Ultimate Survival Overhaul: Comprehensive overview and possible fixes

[lolmetimbers]

This thread will go over the most common issues with Survival mode (especially solo play) and suggest various fixes to - Make Survival Great Again.

1. Solo Spawn rate is too low

The most common complaint with solo survival or excavation is that spawns are too low. This wasn't always the case but about 2 years ago? the rate was dropped significantly. This results in barren boring tilesets or waiting 3 minutes at a dead excavator because there are no enemies to kill. And no, I don't want to be forced to play co-op to experience the game. 

• Scale spawn rates based on time spent in mission - spawn rate can start slow but slowly ramp up over time.
• Or include option to scale spawns before/during mission - this can be in the form of a click option or equippable gear item like Infested Catalyst (Pizzarugi's idea)
• Increase the spawn rates based on mission tier difficulty - T1 = low spawns, T2 = moderate, T3 = high, T4 = Max amount.
   

2. Help! I'm being held hostage

Many people have asked for individual extraction because they wish to leave the party before their squad members (for whatever reason). Since the addition of PoE and the Cetus gate, we know that this feature is able to be implemented.

• - Allow individual extraction in survival/excavation. Done.

 

3. Reliance on Nekros/Hydroid for life support

Life support should not be reliant on a Nekros/Hydroid to force enemies to drop more life support. 

• Change life support to an onslaught-like constant % figure - You need to kill fast to keep the life support 'efficiency' up. This eliminates the RNG/loot aspect of life support drops and reliance on Nekros/Hydroid. Life support capsules can stay the same and play the role of 'efficiency orbs'.  Spawn rates need to be adjusted to reflect these changes. The drain should be constant and not overly excessive like the later stages of onslaught which get ridiculous.
• Or make life support drops independent/unaffected by looting mods + boost overall drop rate. 

 

3. Better Scaling Difficulty

Survival mode should be as the name suggests, an intense battle of survival similar to what onslaught mode is now. At the moment, it is much too easy to survive and even then you are forced to use life support instead of relying on killing enemies. With OP frames and operators able to stealth cheese capsules, the difficulty should not be using life support capsules but instead be focused on surviving/killing the horde of enemies right in front of you.

• Speed up the rate of enemy level scaling over time - Will allow us to face harder enemies faster. Speed % rate can be affected by Mission tier.
• Allow Nightmare survivals to be present all the time - This is a bandaid fix compared to the first suggestion though.
• Increase the amount of enemies over time - As suggested with spawn rate fixes.
• Increase the amount of Eximus enemies over time - this already happens but perhaps make it harder so it it not capped at just 20% at 60min.
• Include more random boss invasions over time - What if corrupted Vor or his cronies could attack you repeatedly? Will keep players on their toes.
• Include random modifiers over time - Every 5/10min a random modifier could be added/enforced for a certain time period e.g - cold/fire/rad hazards.
• Remove the artificial difficulty 3x Void damage modifier - And replace it with the above aspects to make it fair but also 'hardcore'. 3x damage is just a lame way to increase difficulty.

Unfortunately, I also realise there are still too many cheese tactics/frames that should also be removed from the game to make all these changes balanced.

 

4. Better Scaling Rewards

Right now there are not many incentives for players who love survival to stay longer than 20 minutes and rinse and repeat that mission. To cater to these endurance players, vets etc and not just the bite size community, rewards should scale with the amount of time/difficulty of the mission. I am aware that you might be touchy about giving rewards out too easily but there needs to be some better incentive even if it is a small one. If you are still against longer missions, then fine, don't include better rewards but at least fix 1.2.3 issues.

• Rarer (pre-refined) relics/mods over time - I believe this system is implemented somewhere in the game already? I think it was fissures
• Cosmetic awards for endurance runs - similar to 1 hour index John Prodman poster. Won't affect normal drops but cosmetics are something that lots of bored players would not mind spending time on.

 

Please upvote/add suggestions if you are in favour of such changes. Thanks for your time!

Edited October 8, 2018 by lolmetimbers

[GPrime96]

16 minutes ago, lolmetimbers said:

This thread will go over the most common issues with Survival mode (especially solo play) and suggest various fixes to - Make Survival Great Again.

1. Solo Spawn rate is too low

The most common complaint with solo survival or excavation is that spawns are too low. This wasn't always the case but about 2 years ago? the rate was dropped significantly. This results in barren boring tilesets or waiting 3 minutes at a dead excavator because there are no enemies to kill. And no, I don't want to be forced to play co-op to experience the game. 

• Scale spawn rates on time spent in mission - spawn rate can start slow but slowly ramp up over time.
• Or include option to scale spawns before/during mission - this can be in the form of a click option or equippable gear item.
• Increase the spawn rates based on mission tier difficulty - T1 = low spawns, T2 = moderate, T3 = high, T4 = Max amount.
   

2. Help! I'm being held hostage

Many people have asked for individual extraction because they wish to leave the party before their squad members (for whatever reason). Since the addition of PoE and the Cetus gate, we know that this feature is able to be implemented.

• - Allow individual extraction in survival/excavation. Done.

 

3. Reliance on Nekros/Hydroid for life support

Life support should not be reliant on a Nekros/Hydroid to force enemies to drop more life support. 

• Change life support to an onslaught-like constant % figure - You need to kill fast to keep the life support 'efficiency' up. This eliminates the RNG/loot aspect of life support drops and reliance on Nekros/Hydroid. Life support capsules can stay the same and play the role of 'efficiency orbs'.  Spawn rates need to be adjusted to reflect these changes. The drain should be constant and not overly excessive like the later stages on onslaught.
• Or make life support drops independent/unaffected by looting mods + boost overall drop rate. 

 

3. Better Scaling Difficulty

Survival mode should be as the name suggests, an intense battle of survival similar to what onslaught mode is now. At the moment, it is much too easy to survive and even then you are forced to use life support instead of relying on killing enemies. With OP frames and operators able to stealth cheese capsules, the difficulty should not be using life support capsules but instead be focused on surviving/killing the horde of enemies right in front of you.

• Speed up the rate of enemy level difficulty over time - Will allow us to face harder enemies faster. Speed rate can be affected by Mission tier.
• Allow Nightmare survivals to be present all the time - This is a bandaid fix compared to the first suggestion though.
• Increase the amount of enemies over time - As suggested with spawn rate fixes.
• Increase the amount of Eximus enemies over time - this already happens but perhaps make it harder so it it not capped at just 20% at 60min.
• Include more random boss invasions over time - What if corrupted Vor or his cronies could attack you repeatedly? Will keep players on their toes.
• Include random modifiers over time - Every 5/10min a random modifier could be added/enforced for a certain time period e.g - cold/fire/rad hazards.
• Remove the artificial difficulty 3x Void damage modifier - And replace it with the above aspects to make it fair but also 'hardcore'. 3x damage is just a lame way to increase difficulty.

Unfortunately, I also realise there are still too many cheese tactics/frames that should also be removed from the game to make all these changes balanced.

 

4. Better Scaling Rewards

Right now there are not many incentives for players who love survival to stay longer than 20 minutes and rinse and repeat that mission. To cater to these endurance players, vets etc and not just the bite size community, rewards should scale with the amount of time/difficulty of the mission. I am aware that you might be touchy about giving rewards out too easily but there needs to be some better incentive even if it is a small one. If you are still against longer missions, then fine, don't include better rewards but at least fix 1.2.3 issues.

• Rarer (pre-refined) relics/mods over time - I believe this system is implemented somewhere in the game already? somewhere
• Cosmetic awards for endurance runs - similar to 1 hour index John Prodman poster. Won't affect normal drops but cosmetics are something that lots of bored players would not mind spending time on.

 

Please upvote/add suggestions if you are in favour of such changes. Thanks for your time!

This would make Survivals better for sure. Right now, Survivals is just a easier version of Sanctuary Onslaught because of how it’s the same mission for 100 mins or further and Life Support is relied a lot in Endurance runs. Not sure if you know this but enemies are Unalerted when you are using no Radar mods until they see you which can cause issues with Survival’s Spawn rate and LS which is lame. Not sure if you already have this listed but making the enemies Alerted at the start and further would fix that issue.

[Teridax68]

This thread makes some good points. Survival is mostly good, but has some serious opportunities for improvement. Thoughts on the different points:

1. I feel spawn rates should scale with the number of players, but then so should the Life Support drain or drops. In general, I think the methodology to any mission is that the spawns should reflect the number of players participating, but then the mission condition should itself also adapt. In Survival, one player fighting 5 enemies at a time should be able to survive at the same pace as 4 players fighting 20 enemies at a time, and in Excavation, a lone player should likely only need one power cell per extractor instead of 4.
2. Completely agree on individual extraction. More generally, I think this should be a thing in all public missions, with the exception of missions that have some end condition, i.e. Relic missions (and even then, I think Prime farming needs an eventual rework). Signing up with friends or invited people could perhaps also have individual extraction, but still retain players within the same group, but when players join public missions, they usually disband the moment they extract anyway, so they could auto-leave the group once they extract as well.
3. I personally agree on making life support generate in the same way as in Sanctuary Onslaught. Immediately regaining life support on kill would make for perfect consistency within the mode, particularly since that's the reason why life support drops exist to begin with.
4. I agree that there should be more and better ways to scale difficulty, particularly for people who want to challenge themselves and not have to wait too long to reach that point. Personally, I feel the central way of increasing difficulty should be to tighten the mission condition over time: in Survival, this should mean removing life support towers and/or increasing the drain rate, up to a cap, so that players are increasingly pushed towards frantically trying to kill enemies just to hold on. Modifiers and faster enemy level scaling could both help, but I think missions should still be able to scale up in difficulty without those.
5. I completely agree that we need better scaling rewards. I'd personally very much like to see a multiplier to rewards for each rotation cycle (i.e. the first AABC rotation gives you 1 of each reward, the second gives you 2 rewards per rotation, etc.), but if nothing else, having a special enemy for those really extended runs that'd provide a purely cosmetic reward would be the perfect acknowledgment of endurance runners, without pushing non-endurance players to stay for longer than they'd like.

Adding to the above:

• This isn't exclusive to Survival, but I think mission failures could stand to be made even more forgiving than they are now. Namely, failing a mission should not auto-stop the mission, but should instead let the player stick around and extract when they'd like, while also keeping their mission rewards. In the case of survival, there should never be a case of the mission failing upon reaching 0 life support; rather, it should always have the baseline effect of imposing an increasingly rapid drain on the player's health.

[GrayArchon]

9 hours ago, lolmetimbers said:

include option to scale spawns before/during mission - this can be in the form of a click option or equippable gear item like Infested Catalyst (Pizzarugi's idea)

How would this work with public matchmaking? You load into a mission, and the difficulty is way higher than you expected because the host picked the "start at level 80" option? Or would it only match you with people who have chosen the same option? That latter case would probably make matchmaking for Survival drop because you've essentially fractured the pool of people who want to play.

9 hours ago, lolmetimbers said:

Allow individual extraction in survival/excavation.

No argument from me there. This is long overdue.

9 hours ago, lolmetimbers said:

Life support should not be reliant on a Nekros/Hydroid to force enemies to drop more life support.

I agree with your statement as written, but your solutions both involve removing the interaction completely. I think life support should remain as a lootable drop, but increase the drop chance so you're not, strictly speaking, "reliant" on a Nekros/Hydroid to stay alive. I think having a Nekros should definitely make it easier, though. I like the idea that all frames are competent at all things, but there are some with niche specialisations that make them suitable for certain mission types, like Loki/Limbo/Ivara for Spy (spoiler mode notwithstanding).

9 hours ago, lolmetimbers said:

Include more random boss invasions over time - What if corrupted Vor or his cronies could attack you repeatedly?

9 hours ago, lolmetimbers said:

Remove the artificial difficulty 3x Void damage modifier

These sound very specific to Mot… are there any other random boss invasions? Maybe Syndicate death squads or assassins? Who are Corrupted Vor's cronies?

I think the 3x damage multiplier should be better telegraphed to players – there are so many who don't know about it – but I don't see any reason it should be removed. It's a callback to the times of Tier IV Void keys, and there's not much cost to allowing it to remain in the game – so long as it's telegraphed.

10 hours ago, lolmetimbers said:

Include random modifiers over time - Every 5/10min a random modifier could be added/enforced for a certain time period e.g - cold/fire/rad hazards.

I'm not too much a fan of this. When have those hazards ever done anything more than annoy the heck out of you? They certainly don't pose any real hazard. But it's a minor point; I guess I wouldn't complain about it.

10 hours ago, lolmetimbers said:

4. Better Scaling Rewards

I'm firmly aligned with DE's stance on endless missions, but I do think cosmetic rewards can and should be implemented for endurance players. That's the only way I can think of to reward endurance players without disincentivising "bite-sized" players. 

[ogmdevitry]

I came here for wrote a kinda asking , i mostly approve/share the same feeling, and im playin for years now, this game (i mostly do survivals cause ....its still the only place find challenge/co-op...and im sad about it...)

Single extractions for survivals/excavations or else endless, sure for people wich cant imagine warframe is (was ?) a CO OP game , wich can be "sometimes" or on "some nodes" a challenging game without "playing on PvP game" boring AAA full of cheaters/glitchers/unfair naggers (or bugged/unfinished games)

and im not even talking about players wich dont give a sh...about they're not playing with bots, and/or consider other players as "affinity booster" (wich is TOO much the case)

To do a nightmare mission AGAIN , even if we cant win the "loot" on the 2nd run, as for sorties, just for "havin fun"

Im not sure for rewards, as , ALL the time reward get better, people tend to kill the gamemode for "optimal farming meta method" (i dont give a sh...when they do this private/solo, but its never/near never the case), like we saw on sedna's arena , when people came for looting endo with nekros+nidus and insulting you for "playing the game"..., or on kuva's survival 'Why are y stayin more, the reward dont scale, we just have to launch another run, (to make a boring gaming loop FOR EVA )

For old/veterans of the game (or skilled players wich look for difficulty/challenge), pls...add us a simple high lvl method to "play with stuff we made / grind for YEARS , for playing, not to cheese/nuke on the game more and more easily"

*more spawn

*higher lvl at start

*higher ramp up of lvls

*more eximus/heavy units

*cap your aim algorythm a bit (cause its like fighting a aimbot dude after a bit , because IA shots trough doors/walls/covers and sometimes their weapons goes trough it )

*more oxygen drop (i players focused to stay a bit, but with more spawns it should suffice)

*and stay simple, no complex gamemode players will avoid cause ...."reasons"

*optimisations between host / cilents (cause host tend to be persecuted / tormented / priorised vs clients and i far as i remember it always be/was like this, its good on lower lvl but with aim algorythm it tend to be quickly unfair , as /vs it were before DE touch it , some years ago )

As i saw , and approve MAKE SURVIVAL (and wf in general ) GREAT AGAIN , for players wich WANT TO PLAY, and enjoy and arent on a "warFARMe only sheme/model"

i often say this to players wich are doin mission , and forgot why they play this game (or other games...) "what would you do when you will be on the top rank, full arsenal, and optimised mods/stuff ? " ,"stoping the game, cheesing the game like most mmo (i hate for most) " "or start to play a REAL challenging game , for push it to the limit, solo or coop for a decent amount of time" (i mean NO survival of 2h....cause clearly its too long...like, medically speaking)

Cause on most games , there is often (always ?) 1 or more high or stupidly high difficulty levels, but why does warframe dont have them ? Even if its for a minority of players (wich most got money to spent on the game instead of quitting it), cause most players i know(n) wich stoped playin warframe is mostly due to this lack of challenge.

(like NG+-++-+++ etc on Souls like games, suicidal/Hell on Earth/Realistic on games like killing floor , left4dead , vermintide etc solo/coop games...)

 

 

Ps: and please, respect your game, and take a look at Saryn, and her 1st skill wich can melt a game without firing a bullet , trough walls/floors (im exagerating a bit , but not too much )

Cause i can quote a part of the U20 patch notes wich said ; and was obviously right:

" As we near the staggering number of 300 weapons (including variants), the task of balancing grows increasingly daunting. At its core, Warframe is a co-operative game; having powerful tools is a boon to a team rather than a disadvantage. However, there are a few weapons that have such a dominating effect in missions that co-operative missions essentially become solo. Aside from the handful of dominating weapons, there are even more that have been overlooked. " (replace weapons by warframe and youre good )

Ty for those wich took time to read my poor english , and cya ingame soon for, i hope more challenging missions

Edited October 10, 2018 by ogmdevitry
a sentence wasnt clear at all/incomplete