#And I would honestly hate you less if you weren't so ignorant and stagnant. If you tried to do something about it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

retphienix · 1 year

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forgive ramble, ignore ramble even!, warframe community brain is firing on all cylinders (not to be confused with intelligently firing, just quickly and aggressively firing).

@alteredsilicone I think it is? I know for a fact the argument is included in every thread that mentions the Hema ever, but I don't know if DE has ever stated outright on that.

Honestly. Considering how DE is a company of "5 steps forward 3 back" I wouldn't be surprised even a tiny bit lol

And yeah :( I genuinely think arcanes need reworked in terms of how they are acquired.

To be a tiny bit more fair (but not a ton) to the subject than I've been in my rants, I "understand" the perceived argument around them needing to be difficult to acquire.

I don't even really want them to be EASY to acquire! Just not. What they are right now.

I say too much, tl;dr:

The only people benefiting from arcanes being locked to unfun content are whales who enjoy the collectors market of thousands of plat being tied to each arcane's R5.

DE isn't, to my understanding, making the bulk of their money from arcane plat, they are making it from prime access and micro buys (forma bundles, adapters). People buy prime access for access to the prime stuff, not because they want the plat included to buy arcanes, that money is spent regardless of arcanes.

I don't think part of the game should be bent and broken into an unfun state in order to appease whales, as the harder you push that envelope the less interesting the game becomes to more people, and a game has to maintain a certain "cost efficiency" to exist in a state of whale life support- a level of efficiency that DE hasn't seemed to have designed warframe to survive in, so bending to whales would be a bad idea for warframe specifically.

But also I just fucking hate Eidolon hunts (brain numbing) and think Orphix is poorly balanced both in terms of gameplay AND reward per time investment, and I just think more options would be good for the game's health.

It IS genuinely valuable for DE to maintain a player economy that has valuable assets costing decent plat prices since plat = real money for DE.

BUT.

As far as I've ever heard, which could be heresay so grain of salt, DE's statement on profits has pretty much been:

"We get the bulk of our money from Prime Access and Forma bundles/adapters."

So DE says money isn't in arcanes, so, yeah. Considering most plat is spent on forma, and most money is spent on access, kinda a done deal to me I guess lol.

To put it another way, it can be assumed that Arcanes and Rivens MUST cost a ton so that DE makes money, and I say this is a misconception.

Instead, my assumption would be that Arcanes are expensive because the content is bad and limited, Rivens are expensive because they are a bragging piece, and BOTH are NOT valuable to DE but instead are perceived as valuable to whales who trade them back and forth with each other to very little actual gain.

The same players buying 3k plat rivens and 5 different r5 arcanes were gonna just sit on the plat otherwise, they already bought in, they weren't buying in FOR rivens and arcanes and DE knows that. Riven and Arcane market is a collector market, not a DE market.

As mentioned earlier, I DO think DE sees a minor benefit to maintaining an economy with expensive parts, but it's not as direct as "This cost 3k plat so DE is making money" it's a bit more... community health related, and I would argue it has bloated to a stagnant and UN-healthy degree with the popular collectors markets (rivs and arcs) doing more damage to player longevity than benefiting DE's bottom line via player interest.

This is why I've always said I understand why adapters are unfairly "priced" in terms of foundry cost, usually taking multiple forma and what not, because yes this IS player hostile, but it's also directly a life line for the game being continued and in the grand scheme of player hostile decisions, charging 20p for an adapter or 35 for 3 forma isn't highway robbery.

Back to arcanes.

The fact that the only 2 pieces of content that give generic arcanes are 6 year old boring repetitive boss fights that are obnoxiously time-gated or a poorly balanced railjack exclusive excruciatingly SLOW gametype that is unpopular for reasons even beyond the railjack and slow aspects, is a problem.

Like, that's it. That's a problem.

I don't exactly think Arcanes need simplified to the point of like syndicate augments, but I don't think the argument that they must be rare to accommodate a market is being charitable to the whole picture.

I think it has gone too far in terms of strangling this side of the game and is having the opposite effect at this point, and as such I argue that we quite simply just need alternative means of getting the generic arcanes.

My thoughts are kinda in a triple ball park right now.

1. I think at true end game (steel path on farm etc) arcanes should be "moderate to easy" to acquire via perhaps throwing them all in the steel essence store.

This would mean players that invest over a thousand hours in the game can consider the basic arcanes "grindable" without having to go back to aforementioned boring grinds.

This, in my eyes, has the highest potential of backfiring. If arcanes become easily bought out overnight, even if only for high MR players, that could be too much of a shock to the system and could kill a noticable % of players from the playerbase. Not like, 20% or something, but if 5% of players decide that's BS and quit and we don't see a player-dollar amount to match those 5% who were most likely whales that could be a net loss despite being a potential net gain in player number.

Potentially.

I just think players that invested should be allowed to is all. Definitely the most "personal" solution.

2. The game, prior to steel path farm, NEEDS more options to farm arcanes at a similar pace to Eidolons that ISN'T Eidolons- IE, make orphix not slower, and make other orphix style mission types that also match Eidolon speeds.

This would honestly solve the issue for me overnight. I don't mind the RATE of acquisition, I mind the lack of variety in acquisition, I hate fighting Eidolons, I feel my brain turning to mush while doing so.

3. A pseudo passive grind for arcanes would also be ideal in my opinion, as arcanes are incredibly useful in end game but if you don't go out of your way to farm aforementioned farms, you're simply SOL.

Sorties giving a new currency that buys them would trickle feed players at an acceptable rate, as an example.

This would be amazing for improving the value of sorties, giving late game players more arcanes (on average), AND wouldn't shock the system the same way idea #1 would.

But all told, I simply think Arcanes need addressed as they are currently suffocating in old content.

I think a plethora of options exist to improve the situation, but I also recognize that the situation as a whole has been deemed "unimportant" as DE has pretty confidently swept the issue under the rug with their best attempts to improve the situation being adding new arcanes which are not locked behind Eidolons.

I do think that was a boon of a decision, but I also think it's a band-aid that ignores the problem. Molt Augmented is amazing! And fair to acquire! But where's our Arcane Energize grind? Hm?

And while I recognize that even now I don't offer the most respect towards the opposition's arguments, I do recognize them. I get thinking they should be rare. I get thinking they should be expensive. I get thinking making them too easy to get tomorrow would be a nuke to some parts of the player economy (whom I don't care much about)-

I just also think it's obnoxious to just say "It has to be this way" and not look closer at what impacts the current system has on the game, it's players, and whether it's even fun.

#warframe #responses

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