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

[-SilverWolfPrime-]

Before I start, I would like to say I'm a mixed bag when it comes to these kinds of things, and it's my first time analyzing an Operation on Warframe. So after a couple days worth of farms, a few days to spend the holidays with friends and family, and two pathetic runs this early in the morning that both ended in what I presume to be game breaking glitches, let's get started.

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Straight forward as heck; go in with your Necramechs and destroy all the enemy Orphixs that spawn. You can reach a max of 36 rounds, but other than that, raise some hell.
  • Side note, I enjoy Father being the voice over for this mission. He does a pretty good job.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • Definitely better than I thought, especially with the new hotfixes that came out a little while back. Moving around with a combination of slides and jumps is, while not as fast as a regular Warframe, is still really fun to use when traversing through the map. There are a couple places here and there that make it a little clunky to move around, but it isn't enough to make moving around feel like a chore. Just change your position a little bit and be on your way.
  • Some Resonators being out of reach does kinda dot on the mechs slower movement, though. Switching from the Necramech to the Operator to reach an area the mech couldn't is alright, but switching back to the Necramech and getting it stuck in a small passageway? Yeah, that sucks sometimes.
  • My only real complaint with movement actually comes from Bonewidow's normal slide animation. It's like...0.5 seconds before that thing stutters and another second or two to use another slide. Not gamebreaking in the slightest, but it's enough for me to notice it and mention it here.
  • On another note, this is the Operation that made me actively ENJOY using the Necramechs. I wasn't really sold on the idea before, but here? It's wonderful.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • ...Sort of? I own both Necramechs already, so it's not horrible, but when it gets destroyed and I need to find a reliable damage source to take care of an Orphix (especially in longer runs), I generally don't find anything. I don't think the faint blue glow around the provided mechs help it out, either. It needs to be more noticeable and I think at least one or two more should be near where the Orphixs spawn, alongside the ones at the entrance. It doesn't have to be this exactly, but I think a little nudge here and there would be helpful, especially to those without Necramechs.
  • On the flipside, I can feel myself aging with actually getting INTO the Necramechs. The startup animation, while I respect that it is a cool thing to see, is too long to even justify actually seeking one out to use. I don't need to sit through a minute long animation when there is an Orphix still up, two or three owned mechs are down, and the next Orphix is gonna spawn soon. There's a reason these things don't get much use in the Cambion Drift; reduce the time that animation takes and we're good to go.
  • And as for extended gameplay review, rental mechs are just...unmodded mechs. Not stellar, but not anything different in gameplay.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • I quite like the pacing, if the timing is a bit odd. I kinda feel like this is a MUCH BETTER Scarlet Spear; it progresses to A to B to C, and whatever wave you get a reward on, you do a wave their again. It's a bit tricky to understand at first, but it's not so bad after awhile, lovely even.
  • The rewards make me want to call down a choir of angels just to express how happy I am about them. Firstly, Relics and Endo. Okay, staples for sure, but you can never have too much. I can understand veterans getting sick of seeing these, but honestly you get quite a bit from it, especially Endo. Lavos and Cedo parts? Cool, cool. Hopefully they'll be available after the Operation is over, or the Operation returns consistently enough to be able to get him reliably, preferably the former. Lavos' alternate helmet? I like that, I'll go for it for sure. New Necramech mods? Alrighty. The ability to get all of these things from the droptables and not just using your Phasic Cells? YES, A MILLION TIMES OVER, YES!!! I LOVE to see this! You save your Phasic Cells for the real big ticket items in this Operation, and I love every bit of it, especially when those rewards include the ever coveted Arcanes. And if RNG screws you, you can just buy them later!
  • I will say that if there was anything to complain about for rewards, it's the amount of Phasic Cells I get for an hour run of the mission. I honestly feel like I should be getting a bit more at the end of the mission. 2,000 Phasic Cells for an hour of 36 rounds? I think there can be some improvement here.
  • The timing of the Operation is a negative for me. While it definitely isn't the horrible, unbearable slog that was Scarlet Spear, I generally do not like the pacing to be an hour long when I know it can go much faster. It's not horrible by any means, but I do think it needs some improving. One person mentioned that the Orphixs should spawn via player proximity rather than on a timer; personally I agree with this, and that way we can enjoy the pure rush of dopamine that are the Necramech Slide mods.
  • You're two to three on this one, DE. Fix that timing and this will be my favorite Operation of all time.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • Not too bad, just the same as fighting any other Sentient. The designs though? Oh man, am I in for a time whenever I see them.
  • Do you understand the sheer, unexplainable happiness I feel mowing down Sentients with a skeleton death robot?
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Mostly in Squads. It is possible solo, but it takes a lot of effort. I've preferred to get a full squad going to reap the rewards.
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Tell Little Duck to take a vacation, tell Teshin to do his job, and replace the unholy abomination that is Scarlet Spear. THIS Operation should be the premier Operation to get some Arcanes.
  • It's definitely a challenge to get through, but it's a very enjoyable one.
  • It is weird to not be able to use my Warframe and I definitely think there should be more interactions between them and the Necramechs; what especially needs to be addressed is the lack of options of actually healing your Necramech, though I'm not sure I'm at liberty to say what exactly. Remember: the Operator is the will, the Warframe is the hand, and the Necramechs are the twenty-foot tall executioner's axe the Tenno bring to haul ass. Can't do that if my hauling ass tool keeps breaking the moment it stares head long into a disco club (Battalyst's disco lights).
  • Not much to say on visuals...lots of reds...Scarlet Spear textures...Sentients...yeah.
  • There's still a few bugs that needs to be addressed. Gas City Resonators ending runs abruptly, revive inability. Take a look at the "PC Bugs" thread, PLENTY of people have been trying to get some attention on those. The hotfixes are helping little by little, but I think either another before the year ends or right when January hits would help this Operation out a lot.

Soooooooooooo, Operation Orphix Venom. Operation "I Can't Believe It's Not Scarlet Spear". I'm very happy with this. It's a fun game mode that really pushes the Necramech mechanic into high gear that only really needs some improvements in bug fixing, timing, and rewards. Is the investment quite a bit for the rewards it offers? Yes, yes it is, but it can be improved. Is this a fun game mode? Hell yes.

 

[fo3nixz]

1. very easy and simple to understand.
2. very fun 
3. only disliked it when i transfer accidently into a broken mech with such long animation times
4. fine as is.
5.  i still dislike the disco sentients aka batalyst
6.  solo 36 , most of the event is solo
7. i still dislike the disco sentients aka batalyst

[Monolake]

Turn off auto-transfer into scrap mechs please, or remove the slow animation, this is the most annoying thing locking you in with no way to get out quickly.

You can make transfer to scraps on use key (X) instead to avoid unwanted activation.

for clarification: transfer to your own or already activated welfare mech should remain quick, its the activation of scraps that is the problem

[fo3nixz]

32 minutes ago, Monolake said:

Turn off auto-transfer into scrap mechs please, or remove the slow animation, this is the most annoying thing locking you in with no way to get out quickly.

You can make transfer to scraps on use key (X) instead to avoid unwanted activation.

yes please

[sketch1241]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Color coding the targets between the initial requirement hitting the red targets and then moving over to the white took a bit of guidance for friends I brought into the mission. Where it made sense to me, my friends who had played less often frequently moved onto another target accidentally until they got the hang of it.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • This feature was something I looked forward to when they(Necramechs) were first released, and worked well in the corpus tileset where tile changes are normally from a higher height tile into another higher height tile. In the Grineer ship tileset, this unfortunately was less common and led to nausea with our party even in those that typically do not (essentially a camera fatigue). It would have been nice to consider the corpus cloud tileset as an alternative to having the Grineer ship set twice. Each set of tiles will have their own challenges.
    • To resolve this we considered the options of animation to have your Necramech auto duck below the threshold between tiles.
    • Scaling the Necramech down similar to how a Kubrow scales up to larger targets.
    • Possibly another camera location when running a Necramech that comes in tighter to the height of the Necramech.
  • However, none of the options we considered would likely satisfy all parties. Personally I enjoyed the bang/spark of the Necramech hitting the threshold, but we do need a real solution that doesn't make party members nauseous in more confined spaces. I look forward to using the Necramech on all mission tiles in the future despite these issues.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • I came in with my own Necramechs ready for use. However the entry area had plenty of Necramechs available if my party needed them.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Much improved from past events, especially when directly compared to the scarlet spear. I look forward to repeating the event, though focused on using the corpus tileset.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • The new sentient enemies were somewhat lost in the sortie due to the visuals, both regarding the fog lighting, and also the sheer density of the enemies in the mission.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • I attempted this in a squad, considering this as a single player, frame, and Necramech would be a considerable feat unless a player had spent a lot of time farming the hardware necessary.
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Color coding considerations for the objective should take place, additionally an update to the management of way points when in certain tiles... Allies frequently found themselves lost and at dead ends, trying to get to the objective.

[OnceADrog]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  Easy enough if you read the PC update notes and have played Scarlet Spear.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  Some tiles have doors and areas that block the necramech but are only slightly smaller than the others.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  I brought my own, but new players often struggled with that issue, and needed their locations being shown on the minimap to be pointed out.
  A big problem was that you could easily jump into a new mech with a prolonged animation as it was pulled together, rather than jumping into your own mech which is standing right there...
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  Relic drops are a complete waste of time. I have run dozens of runs and still don't have Cedo BP or Barrel.
  Also, critically, there are people using FPS-rate exploits to get almost double the score of honest players, which means they are making plat selling arcanes, breaking the economy and profiting directly from exploits.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  Discolyst is still OP for new players.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  Only as a squad
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  Hit box of orphix for Bonewidow melee isn't great.

[Ordel]

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

Pretty straightforward. Zero complaints here.

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

Passing through doors was (very slightly) annoying. Some tiles, mainly grineer ones, had so much geometric clutter that it didn't feel worth using the necramech to traverse them so I switched out to my warframe to do so. Not necessarily a bad thing. 

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

Finding - no; however using them felt bad because they felt like their mausolons were unmodded, so they were useless since I already had my own. Would've been nice to be able to consume fallen ones in order to heal our own. Additionally, accidentally Transferring into a fallen necramech was annoying because the animation was long and uncancellable.

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

The gap between orphix spawns was frustrating after a while because it felt like our efficiency was cut down by arbitrary wait times that couldn't be alleviated at all. Being able to get random rewards IN ADDITION to the token-reward system is REALLY good.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Honestly didn't notice them having a big impact. Cool design imo, never really felt their attacks. Nothing ever came even close to worrying me as much as the disproportionately strong battalyst laser spin attack.

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

I haven't really tried solo, however I got to 36 in random squads pretty easily. I only ever used Voidrig however, outside of levelling bonewidow to max.

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

Tbh I really enjoyed this event. Many of the inconveniences were really minor to me and I was able to get all the rewards that I felt like I really wanted (not to mention the reward pool was pretty good to begin with).

GOOD:

Reward pool, token-reward system, Orphix and enemy scaling

BAD:

Orphix spawn pacing, fallen mechs didn't feel useful, Battalyst laser attack is pretty nuts, bonewidow (imo) wasn't nearly as useful/suited for the mission as voidrig, passing through doors with a necramech and traversing some of the more cluttered tiles

[-AncientWarrior-]

On 2020-12-18 at 9:46 AM, [DE]Bear said:

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

One run through was all it took to understand

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

Very clunky but got used to it quickly, didnt like the way the camera is at ceiling hieght thou

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

No in-fact they are a pain when i jump into warframe to restore energy and accidently jump into rent-a-mech .. not fun due to the animation time for it to stand up before you can exit rent-a-mech and get back into own mech

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

Pace was ok, but the delays in spawns once a Orphix is dead make the mission longer than it needs to be, rewards meh - very low not worth running unfortunately, even though I am still doing ove 36 alot.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Oh these were new, looked and felt the same as SS

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

Both solo and squad although solo is damn slow.  Its nice with a squad of players that know what they are doing, not so much with the "no mech players"

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

Waypoints should have been fixed, especially the extraction waypoint, rent-a-mech sometimes not showing but when u exit your mech you jump into one which u cant see until u enter it.  Archguns need to be balanced all need to be similar in damage output and usability  instead of just using 2-3 of them.  I tried them all and most just were useless.

 

[(NSW)Gamer-Steve]

Hi there! Gamer-Steve here. I may not have access to the Operation (Alongside other console Tenno), but I’ve been spending the last several days working with a thread on ways to update both Necramechs to help everyone struggling with the Operation! Granted, it’ll be up to everyone at DE to see if what I have to throw in is viable, but I don’t believe I’ve seen anything else quite like what I’ve got listed below.
 

Link to main thread here for player / reader reference:

 

I hope that’s a worthwhile read for everyone. Considering the fact that I haven’t played the Operation firsthand, I don’t have personal experience with it. So if it’s alright, I might rephrase some of the questions to work with that.

 

Q & A here:

1. How easy is it to understand the new Operation & what you have to do to succeed?
    
   • In and of itself, I believe I understand how the mission itself works, partly due to my experience during Scarlet Spear. In this case though, it has a unique twist where your frames cannot get too close to the main targets. Since Orphix Venom isn’t here yet for Console Tenno, I’m treating that as something to prepare for (Part of what I’ll have to do to succeed!).
      
2. How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
    
   • From what I’ve seen, it looks interesting! At first I was a tad bit worried how the Mechs work with shorter doorways, but I like the fact that they scrape up against the top (It’s realistic). That said, I saw some issues mentioned regarding that part with the doorways, so maybe there can be a toggle in the options to minimize the sound or visual effects from that?
     
     Aside from that, towards the end of Devstream #150, I noticed [DE]Rebecca’s Mech getting pushed around by those much shorter Corpus enemies. Considering the probable height & weight of the Necramechs, are there any thoughts to updating that in the future to change how that works? Not a major concern, but just a small thing that crossed my mind.
      
3. Does it seem difficult finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
    
   • Based on what I’ve seen and heard about the mission, it doesn’t sound very hard at all to find one (I’m guessing Father sent in a lot more as backup for the Tenno!). However, in the event someone tried to go into their personal Mech, I’ve also heard of issues where they accidentally transference into a deactivated one instead.
      
     • I’m guessing that has something to do with the direction your camera looks in, and if there’s anything between yourself and the camera. I noticed this because on the Plains of Eidolon (I ran some Ghoul bounties to level the Voidrig!), I exited the Voidrig, and when I tried summoning the Warframe via Transference, I went right back into the Mech instead.
        
       • I recall seeing the Mech in front of the camera whenever that happened, and I couldn’t get back into the Warframe until I moved far enough out in front of the Mech (Till it was out of view) or until I looked away from the Mech in general. Granted, that’s not an issue when it’s just the one usable Mech. In the Operation’s missions however, I’m hoping there is / will be a way to have it prioritize your personal Mech in case you’re right next to both it & a deactivated one.
          
     • I don’t think I’d call that a bug though, as far as that goes.
        
4. What do you think about the pacing of the Operation missions & rewards?
    
   • Based on what I’ve heard and seen (Including the amount of Phasic Cells for a given thing), the Operation missions themselves could use a bit of an adjustment. It sounds like there’s a decent gap in time between Orphix spawning if you were to quickly destroy one of them (The current / previous one vs your next target).
      
     • The amount of time could be scaled down somewhat based on how far away the next target is from your location (More time to spawn if they’re farther away, but less time if you’re closer?). But the waypoint should show up very soon so that Tenno know where the next one’s gonna land! That way, you have more time to meet them head-on (As long as the Sentient Control doesn’t increase without an Orphix having spawned).
       
   • Regarding the rewards, I think the cost should either be reduced by some percentage, or have more ways to gain phasic cells during the Missions, if not increasing the amount of cells earned (Either way might help). That said, it’s only a suggestion as far as that goes :)
      
5. What do you think of the new Sentient enemies in combat?
    
   • They sound pretty interesting to go up against! I’m hoping that they’ll be around even after this run of Orphix Venom (In the event the Operation doesn’t come back).
      
6. Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
    
   • Not yet, but I’m looking forward to trying :)
      
7. Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, or in-game guidance?
    
   • When it comes to something like this, the best advice I can give is to know your enemy, and plan ahead. In this case, the Warframe wiki would be a good reference. Do what you can to prepare, and once you start the missions, best of luck!
      

Aside from that, I would like to offer a strategy for a squad to use if DE wanted to incorporate things from the thread I linked above (Feel free to read up on that if you want to know more). Warframes, Companions and Operators also benefit from the things I’ve suggested in the thread, but Necramechs are the most-used thing in this Operation, so I’ll focus primarily on them here.

 

Briefly, let’s assume you have 2 Voidrigs and 2 Bonewidows, and your Mechs / weapons are modded how you need.
 

As soon as they get into the Necramechs, both Voidrigs use their Backup Power passive to start allocating Engine power to increase their Ability Strength. If they have enough time to do so, the Voidrigs can vent that charge into their Archguns, and eventually start a new Ability Strength allocation.

• This way, their Archguns will be stronger against the enemies while they run alongside the Bonewidows, and when the Orphix is vulnerable, they can make quick work of them (Eventually going into the later parts of a mission).

 

Later on through the run...

If any of the Necramechs start getting low on health, Both Voidrigs can toss Necraweb canisters & lay down gravemines over them; The canisters’ defensive aspects can be used to start healing everyone, while the gravemines wait for enemies to approach, as both Voidrigs continue to manage their Engine gauges with charges of ability strength or other aspects as needed.
 

• To keep the heat off of the Voidrigs as they shoot down the Orphix and surrounding Sentients, one of the Bonewidow users can use Meathook or Firing Line for crowd control, and another Necraweb canister can restore the squad’s health some more as needed. If more firepower is needed fast, offensive aspects of the Necraweb’s fiery conflagration can be absorbed into the Necramechs to increase their rate of fire and attack speed.

 

To aid with survivability, one of the Voidrigs could have a new Necraweb augment mod I thought of (With feedback!) to increase their Armor; Father’s Recipe. That gives Necramechs who stand in it +10% armor per second (Up to +50% for 12-15 seconds after walking out of the fluids’ area) while they absorb the standard effects of either Defensive or Offensive aspects of the canisters. I imagine some additional armor can help in any firefight against the Sentients.

Similarly, one of the Bonewidow users could have a new Meathook augment mod, Mother’s Remorse, to gain temporary faction-based buffs and cut their way to the next Orphix. In this Operation, there’s mostly Sentient enemies, but in some of the missions there are either Corpus or Grineer as well.
 

• Meathooked Corpus provide more damage to enemy shields, while Grineer provide increased melee and ranged attack damage. There’s something for every faction from the Mother’s Remorse augment!

 

The squad can make full use of all these effects to outlast the Sentient invasion, and more.

• A lot of these things stack with relevant ability aspects (Noted in the Voidrig’s Backup Power passive as well as both Mech’s abilities) and relevant mods too. There’s a lot of synergy involved with it :)

 

I’m looking forward to further feedback on my ideas for these two Necramechs too. If anyone has any ideas to contribute, I’m all ears (Especially for any future Mechs). That said, I’m not informed on who thought of the Necramechs originally, but I’d definitely like to know what they think of this (DE staff & players alike), if they have some time.

• I put a lot of thought into them in the thread, so if it helps future Tenno, it’s certainly worth it.

 

If I come across any bugs when Orphix Venom arrives on console, I’ll try to make note of what I find! I hope the above things help people that might be having a hard time with the Operation.

[ngrazer]

The amount of credits earned per mission is atrocious, to put it simply.

[TheLordOmega2]

I can't do it anymore.

I posted some (proper) feedback early on, but i really feels like nobody reads these.

That event is just soulless. it's going back and forth forever, it's like getting stuck on ground team scarlet spear and having to run around back and forth, and the time/reward ratio is so skewed it feels like a chore more than anything engaging.

The mechs works in regular tilesets, but you basically NEED loopholes to keep them in working order, the fallen ones might as well be beartraps with how slow their rebuild animation is, if you accidentally slip into one, good luck.

There's bug everywhere. if you revive you have to destroy your mech or you can't pick up energy orbs, and if you destroy your mech, say goodbye to your affinity, your defense systems (ironbride and storm shroud) get deactivated every time you leave (despites Father encouraging you to mix Mech and Tenno gameplay to fight the sentients) without any good reason.

The weakpoint system is atrocious if your aim isn't absolutely perfect (or if you use a weapon it doesn't like), seeing hits that should connect do zero damage is just depressing.

I like the mechs, i want to use them, but this event is so bad it sucked the fun out of me.

[Therys]

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

Very easy to understand due to its similarity to Infested Hive bounty/sabotage missions.

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

I encountered significant issue with the camera. The tilesets may allow Necramech movement, but the spaces feel too cramped to see properly. Shooting through doorways was especially problematic since the height of the camera makes the top of the doorway obscure much of the view beyond it. There is also significantly more 'clutter' and decorative objects strewn across these tilesets compared to the open spaces of the landscapes.

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

Usually no. Their subtle blue glow made them noticeable, though the difficulty markedly increases during the chaos of combat around an Orphix. Sometimes one accidentally enters them when one actually intends to return to their Warframe, causing the player to be stuck in a lengthy 'reanimation' animation, and also wasting it. They are also too weak to be of use.

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

Pacing felt almost good. Main issue faced was that Necramechs do not have innate energy regeneration like Archwings, and the myriad of energy sources available to warframes do not work on Necramechs. On top of this Energy Siphon Eximus still affect necramechs. Zero energy simply isn't fun. It means we sit in a large slow target and can only use our Archgun against enemies with rapidly rising health, shields, armor, or other sources of damage resistance. There is also no way to heal a Necramech back to full at will. This means there is no 'recovery' between Orphix fights, and frequently I find myself forced to enter a fight in a low-health, low-energy Necramech.  You have made a mission that forces us to use a Necramech, but doesn't let us stay in one. Their health can only drop lower and lower. Archwings do not suffer from this because they have abilities that counter enemy missiles as well as much greater mobility. If you slow them down and put them in a confined space where they can't maneuver: Sharkwing. Once a Necramech is down our choices are limited and none of them good. 1)Dash out of the area (and wait for the mech timer), 2) stay and fight with operator and amp (and wait for the mech timer), 3) Get into a rental Necramech (if one can be found). It will have no mods, bearing a gun that also has no mods, and do next to nothing in a late stage Orphix precisely when Necramechs will likely be blowing up. Operator amps and operator health are woefully insufficient for heavy fighting. Out in the open maps, we can fall back on our warframes when our Necramech expires. In these missions, we do not. There is also no invulnerability period for the operator after the Necramech is down. When the operator is killed, if the warframe was left really far away the pacing is also thrown due to needing to run all the way back. Its not going to come to us inside an Orphix field. You know the Pac-man ghosts after Pac-man eats a power pellet? I feel just like those ghosts, running around unable to do anything until a timer runs out.

I think it is a good idea for the primary event rewards to be both drops from Endurance as well as purchasable with Phasic Cells. Someone with bad luck can still get the Cedo and Lavos with a little more effort, and the event lasts long enough to give a decent chance.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Sentient enemies new and old were somewhat frustrating if they have Sentient Resistances. Accumulated Sentient resistances can only be stripped by void damage which necessitates leaving the Necramech but with the high density of enemies both Sentient and Corpus/Grineer means the operator will almost immediately die upon exit. Battalysts especially seem to do disproportionate amounts of damage and deny a large area for far too long. Sentients fill the role of a complicated enemy that require a more thoughtful approach to defeat. This is not a bad thing. However, I do not believe sentients (especially the older types) fit this purpose when used en-masse. Such enemies, when multiplied, often just make fights unmanageable. In limited numbers its a duel. In large numbers its a clusterduck. There will simply be too many threats to look out for and be on guard against. This problem has occured before in Orb Vallis. This is why Exploiter Orb is a beloved boss fight, and Profit-Taker is not. Two issues exacerbate this: 1) Necramechs carry only one archgun and an exalted weapon that may not be available in the absence of energy because, again, they have only energy orbs to rely on. This severely limits the range of elemental damage types they can use to take sentients down. 2) Hopping in and out of operator mode to strip resistances are still both lag and bug-prone if the player is not the host and fraught with peril. There is no invulnerability period after hopping out, and they will be exiting in an area where the air is thick with explosions, bullets and laser beams. If the player is killed they are shot back to their warframe they left possibly miles away.

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

I was able to reach 36 Orphix three times in a full squad. Once in a squad of just 3.

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

Necramech aim reticle suffers from the same issue overly-decorated Sniper scopes have. I found it very difficult to see where I'm aiming due to the colors and contrast plus all the visual effects of enemy fire. Its pale yellow color just blends in and becomes invisible.

Sentient space-mom dialog still obscures too much of the screen when she appears. This is an old problem that also occurs in the Ropalolyst assassination mission.

 

 

 

 

 

[xombob89]

On 2020-12-17 at 10:46 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?

After doing the event almost daily now, I think I have gathered enough information to give some feedback.

The mission itself was easy enough to understand from the get go, no problems there. Necramechs performed surprisingly well on the normal tilesets, but mobility mods are almost a must if you want to get anywhere in a reasonable pace (especially the jump mod, so you dont have to walk around everything all the time). Sometimes, people using the "free mechs" used them to walk from one Orphix to another and they never even made it to the spot before we already took it out, so they missed on the action. Of course, they could use warframe to move beetween, but well, they didnt for some reason.

There were plenty of fallen mechs to use, in fact, TOO MANY. Its extremely easy to get inside a fallen mech by accident when you are dashing around as operator or switching beetween your warframe and your OWN mech, and the assembly time on voidrig is looooooong. It can even cause you to fail the mission if you accidently end up inside one while trying to destroy the orphix. This also happens in Deimos sometimes, but much more rarely because theres less fallen mechs. You really should implement a "press E to use" feature on them.

The pacing was alright, a lot of waiting time in the beginning but towards the end (wave 20-36) they the orphix started to appear pretty much right away once the last one was destroyed, but not too quickly.

How was it like fighting the new sentients? Honestly, there was absolutely no time to fight them when hunting for the resonators, so we didnt really even notice them there and they all dissapeared once the orphix died. The discoball one was the only real threat because it can destroy a mech almost instantly towards the end. Maybe next time, have the sentients stick around after Orphix is gone so you can actually fight them afterwards, OR instead of resonators have us fight the sentients until enough of them are destroyed to make the Orphix open up.

Wave 36 was challenging to reach, but possible with a recruited team. Everyone had to have their own mechs, you couldnt reach 36 with "free" mechs.

As for visuals, the necramech aiming crosshair is the same color as the fog in the event, making it extremely furiating trying to aim only by the damage numbers on your screen. Please give us an option to change the color of their crosshair/hud.

 

All in all, dispite the negative first impressions (I didnt like mechs), after being forced to level my mechs and weapons, Ive grown to enjoy necramechs and the event is also much more enjoyable if you have your own gear for it. I feel like Necramech mobility mods should be default to make more people like them, because without them they feel very clunky and slow.

[quxier]

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

• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?

2nd feedback, after I get little better (solo, with borrowed mech & 222 amp I could do ~8 waves up to ~11  when everything going good) I get few things that I find annoying.
Activating nechramechs are very time consuming. It's fine if it's once per mission. However when there are 2 mechs (1 activated), the orphix level is near 100% and you just go to wrong mech wasting 7 seconds.
Operators, after death, should go to the last position & things we were using. When you transition from a frame to the operator at position X and you die as the operator you should go back to the position X (where your frame is), transforming back to a frame. When you transition from a mech to the operator at position Y and you die as the operator you should go back to the position Y (where your mech is), transforming back to a mech (not to frame!).

We should see only one Orphix at time, the Orphix that we interacted with. There are cases where 2 Orphixes are active at the same time and they have their field/area intersect. We don't know which one resonator to kill because we will see both Orphixes' Resonators.

The map (first one at least) is very confusing as well. The node is like maze. The minimap show where the resonators are but sometimes without knowing the map you have to go back and forth because there is a wall between you and a Resonator.

[Zairilia]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed
  • Fairly intuitive, dialogue wasn't very helpful though.
• How was using a Necramech in a "normal" tileset?
  • Terrible, clunky, annoying, I only got into my mech for the Orphix and had no reason to use it otherwise.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • They were all over the place, more annoying than anything.  Even if my mech died I'd never use one, because the deactivated mechs are absolutely useless if you want to consider doing a full 36 Orphix.
• How do you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Terrible.  A full hour to pull 2k cells means I need to spend 8 hours farming to get a maxed legendary arcane, and that's not even remotely fun with such a repetitive mission.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • I didn't really notice a difference.  Some of them were so squishy they'd go down in one hit, others refused to die without several direct hits from Arquebex.  Regardless, it's annoying that they're so much more durable than any other faction of the same level.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • I did it in a squad.  I could probably do it solo, but it doesn't sound fun to deal with the massive energy demand to use Arquebex so you can actually finish the mission.
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Bonewidow is bad.  The solution is not to nerf Voidrig, which is essentially required to finish the operation.
  • The deactivated mechs should either be removed, or massively buffed, because as it stands they are nothing more than a hindrance for players who want to pull more than a few hundred cells per mission.
  • Some doors are too small to allow a Necramech through to destroy the resonator behind them, making it frustrating at best for players who don't have a Fluctus.
  • I got my max Arcane Energize but I can't bring myself to play the event anymore.  It's cool and interesting the first few times, but very quickly gets boring when you're doing an hour long survival with bullet sponges.
  • When the Sentients use their spin attack, it hits far too hard.  I shouldn't have to constantly have Voidrig's 2 active to avoid being killed in 1 hit.
  • Forcing Necramechs for all the parts of the mission that matter is frustrating, especially when Xaku seems to have been made to kill Sentients.
  • Arquebex is the only viable method I have found of actually killing the later Orphix, with none of my other archguns being capable of killing it in less than a minute.
  • Removing any sources of healing to force people to use the Necramech mods is not a good option.  It would be better to heavily weaken healing, but not remove it, especially when healing from Necramech Repair can be inconsistent.
  • Necramech Repair functioning only when extremely close to death makes it difficult/impossible to use effectively, especially when the spin attack mentioned above is being used.
  • Melee for Necramechs is absolutely terrible, they should be given archmelee weapons instead of just punching enemies for less than 100 damage.
  • The reward model for the event, while slow, is something I absolutely want to see implemented across the entire game.  Being able to obtain tokens to buy items that are otherwise only gotten through RNG is excellent, and helps to make the game far less frustrating.  I was fortunate enough to get 2 Lavos sets, but not a Cedo set, and otherwise would probably not get Cedo.

[Wret]

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

I don't think there was a point where it wasn't clear what to do

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

It was neat navigating with the extended jump VS warframes ability to render all obstacles meaningless. Though eventually I realized it's just better to move with the Operator then warp the mech to them

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

The downed mech icon can be hard to discern from everything else. Also the more recent vertical tiles can make it confusing to find but mostly the long activation animation made them unpleasant to use

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

Having a combination of getting the reward from drops but also the event shop was surprisingly pleasant. Getting a drop gave a significant discount on getting the main rewards, but if I didn't get them it wasn't too painful to make it up with phasic cells. I'm not sure how it's going to work but I would suggest letting people buy from the event shop after the event itself ends for a few days, just incase some people were waiting till they were done farming to see what they needed to buy.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

Unfortunately I didn't see the portal Sentient more than twice and when it activated it was somewhat underwhelming. I'm still not sure what the glowy aura Sentients were doing but I shot them anyway for reasons.

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

I was not willing to do 36 Orphix solo, but with a full squad 36 was fairly consistent to reach.

 

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

So I liked using the Necramechs in the titlesets, but they suffered a similar problem many weapons and warframes have in the larger game where at the early part of the Endurance run, they are untouchable gods with their base shields, hp, and default potato'd archweapon(both mostly max rank and equipped with suitable mods), followed by an intermittent threshhold where it feels like the lethality of the Necramech and enemies are balanced, followed by the point where the Necramech can't be firing at the enemy for an extended time without taking critical damage, so I spent most of long running Endurance missions hiding in Operator mode. It was important to make sure the Necramech wasn't on cooldown at the wrong time so I would pop the resonators as Operator or a trash Mech, then briefly use my own Necramech to damage the Orphyx. This didn't feel great, the big stompy mech aesthetic sort of goes out the window after the enemies reach a certain level. I tried using cover as the Mech but really Warframe's way of spawning enemies all over the place that know where you are regardless of line of sight combined with the huge metal body meant it didn't work in most instances, or only long enough to stand still and shoot the Orphyx from behind a box then pop right back out of the Necramech. It worked, we got to 36 and the rewards and stuff but I really think there needs to be a logical cap for DPS enemies can deal, or else even the hulking armored high HP, status immune Necramechs become outmoded toys after a point(Though that means something else would have to happen for enemies to scale in difficulty beyond that point and I'm not sure what's available to you).

 

Also just to mention it, there were definitely alot of awkward pauses where we just sort of sat there waiting for the next Orphyx to show up, it would be great if the Sentients didn't despawn so we could murder them for points. Keeping the Orphyx alive so you can kill Sentients doesn't really make sense when you consider risk/reward/mental effort to keep track of how long the Orphyx has been up and convincing your teammates it's totally worth it.

[_Anise_]

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?
I don't think they need much changes, mechs could maybe handle corners better when rocket charging, , maybe camera adjustment going thru doors? mech are a bit of a chore to move between waypoints so seem better to switch to warframe for that, but also more clunky!

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
those things are HORRIBLE, accidentally transfering into them and then being self CC for 10 seconds while waiting for them to "start up"

How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
would have liked the same amount of reward with the mission only lasting 20 waves (or less) 36 seems excessive and to the point where bathroom breaks are needed 10 mintues ago.

the drop chances where bad, I managed to get 5 systems before I got the main blueprint, the chassis still hasn't dropped and I am almost to the point where I feel done with the event.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
you meen ignoring the sentients and attacking the Orphix, yeah fine I guess

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
not going todo this solo! but squads did seem hit and miss, some squads are struggling around 24? a few sooner.

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

I actually (mostly) like this event, I like having access to the arcanes so I can further complete my collection, I can bare that it is grindy given how hard and rare these things are usually supposed to be to get (read:you normally have buy them for plat lol)

but one thing about this mode really urks me to no end..., Orange nullification field... why couldn't it just be the regular blue nullification that only turns off your warframe abilities? but no every time I HAVE to be forced out of my warframe and if my mech is dead or on cd forced to run around as a operator among level 90 enemies... 🤨

It's fun to want run around in mechs on regular missions, it is NOT FUN to be constantly forced out of a warframe and forced to use a mech (or worse operator)

 

[60framespersecond]

New feedback after gaining roughly 20k Phasic Cells which translates to about 200k points and --assuming full 36 Orphix every time (which I didn't do, usually left after 30-40 minutes)-- about 10 hours in-mission time.

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • The general gist of the mission is easy to understand (as high MR player that did Scarlet Spear at least). What is not communicated well enough is the gain of mission score from killing Sentients.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • Mostly still okay. No double jump is often annoying (please not another mod for that...). The Grineer tileset has the most geometry you get stuck on. It's not as much of a problem on the Jupiter and the new Corpus Ship tilesets.
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • Same feedback as before, I have my own and accidentally entering one of the deactivated Necramechs is extremely annoying due to their unskippable looooooooooooooooooooong animation.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Mission: Too long, too slow. Waiting for an Orphix to spawn is no fun. The current leaderboard meta (apparently, also ignoring the FPS cap exploit) of prolonging Orphix uptime for increased Sentient spawns doesn't sound like much fun as well.
  • Rewards: The ROI in unit "cell over time" is too little. A conversion rate of 20% would be great but I don't see this happening to be honest. At least bump this up to 15% (or prove me wrong and go all the way and beyond).
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • In my first feedback I wrote that these are mostly ignored and I stand by that.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Solo: yes
  • Squad: with friends something 30+ish (I'm mostly a solo player though).
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • The Battalyst is absolute cancer on higher levels. Once they start their spinning laser they shred hard. In hindsight I'm kind of surprised that the Sentients dispatched their strongest units right from the start.
  • If you had to name one BS unit in the game, it would be Energy Leeches. Period. This even more so applies when in a Necramech, because energy is way harder to come by (I don't count the band-aid that is two nearly mandatory mods in form of Rage+Repair). On the Grineer tileset you get flooded with them after some point and their drain scales with their (increasing) level.
  • The Necramech HUD needs a rework. There are multiple issues in my opinion.
    • First is the crosshair, its color and shape makes it pretty hard for me to aim correctly. Especially with Voidrig's ultimate on the Orphix's weakspot I find myself constantly being off.
    • I have a fairly big monitor but like to have my UI elements big and close together, so I adjust my HUD scale and margins appropriately. This is a problem with the (in my opinion) excessive Necramech UI, leading to overlapping HUD elements and the overlay map being itself overlayed by the Necramech ability UI.
  • Orphix spawn rotation: By now everyone doing the event seriously probably has the rotations down, but there should be some indicator for the next Orphix spawn (both timer and location). For the rotations itself, one is good (AABCCB), the other not so much (ABBACC, the one where you have to traverse the whole map from one end to the other).
  • "Random" damage resistance. Have you read that formula on the wiki? You already need to be aware of some maths for the normal damage system, know what stacks and what multiplies. But this is --hyperbolically speaking-- getting close to a maths degree. It also effectively kills many Arch-guns for the event. I have a nice Riven for the Imperator Vandal but the weapons is "useless" in the event due to being heavyly penalized. Tried a bunch of other weapons as well: Corvas, Fluctus, Velocitus are trash. Prisma Dual Decurions mediocre. Kuva Ayanga is decent but falls off hard.
  • I don't know if this is just Bonewidow's ultimate being worse than Voidrig's or if it's due to the damage resistance formula. Well, considering that Arch-guns are pretty bad against the Orphix in general, it comes down to the ultimates of the Necramechs. While Bonewidow has the advantage of ignoring the way too small weakspot of the Orphix, Voidrig's damage output is so much superior against everything (and their parents).
  • Talking about Bonewidow, please remove the animation lock when activating the ultimate while walking. One point I'm adding here that could as well go into the UI feedback above is an indicator for Bonewidow's first ability. Maybe I've missed it somehow, but there is no clear UI indicator when holding a target and for the amount of healing it provides.
  • Running the event to any significant stage without healing is impossible. After most abilities got nerfed (or rather removed entirely), there are a few mediocre oversights (? I suppose that's what they are), Bonewidow's 1 and the more or less mandatory (if you have it) Necramech Repair mod. Why in the name of someone you removed most healing abilities to work on Necramechs just to put in some bandaid is beyond me. I'm stopping here to not get in a rage.

[Raiko85]

Please excuse the erratic post, didn't feel impassioned enough to organise it properly. 

Sorry but I personally don't like the necramechs at all, I really don't see the point, just progress with story and expanding the game, they aren't needed.

As for the event, I'm not saying these rewards won't be available again, but with it being time limited, these items become exponentially more difficult to obtain(From this event) the less progressed in the general game you are. 

Its highly unlikely anyone can make decent progress through the non dropping items for someone who has no or just gotten a necramech of their own. It cant be enjoyable for these people.

Just put some mods in the necs lying around to make them half usable. (Yes I have my own nec, I don't need this)

Necs are slow, clunky, no healing is a joke, since you get absolutely battered at 28+ waves. 

I play on PC, but I can't use a keyboard so I'm stuck with controller, this normally works really well with melee and is actually preferable, doesn't work well with guns unfortunately, but anyway . Exiting the necramech is unreliable with the shoulder buttons, and often sets off abilities wasting energy, or I just stand there and nothing happens while I get pasted.

The tile sets need to change more often. 

I would have to say the event as a whole is pretty boring, for what it's worth I will play it when I'm up to it to get some drops, but if this becomes general game play, I will do whats I feel needed and never touch it again.

tl:dr

I'm sorry, thanks but no thanks. 

[MqToasty]

• How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
  • Since I've gotten into the habit of reading the wiki first, it was okay.  Probably would have been very confused if I didn't, though.  Especially when the Resonators spawn in practically hidden locations.
• How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
  • Clunky.  Really, really clunky.  Situational awareness was already poor in this game; it's much worse in a Necramech.  I keep getting stuck/caught by walls and enemies because I just cannot see them through my mech.  Keep having to do these back up a little, scoot to the side a little, jump a bit dances to find my way through the level.  And here is something I really need to get something off my chest: I am stomping around in a 10 ton mech.  Why is it that a 100kg corpus solder is able to block my path?  And even push me around when I focus fire on the Orphix?  I won't ask for smaller enemies to get squished and killed instantly when I run into them, but at least let us push them out of the way (and not let them push us around)?
• Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
  • No difficulty.  Since they are marked on the minimap, finding and activating them was a breeze.  Had to use them the first few times since I did not have my own mech yet, but they are totally useless.
• How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
  • Depending on luck, the missions can either be a smooth ride or a massive slog.  Really depends on how far the Orphixes spawn and the spawn order.  Though it still takes a good 35 minutes to finish 24, it will not seem too bad on a tighter map where the spawn order is A-B-C-C-B-A.  On a larger map with B-A-C-C-A-B, however, it becomes a massive slog as most of the time is spent running from A to C and back.
  • Since I am a newer player, all of the rewards look really good.  Just so expensive!  Have a feeling that I will not be able to collect everything I want, even if I spent everyday grinding just this event.
• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
  • They're fairly interesting.  Ignored most of them and went straight for the Orphix most of the time, though.  The spinning ones that push me around, though -- those were really annoying when I'm trying to aim.
• Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
  • Since I play Solo exclusively and only Forma'd my Voidrig and Mausolon once each, I couldn't even come close to finishing 36 in endurance.
• Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
  • Aside from the item in orange above, a few more things:
    • Can we improve the visibility of the Necramech reticle?  I find it really hard to see where the center dot is, especially with the minimap expanded and in an Orphix zone (yellow circle).
    • Is there any way to pull the camera back and/or make walls invisible in tight corridors?  The mech already blocks half of the screen normally, but when the camera gets bunched up with it in tight corridors, the entire screen gets covered up.

[xTysere]

 

Let's see, I'll weigh in here now that my bf and I have farmed for 5 days to get the Necramech just to make this event mostly playable.

 

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

               Extremely, the only part we struggled on at all was figuring out the rotation patterns which helps to alleviate traversing the maps with the Necramech, which I'll go into below on the other bullet points. Also I guess the only other difficulty came from understanding/figuring out how points are allotted for the most efficiency.

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

           The charge-dash helps a ton, and it's mostly okay until you get into the Grineer tilesets and higher levels of the mission where there's more enemies than I have white blood cells. On the Grineer tiles, it's a total cluster-F. Things randomly block you in the hallway, and between the HUD, the room colors/lighting, and the height of the Necamech head, you can't see jack. Randomly, you'll clip on the side of a random floor clutter piece and just stop moving. Later, during the actual fight segments, the Spinny Floor Spider Sentients become absolute road blocks and might as well be invisible due to the massive height difference once they launch to the ground. I've had multiples instances of being stuck and losing my mech bc I could barely tell something was shooting my toes into oblivion.

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

              We went and farmed for 3 straight days to be able to use real Necramechs with mods so the massive grindfest of this event wouldn't be a nightmare, so I can't comment much on how 'useful' the deactivated ones are, beyond they don't have mods so they're severely gimped in anything but the first Tier of the event missions. They are very easy to find on the mini map though. But for the love of god, as has been pointed out, do something about the 500 year long entry animation. I've accidentally transferred into one and wanted to alt-F4 the game and reboot the mission, it would have been faster.

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

      Vs the cost of 1 arcane such as Energize, at 800, a full HOUR long run of the Tier 3 is enough to purchase 2. At that point, from using a Fluctus build to be able to maximize speed on taking down the little torch things that make the boss targetable, I want to chop off my right hand/mouse hand bc my tendons burn so bad from having to shoot so many times. Either increase the rewards, bc the real time spent is a continuous, strenuous hour of constant firing, or decrease random enemy spawns. You never have energy in the mech anyway no matter how many bazillions of Corpus you kill. 90% of them are nullifiers.

• What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?

        They're either weird, annoying speedbumps for my Mech's toes that I can't even see, or they're absolutely god-tier Disco Laser fests that do not take damage. Otherwise, there's nothing different or interesting about them, honestly. I'm not taking in their models, bc esp. on the Grineer set everything is a singular shade of red-orange and you can't see them. And if I'm seeing a lot of them, they're absolutely demolishing my Mech, so I'm not looking at them bc I'm zooming away for dear life bc they take way too many shots to kill, and I don't have enough energy at 20+ Orphix kills to spare on Aquebex being the ONLY thing that kills them without a fully geared-out Eidolon Operator Amp, which I don't have.

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

      As a squad only, and only about 3 or so times. And it's hurts my hand so bad after the mandatory hour long time to do that, I don't want to do it again until the next day, honestly. I can't imagine doing it Solo, I would need to go to the emergency room and get hand surgery.

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

     I think it'd be worth it to tone down the absolutely endless, zombie apocalypse-level of base enemy spawns. At best, it's like being in a tar pit where you can't even leave a room. And at worst, it's a total slog of Destiny Raid-boss Bullet sponge HP and then waiting a whole minute to even be able to go into the Orphix room and help your teammates out bc you lost your mech from getting absolutely swamped and stuck in place on massive enemy collision. Visuals only need a tweak in the Grineer tilesets, I'm not even colorblind and I can't see in there, the height issues with the Mech and the tileset clutter just make it worse. And please add archgun mods and more variation of Necramech mods to this event. It's way too much work to kill boatloads of things for an hour to get mostly basic Relics one could get with far less physical strain. 

[---RV---Maniac]

How easy was it to understand the new Operation and what you have to do to succeed?
It wasn't hard but could put more emphasis on the destroying infected pilars to unlock the orphix

How was using a Necramech in a “normal” tileset?
You can get stuck on doors pretty easily. 
Sometimes a single tiny enemy can get infront of you and you can't move. Specially annoying when sliding.
There are maps in which you can fall off which makes you not want to use the sliding on the necramech.
Jumping with necramech and trying to go up floors or edges with it, is very akward to do or sometimes impossible. Having to slowly go around to go to a higher place is frustrating.

Did you have any difficulty finding or using a deactivated Necramech?
Yes the necramechs are destroyed and sometimes feel kind of hidden if you don't look at the minimap. A bigger icon on the minimap and a symbol or highlight on it would be great to make it more noticeable.
The animation of starting up the deactivated necramechs takes too long. If you are pass the 30 orphix and have enemies around you, by the time the necramech finishes it's animation, you are already dead. Making it pointless to even get into it.

How did you find the pacing of the Operation missions and rewards?
The rotations of the orphix, I feel should all be the same for the sake of rng and farming points. Helps with setups and prevents people that are new from running around. The rotations themselves are weird. (1-2-3) 3-2-1 – 1-2-3 and (1-2-3) 3-1-2 – 2-1-3. Why make these 2 the rotations is weird. 1 of the rotations is also better in terms of farming points and you only find out what rotation you are in at the 5th orphix making it a frustrating issue.
People are using timers to keep track of the orphix spawn. Having a timer ingame for how long it will take for the next orphix to spawn would be appreciated and helpfull.

What was it like fighting the new Sentient enemies?
Most sentients are fine to shoot at with the archwing weapons and using the necramech ult weapons.
I hate Aerolyst with a passion. It will float outside of the map sometimes, bonewidown's ult sword wont do anything if he is high in the air and voidrig's ult can't seem to destroy his canisters properly due to their hitbox. You have to cheese this enemy and most of the time it's just better to focus on other sentients if you want more points. I think it has more to do with the enemy design than the event to be honest. I would just remove him.

Were you able to reach 36 Orphix Solo or in a Squad?
Squad only so far.
Solo sounds painfull, bonewidow alt sword can't hit the orphix properly and the damage of the sentients when you get close to 36 is way too much. Maybe it was cuz I was playing in a group that I got so much damage but solo sounds way too painfull to do.

Any other thoughts on gameplay, difficulty, visuals, or in-game guidance?
The orphix eye has a weird hitbox, making voidrig the go to necramech to kill it. Bonewidow has been made useless if you want to kill it. Even certain archwing primary weapons are useless for it due to hitbox and the dmg nerf applied to it. (RIP Velocitus)
Limiting the endurance to 36 orphix is a bit of a contradiction for a suposed endurance mission. I like the fact that sentients provide more points, giving you an way to push for more points and making people have to come up with strats to gain more points and higher scores.
Map rotations are a problem. You have 3 types of tileset, rotating every hour. The spawns of sentients are affected not only by the type of tileset but also what type of rooms you get, the layout and also the rotation of orphix you get. The Grineer ship tilet set is the worse for spawns making players want to skip whenever it's the tileset on display.
Apparently Low FPS lowers the rate at which sentient control increases, just like in Hallowed Flame (oof). It's apparently only really noticeable at really low fps, you can probably tell what runs used this exploit based on the mission time. Normal 36 OV run takes 55 min but an exploited run will take over 1h atleast.
 

[Voltage]

The dependence on tileset for score is frustrating. Spending an entire rotation just getting the wrong tiles for a good score is not very fun. On top of that you need to wait 2 hours after that to try rolling tiles again.

[TheLexiConArtist]

3 hours ago, Voltage said:

The dependence on tileset for score is frustrating. Spending an entire rotation just getting the wrong tiles for a good score is not very fun. On top of that you need to wait 2 hours after that to try rolling tiles again.

Mission-intention score is not dependant on tileset at all. Sure some connecting tiles between the 3 spawn rooms are bigger than others, but since you need to use your noggin to pattern-recognise and predict where they land to score high as it is, that doesn't matter because you're already waiting on known location for every Orphix except the fifth.

[Voltage]

8 minutes ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Mission-intention score is not dependant on tileset at all. Sure some connecting tiles between the 3 spawn rooms are bigger than others, but since you need to use your noggin to pattern-recognise and predict where they land to score high as it is, that doesn't matter because you're already waiting.

I am not talking about 20k bare minimum scores. I am talking about optimization of the event. There are select tiles in each map (Corpus Gas City, Corpus Ship, and Grineer Galleon) that are strictly required for a specific score threshold, and this makes the scoring system feel awful. RNG being the major factor in your personal best is bad design.