Remove the Foundry Wait Time

[Chipputer]

15 hours ago, Net56 said:

People very rarely Rush the Foundry,

Yeah, you'll have to back that up with stats.

Crying out loud, there are streamers and content creators who admit to rushing things that have a 1 minute crafting time.

[Cat__Nap]

I would say certain build times could be reduced, but it would be a bad idea - for both players and DE - for them to be outright removed. Forma/Detonite/Fieldron/Mutagen Masses could be reduced some. Beyond that though...the wait times are a good thing. Forma's the only real issue I have with build times, personally - but of course, that's by design, and I doubt DE will reduce it since it's one of the most popular bought items on the market (where I get most of mine...because yes, I'm impatient af).

[Net56]

13 hours ago, ChuckMaverick said:

Wait time is part of the 'friction' involved in the free path that encourages players to buy with plat instead of grind/wait, removing wait time will reduce income for DE so they'd have to increase friction elsewhere to compensate.

I'd rather wait up to 3 days for something to build, than have to grind more resources but have no build time.

There's already enough friction involved for free players outside of the wait time. For any given piece of equipment, they still need to acquire the parts and resources for the item, plus the catalyst, or reactor and slot if it's a frame. Frankly, with how easy and cheap you guys think resources are, I don't see why you guys would rather have a 3-day build time than an inflated resource requirement. Most likely, whatever they nerf it to would take less than 3 days to acquire.

12 hours ago, Flirk2 said:

Let me warm up my time machine and show you how the foundry will look like after abolishing the wait times:

Are you sure you want this to be implemented?

When you're showing a screenshot of resources you can easily afford, my only answer can be "Yes." You have over 700 Gallium and nearly 16 million credits. Yes, I'm sure I want this to be implemented.

Though, everyone should realize that your picture is an exaggeration. DE wouldn't change game mechanics in a way that would completely drive away new players. If they somehow overcompensated with Foundry resource requirements, they would likely beef up resource gains to make up for it, making your screenshot a reality. Personally, I can't wait to have stores of over 400 orokin cells.

13 hours ago, JalakBali said:

The only balance that matters is that the wait time is less punishing than any other F2P games and that you lost nothing by waiting. Until another good F2P game show up and have less wait time than Warframe, there's little merit in making the wait time any less. Based on the many F2P games I have tried, Warframe is the least "greedy" in the sense that you don't feel as hamstrung when you're not constantly throwing cash at them. All the other games have progress that felt like swimming in molasses unless you fork out cash for Premium Time(tm). I don't use the exp or loot boosters here but still feel like progress is going fine.

Also I'm fine with the wait time because though I never pay to rush, I know a few who regularly do just that. And I'd rather DE get the money from this instead of trying to find another revenue stream.

"Less wait time than Warframe?" Most F2P games on PC don't have a real-time crafting system that takes this long. If we're just comparing it to other F2P games in how "greedy" they felt, I would put Path of Exile above this game. At no point in that game did I ever feel like I needed to pay them money, and there was absolutely nothing impeding my progress at any point in the game. Warframe is not on the top of the list of being the least greedy when new players have to use their "free" platinum on slots. They then, at minimum, have to wait a full day to use the weapon they really want,  and then 3.5 days to use the frame they really want. And that's ignoring the fact that new players don't have tons of resources, don't have access to the fastest ways of getting those resources, and so likely have to spend at least a week to get up to speed, anyway. The Forma issue itself is just DE begging for cash, why do you think it sells so much?

9 hours ago, DarkFlameZealot said:

Bringing up the 'impatient and entitled' prompt is simply part of you being too jumpy to actually bother exploring the game. Maybe go find some Kurias, you know, all 56 of them. Took me 3 months, maybe that will give you some time off of the typical boring MR grind.

I brought it up because it's a common remark. Thanks for helping me with my point about content, though. Maxing in 300 hours isn't a big deal if you can still have fun with the other content in the game, which is what people do. I did read your whole post, I just clipped to make this post a little shorter. I'm not sure what you meant when you said that the resources required to build can take a long time to farm, and that's somewhat why we have long timers.

1 hour ago, Chipputer said:

Yeah, you'll have to back that up with stats.

Crying out loud, there are streamers and content creators who admit to rushing things that have a 1 minute crafting time.

I would need DE's records and a mass pole from the community detailing exactly what they have been spending their platinum on. Streamers don't represent the bulk of the community.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Net56

[Shockwave-]

5 hours ago, The_Doc said:

How so? They could be bought with platinum. How were they not an income stream? We don't have the data for how much people spent on them.

We don't but DE does. You are claiming they were a valid income stream in your post. I'm pointing out the possible ways in which they weren't. So it's entirely possible your assertion that they were an income stream is in error.

[ChuckMaverick]

1 minute ago, Net56 said:

Frankly, with how easy and cheap you guys think resources are, I don't see why you guys would rather have a 3-day build time than an inflated resource requirement. Most likely, whatever they nerf it to would take less than 3 days to acquire.

Because we're thinking about the long-term health of the game rather than short-term self interest.

[Chipputer]

9 minutes ago, Net56 said:

I would need DE's records and a mass pole from the community detailing exactly what they have been spending their platinum on. Streamers don't represent the bulk of the community.

They don't, no. Nobody said they did. But you also asserted a fact without the data to back it up and are basing your entire argument off of those type of assumptions.

Until you can back that statement up, don't make it.

[Liminal]

9 minutes ago, Shockwave- said:

We don't but DE does. You are claiming they were a valid income stream in your post. I'm pointing out the possible ways in which they weren't. So it's entirely possible your assertion that they were an income stream is in error.

No, I'm stating they were purchasable with real money -which is completely undeniable- and that they removed them -which is also a fact-. Whatever you mean by viable.
I simply stated that removing stuff that costs plat is not inherently negative (nor inherently good) for the game.

[Net56]

8 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

Because we're thinking about the long-term health of the game rather than short-term self interest.

Reducing or removing the Foundry time wall is not against the long-term health of the game. There are lots of alternatives to any revenue lost, and I doubt that much revenue would be lost. I can't think of a single alternative that DE would realistically implement into the game that would be more frustrating than the time walls. It might even help bring in more players, since new players would no longer have to hassle with it.

4 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

They don't, no. Nobody said they did. But you also asserted a fact without the data to back it up and are basing your entire argument off of those type of assumptions.

Until you can back that statement up, don't make it.

I'm going to make it because I'm sure it's true. In the thread I linked in the OP, I posted a Strawpoll asking people why they bought platinum. Of about 149 people, only 10% said they bought it to skip the timer. That's only representing the Steam community and might exclude people who gained all of their platinum from trading, so I can post a separate poll if that would help convince you.

[ChuckMaverick]

6 minutes ago, Net56 said:

Reducing or removing the Foundry time wall is not against the long-term health of the game. There are lots of alternatives to any revenue lost

Can you suggest any suitable replacement to recover the lost income?

7 minutes ago, Net56 said:

I doubt that much revenue would be lost

As I've already stated, the 3 forma bundle is the best selling item on the market, removing forma build time would hurt those sales considerably.

9 minutes ago, Net56 said:

I can't think of a single alternative that DE would realistically implement into the game that would be more frustrating than the time walls.

Oh I can, easily, the Hema research costs. Those were apparently set to encourage more players to buy from the market.

[Net56]

49 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

Can you suggest any suitable replacement to recover the lost income?

As I've already stated, the 3 forma bundle is the best selling item on the market, removing forma build time would hurt those sales considerably.

Oh I can, easily, the Hema research costs. Those were apparently set to encourage more players to buy from the market.

Keep a build time on Forma, remove it for every other item in the game. To make up the other small percentage of income lost, increase the resource costs. The Hema is just one weapon, and it's Clan research. Not only is clan research not that big of a deal outside of the larger Moon and Mountain clans, but the research costs for regular items for individuals wouldn't increase by an amount that would make them unobtainable. I can be sure of this because if they did, DE wouldn't have a game anymore.

As I said before, this isn't just about Forma. There's over 300 items in this game, and the crafting time isn't justified for the vast majority of them (it's justified for none of them in my opinion, but I'm trying to be flexible). For example, is there any real reason why keys and consumables aren't just instant? What about akimbo weapons, where you already had to craft two items beforehand? 6 hours for Trial keys?

The only way these matter for DE's paychecks is if people are Rushing insignificant items all the time. Not only rushing them, but are specifically putting money into Warframe to get them. Not just trading for platinum and frittering it away, but actually buying the platinum themselves.

[ChuckMaverick]

2 minutes ago, Net56 said:

The only way these matter for DE's paychecks is if people are Rushing insignificant items all the time. Not only rushing them, but are specifically putting money into Warframe to get them. Not just trading for platinum and frittering it away, but actually buying the platinum themselves.

It's not just rushing, build time is also a factor that encourages people to buy the weapon/frame outright rather than build it at all.

It makes no difference how the person rushing/buying got the plat, someone bought it with RL cash and DE got paid.

[Varhola]

16 hours ago, Net56 said:

DE's profits don't need help. Unless it would lose them enough money that they would need to cut something or slow down their production, it doesn't need to be there anymore. We can't be sure of that unless DE makes a statement. This game isn't purely about business, otherwise it would be yet another P2W game. DE cares about more than just money.

It's possible that more people rush stuff than I think, but it's generally considered a waste of platinum. You also touched on two things I said in my OP, since both of the things you mentioned rushing were Forma and frames. What about content outside of those 32 items (31 frames + forma)? Do they still need a wait time?

I don't know if you guys realize that they won't reduce wait times for the exact same reasons you guys are giving me. Any reduction in wait time, anywhere, lowers the chance of you buying platinum to avoid it, which makes DE less money. The way I see it, there's no point in going half-way. Just delete them entirely. As far as I know, DE has never budged on the Foundry over the last four years and the community has never made a serious issue of it.

The way I see it, if DE isn't harmed by reducing the crafting times on anything you just mentioned, then it should already be done and they should go a step further. None of those times are going to move unless people say something. Otherwise we're sticking with the 24-hour timer on each Forma forever.

 

16 hours ago, ChuckMaverick said:

As you've said above, any reduction in wait time will reduce DE's income, which is why it won't happen.

The reason the community hasn't ever made a serious issue of it is that the majority realise that it is good for the game to maintain a healthy pay/play balance.

I think it was at PAX AUS where Rebecca stated in a quiz that the 3 forma bundle was, unsurprisingly, the best selling item on the market.

Foundry wait times aren't going away, we're 'stuck' with crafting one forma per 24 hours, and I'm happy with that as it's a very fair way to monetise Warframe.

 

15 hours ago, ChuckMaverick said:

Wait time is part of the 'friction' involved in the free path that encourages players to buy with plat instead of grind/wait, removing wait time will reduce income for DE so they'd have to increase friction elsewhere to compensate.

I'd rather wait up to 3 days for something to build, than have to grind more resources but have no build time.

I agree with net56 about the timers. it wont decrease their income because a lot of people will still buy plat they need to buy over $100 any how to get prime access and if DE's would take the time out of the foundry people would prolly go and grind to get the resources but if they dont want to grind the resources they can buy plat and that keeps DE's profit up. The most likley reason DE has never taken wait time out of foundry is because they think people should wait 12-72 hours on everything so if they dont want to wait they can get mote profit I think DE is in it for the money but also at the same time I think they care about how long we wait and really how loyal we are to warframe I have been on warframe for about 2 years now and since then I can tell DE's profits are really high I dont think it will hurt to just take the foundry time off and say the hell with it

[Net56]

17 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

It's not just rushing, build time is also a factor that encourages people to buy the weapon/frame outright rather than build it at all.

It makes no difference how the person rushing/buying got the plat, someone bought it with RL cash and DE got paid.

People that have a surplus of platinum and no patience already have to worry about the farm involved for the materials, parts, and potatoes. The time-to-farm has always influenced my decision to buy more than the Foundry time has. How many people buy items outright rather than build them, specifically to skip the timer, for items that aren't forma?

If the people buying the platinum are primarily buying it to afford primes, for example, the guy who sold the prime to them turning around and using it to rush their Forma isn't what made DE money. In other words, the free player who farms parts isn't putting money into the game.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Net56

[Varhola]

13 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

It's not just rushing, build time is also a factor that encourages people to buy the weapon/frame outright rather than build it at all.

It makes no difference how the person rushing/buying got the plat, someone bought it with RL cash and DE got paid.

I don't think it matters if they rush because DE has prolly millions of dollars from this game. It doesn't matter how the person rushed it maybe they rushed it when they first started. as a MR6 I have about half the weapons and 3 warframes and I waited more than a week cause I rushed my first warframe but DE should still take the wait time off because I wait for about a month with all those weapons combined and I really like warframe but that bad thing is you have to buy plat with RL cash and I just dont have that kinda of money so I am all for the foundry time going away and really if they have to put it back then put it back 

[Varhola]

2 minutes ago, Net56 said:

People that have a surplus of platinum and no patience already have to worry about the farm involved for the materials, parts, and potatoes. The time-to-farm has always influenced my decision to buy more than the Foundry time has. How many people buy items outright rather than build them, specifically to skip the timer, for items that aren't forma?

If the people buying the platinum are primarily buying it to afford primes, for example, the guy who sold the prime to them turning around and using it to rush their Forma isn't what made DE money. In other words, the free player who farms parts isn't putting money into the game.

I agree with that but they prolly make about a 40% profit off of the free 50 plat you get when you first start and that is $20 every time 50 plat is used. Potatoes are hard to get especially when they are really rare then you got to go and wait about 3 days to even get you warframe you want or 24 hours  

[Shockwave-]

1 hour ago, The_Doc said:

No, I'm stating they were purchasable with real money -which is completely undeniable- and that they removed them -which is also a fact-. Whatever you mean by viable.
I simply stated that removing stuff that costs plat is not inherently negative (nor inherently good) for the game.

Actually no. You said Revives were an example of an income stream that DE removed from the game. You don't know it WAS in an income stream, because DE has stated all the problems that were happening with it that may have prevented it from being an income stream.

Rushing is clearly an example of a valid and useful income stream for DE since there really is little downside for them. There is almost no way it can cost them money. Rushing is an income stream. Revives may not have been (certainly a very very minor one), so using revives as example is dubious.

[Varhola]

DE should take the foundry time off ( I realize I am talking in circles but they need to take it away) because think about it $20 every time 50 plat is used and multiply that by millions and see how much you get and you get about 100,000,000 each time half a mill use 50 plat. I think DE has made enough money off of foundry rush time (dont ban me) but they can make so much more if they take it away and put weapons that cant be formed unless you are the max MR then they would get profit more often than not even with foundry time taken away 

[ChuckMaverick]

34 minutes ago, Net56 said:

People that have a surplus of platinum and no patience already have to worry about the farm involved for the materials, parts, and potatoes. The time-to-farm has always influenced my decision to buy more than the Foundry time has. How many people buy items outright rather than build them, specifically to skip the timer, for items that aren't forma?

Most items I have built I already had the materials for and didn't need to farm anything, the build time was the only friction involved.

If people are paying plat to rush items, then they'll likely be buying potatoes as well and not farming the materials for them.

In all but a very few cases, the time to build has been greater than the time to farm any needed materials.

People buy items outright for many reasons, build time is only one factor involved in that decision, but it still adds weight to buying the item rather than building it.

35 minutes ago, Net56 said:

If the people buying the platinum are primarily buying it to afford primes, for example, the guy who sold the prime to them turning around and using it to rush their Forma isn't what made DE money. In other words, the free player who farms parts isn't putting money into the game.

Trading only circulates plat around between players, it's when the plat is used to buy items from the market, buy slots or rush builds that the plat is removed from the economy generating the need for more plat to be bought.

[ChuckMaverick]

40 minutes ago, Varhola said:

I agree with that but they prolly make about a 40% profit off of the free 50 plat you get when you first start and that is $20 every time 50 plat is used.

I have no idea where you're getting that 40% from, but even if we accept that, 40% of free is still $0.

[Liminal]

48 minutes ago, Shockwave- said:

Actually no. You said Revives were an example of an income stream that DE removed from the game. You don't know it WAS in an income stream, because DE has stated all the problems that were happening with it that may have prevented it from being an income stream.

Rushing is clearly an example of a valid and useful income stream for DE since there really is little downside for them. There is almost no way it can cost them money. Rushing is an income stream. Revives may not have been (certainly a very very minor one), so using revives as example is dubious.

It cost money. Therefore it was an income stream. Unless it miraculously failed 100% of the time, which it didn't because I know at least two people who wasted money on it.
Rushing could just as well present other issues, like having a player log in, start something in the forge and stay logged out for three days because they don't feel they have anything else to do (which I know I've done).

I'm still not saying the time wall should be removed, but changes could be positive.

[Shockwave-]

2 minutes ago, The_Doc said:

It cost money. Therefore it was an income stream. Unless it miraculously failed 100% of the time, which it didn't because I know at least two people who wasted money on it.

Incorrect. Every person who bought and realized what it was and left WF cost them LOTS of money. They discontinued it because it was so extremely confusing to new players that it wasn't worth keeping it to DE. When it's more trouble than it's worth to DE you know it's costing them, or not making them enough to justify the bad blood from players that costs them down the line.

 

5 minutes ago, The_Doc said:

Rushing could just as well present other issues, like having a player log in, start something in the forge and stay logged out for three days because they don't feel they have anything else to do (which I know I've done).

Staying logged out for 3 days doesn't hurt DE as long as you stay a customer and keep playing and spend money down the line. If you never spend money then it doesn't matter to DE. In the end 3 day gaps don't hurt them at all.

In any case this isn't worth arguing about. Rushing items is a huge plat sink for DE and it's not even the tiniest bit harmful to players. It is a most a tiny tiny inconvenience for being able to play free, and one you can get rid of if you don't play free. There is no need to change it.

[SergeiTheBeast]

There's no need to remove the wait times, that being said there are certain items like FORMA I'M LOOKING AT YOU that have NO BUSINESS taking 24 hours to build.

 

if It's going to stay 24 hours to build a forma...at least let me build more than one at a time    -_-

[Net56]

2 minutes ago, SergeiTheBeast said:

There's no need to remove the wait times, that being said there are certain items like FORMA I'M LOOKING AT YOU that have NO BUSINESS taking 24 hours to build.

 

if It's going to stay 24 hours to build a forma...at least let me build more than one at a time    -_-

Letting people build more than one Forma at a time would effectively be the same as erasing the build time. After the first 24 hours, you would have a steady stream of Forma working it's way into your inventory all the time. This doesn't fix the problem people are having with this idea, which is DE making less money.

26 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

Most items I have built I already had the materials for and didn't need to farm anything, the build time was the only friction involved.

If people are paying plat to rush items, then they'll likely be buying potatoes as well and not farming the materials for them.

In all but a very few cases, the time to build has been greater than the time to farm any needed materials.

People buy items outright for many reasons, build time is only one factor involved in that decision, but it still adds weight to buying the item rather than building it.

Trading only circulates plat around between players, it's when the plat is used to buy items from the market, buy slots or rush builds that the plat is removed from the economy generating the need for more plat to be bought.

You're an older player, most of this doesn't apply to you anyway unless you're regularly Rushing builds or buying things to skip the build time. ...are you?

If we assume people are buying platinum just to Rush, you're right in that they're probably also buying potatoes. However, this gets back to whether they are buying or just trading, and DE's records are required to confirm which assumption is true.

My argument is that build is the lowest factor involved in the buying decision, since it's the least inconvenient factor. You're right, the time to build is usually greater than the time needed to farm the materials, but it still usually ends up delaying you by only one day. Beef up one of the other factors, erase the build time, and the weight to buy the item remains the same.

That's assuming that people put in platinum specifically to stimulate the economy, but nobody does that. Taking platinum out of the economy by buying from the market does not directly cause people to put more platinum into the game. The people trading are relying on the fact that other people are willing to put actual cash into the game to afford what they are selling, which has been true ever since they introduced platinum into the trade system. People can buy items from the store with traded platinum all day, it won't affect the economy, and DE doesn't make any money off of it.

[Liminal]

28 minutes ago, Shockwave- said:

Incorrect. Every person who bought and realized what it was and left WF cost them LOTS of money. They discontinued it because it was so extremely confusing to new players that it wasn't worth keeping it to DE. When it's more trouble than it's worth to DE you know it's costing them, or not making them enough to justify the bad blood from players that costs them down the line.

That's speculation, the same could be said for new players being turned off by the time walls.

28 minutes ago, Shockwave- said:

Staying logged out for 3 days doesn't hurt DE as long as you stay a customer and keep playing and spend money down the line. If you never spend money then it doesn't matter to DE. In the end 3 day gaps don't hurt them at all.

In any case this isn't worth arguing about. Rushing items is a huge plat sink for DE and it's not even the tiniest bit harmful to players. It is a most a tiny tiny inconvenience for being able to play free, and one you can get rid of if you don't play free. There is no need to change it.

Eh, since they want us to log in everyday (see: the daily reward and first win of the day), I guess they do care. I mean, every online game ever benefits from as eactive a population as they could get.

Sure it's not worth arguing, but I don't see any harm in thinking of ways to improve the crafting system in the game. Nothing's ever perfect.

[Loswaith]

While I don't think that removing build times altogether is a good idea (rushing is there for that), there are some tweaks though to make it more player friendly.  

Queuing:
Essentially this would enable players to set up multiple things to build one after the other.  This is especially useful for things like restores where it takes only 1 minute to build, letting you queue up 5 or 10 at a time, go play a mission and collect them when you return.  This is much better than having players sit there for 10 minutes waiting and restarting the process each time.
This would also be useful for Forma, Catalysts, Reactors and things that take a day to build. Given this will absorb wasted times.
It could be all or nothing, in that you can only collect them once the entire batch is built (less desirable for 24hr things), or have players able to collect what has completed only.

Time Reductions for 24 hour builds:
Things like forma that take a full 24 hours to build are a bit disruptive on players (will use forma as the example here).  Typically speaking people play games around the same time each day, now a 24 hour build means if you got the forma blueprint during your play time, and start it building it likely wont be available to use the next day when you again start playing, but the following one (resulting in more of a 2 day wait).  
If the time was rather 20 hours, though would still essentially mean we can build only one forma per day, it would mean that it could be used at the start of the play session.  
Sure some people do play more than 4 hours a day, but the vast majority 4 hours is enough that the forma would be ready at the start of the following days usual play time.

Time reduction with more resources:
Typically speaking players could reduce the time it takes for something to build by just spending more resources, the more resources you use the faster building becomes.  For example using double the normal resource costs could reduce the time by 25%.  For example use double the resource to build that Forma and it will take only 18 hours to build, rather than the normal 24.
Not only would that reduce build times for those that want it faster but also use up a lot of excess resources players have as well.  New players would still have the slower build times (as desired), while veterans or heavy farmers could get their gear faster by using up their excess resources (making less need for extraordinary large resource costs to do so).
Where a minimum build time from resources would be 25% of the current build times.

Options could be (for example):
- Resources x 2 for 75% build time (18 hr forma / 54 hr frame, 90% rush cost)
- Resources x 5 for 50% build time (12 hr forma / 36 hr frame, 75% rush cost)
- Resources x 10 for 25% build time (6 hr forma / 18 hr frame, 50% rush cost)

 

Holding Weapon Slot:
This mostly of use to building dual weapons.  Essentially a weapon slot in the foundry where you store a built weapon, that can be accessed only as a material component when building dual, twin and Ak weapons.  As it is now players need 2 free weapon slots in their inventory, rather than just the one the complete weapon will use.  
For myself (I'm sure others too) I'm inclined to buy one slot for the weapon, needing the second slot actually makes me look at selling weapons I don't use for that slot over actually buying a second one that it wont use long term.  However what that has done is make me less likely to keep my collection in tact (because the collection isn't intact now), and more likely to sell weapons for both slots than just buy a single new slot for the dual weapon (especially if I have only one spare slot left).