(Update 24.4.0) OPERATION: Buried Debts Feedback Megathread

[Skyguard1]

great job on exploiter! Being able to maneuver is wonderful and not be locked down by knockdowns is nice. A little bit more indication (such as waypoints) on what we're supposed to do would have been nice. I also encountered a bug where i could not enter operator mode. other than that I can't wait for the weekend to really farm this boss! WooHoo! good job DE!

[EmperorofFlame]

Love the Operation, love Nightwave, loooooooooooved the fight against the Exploiter.  Thanks DE.

[Phais]

Overall the new boss was a fun challenge to fight, but some aspects need tuning.

 

1. for the first phase using thermia, it would be nice of the condensers mad a louder noise when they drop a canister.

 

2. It is not clear if we are supposed to directly hit the frozen vents, or if we are supposed to throw the canister near them and then shoot them midair. If it is the former, then a larger explosion radius on the canister would help with hitting the harder to reach back canisters, especially if the Orb's hit box causes the canister to explode earlier.  If it is the latter, please remove the delay between throwing and being able to fire as I missed many shots due to the canister flying too far during the lag.

 

3. the line showing the trajectory of the canisters is misleading. I had several canister clip a ceiling and explode early even when the trajectory showed it passing well below the ceiling. 

 

4. For the outdoor phase, a hint relating to usage of the fractures would be helpful I spent several minutes wondering why the Orb kept auto cooling itself even when I was wiping out spiders before they could release their coolant. 

 

5. in later stages of the outdoor phase, Coolant Raknoids are spawning too fast to allow the boss to spawn more fractures. This makes the fight grind to a halt if all of the previous vents were used up. adding away to enrage the boss and have her attack more often for a period would help generate enough heat to hit the fracture level without removing challenge from the fight.

[Alikka_TeSiw]

So far i have only been able to finish the boss once. Every time i try she just disappears after leaving the cave and is no where on the surface world 😞

Also, it feels like matchmaking is really needed for this. 

[Worldbrand]

I've just finished farming for Hildryn and have completed the Exploiter fight 6 times, 4 of them solo.

What I liked:

• Deck 12 makes for a really fun arena. I like that you basically already know its layout because it shares much of Fortuna's.
• Those animations for ripping off Exploiter's body parts and exposing her weak points are extra as heck and I love them. Very nice touch, hope to see more!
• The fight is not reliant on operators, amps, or archguns. While I don't mind them, I see the value in this fight being accessible to people who have not invested in those systems.

What I think could be improved:

• The deployed Thermia canisters are quite easy to accidentally break with Warframe abilities, including defensive ones.
   
• The aboveground phase of the fight does not offer enough obvious feedback. I get the gist- keep the raknoids away, throw Thermia-infused canisters at Exploiter. However, I'm still not entirely sure how much the Thermia helps towards filling up the heat meter. It seems to accelerate the rate of heat increase, but I found most of the obvious losses and gains to be related to Exploiter's attacks. These feel strongly outside of player control. It would really help if the Thermia canisters added a discrete, visible chunk to the bar, instead of or in addition to what they currently do. 
   
• The arena for the aboveground fight has a few issues. Exploiter likes to hang out near the dark, rocky mountain, and Coolant Raknoids can very easily sneak up from behind the rocks. Even when you do see them, destroying them quickly can be frustrating because they can hide behind terrain. I'm aware that Archwing helps for taking them out, but you still need to use the canisters they drop- not a viable solo tactic. 
  Several of the fractures can spawn on the road where Corpus units can patrol. Are they meant to be part of the fight? If so, they are conspicuously absent from the rest of the arena. Tweaking Exploiter's AI so that she stays closer to the white hillside would alleviate these things considerably
   
• There is no way to queue for the fight. Plenty of people on free roam in the Vallis are still looking to do their Fractures or complete other tasks. While not technically a heist, I think adding matchmaking for it to Eudico's backroom would help.
   
• To my knowledge, the footholds that you shoot to make Exploiter fall only exist at the very start of the fight. Adding these to the other side of the arena would be a good way to get Exploiter to stay still enough to bomb her vents with Thermia. It wouldn't necessarily speed up the fight, but would make aiming the canisters while under fire more manageable. Maybe she could reposition afterwards to make the fight a little more dynamic.
   
• The device that you insert the diluted Thermia into to begin the fight could stand to be a little more conspicuous. I believe there is an identical asset elsewhere in the arena or in Fortuna. Personally, my eye was drawn to the flat area in the center because of how it was lit.

All in all, I quite liked it. A few adjustments and I'd say it's one of the best in the game!

[beaker_redux]

Well, confusion reigns now.  You have two major operations goings -- fracture closing and exploiter orbs to kill.  Both expire in 5 or so days.  Both are done by joining Orb Vallis free roam.  Did you imagine this confusion?    Fracture hunters joining orb parties.  And vice versa.  

Tonight has been a complete cluster.  I've had to bail on numerous parties, and I've enjoyed the non-stop host migrations. 

Someone should have thought this through and devised a way to keep the two groups separate.

SMH.

[Fogg]

In phase 1 of the fight you pick up the containers and have a message on screen to throw the container, however, when you throw the container the screen says "shoot the container" and when you do it blows up in your face and doesn't hurt the enemy. It took several attempts to realize that I am just supposed to throw the container to melt the ice. Suggest changing text to "Melt Ice with thrown thermia containers" and to add waypoints to the orange/active thermia containers in both phases

The coolant raknoid spawns on phase 2 of the Exploiter Orb fight are problematic. I believe the intention is that the coolant adds should have to walk far enough to the Exploiter so that the player has an opportunity to intercept them. However, the Orb will stick to the mountain, and coolant orbs only seem to need to be out of line of sight to spawn. This results in many coolant raknoids spawning just on the opposite side of the mountain, taking a handful of steps, and firing coolant. I haven't been able to lure exploiter away from the rocks so there's no chance to mitigate this. Also the exploiter's movements aren't nearly as predictable or easy to avoid on the sloped terrain thereby making the fight even harder. I would suggest keeping the orb off the hill at least, but alternatively you could use the raknoid airborne entrance animation and by that method drop them in a more generous pattern. As it stands, especially for solo players, the fight is pretty brutal.

[Edit] I would also like to add that it's very unclear how useful throwing the containers of thermia are in phase 2 if it is at all.

I am enjoying that this is a very different type of fight and appreciate that this is the first day of the content. Thanks for hard work!

Edited March 15, 2019 by Fogg

[AlouetteSK]

Really fun boss fight.  Those wanting to slaughter get the little spiders everywhere to cover those trying to hit the vents.

Couple of feedback notes / problems though.

• Occasionally Spoiler Mode does not work.  Think that it occurs if you try to use it between map shifts.
• You can't toss Thermia with a melee weapon out.  
• Thermia cannisters after filling would be better if there was a marker for them, different from the blue ones
• On that note, there does not seem to be any difference between shooting them mid-air and having it smack dab on the Orb.  Possibly make the trick shots worth more heat buildup? 
• Coolant Raknoids sometimes bug out and get stuck in the geometry, and are still able to heal the Orb from that distance.
• There needs to be a separate queue for those wanting to fight her.  Got reduced to a two-man group because one wanted to go fishing, and another was there for the fissures themselves.  No additional backup. 
• Might want to have a clearer message or something to inform players that the Orb is using heat to crack the fissures, because often people were wondering why it suddenly dropped even though the area was free of Coolant Raknoids
• On a completely different note, I am kind of hoping that the heat mechanic could be tweaked and used for an eventual Ember rework to make her more interactive, rather than keep her at her current state.  Like her World of Fire is based off of an overheat mechanic much like Orb here.

[BlindStalker]

My first impressions compared to profit-take fight (when it was dropped) are slightly more positive for exploiter orb fight. Exploiter orb fight feels a little bit better, less chaotic and insane, but takes a really long while to do. Note, I only played twice solo, and once with a friend. Oddly ended up with about the same amount of time on solo and with single friend. Phase 1 of the fight is reasonable. Phase 2 of the fight, it's hard to gauge how useful throwing the thermia canisters were. Like it did help I could tell, but after a while, I just kept mindlessly chucking the canisters onto it as fast as possible and prayed for the best.

The funny issues, actually ran out of fracture crack openings constantly during the fight. I'm not sure how much of the fight is bugged, but would constantly fill canister, chuck, go find new canister, fill, chuck, and then run out of fracture canisters. Would then just snipe coolant raknoids as they tried to get close as  i ran out of fractures. I'm not sure if I missed a coolant raknoid (perhaps I did), but exploiter orb kept getting its temperature back down rather instantly and then I would get new fractures. But it always felt hard to gauge if I was making progress in the fight because of the constant temperature resetting. Like either I missed a raknoid, but I swear there were times exploiter orb just somehow cooled down on her own without being assisted by a coolant raknoid. Would prefer to see more scaling down a bit in solo, while it's not insanely hard, it feels like solo might want to be balanced just for extra breathing room. Or better indications that progress is being made during the fight. It took several temperature resets before I could feel steady about it holding its temperature at high heat. But the time length really feels insane. Times ranged from 37 minutes to 1 hour 16 for myself. Toning down the length of phase 2 would be nice.

Can't comment on multi as I mainly play either solo or with friends.

 

Also noted bug: - switching between operator and Ivara when travelling in the tunnel between old fortuna and the outside of the cave prevented me from being able to use operator for the rest of the fight. So that's 1 bug for sure.

 

Second thing (for silly reasons). DE why can't we navigate the thermia canisters on Exploiter orb fight for silly giggles? Perfectly missed opportunity. I'm saddened that this isn't a real thing, it's not too late DE to hot fix this in 😄 Okay I'm sort of half-joking.

Actually, if we really could navigate the thermia canisters, could we use navigator to buff the thermia canister so that it does more heat damage upon impact, and heat the exploiter orb quicker in phase 2? Just uh, curious if you would consider that a thing DE. Pls.

Edited March 15, 2019 by BlindStalker

[Kaltorack]

That no operator bug is REALLY annoying. I have been hit with it 2 out of 3 of the times I have run it. I was on Chroma. He was suddenly much less useful when I had no energy and could not heal myself (I was using Zenurik for energy and dual Magus Elevate for healing). I have low energy builds, but the obviously unintended unpredictability, is irritating.

I did still enjoy the fight. The story-line blurb leading us to the gate was particularly cool (it felt like discovering an awesome Easter egg). The graphics on the gate hack were simple, but fitting and added great flavour.

Fix the issues people have been talking about and I hope this stays in the game, I will love it.

[DevilmanWeebSlayer]

Can we display how many times we have fought the orbs? It's unreal how many people are mastery rank crazed to the point they won't let you in the group. I've been farming this with my friends since it dropped and when they're not online I have to go to the toxic wastelands called recruitment chat. Just like with the eidolons it would let the stats do all the talking instead of having to deal with snobs.

[Teljaxx]

Tried the fight a few more times with other players. Ran into another big bug one time, where the Exploiter didn't spawn when we went outside. Couldn't figure anything out, so we just had to go back to Fortuna and start over. Another time, I got stuck under it when it died, and couldn't escape the death blast. Luckily, my Warding Halo kept me alive, and I managed to slide out after a bit of wiggling.

I would also suggest making the fight go a bit faster for solo players. Make each thermia hit count for double, or something. It takes way too long as it is now, even without bugs slowing things down.

[vonWolfstadt]

Not sure if anyone ended up in the same situation as I did, but I didn't get to scan all of the hashes before they disappeared from the navigation, and when I scanned them afterwards, I got no flavor text/transmissions following, so story-wise the only thing I know is that Zuud is freaking out about something and that's it. Now the navigation just says "Enter the passphrase into the console" while literally nothing ingame will tell you anything about it or where it is, no npcs have information about it, there's no quest markers, nothing. I'm sad the story part of the event got ruined, because right now, it's alt-tabbing every step of the story and mindless following of what other people tell you without any meaning behind it, and there's very little joy in that. All this could've been a legit quest, and that would spare us all so much grief.

Edited March 15, 2019 by vonWolfstadt

[ElocFreidon]

Until you fix it consuming thermia until after it completes because so many mission ending bugs happen all throughout, can't really comment properly.

She doesn't spawn on the surface more than half the time after you make her run. Also the way you make it instance in and out causes other issues. No queue for doing it separate from other Orb Vallis stuff. Its great content but so many problems that should be fixed before launch.

[Elyann]

I hate it.


I hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

It took me 40 bloody goddamn minutes to solo the damn spider ; struggling with the minions like no tomorrow cause of how hard it is to get them all before they reach the orb and cause of how damn much each canister cools her off , losing 3/4 of my lifes in the process while using Nezha and his warding halo.....a goddamn tank frame !

All of this for what ? To still have the spider explode on me, making me lose my last life , the rewards and the mission.

And I am supposed to repeat this when there's no option to queue for this crap as a party ? To hell with it. 

Best boss fight ?! WORST BOSS FIGHT ALONG WITH PROFIT TAKER AND THE CRAP IT IS.

[akira_him]

Tired to solo exploiter orb, well I get to destroy the first hatch but I think it would be easier to get a team so I abort it and try to get a group by going straight into vallis

never manged to find randoms that all 4 people want to do the exploiter orb because none of them have got the opticor vandal yet

Impressions for now:

• give us a match maker like eidolons and ghoul missions so we can match make with people who also wanted to do exploiter orb but don't want to use the recruit chat
• needed makers for thermia after closing the fracture, so hard to see yellow canisters in a white background (and the fact that you make coolant canister have a maker makes the game literally unplayable)
• shooting canisters mid air feels off, should have let us just throw it right into the face of her, or at least near the vents
• please make it so that after throwing the canister it switch back to primary if we pick up the canister with primary weapon equipped

Edited March 15, 2019 by akira_him

[Chaos.Blades]

I REALLY hope that you plan on hot fixing in a bounty of the boss fight on the bounty board just like Eidolons in the next hotfix.

[marelooke]

10 hours ago, Sylei said:

Im the only one annoyed by the fact there is no seperate matchmaking for he new Orb? I mean if i just go free roam on Orb valis there is a 50% chance it wil be an Orb or thermia fracture group, and its kinda annoying when you try to specifically farm event points/hylrin

 

10 hours ago, mrbubblepants said:

you are not. It would be a nice QOL.

You are not:

 

[aviator4warframe]

Hi

These are the issue that I have noticed while trying to fight the Exploiter Orb

Load into orb vallis with the Pub squad and get insta host migrated back to fortuna. 

If I manage to get the exploiter orb mother with a clanmate or PUB squad, after the first part getting kicked out of the squad during waiting at the door for the second part of Exploiter orb fight to begin and unable to join the squad again...Anyone else experiencing this issue...Plz help.

 

[Chaos.Blades]

As much as I want to have enemies spawn at full squad rates in normal missions the new boss should be scaled for solo play. It just simply takes way longer to do solo since it still takes the same amount of those things I forgot the name of to get the boss to overheat.

[CoffeeElemental]

That 929K Iron Skin hp you can get at the end though.

[Firetempest]

Bounty for fractures as they will only sometimes return? Like ghouls.

Bounty for the boss. Since apparently you don't need SU rep to even attempt it. Let it only show for those with the resource.

Loading into the fracture event auto match making and having to convince people to do the actual fractures instead of running to the new boss is frustrating.

[Tubsie]

Just going to list the good and bad things here. Also do note that I did the Exploiter orb solo, so my feedback is regards to that and not of a squad. Done it 3 times now but it's way too annoying for now. Also actually managed to log in to forums through sheer luck.

Good things:

-The mechanics of the Exploiter orb are good on paper. The intention is right as you don't need super duper powerful weapons to kill the parts. I used a non-riven catchmoon kitgun all the time basically aside when sniping the coolant raknoids.

-Conclusion to at least part of Fortuna lore.

-Good reward at the end. The mods are okay.

-Forgot to mention, that also a very good thing is that no constant knockdowns or something similar. 😃

-Also, very good voice acting on the Exploiter orb!

Not so good things:

-The coolant raknoids also seem to be shooting the coolant sometimes from behind covers and tight spaces where you need to be in almost melee range (there is a building + the cliff and only a small space between them where there were 3 once for me). Perhaps just make them spawn out of the hills/general open area direction instead behind the mountains. Also this I have no longer experienced as much, since keeping the Exploiter in the open area is very important and reduces the chances of these happening, so this is not too bad at the moment.

-For some unexplainable reason, sometimes the Exploiter orb just creates this flame wall around her which overheats her quickly. No idea what causes it since I kept throwing canisters at her but it seemed very random. It felt like it was timed and scripted. As in "Oh you've been trying long enough, here let's end this." kind of mechanic. Still not sure of what triggers this (aimed canister to a certain spot or during some move or something?) but seemed to be getting it faster as I kept focusing on throwing thermia at the Exploiter.

-When the Exploiter orb dies, for some reason the loot is not affected by Itzal's cosmic crush (the skill that pulls in everything). I literally almost missed having one Hildryn part because of this, which just unacceptable. Why can't at least the Hildryn parts be automatically given to you after the fight? Never understood that. And the fact you can't just go through the Exploiter orb to get the loot but you have to hope it drops to a good spot and then circle around her and get it, since pull in skills don't work.

That's the most things that came to mind. After fighting the Exploiter orb 7 or 8 times solo, figured out how to cut my time in half to around 15-18 minutes.Comparing this to the 10-12 minute run I usually have with the Profit-taker in solo, so not too bad at all. Especially since there are no hordes of Corpus + possible bounce arounds and knockdowns.

Also a general note about the event: I didn't mind the grind really, but the way you handled the opening of the Deck 12... I really would have liked at least to try and solve the code myself. I felt kinda robbed out on that. Perhaps give us 1 day next time to try and figure it out? Even went so far to translate most of the Corpus alphabet, even though one of the letters was missing from the translator. I understand that there are people who don't know how to use google and search for things for some reason, but I tried googling the pass phrase (if it made any sense, as in it's a word) on reddit and forums but found nothing yesterday. And of course there are those who complain that they actually have to do some thinking and searching if we would have needed to do the code, so not too much of a big deal but I hope you won't start dumbing down the game.

All in all, I have liked the event. And the if this is the beginning of future boss fight mechanics to come, really looking forward to those. As long as they are not something similar to the old raids. So thanks. 

Edited March 16, 2019 by Tubsie

[thegodoflions]

Did the mission 3 times, got each Hildryn bp but Exploiter Orb didn't drop 2x Lazulite Toroid the last time I killed it like the first 2 times I fought it so now I only have 4x Lazulite Toroid

so now I need to kill it again despite having all the bps for Hildryn, pretty sure the 2x Lazulite Toroid is supposed to be a guaranteed drop each kill.

also takes super long to kill the Exploiter Orb solo due to all the bugged mechanics of the last phase.

Fix this so I can get my MR from this new MR fodder frame already.

[Domrond]

Question: what am I even supposed to be looking for? There doesn't appear to be much of anything in the game pointing to how to get started with the exploiter orb fight.

Am I missing something obvious?