Steel Path..."It's dead, Jim."

[Circle_of_Psi]

2 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

Honestly, there's a good chance they just shipped it and Dog Days to tide the playerbase over until Tennocon

Don't do they just do this for all content?

[SneakyErvin]

1 hour ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

Question, off the top of your head, when was the last time you ran Calypso on the regular starchart without a secondary reason like invasions, nightmares, Simaris, or the like? 

Does the same apply to the majority of the nodes on the starchart? 

Steel Path was made in order to change that though. So just because nodes are abandoned on the regular chart, it doesnt mean it is a viable excuse as to why they are abandoned on the Steel Path aswell. Calypso on the normal star chart will see more activity than the Steel Path version in the end, since it can be accessed for sorties, nightmares, siphons, floods, liches and so on.

The new chart completely failed to revitalize the less used nodes and planets. Not even the endless nodes on the lower planets are worth running due to the reduced occurance of eximus units if you want essence. The Exception being Gabii on Ceres due to the naturally higher resource bonus.

[Magus_Tahir]

Mmm prepare ourselves all and take notes. When this hits the consoles these forums are gonna be flooded once more with those who only ever come here to voice their disgust. And all of these arguments will happen again. At least the half life will be much less than the current round as it always is for consoles.

 

[Hypernaut1]

It's new game+. Why are people suddenly expecting the world? It's a new game+. It's not a new concept. Expecting it to be more than that is a personal problem. 

I think some people are just addicted to being disappointed. Sure I would've liked something more complex, but I'm not going to lose my mind that WFs new game+ isnt breaking new ground in the genre. 

I think a new player will complete the star chart and see steel path as an option to rerun the same starchart with all of their earned gear. It just makes sense. It'll be treated like any other game that offers the option. You run it again or you don't. It's not some pressing issue. 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

15 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

Steel Path was made in order to change that though.

I want you to think about that part some more. Because from the face of it, Steel path won't change anything about people not hanging around in nodes they don't feel the need to play at all. 

It just gave the overly vocal "we want a challenge, at least make the enemies tougher" crew something. And honestly it looks like that's all it was meant to do. 

[Salenstormwing]

My problem is there's not a lot of folks doing specific convent after X amount of time, in public.

I like Public groups. But if you try to get a Public group for a Lich node, you MIGHT get someone to hop in, if you're lucky, because they also have a lich, and also have that note infested. Otherwise your chance of actually having players playing that content is near nil on Public matches.

It's the same with the Steel Path. First you have to unlock the mode, so you're already dropping off a decent portion of the playerbase, and then you have to have luck that someone is also running through the same node as you, and like with other content, a lot of folks power farmed early on, and so aren't going to go back to do stuff that folks who either didn't power play through or just recently unlocked it. So your normal pick up group is even less now because those who want to do Hydron on Sedna Steel path are already there and don't have to worry about the rest of us who are like... "Hi, uh, Mercury is pretty sparce for pub groups, what the hay."

It's Liches 2.0, death of public groups electric boogaloo. Hope you know how to play solo, because that's what you're playing effectively.

Heck, even Railjack was like that before DE put in that "Join Any Railjack mission in progress on X planet".

And don't even get me started on the crap drop rates for EVERYTHING worth farming in Steel Path. I'd rather go do Kuva Survival missions or Kuva Relics where at least I might actually see something useful once every 5 minutes. It's just not worth it when half the folks aren't playing the content of Steel path where you might be stuck, and the rewards just feel like meh, and the power players are the only ones who have all the stuff already and it's dead for them except for a few farming nodes.

 

You want to know how to fix this? Just let me go to any node and play Steel Path. Suddenly, no one is forced to try and solo play through content nodes they don't want to deal with, or introduce a "Play with a group already in progress" for planets like in Railjack.At least then I might get to play with some folks doing steel path on earth, mercury, or venus. Hell, do that for Kuva Liches too. Let me work with folks to help them by just randomly letting me join in even on nodes that my lich doesn't have control of. Instead of tearing the player base thin across a lot of content, bring them together.

[SneakyErvin]

10 minutes ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

I want you to think about that part some more. Because from the face of it, Steel path won't change anything about people not hanging around in nodes they don't feel the need to play at all. 

It just gave the overly vocal "we want a challenge, at least make the enemies tougher" crew something. And honestly it looks like that's all it was meant to do. 

Hence why the mode failed to achieve what it set out to do. Not positively that it wanted to make specifically Calypso (or other one-off missions) replayable over and over, but it wanted the lower planets to be used more. If Steel Path would have been done right they would have set all planets to the exact same level and not +100. Then all dark sector endless missions would get the exact same % bonuses, with the difference being the bonus affinity based on item used to kill things. That would have resulted in earth being as lucrative as sedna to play for endless.

The increased "difficulty" was just part of it. People have been asking for an elite star chart for a long time, with proper rewards and so on to go with it in order to give people a reason to run old nodes more than just once. DE even brought this up in one of the devstreams regarding "hard mode", how it would be a great way to revisit and make use of the otherwise less visited nodes on the star chart.

[Loza03]

33 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Don't do they just do this for all content?

On the grand scale, I suppose yes, each content is partially released to occupy the playerbase until the next content drop. In the same way one meal is only eaten to get the body to the next one. Nevertheless, some meals are meant to be more filling and tasty than others. Same thing for updates. Steel Path was a small, low-stakes update that, on this over-extended meal metaphor, is nothing more than a light snack before the show, as it were.

[Zahnny]

3 hours ago, Alpha_Tango said:

The thing is you are not "forced" to do any of it all.

In the same way you are not forced to reply to this thread.

In the same way you are not forced to play an event.

In the same way you are not forced to play Warframe

I really hate this "lmao just don't touch it" mentality.

[Cubewano]

3 minutes ago, Zahnny said:

In the same way you are not forced to reply to this thread.

In the same way you are not forced to play an event.

In the same way you are not forced to play Warframe

I really hate this "lmao just don't touch it" mentality.

How about leave things that don't impede you alone if it can potentially satisfy others? You are complaining about a low effort optional side grade new game plus mode that had basically no turn around time, costs the devs seemingly very little man power, and has avoided having any high stakes value items/gameplay ramifications so as to not pressure anyone who doesn't want the content to feel compelled to stay with it after a cursory experience. It is the epitome of an optional piece of content, if you don't like it don't stay, it's fully inoffensive and hurts you none to opt out of this low cost low impact no demand side grade difficulty slider. This seem like just chasing after a means to be upset with no attention to the context. 

[Zahnny]

1 minute ago, Cubewano said:

How about leave things that don't impede you alone if it can potentially satisfy others? You are complaining about a low effort optional side grade new game plus mode that had basically no turn around time, costs the devs seemingly very little man power, and has avoided having any high stakes value items/gameplay ramifications so as to not pressure anyone who doesn't want the content to feel compelled to stay with it after a cursory experience. It is the epitome of an optional piece of content, if you don't like it don't stay, it's fully inoffensive and hurts you none to opt out of this low cost low impact no demand side grade difficulty slider. This seem like just chasing after a means to be upset with no attention to the context. 

I've already addressed why Steel Path was intended for all players to play it here.

 

[SocialFox]

3 hours ago, AreeSoothsayer said:

Mastery collectors are.

Not only that, it's MR you can't directly get with plat and Affinity boosters.

[(PSN)Silverback73]

3 hours ago, Galuf said:

If it doesn't get iterated on, (sadly like most pieces of the game), it will be extremly fringe in the future. There is atm only few missions that are kinda worth doing in SP:

- latest tier of Dark Sector Survivals for essences, can also farm mutagen sample in eris, kind of two bird one stone there for dojos late on the Hema

- various tiers of disruption if you can handle it fluidly, because you get few eximus guaranteed spawn for essences, last time I checked nobody was running those so I got my keys in pub groups and beeing 4 is faster than beeing 1

- targeted episodical farms like 2 argon crystals

There may be resurgence of some missions for targeted mod grinding as well

To be successfull SP needs to adapt some of the other core mechanics like nightmares, sorties, void fissures and kuva floods. (Or bring new kind of dynamic events). It is already quite generous in terms of ressources etc but it's very fringe in the end. And mastery wise, it makes sense right now, but at a point we will get so deep into mr 30 that nobody will even think about playing that to get mastery.

Can I run earth over and over for 6 months to buy the Operator Armors? 😏

Looking forward to debuffer/stripper NYX being relevant again.

[trst]

Yet again it was expected from the beginning and just as the normal chart 99% of it will be dead outside of any meta farming nodes. And since the mode is optional and locked behind a few requirements and it's incredibly unlikely for anyone running it to still need basic things like Ivara from spy missions or Equinox from Regor thus the odds of someone casually running random nodes is even less likely.

The people who wanted it and can accept that this is a video game and that they play it for fun likely will return and play as they feel like it. However even in SP squads ruin the whole thing and they're less of a necessity since the spawn rates are already maxed out in solo meaning people that do want their difficulty are incentivized to play solo. Meanwhile the endurance runners who wanted high-level endless aren't attempting 5+ hour runs in pubs but rather with their own personal groups/clan.

The only thing that will ever be seen on it with any regularity will be any mode found to be good for essence farming such as Eidolons. However with Eidolons specifically it's most optimal with an organized group meaning pub runs are going to be rare.

The only thing that would add more "long-term" content to SP would be giving it fissures. However I fear them adding anything substantial like that which might encourage the casual players to flock to it and their shrieking over it being "too hard" would lead to DE caving yet again and ruining the mode just as already happened to Arbitrations and Railjack.

[Cubewano]

Just now, Zahnny said:

I've already addressed why Steel Path was intended for all players to play it here.

I don't care what you think it was meant to be, I have spoken to what it is.

It is a low turn around low investment low demand optional side grade mode that provides a form of gameplay some might find desirable at again a fully optional style. It's existence comes at no cost to you and some value to others, what is the purposeless need to get vexed about such a highly inconsequential development? For the sake of having an issue? 

[Hypernaut1]

9 minutes ago, trst said:

. However even in SP squads ruin the whole thing and they're less of a necessity since the spawn rates are already maxed out in solo meaning people that do want their difficulty are incentivized to play solo. 

Yeah, I've had to resort to going solo. Squads still trivializes most missions, Which defeats the purpose of playing it for the challenge.

I've had to check I was still in SP mode when joining a team and seeing players fly through it decimating enemies still. Going solo has been the best way to feel the challenge so it's not just a regular retread of star chart. It kind of feels like being a new player again. 

[Butterfly85]

5 hours ago, Jaccsen said:

Then it would help if DE solved the problem of patchy gear etc.

Not much they can do if someone is dead set on using a squish frame, poor modded gear etc, or worse, just outright leech.

[(PSN)ErydisTheLucario]

5 hours ago, (PS4)SolarPhantom82 said:

If you haven't noticed yet.  The hole years content has been copy and paste. .  Just changing numbers. .  Warframe revised. ..  railjack revisited. ... and the steel parth.     This is easy on dev time . just play with the number and called it an update. ..   we are 7 months into the so called new war. .. so...  boy this war is boring. ....

I agree, this war kinda boring. I enjoyed SS but so far we've got nothing more in terms of story progression.

[Methanoid]

7 hours ago, Jaccsen said:

Ok, maybe not "forced" but they still released a mode that is just not fun to play. It is fun to get rewarded for playing higher level content. It is not fun to just grind out a node for 6k credits.

They fact that you cannot find groups makes it even more not fun. The few who run it will be done in 1-2 weeks and you'll never see groups again outside of "maybe" large clans.

It is more fun with groups.

Also, half the time when you do get someone to join you, it is a leech. People load in an wait for you to solo the node and do nothing.

doesnt help you need a full starchart clear, i know plenty that havent bothered unlocking all nodes, its a ballache for some, even the normal starchart is devoid of players in any node that is not an affinity or resource grind spot, steel path just magnifies this problem further.

[BlueGuy13]

I thought steel past was to cater to people askinh for a difficult warframe? Woulnd't soloing it be the best challenge experience?

[OmegaVoid]

4 hours ago, trst said:

The only thing that would add more "long-term" content to SP would be giving it fissures. However I fear them adding anything substantial like that which might encourage the casual players to flock to it and their shrieking over it being "too hard" would lead to DE caving yet again and ruining the mode

I don't think that'd happen. For low-level players looking to open a Relic, why flock to Steel Path when it can be done easier on the regular Star Chart?

Conversely, for players who are 'nuff geared-up for Steel Path, being able to do fissures there instead of downgrading to the regular Star Chart would be oodles more fun.

Void Fissures in Steel Path definitely needs to be a thing.

[Luciole77]

to me its just pointless to play...

[Jaccsen]

Steel Path is complete. There is not even a reward for completing the whole thing outside of the planetary rewards.

[Hypernaut1]

3 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

I don't think that'd happen. For low-level players looking to open a Relic, why flock to Steel Path when it can be done easier on the regular Star Chart?

Conversely, for players who are 'nuff geared-up for Steel Path, being able to do fissures there instead of downgrading to the regular Star Chart would be oodles more fun.

Void Fissures in Steel Path definitely needs to be a thing.

For low level players I can agree, but for me? I would LOVE steel path added to relic cracking. Cracking anything but axis feel like the biggest waste of time for me these days. There's practically no gameplay, so it's basically just a 5 minute slot machine pull. I don't even know why anything less than axi even exist to be honest. If you're cracking relics for some of the best gear in the game, you should at least be and to handle axi level enemies. 

[LSG501]

Lets be honest.... for the amount of effort DE needed to put into SP, the actual missions are fine (it's basically a modifier and a new resource).  Not saying I'd want to do them again but once over is fine, but it does seem public groups are pretty empty.

The rewards suck though and even though there's basically nothing in the SP store (other than the imo ugly ephemera and operator suit) the drop rate on Steel essence is far too low and could really do with a buff in normal missions (part of the issue is lack of eximus units....we shouldn't need to do 1 hour+ endless for a chance of 'decent' drops due to more eximus).