Why Are Damage Mods Still So Difficult To Find?

[Drakontis]

Serration, Point Blank, Hornet Strike. Why do these all seem to drop from moderately rare/difficult enemies? They're such a crucial part of the game and it feels so stingy without them. The new damaged mods are a start, but actually being able to progress past that feels more difficult than it should be.You have to get up to wave 15-20 for Scorpions to start spawning (And by then, your damage has likely started to fall off already) in order to get Serration. And good luck getting Point Blank or Hornet Strike from the Infested. Only way to access them low level, I believe, is through invasions. And even still, rare to uncommon enemies. Can't these just be dropped by chargers, crewmen and lancers? Enemies that people actually have a chance to find and kill in lower levels so these mods can start being built up sooner, rather than wondering if you'll be perpetually stuck in the little leagues?

This is probably my only gripe about the new early game right now. Right now on PS4, I'm Mastery Rank 3 with only the damaged damage mods. Right now, it feels like getting past that point is going to be a bit of a chore. Which honestly kind of sucks. 

I mean, look at the whole list of where Pressure Point drops from.

 

Ambulas 

General Sargas Ruk 

J3-Golem 

Lephantis 

Corpus Mine Osprey 

Grineer Butcher 

Grineer Desert Heavy Gunner

Grineer Frontier Hellion 

Grineer Frontier Lancer 

Grineer Lancer 

Grineer Manic 

Infested Toxic Crawler

That's TWELVE sources, and 4 of them are bosses. Meanwhile, between the lot of them, the other 3 damage mods have 7 in total. Now, I can't say much about the Boilers (which seem to me like they'd be a rare enemy and difficult to find and/or fight), but Crawlers, Scorpions, and Ancients can be pretty stingy. And good luck with the runners if you don't kill them properly. 

Come on DE, let's give the new players a bit more of a leg up with these damage mods. Kind of sucks to be throttled so hard early game. One thing I never had to worry about before mods 2.0 was that I was able to get basically any mod from any enemy, which made it a load of a lot easier to get stuff. Sure, it was more randomized, but I got through it easier than I've tried to get through early game lately. At least one common enemy per mod would be nice. 

[TychusMechanicus]

I remember I received my first Serration from a higher mastery player back when I begun playing as it simply refused to drop for me. Yeah, basic mods should drop from common enemies.

 

Also, shotgun mods are still painfully rare.

[DeMeritus]

You aren't the only player that's had this cross their mind.

 

I think the person who decided on where these drop doesn't actually play Warframe.

 

If they do, they haven't likely ever done so as a fresh account without dev cheats enabled.

 

Just sayin'.

 

I think the person you want to complain to about the S#&$ty drop tables would be DE_Sheldon.

 

Good luck.

Edited June 16, 2015 by DeMeritus

[Dhrekr]

I remember I received my first Serration from a higher mastery player back when I begun playing as it simply refused to drop for me.

I have given several Serrations, Hornet Strikes, and various multishots mods (you forgot to mention them, OP) to newer player for free.

 

Think of Serration as a community-builder: it is hard to drop if you insist on doing it on your own, and very easy if you learn to open the trade chat. And you get to experience first-hand how generous this community is.

[polarity]

Used all my spare mods for fusion last week, yet now I have 7 Serration, 6 Hornet Strike, 15 Point Blank and no less than 74 Pressure Point mods.

 

I haven't been anywhere near high level content, because I've been levelling new frames and weapons.  Mercury Survival, Earth Excavation, Sedna Mobile Defense.  All of those are popular enough that you'll be supported by full teams of other players, and have such high spawn rates for mobs that you'll get plenty of mod drops.

Edited June 16, 2015 by polarity

[Davoodoo]

But devs given you damaged mods so you wont need regular ones.

 

But in all seriousness i said it back when they added damaged mods that this was S#&$ idea and i havent changed my opinion since then.

[TychusMechanicus]

Used all my spare mods for fusion last week, yet now I have 7 Serration, 6 Hornet Strike, 15 Point Blank and no less than 74 Pressure Point mods.

 

I haven't been anywhere near high level content, because I've been levelling new frames and weapons.  Mercury Survival, Earth Excavation, Sedna Mobile Defense.  All of those are popular enough that you'll be supported by full teams of other players, and have such high spawn rates for mobs that you'll get plenty of mod drops.

 

 

Hardly applies: I remember when I just started playing, in my first week, I was happy if I can barely make it to wave 10 on Mercury defense farming common mods and credits there. We needed help from high rank players to get past the first Earth interception mission as our weapon damage was falling off rapidly and we were very far from mods like Serration, Split Chamber, elemental damage mods let alone a Strealine or especially a Fleeting Expertise. On Apollodorus survival when the first Bombards started to spawn in around 7-8 minutes we were running away screaming.

 

After more than a year later the only time I go to these missions if I feel like pulling random newbie players to 20m or 20 waves where the more decent stuff starts to drop if they are actually sticking around long enough and don't try to run for extraction. 

 

Having Serration and it's counter parts drop from common enemies would help players get access to these mods sooner and get them started on learning using them.

 

It is a great community builder of having friendly Tenno offer these mods to newbies but it would be a bit better if we didn't put fresh starting players on path that can bring them to meet less ethical players who dupe them out of their first plat purchases on relatively super common mods. I have given out free elemental damage mods and free basic mods quite a few times and have seen people trying to charge plat for common stuff too in the trade chat.

[Crewell]

Most of my mods are maxed, so I take my extras of those and use them to rank other 10 rank mods. You can do that with damage mods like Serration and Hornet Strike. Point Blank is easy to level because it only has 5 ranks.

[Drakontis]

Is there any chance you could be convinced to discuss the drop locations of Serration, Point Blank and Hornet Strike? Combined they have only seven drop chances from enemies. However Pressure Point has 12 enemy drop sources. I think that these mods should receive a similar treatment. Especially because on top of being uncommon mods, they drop from uncommon or even rare enemies, making them that much more difficult to drop due to not only the drop rate of the mod being low, the chance of having a drop from these enemies at all being low as well. 

 

These should definitely drop more often, especially Hornet Strike and Serration which require a gigantic amount of fusion power to rank up completely, which same mods get a bonus of, and because getting a few in midway points is very helpful in order to build your weapons damage up in steps as opposed to sitting at 0 damage bonus and then jumping up to max when you get enough mod points. 

 

Not having these drop from more sources and more common sources makes it a chore for new players to even have access to these mods and makes it very difficult to get past the first four planets, where these mods will even actually drop from consistently. Sure, you may argue that you can get these mods from things such as survival and defense, but how is a new player supposed to know these things? Even a veteran coming back from the void and starting a new account for nostalgia or starting on a different system may not know these things. 

 

Serration for example drops from 2 types of rare crawlers and Scorpions. The only time you hit Scorpions is minute 15-20 or so on Appollodorius. Not bad. Until you realize that a new player's damage is probably going to fall off before then. Point Blank and Hornet Strike both drop exclusively from infested, which don't have a solid place on the map early game  and so you have to luck into an invasion or somehow find your way to a derelict, and that's a bit too much of a stretch for a new player to figure out on their own right away, and be able to afford (What with most of their credits going to fusion and new weapons and blueprints for the most part.) 

 

Encouraging trading for these mods is a possibility, but also one that has its own dangers. New players could get swindled for their platinum that they've bought in order to purchase mods that should be easy to find. There are certainly many Tenno who are more than willing to hand out a mod or two or more to a new player who's stuck. But they shouldn't be stuck in the first place. And some players don't want handouts and shouldn't be almost forced to look for them or ask for them. 

 

My proposal would be to at least have a drop from 2 more sources for each of these. Perhaps Serration could drop from Crewmen and Lancers, Point Blank from Troopers and perhaps Prodmen and Hornet Strike drop from Shield Grineer and common Moas. This way they're more likely to drop and less likely to make an unpassable wall for new, unlucky players to get through.  

Sent this off to DE_Sheldon. Maybe I'll get a response. No idea. Let's hope.