Excavation Relics Are Still The Worst and NEED Attention

[(PSN)MaGanicGo]

I have been playing Warframe for over three year’s now. I have well over 1,000 in this game. In all that time, to my knowledge, they have only updated excavation relics once, and this was to increase the reactant drop rate. Well, folks, it’s still not good enough. 
I know better than to play with randoms. But dang it, I like to have a variety of options to choose from, especially when Forma blueprint hunting. 
I loaded in last. I had loaded in for not even 2 minutes when everyone else got their reactant. Then what happened? The two excavations finished their digs (because they ran more than one at a time), and I was the ONLY person to not get all my reactant. You know what happened? They got a NOVA PRIME CHASIS (a very rare gold piece). 
There is no excuse for this. Why was I punished for something out of my control? Unfortunately, randoms can’t be trusted. They are either horrible, selfish, or mindless. DE is going to have to remedy this. Its beyond unfair, borderline cruel, giving us zero chance to catch up to everyone else and then seeing what rewards we could have had dangle over us. Why would you want your innocent player base to feel like we got a swift kick in the pants?This has gone on far too long and can be fixed so easily.

Option 1, which makes the most logical sense- increase the reactant drop rate even more. Better yet, **let the enemies spawn in already fizzled** so that we don’t kill unfizzled enemies and have zero chance at reactant. Why isn’t it already like that in all relic missions?? Absolutely mind boggling revolutionary concept there. That would fix a huge problem that most relics have, which is reactant drop rates (like in a survival, where everyone spreads to the four corners of the map and no one gets their reactant in time). 
Option 2- when we load into a game, it’s not our fault if we load in way later than everyone else (such as if we are thrown into a squad that’s been running for 2-3 minutes). Let the reactant that everyone else has gotten still be on the ground, and if that’s too complicated, let us spawn in with an average of everyone else’s reactant count. Fair is fair. This is also a problem in open world bounties where I spawn in to someone who immediately afterwards loses the mission because the rest of the squad couldn’t load in faster and they couldn’t wait a minute or two for us.
Option 3- During relics ONLY, let us only run one excavator at a time. Obviously not ideal, but it would fix the problem. What notoriously happens is that randoms will run 2-3 excavators at a time, and then the round ends very quickly and before anyone could possibly gather all 10 reactant.
Option 4- Put icons on the mini map showing where reactant has dropped if we still haven’t gotten our 10. This wouldn’t have really helped me since I had barely loaded in by the time everyone else got their reactant, but is still enormously helpful. Would be life saving in survival relics when randoms “hallway hero” to the other side of the cosmos and take the enemies/reactant with them. At least this way we could go grab our reactant around the map before it was too late. 
 

Excavation missions just suck. Seems sometimes there’s never enough power cells, doesn’t drop enough cryotic, and randoms crap all over the experience, (like most other missions, to be honest). DE, please address this. Again, randoms just can’t be trusted. Can’t be trusted to restrain themselves until the enemies fizzle. Can’t be trusted to not run multiple excavators at a time. Can’t be trusted to pay attention to see if everyone else got their reactant before they power up said excavators to finish the round. Unfortunately, to protect the un-selfish players that actually give a crap about the game or their fellow Tenno, you’re going to have to adjust, or else have this experience remain miserable. 

[OggerAZ]

39 minutes ago, (PS4)MarissaGNWalker said:

I have been playing Warframe for over three year’s now. I have well over 1,000 in this game. In all that time, to my knowledge, they have only updated excavation relics once, and this was to increase the reactant drop rate. Well, folks, it’s still not good enough. 
I know better than to play with randoms. But dang it, I like to have a variety of options to choose from, especially when Forma blueprint hunting. 
I loaded in last. I had loaded in for not even 2 minutes when everyone else got their reactant. Then what happened? The two excavations finished their digs (because they ran more than one at a time), and I was the ONLY person to not get all my reactant. You know what happened? They got a NOVA PRIME CHASIS (a very rare gold piece). 
There is no excuse for this. Why was I punished for something out of my control? Unfortunately, randoms can’t be trusted. They are either horrible, selfish, or mindless. DE is going to have to remedy this. Its beyond unfair, borderline cruel, giving us zero chance to catch up to everyone else and then seeing what rewards we could have had dangle over us. Why would you want your innocent player base to feel like we got a swift kick in the pants?This has gone on far too long and can be fixed so easily.

Option 1, which makes the most logical sense- increase the reactant drop rate even more. Better yet, **let the enemies spawn in already fizzled** so that we don’t kill unfizzled enemies and have zero chance at reactant. Why isn’t it already like that in all relic missions?? Absolutely mind boggling revolutionary concept there. That would fix a huge problem that most relics have, which is reactant drop rates (like in a survival, where everyone spreads to the four corners of the map and no one gets their reactant in time). 
Option 2- when we load into a game, it’s not our fault if we load in way later than everyone else (such as if we are thrown into a squad that’s been running for 2-3 minutes). Let the reactant that everyone else has gotten still be on the ground, and if that’s too complicated, let us spawn in with an average of everyone else’s reactant count. Fair is fair. This is also a problem in open world bounties where I spawn in to someone who immediately afterwards loses the mission because the rest of the squad couldn’t load in faster and they couldn’t wait a minute or two for us.
Option 3- During relics ONLY, let us only run one excavator at a time. Obviously not ideal, but it would fix the problem. What notoriously happens is that randoms will run 2-3 excavators at a time, and then the round ends very quickly and before anyone could possibly gather all 10 reactant.
Option 4- Put icons on the mini map showing where reactant has dropped if we still haven’t gotten our 10. This wouldn’t have really helped me since I had barely loaded in by the time everyone else got their reactant, but is still enormously helpful. Would be life saving in survival relics when randoms “hallway hero” to the other side of the cosmos and take the enemies/reactant with them. At least this way we could go grab our reactant around the map before it was too late. 
 

Excavation missions just suck. Seems sometimes there’s never enough power cells, doesn’t drop enough cryotic, and randoms crap all over the experience, (like most other missions, to be honest). DE, please address this. Again, randoms just can’t be trusted. Can’t be trusted to restrain themselves until the enemies fizzle. Can’t be trusted to not run multiple excavators at a time. Can’t be trusted to pay attention to see if everyone else got their reactant before they power up said excavators to finish the round. Unfortunately, to protect the un-selfish players that actually give a crap about the game or their fellow Tenno, you’re going to have to adjust, or else have this experience remain miserable. 

I don't see any issue with that as

if the excavator's were just running out the moment you joined.. well then you got a rotation without putting any time with it and you can keep playing as if you just joined on the 2nd relic rotation.

and if there was still a decent chunk of time before the excavators run out.. well that should be enough time to get the reactants. other than that DE should just increase reactant drop chance for defense, excavation and intermission as people just kill enemies way too fast for them to get corrupted in low lvl missions. So this is not an excavation issue but rather an issue with the way you open up relics.

[(PSN)MaGanicGo]

12 hours ago, OggerAZ said:

if the excavator's were just running out the moment you joined.. well then you got a rotation without putting any time with it and you can keep playing as if you just joined on the 2nd relic rotation.

and if there was still a decent chunk of time before the excavators run out.. well that should be enough time to get the reactants. other than that DE should just increase reactant drop chance for defense, excavation and intermission as people just kill enemies way too fast for them to get corrupted in low lvl missions. So this is not an excavation issue but rather an issue with the way you open up relics.

A problem with the way I open relics, or the way relics are opened in general? Again, not my fault that the randoms ran several excavators at once. Not my fault that I was thrown into a relic that was being opened too quickly. Do you know how it felt for no one to give a crap about whether or not I got my reactant, then for a nova prime chasis to be dangled in front of me? It felt like S#&$. DE should not let this continue longer than it already has. 

[NecroPed]

I personally think reactant just needs to be replaced with some sort of involving task, like taking down a corrupt enemy that spawns in through a fissure. 

Reactant seems to only spawn near one person in squads, and it punishes you for not sticking with your team mates. Now that's a fine punishment if it was my fault for running around, but it's all on the person who's spawning the reactant in. If that person is running around away from objectives and team mates it's only making it harder for everyone else to collect. I missed out on a vaulted part recently because no reactant showed on my screen because it was all on the other side of the map near one team mate. I was in a survival, playing near the majority of life support stations and had not a single reactant drop or even show on my map, it was all apparently too far away to even let me know it existed.

I think reactant itself is the issue. It feels like a cheap way to keep small bits of work from the original rework that didn't play out very well in gameplay. It made sense to collect 10 things if we had to actively put it in the fissure or whatever, but now we're collecting 10 things simply because it's there. Fissures no longer feel like special missions, they just feel like a regular mission with an extra objective with little involvement that I might forget about and be punished for, even while playing the objective of the main game mode. It just gives me a buff that I don't usually have the enemies to utilize because I just killed them all to get said buff. 

I've both actively saved people from missing out on rewards by stopping extractions, and had the same done for me. And the fact that this even happens is evidence of the problem: collecting reactant for a reward is so mundane and seemingly pointless/irrelevant but isn't actually. Reactant had a purpose originally, now it doesn't other than just to be there for the sake of delaying opening your relic or punishing you for not walking to the 10 things that don't always spawn near you or in a distance that you can see.

[xombob89]

3 hours ago, NecroPed said:

 

Reactant seems to only spawn near one person in squads, and it punishes you for not sticking with your team mates. Now that's a fine punishment if it was my fault for running around, but it's all on the person who's spawning the reactant in. If that person is running around away from objectives and team mates it's only making it harder for everyone else to collect. I missed out on a vaulted part recently because no reactant showed on my screen because it was all on the other side of the map near one team mate. I was in a survival, playing near the majority of life support stations and had not a single reactant drop or even show on my map, it was all apparently too far away to even let me know it existed.

THIS. 

For years Ive complained about reactant drop rates but theres STILL issues like the one you mentioned. 

On excavation theres often someone who runs around triggering all excavators making it go too fast so nobody has time to get all reactant, or they take all spawns with them. 

On disruption I have to get keys and hide them otherwise people go too fast, thats stupid. And you also have to separate from group sometimes to chase the bombers which adds to the problem you mentioned. 

On certain Interception and defense missions theres just not enough reactant spawns because people kill enemies too quickly.

On public survival people always tend to spread out. 

So many problems with this, I wish they either changed whole system or increased reactant drop on all endless missions by A LOT. 

[(PSN)MaGanicGo]

13 hours ago, xombob89 said:

THIS. 

For years Ive complained about reactant drop rates but theres STILL issues like the one you mentioned. 

On excavation theres often someone who runs around triggering all excavators making it go too fast so nobody has time to get all reactant, or they take all spawns with them. 

On disruption I have to get keys and hide them otherwise people go too fast, thats stupid. And you also have to separate from group sometimes to chase the bombers which adds to the problem you mentioned. 

On certain Interception and defense missions theres just not enough reactant spawns because people kill enemies too quickly.

On public survival people always tend to spread out. 

So many problems with this, I wish they either changed whole system or increased reactant drop on all endless missions by A LOT. 

Oh my god I forgot about interception relics...the reactant drop rate is ridiculously bad. My friends and I have to have only 2 towers going until we get all of our reactant so that we don’t finish the round. You think randoms know to do that? The tough thing about interceptions is that there’s kind of a point of no return. If you get too close to completion it’s really hard if not impossible to slow it down in order to get reactant. I can only do defenses, sabotages, exterminates, or captures with randoms anymore. Even then it’s stressful because they could kill everyone before they fizzle, and we don’t get our reactant. Usually the reactant drop is decent on those missions, though. 

[xombob89]

Yeah, warframe encourages team play but at the same time many of these missions arent "random team" friendly at all, and that could be fixed quite easilly. 

[Unimira]

Has DE made any mention of why reactant spawnrate is so bad in endless missions?

You can usually finish the fast one-offs (capture, rescue, sabotage) in less than half the time it takes to do one round in the endless ones even without the reactant issue so I can't figure out why the droprate is worse.

[(PSN)thegarada]

Reactant has terrible drop rates in nearly all missions except exterminate. Everything else has issues. You are almost always going to get them in a survival, but playing survival fissure is a waste of time, unless MoT pops in there.

[xombob89]

Still same issue and no fix in sight or any statements from the devs as to WHY its the way its is.

[HunterDigi]

Reactant certainly drops near multiple people but the problem is it's RNG... and its chances seem to be tied to the planet/node/tileset or something.

For example kuva exterminate, if it's a fissure you usually get 10 reactant from the first room (the one outside with landmines and stuff), and I'm pretty sure not that many enemies spawned there, it seems like it has 100% drop chance, why can't that happen everywhere, why do we have to actively drag on the mission because of bad reactant drops?

Then there's the polar opposite with capture, too many times I've seen squads being unable to get 10 reactant because enemies simply stop spawning, and sometimes with short capture and rescue, late joiners get again shafted by lack of spawns.

 

This insufficient reactant issue is in a lot of endless modes and it's worse in ones you can't react to the lack of reactant, like defense, survival and interception.

Interception seems to be the main offender out of those 3 because you have to kill at a certain rate to get reactants properly, then same with defense, if you kill too fast you get no reactant. Survival seems to have decent amount of reactant drops but it can be quite spread if people are going all over the place because survival is boring :P
 

  

On 2020-09-08 at 12:27 PM, (PSN)MarissaGNWalker said:

Better yet, **let the enemies spawn in already fizzled**

They do that in some missions but I think it's only non-endless ones, still not enough for capture it seems if spawns stop entirely...

[xombob89]

On 2020-12-05 at 11:18 AM, HunterDigi said:

Reactant certainly drops near multiple people but the problem is it's RNG.

They need to remove reactant RNG from fissures, I love this game and I want to see it improve, but fissures are a constant pain in my butt since you cant play them normally apart from capture/rescue where you get full reactant before leaving spawn for some reason while in others you have to wait and wait just to end up with 9/10 and no reward. 

I dont need the mission to be faster I just want it to work like in any other mission. Heck, Id even take 3 excavators over 2 to crack the relic if it ment I could always get 10 guaranteed (by playing like you normally would), or 5-6 conduits over 4 in disruption. 

[Proscriptor]

@(PSN)MarissaGNWalker

Excavation fissure is perfect and my favorite mission type. Many people like for the speed of opening relics. 

Your criticism of this mission type doesn't rest on objective issues with it, but with you either playing with bad squads, or not knowing a good strategy yourself. 

I can usually recruit people for long excav fissure runs. I'd advise you to try the same.

I wrote an excav fissure guide. With it, you can git gud. 

 

[xombob89]

20 hours ago, Proscriptor said:

With it, you can git gud

This annoys me so much with everyone defending the fissure system. I have played since release through the old Void Keys and this is NOT a matter of "getting good". The system is flawed, even broken sometimes, so no amount of skill will fix that. 

Sure, I know exactly how to play the missions but there are always people in the team who don't unless you always play with a clan or recruit which is not something I want or can do every time. And knowing how to play them also doesn't make them good design, I mean you constantly have to WAIT for corrupted to spawn so you can't just play and enjoy the mission. And I dont mean rushing, just playing normally will make you fail on missions like this. 

Also just the other day we did lith interception, we had no nuke frames and we were only holding 3 out of 4 points knowing well enough reactant is gonna spawn too slowly. We also killed only the corrupted. STILL, we only got 9/10. Yeah, git gud.... 

If you really want to pull this git gud nonsense, lets make fissures extremely hard gameplay wise but if you survive, crack the relic automatically so you are guaranteed to get it open IF you are TRULY good enough. Im talking about lvl 150+ enemies, with nightmare modifiers (no shield, energy leech, enemy damage buff etc) and whatever else you might want, Id be all up for that if it ment I can honestly get my reward by using my skills not by tap dancing until enough enemies, give me reactant or maybe they dont. 

[Proscriptor]

On 2021-01-12 at 10:38 PM, xombob89 said:

This annoys me so much with everyone defending the fissure system. I have played since release through the old Void Keys and this is NOT a matter of "getting good". The system is flawed, even broken sometimes, so no amount of skill will fix that. 

i'm very good at it, and i'm not trying hard at all, so anyone can be good too. therefore i don't see anything needing fixing here. 

[EdinaMonsoon]

i think they need to just guarantee 1 reactant drop with every corrupted enemy kill

the interception issue is the one i've run into, especially on lith missions where the enemies are made of paper... i can't make my helios not kill and i don't play this game to just sit around 

[xombob89]

20 hours ago, Proscriptor said:

i'm very good at it, and i'm not trying hard at all, so anyone can be good too. therefore i don't see anything needing fixing here. 

Again, you dont seem to understand that just because you are good at avoiding bad design and buggy system doesnt in any way mean there's nothing to fix. 

Think of it this way. There is a car that has a busted tire. You have learned to drive it dispite of it, but the car is still broken. You are saying there is nothing to fix, because you got good at driving the car with just 3 working tires. 

Meanwhile, if the car had all 4 working tires, you could go faster and drive would be much more enjoyable, but you still prefer to drive the broken one because "you got good at it". 

Do you understand now?

[Proscriptor]

On 2021-01-15 at 1:21 AM, xombob89 said:

Again, you dont seem to understand that just because you are good at avoiding bad design and buggy system doesnt in any way mean there's nothing to fix. 

...

It's wonderful design and this mission type is as buggy as any other. 

[TheMostFrench]

On 2021-01-13 at 5:38 AM, xombob89 said:

This annoys me so much with everyone defending the fissure system. I have played since release through the old Void Keys and this is NOT a matter of "getting good". The system is flawed, even broken sometimes, so no amount of skill will fix that.

I've played for just as long. The reason it works the way it does is because otherwise DE would have to design different fissure systems for different mission types - that's extra time and effort required every time something about the fissures and relics changes. One system is easier to manage.

For example:
If you are playing exterminate, fissures need to open near you anywhere in the mission so that you can get reactant. Fortunately exterminate is very linear, everyone will usually stay together to find enemies, and have no reason to separate from the group. If they fall behind the group in exterminate they can just follow the trail of dead bodies to pick up reactant.

In endless mission types like excavation, disruption, or survival, people might spread out - there's just no way to force people to stay together. I think the point of the fissure system and reactant was to encourage people to stay together so they could unlock their relics, but judging by the way some people complain it hasn't worked that well.

The only incentive for people to stay together (near the objective) is that the team might fail the mission, but sometimes people don't seem to care, or even understand why they failed.

I'd say the best solution is that reactant shouldn't be required to open relics at all, just get rid of it. Completing the wave or objective successfully is what opens the relic.

Alternatively - Whatever number you need to reach 10 reactant can be made up by using void traces from your inventory. If you get 9/10 reactant, you can use 1 void trace to open the relic at the reward screen. If everyone chooses your reward then it pays for itself in void traces even if you picked up 0/10 reactant.

[TheMostFrench]

On 2021-01-14 at 11:56 PM, EdinaMonsoon said:

i think they need to just guarantee 1 reactant drop with every corrupted enemy kill

the interception issue is the one i've run into, especially on lith missions where the enemies are made of paper... i can't make my helios not kill and i don't play this game to just sit around 

You can take the gun off your sentinel if you don't want it to shoot anything. Unless you mean you can't make it not kill on principle.

[xombob89]

On 19/01/2021 at 9:06 PM, Proscriptor said:

It's wonderful design and this mission type is as buggy as any other. 

Lol, and those others need fixing too. 

[valkrein]

i discussed about this on discord and everyone's mentality become like,
"you're holding your iphone 4 wrong, that's why you don't get any signal", or "just go solo"
while in reality the problem lies on the design, not caused by the users.

or

"jus't don't kill fast enough or do objectives too fast"
well i can do that, but when i'm playing with randoms all i can tell them is "1 excavator at a time" or "don't kill too fast". but i'm not mind-controlling person, i can't control what they do.

this problem won't be addressed and fixed quickly if either everyone thinks like that or does not care at all.