Assassination Missions Rework. Dynamic, Challenging, Stealthy.

[Burnthesteak87]

Actually Assassination Missions aren't that pleasant, challenging or interesting; we can actually rush to the VIP and take it down with no effort.

It doesn't seem like there's an hard defensive setup to protect that VIP, infact you can reach the location (HQ, Starship, colony, whatever...) without passing any defenses.... Nobody actually care protecting their own leader. There are no stages, no checkpoints, no serrated defenses, no alternative ways, no stealth infiltration. No bodyguards, no reinforcements, no mandatory lockdowns, no special arenas.

In this rework I've taken reference from many elements and mechanics from Spy 2.0, Rescue 2.0, Hive and other missions type to integrate them as secondary tasks.
The objective was enriching the Operation and making it more dynamic:

• Reaching the boss would require you to face Challenges and Stages with 2 options: fighting hard or stealth and parkour. 
• Promoting stealth, parkour and focus by using it as a necessary condition of success for many Challenges.
• Building the boss encounter yourself basing on the result of these stages, by making yourself advantages or negative consequences: if one is succeeded, then the boss will/won't use a precise skill, will have a determined behavior, reduced or improved stats; failing instead would trigger harsher consequences, enraging the boss or compromising the boss fight.
• No frustration: even if you fail all Challenges, you should be able to reach the Boss; the only way to fail the mission is by dying repeatedly, ending revives or abandoning the mission.
• More things to do during the mission: Facing minibosses, exterminating bodyguards before the bossfight, sabotaging its resources, infiltrating through the enemy lines, using the enemy resources toward itself... all in one mission.

Essentially the Assassination Mission would result made of "little" stages/gates/challenges and the performance for everyone of them will be influencing the final stage itself, forcing people to not rush and to enjoy the run, to build the boss encounter themselves, taking their chances at weakening their objective and taking responsibilities for their errors, resulting in a challenging and different run every time.

I understand it would take a lot of effort, I'm not pretending to teach anything to anybody. These are just some ideas.

I'd rather doing a mission that feels "full" and taking its 15-20 minutes than farming repeatedly it by rushing the objective and getting away in 1 minute 7 times every 15 minutes.

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SIMULATION: (image)

  I had fun working on a quick graphical recap to show better the structure of the Assassination Mission Rework.

 

For this example I simulated a Jackal Assassination through different steps:

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STRUCTURE: (a more detailed post)

I reorganized my ideas to make them better suit Warframe and common sense, but it's still not complete and it would probably need more tweaks.

 

Also it came out being maybe more complex than what I thought in the beginning.

I understand it's an ambitious and probably hard to balance and integrate idea, but as long as it helps people getting inspired and using fantasy..

 

Recap of main ideas:

• Essentially the Assassination Mission would result made of "little" stages/gates/challenges and the performance for everyone of them will be influencing the final stage itself, forcing people to not rush and to enjoy the run, to build the boss encounter themselves, taking their chances at weakening their objective and taking responsibilities for their errors, resulting in a challenging and different run every time.

• The emphasis was on making the mission dynamic, while giving the chance to the player to set up the final fight, trying to reach and weakening your opponent, before the fight.
  After all, by figuring an assassin mindset, you have to create and/or take advantage of situations in which your target is not at its full strength.(Cutting their energy, sabotaging the life support and their equipment, taking away their bodyguards separately, cutting their escape routes,...)

• Having success in a stage would reward your work by giving you an advantage in the final fight, failing instead would make things harder (basing on difficulty standards).
  I was imaging this made also to make sure people wouldn't get frustrated by failing.

• Also for the multiplayer cooperation, I was imaging something like Spy 2.0 missions, where teammates can split to contribute the mission.

• REWARDS: I'd take reference from Spy missions, successing in every challenge would give maybe a small reward, then the boss would drop it's table loot or a rare chest... Everything is possible, with the right twist.

 

STRUCTURE:

 

NOTES and RULES:

 

CHALLENGES:

Challenges are the TASKS Tennos have to pass through to reach the Boss Fight.

By the moment we can't have a Fail Mission on these ones, the outcome will be, basing on the current challenge, defined by a CONDITION.

CONDITIONS may be Stealth (do the task stealthly exactly as in SPY2.0 and RESCUE), Time (complete the task before X minutes), etc.

Some Challenge ideas I though about:

- Checkpoint: patrolled by enemies, you can get over by force or by Parkour/Stealth alternative passages;

- Key Collections to unlock the BossFight area reinforced door. Or whatever variant can come out of it. Imagine something like SPY 2.0 hacking or getting them from Minibosses;

- Minibosses;

- Sabotages (ex. destroy the power plant to... create a diversion, to make so your VIP target will be weaker.. Imagine attempting at damaging Vay Hek's Terraframe before the fight);

- ...Actually we can work here by imaging whatever event, defining a Condition and a Consequence for the Boss fight.

 

CHALLENGE SCORE and MAJOR EVENT SCORE are placeholder terms just to make understand what they are bound to.

CHALLENGE SCORE will essentially affect directly the Boss fight, with PROS or COUNTERS basing on the Success or Failure of the related Challenge.

MAJOR EVENT SCORE will punish people for failing a Challenge and will result in maybe an harsher pre-Bossfight Event.

Imagine a team failing 1,2,3 times, then the consequence will get harsher for every failure.

AFTER the LAST Challenge gets completed, there will be a judgment on the MAJOR EVENT SCORE, starting a consequence:

The Boss feels it has no time to waste here and decides to leave, starting a "Tennos are here, get my Ship ready" situation and a timer. If players won't make in time to it, the mission will fail. Worst Case Scenario.

Maybe some Boss would decide to set the installation on self destruct to get rid of Tennos. Timer or Environmental Hazards.

Maybe some Boss would call in for specialists (Elite Units? Eximuses? Minibosses? Multiple Manics?) to aid it in the figh.

Maybe some Boss would decide to get out some secret Arena or Weapon to fight Tennos.

What about that idea that I pulled out of a no Oxygen arena?

 

PROS and COUNTERS:

Basing on common sense and balance, these could be the outcomes from the past Challenges.

Decrease for PROs or increase for COUNTERs in Boss' Healt, Armor, Shields, Damages, Special Skills Damages, the use of determined abilities, the overall performance, movement speed, rotation in boss Phases. Etc.
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Prior to the SIMULATION I decided to include also an INFILTRATION stage as introduction to the Mission, to build up the "infiltration between enemy lines" mood and including the Checkpoint challenge.
Also the MAJOR EVENT became the "BOSS RUSH" stage.

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STEALTH: (brainstorm)

I'll open a parenthesis about stealth, I noticed that Mirage's Eclipse works according to Light/Shadow on the Tenno, so essentially I'd wonder if it would be possible implementing in Warframe a system of Light/Shadow helping stealth and making harder getting detected. Obviously, when you are inside Shadows or Crouched you'll be harder to detect, involving also distance, similar to the enemy precision system.
Also I'd like to understand how the Tenno Detection works, if enemies have a detection threshold involving a Line of Sight mechanic check on partial or full body. Maybe a full body would send the enemy istantly on alarm while a partial detection would require investigation or a time lapse before alarming.
It could promote stealth and add taste to many missions.

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CHALLENGES: (details and brainstorm)

• Infiltration

Work In Progress:
The raw idea involved Guarded Checkpoints at crucial points of the map, in the introduction (see the Simulation) or eventually before the bossfight.
These checkpoints would be trespassable by stealth and parkour or breaking through guards.
Imagine a Spy2.0 or Rescue 2.0 room and adapt it to be a Checkpoint.

In another raw concept it would also be linked to other challenges by key collecting and multiple ways (A,B,C, with different defense setups) to reach the Boss.
Basically in between the Challenges Area and the Boss Arena there would be 2-3 different gateways locked by a key, obtainable from challenges. The harder gateway is always open, so even by failing all challenges and getting no key there would be a way to the Boss. By getting keys Tennos can pass through alternative gateways and areas.

• Exterminate  ~ "First your bodyguards, next you" ~

This task will lead Tennos to kill an Elite Bodyguard Squad or single Units (Minibosses maybe).
The Context is to kill the Bodyguard unit before the Boss Fight, in which it will -of course- take part.
The target of this challenge is stationed in an isolated area. You can take as example a Rescue Area or an Earth Interception map. Isolated area with more exits, Eximus units patrolling (in this situation they're the objective).

The target can be a special squad made of eximuses, 1-2 minibosses or a combination of special units and minibosses.
 

There are 3 subConditions, when one is failed, the following condition becomes relevant.
1) Stealth.

2) Timed Extermination.

3) Capture.

1) In the first phase you have no restriction over stealth, you can stealthly kill  enemy units with no time limit. If you fail and the alarm is set up, the first Condition will be failed, leading to the second subcondition.

2) Time Extermination: A timer will start (1 min about) in which you must kill every member of the unit. Lets assume they're around 5-10 units. They will start chasing you to engage and kill you. If they aren't killed during this time lapse, the second condition will be failed and will start the next.

3) Capture: Surviving enemies will be called back to protect the boss, they will retreat (ala Capture mission, shooting and running). They will rush to an exit door/saferoom. Whoever getting there will be safe and you won't be able to kill it.

 

Consequences:

1) If the task is completed in the 1st phase, it will be a success.

2) If the task is completed in the 2nd phase, it will be a success

3) If you get to the 3rd phase, you'll fail the challenge, even if you kill every last enemy.
The Penality for this fail will be the following: Every unit that succeeded into getting safe will be later met in the Boss Fight; it's supposed that the unit is called back to protect the VIP.
Even if you kill every unit, the boss will react to this expedient by.. enraging, increasing damage.. this should be set accordingly to each boss.
 

Brainstorm/Ideas:
What about including an higher Risk VS Reward creative system to kill these enemies? Something working like the killer switch in Rescue, mixed with a cross mission similar to a Sabotage secondary objective.
The Context would be killing every enemy or weaken them on a quick and risky sabotege action.
Like diffusing in the Area a fast action Virus engineered to affect those enemies but not the Tenno, or submerging the Area, stopping the Life support thus chocking these units, damaging the heating system so the cold temperature will reduce their shields, making the Area crumble (Earth caverns caving in, etc), setting an explosive...

•  Sabotage

Work In Progress:
The idea here was to adapt a random sabotage to have different outcomes in the Bossfight. By cutting energy, damaging the equipment, damaging the environment in the Boss Arena, cutting out reinforcements, etc.
Example#1: In the Simulation, by sabotaging the Jackal's Alternative Energy Powerplant, Tennos could have it malfunctioning after a time lapse.
Example#2: Another idea revolved around sabotaging the Boss' Equipment like Vay Hek's Terraframe before the fight.

• Help from the Lotus

Work In Progress:
The raw idea was to reach a Capsule the Lotus sent you ala "Survival Life Support Capsule" (or similar to an intrusive Grineer Invasion Pod as you see in Invasion Missions) and operate its content in a mixed Mobile Defense/Sabotage/Hijack Mission.

In the Simulation made for Jackal (I made before and included in this post), the device contained special Nanites programmed and lasting enough to find out the Boss and damaging its armor. They had to be retrivied before Corpus would do it, protected (there's the Device Integrity Condition) and injected in the vent system to let them do their work.

Another thing that could be interesting would be a "hold-and-drop" item like Datamasses, maybe developing a stationary Energy Shell when dropped to protect Tennos from some Boss' special attacks.

•  Robbery

Work In Progress:
The raw idea was to attain from the installation the VIP is in any Void Artifacts, Special Weapons, Experimental Gimmicks to use against the Boss itself. It should work like a Spy2.0 Mission.
Imagine a boss like Vor collecting Void Artifacts and similiar in its installation, maybe there's something that reacts to your Warframe, empowering it (just for this fight). Inverse Void Dragon Keys? You objective is to take advantage of it for the Bossfight.

Example#1: let's imagine Tennos discover a Void Artifact that similar to Dragon Keys affect your Warframe -this time in a positive way- maybe increasing some of the following: Shields, Health, Damage (Primary, Melee), Athletics, Power Strength, Duration, Efficency... And they will give a chance at getting it to defeat the Boss.
Example#2: let's imagine in the VIP installation there's an experimental weapon, maybe usable like a Datamass, substituting your weapons and droppable in whatever moment. Tennos' objective is stealing it and using it toward the Boss himself.

• Boss Rush

Work In Progress:
The main concept here was to include a Dojo's Timed Parkour Route in the Major Event or linked to the "gateway and key gathering challenge"; the Context would change from Boss to Boss.
Example: After ending the 3rd challenge, the Boss would value the threat from Tennos' doing. Some Boss would maybe start the setup for an escape, others would set the installation on fire by destroying every access, another would set up obstacles on the route.
Here it comes the Parkour Area, maybe a crumbling section of the IQ, or an Area filled with traps to slow Tennos..
The objective would be to get over it and reach the Boss before its preparation/escape/etc.
Let's put a "Double Activation Door" at the end, so that at least 2 Tennos of the group have to cross the Area to success in this challenge.
Some ideas: Do you remember the old Parkour Area in Void Missions which require to drop inside vertical tunnels filled with lasers? Crossing freezing fields and dashing through laser doors? Why not a Zero Gravity and Oxygen area like Corpus ships on Eris? Why not an Archwing spacewalk?

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Post Scriptum: I apologize for grammar errors.  If you find any, PM me, thanks.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[(XBOX)LexaHex]

+1 

 

Great concept 

[The_Raall]

I just wish they add something like this when they rework all the bosses, but if it does take something like 15-20 mins there should be pay off for it... not just same frame part every time.

[Evanescent]

great idea. 

 

Maybe have a stage that some bosses will try to flee if alerted to Tenno presence?

[Kostadin]

+10

[Burnthesteak87]

great idea. 

 

Maybe have a stage that some bosses will try to flee if alerted to Tenno presence?

Yay, maybe failing a certain stage would led to a '"Tennos are here?! Get my ship ready" situation', maybe starting a timer at which limit the boss will escape resulting into a Mission Fail.

With the right corrections it can work.

Maybe some boss would flee, maybe some would set an Installment/Starship-selfdestruction to get rid of Tennos' threat, maybe others would be more fierce and get out some empowered equipment or attack, or calling for Elites Squads ala Syndacate Assassins to aid them in the fight.

That's the spirit!

Edited May 2, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[Burnthesteak87]

I just wish they add something like this when they rework all the bosses, but if it does take something like 15-20 mins there should be pay off for it... not just same frame part every time.

Thats also why I'd take reference from Spy missions, successing in every challenge would give maybe a small reward, then the boss would drop it's table loot or a rare chest... Everything is possible.

[Saberis]

Solo players would literally kill you if this was implemented.

[Burnthesteak87]

Solo players would literally kill you if this was implemented.

Everything can be balanced to suit soloplayers. I'm often a soloplayer myself.

[Kazune]

All of the +1s.. so 1. I'm all for this and was thinking about something similar the other day. A "Storm the Tower" type mission essentially with numerous obstacles/enemy defenses and verticality. Eventually it occurred to me it could be used for bosses.

 

There is only one downside to this and that is rewards. Obviously something will have to be built in so that rewards are more reliable; perhaps a few "loot rooms" that aren't full of crap (like Void "loot" rooms) that work similarly to void vaults or spy vaults. If you make the mission longer without improving the rewards no one will play; aside from me.

[-Vane-]

So, like low level raids? Without the cooperation.

[Burnthesteak87]

So, like low level raids? Without the cooperation.

Not really.

The emphasis was on making the mission dynamic, while giving the chance to the player to set up the final fight, trying to reach and weakening your opponent, before the fight.

After all, by figuring an assassin mindset, you have to create and/or take advantage of situations in which your target is not at its full strength.

(Cutting their energy, sabotaging the life support and their equipment, taking away their bodyguards separately, cutting their escape routes,...)

Having success in a stage would reward your work by giving you an advantage in the final fight, failing instead would make things harder (basing on difficulty standards).

I was imaging this made also to make sure people wouldn't get frustrated by failing.

As I heard around in actual raids, because of the fact you can't go on if you can't pass the challenge, people are becoming elitists and often abandon games.

Also for the cooperation, I was imaging something like Spy 2.0 missions, where teammates can split to contribute the mission.

Actually I'm fleshing my argument to explain the idea better. One of these weeks I'm gonna update it.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[zoboso]

I think the ideas you are putting forth would be better as tiles that show up randomly. This does two things it creates a potential for difference in kinds in any mission, and makes the improvement more visible to all the players as compared to something that just happens once.

 

Also, The reaction has to occur soon enough for the player to recognize that their mistake against the hazard caused the mission to go wrong.

[-Vane-]

Not really.

The emphasis was on making the mission dynamic, while giving the chance to the player to set up the final fight, trying to reach and weakening your opponent, before the fight.

After all, by figuring an assassin mindset, you have to create and/or take advantage of situations in which your target is not at its full strength.

(Cutting their energy, sabotaging the life support and their equipment, taking away their bodyguards separately, cutting their escape routes,...)

Having success in a stage would reward your work by giving you an advantage in the final fight, failing instead would make things harder (basing on difficulty standards).

I was imaging this made also to make sure people wouldn't get frustrated by failing.

As I heard around in actual raids, because of the fact you can't go on if you can't pass the challenge, people are becoming elitists and often abandon games.

Also for the cooperation, I was imaging something like Spy 2.0 missions, where teammates can split to contribute the mission.

Actually I'm fleshing my argument to explain the idea better. One of these weeks I'm gonna update it.

Sounds sweet! Following.

[LtSprinkulz]

Solo players would literally kill you if this was implemented.

It doesn't make the boss any harder unless you're literally the least coordinated individual of all time. If anything it would make bosses easier if you went through flawlessly and they didn't get their full moveset.

[Burnthesteak87]

-Incorporated on the First Post-

Edited June 9, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[(XBOX)SirVic Fanatico]

Really great ideas. Will certainly make the Boss stages feel different from the normal tiles

[FoxFX]

I have thought up that bosses can also be fought in Defense/M Defense type missing similar to how Vor pops up in T4 Towers

[Burnthesteak87]

The Vor fight in T4 Towers doesn't feel that good. It's not a matter of difficulty, it's just a "tank'n spank, full dps, avoid aoes" fight, nothing more, nothing less.
Actually it doesn't add anything to T4 Missions, it just forces players to group up for a minute.
Neither it is overwhelming, I think it's more effective the Gineer Manic or the Stalker than Vor.

Edited May 13, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[(XBOX)LordPuck]

Ummmm -_^ wow

[Burnthesteak87]

This also was made because I don't like Law of Retribution's mechanics and I think it's better to have some interesting mission for soloplayers.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[(XBOX)TheLegend 64312]

Like it. Bosses get nuked with any late game build so they turn into one more thing to farm instead of a fun challenge

[Burnthesteak87]

- Incorporated in the First Post -

Edited June 9, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[Burnthesteak87]

I had been brainstorming on some rules and features of this concept.

First of all, I'll open a parenthesis about stealth, I noticed that Mirage's Eclipse works according to Light/Shadow on the Tenno, so essentially I'd wonder if it would be possible implementing in Warframe a system of Light/Shadow helping stealth and making harder getting detected. Obviously, when you are inside Shadows or Crouched you'll be harder to detect, involving also distance, similar to the enemy precision system.
Also I'd like to understand how the Tenno Detection works, if enemies have a detection threshold involving a Line of Sight mechanic check on partial or full body. Maybe a full body would send the enemy istantly on alarm while a partial detection would require investigation or a time lapse before alarming.
It could promote stealth and add taste to many missions.

Now, regarding Conditions for the Assassination Rework.
First of all Stealth isn't a mandatory condition, but it creates the atmosphere and if ignored it can make things harder.
For this purpose I was thinking that Tenno Detection won't ever fail the mission, Enemies are aware that there are Tennos in the installation, but the real alarm starts in sectors where Tennos are seen.
That's the logic.

Even if you fail all Challenges you should be able to reach the Boss; the only way to fail the mission is by dying repeatedly, ending revives or abandoning the mission.
That's why Teamwork here helps: it makes the mission faster by splitting the challenges, deciding together how to split (maybe a Warframe more suited for stealth can be sent to a Stealth Challenge, etc.), you can ress your teammates if they fail, etc.

To remark the previous statement, you should be able to proceed even if you fail your task; thus some ideas like the Key Gathering and the Locked Boss Gate wouldn't work without a proper alternative...because of logic, what's the ideal condition to define if the challenge is a success or a fail? How can you proceed if you won't get the key? Or a single key out of 3... Which would make things just more confusing. So I'd discard those.

That's it. Later I'll update a brainstorm about some Challenges and will be detailing them.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Burnthesteak87

[DR.Noooooo_B]

+1000