Waybound Focus Nodes and Their Implications On Focus Farming (Over 140 MORE Days)

[-..-]

So I finally unbound one of the nodes after doing the, in my opinion, greatest boss fight that DE has designed and retrieving a Brilliant Eidolon Shard. The problem here is how Waybound nodes work. Previously, I was under the naive impression that the nodes would simply just work on all trees as long as you had them activated in their respective tree. I was poorly mistaken. This is what it looks like after you unbind a node.

https://i.imgur.com/kcVTYSY.jpg

Notice that it 1. is unactivated and 2. requires the full amount of pool in order to activate it. That means in order to activate the waybound nodes in every tree, you need to grind all that extra focus to increase your pool for all of them. Let's take a look at the complete trees in the beta that the streamers showed us.

https://imgur.com/a/9XnC5

Now let's do some math. Keep in mind that some of the pool changes have actually increased since this beta. For instance, Mind Sprint now requires 11 pool at max. However, since I don't have all the exact numbers I'll just use what the beta gave us. Also, in order to estimate the additional focus needed, I used the summation 75000+750n from 1 to the additional pool value. It's a very rough lowball estimate. The real number is likely much higher.

Madurai -

Base waybound nodes pool total: 23

Additional pool required: 63

Estimated additional focus required: 6237000

Zenurik -

Base waybound nodes pool total: 18

Additional pool required: 68

Estimated additional focus required: 6859500

Naramon -

Base waybound nodes pool total: 14

Additional pool required: 72

Estimated additional focus required: 7371000

Vazarin -

Base waybound nodes pool total: 17

Additional pool required: 69

Estimated additional focus required: 6986250

Unairu -

Base waybound nodes pool total: 14

Additional pool required: 72

Estimated additional focus required: 7371000

Total additional focus required to have all nodes maxed in all schools after unlocking all waybound nodes: 34824750

At a cap of 250k focus per day, that's around 140 days of extra farming. These are on top of the estimated 280 days it takes to max out the current trees without the waybound nodes.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "But Ecksplisit, no one actually needs to do all of this. 90% of the nodes are garbage and people will probably only use Madurai for DPS and Zenurik for support." But what happens if DE actually decides to make the rest of the nodes useful? What if they make it so it's required that we have different focus trees for future content? Then everyone will be clamoring to get focus farming changed.

However, we've already seen from things like log in rewards and Hema that DE is hesitant to change things that people have invested large amounts of time into. We need to put Focus gain changes on a higher priority than they are now, or else the problem will fester and we'll have no choice but to commit 400+ days of our lives focus farming every single day for an hour without missing a day, lest we miss out on precious XP. And those new players that join a couple years from now? Yeah they'll never even have a chance to enjoy the game when they hear they need to farm an hour a day for over an entire year. They'll just drop it and move on.

My suggestion? Increase gains by making the Convergence multiplier the base, remove that annoying little yellow ball, and flat out remove the cap. It already takes an absurd amount of time to farm all of this without the cap. It takes me around an hour of bere to reach 250k. 400+ hours farming for a single part of the content is already ridiculous enough. Being forced to split that into an hour sessions every single day is worse than Runescape level masochistic grinding.

So please guys, while DE is in this period of time where they're willing to change mechanics, let's make Focus great again.

TL;DR Waybound nodes increase focus farming by over 140 days. That's wack. Let's band together to convince DE to make focus farming not wack anymore.

[Recel]

What really turns me off of the whole focus system is that you need a ridiculous amount of time farming just to fully unlock one of the trees, and that's if you reach the cap every day.
If you farm passively, you gain a few thousand focus a day, meaning you might as well forget about focus because it will take an insane amount of time to gain enough for one tree if you don't farm at "xp caves", let alone multiple trees.

You could probably get every frame and weapon in game faster than maxing out the focus system, if you grind religiously or not.

[Toran]

2 hours ago, -..- said:

...

TL;DR Waybound nodes increase focus farming by over 140 days. That's wack. Let's band together to convince DE to make focus farming not wack anymore.

+1
Thanks for the calculations. Isn't it funny? They concentrate on the bloody Operator with this update and the things that (hardly) strengthen him are locked behind more grind than the old focus trees together...

Yesterday I got a 3h affinity bonus. Along with 45% melee affinity bonus from Naramon's affinity spike, 4x greater naramon lenses (full gear) plus the 41% combined melee XP bonus from dark sector Akkad it's pretty much the best you can get, bonus-wise - I made about 35k Naramon affinity over 20 quick waves as an one-hitting Harrow.

I easily could go much further but the problem will be to still have a full group to make it worthwhile. Example: on another run we were just three guys from the beginning but stayed for 35 waves, affinity at the end: just 45k - ridiculous in comparison to the 20 waves in a group of four. I don't know if stealth-kill exterminate runs are still a thing, but even if they are, they're more straining, too. I really can't imagine myself going into full daily affinity grinds for this nonsense, even if it's just for a week, not to speak of half a year...

Edited October 17, 2017 by Toran

[WolvenEdge]

Hey, DE, I get that you want to make long-term investement into your game be rewarded, but this is getting ridiculous. You're releasing actual content, that's great and it's one thing that puts Warframe on the top of my games list... as it has been for literal years now (when my internet supports it). You're also making the grind wall extreme for a lot of the new content, which is not good to say the least. More passive players, like myself, who go in for the love of the game and have fun playing it, are left in the dust in many, many ways by this kind of thing... and we're the ones who typically invest the most, as we have the most reason to.

Could you throw us a bone every once in a while?

[ElMarto]

I dont understand why we need to use other school's mastery to use a way-bound skill. We already spent a LOT of time leveling it up.

[MarthAzix]

I was farming it now, but it seems to me that the affinity booster is buggy, it shows 8k, but actually I get 4k, not counting on this absurd farm time to unlock, DE still talking about not wanting to make the game "feel griding" and do this ... gg

[-Temp0-]

This update has taken it to a whole new level.

I honestly don't feel like bothering getting pretty much anything, not Cetus weapons, not eidolon drops or focus anymore after seeing how much of everything you need.

Feels like a complete waste of not just my time but my life in general.

[-..-]

14 hours ago, Toran said:

I really can't imagine myself going into full daily affinity grinds for this nonsense, even if it's just for a week, not to speak of half a year...

The thing is, that 140 isn't even all of it. There's another 280 days for doing the rest of the stuff that isn't waybound nodes. So in total that's over 420 days. Even if they removed the cap and people tried to farm all of it in a month, it would take 14 hours a day every day of that month. The amount of grind is ridiculous. I don't see the need for a daily cap. Let us farm at our own pace and don't punish us for missing days.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

I think DE missed the memo where trophy data on ps4 shows that 0.2 percent of the user base has fully unlocked a focus tree (not fully maxed, just put single point into all nodes after a couple years of focus farming).

This means 98.8 percent of the fanbase was not invested into focus, yet DE made the new system require insane focus grinds in all trees simultaneously... Meaning even the .2 percent that invested in the old system is now discouraged by the 70 million more rep they need to grind while the 98.2 percent sees this as a brick wall on their operator progression.

The only reason slow rep gains were somewhat ok in focus 1.0 was because most skills and trees were essentially useless. Now that you expect players to unlock and level most nodes in all trees, you need to lower the costs and increase the acquisition rate.

Edited October 19, 2017 by (PS4)Stealth_Cobra

[GreyEnneract]

We already had to go through the trouble of farming a completely new school just to get their waybounds.
Having to spend pool on them from the school we want to use them on should not be a thing. Period.
If it's not changed now then, as usual, it will take DE another 2 years to touch this system.
Just like with every other system they change/implement.

[MCSRHelix]

I feel that the grind of the new update for the reputation alone is fine bc it's just fishing and killing eidolons which can be fun and it is relatively easy enough for experienced players, but need millions of affinity points just to unlock a single tree feels a little insane when the passive gain per mission is around 2k average. If you need to actively grind out focus for every day for a year, it will become really boring really fast. The only real reason I see that the cap exists is as a remnant of the old system where it was relatively easy to grind out enough focus to max out the relevant nodes in naramon and zenurik. But now it seems that in order for us to even progress a tiny amount in making our operators useful anywhere but eidolon fights we need to put a lot of time into the other trees as well. I agree that the multiplier gained from convergence orbs should just be the flat out multiplier but I think that there should also be another way that focus is calculated than just taking it from the amount of affinity earned on the item with the lens and multiplying it by the multiplier on the lens. Either raise it to a higher percentage gained like 25% or 50% instead of [x].[y]% or change it to a different system altogether.

Edited October 20, 2017 by MCSRHelix

[Larval_Angel]

Yah. After realizing all this, there's no way I'm even going to LOOK at my focus trees or care about putting lenses on gear from here on unless this changes. It's just too much. I play pretty much every day, but I play for fun, not to grind myself into the ground. I got my zenurik energy regen. Now I'm going fishing. 

[ZukaBazuka]

On 17/10/2017 at 10:42 AM, Toran said:

+1
Thanks for the calculations. Isn't it funny? They concentrate on the bloody Operator with this update and the things that (hardly) strengthen him are locked behind more grind than the old focus trees together...

Yesterday I got a 3h affinity bonus. Along with 45% melee affinity bonus from Naramon's affinity spike, 4x greater naramon lenses (full gear) plus the 41% combined melee XP bonus from dark sector Akkad it's pretty much the best you can get, bonus-wise - I made about 35k Naramon affinity over 20 quick waves as an one-hitting Harrow.

I easily could go much further but the problem will be to still have a full group to make it worthwhile. Example: on another run we were just three guys from the beginning but stayed for 35 waves, affinity at the end: just 45k - ridiculous in comparison to the 20 waves in a group of four. I don't know if stealth-kill exterminate runs are still a thing, but even if they are, they're more straining, too. I really can't imagine myself going into full daily affinity grinds for this nonsense, even if it's just for a week, not to speak of half a year...

Your main problem is you went up against infested, They give the lowest overall exp among all races in Warframe, try again against Grineer or Corpus and you will pretty much see double the affinity. The bonus from akkad really doesn't help that much to be fair. Any sortie mission should give the same reward for far less time if its against Grineer or Corpus.

[Toran]

23 minutes ago, ZukaBazuka said:

Your main problem is you went up against infested, They give the lowest overall exp among all races in Warframe, try again against Grineer or Corpus and you will pretty much see double the affinity. The bonus from akkad really doesn't help that much to be fair. Any sortie mission should give the same reward for far less time if its against Grineer or Corpus.

I know, but it's pretty short rounds, the pathfinding works most of the time and the enemy comes for you. Perfect condition for melee. Only disadvantage: you need higher-leveled infested (waves) in a full group to make it pay-off well. Gonna test Sortie with Harrow again, but not before the weekend - today is Destiny 2 release

[Thexceedel]

Welp I am a guy that play like 1 to 2 hours max so i will not even max my one school. guess i will not bother then...

[Gravitus123]

Im just gonna link like 2 or 3 waybound passives on my zenurik and forget that focus farming exists just like i did with the old system.Great focus rework btw 10/10

[-sYNNEX-]

Well, if they don't want to remove the cap, they should at least decrease the amount of focus it takes per node and increase the nodes value. They should put like 3 levels for each node, not 5 or 6 like it is now. This way it would require a lot less time to max everything and values would still be the same as they are now.

[SpiritNZ]

Fully agree. The grind is far too much. MCGamerCZ had some good ideas on his video. 

 

[H3LLORD]

Damn didn't know the problem of the new focus system until I saw that video and props to you to for making this

[Gokuofuin]

Basically DE the new focus system is trollop.... I am sorry, I know as a developer you do not want to hear that because you put your time and love and energy into making something special, but this time all we ended up with was.... not cool.

[Coalfax]

Its great to see popular Youtubers getting the idea and making their points heard.  Hopefully DE will catch on and make this grind... well, less a grindfest.

[dbzocchi]

but still... avg 30k focus a day through normal play and that's after spending a ton of plat or even more time getting lenses will take you 9 YEARS........ermmm nope!!

Edited October 24, 2017 by dbzocchi

[NickeyGod]

Yes something definetly needs to change here otherwise im not really interested in even attempting to farm focus.

[dbzocchi]

lets say I had a child - Avg 4K per mission (pushing it) and 20 mins per mission, 12k per hour x 3 = 36K focus for 3 hours

lets say I work 9 - 5 and sleep 8 hours a night,

ill go to sleep at 11, get up at 7, set off at 8, get home at 6

spend 3 hours farming focus and finish by 9 - my kid went to bed at 8

follow this routine until hes 9

my child would be fatherless until he was 9 because of this focus system - thanks D.E

[Twistedsparkle]

this is....... way too much
like waaaay too much

heres what I think you should do DE
-get rid of focus cap
-increase the amount of focus gained to a reasonable amount so even a player without greater lenses and affinity boosters wouldnt be too intimidated by the grind
-reduce the amount of focus needed to fill each tree (I think 5 days of dedicated grinding without greater lenses and boosters should be enough to fill atleast one tree)
-give players more alternative ways to earn focus

I mean why would you lock the operator effectiveness behind literally years of grind anyway?
people want to like this system but not if it means getting the system to work seems impossible

if you dont fix this people are gonna start ignoring focus 2.0 just like most people for the most part ignored focus 1.0