I genuinely cannot understand Deep Archimedia sympathizers

[ChaoticOrderly]

The concept of difficulty in Warframe has now been warped to owning everything in the game, understanding how it all works, and having functional build for every single item in the game.

This is horrendous and not feasible.

I really cannot grasp the ideology of people who say this game mode is fine despite its very noticeable flaws so I must go over them to hear any potential counterpoints and please really think them through instead of just saying Skill Issue or Git Gud, you're not actually giving real advice and aren't worth talking to.

1: RNG. This is not difficulty. This is an artificial limitation that only serves to pretend that it is. It's possible to roll things you do not own or even have builds for (reminder, endgame should not be owning everything). Duviri, while being RNG, has decrees to back up lackluster frames/weapons and weapons even have loaner builds (still no arcanes tho) and you can even reset choices by doing experience solo, do a fishing minigame (for bile mats), collect the decree and leave.

2: Modifiers: This is the only real difficulty part but its has been exacerbated by RNG because not everything works in the game effectively and even then, have people seen all the modifiers??? There are some REAL bad ones but since we no longer have flexibility (except for people who have EA unlocked and earned the 37 RP reward to allow a singular flex slot), it's just even more artificial difficulty.

3: Gear: News Flash, not every frame or weapon is serviceable. Certain frames are better at certain mission types. Certain Weapons deal with certain mechanics more effectively. If you managed to build it that way congrats??? But not everyone has the same playstyle, so forcing people to mod and play more defensively, slowly, or play a frame they do not enjoy is never a good idea. The hugest saving grace is the you can use the Gear Wheel in this content so you can summon on call and Archgun (how is this the most consistent option) and you can also summon Necramech in the tileset itself (again, why is this the most consistent option) but as soon as that Gear Wheel Ban modifier comes up...

4: Rewards: 15 RP gives you 3x Entrati Lanthorns and 37 RP gives you 50 VOSPHOR (1/4 of an arcane pack), absolutely despicable considering the is the endgame but that's not the worst part. Melee arcane adapters are still in EVERY chest except the legendary one which still has the Legendary Arcanes in it (ima be real, the legendary melees are too niche to be considered an endgame reward) but the Melee adapters stick out because they're buyable with plat and standing (50k standing is still wild considering Amp adapters are only 30k but that's another thing entirely)

5: Definition of difficulty in Warframe: This one sticks out especially because this content is called endgame. Endgame should be defined by having the player push its arsenal to it's limit (see #3 for why that isn't the case sometimes), having the squad coordinated meaningfully, having mechanics that put you on your toes and require more attention than normal, but also having the freedom to choose what tools you want. Yes, this sounds like raids in literally any other MMO because that's how it should be. 60 eyes can and should be considered the hardest content in the game because the Loadout really matters and you have complete freedom to do so while also having the above traits.

All in All, the gist is that I REALLY HATE lack of choice AND owning everything being a trait of endgame when a good portion of the game hasn't caught up to general usability. It could realistically work if every single frame and weapon just worked with a build you put a decent bit of effort into, but this is a numbers game and not everything has the numbers.

(P.S. Revenant is a whole other can of worms that DE themselves should address, but really isn't anyone's problem. So is OverGuard.)

[TomeWyrm]

Removing player agency feels bad.

I fully agree

[--PV--TrashySmashy]

Some of us want game modes that reward making builds work. I play this game because I like finding weird and strong synergies. This mode feels almost perfect for me, I want it even harder.

[NeDesitVirtus]

33 minutes ago, --PV--TrashySmashy said:

Some of us want game modes that reward making builds work. I play this game because I like finding weird and strong synergies. This mode feels almost perfect for me, I want it even harder.

There are those of us who enjoy exactly this and finally we can do so. It really feels like an evolution beyond Duviri Steel Path were we earned those 38+ incarnon weapons, learned their strengths and utility (in some cases not so much - Soma) and are now compelled to use our full arsenal (both meta and off meta builds) along with our warframes and sentinels to test our ability to make them work. Likewise, to pay attention to our team. 

My favorite part was the duo demolishers! 

Was it a bit more difficult, of course but it was a blast and we crushed it. I am of the same mind here and I'd suppose it is hard to fathom for those who haven't been so inclined to build things like the Cyanex, the Convectrix, Phage, Aksomati, etc. 

Where netracells felt kind of boring after they removed the Steel Path modifiers, this feels better. 

[ChaoticOrderly]

49 minutes ago, --PV--TrashySmashy said:

Some of us want game modes that reward making builds work. I play this game because I like finding weird and strong synergies. This mode feels almost perfect for me, I want it even harder.

5 minutes ago, NeDesitVirtus said:

There are those of us who enjoy exactly this and finally we can do so. It really feels like an evolution beyond Duviri Steel Path were we earned those 38+ incarnon weapons, learned their strengths and utility (in some cases not so much - Soma) and are now compelled to use our full arsenal (both meta and off meta builds) along with our warframes and sentinels to test our ability to make them work. Likewise, to pay attention to our team. 

My favorite part was the duo demolishers! 

Was it a bit more difficult, of course but it was a blast and we crushed it. I am of the same mind here and I'd suppose it is hard to fathom for those who haven't been so inclined to build things like the Cyanex, the Convectrix, Phage, Aksomati, etc. 

Where netracells felt kind of boring after they removed the Steel Path modifiers, this feels better. 

I can understand wanting difficulty but you can still accomplish that without RNG loadouts and remember while everything in the game can work, people in general don't build everything even when they have everything but I'm still curious, did you need this content to be that limiting to use those kinds of builds and do you bring those builds outside of content? Would you have switched if there was noticeably better options are were able to use them with freedom?

[DecadeX]

There's another problem lurking underneath the problems you outlined that is the real cause of your problems. Many years ago, when recruiting chat was still a good way to get a squad for niche things, when there were many fewer Warframes, it was generally expected that a player would seek out a wide arsenal. It let players flex into different roles for the needs of different gamemodes and squads, and it made a player's account resilient against balance patches. You can't be screwed out of squads because your 1 frame or your 3 weapons got nerfed into the ground if you have every frame and every half decent weapon in the game. Over time, with more equipment in the game and with a few large content releases forcing DE to be more careful about how they used their time, DE decided they didn't want to balance around every frame. That gave us what I call the Inaros meta. It's almost literally every piece of content released between the Plains of Eidolon and Disruption. DE's core design philosophy focused on minimizing the impact of equipment choices on player strategy. It's why almost nothing not directly equipped to Operators can buff Operator damage, it's why Thermia Fractures and Demolishers project nullfier bubbles, and it's why Coolant Raknoids are immune to all Warframe powers. I call it the Inaros meta because his being a big sack of health made it so DE could not eliminate him as a strategy without compromising the core design philosophy or every frame in the game, including modern Revenant, would die instantly. That's a problem because that started about 7 years ago, which is most of the game's history, and all the players who started in that time learned a different lesson than the players before them. They learned to pick a few favorite frames and weapons, and ignore the rest, because when DE said they were making challenging content, those decisions wouldn't matter anyways.

I am one of the old players who learned to build out an arsenal. Some players who like Archimedia and Circuit just like to play around with weird builds, but that's not really why they are the way they are. If you ever listen to DE talk about high level players, they often talk about players who have lots of gear and use it to trivialize every challenge. What has happened is enough player like me have stuck around and successfully failed to keep with the times, to the point that we've monopolized what it means to be an endgame player. That creates an issue where a lot of competent and capable players have been rocking with a few good frames and weapons they know how to use well, and then they load up SP Circuit or Archimedia and have none of them as options. DE has created a mid game design problem. Currently a player can take 1-3 frames and maybe 10 weapons and do literally everything in the game, and then they hit a brick wall when SP Circuit and Archimedia ask them to build out every single weapon and frame they can.

For what it is worth, there are a couple ways to mitigate Archimedia. The personal modifiers (the equipment restrictions and the 4 modifiers beneath them) are not lying about being personal. Two players with 2 completely different kinds and number of selected modifiers and still queue together. That means one player can take no modifiers to carry another player and then they can swap places for a 2nd run. For people who cannot unlock or beat Elite, Normal is more flexible. You should be able to turn off 2 modifiers and still get all 3 rewards from Normal mode which is more flexible than Elite gets and is still more rewarding than 2 Netracells. The Vosfor reward for taking all modifiers on Elite is also bait and not worth it. An MR10 player has 20k daily standing. If they spend 20k Holdfasts standing on 2 copies of Molt Augmented they can get 44 Vosfor a day. That's 308 Vosfor in a week. An MR28 player can get 3 copies for 66 Vosfor and beat the 50 Vosfor reward in 1 day. That's just off standing. Steel Path Cascade for example is a much better Vosfor farm than that as is Acolyte farming in general. If you want to go all the way for the 50 Vosfor, doing it once can be worth it because there is a Sumdali reward the first time you do it, but unless your weekly gear roll is real good, it's not worth doing. Just drop the frame modifier or one of the others if you already have a good frame to choose.

I do hope DE eventually smooths out the transition to being the kind of endgame player that Duviri and Archimedia ask of the community. They could do some content that unlocks after the Second Dream where several missions have to be performed in quick succession in very different locations, so a different Loadout has to be deployed to each mission for example. Something to start emphasizing the need for a wider arsenal earlier in the game without the RNG check, so players don't suddenly get stuck with unfamiliar options. It's still important to remember that Duviri and Archimedia aren't the way they are because of bad design or DE not knowing the playerbase. They come from a very old way of playing Warframe that the longest running, most capable players largely still adhere to. One where Vauban isn't good, but you should still be able to use him.

[NeDesitVirtus]

48 minutes ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

I can understand wanting difficulty but you can still accomplish that without RNG loadouts and remember while everything in the game can work, people in general don't build everything even when they have everything but I'm still curious, did you need this content to be that limiting to use those kinds of builds and do you bring those builds outside of content? Would you have switched if there was noticeably better options are were able to use them with freedom?

Firstly, thank you for the reply.

I tend to use a variety of frames and different weapons, let's say 10-15 warframes I really enjoy using. For those, I have standard load outs which are more or less mission dependent. Yet, I also build weapons and warframes generally to be Steel Path viable or in any event usable but with maybe an exception or two. 

However, I do tend to like to go into missions with off meta or "not the most powerful" weapons for a change of pace and to test my builds. 

After Duviri hit, I began to see that a lot of weapons I neglected were coming up in rotation which got me curious. I asked myself, "How good can I really make these?" 

Accordingly, I built the Aegrit, Twin Basolk, Convectrix, Phage, Synapse, Quellor, Quartz, Sobek, Spectra Vandal and several others. 

While not incarnon level of powerful. I found many were either serviceable and others were  actually quite strong when built correctly and for the factions one might use them against. 

I would test in simulacrum and then go into missions with different frames and companions and test synergies. Spectra and heavily weighted slash weapons work extremely well with Ash's passive. Unsurprisingly, the Korumm and Quatz are good with Gyre, Saryn and Sobek work well together. 

I think the Deep Archimedean content made me consider the idea that an available weapon's base stats can be a powerful indicator of its utility. For instance my Cyanex could be and was as decent as an Epitaph or Kompressa for proccing cold and other status effects to slow down enemies if my frame didn't have such an ability. Athodai could work as a quick corrosive heat spreader on a frame with emerald shards. An Amprex could be serviceable with radiation and corrosive. While not ideal, even the Bo Prime could work. And they did. 

I think the novelty is working with an imperfect toolset and improvising, adapting and overcoming the inherent challenge of not using your best gear and benefiting by what felt to me like a well earned reward. 

I also noticed that other players in the team paid closer attention, didn't leave people downed or go off into the corners of the map to do their own thing. Everyone was invested in the effort to complete the mission objective and contributed meaningfully, even if one could only be support. For the nechramechs I was mainly support, but for regular a d eximus my gear was sufficient. 

I think for the last part of your question, of course you'd want to pick the best of all available options if they were on the table but the limitation of choice compels one to work with what they've got, and if not up to par, maybe put a forma or two into it to finish the build. 

So like Duviri did in the past, Deep Archimedean and Elite Deep Archimedean, at first blush, feels like it stretched me a bit in a good way. 

I'm sure some weeks will be better and others not so much but initially I used gear that I normally wouldn't have and took the time to make a respectable effort while accepting all limitations imposed. 

And, to be honest, it felt like an accomplishment worth endeavoring. 

Edited April 7 by NeDesitVirtus

[Turboameeba]

I don't have issues with random gear, as I have every single item in my inventory fully built in multip configs.. However I do have a problem with the archon damage reduction mechanic. If that is their answer to making more difficult enemies.. Give them a stupid dmg reduction that limits the status effects, and damage you do.. With hard caps like that.. That is the easy way out for them. How about actually designing difficult enemies? You know fully well some status effects rely on their stacks. Just make the enemies actually tankier, so we can build getting over that. Limiting them like that is not harder content.. It is just a stupid mechanic that puts a cap to what we can do. It screams lazy job. How about actually designing hard enemies? How about just giving them high values of defenses? If someone knows how to get past that, then they should be able to do that as well. The archon damage attennuation really is bad design. It is a system that just straight up limits you. It does not scream about players getting over it by their skill with making builds. It only screams lazy work by the developers, so they can put it on anything, and call it difficult. It does not say absolutely anything about going your way to design challenging enemies. Since the thought of it is always at the back of our minds, when we are fighting those demolysts.. It only takes away from our ability to make builds, IN ENDGAME CONTENT. If you want to make endgame content for us, then you have to also keep in mind, it is the endgame player's builds as well, that should be able to be played to their fullest extent. Not hard capping them like this. That is the worst possible way to do it. If we want to put 500 heat stacks on the demolyst, we should be able to do that as well. If it takes 500 heat stacks for someone to take a demolyst down, they should absolutely be able to do that by making a full build around it as well.

[LemuriaLight]

2 hours ago, --PV--TrashySmashy said:

Some of us want game modes that reward making builds work. I play this game because I like finding weird and strong synergies. This mode feels almost perfect for me, I want it even harder.

Then you can do so on your own free time, the rest of us who hate RNG currently don't have a choice in the matter, is that fair to gate keep rewards over RNG?

[Kiinakem]

@ChaoticOrderly I think your arguments are very relevant, I understand your point of view. 

My feeling is that DE has always been reluctant to add endgame content, and when they do, it often makes me question if their vision of 'endgame' is the same as the one of a true veteran player. Just like the recent nerfs of Dante or nezha's 4, it feels like they didn't spend enough time to actually experience this new gameplay. I love this game and I have a lot of respect for its creators, so I hope I don't sound too patronising, but sometimes I sincerely wonder if DE shouldn't be putting more energy into testing the gameplay they're proposing and seeing in more depth how it fits into the game.

Apart from that, I've really enjoyed the new content, it brings a bit of fresh air and is a bit challenging. I was able to get all the research points I could even though I had pretty average equipment, and without recruiting any squad members. They should probably add steelpath mode to it, beacause i found it a little too easy. The loot tables are quite disapointing though.

Still, as you said, it remains dependent on RNG, and we can only complete it once per week (I mean, once you unlocked all the rewards there is no point of doing it again). 

For this reason, I still don't think it makes up for the lack of immediate endgame content (not having to stay 30 years in an endless mission) that many players (including me) are asking for. Why not take inspiration from games like Borderlands 3, for example, where you let the player select the level of enemies and the desired chaos modifiers, with the loot adapting accordingly? I'm sure there would be ways of fine-tuning all these parameters to offer players maximum freedom while maintaining a balance. My dream would be to be able to launch a mission and run straight into a level 9999 eximus fortress.
 

Edited April 7 by Kiinakem

[obiwandandobi2]

I can understand people not liking this new mode due to the random element involved (I'm not here to tell everyone what's good and bad), but I personally really enjoy it.

There have been a lot of posts complaining that they can't use their favourite load outs that theyve spent months perfecting, and I understand this. However maybe in a game with over 50 frames and hundreds of weapons the new aim of DE is to encourage people to diversify from the 3 loadouts they usually use and move out of their comfort zone. Although this isn't the sole meaning of challenge surely leaving your comfort zone plays an important element of it? 

If this is DE's new focus then I applaud it. However their next focus should be revisiting those older frames and weapons and bring them up to new modern standards. This isn't to say they haven't tried (thinking rivens, incarnons and new single weapon mods like for the ocucor) but this is a long and arduous journey and DE haven't exactly got a great track record when it comes to balance. Also DE have a business model of releasing something and moving on at break neck speed, so this represents a massive shift of what they have always tried to achieve.

In conclusion I like this new focus from DE and look forward to seeing what the future holds. Will they succeed in this? Not as confident but time will tell.

[--END--Rikutatis]

10 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

 3: Gear: News Flash, not every frame or weapon is serviceable. 

4: Rewards: 15 RP gives you 3x Entrati Lanthorns and 37 RP gives you 50 VOSPHOR 

I disagree with you as someone who actually enjoyed this game mode. Sure, not every weapon is serviceable, but any frame can be as long as you're willing to change your build for the situation. Any frame can be built to survive well enough, and helminth can give you CC, dmg buff and/or even more survivability if needed. Plus your point about the last reward being bad just means you dont need to check every research point. It gives you leeway to pick at least one strong weapon of your choice. This game mode is actually pretty fun for tinkering with loadouts that can handle the modifiers and missions given the limitations. 

[PublikDomain]

11 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

The concept of difficulty in Warframe has now been warped to owning everything in the game, understanding how it all works, and having functional build for every single item in the game.

I think you have it backwards: more and more players nowadays own everything, understand how it all works, and can put together a functional build for every single item in the game. This is regardless of difficulty, it's just what many players look like these days. So the newest difficult mode accounting for the strong players who play at that level should be obvious, no? Or should the new challenge mode be made for players who don't understand how the game works and have trouble making builds for things?

11 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

2: Modifiers: This is the only real difficulty part but its has been exacerbated by RNG because not everything works in the game effectively and even then, have people seen all the modifiers??? There are some REAL bad ones but since we no longer have flexibility (except for people who have EA unlocked and earned the 37 RP reward to allow a singular flex slot), it's just even more artificial difficulty.

Will the "real bad ones" make the missions harder or easier? Remember - it's supposed to be difficult, not easy.

11 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

1: RNG. This is not difficulty. This is an artificial limitation that only serves to pretend that it is. It's possible to roll things you do not own or even have builds for (reminder, endgame should not be owning everything). Duviri, while being RNG, has decrees to back up lackluster frames/weapons and weapons even have loaner builds (still no arcanes tho) and you can even reset choices by doing experience solo, do a fishing minigame (for bile mats), collect the decree and leave.

---

3: Gear: News Flash, not every frame or weapon is serviceable. Certain frames are better at certain mission types. Certain Weapons deal with certain mechanics more effectively. If you managed to build it that way congrats??? But not everyone has the same playstyle, so forcing people to mod and play more defensively, slowly, or play a frame they do not enjoy is never a good idea. The hugest saving grace is the you can use the Gear Wheel in this content so you can summon on call and Archgun (how is this the most consistent option) and you can also summon Necramech in the tileset itself (again, why is this the most consistent option) but as soon as that Gear Wheel Ban modifier comes up...

If you could use whatever gear you wanted, would that make the mission harder or easier? Remember - it's supposed to be difficult, not easy.

And you don't have to use RNG gear. You can do everything with your preferred builds. Just ignore the RNG. It's going to make the missions easier - but that's what you're asking for. And you're going to get paid less compared to people who choose to make things harder - but why should you be paid the same as someone who puts in more effort? And since everything that drops in this mode also drops in Netracells, if you don't like it you can always keep doing those instead. You might not get the same amount of rewards per week, but you're also doing less to get them.

11 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

Endgame should be defined by having the player push its arsenal to it's limit (see #3 for why that isn't the case sometimes)

But it also shouldn't ask you to explore that arsenal? How can you push your arsenal to its limits when you only play with a handful of things? What about the rest of your arsenal?

As for the rest, well, this mode does that. You will do better if you coordinate roles with your squad and if you don't pay attention you can lose. If everyone was running the mode without the optional RNG equipment they'd just steamroll it like they do everything else, no one would pay attention, and no one would coordinate. The gear RNG is all that's encouraging people to not play like the mindless one man armies you see everywhere else in the game.

Embrace the chaos. It's fun!

[NeDesitVirtus]

9 hours ago, DecadeX said:

There's another problem lurking underneath the problems you outlined that is the real cause of your problems. Many years ago, when recruiting chat was still a good way to get a squad for niche things, when there were many fewer Warframes, it was generally expected that a player would seek out a wide arsenal. It let players flex into different roles for the needs of different gamemodes and squads, and it made a player's account resilient against balance patches. You can't be screwed out of squads because your 1 frame or your 3 weapons got nerfed into the ground if you have every frame and every half decent weapon in the game. Over time, with more equipment in the game and with a few large content releases forcing DE to be more careful about how they used their time, DE decided they didn't want to balance around every frame. That gave us what I call the Inaros meta. It's almost literally every piece of content released between the Plains of Eidolon and Disruption. DE's core design philosophy focused on minimizing the impact of equipment choices on player strategy. It's why almost nothing not directly equipped to Operators can buff Operator damage, it's why Thermia Fractures and Demolishers project nullfier bubbles, and it's why Coolant Raknoids are immune to all Warframe powers. I call it the Inaros meta because his being a big sack of health made it so DE could not eliminate him as a strategy without compromising the core design philosophy or every frame in the game, including modern Revenant, would die instantly. That's a problem because that started about 7 years ago, which is most of the game's history, and all the players who started in that time learned a different lesson than the players before them. They learned to pick a few favorite frames and weapons, and ignore the rest, because when DE said they were making challenging content, those decisions wouldn't matter anyways.

I am one of the old players who learned to build out an arsenal. Some players who like Archimedia and Circuit just like to play around with weird builds, but that's not really why they are the way they are. If you ever listen to DE talk about high level players, they often talk about players who have lots of gear and use it to trivialize every challenge. What has happened is enough player like me have stuck around and successfully failed to keep with the times, to the point that we've monopolized what it means to be an endgame player. That creates an issue where a lot of competent and capable players have been rocking with a few good frames and weapons they know how to use well, and then they load up SP Circuit or Archimedia and have none of them as options. DE has created a mid game design problem. Currently a player can take 1-3 frames and maybe 10 weapons and do literally everything in the game, and then they hit a brick wall when SP Circuit and Archimedia ask them to build out every single weapon and frame they can.

For what it is worth, there are a couple ways to mitigate Archimedia. The personal modifiers (the equipment restrictions and the 4 modifiers beneath them) are not lying about being personal. Two players with 2 completely different kinds and number of selected modifiers and still queue together. That means one player can take no modifiers to carry another player and then they can swap places for a 2nd run. For people who cannot unlock or beat Elite, Normal is more flexible. You should be able to turn off 2 modifiers and still get all 3 rewards from Normal mode which is more flexible than Elite gets and is still more rewarding than 2 Netracells. The Vosfor reward for taking all modifiers on Elite is also bait and not worth it. An MR10 player has 20k daily standing. If they spend 20k Holdfasts standing on 2 copies of Molt Augmented they can get 44 Vosfor a day. That's 308 Vosfor in a week. An MR28 player can get 3 copies for 66 Vosfor and beat the 50 Vosfor reward in 1 day. That's just off standing. Steel Path Cascade for example is a much better Vosfor farm than that as is Acolyte farming in general. If you want to go all the way for the 50 Vosfor, doing it once can be worth it because there is a Sumdali reward the first time you do it, but unless your weekly gear roll is real good, it's not worth doing. Just drop the frame modifier or one of the others if you already have a good frame to choose.

I do hope DE eventually smooths out the transition to being the kind of endgame player that Duviri and Archimedia ask of the community. They could do some content that unlocks after the Second Dream where several missions have to be performed in quick succession in very different locations, so a different Loadout has to be deployed to each mission for example. Something to start emphasizing the need for a wider arsenal earlier in the game without the RNG check, so players don't suddenly get stuck with unfamiliar options. It's still important to remember that Duviri and Archimedia aren't the way they are because of bad design or DE not knowing the playerbase. They come from a very old way of playing Warframe that the longest running, most capable players largely still adhere to. One where Vauban isn't good, but you should still be able to use him.

Well put and the retrospective approach really resonates. I concur with your sentiments on maybe making a bit more palatable way forward for those capable players who have adopted the newer and somewhat more narrowly focused way of playing Warframe. Kudos to your insight and perspective here on all accounts. 

[NeDesitVirtus]

6 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

The gear RNG is all that's encouraging people to not play like the mindless one man armies you see everywhere else in the game.

Embrace the chaos. It's fun!

Love the whole post dude! Embrace the suck!

[--PV--TrashySmashy]

9 hours ago, Turboameeba said:

I don't have issues with random gear, as I have every single item in my inventory fully built in multip configs.. However I do have a problem with the archon damage reduction mechanic. If that is their answer to making more difficult enemies.. Give them a stupid dmg reduction that limits the status effects, and damage you do.. With hard caps like that.. That is the easy way out for them. How about actually designing difficult enemies? You know fully well some status effects rely on their stacks. Just make the enemies actually tankier, so we can build getting over that. Limiting them like that is not harder content.. It is just a stupid mechanic that puts a cap to what we can do. It screams lazy job. How about actually designing hard enemies? How about just giving them high values of defenses? If someone knows how to get past that, then they should be able to do that as well. The archon damage attennuation really is bad design. It is a system that just straight up limits you. It does not scream about players getting over it by their skill with making builds. It only screams lazy work by the developers, so they can put it on anything, and call it difficult. It does not say absolutely anything about going your way to design challenging enemies. Since the thought of it is always at the back of our minds, when we are fighting those demolysts.. It only takes away from our ability to make builds, IN ENDGAME CONTENT. If you want to make endgame content for us, then you have to also keep in mind, it is the endgame player's builds as well, that should be able to be played to their fullest extent. Not hard capping them like this. That is the worst possible way to do it. If we want to put 500 heat stacks on the demolyst, we should be able to do that as well. If it takes 500 heat stacks for someone to take a demolyst down, they should absolutely be able to do that by making a full build around it as well.

This is my real gripe, it'd be cool if they removed the DR but added new resistances like, "immune to viral health reduction, radiation lasts longer" "Immune to Corrosive armor reduction, toxin is a scaling dot", "heat stacks limited to 10, cold infinitely scales", "Puncture crit damage additive and now 200%", "blast triggers aoe around enemy"

That would force us as players to tweak our build more and could turn a crap weapon into a god tier weapon.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

This is an amazing mode. If it's not for you, you still have 99% of the game.

[UNO168]

RMTer want this game as hard/non-sense as possible so they can sell power leveling

[kinoko_takenoko]

2 hours ago, obiwandandobi2 said:

There have been a lot of posts complaining that they can't use their favourite load outs that theyve spent months perfecting, and I understand this. However maybe in a game with over 50 frames and hundreds of weapons the new aim of DE is to encourage people to diversify from the 3 loadouts they usually use and move out of their comfort zone. Although this isn't the sole meaning of challenge surely leaving your comfort zone plays an important element of it? 

I don't think it is so bad that there is a game mode where you play with randomly selected equipment.
However, it should not have been combined with the other difficulty factors.

The result of combining both is that you can't enjoy what kind of equipment you have to use against the nasty difficulty factors.
Also, the influence of the difference in basic performance of the equipment is too dominant. I think this would be acceptable in a enough low difficulty mode, but Deep Archimedea is a enough high  difficulty mode.

[Ghastly-Ghoul]

You can use Archgun and Tenno Specters who can actually deal a considerable amount of damage on their own as they scale with enemy level.

You don't have to have everything in the game to play it. Aside being carried or cheesing this game mode, you can farm a weapon/frame you don't have and build them adequately, even using Helminth and Archon shards solely to complete Archemedea all in a week for sure I understand people have responsibilities and prioritize them over the game but this is what Mastery is. Maybe DE is tired of hearing the term "MR fodder." There's an incentive to forma everything in the game now even if there's a lot of bad options. Let's get up there with head-cannon. Your character might prefer dual swords and an SMG but what if they're thrown into a situation where all they have is a bow? You're gonna die if you haven't mastered it. Each bow has a different grip, weight, and draw strength. Your character might be used to wielding Dread but can they handle Cinta? Yadda yadda yadda.

It's not like I have all the time in the world either but I don't even do Sorties or Incursions anymore tbh. I just farm level cap Disruptions and crack relics in SP while also buying out the Kuva from vendors when there's a weekly reset. I do Void Cascade every now but I find that to get old faster than just farming fissures. I don't do meta Arbitration runs. I find it extremely boring. I'm MR23 and only have 1,000 hours but I don't mind DE asking me to branch out with gear. I have the plat to invest if I ever run out of forma simply from playing the game. I invest into rivens too. I don't think this is such a big ask, especially when people with higher MRs than me will most likely get one of their OP weapons or frames regularly. People have been asking for endgame; this is it.

I read that we could simply have modifiers that disable Saryn's 4th ability Miasma and reduce the range on spores significantly. This way, you can still choose her whilst still retaining the challenge. But you know what? People are going to be taking their select few frames in every time and that isn't the point of this game mode. If you find it so hard or boring that you have to cheese it or ask for a carry then just do it?

If we have a boss like The Fragmented One with an incentive to farm it for rares, people will just complain that your build options are limited because there's a meta for efficiency. If the boss isn't a bullet sponge and defeating it relies on mechanics like Profit Taker, it will be optimized to the point of completing it in less than a minute like Profit Taker. What if it's a hybrid boss fight where there are some puzzling phases where your main focus is not dealing damage but the next is when you must deal damage and do puzzling mechanics at the same time? Where's the difficult when you can take all the time you need and just spam Vazarin Protective Sling. Maybe it starts healing after a mechanic is failed to be addressed by the player? Players will scream "ARTIFICIAL DIFFICULTY. PLAYERS KEEP GETTING MAD OVER THIS SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE MECHANIC TO GET RIGHT AND CAUSE HOST MIGRATION." DPS will be king to ensure that the almost impossible-to-avoid mechanic that heals the boss is trivialized. Metas are formed and the majority of successful runs can only be completed through recruiting. They only let you bring certain frames and weapons because efficiency is everything and their goal is to complete the boss 6 times an hour. If it doesn't have untradable drops, the boss will be completed so many times that it's actually more time efficient to do 2 year old, easier content to farm the plat to buy the boss' drops than to actually farm it. If it has untradable drops that prove to be the best in the game for some builds, then players who don't actually like farming it will be forced to play content they don't enjoy just for the sake of progressing their account just like people are doing now with Archemedea.

I actually like some of what I came up with, but there is no content that can please everyone through gameplay or difficulty. Eidolons were divisive. Profit Taker is divisive enough that players opt out of it altogether to just run Index or Railjack where they can bring any frame.

What if a player can bring any frame that trivializes Archemedea's modifiers? Meta will be formed to counter those modifiers the easiest way possible and then you still don't have an incentive to bring any frame you actually like playing.

Do people just want a casual endgame that involves a lot of grinding to obtain said rewards? What exactly do players want and how can devs implement it in a way that increases the  game's longevity, keeps it profitable, and doesn't impede on player choice?

Edited April 7 by Ghastly-Ghoul

[CrendKing]

13 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

RNG. This is not difficulty

All I know is, if you give me any one good Incarnon weapon (e.g. Miter, Furis, Innodem), any content is easily beaten. You could say, why not ban all S tier weapons in this mode and remove RNG? Well, at that point, the other half forum will complain about "Where is game progression", "I worked hard to make these weapons work". There is no way to satisfy everybody.

13 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

There are some REAL bad ones

I guess your definition of "bad" is my definition is "excellent". I define anything I can easily find way to bypass or ignore "bad". Disable gear items? Bad because ignorable. Parasitic Tower, where my PUG squad inevitable failed twice due to bad teamwork? Excellent. This mode should be hard so that even the best player should spend multiple trials to beat every week. Don't like it? Don't play it. As you mentioned below, the reward is not even that good 😉

13 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

everyone has the same playstyle, so forcing people to mod and play more defensively, slowly

This topic is subjective. In every game, some players tend to be slower (but not necessarily bad in any term), some faster. If the difficulty challenges the player to be slower initially, it's only good to motivate him to become better. I'm just glad there is finally a game mode I can't play with my eyes closed. In fact, the RNG loadout encourages players to explore different playstyles they are not used to. That brings the much needed diversity into the game. How is that bad?

13 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

15 RP gives you 3x Entrati Lanthorns and 37 RP gives you 50 VOSPHOR

Like I mentioned in another post: You prefer to switch the order to be 20 vosfor, 50 vosfor, gold, diamond? Joke aside, if you think the reward should be more, where is the stop line? What stops people to complain that DE doesn't give out 10 taus in the diamond, or 60 eyes not dropping Melee Duplicate? I admit I hate the Melee Adapter being there, but as long as the interesting ever changing challenging game play is there, I don't care even if there is no reward. I play for fun.

13 hours ago, ChaoticOrderly said:

60 eyes can and should be considered the hardest content in the game

This one I just can't agree. It has been a while, but if I remember correctly, 60 eyes' difficulty lies on 1) constant dispel; 2) damage attenuation and billions of hp. You complain about RNG limiting player agency. The dispel does the same. It basically disables all buff abilities. And since it doesn't take any offensive ability, basically no warframe ability is usable. And the DA + HP just artificially lengthen the fight, drag every weapon down to the same baseline. It won't matter if I use a Laetum or Seer. Plus, due to no RNG, it will always be the same fight. If this is THE end game fight, I think Warframe has no future.

[SanctumExt]

I feel this so much. I completed both normal and "elite" archimedia solo, and didn't had a lot of hard times after I figured out the build (which is Chroma Prime, Kuva Hind, and everything else is irrelevant. No better options too, so that was best possible loadout). I had my Operator blocked, so no Necramech for me.
Did I have fun? God no. This was literally Call of Dut... eh, Call of Chroma. Just run (because I had debuff, which damages you for running, and stacks Vex Armor by damaging you) and gun down enemies. No cool abilities (I also had Gara and Wukong, both of them aren't much cooler in terms of killing), no cool weapons, just assault rifle and a dream. A dream to not do it again.
And "building"? I figured out build, that would allow me best possibility of finishing it, in two bad tries. No thinking about build after that, nope.
I'm also not an average player in terms of preparedness. Every Prime Warframe fully modded; every unique weapon in arsenal, prepared to be modded (or just modded for a lot of them). I probably won't have difficulties with this Archimedia ever. But will I have fun? idk, probably not too.

[ChaoticOrderly]

Another question for the defenders that came to me as I thought about it some more.

Why is this mode ONLY locked behind WitW completion and Rank 5 Cavia despite being an Endgame Mode and why doesn't it have SP modifiers? SP itself is considered the "hard mode" of the game and yet is even more securely locked behind completing every node in the Star Chart. I thought this was Endgame content so naturally it makes sense for these modifiers present but it almost seems like something certain would be shown off...

[ChaoticOrderly]

23 minutes ago, CrendKing said:

This one I just can't agree. It has been a while, but if I remember correctly, 60 eyes' difficulty lies on 1) constant dispel; 2) damage attenuation and billions of hp. You complain about RNG limiting player agency. The dispel does the same. It basically disables all buff abilities. And since it doesn't take any offensive ability, basically no warframe ability is usable. And the DA + HP just artificially lengthen the fight, drag every weapon down to the same baseline. It won't matter if I use a Laetum or Seer. Plus, due to no RNG, it will always be the same fight. If this is THE end game fight, I think Warframe has no future.

See, here's the thing. I said 60 eyes is still the hardest content. It doesn't mean it was good but is a step in the right direction.

Right now, it is the only thing even closely resembling Raids in other MMO's because of those features you mentioned. The constant dispel means you actually have to move around in a meaningful manner like in raids where you usually stack/disperse AOE attacks (I agree some certain attacks like the concrete shower one shouldnt dispel simply bc Warframe hitboxes are real interesting), damage attenuation and huge HP is used because Warframe players will just one shot anything without it making it so that High Enough Damage + Multishot + Fire Rate is the sweetspot for that mechanic but also like in most other MMO's you had the choice to bring whatever you want even if only a limited selection was viable. It also has an accessibility problem of having to collect 60 eyes before which is not an ideal condition considering you have no revives and you have to do that all over again if you were progging it. Basically, this design shows promise but is nowhere near polished enough to compete with a real MMO raid.

[ChaoticOrderly]

I also want everyone to keep in mind that this is the first week. There are a lot more modifiers out there that can make the gameplay drastically worse and unless you have literally every frame and weapon built (which is the endgame status symbol apparently), you will lack the flexibility. It might not be this week, it might not even be the next few months but eventually the RNG and modifiers WILL allign eventually.

I also have an idea concerning builds, after reset today I will post my RNG selection here and I would encourage people to suggest build for my best options including how much investment I should put into it. You might think this a way to steal builds.

YES

I want people to prove that their build works while also being contributive the the squad and what better way than to ask directly? Shouldnt be no problem, right?

Edited April 7 by ChaoticOrderly
An idea for a social experiment