Suggestion: Fill in Empty Party Slots with Tenno Specters in Public Matchmaking

[TurboJoe]

Generally when you select public matchmaking it means you don't want to play alone. It's not great if the party doesn't fill up or people drop out, especially for mission types like interception where having 4 people is a big advantage.

My suggestion is that anytime the party count is below 4, the empty party slots are filled in with a random Tenno specter until someone joins to fill in that slot. This would only apply in public matchmaking; invite or friends only implies some degree of party coordination, and solo is self-explanatory. Or this could be a new matchmaking type for opt-in purposes.

This solves some of the feel-bad moments like:

• constantly queuing up for a mission and cancelling it if you don't join an existing squad or if someone else doesn't join before the countdown ends
• starting an interception mission, waiting around for a couple minutes, but no one joins
• someone disconnects in the middle of a mission
• people decide to extract in-between defense waves (if one person extracts then there's a high likelihood that everyone else follows suit, even if some wanted to stay for longer)

 

[Electropuncher]

It would be a good idea if specters didn't shoot at walls and try to run through them. Warframe really needs a matchmaking overhaul. On less popular platforms or slower times of day, it's not uncommon to have players from other regions, so the "number of squads" can be REALLY misleading unless your ping tolerance is set to what I call "way too heckin' high." Part of the problem is just the fact that the star chart really doesn't lend itself to pick up and play style games. There's Sanctuary if you want simple "murder a lot" in varying venues, but it has serious faults if you just want an unlimited murder simulator. Railjack has a "join any squad" per planet, but again, depending on your region/platform/time of day, you may have problems with that.

We're left with two options: 1) make some friends and actually squad up. Probably the best choice. 2) Play solo, pop a specter, and hope for the best. Short of a proper mission overhaul, we're probably not going to see anything but these.

[Pizzarugi]

+1

Additionally, spectres should also accompany you for solo mode (barring occasions where a quest says you need to be alone). They should also only have base weapons and frames (maybe prime if the player's also using a prime?), but they can scale up endlessly in level. Finally, if you use one of your own specter gears, it replaces one of the squad specters and loses the level scaling (unless resummoned).

[Hobie-wan]

16 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

Additionally, spectres should also accompany you for solo mode

That's what crafting specters and using them when you choose are for. I sure don't want specters 'helping' me on any missions where I'm trying to be sneaky. Heck, sometimes I might run a syndicate mission and ditch the agents at the start so they don't screw anything up. They can be helpful when you're new, but not so much once you know what you're doing since no syndicate missions are difficult.

[Pizzarugi]

1 minute ago, Hobie-wan said:

That's what crafting specters and using them when you choose are for. I sure don't want specters 'helping' me on any missions where I'm trying to be sneaky. Heck, sometimes I might run a syndicate mission and ditch the agents at the start so they don't screw anything up. They can be helpful when you're new, but not so much once you know what you're doing since no syndicate missions are difficult.

I mean, assuming the squad specters function the same, you could just tell them to hold position at the start of the mission and completely forget they exist. :P

[Teliko_Freedman]

Personally, I'd rather leave my player slots empty, so other players can load in.

AI specters tend to cause trouble especially during Spy missions.

If I need a specter, I'll use one manually. I don't want it generated automatically otherwise.

 

 

 

[Hobie-wan]

14 minutes ago, Pizzarugi said:

I mean, assuming the squad specters function the same, you could just tell them to hold position at the start of the mission and completely forget they exist. :P

I'd rather it be opt in so I don't have to bother every time. I mean if it's a toggle in options, that's fine.

[TurboJoe]

17 minutes ago, Teliko_Freedman said:

Personally, I'd rather leave my player slots empty, so other players can load in.

I imagine this working like the Index where the specters don't prevent other players from joining, they're there as a stopgap until a real person joins the squad and replaces the specter.

[BahamutKaiser]

Just deploy your own Specters...