Thermia Fracture Mixup - A "Burping" Challenge

[SilverBones]

9 minutes ago, Voltage said:

These changes seem great. I appreciate the attempt at rewarding challenge with efficiency within the event. Sadly I did it when it came out, so that means I didn't get the easier version of the content.

Will one of those Eximus be the Jackal Eximus that is still missing from the codex by any chance? The Jackal Eximus has been in the codex since Fortuna launched and does not exist.

Also, could "Fractures Sealed" maybe be a profile stat for Operation: Buried Debts? It would be nice to have replayability after having everything. If not, could Exploiter Orbs and Profit Taker Orbs be on the profile like Eidolons? Tracking Orbs to match Eidolons would be consistent with Plains of Eidolon bosses and be neat to compare.

I don't have answers for these, but I will include this question when compiling feedback. Cheers!

[Gabbynaru]

Wait, so your idea to deal with a "too long and too boring" feedback was to reply back with "Either that or knockdown city?" What? No, how about neither. Short and fun, is it really that hard? Lower the timer to like 1:00, keep the enemy spawn rate and levels. Short and fun.

[BlindStalker]

Just curious, how will this work solo? Or is it not even planned with solo approach in mind?

I mostly ran the thermia fractures solo or with friends (off-meta frame picks if solo), so I'm just curious if solo will exist? And if so, how much the difficulty scaling will be to force a certain setup? Or will there be considerations for other ways to play instead of conventional? Speeding it up will be optional? Just curious.

[Mr.SpookSpook]

Please allow the team to work on sealing at least 2 fractures at a time. It is nice if not everyone has to camp the same extractor, but the team could divide up to possibly speed up the process. Weaker players can just work on keeping one fracture protected, better ones could divide and go at double speed.

Like  others mentioned before, it would be better if it was an excavation instead of mobile defense. Special enemies should spawn around the fracture with coolant canisters, just like the power cell carriers, so people would not have to keep running back to the Exploiter orb for the coolant.
If the whole thing can be sped up by adding more coolants, which can only be picked up from the raknoids from Temple, then the whole thing will be about 1 Limbo guarding the sealing canister and 3 players nonstop zapping around in Itztals for thousands of meters to the top left corner for canisters... If it makes the whole incredibly boring grind faster, that's good, but it will still be an even worse experience, just a bit faster. 
So please, make it into an excavation with enemies carrying those extra coolants spawning around. Maybe make those enemies tougher or something, but dont make a boring fight boring AND more pointlessly exhausting as well.
 

 

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

20 minutes ago, (XB1)DaleW80 said:

Most likely

You must be new to WF. Nothing is exclusive to a particular mode.

What's most likely to happen is EVENTUALLY the armor set will be sold for plat and the Umbral Forma(if even a bp) will be introduced in the game in a different way. That's just the WF way. 

And my suggestion for the UF is a different way to introduce it to players. 

[dwqrf]

New player have a quicker access to this event than to a clan, aw launcher, or even itzal. They just have to play a few missions, and they unlock fortuna with a k-drive, and when going around, then end up matchmaking with a - non bounty - thermia group, and cannot follow the tryhards going full speed with zenurik+itzal+hyperion thrusters r10. They can't. And if they try this event with only new players, it may take dozen of minutes before closing their first fracture.

We are talking here about speeding up the process, I suppose for everyone, not for only the elitist getting the right gear.

[Stormdragon]

Glad to see how increasing challenge will be able to speed up the process wil these provide additional thermia as well (or points assuming the scoring system allows players to get the same rewards in the future whenever the event is re run)

Also, can we expect some tweaks to the exploiter orb fight as well? 

The fight itself is quite fun, the only issue is how repetitive and time consuming can each stage get to be.

Finally, any chance for the Orb to spend more time actually fighting us back? I see a giant spider but the biggest threat are her minions instead, all she does in stage 1 is summon crowd control while her minions attack us, while in stage 2 she might use her flamethrower when we get too close, so the focus will always be fighting raknoids while we wait either for the right moment to toss a canister on her vents or for the heat bar to fill so we can play a short cinematic and only then shoot at the orb for a couple of seconds, rinse and repeat.

[(XBOX)Skippy575]

12 minutes ago, Gabbynaru said:

Lower the timer to like 1:00, keep the enemy spawn rate and levels. Short and fun.

I agree with this. I know it just dropped yesterday for consoles but the fractures take way too long to seal currently. 

Like others have asked, how will this work solo? Solo players can't carry two canisters. Yes it's more optimal to play in a group but we can't omit an entire playstyle.

[Aldrr]

About thermia harvesting: Yep, no reason to beat around the bush, the base harvesting time for thermia is a little..."long-drawn". Options to increase the tempo in exchange for some added difficulty sounds like a fair trade for me. 🙂

Exploiter Boss: A very fun fight! In my opinion, the most engaging boss in Warframe so far. I'm curious where the team can go with this kind of boss design in the future (some lore context, multi-phase, with mechanics to expose weak spots). Also, bonus points for the animations, those mini-cutscenes are badass! 😎

Hildryn availability: If I understand correctly, as long as people have diluted thermia to start the encounter with, they can fight Exploiter all day, at any time; thermia fractures however, cycle around, like the PoE Ghouls event. In light of that, from what I've experienced, I think Hildryn - more specifically her component blueprints - are in an okay place. People can easily collect enough thermia to get all her parts, and if they happen to run out, they can look for others (ie in their own clan / friends / recruit chat) who still have some remaining.

[spampants]

Currently, placing a canister in a fracture maxes the alert level, but as long as any placed beacons are destroyed, the alert level decays to a minimum of 1. Perhaps each time a canister is added to a fracture it raises the minimum alert level, so for example two coolant canisters in a fracture would mean that no matter how many beacons are destroyed the alert level would never decay below 2. In this way you could increase the challenge while interacting with an already-existing mechanic.

[ReaverKane]

1 hour ago, [DE]Bear said:

Greetings PC Tenno (and Console Tenno who will experience this later!)!

Operation: Buried Debts was introduced 14 days ago, and as part of its initial release, we have been considering changes to mix up the way Thermia Fractures are harvested. Thermia Fractures will be coming back on a roughly bi-weekly basis, but we wanted to add some changes that allow players to determine the challenge and rewards given because the simple root of all feedback about Fractures is: too long and boring.

The general plan is to allow players to spend additional Coolant Canisters to increase the difficulty of that Thermia Fracture, in return for faster completion. When a new Coolant Canister is added, the Fracture will “burp” and cause some interesting new effects, some examples of which are listed below:

• Molten Spider swarm (brand-new look and stats)!
• The next few enemies will be Eximus Units!
• Enemy damage output will increase!

When Thermia Fractures become systemic after the event ends, their role is to give you Diluted Thermia and bring a bit of activity to the Orb Vallis. 

As of the time of this post, the Thermia Fracture Mixup is in development, and we are looking to deploy this change when the technical aspects are solid. We do not want to rush this deployment as any quality problems would continue to negatively impact the limited remainder of the current event. 

As with any of our planned changes, we would like to see your thoughts on this new addition to Operation: Buried Debts. Remember to keep your thoughts and feedback constructive, but let us know what you think, or perhaps what kind of “burps” you think would work!
 

MAKE IT A BOUNTY!! Its hell of hard to get a decent group if you don't have a pre-made, because there's no bounty or way to get people doing it for the same objective!

[ScarecroM]

I have a different issue with fractures. I believe the process whether it's long easy and boring, or short and difficult is rather unrewarding.

Allow me to compare this event to ghoul purge. The key difference is that ghoul purge uses the bounty format. you get an award for each incursion completed as part of the bounty. And this is where the unique rewards come from. meanwhile all rewards from this event are tied to the exploiter orb boss fight. Which offers very few unique rewards as well.
On top of getting multiple rewards for one bounty, you also got ostron standing for completing ghoul purge bounties. You don't get standing for sealing fractures, or defeating the exploiter orb.

I suggest re-imagining the thermia fractures in a bounty format. Perhaps these new bounties can make mods like jolt more easily accessible. maybe opticore vandal parts could be available as rare drops. Also, thermia is always on the table for each incursion, maybe always being guaranteed when you complete all bonuses. 

as for the issues these fixes address, while I do believe these changes would make the grind faster, I don't think it would make the fractures any less boring.

I find it disappointing that it under-utilizes the design of Orb Vallis. The map has plenty of unique spaces for many different types of objectives. Right now all we have is an extremely drawn out mobile defence mission. Which in its own right just doesn't utilize Orb Vallis in an interesting manner... in fact it only brings out the drawbacks of it being such a huge map. Mobile defence as a standard mission type not only has fewer objectives, but the maps are far more condensed, and quicker to navigate. Sometimes it can take as long as 2 minutes to find a new fracture after completing one, meanwhile in mobile defence missions, you follow the objective marker for maybe 20 seconds to get to the next defence target. 

In short, These fractures could of been funner, quicker, and more rewarding should they of just used the already existing bounty format, instead of being this extended mobile defence. 

[Senguash]

The idea of being able to complete the mission faster by putting in more effort is great!

It would be better if content was designed with that concept in mind from the start rather than having it artificially implemented afterwards.

The decision was made to force players to only have one active objective at a time.

If you could do bounties and fractures at the same time, or profit taker and fractures, then it doesn't matter that the fractures are unbearably slow for experienced squads.

It's a more dynamic solution because newer players aren't gonna feel any obligation to do more than one thing, and veterans can choose how much they want to engage with at once.

With the suggested solution people might feel compelled to overwhelm themselves.

[Basalto]

1 hour ago, Ely.I said:

Yes it does, that's why it's recommended Itzal can get you from one tip of fortuna to the other in less than 2 seconds. If new players don't have gear to progress or make certain content easier, then they move towards getting such gear, it's called natural progress, not everything needs to be accessible or a participation award. They can't move fast? get itzal. Also i find it funny that people like you always come in defense of "new players"; these are not babies, these are thinking people, probably smarter than you in fact. They're perfectly capable of getting things done, relax and let them be.

You remind me why I stopped coming to this place in the past. Apparently making content on the second planet accessible to new players is a hindrance, and you need to insult people to try to get your "point" across. The archwing launcher was one of those cases where DE just tossed darts at a board to figure out what to do next, and ended up with something that was bad, but more than what they had a minute before, which was nothing. Doesn't make it good, of course, but there's always an intellectual juggernaut to dispute such things, and I don't judge fetishes.

 

On the topic, the solution just sounds kinda half-assed to me, and also a certain blind eye to solo players, since you can't exactly carry two coolant canisters at once. Even players who can handle the increased difficulty (because this game's broken design allows so) still will be limited to the standard glorified mobile defense template, which is painfully boring. An idea to mend the solo aspect would be to spawn coolant spiders, specially since hunting them makes for a completely unnecessary hindrance to the flow of an already slow and tedious event.

[dwqrf]

il y a 5 minutes, Basalto a dit :

You remind me why I stopped coming to this place in the past. Apparently making content on the second planet accessible to new players is a hindrance, and you need to insult people to try to get your "point" across. The archwing launcher was one of those cases where DE just tossed darts at a board to figure out what to do next, and ended up with something that was bad, but more than what they had a minute before, which was nothing. Doesn't make it good, of course, but there's always an intellectual juggernaut to dispute such things, and I don't judge fetishes.

 

On the topic, the solution just sounds kinda half-assed to me, and also a certain blind eye to solo players, since you can't exactly carry two coolant canisters at once. Even players who can handle the increased difficulty (because this game's broken design allows so) still will be limited to the standard glorified mobile defense template, which is painfully boring. An idea to mend the solo aspect would be to spawn coolant spiders, specially since hunting them makes for a completely unnecessary hindrance to the flow of an already slow and tedious event.

Thanks you for the first part; I really needed it.

And yes, making some Coolant Raknoid spawn (at least and maybe only One) next or around the fracture would allow anyone to start/speed up the proccess a little, without having to cross the map from top to bottom with the mandatory itzal.

Also... yes, being unable to complete any other objectives while the fractures is being defended (and vice versa) is just annoying. Securing a base or doing a bounty, or even doing a second fracture; would already make the game harder with quicker rewards, somehow.

[Foefaller]

Three issues I have with the idea:

1. Carrying coolant around isn't solo or small group friendly. Probably need to have enemies drop the coolant used, or a way to "stack" coolant ala Spy 1.0 so one person can carry all the coolant you plan to use.

2. You don't say how it would make it quicker. I understand that the actual answer is "whichever way we think works best in the end" but it would be nice to know which way (extra progress, speed up progress, fewer fractures) the devs have in mind. Personally, if I'm still having to do four fractures, it's still too long and boring. Especially as it would now be for just *1* diluted Thermia.

3. The thing that actually made it boring for me was the fact I ended up soloing all of it, because getting a group for one was a mess. I do hope you plan to add a fractures bounty for them the same way you added an Eidolon/Tridolon bounty for people who wanted to quick group for that.

As for burps, maybe you could have different types of fractures with different burp effects? And doing a different type of fracture (rather than the same "safe" type) on each step (assuming you're going to insist on three or more fractures) improves how effective coolant is for speeding it up?

[Urlan]

I would half the base time of the thermia fractures by default and then the thread suggested burp modifiers sound fine after that. I would suggest though that rewards be enticing enough to encourage such team investment as it sounds with this upping the difficulty, and that Jackals have their invulnerable shield changed mechanically to either give directional invulnerability or just damage resistance while active as otherwise, it just requires ignoring it activity wise until the shield ends through duration making it a frustrating foe to fend off during the Fractures or bounties.

[TheGrimCorsair]

2 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

Greetings PC Tenno (and Console Tenno who will experience this later!)!

Operation: Buried Debts was introduced 14 days ago, and as part of its initial release, we have been considering changes to mix up the way Thermia Fractures are harvested. Thermia Fractures will be coming back on a roughly bi-weekly basis, but we wanted to add some changes that allow players to determine the challenge and rewards given because the simple root of all feedback about Fractures is: too long and boring.

The general plan is to allow players to spend additional Coolant Canisters to increase the difficulty of that Thermia Fracture, in return for faster completion. When a new Coolant Canister is added, the Fracture will “burp” and cause some interesting new effects, some examples of which are listed below:

• Molten Spider swarm (brand-new look and stats)!
• The next few enemies will be Eximus Units!
• Enemy damage output will increase!

When Thermia Fractures become systemic after the event ends, their role is to give you Diluted Thermia and bring a bit of activity to the Orb Vallis. 

As of the time of this post, the Thermia Fracture Mixup is in development, and we are looking to deploy this change when the technical aspects are solid. We do not want to rush this deployment as any quality problems would continue to negatively impact the limited remainder of the current event.

As with any of our planned changes, we would like to see your thoughts on this new addition to Operation: Buried Debts. Remember to keep your thoughts and feedback constructive, but let us know what you think, or perhaps what kind of “burps” you think would work!
 

There's already plenty of damage flying around on the Vallis, and adding more to everything isn't really gonna do anything to spice up what's going on. Why not cause it to spawn enemies that are otherwise rarely seen on the Vallis, say have a mechanized counter-attack consisting of the arrival of a pair of Terra Ambulases with a bunch of MOA's as escorts, or a boss wave consisting only of Raptors, Jackals, Bursas, and Ambulases. Maybe sneak in a couple Isolator Bursas here and there, possibly a new type that works a bit like the Opticor Crewman but hunkers down in its shielded mode to snipe and has (fragile) cloaking when it's repositioning.

[Darkvramp]

2 hours ago, [DE]Bear said:

The next few enemies will be Eximus Units! 

eximus units are both not a challenge and more of the same. it points out another problem with eximus units, that being they need some QOL change to them to make them more of an obstacle, rather than more fuel for our fires.

[Phailberry]

What if there are also Thermia Raknoids, the opposite of Coolant Raknoids? I'm not sure how it would be applied to the Vallis, but tis a thought nonetheless.

[eurotransient]

Add toroid farming into guarding the coolant canisters. The toroids are region specific as it is, and you can get a nice little extra if you happen to catch a fracture near the Temple of Profit. Why not just put toroids into the regional drop table while a coolant canister is being used?

Also, like elsewhere mentioned, it would make sense if there was a bounty style structure here that had other rewards besides the thermia -- most obvious thought is the Gyromag, Atmo and Repeller materials since those are still pretty locked away behind a single activity at this point, so any other avenue to get those would be appreciated.

[Darkvramp]

1 minute ago, eurotransient said:

Add toroid farming into guarding the coolant canisters. The toroids are region specific as it is, and you can get a nice little extra if you happen to catch a fracture near the Temple of Profit. Why not just put toroids into the regional drop table while a coolant canister is being used?

Also, like elsewhere mentioned, it would make sense if there was a bounty style structure here that had other rewards besides the thermia -- most obvious thought is the Gyromag, Atmo and Repeller materials since those are still pretty locked away behind a single activity at this point, so any other avenue to get those would be appreciated.

agreed, something like the fractures around x area gives x materials, and have x type enemies guarding them, could also be a nice way to spice up the gameplay, and possible gives use to the orokin areas around the map.......

[Azamagon]

2 hours ago, NickelStiller said:

Can't carry two canisters at a time solo

Pick the 2nd one up with your Operator 😉

[Slayer116]

I feel like profit taker takes more to take it on not only do players have to get top rank in fortuna standing to fight it but that the exploiter orb even though you need resources it seems more easy to fight, the attacks don't seem often or powerful and its not locked which for some reason also gives more standing from lazul vs crisma? This does not have much to do with the feedback here for thermia but i feel like thermia should be harder overall considering the above like what was it 12k standing for the exploiter orb toroids? I do see how thermia can be boring because it feels like a mobile defense / excavation with a small twist as for ideas maybe harder for less time? 

[taiiat]

sounds like something extra to do, though as has been mentioned:

• where would you get extra Canisters? is the intention to ferry them over before you start? i would personally be fine with doing that, i'm old enough to understand and appreciate preparation being a part of Video Games rather than only being Timer boxes.
• how would this manage Canisters of partill filling vs empty, Et Cetera? are we going to throw in extra empty ones, and not get them back? would that mean multiple Canisters being filled at once?
  • how would that affect the Reward structure, if at all(obviously time, as stated, but anything else?)?

 

and just for context, i'll note that i have quite enjoyed sealing Fractures Solo - even preferring it for this type of content. i get to shoot sortof interesting Enemies for a couple minutes at a time, and can pace completing it at any speed that i want. part of that for me is also due to there not being an AFK autofail in Landscapes. that's something i quite appreciate as it lets me multi-task well. doing stuff in bursts, and even being able to interrupt mid process if i get distracted with what i'm multi-tasking or need to step away for a bit - it's just kinda nice to be able to do that. it's fine that i can't do that with everything _{(though it would be nice if i could do that in normal Missions too(being able to one-way switch from any Session type to Solo would help there) but i digress)}

and, the difficulty of the content seems currently placed at a midpoint where the Enemies do actually push back some, but there is no necessity to turtle with Defensive Abilities - which leaves the content to be more enjoyable then. i ofcourse expect the Enemies to push back harder if we do what is described here to speed it up, which will probably be quite fine then. Players might start to feel desire for Defensive Abilities, but it's opt-in so i think that'll work out acceptably.

 

2 hours ago, dwqrf said:

how and where to find the extra coolant canister for newish players ? Also, i've encountered a lot of new players trying to complete this event, but without an archwing launcher, moving around and finding rift is really hard.

considering these Fractures force Lv45 Enemies, i think it's pretty clear that this isn't content aimed at fresh off the boat Players.
they can try it, but in no way it is content that is appropriate for brand new Players. nor should it need to be. if everything is made to be appropriate to brand new Players, you don't really have a game then.

2 hours ago, dwqrf said:

Not every problem of distance and map size should be solved by "get itzal, scrub"

Parkour Skills, Void Dash, and Warframe Abilities can also offer transportation services.

i guess Hoverboards also can, provided one uses the Hoverboard Arcane.

 

 

1 hour ago, ScarecroM said:

Which in its own right just doesn't utilize Orb Vallis in an interesting manner... in fact it only brings out the drawbacks of it being such a huge map. Mobile defence as a standard mission type not only has fewer objectives, but the maps are far more condensed, and quicker to navigate. Sometimes it can take as long as 2 minutes to find a new fracture after completing one, meanwhile in mobile defence missions, you follow the objective marker for maybe 20 seconds to get to the next defence target. 

i would have to point out, that 'normal' Missions still have plenty of real estate.
we easily cover more than a Kilometer or Kilometer and a half over the course of a 'normal' Tileset based Mission. it just doesn't look like it since the paths wind and turn and the walls are a lot closer.