Thoughts On Affinity Distribution: Why Should I Have To Make My Teammates Do The Work?

[leglesslizard]

In light of this weekend's double affinity event, I looked into exactly how affinity was distributed. What I found was pretty much the same as what I had noticed over the past several weeks in terms of xp gain:

 

If one kills an enemy with a particular weapon, naturally, that weapon gains experience, along with that person's current warframe. However, their nearby teammates receive a similar amount of warframe experience, as well as the same weapon experience split among their three weapons.

 

This was comforting to know, because the Nova in your party won't just steal all your potential affinity. For those who aren't clearing large groups of enemies with their warframe abilities this is a very nice feature. On the flip side, there is the person with the warframe that can kill massive amounts of enemies. They've likely gotten their warframe to rank 30 without much effort, possibly even using a couple forma on it. When they destroy waves upon waves of enemies in a defense mission, affinity just rains down on their teammates equally, while they only get it for their quite likely maxed out warframe.

 

I don't want to come off as whining about why my weapons don't level as fast when I'm using such a warframe, but rather point out that if I'm using one of them and trying to level up my weapons as fast as possible, I'm better off not using my abilities that end up benefiting my teammates the most, which coincidentally keeps xp away from my weapons. In addition, If I'm trying to level a weapon that isn't great solely for mastery rank, it may be near impossible to actually kill anything with it, so it's just better to let my teammates kill enemies in some way so that my weapon can get some xp. While it's great that my teammates can be helpful, what kind of teamwork is it if I'm not helping them too? As a player, I shouldn't be forced to pick between my self interests and the best interests of the team, rather my teams best interests should be mine.

 

A couple possible solutions to this could include having a small amount of xp "spill over" to your other items once your weapon/warframe have reached 30, or have affinity distributed in the same amounts to everyone in the party. Something like the former is probably better though since it encourages more active participation by individual party members. 

 

TL;DR Using an AoE warframe is detrimental for leveling your own weapons, but great for your teammates'. To most effectively level your own weapons (assuming it's not easy for you to kill mobs of enemies with, i.e. Ogris), you must avoid helping your teammates very effectively level theirs. 

[Khranitel]

Solution: use support frame for leveling weapons.

Vauban/Nyx/Trinity, even Rhino becomes more of a support on high levels.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Khranitel

[Slurmageddon]

I think this system is best, otherwise we'd ALL just throw on a Nova and try to blast away at everything. Levelling things gave me all the more reason to choose my Vauban instead and take up the support role in keeping the Bastille up. 

 

This is a specific and tiny example but I hope you get my point

[leglesslizard]

A support frame should theoretically make it easier for your team to complete the objective. However the fastest way to rank up a weapon is still with some sort of AoE, which means someone on your team, out of the goodness of their heart, needs to put leveling their weapons on the back burner to benefit everyone else. 

 

EDIT: I love using Banshee to help my teammates, but at the end of the day if my weapon can't kill anything it's all on my teammates, which I don't want to happen.

Edited August 5, 2013 by leglesslizard

[Erusa]

I thought of this on Saturday too...

Until I realized how fun and flashy it is to slide'n'charge the Orthos I'm levelling while I'm doing missions other than defense.

Cuz of that now I'm entirely open to playing other weapons since I might find fun in them~ (No Gram, I still hate you. I hate you so much.)

Defense isn't the only way to level your weapons after all, and rushing isn't the only way to play sabotage/raid/capture. :>

[PeterKha]

A support frame should theoretically make it easier for your team to complete the objective. However the fastest way to rank up a weapon is still with some sort of AoE, which means someone on your team, out of the goodness of their heart, needs to put leveling their weapons on the back burner to benefit everyone else. 

 

EDIT: I love using Banshee to help my teammates, but at the end of the day if my weapon can't kill anything it's all on my teammates, which I don't want to happen.

That's why you play with friends, they leech your weapons then you leech theirs in return. I love how the system works now because I leveled my unranked Kogake to level 21 without using it once on a t3 defense. All I did was globe the pod and kill with acrid. 

 

End of the mission, ended up getting 120k for primary and melee and 220k for secondary.

Edited August 5, 2013 by YoloObeySwag

[Cryp2Nite]

What counts is not the affinity per kill, but how quickly you do the kills. Running 10 waves Xini with a Nova nuking away

all enemies in seconds is much better in terms of affinity/time than slowly shooting your way through 500 enemies.

[warbear3d]

people are just doing defense up to wave 10. then they quit. so many gay tennos.

[Cryp2Nite]

people are just doing defense up to wave 10. then they quit. so many #$$ tennos.

 

Normally I'm up to wave 30 at least, if the team is right. What's your point?

[fatpig84]

Typically I go up to wave 30 if everyone is reliable.

 

I had Nyx (myself), Ember, Vauban and Nova.

I wasn't even really needed but when the mobs start reaching level 122+ chaos does make it easier for Molecular Prime to trigger even though it is meager damage. 

 

I quit after that because my side arm was a leveling dual bronco and a leveling fragor lol. Ogris won't do much jack against enemies that are going level 140+ anyway.

Edited August 5, 2013 by fatpig84

[Sixty5]

I use Banshee because she is awesome.

 

Also Sonar turns rubbish weapons into great ones.

[Xinoxlx]

Warframe abilities should give the same exp distribution as team-mates get when someone else makes a kill. That way it supports people using their abilities to help the team and gives people a reliable way to level their gear on their own.

 

The current system heavily favors leechers and that's not a good demographic to support.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Xinoxlx

[leglesslizard]

That's why you play with friends, they leech your weapons then you leech theirs in return. I love how the system works now because I leveled my unranked Kogake to level 21 without using it once on a t3 defense. All I did was globe the pod and kill with acrid. 

 

End of the mission, ended up getting 120k for primary and melee and 220k for secondary.

 

I'm the best equipped of all my close friends, maybe I need to get a few more. ;)

 

 

Typically I go up to wave 30 if everyone is reliable.

 

I had Nyx (myself), Ember, Vauban and Nova.

I wasn't even really needed but when the mobs start reaching level 122+ chaos does make it easier for Molecular Prime to trigger even though it is meager damage. 

 

I quit after that because my side arm was a leveling dual bronco and a leveling fragor lol. Ogris won't do much jack against enemies that are going level 140+ anyway.

I wish more parties would actually get that high, haven't gotten past 15 or 20 for a while.

 

I use Banshee because she is awesome.

 

Also Sonar turns rubbish weapons into great ones.

Very true, unless they are doing ones and twos because of armor before sonar.

 

 

Warframe abilities should give the same exp distribution as team-mates get when someone else makes a kill. That way it supports people using their abilities to help the team and gives people a reliable way to level their gear on their own.

 

The current system heavily favors leechers and that's not a good demographic to support.

While maybe not as much as when someone else kills it, so that it's still beneficial to work as a team, I wholeheartedly agree that leechers shouldn't be rewarded and probably should have emphasized that more in the beginning. 

[SanderF]

why bother going over wave 5 is the reward is the same as say, wave 100 for tier 3 defenses? For the xp? Mobile defense is much better for that and faster.

[Thelonious]

Or you can chose to play a map according to the level of your gear...

 

Mobile defense/endless defense is great for leveling, but there are other maps than xini/kappa. 

 

If you really want to use your low-level gear, go to a low-level map. There's Killiken/Venera on venus for defense, Eurasia/Lua on earth for mobile defense...you don't need a nuker, or even a potatoed weapon to be effective there. And it's not that much less xp: yes, you get less xp per mob, but you can kill much more enemies too with the weapon you're leveling (xp scaling is still horrible after all)

 

Basically, you can make your way through half the solar system while you level up your gear. And finish it in Xini/Kappa

 

Or you can go to Kiste with all your unranked gear and leech...as I've seen so much this week end. For me it wasn't double affinity week end, it was double leecher week end. Soooo many failed missions...

[PeterKha]

What counts is not the affinity per kill, but how quickly you do the kills. Running 10 waves Xini with a Nova nuking away

all enemies in seconds is much better in terms of affinity/time than slowly shooting your way through 500 enemies.

Source?

[Alohoe]

In light of this weekend's double affinity event, I looked into exactly how affinity was distributed. What I found was pretty much the same as what I had noticed over the past several weeks in terms of xp gain:

 

If one kills an enemy with a particular weapon, naturally, that weapon gains experience, along with that person's current warframe. However, their nearby teammates receive a similar amount of warframe experience, as well as the same weapon experience split among their three weapons.

 

This was comforting to know, because the Nova in your party won't just steal all your potential affinity. For those who aren't clearing large groups of enemies with their warframe abilities this is a very nice feature. On the flip side, there is the person with the warframe that can kill massive amounts of enemies. They've likely gotten their warframe to rank 30 without much effort, possibly even using a couple forma on it. When they destroy waves upon waves of enemies in a defense mission, affinity just rains down on their teammates equally, while they only get it for their quite likely maxed out warframe.

 

I don't want to come off as whining about why my weapons don't level as fast when I'm using such a warframe, but rather point out that if I'm using one of them and trying to level up my weapons as fast as possible, I'm better off not using my abilities that end up benefiting my teammates the most, which coincidentally keeps xp away from my weapons. In addition, If I'm trying to level a weapon that isn't great solely for mastery rank, it may be near impossible to actually kill anything with it, so it's just better to let my teammates kill enemies in some way so that my weapon can get some xp. While it's great that my teammates can be helpful, what kind of teamwork is it if I'm not helping them too? As a player, I shouldn't be forced to pick between my self interests and the best interests of the team, rather my teams best interests should be mine.

 

A couple possible solutions to this could include having a small amount of xp "spill over" to your other items once your weapon/warframe have reached 30, or have affinity distributed in the same amounts to everyone in the party. Something like the former is probably better though since it encourages more active participation by individual party members. 

 

TL;DR Using an AoE warframe is detrimental for leveling your own weapons, but great for your teammates'. To most effectively level your own weapons (assuming it's not easy for you to kill mobs of enemies with, i.e. Ogris), you must avoid helping your teammates very effectively level theirs. 

Be enlightened. The wiki is wrong.  Source===>http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1irhra/let_get_rid_of_the_xp_sharing_myth/

[leglesslizard]

Be enlightened. The wiki is wrong.  Source===>http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1irhra/let_get_rid_of_the_xp_sharing_myth/

 

I never said the wiki was right, nor did I say that I had the exact distributions of xp. However, the distributions shown by this reddit post don't change my point. Killing something with a warframe ability gives your weapons absolutely no experience, while it does benefit your teammates weapons. If I went into a mission and killed several hundred enemies with my abilities, while my teammates did absolutely nothing, all of that experience would go to my warframe, while being a nice even split for them among their four pieces of equipment. While this is great for my teammates, and I love being a team player, I'd like to feel the love at least a little bit. If I'm working with my friends I can arrange for some back and forth leeching and everyone is happy, but if I'm with any public group there is room for people who will always leech. 

[Eisvogel]

The way it is it's perfectly fine... it encourages to experience both playstyles and actually USE the weapons, instead of just leaving there while spamming a frame button. This way is more balanced and not just "get the frame that wipes out and never mind your weapons, they'll rank up anyways"

 

I say stay like it is.

[xenapan]

Yep... its annoying as hell. it penalizes people for using good weapons and killing fast, and insanely penalizes ult spamming (which is a good thing) but the main issue is... you rely on everyone else to get your weapon xp (because you doing it yourself is 50% more work, and alot slower.. etc etc.

 

really i think they need to change it so weapon kills give you 80 weapon/20 warframe. your sentinel's kills should give 11/11/11 for your 3 weapons. 33 warframe 33 sentinel and 33 sentinel weapon. as it stands my sentinel is completely working against me when im trying to level something new.