Note To The Development Team Re: Dojo Costs

[Kahruvel]

How many of these folks saying "Just suck it up and farm it" are in small clans themselves, I wonder?

[Nod_Off]

This is Feedback posted in General.

[KvotheTheArcane1]

It does give you a lot to do, working towards unlocking them.

No, the point is he said people in big clans would start complaining in a week that there was nothing to do when the dojo finished, but there's still lots of weapons to test out and try. Working for the dojo's stupidly huge requirements is an artificial time waster, UNLESS you buy ~$80 worth of forma (almost none of which you get to use mind you, outside of maybe 2-3 of the 1570 plat you just bought). Which is dumb, and unreasonable.

 

Note: There will be people who complain about the lack of stuff to do in a week, there always are, but for small clans, there already is nothing to do but continue the endless grind to try and get enough mats for the first cross corridor when you FINALLY get the forma to drop. (which could literally take months even with a 10 person clan because not EVERYONE will be on to grab that alert, or farm for void keys, or get one in the login rewards.)

Edited May 24, 2013 by KvotheTheArcane1

[Worira]

This is Feedback posted in General.

 

"Oh no, I'm losing the argument! I'd better try to derail it by pointing out that this thread is feedback, like at least half of the other threads in General Discussion!"

[Aquifn]

Do try and keep it civil please :)

 

I don't understand the folks who say, just suck it up. I'm assuming they're in giant clans that are already done with stuff or will be soon. My group of friends won't finish a HALLWAY for a month or more, and thats including the several months of stuff we had saved up before it released. It'll be three plus months before we finish the right to play with the weapons. Or we could join a stupid huge clan and have access today. DE actually straight up loses money if those are the only two choices. Choice A is long, frustrating, and stupid feeling. Choice B is free, and instant.

 

Guess what choice will be made by 99.9% of the community.

[Nothus]

Yeah my only real problem is the forma.

 

Here is a nice resource to give me use and interest in my old weapons again, but i also need it for dojo building... that's hardly a fair price. Heck it'd even be better if they made a new pseudo potato just for dojo's.

 

In the end i really think it needs to be just massive amounts of normal resources. I really don't want to have to decide between making the game more fun, and making a dojo so i can get tech advances.

 

I have total faith this'll change though. It is a mmo and nothing is set in stone after all.

 

Just my 2 cents :)

[Yorinar]

I am initially disappointed by being forced into a large clan if I want early access to the new stuff (and I'll be honest, I do).  However, I will reserve judgment or anger until the livestream and a chance to hear what DE says about clan resources.  I have never felt like DE didn't listen to us and maybe the decision wasn't always what everyone wanted, but they at least present their reasons and I can live with that.  I'm hoping they will work out some means of scaling rewards costs so that smaller clans are viable, but we'll see.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Yorinar

[Valix]

I'm kind of okay with largeish prices, it makes it rewarding when you have to work for it but it still seems the prices were not evaluated before they were entered, when things like Hallways cost more then some of the key development rooms in resources.

 

I think with some tunning they could find reasonable prices.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Valix

[Laryat]

My two cents. My clan has 16 players, so its basically your run of the mill friends clan. At least 10 of us have day jobs meaning the bulk of the clan can get about 4-6 hours of playtime. Some of them play since the game hit Steam and some a bit after.

We barely have enough resources to build a connector (not counting the Forma).

With our free time and work schedule, we'd be extremely lucky to be able to build more than a connector over the course of 6 months. And that is if we play for all of our free time.

This makes building a Dojo (even just a decorative one) not viable at all. Currently we feel that unlike other games where you are encouraged to band together with your friends, this game encourages us to become numbers in a giant community of faceless people we will never play with. And since there is apparently no cap on the number of players that can be in a clan, there is absolutely no reason not to join one of the huge 500+ players clans out there and stick to playing with your friends via the friend list.

Might as well as remove all Dojos from the game and instead build a single hub map that works as a general Tenno base for all players, with all facilities included.

I don't think any us has anything to say that hasn't been said before. But we all would like to voice our disappointment once the 12 hours it takes to build a Dojo key were up. Other than that Update 8 brought a lot of nice content, it just feels like this clan dojos were not given a lot of thought at all. In fact, the entire Clan system hasn't been well thought out. I have yet to see a game where you can have 500+ people under a single flag.

[Sobezilla]

And on livestream people already pointed out costs where overpriced for the dojo... and they said they have realized it and would work on them, guess lets wait till livestream #6 and hope the small clans like mine get a voice out on the 1 hour and 30 mins =)

 

My best tip is to wait, and continue posting well written and not offensive threads like these, they give us a higher chance of being heard other than spamming threads only bad talking instead of proposing a solution (:

The problem with trying not to be offensive is when the costs of the new content itself are so offensive...

[Aquifn]

It really is actually pretty damn depressing figuring out the length of time it'll take us to build...a hallway. The huge clans already have everything built, so there was -zero- reason for such high costs. At the current costs, it'll take my clan of friends nearly a year to complete 2-3 rooms and still not see a single bit of the new weapons.

 

Several of my friends have already quit playing, saying they'll come back if its fixed, but have no desire to join a huge clan to see the game content.

[Kaian-a-coel]

I agree with pretty much everyone here. Lower the costs of the dojo room, please. And f*** the guys who will complain about having nothing to do. Even with 90% reduction it will take us something like two or three months of intense farming to get our dojo done. Double that time to make the research.

By then the devs will have added more rooms and researchs to build.

If they play it well we will never see the end of it, and it is fine, because we will still achieve something in a reasonable time frame.

 

I am the appointed architect of our 5-6 people clan, and I want to be able to build something pretty, to be able to take cosmetic consideration. Not to be forced to stick to the optimal layout because adding a room is adding two months of build time.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Kaian-a-coel

[Maespa]

with a cap so 300 person clans don't have like triple the cost or something

I don't really see much of a problem with that.  The small kind of clans mentioned in this thread so far have numbers ranging from 10-20. 3 times the price amongst 30 times the amount of players doesn't seem too bad.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Maespa

[KvotheTheArcane1]

I don't really see much of a problem with that.  The small kind of clans mentioned in this thread so far have numbers ranging from 10-20. 3 times the price amongst 30 times the amount of players doesn't seem too bad.

hm I guess it's not a bad a idea, if larger clans have even just 3 times the players a small clan does, their price increase should be 3 times as big (also, this would encourage clans to keep active members, not just invite everyone to get the biggest clan possible)

[Taisho207]

They made this system to cater to mass conglomerates not clans. Clans are close, like a circle of friends or a family.

 

Joining a clan with 1000 people isnt joining a clan its more like logging into a server. There is no association other then that you share a dojo. Is this what DE is supporting? 

[ArcanumMBD]

Joining my voice to the choir that these dojo prices are ridiculous. I, and a few of my friends, have been playing since closed beta. When the game went into open beta a few more of our friends entered the fray, and we started a clan for fun. When the game hit Steam, we added a few more friends to our clan. And yet with ~18 people, who have each put in anywhere from 50 to 150 hours into this game, we can't afford a hallway. Let alone a reactor, or the research rooms.

 

If the dojo were purely cosmetic I don't think this would be that big of a deal. However, with the research rooms and the new weapons tied to them, DE is walling off content from a large chunk of the playerbase. We're being denied content in a game that has always made sure all the content is accessible to everyone, whether they put money into the game or not. Farming these resources is not the same as farming for a blueprint. I believe I read that it takes around a million total resources in order to have access to all the research facilities. The amount of time it takes for a group of 20 people to farm that is obscene. Even a brand new clan that's 100 members strong will have a hard time farming up that many resources and not burning themselves out on the game.

 

Currently the dojo is designed for the old clans, the clans consisting of several hundred members, most of whom have been playing since closed beta and stockpiling resources. Well those old clans have already built everything, so now there's no reason to keep brick-walling the rest of us.

[Angius]

So I see only one option now. Delete all your small clans and join the huge ones, because otherwise you won't get access to all that fancy stuff. Be huge or be-gone, that's what DE is trying to say. And buy plat for forma.

I think, that I'll just delete my clan and join one of the 800+ clans with fully-built dojo. And I'll wait till changes, to revive my clan (I don't believe, that there will be any changes, but...).

[GeoDP]

Knowing DE i'm preety sure they will do something about this problem.Have faith.

[alocrius]

Yeah it was a bit of a shock to see the dojo prices. Especially after we heard in Livestream that Rebecca herself is in a small clan, and that small clans would not be left out of the fun. Not sure what the best solution is, but the current system seriously discourages small clans. For that matter why wouldn't everyone join the same gigantic clan?

I feel confident DE is even now engaged in thoughtful contemplation toward the outcry of the sparsely huddled clans, in this their hour of need, the winter of their discontent.  They have been good to us thus far and I'm sure they will rectify this egregious oversight in regard to consideration and deference for the more diminutive, yet no less valuable clans.

[vieuxchat]

just to add to that ~ most of my clan members ( clan of 10 ) have been here since closed beta.... still don't have enough ~ 

 

the only answer at the moment is to recruit or farm 

Recruit, farm or use the 4th option :

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/51931-a-proposition-for-the-dojo-costs/

Just lower drastically the costs, up the time drastically too and then let clan py the price several times to speed things.

Small clan could get their dojo, but at a guaranteed slower rate. And more people would buy forma as not insane amount of it would be needed (if you want all the rooms you need 130 forma, that's 2600 platinum, it's a huge cost, even for 10 members that contribute equally. And that's only about forma. And for one of each room. There will be more rooms, so even more forma will be needed)

[Mikhalio]

In respect to warframe Dojo's I posted this insight in the private founder forum, but will repost it here for context and broad rebuttal to the Dojo complaints.

 

Clan buildings should be huge construction feats given the easy barrier of entry to the game (f2P) and low level of cash cost for constructing a full-powered character.  Vs. comparable community building structure time sinks this is very tame.

 

EvE Online, full station cost: US$1,400.00, 180 days of construction farming, 19 hours of upkeep hours daily.

Age of Wulin: US$800.00 resources to construct, 4 hours of upkeep hours daily; possible to be destroyed every 30 min. by anyone in the gameworld.

Ultima Online: US$700.00 resources, possible to be destroyed at any time and looted/raided.

Planetside 2: US$50 to 100.00 resources, 24/7 combat, X variable cash cost on recapture of bases.

Star Wars Galaxies *(at NGE): US$900.00 resources. 24/7 combat, 10 hours of upkeep time daily.

 

Assumptions are done on a 40 man guild basis *(yes, goons actually track this S#&$ that is then compared between games for developer insight).

 

 

Warframe: 0 cash cost. 30 days of farming time. Perma-protected (for now, please add raiding soon!!)

 

Dojo's, like all community structures is what sandbox empires and communities are built around. The higher the investment, the more sweat equity and passion is placed into constructing and defending the Dojos. As the dojo's are built, stories about their construction are shared and become the binding threads around which communities are built. They create exactly what every game yearns for, a saga of shared questing which can then generate a grassroots media story of meaningful development and personal contribution to the dynamic gameworld.

 

In short: at a mathmatical level, Dojo's should be the epic fortresses of Warframe, where players need to ally up, form power blocks and feel pride in building, defending and managing them. Anything less will only lower the brand value, sandbox replayability and personal attachment F2P jockeys have related to the intellectual sweat value and equity they have associated with Warframe time spent (or soft-dollars paid to warframe community building).

 

[Sobezilla]

What the guy above me said really reveals how deceiving F2P games can really be. An invested player might just spend much-much more than what the cost of the game would be as a retail release ($60) even accounting for DLC (like on the 360 or PS3)...F2P games can eat away at real life money -_-

[LongDraw]

How about this?  cost tiers and clan member max capacity upgrades for dojo.  Lets say you have 1000 members in your clan, then you'll have say tier 3 prices right off the bat for the expansions you build and you can upgrade your Central Hall for the standard rate to get 2000 member dojo capacity.

 

but if you have say 20 members in your clan and you've already build hallways, a reactor, a dueling room, couple elevators, maybe a research lab or two and you wish you have more than 30 members in your clan.  Well, now you need to upgrade your Central Hall to support additional members for your clan dojo.  So not only do you pay to upgrade the Central Hall, but you also have to pay the difference in cost for all the expansions you built for the next tier pricing as part of your Central Hall upgrade.

[SairAerwyn]

I've been playing Warframe since I saw it show up in Steam, and loved it - Got others to play, Started a Youtube channel (youtube.com/sairaerwyn - and yes its still NEW) to show it off and so much more, not to count dropping lots of money (sorry for not being a founder, but I didn't need another Excalibur and wanted to get my hands on some sweet rare mods :) )

 

I wanted to add my "signature" to this "petition" since I LOVE LOVE LOVE this game, and I feel some homage to City of Heroes' Supergroup Bases, but at least in CoH I could build a solid, functioning base with less than 12 members.  Even in this with double that, its too much.  Farming is part of F2P games, and its the part of the game that causes a replay value to show (besides sweet space ninja parkour) but there is a point where farming is just way too much.  With unreasonable bars to meet, and with no one wanting to jump that high.... just lower the bar.  Even just drop the amount bit by bit until you hear just the right amount of whining from us :)

 

<3 you guys for making a game as sweet as this, and for making me salivate again with the Void and Dojos.  Play the cards right and you'll have a lifer from me for sure.  You pretty much tore me from Star Conflict with this new update anyway xD

[Invino]

What the guy above me said really reveals how deceiving F2P games can really be. ....F2P games can eat away at real life money -_-

 

No one made a "Free" to Play game without making sure it generates more cash than a "notFree" to play one. The P in F2P is not PLAY .. it is PAY.

 

For a month I actually thought DE's game is what F2P should be like ... spend $50 .. and time and get stuff you want. But not now, spend $100 and you need another $100 if you live in EU, as all ?Alerts are unsuitable to the time zone.

 

Free to Pay ... as much as you can afford or don't bother. 

Edited June 18, 2013 by Invino