DE, you need to rethink and rework your credit economy

[DocHolliday13]

First off, this is not a rant or rage thread of any kind. It's more of a sigh of regret and disappointment. It's a perspective on how the current credit economy and nerf of the Secura Lecta affects at least one of your customers.

Problem one: acquiring credits takes too long. Far too long. Even with the Secura Lecta the way it was, it was still a pretty obnoxious grind to get all the credits a player needs.

Problem two: you have no credit sinks for players who have more or less finished progression. 

I don't really know or care how to fix the second, because at present it doesn't affect me.

But for the first, here's my perspective. I have exactly 781 hours of play time by the in-game stat. That's time spent in missions. For that time spent, I'm at MR 19, which means I have nearly all the frames ranked up, and well over half the weapons. But for mods, I have maybe at most 10% of the frequently-used 10-rank mods maxed. That means I'm looking at, uh, I dunno, at least 20-30 million in credits to buy primed mods I don't have yet, and rank up everything. This was a daunting task to consider even before the SL got nerfed. I'm not exactly sure, but in trying to recall the few farming runs I got done before the nerf, I think I spent close to an hour per million farmed. That would have been 20-30 hours doing nothing but farming the same mission for credits, which was already overwhelming. Now it's much, much worse. This would't be so bad, if you could acquire credits at a decent rate through normal play. But you cannot, not even close. So now when I look at what's required to acquire those credits, I just entirely lose the will to even try. I will not, cannot, do that amount of repetitive grinding. I know, because I've tried it before in another game or two, all of which I quit shortly after and didn't even get much use time of the things I worked so hard to acquire, because all that grinding completely burned out of me any desire to continue playing those games. Warframe would be no different. The real irony though is, the first thing that gets cut from my budget is trading for plat. While that's not exactly me buying plat directly, it's still me getting plat bought by other players, spending it on things thus removing it from the economy, which is very much a win for you, DE. I'm not quitting or uninstalling the game, but upon realizing all this, my play time has now dropped drastically, I'm probably down to about 10% or less of what I was doing just a few days ago. At this point, I'm basically just logging in for the daily login reward, build a forma, and maybe run a Sortie. I have a suspicion all too many other players will end up feeling the same way if and when they consider the massive amount of credits required to build a decent mod collection. The solution I think is pretty simple; you need to increase credit rewards from all sources, by at least 2x and maybe more.

So make of this what you will. I'm honestly feeling pretty apathetic about it right now. I have other games to sink my time into, and right now, this one is just too much of an overwhelming grind to keep going. But I did want to give you a perspective on why people may be leaving, and why your current credit economy may be causing serious damage to your game and your playerbase.

Best wishes for the future, DE. I'll continue to check back to see if anything changes to re-spark my interest in Warframe.

Edited February 1, 2017 by DocHolliday13
spelling

[(XBOX)The Repo Man151]

I used to be rolling in credits when Solar Rail Conflicts were active. I got over 40mil playing on the offensive side when Arbiters Rage deployed on Gabii, Ceres before Armistice occurred.

[Shinobu_Scorpion]

If you pay attention to devstreams, they are thinking about the credit economy. The issue was brought up when they talked about Secura Lecta.

[DocHolliday13]

1 minute ago, Shinobu_Scorpion said:

If you pay attention to devstreams, they are thinking about the credit economy. The issue was brought up when they talked about Secura Lecta.

I haven't, because I'd rather game than watch devstreams. I was most likely playing WF during the last few devstreams. It's good to know they're talking about it though.

[(PSN)Magician_NG]

Back in the day you could run LoR + NM LoR + sortie = 1 million credits for less than a couple hours of effort.

I think the credit reward for those missions has been reduced, but I haven't played them in a while so I'm not sure.

[Praxxor]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)Magician_NG said:

Back in the day you could run LoR + NM LoR + sortie = 1 million credits for less than a couple hours of effort.

I think the credit reward for those missions has been reduced, but I haven't played them in a while so I'm not sure.

Yes, by around 1/3 or more

[(PSN)Magician_NG]

Just now, Praxxor said:

Yes, by around 1/3 or more

That's a bummer.

So Akkad and Sechura must be the places to be for credits these days?

25k for five minutes of effort.  Not bad, could be worse.

[Praxxor]

Just now, (PS4)Magician_NG said:

That's a bummer.

So Akkad and Sechura must be the places to be for credits these days?

25k for five minutes of effort.  Not bad, could be worse.

Yeah compared to building keys and gathering a team, doing raids for credits isn't as viable anymore, only if you have a really good team of 4 players that can do it in under 20 minutes each time.

Also, if you pick up a credit booster along the way, it WON'T be applied to the end rewards (I think hosts are an exception sometimes?), which is another stealthy nerf that appeared back in SoTR

[NeithanDiniem]

36 minutes ago, DocHolliday13 said:

Problem two: you have no credit sinks for players who have more or less finished progression.

They just removed a credit sink due to people complaining that it was unfair. That is exactly what almost everyone will see a credit sink as; "unfair," and its incredibly annoying. Hell, I still remember people complaining about the credit cost to rush recovery of pets after the incubator upgrade hit because it was "unnecessary."

[(PSN)Regiampiero]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Magician_NG said:

That's a bummer.

So Akkad and Sechura must be the places to be for credits these days?

25k for five minutes of effort.  Not bad, could be worse.

One Nekros, one fast nova, one chroma, one vauban and 4 lectas its more like 60k without credit boosters. 

[DocHolliday13]

1 minute ago, (PS4)Regiampiero said:

One Nekros, one fast nova, one chroma, one vauban and 4 lectas its more like 60k without credit boosters. 

So at that rate, I would have to do that 33 times to max out one primed mod. All I can say is Nope. Trying to force myself to do that would literally cause a mental breakdown. I'm not kidding. Just thinking about it makes me feel stressed.

[Randomeer]

Do you need primed mods maxed out though? Because credit cost of getting warframes and weapons is clearly not a problem judging from your post.

[HyokaChan]

39 minutes ago, Shinobu_Scorpion said:

If you pay attention to devstreams, they are thinking about the credit economy. The issue was brought up when they talked about Secura Lecta.

The problem is they screwed it by nerfing the Secura Lecta and not increasing anything else to compensate.

[(PSN)Magician_NG]

2 minutes ago, (PS4)Regiampiero said:

One Nekros, one fast nova, one chroma, one vauban and 4 lectas its more like 60k without credit boosters. 

Not too bad.  Still, I'm surprised that DE doesn't offer bonus weekends more often.  Be it credits, affinity, or resources.  DE should consider a daily rotation of boosts.

I've recently been enjoying Trove.  That game has a great daily boost rotation.

 

[Unholyrequiem]

10 minutes ago, (PS4)Magician_NG said:

Not too bad.  Still, I'm surprised that DE doesn't offer bonus weekends more often.  Be it credits, affinity, or resources.  DE should consider a daily rotation of boosts.

I've recently been enjoying Trove.  That game has a great daily boost rotation.

 

Trove is a good example of being user friendly and probably one of the more casual F2P games. 

That being said I feel part of the problem is the amount of credits actual enemies offer and how many credits we get from alerts, and mission rewards which don't actually scale with the length of mission. 

Edited February 1, 2017 by Unholyrequiem

[DocHolliday13]

10 minutes ago, Randomeer said:

Do you need primed mods maxed out though? Because credit cost of getting warframes and weapons is clearly not a problem judging from your post.

Yes, if I'm going to stay interested in the game. If I took the perspective you suggest, I would just quit and uninstall now. I either need to have a progression goal that is fun and attainable without inducing stress, or be done with progression and be able to just play what and how I want. I'm not saying this necessarily applies to anyone besides myself. I assume there are people out there that have a similar perspective, but all I am claiming is my own. 

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

I'll agree it's a little daunting for beginner players, especially the extremely high credit costs for syndicate offerings.

Seriously, it's like 1 million credits to max a single syndicate, and most people attempt to level three compatible syndicates at the same time... Meaning the have to basically throw away three million credits just for syndicate offerings...  On top of all the credits they need for mod leveling / weapon development / dojo blueprints. It also sucks that you have to sacrifice reactors / catalysts / formas and such to rank up... I mean, you're a noob trying to advance in his syndicates, and you're constantly forced to give up things that would be necessariy to make your frames and arsenal better.

Honestly, i've only started being able to stockpile credits once I hit a high mastery rank... Since at that point, most of your key mods are leveled up and you don't have to spend on building new tech... Allowing you to save up some monies. (Currently have 9ish millions in the bank).

The only tip I can tell new players is not to bother too much about prime mods for quite some time.. And when leveling mods, try not to max most mods. As most people know, the last level of a mod costs the equivalent to alll the previous levels combined... So it makes quite a huge difference in both endo and credit costs. Heck, for rank 10 mods, you can keep mods at rank 6 ish and save tremendous amount of resources... Then later once you're rich, you can max these.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2017 by (PS4)Stealth_Cobra

[Stormdragon]

1 hour ago, DocHolliday13 said:

I think I spent close to an hour per million farmed

How's that not broken? I personally was unable to get to see a million credits in my inventory until around 1.5 years of gameplay. Secura lecta was only a way to spoonfeed credits to lazy players who didn't want to farm as we did in the old days before it was a thing. We were doing fine during 3 years without it and I don't see why newer players can't do the same even with it after the "nerf" that didn't even remove it's interactions with chroma or boosters.

The only thing I don't like about it is how it will give us more credits while we reach the point where we start needing them less and less. I'm currently sitting on 70 millions of credits without the credit whip and once I get it I'm sure that the number will start rising way faster than ever in my almost 3.5 years playing this game even without doing credit farming (thing that I stopped doing long ago due to obvious reasons)

Edited February 1, 2017 by -----LegioN-----

[Vilmera]

25 minutes ago, Praxxor said:

tl;dr

You didn't read

right way to act when you worried because of something is gather information about it first. but what we see here?

 

1 hour ago, Shinobu_Scorpion said:

If you pay attention to devstreams, they are thinking about the credit economy. The issue was brought up when they talked about Secura Lecta.

58 minutes ago, DocHolliday13 said:

I haven't, because I'd rather game than watch devstreams.

this looks like "i know nothing about it but you better listen what i have to say"

[taiiat]

upgrading those Mods are a long term goal for you - sounds perfect.

 

however, more active ways to earn Credits (ala more engaging than playing a Mission repeatedly), for sure.
whether that be less Credits awarded from Dark Sectors but awarding some on each Reward Rotation (so people actually play the Missions); optional Side Objectives in Gamemodes that earn extra Rewards like Credits; Challenges that award extra Rewards like Credits for completing Objectives in a more risky/challenging way; Missions like Alerts encouraging more play through completion Rewards as well as increases to Rewards/drops while Playing; Et Cetera.
or perhaps more likely all of the above and then some.

 

unfortunately, i rather fully expect the 'solution' to it like solutions to other issues in Warframe, to be something as uninteresting as 'we doubled the Credits in all End of Mission Rewards so that Players AFKFarm even more in the game and play it less'.
i don't hope for this, but it's a fast 'answer' to it, even if it's one that actively harms the game.

[(PSN)Regiampiero]

29 minutes ago, DocHolliday13 said:

So at that rate, I would have to do that 33 times to max out one primed mod. All I can say is Nope. Trying to force myself to do that would literally cause a mental breakdown. I'm not kidding. Just thinking about it makes me feel stressed.

Yes, but with a booster and spending 10 minutes per run instead of 5 = closer to 300k per run or less then 7 trips. 

[Randomeer]

9 minutes ago, DocHolliday13 said:

Yes, if I'm going to stay interested in the game. If I took the perspective you suggest, I would just quit and uninstall now. I either need to have a progression goal that is fun and attainable without inducing stress, or be done with progression and be able to just play what and how I want. I'm not saying this necessarily applies to anyone besides myself. I assume there are people out there that have a similar perspective, but all I am claiming is my own. 

Well you are able to just play what and how you want and pretty much all of the game's content is doable without minor stat boosts gained from rank 10 primed mods, at least compared to rank 8 primed mods which cost significantly less. And it's not even like Hema research, where you have to farm one specific tileset in a specific composition for much longer even - not only there are multiple ways to get credits (Dark Sectors, Secura Lecta, Sorties, Trials, Index Survival), you can play game normally and accrue credits passively (even though it's a bit slower than farming, it's far from mutagen samples where you get none if you don't farm them).

I wonder why there aren't any posts about the arcanes though. Is it because they are not required? Why not apply the same idea to rank 10 primed mods?

[DocHolliday13]

9 minutes ago, -----LegioN----- said:

How's that not broken? I personally was unable to get to see a million credits in my inventory until around 1.5 years of gameplay. Secura lecta was only a way to spoonfeed credits to lazy players who didn't want to farm as we did in the old days before it was a thing. We were doing fine during 3 years without it and I don't see why newer players can't do the same even with it after the "nerf" that didn't even remove it's interactions with chroma or boosters.

The only thing I don't like about it is how it will give us more credits while we reach the point where we start needing them less and less. I'm currently sitting on 70 millions of credits without the credit whip and once I get it I'm sure that the number will start rising way faster than ever in my almost 3.5 years playing this game even without doing credit farming (thing that I stopped doing long ago due to obvious reasons)

Secura Lecta was a band-aid to fix all the credit nerfs they've done over the years. My friend, who has been playing since beta, always has over 20 million now (drop in the bucket compared to some players), has all useful mods maxed, and he never farmed with the SL. It's all from the fact that over the last 2-3 years, credit acquisition through normal play was much much more than it is now. Just one example, void tower missions had payouts of 9,000-40,000 compared to fissure missions which now pay what, 2,000? 

Oh, and look. Now that you've edited, you demonstrate that the same applies to you. You're one of the people with the second problem I mention above, not the first. You should be brainstorming about credit sinks exclusive to players in your situation, who are done with progression.

[Ninja22678]

2 minutes ago, Randomeer said:

Well you are able to just play what and how you want and pretty much all of the game's content is doable without minor stat boosts gained from rank 10 primed mods, at least compared to rank 8 primed mods which cost significantly less. And it's not even like Hema research, where you have to farm one specific tileset in a specific composition for much longer even - not only there are multiple ways to get credits (Dark Sectors, Secura Lecta, Sorties, Trials, Index Survival), you can play game normally and accrue credits passively (even though it's a bit slower than farming, it's far from mutagen samples where you get none if you don't farm them).

I wonder why there aren't any posts about the arcanes though. Is it because they are not required? Why not apply the same idea to rank 10 primed mods?

Perhaps it's not that content isn't doable with maxed mods, it's that there's no more progressive content pther than ranking mods at the point that the OP is in. 

[DocHolliday13]

10 minutes ago, Ninja22678 said:

Perhaps it's not that content isn't doable with maxed mods, it's that there's no more progressive content pther than ranking mods at the point that the OP is in. 

I think this pretty much covers it. And the fact that this "progression" consists of grinding the same content repeatedly for dozens if not hundreds of hours. Sorry, that just does not hold my interest.

Edit: Also, the fact that the entire time, I'm being irrationally bugged by the fact that my mods are not complete. Now that I think about it, I think the thing that really bugs me is that from my perspective, they have it all backwards. Ranking up mods should be relatively quick and easy. As in, a typical player should have nearly all mods (including 10-rank ones) maxed out by around say MR 10-12, without doing any special farming or grinding. It's the weapons that should involve more time (though not as much as the one I will not mention). So while I'm struggling to get the credits to do... well, much of anything, really... I'm sitting here on massive stockpiles of common resources, to the point that I rarely, if ever, have to farm for anything other than credits, and sometimes endo.

Edited February 1, 2017 by DocHolliday13