February 12Th Community Hot Topics!

[PROzeKToR]

Look

I know that draco is not the solution to affinity but it is just the best way to get it period.

The fact that you get much afinnity in short time is what makes it so playable.

People have alot of stuff to do in warframe....AND I MEAN A LOT...A LOT TO DO - A LOT TO GRIND also.

I am a student and a working guy...the fact that i can sit down for short time on my pc and not

waste 3-4 hours just to max a weapon - gives me comfort.

[Kinetos]

1. Do you use Draco to acquire affinity?
It's the only node I haven't cleared on the navigation chart. It's on purpose. I'll probably clear it the Tuesday before the new starchart is launched. 

2. Do you think Draco is a problem and needs to be changed?
Yes, but also change the reason people do it. Remove Nullifiers or make them a miniboss that spawns 1 at a time infrequently. Reign in scaling, instead make things more interesting when making them harder, like blunts, not eximus spam, nullifier spam, nullifier eximus spam. Better ai. More minibosses like Infested Juggernaut, G3, Zanuka, and the Void sabotage bosses. 
If nullifiers are to remain in the game in any fashion, the shields need to be able to be countered by low rof weapons like snipers bows and shotguns. 

3. Does it worry you that Draco is a Community Hot Topic?
No. Anyone who hides any obvious problem with the game because improving the quality of the game would remove an exploit, reduce an item's price, or make them reforma a weapon should be forced to intern under Baro Ki'Teer for 6 months for no pay. 

4. Would you like dual Primaries (similar to Ak Secondaries)?
Akboltor, absolutely not. 
Akbraton, absolutely. 
Akburston, do it. 
Twin Grakata should have been a Primary.
Only smaller ones that could actually work that way and aren't already top tier weapons. No aksniper or twin ogris or twin tonkor. 

However, Ak weapons are always a direct upgrade, and I think that needs to change. Why do ak revolvers have less recoil than a single one in both hands? And why do any guns suffer so much recoil as single revolvers/lex do? Warframes can punch enemies so hard they end up a kilometer away, but can't handle pistol recoil, but suddenly can when dual wielding? 
I think ak weapons need some sort of additional downside. Doubled reload isn't a problem, less accuracy isn't even noticeable, and again, the recoil thing. Ak Primaries would especially need it. Maybe no secondary while using an ak primary, but you can swap weapons to put one away and use the single version of the primary, using same ammo pool, in place of the missing secondary. 

5. Do you think Crowd Control is required too often? 6. Do you think Crowd Control spoils the fun in some missions?
Armor and damage scaling makes it absolutely necessary and shooting at stasis locked enemies, might as well be shooting a steel bullseye with a BB gun. 
Because armor scales exponentially, there's a very thin band of 'fair' combat, below that, the players one shot every enemy, above that, only meta builds and weapons can, leaving invulnerability and cc as the only options. 

7. Do you think some warframe Mods are practically mandatory?
Yes. 
Including but not necessarily limited to :
Steel Fiber on any frame with around 300+ base armor, if not, but in some cases also, Redirection. 
Redirection 
Vitality 
Rush 
Constitution/Handspring 
Irradiated Disarm. I don't think this one should exist. It's too much like Chaos. 
Regenerative Molt
Resonance 
Savage Silence 

Eternal War

Energy Siphon
Corrosive Projection
Primed X

[Teridax68]

I feel like asking the community whether or not they want to keep the current setup with Draco may not be the best approach, counter-intuitive as it sounds. Right now, Draco farming is a very easy, very simple way of leveling up weapons. If you offer any player a "get rich/leveled up quick" scheme like that, most will jump to the occasion, which is why it's so popular now. The issue, though, is that Draco farming isn't fun, and worse yet it drains players away from more fun or challenging missions and funnels them into one of the least engaging ways to play the game. Despite providing short-term benefits to players by bypassing larger time and mental commitments, it's harmful to the playerbase because those who use Draco risk ending up getting bored quickly, either by capping out too fast or just by not enjoying the game. I imagine this would also harm DE, since players exploiting the affinity quirks of the mission end up using boosters way too effectively, and may also eventually leave too soon for the devs to catch up with new content. If you want a well-adjusted leveling curve, you're also inevitably going to have to balance around Draco, whether it's by reducing affinity gains overall or just removing the exploits from the mission, so fixing it would be the lesser of two evils.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Teridax68

[MerlinAO]

My problem is the whole crowd control thing. I like to use bows. It was attempted to fix this problem. Not by doing away with crowd control, but by giving bows the thunderbolt mod. I'm fine with this. The mod needs buffed though.

Allow the arrow punch through enemies even upon thunderbol proc, and give thundbolt a chance to proc on every enemy hit

Or

Increase the radius.

[MerlinAO]

On 2/13/2016 at 6:23 PM, -Amaterasu- said:

The only mod I find that I use on every build for warframes is Flow

 

Edit: I still remember that old loading screen that had Ember using an Akboltor so maby add that for giggles.

Why flow?

[KitsuAccalia]

Draco spawns a ton of affinity due to it's map shape (and Eximus spawns) being Ideal for a radial skill (and affinity), this allows for extremely efficient use of things like map clear skills to perfectly reach every enemy nearly. Do I think it's a problem? Not really, as many players before me established the player base will always strive to maximize. The same way this is true it's also true that leeches will always leech. You can mend the problem a bit by adding kick votes or not letting people in with more then 2 pieces of level 0 Gear but then you will receive backlash from the players who are against that. I'd say it's more of a problem that we are incentivized to level weapons at such a high rate, in order to cope with the large amount of weapons in the game that a player will not even care for. 

 

As for Burnout which is an entirely true problem, it doesn't just happen due to draco or standing in one place. Burnout can also happen farming in the void for that ever so rare part that RNG decides to say you can't have. Players will always set arbitrary challenges and other weird restrictions on themselves such as only playing with the Braton Prime or something of that sort. Some will burn out and some won't, some will return and others won't. It's something the Gaming world in general has to accept. It's also the reason DE is pushing out content as fast as they can, as fresh new things keep the veterans from reaching that burnout point by throwing a little spice into the mix. 

 

Thanks to both of those though you have a vicious cycle of hating the weapons that come out unless they appeal to you and then proceeding to Draco or carrying on your back as you play regularly. 

 

On the subject of mods, YES I do feel some are far more important when compared to others. You will never see a Chroma without some form of duration Just the same you will never see an Equinox without Range. Usually for each frame there is an optimum build for a certain skill. or skill set in some cases. There are also some augments that are nearly mandatory when it comes to any endgame content. I don't think this needs to change to much but alot of frames do need a sense of usefulness. There are some frames that simply are not good at anything, nor a jack of all trades. 

Edited February 23, 2016 by KitsuAccalia

[(PSN)urkonse]

2:  i dont play draco often as there is many other good ways to lvl up too & draco is HORRIBLY BOOOOOORIIING

5 & 6:  i personaly love CC....some missions are Impossible without it. if youre going to change something on it......then you shall buff instead of nerf

[-Amaterasu-]

2 hours ago, (PS4) Mr_MikeyDmason said:

Why flow?

Because if I use flow (Primed to be specific) I Can ignore pretty much all efficiency for most frames I play and blind rage has little to no effect on me since my energy pool is ~800 (I build for power on most frames I play with a few exceptions)

[(PSN)CowboyJeff72]

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

I personally do not feel that Draco itself is a problem. It is merely an interception node. Until I played it to unlock it, I had never played it through a taxi. 

I think where you see a lot of the toxicity towards Draco is the type of game play that it can promote when it is the only thing a new player learns. There are several contributing factors to the Draco dilemma, some fault on DE and some of the individual players themselves.

On DE's side:

1) Lack of a true tutorial/progression system that cultivates new players along a progressive path. This can not be overstated enough and is a core issue of the game at large. New players not getting the guidance they need through normal tutorial in-game help leads them to quit or seek out progression means that may not promote actual knowledge of the game at large. The ability to skip content and go straight to such a high level planet, does not do anything to help promote fun game play or hone player skill. A better tutorial, stronger progression path, changes to the taxi system or MR progression locks are all things that DE can look at to help nurture new players and help develop skills.

2) XP needed to forma existing equipment for vets. This requirement is just too much. With some builds to help maximize the abilities of a weapon or frame requiring multiple forma, it forces your hand to get things done quicker. While a case can be made that you can earn xp doing what you want in game, the idea for a build you have in mind is a goal you want to realize quickly and use rather than spend the time leveling it again and again. Tweaks to the system could be polarity toggles or half the xp required after each forma so that it promotes players to test out builds more and want to try mod combinations without penalty. I'd rather be trying out and playing my build idea rather than spending time trying to get the necessary slots to work just to put the build in. I believe you would see a lot more creativity and builds being tried on less used frames if you did not have to grind xp just to try something out. We already have to get forma and/or resources to build them, why should using them be even more grind on top of that. I'm not saying it has to be free, but it definitely needs to not punish the veteran and creative players to the point it does now.

On the player's side:

1) Unfortunately the main thing here is the "gotta have it now!" mentality. Not much can be done here except again, doing something about a meaningful progression path where new players don't feel they have to have everything so early in the game. Some players will always be this way no matter what you do, but if we can give players more goals to shoot for where they feel like they are accomplishing something rather than just farming xp, then I think it will give us a better quality player in the end. 

[Blatantfool]

 I use Draco sporadically for Affinity grind. It isn't really that the mission is broken, more that it is "Just right" for the grind. It has a high level, but not so high as to make it a slog where you are firing into a crowd of meatsponges. It is on a very good tileset for Interception, quite possibly the best designed tile for the gametype bar none for gameplay purposes.

 So yeah. Naturally the community adopted it as a go-to, thus I did as well. I need to be using nodes where other people are actually playing after all. The vast majority of the starmap is dead or underutilized and often suffer from not being as useful as Draco.

 

 Ideally there would be a 'Draco'-esque mission for each faction. Right in that juicy level sweetspot and on a Tile that is neither too small nor too large with great sightlines between points and is easily traversed at top speed. I mean, I don't always want to grind just Grineer and such. 

[HansDecatur]

So about those mandatory mods in Warframe. Yes those are a huge problem and really limit the customization options. Mods like Serration or Split Chamber are just straight up essential. But im pretty sure that DE is aware of this problem and thinking about a solution. The idea that weapons level up like warframes and dont do the same damage on level 1 as they do on level 30 seems like a good idea.

I think the core problem is that there are mods which work as a straight upgrade. Like Serration, it adds damage, done. There is no trade off so everyone has to use that mod if he or she wants to deal the most damage. If all those "straight upgrade" mods would be revised ... or maybe there just is no solution to this problem because the whole damage system had to be re-evaluated if those essential mods where changed.

 

[Runelea]

Draco Leveling

Is an issue. It really is causing a toxic niche to show up in the game, with players demanding an exact configuration of warframes or else. Configurations that tend to restrict players to a small group of commonly used frames that fill certain combat rolls well. The most obvious here is the Energy Vampire Trinity build and the Radial Javelin Exalibur. Focusing on a particular ability is something that's occured way before players utalised Draco as a leveling hotspot, I still remmeber when players preffered Dark Sector missions. My gripe here is that this type of meta is leaking everywhere, making it hard to use any frame outside the status quo without potentially being given crap for it. Do you always HAVE to take a Frost into any defence-like missions? No, but people still force someone to even if they don't particularly enjoy the frame. Its like people have forgotten there is alternate ways to protect a target, sometimes by simpily using other croud control like Nyx. I haven't seen anyone using her in ages for defensive type missions, even though she is well suited to switching between using Chaos to handle enemy numbers and Asorb to draw fire from the defense point.

I've seen people INSIST on a Trinity set up to spam EV over a player with a more usable frame carrying some energy restores in case things go sour. That type of spam build isn't even fun, yet I've found myself having to keep my unprimed Trinity or risk being unable to find groups due to the meta expectations.Which makes me sad since a more genalised Trinity is far funner to play, and able to hold their own in a mission. Even then there are other frames with healing capabilites but you'll always see them ask for a Bless Trinity instead of any other viable frame. That's more an issue of healing not being as smooth with other frames, as Oberon's and Equinox's healing abilities have far more restrictive limitations.

Oh and do not get me started on being treated like a healbot when you DO play Trinity. Higher level missions attract players who just don't communicate then snap when things are not perfect. It makes it hard for someone trying to play for fun to do higher teired missions like Sorties or Trials. The toxidity is not just limited to players that frequent Draco, but tends to be found in higher MR players in general.

[MerlinAO]

6 hours ago, -Amaterasu- said:

Because if I use flow (Primed to be specific) I Can ignore pretty much all efficiency for most frames I play and blind rage has little to no effect on me since my energy pool is ~800 (I build for power on most frames I play with a few exceptions)

Yeah but isn't energy regen the same rate no matter your maximum energy?

[S0V3REiGN]

Drew, I am going to speak for myself here and not why the rest of the community goes to Draco. I have been playing this game for some time and I am the point that the only thing I do is level up mods and with that comes the need to drop forma on top of forma on everything I have. That means I need to level things up constantly so I go to Draco a lot because the affinity progression across the star map is abysmally low. Let me put this in context for you; Yesterday I forma'ed my Spira Prime and also took my new Nikana Prime to do the 3 missions for the daily sorties (as you already know these are enemies level 60 - 100). On the first mission I killed a little over 1,000 enemies, i don't remember how many i got on the 2nd one but on the third I got around 600 kills iirc. How much did I level up my weapons after all that? They got to level 8.... By contrast on a first wave of Draco I can get my weapon to AT LEAST level 17 and at times I have gotten to level 24. Mind you, this is with just random players and if I was in a true affinity farm group I could get them to 30 on the first round alone. The affinity disparity is absolutely absurd, its just not worth trying to level up anything out side of Draco and may be tower defense. Like many have said, Draco itself its not the problem but the symptom of what is otherwise a flawed leveling system.

Edited February 24, 2016 by S0V3REiGN

[(PSN)xxChriz_YFG]

The reason I use Draco is because I'm constantly forma'ing my weapons. ( My weapon builds use consists of 5 formas sometimes they even go up to 7, if need be. So I guess I'm in the middle, I have no hate for it. But when theirs a Mastery Rank 3, unranked weapons along with frame, then that becomes an issue.....

[-Amaterasu-]

17 hours ago, (PS4)Mr_MikeyDmason said:

Yeah but isn't energy regen the same rate no matter your maximum energy?

Yes it is but in normal gameplay energy can still be a limiting factor you can only have so many energy orbs/ Death orbs in the void give you 250 which may be your max energy without flow, Zenurik gives 4 per sec, Energy Vampire,  there are plenty of ways to accumulate energy but the more you have the longer you can go without it so if you get unlucky an only a few energy orbs drop from a crowd you'll still have something to go on without having to sacrifice any usefullness that comes with making an efficiency build

[(PSN)EmilsTekcor]

Personally I think Draco should be harder and still be a method for leveling. Also I hate the cc at higher levels and would like it if there were a lot fewer enemies at much greater levels with higher stats at high levels. So like less spawns with higher drop rates, but every enemy is like the hunters.

[Charko]

I think that the subject about Draco shouldn't be what we think of Draco but what do you think of power leveling.

Personally i think the power leveling should be done through the Void limiting the entry and accessibility through keys. 

[(PSN)almosthonest41]

Being new to the game, i dont use draco alot, as i dont have a team always on, and when our team gets together, its void or sorites. So i found myself running Hapke and loki to grind out levles for weapons and Excavations for frames. It takes me a very long time. But thats the point, My only feed back would be how dispointing it is to level a weapon and its useless.hahah but that too is part of it. The mod thing is an issue, especially with Carrier.. just give vacume to all carriers and kubrows and then we can mix and match our companions... but thats a different topic... as for drako, if it takes away the grind to smash affinity to get mastery...then its fine.. thats gaming in general.

[Aquasurge]

it depend on your loadout, eg. volt would need a weapon with hard cc in order to be survivable frame due to electricity dmg's soft cc

[Totorochan]

If you ask what Mods are "Mandatory", you're going to get a different answer from every Tenno.

For example, I consider Quick Thinking / Primed Flow to be MUST HAVE on every frame ever, yet instead I see people talking about things like Vitality, Redirection or Energy Siphon. You know, mods I haven't equipped to anything in literally over a year.

At least there are some that seem obvious. Serration, for example. Pressure Point. More damage, wham, done. Nothing interesting. Heavy Caliber offers a tradeoff, elemental mods add multipliers and stuff. Mods should be interesting, I guess is what I'm saying.

[yetanotherunoriginalname]

Greetings mates.

I must say It`s always a pleasing site to see developers communicating with their playerbase,especially regarding such important topics as power leveling. After all,communication is crucial,a necessity for any game that evolves over time. And I hope our feedback will have a positive impact on the development of warframe.

1. and 2. I personally don`t use Draco,however I`m guilty of power leveling my gear from time to time. Hierarchon, the dark sector excavation on pluto, is my choice location for such activities. After two and a half years spent grinding, dropping forma on top of forma, I can easily understand why power leveling exists and I personally don`t blame anyone that does it. The amount of effort required to bolster a weapon,not to mention a warframe, with forma(formas?) is overwhelming at times. I believe this issue can be circumvented by bringing other game mods in line with Draco, thus giving players more variety. So,players could play a game mode they like, gaining affinity at a decent rate, then mixing it up by going to another mission type when the fatigue associated with running the same mission over and over kicks in. Nerfing Draco would simply mean postponing the issue until players discover the second best node and move to it. The main issue I have with Draco is that it drags new players into it. Instead of experiencing the content on offer, my fear is that they`ll end up stuck in a repetitive grind on Draco and just come to the conclusion that the game is not worth it.

3. It certainly doesn't. Once again, I`m glad the dev. team is willing to discuss these issues with its community.

4. I wouldn't mind, to be honest. To add them would simply mean more variety. Those could use already existing weapons in game so the development team doesn't need to spend as much time as making an entirely new one. However,avoiding having to use another weapon as a resource to craft them would be appreciated as I think I might explode if I`m forced to craft yet another boltor(for instance).

5. and 6. Crowd control is a necessity,it`s a must-have for any mission that goes into high level territory. Applying the "diminishing returns" mechanic on a mission today would simply spell doom for many tenno or make them rather difficult. With the current state of enemy scaling, crowd control becomes preferable to dealing damage at a certain point, its been like this for a very long time and I can`t see a way to improve the game that doesn't involve rebalancing the entire game or the roster of tenno with crowd control abilities. Occasionally a mission can become rather dull due to overuse  of CC abilities,but I don`t mind personally as players who utilize CC warframes are simply trying to help out.

7. For the most part,no. Every warframe is a story of its own when it comes to modding. This is especially easy to note when someone asks for a build recommendation on the forum and  gets a sizable amount of suggestions. Personal preference also plays a great part into how someone builds their gear. The amount of Power Strength, Duration, Range needed varies a lot between warframes and so does the type of mods(and their rank as most have multiple versions of the same mod to optimize builds) that people utilize. That being said there are always a few notable exceptions such as Rage and Steel fiber on warframes with a high armor value for starters(Though I don`t mind Rage since it has a bit of risk/reward to it after all(excluding wukong)), then there are the energy efficiency mods which are mandatory on all but few warframes,flow and quick thinking on weaker caster warframes and so on. For the most part there is enough variety when it comes to warframes. Things change when it comes to modding primaries and secondaries,these mostly revolve around base damage mods/multishot and elemental combos. That`s a story for another time though since the question was warframe related(though I must mention those new acolyte mods are a step in the right direction since players have to work for their buffs).

That is all from me. Good luck and good hunting out there mates.

Edited February 25, 2016 by yetanotherunoriginalname

[Doxorn]

In my opinion, draco isn't the problem. Draco is a cure to the problem.