Slots - This should be gone like paid Revives.

[KochDerFrettchen]

The game is free to play.  Your account costs storage space, and each additional frame/archwing (+3 builds and 3 appearances) and weapon (+3 builds, 3 appearances), pet/sentinel (+3 builds, appearances), riven mod (completely unique stats) and zaw/amp (Unique name, one of numerous combinations of parts stored, 3 builds/appearances for the zaw) takes more and more. 

The fact that you can still get slots for those things by spending platinum other people paid for and you obtained through trade is way more than you could expect out of most F2P titles.  You are totally capable of holding a copy of every item, and every non-tennogen(+currently available) skin in the game without paying DE a dime.  Hell, on console the caveat about tennogen doesn't exist either, granted you could also earn steambux by other means but... rambling.

The only reasonable argument for a need (read: not exaggerated version of want, need) of more slots is the weapon-restricted sorties requiring you to own an AR, Sniper, Bow, Shotgun, Melee and some Secondary.  However, the 50 starting plat can easily give one enough slots to hold these items if not blown on something else.

If you're not going to drop the dime, spend the time.  F2P games are not free to develop.  If you like it ("it" being any F2P really) so much to feel compelled to collect things in this way, spend the dosh on slots or get involved with the community market and earn that 'free' space. :v

_{I have no honest idea where this concept of continuously developed F2P titles being expected to hand out everything on a silver platter originates.  Personally, incredibly pleased with the tradable premium currency in this game.}

Edited May 12, 2018 by KochDerFrettchen

[Rage_Inducer]

I disagree.

You haven't played mobile games all that much, have you?

Let me enlighten you on what actual bad monetization is like:

Bad monetization is to put paywalls in progression, one harry potter game went as far as to strangle your protagonist untill you recover enough free currency over time or pay a fee to not get strangled any more.

A final fantasy game has you paying for individual sprites.

Dungeon keeper mobile has you waiting days to do what normally takes you minutes in the propper verion of the game.

And its not limited to mobile either:

Star Wars battlefront 2's pay to play a mediocre game stacked with overpriced microtransactions and gambling mechanics started a bigger S#&$storm that the internet has ever seen and even after removing the gambling part ot still is a 60$ game with overpriced cosmetic microtransactions.

I can do this all day. I've seen the best and worst that the gaming industry has to offer and, although it is far from perfect, warframe is among the best.

If you wait for a 75% plat discount and spend less than half of what a full game costs, you can get all the slots you'll ever need.

If it sounds like it's trying to tempt you that's because it is and its fine because it's a Free to Play game and this is the one kind of game where this is appropriate. DE already went the extra mile by making slots cheap.

You can play the game for free all you want, you can have fun with it as it is but if you want to hold more stuff and also look fancy, it's only fair for the game to ask for something in return.

[Sziklamester]

Slots are the only items what "encourage" peoples to buy platinum in the first place. I don't like this limitation because it is a built in cashgrab and it is necessary to the devs because they haven't enough cosmetics to sell. If they want generate money somehow they need to sell cosmetics but they know not everybody will like the items what they make so they secured this and bypassed the problem with the slots which is not obtainable by playing the game so it kicks itself in the balls. Many peoples defending with this habit because they spent a lot of money on it. The fact is while many people say you can trade for it often those forgot the game market cannot sustain itself if noone pay for those items. So the questions is : Why I must pay and how?. They need somehow make it pleasible to do this and that is the first reason why we have trading in game. 

I am most of my plat bought back in time just because of slots but it is undetstandable why peoples does not like the slots because that limits the fun factor highly and without paying you cannot bypass it because directly or indirectly but you or someone else should pay money for platinum to keep the exonomy alive. So maybe you bought slot from my money what I spent on plat while another day anothers money used in deals.

If noone pay money to them then basically the game dies because noone can trade for money (plat) and the in game economy die. I don't have problems with the riven slots overall because the rivens are additional stuffs and not necessarily part of the game or builds but the warframes and weapons are phyiscal (pixel) materials which you may or not but will to use.

If they just purely selling cosmetics they could do the same revenue because more player could stay in the game and not rage after few hours when they realise the game time-paywalled and to progress efficiently need invest money. It is not clearly free to play and it should not be but then don't advertise it as. Most of the player opinions and experiences why many leave except the veteran burn outs is the most commonly said: slots, repetitiveness, boring gameplay, boring transmissions, annyoing playerbase etc. Other reasons the less explanation or the game not telling you what to do and many peoples seems to not really get what they are doing in this game but the common phrases are the above listed.

They need to make tons of frame-weapon cosmetics if they want to sustain the game and the only reason for slots is the fix revenue so these will stay sadly. 

[p12t]

Slots certainly are one of the least exciting things you can and/or have to spend platinum on. So how about a compromise: Every x-amount of platinum (or real money in case of PC Tennogen) you spend in the market will get you a complementary slot of your choosing.

Veterans will probably still have to buy slots if they want to keep a lot of frames and weapons. But this might be enough for newer players, so they can focus more on buying cool stuff (which is more likely to keep them in the game) than slots (that just have the unpleasant taste of F2P, whether you understand and accept their necessity from a business standpoint or not).

[BrazilianJoe]

Respectfuly disagree.

 
Slots are a permanent server cost for DE, and the plat they cost is really minor. 

I feel it is a very fair monetization scheme, and should stay as is. As a free game, it is only fair to ask a little bit in return if you want to have a full arsenal of everything in the game. 

 

What I would like to see is the ability to purchase more built slots, beyond the ABC slots. 

[Tsukinoki]

6 hours ago, Sziklamester said:

it is necessary to the devs because they haven't enough cosmetics to sell.

The problem isn't that DE doesn't have "enough" cosmetics to sell.  Its the simple fact that not enough people would buy cosmetics, regardless of how many there are.  And cosmetics take time and money to make so all the time spent on making more cosmetics increases the costs to DE meaning that they would need to sell more cosmetics...

6 hours ago, Sziklamester said:

If they just purely selling cosmetics they could do the same revenue because more player could stay in the game and not rage after few hours when they realise the game time-paywalled and to progress efficiently need invest money.

Can you guarantee or prove this in any way what-so-ever?
Can you actually prove that they would make as much money, if not more, if they dropped the slot cost and made them free?

Because there are tons, and I mean tons, of players who never buy cosmetics.  The only way for DE to make money off of those players is slots.
Cosmetics are not an equitable money maker to slots.  There are enough people who don't see the purpose behind changing their frames colours or armors or syandanas.  Running through various pug Elite Onslaught I've seen a lot of people in stock frames with stock weapons.

Increasing the diversity of available cosmetics might increase how many people buy them, but they still wouldn't increase the number of buys anywhere near enough to make up for the loss of revenue in slots.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is simply a large enough population of people who don't buy any cosmetics that if DE switched to removing the slots they would be losing a ton of money with absolutely no way to replace that loss.  And that simply wouldn't be good for DE, or the game, in any way or fashion.

So unless you can think of something to replace slots that everyone will need to buy at various points through the game then removing slots is a no-go as DE does need some form of income.

Even games like Path of Exiles makes money buy selling Stash extensions and character slots, and currently Path of Exiles even has a loot box as the only way to get 2 cosmetic armor sets.

[(PSN)CryTheFurred]

Slots are the only thing that stops me referring people to the game, honestly. You NEED multiple frames for teamcomp, so needing to pay plat to have multiple frames makes playing the game with friends actually harder.

Two of my friends can'f afford new frame slots and I'm stuck playing sanctuary onslaught with a Nidus and a Rhino as a result of this. It's infuriating for everyone ..except DE, that is.

How did Steve word it ...PTW stank? like it's not actually an advantage (actually it kinda is) but it's just ...wrong feeling, it prevents smooth progression.

[(XBOX)RabidGoldfish J]

I'm gonna have to go with the "It's fine as is" thought.  Yeah, sure it sucks having a limited arsenal, but if you're willing to put in the time to get what you need to trade, it is fully possible to to collect all the frames and weapons in the game.  Yeah, you can't do it right away, but any game that gives you everything straight out the gate will not last long.

 

I've opened up a good 90% of my arsenal just through prime junk trading.  If all else fails, you can sell prime junk items for about 2 plat each, so all you gotta do is open relics.  And this is good because you'll get resources and some good pieces to either sell for more or keep for yourself to boot.

[Drasiel]

On 2018-05-11 at 8:27 AM, (PS4)Ragology said:

Ay idea how they would compensate all the players who've spent hundreds on play already?

A huge refund would destroy the plat market, and some sort of exclusive item for having bought plat would be either "meh" if its lame or held in the same regard as "excalibur prime" if its too good.

 

I'm all for reducing the amount of nickel and diming, but not if its coming from a game without monthly subscription cost. And they don't even charge us for updates ( at least I don't think they do, I'm new.)

They don't charge for updates 🙂

[Sziklamester]

1 hour ago, Tsukinoki said:

The problem isn't that DE doesn't have "enough" cosmetics to sell.  Its the simple fact that not enough people would buy cosmetics, regardless of how many there are.  And cosmetics take time and money to make so all the time spent on making more cosmetics increases the costs to DE meaning that they would need to sell more cosmetics...

Can you guarantee or prove this in any way what-so-ever?
Can you actually prove that they would make as much money, if not more, if they dropped the slot cost and made them free?

Because there are tons, and I mean tons, of players who never buy cosmetics.  The only way for DE to make money off of those players is slots.
Cosmetics are not an equitable money maker to slots.  There are enough people who don't see the purpose behind changing their frames colours or armors or syandanas.  Running through various pug Elite Onslaught I've seen a lot of people in stock frames with stock weapons.

Increasing the diversity of available cosmetics might increase how many people buy them, but they still wouldn't increase the number of buys anywhere near enough to make up for the loss of revenue in slots.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is simply a large enough population of people who don't buy any cosmetics that if DE switched to removing the slots they would be losing a ton of money with absolutely no way to replace that loss.  And that simply wouldn't be good for DE, or the game, in any way or fashion.

So unless you can think of something to replace slots that everyone will need to buy at various points through the game then removing slots is a no-go as DE does need some form of income.

Even games like Path of Exiles makes money buy selling Stash extensions and character slots, and currently Path of Exiles even has a loot box as the only way to get 2 cosmetic armor sets.

I have no datas how much profit they can generate with or without the slots but practically this is the first reason why peoples buy platinum. They are devs and if they want generate profit they should work for it so your first reply to me is in this case are a little bit silly because that's why we pay them in the first place to make us a game add cosmetics and so on. What you said is basically make them legit for do nothing and earn money for nothing because the slots are articifal gates in every game which needs a minimal coding but it helps the game earn money because actually force peoples to buy these.

 

To the others : I agree with you there are a tons of peoples who won't buy cosmetics and that's why they gate the players with this paywall because they know they have basically nothing beyond items and frames to sell. That is their job to make the cosmetics pleasible and believe it or no I like the cosmetics too and many others would buy it if those are not overpriced. 75 platinum is 5 dollar and with that 5 dollar I can buy food for myself so many peoples won't buy platinum in the first place because the price and value are not equal. That is why everyone waiting for 50-75% discounts because that value basically match with the real value of the item. That's how I bought back in time platinum and spent on slots because I knew there will be nothing beyond slots what impossible to get because I have sometimes enough time to farm if I wish to but if not then nothing happens because those slots stay long enough now.

For instance I can refer the league of legends which is a popular moba and they basically selling mostly cosmetics (not sure now what others they selling for real money) but the heroes there all are able to get via play the game and the game mechanics and the factors are makes the game enjoyable ' if you have a great team ' and the peoples still like to spend money on that game and still profitable with cosmetics. I only paid for 2-3 skin there what I liked but I didn't play that game so many time just ocassionally and it is still fine. 

Despite the fact that is a more popular game and moba this game also could do the same model because if you are not forced to pay for something if you tease it free then the peoples would likely spend more money on just to show fashion. They need to create a team which focusing on the cosmetics and they use the concepts and ask peoples what kind of skins they would like and with the talent and creativity they could sell cosmetics.

The platinum prices are relative fine for some region for others not really but overall with the discount option is fair. My point is they just need something what fancy and likely but not make any items a NEED to sell. See many peoples selling games and sold games in the old eras where the ftp model was not existed back in time and they just did fine. There are developers what can make full products for your money and there are others whom selling cheaper to reach more audience.

In this game the option for trade platinum makes it easier for many peoples but for this somebody should buy platinum so if you want any platinum from a trade then you should pray that other peoples buy platinum otherwise the platinum lost in the ether because whom want platinum those want to buy items. Unless you buy mods-etc because in this case the platinum stays in the system but with every purchases the platinum decreasing and if nobody buy platinum then no one can trade for platinum so the trading will be a charity thing or exchange instead a source of platinum. The platinum could be much cheaper and only for cosmetics and that itself enough to make it more profit because more peoples will buy platinum and buy cosmetics or spending to get mods. These itself in my opinion enough good options and they can drop that beggar attitude which shown in their whole game. From beginning the clan naming renaming, account renaming mail changing to the items rush toward to the slots. 

In a non free to play game there is no force on you and you can decide if you interested in that game or not and that mentality is less baity but with the free to play models the peoples forgot to thinking and they think everything should be free. Not at all but that not legalize the free to play models as a good model certainly created to get much more money than a one time pay game. Peoples would still buy this game if they add a price tag around 20-35-40 dollar because that is correct for a game which has no real servers and peer to peer. Again other games did this well without this model this only depends on how much the devs want milk from their playerbase. Calculate the team size, the complex, the other financical issues the rent cost and the profits and you can make a point. DE is a medium sized team but the medium sized teams can sustain themself if they spend the money wisely and less to the marketing which is in the modern era easier without spending huge money.

The other what I consider is they are Canadian team and in Canada and US the living standards are higher than the europeans and teams from that region (north america) so their salary and their needs are differ from the rest of the world. It is not mean they need to eat bread and butter only "despite" that is a good source of food but calculing their needs their pricing is in this case reasonable but when somebody make a game they need to think about where they want to sell and they set a standard which is good for them and for the rest. Again this not mean they need to make Africa as a standard because there the peoples happy if they have something to eat but the major bases are NA, EU, Asia.

 

Overall I think they can do it better without the NEEDS to sell something but it is my old fashioned point and maybe out dated but more correct. Anyway thanks for the reply and sorry for my grammar because I am non english native speake. 

[ScribbleClash]

On 2018-05-11 at 5:09 PM, CuteFoxyFox said:

So we moved from time when we had to pay fro Revives. So why are Slots are still here?

Im talking about all kinds of slots:

- Warframe slots

- Weapon Slots

- Archwing Slots

- Archwing Weapons Slots

- Riven slots

- Companion Slots

- Amps slots

------------------------------------

Well I would argue if warframe was some cheap mobile game that have to earn money BUT even those mobile games have slots for in game currency or have no limits. Since we need to Farm Warframes, resoruces for them and wait 7d 12h to build them! And after all of this you need to pay to pick them up.

Also I know what you might say:

"You gain some plat at start" - Well enough for 3 WFs? and how many do we have?

"You can sell primes and stuff" - Well most new players would like to build primes not sell them. Not mentioning you need to sell primes to buy stuff from Baro.

----------------------------------

Warframe is a game where a key fragment to progress is to get new weapons and frames to lvl up but when the new player runs out of begining plat and just want to play for fun, he is forced to sell weapons and frames. So why? Why would you do that? For me it is even whorse than paid revives!

----------------------------------

Propably we can tell the same with Rivens. 50 platinum for 3 mods? Mods you have to buy or farm, open them and if you dont like stats roll them with kuva which you have to farm too. So why slots here? I was standing Warframe slots etc for those years but Riven slots broke me so I decided I would never spend a single platinum on rivens.

--------------------------------

 

To Sum Up

Warframe is the game that makes a lot of cosmetics or newest primes or sometimes catalysts or reactors so why you make players to buy slots if the core mechanic to progress in game to get more weapons and Frames?

This is the same situation as old modding system which you had to spend real money on to progress and make your warframe better.

Same as the old progression system, same as paid revives - Slot mechanics make new players to pay real money after they run out of starting plat.

 

My proposition

If you really have to make slots - make them cost credits. This is a currency every player can get. Or even just remove this system which would be better.

 

I love Warframe, I love community, I love DE and all of the Devs but please! please! It isnt fully fair you can't dissagre 😕

 

Please just let the slots go.

Love you DE and Community ❤️

 

Apology in advance, if I am repeating anything a predecessor said. This will simply be my complete opinion on the matter.

Let me start off with the following: Hell no, [item]-slots should stay!
A lot of the revenue DE makes comes from collectors. But collecting all items is not necessary to enjoy all of the games content. Worst case, you may sell weapons or warframes that you are through with. Personally I started buying plat for slots, as I felt that supporting this game was the right thing to do.
Your argument, that warframe isn't some cheap mobile game, is completly pointless. The main thing in question is: Is it a free to play? In the case of warframe, it is extremly unfair to even compare it with what some mobile games do. Several of these games make the actual gameportion of the game unplayable for set durations, unless you pay to speed the downtime. Warframe does not.

Farming Resources: You claim, that farming ressources (and the build-wait) should justify having no need to pay for a slot. For one, the slot itself is independent of you building your warframe or farming resources. Farming resources is part of playing the game and shouldn't come as a main task. Certainly for a new player this may seem much, but a new player should not aim to gain all items ASAP anyways. The other reason is, is that you can open up slots. While this is an unacceptable practice to me (I ❤️ all my items!), this doesn't mean the game is inherently unfair. It simply speaks to the collector type of people. There are gamers who are mostly interested in the most powerful build. That won't require additional slots.

You go on to compare slots to revive-buy and even claim, slots are worse. This is very opinionated, as such my answer will be too:
No, revives were not better and here's why: Revives could be bought for platinum for the current day. Not having revives limitted your survivability in missions drasticly. It made players waste money or free plat on a mechanic, that was only impacting the game negatively. Warframes had individual revives, which worsened the mechanic further. Such mechanics usualy exist only to make you pay in order to be able to finish missions, even going as far as making missions hard enough so that revives had to be burned. Warframe threw them away and with that a potential stigma of being a bad F2P.

Quote

This is the same situation as old modding system which you had to spend real money on to progress and make your warframe better.

When was that? Closed Beta? I've been playing since after closed beta and this wasn't in the game. The comparison though, once again, is off. Mods empower your loadout. Slots do not!

Credits are probably the worst ressource in the game to base anything on. This is not only due to the farming mechanics that become available, but also to the fact that slots would need to cost over a million credits per slot to be even remotely meaningful. Harmful for beginners, pointless to vets.

Lets finish on something I partially agree (that is, you probably wont agree on my reason why I think so): Riven slots. They are the worst. Having a riven for a weapon meanst a flat power boost. The main claim as to why Riven slots cost, is that their storageconsumption in the database is high. If so, then I see no bloody reason why they don't just make Rivens be less of a strain on their database. There's absolutely no reason to have mad floating values stored over and over. If they really store riven data this redundant, then either the table is badly designed, or rivens are horribly designed. It shouldn't require as much as they currently claim it does.
That being said, I am an advocate of removing Rivens altogether. They do not further the game, they just hinder proper balancing changes that are long overdue. Rivens should've been weapon augments, chaning the way a weapon behaves. Not just flat stat modifiers.

All in all I am not convinced by your arguments.

[ScribbleClash]

Apology for double post. Mods, please remove this if possible.

Edited May 15, 2018 by ScribbleClash

[Praesagium]

Starting plat its enough for 2 warframe slots or 3 weapon slots or one frame slot plus two weapon slots. As a new player i never had problems using the starting slots, i didnt care for having more frames until i reached sedna and started sorties. 

You dont need every weapon/frame on the game, so if you want you can sell it, and you will have a free slot for other weapon/frame, collecting weapons/frames its not mandatory, just if you want.

Also, earning plat its not that hard, you can make 20 easly in one day if you are not lazy.

[pan008]

That's not an issue , many f2p games out there are doing it like LoL , when you have 5o pay to get new champ , but DE is different , they create the trade chat to get what player want or player want to sell to buy what they want it's not a bad thing , slots are not problem either , because some player only buy a weapon for leveling then sell , only some player collects warframe , weapon etc. .

[KochDerFrettchen]

9 hours ago, Sziklamester said:

The fact is while many people say you can trade for it often those forgot the game market cannot sustain itself if noone pay for those items. So the questions is : Why I must pay and how?.

We have folks who buy Prime Access for the sake of supporting the game, it's their version of a subscription.  Each one of those pumps a huge number of slots-worth of plat into the game.  If somehow no one was buying plat, the game is dying and doesn't want to encourage people to trade for them instead of paying for things.  As in, if the market were so bad you could not trade to earn slots, the game itself would be collapsing due to lack of funding.

Free to Play does not translate to "all microtransactions must be cosmetic". One does not need to hold onto every item in the game, and if they wish to the in-game trade can push you through.

You 'must' pay because the game costs money to make and maintain, when you trade for plat it's someone else covering some of this cost on your behalf for some in-game item.

Don't encourage friends you invite to build every thing they encounter. Let them know how trade works, as the in-game tutorialization for it is nonexistant.  If they like it enough to stay, they'll pay up or start participating in the market.

[visiblenoise]

I've spent money on this game for nothing but slots...fair deal in my opinion, especially with the occasional 50% off coupon.

[(PSN)OverlordMikey]

Um, this is a silly question. The Team needs to pay it's various members and such. Plat to buy slots and such is how they make cash in which to do so.

[BLI7Z]

Just because it is F2P, doesn't mean it is outside of real world economy. Servers and people have a cost. You free fun is because someone is working for that to be possible. Don't be ungrateful, and at least farm stuff to trade with people who buy plat and want to buy that stuff from you. Time is money in this world, and hobbies aren't free nor a necessity; so you have to invest time, or money. Your choice. At least you have a choice, and can just play the game to get that sweet platinum that another one payed for you, because whatever reasons you have for not paying 10 dollars for something you enjoy doing.

There are no reasons to get rid of the slots for plat. If someone complains it is because of being new to the game and not knowing that it can be farmed, or just because of pure laziness. You don't have money or feel that the game doesn't deserve your money? Then quit or grind. 

[Prof.549]

On 2018-05-11 at 6:14 PM, xXDeadsinxX said:

DE would lose a ton of revenue, which is a bad thing.

How is that a bad thing? They cant(aka dont want to) even make a normal hosting with servers and stuff. For what reason they need that much money(aside from obvious greed need of course)?

[Drasiel]

3 hours ago, Prof.549 said:

How is that a bad thing? They cant(aka dont want to) even make a normal hosting with servers and stuff. For what reason they need that much money(aside from obvious greed need of course)?

What do think they store all your account information on? Every load out, every, abc weapon and Warframe build, every colour choice, pets, operators, inventory for a million players. Maintaining and upgrading that server infrastructure costs money and that is without even considering the artists, designers and coders that need to be paid for more content, improvements to what we have or maintainence on old assets. 

[NinjaKitsune56]

On 2018-05-11 at 11:09 AM, CuteFoxyFox said:

Propably we can tell the same with Rivens. 50 platinum for 3 mods? Mods you have to buy or farm, open them and if you dont like stats roll them with kuva which you have to farm too. So why slots here? I was standing Warframe slots etc for those years but Riven slots broke me so I decided I would never spend a single platinum on rivens.

Evidently you missed the memo when DE fielded Rivens. They said outright that Rivens have slots because of the data requirements. A mod like Vitality is simple... A Riven has data tags for stats, penalties, weapon and Mastery requirement, an invisible restrictions tag for covering weapon variants (like the Mutalist/Quanta,) as well as tracking the number of times the Riven has been cycled and the resulting Kuva cost to cycle it again.

 

Anyway, it's not like DE is forcing you to go out and farm the Kuva for those Rivens you're complaining about. If you don't like it, turn it into Endo or trade it to someone else.

Edited May 16, 2018 by NinjaKitsune56