Glast Gambit is an awful quest line.. and how to make it good with minimal effort

[Horyzon]

I get that "do 3 of something" is a video game cliché but this quest line really takes it to the next level. You have to do 3 gates. Fine whatever. Next 3 matches of the Index with 3 rounds each.. testing my patience now.. And then 3 MORE rounds of the index, with a condition that you can't win by too much, and winning by too much not only fails the mission but you lose all your credits too?? It's bad enough you're risking 160k for a pathetic 20k profit, but losing all your credits because you won too hard? That isn't enjoyable in the least. 

I had been holding on to points trying to keep the score line from increasing for either team, but apparently an enemy broker snuck past me and beat my score by one lousy point.. so I either didn't turn in and lost.. or I turned in another 10 points (plus bonus).. and I "won" but still failed the mission. Oh good! Choices!

Fine, whatever. I failed the mission. That would waste my time spent on those last couple rounds, but that would be a fair outcome. It wouldn't feel like a low blow. But now I lost the investment despite being ahead on points, even though the real Index doesn't work that way at all.. so I have to go play the real Index to get enough credits to come back and play this fake index again.. /facepalm

The only reason I don't ragequit that quest is that I know there's a juicy carrot waiting for me at the end in the form of a powerful and interesting warframe. It's unfortunate "interesting" is the last word I would use to describe his questline, and "aggravating" is probably the first. 

In contrast the Octavia questline was awesome, though it also had a case of the 3's. Sands of Inaros also had the 3s but it was tolerable and the story elements made the quest overall quite interesting--I actually wanted to finish my 3's ASAP to continue the narrative.

Please make more quests like Octavia's Anthem with unique, cool encounters.. and fewer quests like Glast Gambit with "hey let's take a game mode we already have and make it WAY more frustrating and less fun to play! And then let's make them play it 15 times in a row!!"

Edit: Further suggestions on how to greatly improve this quest can be found on my later post, the long one with a SPOILER warning at the beginning. 

Edited February 13, 2019 by Horyzon
update

[Horyzon]

WAaaaaiiiitt.. 

 

Did I say I would have to do the real Index to get credits for the fake Index?

Ahahahahahaha.. That would be too efficient!

I apparently CANT do the real index until I finish this damned quest! 

*walks away screaming maniacally and pulling out hair*

[Dhrekr]

Fun fact: every person in my clan managed to do the Glast Gambit without much problem.

I found it quite entertaining, honestly.

 

If you have difficulty, I suggest you go to the recruitment chat and ask if someone who knows how to play helps you to beat the quest.

[Horyzon]

Bruh. I don't need someone to do the quest for me. And CONGRATULATIONS on beating the quest! So what?

The quest is not "difficult." It is TEDIOUS. It is FRUSTRATING. Big difference.

Dark Souls is "difficult" but Dark Souls is fair and rewarding. Dark Souls is fun as hell.  Dark Souls remains one of my favorite games of all times.

Glast Gambit punished me for winning too hard. Then it forces me to go grind mindless Phobos defense missions for 25k lousy credits a pop because it not only took all my credits for winning too hard.. it also locked out the best credit farm in the game until the quest is complete. That's not difficult. It's bulls___!

Edited February 12, 2019 by Horyzon

[Dhrekr]

20 minutes ago, Horyzon said:

The quest is not "difficult." It is TEDIOUS. It is FRUSTRATING. Big difference.

As I said and you didn't pick up, I actually liked it.

Not all quests have to be the same - "go there, smash the enemy, wipe the floor with their guts", rinse and repeat. Every now and then DE releases a quest that deviates - here you are required to play strategically for five minutes.

But noooo, someone had to try to smash the enemy and wipe the floor with their guts anyway.

22 minutes ago, Horyzon said:

Glast Gambit punished me for winning too hard

The game told you what the victory condition was. You did not manage to satisfy the conditions to win. Therefore, you lost.

 

Anyway, DE isn't going to rework this quest. That much is obvious.

[Horyzon]

Apparently you didn't even bother reading my message which explains the situation of how I lost having nothing to do with "wanting to smash the enemy" which begs the question of why you're wasting both my time and your own replying to my feedback here?

You liked the quest? Cool. I'm happy for you. It doesn't change my experience or my view of the quest in any way whatsoever, but congratulations again?

I found it to be the worst quest in this game and one of the worst quest lines in any game in recent memory offering nothing but tedium and repetition. 

DE won't rework it? Yeah I didn't really expect them to. But at least I did my part giving detailed constructive criticism, while also venting my frustration a bit. /shrug

And perhaps more importantly than them going back to rework this quest, I maintain a tiny little hope that they may see feedback like this and for future content deliver more like Octavia's Anthem and less like this garbage. 

Edited February 12, 2019 by Horyzon

[Gurpgork]

Totally with you on this. I played Glast Gambit years ago, and you're absolutely right. It was appallingly bad. It reminds me a lot of the Hidden Messages era of quests, where you literally just ran missions that are already in the game, only with voiceovers. The difference here is that there's an extreme layer of frustration on top of this. 

[(PSN)wintersfrozen]

Its not punishing you for winning its punishing you for not doing what you were told to. The challenge of the quest is supposed to be point management. You are only allowed to win by X amount of points higher then the other team. Don’t run around with 10+ points in the last 10 seconds then complain when the AI gets 1 point higher then you. My recommendation is keep it at about 3-5 points below you and only keep 1-3 points on you. You can manage that then your good. Don’t die, don’t let your specters/team mates die and just run around waiting for time to tick down. The quest isn’t that difficult or tedious its clearly just not what you wanted it to be.

[Horyzon]

An update having progressed the quest further.. 

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

 

This quest could have been good. It honestly isn't even that far off. I can see how someone would like the quest if

1. they never failed a round throughout its completion and thus did not lose their credits and have to grind for more, or

2. they had a ton of credits and losing 100k-160k wasn't a big deal

For someone who fails both of those points (like myself), this quest is absolute bull___.

I completed the encounter the second time around, only to get to the supposed-to-lose battle. I figured ok so die 3 times and then Lotus shuts off the cheat and I can win? No.. it's still on. Wait and Lotus comes through then I can win? No... it's still F*ing on. I literally screamed out "What!?" on the "Defeat!" screen. Did I screw up or this was a supposed-to-lose?

Great. It's a supposed-to-lose. Spy mission to shut off the cheats.. ok fine.. you better tell me I don't have to go grind credits again. 

"Neewha.. blah blah blah"

I don't care.. you better tell me I don't have to go grind credits again.

"Triune blah ablah blah" 

I don't care.. you better tell me I don't have to go grind credits again. 

"blah blah blah.. we will bid this McGuffin!"

Oh thank God!

 

I couldn't enjoy the narrative of the quest because the only thing I was interested in knowing was whether or not the game would contrive a reason for me not to have to pay the entry fee again. Thankfully for my sanity, it does just that. 

 

Like I said this quest could have been good. And it wouldn't even have been that hard to make it good. Here's how:

1. Cut down the damn repetition. NINE rounds of "qualifiers"? No thank you. Make it three.

2. Make it function like the regular index: ahead on points but don't complete the objective (in this case victory margin instead of point total)? Mission failed, but YOU KEEP YOUR INVESTMENT. You can try again without having to go grind for damned credits.

3. You can keep the supposed-to-lose encounter in there, but you could reassure the player they weren't just cheated out of 160k credits by doing something like have Glast say "Alright Tenno, the plan moves forward. While you get the codes we need, I will work on a wager that is sure to catch [baddies name]'s attention." 

4. Want to actually make it difficult in a fun way? Have the victory margin condition active throughout the qualifier rounds. Maybe make the victory margin narrower as you progress, saying you have to convince the guy he's drawing nearer to victory. Start at a 20 point margin, go down gradually from there. Maybe final round requires only a 5 point margin--but to make this NOT Bull___ you have to give players the safety net of not losing all their credits. Making a quest feel like it has high stakes is great. Making the player have to go grind low level, boring content for credits IS NOT great.

And there you go. This quest is now good. Shorter, but good. Maybe even great.

 

PS: Hey btw DE, why did your forums just add a bunch of "Â" characters to my empty lines when I edited my post? Now I have to edit it again. 😠

Edited February 13, 2019 by Horyzon
update

[Horyzon]

After slugging through all those frustrations, I will admit the ending to the quest was satisfying.. I'm even curious what the alternate ending choices might have said.. buuuut the quest overall would have been so much better with just a couple changes.

If it hadn't been such a slog I might have even replayed the quest to find out the different outcomes. Instead I might go look it up on youtube.

I still stand by my suggestions detailed above. Although instead of saying "make fewer quests like Glast Gambit" I'll say: please make quests like what Glast Gambit should have and could have been.

[Poisonjack]

11 hours ago, Horyzon said:

WAaaaaiiiitt.. 

 

Did I say I would have to do the real Index to get credits for the fake Index?

Ahahahahahaha.. That would be too efficient!

I apparently CANT do the real index until I finish this damned quest! 

*walks away screaming maniacally and pulling out hair*

You can by making another quest active, but that is kind of a lousy fix

[rotterdxm]

I just started playing this quest (and The Index) today, and wow. It's not often that I get burnt out on a new game mode within the span of a few hours, but you did it, devs.

First 3 x 3 rounds is fine, though expensive. But the 4th series?

Easy fix: don't make it cost such a ridiculous amount of credits to do the victory condition attempt.

• Serious AI point scoring, pathing and spawning shenanigans in the 4th Index matches. Friendly specters and opposing team.
• And there's the victory margin condition.
• And it has to be won three times in a row without losing.
• And that costs you 160k creds per attempt.
• (And there's a long tedious grind for the parts in a C rotation which takes 20 minutes at a time.)

Would like to see how the quest ends, but will probably not try again for a long while. Months, probably.
And what happens if you complete all other quests except this one? Permanently blocks access to the Index until you complete it? That's a showstopper.

Was considering buying Nidus for plat eventually, just to skip all this, but to be frank I don't want to pay money for that specific Warframe because one phase of its quest is horrendously misdesigned. And from what I've been reading, that is exactly what many people do. This is base game content. Fix this.

[Kingsmount]

I've never been more frustrated, insulted,  bored, or felt cheated,  by a game than with the Glast Gambit.  One of the top 20 worst quests in gaming,  as far as serious quests are considered and not junk games or MMO "quests". 

I'd rather take a sander and sand away the top layers of the skin of my arms and then rub some salt on it, or hear "A NEW HAND TOUCHES THE BEACON" a thousand more times,   or sit through Skyrim's pitiful introduction sequence 100 more times,  than play the Glast Gambit,  but I feel like I have to as I want Nidus (and want to progress storylines).

 

Index is obnoxious enough on its own, and invalidates most frames (Like a lot of Warframe likes to do it seems...),  without the awful modifiers and dumb AI teammates that do nothing but die and give the other team points.   And WTF is with the rewards?  You could at least make it pay out as much as the real index if you're making us lose 100's of thousands of credits on the quest.  MORE credits than normal index would be fair all things considered.

Edit:

Managed to win anyway.   I think there are three main problems.

1) 100,000 credits is on the line for no reward, only 20k.  This makes people feel stressed and bitter.

2) Repetition.  Constantly doing the index.

3) Index itself is an obnoxious game mode that is impossible to play as most frames, the only safe or reliable choice is Rhino.  Index, like many aspects of warframe, goes out of its way to punish frames that focus on abilities.  Pointlessly I might add,  as weapons are just as overpowered except the game doesn't constantly shut your weapons down.

Trying to play Index, let alone Glast Gambit,  as anything other than Rhino is an incredibly painful experience.   And then you have to have optimized weapons on top of that.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Kingsmount