February 12Th Community Hot Topics!

[trams87]

I have been playing warframe since it's early days in alpha and I honestly don't see anything wrong with Draco leveling. In my opinion it works for the start chat to have at least one place that you can have for leveling up. I believe it should be kept the way it is and the truth is that, heck if you don't equip the right stuff you'll get downed so fast on Draco tileset you'll be crying before you fire off you're first shot.

 

I believe Draco, Ceres is a good plat for leveling in terms of new players having a place to go where a few good friends can level together, or finding an open squad to join and level up you're gear so you can play the fun missions. The obviously truth is not everyone will want to buy an affinity booster (which got nerfed btw) and doesn't give as near the same ammount of XP it used to since like U15 in my opinion.

 

So yeah, leave draco and don't change anything :D

[CeePee]

I'd like to add my 2 cents to the Draco discussion, the biggest issue about leveling up your weapons is the fact that you gain the most amount of xp when doing absolutely nothing. In other words, leeching xp. You can bring a full set on unranked weapons and let others do the killing to maximize xp gain.

 

On public games this leads to situations where all 4 players in the group have the same idea of leeching and the mission goes nowhere, no one wants to kill enemies.

 

Unfortunately I don't have a direct fix for this, since it would also harm players running with friends if you couldn't leech with full set on unranked weapons. 

 

Maybe a fundamental change to Forma could be the fix, since some weapons need up to 6 formas to gain their maximum potential. This means ranking up the same weapon multiple times, always bringing it down to its weakest point.

 

Maybe the weapon should go unranked only on the first Forma, and every consecutive one just adds a polarity?

 

ps. Dual Ignis please

[(XBOX)QU67]

This is in response to the second question, "Do you think Draco is a problem and needs to be changed?"

 

I'm not a hardcore Warframe player, but I am experienced. Sometimes I just want to level up a weapon or Forma a Warframe one more time, but running Draco over and over and over again is not my definition of fun. I know it's the most efficient way to level items, and I'm fine with that. There's always going to be a "most efficient X" regardless of what DE does.

 

That being said, I personally think that the overall time/amount of experience it takes to level items should be reduced. I understand that buying Affinity boosters does this (and does it well), but I don't want to put a weekly allowance into Warframe, nor do I want to spend hours grinding in the Void in order to get enough Prime parts to have a reliable Platinum stream. If I want to level a weapon, I feel as if I should be able to do it in a reasonable, but still meaty, amount of time (say, 2+ hours) without a booster or running Draco. If I want to level a weapon really quickly (less than 2 hours), I should buy a booster or run Draco. This might be a bit much, but I think the amount of XP required to reach level 30 on anything should be cut by 25-50%.

 

And seeing as DE is looking to improve the game for new players, I must say that it takes for ******* ever to level things when just starting off. It's really annoying and is one of the reasons I quit playing after the console launch.

[(PSN)LiamRising]

the only thing i want to comment on are the mandatory mods and the cc,

 

firstly i can appreciate some mods are used in alot of builds i do personally use a wide range of mods and have different mods for each frame and do not see a warframe having mandatory mods. 

 

as for CC my big nitpick is it is required on hard content like sorties as enemies have insane health, accuracy and damage capable of one shotting you and in some cases easily one shot defense items making CC required. if CC is to be nerfed, balanced or made less effective than enemies need to not be able to one shot us or defense objects and have some sort of accuracy loss to even out. 

[felixsylvaris]

On the other hand some mods like Serration require so much investment in order to reach their peak performance that the player might feel discouraged to join higher level missions as their weapons are objectively weaker than others' and then fall behind. This could bring down the enthusiasm and drive the player away. Of course the community is generally helpful and supportive, but the new player might still have trouble reaching out to them.

This. There is not so much issue with other general +%dmg mods on other types, since maxing them is not that hard. But maxing Serration... one may no longer be new player yet maxing Serration is still far goal. This mod have too many damm leveles. In the same time there is no reason to not to use Serration on every rifle.

 

There is big difference with Warframe and Weapon mods. On Warframe we may want many things: survival, ability, utility. On Weapons players want dmg and then more dmg.

[Zyrgi]

1. Draco:

In my opinion, It's not a big problem. It serves as a fast alternative to leveling weapons and warframes for people who do not have the time to run missions all day, people who are adding n-th forma to a weapon they have decided to max out, or for people that do not want to join void missions etc. with unranked weapons and be a burden.

 

2. CC:

While crowd control isn't mandatory in all missions, some types do benefit from that eg. high level endless missions, mobile defenses etc. I'd say the amount of missions in which intensive crowd control is required is really low, and the missions that benefit from it are fairly proportional.

 

3. Mods:

I might come off a bit controversial on this, but there are no mandatory mods. It is just that we feel obligated to have maximum power efficiency at all times and as large energy pools as possible because of how much the abilities cost and how frequently we will be able to cast them and whether we will have enough energy to cast an ability when we want it. It usually is more beneficial to mod around the abilities of a warframe rather modding around anything else with a few exceptions. In essence I'd say it is not about what mods do we use, it is more about why we use them and why we do not use other mods.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Zyrgi

[Neofaucheur]

Draco is not the problem. The problem is the fact we need Draco. Because many things to level up, between mastery fodder and formaed item to level up again, and to few options to efficiently earn affinity. I don't like Draco, but sometime I don't want to take forever to level up formaed weapon back to lvl 30 or to xp a weapon I will sell anyway because it's trash. I'd gladly see Draco go away and never play it again, but not before we get some solide alternative when it come to leveling.

 

Crowd Control is a fun part of Warframe. There is many way to CC and they are all different and this is a very funny part of the game : what is the best cc tool for this mission. Well, it may need some fine tune to balance them, because some are really more powerful than the others, but aside from that I'm perfectly fine with a lot of cc everywhere ^^

 

Mandatory Mods for Warframes in general don't really exist. Some are mandatory for a specific Warframe but there is no mod that will go on every single build... Well, maybe efficiency mods... What really bugs me are the "useless" mods that don't fit anywhere, those small bonuses everyone ignore because other mods are way better. Exilus slots were kind of a step in the right direction to help hl players use them but the Drift mods ruined it soon after...

[GamingVirtue]

About the only thing I wanna comment on here is Mandatory mods. Specifically, Auras, because I've seen all of about five of them ever used: Energy Siphon, Rejuvenation, Corrosive Projection, Shield Disruption, and of course the big one, Steel Charge. It's actually a little disappointing, given I have a lot of them but no real reason to use the others.

Let's look at Sprint Boost, since it's nearly the polar opposite of Steel Charge in benefit: it gives an almost unnoticeable increase (I play Loki, I already go fast, I don't notice the tiny extra) and it gives the least additional mod capacity of all at 10 if it matches and 5 or less if it doesn't.

Now, I am definitely not saying you should nerf Steel Charge, because that would be a surefire way to piss your community off enough to truly bring about a mass exodus if their fits stopped working and the grind increased again. No, here is what I suggest:

1. More aura mods need to be brought up to Steel Charge's level, both in their "cost" and in their effects.

2. Some auras need to be integrated into all frames at their lowest levels, with the option to get the higher benefits by equipping maxed auras, like Enemy and Loot Radar, and give frames like Saryn and Mag getting innate Corrosive Projection and Shield Disruption, respectively.

3. And possibly most important of all, auras that increase damage need to be all on the same level first and foremost. If Rifle Amp is ever to hold a candle to Steel Charge, it needs to work like Steel Charge. And the other Amp auras need to be released with stats in line with SC.

This could easily make a lot of fits much more versatile, without limiting the current fits already present.

[Malevento]

1/2. Use draco, draco problem.

This has been a problem for a very long time in one form or another. Grouping and doing endless modes are the only way you can level quickly. Now you can do a little bit with stealth runs however since they are not endless the speed is slower overall as well as the fact that you have to be more precise.

 

3. Does it worry you?

It's a hot topic because people feel forced into a corner. For example, I felt forced into a corner when you made raids cause I can't get that loot any other way and after 10 years of WoW raiding I'm burnt out on the raid style of gameplay.

 

4.Dual primaries.

This would take some serious iteration, right now off the top of my head I can't think of one I want use that way.

 

5.Crowd Control

I don't think it's an absolute requirement, I've 2 manned the top sortie with no cc, stealthed them, even done defense without a Frost or the like. I like to push it and see what I can get away with. Now raids, I don't do them so if cc is a required type there perhaps that may be an issue, as I said before don't like the raids and thematically they don't fit for me.

 

6. Required mods

I feel if you can look at your database and see a mod that is above 85% use in any frame regardless of it's design, this is likely an issue. Now for me I use some mods a lot but it's my playstyle rather than the "meta" that everyone else wants. I tend to build my frames for versatility and survivability instead of max kill power. This explains a lot about the frame I choose to play the most which is Frost Prime, versatile and very tough.

 

All of that said, I do think that flat power increase, flat energy, shields, armor, health, ect. These also can be an issue, when a frame (Valk) has horrible shields you just aren't going to waste your time with them, you armor up. Some days I think Frost should just come with the shields at 1503 (at max) and choices you make should be for versatility and shortcomings. I know this would be hard to do, but there are days when I think I'd rather use one of those specialty mods for him and I just can't.

 

 

 

 

[BubblesTheBlob]

Warframe mods aren't really "mandatory", it's just that there are so many mods that don't seem to provide any meaningful benefits. If the "outliers" were given more usability, the diversity of effective builds would increase dramatically.

 

Continuity (and its Prime), for example, provides a direct, measurable, and useful benefit to most Warframes. These mods are and always will be useful to Tenno trying to get the most out of one or more of their Warframes' powers. They can be mixed and matched to provide optimal benefits, but there's no "be-all-end-all" for mods because each Warframe benefits in a different way, and some warframes can be built for multiple roles (like my high-range Melee Frost with Rage that I mostly use because of the armor and very-effective CC, comparing against my decent-range/strength Caster Frost that can dish out damage with his powers and reduce armor effectively).

 

However, there are some mods that have very little quantifiable benefit. Warm Coat resists the shield-halving effects of ice levels by 12% for one whole mod slot that you can use to increase your shields (and/or health) by over 100% of base. That's barely noticeable, especially if you don't use Redirection very often and only have 300 base shields to begin with (since it mitigates 12% of the effect, you're gaining 18 shield points from Warm Coat, which is something like 3 hits from a Lancer on Mercury, unless my math on the actual effect is wrong because the math hasn't ever been tested).

 

On a similar note, Insulation is just as useless as Warm Coat because there's something like 4 things in the game that can deal Cold damage (besides a Frost or Mirage with a Radiation proc). One of them is an exploding barrel (an inanimate object, no less) that appears almost exclusively on Europa, another is if a Corpus capture target has a Glaxion (and the worst part is the slow-proc, not the damage), and the last two are bosses (Lt. Lech Kril and Hyena LN2, the latter of which isn't even guaranteed because you get 2 of the 4 per run).

 

Point is, there are a lot of mods with not much use, and instead of changing up how the "current meta" mods work. Changing the effects of the lesser-used and less-effective mods would make them more viable and potentially add a lot more variety to the various builds. Augment mods were a great step in the right direction, but some of those even get very little usage, like the elemental-damage buffs for Saryn, Frost, Ember, Volt, and Oberon. They're very effective, just the user doesn't gain anything from using it other than the praise of their team-mates (and they don't even have any effect on a decent portion of Warframe abilities).

Edited February 16, 2016 by MrBubbleSS

[S_Blackheart]

Draco is a great place to test builds and allows people that 'have to have a specific group'  join up and do their thing.  Let them have their place!

 

Even though it can be used to power level, it's a great place for those that don't like grinding up their warframe. If not Draco, then I'm sure they will find some other way to jump in and leech (and upset the gameplay for others like it has already happened with some alerts...)

 

Mods:  Every game has a community within the community that figures out how to optimize everything. This allows them to take on the tougher challenges and win with a higher success rate. Only problem to this is it ruins creativity from other gamers that could create different ways to build a warframe and still be successful.  (MMO Raids for example. If you aren't a specific class with a specific build, you can't join --- in my opinion this is unfortunate and sad that some people are left out of the storyline because it's the easiest way to win)

 

Overall, Warframe is a decent game with good people in it.  Good luck in making future decisions! :D

[SeEnCreaTive]

1: Draco. Can be used to negate the game (well maybe not fashion frame). For new weapons I level them the hard way, for forma-ing, or weapons I don't like, I'll use Draco.

2: Dual primaries. Yes. But be very careful to not power creep. Power creep promotes use of the "best" weapon, not what fits your play style. This is bad.

3: CC. *I dont think control is the issue, i think crowds are*. This is warframes best and worst. It's fun killing mass hords in the coolest way, but this forces you to use weapons that are good at it. Full autos quickly run out of ammo, or take to long per enemy, snipers are good for 1 target at a time. Which is why you see strong single shot, AOE, ammo effient, or extremely low time to kill weapons at the fore front. Tonkor, Hek, amperex, Quanta, Bows, Simlor etc. Warframe is just to fast paced, short ranges and so many enemies, that any weapon that takes a bit of time per enemy, or needs to be long range, isn't good. Braton P is a very good weapon. Why use it over my Hek? My sniper on Vandel is my favorite other then my kestrel. Why use it? Hek does more damage to many more people per shot. Bows do more damage, punch through, and silent.

I think for Warframe to be very good, and promote the use of many weapons, it needs to be less horde Sim. Fewer enemies that are more difficult would do this. Make guns like Buzzlok, Gorgon, Braton, and snipers (regardless bows are better except at range) much more viable

Edited February 16, 2016 by SeEnCreaTive

[ShaniGeine]

This isn't even a problem...

 

Hear me out :

 

Draco is "not" a thing. Sure the XP is worth but if you are asking if a farm spot is a problem for the game... Then please realize it's not.

 

Me ? I never use it, I find it boring and meaningless. And a member of my clan went from Mastery 6 to mastery 21 by only solo farming Helene defense on Saturn so there will always be a Vivre/Draco somewhere.

 

 

Currently, the game has major issues like the "what the Hek did you do with focus ?" system which is the worse possible "endgamish" thing you could have done.

What was supposed to buff stats/power of our favourite XP billionnaires weapons and frames became a thing that completely ignores our 10 potatoes 20 forma loadout...

 

And it's not even that... Adding a gameplay mechanic is a good thing, it's cool... But why does our tennos have to pop out and ruin everything Warframe is about ?  You know, the ninjas is space thing ? Can't my Nova Prime shoot the dang laser out of her hand like in the quest ? And who made the numbers ? It doesn't do Jack to enemies in sortie, prevents me from moving, takes a lot of time to cast and finish and gives insignificant buffs when it's not debuffs with an horrible cooldown... Why would I ever use it ? Why is this a thing ? How about a simple "+10% power range on Nova when she reaches 5.000.000 XP, +100 base shields at 10.000.000, etc" kind of thing ?

 

Same goes for the Warframe augments actually ! Most augments are not that good to replace a redirection or a continuity in a build, why not simply apply those augments when a frame reaches a certain amount of extra XP ? It's a bit like the good idea you have of getting stances by playing with the melee weapon. Here, you gain augments by playing the frame. I love the event horizon thing on Nova's ball of death, but not at the cost of a really useful and powerful mod, so I don't play it. Atlas petrifying gaze now scans ? I certainly don't want a teammate to mod it for an High Level mission ! But as an upgrade he gained for reaching 5.000.000 bonus XP on Atlas, yeah that's cool.

 

Anyway...

 

This is why Focus is a major issue because it means that warframe still has no endgame and no evolution. When you look at similar games like Diablo III or Marvel Heroes, there exist mechanics to buff things and 'loadouts' with extra XP to get more powerfull with the accumulation of tiny % every now and then... Why are those arcanes so hard to get for such small and RNG based buffs ?

 

Warframe doesn't have that. There is no endgame evolution. So even if there exist an exploit to instantly get a billion xp... It wouldn't even be a real issue, for the game has to focus (pun intented) on real problems. Even ranking up masteries is meaningless above MR12... New loadout presets ? Please...

 

 

But if you still want to hear what I think of Draco, here it is :

You killed stealth. Stealth is now frakked up to the point of the tonkor doing a better job than bows and throwing stars. You killed stealth because of an exploit which granted massive focus XP (note the reccuring issue) because the amount of XP we gain from playing normally is so little we'd have to give our accounts to our children for then to finish the trees after our deaths.

Why does the stealth XP buff resets when you kill a grineer a micro-second after he "saw" something strange ?

 

This makes stealth impossible with stealth weapons. You gotta bring a fatass nuke and put "hush" on it for stealth to actually work. And this is so annoyingly broken we'd rather go draco with ember and turn off out brains to get xp.

 

The problem with Draco is not that it grants too much xp... It's that it's the only thing xp worth avaible.

Stealth used to be another.

Exterminates with packs of enemies gathering at the end used to be another. (but yeah, it had to be fixed).

And there you have it.

 

Oh no wait ! I nearly forgot the other thing, which is a big thing ! Here goes :

Grineer is the only faction worth Xp-wise because Xp from mobs is good, and mobs are good.

Corpus is worth less and has those über annoying / gameplay breaking / lore kicking / fun killing nullifiers. (those are the worst thing that currently exist in the game. Get rid of those nullifiers fields by balancing damage ASAP because it's sh.. poop. A big smelly rotten poop of gameplay design. Putting these here and there to increase difficulty is NOT A THING TO DO. It only makes the game annoying).

Infested Xp reward, on a scale from one to ten, is one. It's simply and purely not worthwhile.

 

 

Even more bluntly : Look elsewhere and build an endgame before looking into possible Xp problems somewhere. Or make it so we don't gain so little playing normally.

 

 

 

On an other thing, the CC thing translates directly into endgame.

What I mean by that is : "If I had some little upgrades for my favorite DPS frame like Nova/Banshee/Mirage, I would be able to survive a shot from a nullifier or a ballista and my party won't require a Limbo/Frost/Vauban to play without reviving me every 10 seconds".

Because this is what it is about, Crowd Control.

 

Remember that event on "Draco" with lvl 200 enemies heavy melee only ? Spam bastilles and team energy restores and wait for the 100%. That was a very specific thing, but the thing is in high level missions, playing squishy frames feels like the one-shot fest of hotline miami and you simply cannot defend that terminal without CC.

 

It isn't a problem though and I'd say it's logical. But minor adjustments so it goes from "impossible" to "hard" would be a good thing. Mostly starting by tweaking the one-shot endurance of lighter frames. On certain tilesets, by the time a door opens, a ballista can shoot you down, that said, unless she's affected by Nyx's CC.

 

So, yeah, CC is a good thing and has the mechanic it should have, but tweaking a bit the ability of very few enemies to one-shot would help the overall gameplay and allow a wider range of frames to be useful.

 

That can go into deleting mods like redirection so we can gain the same amount of bonus shields/health/armor by leveling the frame 30, or even maybe beyond 30 with extra XP as I said earlier. Everything would benefit from that as it would allow more frames to be useful in more mission types and also more modding customization available.

Edited February 17, 2016 by ShaniGeine

[felixsylvaris]

Something about auras: I used 4 i different situacion: steel charge, Rejuvenation, enemy radar, corrosive presence. My favorite weapon is a shotgun so no use of rifle amp.

 

To some degree auras are interesting choice since all of this is good.

However, game is not consistent here.

In theory aura is a part buff making everyone better, so even if we are worse players ever we help others ;-)

In practice some auras are global, other are Hallway Hero Choice.

So could you decide?

 

Maybe kick some autoattack mods back into normal slots, so if someone want to focus on gunplay/swordplay will have more choices here, and reserve auras for party buff.

Edited February 16, 2016 by felixsylvaris

[(PSN)StarDustKillah]

Power Leveling on Draco gets boring after hour 30. Mainly b/c

 

#1 Interception Maps are effected the Least From Procedural Map creating. DE should make multiple Interception Maps for each planet (Maybe 4-6?)

 

#2 Possibliy go as far as to make a more interesting and engaging Mission Type for Power Leveling. That way, players could at least choose the Tileset they want to power level on.

[Boatsniper]

Let's talk about the existence of Dual Weapons; it's stupid and makes no practical sense. You're literally crafting the ability to use a duplicate weapon in your left hand, then making it a stand alone weapon. It's dumb and I hate it.

 

Why can't I mix and match two single-handed weapons? Why can't I use a Vasto and a Furis? Why can't I use a Cestra and a Lex? Why can't I use a Skanna and a Heat Sword? Why can't I use a Ceramic Dagger and a Dark Dagger? Why did you think making stand alone dual wield weapons was a good idea to begin with? It's not.

[felixsylvaris]

Why can't I mix and match two single-handed weapons? Why can't I use a Vasto and a Furis? Why can't I use a Cestra and a Lex? Why can't I use a Skanna and a Heat Sword? Why can't I use a Ceramic Dagger and a Dark Dagger? Why did you think making stand alone dual wield weapons was a good idea to begin with? It's not.

Hydroid. Nami Solo one hand, Bronco offhand. The conflict Pirates or Ninjas now in Space.

[BRad_Skirata]

Do you think Draco is a problem and needs to be changed?

No, Draco affinity farming isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of other mission types of the same level of difficulty/enemies or higher difficulty not rewarding affinity as efficiently as Draco farming does.  With so much emphasis put into leveling items at least once (for MRxp) regardless if players use them and leveling items multiple times (Forma min/max builds) for the items that players do use there needs to be an easier way of obtaining experience/affinity in more mission types.  Whether these experience values/rewards should be the result of kills or just completing the mission (maybe after meeting certain requirements for bonus reward experience) I don't know.  Right now they're tied to kills, more kills = more affinity.  This also makes leveling in the early star chart nodes difficult because all new players can do is finish missions successfully, they don't have the frames, the weapons, the mods, the mod capacity, or the tutorials/guides IN GAME to help them learn to level up efficiently/tolerably.  If experience was tied more towards mission completion in some way, I think that may introduce a new way to farm affinity that doesn't rely on enemy spawn rates, the tile-set, or mission type.  Sure there is always going to be another loot cave, but at least this would raise other missions' replay-ability if they reward experience in similar amounts or more with a tweaked affinity gaining system.

 

Personally, I'm lazy, I do Draco over high level Spy missions or chain stealth killing farming.  However those two alternatives are good examples of possible ways to make the affinity gain less boring/tedious.

 

Before we get dual primaries, I want mismatching secondaries x[ (eg certain pistols like magnus and vasto, left and right hand respectively, just equipped, no crafting needed.  certain ones would be OP and couldnt be combined of course or maybe balance them w/ low ammo or high recoil)

[(PSN)zenoe1562]

Required mods:

Yes there are required mods but that doesn't mean you can't have other builds without them.

- health/shield/armour

- duration/efficiency/range/strength

- energy capacity/gain

- weapon damage

These types of mods take place above all others. A player can go without them if they are planning to use a certain tactic. However these mods are practically used in every build. You might not use all of them (they might not all fit) but most of them are used to get past every frame's shortcomings. We might as well throw every other mod out because these ones easily take priority.

This is why I like the idea of a weapon's/frame's stats being progressive. It means we could throw these required mods out, and players could finally start building with all the other mods.

I like the thought of Warframe Stas being progressive, but to get the numbers that vitality and redirection offer, the base shield/health would most likely have to start at rank 30 level at unranked (ie. Unranked Excalibur would have 300/300 as opposed to 100/100 at unranked). As for efficiency, as the abilities gain higher ranks, reduce the cost to cast and/or channel them, completely removing the need for an efficiency stat. As for weapons, having weapon damage increase as the weapon gains ranks would seem logical, however, if elemental damage mod are ever removed, then enemy weaknesses/resistances would have to be modified to reflect that (ie. Grineer: puncture and corrosive are their weakest. If elementals are removed, increase damage bonus from puncture damage)

[(PSN)StarDustKillah]

Also about Crowd Control...

 

I'm specifically looking at Nova & Frost. I think for Bosses ONLY! Their effectiveness should be reduced. Maybe by like 50-70%.

 

I say this because. Everything is waaaaaaaaaaay too easy with them sometimes. Watching some PC Nova & Frost players play Shadow Debt, now has me running that & Divine Will Solo now.

 

IDK. I don't use them personally because they sorta makes bosses not fun. Just a stationary target. I get these Frames & abilities purposes, but it's just waaaay too effective. I think instead of bosses like Stalker just straight up turing abilities off, maybe just have a Straight up Migration.

[ShikiRen]

I don't think Draco is the problem; it is rather that a lot of other modes and nodes yield too little reward for the time invested into them.

 

As for mods that are too good on weapons to pass up... All straight up damage mods (eg. Serration) obviously...Life Strike for melee weapons should be baseline, as should the recently introduced body count mod. Or extend melee mod slots to 10.

[(PSN)zenoe1562]

On the topic of AkPrimaries. I don't honestly care whether or not it happens, but I feel it's important to say this. It is said in the OP here that it might create a non-distinction between primaries and secondaries. My opinion on that statement- the non-distinction already exists. The way things work right now- secondaries may as well just be another primary. Something needs to happen to create the distinction in the first place.

-My personal suggestion is a very simple change. Swapping from Primary weapons to a Secondary weapon would be as fast as if you had speed holster maxed out, but by default. By doing this it really drives home that a secondary weapon is in fact a SECONDARY weapon; meant to be used as a backup weapon which is currently impossible now since reloading is much faster than swapping. If swapping to secondary was much faster, it would be a viable choice in an intense late game match to pull it out to deal with something instead of reloading your primary. I honestly believe that swapping as a whole should be sped up- but secondary swapping NEEDS to be faster. This whole chunk of text might seem a bit off topic to the question of AkPrimaries- but considering the distinction between primaries and secondaries if it were to happen was called into question, I felt it appropriate to bring this up. If nothing else it would work to keep that fear from being realized if AkPrimaries are to happen.

On the topic of CC. I believe that in late game missions when absolutely nothing else becomes able to compete with CC- that is when a problem starts to exist. The whole point of scaling is to eventually make it impossible for you to continue to play the game further without inevitably dying and failing the mission. Therefore, I don't think that the problem is that other stuff needs to be able to compete with CC at these levels. Rather I believe personally that CC should start to DIMINISH at very high levels the same as everything else. It's a simpler change, it balances everything out, and it does not create an issue of power creep where suddenly people can go EVEN FURTHER than the ludicrous amounts of time they already can.

-Now believe me when I say that I'm by NO MEANS suggesting to nerf CC. I only believe that at high enough levels it should not retain the same effect it has now. Higher level enemies should get up quicker from being knocked down- or resist it more in the first place. That brings in an issue with powers like bastille which suspend enemies, but I'm sure you guys could figure out a reason/way for them to become somewhat resistant. Perhaps wearing heavier (not stronger, simply heavier) armor to allow them to not be lifted as long. This would not only fix the issue as I see it, but would also give enemies some semblance of "learning while they fight- higher ups make smart decisions to adapt to the Tenno in a mission as time goes on". I'm sure a lot of people who do endless missions to insane times will probably see my suggestion here and freak out- either internally or externally. But I think if it was given a shot it would turn out for the better.

On the topic of mandatory mods. The only mods I see as absolutely, positively, without any question as "mandatory" at all- serration, hornet strike, pressure point. There is never a reason to not use these mods, period. There was a suggestion at some point of weapons gaining the damage these mods would provide as they level up instead so that the mods can be removed. I'm partial to that suggestion. All the other mods have one issue. Some are better than others. They are not equal.

-It's well known throughout the community that many mods- the pure status mods for example- have become relics of older times in the game when they used to be effective but now might as well not even exist in their current form. They need updating by now DE, it is time. They have sat much too long, and honestly I do not know why they have been updated still- perhaps you felt it better to wait for damage 3.0 since it had been so long anyways. Regardless, the point is that every mod needs to be "equal". Some players will always think damage is best no matter what anyone else says or shows them. That's fine. As long as the mods are equally effective in the end- it doesn't matter if certain people always choose to opt for damage, or some always choose to opt for status. Crit, utility, etc. That's in fact the point. As long as EVERY type of mod is selected by people, they are equal. Noone uses the current pure status mods. Noone uses hawk eye/zoom mods. That is the issue from my point of view- not the so-called "mandatory mods".

I saved this one for last because I figured certain people who saw it first would read my opinions and think "I don't like this guy, I'm not reading the rest of this". Let's talk about the topic of Draco. The way I see it- the problem of power leveling is a problem for a few reasons.

-The first and most important reason here- everyone ends up on the same place doing the same thing like mindless zombies. This is an issue because it basically forces any new- or other- players out of recruiting chat if they want to do something unique. Noone there wants to do anything but Draco, and I've even seen in the past players essentially tell people to get out of recruiting and go ask their clan or alliance because "no one is ever going to help with that mission- it's just taking up wasted space in recruit chat". Again, this is NOT ok. If EVERYWHERE was equally used by the people that mash 4 and power level. I would not personally have an issue with power leveling. What people do in their own time is up to them. If they want to sit in a mission and do nothing but spam one button, no skin off my back- it has nothing to do with me so I have no reason to care about what they are doing. The reason issue in my eyes is that the whole "everyone only ever does one thing not allowing people to do something unique if they want to" HAS TO GO. PERIOD.

-The second reason is partially tied into the first reason. People don't like seeing a frame used for only one power. People do not like seeing people camp in a corner and spam 4. People do not like having all their kills (or more accurately FUN) stolen in random games by people who don't want to actually actively "play" the game. Normally I'd say "it's not their problem if you don't like it. You can leave the squad and join another random game". The issue with this is that due to the draco mentality- almost EVERY public game (from what I've heard from others as I stopped doing random games for this exact reason LONG ago) has people doing this. There is no "leave the squad and find another if you don't like it" option. Players need to not be able to infringe on others fun if they aren't actively playing the game. Pressing one button over and over nonstop (exalted blade) or sitting in a corner doing nearly nothing but still getting tons of kills from mass range with no interaction (nuke abilities) need to change. Having someone who from your own view "doesn't care about the game / having fun enough to move around or do something more than spam one button" take all the enemies and therefore fun away from YOU over and over, in every single random mission- becomes extremely frustrating.

-Player mentality will never be changed. I cannot personally understand why people do this because I've had them flat out say to me that they will not do other things even once they have everything in the game maxed out, even though they don't find it fun. I cannot understand why, therefore I cannot believe their mentality can ever be changed. The solution is rebalancing and altering frame abilities and game mechanics. That is 100% up to you DE. Make stuff so that this cannot happen, that's the only way to satisfy everyone. They can still go about finding the most efficient ways to get stuff done, but they won't be able to do it in a way that makes it seem straight out unfair to everyone else in the squad and makes it impossible for them to have fun at the same time without going way away from their squad (and potentially putting the mission in danger by doing so). That is what needs to happen to make everyone go home happy at the end of the day. Exalted blade was great in theory- but in execution needs massive changes. Clearing out everything in the map from a single point by smashing E and watching your insanely powerful blades of death fly through all the walls and enemies in every direction as everything dies would be fine if this was a solo game; but there are other players there that also want a piece of the pie. It's supposed to be a sword- not a gun. "That [insert frame/weapon/etc here] should have to work just as hard everyone else to take those enemies down." That is the mentality to take. There's plenty of ways to go about making this happen, one needs to be picked, and then move onto the next problem ability/gun/melee/focus-branch/whatever, and repeat.

Hopefully at least some people see these thoughts and agree with them. I'll leave by saying that my opinion is not the only one in the world, and I don't think what I've said is "unquestionably right". But from viewing the community and game for so long now and seeing these issues and stepping back and seeing from both sides as much as I possibly can, this is what I ended up with.

I agree with your thoughts on Draco 100%. I tried Draco once...I didn't like it at all, simply because it's an interception mission. That is my least favorite mission type, I'm mainly a solo player and interception is near impossible to play solo past round one unless you have insane CC. My idea is that every node should be brought to Draco-level in affinity gain, and in order to prevent more dracos from popping up, implement an invisible counter keeping track of how many times you completed a node, with each subsequent completion giving less and less affinity until no affinity is earned during that mission. Now, in order to preserve balance, the counter would be reset, let's say, once a month. I feel like that would completely eliminate the symptom of Draco and the problem as a whole

[felixsylvaris]

There are four ways to deal with Draco

 

1) Claim that there is no problem. To some degree Draco isnt even a problem, so no need to change.

 

2) Bring other quests to Draco level. Posibly by some "mission accomplished" bonus. Or 1st time bonus for Starchart. Or some other rewards (war chest, badges) for completing other missions type.

 

3) Make afinity something which just happen, not what you need to farm for. For example by removing going back to unranked by needing to atune to back 100% after polarization while keeping level 30 and all benefits.

 

4) Nerf Draco! Purge it with fire! We need more Nerframe!

 

So many interesting choices.

[(PSN)willitical]

Do you think some warframe Mods are practically mandatory?

If this is about Redirection and Vitality, then no, not in the slightest and I'd urge you to not make them innate, I prefer to have less shields so that Rage kicks in faster.

If this is about Intensify/Streamline/Stretch/Continuity etc then I can see the point, there is no build that doesn't use them, I'd also disagree with them being innate, sometimes I really want a low range I.e. Tentacle Swarm.

[(PSN)willitical]

Well said,, if any wf mod were to be innate we would loose the ability to modify the builds to some extent