Infested Steel Path (Disruptors/Ancients) and hopes for 2021

[I.V.A.R.A]

Coming off the back of the 2 Steel Path alerts for survival today, I'm still left wondering why Ancient Disruptors are 5,000% OP. I don't want to sound rude, or hasty, but I challenge any Community Manager to do Steel Path infested and have energy. Ever. 

We know Ancient Disruptors (which I will now call AD's) are horrific for their hitscan, never miss, omnipresent hooks. These things are enough to ruin fun even on regular ole' star chart missions. But then we're put into Steel Path, where the already incredible amount of infested enemies is amplified by 10. Then, since it wasn't likely considered and just simply changed to be "more" (unless they were eximus dropping Essence), you get that 10x of every enemy. Including AD's. Everything in infested Steel Path is always glowing purple. You are always out of energy. Even when you are greyed out as Gara using her 4, or Wukong using his 3, you lose all energy every single time you get it back. It is the least amount of fun, of everything in the game. 

Then we talk about how much damage everything infested does since their 300% buff before getting the Steel Path Sponge treatment and it's even more ridiculous. Again, I don't want to sound rude but there's just no way you can expect people to want to play this game mode when they can't use anything, at all, except guns. We play Warframe, to play with Warframes. If I wanted to play with guns, and only guns, I'd play CSGO or something. I don't feel any version of powerful or akin to a war machine when my Wukong with Vitality, Adaptation, Arcane Guardian, War Cry, etc can't even last for 10 seconds into a mission. Yay I have a way to heal, except, I don't. Because if the thing that hit me last wasn't toxin (which also got a 300% buff... which was supposed to be melee untis) then 98% of the time it was an AD or any of the purple enemies around it that also take my energy. Or the actual energy leeches... which stack. Just like the AD's. 

Anyhow, I really hope this year you stop worrying about bringing in new players and bringing players back and give those of us who stick by you a reason to continue doing so. I would want nothing more than all frames to be looked over and balanced (in example, Valkyr, who when compared to Atlas Prime or Lavos, is a joke for Health/Shields "because she has hysteria" which I never use because my run of the mill melee weapons are much, much, much stronger). I want bugs that have been around for 3+ years like not being able to easily and efficiently get to extraction. Or 1 year old bugs like  Ivara Prime's bow energy not changing or when using Octavia, crouching to the music brings my RTX-2080 to it's knees until I'm standing again... only happens when crouching with her 3 on. I would like someone to retroactively change all color channels of everything in the game so they make sense, with metals being 4th down in color changing. I would like someone else to retroactively pick a material for primes, and apply it to every Prime Thing, so I can actually use half the accessories I pay for -because I can't when things like Titania Prime's own Syandana in her Prime access doesn't even match her let alone anything else (because primed stuff ends up being 6x brighter/lighter than everything else)... "fashion frame is end game" after all, as well as a massive portion of your income I'd imagine. I would like you to go back and look at old things to spice them up, like Mobile Defense with a way to speed them up or something. I'd like for Steel Path to just be the +100 level we wanted from the beginning, Nobody wanted the enemies to feel that different or have all these bonuses regardless of who they are (looking at you coin guys on corpus tiles). Most importantly... change AD's so they DO NOT scale their damage, and preferably don't take energy at all - just a chance at magnetic proc so the game can be enjoyed. There's been far too much "can't use warframe in warframe" stuff happening since Orb Vallis and it is one of the main things that keeps me from playing.  

I know this is all long and ranting, and I'm sorry. It comes from a place of compassion not hatred. I know you can listen to us, it's just that you haven't been.

TLDR: Ancient Disruptors absolutely, positively ruin everything infested Steel Path (or anything at all). They're about 500 times over powered. It's impossible to have, get, or keep energy in Steel Path infested because there are so many of them & their hitscan homing hooks. They need to be able to be negated, and anything infested that doesn't physically hit you needs -300% buff you gave infested. we play Warframe to play with abilities, otherwise we'd play CSGO or COD. 

[KitMeHarder]

40 minutes ago, I.V.A.R.A said:

I'm still left wondering why Ancient Disruptors are 5,000% OP.

The energy they drain should be based on the damage they deal, after reduction. And as you noted, the damage increase they got to their hook from the Revised update should be removed (same with the Ospreys).

[parttimeparty]

Just finished these and thought for the 10,000 time, "3 steel essence for this?!?" 

Yes they are OP. Yes its unfair. And yes they need to overhaul. 

I'd say 70-80% of frames with endgame builds are worthless in most of steel path. 

[Sevek7]

I just want to point out one small thing: Warframe is a "right tool for the right job" kind of game. If the tools you are bringing to a particular mission are not working, then you should bring something else. All the challenge in Warframe happens in the arsenal, not in the mission [I don't like this fact, but it is a fact nonetheless].

So, if ancient disruptors are hooking you and removing all your energy, then... bring something that avoids this problem. Either bring some crowd control and stay out of range, or bring radiation damage so the ancients are hooking their fellow infested instead of you, or bring a frame with invisibility, or bring a frame that doesn't rely on energy, or ... etc... 

There are literally hundreds of options to counter this problem, (I just tried one of the exact missions you mentioned, and I brought wukong to make things as similar as possible. The only thing I did was to make sure I had some radiation damage on my secondary weapon, the mission became a total snoozefest, super easy with no hooking at all). Refusing to change your loadout / try new things and then blaming the game is not really a very good solution.

[-GC-Alex51-GC-]

its kinda fun to see how you try to make hard mode (cringe) be (preety fun mod)