15 Minute Survival - Impossible For Some

[Fulmir]

what i think:

survival must be a SURVIVAL, fihgting for YOUR LIFE; not to just fihgt untill a timer says you to leave or lose.

 

in my opinion:

 

-REMOVE the oxygen thing.

-make the enemy scaling faster (just a bit).

-let the player leave at any time.

-let us fihgt to SURVIVE.

-drop a special unit now and then (let's say... 5 min).(not a boss, or a heavy [duh], but something between, call it a mini-boss if you want.)

for example: u just reached the 30 min mark, the lotus say something like "this is not good, not good at all" (lol), then a pack of mini hyenas (for the corpus) appear (the lotus has always said that the hyena moves in packs, yet we haven't seen a single one of those, so..... duh), an armored grineer with heavy cannons and stuff, or a super fat infested which spits acid at u and creates a huge corrosive xplosion when killed. (you know, somethig to make you say "WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT AND HOW CAN I KILL THAT SH*T?!?!?!?!?!?!")

 

well, even it's true we can call this oxygen mode a "survival"...... c'mon! let us feel cornered by the enemies, not by a timer. let us feel we need to kill to survive, not that we need to kill to maybe get a time extend item.

 

this mode has sooooo much potential.....that it would be sad to let it be just a "beat the timer" mode.

 

lot of hard work? yes / possible? yes..... so , why not?

 

:D

Because... we already have stuff like that?

I mean, I'm not against the general premise, but the fighting under pressure of something besides death by enemies is part of what makes Survival different from other game-modes. If you don't like it then that's your thing, but while I think your idea has merit I don't think it should over-write the existing Survival mode, I just think the existing mode needs some tuning since right now it swings wildly from quite easy to holy crap due to factors that are, if not outside the player's control then not well explained to the player (spawn mechanics, drop rates).

[lonelydrone]

Because... we already have stuff like that?

I mean, I'm not against the general premise, but the fighting under pressure of something besides death by enemies is part of what makes Survival different from other game-modes. If you don't like it then that's your thing, but while I think your idea has merit I don't think it should over-write the existing Survival mode, I just think the existing mode needs some tuning since right now it swings wildly from quite easy to holy crap due to factors that are, if not outside the player's control then not well explained to the player (spawn mechanics, drop rates).

 

Yours is a valid point, and i think the oxygen mode can stay, but for me, and some, that is not survival (even you're technically fighting to live), that oxygen mission type is way far from SURVIVAL should be, a better name for it (IMO) would be distraction or diversion rather than SURVIVAL.

 

again, for me and some, survival should be something like i described in my previous post; but of course, the oxygen mode is here, why killing it? you're right about that. Maybe rename it to diversion ( i liked that one xD), and make  a REAL survival mode.

 

:D

[DiabolusUrsus]

I think it'd be interesting if Survival had specially modified enemy models with portable life support systems on them. Guaranteed oxygen drop if you kill them without ruining their life support equipment. Kinda similar to how you can shoot the methane packs and masks off of the Grunts in some of the Halo games, except you want to try to avoid doing that. Removes RNG. Injects rewards for skillful gameplay. Problem solved.

[Psychus]

.__. I don't know what you're talking about , I mean, I guess they may have patched it, but with me using a nekros in survival, I had more than enough of those oxygen drops to sustain me well past 15 minutes without ever popping a pod. Maybe it's just luck.

[Fulmir]

.__. I don't know what you're talking about , I mean, I guess they may have patched it, but with me using a nekros in survival, I had more than enough of those oxygen drops to sustain me well past 15 minutes without ever popping a pod. Maybe it's just luck.

 

Nekros is a weird case, especially if you're leaving him all the corpses to play with. At issue here is, at least for me, Void Survival specifically, especially T3 where enemies get hard to kill and the fact that some of them don't even drop Oxygen becomes a real threat to your continued presence in the level.

[LordMidnightX]

I have been hit by bad luck on survival, there have been times where simply not enough enemies were spawning around us and those that did were not dropping enough stuff. At 15-20 minutes we should be worried about being killed by enemies not worried about dieing from lack of oxygen. 

[notionphil]

The failure to understand the problem in this thread is amazing. Running out of oxygen in t3 survivals even though you kill every enemy and do not waste any oxygen simply should not happen. The fact that it's even possible means the level is broken and needs fixing. I've seen this happen multiple times and the reason is generally because of spawning bugs - there's just not enough enemies to kill to generate the life support you need. You stand around for minutes with nothing to shoot even if you run all over the tower.  I've seen what the OP describes once also - a decent number enemies, but no life support packs spawning

 

The failure condition for survival should be tied to killing enemies and using life support capsules properly. If you use capsules too soon, you run out of oxygen and fail.  If you don't kill all the enemies, you run out of oxygen and fail, or they overwhelm you. 

 

If you don't misuse life support and you kill all the enemies then failure should not be possible, at least not before the 15 minute mark. But it is. That is a problem. 

 

All of you  saying it's a skill issue are flat-out stupid.

 

I've done about 30 survivals now and it's my new favorite game mode.

 

I'm going to say something unpopular here - if you run out of O2, it is due to a lack of understanding about the spawn rates.

 

It has nothing to do with your ability to kill enemies, which I'll assume is as good as mine, and generally it's not pure RNG bad luck either.

 

Spawn rates are different on different map tiles - there's a huge variance. Some rooms barely trickle in enemies. Others, especially outdoor tiles on Corpus maps, pour in floods that you can barely withstand. Generally the bigger the tile, the more doors. The more doors, the more places for spawns to generate even if you haven't killed their prior spawn.

 

When you're on Survival, you don't need to chase one O2 drop to the next to the next. You need to find the best spawning tile and stay there. If you need to pop a canister, send a team member there and have him come back.

 

Regular system map survival and T3 survivals follow the rules above. Having said all of that, here's the exception to the rule - T1/T2 survivals are the hardest, due to lowered rates. I barely made 15 on T1/T2 and had to run all over the map chasing spawns - those two need to be fixed.

 

For everything else, try my method before replying to my post.

[PandaMoni]

Totally agree with the OP; my friends and I were killing, and killing, and killing...

 

And nothing was dropping. It was so annoying, because we had a Mag + Rhino + Saryn combo (while not perfect, still pretty efficient at killing), and we were suffocating before we'd even hit 14 minutes most of the time we did Survival in the Void...

 

Hope DE changes the way Survival is done so it'd be slightly more doable. There are some great suggestions on this thread.

Edited October 16, 2013 by PandaMoni

[Salvo1]

Just did a T3 Survival the other day where we had to pull out at 14 minutes because we just couldn't get enough O2.  This is with the whole team spread out killing things at a different spawn solo, with at most, 2 people fighting things at once, with 1 guy hitting the Lotus drops when we were desperate.  We all wrecked things fast, picked up every drop and were in NO danger of dying, yet we failed due to a lack of enemies and O2 drops from them.

 

We weren't challenged, just screwed over by the random number generator and/or the lack of enemies.  Honestly, I haven't done a 15 minute void survival lately without a Nekros.  We had one for the last successful void survival I was in and it helped a lot.

 

Edit: I've just vowed not to do any of them until things get fixed unless there's a Nekros.  It's not worth wasting a chance to get a Mage Prime/etc. part when you know you'll probably just fail due to a lack of drops not a lack of power or skill.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Salvo1

[Fulmir]

I've done about 30 survivals now and it's my new favorite game mode.

 

I'm going to say something unpopular here - if you run out of O2, it is due to a lack of understanding about the spawn rates.

 

It has nothing to do with your ability to kill enemies, which I'll assume is as good as mine, and generally it's not pure RNG bad luck either.

 

Spawn rates are different on different map tiles - there's a huge variance. Some rooms barely trickle in enemies. Others, especially outdoor tiles on Corpus maps, pour in floods that you can barely withstand. Generally the bigger the tile, the more doors. The more doors, the more places for spawns to generate even if you haven't killed their prior spawn.

 

When you're on Survival, you don't need to chase one O2 drop to the next to the next. You need to find the best spawning tile and stay there. If you need to pop a canister, send a team member there and have him come back.

 

Regular system map survival and T3 survivals follow the rules above. Having said all of that, here's the exception to the rule - T1/T2 survivals are the hardest, due to lowered rates. I barely made 15 on T1/T2 and had to run all over the map chasing spawns - those two need to be fixed.

 

For everything else, try my method before replying to my post.

 

This actually just illustrates the problem. Doing exceptionally well on a mission like this could very well mean using hidden mechanics like this, but 15 minutes is supposed to be "par" for these missions and that shouldn't rely on understanding very vaguely understood mechanics that aren't communicated well to the player and are subject to change by the devs without these changes being thoroughly communicated. Nor should these changes be thoroughly communicated as that level of understanding by the players invites abuse of something that is supposed to simulate enemies appearing from elsewhere in a ship or facility.

 

Even with this you're acknowledging that there's a problem currently though for you it's with the *lower* tiered Survival missions.

 

[notionphil]

This actually just illustrates the problem. Doing exceptionally well on a mission like this could very well mean using hidden mechanics like this, but 15 minutes is supposed to be "par" for these missions and that shouldn't rely on understanding very vaguely understood mechanics that aren't communicated well to the player and are subject to change by the devs without these changes being thoroughly communicated. Nor should these changes be thoroughly communicated as that level of understanding by the players invites abuse of something that is supposed to simulate enemies appearing from elsewhere in a ship or facility.

 

Even with this you're acknowledging that there's a problem currently though for you it's with the *lower* tiered Survival missions.

Agree with everything you said. I'm not saying survival doesn't need a fix, just that the fix isn't removing O2 RNG drops. It needs rebalanced spawn rates and rebalanced o2 drops maybe. And T1/T2 needs complete overhaul.

My point is, until then you can still beat survival now that you know how. I generally leave when risk of death gets too high, having nothing to do w o2 at all.

[RaMeDaDa]

To the OP, it might have something to do with your current life support guage. Most of my survival missions, the support drops so frequently when my guage is over 9000, no, 80%+. So my team strat is like make the guage up to 80ish all the time and get the drop to maintain the guage and when there are no supply drops when the guage is 68-69 we use the Lotus one. Repeat.

 

Yeah, I might be all wrong so if that's the case, sorry for your bad luck. Learn to pRay.

[eXXaXion]

Do you even Nekros bro?

Pretty sure a stacked Nekros could even do it alone.

Well, god tier weapons, sentinel, qt, rage and all.

Would try it myself on stream if anyone wants to see that.

Anyways, Nekros on a full desecrate build with frost can definitely do it.

It's basically the whole secret.

Bring a Nekros who spams desecrate and make sure he lifes.

If you find a good room with decent spawn, you won't even need many capsules.

[taiiat]

I'm going to say something unpopular here - if you run out of O2, it is due to a lack of understanding about the spawn rates.

 

Spawn rates are different on different map tiles - there's a huge variance. Some rooms barely trickle in enemies. Others, especially outdoor tiles on Corpus maps, pour in floods that you can barely withstand. Generally the bigger the tile, the more doors. The more doors, the more places for spawns to generate even if you haven't killed their prior spawn.

 

When you're on Survival, you don't need to chase one O2 drop to the next to the next. You need to find the best spawning tile and stay there. If you need to pop a canister, send a team member there and have him come back.

 

Regular system map survival and T3 survivals follow the rules above. Having said all of that, here's the exception to the rule - T1/T2 survivals are the hardest, due to lowered rates. I barely made 15 on T1/T2 and had to run all over the map chasing spawns - those two need to be fixed.

 

For everything else, try my method before replying to my post.

that shows the innate problem(s) with Survival then. this is the issue, rather than anything else. just as Corpus Mobile Defense has been broken forever until recently, Survival is just as broken because not enough enemies are capable of spawning most of the time.

 

Bring a Nekros who spams desecrate and make sure he lifes.

it's well known Nekro can create Oxygen drops. the point is that he shouldn't be required. just like Frost shouldn't be required for Defense and Mobile Defense missions. which he isn't as much now, so i'm glad for that.

Edited October 16, 2013 by taiiat

[notionphil]

that shows the innate problem(s) with Survival then. this is the issue, rather than anything else. just as Corpus Mobile Defense has been broken forever until recently, Survival is just as broken because not enough enemies are capable of spawning most of the time.

 

Having to choose an ideal location to survive, while under enemy attack and O2 pressure is a totally legitimate challenge that we should welcome.

 

HOWEVER, the game makes no mention of this being the key factor in determining one's chance of survival - so that needs to change. If Lotus tells you plainly

 

"Tenno, your goal is to cause as much havoc as possible to draw attention away from the other operative. Make sure you select a highly trafficked location that has many egresses - this will also have the benefit of getting you more emergency air packs from fallen defenders."

 

I'd have no issue with it.

[ChameleonDude]

Left this thread for a few days, but I'm glad that things are a lot more constructive now. The spawn patterns have piqued my interest and I will probably look into those a bit more (although I usually don't just have four people camping the same tile). However, I don't believe this should have to be the be-all and end-all of how to complete these missions (besides lady luck, of course).

 

Noticed a few Nekros-related posts too. Yes, I own one. No, relying on one warframe's gimmicky ability is not the solution - it treats the symptoms, not the disease.

 

I've suggested psuedo-random drops already as an alternative method (no less skill needed, those pro-players out there have nothing to fear); but any form of life support being rewarded by skillful acts (such as those masks) seem perfectly fine to me too. Basically, a competent group of players should be able to reach fifteen minutes without being killed by luck alone.

[Makemap]

Do you even Nekros bro?

Pretty sure a stacked Nekros could even do it alone.

Well, god tier weapons, sentinel, qt, rage and all.

Would try it myself on stream if anyone wants to see that.

Anyways, Nekros on a full desecrate build with frost can definitely do it.

It's basically the whole secret.

Bring a Nekros who spams desecrate and make sure he lifes.

If you find a good room with decent spawn, you won't even need many capsules.

Stacked Nekros cannot survive high tier missions like T3 for 15 mins. Enemies do crazy damage to Nekros.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Makemap

[taiiat]

Having to choose an ideal location to survive, while under enemy attack and O2 pressure is a totally legitimate challenge that we should welcome.

 

HOWEVER, the game makes no mention of this being the key factor in determining one's chance of survival - so that needs to change. If Lotus tells you plainly

 

"Tenno, your goal is to cause as much havoc as possible to draw attention away from the other operative. Make sure you select a highly trafficked location that has many egresses - this will also have the benefit of getting you more emergency air packs from fallen defenders."

 

I'd have no issue with it.

while i'm okay with that being the 'best' way to survive the longest, it's against the intents of Warframe. fast-paced, third person shooter, with loot, mods, and a wide variety of weapons.

if we're all camping in one room in every single gamemode, we're far from meeting this statement.

 

it should be totally viable for Tenno to split up and be all over the map. in fact, i WANT that to be the 'best' way to survive. enemies seeing that you're split up, and trying to take advantage by surrounding every Tenno. little do they know, we can still beat their faces in without much trouble, and wipe them out anyways.

 

i like doing survivals and Clannies and i just run around as we please, doing whatever we want, while kicking faces in. it makes it infinitely more enjoyable than standing in one place and waiting for the world to end. 

[notionphil]

@taiiat,

I like that idea very much and agree that would be even better. If the optimal (eg always get enough 02 indefinitely) way to survive was to separate, that would be ideal.

However thats a far cry from the multiple threads every day saying survival is impossible, which it really isn't. Poorly explained? Yes. Irregularities which are probably unintentional? Yes. Non ideal play? Maybe. But impossible , fully dependent on RNG? No.

Edited October 16, 2013 by notionphil

[ChameleonDude]

@taiiat,

I like that idea very much and agree that would be even better. If the optimal (eg always get enough 02 indefinitely) way to survive was to separate, that would be ideal.

However thats a far cry from the multiple threads every day saying survival is impossible, which it really isn't. Poorly explained? Yes. Irregularities which are probably unintentional? Yes. Non ideal play? Maybe. But impossible , fully dependent on RNG? No.

 

Technically, under the current system, despite how perfectly farmed the enemies are... they can still refuse to drop. Highly unlikely, yes - but it's still a possible scenario. 1% chance =/= 1 in 100 will drop, or that one will ever drop.

[Cryp2Nite]

Dont you have some decent players that can play with you?

It really isnt that hard and dont tell me you havent Potatoed all your Frames (at least your most favourites) and some weapons, cmon youre a Grand Master, you should have more than enough decent stuff to survive even more than 15 Min. You could even carry some lower players which can additionally give the team a buff or debuff the enemys if they do not have the best DPS Weapons etc.

Whats wrong about some challenge in the game. This is exactly what this game needs : decent Challenges besides highlevel Defs.

Stop crying and l2p or search players that carry you through. Jeez

 

Did you even read the OP?

 

RNG =/= challenge

[PapaKicks]

Somethings I've noticed is that you can somewhat control spawns. For example take a dead-end hallway. If you stand very close to the end you will get virtually no spawns from behind. If you stand a specific distance away you will get spawns from that direction as if they are coming through a portal behind you.

 

Using this same logic you can find two or three locations similar to this, being the right distance away, and will have 2x or 3x as many enemies spawn as if you were in that dead-end hallway.

 

There's the obvious downside of getting overwhelmed if you get too many spawn sites, but it also allows you to get very large numbers of enemies for more chances at RNG drops. On easy maps each player can create one of these 'spawn points' and have up to 12x the spawns as that same original hallway. On a harder map you can pair or double pair up and entrench yourselves in to kill and survive ideally.

 

Using this method you should get more than enough pod drops. Every so often you will need to go for a Lotus pod. To do so one person does a stealth or speed run to it, not killing (as tempting as it may be) but focusing on the goal of activating that pod.

 

The above has worked really well for me. Hope this helps.

 

TL;DR - If you aren't getting enough spawns, move away from tile edges. Running from room to room killing everything in site is actually not a good strategy!

Edited October 16, 2013 by Akivoodoo

[Fulmir]

Having to choose an ideal location to survive, while under enemy attack and O2 pressure is a totally legitimate challenge that we should welcome.

 

HOWEVER, the game makes no mention of this being the key factor in determining one's chance of survival - so that needs to change. If Lotus tells you plainly

 

"Tenno, your goal is to cause as much havoc as possible to draw attention away from the other operative. Make sure you select a highly trafficked location that has many egresses - this will also have the benefit of getting you more emergency air packs from fallen defenders."

 

I'd have no issue with it.

 

Except that unless the pods are all dropping right on top of you you're going to have to move at some point and if the wave is high enough even the best teams are going to have to move as a group to avoid getting stomped.

 

Somethings I've noticed is that you can somewhat control spawns. For example take a dead-end hallway. If you stand very close to the end you will get virtually no spawns from behind. If you stand a specific distance away you will get spawns from that direction as if they are coming through a portal behind you.

 

Using this same logic you can find two or three locations similar to this, being the right distance away, and will have 2x or 3x as many enemies spawn as if you were in that dead-end hallway.

 

There's the obvious downside of getting overwhelmed if you get too many spawn sites, but it also allows you to get very large numbers of enemies for more chances at RNG drops. On easy maps each player can create one of these 'spawn points' and have up to 12x the spawns as that same original hallway. On a harder map you can pair or double pair up and entrench yourselves in to kill and survive ideally.

 

Using this method you should get more than enough pod drops. Every so often you will need to go for a Lotus pod. To do so one person does a stealth or speed run to it, not killing (as tempting as it may be) but focusing on the goal of activating that pod.

 

The above has worked really well for me. Hope this helps.

 

TL;DR - If you aren't getting enough spawns, move away from tile edges. Running from room to room killing everything in site is actually not a good strategy!

 

We've been discussing this, but manipulating spawn behavior is not what should be required to get to 15 minutes, since spawn behavior is not something that's communicated well to the player, is subject to glitches, and is not going to be possible on all map setups. It's okay for players to make use of hidden mechanics in advanced strategies, but we're not talking about advanced strategies we're talking about getting a "par" 15 minutes which should be possible without resorting to abusing poorly understood mechanics.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Except that unless the pods are all dropping right on top of you you're going to have to move at some point and if the wave is high enough even the best teams are going to have to move as a group to avoid getting stomped.

 

 

We've been discussing this, but manipulating spawn behavior is not what should be required to get to 15 minutes, since spawn behavior is not something that's communicated well to the player, is subject to glitches, and is not going to be possible on all map setups. It's okay for players to make use of hidden mechanics in advanced strategies, but we're not talking about advanced strategies we're talking about getting a "par" 15 minutes which should be possible without resorting to abusing poorly understood mechanics.

Anybody even slightly considering the possibility of implementing a system for guaranteed oxygen drop provided you don't just haphazardly shoot enemies? Anyone? I think it kinda makes sense to be able to harvest oxygen from corpses in the event you manage not to ruin their individual supplies. Grineer and Corpus get little oxygen backpacks and mask sets. Infested have little air bladders or something. Seriously, problem solved. No need to argue about RNG being viable or not, it reduces the need for efficient Lotus drops, and actually makes shooting enemies require a tidbit of conscious thought.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I could really be onto something here. Will it take a bit of time from the devs? Yes. Should it be difficult? No. It's like adding another headshot zone that you want to avoid shooting.

[PapaKicks]

We've been discussing this, but manipulating spawn behavior is not what should be required to get to 15 minutes, since spawn behavior is not something that's communicated well to the player, is subject to glitches, and is not going to be possible on all map setups. It's okay for players to make use of hidden mechanics in advanced strategies, but we're not talking about advanced strategies we're talking about getting a "par" 15 minutes which should be possible without resorting to abusing poorly understood mechanics.

 

That really depends on how the developers intended the maps to be played. It's not abusing anything if that's how they intended.

 

Do we have a livestream of them playing survival? Might be something to watch to see how they did it.