It is time to free "Mastery" from the tyrannical clutches of Affinity

[Doomauculas]

Instead of gaining mastery through leveling weapons and frames, what if it was based on say... completing mission on the star chart, time played, missions complete, finishing quests,and partaking in events etc. that way there wont be this "I'm MR 8 and I've only played Draco" situation. Just my 2 plat.

[Voltage]

Mastery is fine the way it is because this solution promotes: Get Loki and grind whereas MR requires loads of resources not just a handful of things. You probably needs around 100 of each rare resource, 40+ forma and so forth to get these weapons. Your salty at a high MR player or something for a reason I do not know because I have never had problems with anyone over MR 8 that listens and types/talks. Mastery rank doesn't need a change because your solution takes little time investment compared to the vast resource farming times and grinding of levels and forma. 

[(PSN)ArnnFrost]

Mastery is kinda useless but also useful in some way, it tells you that that person has tested and tried bunch of stuff in the game but sadly it doesn't measure skill. We need something like in some MMOs like bronze, silver, and gold ranks for flawless hacking without cyphers and no alarm triggers - total time survived (longest amount of time in combat without dying once) and etc

[Tsukinoki]

1 hour ago, (PS4)ArnnFrost said:

(longest amount of time in combat without dying once)

I'm sorry but that would be worthless.
I mean talk Valkyr to a survival mission. (Or a Zephyr into a Corpus/Corrupted mission)
Go for however long you feel like until you get bored in permanent hysteria.
Congratulations, you now have an impressive time logged in that category!

@vrdwrst

Your idea would make mastery even more pointless than what it currently is.
And it would heavily promote kill stealing.
For example: Say you have a bow out and are lining up a headshot on some high level Corrupted Bombards.
I run through and kill them all with my Tonkor/Vaykor Marelok/Synoid Similur/whatever FotM weapon.
You now get zero mastery for those enemies, meanwhile I get some just by killing those "high value" targets.
I just stole Mastery from you.
And honestly there would never be a reason not to do that with your system.
Why let anyone else get kills on those targets?  All you're doing lowering your potential mastery by not just spamming the highest damaging weapons for the fastest kills of those "high value" targets.

Further your idea is just promoting even more mind-numbing farms than Draco is.
For example: I take a Rhino and a powerful gun.  I stand in front of the enemies while invincible in my IS, line up a headshot and kill them slowly.
Surely that shows how "skillful" I am, right?  Afterall I'm getting Mastery for playing that way!
Or what about a Loki doing it while Invisible?  Or an Ivara?
Bottom line is none of what you described is really "skillful" and all can be easily cheesed and ground away.
With your idea a dedicated grinder could get to MR30 fairly quickly by standing in a corridor where enemies spawn with a punchthrough weapon and just holding down their mouse button at head level and doing absolutely nothing else.

Edited March 16, 2016 by Tsukinoki

[Henji]

I just want a better way to earn my mastery rank without having to spend real money into weapons that I'm never gonna use, if anything.

 They could make the mastery rank based on the time you've spent in the game plus your performance in each mission based on your style (ranged, melee, caster) each one with their individual progress and mastering all three would give you perks or cosmetic items (or both) that you could scrub in evryone's faces in the hub.

 

Edited March 16, 2016 by Henji

[brucifer1]

MR is working as intended. It does not really indicate "mastery" but how much stuff you have leveled, and whether it was by your efforts or your team mates is irrelevant. What it does is encourage you to buy lots of stuff to level, and or lots of inventory space. Locking abilities and weapons behind MR encourages players to level a number of frames and gear in hope that said player will buy some with cash or like enough of them that they buy more inventory slots. Changing MR to reflect skill based kills and accomplishments would not encourage the spending of money on the game and thus would be contrary to the real purpose of MR.

[(PSN)CowboyJeff72]

Ok, hoping to get this across without writing a huge wall of text so here goes.

@ OP - what I take away from your entire post is that MR as a measure of skill is irrelevant because of how it is earned. Agree on this point. How many weapons or frames someone can speed level does not equate to skill in using said frames and weapons (I know some players level differently, this is just a general statement). Though I think your counter proposal has some glaring issues as well. What's the point of earning xp for say head shots while using a shot gun? There is no correlation of skill to MR there either. 

What I think you are truly looking for is a RPG type of xp system where players earn xp based on completing quests, planets, boss fights, collecting said resources, or whatever. Think D&D in space really. Two BIG changes would have to happen for a system like this to work however. First, you would have to kill the taxi. Make it so if you don't open it yourself, you don't go, period. Second, you would have to set the star chart up in a progression style system so that players are guided along a path to complete it. 

How does this help you ask? Simple, if you take a new player and guide them along a prescribed path, they are funneled into every aspect of the game, which means they are learning and experiencing every aspect of the game. Which in turn means they are becoming more skilled players by dent of an assigned progression. Now as in anything, will this make every player the end all be all Warframe player? No, of course not. But it will prevent players from being MR 17 and not knowing that you don't want to trigger alarms, or that you need to take out cameras, or that you need to kill that Ancient Healer before dealing with that Crawler (target priority). It will create better players because a MR1 won't be able to go to Draco or any other farming spot and speed level tons of gear without knowing something about the game because they won't be able to get there until they are ready to do it on their own and not be taxi'd. 

[SilentMobius]

Every long-term-game needs a long-term progression goal.

In most games there is a concept of "level" where increasing level increases your attack power and defensive power. (Sometimes there is a long tail of gear-grind after that, but that is just alternate advancement)

Many games use "level" as a way of limiting access to content so player are predisposed to attempting to find something similar in Warframe in order to manually minimise the likelihood of what the believe might be poor teammates.

Make no mistake, the closest comparison to "level" in Warframe is not MR it is the combined ranks in redirection/vitality/serration/hornet-strike. Those are the closest to the long-term-progression-goals of "level" in other games.

MR is simply a "breadth" measurement and a damn good one. It have very little impact of your ability and yet provides enough alternate encouragement to motivate many players to expand their progression-track widthwards instead of in a search for pure DPS/DPS sink.

No number (However calculated) is ever going to be a good indication of "Should I exclude this player" (Which is what the OP wants) and MR is not intended to be that number. MR as it stands provides a very valuable motivation to experience the breadth of the game (Sure people can rank-via-draco rather than actually playing, but that will eventually be nerfed, as will the next loot cave, etc etc)

MR is great, players are using it poorly and no one should ever use MR to exclude anyone else from content. The problem is not with MR it is with A******s and they will keep being A******s regardless of some other number instead of MR. 

Edited March 18, 2016 by SilentMobius

[VRHmason]

15 hours ago, SYL3NZR said:

Mastery, right now, might be "boring" and "skillless" but at least it shows your level of commitment to the game and your mastery rank, it takes very long to acquire all the materials to build the items, it takes very long to build them all and it takes very long to get them to max rank, too. At the moment, higher MR than 12 is completely optional but an ACTIVE decision, I will not gain mastery passively and have to actually go out and work on it instead. It also shows that you've acquired many "unobtainable" (events, prisma, logins, vaulted, etc) items to even get to that high mastery rank.

THIS!

[CrazyCatLad]

As someone who plays 75% solo and doesn't partake in Draco Cheese and doesn't use boosters, no. I've worked hard for my Mastery Rank.

 

I've played OVER three years and have leveled up almost every weapon/frame/sentinel/archwing manually.  That includes leveling up Furis' and Bronco's that bored me to death on Apollodorus runs.  That includes getting the ceramic dagger to 29 as a noob and selling it because I didn't know what MR was. Then releveling it to 30 for that 100 Mastery.  Includes begging DE Support for my Lato Vandal back because I didn't know what MR was back then too and sold it for a slot.  I toiled over the 30 levels of Nova/Prime since I can't stand her but yet I did that all manually and not in one Interception.

 

So no, my Mastery Rank represents three years of playing the game for 1600 hours - playing the game when the Corpus ship was the only tileset and there was nothing else to do except find more mods.  I don't give a damn what Mastery means to you, but to us veterans, it means loyalty to this game despite the ebb and flow of BS from rushed or cheeseball game concepts.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Lanieu

[i.chit.you.not]

if a player is so good, why not rank up and join the rest of the crowd in the high cloud

arguing being a low rank skilled player just doesnt sell, since for many of us encountering a low rank player in random high lvl game (like sorties, nm alerts, tacticals) means constant revives, wandering around the objectives, etc. ..

most recently i played an mr 2 in the thousand cut endurance, who triggers life support as soon as it comes out and burned all our life support, he has mk1-bo, and is constantly dying ... you get the point

[(XBOX)dude1286]

Would love to see a system similar to the BA ranking in Borderlands that would sit next to MR. Makes challenges specific to Warframes, weapons and mission types and have multiple ranks for each challenge.

Hit 50 enemies with one cast of Molecular Prime as Nova, get 10 headshot kills in a row with the Vectis, survive for 30 min in a Mid-tier Survival without using life support for just a few ideas.

I think this idea would be better off showing if a player is knowledgeable of their equipment more than MR or what the OP suggested and wouldn't be extremely difficult to add as most of the statistics are already collected. Could even have unlockable cosmetic stuff behind either the really difficult ones or from a full set. Would be neat if they asked for suggestions from community as well.

[CrazyCatLad]

18 hours ago, (XB1)dude1286 said:

Would love to see a system similar to the BA ranking in Borderlands that would sit next to MR. Makes challenges specific to Warframes, weapons and mission types and have multiple ranks for each challenge.

Hit 50 enemies with one cast of Molecular Prime as Nova, get 10 headshot kills in a row with the Vectis, survive for 30 min in a Mid-tier Survival without using life support for just a few ideas.

I think this idea would be better off showing if a player is knowledgeable of their equipment more than MR or what the OP suggested and wouldn't be extremely difficult to add as most of the statistics are already collected. Could even have unlockable cosmetic stuff behind either the really difficult ones or from a full set. Would be neat if they asked for suggestions from community as well.

I don't think we need (m)any more UI elements. If you're sitting in a PUG/Party while recruiting, you can View someone's profile to see time played and missions/completed.  If someone has a couple hundred missions and are MR 21/22, they might be Draco cheesers or employ the use of boosters every hour of the day.  If they are MR 21 and have thousands and thousands of missions, they might have been around the block a few more times.

 

Once in game, you can get a sense of if a player is good or not - and no, the first one downed doesn't necessarily mean they are a terrible Tenno.

[Littlerift]

I love how y'all are acting like there is actually a meaningful skill ceiling in Warframe when really, lets face it, being better than somebody else is far more reliant on what mods you have that your l33t skills. Sure there's some skill to learning how to best use your powers, and learning the tilesets is a big boon, and knowing enemy priorities helps, but otherwise what is there in Warframe that takes any skill? And even beyond a rather subjective concept of skill, what could you possible measure that would show it? You can't use headshots because getting a headshot is not always the skilful thing to do (for example, if you're using a Tonkor there's no point; if you're using Banshee you might be better off shooting elsewhere; and if you have a weapon with punch-through, again, you might be better off just shooting for CoM). So what else is there? Warframe is such a fluid game that no static measurement is every going to actually quantify skill. In CoD or Starcraft the goal is pretty obvious and the skill is in achieving it, but in Warframe that's not the case. Kills and K:D aren't a measure of skill because it takes a hell of a lot more skill to do a completely non-lethal, no-alerts Sabotage or Spy missions. Mission success rates also don't work because we know that Warframe can be buggy, and servers can fail, and morons can choose to leave before Rot C. 

Long story short: if you're playing a mission and your MR 21 player dies it doesn't mean they suck or that they cheesed there way to rank 21 on Draco, it probably just means their significant other just got home, or their phone rang, or they were just caught in a bad place, or they just woke up that morning with two left-hands. Stop feeling inferior whenever you see somebody who's higher rank than you, hell, stop looking at MR altogether? What do you gain from it, other than a seeming smug satisfaction in imagining that all players with a lower MR than you are Babby's-First-Tenno, and all those above you are Draco-leeches. That attitude is toxic, and it will come back to ruin your experience at some point in the future.

[Zeiss17]

I was terrible as a MR 5-6. Now I'm 16 and one of the best in my clan. And I did use Draco. Actually, playing Draco is smart. Really smart. In a game about grind, you want to be the most efficient possible. And ranking up weapon fast is as efficient as it can get. This includes formaing. For skill I let the others talk for me. That's how it should work

[Alexstraszo]

46 minutes ago, ShaneKahnnigan17 said:

I was terrible as a MR 5-6. Now I'm 16 and one of the best in my clan. And I did use Draco. Actually, playing Draco is smart. Really smart. In a game about grind, you want to be the most efficient possible. And ranking up weapon fast is as efficient as it can get. This includes formaing. For skill I let the others talk for me. That's how it should work

That's not how it should work. Leveling is extremely boring, both in Draco and when played "normally". Sitting on top of a box in Draco spamming a button is not how it should work.

EDIT: I currently have 22 weapons sitting in my foundry which I haven't levelled yet because I'm not really motivated to sit in Draco for a few hours to level weapons I will most likely never use again.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Mislich

[VOZ.LucasRamos]

I noticed that always people in warframe are trying to prove how skilled they are (play a pvp oriented game please). Man sorry to tell you but warframe is easy, just accept it. (Awesome game btw). MR is how much content of the game you "level up" just that and nothing else. MR doesn't show playerskill.

Edited March 17, 2016 by VOZ.LucasRamos
I wrote MMR (matchmaking rating)

[UncaIroh]

22 hours ago, Lanieu said:

As someone who plays 75% solo and doesn't partake in Draco Cheese and doesn't use boosters, no. I've worked hard for my Mastery Rank.

 

I've played OVER three years and have leveled up almost every weapon/frame/sentinel/archwing manually.  That includes leveling up Furis' and Bronco's that bored me to death on Apollodorus runs.  That includes getting the ceramic dagger to 29 as a noob and selling it because I didn't know what MR was. Then releveling it to 30 for that 100 Mastery.  Includes begging DE Support for my Lato Vandal back because I didn't know what MR was back then too and sold it for a slot.  I toiled over the 30 levels of Nova/Prime since I can't stand her but yet I did that all manually and not in one Interception.

 

So no, my Mastery Rank represents three years of playing the game for 1600 hours - playing the game when the Corpus ship was the only tileset and there was nothing else to do except find more mods.  I don't give a damn what Mastery means to you, but to us veterans, it means loyalty to this game despite the ebb and flow of BS from rushed or cheeseball game concepts.

But see, MR 21 and MR 21 with a badge are 2 different things. There's little doubt that the badge indicates some form of long term play and skill.

For the most part, I don't think anyone reaches MR15+ without learning a thing or two. The high MR people who don't revive probably can solo the level even if you rage quit.

[TennoPain]

I liked OLD days when playerbase was skilled and we had awesome (Veterans/community) I hate opinions ike yours i worked my butt of for my MR in old BETA and ppl who think like you did not do anything to build this game (When it was needed) yes I do understand your point BUT no NO TO OP. 

 

We need Old players back and not new kids who dont understand how this game used to be and uber mega epic BUILD from the ground up ... 

If ppl like you leave game I would not cry not even one tear.

[Littlerift]

6 minutes ago, TonyWong said:

But see, MR 21 and MR 21 with a badge are 2 different things. There's little doubt that the badge indicates some form of long term play and skill.

For the most part, I don't think anyone reaches MR15+ without learning a thing or two. The high MR people who don't revive probably can solo the level even if you rage quit.

Having a badge (I assume you mean the Founder's badge? If not ignore all the following) means nothing except that you bought the Founder's pack back in the day. I created my account the day before you and am only MR 11 because I took a lot of time out of the game, it's certain that there are Founders who haven't played the game for the last two years, and it's also certain that there are people who've been playing more than you have, and who started before you (as if that actually matters) who aren't Founders.

And anyone who doesn't make an attempt to revive others (unless such an attempt would directly cost the team the mission) is scum. No ifs, no buts. If anything, being a higher level player and not reviving low level players is even worse.

[CrazyCatLad]

18 minutes ago, TonyWong said:

But see, MR 21 and MR 21 with a badge are 2 different things. There's little doubt that the badge indicates some form of long term play and skill.

For the most part, I don't think anyone reaches MR15+ without learning a thing or two. The high MR people who don't revive probably can solo the level even if you rage quit.

I don't know what you're talking about. As Littlerift said, Founder's badge means very little since you could get in as a Founder for ages.  Chances are, mid to high MR players will be quite adequate for your average mission. No freeing MR from affinity required.

 

Not sure what ragequitting if not revived have to do with things.  If I miss reviving someone it is because they are too far away or I know for a fact that I'll go down too if I try to revive.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Lanieu

[UncaIroh]

Eh... the "you" in rage quit isn't you specifically. Just a general statement about people who got mad at not getting revived. Someone commented it earlier in this thread. Don't mind that.

As for the badge, it hasn't been available since... late 2013? That's at most 2+ years experience. A player doesn't stick with a game for that long and not get good. (Lotus help the player who manages to get to 21 from that time and still suck) UNLESS the account was gifted/sold/given to someone new, but that's probably a negligible portion of high MR players.

Anyway, on the topic of MR/Affinity grinding - It's not bad. Sure, the mastery tests could be tweaked or MR qualification be made more challenging, I would actually welcome that.  However, I also think that earning mastery rank points as it is right now has a place in terms of player advancement.

As for MR being a reliable indicator of skill... nah, I agree with the people who said a low MR is not a reason to exclude someone.

Related to discrimination vs low MR - I'm also annoyed at the players who demand EV, RJ, Frost, whatever on a Draco run. A raid, sure. Draco, are you serious?

[Littlerift]

4 minutes ago, TonyWong said:

Eh... the "you" in rage quit isn't you specifically. Just a general statement about people who got mad at not getting revived. Someone commented it earlier in this thread. Don't mind that.

As for the badge, it hasn't been available since... late 2013? That's at most 2+ years experience. A player doesn't stick with a game for that long and not get good. (Lotus help the player who manages to get to 21 from that time and still suck) UNLESS the account was gifted/sold/given to someone new, but that's probably a negligible portion of high MR players.

Anyway, on the topic of MR/Affinity grinding - It's not bad. Sure, the mastery tests could be tweaked or MR qualification be made more challenging, I would actually welcome that.  However, I also think that earning mastery rank points as it is right now has a place in terms of player advancement.

As for MR being a reliable indicator of skill... nah, I agree with the people who said a low MR is not a reason to exclude someone.

Related to discrimination vs low MR - I'm also annoyed at the players who demand EV, RJ, Frost, whatever on a Draco run. A raid, sure. Draco, are you serious?

As I said, there are lots of people who have been around for longer than you who aren't Founders. Neither the Founder badge, nor MR, are an assurance of skill. However, I would argue that MR is a much better measure of skill than the presence of a Founder's badge, because reaching a high MR actually requires that you play the game, whereas being a Founder simply required disposable income 3 years ago...

[UncaIroh]

I did say MR21 and a badge earlier. Not just having the badge.

As you said, someone might have money back then and never played (or never got good) until now, so I agree with you that MR is a better indicator of skill.

 

[Littlerift]

1 minute ago, TonyWong said:

I did say MR21 and a badge earlier. Not just having the badge.

As you said, someone might have money back then and never played (or never got good) until now, so I agree with you that MR is a better indicator of skill.

 

But if both players are MR21 then the badge is worthless, as it's just as possible that the Founder stopped playing two years ago and restarted at the same time the non-Founder MR21 player did.

 

Judge a player's skill based on their actions, anything else is commentary.