(Update 24.4.0) OPERATION: Buried Debts Feedback Megathread

[Sentinel-14]

Alright, so I finally finished this craziness last night, and I have some thoughts on it.

Data Hashes
These were annoying and would have been impossible without the map; thank you for providing it. However, given that several of the hashes are in caves, the map does little more than say "in this general area" and does not in any way show us what we're looking for. At least with the glass fish in PoE I knew what I was looking for: a glass fish. Further, I was convinced I was in the wrong area for one of them because I couldn't find the well-hidden entrance to the side-chamber where the hash was located. I fully understand why many are resorting to video guides for this tediousness. That said, if you have a guide on hand then it's not a particularly difficult job to find them. Took me about an hour, give or take. I wasn't rushing around but finding some of the cave entrances was a bit of a struggle.

Suggestion to DE: when a person has found all 16 hashes and visits the panel for the first time, please put a permanent (new) waypoint marker on the map. As it is I'm going to have to find my guide again when part 2 drops to remember how to get back to it.

• Tips for players
  • Do this solo, or with a group dedicated to doing it. Don't go out with a bounty or fissure group and not help them. Don't be that guy.
  • since you're going to be in caves, might as well get some mining and fishing done. Pop a resource booster if you have one before you start.
  • if you bring a Helios to auto-scan the hashes for you, be aware that there is no notification (like you get with ceph frags and somachord tones) to let you know you scanned the right thing. So if you bring Helios, he might scan a fish, a plant, that bad guy 200 feet away....... or he might have scanned the data hash. You wont know for sure until you find the hash and try to scan it yourself.
    • I dont know if Loot radar works on these things: I forgot to equip those mods when I did this
  • Eudico and Zuud will pop up with a bit of audio every 3-4 scans: not every scan. Don''t rely on them to let you know you scanned the right thing.

Thermia Fractures
Oh, where to start with these. Grindy, repetitive and bug-ridden: that's how I'd describe it. But, overall, not complicated and certainly not "un-fun" as I have seen many accuse. It's just Mobile Defense guys, same thing we've been doing for years. Yes, there are some bugs with the thermia cans: I did at least 7 consecutive fractures with the same canister once and have no idea if it actually counted any of them (lost track of how many I had overall). Other times the can would just spontaneously de-spawn. The groups I was in found that if we put a single person on 'can duty' it helped lower the risk of can bugs, though that takes coordination and communication among the team. That's not to say it requires voice-chat: I never used voice and got along fine.

100 fractures seems like a bit much but it's doable: I did it in 2 days and I'm only an average player with average gear. There's still 11 days left. Granted I basically did nothing else in the game, but it's not unreasonable: it's just tedious. Of course, if you don't care about getting the Opticor Vandal then why bother at all. I actually rather like it despite it being weaker overall than the regular Opticor. I find the Vandal much more useful in close-quarters (like indoors) since it charges faster.

• tips for players
  • Limbo makes this pretty easy as Cataclysm seems to make the can invulnerable, or at least some combo of his powers does. Not entirely sure here: I didnt run the limbo in my groups.
    • in a pinch, or as a supplement, a high-strength min-range Frost can help.
    • If you bring Frost, break your globe when you leave the point. It's courtesy.
  • If you're not running a clan or friend team, Use the Navigation panel in your Orbiter to queue up a PUG. They put it there so you could avoid just walking into the elevator and possibly getting stuck with bounty runners, ventkid rep grinders, and miner/fisherman.
  • Once in a group, designate a single person for 'can duty' to help prevent bugs. Make sure they understand what that means.
  • waypoint mark any fissure you see as you're going around the map: it'll help you get to them quicker. When the fissure is closed, un-mark the waypoint. (so many guys forget to do that....)
  • when you start round 4 on a can, the guy on Can duty should go get a new can while the other 3 hold the point. This way you can pick up and head to the next fissure immediately.
  • Keep the alert level low: target the beacons as soon as you see them or it can get really hard, really quickly.
  • Target big enemies first, like Jackals and the bigger spiders

Overall, this event isnt as bad as I originally thought it would be. It'd be nice if things were released without a timer though: it'd give DE a few days to see what bugs inevitably pop up so they can fix them before putting players on a countdown. Right now a lot of players are hearing about the bug problems and are thinking "why should I try this if it's just going to bug out?" It's a fair complaint, though not exactly new: we've had bug issues in this game for a long time.  But still, running it through the live servers for a few days to iron out the bugs would go a long way toward enticing people to play.

But those are just my thoughts.

[Hera.Ci]

Is Opticor Vandal ever going to be brought up to the base version's level? I get that it's supposed to be a variant with more focus on "quality of life", the Ferrox already exists. I like Opticor, I don't want to use Ferrox. I feel deceived that we got a totally different weapon, and now a proper Opticor upgrade can never happen.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_IGN]

Really DE?  nothing cool done to Conservation??  Oh boy!!!! I can mine rocks silently???!!!!  lol.  JUST WHAT I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!!!   

-No sniper scope for tranq gun??   

-No weak spot detector??

-No auto-equip matching pheremone for whatever lure you are using??  

-No pathing AI fixs for Sawgaws?

-No animal track visibility uprades/fixes???

Conservation is one of the funnest things you have put in the game please do not neglect it.    If you wanna do something for mining, I dont know,  add a widget that makes ore spots emit light so they are easier to see,  a widget that makes rare gems appear more often in common veins,  a widget that adds a little extra width to each node hit spot(mainly rare hitspots).  

But seriously who the heck decided mining stuff over conservation?  

[Etzu]

Il y a 7 heures, Kuldor a dit :

It doesn't matter, at all.

 

Do you really think if we don't get to 100% they won't release hildryn parts/the new boss? this is absolutely scripted and buried debts is just a timer, they will release it regardless of our contribution, they just never expected us to NOT get to 100% (edit: even if we don't get to 100%, the event will probably complete itself gradually during the last days, I'm not even sure if the current % is community based or scripted).

 

They are not going to work on something for months and then trash it because we didn't scan a tiny thing on the map. In other words, the importance of the event is next to 0.

They said the event will "occure multiple time", they could just delay it due to community failure.

ESPECIALLY if community decide to boykott the event by not doing the scan cause "it's annoying".

[Kuldor]

2 hours ago, Etzu said:

They said the event will "occure multiple time", they could just delay it due to community failure.

ESPECIALLY if community decide to boykott the event by not doing the scan cause "it's annoying".

Yeah, and anger a community because a new frame can only be bought with platinum until the event happens again, such a good plan, no fissures.

 

It's a dumb movement no matter how you look at it, the event will complete itself regardless of what the community does, that's easier for everyone.

[Udoshi]

Hey DE,

 

Please bring back quick melee and also a BLOCK KEY. melee passive blocking is broken and doesn't even stop shots from right in front - the hit reg and deflection angle need improvement - but more importantly, we need a key to press that 'just blocks', and doesn't stop doing it the moment you hit any other controls.

 

I really miss being able to use one handed actions like a fireball while blocking.

 

Give us the option to bind an active block key (Right mouse button in melee mode please) that also functions as 'whip out hte melee' button. I like 'gun in hand at the touch of a button' but you need that for melee as well! INstant block key serves both functions!

[Azrael_V]

The lack of any in-game information and the fact that I was forced to use the Wiki just to get started basically set the tone for a really bad experience.

What happened to players clicking on the event in the Orbitor, Ordis directing you to Fortuna and Eudico simply giving you the lowdown on what's happening? I feel you guys really dropped the ball here. 

As a solo player the rinse, repeat nature of the Thermal Fractures bounties are just excruciating with no way to speed up the process. Basically between 4-5 hours of tedium and when I reached a 100 points I just felt sick. I averaged at least 20 minutes a cannister including getting the cannister and looking for the 4 fractures and all for 7 points. Why not add different activities or different quest stages to get the 100 points similar to the bounty system we currently have or other events like Operation Plague Star and the Ghoul Threat. Yes we are essentially doing the same mission types but the context and variety makes all the difference. 

[Steel_Rook]

Melee:
I like the new system. It reminds me very strongly of melee combat in Relic's Space Marine game, with separate buttons for shooting and melee and no real "state" distinction between them. It has a lot of teething problems, however, not all of them due to its incompleteness.

Swapping from melee to firearm via shooting needs to be smarter. Currently, it swaps back to the previously-used firearm, which can cause the player to drop a carried cannister if said firearm was their Primary. The swap should prioritise swapping back to the player's Secondary if the player is carrying an object. Swapping from a carried Archgun to a Melee weapon also causes combo issues. I've been completely unable to perform combos with pauses in them until I unequip my archgun entirely.

Weapon swapping outside of melee attacks now feels slow and clumsy in comparison, especially when it comes to gear items. Consider instituting instant weapon switching between primary and secondary weapons, as well as primary/secondary weapon and gear item (Scanner, Mining Laser, Fishing Spear, etc.). Swap out of gear items intelligently, returning the player to their previously held firearm via both the weapon swap key and reactivating the gear item, with a preference for secondary weapon if an object is being held in the left hand.

The entire combo system is full of inconsistencies. While I realise fixing that is part of the plan for Melee 3.0, the current loss of quick-melee has made the problem substantially more apparent. Animation rooting is inconsistent between weapons and between the now-defunct "Quick Melee" and combos. The prevalence of lunge attacks in combos makes some weapons very hard to use. Combo timing grows harder to nail the faster melee speed becomes because "pause" durations shrink. I recommend doing some kind of stopover temporary solution before holding off for the full system redesign.

Tying mobility to weapon use is becoming problematic. Glide and Latch being tied to aiming was always a problem, but it has become far more apparent with the new melee system. Plenty of people liked the "melee glide," but that no longer exists as the same button now switches to a firearm because it also triggers aim. Please consider separating the movement aspect of glide and latch from aiming down sights. Either remove ADS from Glide and Latch, switching from melee to firearm only when the player attempts to fire, or move the Glide and Latch mechanics off to a different button. I'd propose gliding via holding the jump hey and latching via the crouch or roll keys.

 

OPERATION: Buried Debts, Fissures
Thermia acquisition is bugged in a potentially frustrating way, causing it to not be saved if the players leaves Orb Vallis via quitting from the menu as opposed to leaving via the Fortuna elevator. Considering how slow Thermia is to gather, loss of resources by using a mechanic which is supposed to retain resources is not acceptable. This might have been changed, but I've seen nothing about it in the patch notes.

The particle effects from the lava fissures is absurdly bright and vision-obstructing, especially the intangible but opaque rocks which often spawn hanging in the air. It's very easy for Terra Corpus units - especially smaller ones like some Moas - to stand almost on top of the cannister and shoot at it while being effectively invisible from the outside. Enemy Scanner helps only a little because the minimap is so zoomed out that tracking precise enemy positions is difficult. Worse, the Terra Corpus are clearly able to see and shoot through the lava effects while the player can't. Never, EVER let the AI detect and fire through obstructions that the player can't really see past. Bushes, tall grass and other "intangible" objects already cause enough issues of getting shot through terrain.

The lava fissure event itself is very boring and static for how many times it has to be run. It's indistinguishable from a Mobile Defence mission and the fight varies only depending on what enemies spawn in randomly. This leads to combat difficulty varying wildly, with some fights spawning a Jackal and two Arachnids while other spawning just basic troops the entire way through. Additionally, the initial "three star" alert fades quickly, which reduces difficulty significantly towards the tail end of each defence stage.

Four fissures per full cannister is one fissure too many. Three fissures - standard for Mobile Defence - would have been preferable. It cuts down on the repetition slightly (58 fissures vs. 50), it gives a slightly higher margin for error with slightly low sunk costs and it injects a bit of variety more often as players need to acquire cannisters more often. Whenever an action needs to be repeated multiple times before a change of pace, generally don't have us repeated more than 2 or 3 times. The fourth time is where the repetition really starts to drag on.

I don't get the design goal of the Opticore Vandal. I get that it's a faster-firing, faster-reloading version of the Opticore but the 60% loss of damage (1000 vs. 400) with a lower Puncture component offsets the majority of those changes and I'd argue makes it a less useful weapon. While the standard Opticore was admittedly too slow and clumsy to use, the whole point of using it was to have an instant-kill Spartan Laser / BFG. By dropping its damage this significantly, it becomes little more than a clumsy sniper rifle. I still want it, but I'm wondering why the damage drop was THIS severe, and why a drop in the AoE damage - which was already terrible on the vanilla Opticore - was cut in half, as well. Again - what's the design goal here?

 

OPERATION: Buried Debts, PDAs:
Subjective anecdotal feedback here so I'll be brief: This smells like an ARG and I don't like ARGs. A scavenger hunt for tiny, easily-missed items in out-of-the-way locations is already problematic and should be achievement fodder rather than a main component of an event (they're essentially Kuria). Deliberately giving next to no information to players makes the patch notes come across as annoyingly glib, in the "I could tell you, but I won't! Mystery!" way. I'm sure there are people who enjoy that so more power to them. I googled all the PDA locations, so at least it wasn't grindy.

[LuckyCharm]

Thank gawd theres still a bit of time left on this. With literally all my warframe playtime being taken up trying to complete saturn six i may not even get the chance to finish this event with how grindy ALL the major recent updates have been. 

[Duduminador]

While I did enjoy my time on the event I'd like to bring up that Vallis is by far the most RAM intensive landscape/activity in the game, due to that some players objectively avoid going over there at all. I've met people who said they can't load Vallis since it crashes their game. Now consider that to do the Data hashe hunt you HAVE to keep a browser loaded along with the game, possibly watching a video.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Duduminador

[Twistedsparkle]

whew Im finally done with the event and I am exhausted

partly my fault coz theres plenty of time to complete the event but gosh darn I just wanted my opticor vandal :DD

thats actually my impression of this event
it was exhausting and the first time I went to vallis I was so clueless what to do

theres no proper indication that you need to go to temple of profit to find a coolant cell

matchmaking was quite buggy at times but otherwise it was smooth sailing for me atleast

maybe more varied and better explained objectives and less repeating next time?

so far Im loving mah new lazer cannon and appreciating the new mods so it was worth it in the end ^^

[beol]

On the maps:

If you're going to do an ARG, do an ARG.  You put some work into making a scrambled map .. but how many people actually played with it? You could have had a web page with an interactive map that everyone could have unscrambled for themselves, or something like that. Instead, a few friends of a few streamers/youtubers actually played your minigame, and everyone else just looks at the solved map. Wasted effort, wasted opportunity. 

 

On the hashes:

I've found 12/16 so far. Actually, I found like 4 of them. Helios found the rest .. somewhere. He wasn't terribly clear about where or what they were. I have no way of telling which ones I've found. #1 in the orbiter list is C1 on the maps, so it's not the same order. 

 

On the fissures:

 Seems grindy. 58 of them, assume no despawning/accidentally thrown/etc canisters. Yeah. 

 

On standing walls:

I still don't know if I'm going to be able to actually do the boss fight, and if not, if the fight/frame parts will be available full time after the event, or if it's a "you're hosed if you're not max [insert tedious standing here] when the event is active." Clarity would be nice .. and obviously, one answer is much, much better than the other.

To be clear, I think the main blueprint is fine as it is, I'm talking about the unknowns, and locking bosses behind max standing in general. 

 

 

[--RV--Waltz]

After quite a few very long runs in arbitration I finally acquired the seed step ephemera I have an issue with how noticeable it is in comparison to other ephemera, are there any plans to make the patches of grass thicker and taller, or perhaps grow as you are stationary as opposed to only appearing as you walk?

https://imgur.com/ymXxu8d

Edited March 13, 2019 by --RV--Waltz

[Fallen_Echo]

On 2019-03-11 at 7:51 PM, Sentinel-14 said:

Limbo makes this pretty easy as Cataclysm seems to make the can invulnerable, or at least some combo of his powers does. Not entirely sure here: I didnt run the limbo in my groups.

Limbo can help but only till some of the interdimensional bosses appear like the raknoids.

Zephyr turbulence makes a great work against most units there.

Frost is a must for the said interdimensional busses.

[CoffeeElemental]

В 11.03.2019 в 21:51, Sentinel-14 сказал:

Target big enemies first, like Jackals and the bigger spiders

I'd add shield ospreys in that list as well. If you let them spread their bubbles - the canister will be destroyed in a second.

[Xyhon]

New melee made using Syndicate weapons with quick melee obsolete, which is really something bad considering I could get affi from team to actually proc status/armor/energy whatever. It seems you had not done enough tests on how it impacts PVP and some PVE combo either. As far as I like the idea of flow of the combat, either make syndicate procs independent of the weapon, or fix current situation with them other way.

[czechart]

Data scans have reverted to being undiscovered, despite scanning all of them. SO now i'm stuck with them being undiscovered and not being able to scan them again.

[TheFBD]

On 2019-03-11 at 7:51 PM, Sentinel-14 said:

• • If you're not running a clan or friend team, Use the Navigation panel in your Orbiter to queue up a PUG. They put it there so you could avoid just walking into the elevator and possibly getting stuck with bounty runners, ventkid rep grinders, and miner/fisherman.

I actually didn't know about that feature - and i tried it several times today. I think you're mistaken there, clicking on it will just get you into a random squad in orb vallis, just as if you would click on the orb vallis node. Tried it 4 times today, ended up in several fishing groups and one squad doing bounties. None of them used the nav panel to get there.

It would be a good idea for DE to add a separate squad matching just like for teralyst hunting in poe.

[Mad5cout]

Formula:

Put half the new content behind a platinum paywall for a week+.  Make players grind over 50 of what are essentially excavation missions with new graphics and call it an "event."

(IE: don't actually add any new playable content other than a few weapons mods)

[Aphyxia0]

So my feedback on the event.

Thermal fractures are okay. They were explained well enough in-game and even if they are quite boring and long, there is plenty of time to do them and the rewards are unique, though we have no idea what the new resource is for so that's worthless at the moment.

The scanning. Well, I'm sure it sounded good on paper or else it wouldn't be in game. But there are multiple things wrong with it:

1. No in-game explanation. This means that you instantly lose a huge chuck of casual players who will NOT scour the Internet for a map you gave to partners. Hell, I watch many warframe youtubers and had no idea a map existed until I came upon it by coincidence. This brings us to the second point.
2. Serious over-estimation of player-participation. I don't know on what you've based your estimations on, but if the only "explanation" there is in game is a table of undiscovered entries, no rewards or information on what and where to do. The normal player will not bother. Warframe is mainly a game about killing hordes. Participation in deviations of this will always be low. Especially if it's scouring a huge map for tiny items to scan.
3. Finite participation. No matter how hard I try, there is no way to help more than once, since after scanning all the items once, all I can do is sit and wait. Being a community event, I don't know if you expected us to go to relays and recruit random people to help scan or what and if so - please, I have better things to do.

I'm glad you decided to accelerate the scanning process by a large margin, since at day 4 it was just 16% with most active players already having scanned all. It would have been quite the S#&$storm if the event were to end at the 14 day mark with under 50% scan progress. Honestly this whole scanning thing should've just been a quest that when completed, would allow you access to the continuation, instead of just having to wait a week. Since, you know, with the map, it truly was fun going around and looking for the scan targets for an hour.

[Loza03]

Overall the defence portion of this event's a bit... 'eh'. Buuut, there is one bit I'm very pleased with.

We're finally making use of more areas of the Vallis!

Took us long enough. Honestly, it's made going back to regular bounties a depressing experience because I still know exactly where I'm going, whereas with Fractures we're fighting all over the shop! On roads where we have to deal with frequent Coildrive interference, in fungus forests where there's frequent cover and on mountainsides where we have to fight up and down the high ground. It's honestly breathed new life into Vallis combat for me since I'm no longer spending 90% of my time fighting on a flat plane in a well-maintained corpus facility with good foundations. I want more variation in terrain, and this event gives it to me!

[the_llama_from_space]

curently i think the event was ok..just ok, dont feel strongly agaisnt it or with it personaly howerver here is my feedback

fracture farm

is it boring ? yes yes it is, repetetive and boring, is it the worst even ive seen in warframe or any game for that mater ? no by far not, but besides that it could have been better, as i found it just to be a bit meh

 

data hases

this could have been done so much better, i meen...really this ? i had to look up a writen guid to find them all, and wile im glad i did i sholdnt have had to do that, the data hases should have been a side thing, a litle secret for the lore hounds like myself to find, just small secrets intredused during the event, not a larger part of it, i think that insted of making us look for the data hases to progress the event, it should have been tied to the fractures or a day by day arg to better entise more players, the first fortuna arg was a huge sucses and was a lot of fun to partisepate in, and it dident take a lot of new content to do, just a lot of structering and planing, there should have also been side objectives, like take over x amount of corpus bases, coclet x amout of dudads ect ect, just small side goles to shake up the fracture farming, making it less tidius in the prosses 

 

ofc everything is clearer in hingesight, but i think this the weakest event warframe has had to date

[nokinoks]

This event is creatively bankrupt. I know it's a free game but this is literally 4 rounds of mobile defense.

[Supern00b7]

OK so it's has been a week since this operation has been launched. I believe there are  issues which has to be addressed:

Operation: Buried Debts

It is really, REALLY TOUGH to find where the Data Hashes are. The data hashes are so small, compared to the humongous structures of Orb Vallis. I understand it's similar in play-style to the "Thousand Year Fish" entries (Plains of Eidolon) but we are given endless time to find them, and this entire scanning is limited to 14 days. 

Thermia Fractures

Alright, I'm fine with taking 2.5 mins to seal 1 fracture which is very long on its own, but I will just treat it as an "event thing". I also gave in to a lot of time spent in hunting fractures all over Orb Vallis, I allocated 2-3 minutes. That's about 5 mins per fracture, and 20 mins (5 x 4 fractures) to complete 1 thermia canister. Horribly long for a mobile defense type mission, isn't it ?

What ticked me off the most is canisters cannot be filled simultaneously. Meaning, if I have friends/public players together, everyone have to sit on that 1 fracture for 2.5 mins. Why not make it like Excavations or Interceptions where players can choose to guard the objectives together?

We can mitigate exhausting another 20 mins per 1 canister when a team of 4 can fill 4 canisters together? It promotes players to play together too (c'mon, we all Lift Together !!!)

Do rework this, and I believe it would be more enjoyable, considering Diluted Thermia is required for Part 2 of this event and I can predict intensive farming will be needed.

Hildryn

Nothing much to say, just curious why put up a frame that cannot be obtained completely right now other than the main blueprint? 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Supern00b7

[Noxifer]

Thanks for the Amalgam mods!
However, when it comes to the scans... for the love of god, please don't make such an ARG-like operation ever again,  where I have to go to external sources in order to find out what to do. Just put it in as a regular quest with objectives, that at least explain what must be done in-game. I like to play video games, not to alt+tab and search on the internet.