DE, for the health of the steel path, please increase steel essence drop rate

[Werebearplush]

Hi, I don't want to come off as ranty but I think this needs to be addressed. I like playing as my favorite frames (shocking I know). Even though they're in a bad place right now, Xaku is my favorite frame at the moment. The problem is no one wants me on their steel essence farm team because I'm not playing as nekros, nova, or khora (I'm not particularly fond of any of those frames). The last 2 days I've been watching/spamming the recruit chat trying to find a team but as soon as they realize I'm not sticking to the "meta" I either get kicked, someone complains about it and leaves causing a chain reaction until I'm the only one left. I'm like the smelly kid in school no one wants to hang out with, but all I want to do is use the shiny new frame on new content.

A person can only handle so much rejection so eventually I said, "screw it," I'll do it solo. After an arduous solo journey to Ceres where the first viable farming node is located I ran a 30 minute survival (mind you i'm not intentionally playing solo and I'd love to coop it, it's just that no one is playing random nodes on the steel path). Despite a random Nekros joining in and spamming desecrate we didn't get a single steel essence. That's just disheartening and I now realize why players are so rigid when it comes to the steel path meta. These drop rates are atrocious and players have no choice but to play as certain frames to slightly increase the pitiful drop rates.

If the drop rates were increased to reasonable levels, I think that would open up variety when it comes to builds play styles since people wouldn't be forced to stick to a select few frames solely to increase drop rates. As it stands now, I've given up on the steel path, not because of the challenge it poses (which was fun I have to admit. I hadn't felt so challenged in warframe since my early days as a starter excalibur with a mk1 lato) but because it doesn't respect my time. Until something is done about steel essence i don't see myself going back to it. Instead of tying steel essence to RNG, why not tie it to achievements like clearing a planets, killing bosses, completing certain challenges, etc. That would be more in the spirit of WALKING THE STEEL PATH as opposed to just getting lucky at the slots.

[(PSN)poloslash18]

I agree.

I don't want to stay for 1 to 2 hours on a mission so that eximus spawn gets decent. This is coming from a guy that falls asleep running ESO to 8 waves. 

[Nailclipper]

Try sticking for more than 30 minutes, at least 1 hour. Without any booster and smeeta you can expect to earn 10 steel essences for an hour farm I guess.

That said, a player with boosters and a cat in a dedicated farming team can earn more than 200 essences in 2 hours. If they increase the drop rate then riven prices will crash lol (those players farm steel essences to buy kuvas).

[0_The_F00l]

Its not supposed to be accessible to all for one thing , and the rewards are purely cosmetic  - the kuva is a mistake in my opinion and attracts whiners that feel they should get it easy.

But i do agree that some actual challenges would be nice or atleast the eximus should start ramping early - i personally hate extended runs and avoid anytthing beyond 20 minutes , the 30 minute nightwave i barely manage.

some added challenge for more guaranteed rewards would be nice ,

eg:

Play the node without any mods on frame for double the chance ,

Solo with No revives allowed will have triple chance etc.

 

Simply increase drop rates? no thank you.

 

[vanaukas]

you need to stay more than 1 hour to start the steel essence farm, exiums start to spawn more regular after the second C rotation (40 mins on sup, wich is the easiest mission to farm). With one nekros + smeeta + resource booster and a valkyr (so, 2 people) I was able to gather more than 80 in less in like 2 hours 20... It's more important staying more than an hour rather than having full squad, since the enemy spawn is increased on SP.

[Kaggelos]

Personally, id make riven Slivers more accessible as drops, snd then rework yhem into a long term system to gain rivens.

Also, umbra slivers anyone? 

[Yamazuki]

Higher drop rates doesn't do much when you aren't really killing the units that drop them in the first place. Higher drop rates would do literally nothing to Warframe choices, people would just want even more regardless, or getting more in less time.

[naturalcandy]

Just need change eximus generate in Steel Path.

[Dauggie]

its been confirmed that frame abilities don't necessary give more drops, the recently made drop chance booster to stack so maybe that can help. but frames dont. i ran solo for 1 hour and got more essence than a party of khora nek speedva and such. but maybe i had a bad day when doing that squad but so far it seems, frames abilities dont effect steel essence drop. Also you don't need that much essence anyway. just some for operator suit and ephemera. get resource booster and smeeta if you don't have it already. they might increase in future but for now, better stick to  what works or just skip the game mode, you lose nothing (and gain nothing)

[Dauggie]

17 minutes ago, Yamazuki said:

Higher drop rates doesn't do much when you aren't really killing the units that drop them in the first place. Higher drop rates would do literally nothing to Warframe choices, people would just want even more regardless, or getting more in less time.

yea with solo gara i killed more than waiting for khora to clear enemies in a squad, if everyone starts to kill then you will get more drops, its just people like "lazy" farm

[Dauggie]

1 hour ago, Kaggelos said:

Personally, id make riven Slivers more accessible as drops, snd then rework yhem into a long term system to gain rivens.

Also, umbra slivers anyone? 

if they dropping from separate enemies than its fine, other wise nope, i personally dont care about rivens and lot of people have grinded steelpath so much they cant even use their entire riven silvers because of one week time limit. warframe will cease to exist before they can use their entire silvers

[(PSN)robotwars7]

 As much as I want the Crania Ephemera, keeping it the way it is gives the endurance crowd something to do. those poor souls that insist on spending hours in the same mission are always getting shafted by DE: trade bans for unusual amounts of resources, no incentives to stay in regular missions for ages, no new modes that grant unique rewards for staying ages, aside from Steel Path... I kind of feel sorry for them, because their playstyle has been nothing but punished ever since Relics were introduced.

but for me, being a filthy casul who does 20 mins or less, Void Keys sucked major donkey nuts and relics are better. right now Steel Essence farming is about the only place you'll find the endurance crowd.

[saghzs]

I don't think the droprate is the issue here.

It's the fact that Eximus spawns are extremly rare until about 30-50 minutes.
 

[trst]

Higher drop rates don't matter much if you're not getting to the point where Eximus spawns are more regular. Increasing the spawn rates of Eximus instead would yield far more drops than just a higher drop rate without going for 1h+ runs.

But personally I'd prefer if instead of bothering with Eximus and their drop rates for Essence to be put into other places throughout SP. Such as making it a 3rd Cache reward in Exterminate/Sabotage, a three vault bonus in spy, in C rotation rewards in endless, drop from Demolysts, or as rare ground pickups like Syndicate Medallions. All just so that there is a reason to go through the other nodes throughout the chart and reasons to go out of our way a bit for more instead of the whole thing being a rush.

Bonus objectives like bounties could also work. Every C rotation in endless where the pod doesn't lose hp or without losing an extractor/conduit or finishing an extermination/spy without enemies detecting you. But such systems should probably be put in normal missions first then incorporated into SP.

[o0Despair0o]

Ah yes, steel essence...

I've been playing the steel path bounty on deimos a lot. I got a total of 2 essence :/

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

They said they would be looking into it after the Deimos update wraps up and is in better condition.

[Eluminary]

 I don't think it's really necessary unless they're going to add more stuff.   it only took a couple long runs survival runs to get everything and now it's an obsolete mode.

 

 

[GPrime96]

The problem with Steel Essence is how it got a low chance of dropping in Eximus Enemies. Eximus enemies don’t appear often unless you’re over a hour in and two hours for a good chunk of Steel Essence. With the Life Support in Steel Path Survival being worse too, there’s no logical reason for anyone to not use Meta Frames. Of course when you’re not playing Steel Path, you would be fighting super squishy enemies even though it’s more Solo Friendly. 

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

Steel essence :

- either you have very few of them clearing the star chart even if you reach the first rotation C of all endless missions

- or you get >200 in 3hours spent in survival in semi afk mode, which is the most efficient way to farm kuva

Make all missions "eximus stronghold" in addition to still path mutators, except survival and it'll be more fair.

 

[(XBOX)oO VENDIGO Oo]

Ya something needs done. When you can go 1.5 hrs on survival and have a booster, and 10+ smeeta charms go off throughout, and walk away with 4 Steel drops. My total was 16. First drop was 8, then 2, then 2, then 4. and the last 20 min only dropped 4 slivers(1 drop). I've had good runs as well, but it needs to be made a bit more reliable IMO. Either drop rate increase or make it so frame abilities can effect drop, or both ;), also just IMO.

[Butterfly85]

Enemy health isn't the issue, theres too many ways to make that not an issue. The only thing I have an issue with is having to stay in a mission for an hour before mobs start turning up in decent quantities. The whole point of SP was to do away with that issue because people were complaining it took an hour for regular missions to ramp up to that enemy level

[Proscriptor]

steel essemce drops are different from other things as they only ramp up after 1hr

if you want to farm steel essence you need to do a long mission, that's by desgn

steel essence farming is the most efficient way to get kuva.

[Galuf]

You can alternatively farm your void keys etc in SP. I think it will become a non factor once people will understand that things can be farmed there, maybe 1 or 2 month of helminth sink too ^^.

I wouldn't bother camping SP for less than 3h30-4h. People have figured those things Day 2 of SP, it is sad seeing the same threads over and over.

For the record I almost finished the full armor at the end of my run and almost never went back yet, because I was just killing things on the go with high range spells(except on greeners but I made few eximus stoppage in sabotages, caps, etc...). You don't need to camp 4 hours to get steel essences, you just have to play in SP settings and kill things(think of it as playing properly kuva lich farming, except you get eximus enemies instead of thralls...), so yes it demands a little bit a minimal degree of efficiency to not feel like you are derping aroung/going nowhere,

[JackHargreav]

Steel Path's reward is itself. What you can get from Teshin you can get elsewhere. Except the cosmetics. So farming relics and kuva there is not really a good choice. There are the Syndicates, Arbitrations and Nightwave all for those things.