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

[LSG501]

I'm in complete agreement with everyone raising the issue about the grind needed for focus, I've said this numerous times and the usual rebuttal from the 'white knights' is 'getting focus is easy, just go grind map x using frame and weapon yz'... 

I'll just summarise my issues with the current focus and I'll ignore the fact I absolutely see no reason for the operators in the first place.

• focus return from the orbs is tiny, a base of 1.25-2.25% is so small it might as well not even be there.  IMO this should be 10x that amount to make the grind almost worthwhile if you want to keep the existing prices, although personally I'd rather see the actual costs being lowered and our points refunded again. 
• The orbs never appear anywhere near where you're fighting either and it's all very well having them but I'd personally rather have a straight buff ALL the time.
• We are restricted on our weapons/frames etc due to the way that each focus school has it's own lens instead of a central pool of points which we can spend on whichever focus school needs the points.  What's the point in all the frames and weapons if we're stuck using the same ones...
• We need to unlock 'space' for our focus abilities still meaning the unlock cost for a new tier/branch actually has additional cost to that of the tier/branch itself.  Remove that.
• If we don't 'meta farm' there is no way on this planet that someone who has a life outside of this game (ie most normal people) could get enough focus to max out their daily allowance meaning these estimates for completion will be extended even further. 
• We've said this about no end of things in the game but we don't mind a reasonable grind but it's repetitive grind that annoys us, 'meta farming' is so incredibly boring and many of us want to play more than just one map a night....
• Focus farming was already annoying, so the new 'linking' to the operator which has it's own grind wall has basically made me go sod it, the operator isn't important enough to me for this grind, we only need to use it on 2 things which if I'm honest didn't need operator, it was just forced on us so the dev's could 'validate' the unnecessary addition.  Kuva farming doesn't need any upgrades and the upgrades to fight the teralyst are in a catch 22 situation where you're basically spending a large amount of time fighting for a 'tiny' standing reward which is essentially there just so we can buy more stuff, which also needs farming resources for, to fight the same enemy (and any new versions that come out later), but faster....  As I've said before if DE wants us to use the operator and by association the quills they're trying to force on us they need to make it so we can get the bits that go with it....

 

• DE you appear to have balanced the game around a small subset of players that 'overplay' things by using 'meta squads' on specific locations while totally ignoring the main playerbase.    DE, I'm sure you have data available on how much focus is attained per day, remove the outliers who 'meta farm' and look at what the majority of players are earning per day, then balance the points around that.  Don't let this be another hema situation where you sit back and do nothing even though your player base can see an issue you can't or refuse to see.   Just imagine what a newbie is thinking when they see something that you've been marketing so heavily stuck behind a massive grindwall with for a new player no end in sight...it's bad enough for us 'veterans'. 
• On average I get 20-30k standing during a day/night playing the game without any 'meta farming'.  It seems that is fairly similar to others who do the same, maybe balance around those sorts of figures rather than the meta farmers.

I'd also like to see a way to respec our points too.

Edited October 25, 2017 by LSG501

[Educated_Beast]

I've run out of goals in Warframe before.  I purchased plat., Rushed through things, yet I'm still here.  

 

Even if someone managed to finish all the trees, there is enough to do in Warframe not to worry about it.  

 

This is an unrealistic goal and we cannot even pay for it to be removed (I would to).  

 

- Removing the way required to unlock "room" on tree would go a long way.  This is unnecessary grinding.  We are already paying for the skill.   

- Make focus earned when have convergence active the new base.  Then add a X10 multiplier with convergence orb but make them fairly rare and last 5 minutes.  

- Allow us to passively gain focus at a rate needed to complete an entire tree in 4 weeks if actively farming every day.  

[KittyDarkling]

10 hours ago, AvatarX76 said:

And apparently it's gamers like you that DE designed the Focus 2.0 grind for! So you spend an hr every day stealth farming or doing bere/hydron with a specialised frame and build. Chances are you already had a hefty head start in focus 1.0 so the additional grind required for 2.0 is not off-putting.

When i was relatively new to warframe i put my first lens on Trinity, not knowing how pathetic non-kill frames are at gathering focus. It was months until i thought about focus farming and how to do it efficiently, because my trin just wasn't getting anywhere through normal (enjoyable) game play. So i slapped a few greater lenses on saryn and mesa, maxed out a couple of nodes in naramon and zenurik and pretty much forgot about the rest of the focus system. With focus 2.0, all those new and returning players DE worked so hard to pull in with the release of PoE (as well as regulars like myself) will look at focus and wonder why bother, it's so out of reach with no meaningful and rewarding progression that it's simply not worth the grind, when it means not playing the game the way they find enjoyable in the limited time they have every day.

If focus 2.0 is not meant to have some significant impact outisde of a few boss fights, then it all can mostly be ignored altogether (like focus 1.0). But if DE intends focus 2.0 to be a a true end-game system that will play a key supporting role in future content/encounters, then as it currently stands, a lot of casual players (the majority) will just give up in frustration.

So what does DE really want Focus 2.0 to be? A relevant, rewarding and relatively obtainable end-game system that enables all players to tackle unique end-game content, or a distraction that the majority of players will mostly ignore that will eventually hinder DE's future boss mechanics as it'll be unreasonable to expect the typical player to care about Focus at all?

I guess that kinda leads to a few other questions. Is every player meant to unlock all five trees?

I was under the impression that a casual player was more so meant to pick a tree that they enjoy the sound of most and work on the one, while players who don't mind dedicating themselves to the system can be rewarded for their additional efforts and are granted mastery over the system as a whole.

Do you believe content should be completely achievable for casual players? and if so what does that say for players seeking a challenge or a long term investment? Should there be a rewards for them?

I think the issue with the system is it's not objectively bad, but subjectively. There's not really a right or wrong here, just a right and wrong depending on who you ask.

[Cortanis]

9 hours ago, GinKenshin said:

clearly DE doesnt see it like that, or do u think viver was actually ok? 

there's grinding and there's exploiting and cheesing 

Viver, no. That was pretty much exploiting. Grinding is ok, but up to a point. What has been put into the game at this point isn't even a grind any more... it's a wall. It's a wall and we're given a spoon and a lead bowling ball around our ankles at this point.

[racooperii]

1 minute ago, KittyDarkling said:

I guess that kinda leads to a few other questions. Is every player meant to unlock all five trees?

I was under the impression that a casual player was more so meant to pick a tree that they enjoy the sound of most and work on the one, while players who don't mind dedicating themselves to the system can be rewarded for their additional efforts and are granted mastery over the system as a whole.

Do you believe content should be completely achievable for casual players? and if so what does that say for players seeking a challenge or a long term investment? Should there be a rewards for them?

I think the issue with the system is it's not objectively bad, but subjectively. There's not really a right or wrong here, just a right and wrong depending on who you ask.

I disagree, the system is Objectively Bad.

It was redesigned with the idea to make Operators more relevant and playable, their entire stat progression is locked behind the Waybound Nodes, a huge time investment just to make them somewhat survivable in the most barebones way. Yet the specialized passives that make Warframes even MORE powerful, are open to everyone...like why? That is so backwards that I can't even comprehend.

The Focus 2.0 is triple gated with Cost, Cap and Resource Dump. There is no reason to gate it this heavily, the pay off for the investment hardly seems worth it when you consider the abysmal rate of acquisition. A Casual Player would have to play something like 2 years to just finish 1 School. For casual play you could complete most of the rest of the game in that time Frame, its not a "Long Term Investment" It's a distraction from how much nothing there is waiting for you after you get bored gathering Mods, Frames and Weapons. Even the hard core people will take 80 days, non-stop 80 days, to unlock one complete School.

Also, seeing that this is all made available at the Mid-Tier Content Level makes it all the more baffling. Before Lenses were only from Sorties, now it's the Tier 3 Bounties, the missions that an Operator is even used are Mid-Tier and unlocking Focus itself is something that can be done Mid-Tier, so why is everyone treating this like it's some End-Game thing? They are adding Operator content, but the gate to even bother with that content is unbelievable and cumbersome to everyone.

And Challenge? Yeah Sleepquinox-Stealth-Exterminate for  ~2 hours a day is hardly a challenge for players to embark on. Even the Eidolon isn't considered challenging, just a boring bullet sponge. If you want a Challenge, there's still old school endless till you can't survive anymore. People do it, cause it's something to do, but they don't do it cause it's interesting, enjoyable or even rewarding.

If you want to talk about being rewarded for your effort, after 400 days of pure dedicated farming you get an Operator that doesn't die from a gust of wind, some boosts to the Warframe and some dash moves that range from ok to meh. Even assuming they average 2 hours a day that's 800 hours, Just For Focus Farming and for this as a reward? You get more of a reward maxing out a Syndicate.

[KittyDarkling]

2 hours ago, racooperii said:

And Challenge? Yeah Sleepquinox-Stealth-Exterminate for  ~2 hours a day is hardly a challenge for players to embark on. Even the Eidolon isn't considered challenging, just a boring bullet sponge. If you want a Challenge, there's still old school endless till you can't survive anymore. People do it, cause it's something to do, but they don't do it cause it's interesting, enjoyable or even rewarding.

This raises an interesting proposal. What if instead of increasing caps/gains/ ect, they implemented missions where you're to complete them as an operator? it could be tied to your quill rank or perhaps a new pve rank with teshin. Either way the idea is in these missions can be risk vs reward style. The more you kill the higher your focus multiplier, but the longer you stay in the more focus (for that mission) you lose when you die.

This could make is so there's more content to use your operator in, lets you get focus casually without easy stealth missions, and maybe be a possible source of challange/fun.

[ShakeyMac]

3 hours ago, KittyDarkling said:

I guess that kinda leads to a few other questions. Is every player meant to unlock all five trees?

I was under the impression that a casual player was more so meant to pick a tree that they enjoy the sound of most and work on the one, while players who don't mind dedicating themselves to the system can be rewarded for their additional efforts and are granted mastery over the system as a whole.

Do you believe content should be completely achievable for casual players? and if so what does that say for players seeking a challenge or a long term investment? Should there be a rewards for them?

I think the issue with the system is it's not objectively bad, but subjectively. There's not really a right or wrong here, just a right and wrong depending on who you ask.

The old system wasn't bad per se, because it was an addition to established systems, instead of a system unto itself.  The costs and gains were more akin to "perks" than anything else.  Nice things to have and work towards, but not really game-changing in a big way.  The core game was still quite playable without anything but the initial focus skill granted to all players on finishing Second Dream.

But this new system is, well, an entirely new system.  Instead of focus as an "extra" warframe ability that's not tied to a frame, focus is now almost entirely Operator-specific.  In other words, the "core" of the game has expanded in scope.  Now we have a focus on something other than warframe gameplay.  We have Operator gameplay as well.  The focus system is an inherent part of this new direction, and the onerous/tedious/repetitive/grindy nature of focus means that even with several hundred hours in the game, a casual 1-2 hours per day player won't be experiencing more than a scant portion of this new system.  This is made more complex by the fact that DE has now actively added things (via PoE) that encourage dedicated Operator use.  It's no longer an option; if you want to experience new content, you must use your Operator.  But you can't grow your Operator unless you engage in ridiculous and highly specific farming patterns for 1-1.5 hrs a day.  Put simply, this isn't fun.

edit: and I'd also like to add that the arbitrary requirement to do the Gara quest before you can access 90% of your focus tree is a bad idea.

Edited October 26, 2017 by ShakeyMac

[racooperii]

1 hour ago, KittyDarkling said:

This raises an interesting proposal. What if instead of increasing caps/gains/ ect, they implemented missions where you're to complete them as an operator? it could be tied to your quill rank or perhaps a new pve rank with teshin. Either way the idea is in these missions can be risk vs reward style. The more you kill the higher your focus multiplier, but the longer you stay in the more focus (for that mission) you lose when you die.

This could make is so there's more content to use your operator in, lets you get focus casually without easy stealth missions, and maybe be a possible source of challange/fun.

As long as the gain from completing the Operator only missions was reasonable, then yeah this would be acceptable to me. Might even be a nice change of pace from being a murder-blender-ninja here and there.

[Sparkyceasar]

I think I understand their intention, the idea was not to grind for the focus, with the addition of Brilliant Eidolon shards which you can convert for 25000 focus it would become abit easier, especially considering that you can get several Teralyst kills in one night, however I do agree that the grind, even with the shards, is abit much, even for this

[quebirt]

On 10/17/2017 at 2:55 AM, Recel said:

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.

This is my opinion as well. I actually like the fact that they gave us something that is a little OP, and isn't necessary, but takes a lot to get (waybounds), That's just more endgame, and that's a good thing. The basic trees leveling curve is a little steep IMO. I use banshee and can farm up a good bit pretty easy. If I wanted to, I could easily get my cap every day. However, that isn't the case for a lot of players and they do go in to that "why bother" mode.

A good balanced focus curve would enable new players to get a "useful" build pretty easily, and require a heavy grind with endgame gear/frames/builds to achieve OP operator builds.

[arch111]

This is bad. I see to many saying this content is not worth the time and investment, that new players will be repelled by the grind.

Before poe one told me that DE is making their game only for the hardcore players very good at grinding and finding eays to cheese.

I said that was silly, DE would never sabotage themselves like that when they need their game to grow.

 

Seems I was the one being silly.

[racooperii]

30 minutes ago, quebirt said:

This is my opinion as well. I actually like the fact that they gave us something that is a little OP, and isn't necessary, but takes a lot to get (waybounds), That's just more endgame, and that's a good thing. The basic trees leveling curve is a little steep IMO. I use banshee and can farm up a good bit pretty easy. If I wanted to, I could easily get my cap every day. However, that isn't the case for a lot of players and they do go in to that "why bother" mode.

A good balanced focus curve would enable new players to get a "useful" build pretty easily, and require a heavy grind with endgame gear/frames/builds to achieve OP operator builds.

I don't think Focus is Endgame anymore, you acquire it at Mid-Level and the Lenses start appearing at Mid-Level Bounties instead of the High-End Sorties. If it was an End-Game grind I could maybe, MAYBE understand a tiny bit, but that still wouldn't really excuse how bad the Grind can be even from Vets having to spend 2 hours a day every day to unlock a school in 2 and a half months doing the same thing over and over again.

Focus 2.0 is feels like it is really designed TO burn out players.

[WolvenEdge]

Shameless bump.

[Dornez]

On 10/25/2017 at 6:35 AM, Marvelous_A said:

140 days is more than enough time for a no-lifer new player to join the game, max out every thing else, and leaving this game coz burnt out after all the grinding. The new focus grinding is absurd and I'll just ignore the whole feature like I did with 1.0 after I get all useful passives if they're not making any change.

That inst to max out every focus tree, that is to only max out the way-bound nodes in the trees. 

[Lancars]

I did an ivara in sedna. I got 12K without boosters. greater lens on all my gear. But i had to use a lot of energy. And i had to chase down very far orbs. I ended up doing other things as the grind isn't worth it.

[Endorphinz]

I could have sworn I had a reply in this thread, can't find it though...

I agree with OP, though. The goal needs to be achievable in a realistic time frame, or people will give up before they've even started. I heard complaints about this during Focus 1.0, although for the most part complaints were squashed by the fact that only the passive abilities were worth unlocking, thus reducing the grind, and because it was confirmed that Focus 2.0 was in the works already early on. However, at this juncture, the feedback cannot be ignored any longer.

[Xarteros]

I think Capacity costs need to be reduced a bit, but overall I actually get a decent amount of progress each day. As it stands, I get 5 Teralyst runs done per night cycle, and that's with just one other player. I haven't even gilded my amp yet. With 4 players, using proper amps, all gilded and maybe with Virtuos arcanes, we could probably easily get 6-7 runs in. Doing 5 runs per night only takes 50 minutes and nets you another 125K focus. If we could somehow squeeze in an 8th run, that'd be 200k focus. All that focus is not only selectable to the school of your choice, but also doesn't count towards your cap, and that's still talking 50 minutes of gameplay. Do 4 night cycles in a day, and that's 500k focus, plus your 250k focus cap.

I think having every single passive equipped at the same time SHOULD be difficult, but I also feel like you should get a lot more oomph out of the base powers you select. 

Not to mention, some of the passives aren't worth it. Unairu's armour bonus is a % increase. Operator's have a base armour value of 10, so a 200% increase means you only have 30 armour. That's still garbage under any circumstance, and the passive isn't even worth it until that value gets changed.

I think we should get more Warframe-based passive effects for the trees, and all the Operator-only stuff should get reduced in cost across the board. The only reason you have to upgrade your operator is so you can farm the Teralyst better, and the only reason you farm the Teralyst is to improve your operator. Bring back our Warframe End-Game!

[Fallen_Echo]

5 hours ago, Endorphinz said:

I could have sworn I had a reply in this thread, can't find it though...

I agree with OP, though. The goal needs to be achievable in a realistic time frame, or people will give up before they've even started. I heard complaints about this during Focus 1.0, although for the most part complaints were squashed by the fact that only the passive abilities were worth unlocking, thus reducing the grind, and because it was confirmed that Focus 2.0 was in the works already early on. However, at this juncture, the feedback cannot be ignored any longer.

In one of my old games we had a legendary gear what needed extreme farming to get, almost 2 years with its droprate BUT (and heres the important bit) while it was an endgame part before you got to it you were already running around with maxed gear.

As you progressed throught you seen these legenedary weapons and such, how good were they but you were not pressured to must get it as you already had the best gear.

 

Here the situation is different the entire system since focus 1.0 was seen as a needed endgame system but due to how it was designed (many passives) it was fine. Now we have many actives what are needed to make the operator useful and on top of it the overal cost is doubled.

[OfficialFrogvara]

This further maths really puts it into perspective, thank you.

I hope DE pays close attention to all these Focus threads. The number of players that feel this is too much and don't even want to play is great, unsurprising, and bad.

This is a really bad situation, especially when the game seems to be starting to focus heavily on Operator gameplay. Now it's bad, but when Operator's are actually important and new players find out the goal js essentialy unreachable? You can say goodbye to your playerbase.

Please, DE, seriously work on this if you really want to go this direction.

[krc473]

6 minutes ago, OfficialFrogvara said:

The number of players that feel this is too much and don't even want to play is great, unsurprising, and bad.

Need to get the 1,000,000 points to unbinned a skill. I was planning on doing it. But, I did a quick mission and got 13k focus. So, it will take 100 tries of the mission (around 8 hours of farming the mission) to be able to unbinned the skill. That does not even account for needing to acquire 7 pool points in every school to even use the unbound skill.

So, unless DE plans to start giving out free affinity boosters, I wont bother. It really is not worth the effort. The booster would mean only 4 hours of farming, 'yay'.

[ArielTkx]

You know why we need to call out DE about focus farming?

1st : Grinding for focus is exhausting, not rewarding, takes a lot of time to make our operators fun and stronger, they added the system to do that and we, of course, want to do that, if they give us skill trees/classes for our character, we WILL want to use or try them.

2nd:  Warframe is already full of content for both new and old players, and DE will keep updating the game time after time, and that will add more and more stuff to seek and farm, but it will reach a point where the game will have so many things that DE might lose control of it.

Sooner or later they will have to rethink a better progression system to warframe, where new content wont be thrown in new players faces with everything else that is already in the game and wont be a wall of difficulty to enjoy, or they will keep facing people complaining that things are too hard or not worthy. Idk what they wanted to do with focus, this shouldnt be an end game goal with so many things to do in the game, heck it is unlocked just after the second dream for MR5 people, even meta farmers (like me) are facing a hard time with this, right now operators are more of a fun thing than useful, only against sentients and eidolons that they shine, if DE is really planning more things for operators in the future (i hope they do) with focus as the base of their powers, they will need to make it better and less of a pain to acquire or master (fully unlock a skill tree or all of them)

[Maquiavell]

DE please remove daily cap, just do it.

[Fyrscha]

Great thread, read most of it. I totally agree with OP and most of you who shared about how ridiculous the foucs grind now is for  those of us who care. I USED to care, now I simply can't. I was -thrilled- about the new combos of focus schools, more operator awesomeness, etc... but now I just can't @(*()$ care. I already play Warframe a lot, but if I make myself care about this new foucs/operator stuff, then Warframe will literally be all I can do with my life, and f--k that noise! 

 

I hope DE realizes how bad this new focus grind is and changes things, or they might lose me as a player entirely before long.

[racooperii]

2 hours ago, Maquiavell said:

DE please remove daily cap, just do it.

Removing the Cap does not fix the root of the problem!

[Mattoropael]

7 minutes ago, racooperii said:

Removing the Cap does not fix the root of the problem!

You're right, it doesn't.

If they aren't going to fix the BS that is the gain rate and costs though, it'd still be better than nothing. At least I can no-life a few days or weeks in Bere with a booster to (mostly) get what I want, instead of having to religiously come back every day just to sit there for an hour or two.