Wisps aren't fun

[Altre]

@Buttaface The problem with your arguement is that no one wants to be lazy about collecting wisps and your yield can't be reliably reproduced, as evidenced by the number of complaints this topic gets.

People don't want an arbitrary track to run where you literally perform a mindless activity to gain loot essential to many Cetus related items. Patronize people all you want, but what you are doing is niche and relies still on rng for ONE activity for that accrues ONE resource and you tell people to wait until they get an rng based resource booster that they won't be planning for. It's not enjoyable and DOES NOT always yield results. You also don't account for load times getting in and out of the plains.

This is a terrible analogy, but this is like churning butter, except instead of getting results from churning, you find that for some reason the churn maybe has 50% efficiency at times for some odd reason and all you want is some damn butter.

Devs explaining something does not excuse anything, we have a feedback forum for a reason. It would not adversely affect you for them to increase our yield by 25% or more, so why are you complaining about our complaint? Your methods do not 100% translate the same results player to player, so using that as an arguement against QoL improvements is invalid.

Give us a more reliable yield, give us a more consistent and reasonably priced method of purchase, or lower cost requirements.

[Goodwill]

And here I am trying to figure out what I should do with my excess of wisps.. Only solution I can think of that works somewhat in both party's favor is make them tradeable. I don't mind farming wisps. I can do it while catching up on shows I have missed or just blasting some music. And you guys that want more shooting and stuff can grind plat from relics or other mission types. Or I'd happily trade for Ayatan Sculptures.

[MystMan]

Now I have a craving for butter... 🍮🎂🥘

Anyways, the point of this thread isn't about "easy".  It's about "fun".  And recommending players to dumb down their game interactivity to the equivalent of mindless assembly line work isn't everybody's cup of tea.

Wisps aren't the only thing you need a lot of, you also need a lot of Eidolon Breaths.  And since only Bounty 5 rewards those, I recommend doing a lot of bounty 5 exclusively. It really helps that 2x Wisp is also in its drop table.  That may at first sound like very little but you can get it multiple times for each leg of the bounty. To prevent Ostron standing from going to waste if maxed, buy more Zaw part blueprints, sooner or later in the future you're gonna need (more of) them.

Instead of only focusing on finishing the bounty rewards as quickly as possible, get the most out of the plains as you can get per session.  In the long run, this is the most time-efficient thing to do. Those who go to plains in separate sessions searching only for one specific resource each time will take longer to get the same amount of all the various cumulative required POE resources in comparison.

When traveling from A to B during bounties, every time you pass a body of water take 2 seconds to check if there are any wisps around and move on if there aren't. However if you see bubbles, take ~2 minutes to fish a bit before moving on. When doing the Liberate Camp / Protect Vault bounty missions, lock down the place with CC frames if you can and go mine the entire vicinity. You can still use your melee to kill. If near a cave, there are always plenty of ores/gems nearby. When done with all bounties you can either go back to Cetus or if you have time to kill go to places you haven't visited in that session to fish and mine some more and even do an Incursion or two, you might get lucky and receive a rare mod. Mining is important cause you need so much Pyrotic alloy, don't just focus on the gems.

 

This is how I've been playing POE since day 1. I never felt bored (since bounty missions rotate every so hours), it was engaging doing various things every time I enter it and I come back to Cetus with a lot of resources in large amounts (no booster) without exposing myself to the loading screen an unnecessary high amount of times. Even if no wisps spawned, I still gained other useful things which made it worth my while.   So entering plains SOLELY to hunt for wisps.... that's asking for a frustrating burnout if you have bad RNG.

I finished crafting 4 amps, several 10set Virtuos/Magus/Exodia arcanes for (not including the Zaw ones that use Channeling)
I even crafted those 2 operator suits and those things are expensive!  240 Breaths and 120 Wisps total for them.

The catch with this method is that you can only do it in solo play.  No way will other players appreciate you taking your sweet time to finish a bounty. Be considerate and don't do this in pub sessions.

[Altre]

1 hour ago, Goodwill said:

And here I am trying to figure out what I should do with my excess of wisps.. Only solution I can think of that works somewhat in both party's favor is make them tradeable. I don't mind farming wisps. I can do it while catching up on shows I have missed or just blasting some music. And you guys that want more shooting and stuff can grind plat from relics or other mission types. Or I'd happily trade for Ayatan Sculptures.

Trade alleviates so many issues, I agree. This would probably be the easiest way to fix a lot of things. Hell, trading resources for plat would help people with excess anything (unless they have an excess of plat... 🤔).

Otherwise, the only consistent way of getting the things that doesn't rely on rng is limited to approximately 2 a day and that limits your point usage for other items arbitrarily.

[Goodwill]

1 hour ago, Altre said:

Trade alleviates so many issues, I agree. This would probably be the easiest way to fix a lot of things. Hell, trading resources for plat would help people with excess anything (unless they have an excess of plat... 🤔).

Otherwise, the only consistent way of getting the things that doesn't rely on rng is limited to approximately 2 a day and that limits your point usage for other items arbitrarily.

The market and possibilities would be quite endless if they were to open up material trading. I can see it going either way. Either it will destroy the trading economy, or it's gonna be a massive boon. Although it will probably one of the two extremes and not a middle ground.

[rune_me]

Compared to the rare gems, wisps are easy. It's boring as hell, I agree, but at least you can easily farm dozens of them in a single night cycle. I just put on some music and go into "zen" mode.

[Altre]

2 minutes ago, Goodwill said:

The market and possibilities would be quite endless if they were to open up material trading. I can see it going either way. Either it will destroy the trading economy, or it's gonna be a massive boon. Although it will probably one of the two extremes and not a middle ground.

I wish the economy in this was built like Eve. May not work here, but I can dream. lol

As Steve said in an interview, you can't just take a mechanic from another game and expect it to work because it will lack the context of that game and what made it work for it.

Well I can dream, Steve.

[Goodwill]

7 minutes ago, Altre said:

I wish the economy in this was built like Eve. May not work here, but I can dream. lol

As Steve said in an interview, you can't just take a mechanic from another game and expect it to work because it will lack the context of that game and what made it work for it.

Well I can dream, Steve.

If one thing Warframe is known for, is that they aren't afraid to try new things. Maybe they'll go for broke and open it up and see how it goes.

[Drasiel]

2 hours ago, Goodwill said:

And here I am trying to figure out what I should do with my excess of wisps.. Only solution I can think of that works somewhat in both party's favor is make them tradeable. I don't mind farming wisps. I can do it while catching up on shows I have missed or just blasting some music. And you guys that want more shooting and stuff can grind plat from relics or other mission types. Or I'd happily trade for Ayatan Sculptures.

Honestly I would love this, fish and gems are already tradable so it wouldn't be that unusual to just add wisps to the trading list. 

 

1 hour ago, MystMan said:

Now I have a craving for butter... 🍮🎂🥘

Anyways, the point of this thread isn't about "easy".  It's about "fun".  And recommending players to dumb down their game interactivity to the equivalent of mindless assembly line work isn't everybody's cup of tea.

Wisps aren't the only thing you need a lot of, you also need a lot of Eidolon Breaths.  And since only Bounty 5 rewards those, I recommend doing a lot of bounty 5 exclusively. It really helps that 2x Wisp is also in its drop table.  That may at first sound like very little but you can get it multiple times for each leg of the bounty. To prevent Ostron standing from going to waste if maxed, buy more Zaw part blueprints, sooner or later in the future you're gonna need (more of) them.

Instead of only focusing on finishing the bounty rewards as quickly as possible, get the most out of the plains as you can get per session.  In the long run, this is the most time-efficient thing to do. Those who go to plains in separate sessions searching only for one specific resource each time will take longer to get the same amount of all the various cumulative required POE resources in comparison.

When traveling from A to B during bounties, every time you pass a body of water take 2 seconds to check if there are any wisps around and move on if there aren't. However if you see bubbles, take ~2 minutes to fish a bit before moving on. When doing the Liberate Camp / Protect Vault bounty missions, lock down the place with CC frames if you can and go mine the entire vicinity. You can still use your melee to kill. If near a cave, there are always plenty of ores/gems nearby. When done with all bounties you can either go back to Cetus or if you have time to kill go to places you haven't visited in that session to fish and mine some more and even do an Incursion or two, you might get lucky and receive a rare mod. Mining is important cause you need so much Pyrotic alloy, don't just focus on the gems.

 

This is how I've been playing POE since day 1. I never felt bored (since bounty missions rotate every so hours), it was engaging doing various things every time I enter it and I come back to Cetus with a lot of resources in large amounts (no booster) without exposing myself to the loading screen an unnecessary high amount of times. Even if no wisps spawned, I still gained other useful things which made it worth my while.   So entering plains SOLELY to hunt for wisps.... that's asking for a frustrating burnout if you have bad RNG.

I finished crafting 4 amps, several 10set Virtuos/Magus/Exodia arcanes for (not including the Zaw ones that use Channeling)
I even crafted those 2 operator suits and those things are expensive!  240 Breaths and 120 Wisps total for them.

The catch with this method is that you can only do it in solo play.  No way will other players appreciate you taking your sweet time to finish a bounty. Be considerate and don't do this in pub sessions.

That's dictating play style that works for you and may not work for others. I like all of the other activities on the plains, I don't mind going out and hunting the entire map for rocks or spending all day and night fishing. I like running the bounties. But if I include wisps in that I'm still going to only walk away with my average of 3 per map load and when I have 55 needed to craft a single amp for mastery it's not conducive to faffing around and filling wisp time with other activities unlike any other resource.

 

7 minutes ago, rune_me said:

Compared to the rare gems, wisps are easy. It's boring as hell, I agree, but at least you can easily farm dozens of them in a single night cycle. I just put on some music and go into "zen" mode.

I don't get dozens in a single night, I'm lucky if I make a dozen in a night. I personally prefer the rare gems and haven't had a problem with them I mind the whole map and walk away with about 10 each the mining is more engaging to me too.

 

10 hours ago, Buttaface said:

For this I apologize, you did not. Others do though in the wisp complaint threads that seem to crop up near daily. I thought you did at first with respect to the number of wisps required for recipes "per piece" but that is subject to interpretation.

Exodia arcane sets, that I've built six of now, are by far the biggest wisp grind in the game, requiring 100 per set. They already reduced that from 200 fairly recently. Personally, I think 100 per set is about right for the power of certain exodias on well-built zaws.

I checked the other recipes... amps, armor pieces, zaw links and such, and the wisp requirements aren't that bad for those.

So I take it you -aren't- using a 40p three day booster that guarantees double wisp drops. OK then.

 

the amp parts I wanted to build that started this thread are 20, 20, and 15 for wisps. The exodias do sit at 10 but like you said ultimately require 100. The operator armour should you choose to grind for it is 10,15, 20, 20 so still within the range stated.

No I am not because I am disabled and on a very set income with a fairly strict budget.¯\_(ツ)_/¯  smeeta is helpful but no guaranteed.

 

10 hours ago, (PS4)big_eviljak said:

Itzal... Try it

Tried it, didn't work for me. Momentum on the plains is a nightmare in archwhing and this is even worse if you have to use toggle sprint to prevent hand strain because if sprint is held or toggled the archwing behaves as if you were pressing forward even if you are not pressing forward. I end up in a constant battle between, need to boost to get places quick and oh god stop stop stopstopstopstop#*!%uarchwing

[rune_me]

2 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

I don't get dozens in a single night, I'm lucky if I make a dozen in a night. I personally prefer the rare gems and haven't had a problem with them I mind the whole map and walk away with about 10 each the mining is more engaging to me too.

First off, have a fast frame that can move quickly. Nova or Zephyr are best, I've found.

Have a smeeta for a chance to double a pickup. Preferably have a resource booster (otherwise you will obviously get much less).

But most importantly, max out your loot radar. It makes a big difference in how fast you can do it. Without loot radar you have to run all around the lakes and you are likely to miss wisps. With max loot radar you just have to be near the lake to see if there's a wisp somewhere around it and you can quickly move on if there aren't any.

[Drasiel]

1 minute ago, rune_me said:

First off, have a fast frame that can move quickly. Nova or Zephyr are best, I've found.

Have a smeeta for a chance to double a pickup. Preferably have a resource booster (otherwise you will obviously get much less).

But most importantly, max out your loot radar. It makes a big difference in how fast you can do it. Without loot radar you have to run all around the lakes and you are likely to miss wisps. With max loot radar you just have to be near the lake to see if there's a wisp somewhere around it and you can quickly move on if there aren't any.

I am using a volt with all speed mods while using speed with a smeeta equipped and every loot detection mod in the game. I just have garbage luck with these things.

[Buttaface]

6 hours ago, Altre said:

your yield can't be reliably reproduced, as evidenced by the number of complaints this topic gets...

Patronize people all you want, but what you are doing is niche and relies still on rng for ONE activity for that accrues ONE resource and you tell people to wait until they get an rng based resource booster that they won't be planning for. It's not enjoyable and DOES NOT always yield results. You also don't account for load times getting in and out of the plains...

Your methods do not 100% translate the same results player to player, so using that as an arguement against QoL improvements is invalid.

1. The yield can and is easily reproduced, and the yields I have cited are from doing wisps while mining, not concentrating on wisps, and the number of complaints a topic gets is evidence of -nothing-. Gamers complain about all manner of nonexistent ills on gaming forums, and this one is no exception.

2. "Patronize?" Do you know what that word means? NO, what I'm doing is not "niche" it is simply the easiest possible way. There are many more effective ways to farm wisps. Since people who make all the wisp complaints are obviously doing something very wrong, they need to start with simplicity. This topic reminds me very much of times in the game when a new player is doing something obviously wrong, and when I try to ask them in the politest way to consider options, 30% are grateful for the advice. 70% act as if they already know everything and couldn't possibly be doing anything wrong at MR8 This topic is the exact same kind of thing.

3. NO, I didn't tell people to wait for an RNG booster, I favor spending the SMALL amount of plat, supporting the game, and buying them. Last night I sold over 100 radian sentirum in bulk sales at 3p apiece, that's a 220p return over buying the boosters in just one trading night. For those who are so broke or unwilling to engage in the game's trade they can't buy boosters with 80 plat, 1. perhaps they need to spend more of their time in other ways than playing video games.  2. If not, then they come up frequently as login rewards and baro brings them.

4. YES, I DO account for load times, and plainly stated that in the thread. INCLUDING LOAD TIMES, a very unoptimized run around the lake takes a little under 3 minutes. With a booster, that will yield 4 wisps on average at night and 2 during the day. That's about 50-60 wisps per hour conservatively. Two night hours with a booster doing only wisp runs will yield more than enough wisps to craft the most wisp-expensive items in the game, full exodia arcane sets for zaws. Compared to many other "unfun" "unengaging" grinds in the game, that's CHICKEN FEED.

5. No, of course the methods do not translate 100% the same results for each player (every time), but over time the statistics will out. The good thing about wisps is that unlike other RNG in the game, reset and time investment are significantly lower than with other resource/grinds. Just ask the people still trying to grind out a Khora BP the difference.

[Altre]

@Buttaface-From some of your older works of literature, I present:

1 hour ago, Buttaface said:

Yeah because it's a fact, and the whiners come here and whine instead of spending the -trivial- amount of time necessary to do the absurdly easy wisp farm side game correctly.

Without engaging more than a few brain cells: 1. Wait to get a resource booster on login (or for Baro to bring it and buy with ducats, or GOD FORBID spend a princely 40p and support the game).--------

Boy, oh boy, calling people "whiners" and acting though people wouldn't like to "engage" more than a few brain cells is certainly proper conversational etiquette, huh? You've given many more patronizing comments since those few. That remark about not knowing what it means is in itself patronizing. 😆

This has nothing to do with the topic, but here's a definition from dictionary.com-

2. to behave in an offensively condescending manner toward

Now that were beyond that, I'm probably going to ignore some of your plainly invalid points and tackle point 3. Look at your quote above. Now look at your point number 3. Do that a couple times over and let me know if you see the disconnect in your logic between that old post and your last one.

The absurdity of Khoras drop chances are as valid a point as anything else in the game. I've spent quite a bit of money on the game since it became public and have gotten things likely a lot easier than people trying the f2p model. Just because I'm willing to drop money on the game doesn't mean I agree with their rng values, it's one of the reasons I bypass rng when I can. I would like there to be a more reasonable way for f2p players to access the free content without it being such a monumental task.

As Goodwill and I had discussed, trade is probably the best option for now. Just let up on the inflammatory verbiage, bud.

[beol]

Wisp farming is the most tedious thing they've come up with since codex scanning. 

 

[Buttaface]

5 hours ago, Altre said:

 Just let up on the inflammatory verbiage, bud.

Whatever you say, "bud." That you and others can't manage to do one of the easier grinds in a game with all manner of grinding resources and mats at its essence is telling. That you come here and complain endlessly about it instead of taking a piddly amount of time (and advice) to learn how to do it correctly is also telling.

I will just leave all these whine threads about wisps alone going forward, though. They aren't going to do squat to ease the already easy-peasy wisp farm, so complain on.

[Drasiel]

18 minutes ago, Buttaface said:

Whatever you say, "bud." That you and others can't manage to do one of the easier grinds in a game with all manner of grinding resources and mats at its essence is telling. That you come here and complain endlessly about it instead of taking a piddly amount of time (and advice) to learn how to do it correctly is also telling.

I will just leave all these whine threads about wisps alone going forward, though. They aren't going to do squat to ease the already easy-peasy wisp farm, so complain on.

you keep asserting it's easy and we shouldn't whine but that's not what the complaint is, the complaint is that it's boring and mind numbing. It doesn't matter how easy something is if it's a completely unengaging turnoff.

[rune_me]

9 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

you keep asserting it's easy and we shouldn't whine but that's not what the complaint is, the complaint is that it's boring and mind numbing. It doesn't matter how easy something is if it's a completely unengaging turnoff.

I would much rather farm wisps than I would catch fish or mine gems. What's unengaging is very subjective. All 3 are fairly boring, but wisps are by far the least boring of those.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

13 hours ago, Drasiel said:

Honestly I would love this, fish and gems are already tradable so it wouldn't be that unusual to just add wisps to the trading list. 

 

That's dictating play style that works for you and may not work for others. I like all of the other activities on the plains, I don't mind going out and hunting the entire map for rocks or spending all day and night fishing. I like running the bounties. But if I include wisps in that I'm still going to only walk away with my average of 3 per map load and when I have 55 needed to craft a single amp for mastery it's not conducive to faffing around and filling wisp time with other activities unlike any other resource.

 

I don't get dozens in a single night, I'm lucky if I make a dozen in a night. I personally prefer the rare gems and haven't had a problem with them I mind the whole map and walk away with about 10 each the mining is more engaging to me too.

 

the amp parts I wanted to build that started this thread are 20, 20, and 15 for wisps. The exodias do sit at 10 but like you said ultimately require 100. The operator armour should you choose to grind for it is 10,15, 20, 20 so still within the range stated.

No I am not because I am disabled and on a very set income with a fairly strict budget.¯\_(ツ)_/¯  smeeta is helpful but no guaranteed.

 

Tried it, didn't work for me. Momentum on the plains is a nightmare in archwhing and this is even worse if you have to use toggle sprint to prevent hand strain because if sprint is held or toggled the archwing behaves as if you were pressing forward even if you are not pressing forward. I end up in a constant battle between, need to boost to get places quick and oh god stop stop stopstopstopstop#*!%uarchwing

Actually at night just slowly fly over a pond/lake... Then cosmic crush. U can get 50 - 100 a night.

[Altre]

@Buttaface-That you don't understand the difference between "can't" and "unreliable rng based spawns make this mind numbingly tedious" is telling. The majority of us "can" and "have" and would like better options. If the complaints are truly endless, DE better get on finding a solution to quell our petty complaints as to not plague what you seem to thing is your forum.

Why are you even here? I'm not sure if you've ever had to work customer service, but this is not a strong point of yours. People come here to whine. It's the feedback forum.

I've been playing almost since the game came out public and have put plenty of time and money into the game. Your advice is laced with vitriol and is not accepted because it is invalid in this case.

People asserting that their experiences with wisps invalidate the woes of others experiences is alarming. I don't experience issues with leeches and this afk epidemic that others seem to have, guess I need to tell other people to stop complaining. 🤔

Edited May 23, 2018 by Altre

[Drasiel]

13 hours ago, rune_me said:

I would much rather farm wisps than I would catch fish or mine gems. What's unengaging is very subjective. All 3 are fairly boring, but wisps are by far the least boring of those.

I would say the wisps aren't less boring, they are just easier than fishing and mining. 

For me fishing requiring aiming and bait "chains" to reach the best fish means I almost always have different locations and times of day to fish and even if I can't get the fish I want right now I can fish for fish that will help me fish some more. It's a satisfying feedback loop and fish give very good standing. 

Mining is fun to me because the best mining spots are in grineer camps which means I get a plethora of different combat actions I can perform and I enjoy the hot and cold treasure hunt for the ore or gems themselves. 

Wisps are just.... Running. You hit 2 or maybe 3 small grineer camps on the path but slowing down to kill them heavily affects how many wisps you can get because night is the best time for them plus the camp locations are sparsely populated at night. 

I can understand people not liking fishing and mining, but I struggle to understand anyone finding wisps less boring unless they are watching a movie or something which is something de has repeatedly been fixing in other areas of the game. 

[Altre]

7 minutes ago, Drasiel said:

I would say the wisps aren't less boring, they are just easier than fishing and mining. 

For me fishing requiring aiming and bait "chains" to reach the best fish means I almost always have different locations and times of day to fish and even if I can't get the fish I want right now I can fish for fish that will help me fish some more. It's a satisfying feedback loop and fish give very good standing. 

Mining is fun to me because the best mining spots are in grineer camps which means I get a plethora of different combat actions I can perform and I enjoy the hot and cold treasure hunt for the ore or gems themselves. 

Wisps are just.... Running. You hit 2 or maybe 3 small grineer camps on the path but slowing down to kill them heavily affects how many wisps you can get because night is the best time for them plus the camp locations are sparsely populated at night. 

I can understand people not liking fishing and mining, but I struggle to understand anyone finding wisps less boring unless they are watching a movie or something which is something de has repeatedly been fixing in other areas of the game. 

They're less engaging, I think that's the word you're looking for. Like spinning a cycle leading to nowhere.

[Drasiel]

4 hours ago, Altre said:

They're less engaging, I think that's the word you're looking for. Like spinning a cycle leading to nowhere.

Yes that is true, but the reason I said less boring was because I was directly responding to this: 

 

18 hours ago, rune_me said:

I would much rather farm wisps than I would catch fish or mine gems. What's unengaging is very subjective. All 3 are fairly boring, but wisps are by far the least boring of those.

[rune_me]

Just now, Drasiel said:

Yes that is true, but the reason I said less boring was because I was directly responding to this: 

 

So technically, I hate all 3 tasks. I don't really think any of them belong in this game. I hate that my Warframe, made for killing and war (it's implied by the name, for Pete's sake) has to end up playing Stardew Valley instead of a horde shooter. I signed up for a horde shooter/looter, not Minecraft. 

But wisp farming, I can kind of just zone out, listen to some good music and go on autopilot. As said, less engaging, so I don't have to pay attention to an activity I hate. I can focus on other things. Fishing and mining is just exactly engaging enough, that I have to pay attention (pick bait, pick fishing spear, aim at fish, was that a red or blue ore, follow the dots around the ore). Fishing and mining doesn't let me go on autopilot to the same degree that wisp farming, so it constantly draws attention to the fact that I'm doing something I really don't enjoy doing.

Hence, it is worse.

[Rhinkalis]

I think my biggest problem with Wisps, and, really, I loaded the forum for the first time in ages just because they bother me enough to say something about it, is the fact that they work counter to every other standard "resource gathering" setup in the game.  To effectively gather wisps you need to stop playing the game, more or less entirely.  Stare at your loot radar rather than your actual character and run the same path around the map to hit the places where they can spawn, then reload the map, repeat.  Some people have mentioned that you can treat them like "rare" resources and just pick up one or two every few bounties or w/e...  But that's not true.  Doing bounties actively makes you get less wisps/time period.  This is opposite...  Almost every other resource in the game.  Even if you aren't feeling like being super efficient, you can go to a planet that drops that resource and focus on clearing...  Stuff, and you'll get the resource as a natural part of gameplay.  Not so with wisps, as to get them you have to actively ignore the map's goals to try to find the things whenever you happen to near an inland body of water.

The usual comparison at this point is, obviously, the other Plains of Eidolon tasks.  The fishing and mining.  Two things there...  Firstly, at the very least you have a minigame, a something to interact with other than map location memorization (Fishing, in particular, can be a relatively fast and trivial task to get whatever you need in the moment, outside getting hosed by what time of day it is locally), and 2ndly, when it comes to acquisition rate: amount needed ratio you gather them about 40 times faster.  It's like comparing, I don't know, Polymers and Argon Crystals.  You need way more Polymers, but you get them way faster.

 

Oh, except in this case you need more Argon Crystals per item than any other rare resource demand...  Ever.  Well, okay, outside of Clan Tech research.

 

I should not be comparing the crafting of singular items to expensive clan research in a "this feels approximately equal" sort of way.

 

Like, if the game treated Cetus Wisps like Nitain Extract in terms of number used, it'd be one thing.  But compared to Nitain which you can end up spending maybe 75-100 total, reasonably (I think crafting 1 of everything it makes costs like... 150?  So I guess you could used 150), Wisps are used in the hundreds.  300+ to craft all the base stuff they make, which, one might claim, is an unfair comparison since a lot of the things they're used for are not, strictly, necessary components for Zaws or w/e...  But that's ignoring the fact that improving your Arcanes can require 500+ more of them.

 

Just, for casual comparison, building 1 of everything you use Orokin cells for uses about 550.  600-ish if you want to make enough formas for every forma requiring item.  And you can get those with, you know, regular gameplay reasonably.  And have been a core rare resource since the game started.  And yet, these Wisps, despite being functionally harder and less engaging to get, easily are needed in larger quantities by comparison.

 

Just...  Why?  I want to say I've read that around 7-ish wisps spawn every time you load the Plains (Less during the day more at night or something?) meaning you can expect to load in and out of the Plains 50-100 times, assuming you're just hunting wisps and get all of them every time, depending on how many arcanes you want to upgrade, or w/e.  Like, I'm coming up on the point of wanting to put together another Amp, and, quite frankly, pursuing the Wisps for it may just make me quite Warframe for months again from sheer associated tedium.  Why is it like this?

 

Oh, and to those who say: "Well it's so not-attention-requiring it's easier for me to multi-task or completely zone out while doing it so it's better than the other gathering actions" declaring it as being so amazingly unengaging as an activity it's even less mentally stimulating than the rather basic gather minigames is not an argument in favor of the current system.  In fact it's almost more of a decrying of it than anything I've said.

 

/rant.

[rune_me]

11 minutes ago, Rhinkalis said:

And yet, these Wisps, despite being functionally harder and less engaging to get, easily are needed in larger quantities by comparison.

Wisps are not harder to get, though. You should be able to get, fairly easily, 60-100 in a 50 minute night cycle. Half that if you don't have a resource booster. Potentially much more if you are lucky and your smeeta kicks in several times during the runs.