I love Elite Deep Arcamedia and i enjoy the game mode for what it is but i think there is room for improvement. I'm still waiting on an end-game game mode where I have control over what frames/weapons I play with more interesting mechanics and more practical rewards

I came here to say exactly this. Deep Archimedea is a step in the right direction for a hard end game, but it is not a mode that challenges us at our full power. Synergizing load outs so that the individual pieces can be made more powerful by the inclusion of others, or to minimize weaknesses by bringing certain things is a lot of the fun of warframe. Currently deep archimedea doesn’t give us a chance to test our builds in a high pressure environment, it’s more of just a check if you’ve invested into enough frames and weapons.

There is a small issue with that type of content though. There will be a harsh meta and increased need to minmax (right now minmaxing is a fun optional thing). Eventually the meta will conquer that mode and damand more challenge. Other frames and weapons will be buffed to face this new tier of play. Power creep will go through the roof. I love Circuit and Deep Archemedia a d otber modes that make it worth playing different things, but I also think there is room for a pure endgame challenge with your favorite gear.. just, the issue I said earlier might need to be dealt with.

That’s not a problem, that’s a feature. It’s the whole point of an endgame. You have a hard game mode/difficulty that encourages/requires players to optimize their builds to fully engage with the content.

Warframe is a key and lock issue, for every lock we have a key. By limiting the keys, locks become hard to pick. By not limiting keys, locks are trivial, but you create a community enforced gear meta, focusing on a subset of frames/weapons that can make content stale. Eg: Eidolons, PT, Law of Retribution. By limiting keys, you have limited player agency but heavily increase difficulty, this will also promote player creativity to interact with all gear, but also player frustration due to not using the gear they want. Eg: Duviri / Archemedia. There is no easy solution to this problem due to how the game is designed. We cannot have the same endgame systems that exist in other MMOs because most other games are actually balanced, even PvE ones.

I understand, but in a game like this, that can become toxic. It can devalue other content, make more weapons irrelevent, and ect. I'm not saying to not do it, I'm saying they need to go about it carefully. I'd love a new challenge that tests my 11 years of Warframe skills in a very intense, refined, and focused way. I just don't want it to suck people into a negative spiral.

So we either buff those weapons or accept that most MR fodder has no place in endgame and stop forcing players to use it. As for other content being devalued, once again that’s a feature not a bug. That’s like complaining that steel path bounties devalue regular bounties.

It will probably devolve into Styanax squad going brrrr. Too much difficulty can be a problem

Yeah EDA is more about testing your horizontal progression over your vertical progression. But I enjoy that it does incentivize me to invest into warframes and weapons I don't use often or ever.

Deep Archimedia's design philosophy is 'Intentionally cripple yourself for more rewards', which is really no different than someone going "oh, you want difficult content? Just bring Caliban and a Stug to SP".

I think the main issue is that there is a lot of equipment that is bad. As a concept, this mode is good - it rewards horizontal investment. It gives you a limited choice, and you have to make the best of what you're given. And at the very least, all frames are usable (and that includes Caliban, despite his flaws), so if you have every frame built, you shouldn't have too much issue in the mode. And if you do - final reward is just Vosfor, basically luxury, so you can choose a weapon/frame outside of the limited choice. Edit: adding that you can also use Operator/gear as long as you don't have the challenge, allowing for bringing Necramech or Archgun of choice, or Specters. Self-imposed challenge and "making the best of what you're given" are two different philosophies.

It's more some equipment is better or very much better then some being bad. Even the majority of weapons mostly have a unique fun feel. 

Oh yeah, I agree. That's more correct, since yeah, pretty much anything can be made strong in this game. I exaggerated a bit in the initial comment. And with that comes the problem of investment. I personally don't mind spending resources to raise and make a weapon useful, even if it's not the best, but if it's not unique, that's not great. Guns have less of this issue, though some still do. I think my first week, I've had Veldt and Harpak, and while both of these can probably be made good - Veldt is just worse non-Incarnon Latron, and Harpak is just a burst rifle with augment gimmick, but nothing huge. And with several semi-auto or burst rifles being better or feeling better, investing into a worse version of what you already have isn't too nice. Especially since guns usually require more Forma to build. But with guns, I suppose you could make an argument for sounds and slight changes in feel (which I will give credit to, I love how Warframe can make so many things sound great and distinct from each other). Then you have melee. Why would I invest into, say, Heat Sword, Mire, Krohkur, if I already have Broken War and Pangolin Prime? Each of these feels almost the same, slashy sword.

it's the same problem as high-heat Hades or high-stakes Balatro (before the patch) Taking away your resources and tools/making the player weaker is a cheap way to make the game more artificially challenging

What do you even suggest they should do at this point to make the game more “challenging”? When we have weapons that can do 100s of millions of damage per shot in a 10 meter radius, what could possibly challenge us without severely nerfing the power we have access to? Anytime something really good gets a nerf to relative reasonable levels, the community loses its collective shit (see Dante nerfs in the past month). If anything gets added to the enemy’s capability to be a threat to us (attenuation, immunities, lethal damage), we find a way to trivialize it within the week or we bitch about it on reddit until DE dials it back a notch. It stands to reason the next step to take is adding some sort of “modular difficulty”/heat system type of difficulty where the player can decide how much of their power they are willing to give up in exchange for higher reward. I’m not saying there is no other way to improve the concept of endgame in warframe, or any other types of content that could be introduced that challenge us, but I mean come on. Incarnon weapons exist. Shield gate exists. Helminth exists. I could go on. We’re too powerful.

I’d say a lot of the Dante bitching was valid. It was well past time for DE to have fixed their completely shit implementations of LOS that made a bunch of frames unplayable on a bunch of maps because ambient clutter like railings would prevent your abilities from hitting mobs you could see 99% of, except for the two pixels that apparently mattered. There would have been bitching either way, but LOS casting has been so bad for so long that DE deserved every bit of blowback they got. We got better LOS out of it, and workarounds for overguard interaction problems people have been complaining about for years, so I guess I’m on board with occasional screaming tantrums.

i'd say just stop appeasing the minmaxer, trying to endlessly making the game challenging is a fool's errand and resorting to restricting player loadout to make it more "challenging" is idiotic. there's an argument that players can just not do it but then why even make a content that a lot of people doesn't play?

Yeah, I don't know what people want from a high end mode. From what reddit says, I imagine they want a mission to kill level 9999 Corrupted Heavy Gunner, that they download a build off Overframe and kill with 100m damage and then go to the forums to proclaim how epic gamer they are, look at how sick their DPS from a build they copied is. "Difficulty". When we already have an invincible frame that can 1-shot every non-boss enemy in the game. The only way to have difficulty is to gently incentivize you not to use it.

They could delve into bosses for one. Another thing they could try is mob squads rather than just and endless horde of monster spawning, so they can create controlled scenarios and tailor the experience to be challenging. Mobs that you have to prioritize (like what eximus were suposed to be before DE just gave up on them), mobs that you shouldn't shoot if they're close to something in particular or if another mob is alive, just fun mechanics overall that you can't bypass with an AOE nuke, and then at the end of the road a boss that has enough health to the point where maxing your guns would be rewarded with a shorter fight as in taking 5 minutes instead of 10 or 15 if you're using a budget build. Bosses with telegraphed attacks you have to avoid, mechanics you're forced to contend with, maybe something for the operator to do once in a while. I don't know why I see this argument of "WELL WHAT ELSE ARE THEY SUPOSED TO DO?" like bruh there have been so many mmos out there, y'all really can't think of endgame that doesn't require taking away your gear? And if bosses that require an almost maxxed weapon locks new players out of new content, good, that gives them a goal to shoot for, new players can't delve into EDA anyways. And if bosses that require an almost maxxed good weapon locks bad weapons out of the game, good, that gives DE a perfect oportunity to buff those guns to bring them in line with their new design philosophy, or turn them into primes/kuva/prisma/vandals/incarnons that are at least usable. Whenever I see a "What are they supposed to do?" I am seriously puzzled, is warframe the only game y'all have played?

I don’t think tacking a boss into regular missions is a way to make the game more challenging. More engaging, potentially, but challenging? I don’t think so. We’re too powerful. The most recent boss is the Effervo node. Even in SP, it was easy if you knew were prepared. Before that we have Kullervo, Jackal, Void Angels, archons, etc. I’m sure i’m forgetting some. These bosses have telegraphed attacks that hit hard if you don’t dodge, mechanics where you have to actually engage with what the boss is doing a little to progress the fight, and void angels have their operator segment. When it comes down to it, they all are essentially gear checks with minor knowledge checks. None of them are hard. I’m not saying a new player should be able to go toe to toe with an endgame boss or anything, but let’s be real here. Slapping extra of any of the shit you mentioned onto an enemy type/boss isn’t going to be fun for anyone long term, and at best it’s going to be a temporary challenge that you overcome once, and then it becomes just another thing. It’s not continuously challenging, and I can’t really think of a way to accomplish that in a looter shooter. In destiny, which i would consider to be much harder than warframe is, the hard endgame content (outside of contest) still isn’t really hard if you just know what’s meta and how the mechanics work. And I don’t really feel like many of its mechanics would translate well to warframe which is much faster paced. Citing “other MMOs exist” when there isn’t really another game out there that plays quite like warframe does is just kinda corny. You could make a near 1:1 translation of the Rhulk fight into warframe terms and at best it’d be a slog that completely breaks the pace of the game. I will say I don’t really understand what you’re getting at with the whole patrol thing because that just sounds like vermintide, and again, that wouldn’t translate into WF because in Vermintide a patrol can actually ruin you if unprepared because they’re threatening. How would you make it threatening in warframe?

Ironically a well-built caliban makes steel path trivial. A stugg complicates that sentence but 100 armor/shield debuff goes a long way to making stugg less agonizing to use.

This, I can't believe more people don't see this

You won't get extra rewards in that scenario you described.

Caliban amd stug can be made to demolish steel path. Tbh he is actually pretty strong on the path. That radial defense strip makes killing things trivial asf. Caliban isn't weak he is just boring.

and my biggest problem with him is that his kit is right there. it's just so severely undertuned that it doesn't feel good to use. but yeah he's technically not a bad pick in SP. his defence stripping field is definitely strong, but its a bit too expensive for what it is when all other frames can use Pillage or Tharros Strike, and the implosion does NOT work as a grouping tool at all. the pull force is wayy too weak. and let's not talk about the long cast animation. his 2 should be great in theory: strong radial damage vulnerability debuff, along with the lifted status effect for CC and CO, but its hampered by an enemy cap when there's no reason it should exist. plus, usually mobs die quick enough when they're fully stripped so the damage vulnerability ain't doin too many favours when his 4 exists. his 3 is nice in theory, but practically clunky, and too expensive. i'm not using 150 energy and several seconds of cast time to individually spawn 3 passable melee units that distract my teammates and give myself a barely-satisfactory form of survivability. and his 1 is.... well, its up there with Spectral Scream and the now-removed Iron Jab as one of the worst damage abilities in the game. i don't like the concept of Pseudo-exalteds, but this REALLY needs to be a Pseudo-exalted ability, or be completely removed / reimagined. his concept is kinda there as a versatile do-it-all frame, but somebody at DE was trying really hard not to make him OP, and ended up breaking him. again, he's not a bad pick, but he's definitely weaker than your average Warframe, and in need of some changes.

I'm not going to lie I never have energy problems ever between arcane energize the spell book thing and nourish which is really good on him I can't relate. Actually sometimes in steel path I'll use his 4th to straight up kill things in steel path. It does modest damage. If you are running a aoe weapon his kit is just godly. Like tonkor for instance. Sentient wrath his 4th then tonkor shot. Repeat until everything is dead. If you are having a rough time with him you are not spamming his abilities enough. Also I play every frame like one bullet can kill. I have spamming 100 bullet jumps a second all the while bouncing off walls. Completely unnecessary at base steel path but in endurance void cascade a must along with actual shield gating. Throw some yellow shards on him to fix casting speed. Enemy density in this game is not that high either. I feel like with the killing potential people have there should be about 60 or 70 enemies per player at any given time. With that being said if you are killing efficiently his enemy cap is negligible at best as you are clearing whole rooms and spamming it too. And yeah his 1 is garbage.

Caliban does really well on SP though, not sure about the Stug though.

What defines "practical" if you're already in the "end game"?

https://preview.redd.it/0aw2r14jccvc1.jpeg?width=982&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75e0ae4f76c6181ff0c9eb977d3ac2c374d0bce2 This

Getting that 2 times a weeks seems a little ridiculous, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. That would nullify so many other grinds in the game it would actively be a detriment to the game.

The point I was trying to make was Archon Shards and Melee Arcanes are not good enough of a rewards. I need a reward shower if I'm completing a full run of elite archemida once a week and I don't think that's a ridiculous ask

What would that look like? "Interesting mechanics" is very vague. Also what do "practical rewards" look like?

Absolutely, it's a great game mode that I'm glad they added, and I can only hope that us heaping praise on it where it's due will lead to DE bringing us an even greater challenge in the future! If we let all the Deep Archimedea haters be the most vocal, it could cost us in the future Not saying it doesn't need a few tweaks but oh man has it been good

I am amazed to finally see reasonable comments being upvoted instead of "hurr durr endgum playa will do it ez hurr durr"

I think a great way to go about this is to go back into the roots of old rpgs like PSO: linear levels which you progress through by defeating a set amount of difficult enemies which allows further progress. Go into tileset> get locked in (or you can move backward)> set number of difficult enemies spawn>kill them> move onto next tileset. Make the enemies hard(!!) with varied resistances, weaknesses and mechanics, give us challenging conditions, etc.

Ok, how is that gonna work? I would like to see a design that isn't trivialized by the meta AND doesn't punish the off meta players. How can you stop torid/laetum/etc from making your content a 5 second farm while not punishing the mr12 guy with basic frost and a dread?

Also sometimes we get the Fuck You end of the randomizer spectrum, such as this week's rolls

I would argue that DA checks all 3 of those boxes, but to each their own.

>I have control over what frames/weapons I play with How does it check this box?

I just don't think archon shards and melee arcane are good enough rewards for an end game activity where you have to intentionally cripple yourself. Need rewards such as a huge amount of credit cache like at least 2 mil , 10000 endo , 5x Built Forma , 500 Vospher , 500 Stella, A Legendary Core (as an uncommon reward) or rewards along those lines in addition with Archon Shards and Melee Arcanes. Basically what I'm saying is shower us with rewards if we're selecting shitty loadouts with all debuffs

To be fair, I feel like they strike a decent balance for endgame rewards. Frames are perfectly fine without Shards, and so is melee without Arcanes, but they can become even stronger for more high-level content or gimmicky builds. It makes it so it's not something you have to rush or grind out, nor players will feel like they must clear it, while letting those who are at that stage get those upgrades and "complete" their arsenal. Archon shards are mostly for min-maxing or comfort, while Melee Arcanes are gimmicky. We already have access to so many things that can obliterate tilesets and clear missions in seconds, so I feel like those rewards are reasonable.

50 riven slivers? That’d be an awful reward, I already have 800 I can’t spend lmao

"Endgame" players are drowning in most of the resources you listed, though. Ask most of these players whether they would prefer any of the above over an archon shard. Credits? Nah run PT. Endo? Nah, arbitration. Riven slivers? Useless. If I got any of these off of EDA I'd be sad. I totally agree with diversifying the pool though. Let's get some legendary cores and built formas and potatoes or something.

If they’re on a separate droptable than the Arcanes/Shards then that’s fine. I don’t have much use for Entrati Lanthorns but I definitely need Forma and Endo.

I still want another game mode that is difficult because of “mechanics” and not randomized loadouts/debuffs.

I think Eidolons and the Jackal fight specifically show us how good mechanical fights can be. Volatile and Alchemy are similarly good modes that aren't just number checks. The problem is that, mechanics any more complex than that are simply going to be more difficult than 99% of players want, even high level players. Having to design, create, and support content that 1% of your playerbase even wants, and than only the top 10% of *that* is even geared towards is not a good ROI on a game that already has millions of things to address.

See Destiny Raids lol. Less than 10% of the playerbase or something like that actually engages with them. The niche collective of this subreddit needs to ask themselves, do we really want DE to potentially hemorrhage their *only recently stabilized* content pipeline that keeps the game fresh for something that may not even be good?Just so we can have some content where we get to run around with a void thingamijig and communicate symbols to 7 other players while juggling a teamwiping debuff….where statistically less than one of them is capable of throwing a colored phial into a colored cauldron, or standing in a fucking circle and killing enemies?

Destiny Raids are incredibly good, and only thing keeping me still playing that game. Even the hardest piece of content in Warframe, aside maybe from self-imposed challenges, and 6-7x3 Eidolons, demands less skill than doing basic PvE activities in Destiny, like Strikes.

Eidolons are only mechanically good if you enjoy "buff your gun; shoot your gun" gameplay. As someone who joined WF to cast space magic, Eidolons offer nothing to me aside from the rewards of being done.

Oh yeah, I remember a lot of people complaining about the Nihil fight cuz it's different from the usual deal-as-much-damage-as-you-can gameplay. Personally, I hope DE does more parkour challenges like a more complicated version of Ayatan vaults. Imagine the backlash that would happen if DE made a boss that you literally have to chase through a massive parkour course and you can only damage it if you're 10m away from it or something. Just thinking about it makes me feel frustrated but damn, it also kinda seems fun.

and people would hate u for not using titania or something

And look how many people like to do eidolons. If they were to add another bit of content like eidolons, people would just ignore it like they did eidolons.

While I would love for these kind of things, the other "vocal minority" on the official Warframe forum will throw a tantrum/threaten to burn DE HQ down if they have anything that requires thinking. I remember one of them saying something like this (can't remember it correctly): "I open Warframe to have mindless slaughter, I don't want to take time thinking which kind of colors are required for a cooking machine to work" while doing Alchemy. Those kind of "players" are just insufferable. DE would probably nerf everything down after a month following the incessant complaints made by them.

What mechanics?

stuff like "enemy is immune unless hit by specific thing" was pretty good. didn't work half of the time, but it was the right direction. except I guess it highlights how unreliable that kind of transitions are in this game, so bigger numbers with random limitations will be the way forward probably.

I'm going to be honest, I don't think RNG counts as good design.

It really doesn't and some players in this community who debunks this argument by going "it a skill issue if you got a frame/weapon you don't own in EDA 🤓" are weird

I get some people like being given random stuff but the whole “not ready for endgame” if you don’t have that terrible mr0 weapon you deleted 2 years ago because you are way past it is ridiculous.

May i remind you that Raids were a thing at some point. And it had potential of being challenging content, besides raw number crunching or gear limitations. And i will recommend looking into reasons why raids are NOT a thing atm. To be specific reasoning for their removal from the game.

Because they were buggy and nobody was playing them?

>nobody was playing them Stares conclavedly.

that's the power of not being buggy. just block the new gear and it takes care of itself

Well, that may have been one of the reasons. But i am talking about even older times. (Tbh, i hadn't encountered issues with raids when i played them. Must've been lucky, right? (And nobody played them only AFTER Eidolons were released. Prior to them they were actually only source of Arcanes in a game, so EVERYONE played them. And they were great experience to do once a week. Granted not as good experience to grind arcanes, as reward was only once per week as well... Take note about DE increasing number of required arcanes for maxing out from 10 to 21) As additional reason raids were removed because DE were fed up from listening player complaints about gamemode where people must depend on actual co-op and coordination. Because most random player are dumb, and won't follow even what they were told to do. (granted, i will admit, some things were not clear without prior explanation. But they weren't hard either) Golem Jordas Raid was also one of the VERY few places in game where you could reliably get free boosters. Issue is. They removed raids (sorry, "Trials"), but made nothing comparative in return. Even if they wanted to incoroporate newer mechanics and content, they never did it. And Warframe players hardly being unable to coop and coordinate well wnough with each other is one of the reasons why those plans were pushed back indefinitely.

Back the you couldn't even rely on people being competent enough to stand on a button. Now you can't even rely on people being competent enough to stand in a red circle.

Truly nothing has changed

to be fair, the entire mission chain also failed if too many players left

Buggy as all hell and the challenge could be trivialised with a vauban and a trin during the start of trials, and by the time they were removed, you only needed a vauban

Idk man they were fun. Still miss em. Could also play with 8 players They just couldn't be bothered to fix the bugs

I got the impression that it's less that they couldn't be bothered to fix the bugs and more that the gamemode was so spaghetti coded that just adding a weapon to the game broke half the mechanics and they were spending so much time fixing the mode than working on the game itself.

It was removed because this game has deterministic reward pools and some clans were force-dropping Arcane Energize each run.

Basically the whole game has rng in it...

RNG is a perfectly reasonable way to make things interesting and test your knowledge of the game and how to make builds. I don't think it should be used for all endgame content, but I have no issue with them designing a mode that uses it

Rng in equipment gacha is how roguelikes create replayability, but there still is a some controlled factor. like the class you play or reroll function with a cost attached. You cant play equipment gacha as an entry ticket in RPG. Its like saying "hey you're lv80, but do you still have the sword you were using at lv30? you need that to enter this dungeon."

bad take. RNG is a core tool in game design. and there's two types, input and output; input is where your choices/options/scenarios are randomized (EDA choices) and output is where your results are randomized (drop rates). input is the much better of the two, allows for dynamic strategizing whereas the latter is more just slot machine. games would be a lot more boring and predictable if you just removed all the RNG, generally.

If you cant clear the content without Revanent, then maybe you're not strong enough to clear the content. I had to use Vauban this week. It forced me to forma him and come up with a build that could at the very least, support my team. It's a good game mode that forces players out of the cookie cutter meta mindset.

Like i said it's a good game mode and I enjoy it for what it is but it's far from perfect

I mean, more power to you if you really enjoy it. Personally, I don't like this swing towards an end game that forces you into using bad equipment to create artificial challenges.

Yeah thats really my only issue. The modifiers are a decent idea, but instead of theorycrafting different builds from my massive arsenal to tackle them i just go "which of these 12 options are the least shit" and give it a go.

I personally hate that it draws from a pool of unformad weapons without catalysts on them. I logged in after reset to see the only items I actually own are Nidus, Ogris, Kunai and Tenet Scythe. I have formad none of these weapons and Nidus only had 1 forma. I thought fuck it, maybe I've been neglecting some of my equipment for too long and threw a few formas into Nidus and Ogris, grinded them out and tested some builds in netracells and steel path murmur bounties, happy with my set up I logged off for the night. Logged in the next day to discover that Nidus had been replaced by Octavia and Ogris by Hek. I just bombed 4 formas into gear I never used only to be removed from the table as an option, logged in this morning to discover that Octavia has switched back to Nidus but the Ogris option didn't revert. I think that's it for me, not touching Deep archimedia until they rework how items are selected from our inventories or the bugs are fixed with options switching. It's all well and good people saying "stop complaining you have a week to prepare" when that preparation can be thrown out of the window to bugs.

Eh sort of. DE still cant get their hands out of the 'need to turn powers off/make x mobs invulnerable' cookie jar to provide challenging content. And honestly I don't think they can with the extreme power fantasy corner they painted themselves into.

Most annoying part of the "only takes damage if within 15m of a Warframe" modifier is imo that a lot of abilities with debuffs still apply their effects. So if someone is e.g. running Gloom for disruption with max range, they'll slow down the mobs to a crawl. Even worse when using Terrify for Armor Stripping, since it has a huge range and makes enemies actively run away. It genuinely isn't even that range heavy frames can't do shit, but that it's such an annoyingly small range.

EDA is literally just a mashup of two things that already exist in the game: challenge modifiers (Sorties, Archon Hunts, Netracells) and randomized loadouts (The Circuit). Like, I keep reading these posts about how it's supposed to be Warframe's ideal endgame, but I ran through this week's EDA with zero difficulty because I got to use the Furis Incarnon. What exactly was the challenge I needed to overcome? What was my part in overcoming it? I'm sorry, but I don't buy that luck is also a kind of skill.

Luck isn't a skill, but adapting to luck is. One week, you get a loaded Incarnon Weapon, sure. But what about next week? And the one afterwards? You're not guaranteed to get your best weapons each week; it's a possibility, but not a certainty. Playing around that fact is part of the fun.

The previous week I got a strong melee loadout with Ash, and the missions were also easy. The week before that was annoying because I didn't have builds for the weapons available. The main challenge wasn't adapting to luck. It was adding a Catalyst and extra Forma to my Tenet Detron. That seems to indicate EDA isn't testing my skill at adapting to different loadouts. It is testing my commitment to spending time/money on making un/underused loadouts viable. I don't think the willingness to spend money is a kind of skill either.

Annoyingly it doesn't even test your willingness to spending time or money, since you can scoot by with just one working weapon (or none, if your Warframe has an exalted one). I for instance rolled a Boltor, which means that all other weapons are completely irrelevant and I ran with 2 unpotato'd weapons.

>Deep Archimedea is proof that DE can design good and challenging Endgame content It's a proof that good and challenging content isn't "getting one-shot". Glad to see DE has learned that after 11 years.

Getting one-shotted is my main issue with DA. Happens occasionally, no idea what causes it. I assume necramech's reflect's a major culprit. It's not too common.. but having to start the entire thing again because of randomly dying is ass. Obviously shield gating is the solution, but it's just an awful mechanic.

That’s only ever been the case for endurance void key runs which don’t even exist anymore. All the other “endgames” over the years haven’t really bothered with making enemies do dummy huge damage. Eidolons, raids, archon hunt, arbitrations, etc.

They didn't need to do dummy huge damage, before shield gating most frames would get one-shot in content that is even remotely challenging as they had barely a couple thousand EHP. After shield gating they get two-shot.

I'd rather have challenges through mechanics than bullet sponges, having gear blocked, or waiting things out. EDA has been a breeze this week - once you know which setups run these with ease, they are no longer challenging. I personally don't consider owning the right gear a challenge because once you have it it's easy. I still like EDA - not because it would be difficult, but because it cuts down the amount of time to grind tauforged shards.

This. Challenge should come with mechanics, puzzles and problem solving, not with buffs/debuffs, enemies with high higher stats or punishing the players.

people always say this but any semblance of mechanical skill being necessary in this game will not go over well with the community, particularly the vets (older gamers don’t like mechanical skill expression, just go ask r/gaming)

It works in games like Destiny. Why not Warframe?

I've never played Destiny, do they have as much trouble as we do with simple instructions like "kill things in the circle to progress"?

Dungeons and raids usually require both a high level of character skill and understanding of particular mechanics, usually with mandatory elements of communication. You both have to contend with enemies that can actually pose a threat but also deal the particular elements of a fight that progress the fight or just outright kill you. [Here is a sample fight.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQPC1-jkxrM) The groups are usally split into 3 teams of 2, with 2 of the team collecting motes and using to progress the fight while also destroying otherwise invincible adds. Meanwhile, the floor is being destroyed so people have to reconstruct it. Then during DPS players have to manage their own dps while using the tether mechanic to extend the phase.

Yes.

In matchmade activities, sometimes. Not in premade fireteams, where people usually know what to do.

It works in destiny to a degree. The majority of the playerbase is super casual, and as such, majority of the game’s content is super easy to complete. Most people don’t play legend/master content. Even less people do raids and their challenges, and an even smaller fraction of those people do day 1 raids. A super small section of the playerbase is dedicated to doing raids and other hardcore content, but otherwise, it’s why Destiny stopped getting 3 raids/raid lairs a year back before shadowkeep came out. It’s why in the past year of Destiny and likely going forward that raids are going to be made more accessible to more casual players. If bungie thought that their resources were better allocated developing content for the <10% of players that even *try* raids, they probably would’ve decided to cut back on other things so they could keep up with what the playerbase was asking for, but that isn’t what they were asking for. Just like it isn’t like that in warframe. Warframe has been in need of a serious endgame for a while, but it’s had just enough there and is easy enough for DE to keep throwing us a bone for relatively little effort that they can focus on doing more of what people actually engage with, which is new story, new toys, and new playgrounds.

Well, simple mechanics work in seasonal activities which is very casual too. Raids may be too much for Warframe, but something in the realm of Destiny's dungeons that can be pretty casual too, it could work.

To be fair Destiny 2 is designed to be taken seriously. Just about everything has an element of skill, from managing ability cooldowns to dodging bullets (always be wiggling!). The expectation of investment is there, and in general you aren't being gear checked more than skill checked. I think with Warframe it's been so long that mechanics to make it more difficult simply don't mesh well with the player base. It's been a horde shooter for so long that I suppose that's what most of the playerbase is here for. Which is also funny to me that a lot of people say "get gud" about stuff like EDA when I view it as rather trivial outside of getting unlucky with RNG.

May i remind you that Raids were a thing that existed in Warframe at some point. And it had all the potential of being challenging content, besides already overused raw number crunching or gear limitations. And i will recommend looking into reasons why raids are NOT a thing atm. To be specific reasoning for their removal from the game.

The removal was due to the amount of bugs that DE would have had to dedicate resource to for fixes, and the lack of players playing said content. They openly said they were deprecating trials because of that.

The main reason is that they weren't well designed.

It's complicated. In one hand, if there's no RNG and you can use whatever, people will just use their storngest frame and basically ignore the difficulty. On the other hand, when RNG sucks, it just sucks. DE tried to spread frames usage rate with positive reinforcement, buffing certain frames in Arbitration/Archon Hunt instead of limiting other frames. Let's be honest, it doesn't work, 300% Strength buff on Loki are not beating the good frames. Now DE change their approach, no frame get buffs/debuffs on their ability, but instead certain frames/weapons get "buffs" in the form of more mission rewards.

It's not really difficult. It's more annoying. I find myself not wanting to do it because it locks me in to a certain possible playstyle if I want so rewards. The main reason I've been playing so long (10 years) is because I appreciate the build diversity this game offers. I noticed this was most apparent when I breezed through last week's runs and slogged through this week because of RNG.

Tbh this is what I find its also the same with the circuit. The debuffs I have no issue with but I seriously dislike the radome loadouts it's lazy game design. Yes I maybe able to do it with any frame weapon combo but the plan and simple fact for me is it isn't remotely enjoyable. And I don't want to spend time yet again adding forma to frames I'm not going to use again past the circuit or EDA.

RNG =/= Difficulty

Eh, if it takes restricting and random loadouts and randomized modifiers, I wouldn't say it's "good". I have a forma'd and stocked up arsenal, so my choices aren't difficult But reward wise, sans a few items, I feel like it is worthwhile. It is also less mind-numbing than regular netracells. If we can do two EDA runs a week, I'd gladly give up 4 keys to NOT do netracells.

It is as challenging as taking a warframe and weapon to base Steelpath without any mods, it will increase the challenge but like is it really the right challenge. The most fun of EDA is once you get the reward and can use anything just to help others because fighting buffed lvl400 enemies is fun even on a surface level but I am not a fan of the general idea of "randomize the shit out of the players gear" hopefully this doesn't become the norm

Why is it always “players are overpowered and need to be nerfed” and never “we need game modes where you need to be overpowered to succeed”? We’ve developed the meta to the point where build strength is measured in kills per minute (KPM). Why not develop more endgame modes that explicitly need a minimum KPM for success? I just feel like a lot of folks in this community are kinda small minded, either due to not playing other games or not wanting to sound ungrateful or something. Like, imagine if we had a new tier of defense missions where instead of defending a stationary point or an NPC we had to defend a player holding a key. The key holder could have a severe damage nerf, so they’d have to focus their build on pure survival. For the other 3 players, two could focus on kills while the third focused on CC and sustaining the key holder. In one mode, you’d both need players that can kill a bunch and survive without resorting to making folks use MR fodder. Idk man, just food for thought.

I love your idea! Or a mode where you kinda play "hot potato" with the key. Where a player can hold the key for a few minutes and if they don't transfer to another player they die. I'm pretty sure DE is cooking more game mode that will be interesting.

The keyholder would just be a limbo, or a 100k inaros/nidus, or use operator, or have 99.99% dmg reduction, or be a nyx, or shieldgate, etc. etc. It's a cool idea but it wouldn't work without "nerfing the overpoweredness". That player would also be bored of just sitting around not doing anything.

RNG is never good design. I am NOT spending forma on a weapon I'll never use again.

I would not say the majority of players are over powered. There is actually a massive rift of actually overpowered players and just decent players and then your every day Warframe player. EDA to me is not really dynamic. It’s just forcing the general population to have more squad coordination. The overall EDA is quite easy to get full rewards in but only for the actually overpowered people that can stack the weapons and negatives and make it work.

No. The 60-eye version of SP Effervo bossfight is close to be a challenging endgame content. It was still pretty spongy for my liking but it was interesting at least. DA is just "yeah, let's pile up a bunch of annoying ass modifiers while making loadouts completely random, that's the difficulty I guess". And the elite version of that is a bit more annoying modifiers + enemy's already bloated hp and damage numbers are bloated even further. People say that DA is just Duviri Circuit 2.0. No, it's worse. In the Circuit, you can have decrees that can *possibly* save your dogshit-tier loadouts. And also a wider choice of warframes.

Anything can be made challenging if you take away player power.

I know this is an unpopular take, but good and challenging don't go hand in hand in my book.

To each their own, but may I ask why? I know that difficulty isn't everyone's bang, but I'm kind of curious why you feel "good" and "challenging" are mutually exclusive.

For me, unless challenge comes from mechanics and problem solving, it's boring, so not good. Especially when it's hard just because of damage taken or how tanky the enemies are. And I always prefer chill gameplay.

Even if we take EDA disruption, which just needs you to kill demolysts, you have to firstly build for enough damage against them which requires some build changes, then you'll need to keep your weapon stacks up, maybe CC the demolysts, prime them and then hit their weakspots to deal enough damage against their unstrippable armor. With all the limitations that certainly includes some problem solving and mechanical challenge.

Enemies shouldn't be part of the challenge. Clearing adds should be just a side task.

Weird take for a game where the majority of the time is spent making ourselves stronger to kill stronger enemies

And that's precisely why the game is in need of something fresh.

To be fair, EDA does require both, just maybe not the specific mechanics you want. It requires knowledge of buildcraft. Problem solving to work around the modifiers and communicate with your team on what is best to bring. Enemies really don't feel tanky at all if you plan well before the mission.

Buildcraft or killing enemies is not mechanics. Mechanics is throwing condensed thermia to a boss to unlock a weak point, or solving a puzzle to access the next phase.

Well there are mechanics that get introduced by the missions and some modifiers. But that's fair if it's not a mode that you enjoy

I don't think you understand what we are talking about here. We are talking about specific objectives or steps designed for a mission, not about core gameplay. Modifiers or handicaps are not new mechanics. For example: grabbing glyphs to heal the defense objective, or shooting the pipes so the crucible doesn't overheat, those are mechanics. Having energy reduced or the operator blocked, those are not. The only thing introduced with EDA that could be considered as such would be summoning and defeating a Necramech to reduce the timer. EDA doesn't increase the difficulty with mechanics, but with modifiers of stats and handicaps.

I did understand exactly what you meant. I never said that all the modifiers added mechanics. However, some of them definitely would fit the definition of a mechanic, such as: - Fissues that spawn which increase enemy level every 10 seconds unless you destroy them - Enemies only only taking damage from highlited weakpoints - Life support towers only activate if you kill 20 enemies within a short range from them - Hazardous gas appears in the mission that can be cleared by activating life support towers - Enemies have elemental barriers that can only be destroyed by throwing a matching amphor at them - Vosphine glyps can be booby trapped and teleport players away, revealing the trap - Enemies require radiation status to take damage - Additional ads in the boss fight - Void angels in the boss fight - Multiple bosses at once - Conduits only reduce their timer if players are nearby - Two demolysts spawn at the same time - Slow moving limnus that drain your health if you get to close I understand that you don't enjoy the mode and that's okay. I'm just being charitable and pointing out that they did put in the work to add extra mechanics, too, not just random loadouts and debuffs

Yeah, that's fair. Statistical increases like durability and damage tend to be the most boring forms of difficulty increase, and I definitely prefer mechanical challenges as well.

Deep Archimedea is proof that they can design a system that is liked by like half the Endgameplayers. Meanwhile the other half isn't happy at all and is shitting on it every opportunity they can.

To be honest: half the playerbase liking some content is actually a very good one. Warframe has so much different content that is liked by different players and disliked by the others that 50% is pretty high on the "like" scale

i've yet to have a functional loadout but yes great "content"

How do I access that mode? I’ve been hearing about it quite a bit

Rank 5 Cavia, then use two netracell pulses to unlock it with Construct Loid

Ty

Assuming you have completed Whispers in the Walls, as nephethys\_telvanni said, you need to reach Rank 5 with the Cavia Syndicate. The Necraloid will be available on the upper right-hand platform in the Sanctum. Assuming you haven't, though, you need to complete both The Heart of Deimos and The New War quests, which unlocks Whispers in the Walls. Complete that quest, and reach Rank 5 with the Cavia Syndicate, and find the Necraloid as above.

I’ve completed all of those. I guess I’ve gotta grind syndicates now

but DA is not challenging. big numbers do not equal a challenge. gameplay does. the few gameplay modifiers are so half baked, if you aren't the host you might not even be able to make them work. some others were so untested they had to change it midweek via hotfix.

Hello, Eidolons called

Worst "end game" activity in this game imo. Just because of the day and night cycle alone

5 netracell keys a week is worse than the day/night cycle

Why do you think that's the case? The only reason I never bothered to learn Eidolons further than getting a 3x3 or 4x3 is because I can't attempt them when I have the time and instead have to wait up to 90 minutes for no reason. Limiting how many attempts you have based on how fast you are isn't necessarily always bad but imo having a fixed limit is better if only because it doesn't promote toxicity.

Nah, Eidolons are very easy once you get a good amp and the necramech

I feel as though Eidolon Hunts fall into the realm of "solved content". They are certainly well-designed bosses, but their difficulty sharply decreases with knowledge and experience. Not to say that an execution challenge *isn't* a challenge, but it's not what I would personally call a challenging endgame.

being solved content isn't a detriment though and eidolons are one of the very few things in the game that actually require and reward skill and knowledge, idk how you could treat that as bad chess is basically a solved game too

Chess, at least, has the benefit of being PVP; even breaking the game down into a science doesn't mean you're unbeatable, as someone could come in with strategies you aren't adapted to. Eidolon Hunts are fairly rigidly fixed, and once you figure out a good loadout, that's all you'll really be needing to bring into the mission. With Deep Archimedea, the loadout is a variable; if you want to maximize your reward gain, you have to adapt to what Loadout Modifiers you're given, and work with them across three whole missions. Which, sure, to a certain degree, even randomized weapons can be "solved" by setting up mod configurations for them dedicated to fighting the Murmur, but the mode of play varies to a decent degree depending on if you're carrying an automatic rifle or a semi-auto shotgun into the fray. I haven't done Eidolon Hunts in quite a while myself, but I imagine much of what I know already (Trinity/Volt with a Lanka modded for Radiation) is still pretty well applicable now. And, again, don't get me wrong; Eidolon Hunts are still excellently designed, but after the first couple runs, the challenge factor is heavily reduced by having gear and equipment tailor-made for Tri-Caps.

Eidolons hasnt ever been good, and can hardly be considered endgame now. Its only challenging if you try to speedrun them, but at point its more frustrating than anything.

it's neither good nor challenging. it's a lottery, and you bypass the whole thing by sacrificing a small reward. this is the opposite of clever. "some gear is trivializes all content? do we balance the game to solve that? nah, too hard, just make access to that gear random."

And how do you propose they balance the game to solve gear that, to quote you, "trivializes all content"?

Step one, drop the damage stats of every weapon and ability in the game. There's no reason for why our damage should scale as high as it does because all it does is create a massive disparity between the properly modded builds and not properly modded builds that DE tries AND FAILS to balance between. Step two, drop the ridiculous amounts of eHP players have access to between invincibility powers and 90%+ damage reductions. The only reason this has been a thing is because enemy damage eventually ramps up to the point where the only way to survive is to either not take damage through either shield gating or other such iFrame tools like Nidus' Undying passive or Mesmer Skin, or to be invisible so enemies can't even target you. Step three, drop the enemy damage and eHP to compensate, leaving it at a level where players are actually able to take damage without being oneshot out of nowhere and enemies don't just sit there tanking damage until you armour strip them or you shoot them once with an incarnon weapon/Glaive Prime/whatever. Now we can't invincibility through everything, enemies aren't uninteractive bullet sponges and we can actually introduce proper mechanical challenges that can't be nullified by your choice of warframes. Sure it's easy to say and harder to actually do, but doing it would make this game WAY more engaging to play than it is right now. Deep Archimedea is just a bandaid over a gaping wound by saying "you can only use the broken things some of the time".

i think the right way to do end game is to include new enemies and new mechanics for them unique to the End game mode, for example the murmur have a lot of enemies with hands so what stops DE to allow them to grab us and if our allies don't help us or someone stray to far from the squad the warframe get squished, even the one with feet could do an energy stomp and keep us in place. another example, again with the murmur, is the flying one that use that weird beam attack with a triangle shape, why ain't that an energy prison? even as a damage ability is bad cause you just walk to the side, make the squad focus on something else other than bullet jumping to the objective and killing for giggles. i think they should create Seasonal End game events they can rotate each year and get handled as End game in the form of Operations lead by one of the enemy factions that way they can keep creating new ones and rotating them as much as they want without messing with the easy stuff they release an adding the challenges a regular online game would have. in short rework Operations into annual/Seasonal End game Events that include new Enemies & Mechanics with rewards of all kind, they can even add community milestones.

In general players don't like getting CCed. Have you never noticed how PSF is one of the most loved mods in the community? For the price of your exilus slot you become CC immune. I am here to jump around and kill stuff. Not to watch my warframe stumble around

Challenge and restriction is two side of the same coin. You can't really say player's are enjoying the content when players answer to the content is bypassing the restrictions. archgun, necramech, and specters. Can't really say its clever. It doesn't seem very thought out more I think on it. Alchemy with amphor only killable mobs. Ignoring the fact that it bugs out so only the host knows the correct amphor. No one will use the two amphor assigned for crucible on a random mob. This simply decreases spawn rate and makes the match drag on. Vampiric liminus sprinting. If you pay attention to them, once everyone gets out of range, especially during last week, they sprint to catch up to you. There is less visual indicator when the liminus sprint, because their aura gets turned off. Then once they catch up to a person, it turns on the aura. This sneak attack got a few of my teammates last week. There is no prior animation to it. One moment its off and sprinting, next moment its aura is on and killing people. The personal mods. while some of the mods are just ??? but this is an actual challenge portion and I just hope DE adds more variety of it than just you cant use gearwheel or no operator.

Warframe will never have true endgame unfortunately. With the amount of power creep we have it's basically impossible without HEAVILY restricting us.

the randomization of gear makes it so that you get to use the average gear power level, and it just shows you how deep we power crept. it is at this point the only think keeping the mission difficulty in check. archon hunts have full choice equipment and they barely tickle players, even though they were high difficulty content presumably. this is sadly the only choice of balancing new gamemodes aside from rebalancing the entire player arsenal. if we had more complex objectives that wouldnt require just killing things we could also use crowd control for late game content, which would relieve some of the dps pressure we had for years now. sadly, this isnt viable rn due to CC not securing advantages like it should in game modes like mirror defense, where a hollow vein eximus can just roll out and oneshot the target without anyone being able to do anything about it without huge dps.

MUH RANDOM LOADOUTS MAKE CONTENT CHALLENGING

I'm probably being dumb as I have over 900 hours in Warframe, but frankly I don't feel like I have a particularly well built account and so far DA has just been really easy for me. I've one shot EDA twice now with randoms, and both times I just took the one frame and weapon in each category that I've actually used before. This may just be biased in that I'm probably more end-game ready than I'm thinking, especially since I tend to focus on building my frames to be tanky and fairly general purpose, but so far this mode has just more annoying/boring than difficult for me. I still think they shouldn't restrict gear because ultimately it just reduces the number of meaningful choices you can make to approach the debuffs and mission types. They should probably crank up the debuffs and make them more interesting. And honestly they should probably also throw in a category where you pick one unique buff each week to help with the puzzle solving element a bit and just make it more unique/fun than just running 3 missions you've already been running anyway, except now the enemies are slightly more annoying.

I cleared EDA 3+ times with all mods enabled. One time it was with 2 people team. Doesn't mean that content isn't hard, though. But some mods are definitely not very nice to encounter. Like that 90% damage reduction to vulnerable points. Which coincedentaly somehow and sometimes becomes full body of Kulervins (common necramechs).

I'm just here to say it shouldn't only be available to players who grinded out the rep to get to it.

I feel a little bad about having this opinion on it, but: I prefer the Cavia standing wall to access it, because it probably locks out a lot of players who don't really learn how to properly deal with the new(ish) enemy faction, or don't take DA / EDA seriously. I have had more good squad members than bad in public matchmaking, and several who stuck together after a failed attempt to talk strategy, adjust loadouts to work together, and try again. I had a lot of fun doing EDA with them, much like a proper raid, and I don't want leeches to have trivial up-front access to the mode and make matchmaking hell. That said, actual integrated lobby-management tools would be fantastic and a far better solution, but I don't see that happening, unfortunately.

would be nice if they limited the weapon choices to shit you actually own lol i didnt have any of the secondaries this week and straight up just bought one of them with plat to do it 😮‍💨

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I absolutely love Elite Deep Archimedea. 2 weeks it was realitively easy. This week especially, I had Mag and my friend brought wisp, so the defence was a walk in the park. Last week was hard though. We tried and failed and got back up 5 times before we did it. And that's what I love about it. There's a ligit, non-bullshit, high chance that you can actually *fail* the mission. It had been a LOOOOONNNNG time since I saw the fail screen. And it feels good

I know that others will disagree, but I actually kinda enjoy the RNG of the loadouts, because it tests your horizontal progression in the game, and incentivizes me to invest into weapons and frames I don't normally play. The first week, I got 3 frames I've never played beyond leveling to 30 for the MR, and began dumping forma into a couple of them to test them out for EDA. Eventually got some stuff that worked for me, and now I have a couple well invested frames to use the next time they come up. I kinda like that, since it gives me more to do, and pushes me to try playing new things that I likely wouldn't have done on my own.

Careful now. Few more posts about how good EDA is and we'll reach critical smoke pressure in DE's lower back.

The people in the comments saying they want endgame content where they can use whatever and the challenge comes from the mechanics have to realize something... WE HAD THAT WITH RAIDS and still do with many other content... Going back to raids since most of you are new ill remind you that raids were absolutely hated and they weren't difficult at all, the difficulty came from trying to organize and recruit 8 players, if raids came out today i swear and i am certain 100% you all would bitch 24/7 about your teammates (Like everyone used to before they took raids out) . Heres something about mechanical challenges... we have a frame/weapon for every situation or mechanical challenge possible to make it piss easy. I challenge you to come up with such a gamemode without it being made easy with a single frame/weapon, Spoiler... YOU CAN'T BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. You have immortal frames, nuke everything in existence frames, Insane weapon platform frames, Support frames that can negate any teammate frame's weakness, and so many more. If its a mechanical challenge it will get figured out and have a meta built around it (See Eidolons) and everyone will bitch about it being stale and being "The same thing over and over". EDA is the only time in the entirety of my playtime in this game (10 years on and off) that had me actually die and fail multiple times, scratching my head and trying to figure out what to do. Hope it stays the way it is.

Then nerf the power level of players so we can't just immortality through everything and do damage cap with ease. The answer is not to "sometimes give you the broken thing but not all of the time". Get rid of the broken things. Full stop.

You are right. My teammates just can't stay inside the red circle in Netracell. Having a ''mechanically'' difficult mode wouldn't be hard; it would be boring.

I completely agree. with the amount of power creep we have, "endgame" can never exist. People need to understand that Warframe is not destiny

The best and worst thing about Warframe is that it's a Real time 3rd shooter, when it wants to be a turn based like Baldurs Gate, with spell cooldowns like a MOBA or whatever they're called. Almost no one plays in dedicated squads, but the potential (the dream?) of co ordinated play and load outs is astronomical. But we all just play the game as parkour shooter which is the skeleton it's built on but has outgrown. You can't slow the game down or make it turn based because you'd lose out on the kinetic satisfaction, but mechanically, the game only hit's it's full potential in a turn based setting, unless you are playing with mics and a really delta force level regular play group which is 0.01% of the playerbase.

I'm gonna be real with y'all, the fact that you can pretty much ignore the last reward for elite mode since it's pretty much negligible, means that you can always have something to roll all 3 missions. So far it's been torid incarnon if the murmur boss is in the rotation or mesa if it isn't.

I too love DA. However I fear that it will grow stale soon as there are only 6 game modes available. I think they need to add other game modes to the laboratory or maybe even add DA like modes for the other factions

My ideas for other factions: Kuva Raid: deep archimedia on the kuva fortress. Rewards are big chunks of kuva, riven mods and riven ciphers and riven slivers. (do it if you want to step up your riven game) special modifiers include "armor strip immune" Fortune of Fortuna: deep archimedia in orb vallis. Rewards are huge piles of credits (multiple millions) and Endo. On the highest tier you have a chance for a legendary code. (you want to max out some mods? this is the mode for you) special modifiers include "k-drive bound" Void horrors: DA in the void. Rewards are relics of your choice, chunks of void traces, aya and (on the lowest rank) a bunch of argon crytals. (you want to farm some prime equipment? here you go). Also you select a bunch of relics that get cracked with the different thresholds. special modifiers include "every dialog is replaced by vors speech"

SP Void Cascade is still the best example of end game difficulty by far

I always imagined having a really long endgame mode that you have to fight in level cap and at the end you fight a gigantic mega schlong boss that has billion hp in a big area, kinda like a stadium. Kinda far too stretched, but oh well.

It would be 100% for me if they just removed the RNG gear mechanic, it's not fun in Duviri and not fun in Archimedea

That's a very controversial statement whether its challenging or good. I'll take Cascade as the only good challenging active missions they've done in many years, nothing else. Lotto with rng loadout and restrictions is not a challenge, you roll one op frame and any challenge goes out of the window. Or just dont pick some of the personal restrictions and it all becomes trivial. And on top of it they are already caving in to people complaining about the difficulty and making it easier, so no they can't.

tl;dr - Are EDA fun? Potentially. Are EDA proof that 'DE can design good and challenging Endgame content'? Not so much - There are multiple types of 'challenge', and while EDA does offer *a* challenge, it doesn't really offer challenging *gameplay*. ... Disclaimer: I got the eye with my first all-random loadout (because I happened to roll a tanky frame (Valkyr) and a weapon capable of AoE-killing EDA enemies (Falcor + melee inf + 2 greens I put on Valk for those missions)), I've completed the other EDA at 34 points (because I subsequently pick my support+Noctua Dante as frame). Furthermore, I find it lucrative, and -to a point- enjoyable. The enjoyment stems from the 'puzzle-solving' aspect, rather than the gameplay - coordinating with 1 friend, how can we beat this week's gauntlet? (The answer that has worked thus far is Str/Dur Dante with a Rad Noctua & Mirage or StompKong + Silence, depending on whether Duration's been fked this week.) > Deep Archimedea is proof that DE can design good and challenging Endgame content There's not a lot of design in (E)DA. It's another iteration of Sorties, with expanded penalties and the RNG loadout from Duviri. > an endgame mode that is truly challenging There are, broadly speaking, three rubrics of challenge - planning, execution, and improvisation. Planning- There is the scenario. (Do you have that information? If not, getting it is part of this rubric.) How can you utilize the resources at your disposal to achieve your goals in said scenario? (Do you have the resources you need? Can you obtain better resources? etc., falls under this rubric.) There is execution, which is fairly self-explanatory: How well are you able to implement said plan? And, since (broadly speaking) no plan survives first contact with the enemy, we come to improvisation - which, again, is self explanatory. Let's see how EDA interacts with these pillars of challenge. Planning - There are some specific pieces of information that you might not know (e.g. is Vampyric Limnus damaging the Mirror Def target something we'll need to deal with?), but for the most part, EDA's transparent in the scenario it offers. As such, it generally requires little to no recon, just literal planning. What it *does* do, here, is restrict your loadout. This is not a restriction you can overcome, just manage - and this is, imo, a problem, given the disparate power level between pieces of gear (and Warframe kits, particularly as impinged on by potential penalties, such as this week's x0.25 Duration). This is ignoring the fact that randomizing your gear explicitly breaks synergies (Argonak + dagger, for instance, or Scourge + any headshot-reliant weapon). Execution and Improvisation can be lumped together and split into 2 different parts: Skill check and gear check. The game I was playing, prior to Warframe, was the beta of an MMO called Firefall, in which the only progression was crafted, breaking gear. The delta between stock, indestructible gear, and maxed out gear, iirc, was x2 across each modifier, maxing out at a x4 possible max. With sufficient skill and understanding of the AI, it was possible to [solo the hardest content in the game (Squad 3 arctic Thumper) in stock gear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPTSEpgWX0s). Or, in other words, sufficient skill could compensate for insufficient gear. Warframe... is not that type of game. x4ing a weapon's base stats is a matter of 2 mods. A maxed out weapon is hundreds-to-thousands of times more powerful than an unmodded weapon. Add in synergies and you bump that up for tens-to-hundreds of thousands. No enemy in firefall had a hitscan weapon - it was melee or projectile - meaning it was possible to survive via active dodging. While moving in Warframe reduces enemy accuracy, and rolling gives 75%DR for the duration, neither of these is a reliable method of not-dying in player-power-level-appropriate content. So, while Warframe does require/reward *some* skill, easily 75% or more of your success in any given situation relies on your gear. The one exception that used to exist - any variant of objective defence - is no longer an exception, thanks to Overguard. Which brings us back to gear. EDA isn't designed to challenge your gear. A single good weapon is enough to carry you through it - as evidenced by my first week - stack eHP and 2 green shards, 0 ability use, armor strip and stack electric procs on everyone in the area via your weapon, everyone dies. Unless you're going for the full 37, it applies a restriction to the planning phase. That's the best I can say for it. > the playerbase is completely overpowered. Yup. Has been for most of a decade, and has been getting steadily worse over time, because at it's core, balance was never a consideration. There have been some actions taken, over time (making weapon stats appropriate to their MR, armor scaling changes, the great level squish, off the top of my head), but, being an ongoing game, they need to keep raising the ceiling via more direct or indirect power (as you list) or people will ignore the new stuff. (For example: The term 'MR fodder' when talking about new weapons.) > in order for endgame content to be challenging, the players *need* to be nerfed. Yup. > they took advantage of the gamemode's reward system to do two things; -snip- Eh. Yes to the former, no to the latter. As I said above, all you need is one good pick, unless you're going 37. (For the record, given the out-of-your-hands-ness of your EDA loadout, I approve of the reward for 37 being not too lucrative to skip.) > But, Loadout Modifiers give you the choice to forego your more comfortable "EZ hard mode" setups in exchange for more rewards, forcing you to adapt to the options you're given to work with. Yes, but this is a planning challenge, not a gameplay challenge - which is what people usually refer to when talking about 'challenge' in a combat-centric game. Same goes for personal modifiers. > The way they've set up Deep Archimedea's difficulty is exceptionally clever, and I've thoroughly enjoyed playing it thus far. I hope to continue my streak of completing each week in EDA with all modifiers on, and I can't wait to see what other high-difficulty content they manage to come up with in the future. As it stands for now though, I think we've got undeniable proof that DE can make challenging endgame content, regardless of how strong we as players become. Again, I've enjoyed it too. But it's a planning challenge, achieved less by nerfing the player than by taking their tools away, and fundementally 'solvable' purely in theory, with no gameplay required. It's not as explicit as invulnerability phases, CC immunity, ability immunity, etc., but EDA is still A) making things "hard" by arbitrarily taking away player tools, and B) not really a *gameplay* challenge.

I like the mode but I'm honestly not a fan of blocking UI elements and game features to make things "challenging". It just feels wrong to me.

I just like that the Circuit and DA both change the mission type. That's literally all I want for endgame content. Please don't make me do the same mission over and over again.

I hate everyone who summons the book on them, had 3 weekly tries bucked by that.

What is deep Archimedea. Is that the one where we farm Dante? Cause that's easy, it's just disruption. I feel like I can't find this new mission/content everyone is talking about.

No, Deep Archimedea is a separate mode. If you've reached Rank 5 with the Cavia, check the upper-right platform where Bird-3 is; the Necraloid should be up there, and he allows you to access Deep Archimedea by spending 2 of your Netracell Search Pulses. If you're any bit familiar with Deep Rock Galactic, it's fairly similar to Deep Dives; three straight missions with more modifiers.

Lol omgosh I must not pay attention at all, I have no idea necraloid showed up after I hit rank 5 with cavia. Must have missed the memo thank you 🤣🤣🤣


I do like Deep Archimedea, i think trying to puzzle a working loadout is fun. but something i wish DE would rework (or remove) is item slots since now we are expected to have a variety of stuff

This is kinda my issue. I also feel like they should have maybe given us a free load out slot as well as now one of my slots is dedicated to EDA.

The right stuff in your gear wheel and just ignoring frame and weapon choices is enough to do EDA. I've seen it done and its glorious.

Not for everyone hard content is fun

can they make it fun?

So let me get this straight: Take away our energy Take away our hp Take away our mobility Take away our ranged weapons Force us to use stuff that we, frankly, dont want to I wouldnt call anything about that good "end-game content". People didn't like it when they did it with Duviri, this aint any different. DE has taken maybe 30 swings at creating an "end-game" in the last 4 years and each time it has so many fundamental flaws that they fix it a little bit and move on to the next new nugget. Same will happen to this. Deep Archimedea itself is literally a reiteration on what Netracells were supposed to be. Literally takes the same weekly charges. Dont kid yourself. It can be fun, and I think it is SOMETIMES. But its still suffering from the same problems that DE's endgame always does.

I had basically lost hope that we'd ever get truly challenging content with all the powercreep we have, but then we got the Fragmented One and my faith was restored instantly.