Spy Missions Frustrating and far to convoluted

[ShakariPsy]

New to warframe and loving everything except spy missions.....

There getting almost to the point where I am not enjoying the game because of there stupidly convoluted design.... having to run and fail the same mission again and again because getting to the end point is a lot of the time so far removed from being "accessible" without watching 3rd party videos which remove any fun from doing them... they are a frustrating chore ... not fun.

Its like herding cats .... frustating, I like a challenge but get past saturn and they seem stupidly complex and tbh I don't have the time to spend 20 min a mission for it to fail and then repeat, I'll just find video's. However I dislike using "walkthroughs" for this however its mandatory.... seems a silly design where you can't complete a mission with ingame information and it not end up in a frustrating mess.

Does anyone have any guides to maknig these mission actually vaguely doable with some enjoyment,

[WarmongerExtraordinare]

just get yourself a loki looool

or you know look up vids on youtube about the correct completion of each room

[Rhyandra]

I think they are unfun but.. they are fast and not hard at all. And no, watching "walkthroughs" is not mandatory at all. I can assure you that most of the playerbase has never watched a video about spy missions (maybe with an exception of the sealab and kuva fortress ones since they are really bad if you don't know where to go).

[Duavey]

Spy missions become easier with experience, especially as there are a limited number of vaults. If you're new at this, it will help you to slow down and not rush. Find an observation point, watch enemy movement, and look for suspicious tunnels, vents and interact-able objects.

There are typically 2 ways to get in: a sneaky way and a brute force way. Sneaky ways involve side passages/vents with obstacles, brute force is basically walking up to the vault entrance door and hacking it open, typically ignoring the stealth bonus. Stealth frames make vaults much easier as you don't have to worry about being spotted, but they're not required.

Remember to bring appropriate equipment as well. Ciphers will allow you to auto hack a panel (quick key command is "Y"). Obtaining Air support charges and using a Liset dropship will allow you to stall a timer if you do get spotted. Also consider a Synthesis Scanner from Simaris, which will allow you to scan for nearby enemies.

And last but not least: Run Spy missions solo. Always. Even if it's a Lv. 80-100 Sortie with Energy Drain modifiers.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Duavey

[mosaickle]

This reminds me of myself when I was just starting WF. Guys don't worry about this guy, he's just tilted like I was when I failed my first spy mission.

To OP, honestly you know for a fact this post was a tiltpost you needed to make to reassure yourself that your first few failures at spy missions weren't on you, but on the game. You're not worried about the game, you're worried about your confidence in game. All the other gamemodes you've played through were hard to fail and suddenly hitting this one tainted your player confidence. Just know that spy missions, aside from getting from point A to B to C, is probably the least 'normal WF' gameplay since you can't "hack and slash" your way through spy missions. They need patience, a certain amount of patience to learn and execute, a certain amount of patience you'll feel unwilling to display for the first few spy missions.

So to OP, honestly just keep playing, we know this ain't actually enough to make you quit.

And to the rest of the people, don't worry about him, he'll be fine.

[(PSN)xstatic900]

2 hours ago, ShakariPsy said:

Its like herding cats .... frustating, I like a challenge but get past saturn and they seem stupidly complex and tbh I don't have the time to spend 20 min a mission for it to fail and then repeat, I'll just find video's. However I dislike using "walkthroughs" for this however its mandatory.... seems a silly design where you can't complete a mission with ingame information and it not end up in a frustrating mess.

Nothing in that great big whine is true.  They are actually pretty simple, once you find a proper strategy for the frame you are using.  And it isn't difficult to find the proper strategy.  It will just take you a couple practice runs for each layout to just explore a bit and figure out what to do.  Then you always know how to do that particular spy room.  I can do any spy mission with 99%+ success in about 6 minutes, with the exception of Lua.  You complaints may hold somewhat true for that one.

[ShakariPsy]

6 hours ago, mosaickle said:

This reminds me of myself when I was just starting WF. Guys don't worry about this guy, he's just tilted like I was when I failed my first spy mission.

To OP, honestly you know for a fact this post was a tiltpost you needed to make to reassure yourself that your first few failures at spy missions weren't on you, but on the game. You're not worried about the game, you're worried about your confidence in game. All the other gamemodes you've played through were hard to fail and suddenly hitting this one tainted your player confidence. Just know that spy missions, aside from getting from point A to B to C, is probably the least 'normal WF' gameplay since you can't "hack and slash" your way through spy missions. They need patience, a certain amount of patience to learn and execute, a certain amount of patience you'll feel unwilling to display for the first few spy missions.

So to OP, honestly just keep playing, we know this ain't actually enough to make you quit.

And to the rest of the people, don't worry about him, he'll be fine.

Far be it to speak for myself lol ... what ever a tilt post is I have no idea thats all in your head...tbh I think your just trolling  ... *shrugs" as your post actually has nothing constructive in it.

Would suggest from comunity perspective to not bother posting at all if this is all your going to post as a suggestion.

However, thanks to the other who actually replied constructively. I don't expect any of the mission to be easy the 1st time, the difficulty it a moot point, but I would like them to be fun and not so critical of a single mistake, I'm sure there's guys like Mosaickle and xstatic900 who just walk though everything with there eyes shut with no problem, though they seem totally oblivious to being new to a game, kinda sad really they do seem to lack empathy for anyone but themselves *shrug*

Patience with good game design I have always have had, patience with design that makes the task a chore much less so, its all about being engaging, not frustrating, just because there repetitive doesn't mean they have to not be  enjoyable, no doubt they will become predictable, there just not the most user friendly when starting.

 

[ShakariPsy]

8 hours ago, GerberaOverture said:

just get yourself a loki looool

or you know look up vids on youtube about the correct completion of each room

Yeah Loki is on my to get list 🙂

[novalery]

Watching walkthrough seems mandatory... silly design because one not able to finish with ingame information... 

May i ask what ingame information do you expect to get?? A spoon fed information like lines that will lead you where to go and what do.

I’m sorry but i’m not gonna agree with your argument. The game give more than enough info on how to finished spy missions

Personally i didn’t watch any walkthrough for spy missions. I study the room carefully. The spy rooms are design well enough that give you lots of hints on what you can do. Thats how i get my “ingame information” that help me finished these missions. I suggest you should too.

And keep in mind you can climb wall, break an already broken vent cover, walk in a vent, blow up a red explosive barrel, jump over a laser, crawl under a laser, destroy any shiny things.. and many many more... 

dspending on what you notice about the room design and what you already know about the room, reaching the hacking room can be done in multiple ways. I’m not talking about brute vs sneaky here.  There really are many different paths that you can take to reach the hacking console.

so i suggest to go back to the low level spy mission, where there’s not much things around, and study those rooms completely. When you reach saturn you should already understand this fact, that there are multiple ways, and in the look out for them

[mosaickle]

1 hour ago, ShakariPsy said:

Far be it to speak for myself lol ... what ever a tilt post is I have no idea thats all in your head...tbh I think your just trolling  ... *shrugs" as your post actually has nothing constructive in it.

Would suggest from comunity perspective to not bother posting at all if this is all your going to post as a suggestion.

However, thanks to the other who actually replied constructively. I don't expect any of the mission to be easy the 1st time, the difficulty it a moot point, but I would like them to be fun and not so critical of a single mistake, I'm sure there's guys like Mosaickle and xstatic900 who just walk though everything with there eyes shut with no problem, though they seem totally oblivious to being new to a game, kinda sad really they do seem to lack empathy for anyone but themselves *shrug*

Patience with good game design I have always have had, patience with design that makes the task a chore much less so, its all about being engaging, not frustrating, just because there repetitive doesn't mean they have to not be  enjoyable, no doubt they will become predictable, there just not the most user friendly when starting.

 

A tiltpost is a post someone makes when tilted by something, whether that be toxicity or game balance or whatnot. If you think I'm just "trolling" then you don't know what trolling is. Trolling would be intentionally making someone elses' mood lower relative to theirs so the troll can feel satisfaction knowing their 'mood is relatively higher than the person getting trolled'. If I were to troll you I'd simply say something classic like 'git gud' or something like that. You're speaking like you're a new player and thus the only spy missions you'd be playing would allow the mission to be completed even with just one retrieved data. Besides, the most obvious 'learning method' would be to study the actual spy tileset you just failed. Your post made it seem like once you fail a spy mission there's absolutely no other way to progress other than to alt-tab the game and go on YouTube/other general third party sources. That's how I learnt spy missions, I fail them, take a look around at what I triggered or who I aggro'd or whatnot. I'm flattered by your passive aggressive remark on my (non-existent) ability to walk through everything with my eyes shut. However much I'd love to have that ability, that's really not how I progressed through spy missions (or any other game). I don't 'lack empathy for newbies', I just lack empathy at people who blame the game design despite knowing that there are other ways around it.

Although there's some aspects of Warframe that are quite newbie-unfriendly (modding for instance), there's still a large part of Warframe where the potential for fun/enjoyment is from discovering things yourself. I remember there was this one Warframe review that covered this, where you are taught to run and soon sprint, jump and crouch, and eventually you're going to accidentally press jump while sliding and find out that it's a feature, sooner or later you're jumping in the air and want to aim down your sight or block and discover that you glide through the air for more distance. Of course fun is subjective, but honestly I can't stop doing spy missions because they require more than just being 'god mode' all the time (e.g. exterminates, survivals, endless missions etc).

Either way, in probably under a month you'll forget about your frustration you had from learning spy missions. They're very much a one time learning mechanic. Once you learn it whether from trial and error or searching up external sources, you won't need to learn them ever again. That's why I made that reply, because this frustration as a newbie with spy missions is not only very relatable, but also so minor when you sink another month or two into Warframe in general. In half a year or so you'd forgotten you made this post entirely.

 

So honestly, just keep playing. I doubt spy missions will cause you to quit Warframe; if you keep playing this problem will naturally disappear. Besides, this post ain't gonna cause DE to change the way spy missions work anyway.

[mosaickle]

10 hours ago, Karu-QW said:

I think they are unfun but.. they are fast and not hard at all. And no, watching "walkthroughs" is not mandatory at all. I can assure you that most of the playerbase has never watched a video about spy missions (maybe with an exception of the sealab and kuva fortress ones since they are really bad if you don't know where to go).

The Sealab one is truly aids. I decided to learn them the hard way and honestly my god are they aids. However it's not so much about them being a new tileset or them being a spy mission, but the fact that it requires sharkwing. Sharkwing and Spy Missions do not and should not go together.

 

Besides, Uranus tilesets are like bugged 80% of the time lmao

[DatDarkOne]

On ‎2018‎-‎12‎-‎22 at 1:58 PM, Duavey said:

If you're new at this, it will help you to slow down and not rush. Find an observation point, watch enemy movement, and look for suspicious tunnels, vents and interact-able objects.

 

On ‎2018‎-‎12‎-‎22 at 1:58 PM, Duavey said:

And last but not least: Run Spy missions solo. Always. Even if it's a Lv. 80-100 Sortie with Energy Drain modifiers.

These are probably the best suggestions for doing spy missions.  The running them solo is the part that allows you to do the first one without being rushed by team members. 

15 hours ago, mosaickle said:

The Sealab one is truly aids. I decided to learn them the hard way and honestly my god are they aids. However it's not so much about them being a new tileset or them being a spy mission, but the fact that it requires sharkwing. Sharkwing and Spy Missions do not and should not go together.

This one is actually resolved by using the same methods I quoted above.  That and remembering that you can shoot the power cells of the underwater fans to stop them.  Itzal is also the perfect AW for spy missions.  

[(PSN)ZeusDeOGod]

Best exp mission if you have 3 people if equip 1 weapon you may can lv 1-30 in8-9  mission and 4-5 mission if have exp boost 1 round use time around 2-3min if 3people 

[DatDarkOne]

1 hour ago, (PS4)ZeusDeOGod said:

Best exp mission if you have 3 people if equip 1 weapon you may can lv 1-30 in8-9  mission and 4-5 mission if have exp boost 1 round use time around 2-3min if 3people 

You can knock that time down to just 2-3 missions if you also stealth kill the enemies.  1 with a booster.  That's all doing it solo with a stealth frame or a frame that can help you keep stealth multipliers up.  

[mosaickle]

5 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

This one is actually resolved by using the same methods I quoted above.  That and remembering that you can shoot the power cells of the underwater fans to stop them.  Itzal is also the perfect AW for spy missions.  

I can't remember the last time I ran public spy missions yeah, also I just so happen to like Itzal for stealth and got it before I actually came to Uranus entirely so I guess I still had an upper hand in learning

[DatDarkOne]

Just now, mosaickle said:

I can't remember the last time I ran public spy missions yeah, also I just so happen to like Itzal for stealth and got it before I actually came to Uranus entirely so I guess I still had an upper hand in learning

The real key to spy missions is just having patience and observing the environment so you can learn it.  Something pubs just won't allow you to do. 😄 

[Teliko_Freedman]

Definitely solo them.

PUGs generally don't trust other people to do it or don't know how to do it. So they just literally bruteforce their way past everything, hoping to beat the deletion timer, then settling for reduced rewards.

My suggestion for Spy missions is to use any enemy radar mod to observe how enemy movement usually goes. Eventually you can remove the mods once you get an idea of how they move.

However, Offtopic: I'm not sure if it's just me, but stacking a lot of enemy radars seems to spawn a serious increase in enemies outside the vault areas.

 

 

[(PSN)XxDarkyanxX]

Il y a 5 heures, DatDarkOne a dit :

This one is actually resolved by using the same methods I quoted above.  That and remembering that you can shoot the power cells of the underwater fans to stop them.  Itzal is also the perfect AW for spy missions.  

I'll offer a better alternative ; Elytron

Go right after opening the gate, launch your fourth ability in the very first fan, this will destroy literally every button.
From there on, proceed to the middle of the fan you just shot your missile at, go up the pipes, get out of the water and use the ceiling vent that ends up right above the console.
No unnecessary hacking needed, and no time wasted fighting the button mechanic, takes about 40-ish seconds to do when you know the way.

The two other rooms barely require any archwing.
Elevator room ; jump in the water, go under the elevator, go up while avoiding the static laser pattern ( Right, left, middle ) -> Vault

Big sea-lab vault ; Go down the stairs OR go straight up to the right directly after opening the door, bypass the lasers, enter the vent -> vault.

I don't think there really is any benefit for having itzal in the sealab, there's not much to look at and there's no enemies to hide from.

Other than that, observing the environment and trial and error like you said works for every other spy vault in the game.

Edited December 24, 2018 by (PS4)XxDarkyanxX

[Teliko_Freedman]

For the underwater fan one, I just go around a bit more and end up at the door outside the vault area. No need to jump through any acrobatic hoops, and it's kinda hard to fail the grineer hack puzzle timing.

 

[(PSN)ZeusDeOGod]

57 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

You can knock that time down to just 2-3 missions if you also stealth kill the enemies.  1 with a booster.  That's all doing it solo with a stealth frame or a frame that can help you keep stealth multipliers up.  

Stealth kill weapon can’t use with very low damage weapon or auto rifle and some time will slow down for make chain continue or invisible off or miss chain up to luck Yes if lucky one mission may be 1-30 but I ever do that with melee weapon that have catalyst and melee only + namaron. Spy with friend will guarantee time 1-30 before 20 min and easy got Meso relic too no boost then 30 min still better then defense mission. Ext can give more but need more skill or luck and low reward. Better thing is soloable

 

problem spy fast is Ivara only limbo can too but will risk exp got when operator mode amp got exp not weapon. Loki will have problem with laser use switch teleport will alert enermy

[DatDarkOne]

17 minutes ago, (PS4)ZeusDeOGod said:

Stealth kill weapon can’t use with very low damage weapon or auto rifle and some time will slow down for make chain continue or invisible off or miss chain up to luck Yes if lucky one mission may be 1-30 but I ever do that with melee weapon that have catalyst and melee only + namaron.

None of that is a problem for solo Ivara.  The only way that you wouldn't be able to get stealth kills with her is if the weapon has a mechanic that stops it or is just really really bad at damage like the Seer.  Even then you don't have to do the higher level spies as you can use the lower level enemies to help keep the stealth multiplier up for faster affinity gains.  

I have ranked up so many MR fodder weapons using both methods to know that the solo stealth multiplier spy mission way is by far the fastest method.  Some frames just make doing this vastly easier than others.  Ivara being the main one that does this.  Speed Nova with a group in Defense mission being the second fastest method.  Spy missions have the nice benefit of giving affinity without killing a single enemy just by hacking the vaults.  

Edited December 24, 2018 by DatDarkOne