How We Acquire Focus Needs To Change

[xXDeadsinxX]

*Disclaimer, if you haven’t completed The Second Dream or The War Within yet, I’d suggest you to leave now, there are spoilers.

Now now everyone, put down your pitchforks and hear me out on purposed changes.

 

What we know so far

Spoiler

The focus system was first introduced in Update 18 The Second Dream back in December 2015. In Update 19 The War Within which was added in November 2016 which let us being able to walk around and use our operator freely as we wish. The focus system drastically changed in Update 22 Plains of Eidolon back in October 2017, when the focus system got a rework. The operator abilities were changed left and right to fit the schools accordingly. Now, that’s not why I’m here, I’m here for a different system, the Convergence System.

What is the Convergence System?

Spoiler

The Convergence system is a massive part of the focus system. The mechanic was also introduced into the game as the same time as the focus system was put into the game, Update 18. For those who don’t know, Focus is like XP in away, you gain focus in-missions when the Convergence Orb drops into your mission, either it be far away from you, or near you. Once you run over and “pick up” the orb, you will start to gain focus when you kill enemies within the 45 second duration. Once the 45 seconds are up, you will gain a certain amount of focus from how much enemies you’ve killed in that amount of time for doing so.

Why I think the Convergence System needs to be removed

Spoiler

I personally think the Convergence System needs to be removed from the game entirely. We currently gain focus from our Warframes, not our Operators, it should be the other way around. Not that many people use Operators, most of the players only use them for eidolon hunts, kuva missions and fashion kid, which is not a lot of uses compared to our Warframes. What’s the point of killing enemies with your operator when you can kill enemies with your Warframe faster and way easily. Sure, Operators are a bit more buff if you have a good damaging amp with some decent health, but why bother? Without abilites, it’s way slower to use the Operator and there’s not that many benefits to using the Operator over your Warframe. Which is exactly why I would like to see focus be gained by Operators. 

How would it work?

Spoiler

Without the Convergence System, the 45 second duration would be removed from the game, and you could freely gain focus by killing enemies with your Operator. You would gain more focus if you had an amp equipped on your Operator. This change, it would give Operators more of an actual use and would increase the amount of people playing Operators. 

What would happen to Lens?

Spoiler

Lens would be removed from the game entirely as well since they would have no actual use to Warframes anymore. Lens could be added to Operators instead of Warframes, but I feel like removing them would be a much easier change instead of keeping them in-game. I’m not against the whole Lens idea, they could add a function where we could add lens to our amps to add more focus, just an idea.

 

EDIT: Proposed changes from feedback

Spoiler

Remove Convergence orbs from game entirely. There will be two different focus pools Focus School and Amp school? Don’t know the names quite yet. The first one is what we currently have and the other is one for amps. Warframe can gain focus with killing enemies. Operators can gain focus with killing enemies with an amp. Once you gain enough focus for amp, you can increase its damage output significantly. 

Thank you for your time. If you have any suggestions, please give them if you do have any. This mechanic is in a dire need of a change.

Edited February 26, 2018 by xXDeadsinxX
Added proposed change

[Cloud]

sorry but no, operators are a marginal part of warframe gameplay, and that's what I want. I signed for "Warframe" not for "Operators". 

[Emulad0or]

9 minutes ago, xXDeadsinxX said:

Lens could be added to Operators instead

Better yet, just remove them and the focus goes to the current Primary School the Operator is using. That way it also "forces" you to try out the school you want to level up.

All in all, this is a great idea, but since Operators kinda lack in fire power, the % off affinity/focus needs to be way more than just 6-8%

[-Trey-]

I don't think it matters that much anymore. Do eidolons for 2 weeks with a good premade party and you will max all your focus trees, from that point forward you won't even have to bother with it.

[Kalvorax]

how i see it....get rid of the yellow orbs and buff focus gains to match the loss....we have a bloody cap regardless so it should matter....even if we ever get that soft cap they were saying they wanted to do.

As for operators gaining the focus...that would ONLY make sense once the kids are tanky....which is only done after a ridiculous long grind on certain schools......as it stands....the is WARFRAME not Operators....DE hasnt added much incentive at all

I like @Emulad0or's idea a lot for lens....and it was how i thought it would be until they brought lens into it :|

[Aleksi134]

They already said they will change the focus gain system to be better but they never released the rest of the changes.

[xXDeadsinxX]

3 minutes ago, Cloud said:

sorry but no, operators are a marginal part of warframe gameplay, and that's what I want. I signed for "Warframe" not for "Operators". 

That is a hard part of making a video game, DE has to make decisions that everyone may or may not like, but it’s an overall amazing change that needs to happen.

1 minute ago, Emulad0or said:

Better yet, just remove them and the focus goes to the current Primary School the Operator is using. That way it also "forces" you to try out the school you want to level up.

That’s true, you do bring up a really good point. 

2 minutes ago, Emulad0or said:

All in all, this is a great idea, but since Operators kinda lack in fire power, the % off affinity/focus needs to be way more than just 6-8%

That is true yeah, they really do lack in firepower which is sad.

3 minutes ago, -Trey- said:

I don't think it matters that much anymore. Do eidolons for 2 weeks with a good premade party and you will max all your focus trees, from that point forward you won't even have to bother with it.

You clearly didn’t read my post, getting focus isn’t the issue, how we aquire it with our Warframe is.

4 minutes ago, Kalvorax said:

how i see it....get rid of the yellow orbs and buff focus gains to match the loss....we have a bloody cap regardless so it should matter....even if we ever get that soft cap they were saying they wanted to do.

Absolutely agree, remove them from the game.

5 minutes ago, Kalvorax said:

As for operators gaining the focus...that would ONLY make sense once the kids are tanky....which is only done after a ridiculous long grind on certain schools......as it stands....the is WARFRAME not Operators....DE hasnt added much incentive at all

Like you said, our Operators are tanky, if you invest a lot of time into them. “DE hasnt added much incentive at all.” Which is why I made this post, there needs to be a more incentive to use our Operators, which is why I suggest them for us to gain focus from our Operators.

[xXDeadsinxX]

9 minutes ago, Aleksi134 said:

They already said they will change the focus gain system to be better but they never released the rest of the changes.

As I said above, getting focus isn’t the issue, the issue is how we’re acquiring it, which is from our Warframes. It should be from our Operator.

[Sabreracer]

4 minutes ago, xXDeadsinxX said:

 

Like you said, our Operators are tanky, if you invest a lot of time into them. “DE hasnt added much incentive at all.” Which is why I made this post, there needs to be a more incentive to use our Operators, which is why I suggest them for us to gain focus from our Operators.

The problem with that is it takes 20 million Focus point or so before Operators be come viable for normal use which would take a verrrrrrrrrrry long time given how fast operators would gain Focus at the beginning

[xXDeadsinxX]

3 minutes ago, Sabreracer said:

The problem with that is it takes 20 million Focus point or so before Operators be come viable for normal use which would take a verrrrrrrrrrry long time given how fast operators would gain Focus at the beginning

You do bring up a really good point and I do see the issue. What they could do is reduce the amount of focus points we need for our schools to make the Operator actually useful. 

Edited February 26, 2018 by xXDeadsinxX

[ArchPhaeton]

Are you really asking to straight up remove lens after many people have invested a considerable amount of plat, time and/or resources into them? Riots will ensue yet again.

The orb thing has to go. They really overdid themselves back when it was introduced along the daily cap to prevent people from doing everything in a few days. If we have a cap anyways there's no reason for the orbs to be around other than drag us down which is quite detrimental to people that don't have the whole day to sit wave after wave at hydron.

Operators are more of an auxiliary utility (reviving, CC-ing, specific context uses) I'd be really annoyed to see people neglecting their frame roles just 'cause they want to focus farm.

[CoreXCZ]

Making Operator more useful, huh? Problem is that Operator is not meant to be useful, that's why frames are here.

Now, DE probably had supportive role in mind for Operator. So it should stay as it is.

For lens and orbs. I am not negative or positive about orbs, I can see why DE implemented them back then and screaming that we don't need them, well, let's leave it to devs. Maybe orbs will go away sooner or later so show a bit of patience. They focus too much on landscapes and other things we don't need. Cetus and Plains are still fresh, yet we already have another landscape knocking on our door. Lenses now, removing them is pretty bad idea since there's no good way how we could get focus with operator.

You propose to remove something and change it. Think more deeply and make more detailed description of your idea, because asking for something to be removed and repalced is easy, unfortunatelly, devs are not magicians, they don't have unlimited imagination as people think. So, if you want Operator to be main focus gainer, find a way how and propose it.

[xXDeadsinxX]

8 minutes ago, ArchPhaeton said:

Are you really asking to straight up remove lens after many people have invested a considerable amount of plat, time and/or resources into them? Riots will ensue yet again.

Well, would you have a system that players often don’t use (Operator) or would you rather have a system where players use a system often? Players invest into platinum for many things that have been removed from the game, this isn’t anything new, it just hasn’t happened in a very long time. 

11 minutes ago, ArchPhaeton said:

The orb thing has to go. They really overdid themselves back when it was introduced along the daily cap to prevent people from doing everything in a few days. If we have a cap anyways there's no reason for the orbs to be around other than drag us down which is quite detrimental to people that don't have the whole day to sit wave after wave at hydron.

Totally agree, get rid of the orbs and the daily focus cap.

12 minutes ago, ArchPhaeton said:

Operators are more of an auxiliary utility (reviving, CC-ing, specific context uses) I'd be really annoyed to see people neglecting their frame roles just 'cause they want to focus farm.

That is true yes, but it would give players an actual incentive to use their operators in battle. As of currently, there really aren’t many things to do with our operators.

[Tsukinoki]

I just can't see this being a good idea with how weak the operators amps are.
Even the crafted amps have trouble with starchart mobs, let alone anything harder and actually entertaining.
Add onto that that it takes millions of focus to make your operator actually able to survive at level 30 (especially if you didn't start in Vazarin/Unairu) and I honestly can't see a single benefit from this.

At most the only change you will see is people queuing into survival/defense missions, and then promptly entering operator state and never leaving it so that they can leach affinity from the rest of the team as everyone knows that they won't be able to kill any of the enemies themselves with their amps.
If they have Zenurik finished they'll be able to spend the majority of the time in void mode following the rest of the team and being a leach as its just utterly impractical to consider going through a normal mission with just the operator outside of getting some Ss&Gs.

Have you actually looked at the TTK for starchart level enemies with Amps?  Its horribly high.  And yet you want to force that on people, meaning that the only realistic way to get the focus is to become a pure leach on the team until their focus is finished.  And they can't swap back to their frames because any time at all in their frames means that they get less focus.

This won't fix farming.  This won't fix how grindy it is.  This won't make Operators better.  This won't make getting focus more entertaining/fun.
Hek, this wouldn't even give an incentive to actually "use" operators.  This would actually make operators even more disliked because you're forced to use something that has a horrible TTK for starchart enemies, let alone anything actually fun...
All this does is make leaching the only viable way to get focus, and I really don't think we need to increase the need for leaching even more...

Edited February 26, 2018 by Tsukinoki

[Zanchak]

I play warframe to use my warframes. Take away my use of my warframes and I will not play warframe. I didn't sign up to play operator please and I certainly wouldnt of spent the unholy amount of money I have spent on a game focused on them.

I would prefer LESS operator involvement, and a fixed focus system that doesnt "need" their input OR the orbs.

[PR1D3]

11 minutes ago, ArchPhaeton said:

Are you really asking to straight up remove lens after many people have invested a considerable amount of plat, time and/or resources into them? Riots will ensue yet again.

The orb thing has to go. They really overdid themselves back when it was introduced along the daily cap to prevent people from doing everything in a few days. If we have a cap anyways there's no reason for the orbs to be around other than drag us down which is quite detrimental to people that don't have the whole day to sit wave after wave at hydron.

Operators are more of an auxiliary utility (reviving, CC-ing, specific context uses) I'd be really annoyed to see people neglecting their frame roles just 'cause they want to focus farm.

yeah i agree. i would go for the getting rid of the orbs. I admit its kind of annoying to stop to run over to the next room and grab the orb and hurry back to my teammates to get back into range of affinity.

[(PSN)EpICFreeDoMZz]

Tbh I quite like the lens system built hate the convergence orbs. Imo keep the lenses but have it so they go on your amp or something then give us like armour pieces that have stats so we can make our operator a little bit more of a fighter rather than a weak child. 

[Lakais]

Why not both?

I mean, why not keep the convergence system for use through warframes and their equipment as is, but give innate high % XP conversion gain to your primary focus school as operator? It's a trade-off. Do you go meta grind with a frame, trickle in with normal gameplay, or double-down and go full native with the Operator. You'd earn the most Focus by running primarily as an Operator but you can work up those key nodes in the relative safety of a frame. Or do you bite the bullet and see through the challenge of operating (hah) as a squishy munchkin. 

Problem of leeching could be solved easily by turning off shared XP based focus gain while in operator mode. Since we got a cap and assuming in such a system the XP-to-Focus conversion rate would be MUCH higher then any current build, shared affinity based gain is not needed. With this system turned off while in operator mode (I still think shared Affinity should apply to leveling amps) there is no incentive to go around "being useless" as operator unless you're trolling. And nothing fixes or stops that. 

[xXDeadsinxX]

7 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

I just can't see this being a good idea with how weak the operators amps are.
Even the crafted amps have trouble with starchart mobs, let alone anything harder and actually entertaining.
Add onto that that it takes millions of focus to make your operator actually able to survive at level 30 (especially if you didn't start in Vazarin/Unairu) and I honestly can't see a single benefit from this.

Operator amps are pretty weak yes. An interesting part about that is that is an entirely different issue from how we aquire focus. However, I do agree that we need millions of focus to make the Operator even remotely good at surviving lower level enemies. That alone is an entirely different issue that also needs to get looked at.

13 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

-Snip-

You do bring up a good point on the leeching problem, didn’t think about that at all. What are some ways you think would add incentives towards players to use Operator mode more often?

[Dangerbone]

Keeping lenses would mitigate the focus grind for players who either dislike operators or just got access to them. Removing convergence orbs would streamline gameplay, but focus lens conversion would have to be adjusted accordingly. 

If anything, maxed amp or no amp kills should yield neutral focus that could then be allocated to any desired focus school. Amps would have a higher conversion rate (near 50%) than a bare operator beam to aid farming and further incentivize getting quills/cetus standing.

[xXDeadsinxX]

1 minute ago, Lakais said:

Why not both?

I mean, why not keep the convergence system for use through warframes and their equipment as is, but give innate high % XP conversion gain to your primary focus school as operator? It's a trade-off. Do you go meta grind with a frame, trickle in with normal gameplay, or double-down and go full native with the Operator. You'd earn the most Focus by running primarily as an Operator but you can work up those key nodes in the relative safety of a frame. Or do you bite the bullet and see through the challenge of operating (hah) as a squishy munchkin. 

Huh, you bring up a good point, we could keep both systems in the game. 

[xXDeadsinxX]

What’s everyone’s take on this idea as a whole,

Remove Convergence orbs from game entirely. There will be two different focus pools Focus School and Amp school? Don’t know the names quite yet. The first one is what we currently have and the other is one for amps. Warframe can gain focus with killing enemies. Operators can gain focus with killing enemies with an amp. Once you gain enough focus for amp, you can increase its damage output significantly. 

[Sabreracer]

As someone that uses Operator a lot everywhere but as support (I'd guess as DE imagined it would be) and having gained 7 of the 10 waybound nodes plus Acranes for both operator and amps.

I would say they can be very powerful but are in no way viable as a primary unit and neither would I want them to be.  I recently crafted a new amp 2/2/3 and went to Hydron to level it UNGILDED I was able to deal 20% of the squad damage and this wasn't a long drawn out game it was just a normal run without an AFK nanny.  I use him in sorties a lot to help others and even there my amp is useful with an Arcane slotted.  

Once you decide to use them they can be extremely valuable  after a point in the grind. 

Before PoE I hated operators but now I wouldn't be without mine for anything.

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

1 hour ago, xXDeadsinxX said:

That is a hard part of making a video game, DE has to make decisions that everyone may or may not like,

Exactly, they made the choice of gaining focus with warframes / weapons and you don't like it. 

The convergence system blows and it really needs to change, but DO NOT force the operator down my throat.  Do you realize much time you'd have to spend playing the game as your operator to amass 20+ million focus points?

[xXDeadsinxX]

30 minutes ago, (PS4)Agent_CHAR said:

Exactly, they made the choice of gaining focus with warframes / weapons and you don't like it. 

The convergence system blows and it really needs to change, but DO NOT force the operator down my throat.  Do you realize much time you'd have to spend playing the game as your operator to amass 20+ million focus points?

I have now realized that yes. What do you think of my new proposed change?