CrownOfShadows

Hm, I agree in theory (I've never been very happy with the gunblade stances) but am a little confused too - are you suggesting 3 different stance mods catered to different playstyles or are you suggesting that each stance mod have dynamic states based on what's happening?

Yeah I think the Circuit is really polluting what survivability means. With a strong team and a decent build almost any frame can level cap in the Circuit, you mostly just need to not get one-shot by the Thrax. With a weak team or a weak build you can struggle, but surviving in the Circuit is really not like surviving in other high content - in my experience its way easier. When the new augment released I did a fair amount of test runs, and Styanax did poorly in regular high content which surprised me, but did really well in the Circuit, and it's hard to say because the non-Circuit tests were solo and more 'pure' whereas the Circuit tests have all kinds of variables (team-mates, weapons, decrees). Most people running Styanax at higher levels seem to just spam 4, and rather than temper that the augment seems to be trying to encourage it, idk. The addition of WF overgaurd is such an interesting choice, you'd think they'd really have thought about that but I'm getting the sense someone just shrugged and slapped it into being with zero thought because of the way they just gave it a gate all of a sudden, the wild cap oscillations and everything that's been mentioned about it's implementation thus far with Kullervo vs Rhino, etc, and why only like 3 frames can take advantage of it for whatever reason. I can't believe they'd just create a whole new defensive schema with zero planning, c'mon guys, think about stuff before you do it, just a little :(

Just back to ask for this again. Sharing configs with my clan and I'm tired of explaining what shards I have on them afterwards.

+1 sounds good to me

I actually like the sound of this, I think it has potential, and it kinda dovetails with my calls for better replayable solo quests. One of the strengths of the Circuit imo is that it gets me to play things I don't otherwise, and not just play them but spend time with them and think about them, and this would do that even better.

The enemy spawns would never be based on the operator or a necramech, they'd be based on the warframe. Mods like adaptation and rolling gaurd, as well as equipped arcanes, would all be factored into the ratings. Taking a warframe without adaptation vs one with adaptation is a huge difference, and while that varies moment by moment, we can easily formulate an average expected EHP simply by the fact that it is equipped. While the ups and downs of gameplay would of course fluctuate, a strong baseline could easily be achieved - we produce enemies that we know the warframe can handle (and again a gradient is probably a good idea, so even if they momentarily can't handle the strongest, they can still wipe the floor with the majority). Even in the current system, there is massive leeway in this - it's not like we are fine at level 99 enemies and then as soon as we hit level 100 nothing works and we die - this is because there's tons of things about fights - positioning, buffs, airborne dr, melee blocking, los, etc - that factor in. You're right we can't know what all that is in any exact moment in advance, but we don't need to in order to create enemies AROUND the level we need. It's all much more fluid than you're making it sound. We don't have to split hairs and decimal points to get in the ballpark. I would not recommend updating enemies in real time. Partially agree, partially disagree. There is intricate dodging and can be unique mechanics with some of these things, and I'd extend this to other less-trash-mobs like Thrax and Demolysts too. I think all of these are very healthy for the game, because without them... it would just be mobs - and no thanks. The damage attenuation is frustrating, but attenuation is not the pure evil some people think it is either. Some attenuation can be good, but we are too reliant on it for sure. As for these suggested counters, you're right they aren't particularly skill based, but I would argue that this may depend a lot on their implementation and what your idea of skill is. For example my suggestion there for anti-invisibility would be fairly dodge heavy and arguably require some skill, again depending on the exact nature of it. This is all kinda getting into a discussion on what makes a good boss too, and the nitty gritty of how these guys would actually work, but I will say that having phases where they are weak, especially if those can be intentionally triggered by the players (and not just 'not-invulnerable' lol) can be a good way to add a skill check. If you have other ideas on how to create a skill based encounter, I'm all ears.

You are once again making way too many assumptions about me. You think I'm some kind of min-maxer but I'm not. You think I'm pigeon-holed into one or two frames or one or two builds but I'm not. You think I don't experiment but I do. You think I wish I didn't discover builds (wtf?) but I'm happy I did. You think I'm 'fixated on a few choices' but you have no clue what you're talking about, don't insult me by trying to explain experimentation and the mod screen. Builds need to accomplish things, pretending that they don't is completely ludicrous. Playstyle is incidental to the builds - we don't dream up playstyles and then find builds to suit them, we dream up builds and those create playstyles, so this weird playstyle argument is doa. None of that actually addressed my central point: I can't play at my level. I perpetually play below my level, and that makes experimentation suffer instead of thrive. You can still play at yours, that's nice. I don't know if you were one of those players suckered into the idea that everything is great and we don't need any challenge to our power or more interesting gameplay, but you'll want to reconsider that thinking.

It analyzes you and your build. It understands that when you have this warframe and those weapons in this type of mission that you typically fight capably at a certain level and provides it. If you bring a different warframe and different weapons, perhaps ones that kinda suck, it will lower the level. It wouldn't be an ELO system, those are designed for multiplayer pvp games and work by ranking players against each other, this would work based off your own individual performance and would ideally evolve over time with you.

Well, in your Inaros nightmare example, the no-shield modifier is clearly designed specifically to encourage people to play tanks like Inaros, Grendel, Rhino, etc. I wouldn't classify that as an exploit or a cheese at all, but rather as simply playing it as it was intended to be played - it's using the right tool for the right job. Now you can create artificial difficulty for yourself by not taking a tank, but tbh I've always truly hated the 'just make your own difficulty' mindset - nobody actually handicaps themselves, that's so bogus, and I challenge anyone who spouts that nonesense to go play the grendel missions and remember what reality is. But it's interesting to contrast that Inaros example with say shield gate abuse. Was decaying dragon key ever meant to be abused the way it is? No, it's more of an emergent, sandboxing development. Yet... DE has left it quite intentionally in place, and so it's as good as official. So how is shield gate abuse or invisibility abuse different than taking Inaros into a no-shield nightmare? Or how is it different than taking Revenant practically anywhere? And the answer to that is very tricky. Anyways, the main point is more about what you're saying about being overbuilt. You're saying that simply ramping up the difficulty isn't going to be satisfying because it results in too-optimized builds with no variety, but I'm saying the only way to experience the power and diversity of our kits is to ramp up the difficulty further. I'm built for level 200 up on the majority of my frames, and doing regular starchart missions at level 20 is absolute misery. Doing arbitrations at level 60 is pain. Doing SP at level 120 is mildly analgesic. So let me ask you, how many missions do I have available to me that I can play at the level I'm built for? Here's what I've got, solo, without using cheese: Tuvul Commons, Void Cascade, Zariman - Lvl 150-155: after about a dozen rotations it gets really challenging due to the Thrax and other enemies. Circulus, Conjunction Survival, Lua, Lvl 180-200: difficult purely for the volumes of enemies, eximus and nullifiers, after 30 minutes or so the eximus really hit hard ... and that's it. Those are my options if I want a challenge and want to have fun, even though I have no actual reason to play them anymore beyond that. There are other missions around those levels, but I don't want to play Armageddon, Mobile Defense. So what do I play? I login, and what do I play? Nothing. I tinker in the shed instead of going on an adventure - because there are no adventures; I pull out a warframe or weapon I dislike and see what I can do with it. I'm not saying tinkering is bad, it's great, but it's not the same thing as a challenge. Tinkering is build variety, optimizing is build challenge - but even the most optimized builds can still be tinkered with, just not as much. The whole point of build experimentation is to find the optimizations, but optimizations are pointless if there's nothing interesting to use them on. When SP first came out and nobody knew what to make of it, it was great, because I was out there mostly solo learning my limits, learning how to build properly, learning what worked and what didn't, trying new things. I figured out how to build to do SP interceptions solo. I figured out how to survive against punishing damage that I'd never experienced before, I learned warframes I'd never needed, weapons I'd never used - I had the tools, I had them all along, I just never had a worthy task that demanded I learn and apply them. I learned how to solo bosses that I'd always had groups handle before, I learned WHY certain things worked, I played missions I'd only played once before ever. It was a great time. It was a challenge. I'd log in and was happy because there was a mountain ahead of me, a thing to tackle, something to test my mettle. When I log in now, I've got a shed ahead of me.

While there is a strong sandboxing element to WF, like every game it also needs to be fun. All our various tools are interesting and awesome - we are excelling beyond belief in that department. I actually can't think of a single other game that is as technically intricate and rewarding as WF, and I'm saying that even though I have major gripes about the mod system and would also make a lot of improvements to the ability system. The problem with WF has always been in having something to use all these fantastic tools on, with game modes and enemies that challenge us to find the limits of them and enjoy them through use. In this area WF is lackluster compared to other games. When it comes to enemies, having trash mobs that just run at you and die is really all we get. Now this is usually where we hear some parrot say "power fantasy!" but you can have a power fantasy and still have challenging enemies. It's like we have an incredibly diverse toolbox but we never have a project and we just drag out our lil ol hammer to tap something here or there every week. So creating enemies that make us think and game modes that make us think is a good thing, because we have to crack open our toolbox and actually solve something. If all the lame cheesy crutches that people rely on, like invisibility and invincibility, suddenly had counterplay, then people would struggle, in a good way. We need struggle to be relevant. I'm not saying that dynamic scaling and adaptive minibosses and debuffs are the ultimate solution, I'm just saying that they could be part of it and that they would give us trouble, and trouble is what we desperately need. If nothing troubles us, nothing challenges us, and if nothing challenges us, we run out of reasons to play.

You're making WAY too many assumptions about me. I wasn't trying to insult you, I was just trying to figure out if you play the SP by default. You still prefer the regular starchart, and that's totally fine, I'm not knocking you for that. If you feel like you have an intelligent point to make, please just make it, with as much clarity as possible.

I'm trying to figure out if you are bored by the regular starchart, whether you play with the SP toggle always on or not. It seems you still find a great deal of enjoyment in the original starchart and that that's your default, and that's great, everyone's on their own WF journey. This thread is geared towards people who are bored of the regular starchart and also are bored of the SP. We have already 'power fantasied' our way out of the SP, and instead of creating the Tungsten Path or the Diamond Path, I'm suggesting we make a longer-term solution that challenges us not only with appropriate leveling but with smarter enemies and more dynamic general gameplay.

Oh you don't really play SP?

No. It would start at near level cap if that's what you can so easily handle, and then quickly reach it, if solo, only while on SP. Partially disagree with this. Statistical algorithms can work magic. I don't know why you think operators are a problem here. The only gear *problems* I can see are specters and maybe decaying dragon keys, I honestly don't know why either are still in the game and personally I'd take them out. Necramechs and archwings (and RJ) need expansion, not my fault they dropped the ball on them. It would take longer compared to mowing down countless mobs, yes. Just like Lichs and Acolytes are supposed to. Do you dislike those? I don't see how it's less interesting. It wouldn't mandate builds because it factors in whatever build you currently are running, and also there would be a great variety of possible counters so you wouldn't be able to reliably anticipate what you'd be hit with. This point about updates changing mechanics is a solid one, I hadn't really considered that aspect. I doubt they had a single thought in their head about the modern end-game when they designed enemy scaling at warframe's inception however. You're right it works okay, it's just boring af. You make a good point about the EHP gap in warframes, but the math isn't the whole story. Even so, let's take the case of just the one miniboss. It's EHP is based on the DPS of the squad, and it's rough DPS is based on the EHP of the squad. Now, because it's averaged, there might be a low EHP warframe on the squad and a high EHP warframe (I wouldn't use Inaros as an example, he's paper thin these days - unless he was a low EHP example lolz). But just as with regular gameplay, the low EHP warframe will be hiding from the fight and the high EHP warframe will be fighting in the open. Because the high EHP warframe is above the averaged DPS of the miniboss it will be able to tank with ease. You can scale this example up to two or three or four, because you would split the desired EHP and DPS between all of them. So while the differences are big, bigger differences actually make the fight easier, at least on paper. If you have 4 warframes all with the same EHP, then it will be harder. Hence my suggestion to implement a three-level enemy gradient. Admittedly, this would work better in some game modes than others, but you'd want a mix of enemies tailored to the squad. If the mirage can handle those enemies, spawn them. The warframes that can't handle them won't. That's better than the mirage yawning while they wipe the map uncontested. Why are you playing SP?

How to make good enemy difficulty for WF, imo: Dynamic Difficulty Forget scaling, it will only ever be temporary and always imperfect. Assess players instead and adjust difficulty to them, wherever they go. Do this by: EHP rating of warframe (based on current mods, arcanes, shards, etc) DPS rating of warframe (including weapons), this might further be broken up into Ability Rating, Melee Rating, and Ranged Weapon Ratings. While I am using DPS as a catch-all this would actually be a rating of effective damage, and would need to include things like elements and armor strip/bypass, etc. Notably, this would also factor in the enemies present. Running a bane mod, for example, or specific elementals. General rating of warframe (a scale used as a baseline rating on what this warframe is generally capable of, necessary for multiple reasons including anti-cheesing the system) Long-term rating of player and what content they can handle, possibly on a per frame basis but at least on a holistic basis (necessary to balance against the general rating - this rating lowers or raises the general rating based on how good the player is, it's how to weight the player vs the playerbase) An Armor Stripping rating is surely necessary, as a squad without any armor strip will have a hard time vs one that does. Slash & Bleed would factor in here, probably, but this would include ability armor stripping. A Crowd Control rating may also be necessary, things like 95% gloom slow should be taken into account and weighted The potential for this should be quite obvious in a solo player setting, but let's look at it with squads. All of these ratings can be combined at a squad level so that we have a squad EHP, a squad DPS etc. This is a fine baseline, but there is an important multiplicative factor in having multiple tenno. To adjust for this, we need: A general squad size scalar - this acts as a baseline difficulty throttle based on the number of warframes present. Important note: this should be tied to affinity zones. A tenno outside of the affinity range of other tenno is effectively alone. Most likely, the dynamic difficulty affects enemies at spawn, not enemies in real time. Also, it would affect individual spawn zones differently - for example, if 3 warframes are in one area, then the spawns around there would be rated based on 3 warframes, while spawns out by the lone 4th warframe would be rated for one. Possibly, a synergy scalar. Basically this scalar analyzes a squad and determines if synergies between the warframes allow for greater difficulty than would normally be assigned. I think this would be very rare and somewhat unnecessary, but there are surely exceptions that won't be caught by all of the above ratings, and this is meant as a sophisticated lever for that. Dynamic Enemies Great, now we have dynamic difficulty. How does that translate into enemies? Well, we can simply scale the enemies based on these ratings. What this means is that you don't have to wait an hour or two or forty to reach the peak of what you and your frame and your weapons can handle, it's there in the very first enemy you face, and it doesn't get harder. That's fine, but we may want to make a little artificial scaling, just to ease players in and not make every mission absurdly hard right from the start. A little scaling is probably desirable for things like defense and survival as well, so there's a case for easing into it. Additionally, we may consider: Enemy gradient: have a gradient of enemies (by difficulty - not just by type), with large numbers of cannon fodder that are lower than the rating (for multiple reasons, some of which involve items that need kills) - this would make up say 50% of the enemies, then a mid-tier, which make up perhaps 40% of enemies - these are rated higher. Finally, for the remaining 10% of enemies; these are at or slightly above the rating of what you are expected to be able to handle. Note that I'm not talking about enemy type here, but enemy difficulty (level) - for example you might have eximus scattered through all 3 tiers. Note these percentages were plucked from the air and are not gospels. There are other - and probably better - ways of making dynamic cannon fodder, but to leverage what we already have this seems the simplest and most effective. Adaptive Mini-Boss Auto-Spawns Every so often, similar to acolytes perhaps, and in addition to them (or as a replacement or upgrade of them), spawn mini-bosses. These are special because they are based on the specific weaknesses of the warframes present. We stop spawning enemies, or perhaps only spawn relatively low level enemies during this time (these are going to be difficult, we don't want extra difficult enemies combined with extra difficult mini-bosses). We analyze the warframes and weapons (that are in affinity range of each other and the spawn point of the mini-boss). Each warframe has a weakness. Let's take some examples, the warframes and their counters: Wisp: anti-healing, electric resistance, anti-haste Mesa: anti-energy, ability disruption, anti-range, ability reflection Saryn: anti-corrosion, anti-toxin, status cleanse Hildryn: magnetic, toxin, silence, ability reflection Xaku: anti-armor strip, exploding guns Titania: anti-energy, ability disruption, homing missiles Loki: anti-invisibility etc First, note these are examples just off the top of my head, I didn't meditate for an hour on each one. Second, note that despite all the talk about how impossible it is to shut down warframes, it is very easy to do so. Third, note that it is SO easy to do so, that it must be done with finesse and a delicate touch. For example, you might look through these and say how unfair they are, but it depends completely on the implementation and the telegraphing. Let's take the Titania example. If you are suddenly ripped out of your 4, you are likely dead, especially at high levels. But if a mini-boss telegraphed this was coming very visibly, giving you plenty of time to fly out of the way - then it's a good mechanic, because it forces you to break off your boring attack. Likewise, if your energy goes from full to zero in the blink of an eye, that's bs. But if the enemy shoots energy leeching rounds at you, and you only lose points of energy and/or energy regen if they hit you, then that's much more balanced. Or maybe the enemy pulses spheres of energy leeching that you need to avoid, or maybe the closer you get the more energy is leeched, and as you back off it is restored to you. These are just basic examples, you don't need to bother nit-picking them, I'm simply communicating ideas in a broad way here. Every warframe has weaknesses that can and should be exploited by smart enemies, and doing so in a balanced way is tricky but the very essence of interesting gameplay. Having no counters is the main reason gameplay is so uninteresting. Let's take the Loki example because I can already feel the hackles rising. A miniboss has anti-invisibility to deal with Loki. Does this make Loki visible? No. You'd have some class about it, obviously. You'd create a very well telegraphed anti-invisibility ability, say a great eye that scans around in a sweeping ray. If the ray passes over Loki, he is visible to the miniboss and might be attacked. So get out of the ray. Or maybe it's a directional pulse that reveals everything invisible as it travels. Or maybe it's a pulsed aura that prevents Loki from getting too close. Or maybe it's a bit more of a guess, where the miniboss sort of sees you on occasion, but not exactly, and attacks you with a weapon or ability (balanced to your EHP) designed to hit your ghost with some success. There are tons of possibilities, ways of making Loki less immune to everything, while still respecting his niche. Invisibility should always have a counter, that's basic game design. You should be able to see how all this would work well in a solo setting, but again, let's explore a team setting. Let's say you have (Xaku, Mesa, Citrine and Wisp), a very strong team. Let's say that we spawn between 1-4 minibosses, tailored to this unit comp. How exactly these counters are divvied up between the minibosses is another matter, not worried about that right now. We simply have a pool of counters available and these minibosses - however many there are - have them in whatever combinations. So let's say that from the pool we have anti-armorstrip, anti-healing, ability reflection and cleanse. Here's what it would look like. Mesa jumps into her 4, nails about a million damage into them, then her bullets start flying back at her, slowly at first, a percentage of them, and then more and more until finally she is forced to exit her 4 or be in danger herself (this is ability reflection). After a little while, she is able to jump back into her 4 and not be targeted afresh, and the cycle goes from there. Meanwhile, Citrine's crystal is activated on them all, and it runs for awhile but then stops working as they individually cleanse the effect and it stops targeting them for the duration of the cleanse, let's say 10 seconds, after which it must be reactivated on them. Wisp meanwhile is doing wisp things, but suddenly the team isn't healing for quite as much as normal because the minibosses are shooting anti-healing bullets or swinging anti-healing melee that slows or stops the healing. This causes some people who are getting low to duck out of range to let the anti-healing effect wear off (a few seconds) and then jump back into the fray again after the motes heal them up. Xaku is doing xaku things, but the minibosses create counter bubbles of anti-armor strip around them which reduce or negate the effect. These are disrupted by enough heat procs though, and they turn off as heat builds up. As the minibosses cleanse, the heat is purged and the bubbles reinforced, and the cycles continues. During all of this, of course, the minibosses are attacking and you are attacking them. Again, these are just basic examples, if you want *real* ones get somebody with a salary. Here's a few things to consider: Each counter ability is here targeted at a specific warframe. In this example even though they have ability reflection to counter Mesa's 4, they aren't using it to counter Citrine's crystal, reflecting it back at her. I'm not saying that's not an option, it could be, but the point is these are not GENERIC defense abilities like you'd expect out of a lich or something. Each defense is targeted and activates only on what it is meant to activate on. This is subtle but extremely important to the health of any such system. We don't want to just slap ability reflection on them and call them done for 90% of warframes. They have ability reflection for Mesa's 4 quite specifically, and that's what they use it for, nothing else, and the same for each item in the pool. This allows for balancing (in theory). I'm not saying that a lot of counters might not look the same or even BE the same, but I am saying that they shouldn't be broad catch-all solutions that always ship out because that will end up being much less enjoyable. Another important point is that each warframe has many ways to be countered, but the minibosses in this example only bring one. I think this is good because it means there's variety every time you encounter them. You might be facing one of half a dozen counters when they show up. Also, this example is somewhat simplified. If, for example, the Xaku was running a high powered gloom, the minibosses would necessarily need to bring a counter to that in addition to their gaze counter. Warframes can be dangerous for more than one reason and may require multiple counters. If each miniboss spawns with only one warframe's counter, the danger of the minibosses drops a lot, because it can only deal with one warframe. Thus, it's likely best that each miniboss, however many there might be, have most if not all of the tools it needs to fight several warframes at once. If instead of multiple, we just want to spawn one, then obviously this is the case. However, if we do spawn 4, we here have the potential to create gaps in their individual defense by shorting them, which can be a good way to add some tactical gameplay. Likewise, it's important to note that while these minibosses should have tailored defense and offense, they should also have weaknesses. We don't want every tool that was brought into the mission to be countered, even if it's not a hard counter but a soft and situational one. We might detect the elementals of the weapons present and perhaps make one or two of them very weak to those, for example. While this type of native disadvantage is not as compelling as a situational disadvantage, it can still be useful. There is huge potential for tag-team play with this mini-boss setup, where, similar to warframes, they are extremely formidable as a group but as one falls more defenses are left open and the attacks become less potent. Minibosses could perform wombo-combos on warframes or work together to attack high value targets. This is an entire tier above what I've laid out so far, but a potentially awesome one. Telegraphing here would be quite important when it comes to everything, but they can shield and heal and otherwise buff or enable each other. The true beauty of these is that they aren't invalidating warframe abilities. They aren't immune. Rather, they counter them, and they don't completely counter them - that's important - they provisionally, circumstantially, temporarily counter them. This is how you deal with warframes without using invulnerability or nullifiers. Phases: having the minibosses become enraged or defensive or charging up an ultimate attack or transforming and gaining entirely new abilities are all great mechanics that we just don't see much of in WF. I'd include them all and more. Note again that all of these mini-bosses are dynamically adapted to your team. They're custom to your EHP, to your DPS, to your ability sets and what you have helminthed and what archon shards you're running and even what focus school you have - everything about your team is factored into them, thus they change every time you face them, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. I haven't talked about the design space for these guys, but you could do some really cool things based on what they're bringing. A note on AI: personally I'd invest in some better AI for these minibosses. They should be able to recognize when they're taking enormous damage beyond what they're expecting, or when they aren't being effective and have backup plans. For example if they roll up and got one shot somehow (which really shouldn't happen after all the analysis above, but y'know WF), then it's time for a resurrection and a new plan. Further, some might try to lure warframes away from their companions or into hallways some other sneaky stuff like that. What we really want is a fight. A back and forth, a struggle, a brawl, where we take punches and deliver them. And finally note that these wouldn't pop up everywhere - similar to acolytes you wouldn't see them running a fast rescue or a capture, but they'd show up eventually in longer missions. Optional There are a lot of reasons not to want to play at the limit of what your loadout can do (cracking rivens, experimenting, etc), so while I said make this the standard everywhere, that's with an asterisk. My suggestion would be to replace SP with such a system, and leave the toggle in place. This would allow dynamic and interesting play everywhere from nightmare missions to Circulus to Invasions - everything, anywhere you go, as long as you have the toggle on, is challenging your loadout in a very customized way. Notes on MR Diffs Where this system would likely suffer somewhat is when there is a large MR spread. If you have a well-equipped L3 matched with a badly equipped MR 14, the system would result in averaged enemies that the MR14 would struggle with and the L3 would shrug at. One possible solution to this would be to adapt the enemy gradient I mentioned to apply in this case where the majority of enemies are averaged around the MR14, a good chunk of them are averaged higher towards the L3 and a rare few are at the L3's level. If you have MR14, L3, L3, L3 in a squad, the averaging would leave the MR14 behind slightly, but if we weight mid tier towards the majority it should create as healthy a mix as possible. Thus, with the gradient, the lowest tier (and most populous) is targeted at the lowest member, the mid tier is targeted at the majority, and the high tier (rare) is targeted at the top player(s). While okay, the issue here is likely that the upper players would wipe the lower enemies away as they go - its not like they would leave the low enemies for the MR14. Alas, that's par for the course no matter how you stack it. This is where the SP toggle may help create a little, albeit imperfect, homogeneity. Punishments/Debuffs One of the main improvements I'd also suggest for more engaging play is better punishments. There is currently only one basic punishment: death. I'd implement a host of debuffs to accompany the minibosses in particular, but also in general gameplay. We do have some mostly invisible debuffs (elemental procs). The cold update is perhaps the most prominent of these, and the magnetic HUD effect, but I'm recommending a bunch of classic ones - they're obvious when you think about it. Inflicting warframes with things like heal-cut, armor-cut, shield-recharge-cut, shield-size-cut, overshield denial, shield-poison, energy-cut, damage-cut, crit chance-cut, crit dmg cut, ability power debuff, ability range debuff, ability efficiency debuff, arcane blocking, aura blocking, shard blocking, weapon jams, vacuum blocking, etc, etc, etc - these temporary debuffs would add a lot of variety to gameplay. WF is currently lacking detriments to it's overpowered heroes' rampage - it's just Not Death or Death. Adding debuffs would create a huge arena of both interest and danger during gameplay, especially if they were dynamically scaled. We have buffs; buffs on buffs on buffs. We could do with some debuffs. I believe these would shine the most in prolonged combat scenarios (minibosses) but specialized enemies can deliver them too, as can the environment. Another almost completely untapped area is enemy cc. There's a little of this - knockdowns and the guys that grab you (which eventually becomes a non-factor), but there could and should be so much more, most especially with important enemies like these suggested minibosses. Freezing a warframe solid - either for an instant or until a fellow tenno shoots you to get you free, throwing a warframe across the room, pinning them to a wall for a second or two, creating a field that gradually pushes everything away for a bit, tethering - all great gameplay variety especially if done in a way that doesn't seriously interrupt anything or make warframes helpless to incoming damage. It's touchy, and it can be done badly, yes, but it can be done great too, and having these as slaps on the wrist for carelessness is a great alternative to death, imo. Like, oh, you didn't get out of the way - well instead of insta-death how about this debuff or this cc? TLDR Scale basic enemies based on an analysis of the squad instead of using a gradual leveling system. Add mini-bosses tailored to the squad, designed to counter the warframes in meaningful ways. Add debuffs to gameplay.

Yeah it's way too crowded and way too hard to track icons, the HUD notifications definitely need some streamlining.

It was an entirely new lobby system, where people could spontaneously form groups in relays and depart from them, and be synced to another group in another mission - basically two squads in different missions interacting with each other. Pretty sick actually, but definitely a technical nightmare. The two squads did interact, but you couldn't fail because of the other squad - DE realized very quickly that making them too interdependent was killing everything, so they dialed that way back.

While I agree that melee may be slightly underperforming compared to primaries and secondaries, I don't think galvanized mods are necessary. Boosting condition overload back up just a tiny amount (like even 5% or 10%) would probably be enough to elevate them into good contention, they nerfed it so incredibly hard and never adjusted it. I also agree with some of the above about problems with keeping melee alive via combo vs just shooting guns. I also really dislike the melee build variety. If they came up with better melee mods that made you choose that would be nice. Every single melee I own is Viral CO Gladiatior Bloodrush. That's lame. So I'm not against new melee mods, but I don't think we need more power necessarily, just more variety. I wouldn't be against arcanes either, for some of the reasons already mentioned. My other major current complaints with melee are actually incarnon related. While incarnon primaries and secondaries go into god mode and feel fun and powerful, melee incarnons DO NOTHING. Yes, I know they do 'things', but they don't transform and become super powered, and this is leaving them very far behind. You can't go into incarnon mode and wipe out everyone around you like you can with guns. This results in melee feeling like it got kicked into a closet.

Well, yes and no. If I'm playing heavily, yes. If I'm just checking in like usual, no. If it was every 5 invigorations to get to a frame-free invigoration, I'd probably do it quite a bit more, but I can't be bothered to do 10 for it, mostly because I hate "wasting" it by putting it on a frame and then never using it during that week. My main use for invigorations is to patch holes, very similar to archon shards. I find myself using both not so much to overpower already powerful frames - although I do do that sometimes for sure - but mostly to make certain frames suck less. Certain invigorations are worth a lot to me, others are simply not worth the resources to spend on them. Some open up very intriguing possibilities, and some that I think are going to be trash actually surprise me once I have them. Weapon buffs are nice ofc, but I feel like invigorating weapons is probably not soemthing we need - I hardly ever pick an invigoration based on a weapon bonus anymore - and this is probably true 10x with the rise of incarnons fixing old weapons. I've had some great times with invigorations, I really have. Some of the most fun weeks were where I had an interesting invigoration and rebuilt the frame's whole loadout just to work with it and felt like a sneaky genius the whole week, and then have the week end and be really sad and having to revert everything. DE has an (understandable) phobia of providing any more range mods, but +100% ability range pops up sometimes - my god does that really help a lot of frames. +1000 armor & +1000 hp pop up sometimes too, and man! so many frames could wish that was permanent. The +75% efficiency is some of the craziest fun I've had - really opens up a lot of mod space. Honestly - that's probably it right there - it's more that they free up my builds and let me experiment with things I can never otherwise afford to; that's the real draw for me. So many of my builds are locked in stone, and an invigoration can suddenly give me one or two mod slots to play with for a week, which is often enough to re-think the entire thing. It's almost like receiving a free mod slot for a week. I think they have potential. That potential isn't being fully realized I don't think, but maybe what they're trying to accomplish can also be done other ways. I don't hate them, I kinda like them, but only when I'm powering WF content non-stop do I feel like investing and experimenting with them.

Honestly, just removing dumb cheese would dramatically ramp up a lot of warframe difficulty. Take away, limit, or put a hard check on invisibility - then see how many people level cap. Take away, limit, or put a hard check on shield gate abuse, rolling guard, revenant and the like - then see how many people level cap. Take away, limit, or put a check on absurd cc abilities - then see how many people level cap. Do something smart about damage scaling - then see how many people level cap. These unchecked cheeses are bad design and make enemies that would otherwise be potent trivial. The only fun I actually have in warframe these days is solo melee armor tanking SP because it feels real, is not busted, and is really hard to scale upward so you hit the true limits of your kit without having to level cap or anything, and when you are in that zone it feels pretty amazing. Disruption is also pretty fun because it makes you think about how to build and is very active without being non-stop (like a lot of newer game modes). Sitting in a hallway invisible nuking everything that comes through does not feel amazing. It's boring, sorry. I'm just not built to enjoy that, it feels lame. I suppose the counter argument to this would be: why not just leave these exploits all in, and let the cheesers cheese and the warriors war? Who does it harm? And that would be great, except that you need content, and content can only cater to one of those things. When it comes to content, warriors lose, cheesers win. And that's WF.

Ah sounds like she just moved on yeah :/

Ah yeah or just ask around - someone might tell you the code, xD I went ahead and tried "SummerYuko" and "hunhow" - those didn't work - not sure if the redeem section supports chinese characters. ALSO - are they on the asia server? That could make a difference, i'm not sure if asia is on a totally separate instance or not, or if they have a different store network.

Unfortunately, the creator can easily claim that they tried to contact you and that you never responded. From my experience in support, you won't ever get to anyone higher up who has the power to do anything. At this point, you can either go on a crusade or cover it in roses. The only way to swing the tide in your favor that I can see is to get a good chunk of others who have also been actively denied - subscribers, as I assume you are, the creator can deny all lottery winner claims - and pester either the creator or DE or both until somebody finally listens, as a group if possible. If there's 10 or 20 of you who have all 'never responded' that's pretty damning evidence against the creator. Getting them to all commit to a petition will carry weight, you can wave that around in DE's reddit. If you can find the original image (I see an artist signature in it, I'm guessing the creator didn't make it themselves?). If they didn't make it and you can find out who did via image search, that's a little extra ammunition although it's a bit of a ... nasty tactic, and you will certainly never get the glyph that way lol, but it's some good overkill vengeance. If they contact you via email, make you check your spam folder and all that. If you haven't already, I'd still recommend reaching out to the creator first if you can, although 3 weeks is a long time. It's good to check everything twice and do everything in your power before taking it to any extremes. If the creator is on WF and has a clan, reaching out that way is probably a fantastic idea, especially if the clan has some other senior leadership you can appeal to. Likewise, if the clan has a discord, that can be a very fast way to get direct attention. Personally, all that's too much work and I'd put it in the grave instead, say a prayer, make the sign of the cross, and walk away. Some battles just aren't worth fighting, but I understand if it's important to you and you want to chase it.

I would try to reach out to the creator first, they may have made a mistake or dropped the ball. If they don't respond, try to ask around and see if anyone else experienced the same thing. If you get a few others in the same boat, you can try to take it up with DE in the form of a little mini-petition > there might not be any contract, but ultimate control of glyphs in the game rests with DE I'm pretty sure, so they may either gift it to you or take it up with the creator.

The main reason the player base dislikes conclave is because they are denied all their mods and abilities. Another important reason is the mobility makes it very hard to hit anything. Another reason is that the few people who do play conclave regularly are skilled in the art, and there's a skill gap, a knowledge gap, and a bit of an elitism. Another reason is that the conclave-only mods available can't be used in regular play. Another reason is that there is only 1 reward that's exclusive and *cool* (celestia syadana). Another reason is that players are pretty spoiled from other very polished PvP games and have high expectations and feel let down at the simple nature of the matches. While your suggestions are all actually very good - especially the visibility, they don't fix any of these core problems, and so would not likely attract much interest. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big proponent of PvP in WF, I just happen to agree with all of those reasons.