Ascension Terminal Terrible Design: Reasons why it needs a rework.

[PookieNumnums]

tldr at the bottom

 

Ok so,

for those who aren't at that point yet a little preface:

there is a decoration for dojos called the ascension terminal. this decoration allows your clan to level up its clan rank as you hit clan xp milestones from doing all the various research and construction there is to do in your clan dojo. when ranking up the clan, there is a limited time for which the players in your clan have access to lump sums of endo. the current max amount of endo a clan can get (and this is assuming you have ALL research done, and have never used the ascension terminal before) is 55,000 endo. That is for a rank 10 clan. 

here is why this is terrible design and why it needs a serious rework

players must be in the clan for x amount of days before they can claim the endo from the ascension terminal. once a clan hits its milestone they can activate the terminal, which requires a percentage of players in their clan to utilize the terminal in order to start the ascension process. using the terminal yields the endo relative to the amount given by the last rank(s) obtained since the previous time it was used. meaning, at no uses you get the endo for all ranks up to your current rank. for those whove used it before, youre getting endo for the most recent rank. once the terminal is used by the required number of players the rest of the clan has I think it was (originally) 48 hours to claim their chunk of endo (not sure if this has been adjusted). 

so why is this bad?

because: players that have joined the clan must wait x amount of days which is probably (definitely) longer than the ascension terminal is active. for example. I found a new player with a name I liked looking for help in region. so I helped them. we got along pretty well so I ended up buying them 4 potatoes, a color pack, a syandana, and an armor set, as well as giving them a bunch of mods including energy conversion and blood rush and drifting contact. I ended up giving them a clan invite and they joined. today, the new research finished and we qualify for rank 10 clan level and he logs in and I'm like come get some free endo and the game tells him he has to wait 9 more days to get it... but the terminal will only be open for use for a few days so he will miss out. I also had the privilege of listening to red texts debacle during the previous event, when the ascension terminals were introduced. Red text said 'if youre going to downsize your clan so that you can get into an appropriate clan tier to compete for the ignis wraith, do it now!' so I attempted to downsize, but physically couldn't because they started the event 20 minutes later and deconstruction of clan barracks takes LONGER than that. so I ended up kicking like 40 ''active by most clan standards'' players in order to hit shadow clan tier but was stuck as a 30 man storm clan for event purposes.. well I reinvited who I could but guess what, they all couldn't get the endo either since they had to wait longer than the ascension terminal would be up and running. 

 

so lets skip back to the present, today.

I'm thinking on how horrible it is that so many players are having to miss out on the endo given by the ascension terminal and it hits me:

the system can be exploited. and this just adds to how terrible the design is (if youre still reading, don't worry I have a suggestion for a solution to all of this down below)

 

so I'm thinking, why don't I create an alt account for 'maintenance reasons' and make that account a warlord. then leave the clan with my main account right... start a new clan, a ghost clan, have the 9 most active and long time players from my clan jump ship to the new ghost clan, then have us all beast mode through all of the research (which we could almost definitely do excluding the ignis wraith and some of the pigments) and then, after playing the waiting game to get through it all (which would take a few weeks, admittedly) upsize the clan to a storm or mountain clan, invite everyone from the alliance who wants free endo, wait out the time period need (I think it was like 9 or 10 days) and then everyone get a huge endo chunk. now this doesn't seem like it may be worth the effort, but if every warlord from each clan within an alliance follows suit, then at the end of the process we could simply play round robin, and jump from clan to clan every 10 days or so and stock up on thousands upon thousands of endo. then once its all said and done just disband the dummy clans, rejoin the main clan, and start all over again. 

**note** there are only two things really holding me back from doing it. or three. 1) I have the top rank in my clan possible though I'm not the founder, and if I leave and come back I wont have that rank. as the alliance creator I don't want to give up that option. 2) because I don't want to get in trouble after posting all of this here on the forum. and 3) because instead of doing that really shady farming technique of endo accumulation which I have the feeling certain groups are already doing / have been doing for a while now, id rather just see the ascension terminal design reworked and made not exploitable and not so poorly that it is actually a detriment to the point of ripping off newer joins of the potential endo they should have access too.

 

TLDR: the ascension terminal needs a rework because it excludes certain players from getting endo that everyone should have a right to, and it is actually exploitable by groups of long term players.

 

 

ideas for how to fix this:

a) make the players in warframe only able to claim endo from an ascension terminal ONCE in their life time. meaning, if you've claimed endo for ranks 1-9 then no matter how many times you swap clans you will not qualify for the endo from those ranks ever again.

b) remove the silly delay timer on players who join clans so that they aren't missing out on the option to get endo while the ascension terminal is up and running.

c) have the ascension terminal permanently up and running so there is no 'window of opportunity' for players to claim endo 

d) have the ascension terminal yield endo to a player for every rank in the clan, regardless of when the terminal was originally created and regardless of how many times the other players in the clan have claimed endo already

e) mastery lock each clan ranks endo to a players rank, so that to get clan rank 10's endo player must be mastery rank 10 or higher. this gives them a chunk of endo to gain every mastery rank (up to the current clan rank limit)

how to improve the ascension terminal in other ways:

have the ascension terminal show a giant clan emblem hologram floating and rotating in the center

have the ability for warlords to put in messages that show (individually, so that we can have more than one terminal each with their own message) rotating along the top of it

have the ability for warlords or ranks of certain permissions to add items to the terminal (like a vault, such as credits, resources, blueprints etc) for players to be able to claim as rewards as they hit certain mastery rank or clan rank milestones; example: warlords put in a total of 500 nitain, and players can claim 10 nitain at mastery rank 10, or officer rank in clan (just an example) 

have the ascension terminal yield a daily booster or buff (of a chosen type, for a specific duration) available daily for all players in the clan, depending on the clan rank and player rank within the clan. (example, a 1hr resource booster for rank 10 clans for general ranks in the clan)(or perhaps just +10% dmg output with primary per rank in clan with +10% per clan rank, for a duration of time), doesn't have to be a booster but that would be cool though and a reason for players to play daily and to be a part of clans with more stuff completed, as well as a reason to rank up in the clan ranks (if possible in your clan) and to visit the dojo at least once a day (for those who aren't getting research bp or trading)

I generally try to avoid name dropping but I feel this is important enough so,

@[DE]Rebecca

@[DE]Steve

@[DE]Megan

 

please, hear my cries

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2017 by PookieNumnums
tldr, clarification, formatting

[NekroArts]

I need something to be clarified: when you said it's exploitable, what exactly is it?

[PookieNumnums]

2 hours ago, NekroArts said:

I need something to be clarified: when you said it's exploitable, what exactly is it?

Alliances with long time active members creating groups of ghost alt clans and redoing research then reclaiming endo 

 

It would take time to do it but once done could upsize and invite 

Edited September 11, 2017 by PookieNumnums

[FAZZWARFRAME]

In general the amount of effort and co-ordination to pull off the exploit you mentioned is not worth the gain.  They do need to fix the ascension endo claiming mechanism though, personal experience:

• I joined a rank 6 shadow clan and boosted them to rank 7
• setup the ascension thing and claimed by endo from rank 1-7
• My own bad, but during the rank up waiting period, I got nothing to do so I kept on boosting the other researches.
• When the rank up period is over, our clan is suddenly at rank 9, instead of at rank 7 max bar ready for the next ascension, so basically I lost the chance to claim the endo from 8 to 9

[KingChrono]

On 9/11/2017 at 4:18 PM, FAZZWARFRAME said:

In general the amount of effort and co-ordination to pull off the exploit you mentioned is not worth the gain.

Solo, absolutely.  In groups, it scales quickly.  Although, it needs to be pointed out that no one has said it works, just that it might.

 

On 9/10/2017 at 5:56 PM, PookieNumnums said:

a) make the players in warframe only able to claim endo from an ascension terminal ONCE in their life time. meaning, if you've claimed endo for ranks 1-9 then no matter how many times you swap clans you will not qualify for the endo from those ranks ever again.

c) have the ascension terminal permanently up and running so there is no 'window of opportunity' for players to claim endo 

e) mastery lock each clan ranks endo to a players rank, so that to get clan rank 10's endo player must be mastery rank 10 or higher. this gives them a chunk of endo to gain every mastery rank (up to the current clan rank limit)

These, all three.  I like the join delay as a preventative measure for the 'grab and go' treatment that clans currently have and wouldn't mind it expanding to all rewards surrounding clans.  Then again, I'm a fan of working towards goals instead of being handed things.

[jinxcat]

On 9/14/2017 at 3:04 AM, KingChrono said:

I like the join delay as a preventative measure for the 'grab and go' treatment that clans currently have and wouldn't mind it expanding to all rewards surrounding clans.

Very good suggestion imho