Don't sugarcoat the relic system.

[TheLexiConArtist]

8 minutes ago, Azrael said:

Hold on now, I thought you meant you personally used 11 radiants and didn't get a rare drop. 11 runs with 4 radiant relics each run without a rare is 44 radiant relics, which is not at all what I thought you meant. Your math is correct, and that's... really unlucky. Wow. My sympathies.

I wasn't the guy you were talking to, just clarifying some numbers.

But if you want to know where my luck lies? I've had a run of 20 radiant squads before a rare dropped.

That's a 0.0218% chance of no drop.

I miss the void.

[doomagent13]

To put it bluntly, the problem with the relic system isn't the relics.  Having the correct relic is more useful than having the correct key was.  The problem is getting the correct relic.  If I recall correctly, the old system ended up with 25 keys, evenly distributed. (1 per Tower per mission type, except interception was only T4.  There were 27 keys if you include ODS and ODD, but those are manufactured.)  Furthermore, every now and then which key was the correct one could change.  The relic system has no limit on the number of kinds of relics, or any reason for even distribution.  Relics also do not change, meaning that every group of new primes comes in a set of completely new relics.  Few, if any, primes have had more than one part in a single key/relic, with the possible exception of the different rotations in the endless keys.  This means that for every new prime you need to get at least 3 or 4 new relics to even have a chance of getting that prime.  Even if they were all common, you would almost certainly not get the correct part on the first run of each kind of relic.  If I have the math and numbers right, a 4-man squad, all with the same unrefined relic, has less than a 70% chance of receiving a specific COMMON item.  It would take 4 runs with such a squad to reach 99% chance for a specific COMMON drop.  That means 4 identical relics per person.  I can't check right now, and the wiki hasn't been updated, but someone said there was something like 11 currently available Axi relics.  I don't even want to TRY doing the math for how many drops you would need to get in order to reach 50% chance of getting 4 of a specific Axi relic, let alone for 90% or 99%.

If someone wants to try doing that math, and then try to explain how this system is better than the old one, PLEASE do so...

[(PSN)lhbuch]

14 hours ago, Azrael said:

Are you looking for a rare part or an uncommon one? A radiant relic has a 10% chance to drop the rare part. So the chance of not getting a rare part in 11 radiant relics is 0.9^11, or 0.9*0.9*0.9...= .313 or about 31.3% chance.

But it is a 4 party group all with radiants.

[Revox79]

Whilst I will say the new ' choose your own loot' is fantastic, the new relics are a real setback towards reducing the grind of this game. with the kay system you had a limite set of keys that would just have things added to them in the drop table, and getting them seemed (for me at least) to just happen naturally .With the new relics however you have to grind in order to be able to grind , not even only that the grind has been increased to what it was ,rather than just accumulate them over time it really feels like you are doing some missions specifically for just one relic. and because of the amount of relics your not even doing it for the relic but for the chance of acquiring that relic. to make the grind even worse it seems that more and more relics are going to be added, only making the grinding proses longer

[Borg1611]

19 hours ago, Golmihr said:

 There's a pretty big step from sharing anecdotes to then making up numbers.

The number is irrelevant. You quoted my opening sentence and ignored the entire rest of my post that would have easily shown you what the actual point was. People who try to defend the relic system as being fine take their own personal luck and ignore how easily you can get screwed by multiple layers of RNG. This is especially a problem when temporary access is piled on top of RNG. 

So you already have Frost and Ember. What's your point? Do you think you've proven that the system isn't awful and that people can't easily be screwed by RNG in the one month they have to farm them? I'm almost done farming them myself (I only need one more BP), but I also know I got lucky and also spent more hours farming for them than some other players may have. You can actually be aware of the flaws of a system even if you're succeeding with it yourself. You don't have to say, oh hey, I got lucky with relic drops/rare primes/riven rolls/etc! and then ignore all the possibilities and pretend everyone must be encountering the same exact experience with RNG that you had. Be aware of the flaws and let DE know you also would like to see improvements rather than dismissing everyone else because you got lucky so it must be fine. 

As I've mentioned somewhere, I know that you can join a public group without ever even farming relics and get lucky and get things you need. I finished Vauban prime mostly just doing random fissures with trash relics and happening to get his drops off random people's relics. I actually like that aspect of the system myself. There is not a guarantee you're going to run into random people with these new relics in the short time you have to farm them (and even less of a chance as time goes on after they're vaulted again). Sure, I got one of my common's from a random person's relic and other people benefited from the relics I brought into public games, but I also did dozens of fissures since they were un-vaulted where 90+% of the games had zero new relics being brought in. Most of the games that did have new relics being brought in had them because my friend and I were the ones bringing them in with only a few games where a random person brought one in. When I spammed a dozen solo captures yesterday I saw one person bring a new relic in and they left immediately at the start (possibly because they were the only person with one). 

If you don't farm relics yourself you may miss your window of opportunity. With Nekros/Vauban/Valkyr many people have already farmed them and already started using their relics as trash relics they don't care about in addition to occasionally running into someone using radiants in a public game to get something they need. They will constantly be getting new relics for these frames from relic packs or relic farming. You have many months or likely over a year to acquire them. This is not the case for un-vaulted primes. People are also more likely to hoard relics that are quickly going to be re-vaulted as there are people who make a lot of plat inflating trade prices. They don't want to help random people find them via gameplay, they want to exploit you and get you to buy it with plat because you failed to get it yourself. You can see threads already about people buying up cheaper Ember BPs so they can re-sell them later once availability drops again. 

The relic system has unnecessary levels of RNG and you can't use the be patient argument (that some other people have been using in various threads on relics) when they also have the horribly flawed vault system piled on top of it. It's also silly to pretend that there aren't casual players with less playtime available that easily will get screwed by RNG with the limited time they have to play in the limited window the frames are un-vaulted. Some of them may fail to even get the relics to run the fissures to begin with if they only have a couple hours a day to play. 

Anyone who has spent any time farming Axi E1 relics has to on some level see how easily the relic system is just as if not more time consuming than the old void system, even if you got lucky yourself. Rotation C or some limited rotation B chances. You can get to a rotation C and get 80 endo or some crap mod you probably already have instead of a relic even in the more efficient missions for Axi farming. It takes a long time to even get one specific axi relic if you're not especially lucky. There needs to be a way to mitigate relic drop RNG if they really want many people to buy that the system was an improvement in terms of reduced grind. Being able to go to different places and mission types is all fine and dandy, but who cares if it takes me just as long or longer to farm what I'm actually after? I'll be sick of it either way. 

TLDR: even if you get lucky with the relic system you should be able to recognize the flaws and support improvements to the system rather than dismissing it because "it worked for me so it must work for everyone." 

[Azrael]

25 minutes ago, Borg1611 said:

rather than dismissing it because "it worked for me so it must work for everyone." 

The problem is that this works the other way. Some people are saying "it didn't work for me, so it must not work for most people." You're claim about "50 people that it didn't work for" is problematic because it could very well be that "for every person who struggles with this system, there are 50 who get their stuff just fine."

And the fact is that when people say "I ran 44 radiant relics without any rare part" it's an example of exactly that. The chances of that happening are ridiculously low, so if it does happen then by definition it's the exception to the rule. On average it takes 10 radiant relics to get the rare, and we know this is true because that's how probabilities work. The fact that it fails for some people is not proof that the system is a failure.

I'll agree it DOES need some work, but it's not as broken as you're making it sound.

[epthnation]

Trying to be even-handed, there are lots of good points here on both sides. I've tried to catalog the advantages and disadvantages of the relic system vs. the "Old Void" to keep my brain from hurting:

                    Advantages

• Can do the type of mission you want -- this is huge, and is a benefit for everyone, including solo players who no longer have to do 20 waves of T3 or T4 defense for a 5% shot at one particular part. Huge.
• Can jump into a mission without having to set up a squad, saving countless hours of chat nonsense if you aren't into micromanaging your Warframe experience
• Much higher chance of getting the part you want if you DO like trace farming and mission micromanaging (i.e., dedicated group with 4 Radiant relics)
• Endless missions reward you with small affinity/loot boosters for staying in the AABC death cycle (remind me why it's not ABC again? I forgot)
• Non-key-based missions/rewards can theoretically last through the host's internet going out during wave 59 of AABC death cycle
• Only costs 20,000 standing to get three random relics, rather than the 25,000 standing required for 3 random void keys (although it might just be my imagination but were syndicate mission standing levels nerfed? They seem less profitable)
• More evenly managed distribution of rarity per relic (due to all relics having the same common-uncommon-rare drop chance percentage vs. "lets put 25 rare things in T3D rotation C")
• Ducat prices now at least make sense

                   

                   

                       Disadvantages

• Not key-based, so everyone needs their own relic to take full advantage of the system - primarily a disadvantage for non-soloists
• Also openly punishing RNG-wise to solo/non-mission-micromanaging players, with drop chances that are actually worse than the old void in most cases, even with fully upgraded relics.
• Farming for new relics is much, much worse than farming for void keys, since you theoretically already had some of void keys you needed when the drop tables got changed
• Since more relic farming is needed, more game time must be spent doing things like syndicate missions and/or star chart AABC death cycle missions that often (but not always) reward relics that are probably not the one you needed anyway - this becomes a bigger problem as you progress through the game and have already built more stuff
• Added the extra mechanic of void trace farming to the already dubious "consolation prize" mechanic of ducat farming/prime part trading
• Can no longer get a stupid amount of ducats for built Nyx prime chassis or other easy-to-acquire prime stuff.

 

IMO, they haven't necessarily lessened the grind, but they have made it more tolerable. Unless you primarily play solo, in which case it's a disadvantage for you just like most other things in this game.

 

[Shockwave-]

On 12/9/2016 at 0:04 PM, pauli133 said:

Don't sugarcoat the void key system. It was still a roll of the dice as to whether or not you got the key you wanted from a given rotation on a given mission - 'keys on demand' is straight up fantasy.

 All the missions for prime parts were run on the same soulcrushing tileset. Waiting 20 minutes, only for the game to crap on you... yet again.

The old void key system was killing. the. game. Week after week, I watched friends just... not show up, because the prime part treadmill was poisoning the entire game for them. Since SotR, I've seen them come back, and enjoy the variety of missions being run.

Was it an unpleasant change for people used to sitting back and doing nothing but slowly metering out the enormous stockpile of ancient void keys they had? Sure. People willing to run hours and hours of T3 Survival for that one part they were after, though, aren't the target market. Balance has returned, and everyone is now motivated to get out there and play across the star chart.

The real kicker: with the new system I get more parts, faster, for less work and less stress.

i never didn't have the key i wanted to run, ever, just by pretty much playing the game. In Heircon there less keys than relics so you got more of the keys you wanted, you also got the same keys from everywhere else, it wasn't hard to get keys, you always had t1/t2 keys on demand (hundreds of them) Some missions dropped only 2-3 keys making them easy to farm, and other missions dropped the other keys. Relics all seem to be in the same drop table. It was very easy to get the key you wanted.

The void tileset isn't soul crushing. It's preferable actually, to pretty much every other tileset in the game. The old void key system was VASTLY superior to the relic system. You could run any mission you wanted, whenever you wanted. You could run endless missions for more primes on a single key whenever you wanted, not just when DE decides to make the mission available. You didn't HAVE to run any mission over and over again, when you got tired of running that mission you could run a different one, and you could run ANY one you and your group wanted to run. and still get primes/ducats/trade fodder.

This is not the case with relics as demonstrated by the fissures the other day Lith- Spy, Meso - Spy, Neo - Spy, Axi - MD. For 40 straight minutes, that was the only option.  Now my group WANTED to run say endless survival because we were all playing but NOOOoooo. THAT is soul crushing, THAT is killing the game far more than void keys ever did.

Want to play with friends? Opps you play more than your friends and have more relics? uh oh, they don't have the relic you want to run, can't do it, have to wait until the do. Everyone has to farm up the same number of relics to run relic shares. Can't share your keys. Want to run that relic share solo? Hope you are looking for a prime released int he last month, otherwise good luck finding 4-man relic shares for say Vauban prime now. an hour of recruiting chat later maybe otherwise it's all single missions for you.

H T3 Sur then launching a minute later was much more fun than recruiting chat hell the game is now. Finding someone who wants your specific part is terrible, and if you do it all alone it's actually a worse RNG than old void.

We've also lost all sense of challenge, all sense of the awesome feeling of getting the part you've been looking for, now it's all just disappointment (when you don't) and business as usual (when you do) because it's so easy now to farm the primes. NO reason to go endless (endless fissures still don't see many going past 20 minutes or 20 waves),

For anyone who wasn't into instant gratification and gimmie gimmie now now... the void key system was much more fun.

 

[Phatose]

You should probably add "Every player requires a relic for a rewards, thus preventing leeching behavior from being rewarding" to your list of pros.

[epthnation]

1 hour ago, Phatose said:

You should probably add "Every player requires a relic for a rewards, thus preventing leeching behavior from being rewarding" to your list of pros.

Good point, specifically in key shares (where a person in a keyshare disconnects before having to use their key).

[doomagent13]

1 hour ago, Phatose said:

You should probably add "Every player requires a relic for a rewards, thus preventing leeching behavior from being rewarding" to your list of pros.

That's also a con: You need a matching relic for the fissure missions to be worth doing at all. (You need several for the endless missions.)  With the obvious exception of the relic contents, and to some extent void traces, everything can be gotten elsewhere without the annoying fissure-spawning.  It was usually pretty easy to quickly assemble a squad for key runs; casual relic runs are completely reliant on the matchmaker to get a squad at all.

[Azrael]

15 minutes ago, doomagent13 said:

That's also a con: You need a matching relic for the fissure missions to be worth doing at all. (You need several for the endless missions.)  With the obvious exception of the relic contents, and to some extent void traces, everything can be gotten elsewhere without the annoying fissure-spawning.  It was usually pretty easy to quickly assemble a squad for key runs; casual relic runs are completely reliant on the matchmaker to get a squad at all.

We almost never run more than one radiant at a time. We always switch off. More ducats, forma, and traces for the same number of that rare relic. Also you can do public missions and get parts from relics you aren't even running, which was impossible in the old void.

[Golmihr]

2 hours ago, Borg1611 said:

You quoted my opening sentence and ignored the entire rest

Did I?

2 hours ago, Borg1611 said:

So you already have Frost and Ember. What's your point?

So I hope you can draw the logical conclusion then that there's also no point in bringing up if an individual does not have them then. It does serve a purpose though to counter an anecdote with an anecdote as it illustrates a bigger perspective. Let me explain: If you want to bring up a point about the RNG then saying that you personally have not been blessed by it is a pretty poor argument which means you deserve to get a counter argument that others have been, to point out that the randomness is working as intended.

 

Now, the bigger picture about RNG and loot farming is another matter... This is a free to play game so they need to have a farming element, something that motivates people who can afford it to spend money on the game. They need to pay their employees and all that after all since it's a business and not a charity. Sometimes I doubt everyone realize this though with how we sometimes hear self-proclaimed fans bragging about how they don't spend money on the game. Just be glad that we normally don't hear a complaint p2w in relation to Warframe as many f2p games do go down that route.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Golmihr

[Azrael]

13 minutes ago, Golmihr said:

So I hope you can draw the logical conclusion then that there's also no point in bringing up if an individual does not have them then. It does serve a purpose though to counter an anecdote with an anecdote as it illustrates a bigger perspective. Let me explain: If you want to bring up a point about the RNG then saying that you personally have not been blessed by it is a pretty poor argument which means you deserve to get a counter argument that others have been, to point out that the randomness is working as intended.

Exactly. I'm so tired of hearing that people's individual bad luck is proof that things are broken, while individual good luck is irrelevant anecdotal evidence. We can either swap anecdotes, or we can talk real statistics that haven't been made up on the spot. This hybrid approach where bad anecdotes are treated as statistics is totally invalid.

[Borg1611]

3 hours ago, Azrael said:

The problem is that this works the other way. Some people are saying "it didn't work for me, so it must not work for most people." You're claim about "50 people that it didn't work for" is problematic because it could very well be that "for every person who struggles with this system, there are 50 who get their stuff just fine."

And the fact is that when people say "I ran 44 radiant relics without any rare part" it's an example of exactly that. The chances of that happening are ridiculously low, so if it does happen then by definition it's the exception to the rule. On average it takes 10 radiant relics to get the rare, and we know this is true because that's how probabilities work. The fact that it fails for some people is not proof that the system is a failure.

I'll agree it DOES need some work, but it's not as broken as you're making it sound.

Most people's complaints are related to relic acquisition rather than the number of radiants they had to run to get the part. It doesn't matter if it only takes 10 radiants on average when you can easily run multiple hours of missions without getting the relic you need. Most people are running into problems getting the relic they want and you can look at the math and see why. 

I don't need anecdotal evidence to show that the system is not going to work well for a lot of people. 

To get an Axi E1 you have to run to rotation C on most maps it drops on or you can do a defense and get a small chance on both B and C. If we look at the defense you have a ~5% chance to get the axi relic you want on B and a ~7% chance to get it on C. If it takes you around 20 minutes to complete 20 waves that means it would take almost 3 hours on average per ONE RELIC (I think, it's been a long time since I took a stats class or did any math involving probability). 

If you instead look at hieracon, that's a 7% chance every C rotation to get the relic you want. That's around 14 attempts on average per one relic. If it takes you say 7 minutes on average to complete that's 1.6 hours per relic or if it took you 10 minutes 2.3 hours. 

For a solo player to get just Ember prime's blueprint it would take on average 10 radiants * 2-3 hours of farming per relic + whatever time it takes them to gather the traces to upgrade the relics. That's 20-30+ hours of farming on average for just one of the 8 pieces you have one month to complete the farming for (edit: that was assuming you only wanted the frames of course, if you want all the weapons as well it's a lot more farming to do). Of course the example is of the part that would take the longest on average to acquire. 

Obviously if you're doing this with one or more friends or doing radiant share groups for the rare parts that can cut down the time significantly. For me I was farming relics with one other friend and we took turns using our relics in public games so we wouldn't get multiple parts we needed at the same time in the same game for relics we needed multiple parts from. That combined with happening to get into a couple public games where other people brought in a relic allowed us to get most of the parts in a few days or so (though that's several hours each day).

I really think my scenario of more people having issues with it is more likely than the reverse when you consider the average player is likely not spending as many hours a day farming as the player with more free time to do so. I also would expect more players to not be participating in organized 4 player radiant shares than those who are, but only DE would be able to confirm/deny that assuming they keep track of things like that. I could be wrong and the average warframe player puts in a lot more time and/or tends to run in organized groups. My experience in other games tells me there are more casual gamers with lower played time than those with a lot of it. Even in a game like WoW where they have much better social features and things like the pre-made group finder, there are still a very large number of players with limited participation in organized group activities. I'd be pretty surprised if a game with fewer social features and no way to organize groups in-game outside of clans or spamming chat had a high % of its playerbase participating in organized group activities. 

And once again, the main issue here is relics + the prime vault's existence. The two flawed things combined are what makes this especially annoying for people. If we didn't have a limited window in which to farm for these items we wouldn't have to really worry about it as we'd be able to get it eventually when we had the time. We could also just casually ignore it and eventually stumble into it via occasional public games happening to have people using the relics for them. That's not the case when given a limited window. 

They're essentially putting in a large number of hours of average farm time and saying hey, you have to do this in this one month window or you're SoL. That's a pretty terrible design choice in a game that doesn't have much of anything to do besides "gather all the things." Let people gather the things when they feel like doing so instead of constantly trying to rope people into these limited time events/un-vaultings. 

edit: I know this is already really long and most people won't read it anyway, but I also wanted to add that when you have these limited time events/vaultings you force people to give up doing whatever they may have been going to do that they find fun in your game in order to do the chore they have to do now if they want to get what they have limited time to gather. Instead of doing fun thing X, I may now be farming Axi relics for a dozen hours or more because I have to finish it NOW if I want to get shiny temporary access object Y. Temporary access does nothing but kill fun and annoy people. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Borg1611

[(PSN)AllOrNothinDays]

Pretty much. My biggest problem is void traces, it turns into a double grind when you run out if you're very unlucky and that burns me out quicker. Before I could go through keys back to back with a chance at a reward but it's different to take a break from that grind to go on grinding for traces instead of a reward. I couldn't bring myself to grind parts from the prime vault because I was just sick of it and would have to grind for all the traces I used up and just wasn't interested anymore.

[Azrael]

2 hours ago, Borg1611 said:

Obviously if you're doing this with one or more friends or doing radiant share groups for the rare parts that can cut down the time significantly. For me I was farming relics with one other friend and we took turns using our relics in public games so we wouldn't get multiple parts we needed at the same time in the same game for relics we needed multiple parts from. That combined with happening to get into a couple public games where other people brought in a relic allowed us to get most of the parts in a few days or so (though that's several hours each day).

Your math is mostly correct, I didn't check every assertion, but the ones I did check looked okay. For example, on that defense it should take on average 2.86 hours, so your claim of almost 3 hours is fine. But this paragraph right here is why many of us haven't had this experience. We run together, and when we get that rare relic we get multiple of them. Plus we get parts from public players, or we may get an extra rare part for valkyr and sell it, then use the plat to buy a cernos part. There are lots of ways that we can reduce the grind significantly from the "always solo, no public relics" model.

However, I'll agree that the relic grind is getting a little out of hand. Part of the problem is that there are more relics out than normal due to the unvaulting. A big part of the problem is the time limit on unvaulted relics. Yet another problem is all the garbage in rotations that drops instead of relics. I've never claimed that the system is perfect or that I don't want changes made. I just don't want invalid arguments to be used (such as the "it took me this many radiants to get something" argument) and I don't want people to act like the old void was so much easier. It has never been easy to get individual parts.

I think perhaps reducing the number of relics overall would be a possible idea. For example, we could give each relic 2 drop tables, and allow us to pick one when we refine it.That could cut the number of relics in half, which would allow us to increase the drop chances.

[Myrphak]

59 minutes ago, Azrael said:

I think perhaps reducing the number of relics overall would be a possible idea. For example, we could give each relic 2 drop tables, and allow us to pick one when we refine it.That could cut the number of relics in half, which would allow us to increase the drop chances.

This !

When I read all the pros and cons answers here, it appears to me that the main problem with the new system is not the final RNG of a radiant relic but the way and the time to acquire it. Not speaking with the fact that if you want to play with your friends, all of them must have the same relic at the same improvement (ie: radiant) if you want to putt all the chances on your side to get the rare drop.

So after all of theses feedbacks, let's start with some suggestions to the Devs :
- reducing the number of relic is a good one
- take off all the trash rewards (I'm thinking about standards mods like "Vitality" and others) from the spy/defence/interception/etc. missions : it is still a pain in the &#! to farm relics, please ensure us that all our effort and time invested are 100% rewarded
- syndicat relic pack : as now we uses 4 times more relics, we should have at least 12 relics and not only 3.
- syndicat relic pack 2.0 : allow "type" relic pack. Only meso, neo, lith or Axi in a single pack with, let's say, only 4 relics in it ?
- Allow each current relics of the prime access to be accessible in specific mission like spy, sabotage, deception, nigthmare (why not ?), archwing, etc but let endless mission for random relic, including those of the prime vault
- let us farm the void trace in the void, with the possibilities to get extra relics (but how ?)
- think about a way to get extra relic : in parcours instead of standards mods ? In containers ? In a new way like they did for the endo through the ayatan sculptures ?

We have all complained about the old void, now we have this one, so think about improving it. If all the community agree on precise modifications (less time consuming relic farm, less void trace RNG, less random relic reward and so on), we could have something far better than the old system.
 

Edited December 13, 2016 by Myrphak

[Loswaith]

While some of the ideas are fine a few alterations I would go with myself.

Drop Relics
 A single reward node should have relics be the only 'common' rewards and then you should see only 2-3 types of relics for any individual reward per node.  This not only makes it more likely to get a relic you want it also gets players to play on nodes all over the system.  Sure we can have mods but make them appropriate to the mission tier and only uncommon or rare drop chances.  Given its all endo to rank mods now duplicate common mods (like vitality) at the high end are just terrible rewards.

Relics also need to be uniform in locations, as in none of the lith relics from 30+ starting level missions (like we get in many spy missions) regardless of the mission type.  Low tier missions should give only low tier relics, likewise high tier missions should only give high tier relics.

Syndicate Relics
 While we dont need huge packs of relics, having the current relic packs give one of every tier would be much better as there is no point in having each pack give only one neo or axi relic most of the time and multiple Lith and Meso relics.  Each relic is just as useful as any other for prime parts that they could drop, making the tier breakdowns pointless compared to the way they were for the void keys (which is why we have seen a gravitation to more neo and axi relics than Lith or Meso ones that are active).

I'd not be against packs that give just the one tier of relic, or even some other diversity mix.

Traces
 Traces are a big part of the grind that is often forgotten in the equasions, for every radiant mission that is 4-17 other relics/mission done to get there (without boosters, depending purely on luck).  That is just way to diverse.  Returning the reactants to always show and letting players collect more for added traces would help.  So for each reactant collected after the initial 10, would give an additional trace until the player hits the 30 trace (60 if boosted) mark, an amount that players can randomly get anyway if they get lucky (lets mitigate the luck with some added time or minor effort).

[CandyManCriminal]

Traces should just be a loot drop again, fix that whole headache

as for getting relics themselves i have the same luck getting the relics i need as i did getting the keys i needed
but we could use more reliable ways to gain relics

[-Sanatorium-]

Well actually there were problems on both systems if you think about it. I mean before we had a S#&$ load of rewards from 1 key now it's 1 reward per key it's $&*&*#(%&, but previously there was no way you could possibly increase the chance of getting a rare part so therefore both parties are correct and wrong as well. I reckon it would be way better to have the 2 systems in 1.

Pretty much we go back to farming in the void, old keys are back, BUT, there is some kind of a way to increase the chance of getting a prime part like the same with fissures or maybe change it who knows this can't be done based on 1 idea, but the main thing that we need is to be able to get multiple rewards from 1 key that is the main problem in this relic system.

Also for those who argue how it's better now and how you got the sets faster just stop lying honestly, it's nowhere near faster considering you have to farm the keys then the relics then pray for the reward you want. Yesterday i got 2 axi E1 in 13k runs in hieracon and got 2 ember bps in a row. That doesn't mean the system is perfect i just got lucky. I'm sick of people using excuses like this to say how everything is better now

Remember the 26 million registered lose.....users

Tell me how many of them play consistently?

A lot of people are leaving the game because of this system you can argue as much as you want it's a fact.

Instead of fixing the things that actually need fixing cough cough napalms and armor scaling cough cough, DE instead focused on something that wasn't needed at the time...

Can we just all agree on some kind of a system that we "all" (most of the players) like and talk to DE about it?

The only time i've seen DE change something after @(*()$ up royally is the vacuum incident where enough people complained and on top of that Rebecca got death threats which was not needed at all and very immature. All i'm saying is if enough people talk about this problem and enough people agree on 1 idea DE will make it happen.

Peace out

[TheLexiConArtist]

9 hours ago, epthnation said:

Trying to be even-handed, there are lots of good points here on both sides. I've tried to catalog the advantages and disadvantages of the relic system vs. the "Old Void" to keep my brain from hurting:

                    Advantages

• Can do the type of mission you want -- this is huge, and is a benefit for everyone, including solo players who no longer have to do 20 waves of T3 or T4 defense for a 5% shot at one particular part. Huge.
  • Excepting the part where you are encouraged into a very narrow band of missions to acquire relics due to efficiency and limited drop tables: see Xini, Hieracon.
• Can jump into a mission without having to set up a squad, saving countless hours of chat nonsense if you aren't into micromanaging your Warframe experience
  • Sacrificing the benefits of the Relic system (weighted drops in a group) and resulting in each drop being only reliable upon your own relic provision; four times the relic grind per any given part.
• Much higher chance of getting the part you want if you DO like trace farming and mission micromanaging (i.e., dedicated group with 4 Radiant relics)
  • Much higher chance per roll, but much longer in between rolls for any given part due to relic acquisition.
• Endless missions reward you with small affinity/loot boosters for staying in the AABC death cycle (remind me why it's not ABC again? I forgot)
  • Requires expenditure of many relics to acquire and improve boosters, and gain scant few 'free' relics only on a fifth step in the cycle.
• Non-key-based missions/rewards can theoretically last through the host's internet going out during wave 59 of AABC death cycle
• Only costs 20,000 standing to get three random relics, rather than the 25,000 standing required for 3 random void keys (although it might just be my imagination but were syndicate mission standing levels nerfed? They seem less profitable)
  • Standing gains were reduced, medallion acquisition "normalised" yet still unreliable c/o single-tile missions which often have 0, but occasionally 6 or 8 depending on tile used.
  • Increase in number of relics comparitive to keys causes higher average standing cost per relic even assuming equal weighting between tiers and between relics in given tiers.
• More evenly managed distribution of rarity per relic (due to all relics having the same common-uncommon-rare drop chance percentage vs. "lets put 25 rare things in T3D rotation C")
  • Causes "failed" rolls of the RNG to almost always be worth less (or worthless) while taking proper advantage of relic system RNG weighting, as there are few cases where a rare drop can occur while not being the "success" case (relics where 'new' is on Uncommon tier notwithstanding)
• Ducat prices now at least make sense
  • Courtesy of previous point, ducats 'make sense' but on a per-relic basis are no more likely to be significant value as the rare drop is almost always the target intended for building; no incidental rare parts making the 'consolation prize' design of Ducats a double-failure, not getting the part also means a mediocre or low payout of ducats in almost all cases.
• Vaulted items are no longer absolutely unattainable until Unvaulting, as 'outdated' relics persist in inventory.
  • Taking advantage of the Relic system advantages becomes increasingly unlikely over time past a relic's Vaulting, as finding others willing to run the same Refined relic approaches impossible on the limited stock.
  • Unless personally owned, the tantamount mandatory nature of focussed grouping means that a player may generally only find one of these vaulted relics being used incidentally, through public matchmaking.

                   

                   

                       Disadvantages

• Not key-based, so everyone needs their own relic to take full advantage of the system - primarily a disadvantage for non-soloists
  • Also removes community inclination to 'generously' host keys for any random player to join as this reduces the host's own chances for their goal while giving others just as limited (random relic) or no (no relic) reward opportunity.
  • "Keyshares" in the relic system are enforced by this, however, removing the ability for people to gain reward opportunities under false pretense.
• Also openly punishing RNG-wise to solo/non-mission-micromanaging players, with drop chances that are actually worse than the old void in most cases, even with fully upgraded relics.
  • Chances remain higher than in old void (per roll) even in solo, but chances over cumulative time invested are still far lower in both cases.
• Farming for new relics is much, much worse than farming for void keys, since you theoretically already had some of void keys you needed when the drop tables got changed
  • Fewer total keys than relics, per tier and overall, further adds to farming time differences.
• Since more relic farming is needed, more game time must be spent doing things like syndicate missions and/or star chart AABC death cycle missions that often (but not always) reward relics that are probably not the one you needed anyway - this becomes a bigger problem as you progress through the game and have already built more stuff
• Added the extra mechanic of void trace farming to the already dubious "consolation prize" mechanic of ducat farming/prime part trading
  • Mandatory to take advantage of the limited benefits in the relic system. Encouraged due to painful individual relic acquisition.
• Can no longer get a stupid amount of ducats for built Nyx prime systems or other easy-to-acquire prime stuff.

 

Enhanced list.

 

9 hours ago, Azrael said:

The problem is that this works the other way. Some people are saying "it didn't work for me, so it must not work for most people." You're claim about "50 people that it didn't work for" is problematic because it could very well be that "for every person who struggles with this system, there are 50 who get their stuff just fine."

And the fact is that when people say "I ran 44 radiant relics without any rare part" it's an example of exactly that. The chances of that happening are ridiculously low, so if it does happen then by definition it's the exception to the rule. On average it takes 10 radiant relics to get the rare, and we know this is true because that's how probabilities work. The fact that it fails for some people is not proof that the system is a failure.

I'll agree it DOES need some work, but it's not as broken as you're making it sound.

The multiplying factor for unlucky runs is the fact you are essentially forced to go get your own relic all over again each time.

A failed run isn't a 10% chance (solo) or a 34.39% chance (squad) - depending on the relic you're looking at, a failed run can be 10% (or 34.39%) * 2%, giving you a whopping 0.2% (or 0.6878%) chance per relic dropped when looking for an individual new item.

 

Also 'how probabilities work' is relative.

10 runs of a 10% chance is "average" on paper, but results in a ~65.14% chance in practice.

50 runs of a 2% chance is also "average" on paper, but results in a ~63.59% chance in practice.

 

_{500 runs of a 0.2% chance is "average" but results in ~63.25% chance.}

_{146 runs of a 0.6878% chance is "average" (after raising fractional) but results in ~63.50% chance.}

[Azrael]

19 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

A failed run isn't a 10% chance (solo) or a 34.39% chance (squad) - depending on the relic you're looking at, a failed run can be 10% (or 34.39%) * 2%, giving you a whopping 0.2% (or 0.6878%) chance per relic dropped when looking for an individual new item.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Why are you multiplying the drop chances by 0.02? Where on earth are you getting a .2% chance per relic? That makes no sense at all.

 

21 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

10 runs of a 10% chance is "average" on paper, but results in a ~65.14% chance in practice.

The correct way to state what you are saying is "there is a 65.14% chance of getting at least one rare part in ten radiant relics." But that still means that you will need, on average, ten radiant relics to get a rare part. There's no "in practice," the average number of runs needed is 10. Sometimes you'll get it in 1. Sometimes it will take 20. But if you run enough tests the average will get closer and closer to 10. That's how probability works. I have no idea what you mean by "how probabilities work is relative," but it sounds like a meaningless phrase that you're using to say "well sometimes it will take more than 10 runs" which of course is true. But remember, this has nothing to do with DE. DE didn't create math or decide how probability should work, they just set the numbers. Sometimes I think people want DE to just give them a part for free if they get unlucky enough.

[Pinkkifantti]

Well to be honest, mesa didn't bring me down. Limbo didn't bring me down, nothing in this game felt so useless before, than grinding these S#&$ty E1's.

I have been online grinding these S#&$s +20hours now, always done radshare and do you know what i see in the end?

GLAIVE PRIME BLADE AND 3 FORMAS!!!!

 

If this starts to feel like waste of time even more, i'll just quit playing.

[DEATHLOK]

On 12/10/2016 at 9:49 PM, StinkyPygmy said:

Your one experience with AXi V1 relics isn't proof. Its anecdotal. I by contrast have had no issues getting the relics I need including Axi V1's. So whose anecdotal evidence is representative of the actual drop rates and difficulty?

The old system punished the persistent a heap, if not more then the current one. All my Christmases came at once since the new system hit. With the old system I'd be stuck in the void.... still grinding....

Regardless of all that though, even if their was hard proof the new system was worse, I'd still take it in a heart beat, because at least i'm not stuck in the bloody void.

 

I call bull on this.