For the majority of the Warframe community, The Duviri Paradox has been well received. Sure it has its problems and has some lacking areas. But the brightest star to shine throughout the entire expansion over six weeks running has been “The Circuit”. While Duviri is the Drifter-focused content island, the Circuit juxtaposed to that, is the warframe-focused game mode. Where players have guaranteed reward paths and the best of both worlds in The Duviri Paradox. It is a great game mode, that I feel is perfect conceptually.
The Best of Warframe
The Circuit has a selection of five different game modes for players to endure. Such as Defense, Excavation, Void Flood, Exterminate, and Survival. These are very common game modes in Warframe and therefore have a bite-sized nature to them, even in The Circuit. They are game modes that veteran players can knock out easily for fun. While new players will begin to learn how these modes work on a fundamental level. Then take what they learn and apply it to their missions outside of Duviri.
Players can either go in alone or play with others via matchmaking and head into Teshins Cave, the safe haven of Duviri to pick their loadout. There will be up to five warframes and eight weapons to pick from. This ensures that players cannot just pick a certain loadout and steamroll through the activity. They have to make decisions on what frame works best with each activity. As well as what weapon combination will work for the long haul. This promotes mastering their entire arsenal instead of relying on just one great loadout they love.
After players load in, it is then an endless gauntlet of activities that players not only have to triumph over escalating levels of enemies but defensive objectives that can cost them the entire run. Hence the reason why players need to think about what they pick since everyone will have to pull their own weight. But alongside the warframe-only gameplay, there are bits of Duviri sewn into The Circuit that can alleviate some of the escalating difficulty the further you go into The Circuit.
The Best of The Duviri Paradox
In Duviri runs, players can earn decrees to help them during that session. While also trivializing the activities to earn more intrinsics at a faster rate. Both Decrees and Intrinsics can be earned in The Circuit. Decrees, however, are more scarce as you only earn up to two per activity. One after finishing the activity before starting the next and there are three decree fragments that can be found in each level to earn another. This allows groups to take advantage of extra boons to help them take down tougher foes and survive the activities as the difficulty ramps up.
But considering you will be using guns abilities for the majority of the time. Picking decrees becomes even more crucial and can sometimes create crazy builds. Take, for example, Citrine’s “Prismatic Gem” turret-like ability can be amped up by two rare decrees that double status effect damage and spread those status effects to enemies that the Gem is not targeting at the time. The numbers get higher, the crowds die faster and it feels incredibly satisfying.
Some guns like the Soma can be benefitted decrees that give extra cold damage every time you get a critical hit. As well as gaining extra toxin damage per headshot as well. Soma is most effective with headshots and has a high critical rate, making this combination devastating for enemies.
Suffice it to say, that Decrees can be used in interesting and devastating ways. All of these elements are coupled with the fact that each level for The Circuit feels hand-crafted to work perfectly with all of the five activities. No level feels specifically designed for Defense or Extermination as a result.
But outside of just clearing out hordes of enemies quicker in both the Normal and Steel Path or “Heroic” version of The Circuit. Players can also earn Duviri-specific resources and intrinsics to help level up their Drifter and unlock more potential boons to use in The Circuit. The marriage of both Duviri and Warframe’s best aspects makes this activity so much fun. While also having meaningful reward paths for both new and returning players.
The Circuit’s Battle Pass-like Reward System
The Circuit in Warframe has two specific reward paths that players can grind out. The normal reward path is to earn certain warframes on a rotation. But they also have specific rarer mods, weapon blueprints, and arcanes, otherwise known as gems in other online games. The normal path is for newer players that want to earn certain warframes for usage outside of Duviri. As some bosses that drop their parts can be too much for newer players to handle. In fact, this system can work for players who need want an easier path for earning these warframes. It is a fantastic system for them.
For veteran players who can handle the Steel Path version of The Circuit. They can grind for “Incarnon Adapters” each week, similar to what warframe can be chosen in the normal path. Two Incarnon Adapters can be chosen for older weapons and can be earned alongside other meaningful rewards for veteran players. Such as three-day boosters, more potent arcanes, and riven mods.
The Incarnon system is from the Angels of The Zariman expansion last year. It is a system that takes ordinary weapons and adds an alternate firing mode to them. Weapons such as the Atomos can go from firing a beam of fire at enemies to shooting out large explosives. But this is not limited to just guns, melee weapons can be augmented with faster attack speed, more range for each melee swing and even adding shockwaves to heavy attacks. This system also gives more damage to weapons and different stat boosts. Such as higher critical or status effect chances, faster reload speeds, and higher critical damage multipliers when reloading certain guns after expending a full magazine.
On top of the mod system, some weapons that have these adapters are being heralded as some of the best in the game. My favorite so far has been the Latron since it can fire this orb that ricochets between enemies and causes splash damage with a crazy damage increase. I hope more weapons are given Incarnon adapters because this system is simply brilliant.
The Circuit is Perfect as is, but Can be Improved Upon
The Circuit in Warframe is something that I named a masterstroke during the first few weeks of The Duviri Paradox’s launch in our site’s review. That has not changed at all, however. The simple to grasp and repeatable activities and the random loadouts promote mastery and are made better by the powerful decrees. As well as the meaningful rewards for players new and old all make this activity so flawless to me. But there is so much potential to build upon it as well. Such as adding more activities into the rotation, like Assassinations for Void Angels from the Zariman or bosses from outside of Duviri.
There are so many older weapons that could use Incarnon Adapters as well as other warframes being put into the weekly rotation for the normal path to extend the life of The Circuit and alleviate the grind for more players. However, as the weeks go by and more weapons can be tested by members of the community. It is clear that a lot of love went into that system. It reflects a similar sentiment on The Circuit. Having a clear path to earn stuff with no ridiculous randomness is great. I am still enjoying The Circuit every week and can only see it getting better as time goes on.
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