I have to admit that looking back Duviri is probably my favorite update to Warframe in terms of content and gameplay.
The circuit is a fun addition that is both difficult at times but also scales exponentially into the power fantasy territory without ruining the overall balance since it’s just borrowed/temporary power. Searching for fragments is fun, the objectives go through pretty fast (especially now that defense is changed) and maps are easy to navigate and fun to fight in.
The open world Duviri is also a joy to explore and do missions in to the point that I am disappointed when we get the undercroft stage. The area is beautiful, I even somewhat enjoy the drifter combat despite it being atrocious. Still better than regular warframe melee I guess :P
The wyrm fight has got to be one of the best boss fights they’ve made, especially in steel path. I only wish I didn’t have to do them so many times repeatedly for those damn pathos clamps.
With the addition of kullervo and new arcanes they also addressed the initial issue of duviri just not having enough proper rewards in it, and hopefully they keep adding to it even more. I haven’t had the chance to test the incarnon adapters yet so dunno how that holds up but it also seems like something that can be easily expanded in the future.
TL;DR Duviri is a pretty good and fun update all things considered. I’m enjoying it more than the previous open worlds for sure, I just hope it gets some QoL updates and new rewards so we have a reason to go back to it often.
I quit playing duviri after week 5 of SP circuit, I couldn’t take the constant return to 5 missions repeating ad nauseum. The amount of time required to reach rank 10 in SP circuit, and on top the 5 week rotation with 5 rewards per week.
Coupling that with DE has said they will be adding more incarnons has left with such a sour taste. It’s far too repetitive, too grindy, and extremely time gated. I’d rather get two resources a week that I can turn into any incarnon, even if I can only ever hold 2 at once. And dear god we need more missions that can appear so it’s not so repetitive.
According to my very bad math (based on my most recent run), it takes 3ish hours to farm rank 10 steel path. 3 hours a week isn’t exactly a lot of time, but it’s not nothing either. It really does start to feel like a chore after a while. However, in it’s defense, having a structure for guaranteed rewards feels way better than all of the other pure RNG grinds in the game.
I have to admit it does feel like they had to pad the grind because of lack of rewards, but it’s not that bad and as you said there’s less rng too.
Pathos clamp requirements are pretty annoying, resource costs are also pretty high considering how few resources you get (even with circuit) - getting 200 ueymag was a chore, but then again we got a good focus farm and kullervo bps can be obtained in around a dozen sp duviri runs which is better than many other frames like protea.
3 hours a week, for 15 weeks (5 weeks rotation, 5 weapons each week, can only pick 2 each) starts to become unbearable. Add onto that DE has said they are adding more incarnon weapons meaning they’re probably just going to add in more week(s) means you might end up having to wait an entire month before you can actually obtain new incarnon adapters if you go crazy. I’d rather just pick 2 incarnons a week from the entire pool.
The entire issue is if you get all the adapaters for a week then when it returns, it’s useless. Even more so for if you finish all the adapters and DE comes in and adds more like they said they want to.