Defending a melee NPC shouldn't be a thing

[Steel_Rook]

Apologies for the click-bait title, but I feel pretty strongly on the matter.

The current Dex event features a mission to earn an Excalibur skin. Specifically, a Defence mission where the defence objective is an NPC. We've had those before in quests and most notably Abritrations. While I'm not a huge fan of them in general because our own companion AI seems to sabotage us more often than not, at least this was mitigated by defence NPC having ranged weapons. They'd still run out of my Frost Bubble and round corners to catch bullets with their teeth, just to a limited extent.

The problem with the Dex Synadana mission, however, is that the defence NPC is a Warden of some kind - a purely melee critter armed with a hammer and a lunge attack ability. The effect that has on the game's pacing is that I end up having to defend an ally who's actively trying to get himself killed. He'll run away from me, jump onto Arc Traps, jump into fire, present his head to enemy melee attacks and generally do his level best to fail the mission. What's worse, the map is one of those pitch-black Galleons from the Harrow quest where I can barely see my defence NPC AND where multiple identical copies of him spawn in as enemies. As a result, it's entirely too easy to lose track of the guy and have him essentially insta-die with literally nothing I could do about it.

What prompted me to make this thread was actually a particular incident. I'd survived mostly fine for 14 waves, defending and healing the guy and chasing him around the map. Then, as I was fighting a Warden he was engaged with, the defence NPC turned around, seemingly lunged through a wall and disappeared. In the 5 seconds it took me to realise he was gone and track him down, he died to something (a Butcher of some kind, I think) from full health. I understand that DE want to have a fail condition on all of their content for some reason, but failing a mission after 20 minutes because AI I can't control jumped itself off the map just about... That's frustrating.

There's a reason people hate "escort quests," and having to take care of suicidal AI is a large part of it. I sincerely hope we never see another mission like that again.

[zoffmode]

The annoying part of that quest isn't melee or suicidal NPC but rather the fact that you can't revive him and it automatically fails the mission. Some manic randomly one shots the dude and you're done. That's not cool. 

[killerKronos23]

solution bring gara. use your 2 and remember to refresh it for you and the NPC. the manics could'nt even touch the target. the only issue i had was i couldent see sh*t 

Edited March 28, 2019 by killerKronos23

[Moscatinka]

Other solution: Go solo on Vauban (+str / +dur / +range) with Energy Siphon and a few specters - pack some energy pizzas to make sure you never run out. Decorate the defense target with your Teslas as if it were a xmas tree, just keep him covered in at least 3 or 4 of them all the time and toss a few around the map as a matter of principle. Let the specters clean up the cinders.

I hardly needed to fire my gun. The teslas do a great job at keeping any Manics from coming into melee range, and when they do they're perma-stunned.

I tried it on Frost first time too (because defense) but obviously he's useless for a moving target. So get creative.

 

[BeornStorjern]

I agree with not having "humans" as defense points. The IA sucks, and its fine for enemies, but its not good when you have to pay attention to it. So rescues, def people and most of the independent movement pets are not working as they should.

[Lazarow]

I ran it with nezha and had warding halo augment and it says invalid target when trying to cast on him, but I can normaly cast it on rescue targets and on sortie defense targets just not on this one for some reason.

[Zelmen]

Clipping out of the area is rare but I have lost a few missions to it. Oddly I was purposely not paying attention as I went on to scan all the night watch people for the codex. Killing mobs only as I scanned them. Some how he survived (I was solo as to not annoy people if he did die).

Edit: If I had failed, I would have just ran Limbo and banish the NPCs to win

Edited March 28, 2019 by Zelmen

[Chaemyerelis]

Solution: summon our lord and savior Clem!

[Leyvonne]

That lunge attack made me want to smack my head on the table and give up. In the end got the mission done with Hildryn and Amprex with a simple rotation of Shiled Pillage so enemies take more damage and electrifying them with Amprex for nice CC to protect the NPC. 

[Steel_Rook]

I'm not saying there aren't ways to beat the mission. A Limbo to banish the AI seems like a good approach if that works as I have a Limbo Prime on-hand (don't have a Garaa or a Vauban). Rather, I'm just annoyed at the general mission design. Fighting the enemy is one thing. Fighting my own allies really ought to not be a thing in video games any more. If I fail, I want it to be because I screwed up, not because my escort target decided to jump down a lion's mouth or some such. At the very least, could we have escort targets prioritise following us over running off to attack random Arc Traps?

And that Lunge attack really has no place on an escort target. The AI is terrible with movement abilities at the best of time, but the worst that can happen to enemies is they get stuck and we have to dig them out with NLOS AoEs. My actual ally charging himself off of platforms and into enemies is just infuriating. Doubly so due to the darkness making it hard to even see where the guy went. The best thing that happened to me all mission was the Warden charged into a set of stairs and got stuck. Wish he'd stayed stuck for the rest of the mission, at least then I wouldn't have to keep chasing him down.

And I honestly don't even know what kills him half the time. He's sitting at full health, taking barely any damage, then he runs away around a corner and I get an instant Mission Failed message. What could even do this much damage to him in that short amount of time and why is that thing in a defence mission with an uncontrollable escort? How can issues like these escape even rudimentary testing?

*edit*
Another attempt, once more the guy gets one-shot from full health by something I can't see. Seriously...

Edited March 28, 2019 by Steel_Rook

[zoffmode]

51 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

And I honestly don't even know what kills him half the time. He's sitting at full health, taking barely any damage, then he runs away around a corner and I get an instant Mission Failed message. What could even do this much damage to him in that short amount of time and why is that thing in a defence mission with an uncontrollable escort? How can issues like these escape even rudimentary testing?

*edit*
Another attempt, once more the guy gets one-shot from full health by something I can't see. Seriously...

Most likely teleporting Manics. I just went in with Ember and semi AFK'd on his ass. But anything that would hurt jumping in manics works. Use Vazarin if you have it and keep him immune for last waves just in case cause failing that is just annoying.

Edited March 28, 2019 by zoffmode

[Moscatinka]

1 hour ago, Steel_Rook said:

I'm not saying there aren't ways to beat the mission. A Limbo to banish the AI seems like a good approach if that works as I have a Limbo Prime on-hand (don't have a Garaa or a Vauban). Rather, I'm just annoyed at the general mission design. Fighting the enemy is one thing. Fighting my own allies really ought to not be a thing in video games any more. If I fail, I want it to be because I screwed up, not because my escort target decided to jump down a lion's mouth or some such. At the very least, could we have escort targets prioritise following us over running off to attack random Arc Traps?

I don't agree with you at all. It's a different from the standard mission types, I think that's a good thing. And yes it brings its own challenges but isn't that the whole point of making it different? It requires some creative thinking rather than following the recipe that we all know by heart. The fact that both your and my first thought was "It's defense, let's bring Frost" says it all. DE got us both there, hook, line and sinker. Good on them.

And yes it sounds like your defense target is being stealth whacked by Manics, happened to me the first time too. So the challenge is to come up with something that prevents this. Vauban and Gara were examples, I'm sure others will come up with different solutions, and they'll be a lot more interesting to hear about than how we all did X rounds at Helene or Hydron.

 

[(PSN)AyinDygra]

I ran Inaros and sand-blasted the whole map constantly to keep the enemies blinded and defenseless... even the Maniacs.

He got low on life MANY times, but when no enemies were around, he did manage to follow me, so I led him into a side room with a door so he couldn't see the next wave's incoming enemies until they entered that room. All the while he was regen-ing his HP.

One time, he got stuck under the low stairs at the edge of the room, and no enemies could target him, so he was safe for a few waves, until he worked his way out again.

 

I hate defending stupid AI characters that I can't heal/protect with my available options. Scarabs should heal him, but I didn't see it working, for instance. I don't do the sorties when they're defend a stupid AI either. On syndicate missions, the first thing I do is tell my companions to stop moving around, and the continue on with the mission solo (even if it doesn't matter if they'll die or not). I don't like companions, or sentinels (or Dragoon's wyverns in FFXI)... the only redeeming feature of Kubrows/Kavats in Warframe is the ability to link their health and heal with melee attacks. Too bad that doesn't work for the defense target.

[Steel_Rook]

1 minute ago, Moscatinka said:

I don't agree with you at all. It's a different from the standard mission types, I think that's a good thing. And yes it brings its own challenges but isn't that the whole point of making it different? It requires some creative thinking rather than following the recipe that we all know by heart. The fact that both your and my first thought was "It's defense, let's bring Frost" says it all. DE got us both there, hook, line and sinker. Good on them.

Actually, I didn't even bother trying Frost. I've tried him on Arbitration Defence so I already knew he wasn't going to work. My problem is that this isn't a "challenge" so much as buggy game mechanics. For one, I'm pretty sure the game doesn't have a "rescuee" AI profile, though Hostages do tend to prioritise following quite a bit. Even so, Rescue missions still teleport the Hostage to you pretty aggressively. Plains of Eidolon rescue missions, however, are straight-up broken because the Hostage does not prioritise following AT ALL. If you give them a gun, they will shoot 'till the cows come home before moving. And EVEN THEN, I can still just take away their pistols.

The Bailif Defector has none of the above considerations. Far as I can tell, he has the standard aggressive Bailif AI with just the allegiance flag flipped. He in no way behaves like a defector or like a survivor, he shows no hint of self-preservation and consequently makes for an utterly rotten experience. Far as I'm concerned, this isn't far removed from making my Shoot key randomly do nothing. Sure, it's "challenging" in the most literal sense of the word, but it's fighting the game's controls, rather than the game's actual difficulty. Contrast this against something like Grenier Galleon Defence, where you're guarding a large generator with two separate approaches. I don't like that one either, but I can't argue that it's "broken" to not have line of sight of all sides of the defence objective. It makes thematic sense. It makes no thematic sense with this mission, because these are programming issues.

And I could deal with all of that even if I don't like it, if it weren't for the stupid one-hit kills. I'm doing perfectly, I'm killing everyone, I'm keeping the Bailf at full health, everything's going great. Then I sneeze and the mission fails because someone something I couldn't see insta-killed him faster than I could even process what's going on. This failed the mission for me three times on the final wave.

And yeah, I made it eventually. I kept him almost perpetually trapped in a Stasis Cataclysm, even if I had to keep recasting it because the Bailif AI roams so much. And EVEN THEN, he still occasionally took massive damage in the couple seconds it took me to recast Cataclysm. I'm fine with puzzle bosses, but I'm not fine with wrestling with busted game mechanics. This genuinely feels like someone slapped together the mission in a text editor without ever actually testing it.

[(PSN)ATPEngineerGming]

13 hours ago, Chaemyerelis said:

Solution: summon our lord and savior Clem!

The Grineer Text says INTEN...I Give up. I found the cipher

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

17 hours ago, (PS4)TotorosYawn said:

The Grineer Text says INTEN...I Give up. I found the cipher

Spoiler

Try intensifies

. 

 

Other than that, I'm not sure why people were having difficulty with this. I took a Rhino and Helios. If objective looked like he was getting swamped, I stomped and most stuff either died instantly, or soon thereafter. Most of my time was spent looking around for the non glowing targets, and wondering where all of the argon was coming from. 

[Hobie-wan]

I soloed it with Khora (meleeing), Venari, and Helios P  catching up on my Nightwatch scans the first time. Then I did it with randoms hoping I just missed scanning a Nightwatch Reaver since that didn't fill up and I'm pretty sure the target was one shot by something, but that was before the hotfix about the powerclaws. I ran a few more pubs to make absolutely sure I hadn't missed reavers and we did ok. Maybe my strangledomes and the other players with their abilities just managed to keep him safe.

In any case, even though I'm sure I'm not missing scanning reavers at this point, I'll help if I'm not busy with something else and people ping me in game.