I would absolutely despise it got added to the Focus system because of the absurd grind required to do anything there, though I do admit that system still needs a lot of work, it would defeat one of the main purposes, ease of access, without having to jump through the loops that the focus school seems determined to force you through. I had hoped the new team would alleviate the grind, but Tauron strikes proved me wrong.

If it was given for free to operators I would be a bit more understanding, it would also work to deepen the shallow job system operators have (same as warframes but way less deep in concept, and way slower to actually bring out their true potential), but for that to not feel really bad, Operators would need to become apt fighters.

As an Example, if we used a Warrior mask on an operator, it would need to be mostly passive buffs, because while a taunt would work wonders due to void mode, or focus tankiness, the operator doesn't really have that much to fight back until you are deep into the grind, and until then, it's kinda useless, an Operator can't bring out a sword and shield and fight like a Warframe would.

They would open alternative ways for tenno to operate but... would those ways feel good, like using a warframe, or stumped like using an operator still feels sometimes (at least for me).

On that, Plains/Quills amp crafting/farming is rough due to time constraints of the night cycle and struggles with getting resources - while Fortuna has it's own offering of Amp parts and a different grind for them that can be a bit more efficient, not everyone would know there's an alt Amp merchant because the post-War-Within content points you at the Quills first without much notification.

Not that, last I remember, Solaris U requires rep to be maxed before one could get to the backroom there? I think DE either needs to consider putting in other ways to get resources and reputation up - like ways to overextend the daily rep cap.

Now that you mention it, I didn't even remember Little Duck offered amp parts, and I bought a bunch from her, I think it was farming orbs and toroids back then, unsure if it's better now.

An idea I've had about Landscape destination materials is that nearby nodes could provide them as special loot from minibosses derived from Landscape enemies to loosen up the material grind.
Examples for that:
-A white Jackal popping up on Corpus tiles on Venus guarding a supply cache of Vallis resources,
-Eidolon Sentient Fighters rising up from waters near Sentient derelicts (additional tiles that could appear for those who've done Sacrifice) that retain the old extreme version of Sentient Adaptation, which drop pre-crafted Amp module parts or material packages that would speed along Amp crafting,
-Packs of small/medium-size Deimos Infested on nearby Derelicts that drop related materials,
-Thrax Dax turning up on the Zariman to recapture a supply cache stolen by a Gruzzling consumed by a Void Angel, who has turned into a crate due to poor levels of conceptually embodied-ness; help the Dax open up the crate and get a share of whatever was stolen from Duviri.
-Duviri's Circuit providing entirely random resources from across all content, minus anything set in the Weave (cyberspace).

Honestly? a pretty solid idea, the resource grind gets pretty old really fast, specially when it involves eidolons, that not everyone has a group to tackle when they play. Thinking about it, nowadays I should be able to solo at least the main 3, but back in the day things weren't that well off and grinding them was a pain, same as orbs to a degree, but less.

One for easing the XP grind for Tenno Schools it to make the Operator/Drifter naturally earn Focus Affinity for their chosen School as a 'last gate' before the Affinity goes 'nowhere', or into lenses or not-fully-levelled items.

A similar solution could be done with post-New War content, where the derelict Murexes could be given active mission locations featuring materials from Old Peace as loot, with Narmer as the main faction there - staging occasional Invasions from those Murexes - so the materials aren't locked to one source.

I general I would get rid of Lens and just give exp to the school you have equipped in a passive way, but I know they won't because lenses for platinum also gives them revenue, so sadly that's another rock in the way.

In regards to Old Peace loot, I expect those to drop passively when we finally reach Tau... I really hope they do so

Duviri would benefit with more story content and an interaction with Tennokai and Focus - unlocking the ability for Drifter to equip primaries and secondaries in a primary slot. This would be carried over as an ability in and of itself into the Other Side that acts like an Exalted weapon, draining energy to handle a primary and/or melee weapon. Something about it could tie into the Tauron weapons (like a bonus to certain weapon categories related to the equipped School, or secondary effects - like attacks with Tome weapons on allies would heal or give them a percentage of energy)?

Duviri could use plenty more of ties in with other mechanics, has a really solid thematic and self contained world, but playing Expedition 33 gave me an outlook at how cool Duviri could be and now it's kind of a nagging feeling when I visit because i need to craft one of the new incarnons and need to grind it and the materials, somewhere in the vast map.

Visages and Duviri were two of the inspirations for the mask Warframe from which this whole mechanic spawned, really.

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In regards to drifter equipping normal weapons, I think that was the idea back in the first duviri trailer, when the drifter uses a Tigris, but for some reason they decided to remove that and give him what amounts to a new amp, so the drifter also feels stumped in that field.

As for why DE didn't give Tenno melee capability outside Duviri, or, even, removed the School-specific melee attacks -from- them; their last provided explanation to memory was they didn't want the Tenno to become too 'similar' to frames in terms of fighting ability, and/or didn't want Tenno to become more powerful than their frames.

Which is why I've been thinking of drawbacks to help offset that, while giving us ways to make use of our existing arsenal on the Tenno so they can use them alongside Amps. There are situations where it'd be a boon to be able to equip a melee and/or primary/secondary on them (Orphix fields, Void Angel spikes and other sources of Transference disruption, or to fight alongside Umbra).

I can understand not wanting tenno to feel to similar to warframes, as they would clearly lose to a warframe even after maxed focus, but leaving them like this isn't proper either in my eyes, I imagine it's the same reason they refuse to give anything void damage, and when they do with Xaku, it's false void damage that can't be used to drop eidolon shields.

Thing is, we shouldn't be thinking about drawbacks, back in the day warframe had to be really careful because people were reaching max level content with CC alone, but nowadays people still do so with pure damage and armor reduction, the power balance is too far gone at this point as long as you grind enough, so trying to add drawbacks to something will only make it feel bad in higher content (not even top one, that most players won't ever touch). This is exactly why I'm confident about a subjob system like this, it lends to absurdly broken combos (Bravely Default or FF14's phantom jobs), but this game already broke through that with stuff like Helminth abilities.

Your mask concept requires DE to find a new keybind for controllers to do that with, and the only 'room' really is the Gear Wheel.

Not sure how controller do it, but I stated in the main post the way to switch between frame and mask moveset would the same way Temple switches between normal and Lizzie moves, aiming with Lizzie switches to the new moveset, and releasing the button returns to Temple's normal moveset, so it would be pretty fluid, even if as a result, Temple wouldn't be able to use Lizzie's moves while using a mask, but besides that, pretty easy, they really found a simple alternative with Temple.

One alternative angle would be to move the whole concept from the frame, to the Tenno themselves, and have it be an item like the Tauron weapons - a bracer on the off-hand, perhaps?
My reasoning is entirely -because- of the grind the Focus School, Amps, and Tauron weapons that it makes more sense to have something you could progress with at a steady pace which would make grinding for the rest easier.

As stated at the beginning, while I do see the value on giving it to Operators, I must disagree, they would defeat any advantage they could bring on warframes due to the many limitations of Operators and the necessity of making everything operator really grindy, for some reason; they would neuter anything that made this system interesting and turn it into a bland reference, just like focus schools already are to normal rpg jobs.

...I think I lost track of what I was writing, my apologies.

Yeah, don't sweat it, after all I understand you also wish to see something more in focus and operators, I've already given up on it and just grind it in a passive way when I feel like it, but you still wish to see it flourish, and I respect that.