Kuva Syphons are Horrible.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

 For those who still remember Fissures freshly after Spectres of the Rail update: Syphons are basically that but instead of being redone immedeately after the release, this kind of gameplay persisted for two years now. Enemies are just being dumped out of thin air on top of your head, while you're playing some throwaway mini-game.

 Mission modifiers like Syphons on paper were supposed to freshen up the nodes that nobody wants to play otherwise, but instead they create missions within missions where gratification happens somewhere in the middle, and the rest of the gameplay because of that turns into a mandatory chore that people just want to skip ASAP to get to the next Syphon. Rinse & repeat.  

 This is just bad on every level. Not even mentioning that players can basically Afk the entire thing while someone else is doing all the work, and still get the same reward. 

 Kuva Survival was a "step in the right direction", but DE don't seem to be making another one anytime soon. Especially cosidering that they have to balance the rewards of Kuva Survival against Syphons, so they wouldn't become obsolete. When Syphons offer objectively inferior and much more repetitive gameplay. While in the process supressing the Survival mission's endless potential with diminishing returns.

 This situation is a huge mistake.

 Suggestion: Why not change Syphon missions to be similar to Fissures as they are right now? Remove the Syphon minigame in its entirety and just spawn Syphons as enemies along the way to the objective, so players would kill 4 of those and get the Kuva reward after completing the main mission. Give Syphons the same invincibility Kuva Guardians have, if you have to use the Operator for something. And don't hide Syphons on the map. Mark them the way Capture targets are marked. And reward kuva only after the main objective of the mission is complete. 

 This kind of change won't magically salvage Kuva Syphon missions, as they probably should be gone from the game entirely, and replaced by missions like Kuva survival. But my suggestion would at the very least make Kuva Syphons a little bit more dynamic and more integrated with the flow of the rest of the mission. Instead of making the base mission an obligatory chore that you just have to suffer through.   

Edited November 1, 2018 by AperoBeltaTwo

[Errodin]

From my observation ... Siphons are backwards compared to Survivals ... strictly in the sense that you're destroying the siphon before it collects any kuva ... vice versa with survival where you're letting it collect kuva. 

I honestly like your suggestion more because it "feels right"., if we jump into a map and only have the mission (and not some half kuva/half exterminate) to destroy these machines ... and like you said 

23 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Give Syphons the same invincibility Kuva Guardians have

to make it more challenging than simply destroying a machine like in Assault missions.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Errodin

[AperoBeltaTwo]

5 hours ago, Errodin said:

From my observation ... Siphons are backwards compared to Survivals ... strictly in the sense that you're destroying the siphon before it collects any kuva ... vice versa with survival where you're letting it collect kuva. 

I honestly like your suggestion more because it "feels right"., if we jump into a map and only have the mission (and not some half kuva/half exterminate) to destroy these machines ... and like you said 

to make it more challenging than simply destroying a machine like in Assault missions.

 To be fair, I dislike invincibility very much, As well as the Syphon mission modifier in its entirety. My goal with this particular suggestion was to change the mode to what would seem (to me at least) a half-decent state without creating new assets or dumping existing ones. It still uses the same operator mechanic, it still uses Kuva Guardians. It could even still use the Kuva Clouds (if only as a decoration; although you could actually use them for something Syphon-related. Like making syphons actively gather Kuva, and perhaps players could intercept the cloud once and get a bit of a bonus to their Kuva reward. Or smth like that.)  

[Spectre-8]

7 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 Enemies are just being dumped out of thin air on top of your head, while you're playing some throwaway mini-game.

 

LMFAO

true that

Edited November 1, 2018 by Spectre-8

[IRVoidGuru]

A lot of this I simply do not agree with. Kuva siphon missions are in no way horrible. Perfect? No. the changes that you had mentioned are reasonable, but I don't see how they change anything to being better or worse in the state of how missions are played.

To say that siphons should be replaced with missions like the kuva survival makes me sad because to a player like me, gaining kuva happens much faster using siphons and floods. 

If I could add a constructive comment to this that I think would greatly improve the state of my personal gameplay and the gameplay of every player who enjoys high-end enemies, I would like to see more kuva floods at a time than just one

[Zoretor]

So, I fully agree the whole "spawn enemies in kiss-kiss range" is ridiculous, and your variation sounds good. I would add that each of the 4 kuva siphons "on the way" have the same behaviour as currently, with a butt-load of Kuva Guardians/Jesters and Kuva Grineer guarding them, and that each one is destroyed after just one operator-intercepted kuva cloud, which would still come from a random direction, pointing with it's outstretched arm.

Also it should be it's own mission type. As I've vehemently expressed in a rapidly forgotten previous post:

 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

13 minutes ago, (PS4)IrSchm33 said:

To say that siphons should be replaced with missions like the kuva survival makes me sad because to a player like me, gaining kuva happens much faster using siphons and floods. 

 "Gaining Kuva much faster," means you're playing hundreds of monotonous inconsequential missions that barely last 5 minutes each. You barely engage with enemies, your gear and your warframe are mostly irrelevant. You search for the syphon, you wait for a minute while the clouds spawn (perhaps even stealthed), you jump four times into the clouds as an operator, get your kuva, complete the whatever mission - by that point it doesn't even matter what the mission type is. You spend 70% of the mission parkouring back and forth, enemies can't really do much against you, unless it's a Flood, so fighting them is inefficient waste of time. And then you simply extract, you don't care about the mission's own rewards either. Resources don't matter, whatever mods there might be as a reward - don't matter. You hurry to another Kuva mission and repeat.

 I have a Riven with 116 rolls - and that's just one that's a record. Playing Kuva missions is toxic gameplay that made me quit this game. I couldn't stand it anymore. It doesn't rely on any existing mechanics over than parkour, it doesn't implement the build system in any engaging way, it requires the specific use of unpolished operators with their otherwise mostly useless abilities. And it is also the core gameplay of Warframe at the minute. The only gameplay that is connected with the most desirable rewards this game has to offer. 
 Keeping Kuva missions the way they are right now is asinine, especially considering how important kuva and rivens are in the context of the game.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

3 minutes ago, Zoretor said:

So, I fully agree the whole "spawn enemies in kiss-kiss range" is ridiculous, and your variation sounds good. I would add that each of the 4 kuva siphons "on the way" have the same behaviour as currently, with a butt-load of Kuva Guardians/Jesters and Kuva Grineer guarding them, and that each one is destroyed after just one operator-intercepted kuva cloud, which would still come from a random direction, pointing with it's outstretched arm.

Also it should be it's own mission type. As I've vehemently expressed in a rapidly forgotten previous post:

 

 They're not their own mission types because it's all mission modifiers for existing nodes. The logic behind this is that nobody ever plays those nodes unless there's a fissure, or kuva, or invasion on them. 
 Starchart was completely abandoned before DE discovered this crutch. That's why they want to balance Kuva Survival so it wouldn't yeald more kuva than syphons, so people wouldn't stop playing on those random nodes. 
 Dynamic rewards system might have solved this problem. It would have been preferable to just have unique enemies spawn on mission modifiers like Kuva Syphons with updated rewards on regular AABC rotations or by the end of a regular mission. But I doubt that's easy to do amidst reinventing the game every other patch.

[Solarsyphon]

11 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 Enemies are just being dumped out of thin air on top of your head, while you're playing some throwaway mini-game.

It would make more sense if the siphon itself had some combat ability or they were just already there. 

[AperoBeltaTwo]

8 hours ago, Solarsyphon said:

It would make more sense if the siphon itself had some combat ability or they were just already there. 

It could have been just the kuva guardians for all intents and purposes. I don't like their invincibility as a design choice, but DE had to shoehorn Operators somehow.

[IRVoidGuru]

13 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 "Gaining Kuva much faster," means you're playing hundreds of monotonous inconsequential missions that barely last 5 minutes each. You barely engage with enemies, your gear and your warframe are mostly irrelevant. You search for the syphon, you wait for a minute while the clouds spawn (perhaps even stealthed), you jump four times into the clouds as an operator, get your kuva, complete the whatever mission - by that point it doesn't even matter what the mission type is. You spend 70% of the mission parkouring back and forth, enemies can't really do much against you, unless it's a Flood, so fighting them is inefficient waste of time. And then you simply extract, you don't care about the mission's own rewards either. Resources don't matter, whatever mods there might be as a reward - don't matter. You hurry to another Kuva mission and repeat.

Yes to all of this, but never have I seen any of this is a problem

13 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 I have a Riven with 116 rolls - and that's just one that's a record. Playing Kuva missions is toxic gameplay that made me quit this game. I couldn't stand it anymore. It doesn't rely on any existing mechanics over than parkour, it doesn't implement the build system in any engaging way, it requires the specific use of unpolished operators with their otherwise mostly useless abilities. And it is also the core gameplay of Warframe at the minute. The only gameplay that is connected with the most desirable rewards this game has to offer. 
 Keeping Kuva missions the way they are right now is asinine, especially considering how important kuva and rivens are in the context of the game.

Can you please define toxic gameplay. Without a direct definition I am unable to understand what you were talking about. I have played these missions repeatedly and never once have I felt as if I have been intoxicated.

Requiring the use of an operator is also something that you imply as an unfavorable mechanic, my operator has every school and each skill in each School, my operator is fun, engaging, powerful, useful, and appropriate. You stated that operators are unpolished but what would you do in a Polish for operators?

[Zi-Sui]

I'm one of those people who can do a kuva flood eyes closed except for the main part, to actually destroy the braids. Somehow I manage to destroy them all sometimes, but often it's just 2 braids destroyed because I can't hit the damn things. I know you're supposed to dash through kuva clouds and that it needs to be pretty accurate but I just can't get it right. It doesn't help that no one can really show me how to do it because void dash is so damn fast you just don't see it.

That is the only thing I have problems in this game, in addition to soloing hydrolyst. But that's acceptable since it's supposed to be endgame. This however...

That why I support changing kuva siphon mechanics. But if I'm in the minority, I can accept it staying like this.

Edited November 2, 2018 by GOOFBALL1

[AperoBeltaTwo]

10 minutes ago, (PS4)IrSchm33 said:

Yes to all of this, but never have I seen any of this is a problem

 It's not an obligation for a player to notice these things. Or understand why they're bad. But you'd feel the difference if those things were taken into account when designing the missions. Depth and player engagement come from multiple gameplay mechanics interacting with each other in a meaningful and rewarding way. "Bite-sized" gameplay mentality doesn't allow for any of the mechanics to be fleshed out, let alone interact with the rest of the game's content.

20 minutes ago, (PS4)IrSchm33 said:

You stated that operators are unpolished but what would you do in a Polish for operators?

 

[Graavarg]

23 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

Kuva Survival was a "step in the right direction"....

Taveuni saved the game for me. I haven't done a single kuva siphon mission since Taveuni's kuva survival came online.

While one could argue that Taveuni is more monotonous than siphons, since it is always more or less the same (or at least "mostly inside" vs "mostly outside") I think it is actually the other way around (and you also describe this quite nicely). This is because "team play" is actually a much bigger feature of kuva survival, that is the combination of frames, builds & weapons you bring as a team. Even when doing PUGs, you every now and then get really nice combos.

An additional bonus is that with a despoiling Nekros onboard the general loot at Taveuni is quite good, though even more variance in the mod drop table would make it even more interesting. Before Arbitrations Taveuni was my main source of endo, since the amount of mod duplicates you have after a few hours of kuva farming is substantial (endo-wise). In addition to this extra endo-bonus (because kuva is what you are actually after) Taveuni also generates a decent amount of affinity & focus if you go a bit longer (= past 20 minutes). The 8x focus buffing Convergence Orbs also tend to spawn acceptably close to kuva siphons.

Overall I think kuva survival is a way better mission than siphons, with the possible exception of floods (with smeeta buffs, which makes you feel like winning the lottery 🙂).

I think your suggestions are pretty good. I also don't begrudge other players the siphon missions, but for me personally they could just as well be removed from the game.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Graavarg

[IRVoidGuru]

1 hour ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 It's not an obligation for a player to notice these things. Or understand why they're bad. But you'd feel the difference if those things were taken into account when designing the missions. Depth and player engagement come from multiple gameplay mechanics interacting with each other in a meaningful and rewarding way. "Bite-sized" gameplay mentality doesn't allow for any of the mechanics to be fleshed out, let alone interact with the rest of the game's content.

 

The operator suggestions you mentioned here seem more like a tyrannical mess, compared to the well-balanced and hard to achieve power of the current operator. I noted many many many things that would become a problem with these changes but what would be fixed using these operator changes? How would gameplay improve? Would the number of improvements outweigh the hours of programming along with problems that this change would cause?

It seems to me that you want to remove the easy to tame, set, limited, and predictable power of an operator, for a frame advancement. Allowing your frame as an individual to do more but in a team setting we are still limited by damage cap, adding more multipliers or making your single frame be better by adding your operators power to it doesn't seem like an improvement to the game to me. It seems like hatred for an operator being cried out " I don't like operators as they stand so please remove them from the game entirely".

Edited November 2, 2018 by (PS4)IrSchm33

[AperoBeltaTwo]

24 minutes ago, (PS4)IrSchm33 said:

compared to the well-balanced and hard to achieve power of the current operator.

You mean the on-demand invincibility? You could just play Wukong 24/7 for the same effect.

[IRVoidGuru]

11 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

You mean the on-demand invincibility? You could just play Wukong 24/7 for the same effect.

So your suggestion is that you dislike operators as they stand they need to be removed and I need to be limited to a singular frame? Also your suggestion is based off the assumption that the on-demand invincibility is what I want. I generally love all of my operator's Powers in three schools. Vazarin gives me void Dash heals and allows me to give invincibility to allies. in Unairu simply ducking down gives me and all allies invisibility and an 80% damage reduction(better then trin can do today) in the same stroke I Dash to remove enemies armor and remove half of their damage output, the armor removal stacks. Zenurik allows me to void Dash to give all allies energy, in low and exterminates I can kill all things by using lightning Dash effectively. My question Still Remains on how would gameplay be benefited from the changes in your operators rework suggestion? Would these changes outweigh the problems that would be created from the suggestion? Would gameplay from this be improved so greatly that it would make the hours spent in programming worth it?

Edited November 2, 2018 by (PS4)IrSchm33

[Eirshy]

14 minutes ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

You mean the on-demand invincibility? You could just play Wukong 24/7 for the same effect.

Firstly, it's 95% DR in most situations, not full invincibility.
Secondly, that would mandate a specific frame.

Thirdly, they're also (importantly) mobility, stealth, and a fallback weapon if Stalker decides to jump you when you're ranking up stuff.

Operators have a lot of very legitimate utility. Not sure what you have against them other than their angst.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Eirshy

[Zoretor]

18 hours ago, AperoBeltaTwo said:

 They're not their own mission types because it's all mission modifiers for existing nodes. The logic behind this is that nobody ever plays those nodes unless there's a fissure, or kuva, or invasion on them. 
 Starchart was completely abandoned before DE discovered this crutch. That's why they want to balance Kuva Survival so it wouldn't yeald more kuva than syphons, so people wouldn't stop playing on those random nodes. 

Being "mission modifiers on existing nodes" is irrelevant. People would still play the node.

What I was trying to get accross is that the "kuva siphon/flood" objective would override the regular mission objective. The node would be the same, though. Same tileset, same faction, same everything.

[AperoBeltaTwo]

19 minutes ago, Zoretor said:

Being "mission modifiers on existing nodes" is irrelevant. People would still play the node.

What I was trying to get accross is that the "kuva siphon/flood" objective would override the regular mission objective. The node would be the same, though. Same tileset, same faction, same everything.

Ah... That's what I meant when I was talking about dynamic rewards system.

[Invictus13307]

10 hours ago, GOOFBALL1 said:

I know you're supposed to dash through kuva clouds and that it needs to be pretty accurate but I just can't get it right. It doesn't help that no one can really show me how to do it because void dash is so damn fast you just don't see it.

The only thing you need to dash through are the guardians.  You can zap the clouds with your amp.  If you've got a T3 scaffold, you can literally 360° no-scope them.

[(PSN)teacup775]

Both floods and siphons aren’t much, especially solo. Park your frame out of sight, hang around as tenno usually camping within ear range for the braid. Pop cloud, zip out of view, file nails till the next one. Watch enemies fight each other, entirely ignoring them. Dose them with rad to help them along.

Kill enemies if you benefit from it but eh. It’s a bland farm.

It’s that or the survival for 20-30 min.