In Response To The Mods "underclocking" Statements Made In The Stream By Scott

[CaptMytre]

So, I've captioned what was said at this part of the stream which will be quoted at the bottom of the post, for those of you that are interested. It is from 0:56:50 ~ 0:58:45 (

).

 

On review of the comments stated, I feel as though a major oversight has occurred. For example, I am a player with almost every frame, every weapon and as many of you would know, many of these weapons have many different sub-builds. Forcing players to not be able to "underclock", that is to set the power and thus the power consumption of a mod, but to "unfuse" or do nothing at all, results in one of two things:

 

• Players must have multiple numbers of the same mod. Mods such as Serration could have as many as 4 or 5 different useful levels, thus resulting in players having to have 4 or 5 different serration mods to call upon. This is ridiculous in the current mod leveling system.

   

• If unfusion is allowed, no player is going to use it to make the correct build, with the knowledge that another frame could and does make the most of a mod being the level it already is at.

 

This system is a hamper to the customisation of warframes, and pushes players towards specialising and thus playing only a singular frame and singular weapons that their mods fit, as they won't fit other frames. Unless there is a major revamp of the way mods level up, it is absurd to think any player would have multiple mods like Serration that are very expensive to max out. Another point is, that this will cause players to not experiment, as it will be incredibly costly and very risky if the mods chosen don't work out.

 

An interesting point in contrast is that warframes are quiet easy to swap between, and even farming them does not take too long, but what would be the reason to farm or even buy a new frame, when you can't use any of your mods that you have maxed out, until it's rank 10 or rank 5 with a potato, and that in the end, your far better specialised frame won't cost you anything to keep, while adjusting you mods to fit the new frame will be, as described above, very risky and expensive.

 

Consider that this is not a system that helps with the "Warframe is a game with a bit more consequence" statement. Introducing a time expanding, irritating system like this does not make it have more consequences, at worst you have to lose some fusion mods to level a mod back - big deal. What it does do is that it removes the OPTION factor. I ask any player, why would you risk cash, time and mods on adjusting your mods to fit another frame, when you could just keep your current system and be at near peak ability? If they really wanted consequences, it really should be that mods should be removed and turned into a skill tree system that you cannot reset, and have to start all over again to do so. That is has consequences if you make a bad decision.

 

This game is free to play, DE should be encouraging that we go out and buy frames/weapons for platinum, but this is a restriction - a definant anti-free to play move.

 

TL;DR Go read twitter updates if your unable to read longer than 140 character posts, this is a forum for discussing, and sometimes that requires indepth discussions.

 

In closing, I hope that the developers can see the reasoning I have put forward, and I would love to discuss this more with anyone interested. "Underclocking", the ability to just set the power level, is the optimal way forward.

 

 

 

~GMCM

 

 

 

 

Scott: I've had several requests for this, basically since fusion is very costly and kind of permanent people are, when they get certain mods into a certain range they are scared to go any further, because they are not sure if the effect of will ruin their build and they've already invested so much so basically they want to take their very high level, fused mods and then say, it's actually only this fusion level in this build.

So they want to take their level 10 serration, and in this warframe, it's only level eight, or I'm going to turn it down temporarily, or unfuse it. I've heard several examples of taking their very high level mod, and either pulling the power back or actually walking backwards and spending resources to unfuse it.

Rebecca: How does that work with you, as with the design of the mod system in mind. Like, do you want to go there?

Scott: I think, specifying the energy that a specific mod uses is kind of complicated. So I think what we would be looking at more is unfusion type thing, so a way to go backwards. Obviously this thing would be destructive, and it wouldn't be like "I'm going to unfuse the cores that I put into that, and you get the cores back", it would be, you went to far, that was your decision, now you gotta pull it back and you lose those resources.

 

Steve: I completely agree. Again, Warframe is a game with a bit more consequence, than a lot of games where you quicksave and there is really nothing at stake, we have enemies in the game that splat you... I agree with you.

 

 

Another post of mine, listing issues and suggestions:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/31614-list-of-suggestions/

Edited May 12, 2013 by CaptMytre

[Azure_Kytia]

Yes, I too feel as though the dev-proposed solution (de-levelling mods at the cost of your fusion materials) is quite punishing to those who wish to experiment, and doesn't in any way promote experimentation, something I felt was their key driving point for the mod-card system in the first place. It discourages people from upgrading their rank 10-able mods because there comes a point where it's likely going to be too costly to use in any build, which I feel detracts from DE's vision of ultra-customizability.

 

I can understand the need for there to be a cost involved when de-levelling mods, but by the sounds of it, DE's vision is a little extreme. That being said, I guess it's in their name, so..

Edited May 9, 2013 by Azure_Kyte

[ETQW]

Unfusion may be very useful. Often I need to unfuse my mod to 3-4 rank against 5.

[CaptMytre]

Unfusion may be very useful. Often I need to unfuse my mod to 3-4 rank against 5.

 

Yes, but being able to set the power of the mod would be far more useful, and wouldn't damage the mod. I feel it is a better solution than unfusing.

[CY13ERPUNK]

it is cumbersome

 

but i am slowly accumulating a collection of mods, one of every type and at every rank

 

so for example 6 pressure point mods (one of each at 4,5,6,7,8,9 points each)

 

then if i get extras past that point i can just fuse them together to have more higher rank ones, or sell them (since you really never need more than one of each type/rank since you're only using 1 at a time, unless you just wanted to have all your gear fully modded/slotted at all times)

 

but ya anyways, regardless the current system is tedious, but honestly it doesn't even take that much time to quickly develop a massive collection

 

even adding more mods i don't see this current system has enough lateral growth potential without undergoing "power creep"

 

/rant

[Tyrfalger]

Solution: Make a warframe/weapon attachable item (ergo like a potato) that allows underclocking of mods. 

 

Edit: Call it Orokin Regulator? And to clarify, it'd probably be platinum purchasable. Whether or not blueprints for it would be available...dunno. You can just deal with having multiple sets of the mods, even if it is frustrating to do so. Devs gotta sell platinum items anyway.

 

Its kinda like the warframe and inventory slots; you do not absolutely need them to play the game. You can always sell older weapons/warframes (although I wouldn't) but they are not absolutely essential to surviving. Potatoes on the other hand are very helpful to surviving and thankfully, for those who do not want to buy them with platinum, it is possible to get them through alerts/log in rewards.

 

So all in all, while having a mod underclocking mechanism would be handy, it is not absolutely essential.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Tyrfalger

[Fredlicious]

I completely agree, and I also don't get the "it's complicated" excuse either. I really wish there were an opportunity to discuss it with the devs in real time, because the live stream answer made it feel like they were missing the point.

[Obscene]

I do understand what you are saying and you have some good points. However, I am not opposed to having duplicate mods at different levels. If a player would like to have lots weapons and warframes at that perfect custom balance, it should require a large time & resource sink.

Maxing out a handful of mods should not give you access to a arsenal of perfect weapons.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Obscene

[Obscene]

I completely agree, and I also don't get the "it's complicated" excuse either. I really wish there were an opportunity to discuss it with the devs in real time, because the live stream answer made it feel like they were missing the point.

I think the "it's complicated" refers to the technical side of how the game deals with mods.

[CaptMytre]

it is cumbersome

 

but i am slowly accumulating a collection of mods, one of every type and at every rank

 

so for example 6 pressure point mods (one of each at 4,5,6,7,8,9 points each)

 

then if i get extras past that point i can just fuse them together to have more higher rank ones, or sell them (since you really never need more than one of each type/rank since you're only using 1 at a time, unless you just wanted to have all your gear fully modded/slotted at all times)

 

but ya anyways, regardless the current system is tedious, but honestly it doesn't even take that much time to quickly develop a massive collection

 

even adding more mods i don't see this current system has enough lateral growth potential without undergoing "power creep"

 

/rant

 

 

Yes, but the collection would take thousands of hours to complete. I'm  at over 150hrs played, and I've only found one flow mod. If I want a full set of them, it would take me 1000hrs+. Some mods, such as pressure point, drop all the time and only reaches a max rank of 5, it isn't really an issue. Serration, (if I have my math right) which needs 512 other serration mods (or more if using mods other than serration), would be years in the making of a full set.

Edited May 9, 2013 by CaptMytre

[Azure_Kytia]

They would need another column in the User's Mod inventory database next to MOD_LEVEL. Then each entry in the user's mod database would simply have a value that is less than or equal to MOD_LEVEL. That doesn't really seem too hard to me, but I think it might also be a matter of "Does DE really want to store another GB of data just to record each user's underclocked mod value?"

 

Implementing it client side could be a simple matter of adding two buttons on the UI and switching the system around so that the power of the mod is derived from the secondary column I mentioned previously that would need to be made in the database, then making sure that the new DB entry is less than or equal to MOD_LEVEL.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Azure_Kyte

[CaptMytre]

I do understand what you are saying and you have some good points. However, I am not opposed to having duplicate mods at different levels. If a player would like to have lots weapons and warframes at that perfect custom balance, it should require a large time & resource sink.

Maxing out a handful of mods should not give you access to a arsenal of perfect weapons.

 

But that's the biggest point, there is no reason to have different frames or different weapons. With a single frame, there isn't anything you can't done once maxed out really, so there isn't really a reason to try and explore other frames, or even other builds of that frame. Currently if this continues, it looks like I'll make a loki build and not really change from that, since he's the most versatile. Just the fact that it requires 512 Serration mods to reach rank 10, and then a little less for rank 9 etc etc, it is too much work for so little reward.

[Visarogo]

From a merely mechanic idea toning them down instead of reversing your progress sounds so much better.  as far as how hard it would be to impliment that i can't say anything on.  but it would be nice to just max all the mods you want and tune them back to what you want to use them for

 

at the same time i can see Steve's point... wanting warframe to be more consequence oriented making it where you have to undo progress would fit in better.  but im of the same mind that many/most players would not find this appealing

[_Rue_]

i love the idea and i really think we need it. I can manage mod duplicates because i have tons of cores to play with, what about other players.

 

Thank about Vitality and Redirection. The sheer amount of resources to max that and create variants will be prohibitive. Not to mention other similar mods like Serration and Hornet Sting (?).

[CosyPigeon]

I agree with OP. The dev's proposed solution doesn't really solve the issue, as it doesn't allow for the player to experiment with mods to come up with their ideal build. It just provides a means for the player to waste more mods, which is pointless. 

[ZKAT8IT]

I don't see what the problem is. I have multiple warframes, weapons, and duplicate mods. It's not that difficult to open notepad and preplan what level your mods and stats can be at before fusing your mods to higher ranks. There's even a few people making stat calculators as well to simplify the task. Steve says in the livestream that "Warframe is a game with a bit more consequence", and allowing you to adjust the power of your mods doesn't fit that. DE has tried to cater as much to the community in making the consequences not as harsh as they wanted/intended ( ie: defense missions all or nothing, changed to checkpoints at every 5 waves ), but this would be like giving the players no consequence at all if you can just change your mod to whatever level.

 

The mod system as it stands has always given the impression of requiring multiple copies of a mod ( ie: one for each warframe/weapon ) to alleviate the hassle of needing to un-equip your mods and re-equip them every time you want to change weapons/warframes. Allowing players to switch quickly between missions and during the voting. With changing the level of mods, you remove even needing more than one copy ( unless you still want to have more than one ) but also increase the hassle for those who don't have more than one, since they now have to un-equip, change the mods to the right level, re-equip them on the other warframe/weapon etc.. Which could prove difficult to do in the 60 second vote time unless your teams nice enough to wait a longer period just for you to keep changing things.

They would need another column in the User's Mod inventory database next to MOD_LEVEL. Then each entry in the user's mod database would simply have a value that is less than or equal to MOD_LEVEL. That doesn't really seem too hard to me, but I think it might also be a matter of "Does DE really want to store another GB of data just to record each user's underclocked mod value?"

 

Implementing it client side could be a simple matter of adding two buttons on the UI and switching the system around so that the power of the mod is derived from the secondary column I mentioned previously that would need to be made in the database, then making sure that the new DB entry is less than or equal to MOD_LEVEL.

Yes, that is part of it, but there's more. Not only would they have to add buttons. But they'd have to make an indicator color on the left side other than white so you know what the MOD_LEVEL is that way you don't dial it down to rank 0, think its a rank 0 mod and sell/fuse it into something else by accident. Not only that but anytime you make a change, it has to make a call to the server to verify the change you're making is legit to prevent hacks to dial mods up higher than they're supposed to be. Which if a lot of players are dialing mods, that's a lot of calls and can overload the servers. So they'd have to implement net code for that as well. Also, you'd only be able to dial the mods from uninstalled mods, because if they allowed you to change the level of installed mods, they'd have to put in multiple checks to make sure you're not going over your allowed mod capacity. ( already in place for fusing installed mods, but would require some code duplication and a few extra checks for ranking up mods to make sure you don't somehow go past the limit ) These are just off the top of my head as I feel I'm missing a few other things. But you can see the work involved as opposed to doing something as simple as pay X amount of resources then MOD_LEVEL = MOD_LEVEL - 1.

Edited May 9, 2013 by ZKAT8IT

[Creavyer]

i would rather level up a new mod then i would spent resources on downleveling my mods

since i change warframe couple of times at day so this wouldnt be any good to me

so i will just continue making all mods rank 1,2,3,4,5 & so on >.>

[CaptMytre]

I don't see what the problem is. I have multiple warframes, weapons, and duplicate mods. It's not that difficult to open notepad and preplan what level your mods and stats can be at before fusing your mods to higher ranks. There's even a few people making stat calculators as well to simplify the task. Steve says in the livestream that "Warframe is a game with a bit more consequence", and allowing you to adjust the power of your mods doesn't fit that. DE has tried to cater as much to the community in making the consequences not as harsh as they wanted/intended ( ie: defense missions all or nothing, changed to checkpoints at every 5 waves ), but this would be like giving the players no consequence at all if you can just change your mod to whatever level.

 

I don't think you get the magnitude of what you're saying. I believe I have my math correct with this, though please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Lets say I want one set of serration mods, Levels 0 - 10.

 

You would need a total of 1034 serration mods, this is for optimal exp/credits, you would require more credits and mods to use other mods types or just more a lot more credits to use fusion cores.

 

To put this in perspective, you contend that you would have multiple multi-level mods (2xlvl 10, 2xlvl 9 etc) then it would be x however many guns I'd like to maintain.

 

Consider also that this is not a system that helps with the "Warframe is a game with a bit more consequence" statement. Introducing a time expanding, irritating system like this does not make it have more consequences, at worst you have to lose some fusion mods to level a mod back - big deal. What it does do is that it removes the OPTION factor. I ask any player, why would you risk cash, time and mods on adjusting your mods to fit another frame, when you could just keep your current system and be at near peak ability? If they really wanted consequences, it really should be that mods should be removed and turned into a skill tree system that you cannot reset, and have to start all over again to do so. That is has consequences if you make a bad decision.

[Geuax]

I don't think you get the magnitude of what you're saying. I believe I have my math correct with this, though please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Lets say I want one set of serration mods, Levels 0 - 10.

 

You would need a total of 1034 serration mods, this is for optimal exp/credits, you would require more credits and mods to use other mods types or just more a lot more credits to use fusion cores.

 

To put this in perspective, you contend that you would have multiple multi-level mods (2xlvl 10, 2xlvl 9 etc) then it would be x however many guns I'd like to maintain.

 

Consider also that this is not a system that helps with the "Warframe is a game with a bit more consequence" statement. Introducing a time expanding, irritating system like this does not make it have more consequences, at worst you have to lose some fusion mods to level a mod back - big deal. What it does do is that it removes the OPTION factor. I ask any player, why would you risk cash, time and mods on adjusting your mods to fit another frame, when you could just keep your current system and be at near peak ability? If they really wanted consequences, it really should be that mods should be removed and turned into a skill tree system that you cannot reset, and have to start all over again to do so. That is has consequences if you make a bad decision.

2047 or 2^11-1 to have every serration

 

if you just do the math "unfusing" is literally taking a mod ad cutting  it in half and throwing is the trash can. When you inevitably try to go back up you'll need to add back that half you trashed, which is the exact same number of mods , credits and effort to just make that lower rank mod from scratch.

[CaptMytre]

2047 or 2^11-1 to have every serration

 

if you just do the math "unfusing" is literally taking a mod ad cutting  it in half and throwing is the trash can. When you inevitably try to go back up you'll need to add back that half you trashed, which is the exact same number of mods , credits and effort to just make that lower rank mod from scratch.

 

Could you explain the math?

[BearlyKoalified]

De-fusing or whatever you wish to call it, is actually a good idea.

 

It is a players option whether they want to upgrade, swap, not use or defuse a mod. It is the players thought of "Shall I do this? Hmm, yes I shall." If they want to spend the credits and Mods/Cores to upgrade then they can. If they want to spend Credits? to defuse then they can. They know what will happen if they do so, (assuming defusion is explained or has some text explaining it).

 

It's up to the Player to decide what they want to do with their mods. Save them, keep them, sell them, upgrade them, defuse them, whatever.

 

With the option of defusing, it allows Players to take a step back such as if they had 1x Level 5 Serration and they wanted to level up a different rifle, they could return it to Level 4 and use it in that said weapon, providing it could handle 4 slots. The mod can still be returned to Level 5 at a later date. I do agree however with both DE and yourself in the part of defusing "What do I get?", as Scott said you are essentially destroying one thing to get another in return as is with upgrading, you are essentially destroying 1 or more things to get this. So, whilst defusing is the risk of losing what you earned, so is Upgrading in a sense. However, I do feel that there should be a chance to obtain a Fusion Core should you choose to defuse just so that there is potentially something in return, this Fusion Core I imagine would be either Common or Uncommon with a % based on the level of the mod you wish to defuse.

 

In the end; players are warned and it's up to said player to do what they want with their mods.

Edited May 12, 2013 by BearlyKoalified

[SilentCynic]

You can argue that defusing or such will achieve the required results till you're blue in the face. No one is arguing that defusing will not scale back your mod level. However, the process involved in doing so (and subsequently boosting it again) is cumbersome and annoying. An arbitrary limitation and hindrance. Does it add consequence? Yes, but in such a superficial way that you'd be much better off trying to add it in another part of the game's mechanics.

[CaptMytre]

De-fusing or whatever you wish to call it, is actually a good idea.

 

It is a players option whether they want to upgrade, swap, not use or defuse a mod. It is the players thought of "Shall I do this? Hmm, yes I shall." If they want to spend the credits and Mods/Cores to upgrade then they can. If they want to spend Credits? to defuse then they can. They know what will happen if they do so, (assuming defusion is explained or has some text explaining it).

 

It's up to the Player to decide what they want to do with their mods. Save them, keep them, sell them, upgrade them, defuse them, whatever.

 

With the option of defusing, it allows Players to take a step back such as if they had 1x Level 5 Serration and they wanted to level up a different rifle, they could return it to Level 4 and use it in that said weapon, providing it could handle 8 slots. The mod can still be returned to Level 5 at a later date. I do agree however with both DE and yourself in the part of defusing "What do I get?", as Scott said you are essentially destroying one thing to get another in return as is with upgrading, you are essentially destroying 1 or more things to get this. So, whilst defusing is the risk of losing what you earned, so is Upgrading in a sense. However, I do feel that there should be a chance to obtain a Fusion Core should you choose to defuse just so that there is potentially something in return, this Fusion Core I imagine would be either Common or Uncommon with a % based on the level of the mod you wish to defuse.

 

In the end; players are warned and it's up to said player to do what they want with their mods.

 

Again, you totally forget the fact that this is FINE if you have one frame, but you can have 10+. It is unrealistic to tailor your mods to a frame, and then have to spend large amounts of cash to tailor it again to another frame. This in turn makes the game push players towards playing a singular, highly modded frame and not exploring other sub-builds for the frame and even worse, since it is detrimental to DE in terms of income, players won't have a reason to try other frames.

[BearlyKoalified]

Considering it's a rather small thing considering the state of the game, not actually being 100% finished, there is still room for many things to happen. Whilst people will say that the process is annoying, there are many missions that you can run through and possibly even more to come that will reduce this annoyance down to nothing more than a 5 minute issue. Though at this point we don't actually know what the consequence is, the only 'consequence' is having a lower leveled mod and credits and mods/cores used to upgrade the mod. But what else? The defusion could very well cost more credits than a normal fusion. We just don't know and neither does DE, not yet anyway.

 

In my opinion, it's better to just ignore the whole defusing of mods since at this stage it's not really needed. If it's added then great, another optional thing to do. If not then does it really matter? If you're looking for something to do, why not run some missions and farm for mods?

 

Edit: Got ninja posted.

 

I'm not ignoring if you have more than one frame. Since you CAN swap mods from one Frame and/or Weapon to another, providing it has the slots to do so. You just have to open Arsenal, swap out the mods and be done. Use that Warframe. Run missions. ???. Profit.

Edited May 12, 2013 by BearlyKoalified

[Beelzebubbles]

Maybe we should fuse this thread with the other one that's been going on for over a week on this exact topic.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/38278-underclocking-mods-mentioned-on-livestream/