Being forced to use outdated or bottom-tier RNG equipment in new high level game modes is not "difficulty"

[SneakyErvin]

19 hours ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

Both you and @Raikh raise good points but it all lines up with what makes up some of the endgame elements. "Forced" co-op happens in raids too, but, luckily, Warframe always allows solo to work. It should be a lot harder though, similar to when Railjack first came out. That supports the overall satisfaction of success.The nicer picture is that you don't have to just play with any ole randoms. Recruiting does work and shouldn't be shun away so easily. 

in regards to having an even larger motivation to take on the new system, I don't necessarily disagree, but I think we should give the first edition a shot first. 

But why should solo be harder? What is the justification for that?

The whole idea behind group content is that it should be hard content for a group, not content that can be done solo but harder. So if something is designed with the intent to also be soloed the content should be just as "easy" solo as in group, where grouping simply scales it so it is somewhat equally engaging with 4 players as with one. This new mode is just the same old missions that have no actual incentive to group besides "moar lewt!" due to not having SP scaling for solo. So no reason why it should be harder for solo since grouping doesnt actually add any extra layer aside from making it more trivial while also having to deal with the horrible nature of WF matchmaking (not the people, but the infrastructure itself).

Just as I didnt really get the idea with RJ at start. It wasnt engaging for a group, it was really just easier than playing solo, but I never saw the reason why it was designed that way. Sure, the setup gave everyone in the group something to do more or less, but none of the things in the mode were actually interesting or added any real layer to it. Most were just arbitrary additions to increase the need for players, when those could have been really just left out to allow solo a similar experience at start. Which would have also avoided the addition of the horribly OP and broken crew mates that were later added. Instead solo could have been solved by something simple, such as the risk for fractures, boarders etc. increasing per player in a mission.

[trst]

Except their only fault is listening to the players too much. The things in the game that make it impossible for there to be actual challenge only exist and remain as they are because DE doesn't want to upset the community whilst said community also asks for more of the same. Meanwhile every single time they'd even made the slightest attempt at mitigating those features they get met with backlash from the community.

Hek just look back at the mass backlash and aggressive review bombing over the AOE ""nerfs"" which ultimately did nothing to the performance of said weapons. All it took was DE just touching their favorite toys and a considerable portion of the community lost its mind. If you want to complain about how DE designs the game then you need to also complain at the community asking for exactly what we've ended up with.

But at least with semi-RNG loadouts you're still getting your overpowered toys, just not a choice as to which you end up with. Which technically is yet again in-line with what the community wants since they refuse to accept nerfs. Thus the only challenge we can see is with features like this.

[Waeleto]

On 2024-03-17 at 11:27 PM, _Anise_ said:

Being forced to use outdated or bottom-tier RNG equipment in new high level game modes is not "difficulty"

you know what else it's not ? FUN  not remotely, not in the slightest! if I feel like playing floaty fast I will play wisp, if I feel in the mood for a lazy no brain tank I will probhably play nezha

this random loadout garbage has to stop, it probably also artificially inflates warframe usage stats because some people will just be whatever and play an outdated 0.4% played frame no one cares about

WDYM ??! you think being forced to play caliban/banshee/limbo in a high level mission isn't fun ? HOW DARE YOU ?? (i'm being sarcastic btw it's not just not fun it's peak terrible gameplay)

[RichardKam]

It is mathematically impossible to make any challenges when you have practically infinite combination in your arsenal (warframe 4 abilities +/- helminth + 3 weapons + companion + focus, each with at least 8 mod slots, a total of at least 5 arcanes,  7 if using zaw and kitgun). There will always be a way to cheese through any challenge, and I am not saying it is a bad thing.

The only way to make a challenge is to limit your arsenal. Simple as that.

If you disagree, you can try to come up with a challenge and see how long it takes for the forum to find a way to cheese it. Just use your imagination. Anything will do.

[ECCHOSIERRA]

4 hours ago, trst said:

Except their only fault is listening to the players too much. The things in the game that make it impossible for there to be actual challenge only exist and remain as they are because DE doesn't want to upset the community whilst said community also asks for more of the same. Meanwhile every single time they'd even made the slightest attempt at mitigating those features they get met with backlash from the community.

Hek just look back at the mass backlash and aggressive review bombing over the AOE ""nerfs"" which ultimately did nothing to the performance of said weapons. All it took was DE just touching their favorite toys and a considerable portion of the community lost its mind. If you want to complain about how DE designs the game then you need to also complain at the community asking for exactly what we've ended up with.

But at least with semi-RNG loadouts you're still getting your overpowered toys, just not a choice as to which you end up with. Which technically is yet again in-line with what the community wants since they refuse to accept nerfs. Thus the only challenge we can see is with features like this.

I dont know in what universe AOE didnt get nerfed significantly but okay.

[Aerikx]

9 hours ago, trst said:

Except their only fault is listening to the players too much. The things in the game that make it impossible for there to be actual challenge only exist and remain as they are because DE doesn't want to upset the community whilst said community also asks for more of the same. Meanwhile every single time they'd even made the slightest attempt at mitigating those features they get met with backlash from the community.

Couldn't agree more.

We have multiple examples of this...

- Grendel Missions

Modless missions (IE: A legit Hard Mode.)

- Arbitrations 

(Literally a mode players begged for and they now vehemently hate)

- Archons / Actual Boss Fights 

The battles that made Damage Attenuation a discussion and vehemently hated feature because bosses actually have to be fought and aren't HP sponges with Trillions of HP.

- Boss Mechanics / Interactivity

Jackal & Ropololyst come to mind and the vehement hatred they got because they are "Invulnerable" unless the player adheres to mechanics. 

- Duviri 

A Rogue-Lite mode where death/failure was supposed to matter and have painful consequences. (DE is removing the death and fail penalty to The Circuit in the next update to appease the playerbase who asked for such a challenge in the first place)

- Failure being meaningful 

Nearly every mode where this was a thing has been altered to appease the very community that asked for it in the first place........
By removing it.

- Smart AI and enemies with powers players need to dodge.

Launch Month Fortuna is all I gotta say. DE gave players exactly this and the salt was overflowing over how tough the Corpus suddenly became.
______________________________________

Looking at Deep Archimedia...

Playing Devil's Advocate, I can only see DE honoring the promise of difficulty without the "Random Loadout" aspect by adding a handful of Extremely unpopular modifiers.

1. Damage Attenuation on All Enemies

2. Implementation of Launch Day Fortuna to enemies. (IE: Enemies use CC, Stuns, and abilities to cancel out Player abilities and punish players who do not dodge/evade and prioritize enemies.)

3. Disable Unairu's Last Gasp

4. Disable Item Use

5. Disable Player Revives

6. Death as a Necramech and Operator count as a player Death

7. Failure uses up the Search Pulse (IE: You failed that dive. You got 1 more you can dom fail it and you must wait till next week. Better bring your A Game.)

8. Energy use has a 25% Tax (All Abilities cost Energy use 25% more to use) and have a 120 second cool down timer added. 

The above would effectively make Deep Archimedia extremely challenging as players will not be able to casually mow their way through the hordes of enemies. They would have to actually engage them and keep enemy count low as to not be overwhelmed.

Specific enemies would be a significant threat and require the player/squad to kill ASAP as they can CC the squad via knock back, stuns, knockdowns. Other enemies release pulses that disable/cancel Warframe Abilities (ala: Stalker/Acolytes/Demolysts)

Using Necramechs or Operator would now carry an actual risk factor. Forcing players to consider the situation when using said vehicle/mode.

Death is permanent. No one can save you. You missed out. Quiting the mission uses the rest of your search pulses for the week (to prevent salty people causing host migrations) and refreshes the squads pulses if they die during a migration.

No items, no summons. Gotta scavenge for health and energy and due to long cooldown timers and a hefty energy cost,  abilities must be used wisely.
______________________________________

There...

Now we add in the modifiers players must select for added challenge to unlock the guaranteed loot rolls AND The Keyglyphs that are core part of the mission and you have yourself one hardcore mode.

Players can go in with as meta a build as possible but the challenge remains. 

Would the community be fine with that?

My gut says no. Because the argument is disingenuous.

The vocal community actually just wants to guarantee legendary drops but face little to no resistance against their meta builds while ensuring that the price of admission is super high as to block/deny other players from participating.

You can take Trials out of the game but you can't take that ole Trial Toxicity out of the community.

Edited March 19 by Aerikx
Typos + Mobile Phone Formatting malarkey.

[Enxchiol]

27 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

Couldn't agree more.

We have multiple examples of this...

- Grendel Missions

- Arbitrations (Literally a mode players begged for and they now vehemently hate)

- Archons / Actual Boss Fights 

The battles that made Damage Attenuation a discussion and vehemently hated feature because bosses actually have to be fought and aren't HP sponges with Trillions of HP.

- Boss Mechanics / Interactivity

Jackal & Ropololyst come to mind and the vehement hatred they got because they are "Invulnerable" unless the player adheres to mechanics. 

- Duviri 

A Rogue-Lite mode where death/failure was supposed to matter and have painful consequences. (DE is removing the death and fail penalty to The Circuit in the next update to appease the playerbase who asked for such a challenge in the first place)

- Failure being meaningful 

Nearly every mode where this was thing has been altered to appease the very community that asked for it in the first place.

- Smart AI and enemies with powers players need to dodge.

Launch Month Fortuna is all I gotta say. DE gave players exactly this and the salt was overflowing over how tough the Corpus suddenly became.

Looking at Deep Archimedia...

Playing Devil's Advocate, I can only see DE honoring the promise of difficulty without the "Random Loadout" aspect by adding a handful of Extremely unpopular modifiers.

1. Damage Attenuation on All Enemies

2. Implementation of Launch Day Fortuna to enemies. (IE: Enemies use CC, Stuns, and abilities to cancel out Player abilities and punish players who do not dodge/evade and prioritize enemies.)

3. Disable Unairu's Last Gasp

4. Disable Item Use

5. Disable Player Revives

6. Death as a Necramech and Operator count as a player Death

7. Failure uses up the Search Pulse (IE: You failed that dive. You got 1 more you can dom fail it and you must wait till next week. Better bring your A Game.)

8. Energy use has a 25% Tax (All Abilities cost Energy use 25% more to use) and have a 120 second cool down timer added. 

The above would effectively make Deep Archimedia extremely challenging as players will not be able to casually mow their way through the hordes of enemies. They would have to actually engage them and keep enemy count low as to not be overwhelmed.

Specific enemies would be a significant threat and require the player/squad to kill ASAP as they can CC the squad via knock back, stuns, knockdowns. Other enemies release pulses that disable/cancel Warframe Abilities (ala: Stalker/Acolytes/Demolysts)

Using Necramechs or Operator would now carry an actual risk factor. Forcing players to consider the situation when using said vehicle/mode.

Death is permanent. No one can save you. You missed out. Quiting the mission uses the rest of your search pulses for the week (to prevent salty people causing host migrations) and refreshes the squads pulses if they die during a migration.

No items, no summons. Gotta scavenge for health and energy and due to long cooldown timers and a hefty energy cost,  abilities must be used wisely.

There...

Now we add in the modifiers must select for added challenge and you have yourself one hardcore mode.

Players can go in with as meta a build as possible but the challenge remains. 

Would the community be fine with that?

My gut says no. Because the argument is disingenuous.

The vocal community actually just wants to guarantee legendary drops but face little to no resistance against their meta builds while ensuring that the price of admission is super high as to block/deny other players from participating.

You can take Trials out of the game but you can't take that ole Trial Toxicity out of the community.

You have the right idea, but some of your ideas are quite horrible ngl.

Losing your netracell searches on failure is extremely counterproductive to the point. Games where there is risk of constant death and challenge can afford to have that because the failure means basically nothing, you can just jump back in and try again until you succeed. In Warframe, losing hour+ of mission time or weekly timegated stuff is not fun in the slightest. I think it works the opposite way, if you don't lose anything in failure and can just jump right in then DE can feel free to make actually hard content.

 

Also, the modifier where abilities have 120s cooldowns wouldn't be any sort of challenge, it would just greatly restrict the viable frames to those with channeled abilities or duration increasing(Gyre, Valkyr for example).

[Aerikx]

10 minutes ago, Enxchiol said:

You have the right idea, but some of your ideas are quite horrible ngl.

Losing your netracell searches on failure is extremely counterproductive to the point. Games where there is risk of constant death and challenge can afford to have that because the failure means basically nothing, you can just jump back in and try again until you succeed. In Warframe, losing hour+ of mission time or weekly timegated stuff is not fun in the slightest. I think it works the opposite way, if you don't lose anything in failure and can just jump right in then DE can feel free to make actually hard content.

 

Also, the modifier where abilities have 120s cooldowns wouldn't be any sort of challenge, it would just greatly restrict the viable frames to those with channeled abilities or duration increasing(Gyre, Valkyr for example).

The point is that it is a Hard Mode.

Challenge is not always going to be fun. Taking Elden Ring for example....

Is it fun when you die and lose all your experience? No. 

Is it fun in Hades when you die and start from square one? Not at all.

But it motivates players to be active, to learn mechanics, and make clearing the content regarding and engaging.

Thus, Losing the charges is meant to be a punishment. Period.

IE: You failed. Try harder next time, come better prepared.

This is essentially a Warframe Deep Dungeon run. It isn't supposed to be a casual fun run with a slap on the wrist punishment for failure. 

The fact the devs have come up with such punishing modifiers is proof that this mode is meant to "Kick the Player's ass".

I'm not calling you disingenuous but your reply is what I meant when I said, players basically want an easy mode guaranteed legendary loot drop but with a high cost of entry that locks the bulk of the community out.

As for the cooldown...

It's there to effectively force strategy and limit ability spam.

IE:

- The squad Trinity needs to really consider if now is a good time to pop the team heal. (And which heal to use)

- Your squad must coordinate on when to use Roar and make it count when it's up. 

It's more of an engagement factor while also wing clipping Frame's like Saryn. 

The Energy Tax prevents Channeling abuse.

- Wing Clipping frames like Mesa

By Wing Clipping...

I mean it makes spamming/maintaining some abilities harder. Forcing them to be used when needed.

So Mesa won't just mosey through with peacemakers blazing while Saryn sings an Opera in the background.

Edited March 19 by Aerikx
Typos: I need my coffee this morning. 💀

[Corvid]

20 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

Is it fun when you die and lose all your experience? No. 

Unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure you get the opportunity to recover your experience. You need to die twice in a row for it to be lost permanently.

20 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

Is it fun in Hades when you die and start from square one? Not at all.

Haven't played Hades, but if it works like other roguelikes you aren't starting "from square one" when a run ends. There are unlocks and meta-progression systems that ensure that unless your previous run went extremely poorly you will be in a better position than you were before that run.

 

Losing charges doesn't incentivise coming back with better preparation, it incentivises disengaging from the mode entirely and sticking with Netracells since those can be run for the rewards without having to risk your limited chances.

Edited March 19 by Corvid

[Drachnyn]

Losing charges incentivizes using whatever someone with more experience has found to be working. It incentivizes copying a youtuber build. It will not incentivize tinkering yourself because trying something out in mission can lead to losing a reward permanently. Very few games actually do this. Atmost you lose the time you spent on that specific run. Roguelikes and soulslikes dont even go that far. In roguelikes you just lose the current attempt but keep all metaprogression you have unlocked so far, while in soulslikes you only lose the money you carry around. All gear that you found stays with you, short cuts you unlocked stay open, one time enemies stay dead.

[TeaHands]

No matter what type of difficulty DE introduces, I guarantee there will be a horde of Tenno dead sprinting to the internet to piss their pants about it. Everytime.

I mean they just nerfed Archons and are about to take out any sort of consequence to failure in Steelpath Circuit. So don't you worry, whenever DE introduces the next "difficult" piece of content, Deep Archmedia will see some sort of nerf and make it easier to play however you want.

[Aerikx]

44 minutes ago, Corvid said:

Haven't played Hades, but if it works like other roguelikes you aren't starting "from square one" when a run ends. There are unlocks and meta-progression systems that ensure that unless your previous run went extremely poorly you will be in a better position than you were before that run.

In Hades only currency is saved. Everything else is washed away in The River Styx when you die. 

33 minutes ago, Drachnyn said:

Losing charges incentivizes using whatever someone with more experience has found to be working. It incentivizes copying a youtuber build. It will not incentivize tinkering yourself because trying something out in mission can lead to losing a reward permanently. Very few games actually do this.

Which is what folks are already doing. Hence the outrage over the current system.

IE: Players can't use their Win Button / YouTuber certified, tried, true, and tested flawless build. 

Losing charges makes people take the mode seriously. 

Note. I'm simply playing devil's advocate for an alternative route.

If players can run into the mode with their 9,999,999 Trillion DMG only vulnerable to DMG for 00.01s meta builds (I know that's an exaggeration but you get the point), then there needs to be a trade off.

Some form of meaningful and actually lasting risk to make the effort and reward worthwhile beyond....

"We just throw ourselves at the wall until it eventually breaks." / "I sent wave after wave of my men."

[Enxchiol]

1 hour ago, Aerikx said:

The point is that it is a Hard Mode.

Challenge is not always going to be fun. Taking Elden Ring for example....

Is it fun when you die and lose all your experience? No. 

Is it fun in Hades when you die and start from square one? Not at all.

But it motivates players to be active, to learn mechanics, and make clearing the content regarding and engaging.

Thus, Losing the charges is meant to be a punishment. Period.

IE: You failed. Try harder next time, come better prepared.

This is essentially a Warframe Deep Dungeon run. It isn't supposed to be a casual fun run with a slap on the wrist punishment for failure. 

The fact the devs have come up with such punishing modifiers is proof that this mode is meant to "Kick the Player's ass".

I'm not calling you disingenuous but your reply is what I meant when I said, players basically want an easy mode guaranteed legendary loot drop but with a high cost of entry that locks the bulk of the community out.

As for the cooldown...

It's there to effectively force strategy and limit ability spam.

IE:

- The squad Trinity needs to really consider if now is a good time to pop the team heal. (And which heal to use)

- Your squad must coordinate on when to use Roar and make it count when it's up. 

It's more of an engagement factor while also wing clipping Frame's like Saryn. 

The Energy Tax prevents Channeling abuse.

- Wing Clipping frames like Mesa

By Wing Clipping...

I mean it makes spamming/maintaining some abilities harder. Forcing them to be used when needed.

So Mesa won't just mosey through with peacemakers blazing while Saryn sings an Opera in the background.

When you die in Elden Ring you can respawn at an (usually very nearby) checkpoint and quickly go retrieve your dropped experience and try again.

When you die in Hades you can maybe get an upgrade or two with the currency you got from your run and then start up another run immediately, you aren't told to "wait until next week lol".

Its not about wanting easy loot, believe me I'd be totally ecstatic at an actually fun and difficult encounter(and i kinda was for the Fragmented One, sadly the 60 eyes collection part is quite a slog).

 

Challenge is fun, but being overly punishing adds absolutely nothing to the experience.

 

*The reducing ability spam idea itself is good tho, i just felt that particular implementation wouldn't achieve the intended purpose. Railjack has a good system for that, energy costs get much larger the more you cast your abilities.

 

Edit: If i had a dollar for every time i was thinking about game mechanics and said that Railjack actually has a great feature for this, I'd have at least 5 dollars

Edited March 19 by Enxchiol

[(PSN)rexis12]

2 hours ago, Aerikx said:

DE is removing the death and fail penalty to The Circuit in the next update to appease the playerbase who asked for such a challenge in the first place

Oh yeah sure it's tooooootaly due to death and fail penalty. 

And not at all that Warframe is a spaghetti mess of a game where it can bug out and completely remove any and all progress through no fault of your own. 

Let's just keep THAT in the game, I'm sure that won't ruin the reputation of the game mode that it already has, I'm sure people love Host Migrations just deleting your progress. 

[Aerikx]

On 2024-03-19 at 2:36 PM, Enxchiol said:

When you die in Hades you can maybe get an upgrade or two with the currency you got from your run and then start up another run immediately, you aren't told to "wait until next week lol".

I use it as an example of starting from scratch. Obviously the gameplay systems are different.

Ultimately though, how do you make players NOT want to die in Warframe? How do you make them bring their A-Game?

Well Steel Path Circuit & Original Arbitrations answered that.

IE: You die and lose your progress/everything.

Now why do I feel like it should use the charges? 

Because that hammer's home that this is the current Endgame/The Hardest Challenge and the kid gloves are off. 

Guaranteed Legendary Loot but at a great risk. 

Deep Archimedia isn't being forced remember. This is an optional mode that guarantees Legendary rewards if the rules are adhered to.

However, the Warframe Community at large has a mental illness where whatever DE adds, even if it's entirely optional must absolutely be played no matter what. So people feel (although they are forcing themselves) forced to make it mandatory. 

Either way, the fear of failing and losing the charges does prompt that: "Ok. I might need a premade." / "Let me look over my Loadout and strategy." Thought process. 

And it also keeps the coveted bar of entry high as many will see the danger and go: "Not for me." 

Additionally, it adds to the value of that legendary loot. Similar to how the struggle required to clear Trials really made Trial Arcanes something to marvel at. 

On 2024-03-19 at 2:36 PM, Enxchiol said:

Its not about wanting easy loot, believe me I'd be totally ecstatic at an actually fun and difficult encounter(and i kinda was for the Fragmented One, sadly the 60 eyes collection part is quite a slog).

The eyes go by really fast honestly. The fight IMPO just isn't fun. It's a bullet sponge, DPS check, and pattern memorization.

The fun fights are the fights that apparently no one likes. Like Jackal & Ropololyst. Where the combat is dynamic, has memorable moments, and is chaotic to look at. 

I wish the Archons were more like Jackal tbh. With DMG phases, then mechanics to permanently "wound" em. Instead they just hover around, absorb DMG, cast some annoying abilities, and eventually die. 

(As much as I like that Archons are somewhat of a fight. I wish they were true fights, not just elite enemies with a slurry of abilities.)

On 2024-03-19 at 2:36 PM, Enxchiol said:

Railjack has a good system for that, energy costs get much larger the more you cast your abilities.

Railjack does a lot of things right tbh. The mode is just unpopular cause well....DE gave players what they wanted.

 

On 2024-03-19 at 2:56 PM, (PSN)rexis12 said:

Oh yeah sure it's tooooootaly due to death and fail penalty. 

And not at all that Warframe is a spaghetti mess of a game where it can bug out and completely remove any and all progress through no fault of your own. 

Let's just keep THAT in the game, I'm sure that won't ruin the reputation of the game mode that it already has, I'm sure people love Host Migrations just deleting your progress. 

My irl friends and I have never had the Circuit migration bug happen to us.

So I can't speak for it.

It seems few and far between tbh. 

I concede that such a bug does/would  suck to experience.

But the point of The Circuit was a dice roll (like most of Duviri)/gamble. To push on and risk it or call it and save. It made players consider the hand they had been dealt. 

Now the mode is just easy loot. Just go in and die until you unlock every reward tier.

[Enxchiol]

9 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

Ultimately though, how do you make players NOT want to die in Warframe? How do you make them bring their A-Game?

When you die, you lose the mission and the time you spent there and gotta try again. Honestly IMO that's all you need. That's precisely what old Arbitrations had, there was no penalty beyond just losing the pickup rewards(did you always get to keep the rotation rewards, I don't rember).

10 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

Because that hammer's home that this is the current Endgame/The Hardest Challenge and the kid gloves are off. 

Guaranteed Legendary Loot but at a great risk. 

Okay okay I see your point. I think I just personally despise timegates(its why I have never done an eidolon since doing a solo Tridolon once). But I guess I wouldn't mind such a system too much, it adds a great deal of tension to the mission(although I think there would be better ways to achieve that too).

 

14 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

and pattern memorization.

Isn't that just all boss fights ever no?

Ropalolyst I agree is quite cool mechanics wise, but its kinda low level so if you're well built there's no actual threat of any kind. Jackal I'm surprised you put in there tho. For me the fight is just "shoot at it, walk around in a circle, repeat 2 times" However, the Fragmented One has an attack that's similar to the Jackal's spinning laser, the one where he dislodges himself and has two spinning lasers, one you gotta jump over, other you gotta slide under and honestly dodging that is just so satisfying(or well you can just bulletjump above the whole thing but that's not nearly as fun).

[SneakyErvin]

36 minutes ago, Aerikx said:

Deep Archimedia isn't being forced remember. This is an optional mode that guarantees Legendary rewards if the rules are adhered to.

However, the Warframe Community at large has a mental illness where whatever DE adds, even if it's entirely optional must absolutely be played no matter what. So people feel (although they are forcing themselves) forced to make it mandatory. 

Either way, the fear of failing and losing the charges does prompt that: "Ok. I might need a premade." / "Let me look over my Loadout and strategy." Thought process. 

And it also keeps the coveted bar of entry high as many will see the danger and go: "Not for me." 

Additionally, it adds to the value of that legendary loot. Similar to how the struggle required to clear Trials really made Trial Arcanes something to marvel at. 

Your main problem is that you put too much value on the rarity of the loot in your reasoning regarding challenge. The lego rewards are and will be utter trash no matter if they come from Netracells at random like currently or as guaranteed max research drops from a successful deep.

The reason why most will run Deep is because of an icreased weekly income of shards, nothing else. Items that arent really warranted to be locked behind "hard" content since all they really do now is give us more of them to play around with to reduce the tedium of farming bile and waiting for the wall cooch to get hungry again. The peak of power from shards is already there for most players since the system has been out for a long long while.

You saying that more challenge increases the value of the lego loot is false, since the arcanes will not magically become useful because they are more challenging to get. I will be utterly bummed out whenever T1, T2 or T3 rewards me a lego arcane instead of a shard in Deep. And if there is no shard tied to T4 research I will not be doing T4 research, since it will be a waste of time for 1/2 arcanes I have no urge to get. The reason trials made trial arcanes awesome is because trials were the only venue for trial arcanes, but there were also plenty of turd arcanes that saw no added value by being rewarded from trials, since they were still poop and a bust if you got them instead of the powerful ones. With Deep its more like shards = rare/lego trial arcanes and lego arcanes = poop trial arcanes in value. While in reality we actually buy the great arcanes with standing we gain from the most trivial of lab content.

edit: I mean it is so easy to obtain the actually great Cavia arcanes that we want them removed as rewards from Netracells. So making something super challenging just because it guarantees a bad lego arcane makes no sense when we already get far better items from doing simple bounties.

Edited March 19 by SneakyErvin

[Aerikx]

3 hours ago, Enxchiol said:

Isn't that just all boss fights ever no?

Yes and no. Typically it's an understanding of the mechanics which can be argued as memorization yes. 

The difference is that Fragmented One is a pattern on repeat. I've helped friends kill it so many times now it's pattern became obvious.

3 hours ago, Enxchiol said:

Jackal I'm surprised you put in there tho. For me the fight is just "shoot at it, walk around in a circle, repeat 2 times"

Jackal is just a well design boss. Simple? Yes but we'll designed in terms of a mechanics based boss that also provides the epic spectacle one expects of a Boss fight.

The downside to bulk of Warframe bosses is that they basically scurry around like normal enemies. There is no sense of spectacle. 

Example:

How many times in Mot / The Circuit do people cut Corrupted Vor down without even realizing he spawned? 

That's a crap boss fight.

I digress...

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

Your main problem is that you put too much value on the rarity of the loot in your reasoning regarding challenge.

So you feel it should be a challenge for the sake of a challenge? Cause that's what Steel Path was originally for and we all saw how that went... (Now it's got its own reward store and etc.)

If the rarity / power of the loot doesn't merit making a mode challenging then what does? 

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

The reason why most will run Deep is because of an icreased weekly income of shards, nothing else.

This thread is literally a tantrum about having to oblige the random Loadout selections in order to get the guaranteed loot. Shards are in the loot pool but so are Melee Adapters (which I fully expect to be the single most common reward)

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

You saying that more challenge increases the value of the lego loot is false, since the arcanes will not magically become useful because they are more challenging to get.

I never said they'd become useful. I did say they are Legendary Arcanes which is ultimately a top tier arcane. 

The topic on if they are useful or not is subjective and up for debate.

I personally find Melee Crescendo to be incredibly good and ridiculously powerful. 

Others see it as a waste. 

Just like some find Arcane Grace and yes, even Energize to be a waste. 

Bottom line is...

Legendary is Legendary

This is another thing that concerns me about some folks mindsets. 

They act as if the fact they personally don't value it/use something that it has no value and should be treated as something of no value/insignificance. 

To be hyperbolic; "I don't have a pet Dog. Therefore Dogs aren't pets." 

Tau Shards & Legendary Arcanes are too tier rewards and therefore, they are supposed to be hard to acquire. 

While I vehemently disagree with it, this is partially why DE feels the need to remove Kahl's shard from Chipper and lock it behind Rank 5 Cavia. They feel it's an endgame level reward and therefore, shouldn't be easily acquired. 

That's literally the point to looter games.

You (and many others, no doubt) may only see this as an Archon Shard pinata but normal Netracells (once the store bought) Arcanes have been removed will basically become those.

(I'd bet irl money that DE is going to dilute the loot pool with some new crap. There's no way in the ninth circle of hell the mode will only offer Melee Adapters, Shards, and Legendary Arcanes. They are gonna toss in some kind of Forma, the other Weapon adapters, and Weapon Exilus Adapters I bet.)

[Kaiga]

17 hours ago, RichardKam said:

The only way to make a challenge is to limit your arsenal. Simple as that.

If you disagree, you can try to come up with a challenge and see how long it takes for the forum to find a way to cheese it. Just use your imagination. Anything will do.

I already did in the beginning of the thread, in regards to kills against certain mobs requiring movement and weakpoint mechanics you have to engage with, vs yet more mobs that die to blind AOE/ability spam, but since that was ignored let's try another example: Spy missions.
Spy missions are hated because "buhh... OTHER people suck at spy, not ME with my one revenant build!!1", but they represent an example of difficulty that both doesn't limit loadout choice and risks failure, because the objective is not to crap out DPS against red dots on a minimap.

Missions with more complex objectives than just "kill mob" lead to people changing their own loadouts to suit them, instead of DE picking it for us in the name of difficulty.

8 hours ago, TeaHands said:

No matter what type of difficulty DE introduces, I guarantee there will be a horde of Tenno dead sprinting to the internet to piss their pants about it. Everytime.

I mean they just nerfed Archons and are about to take out any sort of consequence to failure in Steelpath Circuit. So don't you worry, whenever DE introduces the next "difficult" piece of content, Deep Archmedia will see some sort of nerf and make it easier to play however you want.

I think you misunderstand what difficulty actually is, and just want to git gud people on some internet forum like several of the other posters.

Archons were "nerfed", rather, the damage attenuation mechanic for bosses was brought down from a level where the only viable way to complete it in a timely manner was with kuva hek/felarx harrow burst hits around it, and that change is arguably for the better since now more gear works.
This still doesn't solve the problem of archons being dumb bricks of attenuated health that you dump laetum rounds into while ignoring their mechanics, but you can't seriously tell me that the old state of damage attenuation was genuine difficulty, it was just extremely boring.

SP circuit failing, and you losing 2 hours of work when the defense objective gets obliterated because people took too long to load back in during a host migration is the dumbest thing i've ever heard of. Networking problems are squarely DE's responsibility, and saying the player should somehow be punished for this in the name of difficulty is some kind of boomer logic about the old days, as there are plenty of bugs with stuff not spawning or starting. They know they can't guarantee it with P2P, which is why the change was made. Again, not a nerf, but a consistency change, for the better.
You did the work. You get the progress. That's how games work in a common sense world, and the decision to extract or not shouldn't gamble hours of effort because the host decides to leave and risk migration or bugs. Neither are meant to be difficulty modifiers, are they?
 

Edited March 19 by Kaiga

[RichardKam]

3小时前 , Kaiga 说:

I already did in the beginning of the thread, in regards to kills against certain mobs requiring movement and weakpoint mechanics you have to engage with, vs yet more mobs that die to blind AOE/ability spam

It was called Eidolon. More than just movement and weakpoint, you need a combination of operator and defending lures as well. People can kill three of them in under 7 minutes.

Try again.

3小时前 , Kaiga 说:

Spy missions are hated because "buhh... OTHER people suck at spy, not ME with my one revenant build!!1", but they represent an example of difficulty that both doesn't limit loadout choice and risks failure, because the objective is not to crap out DPS against red dots on a minimap.

Spy missions are not hated because people cannot use Revenant, but because it was slow in a game of efficiency. Also you can use invis fames to cheese all of them, and the limited variation of spy vaults means it quickly became routine once you learned how to do them.

3小时前 , Kaiga 说:

Missions with more complex objectives than just "kill mob" lead to people changing their own loadouts to suit them, instead of DE picking it for us in the name of difficulty.

Give me an example, anything. Be more specific, instead of saying "oh you just need more complex objectives and that will be hard". What objectives, exactly? How complex?

And people changing their own loadouts does not mean challenging. Mind you, people hated forced loadouts as well.

[(PSN)rexis12]

18 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

It was called Eidolon

I wouldn't really call that Cheese than players using the equipment in the game to like... Beat the bosses. 

At best you could say players spamming the Energy Pizzas after each limb break, but that's ignoring that back then Magnetic emptied your whole energy, even post-nerf, and you just had no way to get it back up to continue the boss fight.

[Kaiga]

24 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

It was called Eidolon. More than just movement and weakpoint, you need a combination of operator and defending lures as well. People can kill three of them in under 7 minutes.

Try again.

Eidolons are a boss fight that requires a team, a combination of coordination, gear roles, and people getting down to 7 minute tridolon means mastering skills, a meta (though it can be done with more gear, just not as efficiently) and getting good at it means a more than turning on abilities.

...Looks good to me? This is a very strange "try again", because people getting otherwise hard content done efficiently through teamwork and skills vs just aoe spam is... the point? Yes? They've also been out for many years with no real updates, so of course speedrunning is going to happen.

33 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

Spy missions are not hated because people cannot use Revenant, but because it was slow in a game of efficiency. Also you can use invis fames to cheese all of them, and the limited variation of spy vaults means it quickly became routine once you learned how to do them.

I wouldn't consider using the right tool for the job to be "cheese".
Yes, you can make it harder for yourself if you enjoy the challenge, but if DE puts it in the game, then there's no reason not to use it. I fail to see how any of this, or eidolons being solved earlier is a player problem.
 

 

35 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

Give me an example, anything. Be more specific, instead of saying "oh you just need more complex objectives and that will be hard". What objectives, exactly? How complex?

And people changing their own loadouts does not mean challenging. Mind you, people hated forced loadouts as well.

Well damm boss, if i had the specific answer to that i'd be asking DE for a payroll check.

I could talk all day about my own personal ideas of what would make fun and engaging gameplay, like aoe-resistant mobs that are immune to damage from the front that make you get off your ass and do some ninja movement, damage resistant mobs that spawn collectables that need to be grabbed to lower defenses, or specialized units who store up damage when shot and then deal status procs to you on death if not taken down with a finisher, to discourage bramma spam, the list goes on,

But i don't think you're interested in any of my subjective ideas, because you've already decided that i'm wrong, and will just go -BBZZZT- Try again! for not satisfying your subjective ideas of design until the thread gets locked for being off topic, since we've gone from the design of Deep Archemedia off into homebrew design land on how to fix warframe as a game.

So instead i posit to you-
Why limit loadouts and also have time gated attempt limits? Both at once don't really make anything any harder, just more annoyingly difficult.

[RichardKam]

21分钟前 , Kaiga 说:

Eidolons are a boss fight that requires a team, a combination of coordination, gear roles, and people getting down to 7 minute tridolon means mastering skills, a meta (though it can be done with more gear, just not as efficiently) and getting good at it means a more than turning on abilities.

Tenno, people can kill tridolon solo using any frame, not even meta setup. It is not about getting good, it is powercreep. Tridolon was reduced to less than a mere gear check since 2020.

Even if it takes 15 minutes, it is not "challenge", it is just tedious, like what people said about netracell.

21分钟前 , Kaiga 说:

But i don't think you're interested in any of my subjective ideas, because you've already decided that i'm wrong, and will just go -BBZZZT- Try again! for not satisfying your subjective ideas of design until the thread gets locked for being off topic, since we've gone from the design of Deep Archemedia off into homebrew design land on how to fix warframe as a game.

So instead i posit to you-
Why limit loadouts and also have time gated attempt limits? Both at once don't really make anything any harder, just more annoyingly difficult.

The whole point of this thread is this question: is it possible to design challenging content without arsenal restriction? People had been complaining about the "lack of challenge" and "I don't want arsenal restriction" for years. In this thread people even called DE a "disqualified developer" because they assumed it is possible to do it without arsenal restriction and DE is just too dumb to know it.

And I merely ask this: what does a challenging content look like without arsenal restriction? Eidolon? No, people with unlimited loadout can solo it without any risk in a reasonably short time. Spy? No, people with unlimited loadout can solo it easily. They are not challenging content.

If it is possible, then please, lay it out here so the question can be settled once and for all. If even the collective wisdom of the community cannot even come up with one, 1, single, scenario that is both challenging and does not limit the loadout, then obviously the opposite (limited loadout) should be the way to go.

I had been asking this question for a few years and the response was always the same, aka "well I have a lot of great challenging ideas but you know I am kind of busy right now so".

引用

like aoe-resistant mobs that are immune to damage from the front that make you get off your ass and do some ninja movement

so......bursa is a challenge?

引用

damage resistant mobs that spawn collectables that need to be grabbed to lower defenses

......any tanky frame with fire power will do.

引用

or specialized units who store up damage when shot and then deal status procs to you on death if not taken down with a finisher, to discourage bramma spam, the list goes on,

......Revenant? Rolling guard? Status cleansing? Or invis frame with impact weapon?

You see what I am talking about?

Edited March 20 by RichardKam

[Kaiga]

I literally just gave you three examples of redesigned elite mobs that would encourage game interaction vs just blasting and you said:

15 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

the response was always the same, aka "well I have a lot of great challenging ideas but you know I am kind of busy right now so".

Hey look, this came true almost immediately

34 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

But i don't think you're interested in any of my subjective ideas, because you've already decided that i'm wrong, and will just go -BBZZZT- Try again! for not satisfying your subjective ideas of design

So that's pretty much the end of that discussion.
 

15 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

The whole point of this thread is this question: is it possible to design challenging content without arsenal restriction?

No, the whole point of this thread is, being forced to use outdated or bottom-tier RNG equipment in new high level game modes is not "difficulty".  It's kinda in the title.

We should be allowed to test whatever loadouts we want against new challenges, since the entire rest of the game is about acquiring all that gear in the first place- having endgame say "whoops you don't get to use it" is a bit dim.

It's not the player's problem that DE can't think of any way out of the meta they created, and decided to limit choice and gate off content instead.

Edited March 20 by Kaiga

[RichardKam]

4分钟前 , Kaiga 说:

I gave just gave you three, very clear examples of redesigned elite mobs that would encourage game interaction vs just blasting and you said:

Hey look, this came true almost immediately

So that's pretty much the end of that discussion.
 

My bad for missing them. Edited, please see above.

4分钟前 , Kaiga 说:

No, the whole point of this thread is, being forced to use outdated or bottom-tier RNG equipment in new high level game modes is not "difficulty".  It's kinda in the title.

We should be allowed to test whatever loadouts we want against new challenges, since the entire rest of the game is about acquiring all that gear in the first place- having endgame say "whoops you don't get to use it" is a bit dim.

It's not the player's problem that DE can't think of any way out of the meta they created, and decided to limit choice and gate off content instead.

You are not forced to use outdated or bottom-tier equipment, the game does not specifically select them for you. It was random equipment. It is not true in SP Circuit. The new game mode is not out yet so it might not be true as well. People are just straw-man attacking.

People won't "test" whatever loadouts they have. People will just use meta loadout to burn through all the new contents in one week and then make a post on this forum complaining content drought and "no challenge for vet". Both you and I know it is true.