Replace Eximus Death Squads with Operative Death Squads (and maybe make them spawn and drop loot more like Assassins)

[houselyrander]

Death Squad enemies are still very obvious placeholders and Nightwave S2 have proven that Operative-like enemies work fine, so it's probably time to give the Syndicates Operatives for their Death Squads. The current Death Squads suffer from an issue a lot of high level trash mobs have in that they have lots of EHP and little else going for them, making them boring and unchallenging. New Loka's Ancient Healers are the worst since they seem to be able to refill their health to full whenever they please while having ZERO damaging attacks (just a knockdown harpoon). Seriously, if the Loka Healers can actually do damage I can't tell.

While we're on the topic, maybe we could also change how Death Squads spawn. Instead of being a constant and rewardless thorn like the old Wolf, make them work more like Assassins where doing Syndicate Missions for their enemies has them mark you for death like Zanuka or the Stalker, determine how deadly they are by how much a Syndicate hates you, and then (here's the important part) have them drop something better than the credit fodder BPs. This way veteran players have more of a reason to play Syndicate Missions and newbies who accidentally started repping Syndicates way too early without realizing it aren't screwed by the Forma/Orokin Catalyst/Orokin Reactor cost of reversing bad rep.

[Tsukinoki]

12 hours ago, houselyrander said:

where doing Syndicate Missions for their enemies has them mark you for death like Zanuka or the Stalker

My problem with your idea is this.

It would boil down to "Do a syndicate mission, hope that a syndicate marks you, then pray to RNG that it's the syndicate that you need/want for the rewards..."

With the current assassins you know if you do a few assassinations (between 1 and 5 usually) you get marked by Stalker.  You know that if you run 5 or so invasion missions you get marked by G3/Zanuka depending on who you side with.
With syndicates though?  Say I run a Steel Meridian mission, or 3, who do I get marked by, Loka or Perrin?

This would very quickly turn into a boring slog of "Run 3 SM missions, check if I get marked by the right syndicate, then repeat the next day..."

On the other hand it would give me a break of Loka's healers and their annoying toxic auras spawning every other mission....

[houselyrander]

1 minute ago, Tsukinoki said:

My problem with your idea is this.

It would boil down to "Do a syndicate mission, hope that a syndicate marks you, then pray to RNG that it's the syndicate that you need/want for the rewards..."

With the current assassins you know if you do a few assassinations (between 1 and 5 usually) you get marked by Stalker.  You know that if you run 5 or so invasion missions you get marked by G3/Zanuka depending on who you side with.
With syndicates though?  Say I run a Steel Meridian mission, or 3, who do I get marked by, Loka or Perrin?

This would very quickly turn into a boring slog of "Run 3 SM missions, check if I get marked by the right syndicate, then repeat the next day..."

On the other hand it would give me a break of Loka's healers and their annoying toxic auras spawning every other mission....

That's fair, it's the part of my idea that's probably the least fleshed out (except maybe what they'd drop). I also was not aware that Assassin marks were semi random (I thought it was exactly 3). If it was gonna be Syndicate missions then I'd say a guaranteed Mark by the enemy faction after X missions (maybe about 2-ish?) and a guaranteed Mark by the rival faction after X*Y missions (make Y about 1.5?). For example, when repping Steel Meridian, get marked by Perrin after 2 missions and Loka after 3. Knowing DE they may up that though (assuming they didn't make it semi-random). Another possibility is that whenever you get X amount of negative Syndicate rep you get Marked. You should definitely be able to get simultaneous Marks though.