Defense Missions: the most boring endless typ in the game?

[fr4gb4ll]

sure, some people (or a lot) would argue that defections are more boring, but i would say that at least there we have to move around constantly and can't really camp in "safe-corners". also, the defense of a rather 'mobile' defense object (aka: the the damn bugger that can't stay in a safe location) isn't as boring as defending a static cryo-pod (though only after a lot of waves too).

but lets face it: the pace of combat in a normal defense mission is rather slow - not only because the time between waves, but also because the limited amount of enemies and even more because of hunting down those last few enemies that were unable to get to their designated killing zones (not to mention all those bugger who spawned inside walls and roofs in many defense maps).

even the other types of defense-like missions, the mobil defense or excavations are more interessting imo (even though mob-def is simply boring if not setup in a high-lvl enemy condition like in the sorties). mostly that is because of the constant flux of enemies we have to deal with. DE tried a variation to the one-point-defense way when they made the (stephanos?) uranus-defense where at least we had to switch position every wave, but somehow that made it even worse (not sure why i or others too dislike the map, but it's noticeable).

so, what could be done to improve on the defense-mission experience? in a way that won't change the base of the defense idea, ofc, else it would be a complete new type afterall... so please add what you think about this.

i'll start with:

• constantly attacking enemies - no time between wave and no need to look for stranglers/wall-spawns. just define a wave as "number of killed enemies".
• some kind of 'blending' of mission types like in the infested salvage or defection missions. make the defense mission more dynamic (but not alike to the "mobile defense").
• increased amount of enemies in higher waves and for more defenses with higher base level (e.g. sedna).
• a little more 'redundance' about killed enemies to prevent those bug-huntings of stucked enemies after each wave.
• rework of the defense maps to reduce the chances of 'mis-spawned' and otherwise stucked enemies and for a faster pace in general (reducement of travle time for the enmies).
• make waves time based, not killed-amount based.
• arbitration rotation system with a A-B-C-C-C-... principe to keep players in the mission longer in chance of the more rare c-rotation rewards.

Edited January 13, 2019 by fr4gb4ll
addition from feedback

[tCartmant]

17 minutes ago, fr4gb4ll said:

i'll start with:

• constantly attacking enemies - no time between wave and no need to look for stranglers/wall-spawns. just define a wave as "number of killed enemies".
• more variations in the kind of 'thing' we have to protect - better yet, more during one mission too. though, this would surely annoy frames like frost, vauban and gara if those def-object are mobile
• ?

You mean arbitration? 

There is the movable object in arbitration but at least he follows someone around and does not, usually, do their own thing.

The time between has been considerably lowered.

[Xzorn]

Defense is the most high stakes and for myself the most fun. Problem is the stakes don't exist unless you're 100+ Waves.

A player's 6+ Revives mean nothing if the Objective drops and you don't get to keep trying like Excavation.

It's those all or nothing stakes that can get players engaged and to be perfectly honest I think that's a huge problem in Warframe. The game simply doesn't punish players for failure anymore so no one cares or has reason to work together to better their odds of success and understandably no one wants to sit in a mission for 3h+.

[fr4gb4ll]

1 hour ago, tCartmant said:

You mean arbitration? 

There is the movable object in arbitration but at least he follows someone around and does not, usually, do their own thing.

The time between has been considerably lowered.

no, i mean the ordenary defense-style mission type. but as for arbitation, the lowered time between the waves is a good thing and ok for the higher levels of enemies and the one-life-only condition, but would be still too much for the 'normal' defense missions to make them more interesting.

11 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

Defense is the most high stakes and for myself the most fun. Problem is the stakes don't exist unless you're 100+ Waves.

A player's 6+ Revives mean nothing if the Objective drops and you don't get to keep trying like Excavation.

It's those all or nothing stakes that can get players engaged and to be perfectly honest I think that's a huge problem in Warframe. The game simply doesn't punish players for failure anymore so no one cares or has reason to work together to better their odds of success and understandably no one wants to sit in a mission for 3h+.

glad, you find them the best of the endless missions. and yes, the seemingly 'high stakes' is what should, in theory, made them stand out from the other endless. and you're also right about pointing at a big 'problem' with them: they only stop from being a sleeping pill after many waves... which you usually only reach when doing such mission with a team of friends - and even then i always had trouble keeping them from leaving long before we even got near to a demanding point ^^)

i even remember some longer defense runs where my main problem was to keep my eyes open (and sometimes failed at this with the consequence of failing the mission). there isn't something like this with other endless-types (at least not for me). i can't really point my finger to the why and suspect it's because the 'downtimes' and longer timespans of no action and maybe the lack of... panorama(?) we have when camping the whole time at the same location. i also suspect that might be why so often people get 'undisciplined' during longer times of camping in some missions and start to wander around somewhere instead of sticking to the team and/or mission objective (this goes also for survivals when camping is actually a good strategy at times). tbh, it's about harder to keep people at bay (and in the mission at all) than dealing with the increased difficulty of the enemies (at least, upto some point...).

your, not mentioned in name but in description, reference to the arbitration is a good example for the 'damocles sword' of an interesting addition: it realy does make even a boring defense mission far less boring when one have only one life and the mission objective does too, but it also makes people edgy when it comes to the question of stay or extract. something i seen many times now in those arbitrations in a pug-environment (and yes, that is still the most used way people play warframe, not the organized way) is that even if the last rotation(s) where exeptional smooth in the execution, it's rather rare to have a team that is even willing to stay upto the first c-rotation. staying longer is even more rare.

so even though the mechanic of arbitration is a good idea, it's hard put in place to the normal gameplay. and not because it only fits the 'endgame' niche, which it doesn't imo, but more because it feels like a 'modification' to the existing gameplay... kinda like the 'instagib' modification in old unreal tournament (which, btw, was one of my favorit way to play it ^^) - but ofc, that is purely my view on this.

[Femuru]

honestly even on endurance runs its very dull do to the fact all u need is aoe cc frames so all youll be doing is killing frozen enemies w/o any kind of worry ever really except for like a few nullies but that can be in anything. everything moving slowly, killing slowly, and lvl are progressing slowly as well so personally i think its dull cuz so as long u have a certain type of frame then u dont even have to worry about the objective anymore and yur killing/progressing like yur in a retirement home. several hours for dull low lvl enemies wen atleast in survival needs u to keep up kills so perma cc will only screw u over eventually making it more fun wit enemies scaling alot faster in a shorter amount of time if yur looking for those long challenging runs. interception is even slower wit just everyone spread out so idk if ppl even remember this mode sometimes and excavation is basically the same thing but atleast youre forced to run around so u are more likely to have those insta death if yur not careful. to me defense is the more ez cheesed and slow tip toe type mode where its alot more safer even in high lvl since there isnt any other condition needing to be met besides slowing the game down by keeping enemies from moving the entire time where i dont think really let warframe fast pace type of gameplay really shine.

[fr4gb4ll]

38 minutes ago, SutomuDrgn said:

honestly even on endurance runs its very dull do to the fact all u need is aoe cc frames so all youll be doing is killing frozen enemies w/o any kind of worry ever really except for like a few nullies but that can be in anything. everything moving slowly, killing slowly, and lvl are progressing slowly as well so personally i think its dull cuz so as long u have a certain type of frame then u dont even have to worry about the objective anymore and yur killing/progressing like yur in a retirement home. several hours for dull low lvl enemies wen atleast in survival needs u to keep up kills so perma cc will only screw u over eventually making it more fun wit enemies scaling alot faster in a shorter amount of time if yur looking for those long challenging runs. interception is even slower wit just everyone spread out so idk if ppl even remember this mode sometimes and excavation is basically the same thing but atleast youre forced to run around so u are more likely to have those insta death if yur not careful. to me defense is the more ez cheesed and slow tip toe type mode where its alot more safer even in high lvl since there isnt any other condition needing to be met besides slowing the game down by keeping enemies from moving the entire time where i dont think really let warframe fast pace type of gameplay really shine.

nicely put together, those are indeed the points which make defenses rather boring. so, what could be done to change this mission type into something more enjoyable?

in another thread i read about the complain to the many 'defense-like' mission parts we see in the orb valis bounties, and in truth, we indeed see many kind of defense in there - but at least those are more dynamic in nature, likely because we only have to do them as a rather small part of the whole bounty or maybe because the amount of incoming enemies and no 'wave' intermezzos of twiddling one's thumbs. so maybe it really only needs to remove those 'waves' alltogether and let the rotations be something like x-enemies killed (kinda like an extermination on endless-stage ^^)   but it also would change the defense mission to something like a survival-camping at the defense-objective... which doesn't too bad in my book.

[Scruffel]

Honestly I wouldn't mind if Defense was basic Extermination segments through each wave, in fact this idea would probably make me like playing Defense more. One reason why I really like Survival but dread Defense, is because its way more free-form on what you are allowed to do. You can activate the life support at any time, you can get life capsules at almost any time, and you can leave at any time (unless under 5 minutes) as well. But Defense feels kind of restricted since you have to kill the set amount of enemies that will spawn, which feels like forever sometimes (especially in a fissure mission) and you have to play the set amount of 5 waves in order to leave. Not saying that you should be able to leave after 1 wave, but maybe when you completed the first 5 at least? 

[MasterBurik]

1 minute ago, Scruffel said:

Honestly I wouldn't mind if Defense was basic Extermination segments through each wave, in fact this idea would probably make me like playing Defense more.

So something similar to the "Protect the Drone" bounty mission on Orb Vallis?

 

Kill X number of continuously spawning enemies to rout their advance, but be prepared for a more brutal onslaught on their next attempt.

[sam686]

The primary problem that makes Defense boring and sad is no enemies bugs.

Fortuna bounty have some bugs as well, mostly caused by host migration.

 

[toxicitzi]

The big problem I have with them is, waves take too long and are way too long winded at times. After initial waves, you get constant swathes of mobs to throw at you for whatever reason, going on for 5-20 too many enemy squads that spawned in one single wave, but always thrown at intervals and going on for far too long. They can't come all at once, everyone knows that, but they should come more frequently to speed things up.

Second and I posted about this, there's a glaring bug around them jumping on Crates. only to then jump back off them and back on them, rendering them stuck in a loop. It happens on Earth, it happened even on Mars, it happens anywhere these useless background objects are placed for their pathfinding to work, why those dumb Crates even exist or passed QA testing is something I won't understand.

 

These missions need a serious rework, or should be changed with Infested Salvage. Personally, I find those to be the best blend of survival, interception and excavation, rolled into 1, the problem is, THERE IS LITERALLY ONLY 1 SINGLE MISSION OF THAT TYPE And its rewards at C rotations, are taken by Nidus parts.. Why the #*!% did we get more Defection spread across, instead of that one!?

Edited January 11, 2019 by toxicitzi

[fr4gb4ll]

8 hours ago, toxicitzi said:

The big problem I have with them is, waves take too long and are way too long winded at times. After initial waves, you get constant swathes of mobs to throw at you for whatever reason, going on for 5-20 too many enemy squads that spawned in one single wave, but always thrown at intervals and going on for far too long. They can't come all at once, everyone knows that, but they should come more frequently to speed things up.

Second and I posted about this, there's a glaring bug around them jumping on Crates. only to then jump back off them and back on them, rendering them stuck in a loop. It happens on Earth, it happened even on Mars, it happens anywhere these useless background objects are placed for their pathfinding to work, why those dumb Crates even exist or passed QA testing is something I won't understand.

indeed, i always wondered why we can face far more enemies at once in other mission-types (e.g. survival, excavation, defection) but seemingly so few in defense where, usually, the whole team is in on place. might be the devs thought it better not to overwhelm the players and, more so, the defense objective... but that goes only for rather inexperienced and/or unprepeared players. those who know what to expect come into a defense mission with the right tools (frame and weapon-wise). so, why not overwhelming the player(s) is a good thing in the first few, low level defense missions, it's a bit too boring for players of higher difficult levels. i'm not sure how they made the scaling of enemy-amount toward increasing waves and also about the starting "base enemy level" compared to a lowere one (meaning: how many enemies are spawning in a mercury defense first wave compared to the first wave of a sedna defense), but i have feeling there is one in place - though it's still far too easy for my taste and the difference between a lvl5 enemy and a lvl40 haven't been an issue for me in a long time... so if there isn't at least 8 times the amount of enemies too in a sedna defense than there is in a mercury one, it still feels too easy (and boring) for me.

tl;dr: aside from the used 'wave' system with a fixed numbers of enemies or the "needed kills per 'wave'" method we see in the valis defense-segments, a better scalling of the amount of enemies for higher waves and higher starting level might help too... though this might only stretch the whole mission more and make the dread of defense mission even worse.

oh yes, and the damn bugs... i nearly forgot them. nothing is more annoying in a mission where one acts like the monster-magnet (or the defense object does) and the damn enemies are stucked on things (or even IN things ) and forces us to go bug-hunting them. and in cases where they stucked in walls and roofs/bottoms, woe those players who came into the mission with a weapon or frame able to do aoe-damage far enough into those surfaces...

DE surly needs to rework those defense maps... and hopefully they rework the whole system while at it too (hence this thread here).

9 hours ago, toxicitzi said:

These missions need a serious rework, or should be changed with Infested Salvage. Personally, I find those to be the best blend of survival, interception and excavation, rolled into 1, the problem is, THERE IS LITERALLY ONLY 1 SINGLE MISSION OF THAT TYPE And its rewards at C rotations, are taken by Nidus parts.. Why the #*!% did we get more Defection spread across, instead of that one!?

glad to hear there are others who think the same about this mission type. even with all those bugs that made them nigh unplayable first, i found the idea of it superior to the normal defense type. i think the mistake DE made here was to put the nidus parts behind a grind-wall of those missions exclusively - more so than they did with other frame-parts before and after. it might have been a good idea on paper (or lore-wise), but they should know by now how the playrs react to such sisyphus-work like ways of grinding. i guess that ruined a lot of the infested salvage type for many player. luckily, i was 'blessed' and got my parts really quick and could 'enjoy' this new mission unbiased when helping my clan-mates out with their grind. come to think about it, nidus wasn't the first time the devs done this - atlas was a similar case, maybe worse because the dislike of AW many people had (and still have).

as for the reward system there... and i guess in general too, they sure need to think of a more fitting way for it too - the system might have been ok years back but with more and more stuff added to the game it needs a rework (and hopefully they think a bit more carefully this time than they done before introducing the relic-system...). but this is another topic for another time and thread ^^)

[Teridax68]

I'm mostly fine with the suggestions, except I'd be more in favor of measuring Defense in terms of time spent (just like Survival), rather than enemies killed. Basing every mission on kills, or at least a mission type centered around waves of enemies coming to your location, just reinforces a kill-centric meta where the most favored frames are the ones with oodles of radial damage, and everyone else just gets in the way. By contrast, one based on time in cases like these leaves more room for CC frames as well (and kill frames would still be amazing on account of the Affinity they'd generate). In general, the issue I take with Defense is that a) enemies usually come in only a trickle in many cases, and b) there are some pretty long pauses in-between waves that I think break up gameplay when there doesn't need to be a break. If it were just one continuous horde of enemies pouring in, and the player's job would be to hold out for as long as possible, irrespective of waves, the mode could become much more interesting, and more accommodating of various frames (no more issues of Nyx or Revenant pausing the entire mission because of their mind control abilities).

Edited January 12, 2019 by Teridax68

[fr4gb4ll]

1 hour ago, Teridax68 said:

I'm mostly fine with the suggestions, except I'd be more in favor of measuring Defense in terms of time spent (just like Survival), rather than enemies killed. Basing every mission on kills, or at least a mission type centered around waves of enemies coming to your location, just reinforces a kill-centric meta where the most favored frames are the ones with oodles of radial damage, and everyone else just gets in the way. By contrast, one based on time in cases like these leaves more room for CC frames as well (and kill frames would still be amazing on account of the Affinity they'd generate). In general, the issue I take with Defense is that a) enemies usually come in only a trickle in many cases, and b) there are some pretty long pauses in-between waves that I think break up gameplay when there doesn't need to be a break. If it were just one continuous horde of enemies pouring in, and the player's job would be to hold out for as long as possible, irrespective of waves, the mode could become much more interesting, and more accommodating of various frames (no more issues of Nyx or Revenant pausing the entire mission because of their mind control abilities).

agree. but one thing i have to say is that if you compare survival to defense, keep in mind that the amount of kills in survival are important due to the droped ls... which just brought me an idea of letting the enemies in defense drop something that heal or bolster the defense object... ah wait - isn't this just like infested salvage then? ah, anyway - the idea is out now ^^)

[MasterBurik]

38 minutes ago, fr4gb4ll said:

agree. but one thing i have to say is that if you compare survival to defense, keep in mind that the amount of kills in survival are important due to the droped ls... which just brought me an idea of letting the enemies in defense drop something that heal or bolster the defense object... ah wait - isn't this just like infested salvage then? ah, anyway - the idea is out now ^^)

We're going to need ingredients, so search defeated enemies and see what you can find.

You're looking for muriatic acid, caustic soda, and hydrogen chloride.

Remember to be careful! We can not use the wrong ingredient. You need to be careful!

[DrivaMain]

3 hours ago, MasterBurik said:

We're going to need ingredients, so search defeated enemies and see what you can find.

You're looking for muriatic acid, caustic soda, and hydrogen chloride.

Remember to be careful! We can not use the wrong ingredient. You need to be careful!

*Payday 2 cook off flashbacks intensifies*

but anyways back to topic, defense is very inconsistent in wave lenght. Making it one of the reason why people refuse to farm relics there. changing it from kills to time to defend per wave would be a good fix.

 

Edited January 12, 2019 by DrivaMain

[-Sentient-]

They may be boring, but its the place where you show your skills on defending something that isn't you.

[fr4gb4ll]

On 2019-01-12 at 3:45 AM, MasterBurik said:

You're looking for muriatic acid, caustic soda, and hydrogen chloride.

omg yes... how i hated it when he was wrong of the ingerdient and the lab blew up around me ^^)

On 2019-01-12 at 7:26 AM, DrivaMain said:

but anyways back to topic, defense is very inconsistent in wave lenght. Making it one of the reason why people refuse to farm relics there. changing it from kills to time to defend per wave would be a good fix.

yes, agreed. a fix time would put it on par with survival (minus the "freedom of move"). add to this more enemies, depending on 'wave' and base difficulty, and it actually could be enjoyable like survivals too.

On 2019-01-12 at 7:31 AM, -Sentient- said:

They may be boring, but its the place where you show your skills on defending something that isn't you.

if it only were this way... true, i though so in the beginning too, but after a while i realized that even a rather unskilled player with the right frame can secure the defense object for at least 60 min in a t4-void defense. and now, count how often you got into a pug where people actually stayed this long in a defense mission... since the change to relics, i even had a hard time to get clan mates and friends to do so. before, at least you got out more from one void-key if you stayed long - with relics this isn't interesting anymore. not saying the relic-change was a bad idea, but it sure made some mission types far less appealing than before.

it might be of help too, if DE would change the rotation-principe of "A-A-B-C-A-A-B-C-..." more toward the arbitration one of "A-B-C-C-C-..." at least for defense - this would not make it less borin if this would be the only change, but it would give an incentive to stay longer in it.