Yes, next week, cause the grind is getting vicious). It can still be long term, without being so boring, repetitive and bashing. 

[123Olympian]

Full agreed that the Syndicate times are outrageous, I will read this all later, so expect more from me soon.

 

DE needs to realize that Syndicates are going to need some nice cleaning, also Sigil multipliers confirmed from the Halloween stream(I think).

Edited November 7, 2014 by 123Olympian

[Adaptor-Face]

Syndicates are intended to be the thing that you have while progressing through the game, not something you (like alot of us were) get when you have almost everything you want in the game.

 

I suggested that MR rank would act as a small multiplier a while back

 

Agree that the Rep should not disapear when you rank up

[Hybridon]

Syndicates are intended to be the thing that you have while progressing through the game, not something you (like alot of us were) get when you have almost everything you want in the game.

 

I suggested that MR rank would act as a small multiplier a while back

 

Agree that the Rep should not disapear when you rank up

 

As I stated, its a long term. But at the moment for most mortals that dont have super freaky hardcore setups (nothing against people that do), its neigh impossible to actually get all rewards from a single syndicate in 2-3 months. That isnt long term if you consider that they want to include more stuff in the future.

The grind needs to be lessened so that buying a specter actually is worth it, and not a penalty towards getting to the higher ranks and buying augments.

[SwiftPotato12]

Syndicates are intended to be the thing that you have while progressing through the game, not something you (like alot of us were) get when you have almost everything you want in the game.

 

I suggested that MR rank would act as a small multiplier a while back

 

Agree that the Rep should not disapear when you rank up

 

It does not disappear, it simply becomes that rank. If you would like to use that standing, by all means do so, but you will be back in the hole.

[SwiftPotato12]

As I stated, its a long term. But at the moment for most mortals that dont have super freaky hardcore setups (nothing against people that do), its neigh impossible to actually get all rewards from a single syndicate in 2-3 months. That isnt long term if you consider that they want to include more stuff in the future.

The grind needs to be lessened so that buying a specter actually is worth it, and not a penalty towards getting to the higher ranks and buying augments.

In response to this, I've bought probably 3 specter packs now from cephalon suda. I'm rank one about half way to rank two in both Cephalon Suda and Arbiters of Hexis. If you picked your syndicates right, the only grind is getting to level 1. Then just do the alerts daily and you've got a good 2k rep a day without grind.

[S3EK3R]

I totally agree. While gaining rep is fun, looking at the prices are not. Augment mods could be passive, that have an on/off switch. However, to keep balance they use the mod points. Points, not slots. This means that a properly forma'd frame can use 1-2 augment mods without losing the slots. A new player however, will not be able to utilize the augment mods without losing a slot, or putting in a lower level mod. This is my idea, but I know it has flaws.

[Hybridon]

In response to this, I've bought probably 3 specter packs now from cephalon suda. I'm rank one about half way to rank two in both Cephalon Suda and Arbiters of Hexis. If you picked your syndicates right, the only grind is getting to level 1. Then just do the alerts daily and you've got a good 2k rep a day without grind.

 

2k a day means that towards reaching rank 5, that is a total of 240k means 4 months of playing. How is that healthy? 4 months to reach rank 5, let alone buy everything else.

[SwiftPotato12]

2k a day means that towards reaching rank 5, that is a total of 240k means 4 months of playing. How is that healthy? 4 months to reach rank 5, let alone buy everything else.

In response to that, allow me to add something and a question. Lets say you run 20 other missions on your regular day, that's rep as well. Did you max your serration in one day? If so, congrats. This is meant to be something that you CANNOT max in a day.

[Zakharon]

In response to that, allow me to add something and a question. Lets say you run 20 other missions on your regular day, that's rep as well. Did you max your serration in one day? If so, congrats. This is meant to be something that you CANNOT max in a day.

Grind is not content, grind is not endgame 

[SwiftPotato12]

Grind is not content, grind is not endgame 

If you read any of my previous posts, I don't grind for this stuff. It still happens in missions where you don't get three digits worth of standing.

[Hybridon]

In response to that, allow me to add something and a question. Lets say you run 20 other missions on your regular day, that's rep as well. Did you max your serration in one day? If so, congrats. This is meant to be something that you CANNOT max in a day.

 

And my proposed changes dont make it something for a day, let alone a week for players that play as much as you. It makes the long term goal more feasible, if only you had taken the time to read.

My proposed changes make it something of a 1 month run, while you enjoy the ride being able to get specters and stuff on the way, without it being a problem towards ranking up and going higher in the syndicates ranking.

But you literally didnt evn take the time to read, thats easily understandable from your answers.

[Eric1738]

DE wont reduce anything, since decent teams are doing 15000+ standings per hour with booster. the rep farming is not scary as you thought.

[Morec0]

Full agreed that the Syndicate times are outrageous, I will read this all later, so expect more from me soon.

 

DE needs to realize that Syndicates are going to need some nice cleaning, also Sigil multipliers confirmed from the Halloween stream(I think).

 

Aye, I think they confirmed them as well. I'm hoping they apply to ALL Sigils once you buy them, though, I don't want to be forced to use the Assassin SIgil when I like the base Red Veil one SO MUCH MORE.

 

 

Grind is not content, grind is not endgame 

 

Then don't Grind for them. Play the game how you want and slowly pick them up.

 

I'm against the "end game" content of Warframe because HOW do you apply Endgame to a F2P game meant to keep people coming back?

 

Constantly raising the ceiling? How do you do that when you have set level max and modable abilities. 

 

No, Warframe is about, as they said, "building the complex wide" - about adding new possibilities and new modes for play that allow you to do what you want to do and what kinds of mission your favor. Archwing is one part of that direction, I'm sure more will come. But "building the tower high" is just NOT a viable business option for a game that needs to keep you playing to pay for its updates.

[SwiftPotato12]

And my proposed changes dont make it something for a day, let alone a week for players that play as much as you. It makes the long term goal more feasible, if only you had taken the time to read.

My proposed changes make it something of a 1 month run, while you enjoy the ride being able to get specters and stuff on the way, without it being a problem towards ranking up and going higher in the syndicates ranking.

But you literally didnt evn take the time to read, thats easily understandable from your answers.

I re-read your post just to respond to this. While changes are fantastic and a lot of those are needed for the current syndicates, I honestly will probably make it to rank 4-5 before they come out with another update. Now if you really want those mods, me and my friend have something that seems to work quite well. Step one, establish a group of players who are around the same level in the syndicates. Step two, include the farming into missions you will already be doing. Stay a little longer, kill some things, enjoy the game for what it is. Step three, reap in the rewards. Now that you have a group of people with multiple augments and trade-able syndicate rewards, you can trade for them. Hell if you don't want to take the time to do this I'm sure some players would love to sell you their augments, but it hasn't even been two weeks since the release of U15 so the few players that made it that far won't want to be trading their hard earned rewards.

 

TL;DR: You don't have to bash your head against RNG and grind like the game is ending. Play your regular missions and grab the quests every now and then. You'll make it there way faster than you think.

Edited November 7, 2014 by SwiftPotato12

[Flamingfighter]

The thing is, I'm sure I'd be completely fine with the current system if I actually had other things to do. The Syndicate system seems so much less grindy if you are just coming into Mastery Rank 3. A player around here is still figuring out the weapons and frames they enjoy using, and the Syndicate system is just something that adds up while playing the game normally.

 

I'm Mastery Rank 17 and currently am missing 4 items in the game to master: Elytron, Corvas, Brakk, and Detron. Limbo is almost maxed (I can't enjoy using him) and there was really nothing left for me to do coming in to Update 15. I was hoping Syndicates (Long advertised Proxy Wars) would help to changethat by giving me a new goal. The thing is, Syndicates are a system that seems to be based around you working towards it while striving for different goals, such as farming for that Braton Prime, trying to craft Nekros from Lephantis drops, etc. For me that's already done, I have a scarce few things to actually make a goal out of in the game, and once I get those, then what? The game is fun, but without some sort of goal to achieve, it's hard to get motivated. After I get those items, the only goal there will be is to exclusively grind rep, which isn't fun and is extremely tedious (at least Viver wasn't nerfed to nothing). I understand that this isn't meant to be done in a day or a month, but it's the only thing I'll really have to do: exclusively grind.

 

Syndicates is advertised as Endgame, something to do once you've maxed your gear, another goal. But it's set up in a way that you are supposed to do it while maxing your gear. The significant chunk of players that are already pretty much at that point and have been so desperately wanting endgame because they have nothing left to rank, or that significant portion of players that don't want to make the game about ranking equipment and hoped endgame would give them an alternative. It doesn't.

 

Granted, for e if there was more lore integration with the Syndicates, I would definitely not care about the grind. As it stands, we have their Syndicate descriptions and a dozen or lines of dialogue for each leader. It's not explained why the Syndicates are allied with certain syndicates, or why some are enemies or opposed to each other (although DE_Steve was in a thread talking about it and I thought his explanations were excellent and made the Syndicates more intriguing (It's not in the game, though)).

 

Syndicate Dailies might be a nice first step, but the only thing that sets them apart is a little rep payout and a single line of dialogue from your Syndicate leader.

 

Syndicates have a lot of issues in the way it was implemented. For me, it wasn't conforming to my definition of endgame, which may seem selfish, but it doesn't seem to conform to DE's definition of Endgame, either (Something to do after you've completed all the missions and maxed your gear). However, despite these issues, DE has a system in place that has a LOT of potential, and may seem fun even with the rep system and amounts the way they are (Sigil boosts, though). Syndicates are still in their opening stages, but they need to grow up pretty fast.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Flamingfighter

[HAYABU5A]

the incessant grinding is getting mind numbingly boring, we have devolved into standing around casting skills like mindless drones and for what ? its really sucking the life out of the game at this rate 

[SwiftPotato12]

the incessant grinding is getting mind numbingly boring, we have devolved into standing around casting skills like mindless drones and for what ? its really sucking the life out of the game at this rate 

Have you read NONE of the above posts? Don't grind for it! The only thing mindless about it is the fact that you are doing it!

[Ritchel]

syndicate ranks.
this is bad for long time players
this is good for newbies

[[DE]Momaw]

The first and foremost thing that annoys me is the fact that the best rewards are only at levels 4 and 5.  You buy items with rep, which means that getting any of the intermediate toys will delay your progress towards the top shelf mods by a lot. The end result is that you're looking at months of play (you people who are already at rank 4 thanks to round-the-clock Viver farming are NOT normal) before you actually get to see anything given for your time. The only thing you get "for free" on ranking up is access to new daily missions, which don't actually reduce your grind through the ranks because the increasing daily mission rewards are matched by the increasing costs to rank.

 

I think we need:

 

1.) Reputation reward given for mission completion

There is currently far too large a gap between dedicated farmers and ordinary players.  Currently the only way to get useful amounts of reputation are to run endless type missions because the reputation you get is directly tied to the amount of affinity you get.   Instead:  We should get a large chunk of reputation (50? 100?) simply for completing a mission, we should get less reputation per affinity earned, and, we should get more reputation for using our syndicate's favored warframes and wapons.

 

 

2.) Free gift on ranking up

Get to rank 1, get a free pack of spectres and new sigil of your choice.  Get to rank 2, get a free pack of void keys and a sigil of your choice.  This alleviates the "grind without reward" problem.

 

3.) Consumables should not cost reputation

We need reputation to rank up, so spending it on CONSUMABLES is just not acceptable.  It's fine that the mods cost rep, since those are permanent rewards.  Anything consumable should come as a blueprint that costs credits and materials.  Possibly your daily missions at higher ranks should start to give single consumable items as a bonus.

[SwiftPotato12]

The first and foremost thing that annoys me is the fact that the best rewards are only at levels 4 and 5.  You buy items with rep, which means that getting any of the intermediate toys will delay your progress towards the top shelf mods by a lot. The end result is that you're looking at months of play (you people who are already at rank 4 thanks to round-the-clock Viver farming are NOT normal) before you actually get to see anything given for your time. The only thing you get "for free" on ranking up is access to new daily missions, which don't actually reduce your grind through the ranks because the increasing daily mission rewards are matched by the increasing costs to rank.

 

I think we need:

 

1.) Reputation reward given for mission completion

There is currently far too large a gap between dedicated farmers and ordinary players.  Currently the only way to get useful amounts of reputation are to run endless type missions because the reputation you get is directly tied to the amount of affinity you get.   Instead:  We should get a large chunk of reputation (50? 100?) simply for completing a mission, we should get less reputation per affinity earned, and, we should get more reputation for using our syndicate's favored warframes and wapons.

 

 

2.) Free gift on ranking up

Get to rank 1, get a free pack of spectres and new sigil of your choice.  Get to rank 2, get a free pack of void keys and a sigil of your choice.  This alleviates the "grind without reward" problem.

 

3.) Consumables should not cost reputation

We need reputation to rank up, so spending it on CONSUMABLES is just not acceptable.  It's fine that the mods cost rep, since those are permanent rewards.  Anything consumable should come as a blueprint that costs credits and materials.  Possibly your daily missions at higher ranks should start to give single consumable items as a bonus.

This... +1 for constructive feedback. We need something like this for a change instead of just reducing it to a one day grind between levels.

[BloodRhythm]

I don't necessarily mind the long time it takes to get standing since you get points from absolutely everything you do. It's not like prime parts where you have to grind this one specific thing.

What I do mind however is the pretty much forced choice you have to make. Before now, you could easily gain everything in the game without being blocked off of any other content. This whole notion of sacrifices and limitations is completely different to the hoarding and collecting we've had before. Yes I know you can trade but sod that. Trading is just a bandaid and a workaround.

[Genji]

2k a day means that towards reaching rank 5, that is a total of 240k means 4 months of playing. How is that healthy? 4 months to reach rank 5, let alone buy everything else.

 

 

Grind is not content, grind is not endgame 

I feel these points aren't said enough.

[Yurilica]

 

DE needs to realize that Syndicates are going to need some nice cleaning, also Sigil multipliers confirmed from the Halloween stream(I think).

 

Elytron parts becoming tradable was also "confirmed" on that same stream.

 

You still can't trade Elytron parts, despite the alternate Archwing weapons being tradable.

 

It's a simple fix. There's been tons of hotfixes since 15.0. And nothing.

 

So don't get your hopes up too much. They often say they'll do something and then conveniently ignore it.

[DSpite]

People that keep saying that a game is "burning them out" is like people saying that they are broke because the casino took all their money.
 

Pretty sure the problem is not caused by DE.

 

All DE can can do is disappoint you with bad content - FREE content, please note - very important.

If you still opt to go into that "bad content" and make yourself miserable, by forcing yourself to play it?

 

That's just weird.

Edited November 12, 2014 by DSpite