The Deadlock Protocol: Jackal Revamp Feedback Megathread

[ES-Flinter]

Overall I like it. But I have three wishes.

- if the jackal is in his UFO mode he should start shooting rockets. This could made the fight more fluid and also harder. Would be nice if it would use two kinds of rockets. Fast rockets with no aiming, but they attack only visible targets. And a slow one which inflict a guaranteed knockdown and follows invisble targets.

- give us a possibility to stop his UFO dance. A shot on the head or something like that. 

- increase the speed of his UFO dance. Maybe increase it with the level of the jackal. I want to see a beyblade with deadly lasers on sortie missions.

[Arkennstar]

Personally, I would recommend DE start from the end and work their way towards the start. 

Jackal is actually the first proper boss fight in the game. Earth has no boss (Vay Hek is encountered later) and Venus is the next planet. The jump in skill level needed to do regular missions to straight up Jackal fight is too much in my opinion. We as older players don't feel much of a difference. But environmental hazard, timed parkours, are a bit much for new players who don't have decent mods and are one shot by the laser walls or electric barriers. They are already overwhelmed by the game as it is and this doesnt do them any favors. 

Warframe is inherently a very harsh game to start, many people have voiced their opinions about this and such revamps only make it worse. I saw many new players with MR2-3 struggling with the fight while I was farming the boss for the new weapon parts. New players who barely have practice with movement or mods, need to be eased into the game, not see flashy boss mechanics.

Hence my suggestion would be to switch Jackal and move it to Phobos and bring the Sergeant (poor guy) to Venus.

That said, the more fundamental design path to take is to work your way from Eris to Earth, revamping bosses like Phorid or Hyenas and Salad V to make them more epic like this than jumping on the first boss in the game and giving him medium to high tier treatment. While this fight is epic, imo it was not the best choice to foster the welcoming of new players, many of which leave around Venus because the game starts to get too complicated to pick up. 

[Tesseract7777]

Coming back to the game and not understanding the parazon thing very well... I had no idea I was supposed to use that thing or how. I had to look it up when trying to solo it. 

Is this explained better for new players? I really hope so, because as a returning veteran I didn't know what was going on. 

Apart from that the fight is really not any more difficult than before, and feels like it just has invuln phases to make it last longer. 

You wear down health, wait for the invuln/uber damage phase to stop, parazon, over and over. It's not hard, it's just slightly time gated now. 

And the damage is easy to avoid. I don't know if this is intentional but you can just bunny hop up the walls and stay above it. 

But even without cheesing there are multiple frames that can just facetank the damage, wait out he invuln phase and then go again. 

With all respect, it just feels like you slowed down the fight but kept the exact same boss, with the almost exact same mechanics. 

It does feel a little more like a real boss and a little less of a joke, but only because of the time gating. 

[SignatureChewy]

My only gripe with the new jackal fight is the spinning laser wall phases. Especially with a squad that can instantly kill the legs, it feels like the entire boss fight is just dodging lasers. Once the pillars explode and start making more hazards, the lasers create too much clutter and it can be hard to tell what is going on. Not to mention how confusing it is for the electrical hazards and non-lethal phase of the lasers to be the same color. It seems like people do one of two things: avoid the phase all together with operator/wall latch, or use their revives to tank the hits. Even if you follow the patterns and dodge the laser legitimately, the jackal has tendency to randomly knock down your warframe and launch it into the electrical hazards anyway. Having to deal with this over and over again is beyond annoying.

I'm fine with the jackal having invincibility phases between each health bar, but it should do different attacks each time. Here are some ideas for alternate attacks the jackal could do instead of lasers:

• Jackal fires mortars into the air, which rain down upon the arena. Players can tell where they will land and dodge accordingly based on red indicators similar to the artillery in the ambulas fight.
• Jackal curls up into a defensive position and begin spawning augmented minima moas that chase the players. A portion of defeated minima moas will drop explosive debris that can be picked up a hurled at jackal similar to thermia canisters, which will break its defenses and end the phase.
• Jackal crouches down and targets a random player. After a second or two, it pounces in said player's direction, creating a massive shockwave on impact. Players must position themselves so that jackal pounces through a broken pillar's electrical hazard in order to stun jackal and end the phase.

In addition, here is how I think the spinning laser wall phase could be improved: 

The lasers are extended to the roof and walls of the arena, so that you cannot wall latch to avoid them. The lasers spin, destroy ONE pillar, and then immediately do their direction switch phase. The objective would be for players to quickly reposition to new cover during the switch phase, when the lasers don't do damage. The lasers would continue to destroy pillars one at a time like this until only a single pillar remains. Once the last pillar is destroyed, the laser phase immediately ends.

 

[CinderSail]

There is too much blue! The Jackal's spin is blue (when changing directions), The Jackal's slam effect is blue, the lighting pillars are blue, the electric fence is blue, and The Jackal even shoots blue projectiles.

I had a very hard time seeing everything clearly because it was all the same color. Especially after the electric fence goes up it gets a lot harder to see where exactly the things I'm supposed to be avoiding are.

 

[KM131]

the new bossfight is okay-ish, but  no real improvement over the old one.

what i like is the intensification during the phases. at first you seek some cover, then you have to dodge a bit and at the end it gets quite hectic.

on the negative side, phase one is a way to short. there is one round and you are in phase two.

the phase itself is not that hard but really confusing, because everything is blue, the electricity wall, the lightnings, the jackal shock wave, the harmless disco laser and the harmfull projectiles.

the other thing is the transition to the second room. after the cutscene your frame switches back to the primary weapon, not a gamebreaker but inconvenient.

 

now to the nitpicking stuff, the level design makes no sense.

the first point is, from where the jackal enters the hall? the rail is empty, there is no hole in the roof nor it is hiding in the background.

point two is, why there are two identical rooms connected with each other? i mean, what is purpose of this layout? for example a launching hangar and a connected  maintenance area would make sense.

the last point is, why is the door to the mission start locked after the fight? well not locked but why you get teleported back to the arena if you get close to that door?

[DeltaPangaea]

I'm... really not fond, to be perfectly honest.

Like okay, I can tolerate the cutscenes if I have to. If I really have to solely and 100% progress this boss via 'go up and press the button', I GUESS I'll manage.

But christ alive those laser walls and barely-visible lightning walls that the barely-visible and poorly-telegraphed shockwaves adore to slam you into do a hefty amount of damage even for a modded up frame, they'd instagib a newbie. I can't imagine how bad they are in this week of sorties. And they're ALL THE SAME COLOR. Also the hell are companions meant to do besides just... die? If you bring anything other than a Sentinel, it's just gonna drop dead basically as soon as the laser walls start because they don't follow closely enough. And if the rotating walls miraculously don't, the lightning walls will. Was this even considered at all?

And goddamnit Lotus would you SHUT UP I don't need you barking things at me every two seconds. "You know what to do" yes, I've done it three times already, why are you telling me again?

I'm gonna get these weapon blueprints and then never fight Jackal again. I feel sorry for any newbie who runs headfirst into this.

I get it you want to make cool cinematic boss fights but like...Iunno. This ain't it, chief. This ain't it at all. I ain't feelin' it.

• Make pets immune to the walls, like they're immune to void lasers. _{While you're at it, make them immune to a few more envirohazards you have no control over them blundering into.}
• Make the lightning walls more obvious where they actually are.
• Telegraph those slams a little bit better. If they were just knockback they'd be fine, but they're gonna be shoving you through the lightning walls, so they ain't.

[MacIntoc]

Great boss, but it may be a little too early for new players. It should be perfect for players who have understood how the gameplay works but don't yet know how to cheese the game.

 

On 2020-06-15 at 4:34 PM, Arkennstar said:

Hence my suggestion would be to switch Jackal and move it to Phobos and bring the Sergeant (poor guy) to Venus.

Indeed 👌

And a bit more lore compliant.

[akrid45]

On 2020-06-15 at 4:34 PM, Arkennstar said:

Hence my suggestion would be to switch Jackal and move it to Phobos and bring the Sergeant (poor guy) to Venus.

So you want the first boss new players to fight to the worst boss in any game i have seen? You're supposed to give players a good impression not a bad one 

[Arkennstar]

2 hours ago, akrid45 said:

So you want the first boss new players to fight to the worst boss in any game i have seen? You're supposed to give players a good impression not a bad one 

A good impression for a new player is feeling powerful and accomplished.. defeating a boss which is merely a regular mob with a boss title has a placebo effect. Not to mention what we consider easy now is not as easy when you take into account that these are players who don't even have mods like Serration or Pressure Point halfway ranked up. Own only MK-1 weapons, starter warframes with no potatoes.. No sense of which element to use against which faction or armor or shield. Hell some people don't even know mods like Serration and Pressure Point are mandatory ones. 

So yeah, I do feel that Sergeant is the best boss for that level. Not too hard, not too easy for a newb and still a named "boss" which is a big deal. You gotta build up slow.. Not just throw your flashiest and complicated boss right at the start. Gotta pace yourself.

[anonimus_riga]

in sortie this stupid rotating wall wipes out 5000 hp in one hit! thanks a lot!

where even you need to stick your parazon, went through several fights, never once could see the prompt!? other players preformed the stab

disables iron skin!? every animation respawns you without buffs or protection?! energy drain as well?!

you for real?

simple lvl 6 mission throws rhino prime and inaros around like rag dolls

new players will just quit the game at this boss!

 

 

[Kitsushadow]

You should consider putting the modified Jackal somewhere on the map on a more permanent basis. It's an awesome encounter! Slick, polished, and fast-paced. It's what boss encounter content should be like more often. It avoids the pitfalls of Profit-Taker, and adds the difficulty of multiple attack phases from Exploiter Orb. The addition of the parazon mechanic adds a nice bit of flavour for the game, since this is nominally the first boss encounter new players face, and is a good way to introduce the parazon.

All in all, an awesome encounter! I hope it takes a permanent place somewhere.

[fastdeath_]

Maybe idea with Sergeant is not bad. I think that too Jackal can be really hard to new players.

 

Only don't understand why some of defence skills work and some do not 😕 .

I was trying it on normal Jackal on his lassers. e.g.

WORK:

- rhino skill 2, we can see "hp" of steel skin,

- valkyr skill 4,

- nyx skill 4, but not on other team (teammates can't use how shield)

- harrow skill 4,

but DO NOT WORK (lasers ignore them?):

- volt shield skill 3 😕

- frost bubble skill 3 (where is the 4 sec immortality?)😕

- atlas wall skill 2

- gara skill 4

- limbo dash or skill 4 😕

Probably... something go wrong.

[sam686]

Before: Destroy 4 legs to destroy Jackal.

After: Destroy lags, Jackal becomes invulnerable, fly up and fires lasers that does huge amount of damage from level 10 Jackal that will quickly kill players. Then try to do a parazon kills with unskippable animation. Repeat multiple times. There is a cutscene that cannot skip. Avoid huge amount of blue hazards that can kill players in less then a few seconds, on a level 10 regular mission. Then there are plenty of bugs where it does the endless cycle of destroy legs then Jackal fly and fires lasers then attacks with no option to do parazon, endlessly.

Why make the Sortie always a buggy Jackal?

[Krilexis]

I find the fight way better than before and pretty much completable by new players if they know the mechanic of avoiding the laser or simply using the operator in void mode or Valkyr 4 etc. 

Though I used only Valkyr Prime fully modded to fight the Jackal on Sorties so I can't say what it is on low level with frames with few mods equipped.

[DarknesShadow64]

honestly the mechanis are ok but the only thing that i hate is, i cannot fight with whatever warframe, i mean which is the point to have a fight if I can not use my habilities, it is the same fight just with a litle more cinematic scene, and yes i'm not a fan of the invincibility window. i feel like borring fight, like the ropalolyst, after the last orb in fortuna all your bosses has a similar structure, this fight is good if we comparing to the old but,I see a similarity mechanics with this three last bosses.

[MacIntoc]

13 hours ago, Krilexis said:

I find the fight way better than before and pretty much completable by new players if they know the mechanic of avoiding the laser or simply using the operator in void mode or Valkyr 4 etc. 

Though I used only Valkyr Prime fully modded to fight the Jackal on Sorties so I can't say what it is on low level with frames with few mods equipped.

Bet on Exca, Volt or Mag without potatoe and half mounted mods on MK-1 weapons 😄

[Krilexis]

11 hours ago, MacIntoc said:

Bet on Exca, Volt or Mag without potatoe and half mounted mods on MK-1 weapons 😄

I have a Mag which Im leveling without potato just MR because Ill get the Prime anyway. Ill try the classic Jackal with few mods and without a sentinel Ill update my post 🙂.

[OceanSpirit05]

I liked the new Jackal boss fight, true it's not too hard, but it shouldn't if it's one of the first boss battles for players. I've played it both in the regular mission and the sortie version and thought it struck a good balance of easy mechanics but high enough damage (in the sortie) to actually care not getting hit.

[(XBOX)EPOSSTYLE]

De needs sit down and figure out how to make a MR 1 and lvl one boss scale appropriately for MR 30 and max lvl.

I c no reason/excuse good enough to not have escalated phases to all bosses and enemies. More difficulty=more bells and whistles to deal with u...simples

Seems the order of the day is to keep designing insufficiency to go back and tweak it later. 

[(PSN)Kamranos]

I feel like rotation A rewards are completely bogus. 5 void traces is insulting when you can get 5 times that in a simple Lith relic run, which is probably easier for most lower level players. To that point, I’ve must have run 50 or so missions without getting a single protea part or crown decoration despite getting all three rewards.

The difficulty of the Granum void is a little ridiculous. If you cannot complete the task without a overpowered meta, then it shouldn’t be there. I’ve run raids with 4 people that were easier than me trying to solo nightmare Granum even with my Mesa, I only manage to get 75 kills 1/3 of the time. It is beyond broken. No game mod should be designed just for the min/max meta players. It has soured the entire update for me.

[(PSN)f_r_e_e_b_i_e_bg]

I started about 2 months ago, so I pretty much never experienced how he was before (saw videos to have a comparison point).

The first impresssions where it was a crazy awesome fight. Cinematic, organic with sense of variety and evolution. Compared to old or how in general I guess most boss fights where in past/still are with Warframe - meaning very outdated and sort of early 2000 :) - you just keep fighting and slashing in quite a non-interesting fashion and maybe avoid some attacks until you beat/cheese him. The old was much like you just fight a regular enemy but with some more hp and some extra attacks.

The new fight is expertly done and much more intune with what modern or tripple A game should look like or do with the fantasy of Warframe.

 

My biggest gripe and most annoying point was the last phase - 4th? (go by memory so excuse me), in which the whole area outside a certain range of the boss is electricuted. The problem is actually one of the biggest ones I think Warframe have in general. That is visual clarity! While this can be turned into a separate and very long post (also quite consuming to write as you can touch/cover almost everything), I focus mainly on the boss itself because it was/is (if it wasn't adressed) easily solved.

The game doesn't visually properly tell you that you are not safe outside the range of Jackal in last phase. What I mean is - yes, you can see all the electricity, but it gives the feeling that if you stay in between the beams you will be safe. I played on PS4 if that matters, and for me I couldn't figure for good 2-3 attempts what was killing me even if I felt I am safe. The visuals of "danger" outside boss range wasn't working for my brain. I think if the eletrical surges are more thick and full or just have a more clear outline (let's say circular) zone of danger, will do wonders and speak volumes without telling what we need to do.

 

I did fight Jackal with Excalibur :P, and the fight was fair I think for my noob level and experience back then. After I got the hand of it I think I was finishing at a decent pace 5-6 minutes (again I go by memory). Considering that you would have to do a couple of runs - something I was learning along the way. I was worried thinking now that in terms of speed, the old fight could've been done faster (and it probably is), comapred to the new being more time consuming, but I feel the balance is allright.

In terms of flow you have some short inbetween cut-scenes that makes you look cooler and I adore a lot (probably the highlights as I enjoy all sort of animation), but I assume - like everything - you get to a point that you just would wish to just skip them even if they are super short. It's more of a psychological thing. Due to how WF's pace is in general. Such small hitches look like a glaring annoyances in the eyes of people even if they are miniscule on theory. You just want to get on with it.

 

In conclusion, I think if this is a sort of blue print of what's to come to other boss fights you get an A+ :P. Ok  A- is more realistic. I'd love to see more of those and part of me will regret that by now I've experienced the old variants. I think you got it perfectly balanced so it doesn't feel like a bullet sponge (be that Vay Hek or any other actually), and besides different stages you have to utilize your other WF tools like the parazon. What also intrugued me is that even if we had to do something 4 times in a row - it did feel different due to varied stages - very important. Because some of the older approaches are - well you did this thing once, let's repeat it 3 more times, but we are gonna add more enemies more damage or something like that and drag it for another 10-15-20 minutes. The later just turns into a chore instead of an exciting and cool fight. I know you probably spent a lot of time (re)constucting and managing every new mechanic or in general design, but I commend you for the great work and looking forward to the next one. Not many developers end up revisiting old work to be more contemporary.

 

 

[(XBOX)EPOSSTYLE]

Why did DE make it a quadruped. For the amount of movement it makes it could have been a roomba or trash receptacle...same with razor back....get your bosses upgraded DE! All bosses need to move (excluding disappearing tricks).

[pax228080]

I won every mission and only got killed once by environment when stomped into some reactor- like thingy, which was somehow ridiculous.

But then, for me as a new player, that boss fight with jackal was simply a desaster.
- i just needed materials for weapons not available in the starting areas, so i had no choice but to go to junction
- i had no clue about mastery levels and how to get besser weapons otherwise
- I found out about the legs and shoot em
- i used the hacking device 2 times properly
- i dodged the lasers
- i used cover until it got destroyed
- and all with starter gear with no endo to increase mods properly, but enemies died anyway
- there was no warning before mission start at all that this boss would be different from any capture or other named enemies so far.


And then, after getting into the new arena, jackal at half bars, there were these electric fences. I stood in a dead end of a slim corridor at the edge of the arena, seperated from the boss, with no way to dodge the lasers, the boss did not go into the mode where i could stab him, he stomped too that i was thrown into the electric hazards. I didnt know about a movement to jump into the air.

Running through the fence with little life left and hacking in close combat didnt help either. He stomped me into those fences or hazards.

I wondered what the heck the programmers wanted from me- being fried in a small corridor with no movement options?
Extremely poor design, frustrating for someone who is typically playing and winning on HC modes without dying.

Remove the fence idiocy, remove the silly scripting and invulnerabilities, and let it be a gun fight where you do some hacking in between to stop self repair or such.

[pax228080]

I had close to 700 shield in a volt, but it made no difference. If you have only the option to run into the fence or the laser.
It felt like a simple "#*!% you".

I dont know if it was the intention that you get totally seperated from the jackal in a own area by fences that span the whole area with no opening between him and you, and no clue by the game that there is a movement mode to jump over such fence.