Shared affinity not a fair system

[Guvna-D]

This has bugged me for a long time, and i would really like to see some changes to the system for affinity.In its current form it isnt fair at all in a squad situation.

 

Right now if youre in a mission with 3 other players, you can get 90% of the kills and damage, yet get the least XP.Its just not fair that other members of your squad can have a full spread of unranked equipment, get a handful of kills, yet finish the mission with fully ranked gear.This just promotes leeching off of other players, and gives no incentive to do anything except stay near other players.

I, myself, always make sure i have the means to survive, and kill to a reasonable level.Yet its become common place for players to just follow you around doing nothing but leech XP.Its become worse after u19, with the measures to try and stop things like Draco.But it really has high lighted the issues with shared affinity, which created the Draco situation.In the struggle to gain MR, either players dont stick together, or latch on like a parasite.Currently the best way to rank things up seems to be get 4 friends, and rotate who kills everything, while you do nothing.This isnt fun, it feels dirty and unfair.

Im not looking for another Draco, this isnt a discussion of the best missions for affinity farming.I just wanted to discuss if anyone else in the community feels the system isnt fair, and needs a look in its current state.And to discuss what changes could be made to the system to improve it.

[taiiat]

since you can Equip basically all of your Mods at Unranked now - while i think how many points you get at the start is stupid, it's basically evaporated this problem. you can already put on the Mods necessary to get as many self Kills as possible with your Gun/Warframe, and that is the fastest way to gain XP.

it's quite fair in the current state, as long as you understand how XP works (which is uncommon).
even if you're not getting all of the Kills, you can still get some XP from the Mission, which is critical because otherwise it would be a complete race for Kills to steal the XP from under someone else's nose so you can get it instead. it's already a bit of that but XP sharing isn't awful so even if someone else does Kill it, you still get some.
which is a lot better than a race for HVT Kills.

[Guvna-D]

But the issue is with the system right now is you get the most XP in a mission by not killing anything and letting somebody else do it.Of course making it into a race for kills would be worse.But doing nothing to get the most XP than any other in a mission is just as bad.

[motorfirebox]

I feel the exact opposite. I play Trinity a lot, which means if I'm doing my job—keeping the rest of the team alive—then I tend to not get many kills. The shared affinity system makes support frames viable.

[Daconius]

Shared affinity means that everyone CAN get the same XP and newer players aren't being held back by stronger, more experienced players on Ember Prime or tossing Bladestorm around.   It's a good system.   It also means you can play a support frame without being screwed out of XP in the process.

You're inventing new forms of bitter competition in a co-op game..   However much caffeine you're taking in each day... cut it in half.

[Guvna-D]

Personal insults, really?

Why not make a point, or suggest something?

Like support powers gaining XP would be a great addition to the system.

edit:Heres a quote from one of your previous posts  Daconius, your abusing the very issue i highlighted lol

"I see Also worth noting that having someone who does a lot of short-range AOE damage is great if you're ranking up garbage weapons like Kraken, since allowing it to earn ambient xp from other group members is less torturous than actually using it to kill things.    I'm always thrilled to see simulors or bladstorm spamming when I'm in that situation

"

Edited August 18, 2016 by Guvna-D

[KoshLovesYou]

Sounds like the issue is less about affinity, and more about a concern about being leeched off of on groups you're in.

It can be pretty annoying when you're trying to pub an objective, and someone who you just can't get rid of/avoid keeps showing up in a squad. This is really an annoyance at higher level Sortie, where you literally have people joining and hiding in a safe spot and going AFK. And then just rejoining if you fail/break the squad to try to avoid them. While less rare or vicious at lower levels, I kinda get what you mean. Sadly, DE doesn't seem comfortable with any current suggestions on how to handle kicking folks from a squad. Last I heard, they were more concerned about player abuse.

Sounds like in your case, you're not so much suffering from silent/non-responsive/afk players leeching, but possibly just new players or even confused players. Try chatting at them (when not being relentlessly attacked) to see what's up.

Edited August 18, 2016 by KoshLovesYou
Clarity.

[Xebov]

11 minutes ago, Guvna-D said:

But the issue is with the system right now is you get the most XP in a mission by not killing anything and letting somebody else do it.

Which is wrong. If we take out Affinity boosters everyone will get the exact same XP, no matter who makes the kill. The difference is the way the XP is distributed. If you make a kill with a Warframe power the Warframe recieves 100% of the XP. If you make a kill with a weapon both Warframe and Weapon will recieve 50% each. If someone else makes a kill you will get 25% for your Warframe and 75% distributed evenly between your weapons. Thats why taiiat said it is uncommon knowledge.

[Guvna-D]

1 minute ago, Xebov said:

Which is wrong. If we take out Affinity boosters everyone will get the exact same XP, no matter who makes the kill. The difference is the way the XP is distributed. If you make a kill with a Warframe power the Warframe recieves 100% of the XP. If you make a kill with a weapon both Warframe and Weapon will recieve 50% each. If someone else makes a kill you will get 25% for your Warframe and 75% distributed evenly between your weapons. Thats why taiiat said it is uncommon knowledge.

I know how affinity works.But to actually gain XP to a warframe or weapon yourself, it must need to be ranked up, and be used to kill.

In a squad of 4 people, and you are carrying one weapon to rank up.If nobody in your squad kills anything that weapon will not rank up.Mean while you kill 100% of everything, and the 3 other people carrying 3 unranked weapons can finish the round with all weapons maxed.You see how this promotes leeching?

[Xebov]

7 minutes ago, Guvna-D said:

You see how this promotes leeching?

Only a minority of players do it by purpose and i guess that the majority doesnt know how xp realy works. You might have bad luck in some rounds, but overall it should even out. Sometimes you leech, sometimes others leech and i see little harm in that.

[Ceryk]

13 minutes ago, Xebov said:

Only a minority of players do it by purpose and i guess that the majority doesnt know how xp realy works. You might have bad luck in some rounds, but overall it should even out. Sometimes you leech, sometimes others leech and i see little harm in that.

Yeah, I see very few people that legitimately leech. And the system is designed that you can generally punish leechers because you can move out of range of them and they'll receive no exp at all.

And as someone else said, it helps support frames, who often don't get as many kills because they're frequently using powers instead of shooting. Though, I'll admit that's becoming less and less of an issue these days because they're making most Support and CC frames less tedious to play. I don't remember the game, but I played something where the Support and Healing classes were the absolute WORST classes to level up because there was virtually no shared EXP and the most exp came from kills rather than using powers, so you had to spend time trying to get kills rather than doing your job. They finally started to do something about it but I was kind of over the game at that point to see how it improved.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Ceryk

[Azrael]

15 minutes ago, Xebov said:

Only a minority of players do it by purpose and i guess that the majority doesnt know how xp realy works. You might have bad luck in some rounds, but overall it should even out. Sometimes you leech, sometimes others leech and i see little harm in that.

Exactly. I agree completely.

 

45 minutes ago, Guvna-D said:

But the issue is with the system right now is you get the most XP in a mission by not killing anything

No you don't, you get the same xp. Nobody gets a bonus for not killing anything. It's just the xp goes to all their equipment and not just one weapon.

 

23 minutes ago, Guvna-D said:

But to actually gain XP to a warframe or weapon yourself, it must need to be ranked up, and be used to kill.

You can equip a sufficient build on an unranked weapon so long as your MR is high enough.

 

39 minutes ago, Guvna-D said:

Personal insults, really?

lol, wut? Where?

 

OP, does it really upset you when other people get xp? Is your goal to get xp, or to have more than other people? Because when other people get xp it doesn't effect you at all.

[ThePredicament]

Actually, everyone in range gets the same amount of XP, but unlike those that didn't kill, the player that kills has the choice on where to allot their XP (50% weapons or 100% warframe).

The only time getting affinity works better for those in range of the killer is when they have only one weapon equipped, so they get 75% for that weapon but that's really situational and pretty much not a big deal.

[Insizer]

45 minutes ago, motorfirebox said:

I play Trinity a lot, which means if I'm doing my job—keeping the rest of the team alive—then I tend to not get many kills. The shared affinity system makes support frames viable.

^

42 minutes ago, Daconius said:

Shared affinity means that everyone CAN get the same XP and newer players aren't being held back by stronger, more experienced players on Ember Prime or tossing Bladestorm around.   It's a good system.   It also means you can play a support frame without being screwed out of XP in the process.

53 minutes ago, taiiat said:

even if you're not getting all of the Kills, you can still get some XP from the Mission, which is critical because otherwise it would be a complete race for Kills to steal the XP from under someone else's nose so you can get it instead.

Exactly, you'd only see Ashs and Embers running around taking all of the XP.

Shared XP is a good system because it prevents very large problems (lack of a reason to play support, over-aggresive XP stealing). It works and it works well. I've only ran into 4-5 ish honest-to-god leeches in the 2.5 or so years I've played this game. Most people who end up "leeching" just can't keep up with the blitzkrieg of fully-powered players.

 

[-CM-DarkSyndrome]

1 hour ago, Guvna-D said:

This has bugged me for a long time, and i would really like to see some changes to the system for affinity.In its current form it isnt fair at all in a squad situation.

 

Right now if youre in a mission with 3 other players, you can get 90% of the kills and damage, yet get the least XP.Its just not fair that other members of your squad can have a full spread of unranked equipment, get a handful of kills, yet finish the mission with fully ranked gear.This just promotes leeching off of other players, and gives no incentive to do anything except stay near other players.

I, myself, always make sure i have the means to survive, and kill to a reasonable level.Yet its become common place for players to just follow you around doing nothing but leech XP.Its become worse after u19, with the measures to try and stop things like Draco.But it really has high lighted the issues with shared affinity, which created the Draco situation.In the struggle to gain MR, either players dont stick together, or latch on like a parasite.Currently the best way to rank things up seems to be get 4 friends, and rotate who kills everything, while you do nothing.This isnt fun, it feels dirty and unfair.

Im not looking for another Draco, this isnt a discussion of the best missions for affinity farming.I just wanted to discuss if anyone else in the community feels the system isnt fair, and needs a look in its current state.And to discuss what changes could be made to the system to improve it.

Well one reason this happens is when you are doing 90% of the kills, if you are doing it with one weapon then most of the xp is going into that one weapon that you are using to kill with while the other three people are getting all that affinty you are getting spread into all of their weapons. This is why you get get more affinity overall on all your items say if you play a trinity while others kill vs playing ash or ember, getting all the kills and barely getting any affinity on your other weapons/companion. That's why it's called Sharing Affinity.

Edited August 18, 2016 by -CM-DarkSyndrome

[bluepheonix13]

1 minute ago, Insizer said:

Most people who end up "leeching" just can't keep up with the blitzkrieg of fully-powered players.

 

That. 

 

Also, my solution to your problem, OP: slap some mods on the weapon you want to rank, a focus lens on your warframe and actually use the weapon. You may even find some hidden gems, that you never would have appreciated otherwise. If the damage isn't enough, there are frames like Chroma, Mirage, Banshee and others, that can buff your weapon damage by a lot.

[beckettb]

As it says in one of the rotating tips that you see when loading into missions, frame kills go to frame xp. That is why the dps in Draco, or whatever new places people are farming xp, was never there for the xp. The only real reason i ever went to Draco was to get focus.

[Guvna-D]

7 minutes ago, bluepheonix13 said:

That. 

 

Also, my solution to your problem, OP: slap some mods on the weapon you want to rank, a focus lens on your warframe and actually use the weapon. You may even find some hidden gems, that you never would have appreciated otherwise. If the damage isn't enough, there are frames like Chroma, Mirage, Banshee and others, that can buff your weapon damage by a lot.

But the point is why do that when you can just stand near somebody that does, not have to use an unranked weapon or warframe.Just be in range.

I play endless all the time to rank up weapons, and the current shared affintiy system, benefits me more to just do nothing.I see this a hell of a lot, maybe some people haven't realised yet but its really starting to be an issue.Doing nothing in a squad ranks up weapons and warframes faster than you can solo.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Guvna-D

[taiiat]

34 minutes ago, Guvna-D said:

You see how this promotes leeching?

how does it incentivize you to be AFK? it means that you get XP for the thing in your pocket while you are still playing the game. which is arguably probably too convenient but it doesn't incentivize that Player to not participate.

[Insizer]

1 minute ago, Guvna-D said:

But the point is why do that when you can just stand near somebody that does, not have to use an unranked weapon or warframe.Just be in range.

I play endless all the time to rank up weapons, and the current shared affintiy system, benefits me more to just do nothing.I see this a hell of a lot, maybe some people have realised yet but its really starting to be an issue.Doing nothing in a squad ranks up weapons and warframes faster than you can your solo.

But it doesn't benefit you to not do anything. Leaving teamplay aside, by making kills you split the XP between your frame and weapon 50-50. By doing nothing, you evenly distribute the XP between all of your weapons and your frame and companion (i think) whether they are maxed or not. 

[bluepheonix13]

2 minutes ago, Guvna-D said:

But the point is why do that when you can just stand near somebody that does, not have to use an unranked weapon or warframe.Just be in range.

I play endless all the time to rank up weapons, and the current shared affintiy system, benefits me more to just do nothing.I see this a hell of a lot, maybe some people have realised yet but its really starting to be an issue.Doing nothing in a squad ranks up weapons and warframes faster than you can your solo.

1. Because if everybody were to do it, no public squad would actually complete a mission

2. If you use the unranked weapon AND stand near your teammates, you don't lose anything and your teammates gain more affinity than you being AFK

[bluepheonix13]

1 minute ago, Insizer said:

By doing nothing, you evenly distribute the XP between all of your weapons and your frame and companion (i think) whether they are maxed or not. 

Companions get their own share of affinity, they don't take yours.

[Insizer]

6 minutes ago, bluepheonix13 said:

Companions get their own share of affinity, they don't take yours.

thanks, I honestly forget details like that sometimes. Hell, for someone who mains Volt, I often forget how his E.shield affects gun ranges because they've changed it so much.

[Guvna-D]

I think you guys should try it to see.Get 3 friends in a survival, use an Ash bladestorm or something to kill everything, while your friends do nothing.Make sure everyone is carrying unranked weapons.At the end of the round compare how your weapons ranked up.Your friends will be sitting pretty while you get zip.

Well if you think theres no issue with that, i guess if you cant beat them join them.

[mikami666134]

I can't think of a better affinity sharing system from what we currently have now, heck i even wanted it to be shared across the whole map but that's just me. If you encountered leeches, for me the best solution is just to let them die.