U18 [Spoiler] System: Eta On Changes.

[direcyphre]

The ability to earn focus from shared affinity should be a simple enough task and a priority that it should be done this year

I believe the intent is to not make this a 'farm focus on draco' thing via shared affinity. We need fresh new ways to acquire focus itself, rather than just 'make all affinity apply'.

[Centias]

For now, just let passive affinity gains convert to Focus. Let the focus cap be the limit on how quickly players can unlock things, not how efficient of a killer/stealth player they are.

 

Currently, there are only two effective ways to gain an amount of focus that is even slightly respectable:

- use an AOE nuke frame and kill as many things as possible

- do the highest stealth mission you can manage to maintain the stealth bonus on 

 

Neither of these are at all conducive to cooperative play, and almost completely leave out players who opted to put their lens on a frame that is almost exclusively support oriented (Trinity, Vauban, Banshee, etc.). It also means players are no longer working together to fluidly complete objectives, they're competing to get the most kills. It is not uncommon to see Ember, Equinox, Ash, and Excalibur on the same map all spamming their best abilities as often as possible just to grab every last kill they can, while often completely ignoring the actual objective of the mission. 

 

I want to play with my friends and strangers, AND earn focus at the same time. Sometimes, I just want to play backup and provide energy or healing or bonus damage. I don't always want to be desparately running around nuking every inch of the map to earn as much as I can just to be denying anyone else their focus. 

 

Then later, add some incentives to earn focus through other means, like mission completion bonuses, to make other approaches better/more attractive.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Centias

[Varnas]

Just remember everyone that "next year" is only just over two weeks away :) so although it sounds like a long time, its really not that bad!

[Evers]

Hope the Abilites themself get redone too. THey really don't scale well. Espacially Madurai becomes worthless extremly fast and is outclassed by pretty much every dmg dealing warframe.

[SpicyDinosaur]

The ability to earn focus from shared affinity should be a simple enough task and a priority that it should be done this year

This always made me bristle as an admin for a MUD, knowing the code more intimately and seeing how hard and interconnected things were to change, while players made haphazard guesses as to how the system worked (which were always way way off) and assumed that whatever they wanted would be an easy fix and should be done chop chop.

[Racter]

What is the point of this, honestly? If whatever you're prototyping is less efficient than Draco/stealth farming you're completely wasting your time for 80%+ of the player base. It makes zero sense to have an affinity based system not work off shared affinity. At this point you might as well just lens your Excal and rotate who kills and who buffs/EVs.

 

Anything less will still lead to people crying about kill stealing, people complaining that their support frames get nothing or nearly nothing, and a hefty chunk of people continuing to Draco/stealth farm with a net change of nothing.

[ShaniGeine]

U18 is awesome, but focus is... Well... It feels off. I take it as a rough draft followup of the what the second dream is about so I'm not complaining ^^ Still, this is what I think :

 

It breaks everything, not in a good way. I mean we have our 6 potatoes 15 forma loadout and (you say it yourself) the game is meant to be fast, playing flying ninjas jumping on walls and smiting legions of foes, then there goes a weird "push 5 to completely ignore your loadout and turret a half-fun half-useless weird unexplainable apparition of your tenno in the middle of... oh wait, your squad just wiped 2 tiles".

 

And, honestly, I know you might be working on changes, but it is the whole "how it works" that needs to change. The most easy path to start thinking about is Madurai for me, and beyond the power of the deathray, it is not good like that; more clearly, It would be far better if this "push" 5 gave a temporary boost to damage instead of a deathray and maybe upgrades like "no need to reload" or "increase multishot by % and spread by %" combined with a "increase fire rate by % and recoil by %".

But, yeah, a deathray is an awesome thing so casting it out would be bad too (plus we get it in the quest, so why not after)^^ So maybe we could get the deathray when activating the boost while playing beam-ish weapons; seeing it coming out of an opticor or a spectra or maybe even just cast it out of our warframe hand...

 

And I am talking about Madurai because I believe it to be a simple blast through anything path. On my end, I picked Naramon without being aware of what the whole thing would be, and it is absolutely useless in 95% of cases, and only in defense or interception missions. It only came handy while needing to revive a friend in a sortie defense, and now that I think of it, I could have just blow up everything with a tigris or use my Molecular Prime. What I mean by that is : it isn't about what stats or debuff it has, but how it works that isn't what Warframe is.

 

I'm trying to say that anything would be better without ignoring our loadout, which I believe was the original intention of the focus : to reinforce those things we love to play.

 

Again, I'm not trying to give ideas, I love you guys, I love Warframe and you do what you want, I don't see the whole picture like you do, it is simply what I feel after 2000 hours on the game, and I don't want it to be put on the "unfinished and not incorporated into normal gameplay" bench alongside Archwing (even Sharkwing still feels very slow and tedious).

 

(Speaking of Archwing : Knux are really well designed and is a waste there. Powerfists are ultra awesome weapons. Slow, powerful, stylish, awesome)

 

Anyway ^^ Beyond focus gain... We gotta get rid of this tenno-popping thing. I already love my tenno, but it is for the best.

 

About the lens removal thing, I think it way too early to whine about it because I can the feel the moment when, in a few months, we will all have tons of lenses we won't even know where to put.

Edited December 15, 2015 by ShaniGeine

[SpicyDinosaur]

Speaking of archwing, feel free to throw more of that into your plans at any time. Not really much there for people to even get excited about. Seems like it got ditched before it could be fully built.

 

Or even more sharkwing. Any of that. Give me something to do with these weapons and suits.

[-AR.Amaranthyne]

What about Lens removal? Is that something we can expect, or should I go farm a new Ivara and forma it 4 times just so I can have one without a Lens on it?

[Feam]

Hoping the Focus changes come through in a unique way at least, no matter how long it takes.

Affinity grinding as a mechanic has been used about 10 times too many in this game... So have daily caps, but that's an issue for a later date I suppose.

 

Good luck with figuring it out and keep up the good work!

[EmptyDevil]

 

Firstly, just a little bit of insight on why this is in the 'Developer Workshop': this subforum exists to host 'Information from the desk of Warframe developers', and the following is fresh off the desks of DE!

Secondly, [spoilers] and how they apply to PC Tenno and Console Tenno. The body of this post will be ever-so-briefly discussing the Focus System that was introduced just under 2 weeks ago on PC in 'The Second Dream'. As a reminder to Console Tenno, your build is currently in Cert with Microsoft and Sony. We eagerly await word on approval status!

Lastly, a quick look at the high-level issue of how Focus points are earned. Currently the most frequent criticism is the conflict presented by trying to earn Focus in a co-op environment, this issue must be solved first before the branching criticisms (like Focus caps) can be addressed.

 

A prototype emerges! We are prototyping a way to earn Focus points that is more conducive to team play, but still has its own twist. Lenses as equippable items required to collect Focus remains a core component of any prototyping, so all investment in equipping Lenses is preserved. Console players can safely utilize Lenses upon launch of 'The Second Dream' on the PS4 and Xbox One.

 

These prototypes are a tad too volatile in their current state, and we don't expect to roll them out until early 2016. We're sorry for any frustration this causes, but we need more time to get the prototype shippable.

Thank you!

 

 

I think a cool twist to focus gain could be something like the following:

 

- Lens conversion bonuses stack with teammates. So if you have 2 Tenno in a squad using a Greater Vazarin Lens, they both gain a conversion bonus equivalent to their stacked bonus. The greater and non-greater variants should stack together as well.

 

- Using your Focus ability will grant you X amount of focus exp. I feel like that would be ok since the cooldowns are fairly long and it would be abuse-free. This EXP shouldn't be shared.

 

Passive EXP gain should probably be enabled as well.

Edited December 15, 2015 by EmptyDevil

[(PSN)RedChili69]

I would have liked to get more information than "yeah we are doing stuff" and a vague time frame.

 

We are already aware you are working on Focus to improve it.

 

at least tell us what you consider

 

 

The entitlement people have this day and age is ridiculous......

What is the point of this, honestly? If whatever you're prototyping is less efficient than Draco/stealth farming you're completely wasting your time for 80%+ of the player base. It makes zero sense to have an affinity based system not work off shared affinity. At this point you might as well just lens your Excal and rotate who kills and who buffs/EVs.

 

Anything less will still lead to people crying about kill stealing, people complaining that their support frames get nothing or nearly nothing, and a hefty chunk of people continuing to Draco/stealth farm with a net change of nothing.

 

People will always cry, it's what people do best now. This generation is full of entitled spoiled brats

[Hayzemet]

raise it cap to 100K pls 

[zNightWolfz]

Thank you for the info DE and what will come will come this is your game after all

sure improvements need to happen and im sure you will make them..

At the end of the day you will never please every one and if people dont like it then they simply do not play for weeks or month...

To many people are Dictating what they want...

[Ceryk]

I'm more concerned with lenses being swapable at will, like Syndicate sigils. I jump between frames and weapons a lot. I don't enjoy being locked down to one loadout.

 

Making it so lenses can be equipable and swapable would help someone like me who does not main a frame or weapon loadout and is simply not willing to sit around farming Focus for the sake of farming Focus and just wants to earn Focus Exp while playing normally.

In order to balance out not having to equip lenses permanently, lenses could instead be upgraded similarly to Arcanes. More lenses needed to make it more powerful with every upgrade. That would also preserve the current investment people have with lenses.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Ceryk

[Xebov]

Thanks for the update. For me just one Question remains. What about the lense removal? That changing the system might need some time is understandable, but it would be nice if we could get a change pulled in that allows us to move our lenses between items to get the best out of what is currently possible.

[ShaniGeine]

To many people are Dictating what they want...

 

People will always cry, it's what people do best now. This generation is full of entitled spoiled brats

 

While some may try to dictate and whine, I believe most of us are sharing feedback on ongoing things. They (the devteam) need feedback and response from the community, especially when the game is still supposed to be in beta (correct me if I'm wrong). Don't get me (us) wrong, ultimately, they make the game. We say when things are great, and when things are not so great or how they feel. The community was delighted by The Second Dream and shared it, as it may have shared disappointments from archwing or other things. Plus, this feedback exists in all forms of art, like the opening scene from "Age of Ultron" felt bad or "This concert was great, but I couldn't hear the singer because the drummer was too loud". It's not about dictating like spoiled brats, it's about feedback.

[SethSamson]

yeah but many people have the holidays coming  ... free time vacations days etc  .. and they want to play and grind ..  thru out that time .. so they was really expecting some changes in THIS YEAR .. especially  ability to respec / rechoose / reset  (without losing collected points ) your Quest  Primary Tenno Way pick up .. 

[Stratego89]

All I want out of focus is a decently slow paced, end game system that is not tied to affinity gain- or farmable in a way where players will force themselves to do dumb stuff like draco exploiting to gather...

Edited December 16, 2015 by Stratego89

[TimFlint]

 

Lastly, a quick look at the high-level issue of how Focus points are earned. Currently the most frequent criticism is the conflict presented by trying to earn Focus in a co-op environment, this issue must be solved first before the branching criticisms (like Focus caps) can be addressed.

 

 

This does worry me. Because that's not saying "We will remove the cap once it's all fine and good" but instead "Once it's all fine and good we might take another look at it. Or, you know, NOT.".

Hooray corporate BS-lingo. Maybe someone at DE really believes we might just come around to not complain anymore if we just get used to it? Worked for reputation caps.

 

Please DE, enjoy your holidays. Take your time fixing things, do it slow but properly. But please, let us know in plain speak whether there will be a cap or not. And how focus XP will be distributed in teams. Because all of this newspost said exactly nothing about that, except "threaten (?)" a twist.

[Khranitel]

I would have liked to get more information than "yeah we are doing stuff" and a vague time frame.

 

We are already aware you are working on Focus to improve it.

 

at least tell us what you consider

Next second after they tell you something more concrete, everybody will run all over the internets screaming on top of their lungs about nerf/overbuff/p2w/theendisnigh. Just like it was with so called "multishot nerf". Think Steve felt remorse a thousand times because he said about that.

 

So yeah, right move, Rebecca. Better keep quiet before you have something substantial.

[FelisImpurrator]

Next second after they tell you something more concrete, everybody will run all over the internets screaming on top of their lungs about nerf/overbuff/p2w/theendisnigh. Just like it was with so called "multishot nerf". Think Steve felt remorse a thousand times because he said about that.

 

So yeah, right move, Rebecca. Better keep quiet before you have something substantial.

Also, people failing to consider that the prototypes are probably changing almost daily, so the plan this week may be completely different from the plan next week. They can't give more detail because nothing is final, evidently.

[(PSN)Crackle2012]

This is super reassuring for us Console Tin-suits :-)  & informative!  TY Rebecca!!!

[Brynslustafir]

Focus improvements are in the works?

[SonicSonedit]

The ability to earn focus from shared affinity should be a simple enough task and a priority that it should be done this year

Indeed. Focus should never be tied to personal killing. It should be tied to affinity - the original point of the Focus/Syndicate was to do something with affinity after we hit rank 30. With all of affinity - including shared and objective, not just the one we get from kills.

Instead of adding "new system with it's own twist" you should just make current one work properly.