Access to Weapon/Warframe Slots at Low MR - Some Change Might be Needed?

[Arkay]

There's a post on reddit right now talking about warframe and weapon slots for new players. Currently, you only get 1 spare Warframe slot and a handful of weapon slots, plus one extra using the FREESWORD code (since the Vectis one is no longer available). Now you CAN spend your free 50 platinum on 4 weapon slots and a Warframe slot, but that goes against the large amounts of freedom that Warframe supposedly offers, and can screw over newer players if they don't know what to spend starter platinum on.

In said thread, I posted a solution, which I thought I'd share here.

Quote

I've been thinking/saying it for a while. Unlock a handful of slots for reaching Mastery Rank milestones. 1 weapon slot for mastery ranks 1-4 and a Warframe slot for reaching MR5. By then, you should be far enough to be able to farm for valuable items and be able to trade things for platinum, but at the same time you can also actually experiment with things, because early on you simply don't have the space to try out the huge number of weapons and frames the game offers.

Don't give slots away for free, make new players earn them and make them want to progress further.

I think this would be a fair compromise, with newbies having more freedom on what to spend their starting platinum on, but still having to earn their slots. Later MR ranks could give slots as well, but the main focus would be those first five levels, until you have access to places where you can reliably start farming for valuable items to trade.

What do you all think?

[Mattoropael]

Early-game slots, formas and potatoes are a major plat sink. that takes some serious determination to not give in if you're capable of buying plat any time.

And that is very fine. DE has to make money somehow, and the early-game difficulties offsets the ridiculous F2P freedom later on.

[(PSN)Shaun-T-Wilson]

F2P games alway charge for cosmetics and extra space and stuff, starter plat is untradeable and only used in market but its up to new players to seek advice if they want to use it wisely. Most vets will advise get slots first but in the end its up to players to decide. Ps4 players with psn plus can also get extra free plat from psn store.

[Arkay]

8 minutes ago, Mattoropael said:

Early-game slots, formas and potatoes are a major plat sink. that takes some serious determination to not give in if you're capable of buying plat any time.

And that is very fine. DE has to make money somehow, and the early-game difficulties offsets the ridiculous F2P freedom later on.

Do you have a source for this? I'm interested to see how much they make and from who?

[Recel]

The reason the starter slots feel small is really simple. Because they were made in a time, when there weren't hundreds of weapon and dozens of frame options. When there were less than ten frames in the game, having just one slot didn't feel as restricting as now with 30+ frames, not even including prime ones.

[(PSN)Shaun-T-Wilson]

Dont forget a new player in a good clan can earn plat from day 2 if they work hard. Vault farming is profitable for beginners by the time the player max out there first weapon and frame they could of earned enougth plat for more slots. DE has mentioned most player buy plat to speed up things.

Good advise early on is the best solution to your original point, rather than to change DE F2P model.

Edited February 24, 2018 by (PS4)Shaun-T-Wilson

[Tokens210]

how Much they make would be a ? most likely as DE probably keeps that as close to the vest as possible but the fact that the game and every single thing within is or can be free, plat sales or character sales during prime access or unvaultings are how they make any money

This game was made through Crowd source funding like gofundme, thats who the Founders are, people that paid money to DE before this was even a game so they could make it into a game

Slots are the only thing that require you spend plat or actual money to get, everything else is cosmetic or can be gotten for free in game thru playing, and since you have unlimited misc. storage you can eventually get something worth trading and try and get some plat without spending money, so even the you are required to spend money on slots has a workaround built right in

[MagPrime]

I've suggested getting slots with the quest 'frames.  I think this would be a good way for players to gain more Warframe slots, and opens the door to make the starting quests a bit of a tutorial on slots and how leveling effects your Mastery Rank. 

Getting slots for milestones is also a decent idea, mainly because it incentivizes ranking up.

[(PSN)Shaun-T-Wilson]

Just now, MagPrime said:

I've suggested getting slots with the quest 'frames.  I think this would be a good way for players to gain more Warframe slots, and opens the door to make the starting quests a bit of a tutorial on slots and how leveling effects your Mastery Rank. 

Getting slots for milestones is also a decent idea, mainly because it incentivizes ranking up.

Doubt for frame slots but DE does give out free weapons every year and prebuilt weapons from events come with free slot as well.

[MagPrime]

Just now, (PS4)Shaun-T-Wilson said:

Doubt for frame slots but DE does give out free weapons every year and prebuilt weapons from events come with free slot as well.

I've been playing for 4 years, I'm aware of what is given out for free.  But that doesn't really have any bearing on the topic at hand; new players obtaining slots easier/free.

[Tokens210]

well quest frames having slots i could deff. get behind since you can only play the quest for the frame one time and if you delete said frame you can only get it again with plat thru the market which ive always found to be a bit wonky, so having them come with their own slots could be an easy tweak to somewhat fix that

[(PSN)Shaun-T-Wilson]

Unfortunately quest frames are bps and not prebuilt, as said before best solution is good advise. But a helpful warning when selling these frames would be nice and reasonable.

[MagPrime]

2 minutes ago, Tokens210 said:

well quest frames having slots i could deff. get behind since you can only play the quest for the frame one time and if you delete said frame you can only get it again with plat thru the market which ive always found to be a bit wonky, so having them come with their own slots could be an easy tweak to somewhat fix that

That was the main idea behind my suggestion tbh.  I kept seeing so many people complaining that they deleted a quest frame because they lacked slots and didn't know at the time that they couldn't regain the frame. 

Providing slots for the quest frames with a pop up saying this was the only time you could get all the warframe parts for free would help curb that frustration for many new players.

[MagPrime]

Just now, (PS4)Shaun-T-Wilson said:

Unfortunately quest frames are bps and not prebuilt, as said before best solution is good advise. But a helpful warning when selling these frames would be nice and reasonable.

The most recent quest frames are just blueprints, but ones like Limbo, Titania and Atlas grant the parts as rewards for completing parts of the quests. 

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

Sorry you can use your starting plat and pay 5 bucks USD and have enough warframe slots and weapon slots to keep you busy for a while. As much as I don't like the RNG loot fest this game devolves to sometimes overall the amount of plat you have to spend to open up warframe slots and weapons slots is ridiculously low compared to the value they represent.

That is one of the few generous and truly player friendly thing DE offers. If they were truly greedy they could have been slowly increasing the price of slots so that they are on par with cosmetics.

And if you truly are incapable of coughing up 5-10 USD for hundreds of hours of play time, then you can always grind for plat items and make more than enough free plat to buy those slots, if you are patient and methodical and willing to play the rng loot game.

I mean you wanna talk about silly cash grab?  What about the pay plat to complete builds in the foundry?  And the build times? For a game that relies on so much RNG loot to pad the game time I do object to the arbitrary timers they put in on actually getting the item you already spent hours trying to find or hours getting parts for. At this point they should only be charging 5-10 plat at most to complete builds.

Edited February 24, 2018 by (PS4)HurricaneHugo76

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

I don't think low MR's need to get anything faster. New players dont need anything faster.   All that will do is foster another generation of the I want more faster for free.

Getting to MR5 can easily be done in 5 days and the only roadblock is the timer on the mr tests.  

I know plenty of MR 20+ people still grinding for plat to to buy another slot, and carefully planning what they want to keep or not.

If that kind of EASY grind, or choice to make is going to turn off a new player - might as well kick'em out the door now because warframe isn't going to be the game for them.

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

1 hour ago, ChaosSabre said:

I honestly feel that lack of slots is what turns most of new players away combined with really bad starting tutorials. I know a couple of people that didn't even know you can sell unwanted weapons from your inventory to free up space and thought you HAD to buy more slots to use better weapons. And considering the amount of weapons and frames you have right now you should get more slots at start or earn some on first couple of Mastery Ranks. Sure once you know that you can easily sell some corrupted mods for quick and dirty plat it's not that much of a issue but newer players don't know that.

But then gain, this is a COOP PVE shooter. Theoretically, if you were playing with a team or with friends, you would eventually hear about this.

You can always ask in regional chat, as infantile or juvenile it can be people do help out and answer question, I know I do when I bother to stay on.

Likewise you can easily join a clan and get the same help if you are afraid of region.

And then, you know, you can always do some research and READ about how to play the game.......

[Paradoxbomb]

I think unlocking some extra weapon/warframe slots for each MR level would be perfectly fair. Especially considering that you'll likely have to rank up and sell weapons/frames to get the MR for them anyway, it would be good way to give new players some lee-way with the amount of stuff they'll have to discard or buy room for without entirely removing the need for new players to shell out a bit of plat for some extra slots.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Paradoxbomb

[(PSN)HurricaneHugo76]

56 minutes ago, Paradoxbomb said:

I think unlocking some extra weapon/warframe slots for each MR level would be perfectly fair. Especially considering that you'll likely have to rank up and sell weapons/frames to get the MR for them anyway, it would be good way to give new players some lee-way with the amount of stuff they'll have to discard or buy room for without entirely removing the need for new players to shell out a bit of plat for some extra slots.

I'd see your point, if warframe slots were 100 plat and weapon slots were 100 for 3 slots.

I mean for example I ended up getting Tempo Royal when it was first released. I sold that mod for 100 plat and bought a bunch of slots and potatoes for it. So like I said it's not like their aren't avenues to get plat by playing the game, playing intelligently, and working towards getting slots.

I just don't see the price of slots to be unfair considering the amount of  gameplay you get for them.

[peterc3]

6 hours ago, Retvik said:

There's a post on reddit right now talking about warframe and weapon slots for new players. Currently, you only get 1 spare Warframe slot and a handful of weapon slots, plus one extra using the FREESWORD code (since the Vectis one is no longer available). Now you CAN spend your free 50 platinum on 4 weapon slots and a Warframe slot, but that goes against the large amounts of freedom that Warframe supposedly offers, and can screw over newer players if they don't know what to spend starter platinum on.

In said thread, I posted a solution, which I thought I'd share here.

I think this would be a fair compromise, with newbies having more freedom on what to spend their starting platinum on, but still having to earn their slots. Later MR ranks could give slots as well, but the main focus would be those first five levels, until you have access to places where you can reliably start farming for valuable items to trade.

What do you all think?

That post on reddit was predicated on a false comparison. The game that the OP compared to Warframe was full price. On top of the full price was a "necessary" microtransaction buy for slots. The buy-in for Warframe is 0. You are able to download and play the entirety of Warframe for free. There must be an annoyance at some point to cause most people to spend something on the game or it dies.

Any discussion that doesn't start from this being a free game and what is necessary to make that work and justify the time and effort put into the game is a nonstarter.

[(PSN)ChronosHavok]

It's an initial investment but it wasn't too  bad imo. Plat is pretty easy to get with a little effort. You can check my thread on changes to the Daily Tribute. I offered my own way to help new players get slots. 

Edited February 25, 2018 by (PS4)ChronosHavok