What I'd like to see from a focus rework

[Protomorph]

Coming in on the heels of a hot topic, DE has asked for player input regarding a focus rework. Ye shall receive.

Let's look at some problems & solutions.

1. The current version of focus is either overcosted or underpowered, depending on how you look at it. Brozime touched on this in his video, but let's look at some specifics. You can get 100k of focus points per day. We can all understand DE wanting a cap on this so people don't max out focus in a day or a week, but the process to get focus quickly goes from grind to Warframe-level of grind to Korean-mmo level of grind to dear-god-please-put-me-out-of-my-misery grind. I'll let you in on a little secret: I am insane. I have almost every focus ability in every school. That's right. I ground out enough focus points to get every ability that had any remotely useful application in all five schools of focus. I don't remember if I have every ability in any or all schools, and honestly I'm not going to go look because I don't play much anymore and I never want to look at the focus tree again. Grinding out the focus was that bad. I am scarred. The process of acquiring enough focus to get all or most of the abilities in a school is horrible. The costs keep going up, up, up, and the abilities (in like 90% of the cases) just are not worth using. The topic of how much DEvelopers play Warframe has been brought up, and although things are better than they used to be, and no one in their right mind thinks that DE doesn't play at all, I think most players (including me) think DE doesn't play enough, and should play more. To that end, I'm going to propose a specific method for DE to gain an intimate understanding of focus from the players perspective. I want to say I DARE someone to do this, but we'll just use the word challenge. I challenge a DE employee to complete one focus tree of their choice (buy all abilities to max rank), then come once the process is complete come back and tell us if you think the abilities you bought are worth the effort it took. If someone takes this up, please make sure some form of counseling is available. A lot of people have forgotten the nerfs and roadblocks that were shoehorned into the game specifically to prevent players from gaining focus: the changes to exterminate spawns, multiple nerfs to stealth that were counterintuitive, clunky, and bad, the removal of Draco and anything comparable to it, and the nightmare that are convergence orbs. DE threw roadblock after roadblock into the players path to prevent progress, never realizing that the rewards for that effort just weren't there, thus making the nerfs unjustified. So here's the thing: either make the abilities worthwhile, or make focus easier to get, but the focus points and focus abilities as they stand now are the opposite of what they should be: excessive costs and insane grind for abilities that are (with a few exceptions) not worth using at all. And let's be clear here: I (and other players) are not asking to get some focus abilities and be converted to an invincible god that breezes through the game. But I would like all of the abilities to be useful, I would like them all to do something, and I'd like the reward of those abilities to be worth the effort it took to get them.

I didn't think this would be this long and, as I said, I don't play much anymore (focus & operators are a big part of that, as are relics), and I'm getting old, and I'm tired so I'm going to throw up some other points, and I may or may not flesh them out later here or in other posts.

2. When you rework Focus, don't go in and destroy the 2 or 3 abilities that people are using, then rework the rest but still not make them worthwhile. This is what we are all afraid of. Yes, Shadow Step is broken, but you don't need to go crazy. If you put an energy cost on it it would probably be fine. Yes, I'm serious. Yes, Energy Overflow is fine the way it is. Yes, I'm serious. It's ok to have things that allow players to have energy, especially given how many things take energy away, how easily they do so, and the fact that Leech Eximus double-dip by not only draining your energy, but stopping your energy gain too. Don't forget you already nerfed energy gain with channeled abilities too, so show restraint please. Yes, the Unairu tree really is that bad.Use the data you have on what people are using. If you want Madurai to be useful and do more damage instead of having the 3 categories be puncture, impact, & slash what if you did something more significant, like Warframe damage, weapon damage, and companion damage. That would be worth having, and it doesn't have to be crazy. 10% weapon damage is a lot, 10% to 20% Warframe damage or power is huge, and you could be pretty generous with a companion damage buff because they're not very effective.

3. When you rework focus, please take the opportunity to connect focus to operators in some way, and make operators something more than a Kuva farming device. This was a missed opportunity, and I was pretty sad this didn't happen. Focus comes from operators, show that in the game. This is an easy win for lore & gameplay, take advantage of it. The focus rework should be the operator rework, and vice versa. You can't make just one side of a coin.

4. The focus rework should include the focus point rework: convergence orbs should be removed, look at whether the daily cap is fine or if it should be changed, focus lens acquisition should be examined (and whether it's really necessary to have two lenses to get a decent amount of focus). When it came out we asked that focus points work like syndicate rep gain, but to a lesser scale. That request was rejected, but maybe it's time to take another look at that because the current system is far to overcomplicated, and that is unnecessary.

5. When you rework focus, please don't make a system that you have to wait 3 minutes to use then can only be used every few minutes.This doesn't suit the fast pace & mobility of Warframe, the ebb & flow, the action. I'll be honest with you: if you wanted to make a focus system that was composed entirely of passives I probably would not complain at all and would be happy with that. If you want to keep "operator-focus saiyen" mode then...

6. Operator focus mode is too slow & immobile. You grind away to earn these abilities, you buy them, you get in a mission, you wait, you activate Super-Saiyen mode and.... you ssssllllloooooowwwwlllllyyyyy drag.... yourself.... across.. the floor... You can't traverse 6 inch high obstacles. If you fall off of a ledge your "ultimate" gets cancelled & you have to wait another five minutes. Sure, anything that gets close to you will die. but that won't be much because you're a turtle. Focus-mode should be as active, as participatory, as fun and as cool as playing a Warframe. It should transform you into a super badass that strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies. Especially considering you paid all that extra time and effort for it, and it's temporary. Focus mode should be something that makes Grineer Bombards and Corpus Techs run away and start a small farm in the country. Maybe a slow moving, invulnerable aoe effect isn't the way to go. Maybe the 5 focus school actives could be like Warframes themselves, with their own abilities & themes that move around quickly and do things, and use abilities, and are quite tough but not invulnerable and when they "die" you revert back to your Warframe. That sounds pretty fun to me.

That is more than enough. Thanks to anyone who read this, if anyone did. Thanks to DE for making a great game. Yes, I know we get cranky sometimes but we love you and love the game and we all want it to be the best Warframe it can be. Please don't be mad at Brozime for ranting, we had some polite discussion about focus for over a year & nothing was happening so it just boiled over I guess. We want focus & operators 2.0 because we know they can be way more awesome than they are, and that's fun for everybody. Peace. Goodnight.

[TheChaotic1]

Good feedback

+1

[friendofvampires]

10/10, email straight to DE