Excavator Level Scaling

[Flan-Flan]

Hello, I think Excavators on 'Excavation' mission types need to scale their HP and shields with mission level. At least a LITTLE bit. It's simply too difficult to keep them alive at higher levels, and with the addition of kuva liches, there's more and more high level missions out there on which you NEED to take Frost or Limbo, as a requirement rather than just an advantage. If you've done a third stage sortie excavation I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about, especially with Grineer enemies with hitscan weapons that can instagib the Excavator in seconds.

[(PSN)RazorPhoenix970]

Gara's Splinter Storm can simulate your idea excavators become a lot less of a pain to care for...but you're absolutely right, 3000 eHP on a defense target at level 80-100 is woefully low

[Icarust312]

You can thank DE Glenn for the lack of excavation changes.

[ShortCat]

7 hours ago, Flan-Flan said:

I think Excavators on 'Excavation' mission types need to scale their HP and shields with mission level.

No they do not. In contrary to Defense, you do not fail a misison if an Extractor is destroyed.

7 hours ago, Flan-Flan said:

At least a LITTLE bit. It's simply too difficult to keep them alive at higher levels

This is kinda the point of higher levels, you should not sleapwalk through missions.

7 hours ago, Flan-Flan said:

more and more high level missions out there on which you NEED to take Frost or Limbo, as a requirement rather than just an advantage

So, Frames specialized in protecting are good at protecting and offer an ADVANTAGE, while you argue against their usage due to convenience reasons (and afterwards suggest a rework because they have no place in meta?).

7 hours ago, Flan-Flan said:

If you've done a third stage sortie excavation I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about, especially with Grineer enemies with hitscan weapons that can instagib the Excavator in seconds.

If you pick the wrong tools for a task, do not complain it is not going well.

 

[Flan-Flan]

1 minute ago, ShortCat said:

No they do not. In contrary to Defense, you do not fail a misison if an Extractor is destroyed.

This is kinda the point of higher levels, you should not sleapwalk through missions.

So, Frames specialized in protecting are good at protecting and offer an ADVANTAGE, while you argue against their usage due to convenience reasons (and afterwards suggest a rework because they have no place in meta?).

If you pick the wrong tools for a task, do not complain it is not going well.

 

While I appreciate the points you present, I think you misunderstand. What I'm trying to say is that you can finish a defense without defense-oriented frames such as Frost or Limbo (even sortie level), but it is extremely difficult to complete even a single excavation without these two specific frames. Mesa on top of that is something of a holy trifecta, but optional - my point here is that there's a difference between a prerequisite and a situational Warframe here, based specifically on the levels at which you tackle these missions.

To give more detailed examples, I would say you could take any mix of Warframes to a level 1 or level 150 Defense mission, at that point because the defense target would have such an immeasurably high health pool, you wouldn't have to worry too much about stray hits. It's all focused on keeping the target alive, yes, and of course if you simply make mistakes you'll lose, but it's at least a fair challenge.

Using those same Warframes, compare to a hypothetical level 1 excavation, and a level 150 excavation. During the level 1 excavation, most enemies will barely scratch the paint off the excavator. You'll have so much time to finish off every enemy you see, even on Earth where you get Grineer attacking from unpredictable angles, you'll never strictly require a minmaxed Frost or Limbo. This is because the health doesn't scale for the excavator, so at 2500 health points, it can withstand an enormous amount of punishment from enemy weapons that will deal damage in the single to double digits only.

However, if you were to attempt a level 150 excavation with the same, you would soon see that no matter who you pick, you will be unable to progress the mission without the right Warframes. It is impossible. I mean, of course there's the possibility that you could manage it, but it's an inhumanly difficult task. This is disparity caused by the lack of level-scaling health on the excavators.

Now, aside from 'difficulty' this has several effects. What this means is that higher level excavations are more difficult for pub groups (the majority of the Warframe playerbase) to do. Not out of difficulty itself, but because maybe nobody dropped into the match with a Frost or Limbo. What this also means is players dropping from missions when they have no way to beat them, thus leading to more queue time. No other mission type has this issue.

I'm not really asking to have 1 million health excavators dropping in, I'm not really asking for 'easy mode', all I'm asking here is for something here, a small buff to make these missions more manageable in a pub environment. The game already has scaling health excavators, even, if I recall the Excavation bounties on Fortuna have them, so I don't think it's too much to ask.

[ShortCat]

46 minutes ago, Flan-Flan said:

While I appreciate the points you present, I think you misunderstand.

I understood your point just right. I just find it extraordinary stupid to design defensively oriented Frames out of defensive mission types. Not the Excavators have low health, Defense Cryopods have too much health.

48 minutes ago, Flan-Flan said:

I would say you could take any mix of Warframes to a level 1 or level 150 Defense mission, at that point because the defense target would have such an immeasurably high health pool, you wouldn't have to worry too much about stray hits.

But you already can clear a lvl 1 (or higher) Excavation without Frost/Limbo/..., because you can delete enemies faster than they can approach your position. If Excavators die, you deal not enough damage and give enemies time to destroy them. Higher health just moves the goalposts. This suggestion will result in an even stronger push towards DPS meta and against all the other roles, while...

1 hour ago, ShortCat said:

you argue against their usage due to convenience reasons (and afterwards suggest a rework because they have no place in meta?).

 

 

[Chrai]

I'd say consoles as well. Currently can't progress in the void because Aten onwards are T4 missions despite not saying anything to let you know so even with a tanky or good defence frame you get one shotted and the consoles might as well be made of cardboard.

[TheLexiConArtist]

1 hour ago, ShortCat said:

I understood your point just right. I just find it extraordinary stupid to design defensively oriented Frames out of defensive mission types. Not the Excavators have low health, Defense Cryopods have too much health.

But you already can clear a lvl 1 (or higher) Excavation without Frost/Limbo/..., because you can delete enemies faster than they can approach your position. If Excavators die, you deal not enough damage and give enemies time to destroy them. Higher health just moves the goalposts. This suggestion will result in an even stronger push towards DPS meta and against all the other roles, while...

You're arguing the ceiling, OP is arguing the floor. There will always be a desire for defensive frames when defending mission objectives is an endless process.

Enemies are a lot tougher now than they used to be. If you're a few years deep in your career, try rolling up a new account and attempting to solo your way through the defense missions on your path - you might be surprised how tough they actually are, even the ones which are scaling the objective's health to the base level of the node.

So the decision process goes:

• Do I want to not use specifically defensive frames (which I may not even have access to)?
  • I can feasibly complete the run without pushing to higher drops and rotations, albeit with some measurable risk (to mission failure or time)
• Do I want to clear the node in a safer, reliable fashion?
  • I can choose a defensive frame to spread out the necessary reaction speed and TimeToKill on my opposition, reducing the risk substantially or removing it.
• Do I want to stay in the node longer and aim for rotation rewards (or more Cryotic)?
  • I will need to ensure a defensive frame is present to handle the increasing threat enemies will pose to my defendable objects, as the enemies scale beyond base level.

Believe me, I love citing the Warframe stock achievements - The right tool for the job; Each tool with its own purpose - as much as the next person. But Excavator non-scaling forces the issue in a clearly inconsistent way. It's like the difference between a 'Dense Fog' Sortie and an 'Elemental Enhancement (Toxin)' Sortie. One of these things is vastly more oppressive than the other.

[Ariumbra]

4 hours ago, ShortCat said:

I understood your point just right. I just find it extraordinary stupid to design defensively oriented Frames out of defensive mission types. Not the Excavators have low health, Defense Cryopods have too much health.

But you already can clear a lvl 1 (or higher) Excavation without Frost/Limbo/..., because you can delete enemies faster than they can approach your position. If Excavators die, you deal not enough damage and give enemies time to destroy them. Higher health just moves the goalposts. This suggestion will result in an even stronger push towards DPS meta and against all the other roles, while...

 

 

While i get your point at making sure frames have their purpose and place to use them not everyone is going to want to use limbo or frost. It would be reasonable to make it still difficult but not impossible to do those high level excavation missions by simple scaling the health some. It's not stupid it's actually smart as defense frames would still be useful to make the mission a let me sit afk in limbo bubble while my team does all the work luls cake walk.

[Xarteros]

There shouldn't be any circumstance where the base level of the enemies can one-shot any defense point.

They need to make some sort of standard, like making the health of the Extractors/cryopods be enough to survive for 10 seconds against the average DPS of 4 'standard' units at the mission's base level (just example values, subject to change). That way, you still need to play smart, but you have a definitive threshold of 'forgiveness' for making an early mistake in the run, while you're still assessing the situation etc.

[Chrai]

19 hours ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Enemies are a lot tougher now than they used to be. If you're a few years deep in your career, try rolling up a new account and attempting to solo your way through the defense missions on your path - you might be surprised how tough they actually are, even the ones which are scaling the objective's health to the base level of the node.

As a newer player thank you. A lot of veterans don't seem to realise how tough stuff is and post advice about using certain frames and mods that just aren't available to newer players. I don't mind a bit of farming because it a F2P game but certain sections become just about impossible unless you're willing to farm for days or hand over cash for plat to buy primed mods and other rare gear.

[(XBOX)THeN9nEefFeCT]

I'm going to add to this. Recently, DE updated the Kuva siphons in Kuva survival to scale with the mission to a fair degree. There is also examples of this in Fortuna, which I will say, scale too much.

The point of saying this is, they know the problem and have addressed it in different aspects of the game and have given their new game mode, Disruption updates and overhauls.

So why is it, the game mode that actually focuses on this aspect of the game "Excavation" continually overlooked?

In addition, level 1 excavators with 2500 health is completely fine vs lvl 20 enemies, but level 1 Excavators with 2500 health vs lvl 100 enemies that are scaling in damage is a huge problem. It's not like we're asking for a million HP here, just something similar to what DE has already done in the game elsewhere.

[Shalath]

On 2019-11-28 at 5:02 PM, Chrai said:

I'd say consoles as well. Currently can't progress in the void because Aten onwards are T4 missions despite not saying anything to let you know so even with a tanky or good defence frame you get one shotted and the consoles might as well be made of cardboard.

Yeah, I got caught by this as well. Aten was pretty much impossible when I first ran into it as a solo player which was a complete progress blocker as you need it to get to Mot for Chains of Harrow which is a requirement for some later stuff. I had to PUG and be carried to clear this node.