Forma - A system that needs some TLC

[(XBOX)SickWicked]

I have been playing for as long as a person could on console.  I have put a lot of forma into a bunch of different weapons even those weapons that the majority of the community would possibly dismiss as MR fodder. The only reason I even mention that is to try and add a little weight to saying that the process of formaing is in my oppinion horrible.  It got a little better when they made the change to make a players MR dictate the starting points you have available for mods.

But over all it is still horrible and no fun whatsoever. It's really the fact that you need to re-level the weapon over and over again.  I don't understand anymore why re-leveling was the gate chosen, but its not like it slows you down if you really wanted to get a weapon all beefed up to handle all of your mods.  I think it takes me a few hours in an evening with a booster to put 6 forma into a weapon and I expect that to be the case for most players that likewise put there mind to it. 

There has to be a better way... a more fun way to apply formas to weapons. 

I make a suggestion that has a dual purpose

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Put out a Forma segment in the Orbiter.   The forma segment lets you place extra resources into it and then performs its void fueled space magic to transform it into Forma Fusion matter.

Weight each resource to produce a different amount of fusion matter depending on its drop rarity.

When you want to put a forma into anything it will require an amount of forma fusion matter to bond it to the item or warframe you want it on.  I would suggest a fixed amount so that you can CAP how much fusion matter is stored so that you can still base it off of MR and keep that functionality.  So as an example you would start the game being able to put resources into the fusion segment to forma something 4 times maybe and as your MR goes up you can gain the ability to store more every 2 levels similar to how extra load out slots work. 

Simply if you have enough forma matter and built forma to put 6 forma into a weapon you just put 6 forma into it.  Require warframes use more of the forma matter obviously. 

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As for the dual purpose:

1.  This adds in my opinion a great resource sink as formaing weapons is something every player does... and I would wager that Vets tend to forma more items more often than others... so this would get some of those stockpiles down.  New players would pretty much stay the same.... I believe it even adds a layer of progression for new players as they will have to first acquire extra mats to throw into the forma segment for conversion  which shouldn't be too hard of a task..  I remember not having a hard time stock piling alloy plates when I was a new and shiny tenno during early game. 

2. It makes the process of formaing more fun and just something that can happen as you play the game and gives you something to do with whatever resource you could name off that you have just hundreds of thousands of.  

I just wish re-leveling was not the answer to gating an item from becoming more powerful over time.

 

 

 

[Aurea_Hiigara]

It is not about slowing you down - it is about giving experienced players a reason to go back to non-endgame maps where newbies might benefit from having an experienced player helping them out.

That this system doesn't work entirely as intended because of how shared affinity gains work is another matter.

[Snib]

21 minutes ago, (Xbox One)SickWicked said:

I don't understand anymore why re-leveling was the gate chosen, 

It gets you playing and possibly buying a booster.

Your suggestion isn't the worst I've seen in this respect since the resource cost part ticks those boxes as well, albeit in a less direct and very much less certain way. I'd consider this change unlikely though. 

Edited February 10, 2017 by Snib

[TheLexiConArtist]

Genuinely couldn't care less about having to level items again, especially with the Mastery Rank lower-limit to mod capacity. Real problem factor for Forma is just the fact that there's a parabolic curve of how much they actually function - which is to say, promote flexibility of builds - and we're now so far past the peak with all the extra things we're using that Forma is restricting flexibility, not improving it.

We need the Forma system changing, sure, but just to be reworked so it can't restrict diverse builds when it's required to have a build.

But I've been personally asking this for almost literally a full year now.

Would be nice to finally have peace of mind so I can use these 250 forma I have lying around.

[Old_King_Belgothia]

Although it's far from perfect (rush cost should be 5 not 10) I think the current forma system is better than its ever been and probably won't be changed in any fundamental way for a long time.

[ChuckMaverick]

16 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

We need the Forma system changing, sure, but just to be reworked so it can't restrict diverse builds when it's required to have a build.

But I've been personally asking this for almost literally a full year now.

Would be nice to finally have peace of mind so I can use these 250 forma I have lying around.

I prefer the suggestion made recently that you could apply multiple polarities to the same mod slot by adding additional forma (still ranking up each time as we do now).

[DarkFlameZealot]

Until DE gets feedback on a new forma idea that they think will get more popularity and income than the forma bundles and (if I can call it this) scamming players who don't realize there is a bundle that saves 15p instead of buying a forma alone for 20p through the arsenal when upgrading. This honestly seems like the endo system; we get so many worthless duplicate mods that we trash them for endo, like 80% or something. It's a decent idea, but I see it failing to be popular when DE cucks us over stuff like formas for building dojos/dojo research weapons along with the ridiculous amounts of resources like Hema and Vauban Prime (Alertium be damned zzzz). I'd much rather have a resource trading system like Settlers of Catan where you pay x amount of one resource and gain 1 of the wanted, say 5 detonite or whatever for one mutagen sample?

[TheLexiConArtist]

6 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

I prefer the suggestion made recently that you could apply multiple polarities to the same mod slot by adding additional forma (still ranking up each time as we do now).

Similar but functionally inferior to my suggestion archived there.

You'll notice I do essentially inherit that for special-slots (Aura/Exilus/Stance) since they're non-transferrable and have to be their own thing anyway, but for the common slots, using a 'bank' of polarities instead of polarising each individual slot is strictly superior in flexibility (for a certain stage of forma investment count), ease of use (when rearranging "polarised slots" e.g. for elemental combination order) and potential storage impact (which I'm sure DE would find relevant).

[ChuckMaverick]

1 minute ago, EDYinnit said:

Similar but functionally inferior to my suggestion archived there.

You'll notice I do essentially inherit that for special-slots (Aura/Exilus/Stance) since they're non-transferrable and have to be their own thing anyway, but for the common slots, using a 'bank' of polarities instead of polarising each individual slot is strictly superior in flexibility (for a certain stage of forma investment count), ease of use (when rearranging "polarised slots" e.g. for elemental combination order) and potential storage impact (which I'm sure DE would find relevant).

Seems overly complicated, on top of a system that's already quite complicated for new players, and doesn't offer much more if anything in practical use.

You could store all polarities for a slot in less than a single byte, storage isn't an issue.

[Loswaith]

Forma was meant to be a way to specialise your weapons into certain builds.  It was never designed for players to be polarising every slot (likely not even most slots).

Re-ranking can be annoying, because it is meant to be.  It is meant to make you consider "do I really want to do this".  Sure it doesn't always make players do that but it is a consideration, if even briefly.  It seems to be working that way well enough.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2017 by Loswaith

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

I totally agree it's extremely tedious to relevel the same weapon six times in a row because of the high mod costs of individual mod cards. Way more weapons should have innate polarities (although de can't really add polarities on existing weapons as they would break existing builds, but newer weapons should at least have 1 "decent" polarity by default (no D please, especially when you insist on putting it on the first slot , which breaks elemental combo variety).

I think formas should allow you to reroll all existing polarities as you see fit and also add a new polarity. It kinda sucks that you have to reforma multiple times since they game evolves and new mods were introduced that change your builds.

Rivens only made forma dependancy worse in that regards, as it requires quite a few formas to be able to accomodate a 18 mod energy riven + all the expensive, must own mods like Serration / Split Chamber and so on. The fact it takes 24 hours to build a forma, yet you can put like six formas per day if you're a dedicated player, the math doesn't add up, and you'll deplete your stock of formas sooner than later.

That said, I don't think it'll be fixed anytime soon ,as putting formas on weapons probably accounts for huge portion of the time vets play the game... I mean, the big time sinks in warframe nowadays are leveling stuff for mastery, then releving already mastered stuff for formas, then farming kuva for riven rerolls...

But honestly, I think it all comes down to monetisation. The operating costs in plat of playing warframe has expended tremendously in the next year or so.

I mean, rivens are expensive to buy (especially well rolled rivens for popular weapons), then you have to factor in the costs associated with buying the riven slots, the inventory slots to hold said weapons, the catalysts which are pretty much mandatory, the 5-ish formas often required to fit in a riven and all key mods... Then alot of people buy affinity and drop quantity boosters to make putting formas / farming kuva faster... All in all , DE is making big money off the current iteration of the system. It's a system that makes them money and keeps bored vets with nothing to do occupied, as they log in daily for their sorties in hopes of getting the riven they want, they get endo, then they buy it off trade chat and spend hours and countless formas to use said riven

[ChuckMaverick]

16 minutes ago, (PS4)Stealth_Cobra said:

The fact it takes 24 hours to build a forma, yet you can put like six formas per day if you're a dedicated player, the math doesn't add up, and you'll deplete your stock of formas sooner than later.

The maths adds up perfectly, the three forma bundle is the best selling item in the market.

If you want to use six forma per day then you'll have to pay for it, either with your plat or by trading for it.

[DarkFlameZealot]

20 minutes ago, (PS4)Stealth_Cobra said:

I totally agree it's extremely tedious to relevel the same weapon six times in a row because of the high mod costs of individual mod cards. Way more weapons should have innate polarities (although de can't really add polarities on existing weapons as they would break existing builds, but newer weapons should at least have 1 "decent" polarity by default (no D please, especially when you insist on putting it on the first slot , which breaks elemental combo variety).

Tedious isn't the right word, it's BOREDOM. Currently Akkad is the best place to level stuff from 0-30, one fastva, an ember and a zenistar and you can take a nap, wake up 10-15 mins later and bam, maxed again. The issue with forma is that's is boring, nothing else to it other than slightly frustrating resource cost for newer players and the relics: run a team of 4 relics, all you want is a forma, but someone rolls a saryn chassis or a vaulted part. There goes your forma that was right there because of the other parts.

I do like the whole changing of other polarity slots as well, but I think that would entice DE to make formas more expensive resource wise.

[TheLexiConArtist]

42 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

Seems overly complicated, on top of a system that's already quite complicated for new players, and doesn't offer much more if anything in practical use.

You could store all polarities for a slot in less than a single byte, storage isn't an issue.

Storage is always an issue - if it can be reduced sensibly, it should.

Bitmasking a byte per slot is nice and all (and, again, used in mine for specials), but that's one full byte per slot per item per player. How does 26 million players * up to 500 items * eight to ten slots sound in bytes, compared to 26m * 500 * 6-8? Those two bytes saved represent gigabytes of accumulated storage.

 

In terms of confusion... well, it doesn't really have anything complicated at all. You'd probably not even notice the difference, and you can just co-opt the existing "swap polarities" screen into assigning polarities in whatever combination to slots.

An example of a difference comes when you're starting the middle-ground of multi-polarising slots. If you have 4 Madurai and 4 Naramon, on a per-slot polarisation your next decision (to gain a Vazarin) locks you into the option of 4/4/0 and [3/4/1] or [4/3/1] depending on which slot you pick. Banked polarities and just assigning them to slots allows all three options simultaneously (because your slots are completely agnostic of where you're putting things).

 

40 minutes ago, Loswaith said:

Forma was meant to be a way to specialise your weapons into certain builds.  It was never designed for players to be polarising every slot (likely not even most slots).

Re-ranking can be annoying, because it is meant to be.  It is meant to make you consider "do I really want to do this".  Sure it doesn't always make players do that but it is a consideration, if even briefly.  It seems to be working that way well enough.

Forma has been outgrown by the system around it. We've got up to 3 more slots and much fatter mods to put in them all since that original goal. We've also got random polarity Rivens. You say re-ranking is annoying, I say, why force the player into a situation where that annoying time investment is literally wasted by needing to overwrite polarities they've spent Forma unlocking?

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

Yeah, the fact rivens get random polarities really makes formas annoying, especially if you decide to sell said riven later down the road.. I mean for V rivens it's not usually a big deal, as most of they key mods have V polarities, and in the worse case scenario you can put in a dual stat elemental mod in place of your riven or something...

With - riven mods you can sometimes make it work due to elemental mods , but D Rivens... Ugh... Especially on a weapon with already innate D or where you put a D to make Viral / Magnetic / Cold Corrosive.

[ChuckMaverick]

13 minutes ago, EDYinnit said:

Storage is always an issue - if it can be reduced sensibly, it should.

Bitmasking a byte per slot is nice and all (and, again, used in mine for specials), but that's one full byte per slot per item per player. How does 26 million players * up to 500 items * eight to ten slots sound in bytes, compared to 26m * 500 * 6-8? Those two bytes saved represent gigabytes of accumulated storage.

Well if you really want to save every last bit of storage then you can bitmask multiple polarities in just 4 bits per slot (unless I'm mistaken, no slot has the option of more than four different polarities).

I'd be interested to see how you calculated the storage requirements for your proposal.

I'll read through the entirety of your thread tomorrow, as it's after 3am here now.

[TheLexiConArtist]

8 minutes ago, ChuckMaverick said:

Well if you really want to save every last bit of storage then you can bitmask multiple polarities in just 4 bits per slot (unless I'm mistaken, no slot has the option of more than four different polarities).

I'd be interested to see how you calculated the storage requirements for your proposal.

I'll read through the entirety of your thread tomorrow, as it's after 3am here now.

Technically, there are... 6 polarities available counting Precepts. Depending on whether or not DE wanted to be aggressive with pre-polarised equipment, "empty" could also be a trackable state.

Good track of mind to be on though, that sort of thinking is not far off what I used for the theory of storing in mine, to squeeze out that little bit of extra data saving. Down with Bytes, up with Nibbles. _{Never forget the day you learn that 'nibbles' is a genuine terminology for half-bytes.}

I more recently rewrote and reposted the proposal here, might be a bit better of a read since it directly addresses some of the things that cropped up the first time(s).

Edited February 10, 2017 by EDYinnit

[(XBOX)SickWicked]

I believe the main reason forma exist was to lock in your builds as you tried to make things more powerful, Think that was a fundamental design decision at one point.  Its coming to the front these days because we are more often getting reasons added to the game that make you question if you want to put that 7th or 8th forma into something after having it set and done in our arsenal for such a long time. 

I don't care if changing a polarity always cost a forma.  That isn't the problem at all. Its the process after you put that forma in, That is what is boring and tedious for no reason. That is even why you would want to store a polarity or add a double polarity to the slot.. so that you can set it and forget it. All the ideas promote a certain level of flexibility, mine just never removes the cost.

I like parts of the multi slot Idea or the polarity bucket Idea.  But I think the problem those Ideas have is that it eventually removes the need to always use forma, once you multi forma a slot or store a polarity for later use.. you basically take away the need to ever forma the weapon or warframe again...  and as far as a monetisation stand point would go... I don't think that works out in DE's best interests. 

The re-level is the problem I see with the current system.   It is the part that is boring and tedious and no body really wants to do.  I know XP farms exist in every game like warframe. Forma is the reason why xp farms are so aggressively used in warframe.  Everybody that plays for a while starts to know that if you like a weapon or warframe, your not really going to get to use it to the fullest of its capabilities until you dump a bunch of forma into it. So before the player even gets the weapon they already know what is going to be required. It becomes more true the longer you play because your mods become  more expensive to add in. 

It took me two evenings to completely forma Nidus to where I wanted him to be. I would have played that same amount of time regardless... I just would have done something more fun (as subjective as fun is)... because even with all of my play time I still have fun just logging in and playing the game. And if i didn't have a huge stockpile of resources... I just go and play some missions that I normally would enjoy playing anyways... collecting resources that I know I'm gonna dump away into my forma machine.

My suggestion does't make forma more efficient or forgiving. I'm just aiming at requesting that DE removes or alters what I and I see others consider to be the boring part. Especially when it comes to having to re-level warframes.   

A big plus in my opinion, If it where to use all of the resources the way I suggested it gives us players universal way to maintain our personal choice of play style. Because no matter the mission type, tile set, enemy faction, or playtime, you will be able to use this system. At some point in time everybody inevitably starts to stockpile some type of resource even new players. 

TL;DR - Everybody seems to agree that modifying your weapon or warframe to become more powerful should come with a cost. I ask why does it need to be repetition and a removal of what you already learned when mastering the weapon or warframe the first time, especially the Warframe. Why can't it be something that is simple like the Endo system (which yes this suggestion does resemble a lot.  its like endo with a cap and you also need the forma on top of it) and something you can at least half do while just playing the game.

Edited February 10, 2017 by (XB1)SickWicked

[ChuckMaverick]

The fact that you have to rank up your weapons and frames, multiple times if you're using forma, is part of what prevents pay-to-win accusations as you can't simply hand over some cash/plat and immediately have maxed out gear.

[(XBOX)SickWicked]

That is a fair point...And leave it to someone in this world of possibilities to put that obscene amount of cash into the game to become instantly OP. 

It always feels like DE walks that tight rope of a line very carefully... successfully in my opinion but carefully.

I would say this however.. They already have a system in game that can keep track of whether a person has trade-able plat or non trade-able plat.  I would expect that it not be much of a task to add a tag to every resource that is purchased from the market, to mark it as non usable in the forma system I purpose here.

Edited February 10, 2017 by (XB1)SickWicked

[TheLexiConArtist]

16 hours ago, (Xbox One)SickWicked said:

I believe the main reason forma exist was to lock in your builds as you tried to make things more powerful, Think that was a fundamental design decision at one point.  Its coming to the front these days because we are more often getting reasons added to the game that make you question if you want to put that 7th or 8th forma into something after having it set and done in our arsenal for such a long time. 

I don't care if changing a polarity always cost a forma.  That isn't the problem at all. Its the process after you put that forma in, That is what is boring and tedious for no reason. That is even why you would want to store a polarity or add a double polarity to the slot.. so that you can set it and forget it. All the ideas promote a certain level of flexibility, mine just never removes the cost.

I like parts of the multi slot Idea or the polarity bucket Idea.  But I think the problem those Ideas have is that it eventually removes the need to always use forma, once you multi forma a slot or store a polarity for later use.. you basically take away the need to ever forma the weapon or warframe again...  and as far as a monetisation stand point would go... I don't think that works out in DE's best interests.

But as I said previously, that original design has been outgrown. We have too much to fill with the same mechanics from the past. The only thing we've 'gained' for flexibility since then is Melee stances - because while we no longer have ability mods and their Zenurik polarities, we gained slots that need filling when those were removed. In that original design you didn't need to forma all the slots anyway, really, whereas now between valued-but-cheap and vastly expensive mods you can be stuck needing to forma over half your slots just to try to fit things.

Sure the banking of polarities eventually removes the need to forma a given item... but even if we look at the simplest case, a primary/secondary without auras, stances, exilus or extended slots (companions) to worry about... You can fit in 40 in that one item before you're objectively done. Eight Madurai, Naramon, Vazarin, Zenurik and even Unairu although we don't yet have many mods for that other than a handful of stances. Take it up to companions, with 10 slots and an extra polarity (precept) and you're looking at up to 70 each.

I think if you've invested that many you deserve to be done with that one item.. and you can start looking at building up others. In terms of business sense, there are probably many more people than myself who avoid using many forma because it might restrict us in the unforeseen future. I'm sitting on 250 that I'm disinclined to put into things, not because of the relevelling, but because it's Good Enough and I can play more than one build without making an extra instance of the equipment in question. Am I likely to buy Forma at any point this century when I have so many kicking around that I can pull from whenever something new rolls by that I need to bring up to 'good enough'?