"Cost Creep": What it is, how it's affecting us, and what to do about it.

[MirageKnight]

As the title states, this thread is an attempt at finding a fair and reasonable solution to deal with a disturbing trend - The introduction of "Cost Creep" and its negative affect on the player community.

So what is "Cost Creep"? It's a form of resource sink implemented by DE wherein recently introduced weapons and 'Frame parts have far higher than normal costs for certain resources (See Knux, Vauban Prime, Hema, and Sibear, to name a few examples).

So why do we have "Cost Creep"? It's pretty safe to assume that for whatever reason, the Devs don't want us stockpiling too much of certain resource. They can obviously track how much resources we have collected and what we've spent those resources on.

So what has been the result of DE implementing "Cost Creep"? An increasingly polarized and divided community, with burned out and disgruntled new players and vets complaining bitterly and spitefully about the increasing amounts of grind for resources on one side and white knights and elitests on the other side saying "I don't see a problem, so there is no problem,"You whiny scrubs are wrong and you all need to shut up and git gud" and "Stop bashing DE! They have every right to do what they want because it's THEIR game and they obviously know what they're doing!"

As has been evidenced by strong and loud community reactions to the introduction of weapons like Knux, Sibear and Hema, and 'Frames like Vauban Prime, the seemingly arbitrary inflation of certain resource costs is not a fair or reasonable solution and is only serving to frustrate and drive away new players, and embitter and alienate long time players. DE has drawn much ire from "Hemagate", and the heated discussions on the arguably exorbinent research costs for a so-co weapon are only making the forums more toxic and hostile. This situation clearly needs to end before things really explode - assuming they haven't already.

So what's the alternative to "Cost Creep"?

First, items affected by "Cost Creep" need to have their resource costs re-adjusted to more reasonable levels, based on resource costs for older, comparable items.

Second, less punishing and arbitrary means of reducing resource stockpiles need to be implemented.

One thing to implement would be to allow players to trade / sell off excess resources. For example, I have 2.2k Orokin Cells in my inventory with nothing to use them on. If I could trade / sell them to new players, or just flat out sell off for credits, I'd do so in a heartbeat.

The second thing to implement is a more realistic resource sink that actually scales with the player without punishing them. Now...I'm probably going to draw a fair bit of fire for saying this, but I feel this needs to be said and I'm prepared for the inevitable hail of salt and bile that will be thrown my way for bringing this up.

Warframe needs an upkeep or repair system for the weapons and 'Frame's we have...and I feel the game's needed this for some time now.

What I'm proposing is simple: Change Weapons and 'Frames so that they start losing integrity with hard use. Once integrity drops to 0, you can't deploy with that item. Integrity loss could be determined by how much damage you take in missions. Weapons and 'Frames can then be repaired for a fraction of what it cost to build them to begin with. Make it so that an item at 0% integrity would cost say 25 -50% of its normal resource costs to fully restore, with a comparable repair time as well.

That said, part of this overhaul will definitely necessitate dropping resource costs to build (NOT research) certain items to more reasonable levels.

TL;DR:

"Cost Creep" is a resource sink introduced by the dev's "need" to reduce player resource stockpiles, and something that's clearly having a negative affect on the community. The problem could be readily resolved by 1. Dropping resource costs for certain items / researches to more balanced and reasonable levels (removing "Cost Creep"); 2. Allowing players to trade / sell off normal resources, and 3. By implementing a "repair for cost" and equipment integrity system for weapons and 'Frames wherein stockpiled resources are used to repair damaged / degraded gear.

Not only will you see a more reasonable level of resources for players, but you'll probably start seeing more careful and varied use of items as well.

To any and all posting here: Please keep your comments civil, constructive, rational, and on topic. If your intent is to either blindy defend or hurl mindless rage at DE (or anyone else) here, kindly post elsewhere. Thanks in advance.

Discuss.

 

[ograzzt]

4 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

Change Weapons and 'Frames so that they start losing integrity with hard use. Once integrity drops to 0, you can't deploy with that item.

Totally not punishing. Not one bit.

Meanwhile they can just add cosmetic items craftable with a lot of resourses: orbiter decorations, resourse themed syandanas and weapon skins, etc. Remember Pedestal Prime? It was probably best credit sink of all times, and hey, it was completely optional. But still I did buy about 50 of them myself, so as many other players. This is much better solution for everyone.

Edited December 27, 2016 by ograzzt

[Syln]

Or they could continu as they used to do month ago and stay decent ? :3

If they really need ressources sink, they could introduce it in many way like i don't know ... let's see ...an infested fish tank asking you a few mutagen sample per week ? or some moa creeper wandering in the dojo costing a few fieldron sample to maintain once in a while, there is so many way to do that in a far more clever way than just asking you more than what you ever accumulate in multiple years of playing this game.

Don't need to ask for an absurd amount of ressources to research a weapon, just slowly regulate it with gimmick and fun stuff that player will be more than willing to pay for as long as the price is decent.

[stormsasuke180]

How about instead of punishing players without the giant stockpiles of resources, we reward those who have a lot? Utility sinks. Energy restores but more utility.

[ArbitUHM]

People keep saying "costs keep increasing like Knux, Sibear, Hema, Vauban, ETC [emphasis mine]". What is included in this oft-cited ETC? How many items are we really talking about? We need an actual analysis of the situation that looks at overall costs of items, the number of items that have onerous costs relative to the more fairly costed items, etc and not yet another "ZOMG have you seen Hema?! COST CREEP!" because, yes, we have seen Hema.

I agree that it's a worrying trend but I feel like there is an insane amount of angst about a tiny fraction of non-essential items available in the game.

Edited December 27, 2016 by ArbitUHM
bolding

[Malindros]

Why is it this whole post has the feel of "I want instant gratification, i do not like to earn things"? 

Maybe it is just me.  All I know is every game in existence, including and especially nationally televised sports, is doing the same thing over and over.  hell "the grind" is part of life. we as humans use that moniker "the grind" for work, for play, for any tedious thing on the planet.

Should the grind be a bit less?

Maybe. 

Or maybe not...

I guess it comes down to a personal issue of perception. 

for some people, there is not much else to do in Warframe...but to each their own.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

I don't want upkeep.  That's just going to punish newer players which it sounds like you were against with this post.  I see nothing wrong with them occasionally adding in things that require players to go out and grind rather than just build it the day it drops.  The actual numbers for the hema can be debated but I feel the act of going out and farming them should still stay.  DE can fix this like they did with oxium and other resources.  let them drop off of more than just the special units.  Of course they could also open up the darilect to public match making.

[RideaTear]

Most weapons cost so little resources that most players wouldn't even consider purchasing it from the market. They just build it and move on. I'm guessing that DE wants people to decide whether they want the item now and buy it from the market, or wait until enough materials are gathered to build the item.

Warframe does not need an upkeep system. I would much rather have to build a high cost item every once in a while than have to worry about the integrity of all of my items.  

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

Stockpiling should never get punished. Once you max everything all you can really do is resource farm until the next update.

DE trying to drain us heavily is taken as an insult and hurts newer players. If they want to remove our resources it's as simple as bringing in a resource vendor.

Resource vendors are used in mmos to yank out massive amounts of stock.

Hand in 250k Nano Spores gets you x amount of tokens that you can use to buy x items. 

Easy , simple and solves the stocking issue for DE.

Could even use this to bring back exclusive items or long lost items.

I.E

Snipetron 800,000 tokens 

X event mod 45,000 tokens

Etc etc etc

The rarity of the resource determines the amount of tokens per one.

I.E 5 Nano spores = 1 token while 1 Orokin Cell = 50

Etc

[Azrael]

34 minutes ago, ograzzt said:

Meanwhile they can just add cosmetic items craftable with a lot of resourses: orbiter decorations, resourse themed syandanas and weapon skins, etc. Remember Pedestal Prime? It was probably best credit sink of all times, and hey, it was completely optional. But still I did buy about 50 of them myself, so as many other palyers. This is much better solution for everyone.

 

26 minutes ago, Syln said:

.an infested fish tank asking you a few mutagen sample per week ? or some moa creeper wandering in the dojo costing a few fieldron sample to maintain once in a while, there is so many way to do that in a far more clever way than just asking you more than what you ever accumulate in multiple years of playing this game.

Don't need to ask for an absurd amount of ressources to research a weapon, just slowly regulate it with gimmick and fun stuff that player will be more than willing to pay for as long as the price is decent.

I like both of these ideas way more than "upkeep." I understand what you're trying to do, and it makes some sense, but I think neat little things like an infested fish tank are much better ideas.

For that matter, I REALLY want an infested fish tank. Can we make this a thing? Please?

[Zepp_]

Upkeep is a terrible idea.  I can't think of a worse idea.

'Cost creep' is not rampant and people are starting to come across as whiny and entitled when they present it as such a burden.

I like the token system as long as posting on the forums costs tokens.

[ArchPhaeton]

I'm OK with higher/"late game" gear costing more resources, the thing is they sort of go overkill.

With nearly 4k hours the Hema took half my mutagen samples. I had to farm a bit of cryotic for sibear I think, but while it's not a problem for me due to the truckload of resources I've accumulated, I can see it driving newer players away. IMO They need to tune it down a bit, so that we grind our stuff as expected but not to a point where we burn ourselves and start hating the game for punishing us into a downward grind spiral.

And no, no upkeep. I hate it on the pets and that's bad enough. Pedestal prime was the prime example of  viable resource sink, if that's their point.

[Coaa]

How is the hema more expensive to research then most any other weapon? I thought it was around the same as all research. The only difference is that the mutagen you need is a lot rarer then I think DE is giving it credit for. All they have to do is IMPROVE the drop chances or amounts that they drop and it's fine, everything will be back to normal.

[Brasten]

Re-rolling and stat control on Rivens is what I've been suggesting as a Major resource sink. This process SHOULD have come with built in star chart resource cost, NOT a totally new resource. Endlessly tinkering and rolling against the RNG to try for "just a few more % better" is how you get the Warframe community to deplete its stocks, BUT only if it's seen as EVENTUALLY worthwhile.

Which is were stat control (locking in one or more stat lines, or biasing generation) and weapon TYPE/NAME switching comes in. DE absolutely missed the Resource Sink here, and missed the way to make Rivens viable on the lowest of the low end weapons... by giving Players a way to manage and IMPROVE on stats those weapons need. As the Meta shifts, so to will players feel completed to shift their Rivens over time. BUT that's not what DE did....

Upkeep costs on weapons/items does not work, example: Kubro and Kavat DNA Stabilizing. DNA stabs did not sufficiently drain the Credit stocks nor blunt their accumulation.

[(PSN)Tactless_Ninja]

There will never be a token system because it takes the RNG out of the game. The game practically runs on RNG.

And cost creep is always sidelined by some new resource. Once everyone has enough ocean gas it'll be replaced with swamp gas. Tellerium.....what uses tellerium anymore? I remember farming that for hours. Hema only got as much flak was because of clan costs above ghost tier being ridiculously inflated and low player participation in larger clans exponentially increasing the difficulty. It's a problem with the clan system itself.

[MirageKnight]

24 minutes ago, Malindros said:

Why is it this whole post has the feel of "I want instant gratification, i do not like to earn things"? 

I don't know. Perhaps you're making an arbitrary assumption and decided to lump me with all the other players you'd label as lazy, entitled, whiners?

You don't know me, which is fair, so I'll make myself clearer. When I first started playing Warframe about 3 years ago, I didn't mind the wait or grind to get new gear at all. It felt fair and reasonable. If I was truly impatient, almost everything in my inventory would have been bought with plat, which is not the case. With the increased cost creep we've been seeing with Hema and all that, I fear that this is going to be a norm for all new items. A norm that will ultimately drive away players. I was a newbie once you know, and I never forget that.

If I wanted Sibear that badly despite the massive cryotic cost, I'd have used plat and the Sibear would be in my inventory. It's not in my inventory, so that should say something. All quest / boss-related 'Frames in my inventory were earned - and never rushed with plat. I've only bought 3 Prime Access packs: Frost, Ash, and Sayrn. All my other Primed gear I've obtained via grinding / farming or - if the grind was extremely bad, bought from another player.

With regard to repairs and upkeep, the damage equipment would need to take to start dropping in integrity would need to be very substantial (i.e. high level content) and the drop would be slow. How slow and how much damage is something that would need to be ironed out of course.

I'm just offering some ideas and solutions that DE and us players can agree on. DE doesn't seem to like vet players hording resources and wants us to spend them. New and vet players alike don't like being forced to massively grind x resource to get y newly released and overly-hyped weapon. I simply felt this would be a good compromise.

[(PSN)Elvenbane]

6 minutes ago, MirageKnight said:

I'm just offering some ideas and solutions that DE and us players can agree on. DE doesn't seem to like vet players hording resources and wants us to spend them. New and vet players alike don't like being forced to massively grind x resource to get y newly released and overly-hyped weapon. I simply felt this would be a good compromise.

No, DE doesn't like us being able to instantly get all new content, you are trying to solve the wrong problem in an un-fun way. Repairing equipment isn't fun, I have never played a game where this hasn't been annoying. This is one of the reasons I mostly use sentinels, one less annoyance to deal with.

[Ciaus]

Make relays buildable. 
Make the costs based on a detailed analysis of high MR user's resources. 
Give high contributors cosmetics, maybe a dojo trophy / prize for clan contribution. 
Give very top percent of contributors a special badge and exclusive cosmetic, as well as their names up on relays they helped rebuild, and give top 3 contributors an option to choose a special (approved of course) decoration or something for a relay.

Watch a trillion resources disappear overnight.

[Edgge]

Why is Vauban Prime such a pain in the &#! to build?  He isn't very popular to begin with, I grinded the relics to get him and only to find he needs 20 nitrain extracts!  I am lucky to get 1-2 nitrain alerts a day and that is with me checking a couple of times a night through the morning. You also need 7,000 oxium, another grind since they don't drop in mass quantities.

Save these requirements for the really popular frames like Frost and Loki (though it's too late now since they are already primed).

 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

47 minutes ago, Edgge said:

He isn't very popular to begin with,

saying Booben isn't popular is like saying a Corpus Tech won't turn you into Swiss cheese if you stand in front of it: it doesn't make it true, like at all. he's been a popular frame, and even a meme for quite some time, and he's the king of Crowd Control.

as far as I'm concerned, the costs should reflect the benefits. weapons costing that many resources should be straight up power creep: that way, people who like powerful weapons have a goal to work towards, while those who don't want power creep can leave it well alone. plus you at least know that your grind will be worth it, and you won't be spending tons of resources on MR fodder weapons.

and hell naw to any kind of upkeep system, that would only slowly drain resources over time: we need proper sinks for common resources, particularly Alloy Plate, Salvage and Nano Spores. how about we give Baro a Blueprint we can buy for 500k alloy plate that gives us something nice, like a unique decoration, or a weapon? he's usually the go-to sink for credits, why not make him a resource sink as well?

 

[(PSN)zero1872001]

4 hours ago, MirageKnight said:

As the title states, this thread is an attempt at finding a fair and reasonable solution to deal with a disturbing trend - The introduction of "Cost Creep" and its negative affect on the player community.

So what is "Cost Creep"? It's a form of resource sink implemented by DE wherein recently introduced weapons and 'Frame parts have far higher than normal costs for certain resources (See Knux, Vauban Prime, Hema, and Sibear, to name a few examples).

So why do we have "Cost Creep"? It's pretty safe to assume that for whatever reason, the Devs don't want us stockpiling too much of certain resource. They can obviously track how much resources we have collected and what we've spent those resources on.

So what has been the result of DE implementing "Cost Creep"? An increasingly polarized and divided community, with burned out and disgruntled new players and vets complaining bitterly and spitefully about the increasing amounts of grind for resources on one side and white knights and elitests on the other side saying "I don't see a problem, so there is no problem,"You whiny scrubs are wrong and you all need to shut up and git gud" and "Stop bashing DE! They have every right to do what they want because it's THEIR game and they obviously know what they're doing!"

As has been evidenced by strong and loud community reactions to the introduction of weapons like Knux, Sibear and Hema, and 'Frames like Vauban Prime, the seemingly arbitrary inflation of certain resource costs is not a fair or reasonable solution and is only serving to frustrate and drive away new players, and embitter and alienate long time players. DE has drawn much ire from "Hemagate", and the heated discussions on the arguably exorbinent research costs for a so-co weapon are only making the forums more toxic and hostile. This situation clearly needs to end before things really explode - assuming they haven't already.

So what's the alternative to "Cost Creep"?

First, items affected by "Cost Creep" need to have their resource costs re-adjusted to more reasonable levels, based on resource costs for older, comparable items.

Second, less punishing and arbitrary means of reducing resource stockpiles need to be implemented.

One thing to implement would be to allow players to trade / sell off excess resources. For example, I have 2.2k Orokin Cells in my inventory with nothing to use them on. If I could trade / sell them to new players, or just flat out sell off for credits, I'd do so in a heartbeat.

The second thing to implement is a more realistic resource sink that actually scales with the player without punishing them. Now...I'm probably going to draw a fair bit of fire for saying this, but I feel this needs to be said and I'm prepared for the inevitable hail of salt and bile that will be thrown my way for bringing this up.

Warframe needs an upkeep or repair system for the weapons and 'Frame's we have...and I feel the game's needed this for some time now.

What I'm proposing is simple: Change Weapons and 'Frames so that they start losing integrity with hard use. Once integrity drops to 0, you can't deploy with that item. Integrity loss could be determined by how much damage you take in missions. Weapons and 'Frames can then be repaired for a fraction of what it cost to build them to begin with. Make it so that an item at 0% integrity would cost say 25 -50% of its normal resource costs to fully restore, with a comparable repair time as well.

That said, part of this overhaul will definitely necessitate dropping resource costs to build (NOT research) certain items to more reasonable levels.

TL;DR:

"Cost Creep" is a resource sink introduced by the dev's "need" to reduce player resource stockpiles, and something that's clearly having a negative affect on the community. The problem could be readily resolved by 1. Dropping resource costs for certain items / researches to more balanced and reasonable levels (removing "Cost Creep"); 2. Allowing players to trade / sell off normal resources, and 3. By implementing a "repair for cost" and equipment integrity system for weapons and 'Frames wherein stockpiled resources are used to repair damaged / degraded gear.

Not only will you see a more reasonable level of resources for players, but you'll probably start seeing more careful and varied use of items as well.

To any and all posting here: Please keep your comments civil, constructive, rational, and on topic. If your intent is to either blindy defend or hurl mindless rage at DE (or anyone else) here, kindly post elsewhere. Thanks in advance.

Discuss.

 

Sibear is understandable, Cyrotic is easy to get,. tedious yes. and not much stuff uses Cyro. 20 items total.
http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Cryotic

No to the integrity BS.  Its just another useless system. and more time consuming.

 

Edited December 27, 2016 by (PS4)zero1872001

[Xaranoth]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Mofojokers said:

Stockpiling should never get punished. Once you max everything all you can really do is resource farm until the next update.

DE trying to drain us heavily is taken as an insult and hurts newer players. If they want to remove our resources it's as simple as bringing in a resource vendor.

Resource vendors are used in mmos to yank out massive amounts of stock.

Hand in 250k Nano Spores gets you x amount of tokens that you can use to buy x items. 

Easy , simple and solves the stocking issue for DE.

Could even use this to bring back exclusive items or long lost items.

I.E

Snipetron 800,000 tokens 

X event mod 45,000 tokens

Etc etc etc

The rarity of the resource determines the amount of tokens per one.

I.E 5 Nano spores = 1 token while 1 Orokin Cell = 50

Etc

Like the baro of resources, not primes. I like it.

edit: his name could be Orab, and his currency could be tacuds!

Edited December 27, 2016 by Xaranoth

[DiabolicalHamSandwich]

I have no real issue with higher costs....when the costs are things that drop in abundance. The mutagen samples while an annoyance are being somewhat tackled atm. Although we are sitting on that 50k costs and are at like 30k. Issue might arise when they start asking for the rarer stuff like 10k+ neurodes, god forbid argon crystals, etc.....THEN Houston we will have a problem. 

[k05h]

The most obvious way to go would be limiting the stock of ressources. DE could just limit each ressource to an amount X whereas MR could be used as multiplier.

To stop the ressource inflation just introduce a real crafting system. Alloy crafts into alloy bars, alloy bar craft into alloy plates, ... you get the idea. The more complex a crafted good is the longer it takes time to craft. Speeding things up with plat will make more sense than now. Complex ressources should have an even more limited stock and should also have an inbuilt expiry date. If you do not use them they vanish after a month or two. 

Whenever something new (frame, weapon, skin) is introduced it can be build of more or less complex to craft items. Limited stock and time to craft will make the new thing harder to get.

Edited December 27, 2016 by k05h

[ExaltedHysteria]

Weapon/armor integrity is probably the most annoying thing to me in games and I'd hate to see it implemented in Warframe - since I've only ever bought two prime packs (nekros and the recent double unvault) I'd be pretty pissed if I had to constantly upkeep items I'd bought with real money (I'd be annoyed as heck anyway since we have to grind for building weapons/warframes/etc as is) - especially since I'm more of a casual player.

as the others above me have suggested there's plenty of ways to sink resources alternatively - cosmetics and the like I'd love to craft and such.

Edited December 28, 2016 by FlawedLegacy