Solo Is Now Dull , And Not Rewarding Enough . Get A Squad For A Far More Easy Game.

[Ghobe]

"Making it like serious sam does not make it harder. it makes it tedious , boring and uninspired.

Adding more waves and waves of the same enemies gets you stressed. i felt like i was doing no progress at all whatsoever when i was playing a grineer mission."

just read.

None of that makes it "unfair". I think you need to look up the definition of fair there buddy. Looks like what you're actually looking for is variety not fairness, not toned down challenge, not more intelligent enemies, you're looking for a variety. More enemy types in general.

[Retrikaethan]

KOGAKE SPEED LEVELING IS GO THEN SOLO ALL THE THINGS

[Xylia]

If you can't handle enemies higher than level 20, then yes. If you were capable of handling enemies up to the difficulty that the big 3 provided in update 8 then that only locks you out of the new big 3. I personally have no trouble going through ever mission in succession with unranked equipment, only using mods I picked up while using said loadout. that's how I'e always played, I do this so I can get a good idea of the difficulty curve and how much grinding is actually required. From what I can tell a new player might stop being able to solo enemies without learning new trick or getting better mods around about the end of Earth or mid way through Jupiter/Mars/Saturn difficulty. It's hard to judge becaue I'm obviously more experienced than a new player, but the mods I collected up until that point are adequate for the job. Hell, I've never completed a run like this with multishot on my weapons, not even the firt time I played through, so it's not like those sorts of uber-mods are necessary to get through Europa level content.

So, basically in a co-op game it's entirely possible to solo everything in the game bar defense missions but it is harder than playing with a group. On top of that you can customise your own difficulty to your standards and the mods available are adequate for every level of the game. If you don't like higher difficulty stuff, don't play it. Difficulty level is your choice, if you don't like your current "settings", change them.

 

Pre-Update 9, I was capable of just starting to solo Sedna. Eris and Pluto were out of my reach.

 

Post-Update 9, the best I can do is _Maybe_ Neptune. And that's tough. I managed to do 1 mission on I think it was Eris, but I blew 2 revives and an ammo box and it was a frustratingly slow crawl and it didn't reward me much of anything that made the whole experience worth it.

 

Someone who was capable of doing up to Jupiter (infested missions are usually harder) in U8 is now going to find themselves unable to handle Neptune, Saturn, and maybe Mars in Update 9. These planets have vital resources to make new weaponry and Warframes.

[Parias-Ilota]

None of that makes it "unfair". I think you need to look up the definition of fair there buddy. Looks like what you're actually looking for is variety not fairness, not toned down challenge, not more intelligent enemies, you're looking for a variety. More enemy types in general.

Ugh. just stop. please.

 

KOGAKE SPEED LEVELING IS GO THEN SOLO ALL THE THINGS

Cheater.

[Xylia]

i do believe i said that was for op, and at any rate to choose simply the weapons and a frame. i will use whatever mods i get with this setup and i will assume i start with absolutely nohing, no powers, nothing special. oh right i didnt say it before but im not using either of my sentinels. i also addendumed that im not going to use potatoes on these or if theyre there assume theyre not. (max 30 points blahblah)

 

also, i have to go max my kogake stopped at like 23 or somehting last i checked. lol

 

oh and to addendum that, i wont use any auras.

 

You're going to use a Kogake? An ARMOR PIERCING weapon? *rolls eyes* Why don't you try to grab something that's not armor pierce? Newbies won't have access to Kogake until they reach Saturn, you know.

[Retrikaethan]

Ugh. just stop. please.

 

Cheater.

im not cheating, cheating would be leaving it at 21, im bringing it to 30 so i can forma it back to 0 since that would be cheaper and faster than making another kogake. formad ember to have no plarity on aura btw and just bought another of the mk1 and latos. leveling things is a pain in the &#! when i cant bloody connect to anyone XD

[Retrikaethan]

You're going to use a Kogake? An ARMOR PIERCING weapon? *rolls eyes* Why don't you try to grab something that's not armor pierce? Newbies won't have access to Kogake until they reach Saturn, you know.

thats what gem said to use, so its what im going to use.

[Xylia]

im not cheating, cheating would be leaving it at 21, im bringing it to 30 so i can forma it back to 0 since that would be cheaper and faster than making another kogake. formad ember to have no plarity on aura btw and just bought another of the mk1 and latos. leveling things is a pain in the &#! when i cant bloody connect to anyone XD

 

Weapon level doesn't mean anything without the mods anyways, lol.

 

thats what gem said to use, so its what im going to use.

 

Meh.

 

LOL @ Another person who thinks the Kogake are weak. Oi.

 

I was finding them to actually be a decent weapon provided you had some survivability to get close and use them.

 

And the thing is, Kogake favor normal attacks, whose mods are MUCH easier to come by than the charge attack mods.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Xylia

[Parias-Ilota]

Weapon level doesn't mean anything without the mods anyways, lol.

 

 

 

 

Meh.

 

LOL @ Another person who thinks the Kogake are weak. Oi.

 

I was finding them to actually be a decent weapon provided you had some survivability to get close and use them.

 

And the thing is, Kogake favor normal attacks, whose mods are MUCH easier to come by than the charge attack mods.

 

i dont believe the kogake is a weak weapon. it is my favourite. gee it can one-hit kill bosses if used properly but im telling Delano to play with my actual build and if he can work it out, i will shut my face for once and believe that its not the game design's fault but mine. I could just say , play it with the Bo-Staff, but i cannot tell since i didnt used it after lvl 18

Edited July 18, 2013 by Gem145

[TheHeraldXII]

Pre-Update 9, I was capable of just starting to solo Sedna. Eris and Pluto were out of my reach.

 

Post-Update 9, the best I can do is _Maybe_ Neptune. And that's tough. I managed to do 1 mission on I think it was Eris, but I blew 2 revives and an ammo box and it was a frustratingly slow crawl and it didn't reward me much of anything that made the whole experience worth it.

 

Someone who was capable of doing up to Jupiter (infested missions are usually harder) in U8 is now going to find themselves unable to handle Neptune, Saturn, and maybe Mars in Update 9. These planets have vital resources to make new weaponry and Warframes.Ok

This just makes the intermediary weapons like the Braton, Strun and Aklatos of more obvious importance. These weapons can be used to solo up to level 35-45 content with ease and without grinding for multishot or whatever mods. Sure, a new player might have to replay the early 3 missions a bit, but seeing as they're playing solo in a co-op game they should expect a little difficulty. Also, I'm not just talking as an experienced player here, back when I was green as summer grass I had no trouble soloing up to Sedna difficulty and beyond, old Sedna is the same difficulty as the new Mars/Jupiter/Saturn levels, which reward the materials you need to get better equipment which takes you to the next tier of levels. Uranus/Neptune/Sedna is now about the difficulty level of old Eris and Pluto. So, what we have here are three tiers of levels which span the difficulty settings of the old system plus a new tier of difficulty at the higher levels.

As far as I can see, noone is losing their ability to play the game at the difficulty they prefer, but now we have a new difficulty setting as well. How anyone here is losing out on anything is beyond me. Pick your difficulty settings, play the levels you're comfortable with until you can go higher and stop cranking it up beyond what you can manage.

[123Olympian]

I am a Rhino player and it's true, all the OP frames just use one or two skills. For me is Rhino Stomp alone, although I will use all for a T3 defence. Note, it's hard to listen to hardcore and casual gamers as no one can make everyone happy. There is some other frames like Vauban for high level missions, although I see too much Frost or people complaining in global chat of why they can't get Frost Prime. I can do solo easy, note Rhino Stomp, Mr.PotatoHead with Mr.Potato Boltor. I'd like to see easier levels (talk about the t3 defence), as fools just keep asking for harder levels for no reason at all as they don't care for those just starting in the game.

[DAWGUNITALPHA]

I am a Rhino player and it's true, all the OP frames just use one or two skills. For me is Rhino Stomp alone, although I will use all for a T3 defence. Note, it's hard to listen to hardcore and casual gamers as no one can make everyone happy. There is some other frames like Vauban for high level missions, although I see too much Frost or people complaining in global chat of why they can't get Frost Prime. I can do solo easy, note Rhino Stomp, Mr.PotatoHead with Mr.Potato Boltor. I'd like to see easier levels (talk about the t3 defence), as fools just keep asking for harder levels for no reason at all as they don't care for those just starting in the game.

They can. Its called optional difficulty toggles instead of forcing everyone to play the same S#&$ and expecting everyone to be happy with it. If the game had a "hardmode" option that made the whole game harder but maybe had better drops or droprates, I expect the hardcore crowd would be happier but the more casual crowd could keep playing normal all they wanted with pre-U9 levels.

[Tresskzilla]

The only impossible thing to solo in this game would probably be the defense missions and maybe some of the boss missions. If standard missions are possible to solo (even with some difficulty) then why are you complaining? You shouldn't be solo queuing for defense missions anyways. OP is a noob

[Xylia]

This just makes the intermediary weapons like the Braton, Strun and Aklatos of more obvious importance. These weapons can be used to solo up to level 35-45 content with ease and without grinding for multishot or whatever mods. Sure, a new player might have to replay the early 3 missions a bit, but seeing as they're playing solo in a co-op game they should expect a little difficulty. Also, I'm not just talking as an experienced player here, back when I was green as summer grass I had no trouble soloing up to Sedna difficulty and beyond, old Sedna is the same difficulty as the new Mars/Jupiter/Saturn levels, which reward the materials you need to get better equipment which takes you to the next tier of levels. Uranus/Neptune/Sedna is now about the difficulty level of old Eris and Pluto. So, what we have here are three tiers of levels which span the difficulty settings of the old system plus a new tier of difficulty at the higher levels.

As far as I can see, noone is losing their ability to play the game at the difficulty they prefer, but now we have a new difficulty setting as well. How anyone here is losing out on anything is beyond me. Pick your difficulty settings, play the levels you're comfortable with until you can go higher and stop cranking it up beyond what you can manage.

 

The Braton, yeah. It is a good gun.... well. It will do good on Mercury... On Venus, it will start to show its flaws until you get some of the early mods on it then it will be "meh" until you get better. At this point, a Boltor would be quite nice.....oh but wait, you need Salvage to make one. My Bad. You ain't getting a Boltor until you can solo Mars.

 

AkLatos? Really? I'd rather have a Lex than an AkLato. Horrible accuracy, longer reload, and double the ammo wasting power over the regular Lato.

 

Strun? What are you going to kill with a Strun without awesome mods? I tried a Strun... found it to be incredibly weak with low-ranked mods. It could barely hurt a fly past Venus. It was more like using a piece of cardboard to throw air at something. Maybe if those Saturn/Uranus missions were still in the teens level, Strun might have been useful. Against Grineer or Corpus though.... the Strun just doesn't have it.

 

Also, I'm not just talking as an experienced player here, back when I was green as summer grass I had no trouble soloing up to Sedna difficulty and beyond, old Sedna is the same difficulty as the new Mars/Jupiter/Saturn levels, which reward the materials you need to get better equipment which takes you to the next tier of levels.

 

You had access to Nano Spores, Plastids, and Salvage way before you got to Old Sedna. You could have made yourself a Boltor long before reaching Old Sedna.

 

Now, Old-Sedna Difficulty (which you are labelling Mars/Jupiter/Saturn), you have no Plastids, Nano Spores or Salvage.

 

This means.....

 

1). No Throwing Knives.

2). No Boltor.

3). No Glaive.

4). No Kestrel.

5). No Fragor/Gram/Scindo.

 

You're trying to tell me that while soloing your way to Old Sedna, Pre-U9, you never used any of those weapons in question?

[ler110]

They can. Its called optional difficulty toggles instead of forcing everyone to play the same S#&$ and expecting everyone to be happy with it. If the game had a "hardmode" option that made the whole game harder but maybe had better drops or droprates, I expect the hardcore crowd would be happier but the more casual crowd could keep playing normal all they wanted with pre-U9 levels.

The drop tables would have to be drastically changed for this to work like hardcore nerfed for the pre-update 9 stuff or buffed for the post update 9 stuff. People will then proceed to complain about how people who can do the harder version have better loot tables and all the loot tables should be the same no matter the difficulty so that everyone can experience all the content. Then we are just back where we started with nothing gained and nothing lost and DE having wasted time and money making multiple difficulties for no reason.

[Ghobe]

So let me get this straight. The game should be balanced around playing with Ember, Mk-1 Braton, Aklato, Kogake without ranking them and jumping into Eris/Pluto with that stuff while not using cover. If you think I'm trolling, I've just combined everything you've said in this thread OP. This game is not made for you clearly.

[-Refractor-]

#1. Some people have claimed that have no problems with doing solo. just take in mind that to be such badass with high level mission you need to max every mod , get a potato for your frame AND polarize it at least once.

 

#2. Think about how time consuming is that. oh , i have to mention it , that alert that would give you a Forma blueprint,  you want to solo it ? hehe dont even try. get a squad or get lost.

 

#3. My HUMBLE suggestion would be to HEAVILY REDUCE the numbers of the enemy and instead give the player a real challenge , like a tactical grineer squad. 2 ballistas offering some cover to a grineer assault team leaded by a Grineer Comander . that S#&$ would be serious. im not joking here.

Give an important role to the enemy support units , because when they happen to be there , they are a serious problem to any pro squad out there.

#4. The infested units should be more coordinated (or any faction in general), they should attack the support unit in a Tenno squad , the situation would get way more tense.

 

#5. The nightmare mode should be an OPTION. for those hardcore player that like their life bars tobe drained unless they kill something , i guess

 

#6. Make the warframes more BALANCED

Sorry to take these parts mostly out of context but I wanted to save space

 

#1. I am a relatively casual player and I almost only solo because of how bad my internet is, I end up dying more often in squad matches than in solo no matter what frame I use, Also I almost only use Loki the warframe with the lowest hit points of them all, Yes I do use a potato on it but I didnt have to buy it, they come up every now and then from alerts so if your patient its not hard to acquire them. My mods are not maxed by any means except the ones with 5 levels or less yet I can still play effectively using Gorgon as my primary and Lato Vandal as my secondary.

 

#2. I used the Loadout mentioned above to solo that alert and had almost no problem, since it was infested I used Hate as my melee weapon so I could cut through the enemies easily, and when your in solo the alert spawns less enemies than when your in any other game mode.

 

#3. That is a particularly good idea but will be a slowly implemented one because it requires a complete rework of all those units AI, if it were implemented, which I hope it is someday, it would greatly increase the amount of strategy you would have to use to be able to take on your opponents effectively.

 

#4. Infested should not really be any more coordinated than they currently are, they are mutated crewmen from the corpus or grineer(appearances) But in general they seem like they are supposed to be zombie like creatures which should not really be highly coordinated, just attack the closest thing they dont like. As for other the factions, yes they do need some more coordination allot of the time but this is something that will take allot of work to put in, and for all we know may already be underway.

 

#5. Yes it should be an option, and from the way people have been complaining about it it seems they might make it an option eventually/

 

#6. This is a very active ongoing process its just rather hard to make everything precisely equal with the variances in skills and effects.

 

These are just my opinions, Thanks for reading.

[Destro6677]

The drop tables would have to be drastically changed for this to work like hardcore nerfed for the pre-update 9 stuff or buffed for the post update 9 stuff. People will then proceed to complain about how people who can do the harder version have better loot tables and all the loot tables should be the same no matter the difficulty so that everyone can experience all the content. Then we are just back where we started with nothing gained and nothing lost and DE having wasted time and money making multiple difficulties for no reason.

Honestly, whoever complains about getting lower rewards for less work is just wrong. In any game, torchlight, diablo, etc etc, big rewards are hard to come by. It takes a long time to get that special sword that you're going to use for a few more days until you get a better one.

 

That said, the game will drop you something good after enough time so that you will keep going.

 

Torchlight has difficulty settings, and wf does too. Nightmare was added for better rewards and more hardcore players. In order to say what is fair, we should compare wf to existing games based around farming out there. Good games.

 

My concern about drops is that potatoes do not drop regularly. A friend of mine who warframes with me and I had a discussion. In order to progress to higher difficulties, we need the tools. Forma drops semi-regularly or is farmable. But potatoes? They reward someone being in the right place, at the right time. That doesn't seem right and I hope they will make potatoes farmable. And make the materials accessible to the people who actually need them to advance.

[Xylia]

So let me get this straight. The game should be balanced around playing with Ember, Mk-1 Braton, Aklato, Kogake without ranking them and jumping into Eris/Pluto with that stuff while not using cover. If you think I'm trolling, I've just combined everything you've said in this thread OP. This game is not made for you clearly.

 

The OP takes it a little too far IMO, however... I do think that Plastids, Nano Spores and Salvage at the very least (along with Cells and Control Modules) ought to be obtainable in areas <Lv20 like they were in U8.

 

More Challenge is Fine, to the players that are already experienced and have the equipment to deal with that kind of thing.

 

However, bumping the challenge up for EVERYBODY and not allowing anybody to have the U8 levels back is a mistake IMO. For example, In U8, making a Boltor was a fairly simple matter (except for the Neurodes...). All you had to do was get some Alloy Plates from Venus (about the same as it is today), get some Salvage from Mars (which was what, again, 15-20?), and a few Polymer Bundles from Mercury (two drops would do).

 

The only hard part was the Neurodes, which you had to get from Earth (probably from Ruk). Ruk was fairly easy in U7 and early U8.

 

Now... the Salvage took a massive jump from 10-15 up to more like 25-30. The Neurodes are slightly lower level now, but Ruk in U7-early 8 was easier than Saturn is today in U9.

 

A Boltor is a very nice stepping stone for Newbies because of its Armor Piercing property. Armor hurts newbies bad, it makes a lot of weapons do way less damage than they should and it takes entire clips out of low-modded weapons to kill something that has medium to heavy armor (almost all grineer), meanwhile a Boltor kills it in 2-3 shots.

[TheHeraldXII]

The Braton, yeah. It is a good gun.... well. It will do good on Mercury... On Venus, it will start to show its flaws until you get some of the early mods on it then it will be "meh" until you get better. At this point, a Boltor would be quite nice.....oh but wait, you need Salvage to make one. My Bad. You ain't getting a Boltor until you can solo Mars.

 

AkLatos? Really? I'd rather have a Lex than an AkLato. Horrible accuracy, longer reload, and double the ammo wasting power over the regular Lato.

 

Strun? What are you going to kill with a Strun without awesome mods? I tried a Strun... found it to be incredibly weak with low-ranked mods. It could barely hurt a fly past Venus. It was more like using a piece of cardboard to throw air at something. Maybe if those Saturn/Uranus missions were still in the teens level, Strun might have been useful. Against Grineer or Corpus though.... the Strun just doesn't have it.

 

 

 

 

You had access to Nano Spores, Plastids, and Salvage way before you got to Old Sedna. You could have made yourself a Boltor long before reaching Old Sedna.

 

Now, Old-Sedna Difficulty (which you are labelling Mars/Jupiter/Saturn), you have no Plastids, Nano Spores or Salvage.

 

This means.....

 

1). No Throwing Knives.

2). No Boltor.

3). No Glaive.

4). No Kestrel.

5). No Fragor/Gram/Scindo.

 

You're trying to tell me that while soloing your way to Old Sedna, Pre-U9, you never used any of those weapons in question?

Yes, I solo'd my way there with a Cronus, Paris and Aklatos. No, I'm not kidding, I just picked weapons I thought were cool and completed the entire system in sequence from Mercury to Pluto. On top of that, my second run through I used a Braton all the way through, I still consider it one of the best guns in the game except vs high level grineer. As for the Strun, I recently, post U9 used it all the way through to Eris before deciding I'd rather just switch weapons than try to grind for a Hell's Chamber. It's perfectly capable of 2 shotting goons up until Ceres without multishot. In my experience you don't need a mega OP weapon or a maxed out multishot mod to take on level 50-55 guys. As for getting to Jupiter to farm, that's easy enough with a Braton, even easier if you picked Excalibur as your starter, seeing as his Slash Dash still kills these guys in one shot. The difficulty jump isn't that big to be honest and it allows you to ease into fighting level 20 guys.

Also, to make a Boltor you actually have to fight lower level enemies now, seeing as Neurodes are more commonly available.

Edited July 19, 2013 by TheHeraldXII

[Parias-Ilota]

The only impossible thing to solo in this game would probably be the defense missions and maybe some of the boss missions. If standard missions are possible to solo (even with some difficulty) then why are you complaining? You shouldn't be solo queuing for defense missions anyways. OP is a noob

im sorry , hardcore player. i never mentioned defense mission. i may be a noob but you are an idiot, and  the thing is that people can get pro with time.

[Xylia]

Honestly, whoever complains about getting lower rewards for less work is just wrong. In any game, torchlight, diablo, etc etc, big rewards are hard to come by. It takes a long time to get that special sword that you're going to use for a few more days until you get a better one.

 

The problem with Warframe is you get virtually the same rewards from a Level 1 mission as you do a Level 20-25 mission.

 

You DON'T get rewarded more as you progress. You only get stronger enemies thrown in your face. Technically, better mods are SUPPOSED to drop in higher level areas.... well I've not really seen evidence of that yet.

 

I've solo'd some Lv30-ish maps. Can't say I saw much of a difference between the drops at Lv30 than I did the drops at 10-20, or even on Mercury except for Fusion Cores. Sometimes I'll see R5 fusion cores in Lv30 maps. on Mercury, you commonly see R1 Fusion Cores. Venus+ is always at least a R3.

 

Otherwise.... meh. I've gotten a freaking Flow once out of Tolstoj (not from Vor himself). And I regularly find stupid crap like Pistol Gambits and Magazine Warps from Lv30 content.

 

I'm just not seeing the so-called "Better Rewards" from higher level content.

 

If you really want any kinds of rewards you have to do Lv50+ Defense. Otherwise, the game isn't worth playing (because nothing else rewards anything decent) and that's just stupid.

 

It is an "All Or None" that I hate about Warframe. Anything less than Lv50 draws from the same lame pool of stupid crap that you've been finding since Mercury.

[Destro6677]

This just makes the intermediary weapons like the Braton, Strun and Aklatos of more obvious importance. These weapons can be used to solo up to level 35-45 content with ease and without grinding for multishot or whatever mods. Sure, a new player might have to replay the early 3 missions a bit, but seeing as they're playing solo in a co-op game they should expect a little difficulty. Also, I'm not just talking as an experienced player here, back when I was green as summer grass I had no trouble soloing up to Sedna difficulty and beyond, old Sedna is the same difficulty as the new Mars/Jupiter/Saturn levels, which reward the materials you need to get better equipment which takes you to the next tier of levels. Uranus/Neptune/Sedna is now about the difficulty level of old Eris and Pluto. So, what we have here are three tiers of levels which span the difficulty settings of the old system plus a new tier of difficulty at the higher levels.

As far as I can see, noone is losing their ability to play the game at the difficulty they prefer, but now we have a new difficulty setting as well. How anyone here is losing out on anything is beyond me. Pick your difficulty settings, play the levels you're comfortable with until you can go higher and stop cranking it up beyond what you can manage.

I think Herald has a point here. I had to replay Mercury for ages when I was just starting out, and that was before Vor even had his own boss room.

 

But, I disagree that no one is losing out. Even with the additional grind time to power up mods, U8 mobile/defense could be soloed easily. However, they didn't spawn in such huge numbers as they do now, or with the level of toughness they have now. U8 mobile/defense was still pretty balanced, 4 people meant 4 times as many enemies (or 2. or whatever it was). Basically, it took as much effort as soloing it. 

 

As I stated earlier in this thread, I don't see why fans of online group play should be able to get away with saying 'oh I want my mobs this hard but no harder' while solo players have to carry the weight of 4 players. As for lore, we're already outnumbered a 100 to 1. Get real.

 

To the OP, I'm sorry if I derailed your thread. I've been playing for quite some time now and the 2 main problems I see are:

 

1. Mobile/defense being impossible to solo even until the first opportunity to leave without 4 people.

 

2. Lack of potato drops as a rare in-game reward and possible lack of forma drops.

 

I chose to cite mobile/defense because it is the clearest example I can give on how the game is currently impossible to solo, and apparently some veterans agree with me.

Edited July 19, 2013 by Destro6677

[Xylia]

Also, to make a Boltor you actually have to fight lower level enemies now, seeing as Neurodes are more commonly available.

 

But you're not looking at the fact that Salvage went from 10-15 up to 25-30, while Neurodes were <Lv30 Previously.

[Ghobe]

A Boltor is a very nice stepping stone for Newbies because of its Armor Piercing property. Armor hurts newbies bad, it makes a lot of weapons do way less damage than they should and it takes entire clips out of low-modded weapons to kill something that has medium to heavy armor (almost all grineer), meanwhile a Boltor kills it in 2-3 shots.

Been a while Xyl ;p

 

All materials can be obtained <40 which 40 is the breaking point for when you start needing at least level 2 serration and level 3 elemental mods. Keep in mind that serration and hornet strike drop from t2 defense, not t3(25+) so it's not exactly unobtainable prior. There's even a grineer mobile defense on Earth(Lua, 14-17) which can be used for mod and exp farming if you and your friends have a decent killing speed.

 

For it to take entire clips to kill medium/heavy enemies you have to be not shooting weakpoints. Which quite frankly, I want to blame the player for that. Boltor makes life easier, yes, but there are better options(maybe not for the same cost though). Also salvage can also be attained on either Jupiter(20-35) or Mars(20-29). Which aren't exactly high level areas :\ I mean, maybe I'm more pro than I realize, but when I'm leveling new weapons I tend to sit around in level 15 areas and move onto areas around 30 once I can equip my level 2 serration. I don't even feel a strain on ammo in these areas, but then again I take the time to aim for weakpoints so I dunno, maybe that's the problem here? :\