Steel path and difficulty, Again ...

[MouadSaqui]

Okey, I was there when they first announced steel path in devstream, and I saw chat be like "no steve whyyyyyy", and on the forums people be like "we don't want the game to be like Dark Souls" and after a while, people played steel path, the rewards where terrible, difficulty felt so fake, and yet this community can still find ways to get attached to a game mode they hated or didn't want it to be in the game.. and now people are mad bcs of steel path changes.. 

If you remember, it all started with DE scott complaining about simulacrum(which is weird since they themselves added it ), basically what he said is lot of warframe content is just people shooting brain dead enemies in a grey room, ignoring 99% of the game content, this triggered a beef with some content creators saying they hate to wait for hours in a survival mission to be able to test a weapon on high level enemies, and as a response from DE, They added steel path..... that's all, Steel path was never intended to be our promised "End Game", and to be honest the only real hard content in the game right now are the Eidolons, and we all know how much the community hate that type of boss fights bcs of the "strict meta" surrounding it, and I agree... but, when I personally think about it, DE tried many times to deliver difficult content and people hated it... so to me its very obvious why DE stopped listening, and if you think about it, The helminth system, followed with nerfs, all was an attempt to fix the game, I don't think game developers are stupid to add something like helminth system in the game for no reason.

So let me ask you, do you really want difficult content in warframe ? cause we already know, the answer is not Steel path, and will never be steel path or any other path where enemies are level 99999, what are we talking about here is content that require some team play, Personally, I have the new war deliver something worth calling "difficult", I think its time for the tenno to grow up, and stop asking for more power.

That's just my opinion anyway. 

[TARINunit9]

1 minute ago, MouadSaqui said:

Steel path was never intended to be our promised "End Game"

That's exactly the "problem", for lack of a better word

DE can't make an endgame because they haven't made skill-based content in years. As a result, veterans are sitting on piles and piles of "kill thirty enemies within five seconds of them spawning" builds they earned just by grinding out all the other content. This leaves them with nothing to do but find the tankiest, spongiest enemies in the game and see how fast they can kill them. Right now that's three-hour-log Steel Path Interception.

DE can't make an endgame, so the players made their own endgame. Now players who can actually do this want SOMEthing to drop, to validate actually wasting three hours of their life. That's the apprehension behind the changes to Steel Path

[BornWithTeeth]

I say, as I have said before and will say again, the fact that DE added a hard mode and literally all they could think of was to make the enemies all have a couple of hundred percent higher EHP tells you a lot.

They can't change difficulty by upgrading enemy AI, because Tenno mobility and CC powers render enemy AI a joke.
They can't change difficulty by reworking the core game mechanics and making Warframe into a challenging action/shooter where you can die if you screw up because then everyone will cry 'Muh power fantasy'.
Any other attempts that DE make to incorporate a challenge just get cheesed out of existence by combinations of OP weapons and hard shutdown Warframe powers. See how DE are struggling to come up with boss enemies, and recently resorted to a boss fight which features no game mechanics other than jumping and throwing things?

 

All that DE can do is make the numbers bigger. And if the community don't like that, then try to remember that it's half the fault of the community.

[kevoisvevo]

20 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

That's exactly the "problem", for lack of a better word

DE can't make an endgame because they haven't made skill-based content in years. As a result, veterans are sitting on piles and piles of "kill thirty enemies within five seconds of them spawning" builds they earned just by grinding out all the other content. This leaves them with nothing to do but find the tankiest, spongiest enemies in the game and see how fast they can kill them. Right now that's three-hour-log Steel Path Interception.

DE can't make an endgame, so the players made their own endgame. Now players who can actually do this want SOMEthing to drop, to validate actually wasting three hours of their life. That's the apprehension behind the changes to Steel Path

this #*!%ing this right here. i came up to this conclusion after falling asleep on my near 3hr steel path mot run with savaged silenced ash build but ran out of life support due to falling asleep for a minute. after that i knew it was mostly pointless and all that there is left is the meta and grind, no skill and definitely no reward for said skill. 

[TARINunit9]

40 minutes ago, BornWithTeeth said:

See how DE are struggling to come up with boss enemies, and recently resorted to a boss fight which features no game mechanics other than jumping and throwing things?

Not just once, but twice

[BornWithTeeth]

4 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Not just once, but twice

Well. Fighting the Exploiter Orb does technically reward you for being able to pick off the coolant spiders in one or two shots at range. There's actual combat, like.

[Loza03]

18 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Not just once, but twice

Three times, actually. Data-Hunhow.

Granted, that one was thematically-appropriate to the quest, so it probably doesn't really count

[trst]

Steel Path could have offered some better difficulty since the entire game boils down to gear checks. But powercreep has run so rampant over the years that even SP can be trivialized solo with one or two well modded frames and weapons. Everything else you could bring into a mission like Arcanes, companions, focus/operators, etc are all completely optional meaning even SP failed greatly as a gear check.

Not like this is something DE can solve easily as DE would need to commit to reworking all our gear, mods, frames, and weapons or establish a limit on our power, enforce it, and never make content that exceeds that without making content that warrants it. Balancing and limiting will get flack from people who are obsessed with their "power fantasy" while making content that requires all our progression gets flack from people who spout "but think of the new players!!1!" and players who refuse to progress through the game.

What I want in regards to difficult content in this game will never happen as the community has far too many players that actively want the exact opposite. Unfortunately it doesn't help that DE fostered these parts of the community to begin with.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 hours ago, MouadSaqui said:

Okey, I was there when they first announced steel path in devstream, and I saw chat be like "no steve whyyyyyy", and on the forums people be like "we don't want the game to be like Dark Souls" and after a while, people played steel path, the rewards where terrible, difficulty felt so fake, and yet this community can still find ways to get attached to a game mode they hated or didn't want it to be in the game.. and now people are mad bcs of steel path changes.. 

If you remember, it all started with DE scott complaining about simulacrum(which is weird since they themselves added it ), basically what he said is lot of warframe content is just people shooting brain dead enemies in a grey room, ignoring 99% of the game content, this triggered a beef with some content creators saying they hate to wait for hours in a survival mission to be able to test a weapon on high level enemies, and as a response from DE, They added steel path..... that's all, Steel path was never intended to be our promised "End Game", and to be honest the only real hard content in the game right now are the Eidolons, and we all know how much the community hate that type of boss fights bcs of the "strict meta" surrounding it, and I agree... but, when I personally think about it, DE tried many times to deliver difficult content and people hated it... so to me its very obvious why DE stopped listening, and if you think about it, The helminth system, followed with nerfs, all was an attempt to fix the game, I don't think game developers are stupid to add something like helminth system in the game for no reason.

So let me ask you, do you really want difficult content in warframe ? cause we already know, the answer is not Steel path, and will never be steel path or any other path where enemies are level 99999, what are we talking about here is content that require some team play, Personally, I have the new war deliver something worth calling "difficult", I think its time for the tenno to grow up, and stop asking for more power.

That's just my opinion anyway. 

You're confusing a couple of things: 

The community isn't one hivemind, so not everyone hated Steel path, some asked for it. 

We wanted simply high level enemies, that's it. 

We didn't know they were gonna add 10k kuva for 15 steel essence. That's separate from Steel path. I do and will still play Steel path with or without the kuva. 

Steel Path wasnt about wanting difficulty, either....it was about finally having multi-formaed weapons, frames, basically powerful gear and still having to 1-tap level 40 to 80 enemies. 

We wanted to actually see a slash proc work on an enemy instead of it die before we even ramp up to 12x combo, or shoot more than one bullet.

[(PSN)Kakurine2]

Honestly after clearing two planets and getting no steel essence i don't care for the mode.  If i actually got essence so i could nab the 2 rewards i care about the mode would be completely ignored.

We could have really cool rewards if they want to bother developing it.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

5 hours ago, MouadSaqui said:

do you really want difficult content in warframe ?

the community as a whole needs to come to an answer on this, but it's highly unlikely to ever happen for a number of reasons:

- the forums are but a drop in the ocean of the actual playerbase. sure, we get vocal minorities but what they take issue with is not always an issue for everyone, except for things that are objectively bad and the things that we can agree on.

- difficulty is subjective: I find getting headshots easy, but suck at platforming btis like in Glassmaker's fight, while others are parkour masters but prefer AoE weapons attacks because they can't hit the broad side of a crewship. that's fine, we're all different, but as long as we're all different, we won't get something to suit everyone's tastes, because there's just too many differences to cover.

- the devs have proven that they aren't particulalry great at making difficult content it usually falls into one of the following ballparks: immunity to powers/Status, bullet sponge, weak points, or removing player choices (again, pointing to Glassmaker's fight). or it ends up being a combination of these things. at the same time, HOW do you make a boss last long enough to at least feel like a threat, against us with our current power levels, without resorting to these tactics? I don't know if the answers out there, but if it is, nobody has found it yet.

- part of warframe's appeal for some  people (myself included) is the power fantasy. if I feel like wanting to play something that will challenge me, I'll boot up Iceborne or something else. I boot up warframe because I want to be a space ninja with godlike powers that wrecks whole armies of hapless goons, because that's fun to me. I won't claim to speak for everyone, and I don't know how many people dislike/don't wnat challenge, but I've seen other people who feel a similar way, and honestly, I love warframe even without any challenge. I'm not against making the game more difficult in places, but if adding difficulty results in removing fun, then for me, that's when it becomes an issue. 

 

 

[CoalitionOfGears]

5 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

They can't change difficulty by upgrading enemy AI, because Tenno mobility and CC powers render enemy AI a joke.
They can't change difficulty by reworking the core game mechanics and making Warframe into a challenging action/shooter where you can die if you screw up because then everyone will cry 'Muh power fantasy'.

Just make a toggle on mission start-up (kinda like Steel Path or syndicates/invasions) where you can tick boxes to get boosters at the cost of power? Duh.

Disable bullet jump to get double drops [y/n], restrict ability strength/range/duration/efficiency for increased drop chance [y/n], start mission with only melee/primary/secondary weapon equipped for double affinity [y/n], set enemy damage to 10x for a mod drop chance [y/n]... that sort of thing. Do it right and you could even get bonuses for stacking these modifiers, like shortening waves required for a rotation in a defense, etc. All optional and allows the devs to actually start thinking about doing anything about real incremental difficulty.

Except before you do that, make sure to balance the game around it, so that a melee Inaros or some other build isn't capable of cheesing it on day 1, which honestly should be done anyway for the sake of promoting build diversity if nothing else.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

I've said it before, I've been given a warning for stating my opinion and no doubt I'll get warned under the premise of "dev bashing" cos apparently criticism is bad... The devs are not good at playing their own game. There are many examples of this, not least of all the Steel Path mode but it's because they don't know what synergies exist, what exploits, the way mechanics can be utilized to make things OP, you just have to look at the devstream that teased the disruption mode and see Rebecca mentioning that "enemies are level 30 now so it's getting tough" or watch them doing an eidolon hunt etc.

They've started to rectify this by allowing test groups to beta test new content like Steel Path and Deimos Arcana BUT they're not allowing in the kinds of players that they need testing this stuff ie exploiters. Call them what you will, the fact remains they know the game best and DE needs to start learning from them if they wish to ever be able to create difficulty. Right now, there are too many various mods, too many frames with various abilities and mechanics and too many clever theory crafters to EVER create difficulty in this game if they continue to not learn about what is possible in their own game.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

7 minutes ago, -CdG-Zilchy said:

I've said it before, I've been given a warning for stating my opinion and no doubt I'll get warned under the premise of "dev bashing" cos apparently criticism is bad... The devs are not good at playing their own game. There are many examples of this, not least of all the Steel Path mode but it's because they don't know what synergies exist, what exploits, the way mechanics can be utilized to make things OP, you just have to look at the devstream that teased the disruption mode and see Rebecca mentioning that "enemies are level 30 now so it's getting tough" or watch them doing an eidolon hunt etc.

They've started to rectify this by allowing test groups to beta test new content like Steel Path and Deimos Arcana BUT they're not allowing in the kinds of players that they need testing this stuff ie exploiters. Call them what you will, the fact remains they know the game best and DE needs to start learning from them if they wish to ever be able to create difficulty. Right now, there are too many various mods, too many frames with various abilities and mechanics and too many clever theory crafters to EVER create difficulty in this game if they continue to not learn about what is possible in their own game.

Yea this happens everywhere. On another game I played for 7 years, the people that tested new content were casuals or simply bad players. They drown out the logical players that actually make spreadsheets and use actual numbers and data.

You'd have so many people say simple stuff like "buff this weapon, it just doesn't feel right..." 

Like dude we're not changing the game based on feelings...at least throw some data sets in there.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

3 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Yea this happens everywhere. On another game I played for 7 years, the people that tested new content were casuals or simply bad players. They drown out the logical players that actually make spreadsheets and use actual numbers and data.

You'd have so many people say simple stuff like "buff this weapon, it just doesn't feel right..." 

Like dude we're not changing the game based on feelings...at least throw some data sets in there.

The difference is that DE DOES change things based on feelings, usually the feelings of a few over-hyped youtubers. 

[killerJoke66]

11 hours ago, BornWithTeeth said:

They can't change difficulty by reworking the core game mechanics and making Warframe into a challenging action/shooter where you can die if you screw up because then everyone will cry 'Muh power fantasy'.

 Hard agree , just a side note that there are games that have both power fantasy and challenge like god of war's (at least old versions') combat mechanics , you can be untouchable as long as you know how to read ai and respond accordingly , that was just as an example that those things can exist at the same time. 

[Angwah]

Steel Path is still a good step in the direction of more difficult content. There are more steps to be taken obviously, but all the whining about 'bullet sponges' aside, they are about in the right ballpark of durability. With a properly decked out weapon you can still slice and dice them, CC is back on the table instead of being a waste of time, there are finally a pleasant amount of mobs when playing solo, etc...

What they need to focus on now is a better and more challenging mix of mobs, and make some more of these. A mix more like on the highest level of alarm in Orb Vallis. Horde is good and all, but add a much higher percentage of enemies which can mess you up, forcing you to think at least a little, keep moving and prioritize targets. 

Player damage and durability is fine, but they need to be looking critically at some of the hard CC with too large area's which shuts down entire maps trivially and rework stealth to be, you know, stealth instead of the I-win button it is now. 

 

[saghzs]

The negative feedback most of the time drowns out the positive feedback.

 

There are lots of people that want more difficult content, like eidolons or profit taker or raids

And when we get some of that, those people are mostly happy.

But then the people that don't want to run meta builds or whatever start complaining that it's too hard or too forced.

 

And then on the other hand, when we get something like Deimos or Deadlock Protocol for the more casual playerbase.

So those people are happy and don't complain.

But then the people that want difficult content start complaining again.

 

It's an endless cycle. And there is a very thin line that DE has to walk to satisfy both parties.

And.. with a game like warframe where we have such a huge difference in power between all the different frames and weapons, its a 100 times harder.

[SneakyErvin]

I want difficult content in WF. It is just that the way DE tries to implement it in general doesnt work due to how powerful we are. Whenever something is implemented correctly to counter our power it is often met with criticism.

Glass enemies are a perfect example of a good implementation of difficulty that works in WF, simply because they are based around weakpoints before we can wreck havoc on them. This means they cant be mindlessly AoEed by powers, which has led to alot of complaining on these forums. The main problem with several weakpoint enemies in WF though is that they move around too much, especially in solo play, so you need to chase those weakpoints which turn into a boring encounter (see Thumpers).

The idea is there though, DE just needs to refine it. A harder mode where several mobs have atleast 1 weakpoint would do alot to counter the mindless gameplay of Saryn, Khora, Mesa and the rest. It would be a perfect thing to add to heavy units in the game and all eximus.