Weapons with forma should level up faster

[-CM-Machete]

Something like stacking additively 20% less affinity required to level up again per forma added with hard cap at 50%. I understand why the game is grindy, but making it less grindy in some parts where devs get nothing from could help reducing the amount of people getting burned out.

I've been playing this game for almost five years and I still find it terribly to be asked to level up again the items after putting on it a resource that already costs either time farming it or platinum.

The already mentioned 20% less affinity required. Maybe adding a player's MR as "reduced affinity required" could even be another incentive for people to rank up.

Some issue I would like to bring attention to, is the fact that, while the rank-based modding capacity may be good for weapons, for Warframes it's nearly useless, we are able to stack a few shield and HP mods, but the Warframe itself it's still useless which, if I recall correctly: that was what motivated the MR-based mod capacity in first place, although it barely did anything for Warframes as it did for weapons.

[polarity]

Why?

I put 7 forma in my Braton Prime, because I figured it would work well with the mods I use for Titania's Razorwing, and it took a little over 3 Akkad runs to level to 30 each time, depending on how many idiots* I ran into, who think Akkad is a credit farming mission.

1. Use the weapon you want to level.
2. If there's one of those idiots with an Ember, who thinks they can level weapons by killing everything with their warframe, let them.

Your MR lets you put more mods in a weapon, which lets you get more kills with it (for your group), which gives you more direct XP for it.  No need to do anything else.

* ^{It takes 5 waves for 18k credits, in a mission that's rated 35-45, when Ceres Seimeni or Gabii give 20k for 15-25 def or surv missions, and pluto hieracon gives 20k quicker despite being 35-45, because you only need to do one extractor, which also has a chance to reward additional credits.}

[BlackVortex]

to be honest, I feel like its fine the way it is

you spend about 15-20 minutes leveling a weapon from 0-30 anyway

also, whenever I forma a weapon, I usually have a catalyst on it, meaning I already have enough mod capacity to equip 5-7 mods on it

for the warframes, we used to have skill mods on warframe, I actually preferred the old system to the new system

just smack that 1 maxed out skill mod on your frame and you are almost as strong as a level 30 frame

nowadays you need to wait until you are rank 10, to get a really bad version of your 4th skill

luckily we can use our weapons now to level up our warframe

[R4dioS1lence]

Not only weapons, but Warframes too.

Warframe has breadth on the amount of content available, but the depth comes from specializing what you have. But whenever you put a Forma, you go basically throught the same process that you started with, as if you learned nothing from the first time. On a game that put such an emphasis on learning, to the point that your rank/level is related to the amount of content that you mastered, having you "slowly remastering" something that you mastered already is almost contradictory. I wish it was something like "Amount of Affinity / (1 + number of Formas)" requirement. This would reduce the amount of farming, and interest players in exploring the depth without fearing long farming time.

[BlackVortex]

2 hours ago, R4dioS1lence said:

Not only weapons, but Warframes too.

Warframe has breadth on the amount of content available, but the depth comes from specializing what you have. But whenever you put a Forma, you go basically throught the same process that you started with, as if you learned nothing from the first time. On a game that put such an emphasis on learning, to the point that your rank/level is related to the amount of content that you mastered, having you "slowly remastering" something that you mastered already is almost contradictory. I wish it was something like "Amount of Affinity / (1 + number of Formas)" requirement. This would reduce the amount of farming, and interest players in exploring the depth without fearing long farming time.

you can literally rank up 3 weapons + a warframe in about 20 minutes

I really don't see how people can say the grind is too long for this

[Sader]

10 waves solo weapons on hydron = level 30 weapon with an affinity boost.

 

I just put 7 formas into my lato vandal... its not that bad.

[R4dioS1lence]

On 11/26/2017 at 5:31 PM, BlackVortex said:

you can literally rank up 3 weapons + a warframe in about 20 minutes

I really don't see how people can say the grind is too long for this

It's easy for you, it's easy for me, it's easy for anyone near end-game that have invested enough time in the game already. But the issue isn't about being "easy", it's about taking long and about being a mindless task.

Most weapons and Warframes take about 3 Formas to have an end-game build, meaning that, aside from first rank 30, it takes 1 hour of mindless repetition work that isn't fun, just for progress of a single item. And that only comes if you have opened the best farming places, which takes time. Aside from that, you are stuck with even double this time. If you have about 1 hour to play per day (mind that not everyone has a lot of free time), this means that you must choose between doing repetition to upgrade, or doing something else that might be more fun, like, spending some time on the relay meeting other players, recruiting, helping someone, trying an exquisite build.

This kind of farming barrier is what shy people away from MMOs. Because the most fun is in the social part, most mechanical progress are tied to hundreds of hours clicking the same skills until you get what you want. This is mostly a way to create a "false player engagement" by recurring to Operant Conditioning and Pavlovian Conditioning, but still having the player spend time feeling that it will be worth it on the end.

Warframe has some mechanics that help reduce these barriers, like how the Mastery Rank system gives you an edge on training new stuff. But even with those, progress to the end-game is still tied to mindless repetition. The hard and most interesting part is deciding which Mods to use (and what different builds), and from there, which alignments to make. But after that, comes the repetition.

DE knows that they have serious problems with farming, and they have been addressing them. Focus costs where reduced a whole lot because of this. Bounties now pay a reward every section instead of only at the end. But there is still more to be done.

Lateral progress on Warframe isn't that hard, even though it takes time. Getting new weapons to increase MR (and just to try new stuff), beating bosses to get new warframes (even with those rare events of 20-30 kills to yield that system that wasn't dropping), entering a Clan and helping getting access, or already having access to a multitude of new stuff, hunting relics (task that can be done in tandem with many other tasks) for new primes. Resource farming have ways to increase yields a lot that don't take much effort, like getting Nerkos or Hydroid (with Pilfer), and even less when smartly combining those strategies. Even not getting that prime part you want can yield things that you can trade for plat or ducats to buy something that can be traded for plat (it's not hard to get the time lost not getting 'that one item' back) if you waste too many relics.

But whenever you look at depth progress on Warframe, you are talking about Forma'ing things several times, grinding, farming, doing JV or LoR uncountable times to get 10 of that single arcane so the arcane can be at max level (this part at least can be made easier if you get an arcane that will have nice trade value but you don't want).

I got recently to MR 24, after near 6 months and over 1000 hours of play, and about half of that is from farming alone. I would be way happier if at least half of this time was spent doing something else in the game that was more interesting than sitting on a mission hitting that same button over and over again.

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

Yeah I don’t really have a problem with the affinity requirement with forma. Like the previous poster I just wish there was a more dynamic way to earn affinity rather than farming exploits, since DE insist they don’t design them. 

I have thought that all they need to do is adjust alerts and invasions to give out more affinity. I also think they could offer affinity as a reward that you can just apply to any item that requires it, so you can play with whatever optimized gear in any type of mission that suits your fancy and put affinity towards whatever you need. They could allow for custom modifiers in nightmare levels which grant extra afffinty. These are conditions and modifier you apply yourself for added affinity(say melee/primary/secondary kills only, no power usage, etc). 

They could just make a “Draco Alert” that runs on a rotating playlist of missions that grant affinity bonus. 

I had an idea that they could design “mini-quests” that trigger while running a regular mission. Say a extermination changes to a capture mission. Then that mission leads to multiple other mission which result in higher affinity and event special items. These are procedurally generates and are random so you have to play a different set of mission. 

Id rather they focus more on procedural generation than trying to create more “open world content”. I feel they could add more varied tile sets and go even further in designing procedurally generated maps uniquely tailored to mission types. I feel they could add more complex enemy AI and allow a sliding scale difficulty which rewards higher affinity for mission but amps the complexity of combat to truly test your skills as a player. Combining a system like this with affinity rewards would created an environment where people can be constantly challenge, receive affinity based upon MR and skill, and put that affinity towards items they want to level but can’t necessarily use yet. 

Edited December 13, 2017 by (PS4)HurricaneHugo76

[Snib]

 

1 hour ago, R4dioS1lence said:

the issue isn't about being "easy", it's about taking long and about being a mindless task.

[...]

Most weapons and Warframes take about 3 Formas to have an end-game build, meaning that, aside from first rank 30, it takes 1 hour of mindless repetition work that isn't fun, just for progress of a single item. And that only comes if you have opened the best farming places, which takes time

[...]

This kind of farming barrier is what shy people away from MMOs. 

It's only a farm if you make it one. You gain affinity from everything you do in the game. So just play the game, enjoy your self, and your gear levels up all on its own. I never did Draco, I never did Bere, I never farmed for focus, and yet here I am with rarely a use for affinity anymore and all the forma I could want already on my equipment. It's all in your head.

And even taking your 1 hour dedicated grind for 3 forma for an endgame warframe build statement (weapons would take half the time since half the affinity cost), show me one other game where you can max out your gear in that little time and still have players complain about it? It's a short amount of time in a game by any stretch of the imagination, something like that takes weeks or months in MMOs.

 

[kingdomeTHEMADcthulhu]

A buff say 10%cheaper stackable up to say 50% would be plenty 10%stack per forma

[Orblit]

You....you people know there's a stealth bonus...right?

Use a frame that can make enemies sleep or just make you invisible. Weapons go from unranked > 30 in about 1-2 missions. (If done without breaking multiplier too often)

Edited December 13, 2017 by Orblit
Added more

[_Vortus_]

Just wish could do multiple forma at the same time.   Even if the affinity needed per forma was the same, so multiply the needed affinity to rank up by the number of forma added, it would save time having to leave missions and re-forma and just keep playing till its done.

[Snib]

1 hour ago, _Vortus_ said:

Just wish could do multiple forma at the same time.   Even if the affinity needed per forma was the same, so multiply the needed affinity to rank up by the number of forma added, it would save time having to leave missions and re-forma and just keep playing till its done.

That's a suggestion I can get behind, although I can already visualize all the bugs they would create if they ever were to implement something like this. :D

[(PSN)lhbuch]

On 26/11/2017 at 5:34 AM, -CM-Machete said:

Something like stacking additively 20% less affinity required to level up again per forma added with hard cap at 50%. I understand why the game is grindy, but making it less grindy in some parts where devs get nothing from could help reducing the amount of people getting burned out.

I've been playing this game for almost five years and I still find it terribly to be asked to level up again the items after putting on it a resource that already costs either time farming it or platinum.

The already mentioned 20% less affinity required. Maybe adding a player's MR as "reduced affinity required" could even be another incentive for people to rank up.

Some issue I would like to bring attention to, is the fact that, while the rank-based modding capacity may be good for weapons, for Warframes it's nearly useless, we are able to stack a few shield and HP mods, but the Warframe itself it's still useless which, if I recall correctly: that was what motivated the MR-based mod capacity in first place, although it barely did anything for Warframes as it did for weapons.

i like the idea, probably the hole idea behind leveling is that it should happen as you play regularly but most people like me, run some missions specifically to level gear. 

[BlackCoMerc]

On 11/26/2017 at 12:18 PM, R4dioS1lence said:

Not only weapons, but Warframes too.

Warframe has breadth on the amount of content available, but the depth comes from specializing what you have. But whenever you put a Forma, you go basically throught the same process that you started with, as if you learned nothing from the first time. On a game that put such an emphasis on learning, to the point that your rank/level is related to the amount of content that you mastered, having you "slowly remastering" something that you mastered already is almost contradictory. I wish it was something like "Amount of Affinity / (1 + number of Formas)" requirement. This would reduce the amount of farming, and interest players in exploring the depth without fearing long farming time.

Your MR has nothing to do with content mastered. It's purely, 100% tied to the amount of stuff you've acquired and leveled.

You can literally BUY Mastery Rank. It's a business model, not a game mechanic.

For OP, yes, each Forma on an item, should grant that item more Bonus XP, so it levels faster.

DE claim they don't want XP farming like Draco was. But the forced zero leveling from Forma actively encourage XP farming. It's sort of like how those Nullifiers and control robbers are supposed to PREVENT power spam, but when you're faced with them, plus a crowd, you need to spam powers to survive...

Edited December 13, 2017 by BlackCoMerc

[RistN]

But in a way you're weapons and warframes do level up faster with each additional forma on it.Reason is that you can put additional mods on making it more powerful,making more kills with it and ultimately getting more xp.

[BlackCoMerc]

30 minutes ago, RistN said:

But in a way you're weapons and warframes do level up faster with each additional forma on it.Reason is that you can put additional mods on making it more powerful,making more kills with it and ultimately getting more xp.

That's...not even remotely the same.

You don't get max mod capacity until level 30.

Using a forma COMPLETELY resets the item to Zero. 

It still takes just as much XP to go back to 30 a second time. Or a sixth. It's NO faster.

[Unagi604]

2 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

That's...not even remotely the same.

You don't get max mod capacity until level 30.

Using a forma COMPLETELY resets the item to Zero. 

It still takes just as much XP to go back to 30 a second time. Or a sixth. It's NO faster.

No no. They mean that a forma'd weapon + the free levels you get from your mastery rank will hold more mods than one that isn't formad, even at rank 0, and a better modded weapon will kill faster / gain exp faster. Still needs the same amount but gains faster.

[BlackCoMerc]

5 minutes ago, Unagi604 said:

No no. They mean that a forma'd weapon + the free levels you get from your mastery rank will hold more mods than one that isn't formad, even at rank 0, and a better modded weapon will kill faster / gain exp faster. Still needs the same amount but gains faster.

Ahh, ok...yeah, there is that. I see the point now, my apologies.

Thanks.

[RistN]

3 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

You don't get max mod capacity until level 30.

Using a forma COMPLETELY resets the item to Zero. 

And I was talking of that.Leveling weapon from rank 0.Its easier to rank weapon which already have one or more forma on it because you can put additional mods from the start.

 

3 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

It still takes just as much XP to go back to 30 a second time. Or a sixth. It's NO faster.

 XP is the same but dmg and performance of weapon you are trying to rank up isnt.More kills you make with it is definitely the best way to level it faster.

More polarized slots(mods) from lvl 0=more kills=more xp=faster to lvl 30.

edit: @BlackCoMercDidnt see you're last post.Sry.

Edited December 13, 2017 by RistN

[BlackCoMerc]

3 hours ago, RistN said:

And I was talking of that.Leveling weapon from rank 0.Its easier to rank weapon which already have one or more forma on it because you can put additional mods from the start.

 

 XP is the same but dmg and performance of weapon you are trying to rank up isnt.More kills you make with it is definitely the best way to level it faster.

More polarized slots(mods) from lvl 0=more kills=more xp=faster to lvl 30.

edit: @BlackCoMercDidnt see you're last post.Sry.

No problem, mate. I shoukd have seen your point before. Thanks.

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

22 hours ago, RistN said:

And I was talking of that.Leveling weapon from rank 0.Its easier to rank weapon which already have one or more forma on it because you can put additional mods from the start.

 

 XP is the same but dmg and performance of weapon you are trying to rank up isnt.More kills you make with it is definitely the best way to level it faster.

More polarized slots(mods) from lvl 0=more kills=more xp=faster to lvl 30.

edit: @BlackCoMercDidnt see you're last post.Sry.

But there's a problem with that argument. Most players are not taking unranked weapons and using them to rank up. They go to Hydron with the weapon equipped and passively level it back to 30. Yeah maybe every once and while for lolz they go out and do a random mission on it, but most times people are not modding the item until it's back up to full points. And most players want to do that as fast as possible. Back in the day I used to intentionally try to buck the Draco addiction by insisting that we should just run a bunch of Defenses and other endless wave missions on different planets scaling up, and even if we weren't maximizing our affinity per minute we were getting a bunch of other ancillary rewards like different loot and at least some variety while playing. Most people thought I was crazy because, farming on Draco could level your entire gear from 0-30 in less time than playing for an hour my way which might only get you 60-75% of the way there. Even now I largely resort to level farming on Hydron because I'd rather play around with a fully developed item that can fit all the mods that I want than putz around trying to figure it out while it's leveling. And most often time you don't start seeing the real potential on items until you can fit in all the mods you need.

Edited December 14, 2017 by (PS4)HurricaneHugo76

[-CM-Machete]

On 12/13/2017 at 1:08 AM, Snib said:

 

It's only a farm if you make it one. You gain affinity from everything you do in the game. So just play the game, enjoy your self, and your gear levels up all on its own. I never did Draco, I never did Bere, I never farmed for focus, and yet here I am with rarely a use for affinity anymore and all the forma I could want already on my equipment. It's all in your head.

And even taking your 1 hour dedicated grind for 3 forma for an endgame warframe build statement (weapons would take half the time since half the affinity cost), show me one other game where you can max out your gear in that little time and still have players complain about it? It's a short amount of time in a game by any stretch of the imagination, something like that takes weeks or months in MMOs.

 

No, the point of this was to reduce unnecessary grind, because putting forma on stuff is a drag and an unnecessary task which DE has been trying to stop us from doing, to the point they can only take grind spots out while leaving another one or people would riot.

And I have a new post about this (this is actually a month old and you guys revived it for nothing). There is only one downside to this idea, and it's the fact that it reduces the need to buy boosters which affects DE. This new one doesn't, and please understand, that the world doesn't not revolve around you, and people who is just joining the game doesn't have the same resources you and I (as a MR23 players) may have. This idea came out of many discussions with new player who quit the game before reaching MR10, they didn't have 100 weapons, and all the important frames and mods at their disposition, and you don't know how PAINFUL it is, for a brand new player without more weapons.

 BlackCoMerc

(PS4)HurricaneHugo76
@RistN

R4dioS1lence
Unagi604 

(PS4)lhbuch

This is the new one, feel free guys to join the discussion:

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by -CM-Machete

[kgabor]

There is no such thing like "unnecessary grind", you level and Forma for capacity to make your frames/weapons stronger and you can level to max in like 15 waves of Hydron or Stöfler which is like...what? 10 minutes max.

[Phobonaut]

It already is fast enough. I still remember how back in the days, you didn't get 2xMR free mod ranks.