The wasted potential of the steel path and difficult content

[DemonStrikerX]

Okay so I know that typing this is a waste of time and the feedback I am going to give is going to be ignored by DE (If they even see this that is) but I am going to try anyways.

First off, I want to make it clear that I know that DE released the steel path with the intention of it just being a time skip for higher level enemies in missions without the hours of playing to get to that point. The steel path was meant to be just that with a few minor benefits to make it more "rewarding" and most people accepted the gamemode to be as such, which really goes to show how low our expectations for what content is has become over the years.

The steel path could have been and still can be more then just a level boost to the enemies. When Teshin said that the enemies have learned our ways I would have hoped that the enemies had learned a bit more then just wearing tougher armor so that they die in two shots instead of the previous one shot. Considering the state of the game and the damage system for weapons I do feel like that should be looked into first, but after that the steel path should be next.

My suggestions for making the game mode more difficult and engaging are definetly not new, its just the fact that even after these suggestions are being made they aren't really being implemented and if they were they weren't done properly.

If anyone has spent enough time with the game they will realize that physically tough enemies in the game are just not going to work. In a power fantasy game like warframe higher level enemies just won't do it. If we are able to beat lvl 4000 enemies what threat is a lvl 140 or 200 enemy? This is were mechanical difficulty comes in. The game has to have more engaging enemies for the game to offer any kind of difficulty. Kuva Guardians are an example, the fact that you have to use your operator to stun them just so you can make them vulnerable and then damage them is one way of introducing mechanical difficulty. I know some people don't like operator gameplay but that's because DE has failed to make it interactive and instead made it kind of restrictive for people who haven't invested a lot of time into their MULTIPLE focus schools (Hope this will change with the duvuri paradox).  Also I want to make it clear that a mechanically difficult enemy doesn't mean the enemy has to be annoying to fight against which is another thing DE doesn't understand the difference between.

Asides from mechanically difficult enemies the game mode could also see a change to the missions so they are more challenging. Some examples I have come up with are:

Recue: The enemies have realized that their holding cells are not secure and the captive has escaped too many times so they have hired guards to protect the cells which you must defeat before you are able to free the captive.

Spy: Spy could see a similar kind of thing but with a more stealthy gameplay where you have to kill the enemy guarding the data before you retrieve it whether that is by a finisher or just fighting him till you kill him.

Survival: The gameplay for survival needs to be more interactive with A LOT LESS CAMPING. If you were to camp the enemies could figure out your position and start releasing toxic gases in a 15m radius  which would kill you within say 10 second if you were to stay in it regardless of health or armor. The gas could stick around for 1-2 minutes incentivising you to move to another area. This would be one way of killing the camping playstyle which I personally hate and I am sure DE hates as  well.

Sabotage: One good thing they introduced in the steel path was acolytes as mini bosses which was really nice to see and they need to do more of that. This is an rpg game and mini bosses throughout the mission are fine and in my opinion very much welcome. They could put some sort of mini boss in sobatoge missions before we are able to sabotage the enemies ship, resources and whatnot.

There are many ways to go about making these missions more difficult, these are just my ideas and I am sure others have a lot of good ideas too.

For now this all I have. I am not really sure what to do with the reward system for the steel path as that is also pretty bad but I hope that if DE reads this they will implement these/similar changes or atleast consider them.

[Venus-Venera]

And it's not about a higher degree of difficulty ...
if I play something like SP, then I want to be REWARDED accordingly! only then we can talk about more challenges. because now this KUVA story is absolutely pointless! other "nice" rewards from the shop are absolutely of no interest to me.
Not only are NEW top mods with more useful drop chances necessary, but also offer a shop with first-class rewards!
top secrets can also be built into SP with hidden boxes on the ass of the world or whatever ...

there are so many possibilities here ... and DE are top developers! they know it themselves ...

in addition, the group search is for the trashcan! it was solved in railjack. why not the same for SP?

[(NSW)Leafar]

1 hour ago, DemonStrikerX said:

Okay so I know that typing this is a waste of time and the feedback I am going to give is going to be ignored by DE (If they even see this that is) but I am going to try anyways.

First off, I want to make it clear that I know that DE released the steel path with the intention of it just being a time skip for higher level enemies in missions without the hours of playing to get to that point. The steel path was meant to be just that with a few minor benefits to make it more "rewarding" and most people accepted the gamemode to be as such, which really goes to show how low our expectations for what content is has become over the years.

The steel path could have been and still can be more then just a level boost to the enemies. When Teshin said that the enemies have learned our ways I would have hoped that the enemies had learned a bit more then just wearing tougher armor so that they die in two shots instead of the previous one shot. Considering the state of the game and the damage system for weapons I do feel like that should be looked into first, but after that the steel path should be next.

My suggestions for making the game mode more difficult and engaging are definetly not new, its just the fact that even after these suggestions are being made they aren't really being implemented and if they were they weren't done properly.

If anyone has spent enough time with the game they will realize that physically tough enemies in the game are just not going to work. In a power fantasy game like warframe higher level enemies just won't do it. If we are able to beat lvl 4000 enemies what threat is a lvl 140 or 200 enemy? This is were mechanical difficulty comes in. The game has to have more engaging enemies for the game to offer any kind of difficulty. Kuva Guardians are an example, the fact that you have to use your operator to stun them just so you can make them vulnerable and then damage them is one way of introducing mechanical difficulty. I know some people don't like operator gameplay but that's because DE has failed to make it interactive and instead made it kind of restrictive for people who haven't invested a lot of time into their MULTIPLE focus schools (Hope this will change with the duvuri paradox).  Also I want to make it clear that a mechanically difficult enemy doesn't mean the enemy has to be annoying to fight against which is another thing DE doesn't understand the difference between.

Asides from mechanically difficult enemies the game mode could also see a change to the missions so they are more challenging. Some examples I have come up with are:

Recue: The enemies have realized that their holding cells are not secure and the captive has escaped too many times so they have hired guards to protect the cells which you must defeat before you are able to free the captive.

Spy: Spy could see a similar kind of thing but with a more stealthy gameplay where you have to kill the enemy guarding the data before you retrieve it whether that is by a finisher or just fighting him till you kill him.

Survival: The gameplay for survival needs to be more interactive with A LOT LESS CAMPING. If you were to camp the enemies could figure out your position and start releasing toxic gases in a 15m radius  which would kill you within say 10 second if you were to stay in it regardless of health or armor. The gas could stick around for 1-2 minutes incentivising you to move to another area. This would be one way of killing the camping playstyle which I personally hate and I am sure DE hates as  well.

Sabotage: One good thing they introduced in the steel path was acolytes as mini bosses which was really nice to see and they need to do more of that. This is an rpg game and mini bosses throughout the mission are fine and in my opinion very much welcome. They could put some sort of mini boss in sobatoge missions before we are able to sabotage the enemies ship, resources and whatnot.

There are many ways to go about making these missions more difficult, these are just my ideas and I am sure others have a lot of good ideas too.

For now this all I have. I am not really sure what to do with the reward system for the steel path as that is also pretty bad but I hope that if DE reads this they will implement these/similar changes or atleast consider them.

so essentially you wanted them to have more warframe/eximus powers? or just smarter AI like know how to jump or roll towards cover ? 

[Ordel]

your intention isnt bad imo but most of those suggestions towards the bottom just feel like unnecessary nuisances just meant to make the game more annoying for the player rather than introduce any sort of mechanical difficulty

rescue and spy - there's an enemy there? just oneshot it, like the rest

survival - this is just annoying, there's nothing really 'problematic' about camping in a survival anyway other than the fact that it's extremely boring but that's just a personal thing

sabotage - meh, probably just oneshot it

 

any sort of challenge that can be fixed by just throwing damage at it won't be effective imo as our damage as players is just ridiculously high but also so extremely varied from player to player that it'll just result in two opinions being made:

to all the people that can surpass the damage check: "this is too easy, please buff"

to all the people that can't surpass the damage check: "this is too hard, please nerf"

and that'll never be resolved as long as the only way it's being changed is through numerical changes

 

probably gonna have to resort to solutions that can't be done by just throwing damage at it; puzzle-based solutions work pretty well imo (eg. old raids, destiny/destiny 2-style raids) but these get stale after doing it for the first few times

teamwork based solutions would be alright i guess (eg. old raids/destiny 2 raids again) but then "solo only andy" will come to the forums complaining that he can't 100% solo the multiplayer game and demand changes

another option would be to put time into improving enemy ai and adding gimmicks to some of the enemies in order to make them more mechanically difficult; remember shield lancers? these used to be enemies you actually had to deal with by shooting the exposed parts of their body (top of the shield/hole in the shield/legs and feet) or using energy which, at one point believe it or not, was actually an important resource that you had to actively manage instead of just having energy be literally thrown at you every 0.2 seconds from arcane energize

god forbid de tries to nerf ANY aspect of the players though, be it our ridiculous damage/broken abilities/various things that we can collect that absolutely negate core weaknesses that we used to have eg. energy costs, otherwise they'll get backlash and get #cancelled on twitter or whatever stupid S#&$ people do nowadays i dunno

improving ai, sure, some people will argue for/against it, but i think it'd personally be great to have ai actually shoot at and try to kill me vs. seeing me, running in circles for 2-3 minutes, and then haphazardly shooting at me (and missing 95% of their bullets) before i click e on them once and then kill them

some people just straight up enjoy being braindead and having 0 difficulty in the game and will cause backlash when ANYTHING is done to try to create even an iota of difficulty. This isn't flame, this is truth. I, too, once in a while like to sit back and just set an automatic macro to click e for me 100 times every millisecond while I go pet my cat or make a sandwich just to come back and enjoy the 'mission complete screen' once I'm done too.

Necramechs, love em or hate em, are undeniably a mechanically difficult boss/miniboss. But even they are being reduced to "call your own necramech and click 4 and tape down your left mouse button", or use redeemer/stropha/octavia 1/whatever else people use.

My point is that creating difficulty for the players is hard when the things that are supposed to introduce difficulty and decision-making to us are rendered absolutely void by various tools that are not very difficult to attain and don't have a downside, such as arcane energize/grace/the shield one that only hildryn or protea players care about, or condition overload which actually arguably REWARDS you for taking the wrong elements to fight enemies, etc etc blah blah

Incentivizing teamplay will ALWAYS piss someone off because some people, for whatever reason, refuse to play the multiplayer game in multiplayer mode, even though it's probably the most valuable tool for creating non-numerical difficulty in games. It's very easy to say "fk it" and make every enemy in the game have lim->infinite armor and health.

Im also not saying that EVERY MISSION should require teammates, nor should EVERY MISSION feel like a raid. I'm saying that introducing difficulty in a game like this is, ironically, one of the most difficult things about the game. If it were easy, it'd probably be done already.

[bad4youLT]

Problem here is that DE tends to listen to vocal minority expressing their distate to difficulty or just straight up remove it , Steel Path isn't the only example .

Arbitrations got their one life removed which that made them special , Eidolon hunts became irrelevant after the introduction of SS and OV , raids got removed , void key system converted into relic system taking it away from high end void missions , bursas and manic's receiving hefty nerfs and some other things .

DE cannot be trusted with hard end game content as long as they keep running like this .

[Steel_Rook]

41 minutes ago, Battle.Mage said:

if I play something like SP, then I want to be REWARDED accordingly! only then we can talk about more challenges. because now this KUVA story is absolutely pointless! other "nice" rewards from the shop are absolutely of no interest to me.

What people seem to not understand about Steel Path is that it's a mode designed for a small minority of the playerbase AND NO-ONE ELSE. By the very nature of its design, it's targeted at endurance runners and power gamers with overpowered weapons and nothing to use them on. That's the whole point in creating it. That audience is already there. For them, the added stats ARE the reward. Trying to incentivise anyone else with exclusive rewards is a mistake. It's only going to shift the "meta" up and further undermine game balance and - crucially - burn people out in the process.

It's fine if not all game modes are designed for all players. It's fine if you don't play some of the game's content. In fact, I'd argue it's functionally impossible to enjoy EVERYTHING that a game as broad as Warframe has to offer. This is why Steel Path Nightwave Challenges cause a furore - because few people play Steel Path. Just as few as the people who play one-hour Kuva Survival - incidentally, another Nightwave Challenge which cause massive backlash when it was first introduced. Or Animal Captures - another Challenge pretty much nobody but me likes. That's why it would help to have a system for rerolling Nightwave challenges, but this is going off-topic.

I argue that if a game mode isn't worth playing for the intrinsic benefit of playing it, then playing it for extrinsic rewards is gamer malpractice. Any system designed to encourage players to play it who fundamentally DON'T like it enough to play anyway is developer malpractice. Both of these damage the long-term experience of the player and cause burnout. Far as I'm concerned, DE made the right call by not trying to goad unwilling players into Steel Path. If you don't see a reason to play it, then don't play it - that's working as intended.

[Venus-Venera]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb Steel_Rook:

Steel Path is that it's a mode designed for a small minority of the playerbase AND NO-ONE ELSE.

how where what....
why should warframe content be for small groups?
i often see mr9 ranks in sp and that's a good thing ...
that it is not at all WORTHY another!

[Joezone619]

Personally i think they did quite well on the difficulty for steel path. Only real problem, is the difference in armor different grinner have, like butchers have soo little armor compared to bombards. But this is a problem with the grineer, not steel path.

Now as for things to do and reason to play steel path... This is where they can make quite a bit of improvements, but from what I hear, it is being talked about and worked on by DE, they just have other stuff they need to finish first, which is 100% fine with me, I'd rather they take their time and give us 2 great updates then 1 bad update.

[LillyRaccune]

5 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

For them, the added stats ARE the reward. Trying to incentivise anyone else with exclusive rewards is a mistake.

This is exactly right. This is why the mission drop tables are identical to the regular version.

2 minutes ago, Battle.Mage said:

i often see mr9 ranks in sp and that's a good thing

Not exactly. And MR doesn't equal player skill levels.

3 minutes ago, Battle.Mage said:

why should warframe content be for small groups?

Number of bug fixes exclusively for Simulacrum? Yes content can be for small groups. Steel Path was not meant to be the "premium swimming pool", it was designed to be the exact same public swimming pool with weights strapped to your feet.

[Venus-Venera]

vor 10 Minuten schrieb LillyRaccune:

Not exactly. And MR doesn't equal player skill levels.

yes, "EXACTLY"! or do you want to start a discussion about "what color is grass"?

vor 10 Minuten schrieb LillyRaccune:

And MR doesn't equal player skill levels.

who said that or where did you read it? (especially how ?!)

vor 10 Minuten schrieb LillyRaccune:

Steel Path was not meant to be the "premium swimming pool", it was designed to be the exact same public swimming pool with weights strapped to your feet.

ok .... now what does personal opinion have to do with reality? or where did devs claim that?

[Steel_Rook]

1 hour ago, Battle.Mage said:

ok .... now what does personal opinion have to do with reality? or where did devs claim that?

They talked about it in the Dev Streams preceding the release of Steel Path. I can't give you exact quotes, but I was left with the impression that Steel Path was targeted at a very specific, very small player demographic. DE themselves seemed cognizant that they're doing things to Steel Path that the vast majority of players wouldn't approve of and cognizant that trying to attract players not interested in the core premise was a mistake.

This is the nature of super-high difficulty in general - it always targets a small percentage of the player population. Trying to promote it to the entire playerbase is going to either get it nerfed or turn it into a flame war.

 

1 hour ago, LillyRaccune said:

Number of bug fixes exclusively for Simulacrum? Yes content can be for small groups. Steel Path was not meant to be the "premium swimming pool", it was designed to be the exact same public swimming pool with weights strapped to your feet.

This is the impression I got, as well. Steel Path isn't the "end point" that all players should be heading for. Rather, game mode specifically designed for its own target audience of players who have been asking for changes to this effect. Those people are already rewarded by being able to fight enemies with the kind of stats and levels they like without needing to waste two hours in Survival getting there. Steel Path is not Arbitrations nor Raids nor "end game." It's an offshoot off the main game, same as PvP, long endurance runs, etc. It has its own fans and isn't meant for the entire playerbase.

Sometimes, a game mode NEEDS to be inaccessible to a large portion of the player base in order to actually work for the player's it's targeted at. Steel Path is that mode. It's deliberately hostile and unfun for your average player because that's what's required to appeal to its target audience, and I for one support that. Different modes appealing to different people is good game design. Trying to coax all players into playing all content is a fool's errand.

[OmegaVoid]

3 hours ago, LillyRaccune said:

Steel Path was not meant to be the "premium swimming pool", it was designed to be the exact same public swimming pool with weights strapped to your feet.

2 hours ago, Battle.Mage said:

where did devs claim that?

The first presentation of what became Steel Path was on Home Devstream #3 (around 47 minutes in), and it was quite simply the option to play Star Chart missions at +50 or +100 enemy levels.

It was not intended to be any different to the existing missions, except that the enemy damage output and eHP would be a higher. This is how other PvE shooters typically implement player-selectable "easy/medium/hard" options. 

Such a feature was not aimed at the power-fantasist section of the playerbase; the missions would be as cheesable as ever. But if one enjoyed ventilating foes with a zero-investment Dera on the Star Chart, they might also like taking their fully-built Supra Vandal to Steel Path.

3 hours ago, Battle.Mage said:

why should warframe content be for small groups?

Because the Warframe playerbase is highly diverse? There is no one-size-fits-all solution to keeping everyone engaged. Any section of the playerbase whose preferences aren't catered for throughout the game's long-term progression will eventually lose interest and cease to provide a revenue stream.

And the original presentation of what became Steel Path was never intended as "new content", it was a QoL feature for players who still enjoyed Star Chart missions (or still needed to farm things from them), but had upgraded to the point that normal Star Chart levels were too much of a walkover to be engaging.

[DrivaMain]

You do realize the overwhelming majority of the player base have challenge-phobia right? 

DE made the right call to make Steel Path optional with no exclusives. If DE do that, the majority will flock in and whine. When that happens, you can say goodbye to your so called "challenge" Steel Path has. DE always listen to their demands.

[OmegaVoid]

7 hours ago, DemonStrikerX said:

If we are able to beat lvl 4000 enemies what threat is a lvl 140 or 200 enemy?

Okay.

7 hours ago, DemonStrikerX said:

the game mode could also see a change to the missions so they are more challenging. Some examples I have come up with are:

Recue: The enemies have realized that their holding cells are not secure and the captive has escaped too many times so they have hired guards to protect the cells which you must defeat before you are able to free the captive.

You can smush lvl.4k enemies, but these extra guards they've posted will present "a challenge"?

You want a challenging Rescue mission, how about starting with...

• the Wardens have optics which can see invisible players
• the Wardens can start the Execution Sequence without needing to go to a console
• If any Warden spots a player, the cry goes out "Rarfram spotter! Khus kle grusoner!" -- the duration of this sentence is the Execution Timer
• If any Warden takes damage which they survive, the cry goes out "Someklhung attaf meh! Khus kle grusoner!" -- the duration of this sentence is the Execution Timer

The challenge now comes to excercising genuine stealth-gameplay skills to evade detection. If the player wishes to engage with the optional bonus objective of killing all Wardens, they must come prepared to one-tap every Warden -- without being seen by the other Wardens.

Similar with Spy missions:

• Sensor Regulators can now detect the invisible and are alarmed by gunshots
• doors with Sensor Bars have a physical grille which activates alarms when touched, and retracts when the Sensor Bar is destroyed...

You get the picture. To make such mission types intrinsically present the sort of challenge they are designed to, the player must be stripped of the upgrades they farmed specifically to circumvent those very challenges.

The other option is to allow difficulty selection to remain where it presently is -- in the Arsenal.

Which is why I've lately been doing Spy missions with 'frames like Grendel and Protea. Of course I could cheese it, but if I want challenge I can choose not to cheese.

[DemonStrikerX]

10 hours ago, Battle.Mage said:

And it's not about a higher degree of difficulty ...
if I play something like SP, then I want to be REWARDED accordingly! only then we can talk about more challenges. because now this KUVA story is absolutely pointless! other "nice" rewards from the shop are absolutely of no interest to me.
Not only are NEW top mods with more useful drop chances necessary, but also offer a shop with first-class rewards!
top secrets can also be built into SP with hidden boxes on the ass of the world or whatever ...

there are so many possibilities here ... and DE are top developers! they know it themselves ...

in addition, the group search is for the trashcan! it was solved in railjack. why not the same for SP?

This is true for all things in the game and since I said I didn't have any ideas for what the proper rewards for the game mode  should be I didn't write anything on it and just focused on how the game mode could be made mode interactive.

[DemonStrikerX]

10 hours ago, (NSW)Leafar said:

so essentially you wanted them to have more warframe/eximus powers? or just smarter AI like know how to jump or roll towards cover ? 

Smarter AI would be a start to providing more challenging enemies. What I was trying to get at is to have enemies that require you to know the mechanics of the game and the enemy to be able to defeat them and not just simply point your gun and shoot while also suggesting that some of the game modes  could do with a rework for the steel path atleast to make the mission challenging. The keyword here is "challenging" not difficult.

[DemonStrikerX]

 

4 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

You can smush lvl.4k enemies, but these extra guards they've posted will present "a challenge"?

This is true only for survival or any game mode you can camp to stack your damage. In a more direct combat where you have to deal the damage you can right away this would not be the case. Should have cleared that up, sorry.

 

4 hours ago, OmegaVoid said:

You want a challenging Rescue mission, how about starting with...

• the Wardens have optics which can see invisible players
• the Wardens can start the Execution Sequence without needing to go to a console
• If any Warden spots a player, the cry goes out "Rarfram spotter! Khus kle grusoner!" -- the duration of this sentence is the Execution Timer
• If any Warden takes damage which they survive, the cry goes out "Someklhung attaf meh! Khus kle grusoner!" -- the duration of this sentence is the Execution Timer

The challenge now comes to excercising genuine stealth-gameplay skills to evade detection. If the player wishes to engage with the optional bonus objective of killing all Wardens, they must come prepared to one-tap every Warden -- without being seen by the other Wardens.

Similar with Spy missions:

• Sensor Regulators can now detect the invisible and are alarmed by gunshots
• doors with Sensor Bars have a physical grille which activates alarms when touched, and retracts when the Sensor Bar is destroyed...

You get the picture. To make such mission types intrinsically present the sort of challenge they are designed to, the player must be stripped of the upgrades they farmed specifically to circumvent those very challenges.

The other option is to allow difficulty selection to remain where it presently is -- in the Arsenal.

Which is why I've lately been doing Spy missions with 'frames like Grendel and Protea. Of course I could cheese it, but if I want challenge I can choose not to cheese.

Yes there are many great ways to go about these missions, I just suggested one as an example as to what they could do with it. Also I want to say that these suggestions are made so that SP is more challenging and interactive and not insanely hard and a chore to do.

[DemonStrikerX]

10 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

What people seem to not understand about Steel Path is that it's a mode designed for a small minority of the playerbase AND NO-ONE ELSE

This is because DE has failed to make the game mode where the only difference is higher level enemies appeal to everyone. From what I have seen, people that do not like steel path are people who do not have good enough gear to fight the "tougher" enemies SP provides. Now this isn't a good example but imagine if you chose to not do any sedna or void missions because they are to difficult for you, that would be absurd but a similar thing is happening here with SP but just on a more exaggerated scale due to the much bigger level gap. 

[DemonStrikerX]

11 hours ago, Ordel said:

survival - this is just annoying, there's nothing really 'problematic' about camping in a survival anyway other than the fact that it's extremely boring but that's just a personal thing

I personally find camping really boring and the fact that if you were to go do any survival the squad is constantly making you camp with them is quite annoying. I understand why camping can be beneficial but for me when I play a mission I want to enjoy the mission not sit around and hit my abilities or shoot the enemies once every 30s. The suggestion I made isn't really annoying (for someone who doesn't sit and camp that is), maybe because I have phrased it wrong it came out that way. My suggestion was to promote more active gameplay for survival and trying to give it some sort of reasoning as to why that would be a thing. The gas system I was talking about for survival was meant to trigger only if you were camping in a spot for long enough that all the enemies know your location and after having sent multiple enemies after you without hearing back from them they decide to release toxic gas in the area they sent thier mates to look into. It isn't like you stand in a spot for a few seconds and all of a sudden the whole area is covered in gas and you are about to die. The game could also add lotus alerting you that the enemies have pinpointed your location and they are about to release toxic gas into the area similar to how lotus alerts you when you are spotted in a spy mission. Another concern I see people have with this suggestion is the spawn rate. In my opnion spawn rate isnt as big of an issue with SP like it is in regular missions, as long as the game make sures to maintain the spawn rate of the enemies this sugestion would work pretty well.

 

11 hours ago, Ordel said:

teamwork based solutions would be alright i guess (eg. old raids/destiny 2 raids again) but then "solo only andy" will come to the forums complaining that he can't 100% solo the multiplayer game and demand changes

Yes I understand that the game will never satisfy 100% of the players but making sure that majority of the players are satisfied and satisfiying the minority where possible would be the way to go about it. This case would be also possible. 

[OmegaVoid]

32 minutes ago, DemonStrikerX said:

I personally find camping really boring and the fact that if you were to go do any survival the squad is constantly making you camp with them is quite annoying.

I agree here, but the solution I think would be to rework Survival missions in general to require more activity from the players.

Something like... get rid of Life Support Towers, and instead:

ORDIS: "Operator, the enemies are installing a device nearby. Scanning... oh no! It's a 50-megatherm warhead! If you don't get to it and defuse it, you'll be vapourised -- hurry!"

Solves the problem of players ignoring the Life Support Towers entirely (and then griping about bad LS drops as they quit the mission with eight LS towers sitting unused on the map 🙄). They now have to go to the bomb and complete a hack, or the mission's over.

I'd even suggest having four bombs placed at the same time; a solo player with decent movement and hacking skills should be able to complete all four before detonation, but a co-ordinated squad would be able to split up, making the task easier (promotes co-op play, which I believe is still a desideratum).

Replace RNG Life Support drops with a "diversion success meter"; if the players let their kill-rate fall too low, they will lose the mission due to their diversion failing to keep the enemy's full attention. This solves players complaining about the drops being unreliable. Defusing the bombs should also increase the meter.

Storage containers may drop a one-use "Enemy Distress Beacon" which isn't a pickup, but can be activated by the "use" key; this increases the "diversion success meter" without needing enemies to be killed (will be required for Riven challenges!).

Then if the players stay on one tile too long, the putative enemy commandant (IRL, the game's AI) will tell the enemies to pull back from the killing-ground, and try to ambush the Tenno when they emerge. It's just common sense for them to do this. If the players emerge from that tile the enemies will engage them, but if the Tenno retreat back where they came from, the enemies won't follow, 'cos they've flagged the area as dangerous.

Maybe even make it so if the players kill too many (e.g. diversion success meter hits 80% or smth), the enemies will rout, dispersing in all directions. Enemies will recover their nerve and start going after the players again once the diversion success meter drops back below... IDK 40% or smth. Canny players will figure out that too much slaughter is counterproductive...

I think this would make Survival missions a more lively affair?

[Ordel]

4 hours ago, DemonStrikerX said:

I personally find camping really boring and -snip-

Right but camping is a viable playstyle and there's nothing wrong with it beside the fact that you, personally, don't like it, which isn't important in the larger scope of the game. Instead of punishing a viable playstyle it'd be a better idea to simply go the other way and incentivize the roaming playstyle if that's what you wanted to go for.

[DemonStrikerX]

15 minutes ago, Ordel said:

Right but camping is a viable playstyle and there's nothing wrong with it beside the fact that you, personally, don't like it, which isn't important in the larger scope of the game. Instead of punishing a viable playstyle it'd be a better idea to simply go the other way and incentivize the roaming playstyle if that's what you wanted to go for.

I am sure DE hates it aswell and they dont want you to camp either but they haven't gone to do anything about it. Also the word viable in warframe holds barely any value. Anything is viable if you have the bare minimum understading of the game.

[Teridax68]

I think Steel Path showed us a few unpleasant truths about difficulty in Warframe:

• Cranking up enemy stats by even large amounts doesn't really make missions that much more difficult.
• Because of this, that means enemy levels themselves aren't an effective way of implementing difficulty.
• Because of this, Warframe effectively has no functional difficulty system in place.
• Whenever enemies do end up becoming durable, past a certain point that rapidly becomes unpleasant, because bullet sponge enemies aren't fun to fight and encourage players to avoid them entirely when they're not part of the mission objective.

So I agree with the OP: Steel Path has failed to add meaningful difficulty to Warframe, because we make such a mockery of enemies at full gear that increasing their levels to 100, or possibly even 200 or 300 doesn't really make the game that much tougher. More to the point, raising enemy levels doesn't make us alter our playstyle, because our playstyle always involves cheesing the mission with our frames until the mission is either done or not worth prolonging any further. Even if we were to hit a threshold where enemies started to present a legitimate threat, the only thing that would lead to is us getting killed more often, or killing fewer enemies. Thus, if DE truly wants to add a hard mode to the game, merely cranking up stats isn't going to cut it. We need missions and enemy designs capable of challenging us, and perhaps more importantly, changes to our own power that prevent us from trivializing every bit of content the game throws at us.

[Steel_Rook]

9 hours ago, DemonStrikerX said:

This is because DE has failed to make the game mode where the only difference is higher level enemies appeal to everyone. From what I have seen, people that do not like steel path are people who do not have good enough gear to fight the "tougher" enemies SP provides. Now this isn't a good example but imagine if you chose to not do any sedna or void missions because they are to difficult for you, that would be absurd but a similar thing is happening here with SP but just on a more exaggerated scale due to the much bigger level gap. 

DE haven't "failed" to make Steel Path appeal to everyone. As far as we know, they never intended Steel Path to appeal to everyone. By the very nature of what it is, it had to intentionally NOT appeal to the majority in order to appeal to its target demographic. Unlike Sedna or Void missions which are designed to be part of the game's core body of content, Steel Path is deliberately not. As a rule of thumb, treat Steel Path like you would 2-hour survival runs, no-mod runs and maximum-efficiency speedruns. It's there for the niche audience which enjoys that and no-one else. This isn't a failure of design, but its intent.

Put it this way: Would you consider me reasonable if I requested exclusive really powerful mods for correctly playing very complicated songs on my Shawzin? Should the Shawzin be a part of the game's core progression system? Would you consider me reasonable if I requested exclusive really powerful Arcanes for beating K-Drive races in extremely fast times? Should K-Drive be part of the game's core progression system? I would argue that both of these are unreasonable requests, because bot K-Drives and Shawzin exist to appeal to a minority audience which enjoys unusual content. I see Steel Path in exactly the same context.

 

3 hours ago, Teridax68 said:

Thus, if DE truly wants to add a hard mode to the game, merely cranking up stats isn't going to cut it. We need missions and enemy designs capable of challenging us, and perhaps more importantly, changes to our own power that prevent us from trivializing every bit of content the game throws at us.

While I agree with the core sentiment (we've talked about this before and generally agree on matters of difficulty) - this is why I argue that DE didn't actually intend for Steel Path to be "a challenge" in the traditional sense. Quite literally, it was a response to endurance runners wanting easier access to enemies with higher stats. It delivers precisely this. To you and me, it's breathtakingly boring whether we're able to beat it or not, but you and I are not the target audience for it. We would want more complexity, better enemy design, less reliance on stats and more reliance on gameplay. Maybe we'll get that some day (though I don't think DE have the stomach for that). Steel Path just isn't it. Placing excessively high rewards into it doesn't fix that issue. It just further presses us to do content we hate.

[Teridax68]

1 minute ago, Steel_Rook said:

While I agree with the core sentiment (we've talked about this before and generally agree on matters of difficulty) - this is why I argue that DE didn't actually intend for Steel Path to be "a challenge" in the traditional sense. Quite literally, it was a response to endurance runners wanting easier access to enemies with higher stats. It delivers precisely this. To you and me, it's breathtakingly boring whether we're able to beat it or not, but you and I are not the target audience for it. We would want more complexity, better enemy design, less reliance on stats and more reliance on gameplay. Maybe we'll get that some day (though I don't think DE have the stomach for that). Steel Path just isn't it. Placing excessively high rewards into it doesn't fix that issue. It just further presses us to do content we hate.

By that same token, though, I'd argue Steel Path has failed at that goal too -- ramping up enemy stats to start up 100 levels above isn't really what hardcore endurance runners want, because hardcore endurance runners will often stay for hours just to ramp enemy levels up to the thousands. Whichever group of players who wanted to be able to skip to the fun part of an endurance runner are still being left dissatisfied, because the Steel Path doesn't really do that -- in fact, it doesn't even replicate high-level conditions, because it keeps the same rates of Eximus units as regular missions (which also makes them worthless for Codex scan runs). This is putting aside the fact that Steel Path was in fact intended as a hard mode by DE, who even called it such before renaming the thing later in development.