Index - Gas City tileset is a disgrace

[Harutomata]

I'd like to apologize in advance if my tone comes off as angry and negative, but this is clearly something that has been frustrating the playerbase ever since it got into the game.

So we all know when Jupiter got upgraded, its tilesets changed, had amalgams added, etc. But Neptune also got its previous map on the index replaced with a new one.
And there are big issues with it. the map is gigantic which is very inconvenient for the game mode, and there are too many layers of walls obstructing the players from the enemy targets. As a result, you have to constantly run around to find the enemies like they were playing hide and seek, which does not provide a bigger challenge to the game mode, it just makes it inconveniently slow and clunky. If anything if the enemies showed up with more density on a smaller map, they'd have more chance to do more damage to you. Furthermore the spawns are incredibly inconsistent, and the tileset is overall very dark in some spots, which is cool from an artistic standpoint as it makes more contrast with the light parts, but for gameplay it's again just inconvenient.
One last small problem, which might be a bit of a hyperbole on my part is that the tileset seems to clearly belong to Jupiter in theme with its orange clouds. Since Index is a Neptune mission, it'd make more sense if it was blue due to methane absorbing red light, opposed to the orange we'd see on Jupiter due to the ammonia crystals. Therefore it kinda feels like this was just slapped on as a replacement for the previous smaller tileset which was far more convenient for the game mode.
Don't get me wrong though, the current big tileset has amazing graphics, shading, etc. it's a great piece of art undeniably. But it's a very bad map for Index. It takes around 2x more times to finish than any other tileset would, or 1.5x if the player runs around like crazy where did the enemy spawn in the gigantic map and hide after the last time they died. Too much time spent on finding the enemy opposed to fighting the enemy. I assume that's not what this game mode is supposed to be. Just my two cents.

I'd suggest putting the old map back in rotation for all risk index missions, and let us blacklist atleast one of the 3 options, or shaving off the side rooms in the big tileset, though that'd require too much effort which is probably out of question right now, since I assume the team is more focused on Empyrean, New War and stuff, which might take priority and reasonably so.

[Hello]

Agreed about that tile. When I do Index, if that one comes up. It's an instance abort and restart. No hesitation in that decision.

[Yuri_Doujinshi]

Agreed.

[Mikhael222]

Honestly?

I was in a team that ran three index missions in a row with the enemy never scoring.  If you can't play the new tileset, it's not the tileset's fault.

[Harutomata]

10 minutes ago, Mikhael222 said:

Honestly?

I was in a team that ran three index missions in a row with the enemy never scoring.  If you can't play the new tileset, it's not the tileset's fault.

Seems like you have some problems with text comprehension. Nobody said it's difficult nor that the enemy scores. The real problem with the tileset that it's too slow paced due to its size and other problems which makes farming credit a more tedious task on the tileset. Index is easy to win on any map if you're well equipped, you don't really need a "too meta" setup even to win at it. It's just this tileset that trivializes speed and efficiency by its bad map design.
You finish in this tileset slower and with less fun than you would in the previous tileset it replaced, or the snowy one.

Edited December 11, 2019 by Harutomata

[Mikhael222]

39 minutes ago, Harutomata said:

Seems like you have some problems with text comprehension.

I comprehend text well enough.  I just lack interest in studying a huge page of words about an extremely trivial issue with a harsh and unnecessary headline.

[PunishedWelfare]

51 minutes ago, Mikhael222 said:

I comprehend text well enough.  I just lack interest in studying a huge page of words about an extremely trivial issue with a harsh and unnecessary headline.

If you can't be bothered to read the post properly then why even reply? There's plenty of other places to be ignorant. The Index plays a big part in the game and contrary to your belief it isn't trivial at all.

The new tile needs to be changed and there's no arguing about that. Any person that values their time even a little bit and doesn't want to play hide n' seek will keep aborting the mission until they get the outdoors tile.

[Harutomata]

8 hours ago, zioxei said:

If you can't be bothered to read the post properly then why even reply? There's plenty of other places to be ignorant. The Index plays a big part in the game and contrary to your belief it isn't trivial at all.

The new tile needs to be changed and there's no arguing about that. Any person that values their time even a little bit and doesn't want to play hide n' seek will keep aborting the mission until they get the outdoors tile.

This. Index is the major source of credits in the game, and some higher capacity mods cost millions to upgrade, especially primed and umbral mods, which are 2m credits each, riven mods exist, and now the railjack's build costs millions too. That's a lot of rounds of index even with a credit booster, and I don't think players want this agony of a tileset constantly shoved in their face just because they are in need of some credit. It's slower than the other two, it's less fun than the other two, it's less challenging than the other two (unless you count trying to find "where did the corpus hide this time" challenging), therefore there's no reason to keep the things the way they are. All this tileset does right is looking great, but then again it's not even matching Neptune, which kind of makes it feel like the only reason we got it is some recycling of Jupiter tileset materials for show off, while it does not provide more to the index from a gameplay standpoint.
Shaving off the siderooms to make the tileset more viable might be too much effort, but putting 3 maps in rotation with the option of blacklisting one of them could be done by some code changes without even having someone working on tiles having to touch it.

Edited December 11, 2019 by Harutomata

[Mikhael222]

8 hours ago, zioxei said:

The Index plays a big part in the game and contrary to your belief it isn't trivial at all.

I never said the Index was trivial.  I said whining about the tileset is trivial, as it is completely functional.

[sam686]

I agree the map is too hard to see, mostly too dark of lighting in some areas.

I have been using Enemy radar mod, which does help.

 

I also do not understand why there is only 1 location node of "the index" with random maps. I will like to see "the index" in Jupiter for gas city only map(s), and "the index" in Neptune for the good old outdoor snow/ice map?

 

Another problem I keep running into is, the terrible bug of invisible index points that cannot be picked up while not host, which got worst with the new index map. 

 

[Megalomaniakaal]

On 2019-12-12 at 9:02 AM, sam686 said:

Another problem I keep running into is, the terrible bug of invisible index points that cannot be picked up while not host

So that's what it is, I figured the hosts are just playing with cheats. Certainly comes off that way. Real bad.

 

Edit: Frankly I'd just get rid of the Jupiter map altogether. One is enough and the Neptune one, while it still has some problematic spots where points can get stuck, has less of them and is somewhat better to play.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Megalomaniakaal

[AlphaLegionXX]

Bring back the old map, this ones just bad.