Hydron's Size Encourages AFK

[Chipputer]

The fact that a person can sit completely still on the cryopod with a Syndicate proc and come out with high damage and kills is actually sickening to me. Not only do they look justified in not actually participating in the mission by the stats screen, but it's happening with higher and higher frequency.

It's considered sacrilege to ask DE to make any changes to XP farm maps but I don't really care. When three people are using the weapons or frame they're leveling and a fourth party is just sitting on the pod not doing anything but allowing an automated proc to kill everything for them it doesn't exactly push forward that idea of, "mastery," that DE is constantly attempting to encourage.

"But Chipputer, something something pubs are random something deal with it something something"

Yes. I'm aware. No. I shouldn't have to, "deal with it." It shouldn't be considered okay to not play the game just because you can put out numbers while not actually participating.

"But Chipputer, something something Ember something Banshee something something"

Yes. I'm aware. I'm not exactly thrilled with people who use those frames to basically AFK through these missions, either.

"But Chipputer, it helps you too and benefits the entire group! Don't ruin that for everyone else by asking them to change it. What are you, anti fun?!"

Yes. I'm aware that it benefits literally everyone to let this person sit there and use an automated thing to kill enemies for us. No, I'm not anti fun. There's no fun to be had in literally not playing the game. If DE really wants to push forth this idea that you aren't supposed to press one button to win then they need to also make changes so that someone can't simply sit there and let the game win for them.

"But Chipputer, don't you have to kill in order to let that syndicate proc happen?"

Yes. I'm aware of this. If I could control the actions of other pubs I'd convince them to sit next to the AFK player, with me, and let those syndicate procs never happen until the person started actually moving around and participating. Can't always do that, though, and I'm tired of seeing these people get rewarded for their lack of activity.

 

Now that that's out of my system, I'd suggest changing Hydron to the outdoors shipyard defense map. The map that used to be Draco. The enemies aren't as compact, there, making strategies like this not work quite as well (though, admittedly, they'll still work), but they are still tight enough that the spawns come in fast enough to not make the map a waste of your time.

Yes. Scaling will eventually make it difficult for a person to sit there and let a syndicate proc kill enemies for them or an Ember's WoF to kill before she's killed, but these people will stay until that limit is reached and then leave. They reap all the benefit they can and then they restart the process of not playing to earn rewards.
Yes. Other maps, like Akkad, have similar issues, but Akkad at least has ancient healers and disruptors to reduce damage from sources like this.

[peterc3]

Given what (rightfully) happened to Draco, seems like this needs a similar look.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

It's not Hydron's size that encourages AFK. That's just a location where the symptom is most evident. It is the entire reward structure of Warfame that encourages AFK-style play.

I tried posting this in the Trinity nerf thread that popped up after Tennocon, but my computer glitched and lost what I was typing. So, I am going to recreate it here:

The main reason behind the AFK slaughter of enemies is not the fact that it can be done, or that anyone finds it fun, but because it is the most rewarding style of play in terms of both loot and Affinity. Why kill bosses, or complete missions, or hunt caches, or any other action, if it is both easier and more rewarding to just sit in one place and spam abilities/OP weapons/etc.

Now, think about what would happen if the reward structure of warframe was changed? What if, instead of slaughtering hundreds and thousands of enemies to get rare resources (*cough*mutagensamples*cough*), you had to solve puzzles, complete missions, or find caches? What if, instead of having your teammates slaughter a couple hundred Infested/Grineer, you could get more Affinity from killing a planet boss or completing missions?

Let me give you a few ways to make this work:

1. Remove Mutagen Samples from enemy drop tables and add them as an extra drop from Hive and Derelict Sabotage missions, and add new caches to Derelict Exterminate. These caches would all drop 25-50 Mutagen Samples each (75-150 per mission) and would not replace any existing rewards. They would simple drop as an extra resource when the cache is opened (requiring all teammates to go to the cache location to pick them up). Other resources could be added to this as time goes on. Perhaps having Orokin Cells only drop from containers and bosses (but guaranteed and extra, like the Mutagen Samples).
2. Increase the Affinity rewards for mission stage completions and end-of-mission rewards, as well as the Affinity gain for killing a planet boss. I think 2-5x for mission stages and completion (depending on current values. Spy is already fairly good), and 50x for bosses would be a good start. As it stands right now, a boss only gives a few enemies worth of affinity, making them only worth farming for frame parts or a specific mod. With this, they would be good for Affinity, making them more likely to be played even after all of their drops are obtained.

If anyone has other Ideas I would be glad to hear them. Just so long as they address the real issue of the reward structure.

[Periselene]

Wild, crazy idea for you: Don't play on Hydron? "I'm tired of seeing these people get rewarded for their lack of activity." Why? It's a co-op game. Tell me your reasoning. There's no competitive advantage. They go back to their ship with their 660 Plastids and 4 Orokin Cells just as you did, only between the two of you only one was genuinely concerned with how they were obtained.

People want to level up weapons at a rate faster than one rifle per week of casual play, let them or they're going to burn out trying. Coming in and trying to police how they play the game is so...unsurprising. You know, they tried once to combat the AFK problem. Know what it did? It badly screwed with people trying to defend nodes, because a mesa in Peacemaker has no use for an efficiency build if they have to toggle it off and walk around every minute to start gaining affinity, energy, and vacuum again. I guess it was impossible for them to add an input check and just look at position instead. It's a half-baked idea that isn't nearly as useful as it could be, just like everything else DE does. Yet here you are, pleading for them to mess with it again because you voluntarily enter a farm map and then have a problem with people farming.

 

Let's say you get your wish and Hydron is nerfed. No, let's go past that - let's say they nerf any and all ways to optimally gain XP with minimal effort. Do you think the game has improved at that point? Do you think the people who don't want to kill eximus units for 3 hours in a solo Survival or run the neutered Spy missions are going to be any more willing to play? Do you think they won't enter regular missions and try to run into a corner there instead?

 

ps. Mastery means nothing anyway since it goes up every time they add a garbage weapon in a hotfix, why try to restore what meaning it had 3 years ago ("I am a player that has been here a while") when it's only a perk for syndicate rep and capacity.

Edited July 21, 2017 by Periselene

[Shockwave-]

Hydron is my favorite place to farm relics because it ALSO gives good affinity. Does anyone go to wave 20 anymore now that they discovered it's the best affinity farm? Nope. Can't get a public squad to go to 20 where a couple months ago that was the norm.

I agree with Peri above. The reward structure is the problem. 50% of all affinity should be stored in a separate pile and awared at "completion" of the mission. Completion for endless missions should be 20 waves/ 20 minutes (rotation C). For spy it should be a bonus given out for completing all vaults (Rot C) and for cache finidng missions finding all caches. The incentive should be geared to discourage quick ins and outs for focus and affinity as those are never the goals of the mission the Lotus is ostensibly sending us on.

[torint_man]

2 hours ago, Shockwave- said:

Can't get a public squad to go to 20 where a couple months ago that was the norm.

One large contributing factor to that is the Nox. Most Pubs can get by with half modded weapons and frames, but the nox makes that harder, and they spawn from wave 10 on.

[Jakorak]

ooooohhhhh and people call me an elitist for wanting people to at least stay in affinity range or not projectile vomit so much CC onto the map that it's impossible to play the game within affinity range