Steel Path actually not worth the grind

[(XBOX)Yufix4574]

We ended up with much higher level enemies that you have to spend hours shooting to kill with no real gain.

A problem is that the gain of xp takes into account only the enemy level and not the fact that they have 250% health / shield / armor and then at certain levels there are enemies that really never die like the emissary in the orokin derelict, that is makes me think that 250% is really too much, and finally the steel essences which, despite being resources, do not benefit from the booster drop chance.

In short what I try to say is that once you have obtained the various bonuses for the completion of the planets no one will have a valid reason to continue the steel path, this mode should have become a standard for the most advanced players instead now it is just a waste of time.

Having said that, to make it a more viable mode I have 4 proposals.
1) Reduce enemy bonuses to 200%.
2) Add an xp booster in steel path.
3) Make the steel essence influenced by the drop chance booster.
4) Later add other things that can be purchased with steel essence like skin or other.

Edit: they fixed the drop chance booster, at least one of 4 was applied.

[Rawbeard]

news at 11

[DeccanTraps]

"We want it harder and will openly judge people who like more relaxing difficulty"
Raw number inflation hastily done to make a 'higher' diff.
"We want rewards".

Steel Path was never meant to be about rewards, it was meant (and is the easiest no-brain shoddy approach) to make things harder for people who wanted to test gear vs very tough opposition.

[IceColdHawk]

8 minutes ago, DeccanTraps said:

"We want it harder and will openly judge people who like more relaxing difficulty"
Raw number inflation hastily done to make a 'higher' diff.
"We want rewards".

Normally people wouldn't have to ask for rewards because common sense should take care of the rewarding part. Sadly this doesn't apply here. It makes no sense to fight tougher enemies without anything to go for it. Even less so in a game that's all about grind.

A good example of higher difficulty = better rewards in this game would be Arbitrations and Disruption. They reward players that stick to it and not leave after the first rotation C

[(XBOX)Yufix4574]

7 minutes ago, DeccanTraps said:

Steel Path was never meant to be about rewards, it was meant (and is the easiest no-brain shoddy approach) to make things harder for people who wanted to test gear vs very tough opposition.

If i want to test gear i have simulacrum.

I have no reason to play higher difficulty without higher reward.

[Traumtulpe]

25 minutes ago, (XB1)Yufix4574 said:

A problem is that the gain of xp takes into account only the enemy level and not the fact that they have 250% health / shield / armor

I leveled a couple Warframes on the Steel Path. 20 minutes from 0 to 30 without booster, seems decent to me. Of course, I could also level with Railjack - slightly slower, but much better rewards, and I can level weapons at the same time since I don't have to use them.

[DeccanTraps]

5 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

Normally people wouldn't have to ask for rewards because common sense should take care of the rewarding part. Sadly this doesn't apply here. It makes no sense to fight tougher enemies without anything to go for it. Even less so in a game that's all about grind.

A good example of higher difficulty = better rewards in this game would be Arbitrations and Disruption. They reward players that stick to it and not leave after the first rotation C

My point its, we've moved from intrinsic motivation "I wish to climb the mountain because no one else has done so, and I relish the act of testing myself against it"
To extrinsic motivation ""i wish to climb the mountain because at the top is a chest of gold coins that I want"
This is, to say the least, bad design. The things a game should be asking us to do should be fun in and of themselves. Fun should need no other rewards.
Once you step away from it being fun to being rewarding, you're not playing you are working.

[lukinu_u]

il y a 8 minutes, (XB1)Yufix4574 a dit :

If i want to test gear i have simulacrum.

I have no reason to play higher difficulty without higher reward.

And what's about level 170 enemies in simulacrum dying too fast, so you can't actually compare stuff ?
Also what's about testing your gears in real situations without having to wait for hours in survivals ?

That's exactly what Steel Path have been made for, and any additional reward is just a little plus to encourage players going there, nothing more.

[(XBOX)Yufix4574]

1 minute ago, Traumtulpe said:

I leveled a couple Warframes on the Steel Path. 20 minutes from 0 to 30 without booster, seems decent to me. Of course, I could also level with Railjack - slightly slower, but much better rewards, and I can level weapons at the same time since I don't have to use them.

In this period we all have an xp booster, sure it's not for that?

[Traumtulpe]

Just now, (XB1)Yufix4574 said:

In this period we all have an xp booster, sure it's not for that?

It was before the boosted week.

[Drachnyn]

All Steel path wanted to be is a gear check with some cosmetics and mastery behind it and that is exactly what we got. It was always meant to be low effort on DE's part.

How high should the gear check be? I dont know, I'm past it already. There was a bit of novelty in having to adjust your builds a bit to resume the usual killing but imo that wears thin quite quickly. The only mission type I enjoy on steel path is disruption, everything else is the same boring base missions as always.

[(XBOX)Yufix4574]

5 minutes ago, lukinu_u said:

And what's about level 170 enemies in simulacrum dying too fast,

Then they should add the steel path modifier in simulacrum.

6 minutes ago, lukinu_u said:

and any additional reward is just a little plus to encourage players going there, nothing more.

For me this is not enough and I'm sure I'm not alone.

[(PSN)FadedSpirit]

I think the main problem with not having good rewards is that there's no reason to go back. After the initial rush this will make doing things like interception and defense harder on players that get to steel path a month+ behind. I think if they added the chance of radiant relics to endless modes it will increase the amount of vets that are always on those nodes and it will make matchmaking in steel path a better and more fun experience in the future for everyone.

[(XBOX)Yufix4574]

Just now, (PS4)FadedSpirit said:

I think the main problem with not having good rewards is that there's no reason to go back

That's what I'm trying to say.

[GPrime96]

Steel Essence really needs to be checked imo. As much fun as it is fighting lvl 400+ enemies in two hours of Mot with randoms, getting 21 Essence from there don’t reflect it. When you don’t do endurance, you would get next to jack of them since they drop from Eximus enemies while having double the drop chance of Oberon’s Parts (Eximus Stronghold Sorties still exist for Oberon DE) and Eximus spawns becomes constant in every 40 - 60 Mins of a Endless run. Of course there’s Eximus Wave in Disruption but it’s not as good as you would think. 

[IceColdHawk]

25 minutes ago, DeccanTraps said:

Fun should need no other rewards.

But the rewards are what make this game fun in the longterm. New players get excited from the gameplay itself. But the veterans? Aka the ones that are asking for tougher content that doesn't put them to sleep? They keep playing because of content and things to grind for. Steel Path is a "do it once for mastery and hope you got enough steel to buy your teshin armor" kinda thing. That's it.

[DeccanTraps]

2 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

But the rewards are what make this game fun in the longterm. New players get excited from the gameplay itself. But the veterans? Aka the ones that are asking for tougher content that doesn't put them to sleep? They keep playing because of content and things to grind for. Steel Path is a "do it once for mastery and hope you got enough steel to buy your teshin armor" kinda thing. That's it.

You have this, exactly backwards.
Long term players already have everything they could want or need. Only good fun gameplay keeps them around. (Fun can be tougher, but people who say that they want it to be tougher because more fun and demand rewards when they get it, are not understanding motivation).
Rewards help new players stay at things and learn systems, and its easy to be caught seeking the next reward instead of doing a thing for its own sake.

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

1 hour ago, IceColdHawk said:

But the rewards are what make this game fun in the longterm. New players get excited from the gameplay itself. But the veterans? Aka the ones that are asking for tougher content that doesn't put them to sleep? They keep playing because of content and things to grind for. Steel Path is a "do it once for mastery and hope you got enough steel to buy your teshin armor" kinda thing. That's it.

 

1 hour ago, DeccanTraps said:

You have this, exactly backwards.
Long term players already have everything they could want or need. Only good fun gameplay keeps them around. (Fun can be tougher, but people who say that they want it to be tougher because more fun and demand rewards when they get it, are not understanding motivation).
Rewards help new players stay at things and learn systems, and its easy to be caught seeking the next reward instead of doing a thing for its own sake.

I agree with @IceColdHawk here. Without scaling rewards to compliment the increased difficulty on Steel Path enemies, Steel Path is just a one-off game mode. This isn’t accounting Steel Essence: With Token systems they’re their own type of monsters that are reliant on drop rates and areas of acquisition to obtain that currency. 

However resources should at the very least scale or have a boosted amount with regards to enemy level. That should cover the gripes that Steel Path lacks at the moment. The Drop Chance Booster that is embedded onto the Steel Path is both lackluster and disingenuous (based on the recent findings from playtests of extended runs) to the resource grind that Warframe prides itself of.

[DeccanTraps]

Then you are both wrong.

A game that is not fun but is rewarding is a job.
Cookie Clicker is in terms of its own economy, vastly more rewarding than Warframe, better more constent escilation of rewards for your persistence. Bitcoin mining is objectively a more rewarding use of ones hardware than is warframe.

You cannot replace fun with rewarding and have a good game because the way we determine the 'goodness' the quality of being a game is that it is fun. You can on the other hand have play that gives poor rewards but is enjoyable.

[IceColdHawk]

25 minutes ago, DeccanTraps said:

Then you are both wrong.

A game that is not fun but is rewarding is a job.
Cookie Clicker is in terms of its own economy, vastly more rewarding than Warframe, better more constent escilation of rewards for your persistence. Bitcoin mining is objectively a more rewarding use of ones hardware than is warframe.

You cannot replace fun with rewarding and have a good game because the way we determine the 'goodness' the quality of being a game is that it is fun. You can on the other hand have play that gives poor rewards but is enjoyable.

Difficulty and rewards go hand in hand....and that doesn't have to exclude gameplay or fun. You can have both. I don't even know why you bring stuff like Cookie Clicker or "bitcoin mining" in like wtf.

[Bakaguya-sama]

God i hate this circular logic.  

Quote

A. Please make "X thing" more rewarding.  

Quote

B. "X thing"  is too rewarding and no longer "optional", now make it easier so everyone can farm it.  

Repeat that cycle until "X thing" is simultaneously both too rewarding and too easy. No challenge, everything get 1 shotted. No reason to come back because people already got everything they want from it. No incentive to play.

Which is  what happened to Railjack. Made it too easy, made AoE avionics too strong. Gave too many parts and resource. Now everyone and their mom has a maxed out ship with Tether, and only come back to grind Gian point for EXP and credits. Another game mode ruined.  

I can only hope DE don't ruin Steel Path in the same way. Just Don't nerf Steel Path. 

But perhaps a compromise can be made. Make relic packs and kuva pack cheaper. Cost 7 Steel Essence instead of 15.

In the long term, add Survival Steel Path Fissure mode, integrate more stuff in to steel path like kuva flood and liches.  

This should be sufficient.  

  

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

31 minutes ago, DeccanTraps said:

Then you are both wrong.

A game that is not fun but is rewarding is a job.
Cookie Clicker is in terms of its own economy, vastly more rewarding than Warframe, better more constent escilation of rewards for your persistence. Bitcoin mining is objectively a more rewarding use of ones hardware than is warframe.

You cannot replace fun with rewarding and have a good game because the way we determine the 'goodness' the quality of being a game is that it is fun. You can on the other hand have play that gives poor rewards but is enjoyable.

I don’t know nor understand how you reached this conclusion. Fun is subjective. Fun can be achieved in many ways. Fun doesn’t necessarily have to be an involving concept, just as you described.

Higher difficulty can or cannot be fun, that’s a subjectivity dependent on the playerbase. Fashion frame can or cannot be fun based on the level of aestheticism players want to involve themselves in. Min-maxing builds for certain levels of singular and/or squad-based play in-mission is a modular experience and timely execution that can be fun for some or not fun at all for others (Raids in the past being an example, Eidolon hunting now, etc.).

However, at the end of the day when it boils down to the simplest necessity we players need in Warframe, it’s resources or small goals to validate, consolidate, and/or compensate for accomplishing tasks. If you’re going to tackle a difficult task, the rewards for accomplishing it should at least be slightly increased from the norm or be consolidated with something different.

[(XBOX)Yufix4574]

2 hours ago, Bakaguya-sama said:

Which is  what happened to Railjack. Made it too easy, made AoE avionics too strong. Gave too many parts and resource. Now everyone and their mom has a maxed out ship with Tether, and only come back to grind Gian point for EXP and credits. Another game mode ruined.  

Railjack was not difficult, it was badly made and not very accessible so it remained empty, which led to extreme changes to get the players back, steel path will do the same so we might as well fix it right away.

2 hours ago, Bakaguya-sama said:

In the long term, add Survival Steel Path Fissure mode, integrate more stuff in to steel path like kuva flood and liches.  

No please, lichs already suck like that, if you give them another 100 levels and health more than doubled is the end, I wouldn't even do them with a 60% weapon and ephemera guaranteed.

[(XBOX)Rez090]

5 hours ago, IceColdHawk said:

Difficulty and rewards go hand in hand....and that doesn't have to exclude gameplay or fun. You can have both. I don't even know why you bring stuff like Cookie Clicker or "bitcoin mining" in like wtf.

False. The part of the playerbase that wanted Steel Path just wanted a place to take their arsenal and fight higher level enemies without having to wait in other areas for hours to reach those enemies. Rewards for the Path are just a bonus added. They do not go "hand in hand" nor do they actually have too.

[IceColdHawk]

37 minutes ago, (XB1)Rez090 said:

False. The part of the playerbase that wanted Steel Path just wanted a place to take their arsenal and fight higher level enemies without having to wait in other areas for hours to reach those enemies. Rewards for the Path are just a bonus added. They do not go "hand in hand" nor do they actually have too.

That was generally speaking. I know that steel path doesn't follow that rule. And that's the issue that people are pointing out. If it was working just fine then you wouldn't see the same thread pop up every day.