February 12Th Community Hot Topics!

[Gurpgork]

Do you use Draco to acquire affinity?

 

*look at the poll result.*

 

*smile*

 

You can lie here, but you can't lie their data.

That poll indicates that far more people than not use it. The "yes" vote is split between "sometimes" and "often", so it looks like there are more "never" votes.

I don't think most people who voted are lying.

[Marthrym]

The Draco syndrom, aka the old Vivergate zombified :

Well, considering YOU put us all in this situation by being so cheap when it comes to Affinity (and now Focus...) gains in most mission types and nodes, the answer seems pretty obvious to me : It's all on you dear devs. Players just want to have fun. And yet you put wall after wall between them and said fun. So of course some end up having to play the mission with the "best" time/gain ratio to punch through these walls as fast as possible so that they can start having actual fun with the rest of your great game with all their shinies maxed. You really think they have fun doing it over and over again? Playing the same, boring node to squeeze enough to not feel like they're completely wasting their time?^^'

 

 

Dual Primaries :

Meh. Don't care much. Wielding two bows or snipers doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Maybe a weapon here and there could be fun used in pairs, but I'd rather have big-@ss primaries now for a change. Or if you make "dual" primaries, why not two different primaries wielded at the same time? With one mouse button/ trigger per gun? I get that it would require a lot of work, but it feels more appealing to me, fresh and new.

 

Crowd Control :

This is an easy one. Make a balanced enemy scaling, with caps on health, armor and damage. We've been waiting since the game's creation for that for Lotus' sake... Then we won't have to lockdown the entire map with overpowered CC to avoid insta-gibs by stray shots from a grunt halfway across the map. And you won't end up using cheap and dirty mechanics to remove what little gameplay options we have left, instead of balancing all that mess out, in the hope of making us believe this game is "challenging", or even "fair"... It's very simple dear devs, this constant use of CC on everything that moves is the direct result of an utterly broken enemy scaling. We use it because not using it means instant death. It's fun in small doses, but being forcefed these broken mechanics constantly isn't very healthy in the long run... And we unfortunately sometimes end up with bad habits, like spamming CC even at lower levels...

 

 

Mandatory mods for frames : 

Again, easy : you can remove Vitality from the equation, and give all that health to frames through ranking up. Every frame benefits from more health, no matter their build, so this wouldn't hurt anyone, and it would free a mod slot for all the not-so-useful mods cluttering our inventories (resistance mods for instance...).

Shield mods are another story entirely, some frames and/or builds benefits from them, some need as little as possible to shine.

Then obviously (Prime) Flow, same treatment as Vitality. Energy is extremely important, especially for squishy frames that rely on their kits to stay alive. On a related note, Quick Thinking could use some help too, being broken because apparently dying from stagger-lock is much better than dying outright from broken enemies... Just saying... it could use a tweak.^^'

Then of course, efficiency. Mostly because you guys love to cut down our energy to half or 1/4 in those "sorties" of yours, once again thinking it's "challenging" to do that. When not confronted to nonsensical stuff like "high" level enemies requiring constant CC, or "auras" that instantly take away our entire energy pool, efficiency is IMHO mostly a matter of taste. And of course the addition of duration in the mix kinda put a huge grain of sand in that machine too, and now the same builds require more mods to just do the same thing, or not too much worse...

 

Of course all this is based on personal experience, it's as subjective as any other post, and I perfectly understand many will agree to disagree with me.^^

Edited February 13, 2016 by Marthrym

[Telogor]

Draco is definitely a problem.  Powerleveling itself is not a problem, since some types of powerleveling aren't exploiting affinity mechanics to such an enormous degree.

 

Dual primary weapons just seem silly.  The Twin Grakatas kind of make sense since they're SMGs, but the rest of the primary weapons in the game would be silly if dual-wielded.

 

CC is OP, but so is enemy scaling.  You can't nerf CC without limiting enemy damage and health scaling.  It would be a huge detriment to high-level gameplay.

 

Warframes don't have many mandatory mods, but there are a couple mods present in the vast majority of builds: Streamline and Fleeting Expertise.  Power efficiency mods need to be removed from the game or significantly nerfed, and base power costs need to be 25-40% of what they are now.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but Archwing is a step in the right direction: limit the viability of power efficiency mods and decrease the power cost to energy orb drop/amount ratio.

[Gilalar]

Okay, two huge topics here, crowd control and affinity. I'll extrapolate affinity into reward system and crowd control into warframe abilities.

 

 

Synopsis: Move affinity/resources/mods away from primarily being awarded for kills. This disincentivizes kill farms and incentivizes doing missions.

 

Warframe powers need limitations. Some casting limitations could work, e.g. long cast times, cooldowns or whatever. Energy limits don't work anymore. The current system restricts enemy design too much, and prevents the game from ever being truly challenging.

 

 

Argumentation and discussion:

 

Reward system: Fundamentally, the "kill farm" (one of which is Draco) stems from the fact that the game gives all rewards for killing enemies. Affinity? The best way is to get it is to slaughter masses. Resources? Slaughter. Mods? Slaughter. All standard rewards are mostly acquired by killing enemies. Finding containers or finishing missions is by comparison extremely slow. Even the stealth kill mechanic focuses specifically on kills: if you want to get XP while stealth-playing, you need to be killing things instead of trying to finish missions as stealthily as possible.

 

I think this is terrible for the game. It also doesn't make a lot of sense; why are enemies carrying all these resources and mods anyways? Why does killing tons of enemies give more affinity than playing actual missions in the same amount of time? I propose rewards be moved elsewhere. Some kind of extractor/player-made Excavation system would be a much more interesting way of acquiring resources. Given we already have Excavation and Extractors, it'd be easy enough to make this the primary source of those.

 

Mission rewards often already contain mods. Make that the primary way to get mods (just reward more of them). Perhaps move some to map containers as well. More rewards for exploring maps and finding stuff would reward what the game is really about. Perhaps more side objectives in missions too, with mod/affinity rewards. We're getting caches but how about a ship captain assassination as an optional objective, or perhaps extracting data from ship drives or whatever - more mission objectives one can do inside the one mission node!

 

Basically, Draco (and Viver, E-Gate, etc.) are symptoms of the game devolving into killfarming. Move rewards away from being mostly/most efficiently granted on kills to fix this.

 

Warframe powers: Trinity/Energy Restores/Zenurik/Energy Siphons/energy orbs/efficiency mods have killed energy limits. Mods have multiplied warframe power effects. The powers are very polarizing; either you have a Banshee to 10x multiply your damage or you don't. There's little in-between. This makes bosses supereasy with Banshee and reasonable otherwise, or durable with Banshee and stupid bullet sponges otherwise. Not a sustainable model; the current crop of damage caps, invulnerability and other such stuff is symptomatic "Your equipment doesn't matter"-sort of circumvention attempt on the core problem.

 

Powers need a hard lookover. CC currently trivializes any enemies affected by it. Enemies need some kinds of resistances or terrain protections or a combination there-of. Powers also need to be less spammable. It's more interesting to also have shades of grey. If enemies either are useless when powers work, or powers are entirely turned off, that doesn't leave very much interesting middle-ground. Rather have enemies partially affected or resistant. Bosses only slowed by half of normal Nova slot, or only reduced accuracy by half instead of total blind, or so on. Powers still work but the enemy isn't completely negated by them. Currently, all bosses and enemies either negate powers or are trivial to beat even on level 9999. Also, Trinity needs a hard look at at least capping Blessing resistance and making EV less of a necessity for Raid play (don't design Raids around EV, and then do something about EV).

 

Currently, powers restrict the way the game is designed too much. The game is too easy with powers and inevitably too hard without them (though invisibility from Naramon or Arcane Trickery counts as a power). The enemies need more ways to deal with powers; more threats to power-using tenno. Some powers need limitations or fixing. Cast times could be a good way, as could cooldowns on ultimates ("recharge time for warframe energy"). Spamming and standing still needs to go - this game is about being a space ninja, not a statue. AOE powers that make moving unnecessary need to reward gameplay more and be less passive.

 

Dual weapons: There's no sensible distinction between Primary and Secondary anyways. Make one first and then we'll talk. Right now it doesn't really matter what category which weapon is in. The fact that Twin Grakatas became a secondary is just the pinnacle of absurdity, it's gonna be hard to top. I could see "secondary" as "one-handed" and then use that as a game mechanic. That'd make Akimbo weapons Primaries. Something to think about - sensible distinction and the categories become sensible and it becomes easy to decide what goes where. Right now, it's arbitrary. That said, compared to the other two matters, this is completely meaningless.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Gilalar

[BETAOPTICS]

Dual Primaries:

Yes I would like to have them, but not in the way in which most Tenno seem to assume. See, I wouldn't suggest adding dual primaries of existing types, however I do believe it would be incredibly interesting weapon type for primary to have some sort of weapon that is attached to your hands in some way and that upon firing, you are using both of your hands either simultaneously or separately. So it would be a sort of weapons system that relies getting support from the Warframe's hands and you would have such systems on both of your hands.

[painterman]

The good old draco is geting atention again, and i dont think this node is the problem itself, but the way affinity works. On one hand i really like draco and problably play it even if it was nerfed, because i like it: its a small map, not to slow and dificult enough that you have to keep moving if you want to stay alive, plus you can get rare cores and t4 keys. This convined with the fact that you can( yes, you can, but it dosnt mean you do) pick certain frames and force long mission + more spawns makes it also the almost perfect affinity farm, and so focus v1.1 and syndicate rep farms. Before the new focus you could also run for spy and using the stealth bonus, but now, because of the share and the focus-things mid-mision, plus the fact that the affinity to focus combersion is lower, makes then inefficient compared to a powerfarm like draco.

 

I really hope that when starchart 3.0 hits, it brings with it a much diferent aproach on things like this. I just want a place where i can farm affinity efficient, resources and keys. In the end i really dont care if its interception or movile defense(well, i really care because i dont like md :P) or survival as long as its efficient, more options is almost always good. I really hope that starchart 3.0 brings something like this were you can go and get tons of affinity at a rate similar to draco, but not being draco per-se.

[felixsylvaris]

Affinity, XP, loot:

- Make affinity global, so there will be less drama for lone Ember doing own things, or Ash "stealing my kills!" Add afk detection system. There is no difference in leech doing bunny jump at extraction point or somewhere near group.

- Add to missions other than defense/interception random chests which we need to find, similar as to Hive mission.

- Move from "per kill reward" to per mission reward, with acknowledge that some mission have fixed time to complete  (MD has minimal time, but capture could be really fast).

- Add something to starchart. Reward for doing all nodes on the planet. Or some big quest tieing all nodes in planet. Some story.

- Change formas to not put weapon back to unraned, but to need atune from 0% to 100% before being ready for next forma. But already benefiting from max level, catalyst, new forma. So it could be used in suitable for level content.

[unknow99]

Akprimaries? Hn hn hn that picture of Ember with AkBoltor might not be that misleading in the end... :)

 

However, it needs to have some kind of tweak to counterbalance the expected OPness...

Edited February 14, 2016 by unknow99

[CataReverb]

On Draco:

(tl;dr: the problem isn’t Draco, it’s that there’s nothing with competitive affinity gains, and only excavation rivals it in key and core gains.  People grind because they must, and because they must, they Draco.)

 

Draco's rewards aren’t too high, as much as there's nowhere else with rewards of affinity as good.  Spy vault and stealth rampage bonus exp is alright, but it's pitiful in comparison to what you get from a round in Draco.  What's worse is how bad the vault rewards are in comparison...

 

On average in 2 rounds of spy (Oceanum I think is the highest level area) you'll get 2 bronze mods, an uncommon mod, one rare fusion core, a B-tier key, one rare mod, and a fusion core or ivara part, pitiful affinity gains (especially after the new system.)  

In the same time on draco, you'll get more mods (from the kills alone, admittedly unimportant until you can melt them into fusion cores) five gold fusion cores, a ton more affinity.  This isn’t even getting in to the balance of factions...

 

What it comes down to is fun and rewards.

 

With regards to fun, the most fun parts of when I was going through the system maps were the random events that spawned, where suddenly instead of hacking four consoles for a spy mission, then it was suddenly eight, then it was suddenly a deception mission where I had to drop off the data mass with eight pips I worked so hard to recover.  When I'm farming focus in a deception mission, the random crossfires spoil the mission as I can't get stealth kills any more, at all.  

 

When it comes down to farming for affinity that translates to tempering a formad or new weapon, it shouldn't be an ordeal that takes a week to complete.  When it comes to focus, it shouldn't be an ordeal that takes an hour to complete for a day, or require you to run one mission just to get it finished so you're not losing a potential new ability.

 

The first thing that needs to be addressed is T4 keys being only available from interception and excavation.  I understand that they went there to push those two endless modes to be played moreover defense and survival.  Defense in particular needs more than just a change from a cryopod to an operative, I have an old concept to pillage for ideas here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/470278-defense-lore-lines-purpose-and-game-rewards/

 

Survival could stand a similar revamp, maybe where you're occasionally asked to help the lone tenno operative by finding a control console and hacking it every few minutes for a bit of extra life support and increased rewards?

 

What about adding another endless mode ... (maybe called Raid 2.0 or something) where there's a new objective type every time you complete one?  Exterminate this pack of 20 or so eximus units, then a spy vault unlocks behind a previously red door with nothing initially loaded there, which drops a data mass that you need for a Mobile Defense, or maybe if you're not up for that there's another way to get that data but the rewards are worse, (but do you need what might drop?)

 

No matter what, there will always be one best answer to the daily grind for focus, people will find it.  You should never ask yourself first, “How do I nerf this to make the fields more equal,” before you ask yourself “are the gains here right,“ if they are, 15 minutes a day for focus (remember they still have sorties to go through as well that day,) a few dozen cores, and a key or two - a good amount, but not showered with rewards, then ask “How do I make other places more competitive for frequenting.”  Obviously having rarer rewards like spy’s status-elemental is a decent start, but once someone has those rewards there’s no reason to return.

 

 

---------------------------

 

 

On CC and required mods:

In higher end content, CC or half a frame’s mod slots (if it’s tanky enough to scale well with them) are needed to get through a mission alive.  There’s no getting around it.  

 

The Razorback is impossible to solo with a 100% stealth built loki, as it has missiles that will hit you, even in stealth, for over 400 damage, knocking out shields and doing a fair amount of damage.  This is in essence the problem to both CC and frame mod requirements: unavoidable damage in the form of a toxic cloud, a fire blast with no cover, or having to stay in a position, and even a few stray bullets with slashproc even when you’re running at full speed.  You need the bulk and HP restoration or a good CC mode to keep yourself alive.  It’s why people either love or hate Valkyr, but either in unhealthy quantities.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Arkinvas

[(PSN)JedWrecked]

 

 

Currently we grind for ducats, to get primed mods, to then grind for cores. We grind Draco to quickly level and reforma weapons, while getting syndicate rep and focus, to then use these to grind for ducats to then grind for cores, and so forth.

 

 

i feel the grind is a little over the top and the use of cores should be at least nullified a minor amount.

[(PSN)JedWrecked]

 

 

 

Crowd Control -  It takes away the fun/challenge by making enemies sitting ducks

 

 

My question is why do so many people care about how others want to level up

I truly hope you guys aren't thinking about nerfing CC abilities now.

 

 

Frankly, I think that players flock to Draco because they think it somehow miraculously increases gained affinity. And it does.

The crowd control need to stay it brings more excitement and enjoyment. The Draco is a farming method for the moment with the release of the Second Dream could and should stay for a little longer. And mods dictating how you play is a major thing that for the moment helps the customization aspect of the game.

[(PSN)EmilsTekcor]

well tbh I would like draco to be more difficult, but still a good place for leveling. crowd control seems to be the basis of the game I would personally like it if in higher level missions there were much fewer enemies of hugely great difficulty while lower level missions could be a matter of crowd control.

[TriggerHappyWhiteGuy]

Honestly we need to change up mastery rank. Way too many people have been using Draco to boost their MR causing the to have a inflated MR so a MR 15+ who should know the game by now, does not know very much and they suck so bad. I have seen a MR 8 (without draco abuse) do better. 

 

MR 8-A person playing VS MR 15+ who sits on a box. Who do you really think is the better player?

 

The whole reason I hate Draco is because when I play pub games, these inflated MR players really stand out.

[Ryunokage]

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

 

The issue I have with draco isn't that it allows players to level quickly, its that it allows players to make idiotic decisions and still survive, while leveling quickly.

 

I remain convinced that draco is the go-to for players to level equipment, not because of its rate of affinity gain, but rather how easy and forgiving it is, with the usual build of: RJ Excalibur, EV trinity and a Snowdome Frost.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with rapid leveling, but something with high rewards like draco should also come with markedly higher risks. Maybe let the Grineer hit camping tenno with artillery, flood the area with clouds of gas, or something else that forces players to think, react and invest in effort.

[Skyalicious]

I think CC is in a good place considering the game has no AI scaling.... it's fun to CC AI

[FelisImpurrator]

If you mean standing on the box - no, I don't do that Draco. If you include pubbing it with a regular weapon for the sheer volume of high-spawn butchery, and hoping AoE nukes don't show up to spoil the fun - yes, I do. Past the >400 manual kill range it's pretty fun, and it still rains XP. But the box thing means a lot of people DO bring map nukes to public - even if it gets them less XP, but they never realize that. So all it does is create an unwanted carry and interfere with those who want to play the node normally.

 

It's also created a subculture of rudeness where, in public or recruiting, if you don't play a certain way (i.e., "stand on the box and spam"), you're subjected to insults and vile attitudes all around.

 

But definitely, newer players shouldn't be using the box method. They don't learn how to play the game very well if they're just carried all the time.

 

Mass push-button hard CC in a huge radial area should not be a thing without significant tradeoffs and drawbacks (short duration, LoS, etc). If you can push one key and instantly set all enemy AI to off, how can there be balance? The enemies are left with only two options - oneshot us too fast to stun them, or generate some kind of total immunity, because otherwise cycling blind+followup with a super high damage weapon like Tonkor means no more enemies for the rest of the round.

[(PSN)EmilsTekcor]

well tbh I would like draco to be more difficult, but still a good place for leveling. crowd control seems to be the basis of the game I would personally like it if in higher level missions there were much fewer enemies of hugely great difficulty while lower level missions could be a matter of crowd control.

this^ I mean like it's fun for leveling up weapons and making builds, but the players at higher ranks are really getting bad doing raids has become a sad endeavor.

[Chub_N_Tuck]

I made this post last year and I still stand by it.

Then what kind of progress bar? Polarize and have another progress bar but not affinity right? Elaborate please?

[(PSN)Killerworld]

I like the sound of akprimary but Idk of what gun.. Braton I could picture but the prime looks heavy.. Would like to see a primary SMG or tactical. 

 

Draco and pluto's dark sectors cause me to cringe when I see people who should be getting mods and not power grind frames or credits and later vote that most frames suck just because it couldn't handle Draco unmodded.

 

Crowd control.. Sigh.. I am unfortunately the guy that played Rhino and plays Chroma and likes Chroma's Crowd stunning but both frames rely on weaponry to be CC so it sucks that I'm enjoying Equinox's day blast CC with accumulation and dislike that Rhino or Chroma can't perform the same grace against mid to high tier. I like CC but yes in extermination/deception/sabotage CC's hog all kills and we are busy keeping up to Ember's world on fire or whomever with great CC because that player wants to do it all or finish already. 

[venon23]

DRACO :
well dont go there but im one off the starters of VIVER  so i tell DE that the problem is not a tileset  or a map is a lvling system
Why i did a lot of VIVER cuz i wanted too get the max points on sindicats fastest possible.....
Why do ppl do DRACO for the same thing and forming stuff  Draco is a farmfest the golden mine not cuz of the tileset or the map but cuz of the leveling system we have .

DUAL PRIMARIS:
well i think is a nice idea all new weapons are welcome for me  keep bringing new stuff but keep fixing bugs and revisit old stuff dont get why we still have melee stances with just 2 combos.... thats one is for GEOFF

CC:
The only weapon that works on enemys lvl 5000 and more cuz never stop scaling  is it a problem? If it is and if is going too be nerfed or removed then there tons of balance too do in game cuz some frames are made for tanking and other made for cc with no more tools if u nerf them u need too balance the rest of the game for that.... i belive DE shouldent move there cuz things will get alot ANGRY form alot of players:

 

Mandatory mods:
well serration hornet strike pression point point blank are a problem for sure 
while on frames i dont see much of this problem there a lot of difrents frames with difrent builds
i can say that streamline Pcontinuty are probably in all of them and flow in 75% of them the rest are more depending on the player and hes game style  But dont see too much of a problem in warframes the Mandatory  Mods 
some frames i use vitalaty ant StellFiber  other frames i use QT and rage and Pflow  other frames i dont use non of this mods just range and power  or duration and range 
i Voted the first one cuz i belive  there are mods that some players have in all warframes for me is streamline and Pcont  but i also belive is depend on player too player
while on weapons not this need too change and should be on top list 
the only thing i dont agree is the multyshoot upcoming changes too consume more bullests instead it should divid the dmg off the bullet  ex:

Weapon dmg 100
with multyshoot 100%
u fire 2 bullets each one giving 50 dmg =100

wuth multyshoot 400%
u fire 4 bullets each one giving 25dmg = 100
this will make status weapons spray weaposn (supra) and AOE weapons (amstrung) need multishot but other weapons dont giving space for other mods

this way crit weapons and status weapon will go into difrent spots and both work late game  and multy shoot stops too be mandatory atlast for some weapons

 

the thing is multyshoot shoundent double ur dmg should be more support for weapon and less dmg multiplayer like it is

 

[AnarchyChan]

Again Draco, goddammit. Not everyone have 24/7 time to play 40-50 defense waves to lever your weapon one rank. Seriously, you guys want it to be fixed like focus now? 1,5%  from draco affinity to equipment - would be great, right? If  Draco would be fixed, players find another 'Draco', and so on, until it takes weeks to rank one weapon.

My opinion is simple - 15 rank restriction for Draco. Leave for highranks atleast one endgame/privilege.

 

 

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

Even in Shadow Debt: Endurance? lol

Edited February 14, 2016 by AnarchyChan

[RadioLarity]

My opinion is that DE shouldn't think about Draco too much bcs

1. There are more other things that require more concern than Draco
2. There are other missions that can be used for power leveling etc. it's not like community won't find another spot to farm

And most importantly I'm still looking forward to getting rid of all mandatory mods. The sooner the better. There are many cool mods that are laying around and you don't get to use them bcs there are just straight off better ones.

Even the crit chance/damage mods should be considered mandatory and splashed on the weapons along leveling.
Everything that would become must have after getting rid of must have until the point where we only have options and preferences that we can follow.

Edited February 14, 2016 by RadioLarity

[(PSN)Rakiokon]

Allow me to add some, perhaps unorthodox, thoughts on these things.  I will state, as usual, that I have not read any of the other replies to this topic, and as such, if I repeat points already made, or offend anyone, for whatever reason, I apologize in advance.

 

Draco

Personally, I have never once used Draco to power-level.  My usual power-leveling method is just to run the one weapon I'm re/leveling through Spy missions on Gnathos, Eris.  It's not as fast, or efficient as leeching off of someone else on Draco, but it's fast enough, and it provides me with a bunch of rare mods that I can use for transmutation.  (Yes, I have had infinitely better luck transmuting mods, than I have had farming them conventionally.)  On top of that, it's something that I can run completely solo, which has the benefit of not having to deal with less than pleasant characters.

 

Honestly, I don't actually see a problem with people power-leveling on Draco, as a player.  However, from a dev's standpoint (theoretically speaking, as I am not actually a dev), I can see where it may be a problem in a game such as Warframe.  The way I see it, if that's how people want to spend their time 'playing' the game, then fine.  I find it boring and mind-numbing, and that's because it is.  But to some, having higher numbers is more important than actually playing the game.

 

I watched a very similar thing happen in Diablo 2, when I played that game.  It was a fairly fast transition, actually.  When the game was new, you had no problems finding people to actually play the game with, and run through the story, do all the quests, explore around the maps, etc.  But after a short while, it quickly became about power-leveling up to max level, so you could go and farm for better gear.  It got to the point where it was annoying, because all the lobbies where people were actually playing the game diminished, replaced with droves upon droves of "[Level appropriate story dungeon/boss] Runz 296".  And then things like Runes were added in, and people just stopped playing the game altogether, opting to just sit in the first town area, waiting for people to trade/gift them the thing they wanted.

 

Now, here's my point:  What did these players do once they power-leveled up to max level, and got all their awesome, best gear in the game?  Well, some started the cycle all over again, on a new character.  Most, though, reached the pinnacle of theoretical power, and stopped playing, because there was literally nothing left to do (except for actually play through the game...  And who wants to do something boring, like that?).  And, I can see the same basic thing happening in Warframe, eventually.  In a stat-driven, loot-based game, the vast majority will sit down, and focus solely on getting their paper-perfect build put together in game.  And once they have that, they run out of a reason to play.  After all, you can only do T4 survival challenge runs so many times.  (I mention this, because that seems to be the current end-game in Warframe, at the moment.  Trials are fun and unique, and sorties can be a challenge, but both are a sort of one-and-done thing, and not something that a player can sit and do twenty times over the weekend.)

 

Finally, back to the point of power-leveling, and Draco, and all that.  As long as there isn't a definitive end-game, or a finite goal to work toward, power-leveling can lead to many, many players quitting after just a few weeks of play, as there is nothing left to work toward, once they have their perfect build.  The vast majority isn't going to care about getting their 100% on the Codex, or running through every single mission on the Star Chart.  They're going to want to get to that point where they feel vastly overpowered, do one or two missions as such, and then realize they have nowhere left to go, and move onto the next game.  However, for those who do plan on sticking around, and actually do care about maxing out every single weapon and frame in the game, not having a method of power-leveling those freshly Forma'd weapons can definitely lead to tedium and cause burnout a lot more quickly.  So, it's a difficult subject to approach, to be sure.

 

Take away the loot cave, and people will always find a new one...

 

My own suggestion would be to, perhaps, give weapons/frames a sort of affinity multiplier, according to how many Forma have been added to them.  Maybe not a 1:1 ratio, as there still needs to be some sort of detriment to resetting the gear with the Forma.  But, maybe, if it takes less effort/time to re-level a weapon for the 5th time, people won't be so prone to power-level, just so they can be done with it already.  Like I said, I'm not a dev, and my ideas may be totally bogus, but offering bad solutions is better than offering no solutions, right?

 

Dual Primaries

I am always game for new weapons.  Also, AkStrun would make me rock hard.

 

Though, I do have concerns, if the dual primaries are treated the same way to the dual secondaries, wherein it's the same weapon, statistically, but with double the magazine and fire rate, and also double the reload.  Personally, I'd rather see fresh concepts over slightly more differenter versions of things we already have...

 

But, as I mentioned...  If we do end up getting dual primary weapons, I suggest shotguns get some love in that department.

 

Crowd Control

You know, there's a reason why CC is so popular, especially in higher levels.  This reason is largely because damaging abilities drop off, drastically, in effectiveness, the higher level the enemies.  So, where a Mesa can gun down level 1 through level 40-ish nasties with relative ease, level 500 enemies will point and laugh at her pea-shooters.  Loki, on the other hand, can take those level 500 enemies' guns away, just as well as he could a level 1 enemy's.  And then Loki's the one pointing and laughing.  (Probably still at Mesa, because now those baddies are rushing her rooted &#! down with sticks, and Shatter Shield doesn't do much [read: anything] against melee attacks.)

 

That said, the solution is not to scale up the damage of killing powers.  Not by any means.  There's a reason newbies cry 'Nerf' on things like Saryn, Mesa, or any other frame with a mass kill ability.  Because people take these frames into low level missions, where they can demolish everything, and leave nothing for the other people in the squad.  And, as has been stated in many a Nerf thread, this simply takes the fun out of the game for anyone who isn't the kill-frame.  Ramping up the damage of these abilities so that they can do the same thing 3 hours into a T4 survival will only net more and more of these complaints.

 

Yes, in a game that is about slicing your way through hoards and hoards of enemies, AKA "Crowds", being able to "Control" said crowds is going to be a very strong ability.  But, does that mean it's overpowered?  I'm actually torn on this one.

 

On one hand, I love my utility powers.  I primarily play Limbo, much to the disdain of many others, apparently...  (The game can get pretty lonely, when people won't even give you a chance to prove you aren't a troll.)  Now, I wouldn't call Limbo a CC frame.  He has no way of slowing enemies down, or debuffing them, or anything like that.  And Cataclysm can be used to nuke a tight grouping of enemies, at low levels.  Anything past level 20-25, and it's basically a "Kill me now, please" button.  Another frame I like playing a lot is Mesa.  Shooting Gallery adds a little bit of CC, but nowhere near to the level of something of Nyx's Chaos, or Nova's Molecular Prime.  And if you aren't playing solo, when the lasso swaps to someone in another room of the stage, your CC disappears completely.

 

On the other hand, it is so very, very nice to be in a squad when a friend is using Nyx, Nova, Loki, or even a Radial Blind Excalibur.  I don't really like having to be CC, myself, but I do love it when someone else is playing the role, especially if they're doing a good job of it.

 

I do think that CC should have a strong place in the game, and 'nerfing' it, is most certainly not the answer.  At least, not in any way that would ever be noticeable to players.  Sure, you can have enemies build up a tolerance to a CC effect, so it has diminishing returns.  But most non-boss enemies will be dead after one CC effect, so a resistance would never come into effect, until level 1000, or so.

 

Maybe a better idea would be simply to add more 'crowd' to control?  I don't necessarily mean stacking more nasties on at a time, as that would both strain a player's machine, and accomplish absolutely nothing, at the same time.  Rather, make spawning more dynamic.  Say you're fighting the Infested, and suddenly, they have a mutated reaction to a Tenno ability, and develop a large scale form of cellular division.  As soon as you kill an ancient, a new one pops out of its corpse, out of the effect of the CC ability, prompting the player to expend another use of the power.  Maybe Grineer units can drop in from a dropship, or via jetpack.  Corpus units can assemble by way of nanotechnology, or something like that.

 

Yes, it would be more work than just having units spawn behind a closed door, and run to the players in waves.  But, part of the reason that CC is so effective, is because of the slow enemy reinforcement.  Players have ample time to set up for a second use of their CC, and there is very little pressure, unless someone misses a beat, or otherwise screws up.  Making the spawn rates more dynamic, and more intense would strain on player resources, forcing them to expend their energy faster, or using up more pizzas, without directly making CC less effective.  A well organized group would still be able to keep things under control with ease, but it would be much more difficult for one player to carry a squad on their back with CC, without some form of synergy between other members in the squad.

 

Mandatory Mods

I commented on this subject, when it was brought up about weapons, and my views are still about the same, concerning Warframe mods.  As it is, right now, there are a handful of general Frame builds, which can be applied to any frame, regardless of base stats.  What build you use, merely depends on what power/s you want to focus on.  Do you want a strength build, a duration build, or a range build?  No matter the frame, these builds are usually identical.

 

Reason being, is that Warframes, as a piece of equipment, are too static.  Barring a few outlying powers, each power slot costs the same amount of energy from frame to frame.  Sure, the powers are all different, but those are what determines your build.  The only dynamic part of that is whether or not you need Natural Talent.  Past that, it's a decision of which augment mods you want, if you want any.  If you opt not to have augments, then you're free to put in your survivabililty mods like Vitality, or Quick Thinking.  These are usually filler mods, added in at the end of a build, after the necessities are met, to make quality of life a little easier on the player. 

 

Honestly, I don't have a suggestion for this, that wouldn't require a complete overhaul on one of the core systems of the game, in the Warframe abilities.  You can try to make things synergize more, like the recent change to how duration mods effect toggle/constant drain abilities.  And that would probably be enough to make a difference.  But would it be enough of a difference being made?  I couldn't say.

 

So long as there is an option to customize a player's arsenal, there will always be a 'most optimal' way to do it, and the game's community will always figure it out, and spread it around, and make sure to shun anyone who tries to think differently.  It's a sort of side-effect of being in the Information Age.

 

Again, apart from radically changing how mods work, or how Warframe abilities work, there's very little that can be done to make more variety in builds.  Even adding a slew of new mods will just prompt these 'Meta' builds to swap out one mod for a new one that's more efficient.

 

Closing Statements

As I've stated, I'm not a game developer.  I'm just a guy whose been around his fair share of blocks.  Right now, I think Warframe is actually doing pretty well, in the balance department.  I can offer my suggestions about how to make things a little more well-rounded, but I can't guarantee that they're actually good ideas.  And, really, who am I to try and suggest that I know better than anyone else?

[7grims]

Wow

Took this long for us to talk about warframe mandatory mods, how many more years until we can talk about regular vs primes balance and equality.

[Dell_the_Engie]

TL;DR Draco is okay, but affinity is not.  Dual Primaries sound kind of boring unless they're entirely new weapons.  CC is so darn good because enemy scaling goes through the roof.  And power mods are better than pretty much everything else.

 

• Do you use Draco to acquire affinity?

I used to, but not for many months now.  The last time I played on Draco with any frequency was when Mag and Mesa strongly inhabited the farming meta.  I stopped farming Draco after Greedy Pull was nerfed, and in fact, I stopped using Greedy Pull altogether.  I have played Draco a couple of times since with my clanmates, though not for the purpose of power-leveling.  I am well-aware that Draco continues to be prevalent for farming affinity.

 

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

Not necessarily.  Like many have now said before me, I don't think the map, itself, is a problem, but it could be indicative of problems with the larger systems and mechanics that it interacts with; particularly, the affinity and resource systems and how best to farm them.  There's a lot of content in Warframe, and, I'll be frank, a lot of junk to level up, commonly referred to as "mastery fodder".  Having to rank up equipment repeatedly with Forma doesn't much help, either.  Personally, I don't think there's much wrong with power-leveling, if that's something a player wants to do.  It can be quite nice to progress quickly, so that you can get to the content you really want.  If Draco is guilty of anything in that regard, it's that it's the hottest game in town right now.  High-level Grineer deception maps are also commonly used for farming solo with stealth affinity bonuses, and before the recent Focus v1.1 update, this was an excellent way to acquire focus points.  I have heard that this is no longer the case, which may be yet another point in favor of farming at Draco.

 

• Does it worry you that Draco is a Community Hot Topic?

No, I think this is a good discussion to have.  For better or for worse, Draco is a part of the Warframe metagame, and so it should serve as some representation of what's right and what's wrong with Warframe's underlying mechanics.  What I worry about, however, is how DE might attempt to fix some perceived problems with Draco without addressing the underlying issues.

 

DE has often mentioned "the grind" in their game, and their wish to reduce it, yet to my knowledge, markedly little has been done about it so far.  Beside the systems that facilitate the grind, itself, it appears that DE's primary approach to driving players away from lazy power-leveling methods has been by wielding a menacing stick, and not by dangling an alluring carrot.  Warframe abilities and farming locations have been nerfed before when they've gotten a little too hot in the farming scene, but it evidently hasn't stopped anything.  What you end up with is a vicious cycle of collateral damage and community backlash without actually solving the problem, and then a new farming meta replaces the old one, and the cycle begins again.

 

It is my opinion that so long as the most efficient way to gain resources and affinity is to stand in one place and use one ability over and over again, there will always be a Draco.  It may not be Draco, Ceres, but there will always be the hot spot for farming, and there will always be particular squad synergies that are very effective and very sedentary.  For a game about leaping wizard ninjas in space, active and mobile play does not have enough of a tangible reward, however personally satisfying it may be.  So long as that is the case, I think there will always be a Draco looming in the metagame.

 

• Would you like dual Primaries (similar to Ak Secondaries)?

If there's more to them than just style, sure.  A little novelty is fun, but it doesn't last for long.  I'm not at all interested in an "Aksoma" or "Dual Quantas".  If it can be something really new and unique, though, I would love that.  A few weapons already blur the line between the distinct categories.  Before the Staticor was released, I assumed they were going to be fist weapons with a unique charge attack, like a melee counterpart to the Sonicor.  I'm okay with what they are, although they look pretty weird how they're held like throwing knives.  It doesn't look right at all on some frames.  The Redeemer, of course, also blurs that line, as a gunblade.  And then there's the Dual Grakatas.  Aren't they sort of the first dual Primary, anyway?  I guess somewhere along the road, akimbo guns became the exclusive domain of Secondaries, even if the two guns were Primaries to begin with.  There's really no reason for that limitation, though.

 

• Do you think Crowd Control is required too often?

Well, maybe.  Some form of crowd control becomes essential in high-level missions.  On the other hand, in low-to-mid-level missions, it's entirely unnecessary, as damage easily takes precedence.  That just has to do with how enemies scale in their durability and damage, and how warframe abilities scale to meet each challenge.  Since damage abilities typically dish out a static number, they naturally fall off in favor of abilities that simply work, no matter what level the enemy is.  It's why Ember is a fantastic choice in any Invasion mission, vaporizing everything she merely passes by, and why Vauban is so relevant in the Trials.  If you do primarily high-level content, you will get very used to seeing at least one CC-focused frame in your squad, but I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, other than the fact that some damage-focused frames can fall off very hard by this point.  Some frames are better for a particular job than others, there's no doubt about that, and that's fine, but if some frames become unviable by the late-game, that certainly is a problem.

 

• Do you think Crowd Control spoils the fun in some missions?

Fortunately for me, dominating hordes of enemies is just as much of a satisfying power trip as killing them.  Of course, for those players who prefer to take a more directly offensive approach, I could understand if they feel like there isn't much of a place for them in particularly high-level content.  In some part, they would be correct.  But never have I felt like CC was spoiling my fun.

 

• Do you think some warframe Mods are practically mandatory?

Here's something that no one has ever said seriously in Trade chat: "Want to buy Warm Coat".  I do use a variety of mods on each of my frames, and in some cases, two different configurations of the same frame will use almost entirely different mods, but the majority of mods easily fall by the wayside in favor of objectively more useful options.  Slots are limited, after all, and so mods are always fighting for space.

 

The most useful mods make up a relatively small pool, about a quarter of all warframe mods, and are almost entirely power-related mods, with a few mods for survivability.  In some cases, especially at high levels, where health often exists in a binary state of either "completely alive" or "completely dead", I've seen players gut their survivability mods altogether in favor of squeezing out even more power.  Is the problem with too many power-related mods, or too few slots, or a min-maxing mentality among players, or do the other options simply provide negligible benefits?

 

The Exilus slot was a great step in the right direction by allowing players a special place for utility, without feeling like they were cheating themselves out of something apparently more powerful.  But there are still a multitude of mods that have no considerable use; Lightning Rod, Diamond Skin, Flame Repellent, Retribution, Warm Coat, Provoked, and so on.  These mods can not compare to strength, efficiency, or health, or even to many Exilus mods.  I'm not sure what the solution to this may be, but it's a problem plaguing frames as much as weapons at the moment.  Most mods are just objectively inferior options compared to others, and often by a great margin

Edited February 16, 2016 by Dell_the_Engie