Should So Many Weapons Really Need To Require Argon?

[Ralsk]

For the last several updates I've been watching the new weapon blueprints as they came out and always noted that there was almost always Argon involved somehow in their construction.  I've been thinking about a post like this for awhile now but after seeing Khom and its very high material cost I decided to finally do some research and the results surprised me.

 

Trivia question: Do you know how many NON-CLAN TECH OR NON-ARCHWING normal weapons (not Primes) have required Argon since Argon was introduced into the game?

 

Answer:  All of them.

 

All except one weapon.  The Tiberon is the only non-clan tech or non-archwing weapon that doesn't require Argon in its construction since Argon was introduced into the game (And even a few clan tech and archwing weapons also require Argon as well).

 

This seems a little excessive and forced to me.  Why do so many weapons have to require a resource that, being degradable, not everyone will always have on hand when a new update comes out and thus delaying them from using it?  Clan tech weapons have research time and archwing weapons can either require farming or, as mentioned above, some of them also require Argon.  The only way now to get a new weapon right when it comes out is through buying it for Plat and for some reason that doesn't feel right to me.  I remember the days of just going into the store, buying a blueprint, and just making the dang weapon cause I actually had all the materials.  There was no waiting or extra farming involved aside from the construction time of the weapon itself.  Why can't DE do more weapons like the Tiberon?  It's an idea with good potential: using old weapons that are possibly just taking up space to make a new, better weapon.  In spite of that though we haven't seen a weapon similar to the Tiberon since it's release aside from the Redeemer which requires a Vasto and Dual Skana (though it also requires 2 Argon leading back to my original point anyway).

Edited December 14, 2014 by Ralsk

[Rydian]

Yup, I noticed this too.

 

It's obvious that somebody at DE doesn't like the idea of players being able to access new content the moment it's released.

[xRufus7x]

I don't see a problem with Argon. It is easy to farm in the void. Now if you want to complain about Oxium, I am 100% behind you.

[ClockworkSpectre]

Argon is so easy to farm I don't understand what the big deal is.  You only need a couple at most and you can get that in one void run.  And as was stated above me, if you were complaining about oxium I could understand it, but not argon. 

Edited December 14, 2014 by ClockworkSpectre

[VKhaun]

I think what happened is they got in trouble for people rushing BP's.

 

They put something into the market for 200p and a BP for creds. An established player already has all the mats farmed in advance to they just buy the BP and rush it for a fraction of full price. Clan tech worked to fix this for a while by time gating and putting in multiple rush costs, but today it's the same thing. A newer player, MR4-6, joins some mega clan and it's just another source of BP's for creds. I think they abandoned the approach because it's so easy to get those sub components pre-crafted from invasions.

 

Oxcium worked well but no one really liked it, lack of variety looking for one mob vs one faction all the time, ended up being one best node to farm. I think they abandoned or stepped back from this as well, because you now see regular alerts for 300/pop.

 

Argon solved a lot of problems. It added incentive to explore the void (something we explicitly did ask for many, many times) without requiring any specific mob or mission type. In fact IIRC someone from DE said it was more common from lockers than anything else but I couldn't quote that and I don't know if it's still true. Most importantly, the decay meant it could not be stockpiled in advance and players had to go back to earning the material per-build.

Argon is in a very good place because it's easy to get for established players who have only the new items to look forward to, while remaining a challenge, time and RNG gate for mid level players who would have difficulty completing T4 or fighting Vor. I consider it an unparalleled success among new resources, though not perfect as it does lack variety.

 

Cryotic is our best so far IMHO. Wide variety of places to get it in good quantities. A requirement 500 Cryotic is only five excavators defended, vs any faction at any level range on any outdoor tileset. It's weakness is the same as all the original resources though, it will be stockpiled... Excavation is very good for leveling weapons and finding mods at low levels and the resource is not used by lowbie weapons so this will quickly join the ranks of existing resources as something regular players have oodles of laying around.

 

In the end, we need an Argon equivalent for each faction. Not necessarily a decay rate, but something holding it back from being stockpiled. Infested for example might have something like a Kubrow Egg, where you must incubate it or something and so can only hold one at a time until you use it.

Edited December 14, 2014 by VKhaun

[Esleyer]

Not that I have a problem with Argon, they're easy enough to get, but yeah some variety would be nice.

[Tali]

Also Corrupted vor has a high chance of dropping argon

[Ralsk]

I don't have a problem with Argon per se though I'll be honest and say that since I'm a more casual player with college and work and the like I don't have time to keep a supply of Argon on hand but my main point is that I don't see why it's being required.  It's like DE is making Argon a requirement simply for the sake of making it a requirement and add another RNG wall (albeit possibly a small/nonexistent one to some players) and that doesn't seem right to me.  There is already enough RNG and grinding in this game.  We don't need any extra.

[Ralsk]

I think what happened is they got in trouble for people rushing BP's.

 

They put something into the market for 200p and a BP for creds. An established player already has all the mats farmed in advance to they just buy the BP and rush it for a fraction of full price. Clan tech worked to fix this for a while by time gating and putting in multiple rush costs, but today it's the same thing. A newer player, MR4-6, joins some mega clan and it's just another source of BP's for creds. I think they abandoned the approach because it's so easy to get those sub components pre-crafted from invasions.

 

Oxcium worked well but no one really liked it, lack of variety looking for one mob vs one faction all the time, ended up being one best node to farm. I think they abandoned or stepped back from this as well, because you now see regular alerts for 300/pop.

 

Argon solved a lot of problems. It added incentive to explore the void (something we explicitly did ask for many, many times) without requiring any specific mob or mission type. In fact IIRC someone from DE said it was more common from lockers than anything else but I couldn't quote that and I don't know if it's still true. Most importantly, the decay meant it could not be stockpiled in advance and players had to go back to earning the material per-build.

Argon is in a very good place because it's easy to get for established players who have only the new items to look forward to, while remaining a challenge, time and RNG gate for mid level players who would have difficulty completing T4 or fighting Vor. I consider it an unparalleled success among new resources, though not perfect as it does lack variety.

 

Cryotic is our best so far IMHO. Wide variety of places to get it in good quantities. A requirement 500 Cryotic is only five excavators defended, vs any faction at any level range on any outdoor tileset. It's weakness is the same as all the original resources though, it will be stockpiled... Excavation is very good for leveling weapons and finding mods at low levels and the resource is not used by lowbie weapons so this will quickly join the ranks of existing resources as something regular players have oodles of laying around.

 

In the end, we need an Argon equivalent for each faction. Not necessarily a decay rate, but something holding it back from being stockpiled. Infested for example might have something like a Kubrow Egg, where you must incubate it or something and so can only hold one at a time until you use it.

It's funny you mentioned the bit that I also read about Argon being more common in lockers and maybe it's just terrible luck with me but after doing dozens and dozens of runs in the void using Zephyr to reach hidden areas with lockers and running with Master Thief I've never gotten a single Argon from a locker.

 

Cryotic is a resource I really like and don't mind getting and the way to get the stuff I also enjoy.  When Excavation was introduced during that special event for it awhile back that was some of the most fun I'd had on this game in ages!  Enemy count similar to survival (and often felt like it was greater) but no life support to worry about?  Just kill and kill and kill and protect a few things now and then?  Awesome!  Sign me up!

[taiiat]

among Rushing things for lower costs, what also happened, is due to much Player complaint, eventually Digital Extremes trivialized all existing Resources for Players.

'unngh it takes more than 5 minutes to get the Resources i currently want'.

 

so now the game dumps these Resources on our head by the bucket.

and new content has new Resources that haven't been trivialized as much. because the other 95%+ of them have been made completely worthless.

[matrixEXO]

What I would like to see is a weapon that uses 20k Cyrotic and 0 argon and oxium. Cause we don't have a cyrotic-heavy weapon yet.