Something About Orokins As They Stand

[Volt_Cruelerz]

I'm not here coming to complain about the system or anything but I believe I may have stumbled across a problem with it that to my knowledge hasn't been addressed (I apologize in advance if it has). It stems from the purpose of free players in F2P games which is twofold.

1. To populate the game to make it more enjoyable for paying players so that they will stay and invest more

2. To hopefully some day become a paying player

I belive the Orokin system may be causing an issue with the first of those in this game. This game is about The Grind. The act of progression and attachment to your items. There's a problem with this though and how it relates to Orokins: if you cannot place a reactor/catalyst on an item after it reaches level 15, you are more inclined to sell it. Technically, you can still keep putting better mods on it, but you won't have any more nodes or mod slots and you'll feel like you're missing out. You do however want to get to that next rank to unlock the Gorgon/Hek which means you have to keep leveling and grinding. Which is more rewarding: starting fresh and actually upgrading your weapon/warframe in a meaningful way or continuing to upgrade the same thing and constantly have these little annoying pings on the arsenal button urging you to pay money?

Most F2P people would be inclinded it seems to start fresh with a new weapon. This means that free players won't be progressing as far nearly as frequently as paying players that can afford those reactors and catalysts and since paying players make up a minority of the playerbase, you're left with underpopulation at higher level matches which is problematic for a coop game thus likely reducing return investments by paying players.

Once again, I'm not trying to complain about a system that people seem apt to go to war about, I'm just simply trying to identify a problem that I believe may be costing the developers money.

[Blatantfool]

The rarer the items are for the non-paying crowd, the more disruptive they become. This is because players start to feel like their only good option is to pay and that gets people &!$$ed because when your only good option is to fork up cash the feature turns pretty P2W.

Honestly, if Warframe changed so that you had really good odds of at least a single Orokin item every three or so days? Not so bad. The items become more obtainable. It is less ugly to decide to play the waiting game, so as opposed to feeling P2W the items shift to convenience.

This is because they DO interrupt gameplay. In fact, that is ALL they do. They don't make you stronger, they simply let you use your weapon at its full strength. The last 15 points are held hostage until you fork up some dough or luck out.

The less annoying the waiting game, the less disruptive they are. Players don't feel like they are stuck days and days without the ability to improve their favorite weapons or frames.

There is no reason they should make the one dollar payment the equivalent to up to 5-6 days waiting around on alerts. That is unreasonable and it is the source of the anger over it.

Edit: What a ton of players who defend this system seem to forget is how impirically important it is that a player never at any point feels they HAVE to pay. Paying should only be for the ones who want something. The minute something makes you feel you have to pay then you've messed something up. Even cash shops that ARE designed to be pay to win strive to try to make you feel like you are only buying what you want. They try hard to hide that you have to pay.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Blatantfool

[Ace4225]

I feel like you should be able to buy the blueprints for Orokin Reactors/Catalysts [maybe for like 50,000-100,000 CR] and grind for the resources to build them, rather than having them as a random reward along with artifact cards and rare swords, because unlike artifact cards and rare weapons [which are most often just novelties] they DO significantly affect gameplay.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Ace4225

[Blatantfool]

I feel like you should be able to buy the blueprints for Orokin Reactors/Catalysts [maybe for like 50,000-100,000 CR] and grind for the resources to build them, rather than having them as a random reward along with artifact cards and rare swords, because unlike artifact cards and rare weapons [which are most often just novelties] they DO significantly affect gameplay.

Pistols actually get practically nothing from Supercharge.

The things that get the highest yield of upgrade are Warframes and Melee weapons, since the mod slot increase is significant.

[Cawkslapjones]

The rarer the items are for the non-paying crowd, the more disruptive they become. This is because players start to feel like their only good option is to pay and that gets people &!$$ed because when your only good option is to fork up cash the feature turns pretty P2W.

Honestly, if Warframe changed so that you had really good odds of at least a single Orokin item every three or so days? Not so bad. The items become more obtainable. It is less ugly to decide to play the waiting game, so as opposed to feeling P2W the items shift to convenience.

This is because they DO interrupt gameplay. In fact, that is ALL they do. They don't make you stronger, they simply let you use your weapon at its full strength. The last 15 points are held hostage until you fork up some dough or luck out.

The less annoying the waiting game, the less disruptive they are. Players don't feel like they are stuck days and days without the ability to improve their favorite weapons or frames.

There is no reason they should make the one dollar payment the equivalent to up to 5-6 days waiting around on alerts. That is unreasonable and it is the source of the anger over it.

Edit: What a ton of players who defend this system seem to forget is how impirically important it is that a player never at any point feels they HAVE to pay. Paying should only be for the ones who want something. The minute something makes you feel you have to pay then you've messed something up. Even cash shops that ARE designed to be pay to win strive to try to make you feel like you are only buying what you want. They try hard to hide that you have to pay.

Despite your name, you have hit the nail straight on the head. I made a post about it earlier, that was lucky enough to have the gracing of 2 seperate DE employees. If you're interested, you can find it here:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/9526-its-time-for-a-change-to-the-alert-system/

Unfortunately, as you can see it was locked, which is bothersome in that it does not allow anyone else to weigh in. However, the good side is that DESteve says he knows it's a problem, and that it's on the radar. I agree with some of his points, mostly about how the game seems more "alive" with the alert system. Becky, who probably has nothing to do with any of it aside from saying that she saw the post, at least posted. That doesn't seem like much perhaps, but it's more than many games offer sadly.

What would be more comforting would be to say what some options are to fix this. I worry that those of us who didn't plunk down 250 bucks may not carry much weight. Those who have already paid that money aren't nearly so limited, who cares about alerts when you already have it all? Frames, slots, upgrades. It would be short sighted of DE to take their input beyond anyone else's. They are not likely to spend much more. Expanding the player base is the highest priority of any game, free or not. Otherwise the capitol gained is essentially forfeit, there will be nothing new generated from these players to keep paying their salaries and make a name for a game that can lead into something else. A name means a lot in the gaming industry. Just look at all the poor bastards who bought D3 based on Blizzard's reputation... so many of them are playing Path of Exile instead. But the Blizz employees are having a nice cognac and a cigar each night.

[Mak_Gohae]

You get enough plat for a couple of reactors and that's really all you need.

You dont need Catalysts in all your weapons to play the game. Most of my playtime is like that, i got my first Catalyst a few days back and my second just today. You can still contribute, you wont be doing max dmg and so on in 30+ missions but you still contribute.