You have altered the deal DE. I just pray you don't alter it any further.

[(PSN)robotwars7]

2 hours ago, Tombsite said:

So we went from Steel Path being "an optional challenge” to “twice as efficient”.

I believe this is bad. But this is already in tl;dr territory so I’ll wait a bit with my arguments and instead ask my fellow players:

How do you feel about the Steel Path becoming the optimal way to play?      

IMO it's only logical that those who put in more effort and/or are willing to face additional challenges, should be rewarded for doing so. double the resources for harder mobs is a fair trade.

plus there have been countless times players have said "there's nowhere to use our powerful gear", and Steel Path offers that (it's just we've powercrept to the point where even Steel Path has become trivial..)

 

[Tombsite]

24 minutes ago, ricuse7 said:

I disagree fundamentally with Steel path being the most optimal way to play. because Optimization requires inclusion of one's personal circumstances.

I have a borderline Solo Clan: I have to input 2 of each Curse, I have a week to get a total of 6 curses.
I'm Still ranking up the Syndicate (or getting all the things from the syndicate shop)

During Angels, Ranking up that syndicate during the same time, Doing it on steel path didn't really make sense, because you could do both at the same time. And I was able to buy the arcane rather than beat my head against the higher difficulty while you may have been done in half a month, and it took me 2 months. I'd argue I spent significantly less time on it because I was averaging 10 arcane an hour of playtime because I was maxing out rep... and then stopped playing that area.

During the Voruna update I actually agreed with you doing high level survival, with higher drops and higher chance of getting the rare stuff in a set timeframe just seemed to make the most sense here.

Citrine? You could rank up weapons while doing it.... So why go steel path when you can progress at twice the pace, So I was able to rank up all of my weapons and max them out with 3-4 forma during this. There was no reason for me to go steel path because I was getting crystals while ranking up weapons.

The most efficiently way to do whispers for me without even thinking about it, is Do the missions from fish that are assassination missions. You get rep, and you get a single curse. after you have 2 of each... you do whatever mission gets you the best rewards for your time. I have all the other stuff that I already farmed entirely during scarlet spear. so that's not a motivating factor at all... and I was able to get all but one of the Items during the first (half) week. The only thing I'm using my grotesques on now is Arcane energize. to melt down and buy the arbitration arcanes, because I'm not farming that I already have everything I need, and the arcanes there are stupidly low drop chance. I get other arcanes while I'm involved in other pursuits... So there's laterally no reason for me to play steel path unless my goal was to stop playing the game, and it's not.

See that's why I said "becoming".

Angels: did the exact same thing. 
Voruna: solo SP-survival is hands down better than regular solo-survival so I’d done it without extra rewards. I disagree that the higher level survival had better drops. Once you’ve gotten Voruna and her weapons, that node is dead.
Both of those cases SP was not particularly rewarding outside of SP-uniq stuff and I could pick and chose 

Citrine: I chose to do it on regular with Titania because increased SP-spawn rate meant that to defending and getting crystals I had to get a bit sweaty and 50% reward was not enough to make me give up on netflix :P

This new event? But getting only half on a regular run compared to SP. That’s starting to hurt. Especially because it takes basically the same time and effort for me. I don’t need to do it. Like you I got all the arcanes I need from Scarlet. But I can imagine that for a newer player it hurts even worse because this is their chance and they only get the S#&$ty farm. 

[Tombsite]

12 minutes ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

IMO it's only logical that those who put in more effort and/or are willing to face additional challenges, should be rewarded for doing so. double the resources for harder mobs is a fair trade.

plus there have been countless times players have said "there's nowhere to use our powerful gear", and Steel Path offers that (it's just we've powercrept to the point where even Steel Path has become trivial..)

 

See I disagree with the additional challenges part. To me there's basically no difference between doing the event on Regular or on Steel Path. Yet one gives me twice the reward?

Edited December 26, 2023 by Tombsite

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

8 minutes ago, Tombsite said:

See I disagree with the additional challenges part. To me there's basically no difference between doing the event on Regular or on Steel Path. Yet one gives me twice the reward?

You didn't just install yesterday....you grinded and put the work in over time. 

Steel path is still harder for some people depending on a multitude of factors.

[Tombsite]

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

You didn't just install yesterday....you grinded and put the work in over time. 

Steel path is still harder for some people depending on a multitude of factors.

But then it kinda of becomes the Rich gets richer. I am the one who need stuff to grind for; not the new guys. So why am I the one on easy mode :)

[ECCHOSIERRA]

4 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

I’m fine with it so long as DE designs and reworks frames so that they have scaling and can stay relevant in the Steel Path. 

Are you suggesting that frames do not already have scaling and/or are not relevant in steel path? 

3 hours ago, Tombsite said:

You see Steel path as a thing that requires skill ("being good enough") and not just a gear check?

Those arent entitely seperable concepts.

3 hours ago, Voltage said:

A gear check is build knowledge/skill. There's really no difference in what you just said. This reads like the people that say "man nothing ever pushes the limits of weapon DPS" and then throw the stupid phrase "bullet sponge" around at anything that doesn't die at a sneeze.

Exactly this. 

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

You're getting 5:45 to 6 minute runs of the 30 eyes Effervo Steel Path boss with just Mesmer Skin and pointing an Incarnon weapon? 

You're omitting several layers of "skill" that is not Guitar Hero or Counter Strike, but more of Chess or an RTS game. Yes, I am aware that there are cheese builds in Warframe. For one to effectively pull it off, you need to actually understand several mechanics in-game as well as modding capabilities. Revenant does not simply make Steel Path "twice as rewarding" by existing. This is disingenuous and a misrepresentation. There's parkour, damage attenuation, damage modding, damage buffs, debuffs, mission-specific knowledge, the Void Angel, and more that goes on within that single mission. You have to grind several areas of the game and be well-equipped in the first place before "pointing and clicking" as you think it amounts to.

I will absolutely agree with you that the Superboss (60 eyes) Steel Path Effervo mission does reward players by removing RNG. However, if we're looking at mission efficiency, it is skill based performance in Steel Path. If you want to tell me it's nothing to do with skill, join any public mission and you will see that the 30 eyes boss typically takes 8-9 minutes, where a two person squad can do it in 6 minutes or less. That's a skill gap, and it is measurable through rewards and performance.

People like to throw around that Warframe lacks skilled gameplay, but that's just not true. You can get away with being inefficient, and you'll still finish missions and content, but if you are skilled with the game, you are often rewarded with better uses of time and more effective reward output.

You can boil any computer game down to "point and click" if you really want to. It completely misrepresents what we're talking about though.

I really don't understand the thought process of "the game should allow me to have everything without me ever raising the bar with the content I participate in".

I mean seriously, basically every loot based game ever is built around the principle of "higher level activities have the best loot" and "earn stuff to make the higher activities doable/easier".

[ShogunGunshow]

Yeah Steel Path was a mostly for-bragging-rights thing. Then they slapped the gunarcanes behind it and welp I guess everyone's gotta be viable in Steel Path, now. 

And have to find ways to deal with ridiculously inflated armor values which DE had JUST addressed by flattening the curve. Oops! 

[sunderthefirmament]

2 minutes ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

Are you suggesting that frames do not already have scaling and/or are not relevant in steel path? 

Well, some of them have lost their relevance as the meta has shifted.  And certain abilities definitely need some touch-ups to stay relevant.  I would say that DE has done a good job making their more recent frames relevant in the Steel Path.

 

To be clear, yeah, any frame can make it to level cap.  That has been established.  But I like when we have a wide range of viable and effective frames for all content.

[Voltage]

10 minutes ago, sunderthefirmament said:

Well, some of them have lost their relevance as the meta has shifted.  And certain abilities definitely need some touch-ups to stay relevant.  I would say that DE has done a good job making their more recent frames relevant in the Steel Path.

 

To be clear, yeah, any frame can make it to level cap.  That has been established.  But I like when we have a wide range of viable and effective frames for all content.

I see often that players just select Revenant like they would Wukong for Defy or Inaros back in the day. When these options are used, it cements the fact that a Warframe is still viable in Steel Path with 0 abilities. All Revenant offers (speaking in terms of why he is so popular, I know he has more to his kit) is bypassing the need to look at your health and shields and manage survivability actively. There is already a wide range of viable Warframes. I think the issue you might be seeing is how limited roles are in a mission, and how most Warframes now can "do it all", meaning that comparing two Warframes, the stronger one makes the weaker one look like a waste of time. It's not that Warframes have viability issues, it's that things have become saturated for years. DE could add 10 new mobility Warframes, but they would still have to compete with Titania. They could add 10 new "tanky" Warframes, but they would still have to compete with Revenant. They could add 10 new "support" Warframes, but they would still have to compete with the Operator/Drifter. That's where we are at. Grendel is an excellent example. He has a useful kit that handles content well, but he is criminally undermined in the practicality department by the rest of the roster. This makes him look "weak" when they aren't actually weak, they just aren't practical choices for the same roles we've been using for years now. A major cause of this is the Helminth system.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Voltage

[sunderthefirmament]

4 minutes ago, Voltage said:

I see often that players just select Revenant like they would Wukong for Defy or Inaros back in the day. When these options are used, it cements the fact that a Warframe is still viable in Steel Path with 0 abilities. All Revenant offers (speaking in terms of why he is so popular, I know he has more to his kit) is bypassing the need to look at your health and shields and manage survivability actively. There is already a wide range of viable Warframes. I think the issue you might be seeing is how limited roles are in a mission, and how most Warframes now can "do it all", meaning that comparing two Warframes, the stronger one makes the weaker one look like a waste of time. It's not that Warframes have viability issues, it's that things have become saturated for years. DE could add 10 new mobility Warframes, but they would still have to compete with Titania. They could add 10 new "tanky" Warframes, but they would still have to compete with Revenant. They could add 10 new "support" Warframes, but they would still have to compete with the Operator/Drifter. That's where we are at. Qorvex and Grendel are both great examples. They have useful kits that perform well, but they are undermined in the practicality department by the rest of the roster. This makes them look "weak" when they aren't actually weak, they just aren't practical choices for the same roles we've been using for years now.

Fair enough.  I just think that if DE is going to keep shoving us into higher and higher levels of enemies, every frame and ability should have some relevance there.  There's always going to be a most optimal setup of course, but that doesn't absolve DE from at least trying to make every frame and ability worthwhile to some degree on high levels.

 

No, I am not asking for a one-button nuke frame.  I think it's perfectly fine that Saryn's spores or Ember's 4, for instance, become more about utility than straight up damage when you get into high levels.

 

Yareli on release is what I'm talking about.  Or old Hydroid.  Or Inaros' 2nd and 3rd abilities.  DE has done a lot to give reworked frames and more recent releases relevance, and I appreciate it.  I just hope that this design philosophy holds true.  We are well past the point of Steel Path (and equivalently leveled content) being merely for bragging rights.  Too many shiny new rewards are locked behind content of this tier for the frames not to keep up.

[PollexMessier]

While I think you're exaggerating most of your points. I do think limited time events should stay far away from making steel path reward more. Especially by that much. Since it's limited time, that's just blatantly unfair to newer players. And this event is already pretty unfair to newer players, requiring completion of The New War to even access, which, is about a month long grind from the start of the game without following a ton of guides, no-lifeing it, getting lucky with drops, and paying around some things... about the amount of time the event is running for. It feels like it was setup to force new players to buy the story skip thing, before they scrapped that idea after the massive backlash it got.

I think, for regular gameplay, steel path should be vastly more rewarding for the effort. But for events? It's borderline predatory.

[trst]

13 minutes ago, ShogunGunshow said:

Yeah Steel Path was a mostly for-bragging-rights thing. Then they slapped the gunarcanes behind it and welp I guess everyone's gotta be viable in Steel Path, now. 

And have to find ways to deal with ridiculously inflated armor values which DE had JUST addressed by flattening the curve. Oops! 

Except said Arcanes aren't necessary for anything outside of SP and armor scaling had been a point of contention since the game released. Really the only benefit of bothering with SP Arcanes outside of running more SP is to widen one's available pool of viable weapons for the current "end-game" content.

Also SP was never mostly for bragging rights. As the increased affinity from the level increase made it ideal for stealth farming Focus and the Essence shop was the best way to amass Kuva and Relics. Both of which were the case from day one of the mode.

[RichardKam]

I thought the 100% resources booster was an integrated package of SP when it was launched. 

So your point being...what exactly?

[Hexerin]

1 hour ago, ECCHOSIERRA said:

Are you suggesting that frames do not already have scaling and/or are not relevant in steel path?

All frames can clear baseline Steel Path. However, most frames don't scale well, and thus are just not worth dealing with because you have to put in exponentially more effort for the same results as other frames that actually do scale. In general, the older the frame the more this applies.

[Kaiga]

8 hours ago, Tombsite said:

("being good enough") and not just a gear check?

Gear acquisition is progression too. Game's pretty mechanically easy 90% of the time, dunno what to tell ya.

[Lord_Drod]

I can't even play normal mode.  I can't speak for the latest update as I haven't touched it, but any normal mission is torture.  The only mission I run on normal is Lua disruption, and thats because I'm just farming Axi's and SP doesn't actually increase any spawns solo, so its the same for me.  I don't know how you can enjoy normal mode.  (The lowered spawns in archon missions annoy me, but not enough to where I made any adjustments.)  There is literally nothing to kill in any mission.  You can't keep your buffs up.  It's completely empty.  The spawns take forever.  SP is the way, and it should be the way, but its good they still offer both because it really is too much if you're not ready for it.  Between arcanes, helminth, shards, new frames that do huge AOE (and rely on huge mobs to function), and incarnons, there is simply nothing to kill at all if you have good builds in normal mode.   

Also, since there are no enemies in normal, you do optimize completely differently.  It's definitely not harder, just less fun, unless you like sneaking around and just using single target pistols or stealth kills.

[ECCHOSIERRA]

4 hours ago, Hexerin said:

All frames can clear baseline Steel Path. However, most frames don't scale well, and thus are just not worth dealing with because you have to put in exponentially more effort for the same results as other frames that actually do scale. In general, the older the frame the more this applies.

I do think some frames/abilities could use a touch up because they're either outdated or just not relevant, but going as far as to say "most frames dont scale well" i think is a strong choice of words. Most frames are viable, imo.

And no i dont just mean the "well technically it CAN viable" i mean "good enough that theres a point to using it even if its not strictly the most optimal.

5 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

Well, some of them have lost their relevance as the meta has shifted.  And certain abilities definitely need some touch-ups to stay relevant.  I would say that DE has done a good job making their more recent frames relevant in the Steel Path.

 

To be clear, yeah, any frame can make it to level cap.  That has been established.  But I like when we have a wide range of viable and effective frames for all content.

If i were to make a tier list on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being "this frame brings absolutely nothing to the table, and 10 being the absolute best, i actually think most frames are in the 7-10 range. Probably concentrated more around the 8 mark.

Theres some pretty subjective opinion in there, but i think we can all agree that at least its more stratified than warframe *used to be*. 

[(PSN)MYKK678]

10 hours ago, Tombsite said:

When the Steel Path was launched DE it was an optional challenge. We got some better drop chances for resources/mods and some steel essence but that was supposed to be it. Outside of those things there was not supposed to be any reason to run the Steel Path version over the regular version. It was an optional mode for those who wanted a bit of a challenge. 

Then came the Zariman. Turns out that the mod booster from SP allowed you to farm the new arcanes that launched with the update twice as fast. But that was just a quirk of the mechanics, not a design decision right?
  
Then came the Voruna update. You could run the new missions as an old school farm but DE were nice to us and implemented a bit of a pity system. You needed to farm Lua Thrax Plasm for building Veruna but you could also use it in the store to offset bad luck. There were even two new missions to farm this on. A low and a high level version. Obviously the higher level version had a higher output of Lua Thrax Plasm (times 2 to be exact). Well the Steel Path was even harder so obviously it gave an even bigger output (20% bonus on the highest level). Wait so now there is a reason to run Steel Path? That is a deliberate design decision to make Steel Path better than regular path!

Then came the Citrine update. DE copied the, generally well received, system from the Voruna update. We collected crystals instead of plasma but the result was the same. But now there was a 50% bonus to the pity system for running Steel Path! This is getting kind of significant DE.

And with this latest event the SP-bonus is now at a +100%. With twice the amount of curses and and twice the amount of expected Grotesque splinters per run.

So we went from Steel Path being "an optional challenge” to “twice as efficient”.

I believe this is bad. But this is already in tl;dr territory so I’ll wait a bit with my arguments and instead ask my fellow players:

How do you feel about the Steel Path becoming the optimal way to play?      

You started the post by discussing how you completely understood that resources were boosted in Steel Path, and then the post continues on as if you don't know what you just explained you know. Everything you listed is a resource. No ifs what's or buts. All of it. 

Nobody altered any deal, you just didn't fully understand the fine-print despite claiming to.

[(PSN)Sentiel]

10 hours ago, Tombsite said:

When the Steel Path was launched DE it was an optional challenge. We got some better drop chances for resources/mods and some steel essence but that was supposed to be it. Outside of those things there was not supposed to be any reason to run the Steel Path version over the regular version. It was an optional mode for those who wanted a bit of a challenge. 

...

How do you feel about the Steel Path becoming the optimal way to play?      

As soon as the mode or difficulty has any beneficial additions, such as better drop chances, then it's not optional anymore. Everybody values their time so it's only natural for them to want to spend it efficiently and thus focus on the mode that allows them to do so. So, Steel Path already is the optimal way to play.

 

To me, SP is the 'normal', because with SP I get more loot, Steel Essence which can be turned into Kuva, Ciphers, the weekly Teshin reward, then there's Arcanes, and Riven Slivers. There's no reason to do anything but SP at this point.

 

There's no added difficulty either. The enemies are vastly more spongy but that's all. Their damage is irrelevant with the myriad of nearly unkillable or outright invulnerable frames at our disposal, which are accessible even to newbies. Wukong is right in the Dojo and they can always buy or be gifted the likes of Revenant Prime. You're set as long as you have means of killing the enemies, which are also easy to get either from your nemesis or by reaching Zariman. Even if someone can consider Acolytes as a challenge, the newbie can simply sacrifice one self revive to get rid of them if they can't handle them. The mission won't fail, there's no punishment aside from losing some affinity and a chance to get Arcane (which you can buy at max rank for 15p lol) and Steel Essence but the Acolyte leaves and you can finish your mission in peace.

 

Even new players in clan all rush to reach SP (while trying to deal with a Lich or a Sister to get a SP viable weapon) because the normal Star Chart simply doesn't offer anything to them.

[Tombsite]

1 hour ago, (PSN)MYKK678 said:

You started the post by discussing how you completely understood that resources were boosted in Steel Path, and then the post continues on as if you don't know what you just explained you know. Everything you listed is a resource. No ifs what's or buts. All of it. 

Nobody altered any deal, you just didn't fully understand the fine-print despite claiming to.

Not all resources are the same. So let’s ignore you being bad faith and try to explain that; NO resources aren’t just resources and there are ifs,what’s and buts.
  

If for some reason you need to be more efficient with gathering Nano-spores or Rubico, then sure Steel Path is a bit more efficient as you get a drop chance increase on those. If you have a rare mod that you’ve yet to be lucky to get from an enemy, Steel Path is a little bit more efficient.  Most of those there are already boosters for and unless you’re farming the Hema research or the Sybear I don’t think you’re in much need of the boost.

Void traces are not boosted by drop chance so there’s no reason to do relic missions in Steel Path outside of getting the Steel essence which was part of the initial deal. They are boosted by one of the paid boosters however. See how this resource is different?

 

You’re not getting more medallions/ Void feathers / Voca faster from Steel Path. Not even the paid boosters help her (though they used to a long time ago.). See how this resource is different?

My rotation A, B or C drop? Identical. Can’t influence what I get from this in any way. See how this resource is different?

 

Crystal fragments and Grotesk splinters. I get more of those from Steel Path per run. Can’t even boost them with paid boosters. See how this resource is different?

Now apparently in your haste to belittle me you fail to grasp a bit of this nuance. My problem was obviously with the last example.
Now you might not think that there’s any problem with things being as they are, but then make that argument instead of being silly.

[Colldbllue]

13 hours ago, Tombsite said:

How do you feel about the Steel Path becoming the optimal way to play?      

As someone who is brand new --

I would totally expect this, coming from other games in the genre. Seems like the natural progression of things.

Why would grinding harder content -- which naturally has better rewards, not be a more optimal way to play?

[Tombsite]

18 minutes ago, Colldbllue said:

As someone who is brand new --

I would totally expect this, coming from other games in the genre. Seems like the natural progression of things.

Why would grinding harder content -- which naturally has better rewards, not be a more optimal way to play?

That is a valid way of thinking (and the industry standard), and I don’t disagree on principle. For me it has more to do with how this content is harder, what rewards you get, and how much more optimal it is.

 

Killing an enemy with 200 hp is technically twice as hard as killing an enemy with 100 hp. But if my gun does 400 damage then in practice it’s exactly the same.
Now how much reward should I get for killing the enemy with 200 hp as compared to the one with 100 hp? Twice as much? 20% more? The same because it was the same effort?

 

Now Steel Path can require more skill and knowledge… but you can also just grab a relatively cheap prime warframe (Revenant,Octavia to name the most common), a powerful gun (Incarnon or Lich) and just get more rewards for doing basically the same as on the regular mission.

So how much more should you be rewarded for this?

 

[Marvelous_A]

It's basically a poor attempt at slowing down players because they didn't give a f**k about game balance and suddenly they realized players are too f**king good at their game

[-Krism-]

15 hours ago, Tombsite said:

How do you feel about the Steel Path becoming the optimal way to play?      

More risk = more rewards

Not really hard to understand

 

Why would I run the more challenging mission over the regular one then?

[Nobodys-Perfect]

I'm pleased to have the additional difficulty of steel path, even if it's superficial bar raising - the extra rewards are a bonus, but the real benefit is the increased spawn rate. Higher enemy density is better, arguably necessary. As we get more and more items with kill and effect specific (status, headshot, etc) conditionals, using them optimally and taking advantage of the fun gimmicks requires more mobs to clear, and is often dependant on those mobs needing to live for more than an instant to work.

I personally think the normal starchart would benefit from greater enemy density too. Of course, new players with no mods or effective strategies need to be accounted for though, so it's not an easy thing to just go and change.

As someone who has helped friends into the game and through stuff, having steel path as a goal to aim for (both reaching it via starchart completion, and becoming strong enough to be viable there) seems like a pretty good addition to the journey. Its existence encourages, or rather, gives an actual reason with some material incentives, to optimize your modding and use at least -some- strategy.

Yes there are warframes and weapons that easily trivialize it in various ways (insane dps or survivability.) I don't think this is really a bad thing. It lets a player curate their own level of difficulty to some extent, which is a benefit in letting players with a broad range of playstyles and skill levels work together in the co-op environment. Feeling kind of tired today? you can play something with better defenses so you can have a more relaxing time instead of forcing yourself to pay attention and shield gate.