Convergence Orb detrimental to everyone but hardcore grinders

[Raistling]

As it stands now with the Convergence Orb (CO), focus only benefits those that actively farm for it. for a long time.

I remember DE talking about how focus would be a passive way to improve your overall character (operator, but they kept that hush hush).
instead what we have now is a system that is:

• easy to max out for those that grind it with purpose. Like special builds built for the purpose of farming focus.
• hard for passive players to max out, never reaching the focus cap.
• hardly no middle ground to gain focus.

Since it seems the CO is a relic from when there was no cap and no CO so people were farming like crazy.

My proposal is that CO is removed and focus is gained passively at all times. Lenses might have to be reduces a bit to make up for 100% up time, but otherwise that's it.
We will gain a much more smooth experience for the casual players that can only get a bit of gaming done a day to almost not affecting those that farm focus hardcore since they might just save 20 mins total from their focus farming routine to hit focus cap. We get:

• Hardcore farmers will still be maxing out their focus cap in under 2 hours
• The players that made an effort to collect the Convergence Orb will be gaining focus at a higher rate and might get to see the focus cap some times. Some might even start focusing more on focus gains.
• The players that usually got between 0-4000 focus during normal play will be seeing a much smoother experience from when they first unlock focus
  • They still might not hit the focus cap due to not being able to play long enough, but they will at least gain something.

What do you all think? Is the Convergence Orb really needed anymore since we have a cap anyway?
PS: Make the basic lenses craftable from the quills. New players will see it when it is appropriate and going weeks before you unlock your first lens will hopefully not happen. Because it shouldn't

[Shryoss]

The pickup needs to go and be passive as soon as you are using a lv 30 equipment with a lens installed. I feel like a set of lensed gear should fill the Focus cap with regular gameplay in ~two hours max. It's not like we can gain more, there's a daily cap, you can only bypass it with Brilliant Eidolon shards that was recently added, but you have to go out of your way to do that. Otherwise, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to cap out during normal gameplay while putting in a bit of effort in about an hour or two.

[Oreades]

The thing is focus already is passive. I didn't think it was at first either but someone pointed it out to me in a thread I made so I tested it and indeed it was. The thing is the passive focus from the lenses is so insignificant that you aren't even going to notice it, heck I know I didn't. So the notion that they reduce the lenses even further doesn't sound great, cause reducing it much further would just be off. 

Passive gains from the Lenses would actually need to be significantly increased for there to be a reasonable passive system. 

They could actually keep the focus candy even with the increased passive gains, they would just need to lower he multiplier from the convergence orbs and probably make them spawn less frequently. So they where more of a bonus instead of the primary source of focus. 

As for the focus cap, personally it feels counterintuitive. I mean there is no limit to the number of levels you can get per day for gear nor is there a limit to the number of forma you can add to an item. The only thing that seems to really have an artificial barrier is the mastery test system and even that doesn't stop you from getting mastery XP towards the next level it just locks you out of trying to take the test again for 24hrs. 

When it comes to basic lenses, I wouldn't even have them crafted, I would have them as something you could just purchase outright for a small bit of rep. If you are going to craft a greater lens you are already going to need 200k credits 4 normal lenses and a forma(? I forget the exact recipe). Which you are going to need to craft an Eidolon lense, I have not even looked into that recipe.   

Edited October 21, 2017 by Oreades

[Lost_Cartographer]

Some basic maths:

If the goal is to keep a maximum x8 multiplier then:

Buffing lenses to 4x their current amount means orbs would only need to double focus conversion rates. 

 

Lens Current: 1.25%, 4x = 5%, 5x = 6.25%.  8x = 10%

Greater current: 1.75%, 4x = 7%, 5x = 8.75%.  8x = 14%

Buffing lenses to 5x their current amount means orbs would only need increase focus conversion rates by 60% to reach the current x8 multiplier. 

For what it's worth, I think the original lens conversion rates were around 4-5x what they are now.

If not the removal of convergence, then certainly a crunching down of the gains between having a convergence orb active and being without one.  Right now, it's pretty much have a convergence orb active or you're not getting anything.  And you're hoping that damn orb spawns when you're about to be swarmed, not after the fact.  It's just a stupid unreliable concept and since most people just farmed away a few nodes in two specific trees on some popular affinity mission the CO's weren't a huge concern, but now people don't need just a few hundred thousand...

[Raistling]

To explain further what I mean, since after reading it again made me think of it. 

What we should get is passively gain the amount of experience we get from CO, but maybe reduce it to 1/4th of it.

Right now. The way we gain focus benefit only those that truly focus on it. Which we were told were not gonna be the case. It would be a kind of in the background focus mastery of a school that we would gain.

instead with the changes and removal of CO, the focus farmers wouldn't be hurt by the change.
the ones that do it once in a while would see a good buff in their focus gain over time
and then the ones that hardly have the time for it would see a significant buff since they would now always gain at least some for any mission they do with lvl 30 equipment that has a lens.

[Ceryk]

I agree with the fact that it really only helps hardcore grinders. I just did a post about how bad gaining Focus Exp is (Focus 2.0: Focus Exp = Not Fun) and part of my complaint is the orb. I go into a group and I get MAYBE 2-3k Focus Exp from 3 Greater Lenses installed and grabbing and orb. I tried the solo Ivara Adaro grind method, I've gotten up to 12k from one orb. This thing actively encourages boring farming over enjoying the game and just playing it and being rewarded, which is what you are able to do with basically the other things in the game that have a hard cap on daily points.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Ceryk

[Anthraxicus]

Convergence orb is a disaster. And after PoE, they seem to be even more bugged. I've had them spawn on locations where I couldn't get them. I was doing a fissure on Io and the orb spawned 75m below the platform. It was simply impossible to pick it up. Even if it always spawned right next to your Warframe, it would still be a bad mechanic. 

[KenthNisshoku]

this focus orb is bugged and I had it spawned 600 meters away from me in sedna where no enemies spawned while i was stealth farming

[BL4CKN0ISE]

I think a few things could work. More passive gains would definitely help. I also think adding specific modes could work too. Modes that are specifically designed for gaining focus would also add more content to the game. Killing/capturing Eidolons would've been perfect for this. In fact, a lot of the PoE content would've been perfect for gaining focus. 

Something I would love is different types of convergence orbs. It wouldn't help those who already don't like convergence orbs, but I think it would help the grind and/or make it more fun IMO. What if the convergence orbs would go from bronze < silver < gold during the match? There could be some type of multiplier that would give you more focus for the higher tier orbs. One of the things I love is when a death squad shows up because they give so much focus. This is something else that could add to the grind. Give us different enemies when we get the orbs, or lose the orbs altogether and just drop in a boss or higher level enemies that grant a significant amount of focus.  

[luanle21]

basic lens should get up to 5%, greater 7.5%, and eidolon tier goes for 15% for passive focus gain, that i think would do at least

[GreyEnneract]

Also killing with an Amp should just convert 100% of the exp into Focus for the lens on it. Considering it's maxed out.

[LordLokai]

passively earn it HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

yea lets earn it passively!

*triples needed focus in every ability*

*doesn't increase net gain of focus at all*

TOTALLY FINE GUYS! YOU CAN EARN IT PASSIVELY---- AS LONG AS YOU DONT MIND WAITING 20 YEARS TO MAX 1 ABILITY! LAWL!

No seriously i spent a couple hours farming focus tonight and i can tell you that unless you can do expert stealth runs maximizing your affinity gains, abuse naramon and a booster you will never dent your focus trees at all its absolutely daunting to look at those trees. Before i had managed to max a few abilities here and there and grabbed ones that were useful to me and now i actually WANT to max trees it feels impossible...

Is an easy way to fix it though... just make all affinity passively go to your activated tree, and make lenses boost your affinity gain to affinity by a percentage base...

Example (just examples not what i expect actual numbers to be)

Base Lens 25%

Greater Lens 50%

Edilon Lens 75%

you made Focus a requirement it needs to be easier to gain as it stands only hard core players that can farm 4-6 hours a day will ever see a single tree maxed let alone all of them... i personally am thinking of shelfing the game for awhile in hopes focus becomes more accessable... because as it is i do not have the time to grind focus every day... i just don't have that kind of free time 6 hours is a long time to farm... for something only really relevant for edilons...

[Discontinuity]

Amusingly enough, the convergence orbs were only introduced after they'd broken exterminate mechanics to stop people from farming focus. It was a straight nerf to focus gain. It's really not beneficial for anyone, even hardcore farmers -- it just happens to be much worse for everyone who doesn't specifically go to farm focus for a half hour every day. It even has detrimental effects on group play, since people will go far away from the objective to get the boost. It's a mechanic that has no real benefits and a number of downsides, so it's difficult to fathom why it wasn't scrapped immediately after it was implemented and nobody liked it.

[Ohforf3]

29 minutes ago, LordLokai said:

passively earn it HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

yea lets earn it passively!

*triples needed focus in every ability*

*doesn't increase net gain of focus at all*

TOTALLY FINE GUYS! YOU CAN EARN IT PASSIVELY---- AS LONG AS YOU DONT MIND WAITING 20 YEARS TO MAX 1 ABILITY! LAWL!

No seriously i spent a couple hours farming focus tonight and i can tell you that unless you can do expert stealth runs maximizing your affinity gains, abuse naramon and a booster you will never dent your focus trees at all its absolutely daunting to look at those trees. Before i had managed to max a few abilities here and there and grabbed ones that were useful to me and now i actually WANT to max trees it feels impossible...

Is an easy way to fix it though... just make all affinity passively go to your activated tree, and make lenses boost your affinity gain to affinity by a percentage base...

Example (just examples not what i expect actual numbers to be)

Base Lens 25%

Greater Lens 50%

Edilon Lens 75%

you made Focus a requirement it needs to be easier to gain as it stands only hard core players that can farm 4-6 hours a day will ever see a single tree maxed let alone all of them... i personally am thinking of shelfing the game for awhile in hopes focus becomes more accessable... because as it is i do not have the time to grind focus every day... i just don't have that kind of free time 6 hours is a long time to farm... for something only really relevant for edilons...

They wouldn't need to jack up the costs if they made lenses give more without orbs.  There would still be the daily cap on how much you can earn and players would just have an easier time reaching it.

[MartianGHunter]

I find it funny why put a cap on focus gained and then make it difficult to reach the cap. The whole point of a cap is to prevent maxing out focus quicker so why reduce gains and have a cap?? It just feels like this was terrible terrible gameplay design.

[Lost_Cartographer]

1 hour ago, Discontinuity said:

Amusingly enough, the convergence orbs were only introduced after they'd broken exterminate mechanics to stop people from farming focus. It was a straight nerf to focus gain. It's really not beneficial for anyone, even hardcore farmers -- it just happens to be much worse for everyone who doesn't specifically go to farm focus for a half hour every day. It even has detrimental effects on group play, since people will go far away from the objective to get the boost. It's a mechanic that has no real benefits and a number of downsides, so it's difficult to fathom why it wasn't scrapped immediately after it was implemented and nobody liked it.

because people weren't griping for long. The optimal farm was found, people got the couple of nodes in the couple of schools that were deemed META and ignored the system.

The community has a problem of whining about new grinds until shown a short cut, then plowing through that short cut with out continuing to ask for something fun.

The current grind people are plowing through is the Quill's/teralyst grind, but once they're done, not a peep towards making it better or offering alternatives. Damn shame too, because where's the newbie one year from now going to get a group?

Half the newb retention problem is De explaining things poorly. The other half is players not really caring if things are made harder and grindier without a mass of people participating in the content.

[Rage_Inducer]

I highly support this. I got a sleepquinox and Maiming strike. I can go daily and max my focus in 20 minutes but this specific setup shouldn't be required. There SHOULD be a cap so you can hit it and hardcore grinders like me don't get too far ahead of the normal people, I get what DE is doing but the convergence orb just isn't the way to go especially since it likes to spawn in the air in the plains and lately, in normal missions I've had it spawn in the first room halfway through an exterminate mission.

[Fallen_Echo]

How about converting credits into focus? 

1:1

It would still require huge investments but i rather sacrafice mission earnings than go and rot my brain in some eternal focus farm map.

[Raistling]

6 minutes ago, MarrikBroom said:

No, and for those going on about it preventing AFK leechers? There are already other anti afk mechanics in place that don't actively break the flow of the game or kneecap what normal people just playing the game cn accomplish. As is? If I see the orb I have to rush over there after determining if it's a good idea and or maybe wait for a huge horde of enemies. That is me breaking from the objective, breaking from the squad, and prioritizing myself over the group. This is inherently selfish in a squad based game.

Emphasis mine. This is also a very good reason to remove it since people all disappear once a CO spawns, leaving whatever objective was being defended at the time.

Removing the CO still wouldn't positively affect afk leechers very much since they would have to be in range of affinity. Defense and Interception excluded.

[Zeranov]

So why not simply deactivate the Affinity sharing buff (the little thing in the UI) or temporary set the Affinity range of the player to 0m when the AFK timer kicks in?

The only problem with that would be high efficiency builds á la RQ Banshee that won't move for over 60s, but I think most players wouldn't be affected.

So the devs may rest assured that no one is going the leech their precious Focus if they remove this blasted orb and give us the Focus rates we had back in the days when Focus was first introduced.

[Raistling]

1 hour ago, Zeranov said:

or temporary set the Affinity range of the player to 0m when the AFK timer kicks in?

Seems like the better solution to fix afkers

[racooperii]

I agree, with a daily limit the rate that focus is earned passively is insulting and having only one or two builds that can cap out in a realistic amount of time just compounds that problem.

I actually like the new tree's, there are abilities I think are worth spending time on for each of the schools and can have an impact on play style to supplement the Warframes, but this time cost to earn focus still makes it something a lot of people will continue to ignore.