Raikh

I don't blame it on a lack of Slash. Slash is naturally stronger than the other physical damage types but I'm also having great success with a number of non-slash focussed weapons aswell. Destreza Prime is also most definitely capable of just running over SP w/o the need for armor stripping. Rapiers are just very single target oriented being about thrusting w/o standing out in that department. So other weapons get to blend horders of enemies while being just as good at killing singular enemies. So often you just end up killing slower with Rapiers even if their performance numerically isn't lackluster. Really liked them when they initially released but since they do not feel as practical as a good number of other weapon types just by their nature I do not have much motivation to use them these days.

I wanted to agree with you because I do think multiplayer right now is pretty bad and its mostly about who gets to kill things faster, but thinking back at what I've seen in Warframe multiplayer going as far back as starting in 2017 I can't remember many times I've found the multiplayer dynamics very engaging. So much of it was corridor camping where everyone was just spamming the one or two buttons they were assigned to or in case of LoR it was standing on Pressure Plates. I can't remember feeling much of a dynamic where there were X number of enemies in a room and you needed to coordinate who takes on which enemies, so everyone can have their bit of fun. Maybe that would become more of a thing in Endurance runs at some point before the power creep really ramped up, but sitting in missions for well over an hour is a niche of a niche and not applicable to the masses or to general gameplay. Among the people I've introduced to the game I've also found no one who looks forward to playing Defense, Interception or Excavation. Best case they went from being absolutely hated early on to just becoming a rolling eyes annoyance. So while I'd like to see more engaging multiplayer dynamics, I'm a little worried how they'd turn out as I can't remember a truly fun precedent in Warframe beyond individual moments in the 7 years I've experienced the game. Especially when they are mechanically necessary, rather than circumstantially necessary it often becomes very boring very fast. That aswell. If this game forced multiplayer down my throat back when I started or even today I wouldn't be playing it. I enjoy playing with friends but I'm not always only playing with friends and I loathe playing public. Warframe being this super high action power fantasy game also doesn't really work if you couldn't succeed on your own. So multiplayer has to be complementary and enriching, not necessary.

You just have to take a look at Overframe to get a good impression at how low the general knowledge level of the playerbase is. But at the same time it also shows a huge concern for just survivability. So many Frame Builds are Double to Triple Umbra Builds with Adaptation and whatever else they can find to get the eHP up, even on Frames where it virtually makes no sense and the returns are more than questionable and in some cases there are none at all. So there is definitely a trend with players being more preoccupied with staying alive than everything else and I think that is an issue that also makes the knowledge problem worse.

You can make the symptoms go away every time they pop up, but that will never solve the problem if you don't treat the root cause. I think survivability is in a really awkward spot and you will never get players away from "crutches" if you don't adress that. Sure you can buy some time by hitting Revenant for now, but its not a real solution. I don't think its ever the players fault if the game are presents them an obvious solution to a problem they have. DE created both the problem and the solution and its their job to figure things out if the pieces don't fit like they should. I think what adds to Revenant being in the spot he is, is because he is encouraged to build Power Strength with basically no regard for anything else, which also makes him an excellent user of any subsumed Buffing Abilities. So he also becomes a relatively strong weapon platform and thus allows players to play the game with minimal knowledge on Warframe abilities just using the most accessible meta weapons they can find. So unless Mesmer Skin is hit incredibly hard I don't think players will really budge on him much, Someone like Baruuk is tanky but you can't just make him a weapon platform stacking Power Strength and go brrr. And that applies to practically any Frame that relies more on proper ability usage with more nunanced build requirements. And especially newer players will be much less inclined to explore all that early on. Which is why I think its important that survivability and the general power progression in the game get smoothed out so that players can be more focussed on exploring and developing playstyles than just worrying about dying all the time while doing unimpressive damage.

As you pointed out yourself, even if Revenant stopped being in that position there'd be a replacement waiting in line. So does changing Revenant help your problem? His kit not contributing much to the team in terms of Buffs or Utility, which is only partially true anyway, isn't really a problem. There are enough Warframes that do not offer anything amazing to a Team. Some Warframes are more Support oriented, others are not. If players are lacking in the damage department because they slog through content they are not ready for. Well thats a much more fundamental issue and partially something DE reinforces by wanting to herd players to the Whispers content as fast as possible but w/o really giving those players the necessary tools or experience to be truly ready for it. I do think Mesmer Skin is not a "healthy" ability and is up for seeing changes. However I think that needs to happen within the scope of a much larger look at Player Survivability and Enemy Damage. By itself it doesn't improve the game meaningfully as the underlying issue is much much larger. But maybe I'm underestimating just how many players rely on him purely and possibly forego building a proper arsenal and don't try other things.

I somehow have my doubts they are lifting the 75% DR cap on subsumed Eclipse and while thats still a lot, you are taking 2.5 times more damage than with a 90% reduction. I don't think it will do enough for those who are already squishy and for those who are already tanky its not moving the needle enough since at the point where they are being endangered by damage those enemies will likely quickly outscale the additiuonal 75% reduction pretty quickly. Until they do something about health tanking or the general damage curve of enemies I fail to care too much. Many Frames can live fairly conveniently off of shield gating, which usually requires minimal mod investment and no Arcanes. On the flipside Health tanking usually comes with a lot more mod investment and likes to ask for Arcanes on top, especially since sustain also becomes important, so beyond the eHP you also need to grab healing sources. If you now also pile a Subsume on top you deserve to be ludicrously tanky, but if push comes to shove a shield gate takes any hit (that isn't toxin), while even the biggest Health Bar with 300 layers of armor can be oneshot. If anything its some convenience that isn't breaking anything that isn't already broken. Some will enjoy the option, I generally welcome more diverse options for Helminth but I don't think its something to worry about from a game balance perspective right now.

If you're actually looking how this fits together, then let me roll this out further. I've elaborated that I hope to enjoy this new endgame content to its full extent, meaning toggling whatever it takes to get the highest rewards available because thats whats being incentivized. Thats essentially what they want players interested in the game mode to play because thats the point the rewards reach up to. Thats the designed scope of the content if you so will. On a matter of principle I'm happy to take on more challenging missions to earn more rewards and I've been waiting for content thats going down that road. But I'm not happy with how they are going down that road. The reasons for that are manifold and ultimately I just don't see it being a fun experience to play with a semi-randomized loadout and that being sold as an endgame "challenge". What I meant with the latter part here is simply that I'm not losing my mind over the topic, I'm simply giving feedback on the basis of my disappointment with how the challenge of this game mode is being generated. And that I'm not worried about acquiring the loot itself but would much prefer to earn it via taking on the according challenges. This served emphasizing that this isn't a "loot is too difficult to acquire" but "loot is not engaging enough to acquire via the intended gameplay at the highest difficulty". Can I just skip on the last reward and play this with a loadout of my choice? Yes, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Usually endgame challenges in games are something you aspire to be able to do, the highlight of your regular in-game activities. But semi-randomized loadouts are not that, there is no aspiration or highlight there, not even consistency. Its something that, to me, feels completely amiss for this kind of content as Warframe has always been about your choices on how to approach a problem and how you decide to build your arsenal. Notably if they decided to not require all toggles to be needed and leave room for players to either pick from the loadout selection or different modifiers that make the mission harder, then these concerns fall away because now its a real choice how to approach the highest relevant difficulty of that content. And especially because they were not 100% set on requiring all of them I'm voicing my gripes with it and I'm emphasizing that my worries are about the fun of the highest difficulty in particular because I personally care about tackling the highest difficulty content.

You can say its not an insult but ultimately you decided to discard my point due to a presumed state of mind, rather than actually engage the arguments. You can try to make it sound like a factual statement but you know, insults can be somewhat factual. Doesn't mean its a productive way to communicate. I can also say that I didn't mean it as an insult and is merely how I perceived your post but at the end of the day its just condescending demeanor and I merely examplified that. Its just disappointing for a discussion to go that way. Agree to disagree is totally fine with me. And I respect different opinions on the topic. I just don't like it if thats being used to attempt to shut down discussion altogether. Not everything is for everyone but at the same time its important to gauge for whom content is and what the people attracted by it on principle think about it.

They are absolutely being "forced" to commit to all the restrictions if they want all the rewards. I find your angle on this to be brutally ignorant. Maybe I was hoping to see somewhat more challenging content and want to experience it in full but am sorely disappointed in the way that supposed challenge is generated? Content is there to be played. Its sometimes okay to say "this isn't for me" and not do a particular thing while still enjoying the game as a whole. But it shouldn't be a stock answer to everything. I literally explained that despite having ways around it, I'd rather have fun earning those rewards myself in more challenging content but do not see it being fun to do so as its currently being proposed, so whether I just end up playing it anyway or skip around it my experience is gonna be worse than if this game mode on its highest difficulty was more fun to me. I don't see any contradiction here. If we're gonna play that game, all I'm seeing here is either a severe lack of reading comprehension or someone too stuck on their high horse to look beyond their own preconceived opinion about other players. Unlikely, yes. But that doesn't mean everything they do is automatically a good addtion. And I haven't said all content should be catered to me. There are things I have never liked too much in this game and I've made my peace with that at large. I however was looking forward to them finally doing more endgame-y content and I simply don't like the direction they are going with that.

Playing the game is optional, its always such a silly argument. I want to engage with the content, I want those rewards even if just to toy around with them a little because I like playing the game. So if I think a given activity that would usually appeal to me looks to be incredibly unfun to me I'm giving my feedback on that. That doesn't mean I'm losing sleep over this or that I'm getting FOMO over possibly not getting those Arcanes. Hell its likely more efficient to farm plat and buy them once the prices drop with the Update, so one way or the other I will have an avenue to get them even if I were to skip on that content. But thats not what I'd really like to do. I want to play that content and earn those rewards myself but I also want to have fun doing that. Its probably not even gonna be hard to do, I just don't see it being fun to do with any consistency.

Ofcourse they are, but at the same time we simply don't know what the silent majority thinks. Not everyone being here to give their opinion doesn't mean the majority is happy with every feature. People can be enjoying Warframe w/o engaging with any of the endgame systems. I'm wondering how many people even actively play SP Circuit. So far I've gotten the impression that Duviri Incarnons are a lot less popular than is characteristic for the amount of power they offer. And if the Dante Update is delivering interesting content overall, ofc players will be happy with it, even if Deep Archimedea was horrible, the other content might just be enough and they simply ignore it existing like they possibly did with previous "endgame" activities as it just seemed unfeasible or overwhelming to them. And if thats truly the case the voices here might matter a little more than one would initially think.

I'm very well aware of sunk cost fallacy, but I have a hard time seeing this having a strong enough pull. I know it doesn't have to work on a ton of people if they just hook some whales but there is a distinct lack of prestige and feeling of progression here. Nobody is gonna be in awe that you put 7 Formas into Mastery Fodder and still ended up doing comparatively unimpressive damage. I also don't see a strong sense of relief or accomplishment if you eventually end up having every weapon functional for this endeavor because it ultimately doesn't change that the experience with some loadouts will stilll suck comparatively. Would think this will only really trigger the people that are already fairly deep into completionism and I don't know if pushing these people just a little further is worth it in the grand scheme of things. Think there are better ways to go about that while still making money off of it. I'm also sceptical its serving much to generate income from newer players. They seem to want to herd players to Whispers content asap, but given the sheer volume of the game something like Deep Archimedea seems more like a scarecrow than some grand goal to work towards to that gets players hyped and more invested.

fun is subjective and I'm absolutely willing to a believe that some are going to find it fun. But I'm also convinced that those people will be a tiny minority. Worthy is something I think thats a bit more objectively quantifiable, even if not entirely. Games are made in a certain way and attract players because they are that way. So everytime new content turns on the things players have been taught by the game its a gamble at best. Loadout randomness isn't even a twist on the game, it throws many of its fundamentals out of the window. The thing is, the early and mid game is for one designed around that and its ultimately still your choice what to work towards to. Its about progression and figuring things out for yourself. It also teaches you resource management and finding the right tools for the job. Having a random selection of a few items is incomparable to that. It teaches you nothing, at best it asks you to throw resource management out of the window because either you waste them on stuff that you won't use otherwise or you get less rewards or will end up being carried. Its from an economical perspective such a horrible deal that its pretty difficult to take seriously as such. You are better of just trading the Arcanes with other players than building so much that you have fully built options every week. The only time that makes sense if it was your goal to have that much built to begin with. I've seen a lot of money grabbing schemes in games and I'd be surprised if that one is gonna be very successful, plainly because the people with the money for it can get the rewards cheaper elsewhere and probably already have them if they even care.

I find this skill or effectively investment related argument to be missing the point. The primary question shouldnt be if its possible or not but if thats a fun and engaging way to create challenge or if thats a worthy way for endgame activities to greet players who have worked themselves all the way up to that point. And to that I think the answer is a resounding no. Lets be real. If some random weapon you haven't built for a variety of reasons pops up in that game mode, can you get it, build it and somehow force it to get the mission done over the course of the week? Probably yes, but what are the chances that weapon will be useful again to you any time soon? Near zero. At that point you are better off spending the time and resources on buying the Legendary Melee Arcane from another player and not bother. Its unfun and its a waste of time and resources to play around these restrictions. If they wanna get people off their crutches, make every segment require a different loadout. People get their number 1 comfort loadout for 1/3 of the whole ordeal and are otherwise incentivized to find the right tool for the job otherwise. They have freedom what to build and thus may actually be incentivized to explore more of what the game has to offer and are also rewarded for knowledge of what exists in the game and how to use it. Its also way more in line with how the game teaches you to approach it than pure randomness.

When I came back to the game a while ago I was kinda excited for the Fragmented One 60 eyes hardmode as it seemed to have a real HP bar. Till I got hit once and got all my abilities turned off and unable to press anything again while my screen was torn up by a magnetic proc. Can't wait for our next pick anything endgame challenge where the entire mission happens inside a Nullifier Bubble. Usually when I play a game I expect the game to cater to its strengths and what makes it unique and stand out. Yet here we go every time with them trying to remove what makes Warframe Warframe in order to create "challenge". I cannot remember seeing someone so proud that they correctly predicted terrible design decisions continuing to happen.

Only thing I care about tbh. With its universal energy gen increase its a build maker and thats whats interesting to me. Think at large the energy is what drives the ability. But entirely removing either aspect is gonna leave a bad impression. Viral itself makes building some wepaons more interesting or at the very least comfy but if people are just looking for damage they would just grab smth else and slot Viral back in. In a way Nourish providing Viral actually gives other elements a better shot at being included because suddenly you actually have space for them. At 30% I don't see a case where its better than Roar because dynamically switching between the modes is insanely niche. Could also argue that Roar buffs the party whereas Eclipse does not (w/o an Augment). I just don't see how 150% was fine bc it was inconsistent and now with consistency it can only be 30%. Thats a bit too much of a leap for me. It should most definitely be a stronger base than Roar since it only affects weapons, even if thats just 50% base if they really feel like they can't give it anywhere close to the values it had before.

This feels oddly spiteful to me. Its great to hear that Mirage gets to keep her full power Eclipse as was originally communicated but I don't get in what world an 80% nerf to the Helminth version is being considered reasonable. Especially matching the number Roar gives when Roar works on a lot more things. Sure, Eclipse technically provides more than just damage, but I highly doubt actively switching between Light and Dark will be much of a thing. Either you need/want the dmg reduction or you just want the damage. There aren't really many situations where you can confidently say "now I'm gonna take damage and need additional damage reduction". I would've expected a nerf down to around 100%, so half of Mirage's value, mirroring something like Wrathful Advance which also provides a ludicrous amount of damage while having a secondary function, which is mobility in its case. Honestly makes me worried whats gonna happen to Nourish, since that one is already more popular than Eclipse would ever be.

We're usually 2 doing the Bounties for Daily Standing. We farmed the Vocas for a while but by now we take at best whats on the way. They are not very enticing for standing and not used much otherwise so we just keep our little stockpile for a bad day. Most definitely overgeared but I'm not a practiced mission speedrunner by any means. Gear progression ofc makes a monumental difference here, but I don't think its too difficult to get 1-2 setups that can just blitz a Cavia Exterminate. Doesn't even necessarily some crazy nuking setup. Just a single good weapon can do that by itself. Good part of it is also map navigation which comes with experience. These missions can take longer than 5min but they are generally not what I'd call long missions. Having bad Bounties on 4 and 5 can definitely make it annoying. I usually have the leniency to just do it later when its not what I'm hoping for immediately or I occasionally hand in Vocas to skip a day here and there. ofc depending the personal schedule that might not be possible and I agree that its not very exciting to do the Bounties on the longer end a number of times.

I don't think thats the case at all. Just because its a community term doesn't mean its undefined. Nor is there any need for an authority figure to make something official for the term to have meaning or represent something for the time being. Plenty of terms in gaming were coined by the respective communities. The abilities referred to in topics regarding Pseudo-Exalted Weapons are fairly easy to identify. There isn't anything nebulous about the idea, particularly when the concerns featured are about mechanics referring to how these abilities interact with weapon mods, which automatically excludes any abilities that have no direct interaction with weapon mods.

Exterminate is right there. Can often be done in 2-3 minutes and can still be kept under 5 with the worse/more time consuming extra tasks. Alchemy can also be done in under 5 minutes. So I'm not seeing how Mirror Defense and Survival are the short ones. But more than the time concerns I'm wondering how much of our weekly Cavia Standing this will take up, since Melee Arcane Adapters cost 50k Standing and are already a fairly slow acquisition compared to Primary and Secondary Arcane Adapters which only cost 15 Steel Essences.

Don't think thats such a huge deal. Sure, the argument can always be made that some abilities could/should work off of mods, but thats a different story as you are asking certain abilities to become (Psuedo-)Exalted Weapons. Pseudo-Exalted Weapons right now are Abilities that scale off of mods or stats from your weapons w/o being weapons mechanically (referring to inputs) and are not moddable themselves. I think attempting to stretch the definition just because its a community term isn't making a good point because its not a flavor term but a mechanical term, atleast to the degree I have encountered it. People usually ask for things to become Exalted if it seems to make sense thematically, like it was the case with Peace Maker, not argue that they are actually Exalted Weapons and throw a tantrum because they don't scale with weapon mods.

I most definitely don't see it happening outside of a larger scale Exalted Rework. Even if they gave Pseudo-Exalted flat out preferential treatment over Exalted Weapons on the modding front that wouldn't solve Incarnons and Riven and just make both ends mad. So I can definitely imagine the community meltdown if they just made that change. I wouldn't exclude the possibility of it happening at some point but given the opinion on Exalted Weapons being already split in the community and just the undertaking it would be to rework Exalted Weapons as a whole I wouldnt even wanna put a year on it.

Are they though? Usually DE has been balancing around popularity and nerfing things that allow for AFK farming and similar things that provide excessive convenience. Unless Baruuks popularity would suddenly sky rocket I don't see them care. Mesa might be a bit of a different topic because she is already very popular but idk if it would be enough to push her further up enough simply because she has less to gain than Exalted Melees. Its well beyond that stage if you ask me. Atleast what numbers are concerned. I mean, thats what happens if you give Glaive Prime to Kullervo over a random Warframe. So that kinda already happened. Is it drastically overkill and silly as hell? Absolutely. Should it be in the game for balance's sake? Probably not. But now that so many silly things are in the game I'd rather have some parity on that atleast. And if everything is nigh equally silly it would also be much easier to find a new baseline to work with if they ever made a real attempt at balance. Having a more diverse moveset to use is definitely more engaging, if a good mix of waves and slides are optimal that should be a good dynamic. I may explore him a bit more when I have the time. Currently working on updating my roster and fleshing out more Warframe builds anyway. But I'm most definitely not convinced any Exalted Melee now goes for being a Top Tier Melee once you consider the Warframes you can put behind them. Certainly went on a bit of a tangent here. But I guess its inevitable to talk about the state of full Exalted Weapons when talking about making Pseudo-Exalteds individually moddable like them. I'm highly curious where changes to Pseudo-Exalted modding will take us should they happen.

I don't really take Circuit as a measuring stick because by the time you face off against enemies of noteworthy level you should have enough Decrees to kill things with a plastic fork. And on that end, if I take Kullervo out with a plastic fork I'm not noticing a meaningful difference whether an enemy is level 20 or level 200 SP. The game has so many things that scale out of hand that I don't think it would blow anything out of proportion if Exalted Weapons dealt 3 times as much damage as they do now. If I have to take a ton more investment to get Exalted Weapons to a spot where a regular Melee weapon can bring me with 3-5 Forma on any Frame, much less ones that actually buffs melee weapons and w/o needing to chunk Archon Shards at the issue on top given how limited they are. Smth like Peacemaker can simply be an exception because its an incredibly convenient ability, but once I look at the prospect of spamming slides with Serene Storm when the convenient AoE waves do not cut it anymore I start feeling like I'm wasting both my time and resources.

I've heard of and seen the Slide Attacks and they definitely do good damage but its also forsaking one of the aspects that makes Serene Storm stand out. And from what I've seen myself its definitely respectable but I can also still see stronger melee weapons compare w/o even attaching any specific Warframe to them. I can just grab an Incarnon Melee on Baruuk and do basically just as well as if I was using Serene Storm, if not better. Sure I can overinvest into Baruuk and pump him full of Archon Shards and that damage is going to be more than enough, because damage in general is vastly outscaling enemy Health in this game. But I still have to put in a LOT more effort since I'm not only building a weapon but I'm also dedicating an entire Warframe to that weapon. Maybe there is still something I'm just plainly missing, but I really haven't felt the investment:reward ratio paying off with Exalted Melees since Melee 3.0. They can still be enough and aren't necessarily "weak" per se but long gone are the days where I'm eager to play Exalted Frames.