Survival: What It Is And What It Should Be

[drMightyPotato]

Dear people of DE

Your level called 'Survival' is a great addition to the game of Warframe. The event that featured this new addition was so fun and enjoyable that most people (including me) spamed that level just for the fun of it. And the reward, Strun Wraith, made it all the more worth it. However, that is how this level should have stayed as. A fun addition to the game that made us all grind our teeth watching as a endless wave of mobs run in and try to gun you down and turn you into a pile of flesh while getting stronger. That would be a mob worth investing our time in as the rewards were great, mods and drops plentiful and so on and so forth.

Now what that mod IS is a another thing. For starters DE please change the name of the level into 'Gauntlet' and give us a real survival level cause that's what this new level is. A gauntlet from one O2 device to another with a random number of mobs chasing you. On occasion you MIGHT run into a larger group of, per se, 10-15 mobs but that is it and the rest of the level goes with sometimes 5 or 6 mobs that hardly ever drop a personal life support device. Witch would be fine in its own if the mobs would drop the personal O2 dev. but they don't. As i'm typing this i have just finished a T1 ''Survival'' (notice the quotation marks) in the void. I managed to barely survive but that's only thanks to a great gun called Strun Wraith that allowed me easy dispose of the mobs in the hopes that at least will drop something, there was no number challenge (ps. i was solo).

And now we come to the last problem. Many people have noticed that if you play a void ''survival'' mission it all goes well until the flyers come. Now i don't mind those type of mobs in the void but the problem lies in their insane damage and their shier number. On occasions i got 4-5 of them in a wave several times in a row burning trough my iron skin with ease if left be.

Those are my griefs with this mission. I'm begging you DE, PLEASE <3 with a cup of shuggar, milk, honey and some cake... Give us the old survival mission from the even, thank you.

(before people jump my gun about my grammar mistakes, i'm looking at you grammar nazi's, english is not my first language) 

Edited September 23, 2013 by Alinna

[YsWolf]

Don't worry, your English is delicious.

[InsaneAction]

Your grammar doesn't bother me... It's the wall of text that does...

[Morgax]

press more often Por favor.

[Stormandreas]

Both the grammer and wall of text bother me.
Stop whining. Survival is what it says it is. You only barely lasted on a T1 Survival?! Seriously!? If you're having that much difficulty with it, then you shouldn't be playing them.

Try half an hour on a T3 Survival, then we may listen, but as for now, survival is better, as it makes the level more interesting, and I've noticed its harder, due to the lack of dropped oxygen.

[sleepy]

Do you even use Stomp, OP ?

[drMightyPotato]

Both the grammer and wall of text bother me.

Stop whining. Survival is what it says it is. You only barely lasted on a T1 Survival?! Seriously!? If you're having that much difficulty with it, then you shouldn't be playing them.

Try half an hour on a T3 Survival, then we may listen, but as for now, survival is better, as it makes the level more interesting, and I've noticed its harder, due to the lack of dropped oxygen.

The only reason why i barely survived on a T1 survival is cause i couldn't get enough oxygen drops making me run out of it by the time i get to 15 mins solo, and no i don't use stomp, makes thing a wee bit interesting

[Wellwisher]

Well i do agree that atm survival feels more like being lucky enough to get enough spawns, rather than in any way skill based.

[Strac_CRO]

AAAARRGGGHHHhhhh.... wall of text, tl;dr

[MDG3ist]

+1 to op, your English is fine and it personally scares me that people find 3

paragraphs too long to read...

Survival mode during the event weekend was amazing; survival mode now is broken.

Not nearly enough enemies, not enough canister drops, large air canisters dropping

randomly over the map giving you no hope of getting to it before your air runs out...

I honestly don't know why they just didn't keep it as it was, they took a great concept

and broke it to be nearly unplayable. I get far more kills and drops just doing mobile defense.

One room, endless enemies, that simple concept was all they needed...

[EganMC]

I think Survival is fine.

Would like a defense map though.

A lot more fun to gun down thousands of mobs than deal with crowds of 15 every now and then.

[Phoenix86]

i dont find anything wrong with how Survival is now... the only thing i could complain is... not enough mobs!!

[HexCaliber]

Survival is fine as is, I for one have had no problems finding mobs to kill, and nor have I run out of oxygen yet, I am getting 25+ min runs and only leave when I am struggling to kill mobs due to my current mods.

 

My last run, 28 min on 40-70 mobs I had 4 oxygen up that I had not needed to activate, so I have no idea why folks are struggling, perhaps learn to manage oxygen a little better. Activate your first when you get to 40 45%, and every one there after about the same level, do not wait until it gets lower, give yourself time to move to the next set of oxygen tanks as mob spawns will be slightly delayed once you get there.

 

Of the videos I have seen on you tube, folks are waiting too long before activating tank's, and do not have enough time to get to a new area should it be a little way out, then whine there are not enough mobs to keep oxygen levels up.

Edited September 24, 2013 by HexCaliber

[Namacyst]

Survival..

 

What it is: Boring and easy

 

What it should be: Fun and engaging

 

What it could be.. atleast: A challenge with a sense of threat.

[Stormandreas]

The only reason why i barely survived on a T1 survival is cause i couldn't get enough oxygen drops making me run out of it by the time i get to 15 mins solo, and no i don't use stomp, makes thing a wee bit interesting

I hope you know that with the void survivals you only need to stay 5 minutes to get the reward. Its a fixed reward for the void, as they are already split into 3 tiers pre-mission.

[bluehawk1976]

Only thing weird with survival is doing them on planets out in the open - how did our enemies turn the atmosphere off?

It should either be stopped generating onplanets, or if dropping n planet the mission should be done inside an underground building where it makes sense to cut out the life support.

[MDG3ist]

Survival is fine as is, I for one have had no problems finding mobs to kill, and nor have I run out of oxygen yet, I am getting 25+ min runs and only leave when I am struggling to kill mobs due to my current mods.

 

My last run, 28 min on 40-70 mobs I had 4 oxygen up that I had not needed to activate, so I have no idea why folks are struggling, perhaps learn to manage oxygen a little better. Activate your first when you get to 40 45%, and every one there after about the same level, do not wait until it gets lower, give yourself time to move to the next set of oxygen tanks as mob spawns will be slightly delayed once you get there.

 

Of the videos I have seen on you tube, folks are waiting too long before activating tank's, and do not have enough time to get to a new area should it be a little way out, then whine there are not enough mobs to keep oxygen levels up.

 

I activate large air canisters whenever the air drops to about 60%, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've had enough air to last 20+ minutes... For solo play it's less survival and more endurance... It's a bug hunt when it should be a stand-up fight (to paraphrase a favourite film).  I don't mind what map we play on, just keep the enemies flowing so I don't have to frantically search for something to kill and hope it drops an air canister.  When I extract on survival, I want it to be because I can't handle the enemies anymore and am at serious risk of being mauled, not because I've run out of air and I'm going to suffocate...

[gell]

The only thing that needs to change is there need to be less lulls and more constant stream of enemies. Using some form of an AI director, ala Left 4 Dead, would really help the flow. It's not survival if I have to hunt down enemies to kill. It's okay to have ups and downs in the combat, in fact, that's good. But when survival depends on oxygen and there's nothing to kill, DE should rethink how they programmed it. Are they realistically adding enough oxygen to keep the player alive? For testing purposes, do away with enemies that fight back and just have them spawn in 5 feet from the player, with 1 HP. Coupled with the oxygen tanks Lotus spawns, would the player have enough oxygen from kills to keep going forever? If not, then the system is quite flawed. When that part is fixed, you can turn on all the regular enemies again.

 

And don't take this as harsh; I actually really like Survival mode as it is now. It's just one of the bigger issues with it is that sometimes, there's just no oxygen and nothing to kill. I never waste oxygen by grabbing tanks that push me over over 90% even, so why is the game designed so that there isn't enough oxygen? If it's based on RNG, there needs to be a baseline. Ideally though, I'd like for them to have a director keep track of the player's current oxygen level and make sure more enemies come, so there's always a chance to keep going. Sure, I could wait it out with 5 HP, but that doesn't work well on most maps unless it's Infested, or I've got Frost/Rhino, who can survive with only 5 HP and no shields.

 

Right now, I'm guessing survival is on the shelf so they can concentrate on other stuff, but hopefully, with release approaching, DE will focus on some polish.

[NitroMidgets]

I have been in a mission with three new players and I spent most of my time trying to keep them from deaths door. Lack of experience, wrong mods, weak weapons and getting too far away from each other (safety in numbers when you are new) made it almost unplayable. I finally just gave up and raced to the extraction point to end it.

 

I like Survival mode as it is now but it could be improved.

[SonofRobin73]

I don't like the new survival. The O2 stuff is rather annoying to worry about. 

 

One room, endless enemies, that simple concept was all they needed...

 

I want this.