Please, please, please tell me if I've misunderstood the Steel Essence changes in the last Devstream

[nadeemh]

For context, I love this game and have played every day for the past few years (three or four years - lost count). I've maxed everything (MR 30) and can solo everything in the game (except for Steel Path Tridolons). What keeps me playing is endurance runs. Steel Path has become my default game mode and doing hours of survival is what I, personally, call fun. Everything else I do (aside from exploring new content when it's available) is to build a better setup for longer and better endurance runs.

Earning Steel Essence from Eximus enemies is basically my goal. The longer I stay, the more Essence I collect. I was thankful for this when it was released. Finally there was something for players like me and I was under the impression that DE did this specifically for us. Steel Path was released at a time when it felt like DE was only pandering to the new players and leaving the rest of us out in the cold.

But it sounds as though this is being nerfed. Is it true that Steel Essence will ONLY drop from Acolytes? That would mean a maximum amount of Essence per run regardless of how long I stay in a mission.

Also, it takes me around 5-10 minutes to kill Stalker in Steel Path mode. Abilities are disabled, my frame gets one-shotted (no point building for non-ability survivability against level 1000+ enemies) so I have to use only my operator and amp for survival. When Stalker has turned up in time-critical missions I simply let him kill me so I can get on with the mission otherwise the entire endeavour would wasted. If Acolytes are going to be the same then not only are my Essence drops in survival limited, I would not be able to fight the Acolyte AND keep life support up so I would have to forgo the Essence in order to maintain life support and complete the mission resulting in ZERO Essence from favourite game mode.

Please tell me that I've misunderstood all of this and that I'm getting angry and upset over nothing.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Make any excuses you want, you're addicted to kuva. 

We don't know many details yet, but it's possible those days of walking out of a run with 400 essence might be over soon, but we don't know for sure.

[nadeemh]

11 minutes ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Make any excuses you want, you're addicted to kuva

Is that why it might be nerfed? I don't use much Kuva and very rarely ever buy the stuff but when I do it's with Vitus Essence. 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

29 minutes ago, nadeemh said:

For context, I love this game and have played every day for the past few years (three or four years - lost count). I've maxed everything (MR 30) and can solo everything in the game (except for Steel Path Tridolons). What keeps me playing is endurance runs. Steel Path has become my default game mode and doing hours of survival is what I, personally, call fun. Everything else I do (aside from exploring new content when it's available) is to build a better setup for longer and better endurance runs.

Earning Steel Essence from Eximus enemies is basically my goal. The longer I stay, the more Essence I collect. I was thankful for this when it was released. Finally there was something for players like me and I was under the impression that DE did this specifically for us. Steel Path was released at a time when it felt like DE was only pandering to the new players and leaving the rest of us out in the cold.

But it sounds as though this is being nerfed. Is it true that Steel Essence will ONLY drop from Acolytes? That would mean a maximum amount of Essence per run regardless of how long I stay in a mission.

Also, it takes me around 5-10 minutes to kill Stalker in Steel Path mode. Abilities are disabled, my frame gets one-shotted (no point building for non-ability survivability against level 1000+ enemies) so I have to use only my operator and amp for survival. When Stalker has turned up in time-critical missions I simply let him kill me so I can get on with the mission otherwise the entire endeavour would wasted. If Acolytes are going to be the same then not only are my Essence drops in survival limited, I would not be able to fight the Acolyte AND keep life support up so I would have to forgo the Essence in order to maintain life support and complete the mission resulting in ZERO Essence from favourite game mode.

Please tell me that I've misunderstood all of this and that I'm getting angry and upset over nothing.

Misunderstood nothing. As it stands Steel Essence will drop only from the dailies and Acolytes.

[nadeemh]

Just now, (XBOX)TyeGoo said:

I'm glad they'll change it. 

But why? How would it affect someone who doesn't want to play Steel Path or doesn't want to do an endurance run? One of the great things about Warframe is that it caterers to so many different play styles. Some of my clan spend their time farming kuva and trading rivens, others like to take on new players and help them through the star chart, some like doing Index, some like doing speed runs. My personal preference is endurance runs. Why should my fun be taken away? I don't use exploits (never have done), don't use macros, don't try to farm more than I should (whatever that means) - I simply like having a reward that scales with the time I've put in and I don't understand why anyone should be glad that would be taken away from me.

[Joezone619]

i really hope they see fit to leave it as is.

[Leyers_of_facade]

8 minutes ago, nadeemh said:

I don't understand why anyone should be glad that would be taken away from me.

you are having fun, they aren't, so they want to take away your fun to make it even, typical. 

[(PSN)CaseFace8]

My impression of the change is that they wanted the earning of steel essence to be more consistent across all mission nodes, rather than being forced into the only viable option being endurance runs. Now we have some guaranteed drops, whereas before you could clear a bunch of steel path nodes and still be at zero essence.

This reminds me of arbitrations, in that at the start vitus was only a completion reward then they added in the drops to the shield drones and in reward tables. 

This is kind of going the other direction, so hopefully after they seem some data on drops they swing it back to give endurance players a way to continue to farm while also keeping the guaranteed drops.

[(PSN)thegarada]

While I do think that streamlining the SE farming process is needed, this feels heavy handed. It depends on what Teashin sells as rotating items in the shop. Cuz now SE are mostly to buy relics and Kuva, and there are many other sources for that.

[Merrcenary]

44 минуты назад, nadeemh сказал:

One of the great things about Warframe is that it caterers to so many different play styles.

yeah yeah yeah and there is only 1 playstyle for steel essence farming: spend your whole day in 1 tileset in 1 pit pressing 1-2 buttons

i glad that DE finally doing something with these 500+ SE farms

[nadeemh]

2 minutes ago, Merrcenary said:

there is only 1 playstyle for steel essence farming: spend your whole day in 1 tileset in 1 pit pressing 1-2 buttons

Personally, I don't believe this. There are a LOT of different ways of playing this game. I listed some above but also the variety of frames and weapons provides an incredibly diverse way of doing things.

I feel sorry for people who are misled by meta-promoting YouTubers into believing that there's only one "proper" way of doing things, especially if they also believe what you've just said.

[(PSN)drollive96]

Wait.. Steel esscence will ONLY drop from acolytes?! So once They're gone it impossible to get any? Am i reading this correctly

[BornWithTeeth]

1 minute ago, (PSN)drollive96 said:

Wait.. Steel esscence will ONLY drop from acolytes?! So once They're gone it impossible to get any? Am i reading this correctly

The Acolytes will be a spawning field boss in any, and potentially every, Steel Path mission. They haven't given us more information than this, but I reckon you'll be seeing them fairly often.

[nadeemh]

2 minutes ago, (PSN)drollive96 said:

Wait.. Steel esscence will ONLY drop from acolytes?! So once They're gone it impossible to get any? Am i reading this correctly

Acolytes would appear as a mini-boss in every Steel Path mission though. But then they would be the only ones to drop Steel Essence.

[(PSN)drollive96]

Just now, BornWithTeeth said:

The Acolytes will be a spawning field boss in any, and potentially every, Steel Path mission. They haven't given us more information than this, but I reckon you'll be seeing them fairly often.

So acolytes will be a regular occurence that dont only appear once or twice a year, i actually kind of like that

[nadeemh]

2 minutes ago, (PSN)drollive96 said:

So acolytes will be a regular occurence that dont only appear once or twice a year, i actually kind of like that

Yes

[(PSN)drollive96]

Just now, nadeemh said:

Yes

Thats good, now mods like blood rush wont be locked behind an event that occurs once in the blue moon

[Loza03]

57 minutes ago, nadeemh said:

But why? How would it affect someone who doesn't want to play Steel Path or doesn't want to do an endurance run? One of the great things about Warframe is that it caterers to so many different play styles. Some of my clan spend their time farming kuva and trading rivens, others like to take on new players and help them through the star chart, some like doing Index, some like doing speed runs. My personal preference is endurance runs. Why should my fun be taken away? I don't use exploits (never have done), don't use macros, don't try to farm more than I should (whatever that means) - I simply like having a reward that scales with the time I've put in and I don't understand why anyone should be glad that would be taken away from me.

The former might not want to because it's unrewarding unless you're doing endurance runs. The latter, because they find it dull as bricks to do endurance runs in most cases, repeating the same actions over and over again.

You still have endurance runs, they're not taking that away, but now they're rewarded at the same pace.

6 minutes ago, nadeemh said:

Personally, I don't believe this. There are a LOT of different ways of playing this game. I listed some above but also the variety of frames and weapons provides an incredibly diverse way of doing things.

I feel sorry for people who are misled by meta-promoting YouTubers into believing that there's only one "proper" way of doing things, especially if they also believe what you've just said.

Frankly, speaking, this isn't the case. People reported that random drops accounted for barely a fraction of the Steel Essence drops on their runs through Steel Path, because of how Eximus spawns work, and how the drop rates work. IIRC, people pointed out they got maybe five or six after playing through every single node at least once.

Just now, (PSN)drollive96 said:

Thats good, now mods like blood rush wont be locked behind an event that occurs once in the blue moon

Acolyte mods were already moved to Deimos, IIRC.

[nadeemh]

1 minute ago, (PSN)drollive96 said:

Thats good, now mods like blood rush wont be locked behind an event that occurs once in the blue moon

Acolyte mods drop from Deimos bounties now in case you weren't aware. Also, Bloodrush has always been available from Lua spy.

[nadeemh]

3 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

You still have endurance runs, they're not taking that away, but now they're rewarded at the same pace.

I get what you are saying and it is true but my problem isn't that. The unique thing with Steel Essence is the fact that they drop from Eximus enemies. The longer you spend in a survival the higher the ratio of Eximus enemies so the more Essence you can farm. Now I like endurance runs mainly for the test of my gear and frame's abilities. I go for as long as I can, figure out how I can improve my build and the try again. I was doing this long before Steel Path was released. What makes Steel Path endurance runs more rewarding is the Steel Essence. I have more of it than I know what to do with but I'm not farming it to use. It's more like a score sheet, points kind of thing for me.

But you're right, endurance runs are still here and I'm still free to do them. I guess I had gotten used to being rewarded for this level of challenge (and frankly there isn't much else in terms of challenge for me at this point) and I'll adjust.

Regardless of that though, I feel like the game is more and more skewered towards new players again and veterans are finding it increasingly difficult to find things to do. I *thought* that Steel Essence was meant as a reward for those of us who had maxed gear, knowledge of all the frames and their abilities and so on. I was wrong and it saddens me deeply.

[JackHargreav]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TyeGoo said:

Yes, because having to wait an hour before even anything relevant drops is so much fun.

I'm glad they'll change it. 

What I don't like is the rotating shop.. we already have so much rotating nonsense we don't need more.. I mean look at nightwave where people have to wait 12ish weeks for a helmet to pop up.

They should make it like arbitrations vendor where it's set in stone.

To be fair the helmets are cosmetics and bring in money better if they are harder to obtain.

[Jukantos]

I cannot help but feel this is Viver and Draco and T4 Survival and SO many other Lootcaves all over again.

A new set of rewards are being plugged onto an existing mechanic so the existing efficient farms get hard-patched out, rewarding the people who have stockpiled and punishing those who have not. What was the point in making Steel Essence be affected by (paid!) resource boosters, if it'll now become a freakin mission reward from Kuva-Siphon-Like missions with no actual drop chance? I did not stockpile Steel Essence and now i'm gonna get screwed over for it. I honestly despise Steel Path Gameplay because it combines the non-fun of exclusively melee-wailing on everything because no gun kills fast enough with constantly being oneshotted if i'm not Inaros. So it's basically a "Mash E on Inaros" Mode, which i was happily avoiding grinding more than necessary with a bit of "Khora in the hole".

And now this. ANOTHER removed "lootcave". This. S#&$. Kills. Player. Motivation. If you don't bend my arm behind my back by tying Mastery into Teshins Weekly Store (don't you dare) i'm just not going to touch this. And my friend who's sitting on a 15000 Steel Essence stockpile is going to be having a victory *bleep*. Also there goes my easiest access to Kuva. Yay.

I just don't get it anymore. Does your internal data really bear out that sticking EVERYTHING on rotations from Siphons to Anomaly Shards to the weekly quests to the Glassmaker tasks increase player retention? If anything it makes me run away from the game after grabbing THE most important stuff every week.

I don't wanna start the game i've loved 5000 hours of, take a look at a Kanban Board of tasks like i'm logged into my Dayjob and choose which one of the modes with actively unfun gameplay i'll go into for the most enticing rewards 

That's a Formula for Anthem or Avengers, not Warframe. Please stop doing this. I always feel like an idiot for not stockpiling S#&$ that isn't fun to obtain because "challenge" seems to equal "Being oneshot" and "Being restricted to Melee only".

Edit: Just heard from a friend that the Steel Essence farm is screwed anyway because Enemies now run away from the corners that are efficient to camp for farming. Great. Screw me for not stockpiling i guess. Again.

[Loza03]

6 minutes ago, nadeemh said:

I get what you are saying and it is true but my problem isn't that. The unique thing with Steel Essence is the fact that they drop from Eximus enemies. The longer you spend in a survival the higher the ratio of Eximus enemies so the more Essence you can farm. Now I like endurance runs mainly for the test of my gear and frame's abilities. I go for as long as I can, figure out how I can improve my build and the try again. I was doing this long before Steel Path was released. What makes Steel Path endurance runs more rewarding is the Steel Essence. I have more of it than I know what to do with but I'm not farming it to use. It's more like a score sheet, points kind of thing for me.

But you're right, endurance runs are still here and I'm still free to do them. I guess I had gotten used to being rewarded for this level of challenge (and frankly there isn't much else in terms of challenge for me at this point) and I'll adjust.

Regardless of that though, I feel like the game is more and more skewered towards new players again and veterans are finding it increasingly difficult to find things to do. I *thought* that Steel Essence was meant as a reward for those of us who had maxed gear, knowledge of all the frames and their abilities and so on. I was wrong and it saddens me deeply.

I'm well aware, but due to those exact same mechanics, the rewards were pitiful outside of steel path. In other words, if you wanted a decent grind time, you had to do steel path.

As for new players vs vets, Steel Path honestly as somebody who's been playing about as long as you (if forum profiles are any indication), I don't feel like it actually does appeal to Vets. It's not actually more difficult to achieve - the numbers are just bigger. If I'm using my much-hated stasis Limbo, I'm not thinking about new strategies, I'm not worrying about ammo (especially since Melee is so much stronger and doesn't use it), I'm not worrying about health, how I'm going to achieve my objective, I'm not even jumping around to dodge attacks because it's hitscan, dodging is inconsistent RNG anyway) I'm doing the exact same thing I do in every other mission. Stasis - cataclysm - mass slaughter of Grineer - repeat. It just so happens that it takes longer to do.

Even with my low-duration setup that I've helminthed-out Stasis for (because like I said, I hate that aspect of Limbo) it's not dramatically more engaging since I'm still banishing enemies and hitting them with 300% damage boosts from Rift Torrent. As fun as that is, it's all you do throughout the whole mission Enemies are still dumb, have questionable-to-poor design in plenty of cases, all group up for easy killing and so forth. You can argue, 'well just don't use OP strats then' but A: I'm not. Low-duration Limbo is distinctly off-meta, as are my preferred weapons which are usually single-target and B: that's not changing mission or enemy design, or the inherent issues with the current state of energy and ammo that enables repetitive strategies like this.

[(PSN)SgtRavage]

This will be a drastically nerf to steel essence farm. Some people might be to stupid to realize that...

[DrivaMain]

21 minutes ago, nadeemh said:

I feel like the game is more and more skewered towards new players

You are right, they have been doing this since they retire Solar Rails. I’ll put it this way :

Warframe’s target audience are casual players

If you’re playing just for challenge then you are going to be disappointed. Challenge Seekers’s feedback falls to deaf ears.