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


SilverBones

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On 2020-12-17 at 1:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

Clem

Hi DE! A friend convinced me to un-quit for a bit and try this, and.. It's maybe sort of fun? Thank you for setting it up!

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

It is pretty easy.. I guess the first time I did the operation I was a bit confused because the Orphix I had to target was at the edge of a chasm inside of a Corpus area and the weak spot was pointed sort of away and wasn't very visible.

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

They are functional to move around but are sort of underwhelming in the enjoyment you get from doing so compared to using a Warframe.. In smaller areas like you can find in Grineer ships, they are snagging on stuff a lot. The omnipresent visual of your Necramech's head clipping through things as you move leaves the impression that they are being stuffed into an area that they were not designed for. I feel like if they were to stay in normal missions then maybe some kind of animation to let them pass through doors and low headspace areas without just clipping would improve them feeling like they belong in that content..

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

Finding them is not difficult, but using them is really impractical though.. They are very slow to activate and are not capable of contributing very much.  I feel like if you want to get people excited to try Necramechs and play this game mode, it would be better if the ones you could pick up were more powerful in order to give the player a sense of their capabilities and to be able to finish more than a few rounds.

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

I like the selection of rewards but I don't have any other experience with operations to compare the pacing of the rewards to.

  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Respectfully, the entire event is designed to rush the Orphix as they appear. The enemies surrounding the area are really only shot in order to get more energy in order to keep defensive abilities for the Necramech activated since they aren't able to be healed, and sentient enemies aren't worth shooting in order to get energy. As a result, they're literally ignored in every match. Because it's literally just rushing to the resonators, destroying them and then going back to the Orphix I haven't even looked at them to see what they're like. I think it's neat that you made new enemies, please introduce them somewhere else where we can properly appreciate them!

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

Not yet but I want to!

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

    I am not going to lie.. The Necramechs themselves aren't really that amazing. I usually feel like this game has really nice visual design but the mechs are particularly ugly. Voidrig's gameplay seems to just be shooting, using storm shield and maybe using Arquebex if you are actually surrounded by enough energy orbs to not worry about recasting storm shield because the 1 and 3 skills seem low value and you can't even support using them if you want to keep storm shield up.. They're just not very satisfying to play as compared to Warframes that have way more mobility and gameplay options and I feel like they could use some revision already.. But.. It is actually sort of nice that they are currently in a state of balance where they're not totally broken and trivializing the game mode, which is really what I'm enjoying the most out of this event. Thanks!
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If I bring a mech, I never want to get into one of the mechs laying around, ever. Under no circumstance do I want to waste 15 seconds getting into and out of a random trash mech. Please just remove them from map if you bring a mech. 

I'm constantly in and out of mech, frame and operator. I take out resonators with operator and have my mech parked in front of Orphix to dps. There is always a mech parked right there and if my aim is slightly off I enter random trash mech and waste 15 seconds. 

It's even worse after each wave ends. After I finish a wave I leave mech into operator and quickly enter frame so I can cast Ageis Storm to spawn some energy orbs and spawn back into my mech to collect them. That's 3 or 4 quick actions that can spawn me into a trash mech if my aim is not perfect. And even if I'm not aiming directly at a mech if there is a mech in the general direction of where I'm aiming I enter it.  

I've been running solo because I get constant host migrations and if I get in the wrong mech a few times the run is pretty much done because I've wasted a min in unskippable animations entering and leaving trash mechs. 

Please just remove trash mechs if we bring our own mechs. Or give our mechs priority somehow. 

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

Relatively easy. Finding the weak spot on the first orphix took some time (especially with all the particles/numbers flying around) but other than that it's easy enough.

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

The door bonks are adorable, but clearly a "acknowledge this problem" thing rather than it's own feature. The rest is pretty doable, but only if you have a bunch of engine mods and most importantly the jump mod. See below for some quick fixes and some long term fixes that I feel would improve this (I have some more overall mech thoughts, but don't feel like typing them all out today).

Oh, and I like the 1 min cooldown. Though I'd like a 2/3 min cooldown more, but it'd have to start from the moment the mech is created (not re-summoned). So if you keep it alive a while, you can instantly/even shorter term (15-30 sec?) create your next one.

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

Most of the time there are too many of them laying around. But as some others have already mentioned, there are 4 issues with them.

1) accidental jumping into one. 2) lack of mods/etc make them pretty meh 3) the assembly animation is toooo long 4) once you get pretty far into endurance, you'll be jumping in them occasionally just cause. Then there's a decent chance of them running out.

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

Overal, this operation has been a joy in the way rewards work. Combining the RNG side with a operation currency really smooths out both systems. I like it. Only slight downside is the rather present endo drop (especially for a rather late game operation, and with you finally removing them from arcana)

  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Interesting, I like some of the ideas, but as some mentioned, with the focus on mechs the sentient adaptability is annoying (and the time it takes to get out/into a mech again). Also, the fact that they drop NOTHING (other than some minor points for the operations according to wiki) is rather... meh. Mostly ignore or accidentally kill while aiming for other things)

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

24 solo on the first difficulty is easy. 36 squad on endurance is doable if in a decent squad.

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

Some of my idea's for a quick improvement:

  1. Replace endo reward with phasic cells (probably 1/10th) - Probably leave some endo in the normal/advanced level, as it would become a cheap and dirty cell farm otherwise
  2. Give the sentients drops (maybe not the cores, but energy/shedu/mods please)
  3. Waypoint incoming orphix and trigger on arrival (also, the abc cba pattern plays far more naturally, so that one would have my preference)
  4. Basic mods/random mods on wreckage mechs (always give high jump (max), some health/armor/shield, random levels max 40-50 load points) - same for gun (only this time always general damage mod, random other stuff)
  5. Shorten the mech activation animation for anything but the very first time (possible "cinematic" option in menu later to always show this type of animation. Also goes for heavy weapon summoning)
  6. For the challenge seekers: 24 waves on basic, 36 on advanced, 48/infinite on endurance

Some idea's for more long term improvements:

Mech healing: if it's utterly unwanted, make the mechs beefier. If it should be limited, give them a dedicated source of healing (other than the mod/hook stabber). Using energy via the railjack tool seems like an interesting suggestion. Or something to do with void attacks (like loid)?

Mech jumping: For tilesets especially, but equally true on the open plains, the current jump is too short, making the mod pretty much mandatory. My suggestion would be 3 fold: 1) Make the basic jump the height of the maxed mod currently is 2) make the mod a double jump which adds a second jump (equal to how much the mod currently boosts? so not a full doubling of the current height) 3) make the jump not be all-or-nothing. My suggestion: The longer we press jump, the more of the full jump height it goes. Giving us more control over smaller hops.

(btw, jump heights in numbers as I see nr 2 is rather confusing. current: 100 + 120 (mod) = 220. My suggestion: normal = 220, double jump mod: 20-120 extra (max 340))

Mech animation interruptions: While they do add to the clunkiness, it rather takes away from the fun of playing. Using the thrusters to smooth out landings is interesting, but hard and often still fails. I'd say, keep 'em als visuals, but please stop interrupting my control. Simiarly please make the jumping into the mech as smooth as it is for a warframe. (and as some others suggested, maybe spawn in mech instead of warframe when the operator goes down?)

Mech engine: I don't think this should be taken out altogether, I do believe some changes would be good. Since the mech is already so much slower than normal warframe play, I'd say, make the running free (aka, don't use engine on that). Instead, use engine purely for sliding/hovering/double jumping (see mod suggestion above).

Mech persistence: As I mentioned above (somewhere, sorry for all the rambling), make the mech respawn counter count in the background. So start with a normal number (2/3 minutes), then count down to a minimum pause (15-30 seconds) and stay there. Rewarding those who keep their mech intact long enough, while still proving a brief "oh no, my mech exploded" feeling. In the same vein, keep mech abilities functional between switching out.

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

          -very easy. mission objectives are shown clearly.

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

          - feels a little inconfortable. due to their size and the speed of their body movements, it can be hard to maneuver when avoiding obejcts and do some vertical movement. I  used operator within the orphix zone and warframes to move outside of it.

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

          - No. they are too easy to find, I accidentally transfered to them many times. I wish I was able to cancel the activation or not being able to do so if i have my own necramech deployed. another solution would be to make the reassembling animation faster.

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

          - If it was similar to Scarlet Spear I wouldn´t mind but it´s clearly slower. Destroying an Orphix should reduce the time for the next one to appear so it appears 10-20 seconds after the last one was destroyed. on the first 30-35 mins I´ve spent more time waiting for the orphix to spawn than destroying them. missions rewards should include Kuva, extra phasic cells, universal sindicate tokens, forma, or other types of rare and unique resources. I can farm relics faster and in easier ways outside of the event. Relics are not special or unique at all to be in a reward pool for a limited time event. Phasic Cell shop prices are ok, maybe if Phasic Cell reward was 20% of the score instead of 10% or everything was 10-20% cheaper it would feel more rewarding. the only reason why it can compete with eidolon hunting for arcanes is because you can guarantee yourself the arcane you´re looking for. I´m interested on knowing where are we going to get lavos and cedo after this event ends.

  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

      - I see them frecuently but killing them isn´t going to help complete the objective, so I just focus on destroying the Orphix.

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

     - no I haven´t. I reached 24-28. Restarting is better to reset difficulty and because rewards don´t get better even if I destroy 36 Orphix. 2 sessions of 30 mins are the same as one of 55-60 in terms of phasic cells.

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

     - About gameplay, I don´t like the idea of leaving Warframes behind. Because they are the core of the game and now they can barely contribute to complete the event; it ignores most of the building progress of players; It forces players to invest in necramechs to have an easier time dealing with difficulty; and lastly, as a personal opinion, it feels like it was done to justify the introduction of necramechs in the game, in the same way as Railjacks for scarlet spear. there´s not a lot of content to put them against so we get an event where players use them a lot. Additionally, can we get waipoints to the next landing point of the Orphix with a 10-15 second countdown before their landing?

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  • How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
    Since there was no tutorial, I was very confused the first time around, doubly so since I didn't have a lot of experience using a necramech, but eventually got the hang of it. The hardest part was hunting down the red... thingies (forgot their name, the things you need to break to make the Orphix vulnerable). Part of the learning curve was discovering it is far better to use your operator to make up for the mech's lack of mobility to get to the thingies.
  • How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
    So-so. Rooms with verticality are fairly annoying to navigate, but the looking down on plebs and shooting them part is fine.
  • Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
    No, but the animation delay isn't the greatest. I did not own a Necramech at the onset of this event (I do now). I actually was more effective running around as operator and quickly hunting down the red thingies and then using my warframe immediately after the Orphix died to clear all the adds and preserve my teammates's Mech health.
  • How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
    The pacing of the mission is a big step up from Scarlet Spear, though a forced countdown after an Orphix dies to spawn a new one would be nice. Rewards are a little bit on the low side.
  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
    They didn't provide any incentive to fight. I would only fight them if they were directly in front of me and in my way. The new ones had more effective HP, that's about all I noticed in practice.
  • Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
    Not yet.
  • Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
    General gameplay, difficulty are great. Visuals aren't too bad, though the new lightbox kind of just washes away a lot of the contrast, making every enemy look samey. Guidance, event needs a clearer tutorial but waypoints are fine.
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I think the biggest takeaway from this operation is that energy system in Warframe is trash. It has always been trash, but the core game got so many bandaids for it. Now that those bandaids are removed from necramechs, we're back at square one with THE worst mechanic of the whole game. We need energy 2.0.

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By bulletpoints, and the general opinion in the end.

-Fairly easy to understand. I initially had a bit of a brain outage and forgot how to damage the not-condrixes, but that's on me.
-Using it in corpus tileset was allright, as it's more open. Using in in greneer galleon, on the other hand, was completely horrible. Necramech doesn't pass through prolonged ceiling geometry - like, say, under long low bridges. And overall, the level - IF we're talking about solo mech - turns into barely passable mess. If mechas become universally available, it's going to be even worse in certain tilesets - like ice ship graveyard or, god save us, Eris. You need to come up with better solution for tight spaces, and maybe give mechs improved vertical mobility. Jets would be good.
-They are out there in the open. Can't really say much more, as I have my own voidrig.
-Rewards look allright. Didn't go deep into it yet to properly comment. The pacing of mission is garbage though, as there is severe downtime between not-condrixes, with absolutely 0 to do, and not even directions on where the next one will appear.
-Hard to tell. Given the way mechs and enemy spawns work, I was primarily avoiding them and focusing on not-condrixes.
-Didn't attempt it yet.

I think the biggest (and clearly unintended) find of this operation is the tandem between mech and our kiddo. That's the main source of fun for me, and general spice giving life to the event.

"Battle operator" was horribly lacking for the longest time. Any amp, in wide perspective, is a bad weapon, and little S#&$ isn't a fighter. Being useless in general gameplay, our operators either got isolated in eidolon fights, or turned into utility bots. Warframes remained vastly superior to little S#&$s in literally every area. And passive buffing isn't gameplay.

This changes with mechs. Mechs bring the tankiness and the hurt operators lack  - but lack controlled mobility and stealth (let's imagine it's useful in some future scenario), which operators excel at. The switch of gameplay flow between them feels really good, and is often demanded by the game itself as it is (my mech isn't modded for mobility yet). When warframes get thrown out of the picture, the tandem becomes brilliant synthesis of previously isolated and often redundant systems - mechs, kids and archguns (which, let's face it, were also useless on their own in general gameplay).

The tandem is clearly unintended, as is illustrated by progressive removal of focus interactions with mechs. On the other hand, mechs started to get their strap-ons like Rage and whatever other new mods, trying to fix their lack of sustain and utility. I think this direction is a mistake, because the solution to mechs problems is right there in the open. Operators.

With perspective of New war and Tau system bringing more Sentient-focused endgame activities, I think the synergy between mechs and operators should be encouraged. While keeping warframes out of the picture at least in SOME missions. Tweak focus schools, with potential Duviri rework in mind, to cover up mech's weaknesses. Then do something with amps - at high levels they stop functioning period, and having them as resist reset is really lame. Make it more specialized weapon able to actually kill adaptive sentients, while keeping mechs and archguns for those who don't adapt. There is great gamemode potential here, which won't be the regular balancing nightmare.

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On 2020-12-17 at 3:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:

 

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

The preview cutscene made it clear that the operation was going to require Nechramechs and that Warframes would be disabled. The activities within the operation itself were clearly marked and straightforward. Any player going in blind would be able to understand the concepts, but some of the restrictions might be confusing.

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

The bulky feeling of the Necramech is fine and suits the gameplay. The biggest issue I found is the inability to heal the Nechramechs with any external sources.

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

No, there are plenty around the map to use, even after several becoming destroyed.

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

The pacing of the event is fine, I would prefer for the reward scaling to be higher for those players who don't really have the time to sink into the event - but that's just my own personal opinion. 

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  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

The event promotes you to defeat the boss, making it more efficient to not fight the new sentient enemies. They look cool enough, I guess. Realistically, they take too much to deal with and it makes more sense to just ignore them.

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

In a squad, yes. However, it does not seem worth it to go to 36. There is no incentive to go any longer than 18 waves, leave and return. The higher difficulty slows down the points acquired. If there was an additional point payout every 6 waves there would be more incentive to stay.

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

It's completely ridiculous that Nechramechs are unable to be healed from external sources. It feels like every update Vazarin's protective dash becomes more and more useless. My first mission I kept hopping out and dashing through the allied mechs until I noticed it wasn't doing anything.

Alongside the Vazarin school not working for whatever reason... frames like Oberon and Trinity are not able to apply healing effects either. 

Health orbs? Nope. Nothing works. again... for whatever reason... there really isn't an explanation.

 

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I've done a few runs so far and will offer some feedback. I'll address the points in the OP first, then add additional comments if I feel the need.

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
Pretty easy. Between what Father says in Necralisk and the prompts during the mission I never felt I have no idea what's going or I don't know what to do next. I'm not clear on what exactly makes the sentient control % go up (is that time Orphix is up, how many are up, or how many sentients are up in general?) but it's not too important since it's pretty clear that we should deal with the Orphix ASAP. Markers for where the tethers spawn are helpful, the visual feedback on the Orphix opening up is good too. The one thing that's not clear is the vulnerable point. It seems like it's clear, but my shots often deal 0 damage even when they look like they're hitting exactly in the middle of the bright weak point.

How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
A little awkward but better than I expected. Some of it may be just getting used to controlling it in much smaller environments than the open worlds. I found Slide to be the most difficult to control properly over longer distances. Otherwise seems to work well.

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
I had my own so I didn't try. Can't comment.

How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
Pacing of the mission itself is very uneven. The problem is that the missions alternate frantic kill Orphix ASAP, sitting there doing nothing, and running back and forth. The first is fun, the others are not. The backtracking can be particularly bad when you get ping-ponged back and forth because the Orphixes like to spawn at opposite ends of the map, or if you get out of your mech, get killed in Operator and end up in your Warframe that you left all the way back 1 km away. The backtracking also turns mission success, especially at higher rounds, into mostly luck. If you're lucky and the Orphix keeps spawning on top of you, you'll stay on top and easily keep sentient control low. If you have to run back and forth, sooner or later you'll lose just because you're spending too much time trying to reach the spawns. Dealing with the Orphix itself has good pacing. I find prioritizing killing the tethers and the Orphix and only killing enemies that are directly in my way pretty efficient.
The speed/pace at which you get rewarded seems fine. The rewards themselves I'm not sure about. I keep getting relics, and of course never the ones that I actually want (I'm sitting on a stash of useless Neo E2 but of course not a single Neo N13). Phasic cell rewards are too low. I calculated just over 16k to get all the new stuff, at which point I'll probably be burned out on the event and not bother with the arcanes. Having a chance at items seems nice, but the 2% drop rates are ridiculous; that said, item rewards every 3 rounds do happen reasonably often, at least early on.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
The problem with Sentients is that almost all of them have high armour, no shields, and they're all immune to status, so they end up feeling pretty much the same. The Brachyolist is the only one that stands out to me because of the Shields and the way it moves. The new ones look cool (some very cool), but since they all die when the Orphix does there's no point engaging with them, especially since the high armour and status immunity makes them such bullet sponges. I really think they need a status treatment similar to what bosses and liches got.

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
Not even close, though every time we started losing was because of excessive running back and forth as mentioned above.

Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
Companions are a big problem, especially sentinels. I can understand pets being vulnerable when you leave your warframe, since they still follow your mech or operator and still do stuff, but the sentinels become absolutely useless (Animal Instinct doesn't even work) yet they're still vulnerable and die while you're in a bubble that you specifically cannot being them into with you. Either they should latch onto YOU and not just the warframe, or they need to be made invulnerable when out of the warframe. The couple of times I made the mistake of bringing Helios he died for good before we reached the 2min mark, and that's with Primed Regen (so 4 deaths and a 10s invulnerability in-between, all in less than 2min).
On a related note, forcing Operator scan was a terrible idea. Helios won't work obviously, you can't scan while in the mech, so while my team is trying to kill the Orphix and keep us from losing I'm out in Operator scanning things that I have a very narrow window to scan since the tethers die so quickly and everything else dies with the Orphix. It's counterproductive and goes against a team effort. Having the sentinels stay with you (the mech and/or operator) would solve this issue too (for this and future missions like this)
Another thing regarding the Orphix weak point. Many of the Orphixes spawn so high above ground they can't be reached with melee. This puts Bonewidow at even more of a disadvantage than the poor thing already has, since Ironbride (which is otherwise quite good at dealing with the Orphix, at least at lower levels) becomes completely useless.
Lack of healing on Necramechs was annoying before, but there you could just wait out the cooldown and do things in your warframe. In an event where you can practically ONLY use the mech, getting it killed means you're on timeout and pretty much useless while the cooldown comes back. Lack of any healing outside of Meathook under such mechanics is very, very bad.

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I think that the resonators spawned by orphixes should not be able to spawn outside the tile that the orphix is in. In the image below, the orphix is in one tile but the resonator spawned in a tile that was above the tile the orphix was in because the spawn zone is 3 dimensional. This created a situation where the mission was a guaranteed abort as a result because travel time allowed sentient control to get too high to recover. By the time I got to the resonator, it was at 70% control because a second orphix spawned on the way to the resonator. I was playing solo so splitting up was not an option. I was switching between my warframe and operator based on whether I was in a transference nullifier or not so all the time that could've been saved doing that was saved.

c83510c8d1.png

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I'm back!

I already gave my feedback before , so I won't give answer to all the questions. Just an update or sort.

 

 

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

I think Tennos needs a raise.

I did say it's a nice base line , but it definitely can be better , and should be .

Double the cells gain will be great , and gain additional cells when destroy a Orphix that scales will be greater.

The reward scaling just not noticeable .

Also not everyone have 6hr per day to grind.

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

Squad . 

Voidrig did blew up several times though. Viewing all the conditions in this mission , I think someone is really pushing Bonewidow...

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

The resonance thing's spawning pattern should be optimize a bit.

At least be reachable normally.

 

Also , a new Orphix should spawn 10s after the previous one is destroyed in addition to the current pattern to reduce meaningless waiting.

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Le 18/12/2020 à 05:46, [DE]Bear a dit :

 

  • How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Easy
  • How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • It is okay as it is
  • Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • Normal
  • How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Immediately request respawn when killed quickly
  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • Normal
  • Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Squad It is preferred
  • Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

         Orphix  quickly kill after  Instant target respawn please

         Orphix mission at the moment, waiting time is long and tired

 

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

I played Scarlet Spear (both ground and space teams) multiple times when it was released, so I didn't really need to learn anything new. I also read the patch notes before attempting the new Operation, which gave me a good idea of what to expect, specifically in that I would be unable to use my Warframe meaningfully.

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

Necramech gameplay does not feel "good" or "fun". For me, using Necramechs detracts from gameplay and immersion in both "Free Roam" and Operation environments. At the risk of going too "meta", it feels as if the entire concept of putting Necramechs into "normal" tilesets was done to boost underwhelming Necramech usage numbers, rather than provide players with meaningful gameplay. There is more feedback that I'd like to provide about Necramechs, but I think it would be too tangential in the context of this question and thread, let alone too late.

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

I found it difficult to find a deactivated Necramech once other players began to rely on them during the new Operation (i.e. they find one, it gets destroyed, they find another, destroyed, etc). Using one was not difficult, but it was frustrating because the "activation" animation is too slow.

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

Completing an Orphix Venom Endurance mission takes too long. The time-gating is entirely to blame for the poor pacing of the mission, which forces all players to spend some 55 minutes for a full round of 36 Orphix kills. Completing the Operation missions do not feel rewarding upon repeat attempts. There is a noticeable imbalance between time investment, effort required, and rewards earned from the event, which are too high, slightly high, and not enough, respectively. It is nice to have "guaranteed" rewards through the new type of currency, but again, the rewards feel too expensive relative to the investment required to obtain them.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

I only used the Voidrig Necramech to fight the Sentient enemies and I found that I had to rely too much on the Arquebex, which requires Voidrig's Guard Mode. This ability feels too energy-hungry. Its energy economy is only barely offset by the Necramech Rage mod, which in itself is too dependent on the randomness of enemy aggression. The Arquebex also feels very inaccurate against an Orphix, with very poor accuracy at anything beyond unreasonably close ranges for something that works like a cannon against every other enemy.

The traditional approach of attacking Sentient enemies with "regular" Necramech weapons (i.e. Mausolon), switching to Operator mode to reset enemy resistances, and repeating, has always been unnecessarily tedious, and this Operation has only worsened that problem for me.

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

I was only able to reach 36 Orphix kills in organised squads.

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

Having "content" gated behind arguably underused features felt very bad. This new Operation reminded me of why I avoided Necramech content when Deimos was released. It is simply not fun for me to use a Necramech (or Operators, which I would've provided feedback on if I was around when that feature was introduced). My opinion is that Necramechs, and frankly anything other than Warframes, look and feel incredibly silly from a visual standpoint, with model design being only slightly worse than animations. I would like future content to either avoid Necramechs altogether or at least introduce alternate, non-Necramech methods to participate in and clear content, with at least equal reward for the same time and effort investment.

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I'm generally quite happy with Orphix Venom; mostly played solo and duo, with both Bonewidow and Voidrig. Currently loving Bonewidow a lot. The objective markers were intuitive (at least as a long-time player), and the difference between Necramech and Warframe gameplay is fairly refreshing! Having a reason to use the various mobility options Necramechs offer is fun, and my traversal has greatly improved over time. The new mods Necramech Rage and Repair do feel mandatory to get any sort of sustainability, they are a massive jump in power. Not too expensive at least, 1k Phasic Cells and they're not 10-rank mods. Still, mandatory is not a great feeling - and it makes the Shield mods that much more unappealing to boot. If Rage worked on shields (mb at half-strength?) there could still be some merit in them though - something to consider? :) 

 

also it's utter crap that Orphix Resonators spawn inside god-damned vents and semi-secret areas on the Jupiter tileset though. Dreadful. My solo run was just murdered by all three Resonators spawning in areas where the Necramech cannot reach. Can we not do this? 

 

EDIT: just got a 36-Orphix solo run with Bonewidow under my belt. Quite thrilling! Cut it close once or twice.

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Well, i'm really not that type of player surfing trough forums or commenting post, but this time, i'm literally forced to give feedback...

  • How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
    Thanks to google, i got a clue, what you expected me to do...
  • How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
    i HATED it - this game is called "Warframe" not Necramech...
    i HATE spending 2600+ hours of gameplay and then beeing forced to use some new device, just because the devs think, that would be cool...
    i HATE Necramech, as I hate Railjack, especially if i have to use a preset Mech, because i haven't one of my own yet.
    i HATE watching the Necramech slowly pulling together it's parts, when entering it while the timer is runnig...
    Also the Mech is clipping through doors, because he's to big - looks awfull...
  • Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
    YES - Mechs can't heal and when i got destroyed, i went to the place where i've seen one while rushing to the next Orphix, but the Mech wasn't there anymore, so i had to rush back to get another and lost a lot of time...and failed the mission...
  • How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
    I HATE missions, where i'm beeing forced to use an unknown device while playing against a timer...
     
  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
    Just annoying Sentients i have to kill while using a Mech i don't know...
     
  • Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
    NO...
     
  • Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
    Like i said before, this games name is "Warframe" - not "WarOperator", not "RailFrame" and not "WarMech"...
    I am not that kind of player, who's "happy about new stuff", i'm happy about new content that i can play with my Warframes which i improved in over 2600 hours and spent a lot of money for....
    So PLEASE DE, go back to your roots and do Warframe content...

SUMMARY:      I HATE THIS CONTENT!!!!!!!!!

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Not really an issue with the event rather an effect caused by the event, but now Isolation Vaults Tier 3 are frustrating to do if you want to actually do the full thing, and the Arcane Bounty. People just want the Necramech parts and honestly Tier 3 is the best way to get it with zero reason to do the full vault because there is no necramech parts in the vault and zero reason to do Arcane Bounty because there are no necramech parts.

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  • How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
    Easy, of course i watched a youtube video before so i knew what needed to be done, otherwise i might have been confused at first that some orphixes were facing inward against a wall or that i needed to shoot resonators twice.
     
  • How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
    Slow, Clunky and it really made me miss being able to be exactly where i want  to be when i need to be there like with warframes, remember them?
     
  • Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
    I have my own, but if (when) it gets destroyed i have not been able to find a deactivated one. I only notice them when i don't need them it seems.
     
  • How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
    Idk really, i can't heal the mech in any reasonable way so it's simply game over after a few orphixes.
     
  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
    They are just there like any other enemy but takes more bullets to kill than regular units.
     
  • Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
    nonono :)
     
  • Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
    Nah, it's read the wiki or watch videos as usual if i need answers which is fine. I just won't be doing this event since jumping through hoops to heal or to get energy isn't my thing.
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How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed? 

it was easy to understand, objectives are clear.

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

it was ok but i don't like the clipping on door, we should only be able to slide/crouch through it. Mech are clunky and should stay clunky, them being able to clip through doors to pass them feel silly. They can also be stuck between crate and a wall when they spawn.

As for the future, i don't really see the point anyway, they are too slow for most missions compared to warframes and will be probably only be used in endless. i understand the hype for mech, they are a nice distraction and they are still in a somewhat clean balanced state but i don't think it a good idea in the long run to have them everywhere, it go against my idea of Warframe. But in the end i'm not really against it, just neutral i'd say.

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

the animation is way too long, i had several times where i wanted to transfer to my mech and ended in one on the floor and you have to wait until the long animation is over, it's a big waste of time. If i have a mech i shouldn't be able to get into those on the floor...

And it's not really nice for those who don't have a mech, they are already weak and they have to wait a long time, it must be painful for them.

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

The shop is great alternative seing how most of my rewards are relics / endo crap. That type of shop should be use in other areas too.

The mission itself is a bit repetitive but nothing you can do about it.

The cells reward are too low for the time invested, you should add a fixed reward bonus depending on the number of orphix killed like 12,24,36 kills give you a 100/250/500 bonus on top of your cells reward (adjust the numbers). 

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

no opinion, i usually focus on the orbs with my operator and kill the orphix with the mech

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

I can only play solo at the moment and i leave at 24 because i'm leveling the mechs most of the time and i'm missing some mandatory mods. i ll try when everything is lvled and all mods are acquired or if i can play in squad. But i feel the time for 36 is a bit too long

edit : i feel it works like everything in warframe, it's more of a gear check than difficulty, once you get the right set up there isn't much of a problem.

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

i feel i spend most of my time in operator form in this event.

the jupiter tileset is annoying with the orbs behind doors where you need to get inside vents to open them.

The hud / hud color for mech is bad, i can't see where i fire most of the time because of the color and since the tileset have a weird coloring it's even worse. Give us the ability to change the coloring.

Some weapons are clearly better than others, i feel a bit limited. 

I usually get a lot of bug to. Most common one for me is not being able to use any abilities, double jump, contextual pop up and the gear wheel when in warframe until the end of mission. It happen way too often (like half of the time) Also got a bug where my mech was perma slowed by the nox and also one where my mech was invincible.

As for the mech in mission in general it's ok and you should keep the limitations (healing, movements etc) they have. That's their thing, they are clunky and i prefer them that way.

Overall, Sentients being able to disable warframes is pretty stupid, they just need to mass produce that now. GG they have won.

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How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
It was very easy to understand, because you saw the Scarlet Spear pattern straight away, but since I'm not a fan of necramechs, it was clear to me from the start that it would be boring.

How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
It was ok but it would be cool if a necramech had to slide through the door. Simply "with your head through the wall/door" is strange. I also found it sometimes difficult to work in narrow areas because the camera is placed too high for the tileset and sometimes you hardly saw anything.

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
Didnt use one and it was sometimes very annoying. When I want to go in MY necramech and go unintentionally in a deactivation AND the anymation time is TOO LONG.
How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
So I think the speed at which you get the reward is ok.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
Nothing special. As mentioned before, they just hold out longer.

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
With 3 men we got to 35 and we fail due to a misunderstanding. BUT it is actually easy with 3 men.
Note:
Person 1 Necramech (Voidrig) with 6 Forma and weapon (Mausoleum) with Forma
Person 2 weapon (Velocitus) and Necramech (Bonewidow) with Forma
Person 3 Necramech (Voidrig) without Forma but a weapon (Fluctus) with Forma to destroy the Pillars / Beacon.
We got nearly every thing what warframe have to offer and we have between 3000-7000 hours of Warframe.

Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
difficulty: easy for veterans, hard to reach 36 for "new" player.
visuals: "I also found it sometimes difficult to work in narrow areas because the camera is placed too high for the tileset and sometimes you hardly saw anything."
gameplay:

  •  Better hitbox for the orphix its hard to hit.
  •  Possibility to prevent the accidental use of a deactivated necramech somehow or to shorten the animation time.
  •  It is also a bit monotonous, it would be good to have several modes in one event. (Like the old raids)
  •  An extra animation for the necramech going through the door.
  •  many weapons are difficult to use because of the hitbox of the orphix.
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A few general feedback items on necramechs in normal tileset missions - not really severe or clear enough to be bugs, so I'm gonna leave them here:

Collision issues (gun)
I haven't found anything major, the main thing I noticed is that sometimes, particularly when standing directly in front of a grineer fence and firing at an angle to the right, it seems your weapon arm clips through the fence, fires from the other side, and shots go nowhere as they immediately hit the wall and poof out of existence.
Suggested improvement: Make shots punch through or ignore terrain near/behind the mech, or spawn further forward (though this may be tricky to balance with reliably hitting enemies that sit on top of you, too)

Collision issues (camera)
When standing directly on top of a downed mech and aiming up, the camera sometimes decides to stick inside the downed mech and show nothing at all - most noticeable on the corpus gas city tileset where there's a tile with slanted ramps, an orphix spawning overhead, and a downed mech on the ramp below that orphix
Suggested improvement: More aggressively set camera based on mech/base terrain, ignoring/fading through entities in the extreme foreground.

Better jump controls
The hydraulics upgrade for increased mech jump height provides surprisingly much quality-of-life, but you don't always want a huge leap upwards - but right now it's all-or-nothing, either you install the mod and always leap to the sky, or you don't and you make small weighty hops.
Suggested improvement: A jump control where a brief tap of spacebar makes a small jump, and pressing space for at least half a second makes a full jump, allowing you to more freely mix leaps and hops as needed - also providing a mini-hop without the mod if you just want to clear a railing.

Bad jump spot on grineer tileset
Speaking of jumps: There's one spot on the grineer tile with the planet holograms (Screenshot code /Lotus/Levels/Proc/Grineer/GrineerGalleonSurvivalMech/c+AZxiCItAxQwJGlkuUfKKNNKxV-CAo3KgkAAQgAEIAgAAAFAA.lp Z: /Lotus/Levels/GrineerGalleon/GrnIntermediateOne P: 122, 6.6, 123  H:88) where it's rather hard to get through the front door in a hurry, when piloting a mech: Trying to jump on top of the little landing in front of the door usually jumps you on top of the ledge above the door, and walking off that usually drops you down in front of the landing again.
Suggested improvement: Make the ledge above that door more slippery to necramechs, making them slide through/off and land on the landing, ready to march through the door.

Jump buffering after slide dash
The necramech slide (particularly with mods) is a great way to get from A to B quickly, but the recovery animation takes time and often eats a lot of the speed gains, feeling frustrating, but fair. Thankfully, a skilled player can animation-cancel it, by jumping during a slide dash, which leaps forward with some speed and avoids the slow dash-recovery animation. However, if you mistime it or the game didn't want you to jump there, what you get is the slow dash-recovery animation, and then to add insult to injury, the game buffered your jump input, and makes the mech perform a neutral jump in place, wasting even more time.
Suggested improvement: If the player inputs a jump during (the first half of?) a slide-recovery animation, don't buffer the input, drop it - they probably intended to animation-cancel the dash recovery and didn't get it right, they don't want a neutral jump.

Improve UI clarity on ammo
The minimalist mech UI, while pretty, lacks some clarity on ammo, which is rather vital as you've just got the one gun. Right now it forces the player to memorize their maximum ammo to know when it's done recharging, and twiddling their thumbs waiting for the recharge to start.
Suggested improvement: Add some UI indication (could be as simple as minor resizing bars near the ammo count as a "once you know what it is you see it" thing) showing the delay/progress to ammo recharge, and the fraction of max-ammo currently available.

Improve crosshair clarity
In the same vein: The forced vitruvian color scheme on the crosshairs provides poor contrast, particularly when trying to hit the weak spot of an orphix.
Suggested improvement: Improve crosshair color/transparency for use against bright/chaotic backgrounds - maybe even outlines in a contrasting color, or different parts of crosshairs in different colors, or even making the crosshair detect the dominant color in the center of the screen and switching to a contrasting color, though that may look too busy visually...

Overall, I think this is one of the better operations I've played recently - it gets a bit old after a while, but the mechanics work and leave some room for figuring out optimal strategies. As for the deactivated mechs, they feel rather underpowered compared to your own mech, likely due to missing mods, which basically meant you didn't ever actually want to use them, and the pull-together animation was just a "crap, wrong button/target" moment - even if your main mech got destroyed, you probably got more damage output from operator than from pulling a mech off the floor. As a "hardcore casual" that likes to understand mechanics but not to feel boxed into optimal/meta strategies all the time, my high scores on endurance were a bit past 24 solo, or 36 with matchmaking luck finding competent randoms, which seems fair.

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  • How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
    -Not especially difficult to pick up on the basics. Took me a bit to remember how to even use necramechs since I'd used one maybe once or twice ever.
     
  • How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
    -Pretty awful. It's too slow and clunky. If it's supposed to make you feel powerful because that's usually what mechs/tanks are for in games, it fails spectacularly, because you're taking much worse mobility in return for much lower power. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. Literally the only reason to use necramechs is if you are forced to. Necramechs are an even worse addition to the game than archwings; and I'm talking OG archwing, before open-world maps where they are at least a means of fast traversal. Of course, this is not so much interaction between the necramech and a "normal" tileset; the necramechs are just not fun. If the mission didn't require them, no one would use them in most normal missions because it'd be impossible to get to rooms before your non-necramech teammates have killed all the enemies.
     
  • Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
    Nope.
     
  • How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
    Really slow. Especially being stuck using necramechs instead of warframes. Without that restriction, it might be paced okay, but there's no way to know without removing the restrictions.
     
  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
    I didn't even know there were new sentient enemies. They all look the same.
     
  • Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
    The furthest I've gone is 24, and only because teammates wanted to go that far. It was a slog after the first 5 or 6.
     
  • Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
    Necramechs are just content for the sake of content. They're inferior to warframes in virtually every way; ugly as sin (though you can buy a decent-looking skin for platinum); and are just plain not fun to use. Please don't add more missions or events that require them. 

    I don't particularly like being negative, but there's honestly just nothing good that I can see about necramechs. Necramechs are essentially just tools that you use to make it easier to get more necramechs. They're possibly the worst addition to the game that I've been around to see, and I was around for the original Archwing release, which lead me to a 5-or-so-year break from the game because it felt like my time was intentionally being wasted. I came back because the core gameplay and the warframes are still pretty fun, but more and more, the new content seems to lean away from the parts of the game that are appealing. It feels like the devs want to make other games, but they feel obligated to attach everything they do to Warframe, no matter how poor a fit it is.
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On 2020-12-17 at 3:46 PM, [DE]Bear said:
  • How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

1. Easy enough. The dialog cues do a good job of explaining that you need to hit the resonators first. Could do with a dialog reminder to hit the eye when they're vulnerable, I guess, but that's not hugely necessary.

2. Loved it. Great fun, hoping to see it everywhere when the event is over.

3. At times I found it hard to find broken mechs to use since things get hectic in this event, but of course I have my personal mech that I use instead because it actually has mods and is thus 9000% more effective, so I haven't tried the fallen ones much. Honestly, a bigger annoyance is accidently reactivating a fallen necramech instead of popping back into my customized mech after using operator form to heal a squadmate/clear sent adaptations, because it takes like ten or twenty seconds for the animation to play through, and it's not fun sitting there watching it after the first few times. Really wish we could skip that animation.

4. This is the only real thing I have to complain about with the event. If you kill orphixes fast enough (and a good squad will definitely kill them fast enough), you end up with a lot of "hurry up and wait." I'd really like it if, when you kill an orphix, there's a ten second timer before the next one shows up, rather than the current minute and a half. I'm here to kill orphixes, making me wait before progressing at killing orphixes isn't fun. Beyond that the rewards are fine, though I'd really like it if you got less of things you can only use once - thinking specifically of Lavos' cosmetic helmet here. It's always a huge disappointment when I get one of those now that I've finished the first one I got.

5. It was... Okay? Honestly none of the new enemies had behavior that really sticks with me, since in orphix fights you generally focus heavily on killing the orphix. If they show up in normal sentient fights I might be able to pay more attention to them, but as it stands my general focus here is on popping resonators then arquebexing/ironbriding the orphix with me fighting the sentient mobs being something I do only to clear the way to the orphix.

6. In a squad, definitely. Solo, no, I can't kill orphixes fast enough to keep up with new spawns late in the mission.

7. I don't like how killing the orphix makes the sentients disappear. I'd much rather they die and drop loot, especially energy orbs, since mechs have serious trouble with their energy economy even with the new rage mod and liberally using dispenser to help out. Also shedu parts. I'll never get that damn arm gun at this rate. :(

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