Invasion Missions Needs Fixed

[unmog]

First of all, yes, I got screwed out of another potato. No, it sucks. I get it, and its not the first time. God I dont even know how many Ive missed when I legitimatly missed it and wasn't around, but the ones I have missed when I am here just suck. And I get it. People get it, they know if they see that potato ivasion and its sitting at 30-40% not to even bother, they already missed it. In this post I'm going to point out what I think are the potential problems, and give some suggestions. Since this isnt about maps or levels but instead about a feature of the game itself Im putting it in general where I hope it will get the most attention. Seeing how many other people have recently just put up topics about this, I think we should all do our part to raise as much hell as possible so DE will realize something isn't right here, people are upset, and that they should do something about it.

 

 

 

THE PROBLEMS

There's no time limit= This goes double for invasion missions which are over in half an hour because one side randomly offers a potato and most people who are even around at that time participating don't even get rewarded. But the other side of the coin is other missions that get ignored, for credits or orokin cells or research technology... these missions can last for days and the people that did participate need to wait a looooong time before seeing their reward.

 

No reward sometimes= This is a bug that Ive personally experienced. If you completed 4 missions, and your doing your 5th, and the invasion is almost over lets say like 1 or 2% left or something, or even 10% for that last potato invasion... if you are inside the mission when the counter his 0% you dont get a reward. Thats right, you can do five missions, and still not get anything for your investment.

 

No grace period= Theres nothing that allows participants of an event to continue trying to earn the reward on their own after the counter hits 0%. Its just over, and theres nothing you can do about it. Im not even going to include a solution for this one, its pretty obvious. There should be some time after the invasion hits 0% for people to continue participating at least. Id say even half an hour is fair.

 

Planets get forgotten= I dont know if they just never cared about certain areas to begin with... or if they lose the ability to take it back, but some places just get taken over and thats it. Look at Europa for example, it got completely taken over by grineer, and Corpus havent bothered invading back at all. So, on a corpus planet, theres like no corpus forces at all other than the boss. Just seems wrong to me...

 

 

 

MY SOLUTIONS

Incorporate time limits= This is my biggest suggestion, and something DE should already know about from their problems with the alerts. Now I think they've done a lot better with alerts, so why they would totally take a backstep on the invasion missions is beyond me. Invasion missions should work on a set amount of time. Whether its a few hours, or more like 6, 12, or 24 depends on how easy DE thinks it should be for a faction to take an area. I personally think it should take longer to take over an area than it takes for the original faction to take it back. If the grineer are invading a corpus node, it should take twice as much time as it would take the corpus to take it back. Regardless, if they use time limits, it makes all the missions much more fair. You wont have to wait for days to get that orokin cell you really wanted, and you wont miss out on that orokin catalyst because you had to use the bathroom before an invasion potatoe came up and by the time you got back it was already at 50%.

 

Guaranteed rewards on completion= If you start that fifth invasion, it sucks not to get an award afterward. It should be guaranteed that you will get your reward when you finish. Just like how you are guaranteed a reward if you start an alert mission with 30 seconds left on the clock. I really can't believe DE could let this one slip past them in the first place, and just goes to prove how poorly implemented the underbelly of the system really is...

 

Balanced rewards= One orokin cell... for five missions? A potatoe versus credits? Why is 25k credits even on the table? No... just no. If I want an orokin cell, I'm almost guaranteed to get more than one just from running Ruk five times. I can get more credits doing easy void missions. And why would the opposing side be dumb enough to offer credits if the other side is offering a potatoe? NONONO! Rare resources are fine, but it needs to be more than one for that much time. Im thinking more like 3 to 10. And credits are fine for a reward too, but it should be closer to 50k at least. And if one side is offering a catalyst, let the other offer a reactor at least.

 

Scaling rewards= Invasion missions on Pluto should be worth more than invasion missions on Venus. Its simple really, on higher level planets the rewards for invasion missions should be higher. We shouldnt even see 25k credits as an option. Thats where the highest chance of potatoes, higher amounts of rare resources, 100+k credits and so on should be.

 

Taking it back!= To this day, Europa is still completely taken over by the grineer, there hasnt been any corpus invasions to take it back either. Why not? I propose that if a node is occupied by an opposing force, it should have a higher chance to spawn another invasion at least. Or let them take it back on their own over time, say a week or something. Grineer take over a node, Corpus take it back a week later.

Edited March 30, 2014 by unmog

[Cold_Arrow]

I fully agree with you on this topic and your solutions seem fair and good

[Egg_Chen]

Agreed... it was moving 10% every time I ran a mission (that makes it virtually impossible unless you start bang on 50%).

I was Volt, spamming either Speed or Overload and dropping Energy restores, so I was not hanging around.

 

I get that we can buy them before all the "DE gotta eat" brigade enter the fray, but a reward that is not achievable may as well not exist at all.

 

DE should at the very least drop the "weighting" they added to avoid stalemates, until a node has actually been stalled for say an hour.

Some may not recall but they made it so that once a node starts to swing one way, the numbers needed also start to drop to avoid stalemates.

Fine on Neurodes vs Morphics, but not Catalyst vs Credits.

 

Give nodes a period of time before this weighting starts to apply.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Egg_Chen

[Blastling]

While time limits is the most practical way of making invasions end faster, they do have a softer time limiting mechanic that gives a push to the winning side of the invasion.

Remember you don't have to wait you can always do more than five mission, but i think DE needs to make some incentives to play more than the initial 5 missions though.

 

There should definitely be some sort of grace period... should be a new mode of some kind like the hunting down of the few scattered enemies left (maybe a more exploratory mission type), so players who didn't get enough missions done to have a chance to get them. This would probably be best if it was on a hard timer. I would say for only those who actually did some missions to begin with.

 

1 Orokin cells for 5 mission is kinda of silly When it used to be 3 it would always win. Obvious step is to make it 2 cells.

For balancing competing rewards does need some work. Though i think balanced rewards might get people more frustrated at least with out some sort of hard timer.

At the very least I would say both factions shouldn't offer the same type or reward like credits v credits or gallium v gallium. 

[unmog]

Personally I didnt see an issue with the randomness of rewards, and they dont all have to be perfectly balanced. I also didnt see a problem with 3 orokin cells as a reward. Just the other side needs to offer something comparable. Changing the orokin cells to 1 for a reward didnt fix the underlaying issues though, for instance you still get missions of 25k v 35k. Hows that fair? Anyone who needs credits is going to go with the one thats paying more. They need to tone down their RNG is all, and have the rewards be static. If one side is offering a catalyst, have the other offer a reactor. RNG might dictate with the potatoe invasion pops up, but the rewards will be a potato vs another potato. If one side is offering 35k, have the other side offer something thats comparable. If one side is offering 3 fieldron, have the other offer 3 detonite.

 

If they do that, it would solve ONE of the many problems I already outlined with the invasion system.

[ZzVinniezZ]

i totally agree on Changing the Invasion to time limit instead of Progression bar which will end within 15~30 min (if it potato reward).

done 2 rounds of Reactor reward....from 50% to 80%, now that is total screwed up for those who is late

Edited March 30, 2014 by ZzVinniezZ

[Marthrym]

Implementing a minimum duration for invasions, like 2 hours minimum for blue potatoes invasions for example, would give enough time to do 5 runs without having to rush like headless chicken, or worrying that our fifth run doesn't end up being a complete waste of time. I don't understand why it hasn't been yet to be honest^^'.

[Bibliothekar]

a reward that is not achievable may as well not exist at all.

Exactly.

I don't even bother with invasions any more. There are a lot more fun and easier ways to get the normal rewards, and every time a rare one shows up, I finish with 4/5 at best. So why should I waste time on blown-up Exterminations?

 

@unmog: I really like your solutions, especially scaling rewards and "Taking it back". The first one, because invasions on higher-level planets are insanely hard if you decide to support the Corpus, as the Grineer march in with dozens of Napalms, Eviscerators and other heavies. So 25k or a single Orokin Cell feel like a punch in the face (in addition to that beating you get from the Grineer). The second, because it would make those invasions feel more real. As you said, it's just weird that the Corpus let the Grineer take over one of their planets and don't seem to care about this at all.

And yes, minimum duration is an absolute must, if they don't rework invasions entirely. I've seen a suggestion somewhere, that turned invasion into one long mission with changing objectives. Takes you almost an hour to complete, but you need to do only one to get the reward.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Bibliothekar

[unmog]

Hey thanks Bibliothekar, I think most people are focused strictly on "Hey, thats not cool, I didnt get my potato. :/" And while I agree that it sucks, they dont address the overall problems that leads to them getting screwed. I think if DE is really going to fix invasion missions, they should do more than make it easier to get potatoes.

[zombisa]

First of all, yes, I got screwed out of another potato. No, it sucks. I get it, and its not the first time. God I dont even know how many Ive missed when I legitimatly missed it and wasn't around, but the ones I have missed when I am here just suck. And I get it. People get it, they know if they see that potato ivasion and its sitting at 30-40% not to even bother, they already missed it. In this post I'm going to point out what I think are the potential problems, and give some suggestions. Since this isnt about maps or levels but instead about a feature of the game itself Im putting it in general where I hope it will get the most attention. Seeing how many other people have recently just put up topics about this, I think we should all do our part to raise as much hell as possible so DE will realize something isn't right here, people are upset, and that they should do something about it.

 

 

 

THE PROBLEMS

There's no time limit= This goes double for invasion missions which are over in half an hour because one side randomly offers a potato and most people who are even around at that time participating don't even get rewarded. But the other side of the coin is other missions that get ignored, for credits or orokin cells or research technology... these missions can last for days and the people that did participate need to wait a looooong time before seeing their reward.

 

No reward sometimes= This is a bug that Ive personally experienced. If you completed 4 missions, and your doing your 5th, and the invasion is almost over lets say like 1 or 2% left or something, or even 10% for that last potato invasion... if you are inside the mission when the counter his 0% you dont get a reward. Thats right, you can do five missions, and still not get anything for your investment.

 

No grace period= Theres nothing that allows participants of an event to continue trying to earn the reward on their own after the counter hits 0%. Its just over, and theres nothing you can do about it. Im not even going to include a solution for this one, its pretty obvious. There should be some time after the invasion hits 0% for people to continue participating at least. Id say even half an hour is fair.

 

Planets get forgotten= I dont know if they just never cared about certain areas to begin with... or if they lose the ability to take it back, but some places just get taken over and thats it. Look at Europa for example, it got completely taken over by grineer, and Corpus havent bothered invading back at all. So, on a corpus planet, theres like no corpus forces at all other than the boss. Just seems wrong to me...

 

 

 

MY SOLUTIONS

Incorporate time limits= This is my biggest suggestion, and something DE should already know about from their problems with the alerts. Now I think they've done a lot better with alerts, so why they would totally take a backstep on the invasion missions is beyond me. Invasion missions should work on a set amount of time. Whether its a few hours, or more like 6, 12, or 24 depends on how easy DE thinks it should be for a faction to take an area. I personally think it should take longer to take over an area than it takes for the original faction to take it back. If the grineer are invading a corpus node, it should take twice as much time as it would take the corpus to take it back. Regardless, if they use time limits, it makes all the missions much more fair. You wont have to wait for days to get that orokin cell you really wanted, and you wont miss out on that orokin catalyst because you had to use the bathroom before an invasion potatoe came up and by the time you got back it was already at 50%.

 

Guaranteed rewards on completion= If you start that fifth invasion, it sucks not to get an award afterward. It should be guaranteed that you will get your reward when you finish. Just like how you are guaranteed a reward if you start an alert mission with 30 seconds left on the clock. I really can't believe DE could let this one slip past them in the first place, and just goes to prove how poorly implemented the underbelly of the system really is...

 

Balanced rewards= One orokin cell... for five missions? A potatoe versus credits? Why is 25k credits even on the table? No... just no. If I want an orokin cell, I'm almost guaranteed to get more than one just from running Ruk five times. I can get more credits doing easy void missions. And why would the opposing side be dumb enough to offer credits if the other side is offering a potatoe? NONONO! Rare resources are fine, but it needs to be more than one for that much time. Im thinking more like 3 to 10. And credits are fine for a reward too, but it should be closer to 50k at least. And if one side is offering a catalyst, let the other offer a reactor at least.

 

Scaling rewards= Invasion missions on Pluto should be worth more than invasion missions on Venus. Its simple really, on higher level planets the rewards for invasion missions should be higher. We shouldnt even see 25k credits as an option. Thats where the highest chance of potatoes, higher amounts of rare resources, 100+k credits and so on should be.

 

Taking it back!= To this day, Europa is still completely taken over by the grineer, there hasnt been any corpus invasions to take it back either. Why not? I propose that if a node is occupied by an opposing force, it should have a higher chance to spawn another invasion at least. Or let them take it back on their own over time, say a week or something. Grineer take over a node, Corpus take it back a week later.

A lot of good points, wouldn't mind for this to get implemented.

[unmog]

Thanks. I kind of figured logging on today I'd see someone, anyone really, post here that everything is fine as is and I was just a whiner or something. Really the first time it seems like one of my suggestions wasn't objected by someone. Makes me hope that maybe someone from DE will notice it then take at least some of my suggestions when they fix the invasion missions. Hopefully sooner than later. None of what I suggested should take a tremendous amount of time to incorporate after all.

[unmog]

I'm not sure if invasions are entirely random... or if DE can poke them once in awhile if they want to, but I'd like to point out Europa finally had a counter attack by the corpus~ So I did my part to help them get their foot back in the door and take back their planet.

 

Still, I'd like to think someone in DE noticed the post and went "oh S#&$" and did something about it. :) Now just gotta wait to see if anything else changes.