Operation: Orphix Venom - Feedback Megathread (Read First Post!)

[sillywiz]

it's awful! That is probably a bit unfair but the experience for me is very underwhelming.

 I haven't done a great deal of Deimos so my basic necramech seems under powered and a bullet magnet. Walking around a corpus cruise ship I am constantly smacking my head on everything, which is very disconcerting, or snagging my delicate parts on something. This seems to provoke something in my brain (I am not epileptic) but it just doesn't seem right. The Corpus map is just a pain to navigate normally with too many ups and downs and twisty turny bits, let alone in a slow hulking snail paced tin can, whilst all the sentients wail on me from above. When my Necramech dies that is basically game end, as it doesn't instantly become available so I am running around in the super squishy operator mode getting wailed on from above again. I might not be the best FPS player around, and yes there are people that will laugh at this, but from a game play point of view it is incredibly frustrating and poor design. Btw I am MR28, so know a few things about the game.

 

Sillywiz

[BornWithTeeth]

Aye, that’s a thing which needs to be pointed out:

The Operation punishes you for trying to use your Operator to reset Sentient resistances. After the first few Orphix kills, the Voidrig lives and dies by its shielding buff, and when the Operator gets out the ability cancels. That is...look lads, that’s dumb. It is not clever. 

[Celetille]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  Straightforward. Same as any sentient: shoot the weak point. The game literally tells you where to go with the little generators.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  It's ok. Can be difficult to see some enemies if youre standing right inside a doorway, as your camera will be blocked.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  Still in progress but it seems fair. Did a 36 run and left with around 1.2k phasic cells.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  I love the new enemies' design. Ortholyst seem very squishy but I guess that's the point as long range artillery. Choralyst seem like a very good generic troop. Summulyst are my favorite. They look awesome and have a cool ability. Definitely dangerous to leave them alone.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  I reached 36 with a public matchmaking squad.

[Enialyx]

Honestly, the grind is too much.

Lavos & helmet, Cedo, Mech helmet & skins, Mech mods and Ceti & Basmu cost a total of 18250 Phasic Cells. I ran Orphix Venum now for 3 public groups, getting a total of 569 phasic cells.

This means that I would have to run the mission 96 times to get all that stuff. This means that for the entire time it's on, I'd have to do at least 3 missions every single day - Christmas and New Year included.

It's not viable. There are other responsibilities in December, such as family, friends, studying and work. On top of that, the prospect of playing the same mission almost hundred times is exhausting. Respectfully, it's not a thought that makes me want to play Warframe.

- MR29, ~3000 hours gametime

[Arkandae]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

Easy, go to white marker, shoot red marker

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

A bit slow

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

No, but I don't really want to : sometime I quickly use my operator and when I want to go back to my necramech, I instead go inside a deactivated necramech. The animation is very long and their weapons are very bad, it's just a loss of time.

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

A bit slow maybe.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

I don't really know, I shoot them and they die.

• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

Yes, but with avoiding using the necramech as much as possible.

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

I think there's a hidden damage modifier on the oprhix and it's a problem when you don't have chroma volt etc (it was fine on condrix) and you're solo : one full clip of morgha isn't enough to deplete half of the life bar at lvl ~65, and velocitus/corvas do pitiful damage while I think it should be very good at this (with the downside of being bad at kiling hordes of ennemies). Some weapons like larkspur and grattler even struggle to kill the first orphix. Cortege and morgha alt fire don't hit the orphix while the mausolon does and it hits very hard, so it narrows down the choice of a weapon too much for my taste. I guess it isn't a problem with several players if everyone shoot at the orphix though. Arquebex is also a solution, but the voidrig necramech can't regen its health so it means killing the red marker things with the operator, and it's not really fun at "high" level, so I stopped doing that.

[Hawkeye2404]

What I would do to improve Operation: Orphix Venom:
 

Score & Phasic Cells:

• As many others have commented, even Operation: Scarlet Spear was more worthwhile than Operation: Orphix Venom. We should be receiving at the very least double the amount of Phasic Cells than we are right now.
• Killing other Sentient enemies besides the Orphix should also reward a little bit of score per kill. The amount of score awarded per kill should scale with difficulty (Normal, Advanced and Endurance modes should each award more than the previous).

Grineer/Corpus & Sentients:

• We are busy trying to survive against the Sentients, right? Not the Grineer. Some Sentients should naturally spawn scattered throughout the level, attacking Grineer and Tenno alike, and less Grineer should spawn in general.
• And the Grineer are also trying to survive against the Sentients, right? They should either be our allies or Sentient enemies should have a much higher threat level than us (thus making the Grineer much more likely to actually fight the Sentients instead of us).
• Either make enemies spawned by an Orphix linger for a short while after the Orphix is defeated or make them not despawn in the first place.

Better Difficulties:

• "Endurance" mode should last and scale endlessly. There should be no limit to how many Orphixes you can defeat in Endurance mode.
  • If for whatever reason you guys still decide on not making Endurance mode be endless, at least raise its Orphix cap to 48.
• "Advanced" mode's Orphix limit should get raised to 36 Orphixes per mission. Even Advanced mode is way too short.

Mission Flow:

• Currently the Orphixes seem to spawn on a timer, not taking into account how quickly you are killing the Orphixes. I say that if you kill an Orphix, and there are no other Orphixes currently alive, then the spawn timer for the the next Orphix should be shortened.

Better Necramech Experience:

• When a Sentient Symbilyst dies it drops a "Sentient core" on the ground. When picked up by a warframe or another Sentient it will fully restore their Health, Shields and Energy. But there's a problem: Necramechs cannot interact with these "Sentient cores" in any way. I say Necramechs should be able to pick these up to restore their health, shields and energy. Even if these "Sentient cores" only restored half of a Necramech's health, shields and energy it would already be much better than not being able to pick them up at all.
• And lastly, I ask that you also take a look at the following discussion I opened up yesterday, containing more suggestions I have for improving Necramechs:

[BoxxyB]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

It was simple enough to understand. so far I've enjoyed it.

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

Very glitchy. On multiple occasions has the mech clipped through the floor or walls, causing an issue where the mechs at spawn do not respawn.

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

They are fantastic because I don't have my own necramech. However they stop being fantastic once you realize that in a good team composition 2 people in operator mode to quickly bust the markers and 2 dps necramechs is the best way to handle things. Also you know when they stop spawning because one fell through the map and isn't considered destroyed

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

I mean its decent. its just another grind like everything else so I can't complain. its no different than anything else.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

I personally find them kind of obnoxious. Their damage resistance gets pretty annoying

• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

No the highest I've gotten is 18, in my experience people don't stick around past 10 and I honestly can't blame them because the difference between rewards from 10 to 15 aren't that different.

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

I honestly think this should have just been on the open world maps. I've witnessed lots of players struggle due to bad clipping, being locked into falling animations because they left their warframe in a room where those auras spawn that force people into a kneeling animation that is inescapable. My personal opinion and my factual experience are entirely different though, because personally. I am having fun with it, but I 100% do not like the necramechs. I think they clash with every enjoyable aspect of the game. I have spent months trying to get the last part for my own personal necramechs and I missed the free one from twitch drops because of a busy schedule and the deactivated mechs are not helping how I feel about them. They are horrible underpowered, and unfun in general and honestly it just feels like every other piece of content. the only difference is that its anti fun because you're forced to use necramechs and operator form. Thats my personal opinion on it.

 

• Edit

So I've spent a few extra hours with it. The gameplay aspect is fine but my stance has entirely changed on it. You know I sat down and recorded one of the more hilarious glitches where I was locked in place, unable to move, unstuck wasn't working and I just have to say. I'm not having fun with it. Its functionally the same content we've seen, its not new. How you go about it is new and I'm personally not interested in frustrating myself playing a very unfun team oriented game mode based on a function of the game I already disliked heavily (Necramechs) simply so I can get a warframe that isn't meta defining in any way and play catch up with arcanes. It doesn't help that the bugs are bleeding into other content. It doesn't help that the deactivated mechs are so underpowered that you feasibly can not do this content alone if you don't have a set up mech as is (Not that you would get very far anways do to how its designed). In my opinion its just another alienating piece of content. In my experience. If you don't have your own necramech, your team will rail you for leeching. If you glitch out and literally can't extract either mission failed or you have to abort the mission and get 0 rewards. which guess what? has happened 17 times out of the 30 attemps I've made to actually play it in the last 5 hours. Those aren't good margins. Bottomline for me is I'll be back in 30 or so days when its all ironed out and probably gone because after what I just experienced I can not and do not want to play this game.

[Hawkeye2404]

1. How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

• The biggest issue was figuring out how to kill the Orphixes. To many people it is not very obvious that you gotta shoot the glowing orb. It is never explained to you (or if it was explained, then it was not memorable, and thus needs some work).

2. How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

• The doorways are way too low. Either make the necramechs crouch-walk when they go through a doorway or make the necramechs a bit smaller.

3. Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

• Finding? Yes. There are too few of them. Roughly more than half of the players I encounter do not own a necramech of their own. There are too few necramechs. And the few necramechs that there are, are too weak. They do not have proper offensive or defensive mods. They need a buff.
• Furthermore, the start-up animation for when you go into an abandoned/deactivated necramech is WAY TOO LONG. Seriously. No joke. Almost everyone who's tried it agrees that it takes too long, I'd bet my life on it.

4. How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

• The rewards are not nearly enough. Start by doubling the amount of Phasic Cells we get and then we'll talk.
• Pacing of them missions? There are too long pauses between Orphix spawns if you kill the Orphixes fast enough. Killing one should make the next one spawn earlier.

5. What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

• Their designs are awesome, I love it! BUT all the enemies in the Operation missions are way too tough. Nothing short of the Voidrig necramech's Arquebex exalted weapon can make even a dent in their health in a reasonable amount of time.

6. Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

• I have not been able to reach that in most missions. Why? It's simple: Most people do not own a necramech of their own, and the abandoned/deactivated necramechs that are provided for these people is too weak to make much of a difference at high levels as they deal too little damage and die too easily.

7. Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

• Thanks for asking! Please take a look at the following 2 discussions I made, I put a lot of thought and effort into them:

[60framespersecond]

15 hours ago, ShadowTony said:

One of the newer infested pets has this mod which can still heal Necramehs. Can't say it's reliable in any means, but since even aura's healing was removed, this shouldn't be applying as well. 

I think it's the other way around. Disabling all and every healing ability just to have some band-aid mod that takes away a slot because it becomes nearly mandatory is bad. (Edit: Just to make sure, I believe my language isn't good here, I'm not trying to argue your point. We have the same opinion about the healing changes)

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Pretty self-explanatory, no problems for me. Still trying to remember the rotation though, seems more complicated than the Scarlet Spear rotation.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • Fairly clunky at first. You get kind of used to it, but compared to the movement abilities of warframes, they are pretty restrictive. Hovering from falling carries too much inertia/momentum in my opinion, so you often still do a hard landing.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • Did not need one. But see below for feedback on these. I don't like them at all.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Far too slow. In Scarlet Spear, a ground run (which was the slower one for points) yielded roughly 4000 credits in 20 minutes. In the store that meant one (most expensive) Arcane per run. Now we have 800 credits for the most expensive Arcane but the payout per mission/time is comparatively much lower. So it takes more time for the same thing.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • I mostly ignore them.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Not yet, did about 12 solo and 32 in 3 person squad. Due to the time gating between the Orphix spawns and it later on becoming pretty tanky for normal means, a single run becomes too long for my liking. The ~20 minutes for a full ground run during Scarlet Spear was much better.

Now for some more feedback, I wrote this before finding this thread, so the format is different. I suppose it fits under

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • The Necramechs that can be found in the mission itself (for  those who don't own one) are rage-inducing. Seriously. When you're in an Orphix spawn zone and want to swap between your mech and operator and back, or in between spawns from mech to operator to frame, it happens way too often that one of those broken Necramechs is prioritized. What that means is you getting locked into a far too long animation. Please move those Necramechs outside the spawn zones, so you won't accidentally swap into one of these.
  • On a related matter, switching between mech, operator and frame can be very clunky. I've had this issue countless times already: you swap out of the mech into operator, press transference again to go into your frame, resulting in you going back into the mech. To reliably go into your frame on the next transference, you have to move a way too long distance away from the mech. This is especially annoying with the event issue described above. You get out of your mech, dash away for the distance and press transference again, just to start the broken Necramech animation...
  • The way that damage reduction on the Orphix works makes many Archguns useless/weak. For example the Imperator Vandal starts at some damage per shot X, just to drop by 30-40% on sustained fire. Slow but hard hitting weapons have incredibly weak DPS, e.g. the Velocitus and Corvas.

[TheLexiConArtist]

On 2020-12-17 at 8:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

We want to know your feedback on the following areas:

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

Straightforward-seeming, but slightly impeded by the awkward Orphix hitboxes. Could also use extra clarity about the persistent Sentient Control versus instantly clearing if you can clear all active Orphix before a new spawn.

On 2020-12-17 at 8:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

Moderately okay, but still several problems with being caught on geometry (including simple stairs at times), and in vertical access (extra jump height mod is sometimes too much, and the hover is awkwardly delayed, to reach narrower 'middle' floors). This feels more problematic than usual because mech movement is innately clunky.

On 2020-12-17 at 8:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

Finding, no. The painfully long activation delay is a poor fit for a time-crunch mission type, however.

On 2020-12-17 at 8:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

Mission pacing is reasonable, although problems do arise if you lose your mech in solo with nobody to pick up the slack (borrowed mechs are near-useless by that point) since you're stuck waiting for the cooldown against a heavily time-crunched failure condition.

On 2020-12-17 at 8:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Vanishingly little time to actually fight them. Mission pace sees you go right for the Orphix while tanking the other Sentients, so you can achieve the full-reset of enemy control.

Mechs have no option but to eat all the damage being thrown at them, which is a big problem with no healing (Voidrig) or absolute protection to give time to heal/damage (Bonewidow). Attrition is a big problem, and leads to the catch-22 of mech cooldown.

On 2020-12-17 at 8:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

Managed it in solo, but only with Necramech Rage and free energy refills from levelling up to offset the ever-increasing obligation to use Arquebex' damage output and Storm Shroud to not be melted immediately, during the late Orphixes.

On 2020-12-17 at 8:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

We need all-access mech healing to not fail by attrition, and Repair is not a suitable alternative to the sources taken away in the update (which were often already poor because they used the 'inanimate object' logic).

As usual, to hit the end of Endurance, the combat scales beyond being approachable, you have to circumvent it (Storm Shroud's free absorption time) since there's very little control or dodging you can do and the damage is so intense.

It was saddening to see that the Orphix could not be armour-stripped by Unairu's Sundering Dash, since the Operators are meant to play a greater part in the event alongside Mechs. This combined with the removal of Protective Dash healing for Mechs means the Operator cannot contribute much at all, which is especially bad when you can lose your Mech and be stuck waiting for its cooldown.

I had a lot of awful frame-rate whenever the Orphix acted/spawned. Sudden heavy burden on processors triggering a thermal throttle.

 

While the event is promoting Mechs over disabling Warframes in Orphix areas, the time crunch involved and the lack of Mech-interacting abilities means that you don't really have any free time or capability of even using some Warframe abilities in a supporting role between Orphix spawns. The only options you really have are to generate Energy orbs with a set-and-forget ability like Protea's Dispenser, so your mech can grab a little extra when you return to that location.

[Philotenus]

I've been playing the whole operation solo. So this is kinda like a solo guy perspective.
 

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  - It's kinda easy to understand what to do since the waypoints and dialogues did tell you what to do.
   
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  - The Grineer Galleon tileset and the Gas City tilesets are okay, but the Corpus ship, not that much since there's a lot of ledge jumping involved. From getting to the resonators, back to the Orphix. It just takes too much time.  
   
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  - Surprisingly, for a solo runner it's scattered everywhere, to the point that I'm a bit annoyed that when I accidentally spawn my own Necramech beside a deactivated Necramech it transfers me in the deactivated one, lol.
   
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  - For the mission, it's kinda fast paced so it's good, but the transition to the next one is a bit of a hassle, this is due you won't know where to go next and before you get there they're occupying 20% or more of your progression bar, which isn't good. If I would suggest, you can at least make it like in the Defection mission, where it has a timer and it sets you the location where to go.
  - For the Rewards, it's probably okay as it is. but yeah it would be great if resource boosters were to affect the amount of Phasic Cells.
   
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  - on a solo perspective, I don't focus on the enemies as much, with the objective being there, and since it's going to be a waste of time killing enemies when the bar is slowly getting full.
   
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  - Not yet, so far I can only go for 25(update), there's too much sentient mobs killing you (without you healing, even with the Necra Regen mod) and at the same time too much HP on the Orphix when past level 42.
   
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  - How about a solo play scaling?

[PhiThagRaid]

• Understanding: Easy, especially after running Scarlet Spear. All objectives seem logically marked.
• Mechs in normal mission: Quite feasible, yet brings up the clunkiness that exists due to stamina system. Doing precise jumps or getting into certain doors can be a bit finicky, but it seems to fit the larger feel. Clunkiness is mainly the stops when running out of stamina while doing a dash as well as Bonewidow seeming to stop once her shield is broken.
• Finding Mechs: Seem to be very common, I run my own, but transferred into one mech accidentally once.
• Pacing of mission: Quite weird. Are the Orphixs spawning based on a timer? Running an organised team you stand around for 20-60 seconds waiting for the next one to spawn, while when in a worse group it seems to spawn while the current one is active. (If two are active at the same time, 90% chance you should just leave the mission since you are unlikely to make up that %-points.) So, fast players are penalised by waiting and slow players are penalised by failing. Currently it takes ~55minutes to get 20k points(2k trading tokens) with legendary arcanes at 800 tokens a piece. That means it takes 8 hours of constant gameplay to get one maxed(I have no real opinion on this part, but placing it here for others to use as reference.) Other rewards are in a weird place. They drop every 3rd Orphix, so it almost suggests that buying the items is a bad idea, since you will be irritated when getting the random item after buying it from the store. So far I have only gone for skins and the glyph in the store as I know they will not drop from the mission. I was surprised to find the alt-helmet in the pool and running the event multiple times makes this feel like a bad reward. (I already have 3 bps for it, so each one I get/got after the first is useless.) Even though I find it strange, I like having the ability to get these non-cosmetic items as drops.
• Enemies: While trying to run this mission quickly and efficiently, I can say that these are mostly unnoticable. I appreciate that a greater variety are being added, but as a previous poster mentioned that they feel similar to all other enemies due to them being fodder (at least in terms of mission objective). I would like to see them in other content, but unless some bonus is given for taking the time to interact with them they will mostly be sidelined.
• 36 rounds: I have been able to reach this with an organised squad who knew what the mission was, what to do and efficient tactics to do that. As stated above this took 55 mins, and it seems this cant be slower or faster due to spawning. I have yet to try solo as I expect the damage required to do so would be insane (Failed a run at 27 because my mech broke and 3 other players were unable to take down the Orphix before the next spawned), thus unless the health is scaled to the players solo should be near impossible(possibly Voidrig's 4 for high end ones).

[Randomeer]

Sentient control rises too quickly for solo play, losing necramech is pretty much mission over as it takes too long to get necramech back or even take control of another. Considering that groups already benefit from downtime bonus there is no reason to punish solo players even further, so please slow sentient control down.

[PhiThagRaid]

55 minutes ago, Philotenus said:

- For the mission, it's kinda fast paced so it's good, but the transition to the next one is a bit of a hassle, this is due you won't know where to go next and before you get there they're occupying 20% or more of your progression bar, which isn't good. If I would suggest, you can at least make it like in the Defection mission, where it has a timer and it sets you the location where to go.

Just like to inform you that their spawns are predictable, but the distance can be vast in some tiles while minuscule in others.

[CatNV]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

Very easy.

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

Adequate but the camera was not ideal, and it feels quite slippery. As good as it could be. Tile problem, not mechanics issue.

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

N/A

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

Doing all 3 missions to completion rewarded not enough points to get a single reward, much less a full set reward such as a gun or the frame. Disgustingly low yields. The fact that unlike Scarlet Spear you can not vary up your missions (Space vs Ground) makes the grind unbearable.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Using Voidrig enemies fell like flies, felt too easy but at the same time this is a result of the damage output of the Voidrig bypassing the defensive properties of the Sentients. I preferred this to the otherwise extremely tanky and frustratingly tough ones found on Railjack.

• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

In a team of 3, as the only person with a necramech currently, getting more than the bare minimum 2000 at stage 3 was not feasible.

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

Hitting the Orphix when vulnerable could be improved, their hurtbox is a little too small to be satisfying to shoot. Speed at which control is lost is a little too fast when RNG decides whether the prop-hunt aspect of the mission goes by quickly or slowly. Having no way to replenish or buff Necramechs makes the mission one-dimensional in approach.

[srgtcolon]

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

Horrible. The idea is good, but the mech's size does not fit the tileset.
Corridors, doorways, fittings clip with the mech's head all the time, player's view is obscured, lot of flashes, camera location / POV is forced to move constantly due to the clipping, very high eye stress when traversing the map with the mech.

Possible (compromise) workaround to make the mech "callable", to allow the player to traverse between orphixes in his/her frame then call the mech once on target.
Edit: this IS working.

[limernest]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

Was straightforward enough.

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

Not a fan, Necramechs are slow and cumbersome and horrible to maneuver with. It feels like a ton of bricks compared to warframes, and far too tall for most hallways. Often you'll get caught on props and scenery while sliding. Overall not good.

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

I have my own so didn't bother with deactivated mechs. The overly long activation animation is annoying.

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

Payout of cells is way too low, overall this event seems less rewarding for time spent than Scarlet Spear. Please just increase the cell payout, I want to buy the event exclusives and be done with this as soon as possible as I really dislike necramech gameplay. I'm not even going to even try to get the arcanes like I did during Scarlet Spear.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Didn't bother most of the time. There is zero reason to kill the mobs rather than focusing on killing the Orphix since they respawn constantly, and killing the Orphix resets control. The damage adaptation gimmick is also getting old, I hope you don't expect us to get out and operator beam each and every sentient mob multiple times per fight just so we can kill them in a reasonable time.

• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

Most I got was 12 with a pug squad. I have zero desire to go past that given how most weak necramechs are compared to regular frames and weapons. For contrast, I was regularly doing 17 condrixes back with pugs during Scarlet Spear.

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

Look, I get that someone on the dev team is very proud of the necramech, hence they designed an entire event that forces you to only use that (and operator). Lorewise, it seems ridiculous that the sentients can somehow disable void transference/disable infested material. Putting that aside, I wish I could enjoy this event but I simply can't. I don't even know how to make necramechs fun. They have no reliable sources of healing or regenerating energy outside of orbs, so you're going to eventually die from the chip damage dealt by the endless swarms of mobs that spawn constantly. They can't parkour to traverse maps quickly or avoid damage. Outside of the arquebex, they do poor damage compared to frames. They can't even tank damage like some frames can. They have a long cooldown if they get destroyed. They are slow and clunky compared to regular warframes.

Ask yourself, outside of some weird roleplay scenario, why would anyone use a necramech compared to their regular frame? What is the advantage or purpose here of this thing outside of mastery fodder? Why and how does it belong in a game like Warframe?

The mission here is time gated to boot (why is there so much waiting for Orphix spawns?). I appreciate you adding the rewards into the RNG pools, but it seems to compensate, you've nerfed the rate at which you get the tokens. Which sucks, because the main point of tokens is guaranteed progress. I really hope there is any other way to get Lavos and the weapons once this is over because I really don't want to endure more necramech gameplay.

The one good thing I can say is that there are no major bugs or glitches this time. There's that at least.

[przemo877]

Ok [DE] please! Who and why is behind transference priority!? Why that person would think that me, a player that owns a Necramech that is already deployed, would prefer to jump into a 10 seconds long unskippable and uncancellable animation of slowly standing up in a completely new Necramech that spawned near my own Necramech that I left in place half a minute ago?

Just why? Didn't that bother anybody in your testing cell? How such a small QoL improvement was completely neglected? It happens ALL the time it's so depresingly infuriating that some random piece of mech has more priority for the operator to jump in than my own gear standing next to it. Especially in a fast paced game such as Warframe where sometimes EVERY second counts and you don't want to throw your run. How old is the Deimos update? Why is this still a thing?

Being able to properly transfer in and out of your Warframe/Necramech is currently probably the most important QoL improvement this game needs during this Operation.

P.S. Just happend third time and costed me a decent run. Kinda sad.

[Tenebriar]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • The mission is very intuitive BUT with regard to new players and those who are not familiar with the Necramechs, it would be appropriate to add a tutorial mission it the style of simaris´s tutorial mission in which was explained how to capture the synthesis targer (simple enviroment & takes just fraction of time to finish it with explanations).

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • I honestly didn´t expect total freedom of movement but rather a more redeploy style of thing.
  • Anyway. the movement is fun and matches a cumbersome machine, maybe it just wants to improve the passage through the door, more sparks and such...

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • For the most part of it, I used my own maxed Necramech. Not that it would be a problem to find some (there was plenty of them) BUT deploy animation and lack of mods in it restricts them from usage and further restricts new players and those who are not familiar with the Necramechs (Necramechs needs a solid builds including their Archguns and maybe a new animation for deployment like in a trailer where necramechs just stand up from "boxed" position).

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Pacing is quite slow due to timegating. It would be appropriate for the new Orphix to appear immeadiately after the destruction of the last Orphix.
  • Rewards are ok BUT the ratio of phasic cells obtained is not (derrivation of 10% from score is a joke), why we have there tiers in this case when derrivation should scale with particular tier.
  • Tier 1
    • Derrivation of 10% from score is ok here but maybe 15% would be more justifyable.
    • Maximum number of Orphexis is 24 and thats ok.
  • Tier 2
    • Needs better derrivation maybe around 20% to accentuate "greater difficulty".
    • Maximum number of Orphixes could be increased from 24 to 30 as it is a higher tier.
  • Tier 3
    •  Derrivation of 25-30% would be okay because the average maximum score would be around 20.000 and that would yield 5000-6000 Phasic Cells (more like credits in Scarlet Spear per run).
  • For long-term players, such change would mean nothing except that they would be rewarded for their diligence and at same time the operation would be more grind-friendly to new players.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • Summulyst
    • He doesn´t seem to be a potent threat even though he should summon another sentients into the fray.
    • A fem time it seemed to me that it was unresponsive to its surrounding (but that could be caused by a poor internet connection).
  • Choralyst
    • Although it does not seem so at higher levels unnoticed can cause moderate damage (in some instances even fatal damage).
  • Ortholyst
    • I honestly expected more from it, the cannons and such, it looks like a heavy duty infantry but i don´t find it so dangerous.

• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • I have completed each tier and third tier several times up to full 36 Orphixes in squads. And that´s where I´ve noticed that some players don´t know or understand what they have to do, whether it´s a random squad or a premade one, the result was the same. Therefore, I think it would be appropriate to create a tutorial for this operation and maybe for future operations as well.

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Gameplay is fine and matches the scenario.  There is still a one shot bug necramech situation and sometimes redeployment of necramech cause the death of summoned necramech (seems to be a rare bug, during runs each thing happened once to me).
  • The difficulty could be a little greater on the third tier.
  • Visuals during passaging through a door with necramech could be better but on the other hand nothing too serious, I was honestly amused by how this was solved.
  • As i have written several times, proper but simple tutorials are needed for these operations.

In any case, Operation: Orphix Venom is better than Operation: Scralet Spear just the amount of Phasic Cells lags behind Scarlet Spear´s credits where there was an extra bonus for succesfully expelling 100 Murexes per flotila.

Keep up the good work guys! Have a nice break!

[Valkyrja.Cain]

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
Pretty simple. Hit red markers, win game.

How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

I'm personally not a big fan. They're clunky, their slide/movement ability gets stuck a lot. I'm a controller player, so a lot of the time my muscle memory for bullet jumping just ended up getting me more stuck and more cranky with it. A lot of my general dislike for mechs carries over into the regular missions- also the UI issues but I'll mention that in the last bit.

Edit: I've been running these much more. I'm liking mechs less and less. Swapping from mech to Operator occasionally faces me the opposite direction so I get a little lost trying to move towards objectives. Swapping to frame to move between areas sometimes puts me in my mech, swapping to Operator to hop to my mech sometimes puts me back in my frame. It's messy. 

 

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

I swap to the freebies when mine breaks. But oh boy that animation for them getting up is s l o w. Pretty rough considering the mode is on an independent hidden timer.

 

How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards? 

I feel like the higher tier should give a bit more cells? Or maybe more per orphix. I've done a few longer runs and it didn't feel like that much of a reward increase for the scaling. Might drop back down to t2 just for ease since the drops about the same. I like getting tokens to turn in for loot though- having some level of control is nice. Especially because it comes with normal drop tables.

Edit: The amount of time spent is not at all equal to the amount of cells you get. Originally I sort of liked it for relics, but I'm realizing now that it doesn't actually feel great. Maybe swap the relics out for the arcanes? Up the drop chance for Cedo. (Lavos feels okay, since he's rotation A, I think.) 

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

They're neat, but I'd like to see them other places too, since I only really got to fight them with a mech.

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

I think the highest I've gone is 20? Public groups tend to extract before we hit max. I'm going to try and get a full squad but recruit seems pretty empty for this op.

Edit: Made it to max. I average a 30 clear with a pub squad.

Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

So, I'm blue yellow colorblind. The mech ui is basically invisible to me, and colorblind settings basically do nothing to help. Changing it to match energy color (Ala valkyrs overlay for rage, or just having a separate colorable section at all would be neato. And maybe I'd enjoy mechs a bit more because I'd have a better idea of where the hell I'm aiming..) Also I'm not a big fan of that thick red fog in tandem with the red markers. It definitely looks neat aesthetically, bu it's a lot of similar-color visual clutter. Maybe if it was more sentient-fleshy-pink? Or whiteish? I don't know really, just that it's a lot in a small area that's already flooded with targets, extra enemies, and a lot of visual chaos.

[XAN3MK]

Feedback:

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  Very, the objectives were clear and the minimap and markers do a good enough job to convey them visually.
   
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  Bad, as are all and every case of using a Necramech in this game. It's a straight up downgrade from the Warframes in every aspect imaginable - controls, maneuverability, power. They are only being used for the event because they've been shoehorned in, otherwise nobody would have bothered. Necramechs are literally "Wasted development resources: the system", to be thrown on the garbage heap along Archwings and K-drives.
   
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  No, but why would you use those. Necrameche's are bad as they are, using one that's not leveled and without mods borders on masochism.
   
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  The pacing is alright. The downtime between each two sets of objectives is sometimes too long, but at times it is a beneficial period to recuperate, so I'll say it's acceptable. The rewards come in too slow, as in the amount of cells obtained for the time investment is way too low. Oh, and can we please be rid of relics as rotation rewards in every bloody game mode or event. They are terrible rotation rewards for an event like this.
   
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  There were new Sentient enemies? I rarely bothered to fight any Sentient outside of the disco balls, they are generally a non-threat that can be ignored.
   
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  I don't think so, but I'm pretty sure I did a run that came pretty close. ~40min and ~1000 cells in rewards, at which point the squad got bored and extracted.
   
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  Get rid of the Necramechs. Just do it. They literally downgrade the experience in what could have been an enjoyable event. The game mode is an interested twist on Survival and it would have been genuinely fun to play if you didn't have to do it with cinder blocks tied to your arms and legs.
  Get rid of the Necramechs.

[Lazframe]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  The operation was really intuitive and simple. Despite it being so simple, I've been running it a lot and still haven't gotten bored, so my feedback is overall positive on this side.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  I'm surprised and honestly it was able to defeat my initial skepticism when DE said they were going this way on the devstream. Feels really neat and genuinely feels like a breath of fresh air in Warframe. It gives us a real additional option to enjoy the game, one that isn't gimmicky but not overpowered enough to force everyone to use it. Great job.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  I have always used my personal built mech. My suggestion would be to make deactivated Necramechs lvl 30, but still unmodded. That way those who didn't build one already can still get access to all its abilities and "try it out" but still get a bad version of it since it's unmodded. Seems like a fair solution.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  The best event we've had in a while in therms of pacing and price of rewards. I'm impressed with the good job it was done here, must give credit where credit is due. It feels incredibly well balanced.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  When it comes to facing them  with necramechs it was fine with the Voidrig but extremely annoying with Bonewidow. Just buff the Exalted Ironbride damage pleeease. There is really no reason why the damage on a slow melee like that can't be buffed. It just stops people from having any fun with an otherwise good&fun mech. Outside of that, it feels necessary to have a way to heal necramechs. The new mod isn't enough. Nobody wants to wait for their mech to die just so it can respawn back with full health after a cooldown.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  I was able to reach 36 Orphix in a squad with a moderate amount of effort: the mission seems really well balanced.
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  I'm surprised by the way this event turned out, because it felt way too simple when it was first announced to be interesting. After playing it now I can say my expectations were wrong and from someone who somewhat lost faith in DE and the latest events I can say this pretty much nailed most things correctly, from rewards and prices of said rewards to gameplay. Good job.
  However outside of the general praises, please buff Bonewidow's Exalted Ironbride damage. It sucks to have this pretty mech that is barely usable. The whole point of mechs is to give us more options, don't be afraid to buff that damage, Necramechs won't suddendly become overpowered and overtake Warframes in a couple of days.

[quxier]

I'm using borrowed mechs.

On 2020-12-17 at 9:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

Few missions and you get what to shoot. Basically trial & error. That's nice part.

On 2020-12-17 at 9:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

It's bad. Here is what I don't like:
- It's slow. 

- It's not very mobile. The mission requires a lot of movement. Using frame I can directly jump, bullet jump, wall jump or roll to my destination. Using mechs I'm forced to walk around. It's very tedious. If it had jetpack so space = movement up then it would be "fine".
- Sometimes a mech hit some obstacles where frame wouldn't.
 

On 2020-12-17 at 9:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

When I wanted to switch mechs, I transfered back to the old one.

Sometimes there are no mech around. So you need to go back to the last place.

On 2020-12-17 at 9:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

Rewards are nice. However they are expensive. I might be able to get only frame and thing like Simulacrum scene. People suggest 5x more Phasic cells.

The pacing is not the same through a mission. An Orphix adds you little time but other the Resonators doesn't give you time. They should also give you little bit of time as well.

Moving from one Orphix to another is slow as well. You won't live your mech behind because you may not find another one.

On 2020-12-17 at 9:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Easy but boring. I'm just shooting few things again and again. We cannot use frames so there is nothing more we could do.

On 2020-12-17 at 9:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

Solo with borrowed mechs is very hard. I was able to kill 4-5 Orphixes.

On 2020-12-17 at 9:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

Using mechs for precise shooting Resonators is very tedious. They spawn in hard to reach places. It's not a problem for frames but for a mech it's very slow & precise job. It's downgrade from Frames.
I like how in mid fight with an Orphix it shows "lines" going to Resonators. It's nice visual cue for "stop shooting me". Killing it is nice as well.

The Resonators' icons are visible however we cannot see stars that leads to Resonators. So we either have to remember rooms or turn on full maps.

Zenurik should give energy to mechs.

[o0Despair0o]

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?

Fairly simple. Go to marker, shoot red thing, shoot big round thing, repeat.

 

How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?

Quite fun. However there were several minor issues;

- When going through a door, your camera doesn't lower, and instead just crashes right into the wall. If you're passing a narrow corridor, you're essentially blind.

- Using Bonewidow, when using her 4th ability, the delay between animations essentially anim-locks you during every single attack. If there are enemies behind you, or you're trying to switch back to your gun, you're completely defenseless and a easy target until the animation ends.

- After every single jump, drop or dash, your mech is forced into a recovery animation. This one, too, anim-locks you, bringing you to a complete stop against your will. Navigating around corners and vertically massivley slows you down as you have to slow down, wait for the animation, turn, get moving in the direction you want, and then repeat the whole process for every single corner or jump.

- Melee enemies tend to run right up to you, below your field of view. As a result, you're walking into them, unable to move forward, until you look down and kill them. This interrupts the flow of gameplay.

 

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?

I occasionally run into them without actually looking for them. I also sometimes see them spawning right in front of me.

I never use them because 1) I have my own mechs, and 2) they're unmodded. In endurance mode, they're completely useless.

It also happen to me that my operator transferred into a mech I didn't even see when trying to switch to my warframe, locking me into the lengthy animation.

 

How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?

Too long for what you get.

I don't care about arcanes, so all I wanted was a gun skin, but even that took way too long. Grinding thousands of cells for a single arcane, when you get a few hundred at best for what feels like a decade of work, is not worth the effort.

Overall the rewards are disappointing. The Necramech mods are near useless

The spawn delay between the objectives varies from near instant to several minuts, which drags things out for no good reason. A full 36 run already takes about an hour. But the mission itself becomes painfully dull after a few minutes as it's literally just a reverse mobile defense. The money gain per time invested is too low - far too low. I don't want to spentd6 hours to get one decent arcane.

 

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Dull. They made no difference until you're 10+ targets into the mission. And even then, the only difference is their tankiness, being able to absorb 10 times for hits than anything else.

 

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?

No, for 3 reasons: 1) It just takes too damn long. 2) Everyone usually leaves at wave ~12. And solo isn't any fun either. 3) There's absolutely no reason to stay that long and watch as each wave takes longer than the one before when you could just start from the beginning and progress faster.

 

Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

- The Mech HUD is bad. Cooldowns are hard to see,  the overlay looks bad in general and should just be removed completely.

- The mission itself is just quite boring after a few minutes. There's no motivation to continue playing the event for 30 days.

[Krion112]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
• Very Easy, it's basically the same objective as Scarlet Spear.

 

• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
• In general, using Necramechs at all has my disproval, but on top of that, the Tileset Environments are very much trying to remind the designers that Necramechs are scope-creeped nonsense. I'm not convinced to play Necramech content ever again.

 

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
• Finding a pile of junk, among more piles of junk, as an entity who will die if an enemy so much as looks in my direction the wrong way, isn't intuitive. But I'd point out the fact I have to look for a pile of junk at all is the problem, not the difficulty in finding it.

 

• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
• Dull, Monotonous. The rewards are going to be very grindy to get. Couldn't even afford a single Lavos Part after doing even above the bare minimum to get through each mission once. Quite frankly, I don't find any of the rewards I don't already have enticing or the gameplay enjoyable, so I'm probably not going to touch it again.
• I do appreciate that the Reward Structure is more generous, relying more on an actual Grind, instead of being entirely random, making it so there is a guaranteed point of success, but it does feel like it should be giving out slightly more. Also appreciated alongside that is that some of the rewards drop in the mission.

 

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
• If I hadn't seen that new enemies had been added, I probably wouldn't have noticed. I never saw the new enemy types do anything, because either they had already been destroyed by teammates or they just floated around and never decided to actually do anything.
• In general, fighting Sentients is just a slog; they've all got overblown stats that just make them obnoxious to fight. I do like their mechanics, though, when they actually get around to using them.

 

• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
• I'm put off by the whole event revolving around sidelining the Warframe, in favor of Necramechs. Necramechs are blatant scope-creep; they're just a redundancy of what Warframes already are, and they do nothing to innovate or improve the game. The better alternative to Necramechs would've been to just make a single Warframe who had an ability to turn themselves into something like the Necramech, than to have a whole dedicated set of mechs. Making it the player's problem that the developers made a bad game-design call is only alienating players, this one included. The devs can't put whatever they want into this game, and expect me to like it or go along with it.
• Also, the whole 'Necramechs are there to use, even if you don't have one' thing isn't a compromise. They're unmodded and underpowered, you're basically useless trying to use them, especially in the later tiers of the mission. Demanding the use of Necramechs at all is the core problem.

 

• Conclusion
• The core issue is demanding the player use anything but their Warframes. Operators and Necramechs are blatant scope-creep and redundancies of the Warframes. They create game-design issues, which only become magnified when the devs force their use.
• I appreciate that the Sentients are being expanded upon, but overall I think they need some tweaks and changes as well. They need to be made a little more consistent with the other Factions. (ie, not have 8x the base stats of their closest counterparts in the other Factions)