U18 [Spoiler] System: Eta On Changes.

[PsiWarp]

I would really love it if Focus gain can tie into each Great School's philosophies, as in allowing us to gain Focus Points (or even speed up Focus Power cooldown) for performing certain gameplay aspects in accordance to each school's theme.

 

But for now, Focus will most definitely need to be earned through both solo and team games. Please eliminate any chance of "kill stealing", since that tips the scale way in favor of damage abilities and weapons over crowd control and support powers.

Edited January 19, 2016 by PsiWarp

[Klizard]

This is an interesting thought.

As I read the complaints I was thinking people want new ways to earn this experience.

What if having a lens on only enabled the affinity gain off of certain circumstances like:

Zenurik: Using abilities

Naramon: Performing finishers/stealth kills, getting critical hits, and scans.

Madurai: Performing parkour maneuvers and dealing direct damage (weapons, not abilities)

Unairu: Taking damage

Vazarin: Reflecting and blocking damage as well as healing and helping up allies.

 

Having those values gain faster with better and more lenses of the type. Along with expanded gains as a bonus at the end of the mission depending on what school type you followed more closely if you have multiple lenses equipped. That gain being the same if you only have one lens type equipped, making it easier to boost 1 particular school.

I realize a few of these can be exploited but it is a more interesting system than it is now. Could even be right alongside it.

Some thoughts?

Edited January 19, 2016 by Klizard

[(PSN)thebatmantyler]

Mabye The Focus Trees can look like this

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/597229-unairu-focus-concept/?hl=%2Bunairu+%2Bfocus+%2Bconcept

[YatogamiX]

Hi i see one kool thing in game its teshin dual nikana its looks so great maby ther is something we can have the wepons or skin like that nikanas
 

[Hustler-One]

You do need to be careful with development of focus in the future. We don't want another Viver incident again.

What was the Viver incident ? I tried looking for it but I can't seem to get a clue...

[Bibliothekar]

Viver was the antecessor to Draco (basically). When Syndicates were first introduced, people farmed the S#&$ out of Viver for standing - just like they do now on Draco. This led to several frames' abilities being reworked with a fire axe and the Corpus indoor interception map getting a rework before the node was turned into a Hive mission.

[[DE]Rebecca]

Just a bit of an Update here - things are in full swing on the Dev build with the co-operative oriented changes to Focus. So hopefully we'll still hit our early 2016 goal with releasing the changes pending more testing and slight tweaks.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

I'd actually love to hear what are the upcoming changes before you enrage the whole community again.

 

Though making focus much worse than it is would be troublesome, unless all you've done is nerfing stuff that doesn't suck.

 

Good riddance.

[Bibliothekar]

I'd actually love to hear what are the upcoming changes before you enrage the whole community again.

Seconded. I'd especially like to see comparative calculations for a few standard setups, like Ash (the #1 Focus farm frame according to the last Quick Transmission) and Trinity.

[Caobie]

Seconded. I'd especially like to see comparative calculations for a few standard setups, like Ash (the #1 Focus farm frame according to the last Quick Transmission) and Trinity.

 

I'd actually love to hear what are the upcoming changes before you enrage the whole community again.

 

Though making focus much worse than it is would be troublesome, unless all you've done is nerfing stuff that doesn't suck.

 

Good riddance.

 

im pretty sure they showed a near final version last dev stream they just needed to get the numbers where they liked. though they could have changed it since then if the system is as they showed then its gonna be at least decent.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

im pretty sure they showed a near final version last dev stream they just needed to get the numbers where they liked. though they could have changed it since then if the system is as they showed then its gonna be at least decent.

Failed to notice anything focus related in the last devstream. Requesting timestamp.

 

My bad.

 

All that was related to focus during devstream was gain mechanics, I failed to notice anything even remotely related to how focus abilities will actually work.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Mofixil

[Keltik0ne]

Just a bit of an Update here - things are in full swing on the Dev build with the co-operative oriented changes to Focus. So hopefully we'll still hit our early 2016 goal with releasing the changes pending more testing and slight tweaks.

You really need a non warframe related hobby you know.

[LordOfScrugging]

You really need a non warframe related hobby you know.

._. not sure if serious or not.

[[DE]Rebecca]

Failed to notice anything focus related in the last devstream. Requesting timestamp.

 

My bad.

 

All that was related to focus during devstream was gain mechanics, I failed to notice anything even remotely related to how focus abilities will actually work.

From the OP:

'We are prototyping a way to earn Focus points that is more conducive to team play, but still has its own twist. '

Everything this thread discusses and has pledged to discuss is about earning Focus points, not the abilities themselves. One step at a time :). 

[[DE]Grzegorz]

Everything this thread discusses and has pledged to discuss is about earning Focus points, not the abilities themselves. One step at a time :). 

It's arguable whether focus abilities should be easier to acquire or be more worth the time put in acquiring them.

 

At this moment, from the two focus trees I've bothered to unlock, the only worthwhile things are Mastery for necessary cooldown reduction (have you considered making certain actions reduce the time necessary for the focus to be usable? From the most recent titles, Black Ops 3 and Specialist system works like that) and a handful of upgrades.

 

For Zenurik focus, it's quite obviously Energy Overflow and Mastery, as everything else is hardly worth the effort to get it or increased cooldown, especially because Zenurik is now short on a passive. Just to spite myself I've started putting points into now not-passive efficiency passive, hoping it has decent duration (or infinite!) when maxed, on top of few tests of other abilities (Energy Spike doesn't appear to work, at all, Umbra Lance ticks about half as often as it should).

 

There's also Naramon, that's got one of its upgrades pretty much invalidated in the current event, as increased critical chance has no value anymore because Blood Rush is a thing, the only reason people use the affinity bonus is because they have to have it equipped to benefit from Shadow Steps that's simply put, ridiculous, when coupled with Blood Rush.

 

I personally believe that focus abilities should have been addressed first, with the gain being a secondary issue, it's been over a month since its inception, as such, most of the playerbase that bothered to get into focus has already gotten nearly all the upgrades they wanted and are most likely sitting on a surplus of points to spend.

 

If it took you week or two at most to design such system, it wouldn't be as big of an issue, instead, you are slowly pouring jet grade fuel into the campfire, because more people will be able to experience how bad the focus system is (well, most of it to be frank).

 

Let's hope it doesn't take another month or two to actually change the abilities.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Mofixil

[Wurdyburd]

I think my primary concern is that Focus is just going to be another endless-mission grindfest, which is the antithesis to what Digital Extremes claims to want. They bemoan the fact that their community only ever plays specific mission types when others exist and go unused, and that the most efficient of these are exploited, but now their proposed change is to create a shared-xp, rng-dropped token to be popped at an opportune moment to kill as many enemies as possible?

How precisely is this arrangement going to fix your persistent complaint about overused and exploited mission type? What's more, how will it solve the issue of dps-centric frames becoming near-mandatory for xp gain, when support frames are left untouched?

 

Between this and the constant shovelling of new prime equipment into T3 Survival, I suspect that DE has decided that Warframe has reached an equilibrium that at least resembles stability, and intend to sit on it/abuse it for as long as they can.

I could be wrong, and the Focus update could genuinely surprise me, but I get the feeling that it'll only bandaid the situation at best.

[VampirePirate]

I gave up on focus.

[AdunSaveMe]

Just having it from shared affinity isn't enough, in my opinion. For it to actually feel like a meaningful system, you should also get bonuses from doing things relating to the school, like reviving, healing, shielding etc.

[Plushy]

I just want to know how the popping out of our frames as Tenno aspects actually works lorewise.

[Caobie]

I just want to know how the popping out of our frames as Tenno aspects actually works lorewise.

to my understanding we arent popping out and are more manifesting a 'void energy ghost' of our tenno. which puts strain on the transferance and thus disables our frame temporarily.....but thats my interpretation. we also arent in our frames on mission, we're safely in our comfy chair and operating remotely.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Caobie

[Bibliothekar]

I personally believe that focus abilities should have been addressed first, with the gain being a secondary issue,

I object. Gaining Focus in cooperative gameplay is a problem that should be tackled before making any major changes to the ability trees. (Especially if the latter one should come with a reset as was mentioned at one point.) I played a round of Draco (4 waves) with a friend yesterday. I went with my Trin Prime, him as Equinox. When we were done, I had gotten a measly 1.5k while he waltzed out with 35k! Granted, he still had a booster running from Baro's last visit, but still. All he did was start Maim, run circles around the center point until he had racked up enough damage and then *boom*, blow up the map. I didn't even get to see the enemy half the time, let alone land a shot on them.

Stuff like this has to be addressed before reworking and extending the ability trees. Because at least for me, it's one of the main reasons I'll say "screw this, let's play something else" at the moment.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Bibliothekar

[[DE]Grzegorz]

-snip-

Blame personal bias, I use stealth runs to get my focus, albeit rarely as I see no point in acquiring focus anymore.

[cittran]

It's arguable whether focus abilities should be easier to acquire or be more worth the time put in acquiring them.

At this moment, from the two focus trees I've bothered to unlock, the only worthwhile things are Mastery for necessary cooldown reduction (have you considered making certain actions reduce the time necessary for the focus to be usable? From the most recent titles, Black Ops 3 and Specialist system works like that) and a handful of upgrades.

For Zenurik focus, it's quite obviously Energy Overflow and Mastery, as everything else is hardly worth the effort to get it or increased cooldown, especially because Zenurik is now short on a passive. Just to spite myself I've started putting points into now not-passive efficiency passive, hoping it has decent duration (or infinite!) when maxed, on top of few tests of other abilities (Energy Spike doesn't appear to work, at all, Umbra Lance ticks about half as often as it should).

There's also Naramon, that's got one of its upgrades pretty much invalidated in the current event, as increased critical chance has no value anymore because Blood Rush is a thing, the only reason people use the affinity bonus is because they have to have it equipped to benefit from Shadow Steps that's simply put, ridiculous, when coupled with Blood Rush.

I personally believe that focus abilities should have been addressed first, with the gain being a secondary issue, it's been over a month since its inception, as such, most of the playerbase that bothered to get into focus has already gotten nearly all the upgrades they wanted and are most likely sitting on a surplus of points to spend.

If it took you week or two at most to design such system, it wouldn't be as big of an issue, instead, you are slowly pouring jet grade fuel into the campfire, because more people will be able to experience how bad the focus system is (well, most of it to be frank).

Let's hope it doesn't take another month or two to actually change the abilities.

I'm guessing you've neither checked the wiki, nor tested it yourself*, because there actually is still a reason to use that passive -- and I mean besides not having the Blood Rush mod. The passive works on all 'frame powers: this includes standard ones like Landslide, Slash Dash, and Blade Storm, as well as channeled ones like Exalted Blade, Hysteria, and Primal Fury.

The Blood Rush mod, however, does not.

In fact, Blood Rush, Body Count, and Maiming Strike are all totally ineffective on channeled 'frame powers.

So don't expect to be getting perma-chains with Exalted Blade or Hysteria any time soon.

DE pre-empted that fustercluck before the mods were even released.

*(I'm simply making an inference from your statements -- I'm not passing judgement in any way. Some people have time, others don't.)

EDIT:

And having just checked the wiki myself -- (I'm trying to fill-out/confirm some currently-missing information on the Naramon focus page) -- I've learned that Deadly Intent doesn't calculate Crit Chance inside the mods' calculations, it does it alongside.

So that 30% crit chance bonus it provides -- a 1.30x multiplier -- isn't additive with mod calculations. It's multiplicative.

The final crit-chance-calculation formula for any melee weapon or non-channeled warframe-power is as-follows:

[Starting weapon crit chance (after modding)] * [(rank of Blood Rush * combo multiplier)] * [(rank of Deadly Intent passive)]

Currently, that means that the list of modifiers which affect melee crit chance is as-follows:

Mods:

True Steel (+60% of base)

True Punishment (+40% of base while channeling)

Maiming Strike (+90% flat, on a properly-executed Slide Attack (hold the keys down until the animation is finished))

Blood Rush (+(x * y)% of 'new base', (which is the crit chance after all other mods are taken into account), where 'x' is equal to the rank of Blood Rush multiplied by the combo multiplier of the melee combo counter)

Bonuses:

Deadly Intent (+30%, multiplicative with all mods)

if you have ALL possible methods to increase your crit chance activated or equipped, and have maxed them all out, the calculations would look something like this:

( ( [Starting weapon crit chance] * [1 + 0.6 {+ 0.4 while channeling} ] ) {+ 0.9 on a properly-executed Slide Attack} ) * ( [1.65 * combo multiplier] ) * (1.3)

Simplifying it somewhat, we are left with this, assuming you take all actions you can take to increase the crit chance:

( ([base chance] * 2) + 0.9) * (1.65 * combo multiplier) * (1.3)

So on a channeled slide-attack, you've already got a multiplier of 2 paired with a flat bonus of 0.90, another multiplier on top of that which is dependent upon how long you can sustain a melee combo chain for (oh look, Body Count), and all of that then gets multiplied by 1.3 thanks to Deadly Intent.

So let's use Tekko as the weapon of choice, given that it (currently) has the highest base crit chance of all melee weapons -- 30%. Let's also do five different calculations -- a chain of 0-4 enemies, a chain of 5-14, a chain of 15-44, a chain of 45-134, and a chain of 135-404 -- (corresponding to combo multipliers of [1.0], [1.5], [2.0], [2.5], and [3.0]).

chain-length 000-004 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6 + 0.4) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 1.0) * (1.3) = 3.21750 = 321.750%

chain-length 005-014 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6 + 0.4) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 1.5) * (1.3) = 4.82625 = 482.625%

chain-length 015-044 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6 + 0.4) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 2.0) * (1.3) = 6.43500 = 643.500%

chain-length 045-134 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6 + 0.4) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 2.5) * (1.3) = 8.04375 = 804.375%

chain-length 135-404 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6 + 0.4) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 3.0) * (1.3) = 9.65250 = 965.250%

Of course, this assumes that you're channeling constantly. Let's take off True Punishment, because nobody really does that very often -- too much of a drain on energy...

chain-length 000-004 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 1.0) * (1.3) = 2.96010 = 296.010%

chain-length 005-014 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 1.5) * (1.3) = 4.44015 = 444.015%

chain-length 015-044 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 2.0) * (1.3) = 5.92020 = 592.020%

chain-length 045-134 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 2.5) * (1.3) = 7.40025 = 740.025%

chain-length 135-404 -- ( (0.30 * (1 + 0.6) ) + 0.90) * (1.65 * 3.0) * (1.3) = 8.88030 = 888.030%

That's rather painful...because I still haven't done anything to modify the base damage, status chance, elemental types, or critical multiplier.

Have fun breaking everything using your fists. :D

(Literally, in this case.)

*EDIT 2*

Removed the " + 0.4" in the second set of chain lengths -- the end results were already correctly calculated without the bonus from True Punishment; I just copy-pasted and forgot to remove them because Great Wall o' Text.

Edited February 3, 2016 by cittran

[(PSN)savoy123]

While we are waiting for a change to focus gaining system, why did you find the need to nerf stealth exterminate missions? Not to mention the changes to stealth where enemies are alerted when killed infront of each other but also how they no longer repsawn throughout the map. Some skills like retaliation in vazarin take nearly a month to max and that's playing consecutively and gaining the max rep everyday and assuming your way points are still relatively cheap to purchase. 

 

In response to us finding a faster way to farm focus while you work on changes you felt the need to nerf it before any changes came making it alot more tedious to farm rep without a booster, this i cannot understand.

Many players I know were excited about focus after the second dream but have since burned out from farming focus day in and day out myself included and these nerfs making it more difficult to farm are only giving people more reason to give up on focus until hopefully something better comes along. 

[DiabolusUrsus]

Can we please, please, please, please not treat this randomly-spawning-limited-time Focus booster power-up as the solution to support-type Warframes trying to earn Focus? As a little gimmick feature it sounds fine, but even then it's not too appealing. The game has enough randomness as it is, and as I've been saying for a while randomness sucks when it comes to progression. It only ever creates frustration.

 

Instead, please add a focus-meter to the game. Take your pick of how it is filled or depleted, but the general idea should be that the more "focused" you are, the faster you earn Focus.

 

It would add a degree of game mastery to an end-game buff system rather than just an additional layer of grind for superfluous abilities.