Mod Drop System Is Dull

[Bitfly]

Without trading, there is no viable way to get the mods you need.

If you want something specific, it becomes more of a long-time unreachable goal

rather than something you go work for and eventually get and enjoy.

You really need to get that trading going or change the drop rates if you want to

keep (especially new) players in the game.

[Aerensiniac]

Its not dull, its $&*&*#(%&. Pressing ~100 items onto one rng based loot table results in a 0.0000000X% chance at getting one specific item at any given time.

Add the fact that there is no loot scaling with difficulty and you get a completely mental system where everything drops everything everywhere and yet nobody will find anything they are looking for.

 

Either there needs to be an auction house, rng needs to go completely or loot scaling needs to be implemented.

Each time the devs add some new mods the chances at getting them will grow worse and worse till the point where you will be finding yourself grinding for common mods.

 

This is also the number one cause for burning out your players.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Aerensiniac

[Bitfly]

Its not dull, its $&*&*#(%&. Pressing ~100 items onto one rng based loot table results in a 0.0000000X% chance at getting one specific item at any given time.

Add the fact that there is no loot scaling with difficulty and you get a completely mental system where everything drops everything everywhere and yet nobody will find anything they are looking for.

 

Either there needs to be an auction house, rng needs to go completely or loot scaling needs to be implemented.

Each time the devs add some new mods the chances at getting them will grow worse and worse till the point where you will be finding yourself grinding for common mods.

 

This is also the number one cause for burning out your players.

Yea exactly. I really want some response from DE on this one, and if not before I'll try and take it to the livestream

EDIT- did I say I want a response? Hell, I want some action

Edited May 25, 2013 by Bitfly

[Lumireaver]

Without trading, there is no viable way to get the mods you need.

 

Except the same way the people you intend to be trading with. Hohoho.

[Emotitron]

I agree with the title - yes the mod system completely lacks the visceral quality required to get excited about loot drops. This could be different if there were a LOT more variety in loot drops. I would love to see on top of the generic mod tops currently frames/weapons getting more specific slots like optic sensor variants, shield generator variants, foot traction mods, strength mods, scopes, grips, blade edge materials, etc.These specific slots could only contain the mod of that type (obviously you couldn't stick a shield generator where your scope belongs), and to add a little more metagame and commitment - they should be expended when applied, like potatoes. If you want to change to a different attachment, you would need to expend another. Current mods are WAY too non-committal to be the entire extension system.

 

I disagree with the OP content though. There is more than enough way to get the mods you need. It already is pretty easy to get almost every mod available after only a month. You can get all the ones you need to finish all of the game content in two weeks. Trading wouldn't gain much since everyone needs the same mods. If you get a multishot you aren't likely to give it up - you are more likely to just fuse it with your existing multishot. It would also only help accelerate people toward 'nothing left to do'. The time and effort required to make a trading system in the game (not a trivial programming task for a small group of devs) would be hard to justify.

[Aerensiniac]

Refer to thread: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/49998-this-is-not-the-type-of-feedback-you-are-looking-for-after-all-your-work-with-u8-welcome-to-warfarmers/

Edited May 25, 2013 by Aerensiniac

[Bitfly]

Emotitron, on 25 May 2013 - 6:45 PM, said:

I disagree with the OP content though. There is more than enough way to get the mods you need. It already is pretty easy to get almost every mod available after only a month.

I don't know what country you live in, but people have to work / eat / sleep here.

You simply can't get every possible mod in a month, let alone a single specific rare in that time

[Aerensiniac]

I don't know what country you live in, but people have to work / eat / sleep here.

You simply can't get every possible mod in a month, let alone a single specific rare in that time

A month?

I spent exactly 378 hours in game before seeing my first flow mod drop. Thats not one month, thats more than 2 months, and more mods are getting added to the game as we speak, reducing the chance of finding something specific, even further.

[Emotitron]

Its not dull, its $&*&*#(%&. Pressing ~100 items onto one rng based loot table results in a 0.0000000X% chance at getting one specific item at any given time.

Add the fact that there is no loot scaling with difficulty and you get a completely mental system where everything drops everything everywhere and yet nobody will find anything they are looking for.

 

Either there needs to be an auction house, rng needs to go completely or loot scaling needs to be implemented.

Each time the devs add some new mods the chances at getting them will grow worse and worse till the point where you will be finding yourself grinding for common mods.

 

This is also the number one cause for burning out your players.

 

Actually the number one cause for burning out players is shortage of new interesting and challenging content. It still seems up in the air as to whether the game intends to permacap an end state or to keep allowing to it powercreep upward. The release of Forma suggests that they are willing to keep finding ways to creep it up, but also shows that they are looking to not give the game a continuous power progression (like you would expect from a WoW or Diablo). Right now there is a low of diminishing returns intentionally built into upgrading. You can very quickly get your stuff up to about 80% of the power cap, and getting that last 20% gets harder and harder as you near 100% of what is possible.

If they intend to power cap, then yes the current mod system is a snoozer. The metagame of setting up your weapons/warframes is very flat. My general ideas for how to make a powercapped game interesting (other than just making sweet dungeon content):

1. Add permanent and specific attachment slots to warframes and weapons that consume mods. Things like shield gen mods, scopes, optic sensors (see through walls, or other enhanced vision choices), etc.

2. Make warframes and weapons interact more. For example make it so warframes have affinities and penalties for carrying certain weapons. Make some warframes effect attributes such as ammo capacity, recoil, reload time, and accuracy.

3. More, more, more mods. Right now every weapon has an end state with mods everyone is trying to achieve, that is bad and bland.

4. Make mods interact more. For example fire and ice mods should not be able to exist on the same weapon.

Stuff like that. Some power creep would result by adding new equipment slots, but new end content could be released with it that is scaled to these new power levels and it would just become part of the current progression.

[Emotitron]

I don't know what country you live in, but people have to work / eat / sleep here.

You simply can't get every possible mod in a month, let alone a single specific rare in that time

 

If you don't play that much, then you won't get all of the rares. People in Magic the Gathering also play sick amounts and may never own some rares. The game currently does not require these rares though, and they work fine as 'it would be nice someday' items. If everyone has them, it kind of makes them not rare. I was able to kill all of the bosses before owning a single multishot mod. They aren't essential to playing by any means.

[Emotitron]

A month?

I spent exactly 378 hours in game before seeing my first flow mod drop. Thats not one month, thats more than 2 months, and more mods are getting added to the game as we speak, reducing the chance of finding something specific, even further.

 

But that is how I see the future of rares needing to be. If everyone can get every type in short order, rares lose their meaning. I do think that rares should be less critical to a standard 'final build' though. I would like to see enough rares that every player has a different set of rares to work with, more like Magic the Gathering kind of rares. Not having all of the rares shouldn't be a 'wtf is wrong with this game, it should be 'these are the rares I have, what kind of setup can I build around these'.

I submit the problem isn't that rares are too hard to get, but rather there aren't enough rares to make rares meaningful. Instead they are just annoying and elusive requirements.

[Aerensiniac]

But that is how I see the future of rares needing to be. If everyone can get every type in short order, rares lose their meaning. I do think that rares should be less critical to a standard 'final build' though. I would like to see enough rares that every player has a different set of rares to work with, more like Magic the Gathering kind of rares. Not having all of the rares shouldn't be a 'wtf is wrong with this game, it should be 'these are the rares I have, what kind of setup can I build around these'.

I submit the problem isn't that rares are too hard to get, but rather there aren't enough rares to make rares meaningful. Instead they are just annoying and elusive requirements.

There is a difference between "short order" and having to play 400 hours just because the rng loot table is ****ing with you.

Especially with the awesome knowledge that EVERY mod that drops could be the one you seek.

[Emotitron]

There is a difference between "short order" and having to play 400 hours just because the rng loot table is ****ing with you.

Especially with the awesome knowledge that EVERY mod that drops could be the one you seek.

 

I just posted in another tread that this is a symptom of a bigger problem. This game has no end state where unique and challenging content is abundant. The end game as it is now is just to collect all of the stuff, for the sake of collecting all of the stuff. The various rare mods aren't 'needed' for completing the existing content... they are just all that there is left to do.

I would though like to see mod drops less 'random' and DE make different mobs more likely to drop certain mods - should someone really want to focus on a specific one. Still though, this is all a symptom of a larger "too little content spread too thin" problem.

Which mod is it that is eluding you so much?

[Bitfly]

Which mod is it that is eluding you so much?

Not any specific mod. Say I want to mod my sentinel's weapon along with my own weapons, it will be next to impossible to gather them (unless you go for pure ammo/magazine mods tehee...)

And it's not about "needing" the mods to complete content, it's about achieving goals and upgrading the gear you like.

The old system where rare mods dropped as frequent as common mods was really good, disregarding that people would farm infested for rare skills to sell for easy profit. That's why they remade the system, but seeing as they now made credit totally useless and very easy to obtain... I doubt it will go back to the way it was but that would be awesome

[Vyaldyn]

I'd like to see the following chances made into the mod drop system:

 

* Certain mods drop on certain planets.

* Most mods would have common, uncommon and rare tiers. Higher being better and, obviously, more rare. Everyone would have access to most mods, but it would require lots of playtime (unless really lucky) to get the best of each.

* Rarer mods having a significantly higher drop-rate the further you go in terms enemy level. Right now, it seems like the drop-rate is the same wherever you go.

[Timmuk]

Biggest issue is that people are saying that higher lvl mobs dont have a better chance of dropping better mods....and that is pretty weak

 

I am just not starting to get into the area of fighting 40+ NPCs and was looking forward to seeing what new mods will be dropping more often

[Lumireaver]

Instead of suggesting that people be able to acquire things without effort (That's what trading/auction houses do), why don't you work out some kind of nifty Mod Synthesis Lab where throwing in mods of like-polarities increases the odds of generating other mods of the same polarity.

[Kiteless]

I really think this game could benefit from mod trading. Mods themselves really have the feel of glorified trading cards, and the way they drop reflects that.

[Aerensiniac]

I just posted in another tread that this is a symptom of a bigger problem. This game has no end state where unique and challenging content is abundant. The end game as it is now is just to collect all of the stuff, for the sake of collecting all of the stuff. The various rare mods aren't 'needed' for completing the existing content... they are just all that there is left to do.

I would though like to see mod drops less 'random' and DE make different mobs more likely to drop certain mods - should someone really want to focus on a specific one. Still though, this is all a symptom of a larger "too little content spread too thin" problem.

Which mod is it that is eluding you so much?

This is exactly what i wrote about in https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/49998-this-is-not-the-type-of-feedback-you-are-looking-for-after-all-your-work-with-u8-welcome-to-warfarmers/

And it was flow. 378 hours of play after it dropped from a grineer.

Not even going to elaborate on the fact how many hours i have spent grinding corpus defense maps.

[Bitfly]

Personally I've thought about a Forge system in the mod menu, where putting 5 common would give 1 random uncommon, and 3 uncommon would give 1 random rare. But I didn't bother suggesting it cause my suggestions always die

[Kyte]

Instead of suggesting that people be able to acquire things without effort (That's what trading/auction houses do), why don't you work out some kind of nifty Mod Synthesis Lab where throwing in mods of like-polarities increases the odds of generating other mods of the same polarity.

Reminds me of Torchlight 2 (and prolly other Diablo-type games) where you can go to the Alchemist, toss three gems and get one rare gem with the average level of the 3 you tossed in. You could do something like toss 3 mods of X polarity and get 1 mod of the same polarity but one rarity tier higher, maybe if they're all Grineer-drop mods then you get increased chances of a Grineer-drop mod and so on.

 

It might need rejiggering the rarity system to be more granular though.

Which it should be, anyways, so you can have more rarity tiers to match with enemy levels. Like (for example, numbers pulled out of my &#!) Copper -> Lv. 1-15, Bronze -> 16-30, Silver -> 31-45, Gold -> 45+. Something like that.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Kyte

[rksk16it]

Without trading, there is no viable way to get the mods you need.

If you want something specific, it becomes more of a long-time unreachable goal

rather than something you go work for and eventually get and enjoy.

You really need to get that trading going or change the drop rates if you want to

keep (especially new) players in the game.

 

Keep playing, you will get the mod(s) you want eventually... probably by that time sun will be a cold dark lump of matter floating in the space.. oh wait...

[Chaos105]

You guys have a lot of really good ideas. I do like the idea of blending the mods to create others and I also believe trading could be very beneficial. I agree that there really are not enough rare mods to balance the common and uncommon mods and with the warframe mods viewed as common, I get more of those than even something like "Ammo Drum". I see trading beneficial for the fact that some people like me have to spend time working and cant always play all day or everyday. I can usually play for about an hour through the week and maybe a max total of 6 hours on the weekend. My cousins on the other hand have a bit more time to be on and it would stand to reason that they will potentially acquire mods or blue prints that I may be after or it may be the other way around. I may find some thing in the tower raid that they haven't or my cousin uses shotguns where I mainly use melee and pistols. Shotgun stuff isn't really that important so rather then sell I could trade with him. I've also really had no problem finding mods, in that short amount of time that I play I find a few here and there, While they are not RARE I hold on to them anyway to gather and boost something else and while drops are mostly common in defense missions, there does seem to be a better mod flow when you have more people using variety of warframes. I'm not sure if that is coincidence, however what I can say is that when there were 4 people using the Excalibur frame the mod flow is poor and usually result in few "Lv1 fusion core" or something that is way more common, where as having a for example; Rhino, Frost, Nyx and Volt caused the drops to be Lv 3-5 "fusion cores" (Lv 5 was 2 in one wave 20 and then more like one every 3 hours) and some more of the uncommon. I tested this back to back having friends play with different frames and we all did better. Like I said though, it could very well be coincidence.

[Aerensiniac]

Keep playing, you will get the mod(s) you want eventually... probably by that time sun will be a cold dark lump of matter floating in the space.. oh wait...

"Eventually" right...

I can encourage him too like that.

Hey buddy, it took me only 378 hours of game play to get my first flow mod.

I wish you a lot of luck on obtaining at least 5 times as many rares ranging from multi shot to continuity.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Aerensiniac

[Vyeth]

Mod drops should fit the location and faction you are fighting.. Say if you are fighting in a frozen ship against the corpus, that means during that mission the mods that add freeze damage to weapons should have their chance dramaticly increased and the fire damage ones lowered. Against corpus means that redirection and mods that deal with shield like Fast defelction maybe even energy stuff like Flow should have an increased percentage of being dropped..

 

I am sure everyone understands that there is no pure control in an RNG system, and I dont think we need pure control because that would ultimately kill the game faster than absolutely no control (with an AH, everyone would be majorly maximum powered over night and the game will basically die), BUT allowing the players to at least control WHO they fight to have an increased chance of finding what they need might do the trick..

 

And yes, "frozen ships" should be more common the further away you are from the sun (which happens to be the more difficult planets which of course may also increase said difficulty).. Ships in "battle" (taken a few hits) should be more common around maps near connected planets of another faction, an example: Venus is Corpus owned and Earth is Grineer which means that Vesper, Linea and Tessera would be "conflict zones" on Venus and E Prime, Gaia and Oro would be "conflict zones" for Earth..

 

tl;dr: The RNG should stay, but make certain controllable factors "persuade" the percentage of drop factor..