Steel Path really isn't what was promised

[anarchy753]

The initial promise was that it would be "a way to face high level content without having to wait an hour or more in survival to get there."

So why is it that when we go into, say, Lua survival, the entire first five minutes is still just wave after wave of default moas? Most of the reason I've gone into long survival is for the ability to encounter rarer enemies, and rarer eximus, msotly for the sake of the codex. Instead we still have to sit in a survival mission for just as long for eximus to even begin showing up, and those same rare enemies don't spawn until 30-60 minutes anyway, just like before.

Really wish we'd have got to skip that hour of grind for scans of enemies, but instead we just got the exact same missions with a generic buff put on them.

On top of that, it was definitely never promised, but I really wish they'd have taken the chance to make hard to spawn enemies actually exist in the troops. The Bailiff remains a single digit spawn on 2 Kuva Fortress missions. The Jackal eximus is still basically an urban legend. What's the point in these enemies being basically impossible to encounter except to frustrate and annoy people who want a complete codex?

[Horonelius]

For whatever reason, the enemies that spawn are the same, just with 100 additional levels, and 250% extra health armor and shields. They even give the same piss-poor amount of affinity, and the number you have to kill for missions seems to be the same as vanilla.

I would imagine they will work on special spawn logic eventually, for now they probably just wanted to try out and get the base idea ingame.

[trst]

But "high level content" =/= more rare or higher variety of enemies. Chances are the way it scales spawns is exactly the same and, as advertised, only the levels and stats are changed.

And since the mode literally gives us higher level enemies it's exactly what was promised.

[anarchy753]

6 minutes ago, trst said:

But "high level content" =/= more rare or higher variety of enemies. Chances are the way it scales spawns is exactly the same and, as advertised, only the levels and stats are changed.

And since the mode literally gives us higher level enemies it's exactly what was promised.

Except that they also framed it as a mode for people to test so they wouldn't test new things on the simulacrum, which is redundant when the sorts of enemies like bombards and heavy gunners that people like as standards for testing simply don't show up in reasonable numbers without long runs anyway.

And even then, for "high level content" the definition is sketchy at best. My Hildryn can erase a room of 50 moas over level 125 with just her second ability, but compare that to a frontier Grineer mission and the durability is on a whole other level. This was severely rushed and not well balanced at all for actually difficult content.

[AreeSoothsayer]

It's just too easy.

[(PSN)Deeceem]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb anarchy753:

Except that they also framed it as a mode for people to test so they wouldn't test new things on the simulacrum, which is redundant when the sorts of enemies like bombards and heavy gunners that people like as standards for testing simply don't show up in reasonable numbers without long runs anyway.

And even then, for "high level content" the definition is sketchy at best. My Hildryn can erase a room of 50 moas over level 125 with just her second ability, but compare that to a frontier Grineer mission and the durability is on a whole other level. This was severely rushed and not well balanced at all for actually difficult content.

Let's be real. If you fully test out single builds you'd still do that in the Simulacrum most likely anyways since you can switch mods and test different approaches and enemies back to back without having to finish a mission and going through additional UIs and loading screens. It's pretty much only for youtubers so they don't have to wait 60 minutes for background videos for the image of the build they put together by still using the Simulacrum.

A case where it might be more useful to the general player is for testing and refining certain synergistic or more thought out loadouts to see how things flow in higher level regular gameplay.

[Horonelius]

What people were expecting was the hardmode to basically start a mission at the 60 minute mark or so, going by survival standards, complete with enemy levels and enemy spawns. As it stands, we just got vanilla level enemies with additional levels and health, and more of them.

[Voltage]

Hopefully they repair this. I honestly didn't notice but solid points.

[Lakais]

Well, I'd argue it's still a solid upgrade over spending an hour to get to those levels in the first place. It might be just my point of view, but it's a different "build testing" then in the Simulacrum in that you don't control where and what enemies you face. Sure, you have to spend a few minutes to get the rarer enemies, but that also shows the reality of what enemy population makeup in missions is. It's not 30 bombards grouped together in a square. You got all kinds of tombstones running at you and rarely in a tight group.

Honestly, verbatum we got what was advertised. Room for improvement, yes, but you must also consider the nature of the beast in question. 

[Thicondrius]

11 hours ago, AreeSoothsayer said:

It's just too easy.

and with S#&$ty reward

[Hypernaut1]

It's probably not what you heard in your head, but it is exactly what was promised. 

[wargthewarg]

37 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

It's probably not what you heard in your head, but it is exactly what was promised. 

And DE lowered the hurdle all the way down to the ground to make sure they could jump over it and claim they delivered what was promised.

DE only posted that post because they knew beforehand that a lot of players would feel disappointed. And no surprise, it feels like a minimal effort update because it probably is one.

[0_The_F00l]

Actually a fair point , The spawn type is the same , only higher level.

But i think its slightly different in kuva fortress? i think i got my first few scans of the kuva kavat in one of the disruptions also some shield lancers i didnt know existed (i dont play extended runs).

Also Lua is a bad example , its spawns are bugged even in regular starchart.

Still if we get to splitting hairs it is still in line to what was to be delivered in letter if not in full spirit (always scope for improvement and there may be more changes).

[60framespersecond]

16 hours ago, Horonelius said:

What people were expecting was the hardmode to basically start a mission at the 60 minute mark or so, going by survival standards, complete with enemy levels and enemy spawns. As it stands, we just got vanilla level enemies with additional levels and health, and more of them.

Exactly this. And strangely enough, the current implementation is the reason that Steel Essence is so annoying to come by. Eximus spawns are "time gated" in the same way as before, only starting to ramp up significantly around 50 minutes or so.

[trst]

6 hours ago, wargthewarg said:

And DE lowered the hurdle all the way down to the ground to make sure they could jump over it and claim they delivered what was promised.

DE only posted that post because they knew beforehand that a lot of players would feel disappointed. And no surprise, it feels like a minimal effort update because it probably is one.

Of course a lot of players would be disappointed Hek it should have been expected for a majority of players to be disappointed. The mode is specifically for a minority portion of the community that has been asking for higher levels for years now. If they didn't make their post saying exactly what it is and isn't then in addition to everything the forums have already been complaining and arguing about we would also be having arguments over its purpose and dismissing arguments relating to other forms of difficulty.

As it stands it's still a delivery of a promise made out of a suggestion some players have been making for literally years now. Even if it was minimal effort to make it's still what players wanted.

[taiiat]

you're absolutely right. you still have to spend upwards of an Hour in a Mission for the game to finally shift up into high gear, all the same as before.
why Missions aren't all starting at high gear from the start of the Mission, beats me. but that would be more effective at creating a "Tier 2" of the Solar Map, moreso than just increasing Enemy Levels.

 

infact i would strongly suggest removing the ??? randomly applied EHP Multipliers that were applied on top of Level Scaling, but having all of the Missions start out in that 'high gear' state so that Missions are starting at the point where the game offers the most out of Enemies that it is able to offer.
i would even say consider changing the Enemy Spec for all Missions in Steel Path to match the Alert Spec - for those that don't remember or aren't aware, Alerts, Invasions, and other special types of Missions offer(ed) a different Enemy Spec from normal Missions, which would Spawn more Specials/Heavies, more Eximus, more aggressive Spawns overall, Et Cetera. i.e. increased amounts of the more interesting/complex Enemies, and less of the generic ones.

pairing the two would have Steel Path really cranking things up into high gear. maximum Eximus Rate and maximum Spawn aggressiveness, plus adjustments to push the types of Enemies you face to be ones that are more relevant to be more prevalent than usual.

that would be like, halfway to where i've even been desiring the game to go, of having the majority of the Enemies be Specials/Heavies, with some Trash Units here and there, rather than almost all Trash Units and a few Specials/Heavies.

[dwqrf]

il y a 3 minutes, taiiat a dit :

i would even say consider changing the Enemy Spec for all Missions in Steel Path to match the Alert Spec

I wish Rare and Reinforced Containers would have a improved spawn chance in Hard Mode too...

[DatDarkOne]

7 minutes ago, taiiat said:

i would even say consider changing the Enemy Spec for all Missions in Steel Path to match the Alert Spec - for those that don't remember or aren't aware, Alerts, Invasions, and other special types of Missions offer(ed) a different Enemy Spec from normal Missions, which would Spawn more Specials/Heavies, more Eximus, more aggressive Spawns overall, Et Cetera. i.e. increased amounts of the more interesting/complex Enemies, and less of the generic ones.

Do you also remember how much complaining there was on the forums about how "difficult" those modes were?

I personally really enjoyed those Alerts.  But all the forum complaints caused DE to not do them anymore.  

edit:  My personal favorite was the "Bow Only" mission full of nothing but Nullifiers. 😄  great times.

[VanFanel1980mx]

On 2020-07-11 at 9:10 PM, anarchy753 said:

The initial promise was that it would be "a way to face high level content without having to wait an hour or more in survival to get there."

So why is it that when we go into, say, Lua survival, the entire first five minutes is still just wave after wave of default moas? Most of the reason I've gone into long survival is for the ability to encounter rarer enemies, and rarer eximus, msotly for the sake of the codex. Instead we still have to sit in a survival mission for just as long for eximus to even begin showing up, and those same rare enemies don't spawn until 30-60 minutes anyway, just like before.

Really wish we'd have got to skip that hour of grind for scans of enemies, but instead we just got the exact same missions with a generic buff put on them.

On top of that, it was definitely never promised, but I really wish they'd have taken the chance to make hard to spawn enemies actually exist in the troops. The Bailiff remains a single digit spawn on 2 Kuva Fortress missions. The Jackal eximus is still basically an urban legend. What's the point in these enemies being basically impossible to encounter except to frustrate and annoy people who want a complete codex?

They just want you to stop using the Simulacrum.

[taiiat]

18 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

Do you also remember how much complaining there was on the forums about how "difficult" those modes were?

wait hold up, i think you're thinking of Tactical Alerts, i'm talking about just Alerts Alerts.

Tac Alerts were neat too, but in the first year when they were really good they were all introducing new things, that's a lot more complicated than i'm trying to ask for, in that Post i'm only asking for taking what we already have, and adjusting some Sliders, hehe.

 

13 minutes ago, VanFanel1980mx said:

They just want you to stop using the Simulacrum.

even though they botched that up by applying some random EHP Multiplier to all Enemies in Steel Path, making it useless for gauge testing anything.

[Alexcavalera]

22 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

It's probably not what you heard in your head, but it is exactly what was promised. 

EXACTLY!!!
Finally some common sense!!
Thank you very much Sir!!!

[SneakyErvin]

On 2020-07-12 at 4:41 PM, Hypernaut1 said:

It's probably not what you heard in your head, but it is exactly what was promised. 

How is it exactly what they've promised when people have thrown around the following?

1. It is an extended Sim, so people can run live missions to test their potential.

2. It is a short cut for higher endless.

Neither of those are true since they added completely seperate scaling for Steel Path aswell as not having adjustable level bands for testing. Dont forget it is tied to mastery, has scaling rewards that require you to run for 1h minumum before getting anything out of it more or less. So where exactly is the "exactly" you claim?

[White_Matter]

Steel path is pretty new. I think they can(100% should) tinker it further down the line. 

It needs some extra flavors, mini bosses(just like how VOR intervenes in tier 4 void) and definitely more rewards. 

Currently, most people play it to deal with boredom, but it should give players the incentive to play other than being another generic achievement under their belt.

[Galuf]

It is a big rough on the edges as it is a simple modifier to spawning and stats but homogenous. As a trade off you get more ressources, mods, some riven shards(wich are relatively time consuming if you do that each week) and the steel essences that can be grinded pretty well if you handle standing in the same mission for hours and hours(wich I don't dig).

The main issue is that the stats gain are homogenous, it doesn't work with the current game state, factions are not balanced. It felt pretty bad overall. And yes it is easy, but Warframe is a broken game by concept, I'm still surprised that not many things got openly that busted in this content, felt even a bit disapointed about guns in general, they seem the most balanced actually ^^.

[(XBOX)Skippy575]

11 hours ago, taiiat said:

infact i would strongly suggest removing the ??? randomly applied EHP Multipliers that were applied on top of Level Scaling, but having all of the Missions start out in that 'high gear' state so that Missions are starting at the point where the game offers the most out of Enemies that it is able to offer.
i would even say consider changing the Enemy Spec for all Missions in Steel Path to match the Alert Spec - for those that don't remember or aren't aware, Alerts, Invasions, and other special types of Missions offer(ed) a different Enemy Spec from normal Missions, which would Spawn more Specials/Heavies, more Eximus, more aggressive Spawns overall, Et Cetera. i.e. increased amounts of the more interesting/complex Enemies, and less of the generic ones.

pairing the two would have Steel Path really cranking things up into high gear. maximum Eximus Rate and maximum Spawn aggressiveness, plus adjustments to push the types of Enemies you face to be ones that are more relevant to be more prevalent than usual.

that would be like, halfway to where i've even been desiring the game to go, of having the majority of the Enemies be Specials/Heavies, with some Trash Units here and there, rather than almost all Trash Units and a few Specials/Heavies.

This sounds much more enjoyable to play. I'd be all for this version, because right now I don't think I'm going to attempt Steel Path when it comes to console.