Solo take on Nightwave so far

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

I was originally going to post this after Series 1 but forgot. I will have my feedback on that (that hasn't been addressed, or is still relevant) in addition to the overall feel of Nightwave, and Series 2 specific stuff. For reference, I play mostly solo, occasionally I'll pub it with Oberon or group with some clanmates (when they are actually on)... and I guess I'm technically a "Vet" if that matters. Also a lot of my criticisms come from the inability to opt out at any point in a series, I will explain where relevant.

Overall:

Spoiler

• Cannot get Nora to zip it. this is less relevant now that she has more lines, but she still grates after a while. Especially her "reptile backbrain" line.
• Cred rewards are very "meh". While I understand not everyone has all the cosmetics for their frames of choice (or all of them if you want all of them), I have a suspicion that those of us capable of getting a surplus of Series Creds are going to quickly not need those rewards. The 10k Kuva is nice if you reroll Rivens a lot, Potatoes are okay since new weapons are coming out all the time (but depending on how "vet"  you are, you probably have a stock from Lotus Alerts and/or Invasions). All or most of the remaining rewards are "buy once and done", Helmets, weapons, camo, once you have it, you just have it. I would greatly appreciate more Series Credit "sinks", stuff I can buy in bulk and justify.
• Stories are great, so far 2/2 in stories loved.
• Unable to opt out. I hate this in premise, but allow me to elaborate. With Alerts, I only did what I wanted, Nightwave forces the challenges (many of which I can achieve passively/unintentionally) and enemies onto me. The only way to avoid it is to not play the game, which is the exact opposite of what I want to do. I still want to run full "levelling" loadouts and be left alone by random baddies dropping in. Running Archwing exclusively only partly avoids Nightwave, some challenges will still happen. Why does this matter? One, because lackluster credit cashouts, and 2 because after a certain point I either end up not wanting to gain standing or I'm tired of fighting the series baddies for whatever reason. I just think being able to say "got what I wanted, was fun, might be back" would be great.
• Challenges are much better now than at start. The RNG of some of them is annoying (Ayatans and Rare mods come to mind) but the breadth of "challenge" is nice. Some are beyond trivial so you can get something by the Series's end.
• Enemies need more flair for arriving, just some flashing markers (that aren't visible while aiming) or a 2s transmission was not enough to warn me that guys had just joined the fight.

Series 1:

The Wolf:

Spoiler

• He really wasn't a threat.to me in and of himself. He was a tanky pain and that was about it. I first encountered him in a Survival on Eris, and had missed his howl. I had to let him kill me (was running Oberon, and I was potentially healing faster than he could injure me). The fact he was de-tanked 3 times is telling how tanky he was out the gate.
• His adds being invulnerable. I generally don't like invulnerability for enemies in general, nevermind invulnerability on the biggest threat in the room. Yes, I know the fight would have been easier if you could nuke his support down first, but then again he could've had the ability to summon more instead of them being invulnerable. Running around emptying clip after clip into something and it just not dying because of how tanky it is, is bad enough. Doing it while having to avoid invulnerable adds is just a bad experience.
• Couldn't strip his armor. If I can strip the armor off Lech Kril (and maybe Eidolons, but can't confirm that), why am I being shoehorned into using a damage type I rarely use? Why should I be forced, in a game with many approaches to a given problem, to use a single damage type or run out of ammo? He's just an ex-con, not a literal Sentient.

Fugitives:

Spoiler

• Holy firebombs, Batman. At first I thought these guys weren't bad, then I got to watch my health vanish on Mesa via fire procs. One proc could eat most of her health through Shatter Shield at 95% reduction, so I feel really bad for any new players that got hard nuked by this.
• This is subjective, as I rarely run Capture missions, but it felt like it took aaaaages to capture these guys. With the aforementioned fire procs, and being unable to dodge whatever else was in the level, it was... not fun. Again, dunno if they used the same capture duration or not.
• Because of when the "start" of the firebomb throw animation/trigger was, I repeatedly got firebombed by guys who made no arm movement, and were downed as soon as I saw them

Series 2:

Zealoid Prelate:

Spoiler

• In spite of his invulnerability phases, I genuinely enjoyed this boss. My only criticism of the fight itself is the lack of rewards, just a weapon. Can't say if it's good or not yet, no weapon slots atm.
• Was kinda tedious to get Zealot codes, but I am also fussy about invasion missions when I'm levelling gear... and also in general. Probably isn't bad for most people.

Special Derelicts:

Spoiler

• Really fun due to new enemies. Even if the new zippy Infested was a nuisance, the overall experience was good.
• Minor downside, depending on priorities: these missions also drained codes used for Zealoid fights, only a minor downside

Zealots:

Spoiler

• Someone ate their Wheaties. Even scaled to a node's level they punch above their level by a noticeable amount. Not sure if it was a function of rapid-fire or what, but they consistently would appear and, as soon as I was in range, deal easily 2x-3x the damage of anything else in the level. I botched the only time I tried testing (using Iron Skin), so I cannot confirm my suspicion.
• Spawned far away, and frequently far apart. In one case, they didn't even come to fight me. If you wanna drop an enemy in, please at least have them wanna fight.
• Invulnerability... *sigh* this time it's a case example of why I haaaate invulnerability on premise. Combined with the no-range-limit on the Herald's ability to make them invulnerable, the fact they were invulnerable until you hunted down the Herald (who could be 200m+ away from the rest of the bunch), it was awful.

That's it, my complete thoughts on Nightwave to date. Count me as "neutral" on anything I didn't expressly mention. I hope this is readable enough.

[Jiminez_Burial]

I agree with basically all of it except for one point. 

Your comment on Ayatan/Mod RNG.  Ayatans are plentiful and since you know it's a possible 'challenge' for NW you can just keep 3-5 of them without stars.  As for mods... the index exists.  And if you don't want to solo that then just run some missions in the void and break containers.  In a 5-8 minutes syndicate mission where I'm breaking the containers (so it's easy to see on radar what are medallions) I get an average of 2 rares a mission.  That's not a lot of time in order to complete the mission, and if you don't want to do the entire challenge this way then just play normally until 1 day before weekly reset and then head to the void to finish it off.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Jiminez_Burial

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

22 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

I agree with basically all of it except for one point. 

Your comment on Ayatan/Mod RNG.  Ayatans are plentiful and since you know it's a possible 'challenge' for NW you can just keep 3-5 of them without stars.  As for mods... the index exists.  And if you don't want to solo that then just run some missions in the void and break containers.  In a 5-8 minutes syndicate mission where I'm breaking the containers (so it's easy to see on radar what are medallions) I get an average of 2 rares a mission.  That's not a lot of time in order to complete the mission, and if you don't want to do the entire challenge this way then just play normally until 1 day before weekly reset and then head to the void to finish it off.

I know, though it would be nice if mission reward (like from Survivals) counted towards the Rare Mods. It's a small tedium that's fine unless I have to specifically run it. Then it becomes a very small annoyance. Ayatans you can even stockpile 1 every week, if you aren't trying to just find them kicking around in missions.

[Kingsmount]

You can even notice the new infested enemies?

I barely ever even notice that new Trasher thing at all, it just blends in with the masses and I don't notice anything new about it other than occasionally noticing the different name and vaguely different form.

I only notice the undying things because of the sound effect and their little rebirthing pod.

 

I really wish the derelicts had a far, far greater spawn rate for them.    Like completely replace the spawn odds of leapers with them or something.

[Tenno76856]

Ayatan's - i never know why people need to sell everything including Ayatans, when they know NW will more likely than not throw a fill Ayatan thing to do. 

Zealot's - ****ing pain in ass. Drops in when you least want them to. Seen them drop in twice in one mission i did too. Prelate -- awesome. Even if rewards in missions do feel lacking in reward.

For me i liked NW2 better. Good story, imho daily/weekly chores er i mean missions quite doable (im amazed i managed to get to lvl 30 where onwards rewards all creds.

Lack of stuff to spend creds on - they need to work on it to make them more appealing to everyone or at least have more of a variety..

Tiny question -- are there NW specific mods which drop at all?. 

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

2 hours ago, NigglesAU said:

Tiny question -- are there NW specific mods which drop at all?. 

Not as drops, to my knowledge. Only the fixed rank rewards like the Harpak and Vulkar mods.