Grind Factor: An Analysis Of Resource Drops Versus Uses

[Rydian]

[size=6]Grind Factor: An Analysis of Resource Drops Versus Uses[/size]

[size=6]- Introduction[/size]
Resource gathering is an important part of Warframe, from the newbie gathering Rubedo to build a Rhino, to the veteran grinding out Orokin Cells for the Dakra Prime.  It's been an inherent part of the game for quite a long time now, while the game has undergone many changes in other areas.  However, any player can tell you that certain resources are more of a grind to gather than others.  What causes this?

This study has been almost a month in the making, and will attempt to show the imbalance in resources and try to offer solutions.

Note: I am not data-mining, I am not disassembling, nor do I have access to any of DE's design or source documents.  All of this data is gathered from observations and recordings while playing.

As such, a lot of data presented here will be in the form of graphs (not specific numbers), and should be taken as a rough estimate.  The included suggestions should be thought of as general guidelines for relational changes*, since none of us have access to the game's raw numbers and drop tables to make specific/exact corrections.
[size=1]* Build costs and drop amounts are the exception as we can see them in-game directly.[/size]

[size=6]- Part 1: Imbalanced Supply/Demand Designs[/size]
[size=5]- Data Gathering Process[/size]
My first goal was to outline basic facts about in-game materials that the rest of the study would make use of.  This would involve finding the ratios for rare/uncommon/common drop chances, the average drop amount of each individual resource, and the average amount of a resource you'll use in building items that require it.

The below spoiler outlines the steps I took to gather that data.

- Average Drop Amount
To find the average drop amount for resources I checked the wiki and also tested in-game to see the approximate range of drop amounts per item.  I picked a median from the range I saw (then rounded if needed), since the distribution is almost definitely uniform (as the average should match the median with a high sample size).



- Drop Ratios
A lot of equations and numbers hinge on having an approximate drop ratio for rare/uncommon/common materials.  By taking the total number of resources picked up in a mission and dividing those numbers by the average drop amount for each material, I could obtain an estimate for how many times a certain material has dropped.

To this end, I enlisted the help of various players (for protection and mission success while I was running around picking up all the materials in-game) and ran a lot of long missions where I could pick up a large amount of resources.  After a few days of this, I had enough samples to get a good estimate.  Most of the average ratios for rare/uncommon/common varied between values like 1:7:23 and 1:11:19, so I picked 1:10:20 to simplify things.


- Average Use
To find the average use amount I copied lists of items built with specific materials, then used a small regular expression to remove everything except the numbers, trimming the errant linebreak manually (also find-and-replacing any commas).  Then for Morphics, Neural Sensors, Neurodes, and Orokin Cells, I counted the number of Forma needed for clantech and added this number into the list (as it's one of each per Forma).

Taking this end list, I wrote a little PHP script to do the averages for me to make sure there were no manual calculation errors (skipping numbers, dividing by the wrong total count, etc.)


Taking all three of the above results and putting them into a spreadsheet, I was able to work with the data and put it in presentable tables and such.



- Material Rarity
I examined the reported common/uncommon/rare status of resources in order to account for anything special or circumstances that don't match the design of the materials (as it's possible that drop rates of some materials have changed since they were introduced).  Most materials did seem to match the generally-accepted rarity tiers, but two special materials stood out.

1 - Cryotic can only be gotten from one specific type of mission but will always drop from that source.  Since it shows up in only certain missions despite ease of obtainment, I have it marked as uncommon in practice.

2 - Oxium drops in the same quantities as rare items and is treated as uncommon by the game in all other factors (including market pricing), but is not limited to spawning on certain planets or rarer mission types (ever since the enemy variety fixes) and is listed as common in many sources, so I have Oxium considered as common in this study to give the game the benefit of the doubt.

[size=5]- Results[/size]


[size=5]- Interpretation[/size]

• <1: A U/D result lower than 1 means that the game drops more of this than blueprints expect you to have, so pretty much any player will gather way more of this material than they spend building frames and weapons.  That is, these are resources that players will rarely, if ever, need to grind for, so the "Grind Factor" is less than 1 in terms of drop design and these resources tend to be considered useless.
  
• ~=1: A result close to 1 means that the game drops around the same amount of this resource that it expects you to spend building gear.  If you build consumables or repeat items that need these resources often (restorative items and Forma for example) then you may run low, but otherwise these are resources that people won't have to farm once they get acquainted with the game.
  
  
• >1: A result higher than 1 indicates that blueprints will generally want more of this than you automatically gain through normal gameplay, meaning you may need to farm every so often.  A value above 1 is good for the game, but only to a certain extent.
  
  
• >2: A result higher than 2 indicates that blueprints will generally want a lot more of this material than you naturally gain.  The higher the "Grind Factor", the more skewed the relationship is, so if this number is too high it means players will often need to spend an amount of time doing nothing but hunting for this resource.

You can see how imbalanced the above graph is.  Certain materials are set up by the game to be a much bigger grind than other materials (and anybody in-game could tell you as much), but what should the proper range be?

As far as design is concerned, I believe that a use/drop ratio of around 1 (for common) to 1.7 (for rares) is what the goal should be for most resources in Warframe (though opinions may differ).  Players should have to gather materials (so all of it being a flat 1 would be too easy), but they should not have to dedicate more game time to it than anything else (so 2-3+ is a problem).

[size=5]- Observations[/size]

• Alloy Plate, Control Modules, and Nano Spores are set up by the game to drop far more than you'll need to use when building gear, but anybody who's been playing the game for a while can tell you this.
• The bars definitely do not appear to be aligned by common/uncommon/rare.  There's rare materials that have a lower grind factor than common and uncommon ones, for example.
  
• Orokin Cells have had their uses and requirements increasing over time, whereas they still drop rarely and in tiny amounts.  Initially you'd only need 1-3 at a time, but nowadays recipes like the Dakra Prime and Scindo Prime need 15 (and a lot of other prime weapons need 10) which has greatly increased the demand.

However, Part 1 does not tell the whole story.  If the imbalanced use/drop was the only problem then player inventory counts would look like an inverted version of the above graph.  They don't, in reality what players do often doesn't match up exactly with the design of a game.  In this case, there's more to the problem than just the drops versus uses for frames and weapons.  Varying farming spots and how the resource tables are distributed can have a big impact, and resources used for extractors/consumables can change things as well.




[size=6]- Part 2: Long-Term Effects And Player Actions[/size]
[size=5]- Data Gathering Process[/size]
So the second goal was to take a sample of the inventories of long-time players in order to see what's left over after building most things in the game.  This would help contrast the design numbers with what actually happens in the game and show if there's any specific player habits and goals that further imbalance drops.

The below spoiler outlines the steps I took to gather that data.

I asked players I know, and also posted a thread asking players ~MR16+ to show me their resource counts.  I tried to focus on high-rank players because those are the ones that generally have built most things in the game, so their inventories will show what's left over after the recipes take what they need.  I feel this will be a good contrast to the barebones use/drop ratio calculated earlier.

I would take these counts, order them alphabetically by resource, and stick each one in a separate file. Then I'd figure out the number of drops of that resource by dividing the total count by the average drop amount (which was figured out in the above set of tests).

One I had some lists of player inventories all sorted the same and all listing the drop instances (opposed to the total numbers), I wrote a script to average all the samples together.  I then ran this script to get the averages.

<?php//Set the directory to look for samples.$path = "./samples/";//Set some counters.$item_count = 0;$file_count = 0;//Main loop run on each file.if ($handle = opendir($path)) {    while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {        if ($file != '.' && $file != '..') {                        //Read the file into an array, divided by linebreaks.            $filestring = file_get_contents($path.$file);            $reading_array = explode("\r\n",$filestring);            //On each item in the exploded array...            foreach ($reading_array as $current_item) {                //Strip everything but the numbers.                $current_item = preg_replace('/[^0-9.]+/', '', $current_item);                //Add the new values to the existing ones.                $multi_array[$item_count] = $multi_array[$item_count]+$current_item;                //Increment the counter so the next line is added to the second index, etc.                $item_count++;            }            //When we're done with one file, reset the item count.            $item_count = 0;            //And increment the file count.            $file_count++;        }    }    //Cleanup.    closedir($handle);    //Print the totals and sample set count first.    echo "Totals:<br />";    foreach($multi_array as $key => $item){        echo "[",$key,"] => ",$item,"<br />";    }    echo "<br />",$file_count," sample sets<br /><br />";        //Run one final loop to average all the samples and display them.    echo "Averages:<br />";    foreach ($multi_array as $current_item) {        $current_item = $current_item / $file_count;        echo round($current_item),"<br />";    }}?>

With the averages calculated, I took the data and created a spreadsheet of it.  Using some cell formulas, I added the averages together and then divided the individuals by the average to calculate what percentage of the average endgame player's inventory was made up of which types of drops.

[size=5]- Results[/size]

• First we have the resulting averages of leftover drop instances in all the end-game player inventories I looked at.  Note that this is in terms of drop instances, not total amounts.  The higher a bar, the more times a resource has dropped with that drop being unused (opposed to the total count of resources).
  
  
  
  For the majority of materials, these results are not surprising.  In others, it should be kept in mind that these results factor in the number of times players tend to build blueprints that need a material.  For example Cryotic is a relatively-new material and has a slightly-higher Grind Factor than Neural Sensors, but players tend to have many more spare Cryotic drop instances.  This is because there's only 4 recipes in the entire game that use Cryotic and only need to be built once, versus many recipes that use Neural Sensors, Forma in particular being a very commonly-built item by players.  As a result, once players have built what they want out of Cryotic it will just pile up, unused.
  
  
• Now for a different kind of look, if we were to take the same chart and weight the numbers by the material rarity (akin to the Grind Factor earlier), we could obtain a theoretical "most useless drops" chart, a measured inverse of Part 1's results.
  
  
  
  This chart also tells it's own story, specifically pointing out which materials deviate from their intended design and by how much.

[size=5]- Observations[/size]

• The most obvious offender in this case are Control Modules, which drop as uncommon in the Void despite their rare status everywhere else.  This makes them one of the most useless material pickups.
• The Void has had a disproportionate effect on resource gathering.  Most notably Control Modules, but also Alloy Plate and Rubedo are far more common than might be otherwise thought simply because the Void is a very popular spot to run missions but only has one drop table.  The selection of Alloy Plate and Rubedo for the Void might have initially been because farming those resources in ~U7 and such for frames was notoriously bad due to their tiny drop amounts (10-15 at a time back then IIRC).
  
• Certain other farming locations have had huge effects on what players obtain as well.  In addition to classics like ODD pouring their loot tables into player inventories, Dark Sectors have made the loot tables of some planets show up more prominently than usual.
  
• In both types of results, it can be seen that the materials used to build Forma are some of the most-used materials.  This is because players tend to build a lot of Forma, not only to use for the original design, but because it's a required building material for Clantech weapons (which make up a big chunk of weapons in general).
  
• Outside of farming locations, one contributing factor to differences could be the build cost of resources, specifically restore items.  I've graphed the build costs in the chart below, for reference.
  

  

  
  Do note that these list the smallest build.  That is the values for normal and medium are to build one, but the values for large are to build the 10-pack as individual blueprints for large models are not available.

[size=6]- Part 3: Suggested Changes[/size]
Resource drops in Warframe appear to have multiple problems with them, with multiple different causes.  Due to this, the following suggestions are intended to be taken in tandem with each other, one change alone won't have as much of an effect.

1. Adjust the base drop amounts.  Changing the min and max drop amounts should be easier than changing drop frequency/rarity tables, and the below values should be good baselines to work off of.
   

   
   Red numbers are decreased drop amounts, green numbers are increased.  White ones are left as-is.

   That should give results somewhat like this, which are more balanced.
   
   
   Note that I suggest Alloy Plate drops be decreased, but the "Grind Factor" is still below 1.  This is because Alloy Plate is an outlier in two regards.
   1. It's not used in large quantities in recipes, but a very large number of recipes use it so the required amount is higher than may be thought due to the frequency of building something requiring it.
   2. It's used in a lot of "basic" builds.  That is, things new players might want to start building (market and low-MR gear) shortly after they start to play.  In the past when Alloy Plate dropped around 15 at a time it was hard to collect enough Alloy Plate for building basic frames and weapons, and while drops of some basic materials should be lower than they are now they should definitely not return to their ~U7 amounts.This change should make most resources closer to their intended value (for ones that currently deviate a lot).
      
      
   3. Make the Void pick a random planet's loot table when the mission starts (and append Argon as a second rare material like Tellurium in Archwing missions).  After all, these are little pocket dimension instances that Corpus and Grineer have been trying to exploit and Void gates can be all over the system, so them having resources from all over would make sense (especially with the Corpus and Grineer trying to loot them).
      
      Adding Argon as a second rare drop might sound like it would make it rarer (and push out Neurodes and such), but the way that Tellirum drops in Archwing missions right now is that it's a secondary drop.  That is, when an enemy is killed in an Archwing mission it can drop a material from the normal loot table and a Tellurium (generating two visible resource drops).  If Argon in the Void was done like this, then it would stop Argon while being too rare while allowing the existing drop tables to be used in the void as-is.
      
      This change would help stop the Void's drop table from being such a disproportionate influence.
      
      
      
   4. Even out the use of materials, and go back to following themes for material usage (though if this change is actually taken, then new numbers for the drop amounts might need to be considered).  Some materials are way over-used nowadays, while others are rarely required for any builds.  The differences are shown most in old weapons (that used to follow lore conventions) versus new weapons (which just go for whatever at random, it seems).  Some examples to show the idea...
      • Certain weapons using Neurodes or Neural Sensors makes sense, like the heat weapons and Amphis.  They use these bio-link items so the user can control their elemental effects/attacks.  On the other hand, static hunks of metal like the Kama have absolutely no need for five Neural Sensors.
      • One common complaint is that the Kohm has no in-universe (or "thematic") need for Oxium.  The Ether weapons, on the other hand, could have a thematic need for it and could use some in their recipes.
      • The basic Gammacor is a weak, low-tier weapon in the market with no mastery requirement.  Yet it needs two Argon crystals, which requires going to the void... this doesn't match the time and place the Gammacor is designed to be used as far as player progression.  This requirement could be replaced with Morphics, which drop early.
      
      Consider changes to the Forma blueprint build time, amount, resource cost, or a combination.  The constant building of Forma is an imbalanced drain on the rare resources of players and it should definitely be changed somehow, though I don't have specific suggestions.
      
      
      Change consumable costs (restores mainly) to make them all spread out across common and uncommon resources using themes and relational amounts (and make the 1-versus-10 packs match).  For example, each consumable could use 2 materials with proportions proper to the rarity and the total amount matching the restore tier (normal/medium/large), as in the below graph.
      

Note that this graph lists lower amounts for two reasons.

• I suggested lower drop amounts for common/uncommon materials, this is to match.
• This only lists builds for 1.  10-packs should be multiplied by 10x, appropriately.

[size=6]- Closing[/size]
Resource drops in Warframe have tons of inconsistencies (so it's hard to pinpoint all the causes), and various players have different experiences.  While I have tried to gather enough data to present an overview of the game's design and results, I'm just one player and two heads are better than one.

• Have you personally noticed something that explains a drop imbalance that I didn't point out?
• Do you have any additional ideas on fixing drop imbalances?
• Can you think up specific redistributions for blueprint costs to help fix these problems?
• Do you have any ideas for changes to mechanics to help fix this?

If so, please post your suggestions.


Thanks to...

Ghost333, InertFurry, Mokunen, Fhaarkas, CDplaya, TaTaTaTya, Momaw, and many more for testing help and numbers (both in-game and on the forums).

- Updates
1/20/2015 - Adjusted the suggested Alloy Plate change extrapolated on the void changes since I found out more about Tellurium's drops as an example.
1/12/2015 - Expanded/extrapolated explanations and examples for section 3.  Added a note to the restore build cost chart to note the differences between normal and 10-pack builds.  Spoilered the restore item build cost charts due to size.
12/30/2014: Fixed the color-coding in the suggested chart (accidentally had Neural Sensors marked as green when I suggested no change in the end), also slightly-lowered the suggested Ferrite drop number (from 55 to 50).
12/21/2014: Updated to account for recent gear and 15.8.0's increase to the Oxium drop amounts.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Rydian

[Wolfhellm]

I'm not in any state to post any suggestions right now, but I would like to praise you for the time and hard work, that you put into this. I know of nobody else, who would be willing, to go into such details and I must say, that this community desperately needs more people like you.

[Playford]

Other than commending you for your hard work, I don't really have anything to add.

[Vadrigos]

Sad to say, but for all the hard work, charts and stuff, DE is just as likely to totally ignore this. Many have tried to explain that the resource creep is an issue, but it's NEVER come up in a livestream. EVER.

[Althran]

Good work, soldier.

 

[xethier]

This is exactly the type of feedback that DE needs to see.

You've summed up the problem nicely.

 

I think DE's logic is to throw up a speedbump to veterans. (oxium & argon) -- now Tellurium. (red-text mentioned two but that's all i've seen so far)

 

As a way to keep vets from immediately being able to acquire the new items.

Personally, I think that's a cheap tactic, but I do understand why they're doing it.

 

If Darvo does allow resource exchange when he's finally implemented, then it should mitigate this problem quite nicely. It won't be perfect, but it will "staunch the bleeding" as it were.

 

Ultimately, you're right, the entire system needs to be re-balanced with the new resources and build costs taken into account.

Edited December 19, 2014 by xethier

[Tyrian3k]

First of all: Impressive amount of work you have put into this.

 

Adjust the base drop amounts.  Changing the min and max drop amounts should be easier than changing drop frequency/rarity tables, and the below values should be good baselines to work off of.

 

Agreed very much. Don't know anyone who's lacking Spores, Control Modules or Alloy Plates.

 

Make the Void pick a random planet's loot table when the mission starts (and append Argon as a second rare material akin to research materials).  After all, these are little pocket dimension instances that Corpus and Grineer have been trying to exploit and Void gates can be all over the system, so them having resources from all over would make sense (especially with the Corpus and Grineer trying to loot them).  This change would help stop the Void's drop table from being such a disproportionate influence.

 

This would help to even it out and give less focus on the current Void resources, but it also has the bitter taste of RNG which I have grown a bit allergic to by now.

I'd suggest a slight change and make the table always have a randomized combination of one rare resource (Neurodes, Neural Sensors etc.), one uncommon resource (Plastids, Rubedo etc.) and one common resource (Nano Sprores, Ferrite etc.).

 

Even out the use of materials, and go back to following themes for material usage.  Some materials are way over-used nowadays, while others (like Control Modules) are rarely required for any builds.  Whether this is done by having new items need a better spread of materials (safer but slower to take effect), or changing existing recipes around to spread the use out (might cause complaints and additional technical hurdles)... I can't say which approach is better.

 

This may be difficult. It could be handled with the drop amounts to balance it out like you showed in the diagram below your first point. DE needs to keep this balance up, though, when releasing new items to build.

 

Consider making the Forma blueprint build 2 or 3 at a time (with a resulting increase in build time if appropriate, since halving the material cost isn't viable in this case).  Forma building takes up many resources that normal weapons and materials want as well, making 3/4ths of Forma's required materials into some of the most-hunted drops in the game.  No matter what is done, the constant building of Forma is an imbalanced drain on the rare resources of players and it should definitely be changed somehow.

 

Again, with the changed drop rates this may not be all that bad in the end, since two of the resources (Neurodes and Cells) needed can be farmed far more easily in ODD with adjusted drop amounts. Morphics are only uncommon on Mars, leaving only Neural Sensors as a problem.

 

Change consumable costs (restores mainly) to make them all spread out across common and uncommon resources.  For example, each consumable could use 4 materials with proportions proper to the rarity and the total amount matching the restore tier (normal/medium/large).

 

I fully agree with this part.

 

Consider lowering the Orokin Cell costs of prime parts.  The higher-end ones should cost 5-10 (not 10-15) with lower-end ones costing 3 or 5 at the most instead of 5-10.

 

Let's say either 5 or 10, but definitely no more.

 

In addition to the suggested buff to Oxium's drop rate, consider making Mutalist Osprey units drop Oxium, while using Oixum in small quantities in varying new (or existing) blueprints.

 

Giving more options to farm Oxium isn't a bad idea, though the drop amount has been buffed just today.

 

Oxium suffers most from the comparably huge amount of it that each recipe that uses it to the drop amount. The amount needed should stay the same, but be spread out to more items instead of having only a handful of them that require a huge amount each.

[Zagrax]

I think that instead of beating us over the head with new resources in -every- BP when a new resource comes out, DE should go and apply the resource in small amounts to older BP's so that it's relevant to some of those (like seriously, since argon has come out, probably 80 percent of new BP's require it.)

[Countess_Hapmuhr]

Far be it for me to critique this, but I know a lot of people would like to check your data sets to verify for themselves that the conclusions reached are valid.

[Rydian]

Far be it for me to critique this, but I know a lot of people would like to check your data sets to verify for themselves that the conclusions reached are valid.

Well most of the data is from the game's visible workings and/or can be verified on the wiki (build costs, resources for restores, drop amounts), but as for the results of the end-game player inventories (probably the biggest concern), here's a screenshot of the excel spreadsheet used to make the table (because that's just how Word works nowadays).

As before, note that that's not total count, but drop instances.  So it's total count divided by the average drop amount.  Honestly I'm a bit surprised that Argon averaged out to 4 even with the number of players that had 1 or 0 at the time they tossed their inventories at me.

[DSpite]

This is not EvE Online. We don't have a system where we need to constantly build things because we burn them out.

 

If a player manages to get everything built in a month because <reasons>, then are you saying that the massive stockpiles of leftovers he will have after a year are a "game problem"?

 

If we had a game so difficult that constant burning of Energy Restores, Specters, etc etc was needed just to last 15 minutes, then yes, we would burn resources constantly, but guess what? Missions are easy, hardly anyone pops that stuff other then in Endless or Tactical Alerts, so it builds up.

 

Maybe we should tell DE that players needs to assemble their own Tech 2 ammunition for missions, or fuel for the Liset, or Frame and Sentinel repairs, etc etc, that would use up those resources hey?

 

Resources are NOT meant to be something to HELP you, they are there to act as a HINDRANCE to game play and act as chokes in longer term goals. This happens even in Minecraft, so why are you surprised? You want a diamond pick? Go mine for it. You are basically asking DE to "add more diamond ore" to the strata.

 

If DE wanted to make it easy on us, they would hardly just drop more resources, they would just remove resources as requirement or have an NPC that can trade one resource for another.

 

I killed an Oxium Osprey the other day and got 8 - EIGHT - frigging Oxium for one kill. Madness. DE is making it way too easy these days.

[Rydian]

This is not EvE Online. We don't have a system where we need to constantly build things because we burn them out.

 

If a player manages to get everything built in a month because <reasons>, then are you saying that the massive stockpiles of leftovers he will have after a year are a "game problem"?

 

If we had a game so difficult that constant burning of Energy Restores, Specters, etc etc was needed just to last 15 minutes, then yes, we would burn resources constantly, but guess what? Missions are easy, hardly anyone pops that stuff other then in Endless or Tactical Alerts, so it builds up.

 

Maybe we should tell DE that players needs to assemble their own Tech 2 ammunition for missions, or fuel for the Liset, or Frame and Sentinel repairs, etc etc, that would use up those resources hey?

 

Resources are NOT meant to be something to HELP you, they are there to act as a HINDRANCE to game play and act as chokes in longer term goals. This happens even in Minecraft, so why are you surprised? You want a diamond pick? Go mine for it. You are basically asking DE to "add more diamond ore" to the strata.

 

If DE wanted to make it easy on us, they would hardly just drop more resources, they would just remove resources as requirement or have an NPC that can trade one resource for another.

 

I killed an Oxium Osprey the other day and got 8 - EIGHT - frigging Oxium for one kill. Madness. DE is making it way too easy these days.

Uh.  Did you tl;dr?

 

I'm not specifically complaining that some things are too hard to get.  I'm complaining about imbalances, and that includes that some things are too easy to get.

 

I suggested for some resources to drop in lesser amounts.  Like, I suggested that the Alloy Plate drop amount be cut down to 1/5th, for example.  I also suggested that the Void drop table get removed and start using other things, because Control Modules drop way too often for what they're used for.

 

[size=2](Also this guide was posted the same day that Oxium got the drop number increased, didn't even realize that before I posted.)[/size]

[Twilight053]

This is not EvE Online. We don't have a system where we need to constantly build things because we burn them out.

 

If a player manages to get everything built in a month because <reasons>, then are you saying that the massive stockpiles of leftovers he will have after a year are a "game problem"?

 

If we had a game so difficult that constant burning of Energy Restores, Specters, etc etc was needed just to last 15 minutes, then yes, we would burn resources constantly, but guess what? Missions are easy, hardly anyone pops that stuff other then in Endless or Tactical Alerts, so it builds up.

 

Maybe we should tell DE that players needs to assemble their own Tech 2 ammunition for missions, or fuel for the Liset, or Frame and Sentinel repairs, etc etc, that would use up those resources hey?

 

Resources are NOT meant to be something to HELP you, they are there to act as a HINDRANCE to game play and act as chokes in longer term goals. This happens even in Minecraft, so why are you surprised? You want a diamond pick? Go mine for it. You are basically asking DE to "add more diamond ore" to the strata.

 

If DE wanted to make it easy on us, they would hardly just drop more resources, they would just remove resources as requirement or have an NPC that can trade one resource for another.

 

I killed an Oxium Osprey the other day and got 8 - EIGHT - frigging Oxium for one kill. Madness. DE is making it way too easy these days.

He is asking to balance the resource usage vs. gain, not a single thing about grind; read harder.

 

Wait, aren't you the same person who don't know how T4 works?

Edited December 21, 2014 by Twilight053

[Rydian]

Alright, I updated the charts and tweaked the suggestions/observations a little to account for the change in Oxium drop amounts and the latest gear additions (which slightly-changed a few resource U/D ratios).  Oxium was buffed higher than I would have thought DE willing to do, and it doesn't look like it'll be a problem resource anymore.

 

 

This would help to even it out and give less focus on the current Void resources, but it also has the bitter taste of RNG which I have grown a bit allergic to by now.

I'd suggest a slight change and make the table always have a randomized combination of one rare resource (Neurodes, Neural Sensors etc.), one uncommon resource (Plastids, Rubedo etc.) and one common resource (Nano Sprores, Ferrite etc.).

Well wouldn't that still be full of RNG?  It would actually take predictability out of it too.

 

I'm still not too sure what to suggest doing with Argon.

[DSpite]

He is asking to balance the resource usage vs. gain, not a single thing about grind; read harder.

 

Wait, aren't you the same person who don't know how T4 works?

 

I can read fine. Also, love it when you people get personal, I can't anymore. Alas, "warning points". Also, notice you are an admin on the wiki? I would have believed you had more control over managing the tone of your language, "read harder" does not become you.

 

Ok, lets see ... the system is fine? Because it is STILL not EvE Online, and resources are basically meaningless, whether we have 1 billion of something or 1000 or something, as the only important fact is what DE sees in the CURRENT drop tables.

 

If they want to stop you building something, they will just make new resources, or nerf drop tables. What you have or don't have is irrelevant, DE will decide if they want a new item to be built quickly or slowly and just "make up stuff to make it fit". Maybe you should look up Tellurium as an example.

 

We don't have an "economy". It's not an MMO, it's a glorified shooter.

 

How T4 works? It works the same as everything else. It's meant to kill you. If it's doing so, then it's doing it's job. If you are dying, maybe stay out of it?

Edited December 22, 2014 by DSpite

[Rydian]

We don't have an "economy". It's not an MMO, it's a glorified shooter.

Uh, are you sure you're responding in the right thread?  I never mentioned an economy, and resources can't even be traded anyways.

[fadeinlight]

I can certainly appreciate the amount of work you've put in, but I think you need to disclaim that certain resources can be obtained rather easily as mission rewards.  Orokin Cells, for instance, are obtainable in many ways besides drops--alert rewards, invasion rewards, in packs of 3 during T3 Survival intervals...

 

I know they can't really be accounted for in your calculations, as the purposeful gaining of those rewards depends entirely on the player.  But maybe some sort of study to go alongside this one, to show the availability of rare resources by way of reward, might paint a more complete picture.

 

Great job, though :)

Edited December 23, 2014 by fadeinlight

[DSpite]

Uh, are you sure you're responding in the right thread?  I never mentioned an economy, and resources can't even be traded anyways.

 

That's kind of my point. I can just set and clean Extractors once every 4 hours, and not even play the game for months. I will end up with massive amounts of resources for zero work, not even running missions.

 

I'm not attacking your data. I'm attacking the reasoning. You are not paying a monthly fee to play this game, so you are not entitled to a controlled resource system, which goes out the window instantly when people buy Boosters, and suddenly get an increased drop rate across the board, maybe 2 or even 3-4 times as much as normal. Why would DE give you better drops rates when they are SELLING better drop rates?

 

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Resource_Booster

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Resource_Drop_Chance_Booster

 

We also have specific mechanics for getting more resources in a run - http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Resources

 

I already have a Rhino loadout called "Loot_Finder" where he is optimized with a Kubrow to find and open as many Red lockers as possible, especially ones in weird places, and that gets me tons of extra resources per run.

 

What exactly is the point of making resources drops more uniform when things you build are limited and permanent? After so many Argon's, you never need Argon again until DE introduces something new, and the old Argon has decayed anyway. After a while, Neural Sensors will only be used on Forma, as you can only have as many Reactors as number of Frames in the game, and so on.

 

We don't have long term needs for a lot of resources. They will most likely pile up. If we had a system were we constantly had to burn through them, your concept would make sense. I don't see it that way with the current mechanics.

[Navite]

We don't have long term needs for a lot of resources. They will most likely pile up. If we had a system were we constantly had to burn through them, your concept would make sense. I don't see it that way with the current mechanics.

 

 with this i can see you don't understand the message of this thread very well. resources should all be equally relevant. right now they are not, the only resources i can recall farming since i've played this game are neural sensors, orokin cells, argon crystals, Gallium (within my first two weeks of starting) and that's all that even comes to mind. all the other resources just kind of stocked them selves up as i played with my noob gear, then when it came to decent amounts of consistent crafting they were just there. that's pretty bad. as i now have ludacris amounts of every resource and it is probably impossible ill ever need to farm anything but the ones i previously listed.

[grillv20]

Far be it for me to critique this, but I know a lot of people would like to check your data sets to verify for themselves that the conclusions reached are valid.

 

As far as I can tell with how his charts look, they definitely reflect everything that I've experienced in my time playing.

[FattyKracken]

being MR 12, i can completely see this happening as i grind away the weapons and see i constantly need Orokin Cells, with neroudes/N Sensor's tieing behind that.  and with the 24 hour time constraint on Argon, its hard to see if it really would be "nice" to have a boost or if it needs a nerf to be more like the other 3 mentioned (if thats what DE was aiming it to be like)  i feel like argon was the start of expireable items with decent drop rate as a rare but then kinda faded or was lost...  (and all honesty i would be 100% fine with a slight boost in drop, even if they disappear after 24 hours)

 

but heres something i would like to see...

 

playing the game, at what point do you have all of the quanity of a resource for "perma items" (weapons, frames, etc) what i mean by this, is that lets say, it takes 700~ish orokin cells to complete all these items that are considered perma/one time build (assume you font need to sell it/ sell it and build it later again)  if you played the game from start (as if your new to the game)  how long would it take?  could Alloy/Nano spores be gather for all of these items within the first 50 hours of gameplay?  while orokin cells, Neurodes, and sensor's takes 800-1200ish hours?  it be awesome to find out.

 

but the other resouces i wonder about is Fieldron samples and such that have only 1 purpose, one that i know i dont use, but drop in droves as well.

 

hopefully that can be something of interest :D

 

edit: typo's, cleared up a small thing that could be misinturpted.  though im sure there is more i would need to do, to follow the same...  but meh...

Edited December 23, 2014 by FattyKracken

[KooverX]

MR 16 player here. Really like this analysis and feel it's spot on. 

 

I constantly find myself needing Orokin Cells, Neurodes, and Neural Sensors. I also especially like your Void resource suggestion (I've thought about the same thing before!) 

 

 

Now if you want to REALLY be my hero, try doing an analysis of Void Tower item drops. =p 

 

 

Good work and thank you. 

[xethier]

 

Now if you want to REALLY be my hero, try doing an analysis of Void Tower item drops. =p 

 

 

i'd second this. however... i get the feeling that they are altered so often that any attempt would be more-or-less futile. :(

I could be wrong. But the way i get "runs" in the void... (survival giving the same rewards at the same time points 2 or even 3 times in a row)

The best you could hope for would be to prove that there is still something fishy going on with void drops. :/

[DoomFruit]

i'd second this. however... i get the feeling that they are altered so often that any attempt would be more-or-less futile. :(

I could be wrong. But the way i get "runs" in the void... (survival giving the same rewards at the same time points 2 or even 3 times in a row)

The best you could hope for would be to prove that there is still something fishy going on with void drops. :/

Define "fishy". Because if you mean "vastly uneven drop chances for different parts" or "worthless crap instead of actual rewards", then that is obviously still the case, has been for more than a year now, and it should be noted that DE remain absolutely silent when someone tries to call them out on it.

 

And yes, I've been recording every single drop I get from the void when I do a mission. While the sample size is relatively small, the patterns are pretty obvious to me.

 

Finally, you posted this thread at precisely the wrong time. By the time the DE staff get back from holiday, it will have been buried :(

[Don_T_Shoot]

Impressive work by Rydian and friends and a very interesting read.

 

Only things I want to comment on are that maybe DE wants to Grind Rates to be like that.  It seems like it is on purpose, in some cases, to get us to play certain mission types that we would normally not.  So they make it more grindy to accomplish that.

 

As far as the conclusion about Forma resources.  It might be better to increase the neural sensor drop rate rather than up the number of Formas per blueprint. I only say this because, anecdotally anyhow, it seems the Forma drop rate is about right.  Getting 3 - 4x that per blueprint would create an imbalance that would seem to overly favor the player.