The Steel Path: Feedback Megathread!

[(XBOX)Church367A]

I like the added difficulty and increase in enemy count, but the rewards for it are abysmal to say the absolute least and that absolutely destroys my motivation to partake in that game mode.  I understand people are afraid that the difficulty could be under threat of a nerf with increased rewards, but there is no guarantee of that coming to fruition.  In the end it is being fearful of a "what if" albeit for good reason, it is still just a "what if".

 

By in large this difficulty modifier also feels overdue and to an extent a jump that I feel like there could and maybe should have been either a second difficulty tier in the middle, or maybe even higher, possibly both.  Granted this is something that I imagine could be expanded upon and further refined and are also just my initial impressions on a handful of missions that I have ran solo with a variety of frames, weapons, and some changes on the builds I run.  One of my absolute favorite things so far is that crowd control is once again something that is viewed more positively.

 

As for the rewards, as mentioned earlier, I feel are absolutely horrendous.  I don't see why Relics earned cannot already be radiant or at the very least flawless with an option to upgrade to radiant at a discounted cost.  I would like to see steel essence increase in drop rate and added rewards from Teshin such as already made Umbra and regular forma.  Cost is a big issue when it comes to what is available as well.  How are you expecting people to play such content to earn relic packs and kuva when it can be done faster and easier by other means?!  The reward to hours of grind/play and difficulty is broken to its very core in this case.  It is completely narrow-minded and shortsighted to not have worthwhile rewards at a respectable rate for such a game-mode and it has had me constantly questioning why I should play such content when their is no worthwhile end rewards to seek or be gained for it.  

 

Played a couple more missions and proceeded to stop after that, because once again, no rewards or items worth pursuing.

[(PSN)RuTweN]

After clearing 2-3 planets i got to the conclussion that steel path is an overglorfied mode with no rewards and is was just the hype that was making this game mode look cool. The rewards are abysmall to say the least, the fun starts to wear off when you realize that you cleaned a planet an the only thing you get is 2 steel essence and you can't even use it for enything remotly usefull.The loot increase is a joke... Like anyone who unlocked this mode will ever think to use it to farm rubedo and 100 serations/node, the rewards for each planet are the same and i don't get why, by the time you unlock this mode each player will have enough resources to last for 3-4 updates.

You want a challenge but the mode revolves around finding a meta to farm eximus units in defense missions,why even bother releasing more warframes and have warframe diversity when you have game modes that reward the same comp for years. 

The enemies are the same damage  sponges that were before the warframe revisit so yeah there os the challenge. 

This mode is like arbitration only 10 time more unrewarding and boring, at least arbitrations had drones that were spicing things up...Steel path... Has numbers

[(PSN)palebluelight]

Matchmaking is horrible.the game doesn’t even try to put me in an open group just starts countdown as if I’m in solo mode. Freakin sucks

[(XBOX)Foighne]

I believe the prices for Steel Path rewards need to be reduced significantly considering how rare Steel Essence is, or the drop rate needs to be massively increased. 15 SE for 10k Kuva is pretty ridiculous, based on my luck so far I could probably farm 20k Kuva before acquiring even 5 Steel essence. The Tenno outfit is also pretty expensive (85 SE for the full set) and considering you only get 2 for completing an entire planet you likely won’t have enough to purchase the whole set even after completing the entire star chart. Your options for acquiring Steel Essence effectively boils down to endurance survival and eidolon farming, and neither of those are very fun or interesting.

[(XBOX)HollowCube987]

On 2020-07-25 at 4:13 AM, limernest said:

Finished all nodes on SP. Can't say I really enjoyed it but here are my main feedback points:

1. Thanks to the ridiculous tankiness increase for all enemies, melee weapons are pretty much the only weapons that can deal any significant damage to SP enemies in a reasonable time. Primaries and secondaries might as well not exist, or simply be there for status application so that your CO modded melee can hit harder. The only time I felt a primary was actually useful was when I was killing Vay Hek, but even then I was using the Kuva Ogris for sheer splash damage. (because trying to shoot a flying bullet sponge that scoots around like mad with tiny, sporadically exposed weakpoints with a sniper is just annoying)

2. Against Corpus, toxin is king, while viral corrosive and slash take care of the rest of the factions fine. The other damage types might as well not exist.

3. Juno Corpus need a serious nerf. In general they have way too much health, shields and damage compared to other corpus factions. Compared to normal Elite Crewmen, Juno Elite Crewmen have way more health and shields, and carry freaking Supras loaded with explosive ammo. You know, the weapon that was previously wielded by the Tech, a rare heavy Corpus unit. Juno Elite Crewmen also spawn in swarms, so most missions involve you fending off a barrage of missiles from all directions. Ironically, the Juno Tech is much less of a threat than before since he carries the Exergis, which barely tickles at range.

4. The importance of cheese is really shown here. Missions that don't involve killing can be cheesed with invisibility or CC. See spy, capture, sabotage etc. On MD and interception having CC is practically required given the swarms of enemies that spawn. Operator mode also trivializes most content giving heals and infinite revives as needed. I'm seeing a lot of Khoras and Octavias suddenly. No surprise why.

7. The Ropalolyst and Zealoid Prelate were absolutely terrible to fight. Ropa shield phase takes way too long and the level 140 sentients that spawn might as well be invincible.

8. SP is unrewarding. Regular resources apart from Kuva are useless for vets who have stockpiles. Steel Essence drop rate is terribly low and locked behind RNG of Eximus spawns. The only way to farm Steel Essence reliably is to do survivals that are at least an hour long, since that's when eximus spawns are maxed. SP was meant to be a "time skip" of sorts so what gives?

Playing SP has made me realise how much more fun and rewarding regular WF is. I don't know who this mode is for. Are there really people out there who want to put in more time and effort killing tankier versions of regular enemies for barely any more rewards? If so, more power to you then.

YES.

I agree with you 110%.

It's a melee-fest of Viral+Heat, with more cheese than a Walmart dairt isle. And when I'm not getting Post Traumatic Supra Disorder from Elite Juno units, I'm taking 3 years to kill a Demolist and being rewarded a 2,500 credit cache for doing so. So far, the Steel Path heavily pushes you into the territory of "Use this strategy, gear, or element or you're doing it wrong," but the solution shouldn't just be to shoot the current meta with NERF darts until it doesn't get back up.

[TheDecembrist]

Honestly, it would be a far more enjoyable experience without the sortie modifiers... At least that way I'm not constantly forced to use cheese setups. And with those useless rewards? Hard pass.

I really hope these enemy buffs don't become the standard for "veteran content" in the future...

[(PSN)DidelphisV]

Aside from adding better rewards, I think integrating steel Path with other popular modes would help a lot. Steel Path Kuva, sortie, requiems, arbitration etc...Up the difficulty and up the rewards. If you want steel path to be relevant, it’s gotta actually be worth doing.

i will give kudos to letting us run solo and still get all the enemies you’d usually get in a full squad. Wouldn’t mind seeing that as an option in regular content as well 

[KIREEK]

I posted this on reddit, i'll just post here aswell so that devs can better access the idea

Quote

I would have prefered if they actually made it a reward mission wise, starting at 10 essence, for example for capture, exterminate, sabotage , 5 wave defense and so on, and then increase it slightly to conform to harder missions or missions that take longer, sabotage takes more than capture, make it 12, exterminate on pluto is more difficult than earth exterminate, make it 15. Going to do the emissary boss? make it 50.
So on and so forth, players can randomly join any node, knowing they get something and then it's more or less depending on mission duration and difficulty. Obviously this means that the cost for the armor or ephemera would need to go up aswell, but now it's pretty much impossible to implement something decent without backlash.

Right now you either farm long survivals and endless missions or you might aswell not play it, the star map is empty and is super concentrated on some darksector nodes, +200 new nodes and players play on 4 of them?

Yes, analizing each mission individually to grant a reward would take time, but atleast players would progress, you could do your favorite missions, even stacking with nightwave challenges and get some progression towards the ephemera and armor, even if the grind was big, players would get there eventually.

 

[Kontrollo]

On 2020-07-08 at 5:16 PM, [DE]Bear said:

This thread is for you to give your feedback about the Steel Path, so if you have thoughts that you wish to share, please do so here. If you see something you like, make sure to let us know! If you see something you don’t like, then please tell us why, and what you would like to see to make it better!

Like:

• Finally some enemies that aren't simply cardboard cutouts. I actually feel like it's worth looking at some loadouts again, something I haven't felt the need to in a long time in PvE.
• Also, you did a good job on setting expectations this time around, despite the ongoing arguments. I think you delivered on what you announced here.

Dislike:

• I've seen a few posts here and there about specific fights that are overly punishing, or problematic like when people mention they got a timeout while fighting. Can't really say more on those as I'm taking things slowly, just a reminder really.
• Archwing feels too easy compared to the other missions, but it also has its own problems, anyway. Just a sore spot in general.

[Hawkeye2404]

Make the Wild Kubrow Dens also scale with the Steel Path's extra stats and levels. What use is it to have scaling Wild Kubrows when you can just sneeze their dens to pieces before they even got a chance to spawn?

[XaoGarrent]

On 2020-07-08 at 5:00 PM, Xenophil said:

Remove armor scaling with levels

Flattening the armor out to a percentile value that only gets a few bumps at key points in the star chart, and reworking health values and possibly damage around this new standard is what the big armor rework should have been from the start.

We're already seeing the consequences of not going with the better option.

[marelooke]

Beats me why DE felt the need to beef up the enemies more, which is explicitly what many of us didn't want. If it's necessary to bump up enemy defences on top of their higher levels there's a more fundamental problem that needs solving.

Anyway, noped out of Steel Path real quick. Guess we're just never going to get our high level content that isn't tinkered with in some form.

New War better be really, really good because I just fired up Warframe, looked at the weekly NIghtwave chores and just closed it down again. Hell, I even managed to miss TennoCon, which is a first, and it barely bothers me.

[Hawkeye2404]

How about just increasing their stats and making them even spungier bullet spunges, you actually try to give the enemies new abilities and mechanics or introduce entirely new enemies that are actually interesting to fight? These new enemies would be largely exclusive to Steel Path, but perhaps have a small chance of appearing in normal runs if you have already unlocked and progressed a bit through Steel Path. Just increasing their stats is not the answer you're looking for.

[Genitive]

On 2020-07-25 at 10:13 AM, limernest said:

Playing SP has made me realise how much more fun and rewarding regular WF is.

The more I play the steel path the more I agree with this sentiment. At first it was fine, but deeper and deeper into it I found it less and less enjoyable. And I'm done with only 3 planets, kuva fortress, and most of Lua and derelict.

 

I tried fighting Lephantis today and I just can't believe how incredibly boring this is. Sure, I can stand there and chip away at its health, but I think I have better things to do than to deal with this tedium. Same goes for other enemies – juggernauts or sentients on Lua.

Steel path will require more effort put into balancing. Clearly, just upping enemy level and effective health doesn't cut it.

[(XBOX)HardDriveFull]

Need help i am stuck and don't have any nodes to go to.

I cant get to the right side of Earth, i can't get Plains of Eidelon unlocked or even click to play it.

Am i missing something somewhere?

Venus and Mercury are fully unlocked.

[Flying_Scorpion]

I think you need to do a Cetus bounty on steel path difficulty. 

[Firetruck210]

The gameplay I'm not finding too bad with one exception, defense objectives do not hold up well. It feels like limbo is the only viable choice for anything defense related.

The rewards: I feel like mission rewards need to be boosted a bit. Although the 2x resource drop chance and mod drop chance boosters are well done, the rewards for actually competing a mission don't make it feel worth my while. (Oh boy, 10x vapor spectres, so worth...) I think the best example of this are the tier 6 cetus bounties which (last i played) had the exact same rewards as the tier 5. A cool alternative i think, would be if the tier 6 reads were pulled from a pool of all the existing gold drops, or if the rewards were somehow enhanced (4 relics instead of one, 5 cetus wisps, or greater focus lenses rather than regular ones idk)

Overall though, I'm enjoying steel path, i just wish i had more of a reason to.

[Flying_Scorpion]

Finally finished everything in the Steel Path

 

What I liked:

• Tankier enemies. This was nice. There are those of us in the community that appreciate a slower pace to the game once in awhile.
• Higher level enemies = higher damage from the enemies. This just helps to increase the difficulty. The game is too easy a lot of the time, and it become tedious and boring to play. The extra damage from the higher level enemies helped to keep me on my toes at certain points. A good action movie isn't one where the protagonists effortlessly snaps his/her fingers and defeats every obstacle that comes their way. It's when there's a chance for failure to occur. Without any risk or experience of failure, winning becomes meaningless.
• The rewards were purely cosmetic, and do not contribute to powercreep. The prices seem fair. The cosmetic items are not necessary and so there's no reason to lower the prices. If people don't want to pay the price, they can skip over them. They might grumble, but of course it's going to be difficult for some to handle that they can't have everything. Some things should be rare. If everyone could get it easily, then it would lose it's value and no longer be special.
• I can taxi anyone to anywhere in the Steel Path. This is nice because my gf doesn't play as much as I do, but when she does, she's not locked behind a huge grind (like the Protea quest 😞). Together we can just jump straight to any node on the steel path long as I'm initiating the mission.
• Riven slivers are a good "evergreen" reward tied to the Steel Path.

 

Pain points:

• Some enemies scale to become too tanky for my liking. Lephantis, emissary, and treasurers seemed too tanky. I couldn't kill a single treasurer.
• Now that I have the cosmetic items, there's not much in the Steel Essence store that I want to buy except maybe Kuva. I think this could be easily alleviated by putting more stuff into the steel essence shop. Everybody want something different from the shop. Specifically I would like to be able to purchase anything that helps with endo. Or forma blueprints. Normally I get my forma blueprints by opening relics, but that's extremely boring to me because I've opened hundreds, if not thousands of void relics over the years and it's repetitive and not challenging to me - but it's the most time efficient way to get forma blueprints so I do it anyway.
• I want more challenge. This was a step in a good direction and I'm very thankful and appreciate that DE has done something to cater to my part of the audience. There's some really cool ideas that people have suggested to make things more challenging in more interesting ways. Again though, thank you for what you've done so far. This is appreciated, please do more of this.

 

Suggestion on rewards:

• Reward difficulty with time efficiency. You guys did this with Operation: Scarlet Spear and that's the right idea. You also do it with Disruption game mode in a very good way (by allowing us to activate multiple conduits at the same time and be rewarded with faster round times).

 

 

[(XBOX)EPOSSTYLE]

Something else that I don't like is shooting enemies and not getting the proper reaction like pushing a whole clip into the side of they're head and they're still working the console...feather duster? "I just wanna go tell mom they're not dying right" pew pew.

[thelasttand]

100+ lvl ennemies at the start of the missions with core warframe mission is exactly what we asked for years. I think it is good and finally force you to look at your gear before running missions. 

 

The main issue is rewards. Rewards sucks and are too few. Also the resource drop rate should go above +100% and scale exponantially with time. Affinity should also be higher. Killing high lvl enemies should reward us with more xp right?

 

Also, instead of (or in addition of) giving farmable resources for rewards, give unique rewards ( skin, wargame, weapon) upon reaching specific areas so that players are pushed to complete the star chart to get everything (better sense of progression) instead of farming the same mission over and over :)

 

take mmorpg for example. Is it more fun to farm mobs until you get max level or is it more fun to explore the map while doing the events on the way to get max level?

same take here.

 

one big downside if the steel path tho is the bosses. They just became bullet sponge and that's really not fun at all.

[NotVayHek]

1) Steel Essence should replace the rare resource on every planet in Steel Path, so that players can acquire it from bosses, containers and extractors.

2) Every enemy in Steel Path that can be an eximus, should be; as it stands now, the first hour of every mission is wasted time.

3) Teshin should sell a lot more evergreen rewards, to try and keep the mode alive for longer than a week.

4) Steel Essence should come primarily from finishing missions and reward intervals, so as to try and stop players from sitting in loot caves.

[Hawkeye2404]

When are you guys going to fix Lua Spy (at Pavlov)?

[Nasair]

Please reduce the costs of Steel Essence in the store or increase the drop rate.
The only other thing that I don't like about this mode is it feels like bullet sponge mode and forces me to only use melee 😞

[NeroEzioDelacroix]

Need more consistent steel essence and riven sliver drops!!!

[NeroEzioDelacroix]

Also please make enemies less tanky to give guns a fighting chance! Some enemies are just too tanky, like the emmisairy assassin.

Putting forma bp into the exchange shop might be a good idea, but it risks dialuting relic cracking player base. I think no one is doing RJ for forma BP either.

removing the additional health/shield/armor multiplier or some of them might be a great idea, bosses are way to tanky. If I want to shoot bullet sponges, I'd stay in Destiny 2 or The Division.