Focus Schools; Respec Option?

[-MortisThorne-]

I've had this in my mind for a while. While I enjoy the focus school, I feel like they could use a respec option. 

There are passives I don't want anymore that I have turned off, but I feel like the Focus that went into them is being wasted.

Like in Madurai, I have quite a bit of Focus in Flame Blast, Rising Blast, and Blazing Dash. However I don't use those abilities as they take more energy than necessary. I'd like to be able to use maybe a Forma and/or Normal Eidolon Shard to give me all my points back and put that wasted focus into something I could use.

You may think, why don't you just focus farm for that extra focus? Well, it's a good point, and maybe I should, but why should I be forced to? Why not have an alternative to having wasted focus in abilities I don't use?

[Klokwerkaos]

4 hours ago, -MortisThorne- said:

You may think, why don't you just focus farm for that extra focus? Well, it's a good point, and maybe I should, but why should I be forced to? Why not have an alternative to having wasted focus in abilities I don't use?

You won't use 99% of your focus stuff, period.

The reason to max out your focus is because completion and that's all.

Most of it is borderline useless except in a very very niche situation.

Frankly focus is so easy to farm these days I don't know why you'd want this feature and it feels like it would take away from the gravity of the choice YOU MADE.  It's not like you can't just level more, it's not like your excluding other choices by making a choice.  Just go earn it man, seriously, focus is so cheap to come by these days.

2 runs of ESO 8 rounds maxes you at MR 25 with affinity booster and eidolon lenses for the day, then go run eidolons till you get bored.  You can max this stuff out in short order if you put your mind to it.  I can't even fathom wanting to respec because I can complete a school in like 2 weeks-ish (give or take depending on school), so what would be the point?

[Geneaux]

3 hours ago, Klokwerkaos said:

I don't know why you'd want this feature and it feels like it would take away from the gravity of the choice YOU MADE. 

That makes no sense... like at all.

People chose to respec because they generally do not care for the focus in the first place. Why? We have warframes that already do everything. A few paths in Zenurik and Naramon, for example, practically invalidates any reason to use anything else in the first place. It's a one-size fits all "decision", which it say its not really a decision at all. It's just something you need to do if you expect anything out of this game. There's no measurable trade-off for the vast majority of people, once that's done. Add the fact you can't really kill anything with your operator abilities and everything else just buffs what you already do, it still amounts to an aimless tacked-on mode.

As addendum, the only reason folks say farming focus is ez is because they've already farmed, created, and acquired the lenses, builds, and affinity boosters necessary to make that so. Otherwise its nothing more than a chore, plain and simple. Thankfully we have ESO for that but that's just a solution to a symptom. People want to get back modding, trying new weapons, and experimenting with other builds.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Geneaux
grammar

[Klokwerkaos]

56 minutes ago, Geneaux said:

That makes no sense... like at all.

People chose to respec because they generally do not care for the focus in the first place. Why? We have warframes that already do everything. A few paths in Zenurik and Naramon, for example, practically invalidates any reason to use anything else in the first place. It's a one-size fits all "decision", which it say its not really a decision at all. It's just something you need to do if you expect anything out of this game. There's no measurable trade-off for the vast majority of people, once that's done. Add the fact you can't really kill anything with your operator abilities and everything else just buffs what you already do, it still amounts to an aimless tacked-on mode.

As addendum, the only reason folks say farming focus is ez is because they've already farmed, created, and acquired the lenses, builds, and affinity boosters necessary to make that so. Otherwise its nothing more than a chore, plain and simple. Thankfully we have ESO for that but that's just a solution to a symptom. People want to get back modding, trying new weapons, and experimenting with other builds.

I might be inclined to take your argument remotely seriously if focus was a necessary component for completing literally any content in the game. 

As it stands, it is not.  

Focus is never a barrier for entry.  When it becomes one we can revisit this, but as it stands you can still participate in a Tridolon take down with a mote amp, and you can can no focus nodes unlocked and play ESO and be successful. 

Until focus becomes necessary it is instead a luxury, and complaining you have to invest some time in luxury in a game centered around the concept of grind or pay, that's just absurd, particularly when it's a mostly useless luxury.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Actually, because the statement on the change of Focus from 1.0 through 2.5 was that there would be no more options to Respec because... they say so. It's a bit of a hard sell, really.

But, what you could argue for, like many of the rest of us are already, is to improve the crap parts to make them worth using. Or at least not have additional downsides for investing into them.

For example, the main problem with most of the schools' Ways is that they actually get more expensive for levelling them up, which is stupid. You either get the same effects for cheaper cost when you level up, or you get the better effects for the same cost as you level up, that's basic levelling in an RPG, right?

So the first improvement is to stop the Ways from costing more as they level up, the best improvement in that line is to make them cost less as you level up.

The next problem is that the Ways can't really be more powerful than using a Warframe, at least in terms of Damage numbers. This is because the Operators are not meant to be a replacement for a Warframe, but a blend of options, so you have the option to take high-value energy regen with you when you don't have a Trinity or Harrow, or Invisibility when you don't have Loki, Ash, Ivara or Octavia, or healing when you don't have Trinity or Oberon... Instant Finishers when you don't have Ash, damage boosting without a boosting frame... 

They do allow for the abilities to be mechanically better, though, like the Dash being the literal best mobility cast in the game, or having a massive armour-strip and damage de-buff on Unairu's dash... So why not buff the mechanics?

What if your Flame Blast wasn't just damage, but a directional knockdown CC in a line, passing through multiple enemies? And Rising Blast added not just damage, but AoE, so a three second charge not only added the damage, but also made it impact an object and radially ragdoll your enemies.

There are so many options for improving the Ways within a school, so instead of asking for Respec, which they've said you can't do again, ask for a Rework!

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

1 hour ago, Thaylien said:

But, what you could argue for, like many of the rest of us are already, is to improve the crap parts to make them worth using. Or at least not have additional downsides for investing into them.

This is exactly what I was coming to post. Lol

Having our investments be permanent should be more than enough incentive for DE to actually make the useless, or less desirable nodes good...There is no reason there should be non-scaling damage additions to operator abilities if the damage is the primary purpose of it. It needs additional purpose to justify it.

And as my nth time mentioning it, non-waybound investments wouldn't feel as much of a waste if they would allow us to save our Focus paths to loadouts to switch automatically. They serve different purposes to fill the gaps for different frames. In a game that largely encourages switching paths and Frames based on circumstance, why do I still have to manually switch Focus ever time I switch loadouts for missions?....I have every path unlocked and most waybounds. I want to diversify my usage of them depending on the frame.

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, (PS4)Riko_113 said:

non-waybound investments wouldn't feel as much of a waste if they would allow us to save our Focus paths to loadouts to switch automatically

I maxed Focus at last earlier this month and this. single. fix. would save me entire wasted missions (I don't quit unless I absolutely have to... a policy which has led me to be remarkably tolerant of Limbo, Banshee and Ember players in my runs).

[Geneaux]

On 2018-06-22 at 1:12 AM, Klokwerkaos said:

I might be inclined to take your argument remotely seriously if focus was a necessary component for completing literally any content in the game. 

As it stands, it is not.  

Focus is never a barrier for entry.  When it becomes one we can revisit this, but as it stands you can still participate in a Tridolon take down with a mote amp, and you can can no focus nodes unlocked and play ESO and be successful. 

Until focus becomes necessary it is instead a luxury, and complaining you have to invest some time in luxury in a game centered around the concept of grind or pay, that's just absurd, particularly when it's a mostly useless luxury.

Heh... now you're just deflecting.

Focus, being a necessary component, was never the argument. Having it mean something to a player was, ie decision making. The problem as a stands is two-fold: none of this means anything if barrier-to-entry is absurd for newcomers and it's meaningless to the preexisting gameplay loop: the hook.

To call it a luxury, is still looking for reasons to give it purpose when it has virtually none out the modes specifically built for it.

Edited June 23, 2018 by Geneaux