Warframe In The Playground - The Grustrag 03

[Brother Oni]

And that really stems from the fact that you'll have total noobs and MR20s all fighting the same boss for the same loot, so its their way of compensating for the power disparity, but surely they could do something to fix it.

Judging from the MR24 and MR22 who I was doing today's Kela Sortie assassination with, MR is no indicator of competence.

Before they introduced the MR minimum to Sorties via Star Chart 2.0, I heard of a MR0 player in an Excalibur running sorties on a point of principle of this.

There originally was a system of balancing it - enemies scaled according to your Conclave score of your equipment (equipment and mods have a conclave value, based on their level), but that seems to have fallen by the wayside due to gaps in the implementation causing exploits (taking only a single fully tooled up weapon for example). That said, Plains enemies are a lot tougher in a full group than solo - when I solo a bounty, my opticor will oneshot the aircraft, but whenever I'm in a group in the same tier bounty, it will take multiple shots.

[Chromascope3D]

Judging from the MR24 and MR22 who I was doing today's Kela Sortie assassination with, MR is no indicator of competence.

Before they introduced the MR minimum to Sorties via Star Chart 2.0, I heard of a MR0 player in an Excalibur running sorties on a point of principle of this.

There originally was a system of balancing it - enemies scaled according to your Conclave score of your equipment (equipment and mods have a conclave value, based on their level), but that seems to have fallen by the wayside due to gaps in the implementation causing exploits (taking only a single fully tooled up weapon for example). That said, Plains enemies are a lot tougher in a full group than solo - when I solo a bounty, my opticor will oneshot the aircraft, but whenever I'm in a group in the same tier bounty, it will take multiple shots.

Well, I didn't mean as a matter of competence so much as a matter of gear, since MR 0 characters have mostly unleveled equipment while higher MRs will most likely have a lot of forma'd gear. So simply adding more health and armor to a low level boss might make things better for those people who have gear that does incredible damage, but it wouldn't work for MR 0s as they'd have little to no way of being able to damage those bosses effectively. It's a pickle!

[McDouggal]

That feeling when you absolutely hard carry a Survival mission for 25 minutes.

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I think the Astilla is my new favorite anti-infested gun. The AoE slash damage is incredible, and the guaranteed stumble from the projectile impact on the ancients is great because then they can't hook you.

[Brother Oni]

Well, I didn't mean as a matter of competence so much as a matter of gear, since MR 0 characters have mostly unleveled equipment while higher MRs will most likely have a lot of forma'd gear. So simply adding more health and armor to a low level boss might make things better for those people who have gear that does incredible damage, but it wouldn't work for MR 0s as they'd have little to no way of being able to damage those bosses effectively. It's a pickle!

High quality gear doesn't matter if you can't apply it. It's also less the equipment and more the mods, which have no MR limitations - a level 30 weapon with 60 unused capacity has exactly the same performance as a level 0 weapon.

As mentioned earlier, they used to scale enemies off collective Conclave rating, so a group of new players with low mods and equipment would find the enemies easier to kill than a group of MR24s with potato'd weapons with multiple forma and rank 10 mods.
This would keep low level bosses vaguely competitive for all equipment and mod levels, but given how easy it is to one shot sortie Sergeant or regular Vor, there's obviously a cap to NPC stat modifications based on level and conclave rating.

The issue with extending or removing the cap is that a single fully tooled up MR24 player probably has about the same Conclave rating as the 4 player newbie group, so soloing a level would be a breeze if you played by yourself, make it impossible for an experienced player to help new players (the increased damage and durability of the enemies due to the inflated conclave rating would make life very tough for new players) plus encourage players to take the minimum loadout possible (which reduces weapon and frame variety).
None of these encourage co-operation or player interactions, which is something that DE wants and is actively working on (see the proposed changes to Ember's WoF for example).

So I agree it's a pickle, but it's not as if DE haven't tried to do something about it.

[Psyren]

That feeling when you absolutely hard carry a Survival mission for 25 minutes.

Spoiler

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I think the Astilla is my new favorite anti-infested gun. The AoE slash damage is incredible, and the guaranteed stumble from the projectile impact on the ancients is great because then they can't hook you.

Those GD hooks are why Rhino is (or was) my go-to frame for non-stealth missions.

High quality gear doesn't matter if you can't apply it. It's also less the equipment and more the mods, which have no MR limitations - a level 30 weapon with 60 unused capacity has exactly the same performance as a level 0 weapon.

As mentioned earlier, they used to scale enemies off collective Conclave rating, so a group of new players with low mods and equipment would find the enemies easier to kill than a group of MR24s with potato'd weapons with multiple forma and rank 10 mods.
This would keep low level bosses vaguely competitive for all equipment and mod levels, but given how easy it is to one shot sortie Sergeant or regular Vor, there's obviously a cap to NPC stat modifications based on level and conclave rating.

The issue with extending or removing the cap is that a single fully tooled up MR24 player probably has about the same Conclave rating as the 4 player newbie group, so soloing a level would be a breeze if you played by yourself, make it impossible for an experienced player to help new players (the increased damage and durability of the enemies due to the inflated conclave rating would make life very tough for new players) plus encourage players to take the minimum loadout possible (which reduces weapon and frame variety).
None of these encourage co-operation or player interactions, which is something that DE wants and is actively working on (see the proposed changes to Ember's WoF for example).

So I agree it's a pickle, but it's not as if DE haven't tried to do something about it.

Their approach is too piecemeal though. Okay, they're finally nerfing Ember so she's not immolating the entire objective before anyone else can even fire their gun. That's great and all, but what about the Saryns and Equinoxes out there still able to do the same thing? Okay, they're finally nerfing Chroma so that you see something (anything) else hitting the limbs on Eidolon hunts. So everyone just switches to another bursty frame like Octavia or Volt instead.

The issue shouldn't be "there's a frame that does X activity too well, but we don't want everyone and their mother using that frame so lets nerf it" - all that will do is push the playerbase to the next FOTM frame in line until DE eventually nerfs that too. The underlying issue is that farming is boring and it sucks, but the massive resource and focus requirements for anything meaningful force you to do it if you want long-term progression, so everyone will slap on the most efficient way to get it over with so that they can get back to actually using the frames they enjoy. If you could farm focus at a decent rate or take down eidolons reliably regardless of frame, then people would be playing what they enjoy, rather than being forced into either "best AoE" or "best ST."

The way you do that is by:

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1) Much bigger rewards but on a weekly lockout - so that the more casual players can roll in, clear a "milestone tracker" to get a substantial chunk of progression, then do whatever they feel like (story missions, relic farming, level up alt frames and weapons, or even log off entirely!) without feeling like they're falling behind the farmers that are okay just accumulating focus 24/7 in the most repetitive ways possible. The players pouring time into their frames constantly still get something out of it, but they don't leave behind the rest of the audience quite so quickly.

2) Having a wider variety of eidolons such that there isn't always one best subset of frames (e.g. Chroma) to take them down. Right now, every eidolon has the same damage resistances on their outer shell, the same attack patterns, the same ways to defeat them. Mixing it up will increase the playstyle variety and encourage people to level more frames, which directly ties into their monetization model too.

3) Let other missions have comparable focus/affinity rewards that defense and survival do. Those two should still be king since they take the longest, but some folks enjoy playing Warframe to feel like space ninja - throw in some spy/rescue/assassinate that give you a bunch of affinity and focus as a No Alarms type bonus.

As it is, I look at the Focus treadmill and I feel less and less desire to oil up my hamster wheel, not when it means I'd feel guilty about even booting up other games. This to me is one of the few things Destiny did right, and I'm tempted to revisit other MMOs as a result in the hopes that they might be a little better in this regard. Likely in vain, but...

[Brother Oni]

The underlying issue is that farming is boring and it sucks, but the massive resource and focus requirements for anything meaningful force you to do it if you want long-term progression, so everyone will slap on the most efficient way to get it over with so that they can get back to actually using the frames they enjoy.

We're talking about two different things: Chromascope3D is talking about making the same content challenging but balanced for both high and low equipped players, for which there is a flawed solution (conclave rating).

You're talking about reducing the grind, which is fundamental to this type of game's business model - it encourages you to buy boosters and the like to skip more of the grind. While both issues may have some similar fixes (primarily trying to increase diversity and player interaction), they're entirely separate aspects.

With regard to some of your proposed fixes:

• Bigger rewards but on a weekly lockout: Sorties and Raids already address some of this; if you run Raids regularly, you're pretty much swimming in credits and other things trade-able for platinum.
• Wider variety of Eidolons: there's only 1 eidolon currently in the game, so this is a bit of an unfair criticism, but I believe they're bringing 2 new eidolons in. I do agree with the 'frame diversification though.
• Other missions have comparable focus/affinity rewards to defense/survival: given that the current meta focus farm is an exterminate, I'm not sure on the validity of this observation. To draw a proper conclusion, you'd need more data, probably in some sort of reward/time ratio. The issue is that you should factor in difficulty, which is hard to do as it's so variable - a resonating quake Banshee trivialises Hydron, but isn't useful on a hijack and if you use the condition 'optimal frame for the mission', then trying to get comparable data gets a lot woollier.

As for feeling burnt-out on Waframe, that's fine, it happens to all of us. Take a break, go play other games - all your equipment and 'frames will still be here if or when you want to return and will still be endgame viable - Syndicate Primaries were introduced in Q3 2015 and are still some of the best weapons in the game.

[Psyren]

We're talking about two different things: Chromascope3D is talking about making the same content challenging but balanced for both high and low equipped players, for which there is a flawed solution (conclave rating).

You're talking about reducing the grind, which is fundamental to this type of game's business model - it encourages you to buy boosters and the like to skip more of the grind. While both issues may have some similar fixes (primarily trying to increase diversity and player interaction), they're entirely separate aspects.

Even with affinity boosters though, the focus grind is just ungodly. I wouldn't mind buying boosters if they felt like an optional extra, rather than damn near mandatory.

With regard to some of your proposed fixes:

• Bigger rewards but on a weekly lockout: Sorties and Raids already address some of this; if you run Raids regularly, you're pretty much swimming in credits and other things trade-able for platinum.
• Wider variety of Eidolons: there's only 1 eidolon currently in the game, so this is a bit of an unfair criticism, but I believe they're bringing 2 new eidolons in. I do agree with the 'frame diversification though.
• Other missions have comparable focus/affinity rewards to defense/survival: given that the current meta focus farm is an exterminate, I'm not sure on the validity of this observation. To draw a proper conclusion, you'd need more data, probably in some sort of reward/time ratio. The issue is that you should factor in difficulty, which is hard to do as it's so variable - a resonating quake Banshee trivialises Hydron, but isn't useful on a hijack and if you use the condition 'optimal frame for the mission', then trying to get comparable data gets a lot woollier.

1) Except to have a decent chance of not wasting my night in the raids, I need the very thing (Focus) that I wanted to be the weekly reward.

2) It's unfair to suggest they do the very thing they've said they need to do?

3) That's what I mean - Exterminate, Survival and Defense all do the same thing, favor frames that can rack up a high mook bodycount. Stealth, defense, support and single-target all get left behind unless you have specific comps.

As for feeling burnt-out on Waframe, that's fine, it happens to all of us. Take a break, go play other games - all your equipment and 'frames will still be here if or when you want to return and will still be endgame viable - Syndicate Primaries were introduced in Q3 2015 and are still some of the best weapons in the game.

Way ahead of you but that doesn't mean I can't speak my mind as well. I've already reinstalled Blade and Soul to see what I've been missing on that front, and I may give BDO a try.

[McDouggal]

Is there a way to start a mission with a full energy bar?

EDIT: Also, credit farming. What's a good way to build up credits?

[thatSeniorGuy]

Apparently having unused mod points on a warframe translates into extra starting energy, but I doubt you could get a full bar. Otherwise no, but energy restores are a a thing (medium from the clan research, large from some syndicates [get this one if you can]). You'll have to either spam them or wait a bit, but they'll get you a full bar soon after mission start.

Re credits: this is by no means the best way of getting credits, but it's one of the easiest/laziest:

• Dark Sectors give a larger amount of credits than most other missions
• You get double credits for the first mission of the 'day' (i.e. when syndicate standing etc. resets)

I personally start every 'day' by going to Gabii on Ceres and doing 5 minutes of survival; I can reliably get 47k from it (and usually one or two Orokin Cells as well). Again, not the best or the fastest, but definitely the easiest.
Otherwise, the Index is the late-game way of building up credits.

[Avilan the Grey]

I downloaded this yesterday because a lot of ppl I respect can't shut up about it. Will try it this week. I'll put my id forward if I enjoy it.

[Brother Oni]

Even with affinity boosters though, the focus grind is just ungodly. I wouldn't mind buying boosters if they felt like an optional extra, rather than damn near mandatory.

Ah, you're talking about focus gain and farming that specifically. I thought you were talking about farming in general.

I agree that Focus is a pain in the arse to grind, but it's currently the end-game system, even more so than Fashion-frame. Is it wrong for the top level end game mechanic to take a while to progress through? They've already addressed the costs once with Focus 2.5 - are you proposing they drop it even further?

2) It's unfair to suggest they do the very thing they've said they need to do?

3) That's what I mean - Exterminate, Survival and Defense all do the same thing, favor frames that can rack up a high mook bodycount. Stealth, defense, support and single-target all get left behind unless you have specific comps.

2) It's unfair to state that every eidolon in the game is poorly designed when there's only 1 of them thus far. I know that they're bring in 2 new ones, but I don't think any specifics on their mechanics have been released.

3)Exterminate requires a very specific method of racking up that bodycount and given you typically need between 100-180-ish on Adaro (which is regarded as a low number for a survival or defence), I don't think it's a valid comparison. I'm not sure why you've got defence in both your optimal and sub-optimal categories and I'm not sure what you mean by a 'support' mission. Capture (I think that's what you mean by 'Single-target') was always intended to be a very quick mission, so outside of fissure missions it's not ideal for farming anything, let alone focus.

Is there a way to start a mission with a full energy bar?

EDIT: Also, credit farming. What's a good way to build up credits?

Further to thatSeniorGuy's suggestions, using the Zenurik school ability Energising Dash to start (later on Energy Pulse is good if you're not using a channelled ability) helps get your energy bar full.

Another good choice for a quick first mission of the day is Hieracon on Pluto, which is a dark sector excavation. Take something like a Frost, clear one extractor then extract; it has the same dark sector bonus credits as Gabii and is a bit quicker, although you do need to be able to defend an extractor and need a bigger gun than Gabii requires.
Personally, I just do the first Sortie - if you're fortunate and the server reset happens in the middle of your play time, you can do Sortie 3 with the first mission of the day bonus for an easy 100k credits.

Raids and sorties are also good for building up your credits (100k from doing all three sorties before boosters), but are more involved.

[Psyren]

Ah, you're talking about focus gain and farming that specifically. I thought you were talking about farming in general.

I agree that Focus is a pain in the arse to grind, but it's currently the end-game system, even more so than Fashion-frame. Is it wrong for the top level end game mechanic to take a while to progress through? They've already addressed the costs once with Focus 2.5 - are you proposing they drop it even further?

I already proposed what I want several times now; more spiky gains. If they had a huge focus drop on a weekly lockout, that would still allow them to draw out the endgame (giving them time to work on more content) without making you feel like you need to sink your life into focus farming to get anywhere with it. Instead it's just the steady simmer where you fall behind if you're not playing every single day.

2) It's unfair to state that every eidolon in the game is poorly designed when there's only 1 of them thus far. I know that they're bring in 2 new ones, but I don't think any specifics on their mechanics have been released.

I never said eidolons were poorly designed I just want more frame types to be able to shine against them.

3)Exterminate requires a very specific method of racking up that bodycount and given you typically need between 100-180-ish on Adaro (which is regarded as a low number for a survival or defence), I don't think it's a valid comparison. I'm not sure why you've got defence in both your optimal and sub-optimal categories and I'm not sure what you mean by a 'support' mission. Capture (I think that's what you mean by 'Single-target') was always intended to be a very quick mission, so outside of fissure missions it's not ideal for farming anything, let alone focus.

Those were Frame types I was listing, not mission types.

I'm not certain we're communicating with one another clearly.

Further to thatSeniorGuy's suggestions, using the Zenurik school ability Energising Dash to start (later on Energy Pulse is good if you're not using a channelled ability) helps get your energy bar full.

This illustrates my issue easily - even if you picked Zenurik as your starting school (and god help you if you didn't) the amount of grinding you need to get your energizing dash to viability is obscene. Worse, the ability that makes farming (slightly) easier is in a different school entirely.

[Brother Oni]

I'm not certain we're communicating with one another clearly.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

This illustrates my issue easily - even if you picked Zenurik as your starting school (and god help you if you didn't) the amount of grinding you need to get your energizing dash to viability is obscene. Worse, the ability that makes farming (slightly) easier is in a different school entirely.

I went Unairu in Focus 1.0 as I didn't realise the imbalance in the schools. I still managed to get the Zenurik energy gain ability up to level 5 in the old system.

Even in Focus 2.5, it's not obscene to get Energising Dash to level 5:

25,000 to unlock Energy Pulse
931,527 to unlock Energising Dash to 5
102,421 to get your Way pool up to 12
1,058,948 total, if I've done my maths correctly.

Using the 250k daily focus cap, that's 5 days of maximum cap, 10 days of hitting 50% cap or 20 days of 25% cap, which is 62,500 a day. Given that you have incremental gains as you level up slowly, it's not 19 days of nothing to show for your efforts then day 20 maximum Energising Dash (unless you're really weird about levelling up your focus).

Setting your sights more modestly, say level 3 Energising Dash is viable (80 energy per activation); that reduces the total cost to 265,860 or 2 days at full grind (Energising Dash to 3 is 238,284, Way pool to 6 is 2,576).

[Psyren]

I guess I just don't see over a million focus for a single ability (assuming you even did your homework and picked the right one, since there's no retraining either) as reasonable. At the very least they could make your first few abilities easier and slap diminishing returns on the rest or something. But whatever, agree to disagree.

[McDouggal]

Fomorian Fleet has arrived on PC. Larunda Relay (Mercury) is under assault.

I burned through all of my nano spores in an attempt to get Imperator Vandal parts. I have gotten no parts.

[Brother Oni]

I guess I just don't see over a million focus for a single ability (assuming you even did your homework and picked the right one, since there's no retraining either) as reasonable. At the very least they could make your first few abilities easier and slap diminishing returns on the rest or something. But whatever, agree to disagree.

I'm curious how you think I got those numbers if I didn't look them up - they're all openly available on the Warframe wiki if you bothered to look.

The first few levels of an ability are quite cheap for a reasonable boost. It's only when you're trying to squeeze out those final few levels that really cost: getting Energising Dash to half way is a quarter of the cost of getting it to max, so there's your diminishing returns. It's also not a million focus for a single ability, it's a million focus to raise an ability to it's maximum level; it sounds to me that you believe that only level 5 Energising Dash is viable.

To be honest, you sound completely burnt out on Warframe, so it's probably better for you to just move on to a new game.

I burned through all of my nano spores in an attempt to get Imperator Vandal parts. I have gotten no parts.

They are a pain to get (after about two events, I've only got the BP and the Barrel), and enthusiasm will be low since most people will be in the plains going after the unvaulted relics.

[Psyren]

I'm curious how you think I got those numbers if I didn't look them up - they're all openly available on the Warframe wiki if you bothered to look.

By "picked the right one" I wasn't faulting your math - I meant knowing you should pick Zenurik as your starting school when the game itself gives you no information to make that choice. This is what I meant by you not seeming to understand what I'm writing.

To be honest, you sound completely burnt out on Warframe, so it's probably better for you to just move on to a new game.

Oh I have (at least for now) don't worry. No need to keep suggesting it.

[Grif]

Apparently having unused mod points on a warframe translates into extra starting energy, but I doubt you could get a full bar. Otherwise no, but energy restores are a a thing (medium from the clan research, large from some syndicates [get this one if you can]). You'll have to either spam them or wait a bit, but they'll get you a full bar soon after mission start.

Re credits: this is by no means the best way of getting credits, but it's one of the easiest/laziest:

• Dark Sectors give a larger amount of credits than most other missions
• You get double credits for the first mission of the 'day' (i.e. when syndicate standing etc. resets)

I personally start every 'day' by going to Gabii on Ceres and doing 5 minutes of survival; I can reliably get 47k from it (and usually one or two Orokin Cells as well). Again, not the best or the fastest, but definitely the easiest.
Otherwise, the Index is the late-game way of building up credits.

Is the Index really a late game way? Low-risk is probably easily doable even with a subpar frame (and hoping that your public teammates are up to scratch. Usually you'll always have one or two fully kitted dudes.)

[thatSeniorGuy]

Well, compared to other methods it's latish game. But yeah, you don't need a suped up frame by any means.

[FireJustice]

Index Medium is a nice credit farm.
you can do 3 in the same time you do a Index Hard without any hardship, more net money


Sooo... how you feel about losing the Mercury Relay?
I mean PoE with the unvauted relics (and THE LOWEST rate ever, really DE?) and a Balor Fomorian in weekdays

I am trying to farm Imperator Vandal Receivers, but droped just two in almost 100 runs.
got tons o endo, though


Also, Also
Weapon Mastery Rework! Grakata ftw!

[Brother Oni]

By "picked the right one" I wasn't faulting your math - I meant knowing you should pick Zenurik as your starting school when the game itself gives you no information to make that choice. This is what I meant by you not seeming to understand what I'm writing.

Ah, in that case I apologise for my short tone.

No offense intended, but you communicate a lot like my wife - it's not always clear what you're referring to, assuming that because you know what you're thinking of, other people will also know by telepathy.

Sooo... how you feel about losing the Mercury Relay?

It's highly unlikely that Larunda will go as otherwise the earliest relay that can be reached by new players is Kronia on Saturn, which is really late. Previous Formorian events have also shown shenanigans by DE (the server went down in the middle of a Formorian event so that nobody could log on, but when the server went back up, the Fomorian's HP had continued to drop).

[Recaiden]

Is the Index really a late game way? Low-risk is probably easily doable even with a subpar frame (and hoping that your public teammates are up to scratch. Usually you'll always have one or two fully kitted dudes.)

It's mid-game at least. You have to get all the way out to Neptune, and Medium-risk is the sweet spot for credit farming.

The late game way to get credits is Trials.

[Leon]

Is there a way to start a mission with a full energy bar?

Sahasa Kubrows really help since mine will tend to dig up 3-4 orbs at the start of a mission

[McDouggal]

Me: "Hmm, I like the Carrier enough that I want the prime version of it"

DE: "Too bad, we vaulted it before you started playing."

Seriously? I don't like this. Void Relics are RNG'ey enough already.

[Brother Oni]

Me: "Hmm, I like the Carrier enough that I want the prime version of it"

DE: "Too bad, we vaulted it before you started playing."

Seriously? I don't like this. Void Relics are RNG'ey enough already.

You could always buy it from other players with plat. It's still common enough that a full set shouldn't be that expensive (especially after the Vacuum mod change) and is available quickly on warframe.market or cheaper if you're willing to invest the time on the trade channel to bargain hunt.

[NEO|Phyte]

Me: "Hmm, I like the Carrier enough that I want the prime version of it"

DE: "Too bad, we vaulted it before you started playing."

Seriously? I don't like this. Void Relics are RNG'ey enough already.

Are you on PC, what's your name, and when are you free to log on?

[McDouggal]

I am on PC, name of McDouggal. I'll almost certainly be on for a few hours after 7:30 PM central, possibly sooner depending on how long my grocery run takes.

I also won't ask for this for free, I do have some plat if you want some payment for it.

EDIT: Thank you very much.

[Grif]

Finally got my Ember Prime, and the hard parts of the Loki Prime out of the way.

I guess I finally used up my luck for the week.

[McDouggal]

Grats.

I finished The Silver Grove, and I think that might be the worst quest I've ever played.

"Go around and scan these plants for hours. No you can't actually play the game while you do this, it has to be your primary focus."

[Wraith]

I kinda liked the Silver Grove. I'd been playing the game for quite a while when it came out, though, so it was a welcome reason to go explore tilesets that I thought I had gotten used to, or otherwise never bothered with because they were on planets that didn't drop end game resources.

The fight at the end can go die in a fire, though. It was easily one of my least favourites, until the Spoiler Mode crap at the end of TWW and CoH.