Possible new Steel Path feature: Mods with a Loot-related Set Bonus

[3mptylord]

Similar to Skulls in Halo† or the Masks in WoW's recent Visions of N'Zoth - I think it would be neat if there was a system in place that allowed some amount of player-control over the difficulty that is off-set by incentives. I confess that I originally came up with this while carrying a Dragon Key - but I do not think it should be tied into that system.

I think it would neat to introduce a set of mods that increases the difficulty for you while providing a Set Bonus that increases your loot acquisition a little. Implementing this feature as a Mod Set accomplishes the goal of increased difficulty in two ways: both directly through any debuffs granted by the mod, and also indirectly by occupying a mod-slot. As a Set Bonus it would enable/encourage players to try and find their limit - how many they can stack, how much they can adjust their build, etc. And as well as appealing to players looking for a challenge; it'll appeal to the daily grinders as it's both new content to unlock and new content to add to their optimisation calculations (some people enjoy this, okay? Who's build do you think you're copying from online?). 

Given what I want this system to do: I thought that the Steel Path might be the perfect place for this feature. The current Steel Path offers increased difficulty for a small amount of booster and so my pitch: why not allow players to stack this? I read that devs originally wanted to add multiple tiers of Steel Path but feared the consequences of that on the matchmaking population - well, what about these mods as a more player-controlled alternative to another tier? The mods could be a random drop from enemies; a mission reward from the last planet (e.g. "one random Looter mod - no duplicates"); something you buy with Steel Essence; or even something you collect like Fighter Frames. The method would change whether or not they feel like something you can grind and then play with; or whether the system feels like a replay-progression system. Which I think is better would depend on how serious players would prefer the system - if some of the debuffs were "silly", then having them be collectable/farmable would be better. 

However, the mod set would work as a mission payout or rep unlock from other existing or newly introduced content. Maybe the best approach would be something more similar to Sanctuary Onslaught - just have a single fun mission built explicitly to be a contained piece of challenging content and some of the unlocks can make your next replay more interesting. It's Warframe - so there will be looter-shooter stuff too (I don't know - a way to farm relics or something). 

In any event, what do you think of a Mod set with a Looter set bonus? Do you think it'd work in Steel Path, or better suited as separate content?

†The old ones, at least. I've not played any of the new titles.

[DeccanTraps]

Nope!

Steel path is not meant to be rewarding, it is meant to be a challenge for those who want it. Not a proving ground for balance absolutely not an end game.

No useful non-cosmetic rewards that's the point.

[(PSN)thegarada]

39 minutes ago, DeccanTraps said:

Nope!

Steel path is not meant to be rewarding, it is meant to be a challenge for those who want it. Not a proving ground for balance absolutely not an end game.

No useful non-cosmetic rewards that's the point.

You do get significantly more affinity and mod drop chance. You also get riven slivers. This is way more rewarding than running same stuff on the star chart. Its only reward issue is end of mission rewards. 

[Leqesai]

1 hour ago, DeccanTraps said:

Nope!

Steel path is not meant to be rewarding, it is meant to be a challenge for those who want it. Not a proving ground for balance absolutely not an end game.

No useful non-cosmetic rewards that's the point.

I agree that exclusive gameplay-related rewards should not be in steel path.

Having said that it is -significantly- better to farm in steel path than regular. More enemies, more drop chance, steel essence rewards, riven slivers etc. (echoing the above user's comment, I suppose).

[Kaggelos]

I really like steel path, so im just waiting for more mission types like kuva liches etc

[DrivaMain]

No. Let it stay optional please. Putting anything game changing reward in the Steel Path will force players who do not like the game mode to do it and hating it afterwards. Oh and let’s not forget DE is forced taking away the so called “challenge” from Steel Path just to appease the haters.

[GPrime96]

2 hours ago, Kaggelos said:

I really like steel path, so im just waiting for more mission types like kuva liches etc

Same here honestly. One of the things that’s holding me back from farming Steel Path for real besides the limited ways of getting a good chunk of Steel Essence would be Mission Types. Steel Path beef up the normal Star Chart Missions but Railjack, Nightmare, Liches, and Fissures, yeah forget them.

[Kaggelos]

6 hours ago, GPrime96 said:

Same here honestly. One of the things that’s holding me back from farming Steel Path for real besides the limited ways of getting a good chunk of Steel Essence would be Mission Types. Steel Path beef up the normal Star Chart Missions but Railjack, Nightmare, Liches, and Fissures, yeah forget them.

sigh... yeah, i know. At least Mot is amazing in SP, while farming Argons for Helminth. Too bad i hate the tileset, but that's just my pet peeve, hating anything gold related xD

[GPrime96]

43 minutes ago, Kaggelos said:

sigh... yeah, i know. At least Mot is amazing in SP, while farming Argons for Helminth. Too bad i hate the tileset, but that's just my pet peeve, hating anything gold related xD

Mot was the first Survival i reach 2 Hours with Randoms in Steel Path. Now, i only do Solo if i want to do that since Matchmaking is pretty much dead outside of Cambion Drift (although the kill speed i need Solo vs. Squad in Steel Path is such a sharp increase as Garuda.). Although Ani, Void was the Survival i reached 2 Hours 2 Mins Solo and that run was going perfectly, no deaths, kill speed was good, and managing Life Support was no problem until i decided to leave due to my neck feeling exhausted by focusing so much and at Mot, i was 18 Mins short and that run was a lot more messy. 

[3mptylord]

On 2020-09-14 at 10:51 PM, DeccanTraps said:

Nope!

Steel path is not meant to be rewarding, it is meant to be a challenge for those who want it. Not a proving ground for balance absolutely not an end game.

No useful non-cosmetic rewards that's the point.

... except it is already more rewarding than the normal star chart and my suggestion is about adding a player-controlled lever for making it more rewarding at the expense of making it more difficult, rather than adding additional tiers of star chart in the future. 

And, again, it doesn't have to be tied to the Steel Path system - that was just an "easy" place to put it. The main suggestion was for voluntary debuffs. 

[3mptylord]

But fair, if that's how the community feels.

Your response sounds very "I read the dev blog and know DE's intentions" rather than a personal opinion on whether their intentions/the idea actually has actual merit, though. Just because the intent was for Steel Path to be for sadists doesn't mean that has to be it, does it? They also intended to have multiple tiers of difficulty (Hard and Ultra Hard) - but they ultimately decided on just one due to fear of dilating the matchmaking population too much with two separate queues. My suggestion could be an alternate way to introduce tiers without splitting up matchmaking. Similarly, the Looter set bonus was just an easy way to insert additional rewards without having to modify the loot tables. 

Example mods:

• Increases damage taken.
• Decreases damage dealt.
• Reduces movement speed, or increases gravity.
• Reduced efficiency/increased ability costs.
• Reduced shields.
• Reduced combo timer.
• Reduced status chance.

 

The Looter Set bonus could be as simple +25% Resource Booster per mod in the set. The set bonus could be restricted to Steel Path if you're concerned about people using them outside of Steel Path

[DeccanTraps]

1: you mean masochists not sadists, (I'm not quoting you in case you want to fix that)
2: This game needs another 'you must be this cool to get any respect' tool for gatekeepers the same way a firework factory needs a 'smoke em if you've got em' policy.

And since it was meant for the challenge I am against adding extra rewards on a philosophical level: If people say they want challenge it should be enough to do the thing for its own sake. Instead, we see people saying they want challenge and then demanding to be rewarded. That's not seeking challenge, that's negotiating a raise.

There is a fundamental confusion between intrinsic rewards (I do this because its fun) and extrinsic (I do this because I want the rewards that come from finishing.)

Intrinsic rewards arise from good core came play loops and generally engaging encounter, weapon, frame and foe design.

Extrinsic rewards are often used to cover for lack of intrinsic (you are paid to work at your boring office job because otherwise you'd not be caught within a mile of a spreadsheet).

So to me since a game is meant to be fun (intrinsic) asking for more rewards for a game mode (extrinsic) is to say that it has failed as a mode of play of a game.

[3mptylord]

 

On 2020-09-16 at 8:21 PM, DeccanTraps said:

1: you mean masochists not sadists, (I'm not quoting you in case you want to fix that)
2: This game needs another 'you must be this cool to get any respect' tool for gatekeepers the same way a firework factory needs a 'smoke em if you've got em' policy.

And since it was meant for the challenge I am against adding extra rewards on a philosophical level: If people say they want challenge it should be enough to do the thing for its own sake. Instead, we see people saying they want challenge and then demanding to be rewarded. That's not seeking challenge, that's negotiating a raise.

There is a fundamental confusion between intrinsic rewards (I do this because its fun) and extrinsic (I do this because I want the rewards that come from finishing.)

Intrinsic rewards arise from good core came play loops and generally engaging encounter, weapon, frame and foe design.

Extrinsic rewards are often used to cover for lack of intrinsic (you are paid to work at your boring office job because otherwise you'd not be caught within a mile of a spreadsheet).

So to me since a game is meant to be fun (intrinsic) asking for more rewards for a game mode (extrinsic) is to say that it has failed as a mode of play of a game.

1. I think both work, and I think what I said is more appropriate given the context. We were talking about DE's intent. Dev commentary about Steel Path implies there's a demographic of players who like challenge for the sake of challenge and who want more challenging content so that they can fulfil their power fantasies. Fulfilling a power fantasy would be sadism. The fact that I would wager most Steel Path players are masochists (forcing themselves through content they don't enjoy purely to optimise) isn't pertinent to the point I was making (although the fact I think most Steel Path players are masochists is part of my motivation to want to change it). 

2. I agree with your analysis of what constitutes as a good challenge. However - I don't think this is the appropriate place nor am I the appropriate person with whom you should have a rant about the value of intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards.

Warframe is a looter - you enter a mission to acquire loot. You usually pick the mission based on which loot you want. You set goals and you work toward them. This is the core gameplay loop of Warframe. Steel Path is already an extrinsic reward system - players have the choice of two difficulties and the more difficult option is more rewarding (both directly from the literal boosters; and also indirectly in the changes to things like population density). My suggestion is just to add more player agency to the existing difficulty system (or to implement it separately to the current system). That is all. I thought it'd be fun - it's fun in other games (especially if some of the debuffs are silly). 

I think you're just getting hung up on the word "rewarding" - but I think it's a correct use of the word in modern English, especially in the context of gaming. I'm not trying to infer that my idea would be a better kind of reward, or a more emotionally-rewarding type of reward. Maybe it would be more accurate to call them "mission payouts" rather than "mission rewards" - but, again, a random suggestion thread on the Warframe forums is probably not the best place to get worked up over the word "reward" being misused in video games. Jeez, this reminds me of an argument I saw where someone objected to the fact video games use the word "rare" despite there being an infinite supply. 

 

 

[3mptylord]

A common theme in the feedback seems to be centred on my decision to call these mods "Steel Path rewards" - i.e. that I was suggesting players should have to complete the Steel Path in order to unlock better farming. No, my suggestion was for a set of mods/skulls/items that allowed players to slide their risk-to-reward meter up and down (while imaging some of the more silly Halo skulls and wondering if any would work in a looter-shooter). However, after the above discussion about the word "reward", I realised that what I'd actually written was "my suggestion is to have exclusive content unlocked by completing a higher difficulty". I did have lines like "or these mods could be unlocked elsewhere", but-- well, smallprint cannot convey subtext. 

I should have realised the problem in my communication after I first edited in the line "The Looter bonus could be disabled outside of The Steel Path". 

I connected this suggestion to The Steel Path as an afterthought when I learned that DE originally wanted to add additional tiers (and how I really didn't want to have to do all this again just to get the next outfit). Adding the mods to the Steel Path could be a way of adding a prestige-system to the Steel Path - whether it's a mission reward on the last planet; a random drop from units; or something you purchase with Steel Essence, this system would enable players to find their limit (and unlocked in a way that fits in Warframes genre; and in a way that isn't just Steel Path 2). However - I didn't clarify that I didn't want these mods to just be an "I've unlocked better farming" reward of Steel Path.

The mod set could also work perfectly adequately if acquired through normal content, and then simply be something players can take into Steel Path. I mentioned "it could even be a prequel" in the sense that Teshin could be added to the existing solar rail system and award players with looter mods on their way around the system - then they apply the lessons you've learned when they go around the Steel Path for the first time.

 

I've revised my initial post accordingly. 

 

[MJ12]

On 2020-09-16 at 9:09 AM, 3mptylord said:

But fair, if that's how the community feels.

Your response sounds very "I read the dev blog and know DE's intentions" rather than a personal opinion on whether their intentions/the idea actually has actual merit, though. Just because the intent was for Steel Path to be for sadists doesn't mean that has to be it, does it? They also intended to have multiple tiers of difficulty (Hard and Ultra Hard) - but they ultimately decided on just one due to fear of dilating the matchmaking population too much with two separate queues. My suggestion could be an alternate way to introduce tiers without splitting up matchmaking. Similarly, the Looter set bonus was just an easy way to insert additional rewards without having to modify the loot tables. 

Example mods:

• Increases damage taken.
• Decreases damage dealt.
• Reduces movement speed, or increases gravity.
• Reduced efficiency/increased ability costs.
• Reduced shields.
• Reduced combo timer.
• Reduced status chance.

 

The Looter Set bonus could be as simple +25% Resource Booster per mod in the set. The set bonus could be restricted to Steel Path if you're concerned about people using them outside of Steel Path

Loot manipulation in games is almost always a bad idea, because it is near-impossible to balance loot manipulation. It's almost always either too good or too worthless.

Forcing players to choose between loot manipulation powers and ingame power is often worse, because it ends up distorting any sort of farm meta into "take the absolute bare minimum you need to minimum-effort clear the best farming levels/bosses/etc, then shove as much loot manipulation onto your kit as humanly possible."

Diablo 3 nuked magic find for a very good reason - as long as it existed, it was basically the stat you wanted (because you wanted the maximum possible amount of loot per period of gameplay time).

There's a reason Nekros has stayed in a broken and underpowered state for all this time, and it's because simply by being one of the few ways to gain extra loot rolls, being underpowered doesn't matter. It is exceedingly unlikely that you'll ever be able to kill things so much faster in a team scenario that the extra 60% increase in loot drops will be made up for by superior combat power. This sort of mod leads to the problem that people interested in efficient farming feel obligated to tank their own power levels in the hopes of getting more loot, which is likely to make the game feel worse for many dedicated players. So in general, I think avoiding adding more ways to engage in loot manipulation is better for Warframe.