The upcoming Steel Essence aquisition changes are making the playerbase unhappy.

[AncientShotgun]

Edit: Some excellent suggestions from the replies. I'll compile them here, with credit, above the original post:

• Acolytes remain, as they are very underutilized and implementing them into SP will blow a breath of fresh air into their mothballed remains. The demand for more SE per defeated Acolyte might be negligible if other changes go through. (Thanks (PSN)xBellikx)
• It's been suggested that Steel Path Dailies be kept, as they are useful for completing nodes, under the conditions that their Steel Essence payout be modulated (on a difficulty basis, perhaps) and that they do not repeat mission nodes often otherwise their usefulness as node unlockers will decrease. (Thanks Xaero and (PSN)Agent_CHAR)
• 2hr+ AFK Kuva and SE farms could be replaced with Steel Path Kuva Siphons ballparking at anywhere between 20k and 80k Kuva/hr (good payout for their difficulty). Perhaps Kuva Floods as well, that are even more difficult. Once again, DE should focus on mission type variety! I can't predict how important this will be in the near future, as Glassmaker is set to run till end of 2020 and if you're done with getting reactors and catalysts you can trade some Kuva for your Nightwave credits. We all know how shortsighted DE can be. (Thanks Xylena_Lazarow)
• Teshin's rotating inventory remains to be seen. Hoping for something useful, cosmetics are cool but they're just cosmetics at the end of the day.

The main question now is how this will affect player retention for both old and new players. Feel free to discuss.

Original post:

The upcoming rework regarding changes to Steel Essence acquisition are making a significant portion of the playerbase (that which inhabits Reddit, mainly) unhappy, and this is contributing to overall unhappiness with the game. This unhappiness did not develop overnight, but that discussion is not within the scope of this post.

What I wish to do in this post is present a compromise between the current system and the new one proposed in Home Devstream #8:

• Acolytes are cool, they can stay. Make sure that they drop more than one (1) Steel Essence.
• Steel Essence Daily Missions sound and look too much like the now-obsolete Alerts system. I suggest not keeping these, but have not yet figured out what can replace them reward-wise. Perhaps the Acolytes? Well-thought-out suggestions welcome!
• The big ticket (and very prickly) item on this list is the all but confirmed change that DE is going to remove the Steel Essence drops from Eximus drop tables. This is what most players are riled up about, and I can only give my honest opinion on this: DE, for the love of your playerbase, PLEASE keep them in the drop tables. Many people will loathe you if you remove them from those drop tables, and you need all the approval you can get nowadays. You aren't an AAA studio, you can't just go around producing products and services that your customer base dislike. Ask more people on places other than the forums what they think, PLEASE. A scholar does not source their studies from just one source unless they are a bad scholar.
•  Teshin's rotating inventory is not highly suspicious yet, but we'll have to see what kind of things DE puts in there, because if it isn't up to the player bases' standards you can expect to see a lot of new forum topics. We all know how Baro's inventory is memed on.
• Novel improvement suggestions are always welcome.

The game development business is cutthroat, and one wrong move can cost a studio like DE not only millions of dollars, but also it's lifespan. DE will have to think long and hard in the near future about the quality and type of services it produces, or risk bleeding players due to unanswered and improperly addressed player frustrations. I must reinforce in this post that DE is at nontrivial risk of losing customers due to a long-term aggregation of unfulfilled or improperly fulfilled customer wants and needs.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this suggestion.

[NecroPed]

I'm personally really looking forward to the changes. A bit part of it is the fact that it's not going to be so concentrated on several hour afk farm. 

I think the alerts are a fantastic idea too. No one wants to play SP unless it's hour+ runs on specific node. This will draw players to all nodes, and allow people to find squads for SP through matchmaking much easier. 

And if they keep the eximus drops, I think they'll have to be substantially lower than what is given through the acolytes/alerts to justify it's place and prevent the one node afk farm from being the only way SP is played. 

[Dauggie]

they could appear on any node i believe so its not just survival, so infact you could find them in capture mission and that be the quickest way to get them. also reddit is not majority player base, i give legit no fcks for steel essence. it's only for those who want kuva. which already has 5-6 method of obtaining.

[AltairFerenc]

I personally couldn't be more happy that steel essence coming from a new alert system than some 1% or less drop chance from units that barely spawn until 30-40 minutes in.
I haven't finished steel path yet because it's boring and there's nothing there but I want that overpriced ephemra... A little more than half of the starchart is finished I barely got 4 of them(not counting inbox reward after a planet and last weeks twich drop)
With the new/old alert system I could actually get them without staying in endless missions for needlessly long time with only meta relevant garbage. 
Remember 2 things
Not everyone has too much time to play, getting stuff easier is good
Reddit is horrible and toxic af sometimes even more than social media and the forums let's not speak about "majority" if you only checked reddit, there's this place, steam community page, twitter, facebbok, instagramm, and god knows how many discord servers... also there's just people who just don't speak as much because they get shouted at about thier opininos from the toxic people.

[Xylena_Lazarow]

1 hour ago, AncientShotgun said:

The big ticket (and very prickly) item on this list is the all but confirmed change that DE is going to remove the Steel Essence drops from Eximus drop tables.

I'm pretty happy about this and find the salt delicious. AFK farming and/or 2+hr missions should never be the meta for anything.

People have been demanding "rewards" on SP for months. Careful what you wish for.

[Xaero]

TL/DR version:

Please, don't remove afk farming! Please!

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

1 hour ago, AncientShotgun said:

Steel Essence Daily Missions sound and look too much like the now-obsolete Alerts system.

IMO the daily missions are a lot less about being a method to get steel essence than they are about a much needed match making option for players needing to unlock nodes.  At this point in time it is either solo the path or don't do it.  Giving out essence is just the carrot to get all players to run the mission.

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Why would you think that the game only cares about redditors and their happiness specifically....

You have no idea how all the players feel.

What about the players that are happy with the changes?

[AncientShotgun]

48 minutes ago, Xaero said:

TL/DR version:

Please, don't remove afk farming! Please!

Alright, you got me there XD

However, you forgot one thing: you also have the ability to add constructive criticism and novel innovations to my suggestions. Got any at the moment?

[(PSN)xBellikx]

Not really, not all the playerbase are meta slaves running long endurance runs, sitting in corner just to grind SE, not all of us have the patience, time, or taste for such task.

My reaction to the new SE changes can be summed up as "-shrugs- ok" as I have not put much effort into Steel Path, I just can't find a reason, the male Bishamo set looks god-awful (compared to the female one) the Crania ephemera looks nice but not that nice to farm SE just for it, and the planet figurines is something I don't have a rush to gather either.

Although I am kind of excited to have the Acolytes as mini bosses, it is something that'll make me actually go into Steel Path, I hope their helmet is one of the new Teshin treasures as I've been wanting to fashion my frames as one of the acolytes for a while.

[AncientShotgun]

Just now, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Why would you think that the game only cares about redditors and their happiness specifically....

You have no idea how all the players feel.

What about the players that are happy with the changes?

I would be inclined to agree, but I must also ask you the same: Do you know how all the players would feel?

I mentioned Redditors specifically because they are the ones producing the complaints. They are the loudest 'minority' currently a part of the playerbase.  I'm not calling into question all the ideas from the Devstream, just some. This is a compromise after all, and a suggestion at that. Nothing here is guaranteed to appear.

Of course, a compromise also only partially satisfies both involved parties. Make of my suggestion what you will.

Also, remember to also contribute to discussion. It's no use if I'm the only one flinging around ideas of varying quality.

[Xaero]

6 minutes ago, AncientShotgun said:

However, you forgot one thing: you also have the ability to add constructive criticism and novel innovations to my suggestions. Got any at the moment?

Shouldn't there be constructive arguments why afk SE farming is good and why it should stay first? Talking about and for playerbase doesn't count, there are no public numbers to show percentage of playerbase that does afk farming/is against its removal/will quit the game if it's removed.

[AncientShotgun]

3 minutes ago, (PSN)xBellikx said:

Not really, not all the playerbase are meta slaves running long endurance runs, sitting in corner just to grind SE, not all of us have the patience, time, or taste for such task.

My reaction to the new SE changes can be summed up as "-shrugs- ok" as I have not put much effort into Steel Path, I just can't find a reason, the male Bishamo set looks god-awful (compared to the female one) the Crania ephemera looks nice but not that nice to farm SE just for it, and the planet figurines is something I don't have a rush to gather either.

Although I am kind of excited to have the Acolytes as mini bosses, it is something that'll make me actually go into Steel Path, I hope their helmet is one of the new Teshin treasures as I've been wanting to fashion my frames as one of the acolytes for a while.

This is the opinion I am currently most aligned with. I only sporadically play Steel Path, so I might not even be qualified to produce ideas about it anyway. As I mentioned in the original post, I find the Acolytes to be an excellent idea and hope that their implementation will reintroduce them into the game in a fresh and exciting way.

[AncientShotgun]

3 minutes ago, Xaero said:

Shouldn't there be constructive arguments why afk SE farming is good and why it should stay first? Talking about and for playerbase doesn't count, there are no public numbers to show percentage of playerbase that does afk farming/is against its removal/will quit the game if it's removed.

I was talking about constructive criticism on what to replace the AFK farms with, if we're going down that route. People are going to want a replacement that they like. This is a suggestion, after all. I only want as few people as possible to get pissed off, and the Devstream ideas are making a bunch of people very pissed off. I hate it when lots of people get annoyed at once on a platform that I use.

[AncientShotgun]

41 minutes ago, (PSN)Agent_CHAR said:

IMO the daily missions are a lot less about being a method to get steel essence than they are about a much needed match making option for players needing to unlock nodes.  At this point in time it is either solo the path or don't do it.  Giving out essence is just the carrot to get all players to run the mission.

 

Oh balls, I forgot about that aspect. Guess they aren't as close to Alerts as I originally thought. Yeah, I guess that would also work. I guess we can keep those if they're dual-purpose like that, but I sincerely hope DE makes it such that the mission nodes they are placed on aren't often repeated, otherwise the whole thing is going to be severely kneecapped in usefulness.

[Xaero]

3 minutes ago, AncientShotgun said:

I was talking about constructive criticism on what to replace the AFK farms with, if we're going down that route. People are going to want a replacement that they like. This is a suggestion, after all.

I've read your post once more and I can't find any suggestions on what to replace afk farm with. I only see a suggestion to leave everything as is. It's not an option though. If players and devs were happy with the way things are, there wouldn't be any talk about the new system at all.

7 minutes ago, AncientShotgun said:

I only want as few people as possible to get pissed off, and the Devstream ideas are making a bunch of people very pissed off. I hate it when lots of people get annoyed at once on a platform that I use.

Yet you don't know how many players are happy with the changes. Most of them likely won't even post anything.

[AncientShotgun]

1 hour ago, Xylena_Lazarow said:

I'm pretty happy about this and find the salt delicious. AFK farming and/or 2+hr missions should never be the meta for anything.

People have been demanding "rewards" on SP for months. Careful what you wish for.

While salt is delicious, please moderate your intake of it, literally and metaphorically.

We need a way of making 2hr+ AFK farms less attractive. You got any ideas? My idea was maybe to make the Steel Essence rewards taper off, but that would piss off many more people than I'm willing to tolerate. Better to get it right the first time around, and I'm not qualified in that aspect to make suggestions.

[Xylena_Lazarow]

Just now, AncientShotgun said:

We need a way of making 2hr+ AFK farms less attractive. You got any ideas?

Other than what DE actually did by gutting them? Steel Path kuva siphon missions that yield an acceptable kuva/hr rate.

[AncientShotgun]

4 minutes ago, Xaero said:

Yet you don't know how many players are happy with the changes. Most of them likely won't even post anything.

Do you know that for sure? People on social media can be very loud when they want to be, especially when they've chosen to take a side. People who are happy are less likely to give feedback stating their happiness unless they are directly asked for it, while dissatisfied people are all too loud, even when their feedback is superfluous. And I only get annoyed at the loud ones.

The AFK farms, though... I'm quite stupid regarding this point, which is why I gave my honest opinion and not a concrete suggestion. You guys will have to find a solution to that that will work for both you and other people. I cannot help you there.

[Xaero]

2 minutes ago, AncientShotgun said:

Do you know that for sure?

Nope, so I said "likely".

3 minutes ago, AncientShotgun said:

People on social media can be very loud when they want to be, especially when they've chosen to take a side. People who are happy are less likely to give feedback stating their happiness unless they are directly asked for it, while dissatisfied people are all too loud, even when their feedback is superfluous. And I only get annoyed at the loud ones.

Exactly.

6 minutes ago, AncientShotgun said:

The AFK farms, though... I'm quite stupid regarding this point, which is why I gave my honest opinion and not a concrete suggestion. You guys will have to find a solution to that that will work for both you and other people. I cannot help you there.

The solution offered by DE already sounds appealing. The only thing that will probably need the tweaks is the number of SE given for alert mission completion.

[AncientShotgun]

8 minutes ago, Xylena_Lazarow said:

Other than what DE actually did by gutting them? Steel Path kuva siphon missions that yield an acceptable kuva/hr rate.

Got any numbers on what kind of Kuva/hr rate you'd like to see? Within reason of course, or DE will throw the entire suggestion away.

[AncientShotgun]

1 minute ago, Xaero said:

The only thing that will probably need the tweaks is the number of SE given for alert mission completion.

I don't believe anyone on any social media site, not even DE, has ever considered this variable. You may have struck Thaumica with this one. There are still people that want, of their own free will, to do the 2hr+AFK farms for both Kuva and SE and be compensated for it though. What would you do with them, or are they the percentage that is safe to write off as 'people that'll be unsatisfied regardless of what we do'?

[Xylena_Lazarow]

1 minute ago, AncientShotgun said:

Got any numbers on what kind of Kuva/hr rate you'd like to see?

A few years ago, I'd join those riven mafia kuva flood assembly lines and make something like 20k/hr IIRC, which felt decent enough and made me a lot of plat. I lost interest in kuva farming when SE became the meta but remember friends making near 80k/hr shortly after SP came out (which made the nerf to kuva flood sharing seem completely idiotic). I'm now curious what the current optimized numbers are.

TL;DR somewhere between 20k and 80k kuva/hr if I had to guess, much closer to 20k and wouldn't be surprised if DE wanted to push that further down

[Xaero]

12 minutes ago, AncientShotgun said:

There are still people that want, of their own free will, to do the 2hr+AFK farms for both Kuva and SE and be compensated for it though. What would you do with them, or are they the percentage that is safe to write off as 'people that'll be unsatisfied regardless of what we do'?

Being able to afk farm for hours with almost zero effort is no feat, and it shouldn't be compensated as such. I'd even say it falls more into the "exploit" and "use it while you can" category. I've been here for almost 7 years without breaks, and I've seen a lot of stuff like that. And every time DE fix or remove a popular exploit there are posts that make it seem like it's the end of the world.

[(XBOX)Harbinger XK5]

2 hours ago, AncientShotgun said:

This is the opinion I am currently most aligned with. I only sporadically play Steel Path, so I might not even be qualified to produce ideas about it anyway. As I mentioned in the original post, I find the Acolytes to be an excellent idea and hope that their implementation will reintroduce them into the game in a fresh and exciting way.

and bring kuva farming back to having no reward whatsoever